#why couldn't we get new designs like many of the others years :'<< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[fractoluminescence]

I just got her so I'll take this opportunity to add the little sand Mayuris to this post :3c

I got bored and started clipping Mayuri faces from stuff, including unused sketches. And then i had two squares left and knew BBS had exactly 2 original mayuri designs, even if the newyears orange was a dumb joke, so threw those in to fill space, even though they're obviously not canon. (also i wasnt sure if those blank ones were meant to be statuesque or if they were just placeholders to experiment with headdresses on, I could honestly see it swinging either way.)

I dunno if this communicates any kind of a standard or average aesthetic for Mayuri's facepaint designs or what, but hopefully it'll be sort of useful to someone out there. For my purposes, I just compulsively move squares around in photoshop. original image for some of the less obvious ones below. (i found a cleaner version of that Jet Black page only well after I'd pasted the tiled image into this draft and im too lazy to go fix it now)

honestly surprising that BBS hasn't used Mayuri for more of their random alt costume stuff considering he;s obviously the most conducive to wild redesigns. Like, no Cacao Society or Spirit Society outfits for him?? Not even just some japanese formalwear like with the parasol sets? Where is swimsuit Mayuri??

[zooophagous]

So why do you hate the advertising industry?

Hokay so.

Let me preface this with some personal history. It's not relevant to the sins of the advertising industry perse but it illustrates how I started to grow to hate it.

I wanted to be a veterinarian growing up, but to be a vet you basically have to be good enough to get into medical school. I do not have the math chops or discipline to make it in medical school. I went into art instead, and in a desperate attempt to find some commercial viability that didn't involve moving to California, I went into graphic design.

I've been a graphic designer for about seven or eight years now and I've worn a lot of hats. One of them was working in a print shop. Now, the print shop had a lot of corporate customers who had various ad campaigns. One of them was Gate City Bank, which had a bigass stack of postcards ordered every couple months to mail to their customers.

Now, paper comes from Dakota Paper, and they make their paper the usual way. Somewhere far, far from our treeless plain there is a forest of tall trees. These trees are cut down and put on big fossil fuel burning trucks and hauled to a paper mill that turns them into pulp while spewing the most fowl odors imaginable over the neighboring town and loads the pulp up with bleach to give it a nice white color.

Then the paper is put on yet another big truck and hauled off to the local paper depot, then put on another big truck and delivered to my print shop, where I turned the paper into postcards telling people to go even deeper into debt to buy a boat because it's almost summer. The inks used are a type of nasty heat sensitive plastic that is melted to the surface of the paper with heat. Then the postcards are put on yet ANOTHER truck and sent to the bank, which puts them on ANOTHER truck and finally into the hands of their customers, who open their mail and take one look at the post card and immediately discard it.

Heaps and heaps and literal hundreds of pounds of literal garbage created at the whim of the marketing team several times a year. And thats just one bank in one city.

I came to realize very quickly that graphic design was the delicate art of turning trees into junk mail.

And wouldn't you know it there are a TON of companies that basically only do junk mail. Many of them operate under the guise of a "charity," sending you pictures of suffering children or animals and begging for handouts and when they get those handouts the executives take a nice fat cut, give some small token amount to whatever cause they pay lip service to, and then put the rest of the cash right back into making more mailers. "Direct mail marketing" they call it.

Oh but maybe it's not so bad, you can advertise online after all. Now that there's decent ad blocker out there and better anti-virus ads usually don't destroy your computer anymore just by existing.

Except now when I search for the exact business I want on Google it's buried under three or four different "promoted search items" tricking me into clicking on them only to shoot themselves in the foot because I searched for the specific result I wanted for a reason and couldn't use those other websites even if I felt like it.

And now we have advertising on YouTube and on every streaming service, forcing more and more eyes onto the ad for the brand new Buick Envision that parks itself because you're too stupid to do it on your own.

Oh thats ok maybe I'll get Spotify premium and go ad free and listen to some podcasts- SIKE we have the hosts of your show doing the song and dance now. Are you depressed and paranoid from listening to my true crime podcast about murdered and mutilated teenagers? That's ok, my sponsor Better Help can keep you sane enough to stay alive and spend more money.

It's gotten so terrible that now you have content farms, huge hubs of shell companies that crank out video after video to get more and more precious clicks. Which if the videos were innocuous maybe that wouldn't be so awful except now you have cooking hacks that can actually burn your house down and craft hacks that can electrocute you being flung into your eyes at the speed of mach fuck so some slimy internet clickbait jockey doesn't need to get a real job.

It of course goes without saying that animals are also relentlessly exploited by clickbait companies that will put them in compromising situations on purpose to create a fake fishing hack video or even just straight up killing them for sport by feeding small animals to a pufferfish that rips them apart for the camera.

And all of this, ALL of this doesn't even touch how adveritising is the death of art in general. Queer topics, any kind of interesting art, any kind of sex or substance use topics are scrubbed clean and hidden at the behest of advertisers.

Sex education, a nude statue, topics such as racism or sexism or bigotry in general have tags purged or hidden from search, even life saving information about SDTs or drug use, because if someone saw that and complained then Verizon might sell fewer tablets and we can't fucking have that.

Conservative talking heads often bitch and moan that they're being censored on social media. The stupid part is, they're right! They are being censored! But it's not by a woke mob, it's by ATT and Coca Cola not wanting their adspace sharing screen time with their stupid fucking opinions.

However, they won't ever figure that out, because the talking heads they get their marching orders from like Tucker and Jones ALSO rely on the sweet milk flowing from the sponsorship teat and they aren't about to turn on their meal ticket so they have to come up with even stupider shit to say for the train to continue rolling.

I managed to rant this far without even getting into the ads I see for the beauty industry. The other day a botox ad described wrinkles as "moderate to severe crows feet" as if wrinkles are a symptom of a fucking serious disease! Like having a flaw in your skin is a medical problem that you need thousands of dollars of literal botulism toxin to fix! I was incandescent with anger.

Advertising is a polluting, censoring, anti educational and anti art industry at it's very core. It destroys human connections, suppresses human thought and makes us hate our own bodies. It ads no value, actively detracts from value, and serves no real purpose and I believe it should be almost if not entirely banned.

[woongisi]

Bite Me, Bite You // Park Sunghoon

vers!vampire!Park Sunghoon (sub heavy) x vers!fem!Reader // SMUT

WC// 5.4k

Synopsis// Your hot neighbor in your new town is a vampire. You each have a lot to learn, about both each other and the world around you.

Warnings// smut obviously, bloodplay, blood drinking, biting, usage of "good boy" and "ma'am", intoxication (outside of intercourse), piv intercourse with no protection (pls wrap it before you tap it y'all)

Authors Note// It's MY vampire mythos and i can do what I want with it!!! No but fr I hope this is decent. I'm worried the quality went down as i wrote.... anyways, I am back.

------------

About 3 years ago, you decided to move to the historic district of a nearby city. You lived in a big city before that and eventually, the noise and danger of living somewhere so urban got to you. The historic district was quiet and charming—every building comprised of brick and mortar, boasting an ornate gothic revival style architecture. Every time you stepped outside you felt like you'd been transported back in time, walking down the cobblestone roads that had tripped you time and time again. You never did get sick of it. How could you? The narrow streets and wafting scents of fresh pastries always soothed you. You were never a morning person, and yet you found yourself waking up early many days just so you could watch the golden sunlight wash over the towering roof and steeple of the church just down the way. On some autumn mornings, you were lucky enough to catch the borderline unearthly fog that hung heavy on the town.

At some point over the years, you came to accept that your neighbor, Sunghoon, was a vampire. The day you moved in he had helped you move your furniture in, bracing it high so that he wouldn't mar the original hardwood floors of your home. You had a suspicion he'd been yelled at one too many times for doing exactly that. When all was said and done you invited him to sit on the porch with you for a while. You asked him how long he'd lived in these parts to which he claimed it was longer than you can imagine. You made a quick quip about how it couldn't possibly be that long, he looked far too young. He only chuckled a bit in response, flashing a toothy smile. A toothy smile that possessed some exceptionally sharp canine teeth.

The night you found out Sunghoon was an honest-to-god vampire, you'd stayed out far too late. You were a bit too drunk, and he was your designated guardian on such nights. He never drank alcohol, and now that you'd thought about it, you'd never seen him drink anything unless it was in an opaque water bottle containing what he claimed was a secret. Stumbling through your doorway, you threw yourself on the couch with a groan. Sunghoon followed shortly after, taking a detour to the fridge to get you a cold glass of water. He helped you sit up, handing you the water. Noticing that you were really struggling with getting it to your mouth, Sunghoon had taken your chin between his pointer and thumb, using his other hand to take your own and bring the glass to your lips.

“Slow.” He murmured. “If you keep trying to chug it like that, you'll make yourself nauseous.”

“Are you flirting with me!?” You slurred, alluding to the somewhat sensual grasp he had on you.

“Do you want me to be?” He cocked his head to the side with a smirk.

You thought about it for a moment but lost your train of thought before you could reply. You gestured for Sunghoon to take the water away from you.

“Hey! I know what you are.” You whisper-yelled. “You're a vampire. I know it!”

“Are we in Twilight or something?” His face twisted in faux disgust. Ah, here goes nothing. “You aren't wrong though.”

You shouted in triumph, smacking his shoulder playfully. That was until your face dropped. A… vampire…? You spent the next hour interrogating him.

“Is that why you never eat?”

“Mhm.”

“Ok, well… why can I see your reflection?”

“Modern mirrors aren't backed with silver anymore.”

“Then why have we been going out in the sun for the last year!?”

“That whole thing is just a myth. We’re more sensitive to the sun, but it won't kill us.”

“Hm.”

You made Sunghoon promise he wouldn't try to feed on you, which he complied easily. He asserted that you could discuss this whole thing in the morning when you weren't so wasted. You nodded wearily, yawning dramatically. With that, he helped you to your bed, telling you to keep laying on your side lest you throw up and drown yourself. In no more than a couple of minutes from the moment your head hit the pillow, your consciousness faded and lulled you to sleep.

Come the present day, you found yourself curled up in your bed with Sunghoon at your side. It was supposed to simply be platonic, watching movies and hanging out, but that line has become blurred at some point. You hadn't kissed or anything of that sort, but things had certainly progressed ambiguously. Neither of you cared much to work out what you were to each other. You only knew you loved the feeling of his cold skin against yours, which was comparatively blazing. You did seem to get suspiciously warmer when he was around.

At some point or another, he'd practically moved in with you. You weren't sure when only that he didn't seem to go home anymore. You didn't mind. Oftentimes he slept on your couch, or more like rested. He didn't actually need to sleep. Sometimes, though, you let him in your bed. More often than not you'd wake up to the smell of breakfast wafting through the house, or the scent of fresh puff pastries from down the road. You figured Sunghoon’s unexpected cooking prowess came from his many many years of life experience. It was nice to spend your days and nights with him.

Lately, you had taken note of how Sunghoon’s eyes seemed to linger on you more than usual. Frankly, it made you nervous. Even if you ignored the whole vampire situation. Sunghoon was undeniably attractive, and he was right next to you. Even when you weren't looking at him, you could sense him boring a hole into the side of your head. His eyes were always dark. The deep brown color of his irises bordered on black, glossy and reflecting everything he looked at. You tried to avoid maintaining eye contact with him most of the time, knowing you could get lost in his intoxicating gaze. You'd studied the fine sculpt of his face many times before. His nose was rather large, with a remarkably straight bridge that never failed to impress you. The tip of it pointed upward so very slightly, you wouldn't have noticed it if he were simply some stranger passing you on the street. Your favorite thing about him had to be his moles. He had 6 that you knew of. The most prominent ones rested under his right eye and on the leftmost side of the bridge of his nose. One was above his left nostril, another by his lip, and the faintest of all was just above the left portion of his upper lip. The only one you know of that wasn't on his face was about halfway down his neck.

Truthfully, you wanted nothing more than to pounce on him. Months of flirty remarks and fleeting touches were beginning to build up. This particular day you were both making subtle moves. His hand inching ever so slightly toward your inner thigh. Your hand gradually sliding up his chest. You couldn't forget to acknowledge the silky smooth muttering in your ear. That was it. You couldn't wait any longer.

“Sunghoon…” You took your bottom lip between your teeth.

Sunghoon turned his head to look at you, though he was blatantly staring at your lips.

“If you say no, pretend this didn't happen. Can… Can I kiss you?”

His thick brows turned upward in surprise. The shock soon morphed into a devious grin.

“I thought you'd never ask. You may.”

Without so much as another word, you shifted to straddle his hips, ensuring you had him stuck in place against the headboard. Your eyes flitted between Sunghoon’s dark eyes and plush lips briefly before you cupped the side of his face and took his lips into your own. The kiss was hungry, desperate from months of tension. Sunghoon’s hands came to rest on your hips with a harsh grip.

His hands roamed the shape of your body at his discretion, eagerly as if he was trying to memorize every part of you. Sunghoon peppered kisses from your forehead down to your ankles which landed him on the floor, kneeling. He grasped your wrist, turning it over so he could kiss your pulse point.

“I know when you first found out about me, you made me promise not to feed… Of course, you can say no but please, please can I bite you?”

Your lips pursed in a small frown but admittedly the idea didn't scare you so badly as it once did.

“It doesn't hurt that badly. I swear. It… yeah. It doesn't hurt that badly.”

His eyes had begun to well up with tears. He was desperate, truly. It was hard for you to process how badly he seemed to want you. Ever since you met him he'd wondered about the taste of your warm blood.

“Please? Just your wrist?” Sunghoon whimpered. “Just need to taste you.”

You hesitated for a minute, staring into his wet pleading eyes. Fuck it.

“Fine. But if I tell you to stop then you better.”

“I will, I promise. You trust me, don't you?”

You nodded, letting Sunghoon grasp your hand. He remained on the floor with his legs folded neatly underneath him. Soft, slow kisses peppered the inner side of your wrist. Sunghoon whispered a thank-you against your skin before opening his mouth wide and sinking his fangs into your wrist, right into a prominent vein.

“Ow, shit!” You winced and resisted your instinct to pull your arm out of his grasp. The pain was sharp, nearing an icy cold, but it didn't last long before a red-hot warmth began to spread outward, originating from the point of his bite.

Sunghoon looked undeniably hot like this. Eyes squinted to the point of almost being closed. Upon releasing his teeth from you, he whispered small words of gratitude between laps of the flowing blood. This was quite interesting, you thought, given you spent your life thinking vampires would suck blood up through their teeth like straws. This was… sexier. The way he had to nip and suck at your already bruising skin in order to drink.

“Sunghoon,” You called softly. “Enough.”

