#will be making use of the queue lots more these next few days!

[flockrest]

munday questions for mumus / @stygicniron, @lunaright, & anonymous

which muse would you say is the most fun to write personally?

heads-up that i may answer some of these with most of my muses in mind, including those not featured on this blog!

as for most fun, is it any surprise that my answer would be tulin! out of all the Little Guys i've actually made a blog for, he's had the advantage of not additionally being an extremely minor or niche character, so levels of engagement from others have been super lovely and crucial in making him the most enjoyable to write! otherwise, toothless from httyd and my wife queen zelda from twilight princess come very close in second place due to being written with close friends in the past.

are there any muses you’ve dropped? if so was there a reason why?

i don't think i've ever consciously dropped a muse? my muses can become inactive ( writing/blogwise ) just because my interests, motivation, and energy are never aligned consistently, but i have yet to write for a character i ended up saying never again to shortly after :)

is there a trend or a specific type of muses you normally tend to pick up?

characterisation and thematic-wise, not really! a majority of my muses are now Little Guys and/or Not Human compared to how i first started out, but it's not like being either of those is a personality trait sldkfjlf the things tying them all together most clearly are that they have all given me the same disgusting amount of brainrot, and i am either extremely unhappy with what their canons have done with them or there is so blissfully little of their canons that i am more than happy to do whatever the heck i want with them!

are there muses that you would like to use more?

i love you tutu, but you gotta give the others here some of the spotlight, seriously lskdfjdkl i'd love to write any of the others on this blog more, but particularly kido! he's my son-boy-lad-baby-darling-child of five years and going! the product of two friends fucking around, but i've run a lot further off with him now that i do get sad thinking about how i can't show this friend ( we are unfortunately no longer in contact ) what i've figured out with him :'D

( thank you to everyone who wants to interact with him btw. you are the realest mvps, i hope you know that )

honestly though, it's kind of my fault for not pushing for anyone other than tuli more, and i understand that minor/more niche characters can be left by the wayside when there's only so much time we all have for this hobby. this is more a case of it is what it is, and i can deal with that! i just hope i'll be able to get more interactions with everyone, not just tulin, as time passes!

which muse has had the biggest change in personality or drastic turns in character development?

good question! maybe rauru? i doubt putting him through several crises in his life doesn't count as drastic turns in development slkfjdlf the only muse i've got who beats him in terms of What Horrors Can Be Inflicted On You would probably be the runaway kid from little nightmares :')

but the one whose organic development surprised me the most is probably kido! he started off as little more than an offshoot of the concept of "collective grief" that i was enabled to taking more seriously, then i really started thinking about his family, and what healing might look like for him, and what it might not look like for him, and before i knew it i had more character thoughts and motivations than i know what to do with?? perks of being a writer ahaha

[lavenderspence]

Cute, Outraged Genius | S.R.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Content warning: fluff, Spencer being a bit of a technophobe

Word Count: 1.5K

Summary: Spencer comes home only to find you using a kindle…instant outrage

A/N: This is just a cute little story about Spencer being our little technophobe genius. I actually don’t own a kindle, so don’t know how those work or anything, but physical books are in fact superior, so.

The quote at the end is from “Book Lovers” by Emily Henry

masterlist

You loved his apartment, sometimes more than you loved yours. Being in his space, surrounded by his things - his books, his clothes, the silly art he indulged in. Being drowned by his scent, meters upon meters of space he’d touched, it soothed you like nothing else could.

The peace you felt whenever you were in his space was unparalleled.

You loved his bedroom, the plushness of his bed, his closed, where you found yourself stealing his shirts and cardigans, never giving them back. 

Your favorite place in apartment 23 was his couch, where he found you often enough, when he returned from a case, curled up with a book. You loved the blanket thrown on the back and the windows that allowed for the whole apartment to light up with the sunlight. 

And then there were his bookshelves, in clear view from said couch. Filled with his favorite books, special editions he held close to his heart, or some that brought him knowledge. The shelves, that now also held some of your favorite books too.

Reading, books, was the thing that had brought you together in the first place, so when he’d made space for your clothes in his closet and your toiletries in the bathroom, he’d also made space for your books to sit beside his own. 

He’d insisted it made the place feel less like it was his own, and more like it was shared, even though you weren’t living together. It warmed your heart to know, that he saw his apartment as a home for both of you.

Seeing your books among his own, made you fall even more in love with him because he knew what they meant to you. So much so, he tumbed through a few, leaving sticky notes with his little thoughts between the pages.

As for your first meeting, it was funny.

You’d met a year ago, at a cafe close to his apartment. Stuck in a long queue, waiting for your turn, your nose had been buried into a book, completely oblivious to your surroundings. Spencer had been standing behind you, and like the nosy dork he is, had been reading along with you, over your shoulder.

When he’d pointed out an inaccuracy in the plot, compared to real life, you’d screamed, slamming the book shut, and successfully making a fool of yourself in front of the whole cafe. 

He’d apologized bashfully, and asked to buy your drink for you, and then lingered for a short conversation before he’d been called away on a case. 

In his hurry to get to the FBI on time, he’d forgotten to take your number. Two weeks later, and after a lot of blaming himself for being a dumbass, he’d seen you again, nose buried into another book, sipping a beverage next to the window of the cafe. 

You hadn’t attached puzzling looks this time, and he’d gotten your number. A year later, you couldn’t be more happy for the fact that your boyfriend sometimes didn’t really get social cues.

You smiled, thinking back on that day. 

You focused on your book again, eyes dancing around the page, following with rapt attention. 

Reading was one of the few things that brought you peace, quieted your brain, and improved your mood. 

Sometimes you envied Spencer’s genius, being able to go through War & Peace at breakfast, without batting an eye. Reading, and reading, and still having the time for other things. If, in your lifetime, you could read as many books as Spencer had read thus far in life, you’d be happy. 

You were giggling, kicking your feet, and enjoying your book, when you heard the telltale sign of Spencer arriving home - his key being inserted into the lock. 

You didn’t move your eyes away from the book, having reached a great part of the book. 

The door opened, and in walked your boyfriend, a peep in his step, happy he’d get to see you and spend time with you after 6 days of being away. 

He left his keys in the bowl next to the door, freed himself of his shoes, and set his messenger bag down. 

He walked further in, noticing the vanilla and chocolate scent in the air - you’d followed tradition, baking a small tray of chocolate chip cookies as a welcome for him. 

He stood behind you, draping his hands around your neck, and leaned over to kiss the side of your head gently, finally diverting your attention away from the book. 

“Hello, sweetheart,” he murmured, warm breath tickling your neck next, as he kissed around your ear and pulse point. 

“Hi there, babe.” you were whispering too, finally happy to be in your own bubble. “How are you? How was the case?” you asked, just like you did every time, just like you did every day. You always wanted to know how he was, you wanted to know about his day, and he’d gotten so used to it and had done it so many times for you too, it had become routine, a way to show each other you cared and loved each other. 

“I’m good, a little tired maybe,” he nuzzled your neck, eyes shut in contentment, “The case was tough, but successfully closed at the end,” he rarely elaborated, only if someone was hurt, or the case had taken a toll on his mental health. Other than that, he didn’t like bringing the gory details of the cases home with him. 

Home was his space with you, where you laughed, and sometimes cried. Where you cuddled and made love, read together, or to each other, where you cooked, where you relaxed. It was no place for the realities of a BAU profiler. 

“What are you doing?” it was a simple question. 

“I’m reading,” and there was an even simpler answer, except if you were Spencer Reid, a doctor with three PhDs, three bachelor’s degrees, an FBI agent, and a complete, and utter technophobe. 

You felt him lift his head before he choked out a high-pitched “You’re what?” and you turned around to see him, shock and betrayal written on his face, his eyes as big as saucers. 

You looked at him like he’d grown two heads, but you knew you should have expected this. 

You’d made the decision to get a kindle last week, and you’d used the time he hadn’t been home to set it up and try it out. 

“What are you even reading on that thing? That’s not a book!” he was outraged, but at the same time, he looked so cute, that you started laughing. You brought a hand to your mouth, in hopes of muffling the sound a little because you were losing it, laughing with everything you had. 

“Stop laughing, it’s not funny. I’m serious.” you just laughed harder, even though you tried to reign it in and stop. 

Around a minute later, your laughter started dying down, and you looked up, only to see him with his arms crossed against his chest, an expression between bewilderment, and those deep brown puppy eyes staring straight into your soul.

“It’s a kindle, Spence, it’s all digital,” you told him

“No, I know that, but you can’t be serious,” your brows furrowed, a bit butt hurt, until he continued, “You know, readers prefer physical books. A recent study found that only 21% prefer e-books, as little as 14% audiobooks, and 65% are physical book readers. Another study found that your brain absorbs less when you read on a kindle than on paper.” You laughed again, loving his brain, and then patted the space next to you, waiting for him to sit down.

“I thought you were pro saving the planet Mr. Three PHD’s.” you joked, waiting for him to sass you back. After all, one of your favorite characteristics of his was how sassy he was. 

“Well, yes I am, but statistically, physical copies are superior. A book needs to be physical, not whatever bullshit that is. Come on, let’s just return this, and I’ll buy you all the books you want,” he went to stand up, and you pulled him back down by the back of his shirt. 

“Aww babe, I know you will!” Spencer loved buying some of your books for you, he loved seeing the smile on your face when he bought a book you’ve wanted for a while. You buried your face into his neck, hugging him to you. 

“Come on, let’s cuddle before dinner, get a cookie, and I’ll read to you for a bit, I just reached a good part,” you whisper into his neck, and he exhales, reaching towards the coffee table to get a cookie before you relax into each other, and you pick up the kindle, reading where you left off. 

“We really are two opposing magnets, incapable of being in the same room without drawing together. I want to scrape my fingers through his hair and kiss him until he forgets where we are, and everything and everyone that ever made him feel like he was a disappointment. And he’s looking at me like I could, like there’s an ache in him only I could soothe.” you read, hand running through his hair, happy to have him back.

Reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated!

[soaps-mohawk]

I'm going to be honest

I'm having a genuinely hard time making this post. I've been fighting with it for a couple weeks now, but I think it's time I finally make it.

I'm not having fun on this blog anymore.

It sounds bad, but honestly, it kind of is.

I think a lot of it started from the very beginning with the precedence and expectations I put on myself. I've always tried to respond to every comment I get. Even from the beginning. It's just a polite thing to do since those who leave comments took the time to write out what they think of my fic, even if it's just a keysmash. I've always felt the need to thank those who leave comments or reblog my writing or (now that tumblr has it) replied to my fics. It worked fine before because none of my fics were particularly popular. Even my most popular fic (at that time) didn't get as much attention as CRCB has. I've never had a "big blog" before, nor a fic as popular as CRCB has gotten.

It was fine at first, responding to everyone, engaging with everyone. I was riding that high of omg so many people are reading and enjoying my fic! I've never had anything quite like this before.

Now...it just feels more like a chore. I set this precedence on this blog that I respond to everyone and I know a lot of people have said that they're surprised I responded to them and to everyone, and now I'm getting why a lot of writers don't. I'm exhausted. I feel like I've just been robotically saying the same thing over and over trying to respond to people now. I used to love seeing asks in my inbox and reblogs and replies but now? All I feel is dread because I have to respond to all of those.

