#under cut bc long

[wyndford-dekarios-majima]

returning the favor. all the non sex ones for Pearson [too tired to pick all the numbers you're free to ignore the ones you don't want to do <3]

YUIPPEEE RUNNING AROUND AND YELLING SCREAMING WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME WHATS WRONG I JUST YUELL I LOVE MY FREAKING WIFE!!! AN D RUN OFF WITH NO EXPLANATION

How did you two meet? // Deciding between Pearson being a customer at Ace's shop and Ace escorting a monsterkin friend to the R.I.P., or OR maybe they met bc Atom was trying to pilfer something and they went uh where's your . guardian. and they got so distracted by Pearson that Atom was able to get away with the item LOL

Was it love at first sight, or did it take awhile for you to warm up to each other? // It wasn't immediately romantic, but con artists are either best friends or sworn enemies, and in this case Ace was quick enough on their feet to entertain rather than enrage so they're pretty good friends off the bat :]

What do the people around you think of your relationship? // Arthur is canonically very protective of their family, but I recall at some point Shou saying Arthur would egg on their thing? Or maybe that was Meryl icr- but the point stands that Arthur is hostile until they're not LOL. We already know how Salem feels (other fella dot mp3), I'd like to think Meryl would be alright with it? If not supportive. Polyam for the fucking win (separate relationships but still friends), and. I think Atom is just suffering. Atom voice stop tryna fuck my dads-

Do you have pet names for each other? // 'Pear' is a pre-established nickname Ace has for Pearson, but they both also default to normal 'dear', 'babe', etc. (Eventually I think they let people call them 'Fen' too, but only people they're close to [short for 'Fengari (Φεγγάρι)'], and Pearson would be one of them.)

Have you given your ship a name? // gestures to the ship tag. but a different one might be ace of hearts :] as an alternative

Who is the more dominant one in the relationship? // Taking this as not a sex question because I know more. Ace tends to be the one that pays in the Tallyho vers bc Pearson is flat broke, while in other versions Pearson is the one who pays for things, and you'd think that'd be an indicator of the more controlling one of the relationship, but it's honestly an even split. They both have their moments either way, but in terms of physically fighting for one another, Ace tends to do it more often because they have the power to.

What does each of you think about PDA? // It's a useful tool to avoid the police <3 (casual hand-holding is a favourite of Ace's outside escaping the police)

What do you two find to be the most attractive about one another? // Ace finds everything about Pearson attractive. A conman entrepreneur that hates his family, is outrageously Irish, and is pansexual? Their colours even match. What's not to love? Pearson would probably find Ace easy to coexist around, honestly...no expectations, no duties, they're just two stable adults shooting the shit.

10. What was your worst fight? // In Tallyho vers, regardless of canon complicity, it's probably to do with Salem (either them seeing him or working for him in the more canon-compliant vers). Outside of that it's probably just. arguments over who left what out. 11. Best gifts you two have exchanged? // Ace is a fella who gives a lot of gifts, because the shop just kinda...spawns them. They find a random object in their shop that definitely wasn't there before, get the strong feeling that 'x would like this', and they give it. Probably the best gift they've given was a hand-made one, like a ring or something. Pearson's best gift is himself, obviously- 12. Do you want/have kids? // Atom is more than enough for Pearson. Ace has Breun sooner or later, and that's good enough for them too- 13. Have you ever broken up? // Over the Salem thing, at least. It wasn't official, as they never really say they're dating, but... 14/15. Scariest/Happiest moment together? // Scariest is probably whenever Atom is in danger and they barely make it to save them. Atom is so incredibly important to the two of them, despite how Ace never really says anything (they're more actions than words). Happiest moments are domestic things. The R.I.P. succeeding is relief and pride, plus Ace isn't there for that- but shit like cooking together in the kitchen or just sitting down and resting after a long day... 16. Are you or will you ever get married? // Pearson is technically still married. If anything, they'd do it for tax benefits and the excuse of their spouse to get home to, like I stated a while ago. They do love each other, but a 'genuine' marriage isn't in the cards I think. 17. Ideal way to spend time with one another? // Doing anything but work. Walks on the docks, getting a bite at markets, etc.

19. What areas do the two of you like to be kissed on? // Ace likes the hand or the neck. Ace can't exactly 'kiss' most of the time, as most of the time they don't have a face, but they do make sure to kiss Pearson all over his silly face when they do, and he seems to like it well enough :] 20. What are the biggest relationship flaws the two of you have? // Ace is so fucking emotionally constipated and thinks everything is quid pro quo. Pearson seems the type to only be genuine behind closed doors, and I could be wrong about that, but he's also...probably rather closed off about the whole 'love' thing in Tallyho at least, not wanting to label it or say it, and being a complete mess about it. 21/22. In what ways are you similar/different? // Oh brother I could go on about this for hours. Let's just start and end it at they're both ourple conmen for similarities. As for differences, well...Pearson isn't a corpse. Nor does he have a storefront he runs. And I don't think he's being hunted down by anyone? So- 23. Who is most affectionate? // Outwardly, probably Pearson. He seems the type of fella to buy flowers and shit if he has the funds. Makes sure his partner knows he's paying attention, even when he's very stressed. 24. If the two of you are apart for a long time, who takes it the hardest? // Ace can't die. They just see it as training for the break that won't end. Pearson probably takes it worse. 25. Who said "I love you" first? // Out loud? Probably Pearson. Ace says 'I love you' in different ways. 26. What was your first kiss like? // Sticky.

29. What do the two of you wear for couples' Halloween costumes? // The idea of Morticia and Gomez Addams in a modern vers struck me (with Atom as Pugsley and Breun as Wednesday) (Meryl stays home to hand out candy maybe), but in Tallyho, probably Jekyll and Hyde, actually. 30. Who is more possessive over the other? // Ace doesn't get too possessive and neither does Pearson probably, but I think Pearson gets clingy when drunk at the very least.

32. Is jealousy a problem at all? // Finanically, probably, but relationship wise? Nah, they're both chill. 34. Who confessed first? // Again, probably Pearson, if it does happen. Ace isn't a words guy. 36. Who apologises most? // Ace. They hate being in the way and will apologise for literally fucking anything. 38. How do you comfort one another during difficult times? // Providing distractions, letting the other talk, offering solutions off experience. Neither of them are the type to willingly wallow. 39. How would both of you react to find someone hitting on the other? // That's just how it goes. They're not in an exclusive relationship, neither of them really care unless it's clear it's unwanted.

[turbo-tsundere]

Content warning for gore, blood, burns & body horror.

A king with no crown and a holy fool.

(The element of venom/poison, stabbing/puncture wounds and destruction of a whole body is present in both of their deaths. Kokichi's pristine white clothes also end up being shoved down the toilet, and the poison made it difficult for him to breathe, so there's plausible callback to Miu also. Karma at its finest?)

If I could be the devil, you could be the sinner.

(Don't mind them, they're just spilling their guts)

(...)

(Concepts for scenes from a Gonta-centric survival horror game I'll never make. But it was fun to daydream about - maybe one day I'll finish other sketches and doodles relating to it into a more presentable state. The Cat Lady OST was playing on constant repeat while I drew this - Lily of the Valley, Don't Follow the Light, String, Plainwalker, Early Winter, Storytelling, Susan's Blue Sheep (alone again) - those in particular are now stuck in my brain when I look at those drawings, and what I imagine the "game's" mood to be like, at least the opening segment.)