He swiveled his head to look up at you, ceasing his ministrations in an instant and pressing firmly on your puncture wounds with his thumb to stop the bleeding. The way he looked at you like you were the most divine meal known to humanity made your stomach twist, especially with the way your blood stained his lips and dribbled down the form of his chin. Motioning to get off his knees and onto the bed instead, you were shocking yourself with your own decisions.

“Kiss me.”

Sunghoon paused.

“Don't you want me to, you know, rinse my mouth out?”

“Hmm… No.”

“Oh, shit.”

At that, Sunghoon wasted no time in positioning himself back on the bed. Much like you were in the beginning, you settled your legs on either side of his hips. There was a new spark in his eyes, increasingly desperate and intrigued. A chill ran down your spine with the metallic tang that quickly overtook your taste buds once you pulled Sunghoon back into a kiss. This, you thought, had to be the most taboo thing you'd ever done.

“You're something special, you know that?” Sunghoon growled between kisses. This he meant. He had been intimate with humans before, provided how long he'd been around it would be odd if he hadn't. However, many of them never let him get even close to this point. Being with you now had his mind growing foggy and heavy with lust. The curiosity of how much more he could get away with rattled through his thoughts.

The coiling sensation of need in the pit of your stomach was starting to become too intense for you to ignore much longer. Experimentally, you took the initiative to rock your hips back and forth just a bit. Sunghoon tensed up beneath you with a barely audible noise of surprise. The toothy smirk that followed felt like it was about enough to make you pass out on the spot. You felt a thrill of pleasure and power over him upon increasing the pace, your hips rolling in circles. His breathing quickened and his hands moved to grip your hips, his grip tight and unyielding. You knew just based on how pliant he'd become that he was at your mercy, and you were absolutely thriving.

“I never took you as the submissive type, Sunghoon.”

“Ah, the more you know. I- I never took myself as it either.”

The initially jarring flavor of your blood against your tongue had started to become less disconcerting. Something about the moral implications of what you were engaging in set a churning fire in your stomach. Much to Sunghoon’s dismay, you ceased your movements though his disappointment didn’t last long.

“Want you to touch me,” You muttered against his lips. He hesitated for a moment, surprised by the sudden request, before happily agreeing. His hands roamed your body shakily, exploring every contour. You felt a warmth spread through you at his touch, despite his skin being so cold. Sunghoon’s hands came to grasp at your chest, absentmindedly rubbing gentle circles around your nipples with his thumbs. You hadn't bothered to wear a bra tonight, your blouse being the only enduring barrier between him and your bare chest. Your hands came to rest with one tangling into his jet-black locks of hair and the other on the small of his back. Sunghoon tucked his head into the space between your head and shoulder, nipping at your neck lightly. Just enough to cause a pleasurable yet painful sensation.

You took a moment to collect your thoughts whilst Sunghoon continued his musings. As dazed as you were starting to feel, you felt some semblance of peace. The man you'd been lusting over for so long was here with you, with the last slivers of fading sunlight illuminating your forms. His body felt so right against yours. His innate coldness melding with your burning heat created the perfect temperature balance. You came back to your senses at a particularly high whine from Sunghoon and a tug at the hem of your shorts.

“Yes, Hoon?”

“May I touch you here, too?”

His fingertips ghosted over your groin. You nodded. Now, with his glossy eyes staring at you hazily, you could take proper note of the dribbles of drying blood around his mouth. After repositioning so that your back was against Sunghoon’s chest, you untied the strings of your black paperbag-styled pants and slipped out of them easily to reveal your underwear. They were relatively basic, bright red and soft material, though a thin band of white lace at the waistband added some visual intrigue. A satisfied smirk crossed Sunghoon’s face, did you wear these specifically for him?

One of his limber fingers dragged up and down the vaguely discernible form of your cunt, applying just enough pressure to make your breath catch in your throat. Your head tipped back, eyes fluttering shut to allow you to savor the moment. None of his movements were particularly special, it was only the fact it was Sunghoon that was sending shockwaves through your body. Sunghoon stopped only to hook his fingers through the bands of your panties and tear them off with ease. This prompted a gasp of surprise from you.

“Swear I'll get you new ones,” He sighed. “Though I have a feeling from this point onward you won't be needing them when you're around me.”

There wasn't ample time to process before Sunghoon returned his hand to its previous locale. With one quick motion, he gathered your arousal on his fingertips and landed an exceptionally light slap on your clit.

“Oh hell, Sunghoon, give me some warning.” You whimpered but melted against his touch regardless.

Rubbing slow circles against you, he issued a glaringly insincere apology, noting that with how slick you were already you didn't seem to find it unenjoyable. He spread your hole open with his pointer and index fingers, allowing him to rub and prod with his middle finger. He'd only inserted down to his second knuckle, teasing you wordlessly.

“More- Please more, promise I can handle it.”

“As you wish.”

“Are we in The Princess Diaries n-”

Your chiding was cut short by Sunghoon sinking two fingers into you, forming what resembled the sign language for ‘ILY’ with his hand. Resisting how you clenched around his digits, he took a moment to stretch and familiarize himself with the contours of your insides.

“You're so warm, love. Feels amazing.”

With your prompting and guidance, he soon found a pace that suited both of you, his fingers thrusting in and out tactfully and curling just before his pull outwards each time. You'd started to tremble with the added joy of his free hand groping at your tits through the material of your sleep shirt. Every time Sunghoon pumped inward, his palm hit firmly against your clit and added another intoxicating layer to the increasing pleasure filling your core.

Sunghoon was gaining from this too. Your subconscious jerks and wriggles provided consistent enough friction against his cock, which strained painfully against his pants, were enough to leave him hungering for more. It had been some time now since he'd last been intimate with anybody. He found he could seduce pretty much anyone he desired through his odd appeal, but he never found that to be any fun. It was far more interesting to let things develop naturally, the chase, even if it meant waiting longer than he wanted. It was always more fulfilling this way. He had all the time in the world to make it happen regardless.

Breathing in Sunghoon’s scent, and what you suspected were pheromones, you found yourself approaching your climax swiftly. You directed him to stop, much to his surprise.

“Did I do something wrong?” He asked softly. “Do you want to stop?”

You shook your head, watching with intrigue when Sunghoon removed his fingers from your hole and mindlessly licked his fingers. Damn.

“You're doing amazingly, but… I'd like to suck you off if you're up to it. I'm curious about this submissive side of you.”

Before you knew it you were sitting with your knees folded beneath you at the end of the bed. Sunghoon grabbed his long discarded coat and folded it neatly for you to rest on, guarding your knees from the unforgiving hardwood flooring. Sunghoon unfastened the top 3 buttons of his white undershirt which revealed a tantalizing view of his collarbones and the majority of his chest. You had seen him in rather tight-fitting tank tops before but seeing his bare skin made you feel faint.

You cupped the form of Sunghoon’s cock that pressed through the black gabardine fabric of his pants which pulled a low groan out of him. At some point, he lost track of the last time someone else touched him in such a manner but this, he thought, made it well worth the wait. You were growing too eager to keep it up for long though. One of your hands slid up beneath his shirt which sent a shiver up his spine, the other fumbling to undo the silver pants button and pull down the zipper. You found your gaze fixated on the wet patch forming on his white boxer briefs. Hell, he really was enjoying this. Deciding you were too impatient to remove things any further, Sunghoon pushed the waistband of his pants down enough to allow you to pull his underwear down to his thighs.

A shaky sigh rattled Sunghoon’s body, relishing in the feeling of his cock finally being freed and slapping against his stomach. The tip was glistening, swollen, and came to rest just a little ways beneath his naval. Yet there was one overarching surprise. A piercing below his glans, a barbell made of what you assumed to be black stainless steel or titanium. Sunghoon seemed to notice you staring and shifted slightly.

“I can take it out if it's off-putting.”

“No,” You felt your cheeks flush deeper if that was even possible. “I'm curious. I think… I think that it suits you well.”

Sunghoon sighed and made a small noise of acceptance. You told him not to touch you unless instructed, moving one hand to caress the smooth skin of his inner thigh. You could feel him tense beneath your touch. Taking his shaft into your grasp, you rubbed small circles to his tip before taking a few lazy strokes to spread his precum down the entire length. Cracking a somewhat wicked smirk, you looked up at Sunghoon, letting spit run down your chin onto his cock. Maintaining eye contact all the while, trying to ignore how his dewy eyes made your stomach churn. Finally connecting your lips to the head of his length made Sunghoon jump, his hand flying forward to cup your cheek but stopping just before making contact, choosing obedience instead. A little pinch to the thigh conveyed your approval.

His girth sat comfortably in your mouth, pleasantly heavy against your tongue. Sunghoon wasn't all that veiny, though the defined underside of his shaft made up for it in your eyes. While it made no difference when it came to sensation, he had two small moles dotted along his cock which in some odd way you found sort of cute. You were glad to learn he had moles below his neck after all.

Taking your time, you peppered feather-light kisses down his shaft, sometimes allowing more time for you to prod at the slit of his tip with your tongue. You eventually fit the entirety of him in your mouth. Despite your field of view only consisting of Sunghoon’s lower abdomen, the sounds of him panting and trying to suppress moans painted a perfectly vivid scene in your mind. You started to bob your head up and down, lending extra attention to his piercing, moving it around tactfully with your tongue. Every movement pulled muted cries from Sunghoon as he did his best not to chase the pleasure with bucking hips.

Figuring he'd been behaving aptly, you grasped Sunghoon's hand and let him card his fingers through your soft hair. Finally, you felt you were beginning to break him down wholly. Once he began to beg, you cupped his balls in the palm of your hand. Damn. They were quite large, you mused to yourself, rather even.

“Shit- Please! Please, please!”

You removed your mouth from his cock for just long enough to mess with him.

“Please what?” You giggled. “Use your words.”

Knowing exactly what he wanted, you didn't grant him any time to reply, taking his entire length back down your throat in one fell sweep. A shocked moan tore through Sunghoon’s throat, accidentally yanking your hair harshly.

“Mmph, gonna cum-” His breath caught harshly in his chest. “So close, don't stop, please!”

Just before he'd have tumbled over the edge to his orgasm, you completely removed yourself from him. Sunghoon's eyes shot open, and you swore there were tears in his eyes. He let out a pathetic whine and demanded to know why you quit when he was so close.

“We aren't done yet. We aren't done yet and I want every drop of cum you've been storing for god knows how long.”

Yeah, Sunghoon was sure now. You were going to be the end of him.

“Come on, Hoonie, let me take care of you.”

Sunghoon nodded meekly, heeding your command to settle near the headboard, leaning his back against it. He had discarded the rest of his clothing in the process, save for the tight fitting white tank he'd worn under all his layers.

“So,” Your hands wandered to his toned triceps. “You've been hiding all this?”

“Been saving it for you, baby.” Sunghoon tried to maintain his suave exterior, but you knew better than that now. Even then, the uncertain laugh he let out after told all.

Crawling onto his lap, your knees settled on either side of his hips. You took Sunghoon's cock in your hand again, keeping him in place so you could slowly rub yourself against him, the warmth of your folds making him shiver. His arm raised to wrap around the small of your back before dropping back into place, something that didn't go unnoticed by you. Despite not having said anything for a while he seemed to have kept your previous command in mind.

“Hmm. Aren't you obedient?”

“Yes, ma-” He stuttered. “Yes…”

You cocked an eyebrow and urged him to say what he was going to say to begin with. With a whine he commented that you were mean… though that wasn't stopping him.

“Yes, ma'am.” Sunghoon's eyes fluttered closed for only a second’s time before he locked eyes with you, intensely and with pupils blown wide. “Yes, ma'am. I wanna be so good for you.”

“Christ…” Your voice came out barely above a whisper. “Alright. You can touch, love, but don't you even think about cumming until I tell you to. Ok?”

Sunghoon was quick to agree to your conditions and wasted no time in getting his grip on your soft skin. Lining his length up with your hole, you gradually sunk down until your hips were flush with his. You stayed still for a few moments, claiming it was to let Sunghoon get accustomed to being inside you, but truthfully you needed the time to become situated with how well he filled you.

Brushing his jet black hair away from his eyes, you felt pretty confident that you were the only thing in the world to Sunghoon at that moment.

Nothing could've properly prepared you for the first few movements, the drag of his cock against your walls made you gasp. His piercings added just enough friction for you to notice the difference. Sunghoon didn't seem to be in much better shape given his ironclad grip on you.

It didn't take long for you to start feeling greedy, bouncing up and down progressively quicker. Everything was just too good. The stretch of your walls, the borderline soft cries from the man under you. Yet you had an idea… one you intended to act on.

“Hoonie,” You purred with an almost teasing tone and tapped your neck. “Want to bite me, hm? Before you ask, I'm sure.”

Sunghoon looked at you as if you'd lost your mind entirely. After making you confirm once again he eagerly accepted your offer. He pulled you closer to him, pressed against his chest. Nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck, Sunghoon left small kitten licks on the skin above your artery.

With little warning, his pointed fangs pierced your skin once more. This time the sensation was much more intense, causing you to clench harshly around Sunghoon’s cock which elicited a sharp whine from him. Like anticipated, the stinging pain was swiftly replaced with burning heat. Your mind grew hazy with warm waves of pleasure which Sunghoon would later explain to be an effect of his saliva.

“Damnit, Hoon… S-Shit that feels good.”

Sunghoon could only muster up a pathetic sob in response, too overwhelmed by the pleasure. You felt whatever blood he didn't manage to lap up trail down your neck and through every curve of your chest. Every day you spent with Sunghoon seemed to be a day of discovery for you, tonight was certainly no different.

Upon clearing the fog over your conscience enough to think straight, your hand snaked into Sunghoon’s hair, granting silent permission for him to keep drinking. You made sure he was alright before taking a deep breath and lifting your hips up. Sunghoon's whole body jolted when you dropped down, unexpected only to him as he had been so preoccupied with your neck.

“Just relax, dear, I've got you. Promise. Ok?”

Sunghoon let the tension drop from his shoulders at your words. As new as this whole submissive deal was to him, he felt inclined to trust you and lessen his control. Each bounce on his cock melted his mind so deliciously. You sensed he likely couldn't last much longer, which you knew in part was entirely your fault for teasing him so much, though you didn't find it to be an issue. You were as desperate as he was in truth.

Rather quickly, calculated moves devolved into the both of you moaning against one another. The times where his hips happened to snap up to near yours at just the right moment were easily becoming your favorite. Sunghoon pulled himself away just enough to meet your eyes, his own brimming with overwhelmed tears.

“C-Can I cum this time? Please?”

You cocked your head to the side expectantly.

“Please… ma’am? I think I've been so good, I’ll-”

You cut off his sentence with a kiss. Something about the sheer desperation laced throughout his voice was enough to bring you to your edge, you thought it would be fun to deny him again… but you had more days to come. For now, you didn't want to hold it anymore.

