#yes i do in fact have a youtube channel

[mumblesplash]

back on my amv bullshit :)))

song is beat the love by autoheart (lyrics included under the cut bc they're like 90% of the reason for this song choice and also kinda hard to hear)

[Verse 1] Been shocked into a state of delirium words cannot describe I am Jekyll filled with disagreement, you are Mr. Hyde Yeah, there's something running through me, it's incredibly strong An electrifying feeling that I've known all along A burning realization that our incoordination is corrupt

[Chorus] I cannot be what you want me to be Let our cannonball, rise up and fall I cannot see what you want me to see So you beat the love right out of me

[Verse 2] I've had a fistful of your knee jerk reactions, always jumping the gun I can't be accountable for everything that you have undone There's a window of opportunity for us to move on But you're constantly reminding me of what I do wrong Pot calling kettle black, here’s to yet another attack, and that’ll be that

[Chorus] I cannot be what you want me to be Let our cannonball, rise up and fall I cannot see what you want me to see So you beat the love right out of me

I cannot be what you want me to be Let our cannonball, rise up and fall I cannot see what you want me to see So you beat the love right out of me

Oh, yes, you beat the love right out of me Oh, yes, you beat the love right out of me

[thou-shalt-cha-cha-real-smooth]

MY FRIEND MADE AN ANIMATIC :DDD

[ariaste]

Apparently there was some lil drama in Good Omens fandom again about people being deeply nervous and scared of the end of Season 3, and I wrote this in the replies of one of the asks that Neil Gaiman answered, but I feel like it is deserving of being crossposted into its own post (in a slightly expanded form) so folks actually see it.

cmere, good omens fandom, we're having an intervention. a Come To Jesus talk, if you will.

First of all, I'm literally begging the fandom to:

learn what personal boundaries are, especially around parasocial relationships with strangers. (Suggestion: When sending asks to authors you like, use "polite work email" etiquette, not "joking with a friend" etiquette. The latter comes off REAL weird sometimes, and sometimes outright mean/rude/bullying).

take a couple deep fucking breaths

embrace the philosophy of The Author's Intent Only HAS To Matter To The Author, It Does Not Have To Matter To YOU. If you do not like the author's intent, you can say "hmmmm no thanks" and write some fanfic. That's what it's for.

Friends, Romans, countrymen..... Stop trying to make Neil Gaiman responsible for your happiness. For one thing, that is an absolutely unfair and cruel burden to put on a stranger who doesn't know you. Neil is only responsible for Neil's happiness. You're responsible for your own happiness. In fact, do not rely on ANY external source to guarantee your happiness, not even very nice people like Neil, not even your significant other, not even your family members. Yes, those people might be able to help you with your happiness, but they cannot guarantee it. Expecting a third party to guarantee your happiness is how corporations exploit you, and it is the source of all media trauma. Take agency over your own joy! Don't give away your power! Plan to DIY your personal ideal ending!

Neil is not telepathic, Neil cannot know all your hopes and dreams and wishes, nor SHOULD he be expected to know them, nor does he have space to know them. He is busy with things like his own and Terry's hopes and dreams and wishes. Their hopes/dreams/wishes are just as valid and important as yours, aren't they? Yes, they are. So calm down. caaaaaaaallllllm dowwwwwn.

Yes, I love the show very much too, but at the end of the day it is just a story. And the great thing about stories is that you are empowered to retell them in a different way. It is not real, so if you end up unsatisfied by S3, then blithely impose your own reality and build your own joy. It's not like it's the End Of The World or anything (lil fandom joke there for you)

And look, if you read this and you're feeling Mad and Upset or Frustrated about it, that is a symptom that you are maybe feeling a little stung in your Media Trauma parts. I am sorry that other stories have let you down in the past, and I really sympathize that you are feeling scared about the fate of this story that really matters to you. You've invested a lot of love into it! I really understand the fear! You don't want to be hurt again, and that's super understandable and normal.

But bestie, literally the only way for you to find a story that's exactly perfect for you and that won't hurt you at all is for you to write it yourself. I know that sucks to hear, but it is the truth. If you keep pinning a hope of perfection on other people's stories, you will keep getting traumatized by the media you consume. Love other people's stories for what they ARE, not for the stories that you WANTED them to be -- the same way that we love people, you know? You have to let a person be their own person; you can't force them to be someone else. That's fucked up, so if you notice that you keep trying to do that, maybe go to therapy so you can be that Someone-Else person for yourself (or, if you can't afford therapy, read some self-help books from the library or find some good channels on Youtube who make content that might help with that (I really like JulienHimself)).

If you need a story to be something big and important for you, if you are seeking catharsis and healing from a story that matters to you and you're really scared that you won't get it, then open a Word document and start typing. You can do it. You're a human being, and you evolved to tell stories. Literally it's a species specialization. You got this. It's gonna be okay, because you're going to seize the means of production and MAKE it okay. Yes? Yes.

Good Omens S3 will be what it will be. It will be what Neil wants it to be and what Terry would have wanted it to be. Period. That IS actually the highest achievement and the most noble and admirable accomplishment that we can hope for. And hey, maybe what they want overlaps with what you want, and that will be wonderful! But that will be merely a happy coincidence. The only person who can TRULY center your wants is YOU. So stop trying to trap Neil into doing it, please, because he's busy and it's not his job, AND because your wants do matter and you deserve to have someone who can give your wants their 100% full attention (aka you. that's you. only you can do that. Not even your best friends in the world can do it. Not even your mom can do it, at least not if you're old enough to know how to read.)

It's gonna be okay. Really. Really, it is. No, stop typing the snarky melodramatic reply. This is not the time for jokes; I'm being serious. It's going to be okay. Neil Gaiman can only break your heart exactly as much as you allow him to do so. That's how art works. You have to consent in order to be affected by it, and you can withdraw your consent at any time. You're going to be okay. I promise. As long as you choose to claim your own agency and your own empowerment as an individual, then all will be well and all manner of things will be well.

[iluvmattsbeard]

say it (m.s)

master list

matt sturniolo x reader

warnings: VERY heavy smut and strong language

preview: Matt has been stressed out all day because of filming. his brothers have been on his last nerve. when he gets home, he takes out his frustration on you and he doesn't think you're taking him seriously. so he makes you take him seriously.

a/n: I literally imagine Matt take out his frustration on me 24/7. like yes give it to me lmao.

it was 10 p.m at night. you were waiting for Matt to get home. he was out filming a car video with his brothers Nick and Chris, for their youtube channel. you sat on your bed reaching down at the laundry basket beneath your one foot dangling on the side of the bed. you started folding your clothes neatly as you watched tv.

it’s already been 2 hours since he left at like 8 ish. you yawn still folding your clothes. you always waited for him to get home before falling asleep. you always wanted to make sure he got home safely.

suddenly, you hear the front door opening. you stopped everything you were doing, standing up about to head to the door but you freeze at the loud slam. “i’m home” you hear him yell out from behind the door. he was angry. you open the door and face him. “hey Matt…” you say hesitantly. all he does is look at you giving you a nod before walking to the fridge to grab a root beer. he twists the cap open, then taking a sip. all you do is stare at him before speaking, “how did filming go?” you ask stupidly. Matt then looks at you with a blank stare, “how do you think it went?” he says. “okay so i assume it didn’t go as well.” you say walking up closer to him but he turns away sitting on the couch.

“what happened?” you say turning to look at him crouched forward sipping his drink. “nothing it’s fucking stupid.” he responds clenching the plastic bottle. “well it’s clearly bothering you.” you lean back onto the counter saying. “so it’s not-.” Matt interrupts, “y/n just mind your business.” you knew how he gets when he’s upset. he turned cold and sometimes said stuff that really upset you. “i’m sorry. that was rude of me.” he says placing the bottle on the coffee table. he turns his head looking at you, “it really wasn’t a big deal. i’m just irritated by the fact i can’t ever get a word in without being interrupted.” he says with clear frustration. “Chris won’t ever shut his big mouth. the stupidest shit always comes out and Nick entertains it. every time i try to speak, Chris does it on purpose i swear, he just blurts out something we won’t even be talking about in the moment.” you let out a laugh but shortly stop as Matt darts his eyes at you seriously. “sorry” you mumble out. “see not a big deal since you think its so funny.” he says with a scoff.

you roll your eyes as you speak, “Matt don’t even start. i already said sorry.” his eyes were piercing through yours making you clear your throat. “okay Matt continue please.” you say. “no. you don’t care.” he responds looking away getting on his phone. you groan and shake your head. “fine be like that. i’m going to bed.” before you head to your bedroom, you pour yourself a cup of water and then walk towards the bedroom door.