Turning anon off was a big help. It lessened the sheer volume of asks I was getting a day. And while I do feel bad for all of my anons who prefer to stay anons, with everything that happened (the multiple incidents) with anon that kind of started to suck the joy out of everything. That paired with the obsessive need to constantly have my inbox cleared and make sure everyone gets a response...I can understand now too why big blogs will have 200+ asks in their inbox. It's hard and it's exhausting and I'm burning out.

First it was the fic that was burning me out. Things have gone on far longer than I planned and I just wasn't prepared for this fic to go on and for a while there it was dragging. I'll admit that. If I could go back, I'd speed up a few things, but it's done, it's posted there's no going back. I kind of hoped I would have the mental capacity to upload more than once a week too, but I just couldn't. I still can't.

I've come to dread posting chapters because I know I'm going to have to reply and respond to everyone. The only thing keeping me posting is the fact that we're in the part of the story I've been excited about since the beginning and also because I keep leaving everyone on cliffhangers and I love torturing y'all with all of them.

So that being said, this is in no way to shame anyone for interacting with me, anyone leaving comments or replies or sending asks. Don't feel bad about doing it please. I appreciate all of you that have engaged with me and it really means so much to me. Honestly, earlier this year, if I didn't have this fic and everyone on this blog, I might not have made it to now. It's been a really rough year and it's still going to be into next year. It's just getting to the point where I need a break.

I've needed a break for a long time. I thought taking days off the blog would help, and it did for a couple of weeks, but now even on the days I'm supposed to be on the blog and engaging, I just find myself queueing stuff up and just being offline most of the day still.

I'm tired. That's the best reason I can give. I'm tired and burned out on life and I'm tired and burned out on this blog.

So...I think I need a break. I need to not keep responding to every single reply and reblog every chapter. I need to not force myself to answer every ask right away, no matter how much I want to. I feel bad, but I know everyone would rather have me here and enjoying the blog than forcing myself to interact to the point where I'm dreading it and just robotically repeating myself over and over with every reply and answer and comment.

I won't be pausing the fic, I won't be not uploading. I'll still be posting chapters, I just might not be interacting as much as I have been. It's just putting such a mental strain on me still, even with anon off, even with days off. And with things getting busier for me, it's going to be too much to try and deal with irl stuff and write and try to be super active on the blog. There's going to come a point where I have to sacrifice the writing or the blog and I'd rather sacrifice the blog to keep myself sane, and also to keep trying to finally get this fic done. I love this fic, don't get me wrong, but I'm just burning out.

I'm already burned out in a lot of ways.

I was planning kinktober this year but honestly I'm considering not doing it because I know interaction is going to be insane and it's going to be a lot to keep up on. Plus trying to write that many fics is hard and I'm not sure I have the ability to do it. I have a few done but now I'm just like...is that something I want to do on top of irl stuff and CRCB.

There's just no joy in it anymore. It's not anyone's fault but mine. I put the pressure on myself, I held myself to that standard for this long despite the fact I knew it was draining me. I've tried to push through when I should have prioritized myself. I feel so guilty not responding to everyone. I feel so guilty being a day or two late responding to everyone.

I want to be here and interacting and responding to things but I just can't bring myself to anymore. It's no one's fault, and this is not a drag on anyone, or an attempt to make anyone feel bad or guilty for interacting or sending asks or anything. I'm just airing out the truth and saying what I need to say because I feel like I've been so robotic and lifeless with my responses these last couple weeks and I feel like I need to explain why. It's nothing anyone has done. It's my fault. It's 100% my fault.

Things have just gotten to be too much and it's my fault for forcing myself to be so active. The social battery has dropped into the negatives. I'm not a social person. I can only handle so much interaction and I've pushed so far beyond that, that things have gotten to this point. I want to be here and I want to have fun and I want to use this as an escape but I just don't feel that way about it anymore. It's a chore for me, a job, something I feel like I have to do and it's my fault that I feel that way. It's my own standards and expectations I set on myself, and my expectations on what I think my followers want and deserve and now I feel like I've gone on too long like this that I can't change things without hurting anyone's feelings. I don't want people to think I'm ignoring them in favor of others because I know there's writers out there that do that. They only respond to a certain group and ignore others that comment and reblog. I don't want to make anyone feel like I'm doing that to them and that's now led me to here.

I'm forcing it and I'm tired.

It's been hard these last few weeks. The life has just been draining and draining continuously. The joy and the love I have for this blog and my followers and the interactions and the fic. The last anon bullshit that happened was just kind of the last nail in the coffin so to speak. The straw that broke the camel's back. Things stopped being fun. It made me feel bad (and not in the guilty way, though that was a part of it) and I'm honestly just over it. I'm over the blog, I'm over interacting, I'm over life at this point. August is a hard month for me and every year it seems to get worse and worse. A lot of it is unrelated to anything online and I was going to make a post about it but honestly I just don't want to. Those that know, know. Those that don't...it doesn't matter.

I'm getting annoyed by the blog, I'm getting annoyed every time I look in my notifications and see an ask or a reply or a comment. I'm getting annoyed by some of my followers and that's not fair to you. Everyone always talks about how nice and kind and patient I am when I'm really not. I'm not the person I present myself to be on this blog, the way I mask myself so I can present myself as being a normal, kind human being. The mask is coming off because I'm so tired I can't keep it up anymore. It's happening here and it's happening in real life. I'm tired and I'm frustrated and I'm angry at a lot of things and the last thing I want is to start taking it out on my followers. You don't deserve that, especially when it's not your fault, it's nothing any of you have done. It's all me.

It's not you, it's me.

So for the sake of not burning this whole thing to the ground, I'm going to take a break. I'm not replying to everyone, I'm not responding to every reblog, I won't reply to every ask I get right away, if at all because sometimes I just don't have anything to say in response and I need to learn that's okay. It's nothing against you. It's not aimed at anyone specifically, I'm just trying to put myself first and stop things from escalating. I need a break and I'm going to do something selfish and I'm going to take it.

Don't apologize because it's not your fault. Don't apologize because you think you might have contributed to this because you didn't. It is no one's fault but my own.

I'm the one that needs to apologize to all of you because I've just not been myself because I've been forcing myself to be someone I'm not. I've been very unfair to a lot of people over the last seven months that this blog has been active and I've held a precedent that is not sustainable in the long run and made everyone believe that I was capable of maintaining that kind of interaction when I'm not.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've been putting everyone through this. I'm sorry I've been so detached and robotic and ingenuine. I'm sorry I led everyone to believe I'm someone I'm not. I'm sorry I've dragged this on this long that it's gotten to the point that I have to make this post.

I considered just disappearing but that wouldn't be fair to you either. I don't want to put you through that, so I'm pouring all of my thoughts out and making you read through this fucking novel of a post. If you've made it this far, then congrats I guess. Gold metals to you who bothered reading this far.

Anyway, all of that aside, I'll still be posting chapters. I'll have them scheduled and I'll probably come on and add links places to keep things current. I'll respond and reply and answer asks when I feel like it. You don't have to stop sending them, but just don't expect them to be responded to right away anymore. I'll probably still be here reblogging things I want and doing things when I feel like it.

I just need a few weeks to myself. Time I don't have to care about the blog at all and keeping up with it. Anon will remain off for the sake of keeping asshole trolls away, and also so I don't open tumblr and have 200 asks in my inbox after a week. Sorry to my anons but it's just the way it needs to be right now. Maybe once this break is over and I've dealt with irl stuff, I'll consider putting it back on. I just can't after everything I dealt with recently on anon.

It'll be the same on Ao3, for those that follow here and read there. Comments will probably sit for a while. They won't be answered right away anymore unless I get the energy to burn through them. Even then I won't try to answer them all at once like I did this last weekend.

I'll try to reblog something every day so y'all know I'm alright. I don't want y'all to panic and it's not fair to put you through that, especially those that might not see this or bother reading it. Those that follow simply for the fic and nothing else. I'm here, I'm just not...here.

This week's chapter is in the queue to be posted tomorrow as usual. Chapters will still come out as planned since I'm not stopping writing, just taking a break from the blog itself.

Thank you those of you who stuck through to the end here. I appreciate all of you so much. You have no idea. I'm sorry I let things get to this point and I'm sorry to anyone that I've gotten rude or snappy with because I couldn't be selfish and put myself first. I'm sorry to anyone that got a robotic, repeated response to something they were probably excited to share. I'm sorry I've been so unfair to everyone and I hope you can forgive me.

Take care and I'll talk to everyone when I have the energy to.

[felixbit]

i hate to wait so long

pairing: seungmin x gn!reader w. 1.9k genre: fluff summary: your long-distance boyfriend's birthday is coming up but you don't have the funds to visit him this year. surprisingly, seungmin turns up to your door anyways. warnings: reader is a uni student studying abroad a/n: inspired by the lyrics of this song :)

Choosing to study abroad was a good idea in concept. You got to travel and live in another country's culture for a semester as you worked on your degree.

That was, until you got a boyfriend. He lived back at home and you reconnected over old friends when you were first packing to leave. He'd come over to your place and hang out, playing video games and teasing you when you couldn't lift a moving box without help. Not that he could, either.

His name was Seungmin. He asked you out one week before you left for the semester, and it was the best week you'd had in a long time. You spent almost every day together, hanging out and trying new things until you got tired and crashed at each other's places.

When that first week came to a close, you begrudgingly packed up your things. Seungmin drove you to the airport, holding your hand as far into the airport as he could come with you.

It was through a teary-eyed confession from him that revealed he'd never felt closer to someone before than he did with you. He was too scared of saying goodbye and asked to be your boyfriend, even if he was terrified of moving too fast.

When you agreed, he was using his sleeve to rub his eyes and denied ever crying. He told you to have a safe trip and he kissed you for the first time, promising a million more the next time he saw you.

You thought about that moment every day. Sitting at a desk doing work had never felt more dull, especially when you had a perfect boyfriend waiting for you at home. Life abroad wasn't bad, you were loving it, you just missed him more.

Every night, you stayed up to call him and tell him all about your day-to-day. He'd hop on his computer and play video games with you until the sun peeked over the horizon or you resigned to sleep.

When you weren't calling each other, you texted the whole rest of your waking hours. Seungmin would send a plethora of random photos from his day and complain about his band mates while you responded with your own pictures and advice.

It was starting to occur to you how close it was getting to September, which meant Seungmin's birthday was just around the corner. You had already decided on gifts, ready to buy them so they'll be delivered right on time.

But, it dawned on you pretty fast that you didn't have the money to visit. Studying in another country was really expensive and there was only so much time in a day you could work outside of school. Either way, there was no miracle budget to make it possible.

You told him this almost immediately, and he was extremely good about it. He reassured you that it wasn't necessary and he'd make up for all the lost time soon enough when you were done.

The remaining weeks between then had been full of assignments and deadlines coming up, so it snuck up on you. You'd been on a call with Seungmin the night before playing Overwatch when you looked down at the date on your computer.

"What time is it? Lemme- oh, shit." You stopped mid sentence, staring at the date on your computer screen in awe.

Seungmin looked confused, his webcam up on your second screen. "What's wrong? Do I need to back out of the queue?"