(I felt both heartbroken and like a monster when drawing this one... But I wanted to draw something that doesn't conveniently erase nor tuck his mangled, swollen face away from view. Sure... in game it looks goofy. But I think mockingly disfiguring him was the point in all of this, too. And given the venom, the Schmidt pain index, how it rates some wasp species, the fact that those robot wasps could be packed with anything necessary really... it had to be awful. Really, every stage of Gonta's execution was excruciating and enough to kill a person on its own, but due to his strength he likely suffered through them all. I remember begging in my head he was at least spared the flame, that he was already gone by this point... But it's foolish to pretend it definitely was the case.)

I wanted to post something new, but I was either busy, ill, or focused on something else, so another sketchdump with oldies and wips it is. This time strictly 2020-21 stuff, drawn during the first few months after finishing the game; mostly to process the post-game/Ch4 sorrows. All very emotionally raw, very edgy stuff that I felt, to be honest, too shy to show before.

Like with any wip I posted before, I do hope to finish some of them properly one day, even though I don't know when. But that's fine, I've signed up for a very long ride with the bug man. Taking it easy is the priority.

Speaking of long-term projects, maybe there's no need to, but I do want to talk about my Gonta fancomic, so here goes.

It's a bit long, so I will continue under the cut.

(Some panel teasers first! ...Gonta sanity fine.)

I took a few months long break from personal drawings - an *actual* break, not just sitting in front of a screen, tired, stewing in guilt that I'm tired, and that I can't magically muscle through burnout, or headache, or exhaustion.

My brain was stuck in a loop of berating myself for underperforming, not doing well enough, for taking so long on "mere" 27 pages, when in the past I could finish a 90-page webcomic chapter much faster. I wouldn't let myself rest, because I didn't do enough; but I couldn't do enough, because I didn't allow myself to rest. And it's been going on for months and months.

What a stupid, unconstructive thing to do to myself. I was only spiralling down, intimidating and overwhelming myself with work on the one thing I specifically wanted to keep doing out of joy, not ambition and pedantism. So I decided to just say "fuck it" and stop for a while. Like, actually stop, do something else and try to feel unapologetic about it.

So I briefly took up sewing, a creative activity I had no personal stake in, and then I started PVP-ing in DS3 (sorry if I happened to kick your butt in there. Rest assured my butt gets kicked just as much), which did wonders, too, as non-artistic pastime.

And, in the end, it seems it worked.

I finally feel this internal drive to draw again. Sadly, I can't spend all of my free time on the doujin (I might need to open commissions soon), so my pacing will still be glacial... But there was an internal change from "I have to, I have to, I must..." back to "I want to". And this is all that matters.

Still, that makes me think... while technically I don't have deadlines, the comic has taken so much longer than I thought it would - and it will take a while still. Thus, I wonder if I shouldn't change my approach re publishing it.

The initial idea was to post it all at once when it's fully finished, but I debate releasing it one page at a time instead, while it's still work in progress.

Thing is, I don't think it would be good for overall pacing. I don't want to sacrifice it, plus I can't guarantee regular uploads, esp since I don't exactly work on the pages in chronological order (While the first page is done, it was drawn after I finished a few in the middle & at the end; and there are still a few important pages/panels in first half I'm a bit too afraid of touching just yet, wanting to do them justice. This is how I work in general, jumping around rather than sticking to overly strict linear order.)

The compromise would be to post like 3-5 pages per post, making it so each upload covers a specific scene, however, same issue arises - I can't promise regular uploads. In the end it feels like a half-measure. But maybe it's a good idea, despite that impression?

There's a secret option, too - if this takes absurdly long, my plan was to just post the storyboard, after replacing some panels/pages with already finished drawings. The thing is readable as is, and long finished on that front anyway. My personal deadline for that was "right before my current lease ends", but, well… I plan on extending it anyway, and again... it's just a back-up option for when everything else fails. In the end, I just want to finish the comic, and present it how it's meant to be presented, however long it will take.

All those things considered, I'll stick to the original plan for now... and then we shall see. I simply wanted to share where things stand currently, and where they might go.

And that's it! If you've read this far, thank you. See you in the undetermined future.

[tapestryundone]

constantly thinking abt the long quiet and the shifting mound and their relationship w humanity. because the two are very much not mortal and even in the what happens next ending its very ambiguous if they ever WILL be or Can be. but even still they have both felt what its like to be mortal

i feel like its vague if the entity the two used to be even percieved its own existence. the way the narrator talks about it makes it seem like the two only existed conceptually and as a result lacked a complete sense of identity, and didnt need to, and wouldnt want to. but in the same way a thought cannot be unthought, the narrator gave them a glimpse into what it felt like to be mortal and the two can never un-know it, even if it wasnt exactly the same

the long quiet in particular seems especially tied to humanity and in some aspects seems to want to BE human (which feels so potent given how decidedly Not human he is). the game tends to imply that every option you get is a thought he DOES have, and in the spaces between, the choices dont seem as influenced by a given voice, which highlights even more how much he feels conflicted on his own nature that he gets Multiple options to express discomfort with himself being a god

it just gets to me how one of the options during the fight is literally "appeal to your shared humanity". because even if the two are gods, their separation and reshaping has given them humanity that they can never un-feel. for how much the shifting mound grieves what she once was, she cannot will her humanity away. shes mourning what the two of them once was and is desperate to have it back at any cost, even though they can never be together how they once were.

even if the long quiet goes with her, theyre still apart and lack balance, because the two once just Were and werent two parts. they werent both halves, they werent two concepts, they were just one concept that happened to, by human eyes, consist of two halves. and the narrators insertion of humanity into the mix in order to separate them, separating them into concepts that humans understood, manually put into existence a struggle for equilibrium where that balance had simply Existed

but theyve already perceived what felt like reality and can never un-see it. they were separated and Need the other to feel whole and for reality to BE whole but the moment that either of them realized their own free will, the moment the two fully came to feel like people, they could never be together the same way once again

im struggling to come up with a metaphor that isnt silly but its like if you took a piece of fabric and cut it in two and made them both into shirts. youve added a piece of humanity into them and doing so cost its original form. to take them apart and try to put them back together would never get you the original, whole piece of fabric back, because theyve been completely changed by their own unique destruction and reconstruction

they were separated in a way that gave them humanity that they have such conflicting feelings on. both seem to have a deep love of humanity but vastly different ideas on what humanity needs to thrive, because its in their natures

in order to get one to kill the other the narrator let the long quiet interpret the both of them as mortal. and for a being of perception and an god thats being lied to, this became part of their limited view of the world, on top of all the other reasons that the two gained humanity. the long quiet couldnt be told what to do if he didnt have the ability to potentially act on the narrators desires, and the shifting mound could never die if the long quiet didnt believe her to be capable of death

the narrator gave the two humanity and the shifting mound is very reasonably distressed by this. because the two of them never asked for this but they cant undo it. it is her OWN subtle desire for things to be the same as they used to be, her own piece of that stagnation that also led to her experiencing humanity, that makes her so adamant during the fight. she misses the long quiet and wants to undo a change that cannot be undone in search of a constant state of being that was taken from her

and the long quiet felt so closely tied to mortality, both its existence and absence, that no matter what, he wants to aid humanity. but hes been lied to and denied autonomy to the point where he doesnt know what that entails. but he wants to be a part of it. he was given fake mortality and cant seem to figure out how he feels

the shifting mound is set in how she feels it best to aid in the existence of life. she is stagnant in her feelings because its all that feels right to her. the long quiet is ever-shifting in how he feels it best to aid in the existence of life. he is changing in his feelings because its all that feels right to him

getting to the heart of the shifting mound allows them a moment to discuss it as the closest they can get to mortals. the two care about their impact on life and what it means to be alive and what better way for the two of them to truly decide what they want to do about it, outside of the conflict thats been forced between them, than as the mortals they never were?