Matt puts his phone down next to him, shaking his head letting out a scoff behind his smirk. “stop” he sternly says looking at you. you stop in your tracks as you turn around and face him. he stays quiet looking at you up and down before speaking, “put the water down” he says. “Matt i’m going to-.” you let out but he interrupts. “put it down.” with a dominant tone. you put down the water on the counter. you turn to look back at him but you see him walk out onto the balcony. you follow shortly after and join him outside. he was standing there leaned against the railing staring at the city lights. "why are we out here?" you ask confused. he keeps his eyes on the view not saying anything. you let out a soft sigh as you mimic his stance. “Matt-.” you were about to say but he gives you a glare. “you’ll find out.” he responds with a blank face.

eventually he looks away and sits on the arm chair that decorates the balcony. you turn to look at him as you can't help but notice his dark eyes. he leans back into the chair and spreads his legs slightly. he licks his lips raising his hand onto his lap, patting it, "come here" he demands. you nod your head as you walk over to him. you were going to sit on his lap but he sits up stopping you. "on your knees." your eyes widen at the command. "w-what?” you stutter out, “out here on the balcony?” he looks at you with the same glare from earlier. "do it." you nod hesitantly eventually kneeling down slowly. you gulp as you look up at him with your doe eyes. he stays silent as he brings his hands to unbutton his pants not breaking eye contact. he slightly brings down his pants as he pulls out his hard cock into his hand, stroking it.

"you're going to help me. aren't you?" he says. you bring yourself slightly up as you replace his hand on his cock with yours. he brings himself forward a bit. you stroke his dick slowly looking down at it. your hand looked small wrapped around it. slowly, you wrap your mouth around his tip, moving with a normal pace. not too slow and not too fast. you use both of your hands to stroke the remainder of his cock that couldn't fit in your mouth. he lifts his shirt up getting it away from your face. he then uses his other hand placing it on top of your head. he then pushes your head down, repeatedly bobbing it, making you tear up from how big his cock is. you take your hand and tap him to signal you can't handle the size hitting the back of your throat. he lets out a small low laugh as he grips your hair continuing to bob your head up and down. "who's laughing now?" he says. you gag slightly every time your head goes down. more tears streamed down your face with your eyes feeling cloudy. "look up at me." he says.

you look up weakly at him as you keep eye contact. he groans at the sight. "what? you can't take it no more?" he asks slowing down the pace he had you at. you couldn't say anything but look into his eyes that were filled with dominance. he releases your head from his grip, pushing you off him softly. you stay on your knees letting out a soft cough as he wipes your drooling mouth. he leans forward grabbing your hands as he pulls you up. once you stood up slowly he lets go of your hands still sitting there. "take these off." he says tugging your pajama pants lightly. you look into his eyes, pulling down your pants, along with your panties, letting them hit the ground. you step out from the soft fabric and laced garment standing there nervously.

you were scared the apartments in front of you could see you guys through their windows. your next door neighbors could also potentially catch you both in the act if they step outside their own balconies to peak. Matt grabs you by the waist, pulling you onto his lap. he immediately pulls you in by your face, attaching his lips with yours. you could feel his hard dick twitch under your entrance as you kiss back eagerly. the kiss was filled with anticipation. he runs his hands down the sides of your body as he lands on your hips.

he keeps them there gripping a little hard as he starts moving you back and forth against his cock, grinding on it not breaking the kiss. you felt yourself getting more wet after each kiss and each hip movement. he then pushes his tongue inside of your mouth as you fight for dominance. of course, he won. you tangle your fingers in his hair as you buck your hips, matching the pace of his hand movements. Matt then pulls away not wasting time attaching them onto your free nipple. you throw your head back slightly by his wet mouth sucking harshly on your hard nip. still grinding on him, he then stops you, also pulling away from your tit as he raises you up a bit. Matt takes his cock into his hand as he slips it into your wet core causing you to slip out a loud whimper. he darts his eyes onto yours as he brings up one hand, covering your mouth. "you don't want to be caught don't you?" he whispers.

you shake your head as he whispers, "okay then keep it down." he places his hands back onto your waist, with you slowly starting to ride him. you bite your bottom lip trying to fight back the noises. his grip gets tighter as you speed up your pace. he pushes you down a bit more making sure every inch of his cock sits inside of you. you wrap your arms around him, hiding your face in the crook of his neck. "you enjoy this huh?" he whispers in your ear. you try to make out words but you failed or else moans would fly out. "say it." he says firmly. "y-yes" you finally let out. "then prove it." he says breathlessly. you lean back slightly as your hands rest on his knees behind you. you roll your hips back and forth making sure you were pressed down all the way, having him deep inside. he throws his head back biting his bottom lip hard. you throw your head back as well, gulping down your moans.

"you move your hips so perfectly." he says bringing his head back up straight. he bites his lip again as he watches you continue to ride him. "just like that." he says. you wrap your arms around him, hiding your face into his neck again, still keeping your pace. "f-fuck Matt. your dick feels so good inside of me." you moan in his ear. he smirks as he stops your movement. you sit back up confused.

he leans back into the chair, pulling you up slightly as he starts to take control. the sudden thrusts make you moan out by surprise. "shhh.. just take this dick." he whispers. but you were really struggling keeping it in. the more he heard you fall apart, the more he sped up. he covers your mouth as he pounds harder into you, bruising your pussy. you bite the inside of his hand from the feeling of pain and pleasure. your eyes clouded up again as tears rolled down your cheeks. it hurt so good.

you look up and see your reflection in the window. you saw your tits bounce up and down from his thrusts. the clapping noise that was being made with your guys bodies coming together, started to get louder. you and Matt both look at each other when you hear someone open their sliding door. you widen your eyes as he continues to thrust. his hand was still on your mouth so you tap him signaling to stop. all he does is shake his head.

you grip onto his shoulders with your eyes rolling back feeling your stomach in a knot, indicating you were about to cum. you could feel Matt’s thrust getting slightly tamer; you could tell he was close. after a few more thrusts, you finally released all over his cock almost falling because of how weak you felt. “o-oh fuck” Matt whispers out at your actions. he then pulls you off his twitching cock as he cums on his stomach. you collapse onto his chest weakly as you both lay there out of breath.

after you both caught up with your breathing, you guys continue staying quiet, knowing your neighbor is outside on their balcony. but thankfully, after a bit they went back inside. you and Matt look at each other and let out a sigh of relief at the same time.

a/n: likes and reblogs are appreciated!

[boiohboii]

If she's around.

(Lando norris x leclerc!reader)

When lando decides to make a video along with two of his friends for their YouTube channel his girl of course had to make an appearance

or

In which ethan and ginge are always reminded of the fact that they are single.

Masterlist

N.b: just inspired by the new quadrant video, I loved it, obviously I have no idea if ginge or ethan are single or not, but for the purpose of this fic they don't... WARNINGS: not proof read, some swear words here and there (friends jokingly insulting each other), sexual implicantions?.... and I think that's it? If I missed anything else lmk please.

Ethan and Ginge did not think this through. They obviously got too excited about the idea and did not sit down to actually think about the consequences.

What are the consequences? That damn breakfast that Lando Norris is having them eat.

"This is criminal mate, I can see some good fucking food in there."

Ginge complained as he placed the cup underneath his nose, trying to see if the smell is as bad as the food looks.

"Ah no no, I can't give you that."

"Well, why not? It sure as hell doesn't look like you threw it up."

"That's the missus' breakfast, she'll kill me if I let you eat it."

Now, lando was just messing around. Yn was well aware of the fact that his friends were coming over and she prepared extra food in case they deviate from the video's plan.

"The missus?" Ginge asked as he took the spoon from the f1 driver "who is she? And why have I never seen her before?"

"What are you talking about, you've seen her before."

"I think I'd remember if I've seen a girlfriend of yours mate."

"You have ginge." Ethan answered as he looked at the red head "in one of the streams."

Farrowing his eyebrows ginge tried to remember, he was sure he had never seen lando with a girl before, he would definitely remember if- oh. oh. oh.

"No," ginge gasped as he looked at lando with uncertainty "no way mate. She is not your girlfriend."

"Umm, yes she is."

"No she's not."

"Yes, she is!"

"No, no she's not! She is too pretty for you."

Ethan chocked as he looked at Lando's disbelief of what his friend has said.

"Don't look at me like that! You know that she is too pretty for you"

Blinking, lando shrugged in agreement.

"Simp" ginge scoffed as he took a bite out of his breakfast.

"Well, i don't blame him man, have you seen yn."

"Looks like I will double the weights during training" lando has malice behind his smile, which made the two instantly shut up.

Interview room(ANGRYGINGE has a fear of flying)

" I'll be honest, I still believe that yn leclerc is way too pretty for lando. Like yeah sure he's an f1 driver but like aren't 2 of her brothers drivers as well. It would be so funny if they crashed into lando if he pissed her of or made her sad or something, a whole new meaning to the I will run you over threat."

"What time do you go to bed?"

"Ummm, depends."

"On?"

"If the missus is around, dirty bastard." Ginge answered "now, be honest, what time did you go to bed last night?"

"It was, um, it was early."

"You are lying through your teeth mate, I can see those dark circles."

"Hello boys."

"Dirty bastard." Ginge and ethan laughed harder at the coincidence.

"Hello love." Lando chuckled at her confused face as he pecked her forehead.

"What is going on?" Leaning onto his chest, yn looked at the two guests, wondering about their choice of words being the response to her greetings.

"Oh don't worry about it," wrapping his arm around her waist Lando rests his chin on her head " they were just asking if you being with me makes me go to bed at a later time than usual."

"Oh," yn giggled "i guess they're right? Sometimes we stay up reading a book or watching a movie, it depends on what's near us on the bedside table."