“Yes, Hoonie, you may. Good boy.”

At that, Sunghoon pulled you in tightly, slamming the whole length of his cock as deep inside of you as anatomically possible. Like music, his choked moans and sobs fell graciously upon your ears. Sunghoon’s cum filled you in quick gushes and whatever couldn't fit leaked down his shaft.

Freeing one of your hands, you reached down to rub your clit in tight circles, sending you over to your climax. Sunghoon was able to pull himself together enough to assist you in riding it out and in turn shoving his cum deeper inside of you. You were confident this was the most intense feeling you'd ever experienced by far, and you saw yourself getting addicted to it… not that you minded an excuse to fuck a man this unbelievably fine.

Well over a few moments were spent in total silence besides the heavy breathing and lingering whimpers from your exhausted frames.

“Come on,” you pulled off Sunghoon as much as you hated losing the full feeling of being full of him. “Gotta pee. You too.”

You crawled off the bed and started for the restroom before noticing a distinct lack of footsteps behind you. Sunghoon was sat on the edge of the bed, messing with his nails absentmindedly.

“Sunghoon? You ok?”

“Just… happy, I think. I'm not used to- nevermind.”

You decided you weren't going to pry, urging him to his feet. Once he was in front of you, you softly squished his cheeks together before simply holding his face and smiling. Despite everything you had just done with him and how he was still bloody, sweaty, and fully naked you could only think about how strikingly soft and kind his smile was. The way his eyes crinkled shut and fangs peeked out made your heart swell, especially in this moment.

Sunghoon bent down to place a kiss on your forehead.

“Alright, let's go get washed up.”

It seemed to you that Sunghoon couldn't keep his eyes off of you. When you wiped each others faces clean with warm cloths, got in cozy pajamas, and clamored back in to bed after removing the soiled sheets, he was only watching you. It was a feeling that he couldn't quite place, but he felt like he could watch you this way forever.

Sunghoon wrapped his body around yours, enjoying the warmth of your back against his chest. When your hand found his, interlocking your fingers, he almost felt like he could faint.

“Thank you.”

Behind his spent tone was a tenderness you had never picked up in the time you've known him.

“For what, Hoon?”

“Indulging me, I guess.” He giggled. “For welcoming me into your home all this time and hopefully seeing me for more than my astonishingly good looks.”

You chose to ignore the self-glaze for now. The moment was too precious to consider messing with him now. The room and bedsheets too cozy.

“You don't have to thank me. I think I should be thanking you for helping me navigate through life in an entirely new town. Keeping me company.”

“I…”

“You don't have to say anything more, Sunghoon.”

“I'd be content to lay here like this with you for the rest of time. However long that may be.”

[erinwantstowrite]

opinions on ai?

This is the perfect time to share something I wrote a few months ago when I was upset about it:

AI is the bane of my existence and I hate it so much. Not only because of the environmental impact that it has, but because of how it gives us absolutely nothing of value in creative spaces and is actually a detriment to our future, rather than being "innovative" like companies want us to believe.

If you're using AI to write notes for you, or to answer questions, to write your essays and your discussion posts, you are hurting yourself. But eventually you will hurt others with your willing ignorance. You are not learning, you are not taking the time to push yourself to new bounds. You are not absorbing the information you need, and for why? Because it's hard? Life is hard. Learning is hard. If learning was easy, you wouldn't be learning anything at all. And one day when you need to use these tools you put down and gave to a program in order to do your job, you are going to get someone hurt in some way. If you're going into teaching and you didn't bother to learn about childhood development because you let an AI take your notes because you couldn't be half-assed to sit through an hour long lecture, you will fail every student that comes your way. If you're an engineer and you had AI do the math for you, something that you make will break and it could kill someone. Because the AI can not even count how many times the letter 'r' is in strawberry, but you're trusting it to make bridges or design buildings?

And in a creative sense, you are not an artist if you use AI. I will scream it from the rooftops if I have to.

You are not an artist if you use AI.

Because to be an artist is to put your very soul into what you create. And an AI has no soul. To be an artist is to lay yourself bare for people to witness and interpret, and it's scary but it's freeing. To be an artist is to make a message with your art, to have people a thousand years from now sit in a museum and feel connected to who you were so far in the past. To think that humanity may be different but we are also inherently the same. To be an artist is to despair over the process of creating your art because it's difficult, and time consuming, and damn does it drive you crazy. But then you get that end result and you realize you learned something about yourself, you got better at something that brings you joy, you created and now you see what you are capable of, and what you will be capable of in the future. To be an artist is to connect with someone because of what you made, and that someone includes yourself.

We keep telling young artists that they need to be better now, they need to quit if they aren't good at it on the first try. We keep acting like we didn't start from somewhere ourselves, like we were born with the fine motor skills and the talent needed to create. It's because our attention spans can't handle over 20 seconds and we need multiple videos playing to drown out our own thoughts. We have to look at comment sections to see the court of public opinion before we make a judgement ourselves. If anything is out of the ordinary or doesn't look the way we expect or want, it must be shamed. And this existence is exhausting because at the end of the day, we have done nothing of value. When coming across a video of a young artist who took the time out of their day to create, we need to encourage them to continue going, tell them that their work is worthy. Because it is. It is worthy because they made it. If we shoot them down before they can go anywhere, we've just killed an artist that could have painted the next Starry Night, or created a sculpture that millions of people would try to visit. We've shot down someone who could teach others how to create one day in their future. We shot them down and killed their inspiration and motivation, and they might turn to someone else to do it for them because they will believe they are not worthy enough or talented enough to make it.

When I was still in school, my favorite part of the year was seeing the projects put up on the wall. The silly displays our teachers put up to show a holiday with slightly wonky paper snowflakes, the posters that the art students made with "too many lightning bolts around the guitar", the signs for school dances, the yearbooks that students spent all year making, the English class posters that depicted scenes from what they were reading and they were made with stick figures or they had someone draw out butterflies. I loved seeing the decorations for Homecoming Week, loved looking ta the booths that everyone made for our career and science fairs. I liked when we put on talent shows still, when we did pep rallies and fashion shows and we saw everyone get together to have fun and not care if it was "perfect." No one there was a professional artist, not yet, but that didn't make it any less entertaining or creative.

We dance because we want to feel how our bodies move and express ourselves in ways words cannot. We paint and we draw and make pottery and quilts and pictures because at one point, all we had were cave paintings of our hands, and we still look at them with reverence for where we started. We sing and we drum and we laugh because music is a universal language that anyone can understand, and isn't that breathtaking? We write so that people in the future can pour themselves over our words and learn from us, so that kids can hide their books underneath their covers with a little flashlight when their parents put them to bed hours ago but they just can't put our story down they have to know what comes next! We cook for our loved ones and have family recipes that mean we've been tasting the same food that our family we never got to meet were eating too.

We create because humans are meant to create. We put our love into the process, we put our dreams and our hopes and our hard earned lessons into these creations.

AI will never have that. AI has none of the process, and therefore, it is not art. We can gripe about how art has different meanings all we want, we can shout that art is only art if it invokes an opinion or a thought, but that is not what makes art. Because there is still effort put into placing a shoe on a pedestal, or painting a yellow square, or painting a mural on a wall, or writing poetry in a tiny notebook at school, or melting crayons together, or anything that requires you putting it together. If AI is doing all the work for you, then you've accomplished nothing. And you stole from the people that actually did accomplish something. You stole not only their effort, but you stole their process, their feelings, their hope and their dreams and their ideas of the future.

AI is nothing and will ultimately become obsolete. Because humans will not stop creating just because companies are pushing for us to stop and hand it over to them. They want us to stop creating, they want us to pay them for it, they want us to put blind trust into what they're doing, they want us to forget that they are stealing from us. I will not forget. I will never forget. Because I was born to sing and dance and write and draw and cook, and when I die, my body will go right back to the Earth and perhaps flowers will grow around my grave. I will still be creating even then. And even if AI is still around and still trying to steal from us, I will die knowing that it could never do the same.

[writtenbymisunderstoodnerds]

Falling in love again (Christen Press x Reader)

Writers block is being a pain at the moment so sorry it's been a while since I posted. I'll be back to trying to write my list of requests in a few weeks when I'm back from holiday. This wasn't requested, just a random idea and probably not very good but I hope you like it!

Warnings: Death of a partner, grief. If you find anything else let me know and I'll add it!

Words: 4.3K

---

Almost two years had passed since I lost my person. The person I thought I would spend my life with, the person I loved more than I thought it was possible to love someone. Life was cruel like that, giving you a person who understood you, who loved you so deeply, only to rip it away in the worst way possible. The day the phone call came, telling me Talia had been in an accident that claimed her life was a blur. Honestly, at times it still felt like a dream. The overwhelming grief, disbelief and fear I felt that day still ever present if I thought back to it. 

I had almost quit soccer for good after that, but I knew she wouldn't want me too. Talia loved watching me play, she knew how much I loved it, always encouraging me and supporting me in everything I did. So I kept going, every game I played, I played for her. The grief had faded since then. It was always there, it always would be, some days were worse than others, but it was bearable. It didn't consume me like it once had.   

One of the things Talia used to love was colouring in my tattoos. Not that I would have admitted it to her, but once we started dating, my new tattoos were purely designed so she could colour them. Our spare time was often spent with her colouring them while I drew or did random stuff. It was something I found myself doing often, especially when I was missing her.

Someone sat down next to me as I slowly coloured in one of the many tattoos scattered over my body. I didn't pay them much attention, continuing colouring, "What are you doing?"

I shrugged, not looking up at Emily, "Colouring."

"Is she colouring in her tattoos again?" Kelley asked sitting across from us.

"Yup, we really need to get her paper or a colouring book."

"Have you ever noticed even when there's paper around she still does it? Look at how comfortable and peaceful she looks. It's like a built in stress relief." I fought the urge to chuckle at how they talked as if I wasn't there. To be fair I was only half listening. 

"Why do you colour in your tattoos?"

I sighed, putting down the pen. The team had been bugging me for months now about it. These were some of the people I trusted most in the world, there was no reason to keep hiding it from them. "It reminds me of my wife. She would sit there for hours colouring in my tattoos while I drew. It became sort of a routine."

"You're married? You don't wear a ring."

I pulled the chain around my neck that held a simple black band and a silver band with a line of diamonds. "Mine and hers," I took a deep breath trying to control my emotions, "She died almost 2 years ago, I only take it off for games."

"God Y/n, I'm so sorry," Ali said, pulling me in for a quick hug.

Alex was the next to pull me into a tight hug, "How come we never knew? We've known you longer then two years?"

"No one knew except our close friends and family. At the time we weren't as close as we are now and I guess I couldn't bring myself to mention it after. We never specifically hid it, just didn't put it out there. She never wanted to the world to know who she was. Never wanted who she was with to impact her kids."

"She had kids?"

"She was a teacher at a school for kids with disabilities. They meant the world to her, she would do anything for them. It was always a worry that her suddenly being known would affect her job in some way."

"It sounds like she was an amazing person. I'm sad we never got to meet her."

"You did, you just never knew who she was to me."

"Talia? I remember you mentioning that she passed away and that's why you took that break," Alyssa asked.

"Yup, we had been married 4 years the day you met her."

"That's why you completely disappeared that day then wouldn't tell us why."

A small smile appeared on my face remembering that day. We had booked a hotel room, ordered way to much room service, gave each other massages, then had a bath and watched movies. It was simple, but one of my favourite nights besides the day we got married, "She had flown in that weekend just so we could celebrate our anniversary. We never spent one apart."

---

Christen sat down on her bed, staring up at me for a second before speaking, "That's why you turn everyone down when they ask you out? Including me."

There had been many people over the years that had asked me on dates, all being turned down for obvious reasons. Christen had been one of them though, about a year after Talia passed. Besides Talia, Christen was the only person I could actually see myself with if I ever got to a point where I felt ready. That wasn't now, but part of me hoped it would happen soon. Despite the guilt and grief that was there, I wanted the chance to be happy again with someone. We had talked about it a few times and neither of us wanted the other to hold on for too long. Talia would want me to be happy, to move on and one day, when the time was right, I would.

I sighed sitting down next to Christen. Sitting or lying on the others bed was a pretty common occurrence when we roomed together. "You know I know she would want me to be happy, but every time I even think about starting to date again, it feels like I'm betraying her. Like if I start something, I'll forget her."

"You'll never forget her. No matter what you're doing or who you're with, she will always be in your heart. She'll always be your person, but you can love someone else while still loving her just as much as you always have. It's not one or the other and if the next person doesn't understand that then they aren't worth the time. There's no rush to move on."

"Thanks Chris. Out of all the people that have asked me out, you're the only one I thought about saying yes to. I'm sorry I wasn't ready."

Christen placed her hand on my knee, squeezing gently. Something that always seemed to make me feel peace. "Don't be. I always knew there was a slim chance of you saying yes and I accepted that. I was just happy that it didn't change our friendship."

"Would you still be open to that date? Not right now, but sometime in the near future."

"Of course I would. There's no rush or pressure though Y/n/n, whenever you're ready, I'm ready. And if you're never ready that's okay too."

--- Today was two years since Talia was taken. Of course it was game day. When I realised the date it was like a weight was sitting on my chest. Christen was still asleep so I slipped quietly into the bathroom to shower and let the tears out. I had originally been thinking about pulling out of the game, but after my shower I was actually feeling okay to play. I was determined to win for her. 

The final whistle blew as I clung onto whoever was closest, my knees trying to give out on me. The rush of emotions I felt was not what I expected. Happiness, relief, grief all rushing through me as I tried to hold it together in front of everyone. Letting my emotions show in front of friends or family was hard enough, I didn't need that happening in front of the fans. 

I managed to hold it together enough to greet the fans before we made our way to the locker room. As I put the necklace back on, I broke. Tears silently streaming down my cheeks before a sob forced it's way out. Instantly, Ali's arms wrapped around me tightly as I sobbed into her shoulder. I didn't like crying in front of people, but there was no stopping it. So for once, I just let it out with the comfort of the people I trusted most. 

Once I had calmed down, Ali finally spoke up, "What's going on Y/n/n?"

"I-it's been 2 years sin-since- I'm sorry."

Ali's arms tightened as another hand squeezed mine, "Never apologise for feeling how you feel. You can always feel how you feel with us. We've got you always."

We spent longer in the locker room than we normally would as the girls took turns comforting me and making sure I was okay before we left. After dinner, most of the team ended up in one of the rooms for team bonding. There were quite a few questions about Talia, normally I didn't talk about her much because of the emotions it brings up, but everyone seemed genuinely interested in her.  Also, talking about her was actually quite therapeutic.  

Even though it was therapeutic, talking about Talia still brought up emotions so I had found myself cuddled up with Ali for comfort. I had almost went to Christen for comfort, but the guilt had started to creep in again making me decide against it.