[possamble]

Like take for example how she treats healing Laios leg!! We *never* see someone who was healed have lasting symptoms from a heal. It *itches* terribly — Laios looks like he will scratch it raw. The itching implies an incomplete heal — you only itch that bad when something is being regrown or scabbing like when you get tattoos. There’s something that needs to finish healing. This scene always stood out to me— because Falin notices and *heals* it. And that brought up a ton of questions for me (We see her cast magic, was it to soothe the itching? A phantom pain? Why was it itching in the first place? Didn’t Marcille finish the job? Why was he having after effects we never see someone have any before?) and i’m breaking my brain over it because is this an sign of Marcille’s engagement with healing in general? Perfunctory—a means to an end? Morals? I feel like there is something there for us because that scene wasn’t necessary to the plot so why did Ryoko Kui add this interaction? I think how Marcille engages with healing was telling us a lot more than I previously realized because she was in a medical researcher position before coming into the dungeon however when we see how this was practically applied by her was really interesting!! She’s so divorced from feeling empathy for the pain of healing and i think that’s some sort of self-preservation instinct. Idk i just feel like her engagement with healing is so fucking fascinating when juxtaposed with her beliefs on death pls share thots if any

I think what gets hidden in the details about Marcille’s healing is that no, she’s not a talented cleric and healer in the way that Falin is. But Fantasy settings tend to relegate healing towards “holy” and “good” magic that never causes harm—

and Marcille is what you’d get if you put a doctor and a surgeon with a modern, more realistic approach towards medicine in a genre that doesn’t usually allow for that. 

Like, you’ll see surgeons or doctors secretly being incredibly efficient serial killers in TV thrillers everywhere—but a fantasy series with a cleric or healer that’s secretly great at killing is a bit more rare to find(though not nonexistent, admittedly). Healing magic tends to be painted as either a religious discipline that’s not accessible to those who don’t have a tie to a deity or some ineffable force in the universe, or a matter of accessing some natural “life force” that exists in all living beings. 

Dungeon Meshi, of course, loves bending fantasy conventions in the most incredible ways, so that’s not how it works here. The series allows itself to contend with the fact that healing a human body requires extensive and painstakingly detailed knowledge of that body.

The reason that Falin might appear to be a much more talented healer than Marcille is because Kui dresses her up in all the archetypal traits of a Caring Cleric, and that immediately clicks with readers expecting fantasy conventions in ways that Marcille's expertise doesn't.

This isn’t to discredit Falin, obviously. She is a talented healer, as attested to by Marcille herself:

But the interesting thing is that she does it all on instinct, so it’s not an exact knowledge. Furthermore, she uses the gnomish system of healing, which is implied to rely more on the judgment and knowledge of natural spirits (and therefore takes less mana). So it’s not hard to imagine that she would have less exact knowledge of how the human body operates than Marcille does as a medical researcher. 

And that in and of itself raises questions: In a world where magic can immediately re-attach a limb, why would medical research be necessary? But Dungeon Meshi makes it clear that healing magic isn’t perfect, nor “holy” magic—it’s simply magic, like any other, carefully tailored to operate within the confines of what a human body needs in order to keep living. It’s not able to cure everything, and it especially seems to have gaps in terms of being able to treat illnesses that aren’t immediately solvable injuries.

And that all ties into Marcille's attitude towards it: It's a scientific and magical discipline like any other that requires careful study. There's nothing inherently good or bad about it—it was made by people, for people, and what matters is how you use it.

So, Marcille was at the academy, studying the ways that illness happens in a body, and carefully writing new magic to counteract or at least mitigate it.

(How I interpreted this was that she was likely part of research teams dealing with complicated things like autoimmune diseases, cancer, and other things where the body isn’t technically injured by a foreign element, but erroneously harming itself due to internal reasons.)

For me, this kind of explains her approach to pain in healing:

Honestly, what this immediately reminded me of was that a friend of mine had to have surgery on their throat when they were younger, and part of the procedure was waking them up without anaesthesia right after the surgery to make sure that they could still feel everything. They told me it was the worst pain they’d ever felt in their entire life—but from a medical perspective, it was necessary to make sure that none of the critical nerves in the neck had been affected. 

Sometimes in medicine, pain is necessary because it’s not some uncomplicated and bad thing—it’s a response of your nervous system, and sometimes the only indicator that your body is still working the way it should. And I think this is the mindset that Marcille has, which is why she seems so blase about it—she doesn’t think that she’s actually hurting people, it’s just a necessary part of the healing process. 

And in some ways, she just sees it as a realistic downside of the fact that you have to recover quickly in dungeon situations:

Normal recovery would take months. Healing magic shortens that to a few seconds. The pain is a result/tradeoff of forcing something that would naturally take a long time into such a short timespan. This all makes sense and is Right and Correct and Normal in Marcille's mind. It's not that she lacks empathy and doesn't care enough about not harming her patients: she doesn't think that it's "harm" at all.

Not a shred of guilt in that face before causing extreme pain. Contrast this to her constant fussing over Izutsumi on the smallest things—it's hard to believe she wouldn't even be a little apologetic if she actually believed this would be hurtful in a way that matters.

I think this is overall, less indicative of any lack of empathy so much as her incredibly stubborn and sometimes ridiculous way of compartmentalizing things to her own internal rules. I’d even argue that this mindset is preferable in surface situations, where people have the luxury of time. Dungeon healing hurts because it has to be fast and instantaneous—but if you're just treating a broken bone that can be put in a cast with slower healing magic to help, wouldn't you prefer that over an instant heal with the chance to cause brain damage, no matter how minuscule the chance is? Shouldn’t your long-term health matter more than short-term recovery and some pain?

To touch on Laios’s leg injury—we actually do see this kind of reaction to healing magic later on in the manga. When Marcille is teaching Laios how to heal, she ends up bowling him over because her cut gets super itchy:

but then she reacts positively and tells him that it's supposed to happen, before trusting him enough to try it on Senshi.

So while yes, it was an “incomplete” heal, I don’t think it was particularly telling about her approach to healing. And honestly, judging by the fact that it only distracted him when he was relaxed enough to be cleaning his armour before bed, it looks like she connected all the major muscles and nerves enough not to cause pain or risk re-injury by moving, but just left superficial stuff for Laios’s body to naturally heal. 

Her mindset makes sense in context: She also had to heal Chilchuck and Senshi, while conserving enough energy to immediately start digging for Falin’s body and potentially do a very taxing resurrection spell as soon as possible. 