"Alright," lando started before taping yn's stomach and pointing to the firdge " you should have your breakfast and we should go back to what we were doing, yeah?"

Humming in agreement, yn turned around and leaned up to give lando a kiss on the cheek, but upon hearing ginge groan, the formula driver grabbed his girlfriend's neck from the front, redirecting her head so that their lips would meet.

"Oh come on mate, no need to rub it in!"

Being in the small makeshift home gym that lando has, the three brits started discussing what exercises they would be doing.

"First we'll start with a warm up, normally there's a few bands" looking around the room, lando tried to remember where he placed them last "they might be in our bedroom."

"How did the workout band made it into the bedroom?" Ethan asked as he started wiggling his eyebrows at ginge.

"Hey sweetheart," Lando's voice could be heard calling out "do you know where my exercise bands are?"

"They're in the bedroom," yn exclaimed "on your bedside table."

Ethan's eyebrows stopped mid movements while ginge's jaw dropped down "went to bed early lando, ehh, yeah yeah sure!"

Monitoring his friends' forms in a workout was not lando thought he would be doing on a day off where yn was with him without one of her brother's breathing down their necks. Speaking of his lovely girlfriend, lando saw her in one of his mclaren shirts and a short in the hallway, on her way to their bedroom he'd assume, with a bowl of what was either watermelons or strawberries.

"Sweetheart," lando spoke, ignoring the task at hand "can I have some please?"

"Of course mon soleil"

Entering the room, yn took a look at both boys before going straight to her boyfriend. Lando's friends were glaring daggers at him as he just placed his hand on the back of yn's hands as she placed a piece of watermelon in his mouth, making him hum pleasantly at the sweetness that filled his mouth.

"This is so unfair." Ginge complained

"I know mate, such bullshit, we should get to eat that as well."

"Yeah sure." lando agreed as yn placed another piece in his awaiting mouth.

"Well, now you're just being a dick. Come on yn, I want some as well."

"Are you asking my girl to feed you?"

"You're not letting me out of this workout anytime soon now, are you?"

"I think you should add weights onto their backs," yn stated as she smiled innocently at ginge and ethan "Charles, Arthur and Enzo always fo that to each other for the hell of it."

"Oh, you are evil miss leclerc, truly evil."

Ethan watched as lando told ginge to not lean with the weights pushing his neck, it was tough and they only had like a third of what lando usually does.

"So, who usually does this with you? Like you have to have someone to like push the weights, right?"

"Yeah yeah, usually it's my trainer, but then when something comes up or I just feel like training on my own it's yn who's helping."

"Oh look at him just rubbing it in that he has a girlfriend."

"Oh god," lando laughed in disbelief "you're the one who asked."

"The important question is," ginge started as he removed the equipment from his forehead "can yn do this? Like the neck training."

Lando stayed quite, thinking if he'd ever seen his girlfriend doing it or if her or her brothers ever mentioned that she does it. "No, I don't think so. Hold on."

Leaving the room, lando headed into the bedroom having a quick discussion away from the camera and the mics.

"So," lando said as he entered the room with yn behind him "yn will be doing the neck training, we'll go with 5 kilos."

"How about 10?" Yn asked as she took a seat on the bench

"What?"

"Well, for a while charles was convinced I'd get into a car crash and he took me training with him for like a year or something, it was insane."

"I'm sorry, what?"

[edenfenixblogs]

I was having a rough night so I went to my favorite funny website IsMercuryInRetrograde.com

I’m not a huge believer in astrology, but the website only has two pages:

If it’s in retrograde it says yes, which feels weirdly validating.

If it’s not in retrograde it just says “No, something else must be bumming you out,” which always gives me a little chuckle.

Fun silly website. Yay.

Except this time

YES. SOMETHING ELSE IS BUMMING ME OUT.

The fact that unless I lock myself in a room with only pre-written or pre-recorded material that I’ve already read or watched and know is safe I CANNOT GO TWELVE FUCKING HOURS WITHOUT HEARING ABOUT THIS FUCKING WAR.

It’s killing me. There are no breaks. I open any website or social media app and it’s an immediate bombardment of info about the war. I go watch a YouTube video and then there’s a fundraiser at the end.

I flip through channels and see news about an antisemitic attack or a bombing in Gaza or Rafah.

I leave notifications on and get a text from a friend who sees a “rape is resistance” sticker on her walk home from school.

I go to look for pride merch and see watermelon merch mixed in as if war is some kind of gay accessory. I look through a fandom tag and see cartoon characters in a kids cartoon drawn with Palestinian flags.

It’s fucking endless. It’s insane. I just wanted a few days without having to think about all of it so I could recharge and I haven’t even been able to go a continuous 12 hour stretch without something or someone shoving the whole thing in my face.

It’s not healthy to live like this. I already have PTSD. And I’m trying with all my might not to retreat fully within myself but this is fucking killing me.

And I am someone who is pro peace and pro ceasefire and pro Palestinian welfare and anti-Likud but also anti-antisemitism. I do nothing but promote interfaith and intercultural organizations devoted to fostering peace. I want this war over.

And yet I’m fucking stuck in this perpetual hellhole of awful news and constant imagery about war and death and antisemitism and Palestinian suffering. And it’s too much. Why can’t I even go 12 hours. It’s killing me.

The fucking mercury in retrograde website‽ YES. SOMETHING ELSE IS BUMMING ME OUT AND ITS YOU.

[under-your-floorboards]

Will Solace and Nico di Angelo having a ghosts youtube channel together like Watchers (Shayne and Ryan but gay) with Lou Ellen being their true crime collaborator.

~

Will : I can’t even begin to describe how gnarly this cause of death was … it is, very gruesome stuff.

Nico : please never say gnarly when referring to the dead ever again

Will : that does sound disrespectful, doesn’t it? No offense to the no longer living!

Nico : Yes, no offense to our dead audience members out there.

Will : do you really think ghosts are watching our youtube series?

Nico : they might do it just for kicks.

Will : *wheezes* like, “Look at these assholes trying to prove our existence.”

Nico : yeah. or “Terry, come take a look at this! They caught your cameo in the last upload!”

Will : *laughing hysterically*

Nico : what a couple of cards we must make to them.

Will : undoubtedly. Should we add that to our intro? “Welcome back to Halfblood Horrors, guys girls and ghouls”

Nico : oh, I like that.

~

Will, after hearing a loud bang that scared him so bad his country accent comes out : WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!

Nico : that was me.

Will : Gods damnit, Neeks, are you tryin’ to give me a heart attack?

Nico, snickering : you jumped like a startled cat.

Will : I’ll get you back for that. We’ll see how you like it.

( He does not, in fact, get him back for that )

~

Will : Welcome back to the channel our good friend over from Witch Crime is Which, Lou Ellen!

Lou Ellen : hello Halfblood Horrors fans. And hello dweeb and Nico.

Will : Wait — Why am I dweeb? I’m your best friend!

Lou Ellen : Nico’s earned my respect. I’ve seen you cry on the ground over rewrite the stars.

Nico : *snorts* always a pleasure to have you in the office, Lou.

Will : This is harassment and defamation, you’ll be seeing my lawyers very soon.

Nico : We’re already off topic —

[natailiatulls07]

He doesn’t want any other nurse

Charles Leclerc x female!nurse!reader

Summary - Charles has a habit of hurting himself so he visits the medical bay quite a lot which he doesn’t mind because his favourite nurse is there

Warning - Cuts, Crash, tripping over, medical centres, bruising

A/n - This was inspired by a character ai bot lmao

-

This was becoming a regular routine. And it’s not like no noticed, everyone noticed. Every other race, Charles would have to be taken to the medical centre in the paddock, why?

Because of her; one of the nurses who would travel around with the FIA as a nurse.

Like Zandvoort, Charles had crashed his SF-23 into the first corner.

“Charles, are you okay? Are you okay?” Xavier voiced through the radio, the race engineer could see Charles moving in his car.

“Yeah I’m good…I think I’ll go to medical just in case…” Surprisingly he sounded somewhat excited to be visiting medical, it was usually dreaded by the drivers.

So that’s what he did. He took himself all the way back to the paddock and through the paddock to medical. There’s was a small waiting room, Charles sat himself down excitedly.

One of the other nurses had come out to the waiting room. “Charles, I can see you now” she offered but he quickly turned her down.

“No thank you, um is Y/n here today?” The Monégasque asked eagerly. The nurse looked back through to the medical bay, and saw that Y/n was in fact treating someone who had fallen in the paddock.

“Uh she’s a bit busy at the moment…please I can help you” The nurse tried again to which Charles just shook his head again.

“I’ll wait…” His tone was blunt and straight to the point. The nurse just sighed, knowing there was nothing she could do to change his mind, before walking back into the medical bay.

-

I was just finishing up cleaning up a small cut on someone’s knee as they fell in the paddock. “There you go ma’am…take it easy on your feet” Smiling softly I walk the women out through the medical bay carefully.

I walk into the medical bay as one of the other nurse told me that a certain Ferrari driver was waiting on me and only me.

Knowing of his refusal of any other nurse here, I strike up a conversation with him “I heard you’ve been waiting for me”

His response is quick and almost impatient “Too long” I look him over and notice a few cuts but other than that he seems okay.

