#you're all welcome to read it

[abisalli]

some panel redraws with young just us

[emotional-emotion]

Bryan Cranston in Baywatch (1989 - 2001) 1.09 Cruise Ship

[elumish]

Hello friends!

I know it's only August, but I thought I'd start early:

If you have the legal right to vote in the United States, there is no benefit to you in not voting. All that not voting does to you is remove your most powerful legal ability to impact the identity of those who represent you in the government.

By the time you reach the election, by the time ballots are printed and you are filling in a bubble or pressing a button or flipping a lever, your only meaningful choice for who to vote for are the people who are listed on the ballot.

Because we live in a two-party system, in the vast majority of jurisdictions*, you are choosing between members of two parties. If you vote for someone who is not a member of one of those parties, you are throwing away your ability to meaningfully impact who wins that election. It sucks. it's shitty. It's unfortunate. But if you want a third party candidate to have a chance in a major race, it starts years before the election, not when you are standing in front of your ballot in November.

And if you think, they're both the same as each other--they're not. For literally any policy that you care about, there will be differences. Pick the policies you care most about, find the one who sits closer to you and vote for them. That is the only way that laws will move in the direction you want, by electing people who vote for policies that are closer to what you want.

I studied game theory in college, and from my standpoint it was one of the most useful and educational classes I took during my entire academic career, because of this key idea: If you want 10, and your options are 0 or 5, 5 is a better option for you. Something gives you more than nothing, even if you want a lot.

You will not get a politician who agrees with everything you want, unless you run for office yourself. Pick what you care the most about, and vote based on that. See voting as harm reduction. See voting as public transportation. See voting as whatever gets you out to vote.

But vote.

*There are a few independents in office. An independent or third party candidate will not win the Presidency in 2024.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

hope you feel better soon!

I am riddled with ailments, but I stay silly!

[gus-dix]

i've always really liked the parallels between sena and sakuraba in the early volumes, it remains an iconic part of the manga to me

+ 2 mini comics for friends

do not erase the caption, use or rePOST my art (reblog ok)

[thaxrodnee]

I desperately need more fics showcasing Xianle culture or the fact that it's old and Xianle Trio and Hua Cheng really remember it (and the ghost lady)

Examples:

At some festival (in Heaven?) there is a song played on instruments with no singing, nobody knows there even are words to it until Xie Lian starts humming them

Translator spell stops working one day and the newer gods can somewhat understand each other but they don't know what the older gods ( trio, Pei Ming etc) are really saying

Feng Xin and Mu Qing slowly forgetting Xianle language over the years and not being able to speak it to Xie Lian later (+ if they relearn it with him so it isn't too sad)

There is a fairytale about a beautiful prince and his good and brave deeds and nobody realises that it's about Xie Lian before his ascension (+ the fairytale mentions some Xianle traditions and everybody is like 'why did they do X in the fairytale?' 'i don't know' and Feng Xin or Mu Qing replying 'oh it's because Y')

And of course some really specific wedding traditions for Hualian wedding ❤️

[userautumn]

Fact Check & Recap (Oct. 8, 2024):

Mike Johnson, a Republican in the House of Representatives [Legislative Branch, the branch of US Government that has several powers assigned exclusively to it, including the power to initiate revenue bills, impeach federal officials, and elect the President in the case of an Electoral College tie] is hesitant to reconvene the House to provide disaster relief funding until after United States Presidential election, which will occur on November 5th, 2024.

Joe Biden, the current United States President, wrote a letter urging Congress [Congress is comprised of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Senate takes action on bills, resolutions, amendments, motions, nominations, and treaties by voting] to provide funding to the Small Business Administration's disaster relief loan program to help the effected communities rebuild and cover financial losses due to natural disaster.

Mike Johnson is refusing on the grounds that the individual states which were effected "need some time to [calculate the actual damages]."

Donald Trump and the Republican party are claiming that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is allocating funds toward aiding migrants who are entering the country illegally. This information is false. FEMA and Border Control are two different divisions with two different avenues of funding [FEMA is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, and the funds cannot be reappropriated for another division. Source: Congressional Budget Office; FEMA Hurrican Helene Fact Check Rumor Response]

Mike Johnson is using this lie to divide the American people and to foster a sense of distrust in FEMA, one of the agency's Donald Trump plans to gut and disable through state-by-state privatization once he enacts his harrowing Project 2025 plan.

Johnson has said, "The American people are disgusted by [the Biden Administration allegedly using FEMA money for migrant relocation], up with it, and so are Republicans in Congress. And it will stop after Nov. 5, because we’re going to have unified government with Republicans in charge and we will bring sanity back to this situation.”

Source (NBC News):

Mike Johnson won't commit to bringing House back before the election for more hurricane relief.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Biden urged Congress to restore funding to the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program as it faces potential funding shortfalls.

By Summer Concepcion

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday did not commit to calling Congress back into session before the election after President Joe Biden pressed congressional leaders about potential funding shortfalls in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Johnson was asked about Biden’s letter to congressional leaders on Friday requesting more money for federal disaster recovery efforts and after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that the department doesn’t have enough money to get through the rest of hurricane season.

In his letter, the president urged Congress to restore funding to the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program, which was facing potential funding shortfalls even before Hurricane Helene devastated parts of the Southeast. The president noted that the White House requested more funding for the program as Congress prepared a short-term funding bill that passed last month to avert a government shutdown.

Pressed on whether he would call Congress back into session before the election, Johnson replied, “We’ll be back in session immediately after the election.”