After that, Falin healed the rest of Laios’s leg injury in a situation where it wasn’t needed, but there were no other high stakes to discourage it. Also, she can’t bear to see others in pain. ambrosiagourmet already did an incredible analysis of how this empathy doesn't really signify perfect altruism so much as Falin's deep discomfort with having to witness pain, so I won't go into that too much—but the important part is, Falin isn't inherently a more caring healer than Marcille. They are both making decisions for the patient based on their own approaches to healing—it's just that Falin's approach is preferable for dungeoneering overall.

(In Marcille's defense, it seems that dungeons are an incredibly specific environment that falls way outside the realm of what's actually taught to mages in most schools. Being a combat-oriented mage actually seems pretty frowned upon.)

So, in a lot of ways, Marcille is both realistic about dungeon healing (mana conservation by not doing full heals when not necessary, thinking about pain as the condensation of the time it would have taken to naturally heal, etc.) and very unrealistic about it. What she doesn’t realize is that the pain matters: In a dungeon, people have to be up and ready to continue right away, over and over. If it hurts every time, that makes them very averse to being healed, stressed out about getting injured, and affects their performance as dungeoneers.

All that to say… I personally believe that Marcille is very passionate about healing people. Not healing magic necessarily, but medicine as a whole. It’s not just a means to an end—it’s her main area of study only second to her research into ancient magic. And sure, she might have gotten into it because of her fear of death—but what I think people don’t give enough credit to is that her motivations changed from when she was a child. 

You see it here, when she’s laying her dream outright to the Winged Lion: 

She might be kinda racist herself, hypocritical, and short-sighted (mostly out of ignorance, I’d argue), but at heart, she hates that people hurt each other. She hates that long-lived races look down on everyone else just because of lifespan. She has—arguably very correctly—identified the disparity in lifespans as one of the main causes of interracial strife, and she wants to get rid of it so that everyone can fully understand and relate to each other as equals. 

And in some ways, it’s not even that insane of a dream. 

Knowing that people used to live as long as she’ll have to, and something changed in the eons since, is it really that weird for her to want to change it back somehow? 

But all that aside—the most important part of this to me is that… originally, she wasn’t actually that hung up on completely equalizing lifespans. She got into medicine because she wanted to, at the very least, close the gap as much as she could in her very long life. 

She was realistic about it at first. She thought that, by studying ancient magic’s ability to pull from the infinite, she could harness that infinite energy in tandem with medical knowledge to give more life to the short-lived races. 

But as she says it herself, it changed when she realized that she doesn’t have time to gradually unravel it on her own. 

So, yes. She got desperate. She got crazy. In light of all she did as dungeon lord, it’s easy to assume that she never cared much about healing as a profession, and is just a self-obsessed little girl caged by her trauma and trying to change the entire world to make sure she doesn’t have to be hurt. 

And… she is all that. She's my blorbo supreme but I'll be the first to insist that she is very much a complete hot mess. But my point is that these were very extreme circumstances, and Ryoko Kui has given us all the understated evidence we need to know that she’s actually a very passionate doctor otherwise. This is the girl who freaks out if she’s not useful to other people and not allowed to help:

Did actually get excited about making safe dungeons for helpful purposes beyond just learning more about ancient magic to fulfill her dream: 

And in tandem with her own personal trauma—not in opposition to it or to obscure it—cared about making life more peaceful and equal for everyone in the world. Not to mention, she had to have done some insane work to be acknowledged as the most talented researcher at the academy and be allowed onto teams that were researching new healing magics.

TL:DR, I think she has a lot of empathy for people and passion for helping them, it’s just expressed in a way you wouldn’t expect in a fantasy because Ryoko Kui doesn’t fuck around with her storytelling and genre subversion. She might not be a good archetypal healer, but she's an extremely knowledgeable doctor with a point-blank and intense attitude towards healing and medical treatment (see: her strictness about physical touch when teaching Laios about healing).

For me, all evidence points towards her going back to what she was doing before the story on top of her duties as Court Mage, kind of becoming a sort of Surgeon General for Melini as the head of health and safety for the country and whatnot. 

PS. I will admit that there's explicit evidence she's not good at healing here:

But this was also like... chapter 3. Written years ago. I personally feel that everything Kui has said about Marcille's background since is enough evidence that it was just a one-off joke before she had an airtight idea about who Marcille was and would be, but I'll concede that it's mostly conjecture.

But again, as I said, I believe that while she might not be the best at the heal spell that's used in Dungeons, she's passionate about being a medical researcher and the field of medicine as a whole.

[ink-the-artist]

I love your artwork so much! Your colors are so vibrant and none of the white speckles in the paper ever shows, its so impressive and I really dig it! I was wondering if you use any sort of blending medium? Like baby oil or anything? Either way, I really enjoy looking at your artwork and I'm always excited to see whatever you'll make next

I use a colorless blender (prismacolor, which is wax-based so baby oil probably wouldnt work) but my scanner is also rly bad about picking up white specks in a way photographing the art with my phone isnt, so I usually have to do some digital editing to get rid of them as well.

I do this by duplicating the layer, setting the one on top to "darken," and using the mixer brush to blend out the white spots + just use the eyedropper tool to select the color of that area (needs to be a slightly lighter shade of it) and color over the white spots with the brush tool

i edited a small bit of the original scan to show what i mean

original:

with the edited layer:

heres how it looks set to normal instead of darken, I used both the mixing brush and regular brush just to demo it

[lupucs]

Multi-Tasque-ing 🐈 Short animation inspired by the joy of petting cats!

(Watch with sound 🔊 Music: Jay Jay by Kevin MacLeod)

[waywardsunlight]

I think Luz's trauma due to being an abuse victim gets ignored a lot in favor of other characters. Luz has an odd role in the fandom as this character who other characters rely on, or who isn't an abuse victim but is supportive of her friends who are, and I think that ends up missing a huge part of her story.

Belos compliments her a lot, which is partially because he wants to reach out to her and mostly because he thinks he can manipulate her. He does some backhanded compliments, telling her she's improved but she still has work to do to catch up to him. He also thanks her quite a few times. The way he thanks her intentionally triggers her guilt, especially when he thanks her for helping him with Hunter. He also compliments her to put other people down, like when he tells her she's "better than this" (implying their race makes them morally superior).

He also uses the same manipulation tactic on Luz that he does on Hunter, although it doesn't work as well on her. He tries to remove his own agency for his physical violence by blaming the Curse. The biggest example is in King's Tide, when he pretends he can't hear her as he's racing after her to try and kill her. He ends up cutting her face while pretending to be out of control and then in the same sequence has full control and clarity to talk to Hunter and the Collector. He gaslights Luz by trying to make it seem like it was The Curse causing him to act in the way he did.

He refers to Luz as "crazy" to invalidate her emotions and harming Hunter in front of her also is a form of abuse. He's obviously aware that hurting Hunter traumatizes Luz (and everyone else) but as his focus transfers from Hunter to Luz in Hollow Mind, he starts targeting her specifically by harming Hunter to hurt her (especially in TTT). Belos shifts the blame for events from himself to Luz and also attempts to make her feel guilty. Hunter seems to understand that Luz is also being abused and tries to reassure her that Belos is an abuser and she shouldn't take what he says at face value. Luz ends up taking that advice to heart after she's able to forgive herself and face Belos. She doesn't speak to him but is able to hear his manipulation tactics and just. stare at him bc he's full of bullshit.