“Why?” I ask in defeat. The driver just stares me down.

“Because I wanted you…” Charles just picks at the skin around his cuts, going silent again.

“You do realise that there are more qualified nurses than me…right?”

Glancing away from his cuts up at me, Charles continues “Yes and I rejected them” He looks around the medical bay before meeting my eyes again. “Your qualifications don’t matter to me, I still want you”

As I treat his cuts, cleaning them up and putting some plasters on, I continue the conversation “I don’t understand…why me?”

He remains still allowing me to treat him correctly “Why not you?” Charles’ green eyes follow my hands as I work.

“Whatever you say…” Chucklibg softly before move to grab the plasters. After I finish fixing him up, I pat his shoulder “You’re all done…”

“Thank you” He mumbles before making his way to the media tent, feeling that bit more excited.

-

The two Ferrari drivers were in their teams hospitality filming a challenge video for the Ferrari YouTube channel. However, Carlos had accidentally tripped up Charles.

That’s how Charles ended up back in the medical bay waiting room, rejecting away any nurse until his favourite arrived in the waiting room. Y/n.

-

“Back again so soon Charles” I teased as I walked over to him, he was sat clutching his head.

Charles just offered me a tired smile. “Why are you so busy when I come in?” He asks with a grumble.

“Because…this is my job, I have to treat other people as well” I smile softly, laughing slightly. Reaching over, I inspect his head.

“What happened?” Asking him, I notice some bruising on his head just before the forehead.

“Carlos, le moromi, tripped me up” Laughing softly as Charles curses in his mother tongue. I move to the medical fridge, picking up a small ice pack wrapping it in a blue paper towel.

Holding to the bruising, I take one of his hand before putting it in place of mine. “Hold this here…” Once Charles is holding onto the ice pack, I take my clipboard “Do you feel dizzy, nauseous?”

Nodding his head, I start to worry before Charles speaks up “Only because of you…”

Crimson blush covers my cheeks, my face feeling flustered. “Okay Charles that’s not what I mean…I uh meant the bruising”

“Oh no but…can I ask you a question?” He looks up at me from his seat. I nod politely. “Are you single?”

Taken back, I am instantly taken back by his confidence. “Uh um yeah…being a nurse and travelling around the world with f1 is that ideal when it comes to relationships…” Once again chuckling quietly.

Despite his injury, Charles laughs along with me before speaking again “Can I ask you another question?”

Nodding my head again, I let me continue. “Are you busy tonight?”

My laughter continues with his questions. “No not really…I was probably order room service and then fall asleep to a chick flick…the usual” I blush at my obvious loneliness.

“That’s cute” My blush on deepens “Do you…um doyouwanttogoonadatewithme?…tonight” Charles just quickly mumbles, this makes it hard for me to hear his question.

“Pardon?” I ask politely and patiently.

The Monégasque breaths in hesitate before speak again, this time more slowly and clearly “Do you…want to go on a date with me?”

I just smile softly, yeah my blush is still there but I don’t care really. “Of course…”

“Oh perfect…I’ll pick you up around seven tonight” Charles is evidently more confident now that I agree to the date.

“I’ll see you then” Walking off to another patient, I feel his green eyes staring at me.

-

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Keep hearing people say maribug keep asking adricat if he's ok and he keep saying he's ok instead of telling her his problem but I don't remember it happened more than once in s4 in Rockettear but even then the circumstances of that episode did warrant the "nothing" answer he gave her unless he want to tell her that "nino tell me you let nino and alya know each other identity" which will reveal adricat identity. So when else did she ask? about the thing in hack-san, I think another credit goes to alya since she's the one who bring the topic to maribug who seems to be blissfully unaware that her leaving without telling adeicat that she send subtitute would be a problem.

I didn't get into this side of things in my other post because it was long and I wanted to focus on why Chat Noir's behavior was so frustrating, but this ask brings up the other big reason why the season four conflict was such a frustrating and terribly written plot line. Specifically, the part of your ask where you point out that Maribug seems blissfully unaware that her actions are having a negative impact on Chat Noir until someone points it out to her.

Yes, she is presented as blissfully unaware of this and every other interpersonal conflict we're given in season four. Your ask treats this as a failing on Maribug's part as if she should have obviously realized that she was in the wrong, but that's the whole problem. Telling kids - telling anyone really - that they should just magically know what others need is a frankly terrible life lesson as that's just not how the world works. You cannot just assume that everyone will have the same view of the world as you do and instantly pick up on the same issues as you do. That is the path to easily avoidable frustration and conflict. It also teaches people to assume that their view of the world is inherently correct when that is rarely the case. We often don't know the whole story and the other person's point of view may end up being equally or even more valid. This issue is extremely present in season four as Marinette has legitimate reasons to behave the way she does, which I'll get into in a bit.

If Marinette were written as feeling guilty about how she was treating Chat Noir, then this would be a different story. She'd be way more in the wrong and would shoulder a much greater portion of the blame. But as is? She has no idea that she's doing anything wrong. And until someone takes the time to tell her that her actions are causing harm, she is going to continue causing harm because she has no idea that she's causing harm.

In fact, I'd argue that the Alya thing in Hack San is a point in Maribug's favor. Throughout the episode, we see Marinette sending Alya messages on ways to be a good partner to Chat Noir, proving that she does in fact care about him. And then, as soon as Alya says, "You need to talk to Chat Noir," what does Maribug do?

She goes and talks to Chat Noir, giving him a pretty good apology for the problem she now knows she caused. Because, shockingly, Maribug doesn't actually want to hurt her partner. She also clearly cares about his feelings, making me want to take the season four conflict and tear it into itty bitty pieces because what is the conflict even supposed to be when you write shit like this?

I want to briefly step away from Miraculous and talk about this issue in a broader context via this YouTube short:

This short is from a Vietnamese woman who moved to Germany. Her YouTube channel is about her experiences there, including things like the short above which goes into the differences between what it means to be a dinner guest in Vietnam and what it means to be a dinner guest in Germany. In Vietnam, it's apparently standard for the guests to cook dinner with you where as, in Germany, you're expected to have the meal ready when the guests arrive, making this a situation where it's super easy to come across as rude just by doing what you think is normal.

Society is relatively aware that these types of culture clashes are a thing, but you don't have to be from different cultures to have these types of situations. Every person has their own unique needs and ideas of what "normal" is. The culture they were raised in will affect this, but so will their family, their personal needs, and many other factors. Two people can be raised on the same street and wind up with wildly different world views even though they supposedly share a culture. This is extra true when you add in compounding factors like neurodiversity, which is why it's an exercise in futility to say, "But Maribug should have realized..."

Well, she clearly didn't. And you can't change that she didn't realize whatever you're mad about. All you can do is have someone tell her what she's doing wrong. If she then continues the behavior, go ahead and judge away. But if she immediately corrects it like she did in Hack San? Doesn't that just prove that she truly didn't know that Chat Noir was hurting and would have probably fixed all of his problems if someone just pointed them out to her?

This is only exacerbated by the fact that Marinette's behavior in season four is largely unchanged from her behavior in previous seasons. The only major change is that she revealed her identity to Alya, but as soon as that's pointed out as a problem, she course corrects with an apology. After that, she thinks that everything is okay because why wouldn't she? Chat Noir said it was fine and everything else has been business as usual.

Bringing temp heroes into help as needed? That's been going on since season two. Having these additional members has been vital in multiple battles and there have been plenty of times where Chat Noir took a background role to the temp hero of the day like in Sapotis, Rena Rouge's season two debut. So why would Maribug suddenly think that this dynamic is a problem when it's been working fine for so long? We even had a whole episode about how Chat Noir was still needed in spite of the new heroes back in season three! Or, at least, I think that was Desperada's message? This show is shockingly bad at giving clear lessons.

Keeping guardian knowledge from Chat Noir? That's also been going on since season two and was even treated as a conflict that supposedly got resolved in the episode Syren which was the episode that ended with Master Fu coming to the mansion to talk to Adrien after everything was over.

When I watched that episode, I assumed this meant that Chat Noir was going to be more involved in things like picking the temp heroes. I actually thought this was how we were going to get Queen Bee because I knew she was going to be a thing, but it made no sense for Marinette to pick Chloe for a miraculous. Of course, I was wrong. Nothing changed after Syren. Chat Noir remained nothing more than the comic relief while Ladybug got all the insider info.

To be clear, I think that was a terrible move writing wise, but it doesn't change the fact that this is what they went with. This is the established dynamic. I can't even say that Alya learning Marinette's secret led to something new. She's just taken Marinette's old role while Marinette has taken on Master Fu's old role. This show loves it's status quo and Chat Noir has been at least tolerant of that status quo since Syren, so it's not surprising that Maribug doesn't register that this is a thing that should change and no one bothers to point it out to her even though she has a mentor in Tikki (and Su Han, I guess?) and a confidant in Alya and a whole slew of Kwamis who could also provide insight if they were allowed to do that sort of thing. (Sass and Wayzz were robbed of mentor roles.) Additional blame goes to Plagg because he should absolutely have told Adrien to talk to Ladybug. What is the point of giving these characters mentors who never mentor? It's aggravating in the extreme.