"How old were you when you got married? It must have been quite young," Tierna asked.  

"We were. We started dating at 19, married at 23.  Possibly too young in some peoples opinions, but at the time we just got the idea in our heads and went with it. I proposed and 2 months later we were married. My time with Talia was incredible, it was fun and low maintenance. We met in college when we both didn't have a lot of money, most of our dates in our first few years were picnics, walks or movie nights. 

I mean our first anniversary, we made each other homemade cards. Talia got me marshmallows because I was obsessed with them at the time and I got her chocolate and gummy bears. We ended up at the beach, making smores before going back to my apartment and making pasta for dinner. To this day that was probably one one of my favourites. Talia never cared about fancy or expensive things, that never changed the further I got in my professional career or as our money situation changed. She was just happy if we were together."

I knew I was rambling, but I couldn't help myself. Talking about Talia before I lost her was one of my favourite things. The girls didn't seem to mind though as everyone's attention seemed to be completely on me. "She sounds like she was an incredible person."

"She was. I think she would have gotten along with all of you. Especially Emily and Kelley. Talia loved pranks and just being annoying. She wrapped up a carrot and gave it to me more than once, she would pull little pranks all the time or poke and prod at me constantly."

Later that night, Christen got my attention as I slipped into my bed, "Hey, you doing okay? I know today was hard."

"It was, but I'm feeling okay right now. I think talking about her helped. I've never really let myself because of the emotions it brings up. Turns out it's quite freeing to talk about her."

"The team would agree, it was nice to hear about her. I can see how much you love her."

"It's uh not weird for you is it?"

"No. Y/n, she was your wife, you love her, you always will. I know that. If we were to eventually get to a point past friendship, I would never expect anything else. You can talk to me about her whenever you want and I don't want you to feel bad about it."

"Thank you Chris. I don't want you to think I'm leading you on or anything. I have every intention of asking you on a date, I just need a bit of time."

"Hey, I don't think that at all. Like I said, there is no rush, there's no expectations."

---

It had been about six months since mine and Christen's initial conversation. I was finally feeling like I was ready to try dating again, all I had to do was ask. It had taken longer than I thought it would and a part of me was thinking that Christen would have lost interest by now or just didn't want to deal with my past. A part of me was tempted to not ask, to save myself from rejection, but I also knew there was no way to know unless I asked. 

"So."

"So?"

I took a deep breath, trying to clear some of the nerves that had been building. I had never asked one out let alone dated anyone else besides Talia. Christen sent me a small smile, the nerves melting away when I saw the adoration in her eyes. "Will you go on a date with me Chris?"

"You're ready for that?"

"I think so, I've been thinking about it a lot recently. It's just this is something I haven't done with anyone besides Talia so I might not be perfect or even close to it, but I'll try."

"I would love to Y/n. Just tell me if we go on this date and you realise you're not ready. I'll understand. You also don't have to be perfect, we'll figure this out as we go okay?"

"Thank you Chris. I'll pick you up at 6?"

"We're sharing a room."

"I'm going to get ready in Ali and Alex's room, that way I can pick you up."

"And they say chivalry is dead." 

---

Trying to plan a date was so far out of my comfort zone that I didn't even know where to start. Of course I had been on many dates with Talia, but that was different. It had been 10 or so years since my first and only first date. I knew Talia like the back of my hand, I knew what she liked, where she liked to go. Christen on the other hand, I knew her, but to a far lesser extent which was making me overthink. What if she didn't like what I planned? What if I did too much or not enough? 

Before I could continue to spiral, I decided to enlist the help of Tobin. Normally I would go to Ali, but Tobin was Christens bestfriend. 

"You okay Y/n?"

"No. Well yes but also no. Christen and I are going on a date tonight and I'm freaking out. I cannot for the life of me decide what to do. Every time something comes to mind, I convince myself that it's not enough. Chris will be the second person I've ever taken on a date, it needs to be perfect."

Tobin led me to sit on the bed as I had started to pace across the room. "Don't tell her I told you, but Chris doesn't care what you do, she's just happy to go out with you. Tell me your ideas?"

"I know she likes parks or gardens, beaches, picnics, museums, that sort of thing. There's not a beach around otherwise I would take her there and it'll be too late to take her to the museum but I found a nice park the other day. It has a lake and there were heaps of like lights and stuff. Was thinking picking up some takeaway and other bits to have a picnic at the park, but it doesn't seem like enough."

"Y/n, that is perfect. I know this is pretty much completely new to you, but you just need to try relax a little bit. You know Chris, she's your friend, you know what she likes. She's going to love a picnic in the park, maybe a walk around after."

"Thank you Tobs."

"Hey Y/n?"

"Yeah?"

"Chris is going into this knowing there's a chance you realise you're not ready and she'll understand that, everyone will. There'll be no hard feelings or anything. Just if that happens, please tell her sooner rather than later. I know you won't do it on purpose, but I don't want her to get her hopes up."

"I will. This wasn't a decision I made lightly, I feel ready and I'm really hoping I am. I admit, it does feel a bit weird, but I really like her Tobin. The last thing I want to do is hurt her."

Tobin smiled slightly, pulling me into a quick hug, "I know and so does Chris. Just take it one step at a time, you don't need to rush anything or do anything that doesn't feel right."

After one last hug I made my way to the door, "Thanks Tobs, I should go get ready before I make myself late."

Before heading back to my room, I ran down to the shop to get a few things. Picking out what to buy took longer than it should have. Everything I thought about buying, I ended up second guessing if Christen actually liked it. Time was running out though so I ended up picking out some wine I thought she liked and some other picnic type things.

Despite almost making myself late, I knocked on the door at exactly 6 pm, trying my best to push down the nerves. Tobin was right, Christen was my friend, I knew she didn't expect or even really like some fancy date. There was no real reason to be this nervous. Part of it was probably because of how new it was, part of me was second guessing if I was truly ready for this, but I think that was due to nerves and not wanting to hurt Christen. Another part was because it was Christen. Gorgeous, kind, thoughtful Christen. Anyone in their right mind would be nervous to be going on a date with her. 

"Hi Y/n/n."

"Hi."

Christen smiled, kissing my cheek softly, "You okay?" 

"A bit nervous, but I'm okay. You ready to go?"

We made our way out of the hotel, stopping to pick up takeaway before starting the ten minute walk to the park. Christen didn't ask about what we were doing, instead making random conversation. Knowing I was nervous, I had a feeling she was doing it on purpose to try calm me down. It was definitely working, my nerves were fading away the longer we talked and I wasn't thinking so much about if it was enough. Instead, I was letting myself be excited about it. 

When we got to the park, Christens eyes lit up as she looked around. I found a nice spot by the lake, spreading everything out on the blanket as Christen got comfortable. "How'd you find this place? It's beautiful."

"I stumbled upon it when I went for a walk the other night."

"You went for a walk, alone at night?"

"Maybe not my best idea, but I needed to clear my head away from our room, away from the hotel."

Concern covered Christens face as she straightened slightly, "Away from our room? Was I doing something wrong?"

"No, no you didn't do anything. I was trying to figure out if I asked you out or not. I guess I was worried that I had left it too long and maybe you weren't interested anymore. I also felt a bit guilty, making you wait so long. It seems unfair to you. Got in my head about it I guess. If you can't tell, I'm a bit of an overthinker sometimes."

"Well I'm glad you did. This wasn't unfair to me, I promise. You were honest about everything Y/n, you didn't give me false hope or lie to me. That was all I could ask of you. Are you feeling okay about this?"

"I am. Honestly, it feels a little bit weird which maybe you don't want to hear, but I'm really having a good time."

Christen smiled, taking my hand gently, "Look, I don't get how it feels, but I will never dismiss anything you're feeling. You can always talk to me about it. It's okay for it to feel weird because it probably is for you, I don't take offence to that."

"Thank you. Now lets eat before it gets cold."

We spent the next couple of hours talking about anything we could think of. There had never been anyone but Talia that I could talk to so comfortably without running out of things to talk about. That was until Christen came along. Long before there were any feelings, there had always been something about her that made me feel comfortable talking to her about things. Now I craved the conversations I could have with her. I wanted to get to know her more, from the mundane to the personal. 

Conversation continued as we walked around the park hand in hand then back to the hotel when it started to get late. The nerves had long faded by now, instead being replaced by giddiness and maybe butterflies. Going on a date with Christen felt right. Despite the lingering guilt, I knew Talia would approve. I knew that out of anyone to move on with she would have chosen Christen for me. That in itself brought a sense of peace. 

---

Christen slipped under the blankets on her bed, pulling me down with her. I laughed as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders, mumbling something about wanting cuddles. Pulling her closer, I left a soft kiss against her forehead before speaking. "You want me to sleep in your bed tonight?" 

Christen just nodded. We had just got back from our fifth date in two weeks. They could have been spaced out since we lived in the same city, but I felt like a smitten teenager again. Instead of the nerves that plagued me for our first date, I was excited about the dates. Maybe to some it was too many too quick, but I didn't care and Christen didn't seem to either.

Despite the amount of dates we had been on, we were planning on taking things slow. It was my idea to take it slow as this was something I hadn't done in a long time. We had kissed for the first time at the end of the last one, but even though we were rooming together, we hadn't slept in the same bed yet.

"That can be arranged, but I need to get changed and brush my teeth." She groaned dramatically, but let me go with a pout. After completing my nightly routine, I took my necklace off, putting it next to the bed. It felt unfair to Christen to be sleeping in the same bed as her while still wearing my wife's ring.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking it off."

"Because you want to or because you feel you have to?" I just shrugged, Christen stood up, grabbing the necklace and putting it back around my neck before her arms wrapped around my waist from behind. "I will never make you take this off. I never want you to feel like you have to for me okay? You will always love her and that's okay. It doesn't mean you can't have that love for someone else as well."

I nodded leaning back into her. One of my biggest fears with dating someone new was that they wouldn't understand or get mad at the fact that I will always be in love with someone else. That person just happened to not be here anymore. It was scary that I already felt myself falling for Christen, she was just such a beautiful person, inside and out. I don't think I could stop myself from falling even if I wanted to.

---

Christen and I were lying on my bed as the movie credits started to play. We were supposed to go out, but I wasn't feeling up to it. Talia's birthday was in a few days and I had been thinking about her a lot. No matter how much time passed, I still missed her just as much. I was feeling somewhat guilty about the new realisation that I was in love with Christen, like I was being unfaithful to Talia. I felt guilty a lot when Christen and I first started dating. It had mostly faded over the 6 months we had been together, though it always got worse near dates to do with Talia. I just had to keep reminding myself that there was nothing to feel guilty about and that she would be happy for me.

"I hope she's proud of me," I stated quietly, mostly to myself.

Christen turned her head slightly, "Maybe I didn't know her very well, but I know she is. You've come so far in your life and career. You are an amazing person, anyone would be proud of you."

"Sometimes I wish I could have one last conversation with her. See what she thinks of my life, where I am, who I'm with. I still talk to her sometimes, almost expecting a response, but of course it'll never come."

Her fingers laced with mine, squeezing slightly, "I'm sure she's listening and she's happy that you're living the life you want. That's what the people who love us should want for us."

I rolled over so I could look at her properly, brushing a piece of hair out of her face, "Have I ever thanked you? For letting me talk about her, for understanding that me loving her doesn't take away from what I feel for you, for always being there for me on days like our anniversary, or her birthday or the anniversary of her death. It's something I am forever grateful for Chris."

"I will always do all of those things, you don't ever need to thank me. I love you Y/n, I'll always be there for you no matter what."

"Y-you love me?"

"I do. You don't have to say it back, I just wanted you to know."

I kissed her softly, trying to show everything I was feeling, "I love you Chris."

[yumenoyousei]

I asked for a commission of my DC OC Shay from @jnephrite and look at my girl!! 😭 She so pretty I can't even😭😭😭 Always loved @jnephrite art so seeing Shay in hers is a blessing 🙏🏾

And since the fic is almost halfway through posting, I thought, might as well introduce Shay properly! EDIT: the fic, Awaking in Gotham, is now completed!

Full name: Shay Michelle Frank (♀) Occupation: Graphic Designer / YouTuber Height: 5'9"  Birthday: September 16th  ☀Virgo 🌙Aries ⬆Aquarius Proud African American/Haitian & Gothamite  Hobbies: Poetry, Arts, Rap/R&B music, help the Gotham North Community Center, Discover new artists (both musically and visual arts)

Shay was born and raised in Gotham, close to the infamous Crime Alley, by her maternal grandmother, Marie-Monique "Manmi Mo" Antoine, and with her 3 years older brother Zachary "Zee" Frank. Her mother died of childbirth (she had had complications with Zee which was why she was hospitalized when pregnant with Shay) so her whole family distrusted the American health system. This is why when her grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, they didn't go to the hospital and only went to the illegal clinic. (Also; money.) Her father is unknown. 

Ever since young, she went to the Gotham North Community Center, mostly run by the Black and Latinx communities of the Crime Alley neighbourhood. Her grandmother would teach the children about mostly Black literature but also all sorts of arts which is why Shay is such a creative person. That's also where she met Jason Todd for the first time when she was around 4-5.

Her brother very early on started to "run the streets" and started to hang out with bad crews, but always had his heart on his sleeves. He just couldn't find other ways to get money to make sure Shay had the right education/a chance away from crime.

Her grandma died when she was almost 17 and her brother died not even 4 weeks later (2 weeks after her 17th birthday) because of a dispute between gangs. (Allegedly) 

After her grandma and Zee died, she went to live in Metropolis with her second-degree cousin, Jennifer Antoine, until she graduated from university. Even when in Metropolis, she would go as much as she could back to Gotham to see her people/help the center.

She started a YouTube channel talking about Gotham's art and musical scene to change people's persepective of Gotham after too many people at Metropolis U "pitied" her for being a Gothamite. 

As soon as she was about to graduate, she applied to work at Wayne Entreprise back in Gotham. She got a job as a graphic designer and moved back to her city.

At the start of the fic, "Awaking in Gotham", she is 22 and has been working at WE for almost a year.

Read more about Shay (and her love story with Jason) on AO3! (Trying to update every week!)

Random notes about Shay:

As I wrote in the fic's notes, the first reason for creating Shay was: who the fuck would stay in Gotham that isn't a criminal and/or a vigilante??

So I created a black girl who loves her community and sees all it could be while being very conscious of what it is and its dangers. Then I went, hey! she'd be good with Jason while I was starting my Jason Todd Thirst so obv my fic turned into romance. lol

The name comes from Belgian rapper Shay, Montreal-based singer Shay Lia, and Haitian Montreal-based singer Shah Frank. As I was creating Shay I was obsessed with all three of them and the name Shay Frank wouldn't leave me.