Just because he 'only' hits her a few times and isn't her guardian doesn't mean he can't abuse her or that he didn't. It's not really a protagonist-antagonist relationship as much as it is "adult man nuking 14 year old repeatedly until she becomes god and kills him". The idea that child abuse can only come from parents and not role models or other adults in your life is odd, because he distinctly holds a position of power over her (literally an Emperor and an adult who intentionally isolates her and the other kids alone to abuse them) and uses it to emotionally and physically harm her.

Papa Titan has to reassure her that she's okay to kill Belos because he's literally a serial killer who's lying about his intentions. Luz still slightly falls for Belos's sympathetic line until that moment because he very intentionally tried to get her to feel bad for him and also feel guilt about herself.

This is also why I really detest any fandom takes where Belos canonically is supposed to care about her, or Luz owes him anything. Manipulation is not sympathetic. Belos committed premeditated murder and then used the remains of his murder victim to try to make a "Better Version" of his murder victim which was actually just a way to punish him repeatedly and keep taking out revenge on kids who had nothing to do with the original conflict. Belos is Luz's abuser also, and Luz doesn't owe him any sort of kindness or consideration and her anger is valid.

Luz is an abuse victim of Belos's in addition to Hunter and the Collector (and Vee/Lilith by extension), and she should be considered as such rather than her trauma being invalidated in favor of other characters.

[esteemed-excellency]

expanding on these two posts bc i can't stop dissecting hiram and the deviless' relationship

The Deviless realised Hiram was truly smitten when he asked her if he would still be able to love her after the abstraction. They were discussing the pros and cons (read as: she was preying on his fears and hectic mental state after the violant incident), and she told him the effect was different from person to person. She thought his concern was endearing, but no matter how much he tried to delay the inevitable, he knew the specifics of abstraction (he was still a spirifier) and had already made up his mind. That's what he wanted, wasn't it? To get rid of all the unwanted pain and fear and sorrow? All else was secondary, and not so important in the grand scheme of things. Sure, it was a gamble, but she always thought him to be quite fond of gambles, wasn't he?

Hiram told her he didn't mind the gamble (he truly didn't), and all else was in fact secondary, but she was important. She laughed away his concerns.

During the abstraction she found herself wondering the same thing, whether he would still be able to love her. The answer apparently was no. But he kept showing up at the Embassy, asking questions about the Laws, and telling her all about his progress with the Marvellous. It became a routine, but as much as he was always attentive towards information, he never seemed to pay attention to her as before. She didn’t mind having him around, but his coldness bothered her in a way that had never bothered her before. She didn't feel so important now.

He rarely thanked her for the intel she provided, but sent gifts more consistently than before, without ever mentioning them.

One day, long after he got all the answers he needed, she asked why he was still keeping up appearances. He told her he loved her, like he did many times before. He thought it was clear. It was then that she realised he truly did. She began to notice a subtle undertone of certitude in his voice, where before the abstraction there were desperation and urgency, and where immediately afterwards there was nothing. Just because he was saying it differently it didn't mean it wasn't true.

No matter how many times he said it over the years, it still hardly ever sounds true. But now, after all this time, she knows it is.

[froidefille]

Day 9: a WIP

I have not anticipated I will break my one-fic-per-day rule on a WIP because I do not usually read WIPs unless they are from my fav authors. THEN @tackytigerfic have decided to give us an early Christmas present so I have two recs for you today! Recs under the cut <3

📚 First Watch of Night by @tackytigerfic

Draco/Harry, 54k out of the promised 275k (!), cat E

Chapters: 4/21

Summary:

Harry Potter defeated Voldemort at the Battle of Hogwarts on May 2nd, 1998. But what if he didn't?

📚 These Words of Mine by @dodgerkedavra

Draco/Harry, cat M

Chapters: 10/?

Summary:

The enchanted journals were supposed to be a bit of entertainment. A way to pass the time on tedious Auror missions. Neither one of them is supposed to disappear for two years and counting. But then, Harry never did anything according to plan.

Okay, that’s it for today, thank you for the prompt @hprecfest, @tackytigerfic and @dodgerkedavra for your amazing works and see you next time!

📚 First Watch of Night by @tackytigerfic

Well the answer to this question is easy – then we receive one of the best what if!stories out there. Guys, we got background Wolfstar! And I didn’t even ship it until like, a week ago. We get Sirius calling Harry his pup!! 😭 We got the whole new universe set up! One thing that worries me is that Wolfstar = no Teddy. But alas, there is the multiverse tag so I don’t lose hope xd

Just one little quote for you because I cannot get over what might have been:

Draco picked up his cup again. His hand was trembling, his face white and wretched. He didn’t meet Harry’s eyes. Harry didn’t want him to—didn’t want to have to look at him, still so familiar, so distinctive. Even now, it was hard to think of a time when they were friends; in Harry’s memory, it felt unreal, like a Muggle film he had once seen. It had started the summer after Sixth Year—long hazy days, a wet June leading into a wet July, and Draco coming round to Grimmauld Place with Andromeda while his mum was in Order custody. He and Harry had not one but two fistfights in the back garden, both of them panting and enraged, Draco’s mouth bleeding a little the first time, and then the second time wrestling each other viciously to the ground and struggling until they just gave up and ended up lying on their backs in the muddy grass, both of them defeated. And then, a tentative truce. Making endless cups of tea for Andromeda, sharing a compartment on the train back to school, the silence awkward until it wasn’t. Tedious days hiding out doing research in the Hogwarts library while Voldemort staged attack after attack after attack on the Ministry. Nights spent studying frantically, and then the two of them together, that whole long night of the Battle. Friendship. For whatever that had been worth.

😭😭😭

📚 These Words of Mine by @dodgerkedavra

Yet another one by @dodgerkedavra! I am on a personal mission to make them fandom famous. Their works are my fandom revelation of the year. Well, those and the existance of podfics in general 😅.

One thing that is super special about the fic (which is also the reason why there’s no wordcount provided) is its format. The story is about enchanted journals and the author made them come to life! Just take a look:

On that note I wouldn’t presume you can get emotional over written notes that are not even words but here we are:

It ends on a bit of a cliffhanger so I get a minor heart attack everytime I see AO3 notification ^^

[mblue-art]

Sorry for that question but I really curious!

What made you fell in love with Cross and Lust?

Tell us more!!

😳😳😳 hhuh what rreally,, , ,,, 😳 u wanna hear me yap abt my sillies, my beloveds,,, (i appreciate the enthusiasm tho omg 🥺🫶🫶🫶)

i want to have the yuris with lust and the yaois with cross I I MEAN HWHWAT 🧍‍♂️

UM.

haha anyWAY,, (oh gog this ended up long)

🍫—

cross checks so many boxes for me it makes me go insane. too good to be true. versatile(??)— like it's somehow way too easy to put him in Situations. (he's bf and husbone material??? just -20hp me now; that already kills me) he's. hh. gawddamn there's reasons why he won a utmv sans sexyman poll.

he's like a crush that you can't get out of your head no matter what you do, i'm so freaking down bad for him it's not even funny anymore. ever since simping for cross i have not been the same since. the man has changed me. the attraction/simp feelings hit me like a bat out of nowhere and i don't understand why it's so intense— i. hh.