"No, no," You shook your head, laughing nervously, "I just saw the date. Your birthday's tomorrow."

"Don't tell me you forgot," Seungmin looked a little dumbfounded.

"I didn't forget, I just.. I've had a lot going on these past few weeks that September kinda went a little too fast."

"It's okay," Seungmin reassured, "I'll forgive you when I get to open the pile of gifts you've been sending me tomorrow morning."

"I wish I could be there to see it," You lamented.

"It's alright. You'll be able to give me them all in person next year, right?"

"Right! Plus, I'll be able to give you Christmas gifts at least."

At that moment, you connected to a game and the topic of conversation switched. The thought of missing his birthday lingered in the back of your mind, but you pushed it away in order to enjoy the night with your boyfriend.

As the night was coming to a close, you made sure to wish him a happy birthday right as the clock rolled over to midnight. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary to stay up another three hours, but Seungmin decided to go to bed early and you followed in his footsteps.

Sleeping was nice. It was one of the times you could see Seungmin. He was almost always there waiting for you with a smile on his face. You could do anything together, just in a fantasy land. Maybe he wasn't really there, but it was enough to keep you going.

That night, you laid with him in bed. Your head was on his chest over a soft sweater as he sung to you. It was the first time in a while you'd dreamed of his room, bringing back all of the fond memories from before you'd left. His posters, guitar sat against his record collection, all his bookshelves. His diary was even on the nightstand beside his bed, true to life.

You almost hated waking up. The world was cruel for taking away the perfect dream it had crafted, but you knew soon enough you'd be in his room again.

Seungmin's birthday fell on a Sunday this year, so you didn't worry too much about waking up early. When you did inevitably get up, you made sure to text him a few more 'happy birthday' messages just in case he forgot about it himself. He was already up, thanking you for the birthday wishes and sending you a photo of his outfit.

It wasn't really his style to be awake and ready this early in the day, but it was his birthday. He has to make the most of his special day, you thought. So, you sent back some compliments and hearts and moved on with your own morning routine.

As you normally would, you kept Seungmin updated through texts on your morning. He wasn't super chatty, but it was to be expected with whatever he had planned. You expected to see a wall of text on what he was up to by the end of the day, but for now it was quiet.

By noon, you had gotten a little concerned, but brushed it off. His family likely had things to do with him, right? Plus, he had to get in some good meals.

It was almost one in the afternoon when you finally heard back from him. Seeing his name on your phone screen gave you an instant feeling of relief.

seungmin: come outside

You heard a knock at your door. The text had you confused, but you followed along. He couldn't be here, right?

Opening the door, there he stood. He was grinning ear-to-ear, shifting around on his feet. "Surprise."

It was on instinct that you threw your arms around him and hugged him with all the weight in your body. His wrapped around you and squeezed you back until you were wincing from the pressure.

"What are you doing here?!" You looked at him dumbfounded, your head spinning.

He looked back at you sheepishly, "I dunno, just thought it'd be cool if I showed up for a birthday surprise?"

"Yeah, but it's your birthday, Seungmin. That's the kind of thing I should be doing on your special day!"

"Well, I knew you didn't have enough to come visit this year, and I made it work! I really didn't want to wait so long to see you again."

You laced your fingers with his and pulled him inside, and that's when the explanation started.

Seungmin had first come up with the idea to come visit on his birthday almost a month prior when he first learned you couldn't come see him. He'd booked a flight out and made sure there wasn't any huge exams around the day.

That morning, he'd gotten up at six just to get ready and look good in time to catch his flight. He'd sent you photos he'd taken earlier when he was sitting in the airport, hoping it didn't look too suspicious.

The absence in texts was his flight over. It wasn't super long, but it was enough that he worried you'd catch onto his plan. From there, he'd gathered his stuff as quickly as he could and grabbed a ride over to your place.

After his story, you made sure to get him some food and snacks, which you happily enjoyed together as he turned on a show. He got a small tour of your student accommodation after the first episode before revealing that he had some plans set up.

Seungmin had made lunch reservations at a place not too far off campus and wanted to take you on a walk there. Of course, you said yes.

The entire way there, Seungmin refused to let go of your hand. He'd swing it along with your steps, chattering on about what was happening and the music he was making. But, no matter what, his fingers were locked with yours.

That was the fun part: Seungmin wasn't usually a big talker. He'd have lots of input to give when you would talk to him, but he wasn't super into initiating his own discussions. Today was different.

So as you walked down the cracked pavement of the sidewalks, your attention was grabbed by your chatty boyfriend. You got to engage with a lot of what he was saying, but it was nice to just walk and listen to him ramble.

Everything seemed more lively. The birds had their own chorus, the grass looked greener, and there were less loud cars blaring their music. By the time you were coming up on the lunch spot, you found your heart contented with the day already, even if you'd only been with Seungmin less than two hours.

"Minnie?" You squeezed his hand softly as you waited at a sidewalk.

Seungmin turned towards you with a smile on his face. "Yeah?"

"Thank you for coming and seeing me," You felt your face flush a little at the thought, "I really don't know how I could've waited any longer without you."

Your boyfriend's big grin couldn't be contained as he let out a quiet laugh. "I don't think I could've waited, either. You've been in my dreams too much lately, and it's been driving me crazy not having you here."

"You see me in your dreams, too?" You asked, recalling the one from the previous night, "It's kind of infuriating, isn't it? It feels so perfect and then it's taken away so quick."

"Yeah, I just couldn't wait another day without having you here with me," Seungmin stopped as you crossed to the other side of the street before pulling you into a hug, "I had to hold you like this for real."

"You're such a dork."

Seungmin snickered as he pulled away from the hug and gave you a quick, yet tender kiss. His lips were soft and tasted sweet, making you miss them the second they were gone. "For you. The rest of the world doesn't matter to me."

"Today really has you in a sentimental mood, huh?" You pulled him in for another kiss, making sure it lasted longer. "Happy birthday."

"Yeah, yeah. Let's go get lunch before you make out with me on the street."

[wip]

A very very minor thing I have been curious about for a while, and I'm finally asking: why do you calculate queue posting times the way you do? For example, if I set my queue to post 3x a day, naively I would expect it to post every 8 hours. But in reality it posts every 6 hours with a 12 hour gap between days. Why complicate the math like that?

Answer: Hello @circumference-pie!

Buckle up y’all, it’s story time again!

First: nobody who works at Tumblr right now was a part of the work of planning the default queue implementation, which was more than ten years ago. So the full story behind “Why does it work that way?” has unfortunately been lost to the sands of time. All we can do is tell you how it works today and surmise some reasons why. The queue is actually a very clever system and part of how it works explains some of why it works the way it does. Also, there have been attempts to do what you ask—we still have “Queue 2.0” available in your Tumblr Labs settings, which tries to get closer to how you expect things to work.

Anyway! How the queue works today is not actually a queue in the traditional sense. There is no single list of posts that are in “your queue”. Instead, when you “Add to queue” after creating a post, we’re actually scheduling it to post at a future time, as if you had used the “Schedule post” option instead. We’re just calculating that time on your behalf when you use “Add to queue”, based on your settings, and how many other scheduled posts you have already. We use a secondary “index” model, called “ScheduledPost”, to keep track of posts you have scheduled on your blog. We do mark the ones that are a part of “your queue”, but the data model doesn’t keep one list of your “queue” per se.

You can see this in action on your blog, hiding in plain sight. If you add a bunch of posts to your queue, and then schedule a post for a specific future date, you’ll see both in your blog’s “queue” list, side by side. Because technically to us, they’re the same thing: queued posts are really just another kind of scheduled post, relying on the same always-running service to publish scheduled posts across all of Tumblr. Here’s a fun fact: we typically have about ~14.5 million future posts to publish from this list at any given time and are publishing hundreds of these scheduled posts every second.

So when you’re adding a new post to your queue, what we’re doing behind the scenes is starting at the beginning of your “day”, and creating time slots based on your queue settings. If a time slot is already filled, we move on to the next one. That’s why the default queue scheduler works how you describe—we’re trying to fill those “slots” based on the start of the day, rather than trying to divide the calendar day evenly. This just makes it much simpler for us to understand, scale, and predict when our “peaks” will be. At peak times, the publish-scheduled-posts service is publishing tens of thousands of posts in a manner of seconds. We did rewrite that post-publishing part of this architecture a few years ago to improve its efficiency and solve a lot of “lost post” bugs, but we didn’t change how “Add to queue” works.

However, the Queue 2.0 project available in Labs was an attempt to change the queue system to work as you expect—instead of starting at [beginning of day] and creating enough slots to fit [number of slots] every [number of hours], it tries to divide the calendar day into [number of slots] and fit the result back to the original algorithm’s mapping of the day. We never productionized this alternative approach, because it has a few bugs that some blogs hit in extreme cases, and we’ve never had time to fully fix them. It also can cause a bit of weirdness when time zones diverge, like with daylight savings time. Also, a lot of people prefer the default algorithm, and we haven’t thought of a nice way to transition everyone from one to the other. So for now, both options exist, and you can choose which algorithm for queue-slot-generating you want to use. We hope that makes sense! 

While complicated, it is a great example of a system built by engineers to make sense and be scalable and predictable. But sometimes these kinds of systems, while clever, aren’t very intuitive to understand without digging into how they work.

Thanks for your question, and keep ’em coming. 

[ellabscrush]

— driver!ellabs headcanons 🛞

thinking about you being ellie & abby’s passenger princess..

» content; modern hcs, poly relationship, afab!reader, specific hcs, fluff, no smut just slight making out lol. mentions of road anxiety.

» a/n; the middle pic is literally abby and ellie coded. anyways, i felt like making this because is it just me orrrr is driving attractive?? especially when you imagine ellie and or abby driving you around??

divider creds to @cafekitsune

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

ELLIE WILLIAMS

driver!ellie lowkey would drive a used, 2000’s old ass sedan that has a few trash laying around the backseat.

driver!ellie often greets you by giving a peck on your lips, your neck, and compliments you as always.

driver!ellie random smiskis on the dash board you gifted her + glow in the dark star stickers on her sun roof ◡̈

driver!ellie blasts music but would ask you if it’s too loud for your liking.

driver!ellie she road rages SO much. like she has zero chill when it comes to being on the road. even when she’s the one at fault or the other car infront of her is driving the speed limit, she usually cusses them out for no reason 😭

driver!ellie stingy with aux but loves you so she hands her phone over so you could play your own music strictly on queue.

driver!ellie her music playlist covers are soft launch pictures of you.. and sometimes abby.

driver!ellie rests her slender hands on your thigh when she’s not as focused on traffic.

driver!ellie at a stop light, ellie would look over at you and admires how beautiful you look next to her while she caresses your face, “you look good.”

driver!ellie if her girls are not in the car, she would facetime you both while devouring some fast food. she loves you & abby’s company even when you both aren’t there physically.

driver!ellie goes on her phone alot while driving which gives you slight passenger anxiety, but quickly changes that once you mentions it to her one day.

driver!ellie “wanna drive?” asking you with a big ass excited grin on her face.