To circle back to the first part of your ask, outside of Hack San and Rocketear, I don't think there are any times when Ladybug invites feedback from Chat Noir unless you want to give credit to the end of Kuro Neko:

Cat Noir: (lands next to her) I've been a really temperamental kitty, m'lady. I didn't realize how much trouble I'd make for you by giving back my Miraculous. Ladybug: (sits closer to him) Just because I don't need you all the time doesn't mean that I don't need you at all, Cat Noir. No one could ever replace you.

Which isn't Maribug inviting him to tell her what's up, but she is clearly willing to listen to him and reassure him, further backing up my point about this conflict being some of the worst writing I've ever had to suffer through. If Maribug always fixes the issue as soon as she learns about it, you are not writing a situation where she's clearly in the wrong. You are writing an easily solved communication issue where she gets blamed for something she clearly doesn't realize she's doing wrong and it is so frustrating!!! I feel so bad for her. The next episode is Penalteam, btw, which starts the battle with this gem:

Ladybug: (laughs) Nice scare tactics, but it's not gonna work. Cat Noir and I are the best at soccer! Cat Noir: (Whispers to Ladybug) I don't know a thing about soccer M'lady. Maybe it's time to call the real team?

And basically just spends the whole episode making Chat Noir seems like a worthless partner while Maribug tries her best to make him - and everyone else - feel special.

Oh, and the episode before Kuro Neko? Well, it's technically Ephemeral, but that got magically overwritten so let's go one further back and we get to Dearest Family, which ends with this:

Cat Noir: (grabs a golden paper crown on the coffee table) Since I'm the king, (wears the crown on his head) would you be my queen, Ladybug? Ladybug: With pleasure, kitty cat! Tradition is tradition!

Oh yes, these two are in such conflict and Maribug does nothing to validate Chat Noir. He's in pain every episode and she's just totally oblivious to it.

If that was what they wrote, then I'd probably agree that we needed more instances of her asking if Chat Noir was okay. But it's not what they wrote. If you look through the list of season four episodes, you'll find that less than half of them deal with the supposed conflict of the season (by my count, only 8 of the 24 episodes before the final actually showcase the conflict and they are not in a logical order in terms of escalation as I tried to demonstrate above). The rest of the episodes flat out ignore it or even straight up work against the conflict like when Ladybug says this to Chat Noir in Guilttrip: "I probably don't tell you this enough, but I couldn't do this without you. And it'd be a lot less fun too."

Seriously, what even is this season? What is the conflict supposed to be? Because it sure as shit isn't Maribug undervaluing Chat Noir, if memory servers, season four sees her validate him more times than any other season. And it isn't her guiltily hiding things from him like so many fanfics claim because we have multiple points of evidence that prove that she's completely oblivious that there even is a conflict. So what conflict are the writers actually trying to write?

What's even more baffling is that none of this logically leads to the loss at the end of the season:

Maribug's new secrets didn't lead to her downfall. The only reason she lost was because of the secret that's always been there - a fact that's never revealed to her - and a freaking evil twin! So why did it matter that Maribug was keeping secrets? This is made even worse by season five maintaining all of the secrets, once again begging the question of what lesson were we trying to teach here???

Chat Noir wasn't needed for the final fight of the season, Maribug only needed the powers of a few of the temp heroes to win, a baffling ending to a season whose focus was Chat Noir feeling unimportant. You could scrap that conflict entirely and the ending would not change. In fact....

Adrien quitting to be nothing more than a good little boy who obeys his father would have actually saved the world from eventually being rewritten. If you think about it, the season four final actually punishes Adrien for being defiant. So does season five as, if Chat Noir had quit, his father would still be alive. I thought this show was supposed to be a romcom, not a tragedy. Why is Adrien being punished for being a hero? Is this supposed to be karma for lying to Ladybug with the whole Catwalker thing?

This shit is why I say I'm a writing salt, character sugar blog. I can't get mad at the characters when they're in such a nonsense story where things never logically tie together. They all deserve so much better.

None of this is meant to imply that ignorance is a blanket excuse for hurting others. Nor is it meant to imply that you have to forgive someone who hurt you just because they didn't mean to. There's a ton of nuance around these topics. But season four acknowledges none of that nuance while creating a situation that desperately needed nuance because there was no clear right and wrong here. Should Maribug work to be more aware of others feelings? Sure, but that journey can only start after she's made aware of her faults and no one ever points them out to her. Does Chat Noir need to work on clearly communicating his needs? Desperately, but no one is teaching him that lesson so he remains a terrible communicator who suffers in silence. What impressively bad writing.

[totaly-obsessed]

➳ Azzi Fudd x reader

➳ A planned soft-launch goes wrong

➳ based on this request - my first time writing for Basketball, pls be kind to me

➳ Word count: 1.305

“Do you know what you’re gonna get?” 

Most of the girls had gone out to eat for the evening, something a little more on the fancy side, different from the usual takeout they would get, and gracious as they were, they decided to drag you, their Social Media manager, with them.

While it had been Azzi, your girlfriend of nearly seven months who ultimately managed to get you to say yes, she had a begging KK and Paige in her ears. Both girls tried to get you to come, with promises of shooting videos for the YouTube Channel, giving fans the duo they wanted. But all it took was Azzi to bat her lashes at you, a gentle kiss to the corner of your mouth, and a whispered “Please, for me?” and you agreed to come.

“I can’t decide between these two.” 

“I’ll get this one and you get that one then. They both sound great and we can share!” With Azzi you never had to beg for her to listen to you, she somehow always knew what you said and wanted, no matter how noisy the room was.

“Girl you are whipped..” KK observed from her seat next to you but winced when she received a swift kick to the shin from your girlfriend who sat on the opposite side of you. “I was just sayin! Nothing bad about it!”

The evening had actually been quite nice - you had spent the most time chatting to Ashlynn and Caroline who sat on your other side, while Azzi watched everyone interact chiming in here and there and mostly when either Paige, KK, or Nika were bickering and hoped that she would back them up.

Back at the dorms you decided to just hang out for a bit longer, it had been way too nice to just get up and leave everyone alone, especially after getting back from a short summer break. People were still moving in and the roommates weren’t 100% sure yet, aside from you and Azzi. Maybe you’d adopt one of the freshmen.

The people (Paige and Alyiah) had decided that the chosen dorm would in fact be yours and Azzi's. Most of your girlfriend's belongings were already in there, while yours were still in the car.

“You snooze, you lose!”

The couch was already filled when you came in the door. Turns out seven young adults with an average height of six feet take up a lot of space in a small student dorm, leaving literally no space for you. KK, Inês, and Jana had already taken over the floor in front of the couch, pulling every throw pillow you had placed on it, down to sit on them. 

But you didn’t worry about getting a seat. After all, your girlfriend already had one, and what was hers, was yours. So you had a place, no matter how smug the girls looked at you, teasing smiles on their lips.

“Can you make Popcorn?” Nika, the only one with some form of respect, swatted Paige’s hand away as she pointed at you like a toddler. “How do you want to know that they even have popcorn? Azzi moved in like yesterday.”

“They always have popcorn. So, you gonna make some?”

Just as your girlfriend wanted to chime in, telling Paige to do it herself, you caved in and made your way to the small kitchen. You wanted her to have some time alone with her teammates, after all this was their season. They were going to make it, you were sure of it.

With a tray of snacks, a big popcorn bowl, and glasses you made your way back to the others. Excited chatter filled the room and everyone was busy in some way or another as you placed the tray down on the small coffee table, before just handing Paige the big Popcorn bowl.

“See that wasn’t so hard - OW!” Nika’s elbow found a home in the blonde's ribs. “She meant thank you for being so kind to us. Didn’t you?” The smile on Paige's lips was forced in pain as she gave a small ‘mhmm’ to satisfy her Croatian friend.

You were leaning over the couch, right next to Azzi’s face, trying to make out what movie they had put on, but in the end, you couldn’t figure it out. “Baby, can I borrow some of your clothes? Wanna get out of this dress” Your girlfriend turned around as well as she could while being restricted by her teammates on either side. “Of course, you don’t have to ask!”

In thanks you lean over, kissing her with a big smile on your face, “Thank you darling, you’re the best!” before you go to turn around and run to the bedroom where a still-packed suitcase waits for you. 

But then you heard KK.

“Fuck. You know that we’re live. Right?”

A chill goes down your spine. Live? Like TikTok Live? And when you turn back to the group of girls, you see the phone propped up against a water bottle, the screen showing you in the background while your friends look at you.

With tears prodding at your eyes, you quickly find your way to the bedroom, ready for this day to be over and done with.

“Okay, y’all just ignore that. Never happened.”

Azzi found you still in your dress, face first on the bed, trying to hide from the world as sobs wrecked your body. “I ruined it.” Your girlfriend couldn’t help but chuckle, out of you two, you were definitely the dramatic one.

“You didn’t ruin anything. So what if people know that I have a kind, wonderful, and hot girlfriend?” 

She could hear your whining through the mattress as you tried to hide, but eventually lost to her pulling you up and into her arms. “But we wanted to do a cute soft launch, and now we can’t.” Azzi couldn’t help but place a soft kiss on your lips once she saw your pouting. “Who needs a soft launch when I can brag about you now?”