,,i like when ppl make him dorky. stupidly silly (absolutely love shitpost shenanigans and would absolutely LOVE to get into silly shenanigans with him and with/without his bestie epic). fun to be around when he's deemed you as a good friend. stars, he'd give good hugs. strong, solid, and warm, the kind of hugs u don't wanna pull away from so soon. a little endearingly cringe. fanon simp cross is adorable and fun to mess around with. tsundere cross is adorable and fun to mess with. cute anxious guy under all that intimidating aloofness. when i say his smile is an absolute treasure, i mean that. his blush making him look like a grape or a glowing bulb is adorable and makes me wanna tease him more. anime protag/character vibes so strong i wanna have a cute bl/shoujo manga romance with him type shit yk.

then there's times when he's The Hot Dude and i think it's illegal if he's all confident and smug and dom actually (/hj) cause that makes me wanna fucking fite him HELLO? SIR? ILLEGAL????? (<- the fight or flight response of a tsundere towards a milder tsundere LOL).

-hp every single time. mf gets successful d20 rolls w/ rizz on me and i get a critical hit every time. it's a 50/50 either i fluster to death and become weak or i wanna fite his dumbass

i'll. i can fight him. i'll lose but i can fight him for sure. (why is he so cool⁉️‼️💢💢💢RRRRRRR)

he makes me feel things. lots of things. (mostly fluster but when i'm feelin sooper soff i jst wanna shower his skull in keeses. ima kissy lil guy)

tired cross makes me just wanna take care of him. want him to come home to me without any worry because he thinks i'm his safe space.

when he's being stubborn i want to tell him to chill out for a little while, take a break and watch some funny stuff while drinking choccy milk or eating his fav foods and be cozy. bapping him if he's gonna try to get out of this too soon. he's gonna get the free time he deserves n relax n get cuddles n kithes.

the way he can gently hold my hand and look at me with a sincere look in his eyelights and say something genuinely affectionate feels like cupid shooting an arrow through my soul, but also feels like a balm. (a promise of loyalty and faithfulness.) (a kiss on the forehead? a cherry on top.)

well now i can't be mean to him with all the nice he's saying and doing. i just want nice things for him o(-< (even if he's a bastard sometimes lol<3 all circles back to the silly) (silly is always important)

💜—

i love lust. so so so much. the fanon interpretation of him, anyway.

(don't get me wrong, i absolutely adore the feminine slay content of lust; but am i wrong for yearning for more masc lust content?)

i like my lust sans respectful, goofy, sans-like, an absolute sweetheart, and a caring, wonderful life partner. under the flirty personality and charm(ing looks), is a sans behavior that made me fall deeper. (he makes me feel very gender too) (ohmygofd yeah no he actually makes me think of gender sometimes rauauagrrgh<3/pos). i don't have to worry about showing my cring, weird side to him, because he's also a gremlin,, o(-< he doesn't have to present himself all nice and pretty all the time (although he's always pretty in my eyes). he can be comfortably himself; with me 🥺

i want to be his safe space.

i want to see him heal and be happy and be happy with me and give him all the love i can give and care for him and make him soso happy i just want him to feel SO sosososo loved, he deserves so much more

he's the only one who's able to get a certain reaction out of me; to pull flowers out of my heart. to pull out words of love and devotion and appreciation, heart bursting with affection only for him.

for him, i would try. i would live for him. i wish someone like him (the him i've created from interpretations and headcanons) was real irl.

i want to not care i don't care if he's a gorgeous well-known person that people fawn over, or if he's a campus crush, etc.,

i want him to think i'm worthy enough to keep in his life. for him to know how special he is to me, for him to know how much i want him in my life as much as i want him to keep me in his.

my immediate reaction when i think of him is: 😊💕💜💜💜eeeee kicks and giggles and flaps hands teehee

i love him so much i get a heart-on for him (/silly but it is true sometimes; love him so much it aches (in a good way))

[charbies]

I'm mashing together my review of totk and reactions to random encounters with the masterworks I've had lately into one stream of consciousness

Totk should have had true continuity, not a 6 year time skip that we never get to see, experience, and feel. It's not that hard to bridge 2 games with a 1-2 min cutscene, esp in a zelda game. Majora's mask starts with quick, but meaningful exposition that bridges OOT to MM! The intro to wind waker is a 6 minute long cutscene!! This series thrives with its detailed, intriguing intros, so what happened?? Before I even launched totk the night it came out, I booted up botw and replayed the final boss & ending because I was so stoked to see the transition in story/world and wanted to honor both games. Instead boom, we're walking in a cave w/ no context.

I was so disappointed that zelda wasn't a companion character to link in totk, it was disempowering to her character arc. Really thought this game would build off of botw's snippets of link & zelda working together in memories. The teasers and trailers for totk gave this perception that she would be there (which would also "break tradition" like devs wanted, ffs). When I was on the tutorial island I was fully convinced I'd be finding her and we'd reconvene like "ok what's next." When I realized 20 mins into the game that she was GONE gone, as in will not reappear likely until the end of the game damsel-in-distress-style, my verbatim thought "wait... really? Is this still going to be good?" Which was kinda sad, for a game I waited so many years for :/

I had major pet peeves with the copy/paste nature of the cutscenes with the old sages. The dialogue, bgs, pacing, literally all identical. They just hot swapped the character models for the sages and said that was good enough, wtf!!! I live for cutscenes in games, I have since I was like 5. This felt lazy, and seriously demotivated me from completing the dungeons bc I knew there was going to be nothing novel or intriguing to look forward to

The secret stones were gimmicky af. Sorry. Also stupid name, they couldn't even opt for "sacred?" Ik in other languages they have way cooler names, which would have helped. Link's fucking thanos glove of stones was a stupid gimmick, I cannot believe they didn't think to alter that concept to be more mythical, or creative, or just original. I would have killed for the stones to relate to the triforce in some way, or to do away with the stones and have this game connect to the triforce, since the whole direction of this story was going back to ancient myth & lore.

the Zonai lacked depth, and honestly just felt like a boring distraction even tho they were supposed to be a central focus of this game. I 1000% agree with other folks posts on the take that rauru was a flat, 2-dimensional colonizer. Sonia got sidelined. yikes. ew. no thanks.

^similarly, ganon really was given no character or depth imo. It's like they did a fantastic job making him visibly LOOK scary, so they didn't bother to give him motives beyond "I'm bad, I do what I want."

the cliche "back to normal" at the end irked me. Link could have come out with no arm, keeping the zonia arm, or at least scars w/ the zonai arm pattern and that would be meaningful. Zelda got factory reset from irreversible draconification in a method that for all intents and purposes, could have been done as soon as link got rewind ability. There was no investigation or inclusion of the other dragons, which seemed like a missed opportunity. Actively working on reversing her could have been a main quest in game!! Like 1. Complete all dungeons/get all stones, 2. you can now go round up the spirits of rauru & sonia and reverse zelda yippee, 3. you and zelda go beat the shit out of ganon together. The dragons fighting was beautiful, powerful imagery, but honestly I think too much potential was traded away just to execute that one fraction of the boss fight.