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

ABBY ANDERSON

driver!abby drives a more newer car that is big enough space for her. she keeps it simple and clean with little to no decor. but religiously uses pine air scents in her vents.

driver!abby has a cute polaroid of the three of you hanging on the dash.

driver!abby greets you by saying your cute lil’ nicknames like; “gorgeous, doll, angel, baby.”

driver!abby unlike els verbal road rage, abby expresses. her frustration by loud sighing or groaning in traffic.

driver!abby bought herself & ellie phone stands on amazon when she heard your annoyance with phone in hand while driving. they even let you put stickers on ‘em.

driver!abby tells you “speed bump.. another one” when your touching up your makeup or something.

driver!abby likes the feeling of you relying on her for rides, “can i drive abs?” “no.”

driver!abby grips your thigh hard to “keep you in place” when the condition of the road is harsh but really she’s just a thigh girl (wbk)

driver!abby looks so hot when picking you up straight from gym. strands of hair sticking on her sweaty forehead, her braid messed up a bit, sports bra & shorts combo 😮‍💨

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

CAR RIDES W/ ELLABS

driver!ellabs abby often insists on driving the two since her car is bigger.. plus lots of room to makeout in the backseat.

driver!ellabs has a collaborated music playlist with a chaotic group cover pic of you three.

driver!ellabs rushes to open the door for you first like it’s a competition.

driver!ellabs ellie being too lazy to move to the back like a normal person so she just climbs to the back of abby’s clean car with shoes on. “you motherfucker,” the blonde sighs, “my bad” ellie playfully smirks.

driver!ellabs when you choose to sit in the back, you were in awe catching a rare sight of abby holding ellie’s thigh.

driver!ellabs “ladybug!” *ellie shoulder punches the both of you*

driver!ellabs carpool karaoke is always a blast.

driver!ellabs abby purposely putting her big arms behind your seat when reversing while ellie watches.

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

[byunpum]

They caught us

Pairing: Neteyam x human reader

Tags: fluff, cuddling, teasing, crushes, playful biting, lots of kisses

Warning: light teasing, some smut 18+, the characters have 20's

AVATAR MASTERLIST | Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3 | Part 4

It was a peaceful day at the camp in the mountains. You had been doing your daily task all day, helping Norm with various tests he had to do for his new investigations. You were also helping Jake with the new tracking maps that Norm had given him. Technology was not his thing, that's why he was always looking for his "favorite daughter-in-law", jake joked with that line. According to him, neteyam and you spent all their time together. Neytiri always tapped him on the arm or gave him a blank stare. You didn't have a bad relationship with Neytiri, she always trusted you. She never said anything when you and neteyam would go for a walk, spend time together, even if there were shows of affection between the two of you. It never bothered her, but when someone hinted that you and neteyam might be a couple, you could see her disapproving face.

You didn't get to see any of the boys during the day, you only knew that loak, spider and neteyam were out for a ride, because tuk told you about it. And since you had already finished all your homework, you decided to go to the lab, to see what you could do there, until it was time for dinner. You went in and noticed that there was no one there, norm and max had gone out to do god knows where. As there was no one there, you decided to go to your room. You could go to it, through a door that connected to the lab. It was a hallway, with doors and one of them was your room. You go in…and literally take off your clothes, leaving you with only an oversized shirt and a pair of panties. You lay face down on your bed, watching an old movie on the tablet that Norm had given you for your birthday.

An hour passed, you were so into the movie, until the door to your room opened. Neteyam's head popped in the door, he didn't want to make any noise. He saw that you were in bed and decided to come in. He had keys to your room, actually he was the only one who had them. And it was for good reasons, the first was that if something happened he could come to look for you, the second was because it was easier to meet you at night. He came in quietly, listening as you were singing softly, the song you heard in the movie. He moved in behind you and let himself fall down.

You screamed in fear and tried to turn around. But you calmed down when you heard his laughter. "What are you doing? Let go of me!!!" you complained as you tried to turn around. But it was almost impossible, neteyam was heavier than you and not to mention that he was twice your size. You swear he was more muscular. "mmm I don't want to, I want to stay here. On top of you mmm" says neteyam as he hugs you more and relaxes his body on top of yours. "come on, let me get comfortable…and I'll let you hug me all you want." You moan. He lifts up a little on his elbows, leaving a little space between you and him. You settle down so that you are on your back, he settles back on top of you. Instinctively you wrap your legs around his sides, just above his waist. "Mmm you smell good" says neteyam with his head buried in your neck. "I've been outside all day, I must not smell good" you speak, stroking her hair, and tracing your fingers through his queue. Making him purr. "oh no, honey…your smell is wonderful" you can feel, as he gives several wet kisses. As he gets closer, his hands were embracing you completely. You could feel him exploring your whole body.

Neteyam had become a little more needy in the last few months, and you knew it. He was touching you more than usual. If you were next to him, he would brush his hands over your hips. Or he would move closer to your neck so he could smell your scent. He would stare at you longer, and you could sense that his gaze was not at all innocent. "Nete… what's wrong with you?" you ask him with a little smile, placing your hands on the sides of his face, making him look up at you. Neteyam looks at you, to get close to your face and kiss you. "I love you" says Neteyam, between kisses. Some on your lips and others on your eyes. "I love you too" you laugh, his lips tickle you. Neteyam sits on the bed, and grabs the back of your thigh, to get more comfortable. "I want you…" Neteyam already had his hands down your shirt. " but… you said you didn't want to hurt me" your voice was cut off, as neteyam's fingers rubbed the sides of your stomach, while he kissed your neck. He was pressing himself harder against you. You reached back to kiss him again.

You started to lift your hips to try to find some friction, neteyam noticed this movement and started to imitate your movements. You moaned a little, it felt so good. Your shirt was already halfway down your body, and he was still placing sloppy kisses here and there. He lifted himself up on top of you, to get more comfortable. "Did you close the door?" you ask him, as you run your hands over his stomach. "Yes, yes" he spoke a bit excited, you glanced down at his loincloth and you could already see his growing erection. Neteyam looked at you, and gave you a cheeky grin. As he settled on top of you again. "Do I get another kiss?" asks Neteyam as he starts kissing you. You laugh into the kiss.

"Y/N has to be in his room" says norm, as he is escorted by jake and neytiri down the hallway on the way to your room. Jake had been having trouble with the maps and was looking for you to help him again. "this place is horrible," says neytiri walking next to jake. "there are worse places." norm laughs, as she guides him to your room.

The situation had already escalated, the only noise you could hear in the room was the moaning of both of them. Neteyam was already on his way to your panties, his hand stopped on the edge of them, playing a little. " you know… I hate this thing" he says as he continues kissing neck. " Well, if you want you can take it off" you flirt with him a little bit, pinking your nose against his. While neteyam trails under your panties, brushing his fingers on your little nub. You moan softly, stealing a kiss from him. "mmm don't tease me" you speak, not noticing your bedroom door opening.

You were so entertained between the two of you, you didn't notice the door open. Norm stood in front of Jake and Neytiri. The three of you were silent. No words came out of their mouths, they were in a state of shock. Neteyam was on top of you, your shirt was up, neteyam was kissing you, and they could see where neteyam's hand was. Jake's face changed and so did Norm's. "NETEYAM!!!" neytiri yelled. You two opened your eyes. And tried to get settled as fast as you could. "What's going on here?" neytiri shouted. "It's so obvious!!!" says Jake, making Neytiri look at him, and he changes his gaze. "Mom, I can explain," says Neteyam, sitting on your bed.

You didn't know what to say, you were adjusting your shirt. The situation in itself was embarrassing. "Why-why don't we just let them…. We'll be waiting for you in the lab," says Norm, pushing everyone out of your room. Neytiri was still screaming, while Jake dragged her with him. You two stood there, silent. Until neteyam started laughing.

"Your mother will murder me!!!" you say, and throw yourself backwards on your bed. Neteyam laughs, and lies down next to you. He moves, to bite your ear. "Hey …. are you calm because nothing is going to happen to you" you say. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you" says neteyam lying on top of you again. "Neteyam! They are waiting for us!!!" you moan, as you play along. "Then let them wait".

[harrywavycurly]

I’m dying to see Harry trying to help with wedding planning because god that just seems like it would be so overwhelming 😫

Hiii babes!! I hope you enjoy this! I agree it seems like it would be so overwhelming and he would do his best to help anyway he can!💖

-find all things for the Lonely series here✨

A/N: You’re worried that you won’t have centerpieces for your wedding but Harry is there to help fix it all, enjoy✨

You try your hardest to keep your facial expression polite so you don’t let your eyebrows rise too much or your eyes get too big and you make sure your smile doesn’t falter not even for a second as Malory, the lovely woman showing you some examples of centerpieces for the tables at your reception, places a giant floral arrangement that’s full of red roses that’s in a jeweled vase on the table in front of you. You want to give up, this is the fifth arrangement she’s shown you and you don’t know where she’s getting the inspiration from because you had told her what the theme or vibe of your wedding was a few weeks ago when you called to set this appointment up and she had assured you she understood but so far nothing was giving you that impression at all.

“Is your fiancé joining us?” Malory asks with a smile as she stands next to the table holding the hideous flower arrangement.

“Yes he-”

“Sorry I’m late sweetheart Gem needed my approval on her dress and it took ages longer than intended.” As if on queue Harry walks through the door of the little shop and you instantly feel like you could cry the moment his eyes lock with yours and his soothing voice fills your ears.

It’s moments like these that you’re thankful that Harry has known you for as long as he has because he knows what’s going on the moment he sees you and takes in your glassy eyes and the way you’re biting your bottom lip, so he briefly looks away from you so he can give Malory a warm smile as he walks over to her. “Hi I’m Harry the fiancé of this lovely woman over here and I’m just wondering if I could get a few moments with her? Haven’t seen her all day and I just-”

“Oh of course! Yes I’m Malory and I’ll just go get the next few arrangements ready.” She gives him a knowing look and a playful wink as she pats Harry on the arm before she turns and heads off towards the back leaving you and Harry alone in the front of the shop. The moment she is out of sight Harry is turning around and taking the few steps over to you so he’s standing in front of you wrapping his arms around your shoulders and pulling you into his chest while his lips press a kiss to the top of your head.

“What’s wrong baby?” He asks as he gives you a nice squeeze as you let out a deep sigh and close your eyes and let yourself get engulfed in the comfort that is just being with Harry, he’s always been able to wrap you up in his arms and make you forget about the world around you and you need that in this moment more than anything.

“They’re all ugly.” You mumble with your eyes still closed as your arms snake around his middle pulling him closer to you. Harry begins to run his hands up and down your back as he places a kiss to the side of your head. “We get married in nine months and we aren’t going to have any centerpieces.” You explain as you try to fight back to urge to just let out a frustrated sob because you didn’t think picking out a centerpiece would be difficult but it’s proving to be just that.

Now Harry isn’t going to lie and say he’s been the best at helping plan this wedding, he has left a lot of the details to you but does give his honest opinions when you ask for them but lately he’s been able to tell that the few wedding related tasks left have been a bit more daunting and he’s adamant on not letting you have a breakdown over something like a seating chart or flower arrangements. So when you asked him to come help pick centerpieces he didn’t hesitate to say yes, he knows what the vision is for the wedding and the reception and he knows that with the help of Jane, the wedding planner the two of you hired once you realized planning a wedding on your own wasn’t something you were cut out for, it shouldn’t be an issue to get exactly what you’re looking for. But going off of the way you’re practically clinging to him and on the brink of full on crying in the middle of this flower shop he is clearly mistaken. Harry decides in that moment when he feels your grip on him tighten as he hears you let out a shaky breath that he is going to make sure you leave this shop with a smile on your face.