Ngl, I gave a lot of me to Shay; like her Haitian roots and GAD but very quickly she went her own way and grew in this character I'm proud of. I'd like to say I also gave her my music taste but she is way more into hip-hop than me and she rejects most of my pop playlists (sadly).

Because Shay was based on me, all her entourage I created is based on people in my rl. lol

I also absolutely wanted her to be friends with Bernard because I absolutely love Bernard (and Bat SO who are civilians? Tim and Jason bonding over the fact their SO are the only civilians in the Batfam?! So many fun things to do!!)

Zee is also a character that I love, based on one of my favourite cousins, and I got lowkey mad at myself halfway through that he was dead. So I have an AU where he didn't die in my head lol 

I'd like to write a oneshot of it when I'm done with this fic.

Last fun fact about Shay that I wasn't able to put in fic yet: all the rogues annoy her (mostly because they cause mayhem that cancel events) but she madly respects Poison Ivy because of her convictions and: "is she wrong tho?" 

I have a lot of other small notes about Shay and the Shay-verse but I'll post the rest when the fic is completed!

EDIT 2024-10-04: I completely forgot to add the link to the post fic notes! So if you read Awaking in Gotham do check those other notes!

[livelaughlesbian00]

"Butch Awakening" BTVS Dream Storytime ft. Spike

I knew I liked women as a teen, but realizing I didn't like men came in college and hit me like a truck. Realizing I'm lesbian was a tougher pill to swallow than believing I was bi. But that's a long story that maybe I could tell later...

However my butch awakening experience from a couple years ago is more fun and easier to tell.

And it involves this sassy fucker. Shoutout Spike ✌️

As a kid in elementary private school, I had an attempt at a tomboy phase. Reflecting back, part of it stemmed from a "pick me" internalized misogyny mindset, but the other part of me felt comfortable and confident when I wore those 2000s DC skate shoes, hi tops, had shorter hair, etc.

I wanted to wear the private school uniform pants but as many butches can probably relate, I had an ass, growing hips, and calves and these were uniform pants designed in 2008-2013. So I settled for baggy jumper dress, baggy shirt, baggy sweatshirt, tights, biker shorts over them, and converse. I could tell something was different but I didn't exactly know why yet.

I tried befriending boys and wanted the bond I saw the non popular boys have with each other as opposed to what I saw in my class's popular Catholic sporty girl crowd. (In middle school I was obsessed with "The Outsiders". Curious if any other butches were). I didn't fit in with the girls in many ways, including my geekiness. I soon learned that I did not fuck with everything my boy classmates said or did. Seemed like I was a weird in between that didn't exist.

That tomboy phase did not last long as a ballerina & theater kid who loved dancing and musical theater. I was pretty good too. I slipped back into femininity before experiencing some gender envy towards pretty men in late high school. As it turns out, femininity (and "liking" men) was just another performance for me, but I loved performing which caused that years-long confusion! So I was "on stage" constantly.

Then came a day in college where I suddenly realized I really wasn't attracted to men, could do without them romantically and sexually for the rest of my life so I should probably dump my boyfriend, and really just wanted women (and as I've grown to accept, people with similar gender experiences as me). Yay lesbian! But I wasn't a butch yet. Butch L was still in hiding.

I started thinking back with a new clarifying lens at so many memories in my childhood. I questioned the "crushes" I had on men in a whole new light.

Then Spike materialized in a dream with priceless awakening insight

I had started watching Buffy for the first time a year or two prior to realizing I was lesbian but put a pause on it. I came back to watching it shortly after my lesbian awakening, which at the time, felt more like an identity crisis. I had a lot of unpacking and reframing to do that I couldn't avoid now. I had previously wondered if I had a crush on Spike because I struggled defining the feelings I had about his look, demeanor, and how female fans swooned over him. That would get cleared up real quick though.

One night I dreamt I was a part of the Scooby gang. We all met at the library in the high school as we prepared to take on the "big bad" of the episode. Buffy, Faith, Willow, and Cordelia stood by me as we looked up at Giles and Spike talking on the stairs.

I looked at Spike with admiration as he shared something important with everyone, but my focus quickly drifted over to the other women standing next to me. Dream me was so jealous of how they looked at him. He held their attention in a way I didn't. I thought about how Drusilla and Buffy wanted him in a way they wouldn't want me.

I eyed his style up and down and grew jealous of how cool it was. So dream me did exactly what anyone would do. As he spoke, I started replacing my clothes with a style closer to his á la 2000s Barbie dress up video game.

Woke up with the realization that I just had really bad lesbian gender envy (and women attention envy) for Spike. I decided that since I was so jealous of his style I could just take parts of it to make it my own. So I did and still sort of do.

Old fit check of stolen Spike look below~

Thanks Spike for appearing in a dream years ago to confirm the fact that the "crushes" I had on men were purely gender envy 🫡

That gender envy realization led me down a path for navigating lesbian masculinity and butch values that I hold now!

[batmanfruitloops]

Happy 1st Anniversary to the Batmanfruitloops!!! 🎉

Whoo! This is such an achievement, but also it's such a crazy thought that it's been a WHOLE YEAR??? It means a lot that so many other people like our au as much as we do, and even more that we've been able to make friends; we want to thank all of you new and old for joining us here to have fun and enjoy the journey of our au!

With that said, I'd like to share some old art that's "behind the scenes" stuff from out time since we started our au.

also if you've been here since these were the profile picture and banner, you're a real one;

Fun fact, I (Sarsee) don't like fruit loops, but it was the first thing I thought of to name the blog, plus it was memorable. The au name being "Batman: A New Gotham" came later! Double plus, the abbreviation is BANG and I find that coincidence just delightful.

One of favorite changes that happened out of nowhere was John's eyes changing from more round to almond. He used to look a lot more like the Telltale Joker, but I feel like his current eyes fit better with his personality in our au. This also isn't going to show up because it's file names, but I had originally wanted to call the Joker "Jbird" like Batman calls him in the Lego Batman movie. (for context, it's the scene where Joker is tied to a bunch of balloons - you know the one - and side note, I want to redraw a screenshot from that with our Joker eventually) I don't have any pictures with a "Jbird" design because I never got the idea to work, I just thought it could have been interesting considering Joker works with Batman in our au and that would put him on theme with the Batfam being flying mammals/avians.

Most of the other original designs aren't too drastic either - or at least it doesn't feel like it to me. Scarecrow and Riddler have changed a lot though. And I think the changes that came about with Fluffy joining on board were much needed (Scarecrow's costume was always done by Fluffy, but I designed him out of costume originally -I was originally making the au myself, but that didn't last long when we started yapping about ideas to one another and never stopped) She also couldn't understand how I stylized his hair, so it became puffy and unruly instead of curly and gelled back. Ed can still gel his hair if he wanted to, just for special occasions.

Some old sillies as well from Fluffy;

we find the contrast between Batman vs. Scarecrow and Joker vs. Riddler very funny because it's so drastically different. The Joker and Riddler never really try to hurt each other, they just like to play into the dramatics and vibe while still on their separate sides. Batman and Scarecrow want to tear one another's throats out and watch them suffer for it because they have no idea what's going on in their heads.

with the villain!joker timeline, there's an alternate version of the Goon squad (Dork Squad + Joker) where it's Harvey instead of the Joker. Or as well, there can be all five of them. Harvey is the only person who can scruff Jo like the gremlin he very much is and he'll just let it happen.

I don't know if this will show up in the comic anymore, but at one point the Joker was going to refer to Scarecrow and the Riddler as Samhain and a leprechaun because they're both partially Irish - couldn't really be that specific with voice claims, and they'd be offended

and lastly, Ed gets cranky when he's tired

Batman and Riddler are the only two to get digital references at the time and man, do I much prefer how streamlined the final ones look. I mean, what was the dingy brown I had behind Batman? For a split second, Ed's coat was almost purple, but thankfully, Fluffy convinced me otherwise and suggested his shoes be purple. This is also before his vest, and now there's an in story reason for why he doesn't have it in the beginning. Also look at how skinny and tall Ed looked!! (he was still short, he's not allowed to be tall in our au)

That's all I have for now, we'd love to hear any thoughts/memories/etc. in the comments!

Love, Sarsee and Fluffy, your batmanfruitloops creatures

[ellieromanov]

Wasted flowers. N.R x Y/n

First fic on tumblr, let me know your thoughts and requests are always open.

Word count: 3k

Warnings: angst

Summery:

Y/n and Natasha are soulmates, they are perfect for each other, but life always has different plans.

Natasha’s point of view

Y/n and I met by chance and dumb luck. We were young and naïve, so clueless of the world and the cruelties it held, yet we thought we knew so much. It was spring in New York, I couldn't tell you the year but if you lived here during this particular spring, you would remember. It was the one when all the trees of Central Park blossomed with small flowers, the birds sang their song from dawn into the late hours of evening, and the breeze held a freshness that the city hadn't seen in centuries.

On this particular day I had wanted to clean up my apartment and make it feel more homely. After hours of picking the place up, rearranging furniture, and hanging up decorations it started to feel more like a home rather than a simple place to sleep. The last thing it was missing was a touch of greenery so I made my way to "Michael's Floral Design" to pick out a bouquet to set in the kitchen and maybe a few house plants.

I had pasted this flower shop on 85th St. nearly every single day on the commute to the tower but never really thought twice about it. I can still remember walking to the shop that day and getting red just at the thought of the 'big scary black widow' walking out of a flower shop with a bouquet of colorful flowers in hand. I can't remember why it embarrassed me so much. But I remember by the time I had arrived to the shop I didn't seem to care anymore, I was to mesmerized by all the colors to care.

I remember reading the name of every flower I saw and paying attention to every detail of every bouquet that was on display. And while I was browsing, the shopkeepers bell rang as someone entered the store, that someone being Y/n. Her hair was shorter back then and she looked much younger of course. I still remember the sweater she had on too. It was a knitted sweater that had so many layers of colors it was almost distracting, which was obviously a stark contrast to myself who was wearing all black. Little did I know that that sweater would eventually become my favorite years later.

I can't remember how we started talking but I'd like to think she was just charmed by me, but knowing Y/n she probably saw how confused I looked from across the store and decided to take pity on me. She helped me pick the flowers and I ended up leaving the store with more than I had planned on.

That night, for the very first time my apartment felt more inviting and and warm than it ever had in the past. What a simple difference flowers could make.

The next time we met it was a few months later in the fall at French bakery. I was sitting at a nearby table waiting for the worker to call my name for my coffee and breakfast when, again, the shopkeepers bell rang and in walked the same girl from the flower shop, only now her hair was slightly longer and died a darker color. But her face looked the same. This time She wore a black beret, a grey sweater and a white and black polkadot skirt. Not as colorful as she dressed earlier in the spring and I can remember wondering if maybe something had happened in between those times to have made her stop wearing so much color, or maybe she was just following along with the seasons. Either way I wasn't going to ask.

She walked up to the counter to place her order and as she was going to grab a seat to wait for her order to be called, I gave her a small wave. The smile she gave me as she walked to my table is one I'll never forget. This time I think I actually did charm her because we ended up staying at this bakery for hours just talking away. I didn't want to leave. I got her phone number that day.

After that we started talking on a regular basis, we'd text each other nearly every day and we'd plan to meet up when we could. It was later that November when she asked me on an official date. How was I meant to turn her down?

We went on a walk through her neighborhood, I remember it was cold and all the leaves had already fallen off the trees and the sun was starting to set much earlier, but I couldn't have cared less, because Y/n was the most wonderful girl I had ever met. She was smart, and witty and she was insanely funny, she made me laugh harder than I had ever laughed in my whole life. And she was gorgeous and kind and soft and she was so humble. It was a nice contrast from everything I was. We balanced each other out nicely.

During this walk through her neighborhood she stopped and greeted every shop owner, every child, and every neighbor with a smile as if she had known them her whole life, and maybe she did, I forgot to ask.

Later that night I walked her to her front door and she invited me in. Her appointment was colorful and crowded with little trinkets she had collected through out the years, art hanging on the walls, plants in every corner, and a bouquet of flowers on her kitchen counter. I ended up staying there that night.

The fall had come and gone and missions were slow, I think everything felt slow when I wasn't with Y/n, my days felt endless and my nights were torturous without her, but looking back now, I kind of wish things felt slow even when I was with her, that would mean I would've gotten more time to appreciate her and love her.

That December she invited me to spend the holidays with her and her family, I of course said yes. That was my first "real" Christmas, we had the food, the films, the decorations and the presents. Y/n's family was incredible, although nothing alike. They were loud and chaotic, unlike Y/n who was soft spoken and patient but it made sense. It was clear how much they all loved each other. The way Y/n and her siblings would interact and bicker always made me laugh and the love her parents had for each other made my heart full. Even though Y/n and I hadn't been dating long, her family took me in like I was their own.

The new year had flown by quickly, winter had pasted and so did the spring. I learned so much about her. I learned how much she loved to paint, and she loved to cook, and she loved playing her piano, of course she did, she was a composer. And I quickly learned how much I love, her. It was that summer that we had said it for the first time. We were drinking white wine on her balcony watching the sun slowly set when she said it. I didn't even think twice before saying it back.

When the next spring had approached we had moved in together, a small apartment in downtown Brooklyn, it was perfect, it was us.

A few months later Y/n got a dog, a Great Dane named Frodo. Of course out of any dog she could have picked she chose the horse. Frodo was the dumbest dog I've ever met but god was he lovable.

Y/n and I had our daily routines, we'd wake up, I'd start getting ready while Y/n started breakfast. Some days she'd make it herself, others she'd take Frodo on a walk to the bakery, and when she'd go to the bakery she'd also stop by the flower shop to pick up flowers as well. She'd get home, we'd eat, then she'd start getting ready while I cleaned up. And We always had to give at least five minutes of love and affection to Frodo before we left for work for the day. 

When we'd get home, we'd take Frodo an another walk through the park then stop by the market to pick up anything we may have ran out of through out the week. We'd get home and start dinner. Y/n was always the better cook but I did what I could to help without screwing it up. We'd finish dinner then have a glass of wine together on the balcony and talk about our days. Once the sun would set we'd go back inside and normally watch a film together, but sometimes she'd work on her latest Composition at the piano or she would keep working on her painting while I read to her. This was our day-to-day lives, and just how perfect it was.

It was June of the next year when Y/n had brought up the idea of marriage. I agreed with her without a  doubt, how could I not? Y/n was my other half. We'd been together for nearly 5 years.  We never had an official proposal, I never got down on one knee with a ring, and neither did she, we just started planning. We didn't need anything extravagant for it to be special, we just needed each other.

Time seemed to be moving so fast and before I knew it, it was already late fall again. This fall had been different from the others, Y/n didn't seem as present as she normally was, she seemed so lost in her own thoughts. At first it didn't worry me, she had a lot going on with work, she had just gotten a promotion at the symphony  she worked for so there was a lot of new changes and responsibilities.