The masterworks book annoys me, which is sad bc I love concept art. I wanted to be a concept artist growing up, I can accept that you'll often see things that never make it into the final cut. I was enamored with early posts abt things like zelda's haircut, char designs, etc.

But more recently I'm seeing the anthology side of the book taking major liberties that it didn't even bother showing us directly or alluding to in the game, and I think that's such a cop-out. They are literally telling us instead of SHOWING us in the game they release a year ago, and spent SIX YEARS making. There was a festival celebrating the return of zelda/defeat of ganon?? Freaking show us that!!! Show us link & zelda acclimate to post-calamity life. Show us imperfect, non-linear healing and resilience. I would have loved a festival scene w/ link and zelda that conveys the nuance of celebration and recognition of their efforts, and the contrasting weight of what they went through. Show me zelda, exhausted after a festival struggling with guilt and indecision about whether to bring back the monarchy with hyrule's restoration. Throwing in a "oh btw imagine if we actually had done this" post-game makes me so irritated and feral. It's like the post-release canon is sidling up to fanon and saying, "hey look we can do that too! look at our fan art" idk if that makes sense, I don't think I'm explaining it well. But it just feels disingenuous.

I'm not a timeline purest, I don't need everything to interconnect, but I don't love how assertions in this book invalidate connections and lore of other games. Also really don't love how this game overwrites and sidelines the sheikah.

I know majority of my disappointment stems from my own, personal expectations of a game that, let's face it, was probably given many mandates and initiatives to appeal to *everyone* in broad, lackluster ways. I still love the world and characters of zelda, if anything, totk reaffirmed what I love and want to prioritize in my art that I didn't see present in this game. Fun fact I used the world of botw to learn a lot about drawing landscapes & composition. It actually inspires me a bit to try to learn to do comics, which has been a longtime goal I've been too busy and/or timid to pursue lol.

mmm anyway if u read this and any of this resonated DM me and lets froth at the mouth and commiserate lol

[pinkysberg]

what are your personal sexuality headcanons for the gang? like gun to your head you HAD to choose… but in a less violent way… :)

oh boy! ive been talking about this on tiktok for pride, so im happy u asked here hehehe. (i'll include some explanations where i think necessary)

Dutch: Gay

I am such a strong proponent of gay Dutch who is using women as status markers and attempting to fill the void Hosea Matthews left when he married Bessie.

Hosea: Bisexual

Arthur: Bisexual

I also appreciate aspec Arthur, so I guess on a real technical level I'd say asexual and biromantic but thats wordy.

John: Bisexual

I think he's got some crazy internalized homophobia and a pretty strong preference for women (specifically Abigail).

Abigail: Bisexual

Sadie: Lesbian

I like to think she and Jake were both gay, best friends and in a lavender marriage because the more gay people the better :)

Charles: Unlabeled

I don't think that if Charles even had the language to articulate his sexual orientation that he'd put a label on it. Certainly not heterosexual though.

Javier: Pansexual

Has a very "sexuality is a spectrum/is fluid" vibe about him, you know what I mean?

Bill: Gay

Molly: Lesbian

Comphet goes crazy!!!

Susan: Straight

Pearson: Straight

He was in the Navy so I imagine there's no way he hasn't canoodled with another man but I don't think he enjoyed it. Like he said, the Navy has "too many men".

Micah: Straight

Leopold: Gay

I said on TikTok that he has "evil disney villain" gay vibes.

Karen: Bisexual

Mary-Beth: Straight

I know people like lesbian Mary-Beth or ship her with Tilly but for some reason I just see her as heterosexual. But I'm not opposed to other's interpretation.

Tilly: Straight

Josiah: Gay

Lenny: Straight

Sean: Straight

I do enjoy Sean x Lenny as a ship but somehow in my brain they're just a couple of heterosexuals who are comfortable in their sexualities lol.

Uncle: Straight

Jack: ???

I have no hard feelings about Jack's orientation.

[aurosoul]

man. que vida

this is all so fucking crazy. I never thought I’d leave my podunk town. I never thought I’d live past 18. I never thought I’d want to.

I’m only just now barely wrapping my head around the fact that everything is real and no one’s coming to take it away. that I’m allowed to be happy. I wish I could tell my past self how much better it gets

[petshopbutch]

thinking....thinking a LOT about sadism... i rlly want to play around with another masochistic girl, our domme watching us and directing me on how best to hurt her:

how many times to spank her when shes laid out across my lap, and if i should hit her with a paddle or a brush or my belt or our dommes belt or just my hands. sucking and twisting and biting at her tits until her nipples are puffy, oversensitive, and then putting clothespins on them. leaving bite marks on her stomach, neck, thighs.

pinning her to the bed by her throat as i edge her to the point of tears, fingers toying with the head of her leaky aching-hard cock. i smack her on the cheek with my hand coated in her precum when she starts to whine a lil too much. and once our domme has decided she's had enough, and ONLY then, i flip my girl onto her stomach, pull the cute lil plug out of her ass, just to push my strap inside of her instead. at first slow and careful, gripping their hips tight enough to bruise, but our domme gets bored and demands i quicken my pace even if theyre not ready for it, even if it makes their heady moans turn into whines and then screams.

i want a girl sobbing under me, begging to cum around my cock. i want to remind her its not up to me, ask Her, taking a fistful of her hair and lifting her head just enough to turn her to face our domme. and she does, says please please please so breathy and fucked-out and pretty and again, its only when our domme gives us permission that i reach down and stroke her through her overstimulated hardwon orgasm , that she's allowed to cum, shaking apart in my hands.

as soon as she's done - sweaty and panting and tear-soaked and limp in our bed - our domme and i are there to comfort her. to stroke her hair, ice her bruises, kiss her slap-red cheek and her tortured chest. for the rest of the night its all vanilla. aftercare. cuddling. sweet gentle touches. telling her what a good job she did taking my cock and following Her orders.

its not until the next day that our domme decides to reward me for following Her direction so well. by doing to me everything She had me do to our girl the night before.

[floridazcrazy]

Half-baked r63 yukierre idea/yapping

Guys bear with me here on this. AFAB Yuki right? Her and Pierre traumabonded during their Alpha Tauri days and all that jazz.

They have almost the exact same dynamics as the non r63 version of themselves but heres where it gets tricky-ish. We all know that even w/ all the flirting Pierre would yap about seeing Yuki as a younger sibling and would say/imply as much

So, fem!Yuki realizing she may have some heavy feelings for Pierre whether they be platonic or romantic (whose she kidding ofc they're romantic) but alas everytime Pierre inevitably finds himself flirting w/ her, he backtracks to the "ur like a little sister to me/ur such an immature little kid angle (think rb maxiel)

Which is a slap in the face to Yuki when Pierre goes public w/ his childbride Kika later on that year whos a freshly turned 19 to her 21/22 (maxiel moment lmao).