“We are going to have centerpieces love don’t worry.” His voice is soft and soothing in your ear as he begins to ever so gently rock you back and forth a bit in his arms. “Let’s have a look at the options she’s shown you so far yeah?” You open your eyes and look up at him so your chin is resting on his chest and Harry looks down at you and gives you a reassuring smile as he leans down and places a quick kiss to your lips.

You reluctantly let go of him as he loosens his hold on you so you can turn around in his arms. His hands move to your shoulders as he walks a half step behind you as you lead him over to row of tables that hold the examples of centerpieces Malory has given you so far. As he stands there Harry can’t help but raise an eyebrow as he looks at them, he doesn’t know why the lovely shop owner would show these to you after you gave her the inspiration for the wedding because these don’t fit the theme at all so he can understand why you feel defeated and upset.

“This can’t be right.” You just shrug at Harry’s words as you look at the arrangements again trying to maybe find one you don’t dislike too much. “You told her where we are getting married and everything?” He asks and you nod because yes you told Malory all the details of your wedding.

“Yes and I think she even talked to Jane as well.” You answer and Harry is officially dumbfounded but he doesn’t have time to ask anything else before Malory walks in with another centerpiece in her hands and this one is no where close to what you’re looking for with all the bright pink and white flowers sticking out of a clear vase with a big pink tule bow wrapped around it. Harry feels your shoulders slump under his hands and even though he can’t see your face he knows you well enough to know you’re putting on your best fake smile as you look the arrangement over.

“This one can be done is different heights as well and we can add candles around it or-”

“I’m sorry Malory but are you sure these are for our wedding?” Harry doesn’t want to be rude but he also doesn’t want to look at anymore centerpieces that aren’t anywhere near what you want and he knows you’re too polite to say anything so he will happily do it for you. Malory turns her attention away from the arrangement and faces Harry with a slight look of concern on her face so Harry does what he does best and turns on the charm flashing her a smile that shows off his dimples as his gently squeezes your shoulders.

“I only ask because while these are just lovely arrangements,” she smiles and you see a slight blush take over her cheeks and you almost feel bad because you know how overwhelming Harry’s smile and slow and soothing tone can be especially when you’re not prepared for it. “They aren’t really the right fit for our wedding.” He explains with a warm smile and Malory looks away from Harry’s intense stare so she can turn and grab her clipboard off the table next to the last arrangement she brought out.

“Let’s see the notes I have for your wedding are classical glamorous romance with reds and pinks but also the classic touches of white-”

“Sorry for interrupting but whose wedding is that for? Because that’s not ours.” Harry asks in a soft tone as he continues to soothingly rub your shoulders, he knows you’re on edge because you don’t like this sort of thing and he’s aware you view this as a form of confrontation and you would rather just look at arrangements that you hate than tell Malory you don’t think these are meant for your wedding.

“Oh god I’m so sorry these are for the Gibbs wedding.” You feel your whole body relax as Malory admits the mistake because you now know it’s not that she doesn’t understand your vision for the wedding it’s just that she had the completely wrong wedding in mind.

“Ah that explains it then because we are the Styles wedding.” Harry states as Malory gives you an apologetic smile as she reaches for one of your hands.

“You must’ve been freaking out oh my goodness I’m so sorry.” You let out a sigh of relief making Malory chuckle as she gives your hand a squeeze. “Again I’m so sorry about this but let me just go grab your sheet and show you some examples that actually fit your wedding theme okay?” You just nod as she gives your hand one last squeeze before letting it go and heading off to the back to grab your sheet and start setting up some examples of centerpieces you’ll actually like.

“How do you do that?” Harry raises an eyebrow at you as you turn around so you’re looking up at him with a look of almost disbelief on your face because you really don’t get how he manages to just swoop in a save the day all the time.

“Do what?”

“You come in here and I’m on the verge of a breakdown and not even five minutes later is all fixed.”

“I just don’t like it when you’re upset.” He answers as he places a hand on the side of your face while he other one rests on your hip. “So I try to fix it as quickly as I can so if that means I have to tell Malory that she has to start over with the arrangements then so be it.” He explains with a shrug because for Harry it comes without any hesitation to do whatever he has to in order to make you feel better. That’s just how he’s been since the day you met all those years ago so he has no plans on stopping and if anything now he’s just willing to do even more to stop your tears because you’re going to be his wife soon and the idea of you being upset makes his heart sink to the bottom of his chest.

“I’m so happy it was just a little mixup.” Harry smiles as he watches you look genuinely more relaxed as you lean into his touch.

“Me too because I really didn’t want to have to fire her.” You roll your eyes making Harry raise an eyebrow at you. “What? You don’t think I’d do it?”

“You can’t fire her Harry because we haven’t hired her yet.” You state as you loosely wrap your arms around his neck. “This is like the test run and if we see something we like then Jane will handle setting it all up for the day of.” Harry just nods and you begin messing with the hair at the back of his neck.

“Well just for the record I’d happily fire her if I needed to.”

“Really?”

“There’s not a lot I wouldn’t do for you love.” You smile at his answer as he leans down and places a kiss to your forehead before he leans all the way down and places a sweet kiss to your lips. “I love you.” He mumbles against your lips before giving you one more little peck.

“I love you too” Harry can’t help but grin as he pulls away because he’ll never get tired of hearing those words leave your mouth.

“Okay now tell me does this fit your wedding more?” Harry’s hand drops from your face and your arms go from around his neck as Malory appears with one of the most beautiful arrangements you’ve ever seen in her hands. Harry smiles as he watches you walk over to the table she carefully sets it down on so you can get a closer look but he can tell by the smile on your face that you love it.

“This is gorgeous.” Your answer makes Malory smile as she goes to grab another example for the two of you to look at. “We might actually have centerpieces at our wedding.” Harry chuckles as you turn and stare at him with a giant smile on your face as you excitedly clap your hands and do your signature happy dance.

“Thank god because what’s a wedding without centerpieces?”

[front-facing-pokemon]

greetings, everygamer! it’s not often you see a text post from me with no asks attached to it, so what gives?

@front-facing-pokemon (this blog) is rapidly approaching its end! you may have noticed if you’re paying attention to the remaining pokémon in the pokédex, but we’ve only got like TEN DAYS before we reach the END of the pokédex and i have nothing left to post on this blog. yesterday, i queued up the FINAL pokémon in the national pokédex, and have thus RUN OUT of pokémon to queue up!

so what happens now? well, that’s up for you to decide! this is That One Post where you can drop all your suggestions as to what should happen to this blog once we reach the end of the national pokédex! i’ve already heard things such as redoing the whole pokédex but this time it’s shiny (top contender right now!), back-facing pokémon, and turning this into a poll blog, so those are already in the running! if you have any other ideas (that are pokémon-related, please—and if they stick to the theme of the blog [like shinydex], that’s even better)

once i get enough suggestions and filter through for the ones that i like or that are viable, i’ll make one final poll that will decide the fate of this blog. (personally, i think the shinydex is in the lead for me) until then, enjoy the remaining posts, and thanks for stickin' around for this bumpy ride!

and finally, because plenty of folks have asked, and i’ve kept it a secret for this long, i feel you all deserve to know!:

my main blog is @kinogassa. that’s breloom’s japanese name! subject to change, and i rarely use that blog to be QUITE honest with you. buuut, if enough of you still care, then maybe i will!

a lot of you who cared already managed to sniff it out back before i could comment on posts from sideblogs, so shoutouts to you guys! for everyone else, i hope it was worth the wait(?)

i think i’ve also gotten a few other suggestions like taking requests on specific angles or whatever but that changes the flow of the blog to being request-based as opposed to queue-based ’n i dunno how i feel about that

by the way, massive shoutouts to the pokémon models ripping project, without which this entire blog would not have been possible!

i can't think of anything else to say (for now), but i'll be more active and responsive in the coming days as we try to figure out where all of this is going. see you tomorrow for whatever comes next!

[hannahssimblr]

Beginning // Prev // Next

Hi Evie! 

God, I’m so sorry it’s been so long. Life is chaotic. I’m doing stuff all the time and I really haven’t had a minute. 

College is great. It’s intense. It’s so different to what I expected, although now that I’m saying it, I’m not sure what I expected at all. I’m not sure that I really thought about what it was going to be like. 

There’s art, obviously, a lot of it, and all of the time. We have drawing classes and painting classes, classes about composition, sculpture, art history and theory, and other stuff too that I can’t even recall off the top of my head. We were on a trip last week, out across the city drawing buildings and things like that, and it’s given me this new appreciation for how interesting Berlin really is. I’m learning about all of this history, and then recording it on the page by drawing it. I can’t really overstate how amazing it is to be surrounded by so many people who love art the same way that I do, and I’m thinking about you when I’m living my life like this, about how much you’re going to love it when you’re finally free from Tullamore, and you can go to art college. You’re going to have the best years of your life, so don’t worry about all that’s going on at school right now, and with Kelly and whatever. Things are going to get so much better. 

I go out a lot these days. Drinking, yes, but it’s not really like the way that we used to party and drink in Dublin at all. It’s so much more vibrant and fun, and there are all of these amazing bars and clubs with different themes. I got out with my friends like, three or four times a week, and sometimes I don’t even drink, I just dance, and that’s enough. I meet plenty of interesting people when I’m out, too. There’s always someone new to get to know. 

We did go to this club last week, though, it’s famous. Berghain. Jonas and some of the others like techno, which I’m not sure about yet, and sometimes they go there to dance. It’s open a few days a week, and you can go literally any time of the day, which is crazy. I mean, you can go in at seven in the morning if you want to, and you can get lost in there for three days. Jonas told me all these stories about the kinds of things you can do and… I don’t know if I want to repeat it. I honestly feel like you wouldn’t want to know. 

I mentioned we went, but really, they went. As in, some of our friends. Not me. Apparently, the bouncers are really strict about who goes inside. Jonas explained something about needing to have the right “vibe”, which sounds insane, but anyway. I have the wrong “vibe”, because the bouncers saw me and my friend Elias in the queue and they yelled “No!” at us from, like, a twenty metre distance, haha. It’s fine. We went to another club instead, and we had fun and met some more cool people, so I can’t complain. 

I also can’t say I’m not curious about what it’s like to get into Berghain… Maybe one day. If I do, you’ll be the first to know, and I’ll share all the crazy details when I’ve experienced it. I think the day I get in is the day I can say I’m a real Berliner. 

It’s Halloween soon, and I’ve recently learned that they don’t celebrate it here. Can you believe it? I hope you’ll be doing something fun, at least, to make up for my loss. Send me a picture of your costume if you are! I have a feeling you’ll come up with something dead creative, because you’re good with your hands. I think I remember seeing a picture of you dressed as a bee on your Facebook? Am I mixing you up with someone else? I don’t think so. It was so cool. 