But Y/n had started to forget more frequently too. She'd often forget what she had been doing only moments before and she'd forget what she wanted to say in the middle of our conversations. And for awhile I just thought it was all just work related stress.

But only a month later, Y/n was sent home on paid leave after having "an episode." She accused a coworker of stealing one of her books on composition arts that was important for a project she was working on. She forgot that she had happily loaned him the book just two days prior.

Y/n cried so hard that night, she didn't know why she didn't remember loaning the book. She was so frustrated. I suggested that we go to the doctors and that's what we did.

Stage three brain cancer.

The tumor was against the part of the brain that affects memory.

We walked out of that doctors office that day hand in hand. We were meant to go in and figure out what was going on then go home to get ready for one of Stark's Christmas parties but we didn't think that the diagnosis would be anything serious. We thought they'd tell us that she was just stressed and needed more rest, not that she had cancer that's causing early onset dementia. We both decided to keep it a secret.

That winter we spent half of the holidays with her family and the other half with the team at Clint a Laura's. Y/n had admitted to me that being around the team was less stressful than her family simply because she didn't want her family to notice something was wrong.

The holidays went by smoothly and Y/n started treatments. She was able to start working again later that march. When we got the diagnostic I asked Furry to cut down on my hours so I could be with her more often. He agreed to assign me to fewer missions.

That year passed by before we knew it. In all craziness we both dropped the idea of marriage until things had settled.

Frodo was getting older, he had silver down his back and around his eyes, he was getting slower at night too. We still walked him twice a day and would even bring him with us when we would meet with friends. He was always the bestest boy.

Y/n and I still had our daily routines, wake up, get ready and eat breakfast. Except for one time in particular, Y/n had wanted to go to the bakery with Frodo since it had been awhile since we had last went. 30 minutes went by and they weren't back, I called her but she didn't answer the phone. When I went to check her location she was almost in Jackson heights in Queens which was a 40 minute subway ride away. The bakery was only a 10 minute walk away.

I had gotten in the car to go pick her up. I was furious. When I had finally gotten to her she just cried in my arms.

And after that point Y/n's affliction only worsened. She stopped remembering things during her rehearsals with the orchestra and her compositions were in shambles, none of her music or writing made sense. She'd get awful headaches too. Every other night she'd cry herself to sleep because of the pain.

The second time there was an incident she was sent home on permanent medical leave. She was devastated. So was I. Some days I'd get the Y/n who would sing in the kitchen while she cooked us dinner, the Y/n who would sit on the balcony and paint, the Y/n who would joke about our unborn children, and the Y/n who could turn every negative into a positive... other days I'd get a stranger.

Her family was devastated when we finally told them, they started visiting from Seattle as often as the could after that.

Three years passed far to quickly and Y/n only got worse. Her memory was fading fast and the pain in her head only got worse. The worst was when I'd get mad at her like when she'd try to go on walks by herself or when she'd try to cook for herself. I couldn't do anything without her and she couldn't do anything without me. We eventually needed to give Frodo to the Barton's so they could take care of him and I asked furry to take me off the mission list all together so I could just do SHIELD work from home.

This brings us to two years ago. Y/n's memory didn't worsen to much since the worst of it, she still remembered exactly who I was and most of the time she understood what was going but she was so weak, most months consisted of multiple trips to the hospital where she'd be kept for a few nights. But towards the end of it, even her strongest medications couldn't help with the pain.

I remember we started using the spoon theory and color system not long after this. To get through our days we'd make a list of things we wanted to do. First Y/n had to give her color. Green Days were good days, she could get out of bed, take a walk, make dinner, paint, play her piano, etc. Yellow days she'd stay in our room or maybe the living room and sleep, maybe watch something on tv or read a book. And red days were the worst of them. She couldn't get out of bed, she couldn't eat, sleep, or talk. she couldn't do anything but lay there. Those were the worst.

But on green or yellow days we'd make a list of what we wanted to do. Each activity on the list took up a certain amount of energy, and Y/n only had so many spoon fulls of energy to give, that's why the call it the spoon theory. It just helped us do things without Y/n getting burned out.

The last hospital trip we went on she was kept for over a month, machines and wires where hooked up to her to make sure her heart didn't stop. It was so unexpected. The doctors didn't really understand how her health decreased in such a short amount of time. But they understood that my girl was in pain and they tried everything they could to stop that pain.

I believe deep down Y/n knew something the rest of us didn't, I think she knew it was her time, she was so tired and she was hurting and she was ready.

"Natasha."

"I'm sorry we didn't get married."

"I'm sorry we didn't have kids."

"I'm sorry that I can't remember all the time."

"I'm sorry we didn't get the life we wanted."

"I tried. I tried to get better but it hurts so much."

The Barton's would visit weekly, so would stark and other members of the team as well as Y/n's parents.

But I was the one who didn't leave her side. I was there through it all. I was there when she would sob in pain, I was there when she'd forget who our family's were. I was there when she wouldn't sleep for days on end. I was always there.

People often ask me if I regret it, being with her, falling in love with her, meeting her. I always tell them the same thing. Never.

I'd do it a thousand times over again if it meant I got to fall in love with her all over again. Fall in love with her smile and her laugh and her love of flowers, pastries, dogs, music and art. I'd do it all again if it meant that was a promise, that I'd be able to have my girl.

12/30/1992 - 11/11/2018

Y/n Y/l/n

Friend • daughter • sister • lover

Life goes on. two years have slipped away since Y/n has been gone. I’m not able to look at flowers the same anymore. They used to represent her spirit, colorful and lively. But now they mirror her paintings, cracked paint on a Canvas, the echo of her piano that’s lost it’s tune, or that one spring in the city all those years ago. flowers are just fleeting moments of a beauty that slip through our fingers like everything else. my world is quieter without her, and flowers, now seem like an attempt to hold onto moments that inevitably slip away.

[lesetoilesfous]

anyway here's my thoughts on veilguard.

i liked it! i really, genuinely enjoyed it. there were moments that made me cry and truly moved me. there were plot twists that really surprised and shocked me. i felt emotionally impacted by the game. i love so many of the characters - both companions and npcs. it's beautiful. it's fun to play.

is it a perfect game? of course not! a) there's no such thing b) gang, i thought we knew this?? it's a game that's been in development for a decade, more than 3/4 of the team got laid off, it's had its usp constantly switched around lord knows how many times. it was never going to be perfect! i went in with my expectations underground and came out with a game i liked much more than inquisition.

neither inquisition nor veilguard were ever going to be like origins and da2. the creative team changed massively between those games. but also, the world changed! the industry changed! the climate in which people were working changed! for goodness sake there was an entire pandemic!

we were never and are never going to get games like da2 and origins again because the world is different now and that's ok. it's good to have new things!

could there have been more conflict in veilguard? sure. could it have been more politically and socially sensitive? maybe. but you know what? i work in media and i know how incredibly fucking hard it is to get any kind of purse-holder to sign off on one explicitly trans character, let alone nine (by my last count): specifically and lovingly designed across a wide spectrum of voice and appearance to illustrate that non-binary is not 'girl-lite' or a third gender, it's just not binary.

we went from vivienne being BALD in inquisition because they couldn't be fucked to design afro hair to a game where it is literally not possible to have an all-white or an all-male team for the first 5 or so hours of the game. one of your team members is a south asian woman with a prosthetic leg and at no point is her disability fetishised or exoticised.

god knows its not perfect but gang i really don't think y'all are recognising how fucking much good stuff we got in this game. literally, please, give me the title of another AAA game that has this much explicit trans rep. that has this many major characters of colour written with care and thoughtfulness. this many companions who are people of colour and essential to the plot. do you know how hard that is???? and everyone got fired!!!! it took 10 years!!! despite everything they got all this through!!!

like. it's not surprising to me the game is gentler than earlier entries in the series. earlier entries in the series are also, often, VERY RACIST. as far as earlier entries in the series are concerned: transgender people don't exist (except Krem, of course, but he is one character in a very big game). they are so obviously trying so hard and in a landscape where i literally cannot think of any other game of this scale and budget that is trying at all, yeah, i'm giving them a pass!

the things that drove me nuts in previous DA games were the christian fascism, the genocide apologism, the white supremacy, the 'peaceful protest' crap, the copaganda. veilguard doesn't do that and it's amazing and heartbreaking to me that so few folks in the fandom seem to value that.

there's this thing that happens whenever a piece of media is actually, truly diverse where fandom attacks it much, much more savagely than media that is actually racist, sexist etc (supernatural vs steven universe, star wars vs dream daddy, etc). people translate the fact that it takes them a little longer to connect with characters they're unused to seeing in fiction into meaning that the art is 'objectively bad'. and then assholes with money use that violently negative reaction to justify continuing to make games without trans people or brown people or a majority of female characters.

"look! veilguard did that! nobody liked it!"

please. consider why you are reacting so much more harshly to a game like this than you did to a game where you literally led a catholic inquisition, planted your flag in indigenous people's land, and had the power to enact military law on anyone unlucky enough to come across your army of religious zealots, up to and including executions.

no one is perfect. fandom isn't activism. consumption of media isn't activism. you're allowed to dislike things and you're allowed to yell about it on the internet and it's my responsibility to block content i don't want to see. i get that.

but just in case anyone else is feeling the way i am: i liked veilguard. i think they tried really hard. i think a lot of the team got fucked over by asshole bosses and worse executives. i think the game obviously got cut short and rushed, which we knew before it came out. and i still think they wrestled a fun, emotionally impactful game out of that housefire, and that that's worth celebrating.

[taffywabbit]

it's so hard for me to think of what any of my personal GOTY picks might be this year, because every time I think about one of the really kickass games I played/beat for the first time this year (that's what I'm going off of btw, not release date) I then have to remember "oh right I also played Pseudoregalia in like. February. and then proceeded to play it 90 more times, including once yesterday. I think there's some compelling evidence that I might've liked that game a little bit more than this other stuff" lol

...that being said, I think my other top contenders for stuff I played during 2024 would be (in no particular order):

- Noita (obviously. I can't believe I ALSO didn't start playing this until early January, it feels like it's been way longer. funny wizard explode)

- Cavern of Dreams (easily one of the best attempts I've ever seen to recreate not only the visual style of an N64 game, but the precise FEELING of playing one as a kid and exploring for weird secrets)

- the Paper Mario TTYD remake (I ended up going for 100% on this one, it's honestly some of the most fun I've EVER had streaming a game. I've never seen a remake knock it out of the park this hard, this shit is absolutely packed full of loving detail)

- Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (I haven't quite finished it yet but I'm confident in including it here. friendship ended with Fire Emblem, I actually just need more of whatever this is)

- Zelda: Ultimate Trial (an OoT romhack that has no business being as good as it is. I jokingly called it "the Undertale Yellow of Zelda fangames" when I finished it and honestly I still stand by that)

- uhhh sure I guess Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom can go on here too (it's not a new series favorite or anything but it was still a ton of fun and I loved collecting funny Zelda monsters like Pokemon lol. very solid dungeon/puzzle design too, a real return to form)

and I guess if you want my LEAST favorite games of 2024 I'll include those too but put them under a cut:

- Corn Kidz 64 (kinda janky and imprecise controls coupled with overly punishing platforming, a really unsatisfying sense of progression, and humor and general vibes that I just found to be kinda rancid and offputting overall)

- Penny's Big Breakaway (I was SO excited to play this one, but was really disappointed. the level design is just kinda baffling and frequently makes you waste time doing side objectives for no reward or loops you back on yourself, the controls are weird and make it extremely easy to misinput and die accidentally, and it constantly throws score/combo elements in your face but nearly every move you can do will instantly take away all of your momentum unless it's 100% perfect. I couldn't even force myself to finish this one. at least the music whips ass tho)

- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (I've started and quit this one many times but this year I forced myself to play it to completion on my switch, making liberal use of savestates. it didn't help that much. I wrote a whole reflection earlier this year about the ambitious and interesting stuff this game tried to do and why it never quite works - I think I only posted it on cohost, I should probably retrieve that before it gets deleted)

- Dr Robotnik's Ring Racers (listen if you didn't have any attachment to SRB2 Kart before this "sequel" came out then I probably can't really explain to you why I loathe this thing so much in terms of actual design differences. all I WILL say is that I'm furious we got this, which is a completely different fucking game that's super overtuned to solely appeal to a very specific kind of highly technical player niche and scare everyone else away, as a REPLACEMENT for just getting a goddamn update to add CPUs to SRB2 Kart. it's all I ever wanted, and now because they turned that update into DRRR instead, I will never get it)

also I just think it's funny to put it in perspective here that I'm choosing NOT to put Donkey Kong 64 on this list, which I did 101% complete earlier this year. so that's the bar, anything on my Least Faves list is stuff I enjoyed less than the experience of streaming the entirety of DK64. I really did have more fun beating Beaver Bother 3 times than playing Corn Kidz. I don't know what that says about me

[youremyheaven]

butterfly motif 🦋& vedic astrology

ive wanted to exclusively dedicate a post towards the use of the butterfly motif in pop culture, so here it is!! i think butterflies have had a re-emergence in fashion in the last few years and im here for it!!

🦋 as i've mentioned in many other posts, the nakshatras closely tied to using this motif repeatedly are the pisces rashi nakshatras of ubp and revati along with punarvasu nakshatra.

Revati moon, Rihanna wearing butterfly eye lashes.

Venus exalts in Pisces and ive noticed that these natives are often drawn to Venusian aesthetics and imagery.

Rihanna at a Savage x Fenty show. You cannot tell me this isn't reminiscent of the Birth of Venus and the colour scheme is super Venus coded as well.

UBP sun Lady Gaga wearing butterfly face paint. she has often gravitated towards this motif over the years.

here she is in a blue butterfly dress

idk about you but when i see wings, i think butterfly 🦋. hence why this look is here 🤭😌

yet another lady gaga butterfly lewk

2. bella hadid for Swarovski. bella has ketu in ubp and girlie is obsessed with butterflies 😍

3. kendall jenner, ubp moon wearing a butterfly print dress

4. emrata, also ubp moon wearing a butterfly print dress

5. urfi javed, an indian entertainer who has ubp ketu wearing an outfit with a butterfly motif

6. dua lipa, punarvasu moon and known for her butterfly obsession wearing a blumarine butterfly head to toe lewk

7.brie larson ubp asc wearing a winged dress

8. sarah jessica parker is ubp sun & venus with revati mercury atmakaraka and this is a vvv iconic look from sex and the city

9.bella hadid had an nft thingie and the teaser(?) for it depicted her as a cyborg in a pool of water with butterflies. couldn't get more pisces coded than that tbh

10. queen latifah, ubp sun with those butterfly tats. ive noticed a lot of pisces girlies specifically choosing blue butterflies over any other type👀

11. halsey, punarvasu moon and has a butterfly tattoo!!