“You’re not mad?”

“I could never be mad at you. It's okay, baby.”

You could still hear the girls in the living room having a good time. They had already forgotten what happened, making use of the opened-up space on the couch as you got changed with Azzi handing you things, throwing together a more comfortable outfit before making your way back to the others.

“Shift it Inês.” Azzi didn’t give her teammate much time before she simply sat down, not caring who was there or who she sat on. And it worked, they made way before she gestured for you to come closer and pull you onto her lap.

“Look who’s back, y’all!” KK’s voice was much louder than you had expected, but her cheerfulness immediately influenced you, looking much happier now.

“Azzi, is that your girlfriend?” The curly-haired girl hand-picked the comment from the live, effectively asking herself the question before placing a sloppy kiss on your cheek as she peeked out from behind you. “Yes. Yes, she is. Everyone, meet the most gorgeous girl in the world, my girlfriend!”

“Yuck. Go back to hiding, y’all are disgusting. Anyways… Imma end this here. Bye, y’all!”

And just like that KK pressed the ‘end live’ button, sinking the room in a temporary silence before the girls started hollering and clapping, slapping Azzi on the back and playfully pinching your sides in congratulations on finally making the relationship public. Even if it wasn’t like you planned.

The entirety of the movie was filled with either Paige or KK leaning over and shoving a phone in both of your faces “Look there are already edits. Damn they’re quick!”, or “You look so cute in this one, too bad they don’t have to experience y’all.

liked by nika.muhl and 44.330 others

azzi35: kinda messed up the soft launch, so here is the hard launch tagged: @ y/ninsta

ines_pbettencourt: My Parents!

➥ paigebueckers: Wait a second...

kamoreaarnold: Don't be fooled y'all! They not this cute in person.

➥ y/ninsta: Awhhh, you called us cute!!

[itstatartdump]

So like most people on here I had been watching Watcher since they started their channel, and like most others I was surprised/concerned at the announcement that they're starting a streaming service. After checking out the site and looking close at their YouTube, this feels destined to fail.

I'll go through my thoughts.

They don't currently post enough to justify the paywall

Over the past year, they have posted between 4 to 9 videos a month. That is a decent amount for most YouTube channels, but for a streaming service that is way to low. For $5.99 a month, getting only 4 episodes is not a good deal when other services give you more for less.

What makes this problem worse it that...

They only produce one show at a time

Whenever Watcher releases a shows, they only have that show running. During a series of Mystery Files, they only upload Mystery Files. During a series of Too Many Spirits, they only upload Too Many Spirits. Now this isn't the case all the time, when they have smaller productions they usually release a similar size production along with it.

If we go back to the issue of only getting 4 episodes, this means that you can be paying $5.99 a month to access 4 episodes of a show that you don't enjoy.

These two issues would be less detrimental if it wasn't for the fact that...

They backpedalled removing their YouTube back catalogue

Lets be real, not only were they originally going to remove their YouTube content, It was the only way I could see this being worth the price.

Yes, they say that they aren't removing it, but if you read the full article it say's that "The company originally told Variety that Watcher would eventually remove all of its videos from YouTube".

Their original plan WAS to make all their content exclusive to streaming, the problem was that everyone new this was a scummy idea and they gaslit their audience into thinking they weren't doing that. But that now leaves them with a streaming service where all they offer is 4 episodes of a show per month and a back catalogue that is free on a more well known platform.

The big question I have is...

How are they going to make more content

This is something that I feel should be addressed, they are a small production studio who are trying to "creating television-caliber, unscripted series in the digital space" (direct quote from their YouTube Description). They need more content per month to make this service worth while, how are they going to do that?

Will they push out multiple small budget, easy to film, YouTube like content that bring up the overall upload count which may cause them and their employees to crunch and burn out.

Or are they going to produce several higher budget, TV-calibre shows that would each be more expensive than they can afford to make.

Not sure if this was coherent but thanks for reading anyway.

(sidenote)

While I agree that Steven is getting a huge bulk of the anger that should also be applied to Shane and Ryan, I also have to acknowledge that the first announced show after saying they need money being his travel show is not helping.

[yonpote]

i rlly do feel like. ppl who discovered dnp post-coming out really do not get what it was like back then or like the fact that, yes theyve always been internet weirdos, but they were just ON bbc radio 1 every week. they were just at these big awards shows, and they WERE big at the time!

dnp were so mainstream like everyone who knew about youtube knew about dan and phil around the height of their popularity, and the fact that they were first to do a huge stage production tour and arguably still the only ones who have done it at that level, like bros were juggernauts forreal. and honestly in a fucked up way they were extremely lucky to have been outed JUST before the height of their careers, cuz if it was during who knows what would have happened.

them coming out when they did makes complete sense to be the perfect time: they'd paused the gaming channel, the dan and phil zeitgeist wasnt a massive thing anymore. honestly whenever i hear about a 2015 phannie who had no idea they had come out as gay, like as wild as that is it really just shows just how popular they were at that peak.

[loustica-lucia]

Heroes of the Dragon Age

An animation I've made for Dragon Age Day 2023, featuring my main Warden (Alyssa Cousland-Theirin), Hawke (Eleena Amell Hawke) and Inquisitor (Sulevin Lavellan)!

It's to this day one of my best artwork and I thought I should share it here too! 90+ hours between the original sketch, outfit design, the rough animation, rotoscope, inking, flat-colours, background shading and even the audio :')

Interested in the process? I detailed it below since it was my first time doing something like that:

I would like to start by saying I'm not a professional animator!Everything you've seen here is the result of experimentation and a lot of practice to learn and understand how 2D animation works.

My first idea started in May 2023. I just finished rewatching DA Absolution for the X time, and wanted to analyse why I loved the intro so much. (Even after countless rewatch, I never skipped it once.) I was inspired to study it with my main three protagonists!

Then came the first test with Alyssa Cousland-Theirin, my Hero of Ferelden! I tried to understand which part to separate for the animation. Mainly the hair and cape because it flows a lot more than the rest! If I recall, my first idea here was to make her counter flame attacks (?). Then, as the camera turns around her, I tried to add a grid to know how the camera would work around it.

I ended up making the clip longer, so she could position herself to the further left and leave space to the two other protagonists.

Now it was time to try to animate Sulevin Lavellan, my Inquisitor. I really kept that quick doodling style just to capture the vibe without putting too much time/effort into it! The background would be static to contrast with Alyssa's. I also loved the idea of a rogue sneaking!

Instead of working on Eleena Amell Hawke, my Champion of Kirkwall, I went back to Alyssa and started working with Clip Studio Paint 3D models (this entire animation has been done on the EX version of the software!) It helped for rotoscope animation and maintaining likeness! That's when I got the idea to make the background swirl around the character to let the eyes be guided by the rest of the screen!

After a couple more hours, I planned the entire animatic with 3D models and quick doodles! I finally found a cool pose for Eleena Hawke, which was honestly the hardest of the three to imagine for some reason? I tried many other poses but ended up picking an animation from the game!

This whole time, I was studying a bunch of background ideas and how studio Red Dog Culture House (who made Absolution) work! Thankfully, they have a YouTube Channel where they shared some BTS content so I could analyse it!

Then, I simplified my character and their original designs in the style of the studio! These outfits are how I imagine them after Trespasser. Alyssa as the Queen of Ferelden, looking for a cure to the Calling, Hawke following Fenris to Tevinter & Sully as a Red Jenny Inquisitor!

The idea for Sulevin's animation actually came from a piece I doodled on a live stream, when I was drawing pose studies and turning them into finished artworks haha As for Alyssa, I wanted to draw the fight that got her facial scars!

Once their designs were ready and the background ideas too, I made the rough version of the animation! Basically a sketch done on top of the 3D models to add the details, staying pretty rough just to capture the idea and movements.

Then it was time to start the lines! I decided make a folder per frame, so I could separate all he main elements and draw them one by one. It helps keeping the likeness of a character in the different frames without having big "jumps" between frames! In fact, every parts were coloured differently to recognize them, and then I used vector erasers and masks (Ah yes, the entire lineart is done in vectors of course! It's easier to adjust and save time when working on similar frames!)

At first of course, everything overlaps! But I find it easier to draw too much and erase after, just to make sure everything is coherent in each frames! The cool thing about CSP is how you can change the colour of the layers in one click! So all the coloured lines turned into black in one second, and I could reverse it just as quickly to double check!

Then I started working on Sulevin! I made a blue line to mark where her feet were, as the sketch in the background wasn't perfectly straight! (Like Sulevin's sexuality 🤭😂) The silhouettes were very quick to do, but I had fun adding more & more details as she came closer to the foreground!

I really wanted to add that little dagger trick, but I remember it required me to change the pacing of Eleena's apparition, as it was recovering her arm too quickly! I had to change the pace of multiple frames quite a lot during the project, to make sure the flow was right! For Eleena, most of her animation remained around her arms and the staff itself, as magic would be the most difficult part! That way each character has their own focus: Alyssa has a very animated background, Sulevin got the grappling hook and Eleena the ice!