Shane is coming to visit next weekend. Did he tell you that? It’s half term, or reading week, or whatever they call it now. I would have mentioned it to you before, but he’s coming with some college friends on a boys trip. I didn’t think you’d be up for coming. I think they’ve booked this dingy hostel somewhere, and I just can’t imagine it being your thing. Especially with you still being seventeen and all of that, it’s like, you wouldn’t be allowed in to any of the clubs and bars. You should come in the spring, though! That’d be fun. Maybe if you wanted to plan a trip for your 18th?

I feel like I just spewed a load of information on you there, sorry. I should have emailed you earlier, but I’ve had this project due, and when I’m not socialising I’m working on it.

Hope you’re taking care of yourself!

Jude x

[idyllic-ghost]

hi! i'm leaving tumblr, and i wanted to put out an explanation post before i do.

i mainly write ff because it's a fun interaction with a fun community. recently it hasn't been so fun.

yes, i'm busy with work so i haven't had time - but even if i did have the time, i wouldn't reach to start writing like i used to. people always say this, but because of lack of interaction (i'm specifically referring to comments and/or reblogs) i've lost interest.

i have a few fics lined up for the next few months, they're all waiting in my queue to be posted once a month up until march. they were all written during the summer or earlier, i've just been putting off posting them. after that, i don't have more, and i'm not sure that there will be more.

i have a lot to say, and i'm not expecting anyone to read it, but if you want to know why i'm leaving then this is it.

(if you've been tagged in this and wonder why, but don't want to read further: don't worry! i didn't tag anyone intentionally, i took from my moots and my taglist to spread the word that i'm leaving this blog. you haven't done anything wrong, and i'm not expecting you specifically to read the rest of this!)

the only reason i stayed on here was because i loved seeing people interact with my writing, it made me happy to see that people enjoy my writing. nowadays, i basically get nothing. since i'm not doing this for anyone but myself, i'm not going to continue doing something that ends with me being disappointed and envious.

my writing feels lifeless to me because i'm not actually interested in what i'm doing anymore. i write, get it done, send it out, and hope that at least someone will tell me that they like it. it feels pathetic to write out, but i feel like some people may agree. the only times i ended up getting that kind of interaction was when i wrote smut.

i was never a smut writer, it wasn't something i was extremely comfortable with. i think there are a lot of people who do it very well, and that's good for them. i'm just not one of them. after being put in sexual situations in my personal life that i, in hindsight, did not feel comfortable with and deeply regret, i don't see myself being comfortable with writing smut again. (the posts with nsfw content that come out in the next few months were written before i came to this realization, for context.)

it's weird and embarrassing when you feel like you'd never fall for pressure of norms and then suddenly you do! i look back at this blog and it doesn't feel like me, and now i get it. it's not wrong or upsetting, just a change of perspectives.

i think it's great that people can write smut and share it on here, and i don't want anyone to think that i am against it. i have simply come to the point where it makes me uncomfortable, so i'm taking myself out of those kinds of situations (as anyone should do if they feel the same way, do not harass people who write smut simply because of its nsfw content that you're personally uncomfortable with). if i do return to writing in this way, in this forum and genre, again, i know that i won't be writing smut.

all of this to say, i'm not going to be on here anymore. i might read a few things here and there, because i do still really love reading fluff from the amazing fluff writers out there, but i won't post. maybe i'll create a new blog for reblogging fluff fics or something. i've lost interest and that's that. i'm hoping that i can write my own book some day, and if i do i've only managed to do so because i got to practice writing on here.

this was fun while it lasted, and i definitely don't regret making this blog. so, thank you to everyone who supported this blog, i've loved reading your comments. thank you to the people who have helped me in my writing, i hope that you know who you are.

tumblr is filled with blank blogs and people who won't comment on fics they actually like. if you ended up reading all of this, i encourage you to go comment on a writer's fic with some nice words. it's always appreciated, i promise.

that's all!

-

tagging a few people so that this post is actually seen:

@enhacolor, @shuabby1994, @junhui-recs, @dkakapizzaboy, @just-here-to-read-01, @loviehan,

@userjunhuii, @novalpha, @bubblymoon, @aaniag, @d0nghyuck,

@fantasy2wonderland, @k-fic-collection @seunghancore, @woozixo, @niktwazny303,

@lllucere, @uniq-tastic, @wonwoospartyhat, @svthub @stariightjoyy,

@hyneyedfiz, @cali-snow, @crazywittysassy, @yeosayang, @wonuvs,

@dokyeomkyeom, @kyeomiis, @gyuguys, @notevenheretbh1 @iamawkwardandshy,

@wonuskie @kvanity-main

[newtthetranswriter]

Hellooooo

I wanted to request a Tokyo Revengers fic for Mikey. Platonic. Reader, although not very flashy, has been in the gang since the beginning. Serving in the first division.

It's reader's birthday, but they never made it a big deal, so no one else realized. That is until Mikey tosses them a messily wrapped box at a gang meeting saying, "Happy Birthday" and giving them a headpat.

I thought it was cute <3<3

The gift can be up to you, as well as the time frame this takes place.

Word count: 615

Pairing: Mikey x Reader Platonic

A/n: Hi, thank you for the request. I’m not super happy with how it turned out, but I did love the idea. I hope you at least enjoy it. Anyways, enjoy, have a great day and as always remember to hydrate or diedrate.

    It was time for the weekly Toman meeting. All of the divisions were gathered waiting for Mikey and Draken to show up, and of course they were running late for whatever reason. Anyways, while waiting I just sat back and watched as the guys got in their usual playful arguments about random shit. Watching as Baji and Kazutora teamed up to pick on a few of the younger members, I was reminded of where it all started.

   I had grown up not only a few houses away from Mikey and so I ended up spending a lot of time around the blonde. We have always been extremely close so it was no surprise to me when he came to me asking me to join his gang when he and his other friends started it. Since that day, I’ve been part of Toman’s first division acting as a kind of babysitter for the more impulsive group. Evidently, I was the only one able to stop Baji from setting a car on fire when he was hungry, so Mikey and Draken thought it would be best for me to keep him in check.

   Other than making sure Baji doesn’t ruin Toman’s reputation, I’m a pretty good fighter when it comes down to it. I may not be the one everyone is watching when a brawl breaks out but I can definitely hold my own. Which is another reason I was put in the first division. I had everyone’s back even if some of them didn’t realize it.

   “Hey Mikey’s finally here.” I heard someone shout from the crowd. As if it were a queue to behave, everyone stopped fighting and stood up straight as we waited for Mikey and Draken to start the meeting.

    I had taken my usual spot next to Baji, not expecting much of anything to happen. “Hey Y/n, catch.” I turned at the sound of Mikey shouting at me. Once I made eye contact he threw what looked like a poorly wrapped box at me. Quickly catching it, I looked at it confused for a second but before I could ask about it, Mikey cut me off. “Happy Birthday.” He flashed a bright close eyed smile, patting the top of my head.

    My eyes went wide. I totally forgot it was my birthday, it was never really a big deal to me and Mikey was the first one to mention it today. “Thanks Mikey, I honestly totally forgot about it.” I said looking back at the present. “But you didn’t have to get me anything.”

   “Nonsense, of course I had to get you something. You’re my friend and it would be rude of me to not get you anything.” He said, taking his hand off the top of my head.

   Before I could respond, Baji spoke up from behind me. “Wait, it's your birthday and you forgot about it?” Baji asked me.

   I just shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. And how sad it looks like my only friend is Mikey, after all he’s the only one who remembered.” I answered with mock sadness.

   Mikey laughed at our interaction as Baji decided the best response to my sarcasm was to shove me. “Ok, Ok, enough fighting we have a meeting to take care of.” Draken said, cutting off the shoving match that started between the two of us. With that he and Mikey went up to the front of the group commencing the meeting.

   It warmed my heart for Mikey to get me a gift even if I never made a big deal about my birthday. He was like a brother to me and he remembered it even when I didn’t, which means a lot.

[hubbvrd]

13 with Adam maybe? Only if you’re comfortable of course <3

Feelings | Adam Fantilli

summary — Adam and y/n have been friends since they were little. Both have had feelings for each other for a while. But what happens when the two suddenly get closer at a sleepover party?

pairing — adam fantilli x reader

words — 2760

notes — thanks for your request. I hope you like it!🧡

Everyone has that one day of the week that they particularly look forward to.

For most people, it's definitely Friday, which marks the end of a hard week at school or work and the weekend at last.

For others, it is Saturday or Sunday, which stands for sleeping in, free time, time for yourself and doing nothing.

Your favorite day of the week was Saturday. Especially those special Saturdays when your best friend Adam wasn't on the ice fighting for the win with the Blue Jackets.

But the Saturdays that were just you and Adam.

These Saturdays didn't come around too often during the year. But when that special Saturday came around again, it meant a sleepover with Adam.

Adam and you grew up together thanks to your mothers, who have been friends for a long time.

Adam is just eleven days older than you, which means the two of you have been more or less inseparable since you were born and have walked almost every step together.

There was hardly a day when you were ever apart in your childhood, because not only were your mothers best friends, but the Fantillis' and the Y/L/N's houses were next door to each other, so you played together in the big garden every day in the summer.

And in winter you spent most of your time in front of the fireplace or on a nearby ice rink playing hockey with Luca Fantilli, Adam's brother, and your little sister Lucy.

"I'll be fine" you mumble as you climb the last few steps, resting your chin with difficulty on the many blankets you're holding in your hands and hoping you don't lose them on the last few meters to your room.

"Is that special sleepover party coming up again tonight?" Out of the corner of your eye, you see your sister waggle her eyebrow as you walk over to your room.

"Yeah, Adam's coming in about an hour," you let her know as you put the blankets down on your desk and then survey the little mess of clothes in your room.

Earlier, you had gone to look for the same two pairs of pyjamas that you and Adam wear every year. They had been so far back in the wardrobe that you had unintentionally created a little clothing chaos.

"Then you're storm-free. I hope you use the time very wisely." With a broad grin, Lucy drops onto your bed.

"Yes, well, by watching a movie, eating some snacks and chatting a bit," you mumble more or less to yourself, but loud enough for Lucy to hear you as you start to carelessly throw all the clothes scattered around your room into the closet.

This wasn't the best idea, but it's the quickest one right now, because you still have a few other things to prepare before Adam will be at the door.

And that's why the closet was at the back of the queue and had to wait until tomorrow for its turn.

"You know exactly what I mean, y/n." A loud sigh can be heard from Lucy's direction as you start to rebuild the cave that Adam and you used to make out of blankets and pillows when you were four years old.

By now you were able to build the cave in your sleep. At the age of 19, some people would probably consider this cave too babyish, but you and Adam still loved this cozy cave so much and it brought back a lot of childhood memories that you like to talk about.

"No, I don't know about that." You carefully start to stretch one of the blankets for the roof and then carefully attach the end to the wall.

"If Adam and you carry on like this, you won't be a couple even when you're pensioners," your sister snorts formally and before you can say anything cheeky back, your mother's voice calls Lucy from downstairs.

"You got lucky again, y/n. Mom really saves your butt a lot from this conversation. See you tomorrow then. Don't forget to use contraception if you make it that far this time and ever get close."

"Lucy!" you hiss, startled, as heat rushes to your cheeks and you reach for a pillow to throw in Lucy's direction.

However, your little sister has disappeared from your room so quickly that you don't even have the chance to throw the pillow.

"Oh man..." you murmur quietly to yourself as you just stand there for a few seconds and breathe deeply.