12. mariah carey, i mean we all know the OG iconic butterfly top moment but here's an underrated lewk from this punarvasu queen who also has an album titled Butterfly

she also has a perfume line called Lollipop Bling that's packaged like this:

13. Kendrick Lamar's to pimp a butterfly

he has mercury and mars in punarvasu. jup in revati atmakaraka and ubp rahu. lamar has implied that the title alludes to the nature of celebrity and how something free spirited and beautiful can be so violently controlled. again, VERY pisces coded.

14. brand new eyes by paramore

hayley williams, who is the lead singer has revati mars amatyakaraka.

15. dolly parton has a very very famous song called love is like a butterfly, she has punarvasu mars conjunct saturn. look at the lyrics of the song, only a cancer girlie would go so soft like this 🥺

Love is like a butterfly

As soft and gentle as a sigh

The multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings

Love makes your heart feel strange inside

It flutters like soft wings in flight

Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing

Dolly also has a perfume called "Tennessee Sunset" and its packaged like this:

16. alexander mcqueen, the fashion designer had ubp sun and used lots of winged imagery in his work

17. vincent van gogh, revati sun ubp venus and mars and punarvasu rising has a series of paintings called butterflies. i personally associate whimsical art with both pisces rashi and punarvasu. ill make another post some day but the impressionist movement and even the surrealist movement were vvv influenced by these two placements.

18. Papillon 1973

its based on the true story of henri charriere, who is played by steve mcqueen in the movie. not only is the movie called papillon (french for butterfly) the character also has a butterfly chest tattoo and steve mqueen has ubp sun, revati venus atmakaraka and punarvasu rising

19. silence of the lambs<3

one of the most iconic movie posters of all time features a moth. this moth also plays a key role in the movie and is a major motif.

the book on which the movie was based was written by thomas harris, who has a revati stellium (sun, jupiter & ketu)

20. SPOILER ALERT!!

in the movie corpse bride, the titular character dissolves into a bunch of butterflies at the end of the movie

corpse bride is played by helena bonham carter who has ubp saturn and ketu in revati

21. Kali Uchis, punarvasu sun often uses butterfly imagery

This photoshoot was conceptualised and shot by the South Korean photographer Choi Gi Seok who has purvabhadrapada moon (0 degrees pisces)

His work heavily features butterfly imagery ;

XxxxxxX

my own take is that, since pisces is the final rashi and the point of "absolution" it represents the end of chrysalis, when all elements have come together to create transformation; in pisces there is nothing left to do, but seek liberation from these cycles (its purpose is moksha,after all) and dissolve entirely into the cosmic ocean.

a butterfly is a beautiful symbol, representing not only the death of the creature that inhabited the cocoon but also reminding us that that death is necessary because only then can something as beautiful as a butterfly emerge from within that womb. the womb is the source of creation but you're not meant to stay there forever, that's not just stagnancy, that's death. birth is a painful process because you're leaving behind the only place you've ever known but you have no other option so you must be brave enough to face it.

this brings us to the connection of punarvasu nakshatra to butterflies. punarvasu's deity is goddess Aditi who is creation itself; she is the cosmic mother, she created this universe. in pisces, you seek liberation from the cycles of life but in punarvasu, life, the universe, creation itself takes place. thus it represents the butterfly emerging from the cocoon to claim its identity as a butterfly because the life it led before that was a non-life, it wasn't yet a butterfly, it was a non-being. goddess Aditi embodies infinite space and primordial vastness. what better way to represent the cosmic abundance than with a symbol like a butterfly? 🦋you cannot ask who created you because you are your own creation

“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”- Zhuangzi

xxxxxxx

that's it for now but i'll keep updating as i find more examples💛i hope this was interesting<3

[marvelmcumania]

Blazed in Love

Pairing: Johnny Storm x Reader

Summary: Johnny and Y/N met each other in school and became great friends but one misunderstanding broke the friendship and they went their separate ways. Many years later a space mission has brought them together will the friendship rekindle or the romance?

AN- You can find the same name on Wattpad Updates won't be frequent will be updated at any time English is not my first language Do not repost Feel free to reblog and let me know your thoughts

Chapter 1 - 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚎𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐

Today was a good day, Y/N repeated when she got up from her deep slumber sleep. That was her daily mantra until yesterday when her senior colleagues Reed Richards and Ben Grimms told her about a quote talk with none other than Victor Von Doom. Now, she was furious and irritated.

The very mention of Doom's name had ruined her mood. How could Reed think this dream project meeting with Victor would lead to anything productive? He was manipulative, power-hungry, and dangerous—a toxic combination. She couldn't understand why they hadn't learned their lesson yet.

Y/N tossed the blanket aside with a frustrated sigh and got up to freshen up. She rethought why this happened and wished Reed would not accept the deal. Walking to her closet, she pulled out her favorite outfit: a pair of sleek black pants and a fitted dark blue blazer. Professional yet practical, these outfits were perfect for what was likely going to be a long day.

As she buttoned her shirt, her thoughts kept circling back to Victor the guy who had always humiliated them, and herself who was their junior and a friend she shall never name.Y/N shook her head, trying to push away the frustration. She steps into the living aroma of breakfast, hitting her nose 

"Yep, this is what I live for," she says to Matthew, who glances at her smiling.

"And that is why I love you." He answers, preparing the breakfast. Y/N comes inhaling and kissing him "Well why the so professional dress up?"

Y/N goes towards the refrigerator takes out an orange juice and pours it into a glass "Well we have a meeting with the Doom"Matthew makes a face he knows what kind of a man Victor is and how he manipulated news about himself But Matthew's one motto was to being opposite of him.

"But why?"

"Reeds Idea Matty Reed's Idea," she shrugged while Matthew handed her breakfast.

"Is he out of his mind?"

"I don't know, Matty. I had the same doubt."

"And the weird looks he gives you Even though he has a gf, "Matthew grits his teeth.

Y/N stays silent knowing those two never deserved this after having more discussion it is her time to leave "Alright Honey if the deal gets accepted" she says approaching Matthew and keeping a hold of his hand "then I won't be available for weeks"

"Yeah, and then you have to meet him." Referring to the Person, Y/N had stopped talking. She gives him a nod

"I hope not." Giving him a bitter smile, she kisses him and starts walking away when Matthew stops her.

"Also don't forget the date."

"I would never" and starts on her way to the meeting with none other than egoistic Victor Doom

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

Y/N meets Reed Richards and Ben Grimms on her way to Victor's headquarters. The welder's torch sparks the hands of a sculptor on the structure. Y/N's eyes fall on the large statue of an epic 20-foot going-up of a business tycoon, none other than Victor Von Doom, whose generously extended hands sit two intertwined columns of DNA. His face is chiseled, angular, and perfect.

"Typical of Victor Von Doom to build a 30-foot statue of himself."

They stood before it and headed toward the soaring glass-box atrium of VDI Headquarters. Designed to inspire awe making an attraction spot for them and the public

"High open space, exposed structural elements. Obviously aimed at first-time visitors to create feelings of... smallness, inadequacy." Reed says smiling at Ben and Y/n who snorts at him.

"Very Funny Reed"

Ben agrees with her and turns towards Reed who looks a little nervous"I agree with Y/N Good thing it ain't working... " they start heading towards the headquarters "Reed, what are we doing here? This guy's fast-food, strip-mall science --"

"This wasn't our first stop, in case you forgot Nasa. And Victor's not that bad. He's just a little.." He looks at the statue "Larger than life." They move past the statue, into the sprawling atrium.

"He's financed some of the biggest breakthroughs of this century"

"Yeah" Y/N chuckled "and one of them being his ego" Reed sighed giving her a look who shrugged at him "I only came just to see if he the great  Victor Dumbass accepts the deal"

"You'd never know it," Ben says, giving a part to Y/N's head and motioning to a high-tech orb. The orb shows footage of Victor's accomplishment of a safe and clean nuclear facility, the first private Space Station. All images include Victor with huge people. Then an image appears of him holding the America's Cup. "Jesus. That too?" The three of them reach a stern receptionist.

"Reed Richards Nen Grimms and Y/N L/N to see-" The receptionist cuts him off, handing them a pass.

"Executive Elevator, top floor."

"What's the price for a smile around here?" Ben comments to the stern receptionist who doesn't look at them.

"I guess a bit of an ego from their bosses stops the smile" She glares at Y/N who gives her a small smile 

Reed then drags Y/N "Sorry she is new"

"What I am telling you the truth"

"Not the time" Ben snickers and from there they head into the elevator he carries a small black box as they enter the elevator the steel door shuts in front of them.

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

In a large dim office, Ben and Y/N are in the corner he yawns as he watches Reed giving a presentation Y/N looks down at her nails both of them bored

A bright hologram of stars and planets hovers in the air making the room beautiful "My research suggests that exposure to a high-energy cosmic storm born on solar winds might have triggered the evolution of early planetary life" Reed stands among the holograms explaining to a mysterious figure sitting behind the desk.

An ominous pulsating red cloud covers the stars. It washes over a hologram of earth. "In six weeks another cloud with the same elemental profile will pass Earth's orbit. A study in space could advance our knowledge about the structure of the human genome, and help cure countless diseases, extend human life --" The shadow clears his throat. Reed speeds up, emotional Y/N gives a side eye to Ben both agreeing that this was too much in front of the person they hate.

"Give kids the chance to be stronger, healthier, less prone to--" but the voice cut him off.

"Turn it off Please."

"But I haven't fully explained my--"

"Yes, you have... Imagination. Creativity. Passion. Those were always your trademarks."The figure gets up from his sit revealing it to be none other than Victor Von Doom the 35-year-old handsome, commanding looks almost airbrushed he drops the wired magazine to the desk Y/N's eyes fall on it Reed in the front cover of the magazine the words saying Reed Richard Bankrupt

"But dreams don't pay the bills do they?" Victor says giving a condescending smile to him and a wink to Y/N who rolls her eyes and then back to Reed "Same old Reed, hopeless optimist. Still reaching for the stars, with the world on your back."

"At least he is positive Victor" Y/N claps him back "And that is why he is still better than you."

Reed hisses a small Y/N telling her to stop and Ben holds her back by shaking his head not to escalate the things. Victor nods his head when Reeds begins to speak."You remember in school we talked about working together. That's what I was about to explain..."Reed presses the remote another hologram appears a shuttle slowly approaching an orbiting the space station both bearing the Von Doom Industries logo Victor gives a more intrigued smile.

"So it's not my money you want. It's my toys..." Y/N cringes at the word toys "Tell me if NASA doesn't trust why should I?"

Victor has always been a step ahead Reed pauses thrown for a beat.  Y/N balled her fist not bearing the insult to her long friend who was also her senior Ben woke up from the suspicious glancing at Reed Victor noticed the change in Y/N and Ben, Victor started  laughing

"That's my job To stay a step ahead. To know what other men don't" he speaks getting up from his chair and taking a sit on the desk.

Ben gets close to Reed and Y/N "I can't take this"he whispers to them.

"Me too Reed," She tells him giving a glare to Victor who smirks at her.

"Y/N Ben this is business Just work," Reed says in a low quiet voice.

Victor cracks a smile looking at the tension between the three of them.

"He's right Ben" They all turn and see none other than Sue Storm "and Y/N" giving her an acknowledging nod she stands in a corner possibly during the whole presentation."It's just business" 

Victor swoops in "I think you three know my Director of Genetic Research, Susan Storm."

"Heya Susie" Ben greets her and lowly mutters "One more thing he's got."

"Ben stop it"

Sue gracefully walks into the office only taking her eyes off Reed to give a warm hug to Ben and Y/N

"Ben it's been too long" and she turns to Y/N "And Y/N you look marvelous I hope Matthew is good too"

"Yeah he's fine"

Susan gives Reed a polite handshake. Victor observes Ben and Y/N watching the interaction uncomfortably Reed looks insecure under her gaze and tongue-tied.

Reed began to speak "You're, you've, I mean, how have you bee--"

"Never better"

Victor sizes them up. He puts a hand on Sue's shoulder. "This isn't going to be a problem is it?"

"Not at all"

"Ancient History" Victor smiles eyeing Sue

"Good. Then you're just in time to hear the great Reed Richards ask me for help" He turns to Reed "You know, you made a lot of folks at MIT feel like a junior high science fair. So you'll excuse me if I savor the moment."

They all stop for a moment. Reed sucks it up, "You back this mission, and I'll sign over a fair percentage of any applications or -"

"The number's seventy-five. And it's applications and patents."

"What about his firstborn?"

"Ben, the money's not important we could save lives." Y/N sighs Reed's good deed which makes him better than Doom Sue gives a thin smile a flicker of old feelings.

"Twenty-five percent of a billion is enough to keep lights on, isn't it? Maybe even pay off your fourth mortgage of Baxter building."

They all look at Victor. How did he know about this? "Deal...?" Reed looks at Ben who softly shakes his head no and then at Y/N who doesn't know what to say But Reed drops a nod. Victor smiles offering a handshake. "Well then to our future. Together" Victor says squeezing Reed's hand harder his other hand on Sue's shoulder. "Funny how things turn out, isn't it?" 

"Hilarious"

Reed and Sue lock eyes Ben watches Victor warily. Before they all start moving" By the way Y/N" Victor calls her out when they all stop"The offer still stands"

"I am good Victor and Thank you," she says stepping into the elevator.

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

Reed Y/N and Ben are in the elevator now."Good call for declining him" Ben gave her a proud smile.

"Having been doing long back" her face furrows "But how did know about NASA?"

"Yeah what if he made the call to shut us down--" Ben gets interrupted by Reed.

"Ben think about all the people we can help if this works--"

"Maybe you should think about yourself for once. You always let this guy push you around--"

"We got what we wanted. That's enough."

Y/N clears the throat."I know I know we are just worried about what he wants and obsession with pulling you down...Speaking of which" Reed follows Y/N's eyes to Sue. She joins them and the doors shut.

"You sure about this Reed?" Reed nods keeping his head down

"Those solar winds are flaring, but I factored them into my coordinates and--"

"I am talking about us working together," Sue says keeping her gaze on Reed He is uncomfortable Y/N and Ben give a grimacing look at each other.

Reed thinks "Well uh based on our history..." he starts talking fast "You can handle the biogenetics and I'll focus on the molecular physics or, uhm, maybe I should take the biotech, you work the microscopes. since you have some background in electropho--"Y/N mentally wants to slap her forehead after seeing Susan's face annoyed.

"Right. That's exactly what I meant" She shakes her head  Ben smiles, patting Reed on his shoulder.

"Way to overthink it." Ben glances at Sue "So when do we leave?"