Then it was time to start adding colours! Just like for the lineart, I separated every colour on it's own layer, so I could easily adjust the colours later if needed. I added one colour at the time, going through all the frames, and then another colour!

I made full palette tests with the colours I would use for their background at this point, checking if the details remained readable! Alyssa was the most challenging in terms of clothes, because I made her a very detailled armour! I had to simplify the Theirin heraldry, vectorize/redraw the Cousland, and make a brush for her cape's pattern!

Once I was done adding the flatcolours, I started the background, and oh boy it was a wild ride. For the cave, I painted multiple tests. I imagine was to use CSP panorama tools, which transform a texture into a 3D sphere, so each corners must match to look good. Sadly, it made the background very blurry, so after hours of testing, I changed ideas. Instead of the random fire balls (?) I originally imagined for Alyssa, I made three simple frames of a Rage Demon to attack her.

I ended up using the cave as a repeated pattern to make it turn 360° around the character. For Eleena, I mixed inspiration from the comics, Dreadwolf & Absolution, using warm colours matching Hawke's signature red. Just like I made the cave very grey/blue to match Grey Wardens. For Val Royeaux, it was more complex because I wanted to make it green, matching the Inquisitor's signature green. But bright green couldn't work, and the original colour during day time was blue/white/gold. So I added more leaves, played around the design a bit! After adding the rage demon, I made the shading! It was surprisingly easy and quick to do now!

I clipped a white layer on the flatcolours to not be distracted by the colours, and made thin lines to separate the light/shadows, then simply filled everything with the bucket tool! Then you set the layer to multiply and remove the white layer, and you have celshading shadows! Now the character looks out of the picture, so I added layers of blue in color burn, saturation and substract blending modes to make her look like she's in the right setting! Of course, I did the same with the other two, giving Hawke a red overlay and Sulevin green shadows!

Then I added the details, it went from white irises, to sword/staff smears to earrings and smaller finition that goes on top of these layers. To add the lights, I simply selected the shadows and reversed the selection! Using warm and cold tones to create contrast with the purple/bluish shadows! I also added more ambient light layers for Alyssa to reflect the Rage Demon fire. Now it was time to add ice magic! My first attempt had too many frames, making it look weird! Sometimes it's better to lower the frame rate to make things less bumpy!

Then I downloaded some cool ice brushes on CSP assets that made it look less like blue magical flames! But when I covered the screen in ice, I realized "Oh wait, I could make a cool transition from the ice, to blue lyrium turning red?"Red Lyrium truly links these three games and The Veilguard somehow! I spent the next hour painting over the idol and putting it in a black background, with lyrium and then the golden Dragon Age title text.

For the SFX, I used free youtube libraries sounds & "Darkspawn!" comes from the violent human female voice set (iconic for ""Can I get you a ladder? So you can get off my back!"😂🤭) After editing all that, the animation was finally done!

Here's the final math:

About 15 hours for the sketching/rough/animatic phase, 30h for the lineart, 25h for colours, 10h for backgrounds, 5h for details & 5h for music & SFX, for a total of 90 hours. Aka the same amount of time it took me to finish Baldur's Gate 3 the first time lol

If you have any question regarding the animation or the softwares etc. do not hesitate to ask, I'll do my best to answer!

[identifying-cars-in-posts]

A long overdue update:

Hi everyone. Long time no see. I literally have not opened Tumblr since the last time I posted here. Hope everyone is doing ok. Figured I owed y’all an apology and explanation for kinda just vanishing.

First, I did in fact get a car! It’s a 2015 Nissan Versa Note. I don’t particularly like it but a friend gave me a deal on it that I couldn’t turn down. Once my life stabilizes I’m probably going to sell it and buy an old truck, maybe a 70s Ford. I’d love a little sports car or a land yacht but rear wheel drive is a bit impractical for brutal New England winters, and the Jeep really put me in Old American Truck Mode. But yes I have a car now!

Second, unfortunately this is an official notice of hiatus. When I last posted saying I was taking some time off it was because I had just had an incredibly stressful move and did not have the energy to keep this blog up. I figured I’d take some time to get settled in, relax, and then pick this back up after a week or two, but the last month has been really rough - the short version is one of the people I was living with turned out to be a pretty horrendous human being who managed to get everybody living in the house essentially kicked out via sheer drama. Within a month and a half. It’s a long story but tl:dr if you quite literally slander a property manager with heavy unfounded accusations of horrible crimes, they’ll probably bail from the whole situation. And since they’re gone the landlord has to hand ownership of everything over to a company that’s forcing everyone still here to vacate. I’m now fighting to not have to live in aforementioned Nissan Versa through the aforementioned brutal New England winter. On top of that, I’m a retail manager so we’re going into our busiest most stressful season, so that’s been an extra level of exhaustion.

So what does that mean for this blog? Well, as I said, I’m officially going on indefinite hiatus, as are the projects I was working on in relation, including the reference website. I’m really sorry, I’m just way too stressed and dealing with way too much. If I could, I would just hand off administrative power to someone else, but this is a sideblog so I can’t hand off login credentials without also giving access to my main/personal account. It’s my biggest regret of this account, but when I started it I never expected it to blow up the way it did back in September - I had no reason to expect to need it to be its own entirely separate blog. I love what I was doing here and I thought that it might even be a nice distraction from everything going on, but the upkeep required with this blog is just more than I can deal with right now. I hope that things settle down soon and that I can genuinely come back here and enjoy what I was doing, but I just need literally anything to level out in my real life and to not be in 100% survival mode, because at the moment I literally do not have the energy to pour into this.

Anyway. Sorry for the long post, I’m not good at not being overly verbose. I’m really sorry for kind of abandoning this project, and I hope I can get back to it relatively soon, it just might be a while.

In the mean time, I hope those of y’all who I turned onto cars as a potential hobby find some other good outlets! I highly recommend Donut Media’s series “Up to Speed” on YouTube, as well as the channels Regular Car Reviews, Doug DeMuro, Garbage Time, and Aging Wheels. All great YouTube channels that are both informative and very approachable and fun.

Godspeed and much love. Hope to see y’all soon

- Identifying Cars in Posts admin ❤️

[berlynn-wohl]

okay so I was watching a video about videos and decided to write about writing (specifically, fanfic)

Typically I don't share my thoughts on fandom as a subculture and how it's changed because I don't have the stomach for the kind of things that can happen when one posts their opinions on social media. But I'm gonna give it a go today because I watched this:

You don't have to watch it, I'll tell you the thing that got me: it was about how on YouTube, people are likely to be fans of specific channels, and if you subscribe to one, you could probably, if asked, discuss what you like about that channel/creator with others. But the way TikTok's feed works (turning you into a passive consumer of an endless stream of short videos), it's more difficult to differentiate who the creators are, even when you subscribe to them. You're more likely to just say, "I'm a fan of TikTok" (...or "I'm addicted to TikTok"). This is evidenced by the fact that at a recent VidCon, TikTokers who had millions of views and hundreds of thousands of subscribers faced empty lines at the meet-and-greets, because their content was just part of a blur of content their subscribers passively put their eyeballs on every day.

And I had a thought: Has AO3 done this for fanfic? Of course AO3's content cannot be passively consumed; you have to enter search terms and use filters to find what you're looking for. But once you have entered such a search, you could well be faced with thousands of results, which you begin consuming by opening tab after tab after tab. If you were not in fandom before 2012, I cannot stress how ludicrous this amount of fanfiction is. Before AO3, unless you were in a MASSIVE fandom (like HP or LOTR), you eagerly awaited the arrival of new fics because there just weren't that many -- and even if you were in a massive fandom, if you shipped one of the less popular pairings (or preferred Gen), you still could not necessarily count on even one new fic a day that was to your tastes.

And in those days when fics were fewer and farther between, and when fandoms were more siloed, you got to know fanfic authors. You recognized their styles. When someone posted a new fic, you were excited because you knew what you could expect based on what you already enjoyed about that author's talents and inclinations. In a small fandom I was in long ago, where only about ten people wrote fic, we once sat around and brainstormed which popular music act's vibe corresponded with which each author's style! (I was The Clash.)

Compare that to now, where many readers in fandom have the opportunity to just click-read-click-read-click-read, not just as a reward at the end of a long day, but on the bus or anywhere. I don't think it's a coincidence that fics get fewer comments than they used to, and there's far less discussion of individual authors. There's no incentive to linger on something even if you enjoyed it, when the next fic is waiting in another tab.

Now perhaps it's better that the structure of fanfic culture has changed such that we have less potential for BNF drama. But it also means that whenever I see newcomers to a fandom asking for recs, most of the responses are "Have you read [the fic with the most kudos and comments on AO3]?" It's not just that this response is a bit superfluous, as the newcomer has probably already sorted the AO3 results by kudos/comments -- to me it also indicates that folks get so much fanfic from The Fanfic Website and so little community from The De Facto Fandom Platforms that it becomes difficult to remember individual fics, what you enjoyed about them, or how an individual author's style might make them a better match for a certain reader. (Yes, I am aware that AO3 has histories/bookmarks for people to refer back to, but when one accumulates 1000 bookmarks and then someone asks for a rec, most likely the bookmark holder is only going to remember, off the top of their head, That One Crazy Outlier Fic That The Entire Fandom Lost Their Shit About Seven Years Ago.)