It's no secret that you like Adam, really like him and are more or less in love with him, but there hasn't yet been a good time to really let him feel it.

"Maybe today," you answer your feelings out loud as you continue to get the height ready.

- - -

"I heard there's a special sleepover party here?" Adam looks at you with a beaming face after you open the door and let the older man into the house.

"Correct," you reply with a grin and after you close the door behind Adam, you are immediately pulled into a warm hug, so that Adam's aftershave surrounds you and briefly makes you gather yourself again.

"I missed you, y/n," he murmurs into your hair before letting go of you too quickly.

"I-I missed you too..." you stammer, a little confused, as you tug sheepishly at the sleeve of your sweater.

"I hope I've got everything with me" Adam babbles as he pulls the rucksack off his shoulders and then taps the full rucksack once.

"Well, I hope you haven't forgotten the nachos with your mother's best cheese sauce," you reply with a wry grin as you run ahead up the stairs and Adam follows you.

"Nope, Mom made sure I packed them for sure."

A grin grows on your lips. "Great, she knows what's good for me.

"Yeah, I'm good for you" Adam winks at you before walking into your room, thankfully not seeing your cheeks turn a shade of pink. "Wow. The cave looks mega, as always."

For a few seconds, you bite your bottom lip to somehow chase away the tingling sensation that's slowly making its way through your body before following Adam into your room. Adam has actually just been flirting with you.

Adam is crouched in front of the den, which is filled with countless pillows and blankets and has various fairy lights hanging from the ceiling, illuminating the den a little and bathing it in a warm light.

"All that's missing are our pyjamas..."

Adam turns to you and looks up at you from his crouched position.

"They almost got on my last nerve. I had to search until I found them. I was panicking that they had gone missing" you babble on as you walk over to your dresser and take down the pyjamas.

"Luckily you found them, otherwise we would have had to cancel the whole party," Adam jokes, suddenly standing in front of you and holding out his hands for his pyjamas.

"Or we would have had to buy new ones."

Smirking, Adam reaches for the warm fabric of the pyjamas and his fingers graze yours for a few seconds, his gaze fixed on you and he seems to sense how you're reacting to this little touch.

While a tingling sensation breaks out inside you again, you try to be as relaxed as possible on the outside, but you don't really succeed.

Your eyes widen slightly as your mouth opens slightly and the warmth rises in your cheeks again.

Damn, I really have to pull myself together! Otherwise Adam will think God knows what of me, you try to pull yourself together somehow, hoping that this evening will be more relaxed and that you won't come into contact with Adam too often.

But that would be boring, wouldn't it?

- - -

Dressed in your pyjamas and snuggled up under the warm blankets in the cave, Adam and you lie next to each other. There's a cushion between you so that you can relax a little more and take a deep breath.

While you lie there and watch Adam, he starts to get various snacks and drinks from his rucksack. These include various pastries that his mother has prepared especially for you.

"Please tell me these are exactly the cookies I think they are!" you almost shriek as Adam holds the Tupperware container with the large cookies in front of you.

"These are my mom's world-famous cookies" he proudly presents to you, uttering the sentence you've been dying to hear.

"I love your mom for this" you gush with your mouth full, because you just couldn't wait to leave the cookies untouched any longer.

As you start to chew with relish, Adam watches you with amusement and a smirk on his lips.

"What are they? They're awesome," you mumble with your mouth full. "And instead of staring at me now, you could choose a movie, Fantilli."

Adam starts to turn red within a few seconds, so he quickly turns his head away and goes to your laptop, where he opens Netflix and then starts looking for a movie.

Did Adam really just turn red because of me? you ask yourself. No, that can't be it. There must be another reason...

"Uh, what genre?" Adam mumbles quietly, his eyes still fixed on the laptop and his voice sounding slightly nervous.

"You decide" you reply, popping the last piece of cookie into your mouth as you continue to watch Adam and begin to wonder if he's really nervous about you right now.

Does he perhaps feel the same as you?

Do you trigger exactly the same feelings in him as he does in you? Was that really possible just now? Or are you just imagining all of this?

You would love to open your mouth and ask Adam all the questions that are running through your head, but when you open your mouth, not a single word comes out. It's probably for the best, because you don't want to be wrong and end up damaging your friendship or upsetting or hurting Adam.

"Then let's look at this one" Adam interrupts your train of thought as he selects a movie and then places your laptop between you so that you can both see clearly.

"Can you tell me his name?" you ask as the movie starts and you begin to sit down a little more comfortably.

Adam tells you the title of the movie, which you haven't heard before, so you are all the more excited about the movie and can hardly wait to immerse yourself in the story of the protagonists.

- - -

An hour and a half later, the black screen of the movie appears, which you comment on with a slight pout.

The movie drew you in within a few seconds and didn't let go so quickly that you can hardly believe it's over.

The movie was about two best friends who grew up together, were inseparable and suddenly went their separate ways until one day they found each other again and then fell in love.

The story was a little like you and Adam, but a little different, so you start to wonder if Adam chose this movie specifically to confess his feelings to you through a flower?

No, that was silly. Stop getting yourself into things! You're almost becoming obsessed, you admonish yourself again.

"The movie was good," you say quickly to silence any further thoughts that might come to mind.

"Yes, it really was," Adam replies and you hear a soft rustling beside you.

Shortly afterwards, Adam is quite close to you so that you can smell his aftershave again.

Within a few seconds, your heart starts to beat a little faster and the nervousness inside you begins to grow.

"Y/n," he almost whispered over to you, causing you to feel his warm breath lightly against your cheek.

The tingling in your body begins to awaken again, while you are unable to touch yourself even a little.

"A-Adam," you whisper back nervously as the rustling of the blanket sounds next to you again and shortly afterwards you find yourself in Adam's arms again.

"What are you doing?" you whisper again as you slowly manage to look at your best friend.

"What I should have done a long time ago," he replies in a whisper, sounding rather nervous.

His eyes rest gently on yours as his hand moves towards your cheek, where he places it and begins to gently stroke the small scar on your temple with his thumb, the one you got when Adam and you climbed up into the trees together and you injured yourself on a branch.

"I don't want this to be like it was until today," he begins to say as he continues to run his hand over your scar and looks you in the eye.

Unable to speak, you just stare at the person opposite you while your breathing is almost intermittent and your heart is pounding so fast you feel like Adam can hear it.

"I...I guess this could change everything now, y/n. But I have to risk it. I can't hold back my feelings anymore. My feelings for you are getting stronger and stronger. And every time I see you, it hurts not to be allowed to do this..." as Adam speaks, he comes closer and closer to you until his warm lips are on yours shortly afterwards.

Fireworks explode inside you so that your whole body starts to tingle within a few seconds and you open your eyes in shock for a few seconds because you are so taken by surprise by Adam and his lips on yours that you need a moment before you close your eyes again and return the kiss.

All too quickly, Adam detaches himself from you again and rests his forehead against yours so that you look into each other's eyes and your breathing quickens a little.

"I'm madly in love with you, y/n," he almost whispers, as if he's afraid to say the words out loud.

"Adam?" you whisper softly.

"Yes?" You can't help but notice that his voice sounds a little nervous.

"I'm in love with you too. And have been for so long," you whisper back and within a few seconds his lips are on yours again.

This time the kiss is much more intense. His lips move gently against yours, while his hand continues to rest against your cheek, gently stroking your cheek.

Your hands move to his neck, where they intertwine and you carefully pull Adam closer to you to somehow show yourself that this is real.

After a while, you slowly pull away from each other, whereupon Adam lies down on his back and pulls you with him, so that you carefully lay your head on his chest and Adam pulls the blanket over you.

Silence begins to reign between you, but it is anything but uncomfortable. On the contrary, you both use the silence to review the last few minutes.

A grin spreads across your lips as you snuggle closer to Adam, who wraps his arms around you and then rests his head on yours.

"Adam?" you murmur contentedly into the silence as you enjoy the closeness and hope that this closeness will never disappear.

"Yes?"

"You're the first person that's ever made me feel so safe" you murmur as Adam's closeness and warmth begin to make you slightly sleepy.

In fact, you've always felt so safe around Adam.

Every time Adam protected you from older boys who teased you.

Every time your teacher tried to force you to read aloud, even though you were too nervous to read a single sentence.

Every time you had a driving lesson and Adam sat in the back seat to be with you.

The time you had an appendectomy and Adam sat next to your bed after the operation and held your hand when you were in pain.

The time you got the email from your dream college and he sat next to you and held your hand.

There were so many moments when he made you feel safe.

Too many moments to list them all.

But now, after the two kisses and the moment when you're lying in his arms, you really realize that Adam was the one person who made you feel safe.

And you are sure that there will be countless more moments when it will be the same.

[plazsma]

hey i work at [unspecified plastic building object] land and here are some ninjago statistics i’ve collected from actual children who watch the show in present day from the past few weeks:

“who’s your favourite ninja?”- 95% of the time it’s lloyd. any other time its jay. one time it was nya, another time it was kai. the children do not yearn for glacier.

2. there is a sculpture of nya in ninjago the ride queue that always generates a conversation. however, this sculpture is based off season 5 nya with short hair and her reddish blue gi. the most shocking thing to me… KIDS DONT RECOGNISE HER. i’ve overheard so many “who’s that?” followed by “i don’t know”s and it’s actually whiplash. why are we old

3. a lot of young girls like ninjago! this is really awesome actually because i remember being a little kid and being one of the only girls in my class at the time who liked it and it was heavily marketed as a “boys toy” so it’s nice to see that they are making ninjago for everyone . . . because it is. like everyone can enjoy these little ninja people

4. the ninjago is still IN. i actually before i started working here was worrying ninjago was falling off and the newer generations wouldn’t really care about it but u guys the children DO still yearn for ninjas and it’s very clear. which was a pleasant surprise :3 it’s truly becoming a generational thing as silly as that sounds

i can’t make these into a whole bullet point, but here is some assorted other stuff that i find funny:

kids actually just wear the ninjago pyjamas to the park like as clothes like straight up

the fang blades, jade blades and nya’s sword pack (which btw what even is that she does not use dual swords) fly off the shelves and i truly wonder why because these kids weren’t even around circa tournament of elements era. perhaps they just like throwing swords around

sometimes they dress up in ninja clothes and i always compliment their outfit and show off my keychain (luckily i had a lloyd one on me one day when a kid was dressed as him) and kids LIGHT UP when they know i know what i’m talking about. it’s one of the best parts of my day actually

tune in next time for more [unnamed colourful building toy] land stories everyone

[inbabylontheywept]

Someone had to go first

The first ship that arrived was pretty matter of fact about its fate. The pilot introduced himself as Eric, then told us he was part of the first sublight resupply attempt in modern history. He then gave me and the ground control team his bad news.

“So,” he said. “Without real time telemetry, we weren’t even sure which half of your orbit you’d be in. That’s half a solar system’s worth of wiggle room. Decelerating enough to survive contact with your low orbit would take me two weeks, which, you know, it looks like we don’t have. That means that in order to get the second ship in before you lose orbital control to the Kresh, I’m gonna have to make a sacrificial flyby. Ten to the negative four torr is good enough for a lot of things, but at point-seven c it’s gonna be like sandblasting a soup cracker. Good news is that all the expensive toys are in the next ship, so this really ain’t costing you more than a ship and a pilot.”