Yipyap yip yap. Yuki dealin w/ the western worlds overt sexualization of asian women along w/ the desexualization/infantilization that she going to face as an asian woman in old boys club sport. Pierre gasly is not helping w/ these matters at all

Kika is petite, charming and has just enough bite to intrigue but not offend the old guard, unlike Yuki whos being made to see a therapist over her temper. (poor girl) and Yuki's just feeling like the standing woman emoji in the corner. Dont forget Pierre's leaving AT at the end of the season too lmao

At least she has an elder fellow poc woman on the grid to go to advice for, right??. Alex Albon herself who's also lowkey a mess rn. Fried blonde, overgrown pixie cut and undercut monstrosity, fuck ton of helix and orbital piercings (she went to the lh44 school of drip... shes failing) Shes got a thing for George but hes dating Carmen and she and Lily are dancing around each other (just kiss tf??)

Yuki will be ok though, she has Nyck and Liam next year. Miss girls boutta be having some nice sex and reminiscing to do

WeI hope this made some sort of sense. Idk though PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT OR REBLOG W/ YAPPING. IM HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS!!

[liquidstar]

i think that on here we've kinda talked a lot about how the traditional "coming out" narrative presented in popculture is flawed in reality. because it always presents this idea that you have to tell everyone who you Really are, that youre Hiding parts of yourself, that you can never be You until you bare your Secrets to the world. and that actually this isnt because people feel entitled to your personal business but that its hurting YOU when they dont know your personal business so you should really just tell them. (but also dont be "too" proud because thats annoying :( act mostly cishet please but dont lie about it! hehe!) it will work out every time for sure :)

but ofc thats not how real life works. i mean, naturally i understand that there are OF COURSE people out there who want to be loud and proud about who they are, and that this is incredibly important to their identity which theyve suppressed for so long. but that "coming out" narrative is harmful because it ignores many of the reasons it had to be suppressed to begin with. its fucking dangerous! its dangerous to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. they can lose their support system, family, job, house, and their entire life. both in the sense that they'll be completely uprooted from it, and in the sense that they could be killed. so constantly presenting the notion of "coming out is good for you no matter what because its the Only way to be your Real Authentic Self and also you HAVE to do it eventually because thats how this narrative is just Meant to go. be a good little queer and please dont stray from this path."

and the problem is that plenty of young LGBT+ people completely internalize it too! ive had so many convos with young people worried about coming out to their conservative family because, well, theyre supposed to! and their minds are completely blown when i tell them that actually they dont have to do that. that theyre under no obligation to tell everyone their business and its okay to just keep being them w/o making an announcement about it. ESPECIALLY IF IT PUTS THEM IN DANGER!!!! and to be clear this issue doesnt stop at age 18 or at moving out or anything like that either, there continue to be many obstacles for many people that make coming out unsafe, or just a bad life decision to uproot everything Right Now. it's okay to just be in the closet and it isn't a moral failing like cishet media wants to convince us. we all agree, right?

good! but here's what my actual real point is:

when we talk about this, for some reason, we seem to only reaaaallly be talking about the gay side of it, right? like im sure lots of people imagined, like, teenage gay boy movies. maybe a couple lesbian and bi characters too perhaps. and that makes sense because thats like the most common narrative for this sort of trope, so ofc those are the first examples we imagine. and ofc theres the more complex addition of "passing" when it comes to trans versions of this story, the idea that you gotta look a certain way to be "valid" adds another layer.

so i think its time more people started to acknowledge this about trans people too, right? i think we can all agree with this on paper already; no trans person is obligated to come out or present a certain way if theyre not in a place where they currently are able to do so. physically, mentally, financially... or just because they dont wanna! whatever the circumstances are, there is no criteria they have to meet to be vindicated in this. it doesnt only apply to 14 year olds living with shitty parents who plan to move out soon and become "Really Trans" (as if they didnt count before conforming to The Narrative), the person could be 40 and never planning to be completely out, and its the same. they dont owe you this "showing the world who you Really are in order to [earn the right to] Be Yourself" crap. thats their choice only.

however, i also think that even if most ppl on here in lgbt circles on here agree with the general sentiment... sometimes it doesnt always get applied it practice. though the whole "truscum" thing kinda died down (thank god) i still think that rampant transmedicalism has left its scars on lots of people and the things they internalize, combined with similar cisheteronormative messages in popular media about how your narrative Should go and how you Should act and look to be respected, and its Morally Wrong not to fit that mold.

so when encountered with people who dont pass, who dont TRY to pass and instead actively choose to look like their agab due to the fact that they are literally in the closet irl (lest we forget people have whole entire complex lives outside of the net) this sort of short circuit happens in ppls heads, where that internalized idea of "but you're supposed to be THIS WAY! youre not doing it RIGHT!" pops back up and they end up labeling that person as fake or Not Trans Enough for this reason.

and i do also think part of this stems from people not having enough sympathy for those whose paths are different, because they were told not to. theres a Right way, and they did it the right way. and likely they struggled for it a lot, so isnt it unfair that people are doing it the Easy Way (as if its easy to be closeted to begin with) and claiming theyre like you? thats Wrong. they have to Earn it. you lgbts should all get mad at EACH OTHER actually! this will help your community be better [in the eyes of cishetero society that doesnt really want you to exist to begin with]

additionally the reason im emphasizing the internet side of this so much is because... well, in this day and age, thats the space lots of people go to to NOT be in the closet. to at least microdose on being "out" while in real life they very much arent. like i said before, being in the closet is rough and taxing, suppressing yourself hurts which is why so many people wanna be loud and out and proud! not everyone can though, so turning to a place with relative anonymity to get that is great, and i think its probably saved a lot of people. but also because of this, its pretty much the only way to get the scenario this is positing to begin with- where you know a stranger can know that youre trans even if youre otherwise closeted completely, just so they can tell you that youre Not. but how many people in the past do you think lived lives where they never let these feelings out at all? how many alive today do you think dont even express them online?

you know that sort trope (often stereotypes in media) of a trans person "crossdressing" only when alone, in order to get a short bit of relief or euphoria that they cant in their closed life? i think that today we have the internet to do that. i think its kind of the same thing. but its also very different, because its not as private. its still secret, because its anonymous, but its also something shared with plenty of strangers at the same time. they dont know you irl, so its safe, distant, and gives you that rush of being yourself, and being referred to correctly by others too. theres community, theres support, and theres friendship too, once you get to know those strangers. its not a "second life" or a "persona" is just a side of yourself you dont show elsewhere, an identity that needs to be let out one way or another.

who the fuck are we to deny others the right to this life-saving connection just because they arent out? because they dont pass or dress the Right way irl? because we decided they arent trying hard enough to "fit in"? because they dont plan to change their lives to fit the right narrative anytime soon?

should they not be allowed into the community then? that would be perfect wouldnt it? leave many who need support out to die, because they did it Wrong. fight within our community over who is doing it Right until we've broken it in half. the righteous ones [according to cishet standards] are surely going to be treated with respect once they get rid of the Bad ones, right?

yeah, i dont think so. thats horseshit. we're stronger together than we are apart, thats why infighting is so useful to those who dont want us to be strong to begin with. its important to help each other, boost each other up, even if some of us arent playing the "right" part irl. are we really just going to sit around and accept the cishet norms as rules to live by? fuck that. not everyones story will reflect it, and you have to accept them anyway if you want a strong community. it doesnt matter how much they might look/act like their agab irl, if theyre telling you otherwise take it at face value, respect them the way you would any other. again, many of us agree with this on paper, but i think we still have to put work into acting on that too.

the end <3