"I'll schedule the launch. Call me in the morning to talk about resources and crew" Sue offers a business card. Reed doesn't take it.

"I, uh, think I remember the number."

"It's been changed" Ben and Y/N grimace Reed takes the card keeping his head down.

"As far as the crew I was hoping Y/N could pilot the mission--"

"Well, she's welcome to ride shotgun, but we already have a pilot on our payroll. You remember my brother Johnny..." Sue speaks looking straight to Y/N who sighs rolling her eyes this is what she was scared of and somehow it came true.

[tubbytarchia]

We should support artists and help them recognize their worth but I'm honestly so tired of "Your colored and shaded art is worth more than 10 bucks" and "these prices are too low" etc. Kind of maddening to me that it's treated like a choice when most artists will never have the reach to charge "fairly" for their art on a consistent basis. This isn't a jab at anyone because most people saying this are well meaning and maybe accidentally tonedeaf at worst, but the only choice some people have is either earn a little bit of money or earn no money at all. Idk surely there's other ways to be supportive or tell someone that their art is worthwhile without insisting that they raise their prices. Where and what is the advice once the prices ARE raised as suggested and yet no money is made? Would the advice be to put prices back down? To just be persistent and be better at advertising yourself?

When I started out, I tried to price "fairly", with and without advice from fellow artists (who all suggested prices that never sold) and then just decreased those prices like 5 times because no one would commission me. I wasn't upset when an anon told me "I was surprised to see the prices!", but I am upset about all the "these prices seem too low..." I got years ago in retrospect. When I voiced that I couldn't charge any higher because otherwise I wouldn't get paid, I was often dismissed. And I couldn't help but note that by all the people who got commissioned at least regularly with good pay

I'm not personally too upset about my own commissioning situation anymore, I used to be, but after so many mental breakdowns of trying to earn any money that justified the time I spent on my art and failing miserably, I accepted that it just isn't even for me. (This is why I wouldn't ever want to work with a CC either lol I would kms. As a one-off maybe). I still offer it but with a lot of leniency towards myself, which I think warrants lower pricing and I'm not upset about it. Because who would've guessed, that doing a hobby you love as a line of work with inherent new pressures isn't always going to make you happy and can ruin the hobby for you instead! Wild.

My personal commission meltdown journey under cut, because I want to and I think it'll make me feel better

My awesome commission meltdown happened about a year ago, but boy I have been trudging for awhile. Maybe 5 or 6 years ago now, I used to have a friend, my former best friend, who struck gold. They got lucky. Their art was also fantastic, but ultimately they got lucky, because good art in itself never guarantees that you can earn buck from it. They created a closed species that quickly became very popular to the point that they could draw one design on a whim and easily get 50EUR minimum out of it. That's not even commission work, to get paid well for art that YOU want to make is an absolute dream but even less reliable for most artists than commission work. I created multiple species too with like 0.20EUR prices and followed all the advice my friend gave me. I advertised myself like hell which is something I've continued to do until a year ago with a 100% failure rate. For funsies, some specimens of the species I attempted to sell (I very much detached from my usual preferred monster designs too to try and have wider appeal and gimmicks)

(If anyone wants to "adopt" any Rosebuds (1st rose-like species) or Dumlins (2nd bird-like species) for free then you're very welcome to, I can send the full sheets lol. Only one of them ever got adopted. I'm over it but hey just in case there are any adoptable fanatics in here)

After a few years I think I gave up, didn't earn a dollar with any of them and moved over to commissions because that's way easier to get money for anyway, I thought. And I've done many commissions by now but with most costing 5-20EUR. Very few outliers got any tips (usually from friends) and very few people were willing to pay more to begin with. I think I've done just 2 artwork that I was paid 50 for and those are the only comms I've done above 20EUR, and I count myself very lucky for ever even getting that opportunity. Here's some examples of commissions I've done for 20 bucks or less

(To be clear, I'm not upset about any of these. Jk lol I'm forever bothered by one of them. The 1st one but I will spare the details)

I tried so desperately to advertise myself on Twitter, on Tumblr, on DA, on Reddit, on Discord servers... in the end I got like one commission that wasn't just from a friend or acquaintance , and I'm willing to bet at least a few "friend" commissions I've done were out of pity, and I wouldn't blame them because I was a desperate little teenager. I went through a whole furry arc where I went out of my way to draw furry art because everyone knows furries got the money. I was very open to nsfw art too for very low prices to help me build my portfolio further, and I was again full-throttle advertising every which way I knew how, trying to reach out there, and gained nothing for it

Meanwhile, I just felt like doing this little animation. This wretched thing. This fucking. This little piece of work that came from a place of love and now I want to cry thinking about what this thing did to me

This is a niche Yugioh monster that I animated dancing. Somehow, it got out of the Yugioh circle and popped the fuck off majorly on twitter. Nobody knew what the hell this thing is but they liked it. This shit got reposted on Tiktok, on Reddit, probably many other sites too with zero credit back to me, naturally, with hundreds of thousands of views, possibly millions, I would check if I could still find any of them. So that sucked but guess what else happened? Like 5 people DMed me about commissioning animation work from me. TO THIS DAY despite my twitter being now deleted, people every so often reach out to me about this. And because there was DEMAND I figured, I can ask fair prices. But I'd never been able to before so I still undersold myself A LOT. Fully fledged animation is hard goddamn work. But I accepted 3 commissions, and I made progress on all of them, and then I deleted my twitter. I left all of those people in the dark (I never took any of their money though!!! I never ask for money until my work is completed unless you buy through Kofi)

I just realized how fucking miserable it all made me and how much I didn't want to do this and what a piss poor motivator money is for me to do art for, in the comfort of my home. I love money, I sure would love to have more of it and not have to rely on minimum wage jobs that I dislike but god, all of that made me so deeply upset and with all those years of failure, I suddenly struck gold like my friend had all those years back, and I had so many people wanting to give me money for my work, and it felt like a fucking joke. I was honestly just so peeved and pissed off that this is what it took, and had a meltdown over it and I was also just in the worst place of my life at the time that I've never truly recovered from. All of this just added to how much I wished to be eaten by a wild animal on a daily basis at the time

I don't feel like I got ANYTHING out of all that. The money I got absolutely didn't justify the effort and time I put into commissions and all my self advertising and portfolio building ventures were a waste of time too. The only thing I've taken away from it is that I don't want to repeat that and I will probably never want to work a job doing art or animation even if it could pay more than minimum wage crap. My former friend has a successful Patreon, I've encountered dubs of their comics with millions of views on various platforms, their species even got ripped off by someone who just turned their species nsfw, lol. And I draw minecraft men kissing

I'm not happy but I'm not upset about it anymore, even if I still get majorly peeved by some artists who underplay their immense success whilst others are begging for crumbs. (Again they usually mean well but sometimes I do find these people genuinely dislikeable. Anyway). In a perfect world, artists wouldn't have to work their asses of to get grocery money and be so reliant on luck to pop off once and then never have to worry about it again. I'm sad this is what it took for me to realize it's not even for me, after all these years of negligible profit, and I'm sad I was ever led to believe that getting fair pay was possible without all the work I put into trying to get my art out there, only to eventually succeed via pure luck and then not earning a penny from it anyway. Please support and continue to support small artists. If you can, please tip them too. Share and support their work in other ways if you can't or don't want to pay!

With all that said though, I appreciate anyone who has commissioned me during my time in the MCYT fandom, that means so much to me that you like my art that much. And I'm really sorry for the few people I ended up refunding because I didn't feel up to their requests - that's what I mean by the leniency I give myself. If it ever comes close to stressing me out again, I'll just give it up in favor of my mental health haha. And I hope you guys understand. Thank you as well for anyone who's bought my MCYT merch, you are so awesome and I'm actually omw to earning some profit from it eventually which has made me happier than any other art related work I've done

and with THAT said, man NONE of you have used discounts that I've hidden in my text posts previously..!! I reinforce though that regardless, I'm open to haggling if you're tighter on money but want to get a little something. I love you regardless though and thanks for listening to my shit ted talk

[ranboothesillyartist]

So uhm I created my first TADC au

StarBunny

Jax design:

I'm going to explain some things so no1 will get confused

A big part of the characters get hungry, can sleep, can get hurt n other things that a living being do. Moon, Sun n Caine are the only ones that don't get hungry

The Moon considers Jax her "son". I dunno how to explain this..

Caine, moon n sun are the only ones who can understand what's Jax saying

Text: red: gangle, orange: raghata, purple: kinger, pink: zooble, Caine: u'll know bc I'll show u n Jax... I don't want to give u spoilers

A very dark night Jax feel's bad n goes outside to crie, he always hide his bad feelings in front of the others.

He sits near the lake, the moon see him crying n asks:

Why are you crying darling?

Jax doesn't answer so the moon sits next to him

Do you feel bad from so many years that you're stuck here?

Jax nods

Well It's probably worse for others,you are being very mean to others...

...

I'm sorry darling but that's the truth... You need to stop that

...

I know that there's a good bunny inside you..!

She touches his face (invisible nose lol)

I think that I can change it!

Jax falls asleep

The next morning Jax wake up n feels a bit different, he can't talk, he starts panicking!

Calm down! I did this so you can possibly change! So you can't be mean

(Moon says)

Now Jax can only communicate w... jingles??? What is happening to this story creator???? (I don't fucking know..!)

*JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE JINGLE????* (WHY??? COULDN'T U JUST CHANGE ME BUT NOT TAKING AWAY MY VOICE????)

... Well I wanted to try something different.!

* jingle jingle..* ( u're weird..)

Well now you're my little star!

*jingle* ( k lol I have to accept that)

You can go now, bye!

Now Jax go sneak peek the others but oh raghata saw him n oh gangle too!

Jax: *JINGLE* (OH FUC-)

Jax starts running trying to scape from raghata, gangle n now zooble, kinger.. ( Pomni is having another panic attack )

Jax comes across a dead end hallway, now he's cornered! SHIT- he thinks then he looks at the others w a horrified face

We will not hurt you!

Hey can we be friends?

Hey lil fella don't be afraid! I can't hurt you!

Jax feels... Loved? Happy?? I dunno it's a mix of feelings teehee:33

You look like a star! *Hugs Jax*

Well looks like there's a new friend here!

*Chuckles*

Well uhm Jax takes advantage of them thinking he's a new character n enjoy the moment but then Caine shows up n notice him

Caine: Wait! I don't remember having a new member! Let me see... Wait... THAT'S JAX???

WHAT?! HOW?? everyone screamed

Caine: Jax, who did this?

*Jingle jingle..* (the moon..)

Caine: What? The moon can do that?!

*Jingle jingle?* (as I see yes?)

Caine: I'll have a little conversation with her!

Everyone is surprised, they didn't know that was Jax

Oh! You changed! Pff!

But he still looks like a star.. a cute star..

AAAAAA

Uhm pfff well you look cute! *chuckles* (ngl..)

Jax feels a bit uncomfortable.. but he already did a lot of other bad things so he deserves it. Zooble makes fun of him n the others like to hug him bc he's very soft n so cute, they can't be mad at him he's just so cute!

N I'm done for now! that's the story, I want to people give me ideas of what to draw em doing, like.. Jax sleeping w the moon?? Dunno..

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for locking an ex-friend out of a long-time gaming account?

[Context]

I (F16) had a friend, who we'll call V (F30s). We met on an online chat game, with the main focus being decorating rooms and playing mini-games with other players. She had been playing for well over ten years at that point, while I was still pretty new (about a year or two, in comparison). I had a pretty large friend group on that game, and when I met her, I kind of brought her into this group.

Several months (6+ ish) later, the group and I decided to create a knock-off room of some of the most popular rooms on the server. We had mostly all met in these popular rooms and just wanted one of our own for the friend group and others like us. This was largely my idea, along with my best friend, R (16M). R contributed the most in terms of financial support, and we both took on designing the room. Everyone else pitched in ideas, but were largely unhelpful in the grand scheme of things. V was the most unhelpful, as she would get pissy about small things that didnt go her way, even when she wasn't contributing to the creation of this room.

Eventually, the room was completed how R and I wanted it, with some input from the others. V did a 180 and was soooo happy with how everything turned out. Everything was back to normal with her.

Now, our room was not successful. We did not end up one of the popular ones. While a little disappointing, it was fine because we were still hanging out with our friends and having fun. About a month or two in, I got a message from R telling me to log on quick, bc the room was in disarray.

I logged in and people were telling me V had trashed it (all of us in the main group had complete access to the room, so could make changes as needed). While it wasn't "trashed" per se, it was a mess and it did take me a couple hours to fix everything.

Friends filled me in and told me V had apparently been secretly making her own room (another knock-off like ours, but worse) with a guy who had said some disgusting things about me, and several friends joined her in tarnishing ours before leaving to be with her.

This was an utter betrayal as I loved them all and had trusted them with something R and I worked very hard on for all of us. There was never any indication that V was unhappy with anything, as we spoke every day and she was always saying how much she loved our group and how we were definitely gonna be the most successful eventually and blah blah. I mean, I recognized that she was just saying what I wanted to hear, but still. I thought of her like a big sister.

[End Context]

A few days went by, and R and I were talking about everything that had happened. I was finally over the shock, and I was just angry. R said he wished there were some way we could get back at her. I remembered that V had given me her password months prior for an event she couldn't complete, and I had logged in and done it for her. I told him that she said it was the only password she'd ever used, since she was young, and I bet she hadn't changed it.

I was wrong, she HAD changed it, but she had also given me her email for the login information, so I tried the password on her email. I got in. So I changed her game password through her email and logged in.

She had been online, but this game would kick you off if someone else logged in while you were online, so I knew I had precious little time before she'd change the password back and I'd be kicked off.

So I went into her room, mass-banned everyone in there (including some of my former friends, one was the gross guy I hated), destroyed the room as much as possible, and then privated it so no one could enter (idk why I didn't just delete the room, wasn't thinking clearly ig). I then typed in as many censored words as I could so the auto-filter would flag her and get her account suspended.

Her account DID get suspended (and the game team was notorious for having the worst support ever. Once your account was suspended/banned, you almost never got it back), and I was auto-logged out. I logged back into my personal account, and R and I freaked out, just super giddy. V used an alt account to confront us, and ofc we denied having any involvement, but laughed at her anyways.

She did eventually (a month or two later) get her main account back, but before that she had lost all of her stuff, so she couldn't reopen her room. I was pretty satisfied with this, but some of the former friends who sided with her told me it had taken a toll on her mental health. I told them that all of their betrayals had taken a toll on MY mental health, so why should I be bothered, especially when I hadn't DONE anything (wink).

All in all, I felt justified, and she did eventually get her main account back, and I stopped playing not too long after that, but I'd still like to know what other people think.

AITA?

What are these acronyms?