“You knew,” I said. If they put the expensive toys in the second ship, they knew that the first was likely a sacrifice. No one smart enough to handle orbital physics would miss that.

“I did,” he replied. “But someone had to go first.”

That was, of course, a lie. No one had to go first. No else had had, at least. When our connection to the FTL network was lost, we’d understood that as the end of our reinforcements. Doing resupplies via sublight was just too risky. It was a testament to Earth that it had accepted the risk and continued anyway.

“Is there anything we can do for you?” I asked. This man had come here to die for us. I wasn’t sure how much I could give, but what I had was his.

“I do have a few requests,” he said. “First up, I need as much high-orbital data as you got. The whole lot.”

I began directing tightbeam resources to him immediately. It was an easy resource to exchange - it wasn’t like there was anyone else out to talk to anymore. When we lost FTL, we found ourselves very, very alone.

“Second,” he said. “Right, I know I’m gonna sound like a princess right now, but I have been stuck in this stupid tin-can for almost two-years now, and I seriously overestimated how much I like synth music. If you have anything that’s analog - I don’t care what kind of string or drum or brass you play, but I’d kill to hear something without a beep in it.”

I jumped my own queue in the tightbeam, and added a short playlist that I ripped from the local web. Human Music, it was labeled. 3 Terabytes. I prayed there was something on it that he’d like.

“And third,” he said. “Third. The uh, next pilot is pretty mad at me. Turns out this will just be one of those things left unfinished. That’s all death really is, I guess - a lot of unfinished things. Let him know that he was right: He is a better pilot than me. But tell him that wouldn’t have made a difference here. Bad luck beats skill, and this luck was shit.”

I promised, and he went silent after that. We could see what data he was analyzing, and the short answer was all of it - everything from atmospheric density to troop positions and his own ship’s blueprints. He knew he had one shot at this, and that if the price wasn’t paid here, it would be paid by whoever came next.

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

Ground control didn’t get a verbal warning that he’d entered atmosphere. Just a ping. A little here-I-am, whispered in the dark.

After that, we could keep track with visuals alone.

He hit the outskirts of the exoatmosphere in his first pass, burning bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. He caught the sparse particles like a kite, trying to shed enough speed to hit actual low orbit. Automatic telemetry updates gave us the grim news for the ship: Thermals were holding up decently, but the ablative was wearing out fast.

The entire descent brought us more than two hour’s reprieve. The Kresh hadn’t expected to see a resupply, but they knew what one meant: Get it now, get it fast, or deal with a stream of new troops. They could buy themselves ten days' time by shooting this one ship down now.

That was an eternity during a siege.

The first loop lowered the speed by about a twentieth of light. The pilot responded by pulling the ship in tighter, trying to preserve more ablative plating by trading off with thermal. Seven fighters were close enough to fire off heat seekers. I don’t think the Kresh had ever anticipated shooting down a craft coming in that hot - the missile's decoy avoidance countermeasure actually made it steer around the thing, chasing down loose pieces of shrapnel. Cooled fragments, still hotter than an engine should be at full blast. The simple mistakes bought it enough time to enter pre-orbit, and the fighters had to stop their pursuit. They weren’t willing to die to stop the ship.

Our man, on the other hand, was already committed to that course.

A third loop followed a fourth. Ablative coating went from 65% integrity, to 30%, to 5%. Telemetry scans were exceptionally detailed - the pilot was making the flyby count. The last message we got from him was simple:

Are you EMP shielded? he asked, not even bothering to encrypt the text stream. He didn’t have time to process more than that.

Yes, we replied. We knew what he was thinking, but it was still a shock to see it. The fusion torch that was driving his ship flared hot, burning through the nozzle and feeding directly into the craft’s deuterium supply. The reaction went super critical, and the resulting neutron pulse set off everything in the ship with a z-count higher than iron. Three continuous seconds of EM interference screamed through the comms as the hulk burned brighter than the sun.

The explosion itself wasn’t powerful enough to reach the Kresh ships still in high orbit, but it made enough broadband radiation to blind both sides LADAR. The man must have been a hell of a pilot - half the shrapnel went down and burned up as it entered the standard atmosphere, sacrificed to move the other half past lagrange. Standard evasion would’ve made the pieces easy to dodge, but with LADAR down, all the Kresh could do was sit still and cower as the wrath of a dead man riddled them full of holes. Our best ace had managed to shoot down seven ships before this before getting shot down himself. The wreckage of the freighter took down six.

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

The second ship came in stealth. One second, we were holding attrition in high orbit, the next, something the size of a small station came ripping through the atmosphere.

It did the same trick as the former - swapping between ablative and thermal loads, coming down at a speed that the Kresh fighters didn’t even try to match. Armies could be built in years, but skills like this took decades.

Telemetry connection was established almost as an afterthought. The way the ship casually ate through ablative armoring made my eyes water, but the pilot himself seemed pretty non-plussed.

“You’re down to fifteen percent coverage. You need-

“What I need,” he said, “is to see the previous ship’s telemetry as soon as I land. And I don't need your help landing it.”

He cut off my chance to reply by flicking the channel off. We watched, and we wrang our hands, but sure enough he came in six minutes later with 4% of the ablative left.

I met him on the landing pad. Under normal circumstances, we’d have needed twenty-four hours for the craft to cool enough to even approach, but we’d had cryo ready just in case. Three tankers of nitrogen, and the loading area, at least, was cool enough to touch. Safety would have to take a backseat to speed here - we needed the supplies fast.

But those both would take a backseat to a promised conversation with the second pilot. He was out of the craft as soon as the air was cool enough to avoid scalding his lungs, picking through the workers to try and find who had the telemetry data.

I found him first. The drive went into his hands, but I needed to keep my promise with Eric before letting go.

“You’re better than the first pilot,” I said, and I wasn’t lying. If the previous flier had been a saint, this one was a god. “But you wouldn’t have been able to manage the landing either. There just wasn’t time.”

“Let me see,” he said, tugging on the drive. “Just let me see. I have to know I couldn’t do it either. I have to know that someone had to die.”

I let go of the drive and he stalked back into his ship. I didn’t follow. I figured I’d pushed things far enough.

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

The second pilot left the ship six hours later. He looked bleary in a way that put me at ease. I’d been up the last six hours directing supplies from the ship. Everything from ground-to-orbit rails to AGI targeting systems was inside - to call it gamechanging would be an understatement. It was good work, but I was tired, and I didn’t want to have to pretend otherwise. Seeing the other man with bags under his eyes meant we could just be frank with each other.

“I couldn’t have managed it,” he said, half-ashamed, half-relieved.

“It just wasn’t possible,” I agreed.

We sat there a moment longer. I didn’t mind the break. This was time well spent.

“Did it hurt?” he asked finally.

“Ablative failed before heating,” I said, which was the technical way of saying no. “He overloaded the reactor before the ship actually broke up and did some kind of slingshot maneuver - hit the main body of the Kresh fleet with half a space station’s worth of shrapnel.”

“Good,” he said.

I knew the signs. The tremor in his cheek, the way his jaw clenched - it wasn’t professional, but I hugged him anyway. Let him have the dignity of choosing to weep instead of having it wrenched out of him.

It was a gift we’d all been given at some point in this war. At least now, there was the hope it could be over soon.

[eliotlime]

End of October Update

There's got to be a less clunky way for me to title these things but maybe I'll figure it out after a few posts.

Anyway at the top of the order I want to say that uh... the Abacelsus zine is not happening by halloween unforch.. I just started school part-time and it being part-time is still kicking my ass! So tentative release date will be on 11th November unless something else happens....

On the plus side I'm done with the cover so all that's left is the back page and cramming all 24 pages full of drawings 👍

-> As I've said at the end of my previous post I want to make more blog style posts so here's me trying to do that, more under the cut

🔐Abacelsus Zine

I'm still deciding on whether i want to print it A5 or B5 but I'm leaning towards A5, though for the digital release it doesn't really matter lol

As mentioned, I'm done with the main cover so I just need to fill this entire thing with stuff, I said 24 pages but really the total page count is 30. I'm just not counting the cover and the blurb stuff.

I'm half taking a break with this at the risk of burning myself out and half paralysed with starting it. Plus I've kind of been more into Axl & I-no hilariously but I'll always love A.B.A. I think the lack of any real info really lends her well to interpretation which is always fun.

I've never really been one to engage in fandom so I'm probably going to be doing my own thing. That being said if anyone has any suggestions feel free to drop them in my strawpage or ask box :)

🥤 Strawpage & General Socials

The bugs make my pages so decorative, I gotta draw more bugstyle guys.

Speaking of strawpage, I made one of those! It was really fun, I have a short OC info tab with descriptions of some of my main guys. I'd love for you to check it out.

This kind of acts as my ask box for twitter since there's not one there and apparently it's basically my main social media site these days so I'm just mirroring my experience here over there too.

Hilarious timing considering that it's basically collapsing on itself once again, I'll probably still be on that damn site until it implodes but I also have a Bluesky account for those that care about it.

The sky follower bridge extension is really useful for bulk following people from twitter to bsky

I'd love to post there more but there's not a queue function and that's very important to me as someone who is not American and lazy to remember optimal timings.

Did you see? I also have a new pinned for this blog! Wanted to make a new one for a while now, always thought the old one was so freaking long. All the old info is still on my about and faq page though I don't know who actually looks at those.. a relic from years past..

☹ School

Sigh, like I mentioned earlier I'm doing school again! At my big age, but I'm having fun so far! It's part-time but it's still kicking my fucking ass! It's the main reason why I'm a little disoriented this month honestly.

Do you like it? I spent an entire Sunday making my class miro board look niceys and then proceeded to get nauseous from cybersickness afterwards LOL

I'm doing a UI/UX course and I have to say the funnest part about it is making personas, it's like making OCs. Don't particularly like writing though.. but also that's a lie considering the numerous amount of paragraphs in this blog post alone haha

🎁 Merch

I've also gotten confirmation that I'll be boothing again next year in Febuary! So I gotta start locking into making more stickers and general merch. I say this a lot but I do need to look into opening an online store because I just have tonnes of stickers and stuff lying around waiting till the next time I do a convention which is kind of a shame.

Oh, but I will say that if you are from Singapore and would like anything from my previous convention catalogue feel free to shoot me a DM on instagram and I can mail it to you locally, shipping's $2 SGD.

➰Closing Thoughts

All in all, been kind of busy this month with school and various loose threads from September but overall I think I'm doing better! I've also been cooking lately and truthfully that's my biggest achievement this month haha, been also getting really into canned fish. Yummy!

Oh and a last thing is that I've been itching to animate again so I'll end this post with a WIP of a gif I did last night/morning. I almost always never finish my animations but here's hoping this one actually makes it to the colouring stage haha

No prizes to anyone who can guess who these two because of course.

Thank you for reading! I know I can't expect everything to be done in a single month but I just wish I could do everything without getting tired or cybersick! If you'd like to support me, here's my ko-fi page and my itchi.io & gumroad as well.

If you have any questions or just generally want to talk to me, my DMs and askbox is always open! Any professional enquires can be sent towards my email as well: eliotlime@gmail.com

XOXO, Stay weird!

-Eliot :)