I dunno, this is all I got in the way of thoughts. I'm not saying I want to go back to the way things were 10 or 20 years ago, but I sure do wish I could a-la-carte it a little, you know?

[tangents-within-tangents]

Thoughts on Echo as amputee/disability representation

First and foremost, I am not disabled or an amputee and I don’t claim to speak for those communities (and if I was I couldn't speak for everyone). What little I do know mostly comes from this youtube channel (@oakwyrm), this post, and other research I’ve done for my writing (and like one amputee I kinda knew in passing). By all means correct me and add to the conversation, I just have some thoughts I want to share because I haven’t really seen this discussed anywhere

Overview

So Echo is interesting. He is a triple amputee which is pretty rare in media. His disabilities come from extremely traumatic circumstances: injured in a near-death experience, imprisoned and dehumanized as an experiment with no autonomy over what happened to his body.

There are a few moments in the shows where Echo is treated… questionably. Like this bit where Rex uses him as an example of the Separatists' evils to convince the locals to fight back:

To be fair, yeah Echo’s treatment does prove that the Techno Union is not neutral like they claim. The modifications that everyone is gasping in horror at here obviously weren’t made with comfort and accessibility in mind, nor with Echo’s consent. But you still just want to be sure that “They took away his freedom, his humanity, they tried to turn him into a machine” is about using him as a living computer, not the fact that he is missing limbs. 

The Batch is also pretty insensitive toward him and his trauma imo, which is weird considering they've supposedly also faced discrimination for their mutations

Disabled people do have to deal with stuff like this in this day and age so I guess it can speak to those experiences. I think especially him being mistaken as a droid (and Hunter going along with it (bruh)) might resonate with some people. 

Aside from that stuff, Echo isn't really treated any differently as a character/person which is really good (as low of a bar as that is).

We get this moment in CW where Echo contemplates that yeah things are gonna be different now

While also (imo at least) showing that he is still the same person regardless, evidenced by the fact that he just echoed Rex :,) I also think it's significant that he joins the Bad Batch on his own terms and we're given a really emotional scene to specifically show that he's not just like 'lumped in with the other misfits' but that it is his choice to go where he feels his place is.

A lot of people, myself included, are disappointed that TBB didn't have more time to explore Echo's PTSD, but I think the one panic attack scene we did get is really good. Even thought it's minor it at least is an appropriate reaction from a guy who was medically tortured (which is more than I've come to expect from Star Wars shows lol)

And it's really sweet to see Omega showing Echo some empathy and consideration.

It would have been nice to see more of his adjustment period, and other side effects like chronic pain and maintenance, but there’s a lot of daily life stuff the show never had time for (i.e. we don’t know if he removed his prosthetics to sleep, but we also never saw him sleep anyway). His disabilities might take on a background role (much like the character himself sadly) but for the most part they aren’t invisible or erased, nor do they define his character and arc.

Physical Appearance

Okay this one is bit dicey, bc on the one hand, yes complaints that Echo’s paleness (most likely caused by burns from the explosion or chemical burns from the cryo-chamber) is whitewashing are totally valid. But I also think you can draw comparisons to real life conditions that affect pigmentation/complexion (like you know burns). So while I understand why a lot of fanart will depict him with his original skin tone and with hair, consider that there are real people who have to live with temporary or permanent changes to their appearance, and the idea of “fixing" him by making him look more like his old self can be problematic.

It's also interesting to note that Echo could act as a reversal of the 'disabled/disfigured = evil' trope. He's pale and bald and wears black and red, which is so often visually associated with villains, but we all know Echo is the bestest boy™

The Headpiece

Echo’s headpiece is interesting because within the show we don’t actually ever learn much about it (idk if there is more info in books or whatever bc i don’t have them so?). He didn’t have it in CW so we know it didn’t come from the Techno Union and therefore Echo probably had more choice with it. We don’t know its exact purpose but it’s most likely related to his scomping abilities. When he is hacking with his scomp in CW, before he has his headpiece, it’s clearly very mentally straining:

We don’t see him struggling like this in TBB once he does have it (though that could be bc he got more used to it over time). There doesn't seem to be much of an impact when he removes his headpiece in s3 ep14-15, except that he gets stuck in the ports every time he uses his scomp which is not something we’ve seen before: 

There might not be an exact real-world equivalent, but the headpiece is some kind of accessibility aid. It means that someone specifically designed a device to help him adapt to the changes the Techno Union made, as well as a helmet that integrates it. It’s removable and visually very present, much like a cochlear implant would be. (A lot of people actually headcanon it to act partially as a hearing aid, since it makes sense that Echo’s hearing would have been damaged in the explosion, but there isn't really any indication of this in canon.) The headpiece is never really acknowledged in the show, but I think that's a good thing. It's something he needs/wants and it just exists, completely normalized, and that's pretty cool 👍

Legs

Sigh... So from the very first episode of TBB I was really disappointed that the animation team or whoever completely visually erased Echo’s prosthetic legs (I think we all were, honestly, if fanart is anything to go by). It’s one thing when he’s in armor because he would probably want to protect his prosthetics, but we literally see him in his blacks and there is no indication whatsoever that he lost his legs even though it was not left up for debate at all in CW:

Like ??????!?

This is just really strange to me! Idk what went on behind the scenes with this decision but I don’t really see why it would be that much harder to animate or anything since it’s 3D and they've done it before. We do see some pretty sophisticated cybernetic technology in Star Wars canon that mimics real limbs:

But Luke’s fancy hand is technically 20ish years from now, so Anakin and Maul are more of a representation of what level we could expect here

So yeah, for no apparent reason, his leg amputation is effectively, visually and narratively nonexistent. Which is not great 👎

Arm!

The scomp on the other hand (uh lol!) is the complete opposite and I kinda love it!

At first I, like many others, thought it was a bit odd that they didn’t give Echo a prosthetic arm. Losing hands is basically a Star Wars tradition at this point, so robotic arms/hands are well established within the worldbuilding: 

We aren’t necessarily given a canon reason for why Echo doesn't get a cybernetic arm (again unless it's in some lore book I haven’t read, sorry). General fanon explanations I’ve seen are that he either couldn’t because the Techno Union wired the scomp too far into his nervous system, and/or the resources to give him one were deemed too expensive for a clone (what about his legs tho?), or that he chose not to, usually because he thought the scomping was useful. 

Regardless, I actually really love this choice (and it's the whole reason I made this post), because here's the thing: There’s a lot of problematic tropes out there that either erase/cure disabilities or compensate them with perks (like how pretty much any blind character is actually not blind by some sort of magic power). With amputees that is done with robotic arms. The character is still an amputee or course, and there is still value in that representation, if this story from Mark Hamill that makes me tear up is anything to go by:

but for the most part these characters function like anyone else, just with a limb that looks a little different. It’s no more than a video game skin, an able-bodied actor with a green screen glove. It “cures” the disability, or it actually makes the character even stronger than usual: 

It usually makes sense within the world of the story, but the reason it’s not so great in my opinion is that in the real world we just do not have technology anywhere close to that yet. Prosthetics can more or less replace any mobility from lost legs, but not for all the complexities of a hand (and even if they could the average person wouldn’t be able to afford it).

So

I think it's actually really super cool that Echo’s scomp bypasses the canonically-established amputee erasure and functions much like a stump would irl. He integrates it into his movements and everyday life and it’s (as far as I know) a lot closer to an everyday amputee’s experience. 

It doesn’t define his character, it doesn’t hold him back, he lives a full life, the other’s don’t treat him any differently, and he’s still a total karking badass 

The only additional thing is that he sometimes uses it as a weapon (which given his story, I think it’s cool to see him taking back autonomy in a way, and we only see that like twice)

And also the scomping, which could be seen as the 'added/compensating superpower' trope. But narratively it's no different than if he was plugging in with a hacking gadget of some kind (he didn't necessarily "need" to lose his arm for it) and it’s not like Echo is completely defined by this skill. Personally, I think it's well worth the positives of him actually having a visible and realistically impactful amputation. 

I see a lot of posts or comments out there that say stuff like “how come Echo doesn’t get a hand?” or fanworks that do give him one and I just think it’s a bit of a shame. If he did get a robotic hand, it just would have disappeared the same way his legs and Anakin’s arm did (aside from that one time he got yoinked by a magnet). When Echo did “get a hand” in the last two episodes there were comments like “yay he finally got a hand! but it doesn’t even work” but I was actually so relieved that it didn’t! Bc for one thing that wouldn’t make any sense, he grabbed it off a droid, it wasn’t designed to implement with his scomp, that would be really complicated. But more importantly because it again refused to erase/cure his disability! It functioned like a real-world cosmetic prosthetic (useless beyond appearance) which is exactly what he needed it for, so that he could blend in better with his disguise.

And he continually took it off throughout the episode and ditched it at the end. He only used it for the necessity of a stealth mission, he doesn’t feel the need to visually “fit in” in his daily life. 

And, last but very much not least, he made a dad joke and from my intel that is very accurate representation!

TLDR: Echo’s scomp is actually really cool from an amputee representation perspective, especially within Star Wars, and I think that deserves some appreciation