“That’s 30 days from now. The thing about these hurricanes and disasters of this magnitude is it takes a while to calculate the actual damages, and the states are going to need some time to do that,” Johnson said, adding that determining “specific needs and requests based upon the actual damages” from natural disasters takes time.

Johnson noted that before Congress went on recess, the day before Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, Congress appropriated $20 billion additional dollars to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to address immediate needs.

“Then after that, Congress always takes its the due approach of providing what is necessary,” he said. “Congress will provide. We will help people in these disaster-prone areas. It’s an appropriate role for the federal government, and you’ll have bipartisan support for that, and it’ll all happen in due time, and we’ll get that job done. There shouldn’t be any concern about that.”

Johnson’s comments come after Biden said in remarks at the White House last week he expects to ask Congress for a supplemental funding request for areas affected by Hurricane Helene.

Asked at the time whether he would ask Congress to return from recess for a special session for a supplemental request, the president left the possibility open, saying, “That is something I may have to request, but no decision’s been made yet.”

Congress has taken swift action on funding natural disaster relief efforts in the past even when it was on recess, a Biden administration official noted when reached for comment.

Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Johnson was also pressed about false claims by some Republicans that FEMA was using funds on migrants who have illegally entered the country instead of on the disaster response, which White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called “categorically false” on Friday.

The speaker acknowledged that the streams of funding for the border and hurricane response are different at FEMA before going on to insist that FEMA’s mission is to help people affected by natural disasters, and not engage in funding that helps migrants who crossed the southern border.

Johnson claimed, without evidence, that the Biden administration, Vice President Kamala Harris and Mayorkas “have been engaged in this program,” saying they used taxpayer dollars to assist migrants with resettlement by reimbursing nongovernmental organizations transporting migrants into the country.

“The American people are disgusted by this, up with it, and so are Republicans in Congress,” he said. “And it will stop after Nov. 5, because we’re going to have unified government with Republicans in charge and we will bring sanity back to this situation.”

[apoptoses]

Have you ever been reading Devil’s Minion and thinking to yourself, “damn, I just can’t nail down a face for Daniel”? Have you watched Interview with the Vampire and felt like neither Christian Slater nor River Phoenix hit the mark for you?

Allow me to introduce you to James fucking Spader.

Look at him! Is that not the face of Daniel, completely fed up with Armand feeding his cigarettes down the garbage disposal?

He’s got the naive and beautiful face but ALSO the defiant yet beseeching thing down! Also he was like 22 here, which is right around the age Daniel met Armand so he’s at peak Healthy, Pretty Molloy here. No wonder Louis decided to take him home!!

“Do you know what a zip code is, or a tax bracket? I’m the one who buys all the goddamned airline tickets. Millions. How are we going to get millions! Steal another Maserati and be done with it, for God’s sakes!”

Spader is the original 80′s pretty boy you’d assume starred as the leading man in some schmoopy romances or schlocky teen dramas and he did that for a minute. Like check him out in Pretty in Pink-

 Is this not peak Night Island Daniel, in his Miami Vice looking bespoke suit ready to head out with Armand for the night?

Look at him snuggled into his blanket in Tuff Turf, like Daniel hungover and forcibly woken up to honky tonk piano tunes!

But the deliciousness doesn’t end at his looks. Because in true Molloy fashion that man said ‘you know what? I wanna make movies for freaks and weirdos only’

In Sex, Lies and Videotape he plays the sweetest pervert who loves interviewing women about their sex lives, video taping it, and then watching them back naked but not actually getting off! He’s impotent, he’s a gentle and lovely weirdo, there’s vampire!Daniel fodder for days in this one.

Crash is a horny flick that defies all explanation and really you need to go in blind if you’re gonna watch this one, but let me just say this: If Spader and his Wife in this film aren’t the most Daniel and Armand coded couple in cinema history I will eat my shoes. Also there’s tons of beautiful footage of him driving around at night with his blond hair ruffling in the breeze.

Your prefer your Daniel with glasses? Oh, perfect, because in Bad Influence he plays a sweet guy who gets into a fucked up situation with a toxic friend and a sex tape!

In Storyville he lets himself be thrown on the floor and lays there submissively before getting involved in yet another sex tape scandal!

Don’t even get me started on Dream Lover, another smut filled romp (with some filthy deleted scenes if you google the uncut version) which has the most Devil’s Minion promo photos of all time-

Like! Get the fuck out!

I could just go all day about his body of work but some of it you’ve just gotta see for yourself. In pretty much every film you’re guaranteed smut with him being deliciously submissive, extremely gentle with his hands, and down for all kinds of kink. And in most of his movies he gets bloody at least once, like-

this is a shitty picture i took of my laptop but look at the blood at the corner of his mouth! Vampire activities!

In summary, let me hit you with a photo dump:

Daniel laying in a cheap motel room during the chase years!

Daniel with delightful 70s hair!

More glasses!Daniel!

Daniel with a half-buttoned 80′s shirt looking so beautiful it’s no wonder Armand couldn’t NOT turn him!

It’s dark, he’s wet, he looks exhausted!

He’s the ideal beautiful Molloy Weirdo and I will not be accepting any other arguments, goodbye!!

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

Hi? Gosh how do I even start with this :'D

I know it's been ages since I've last popped up on here. I've been debating when to post this for a while, but I kept adding to my draft more and more and now it's the end of JULY omgg I felt so guilty disappearing with zero updates but then thought my birthday would be the best day to finally address this considering it'll feel less random? idk but Ive always celebrated my bday with you guys and I'd feel so bad answering your kind asks without me at least explaining why I was gone for months.

Truth be told, I was dealing with a lot of stuff irl. health issues and sudden declining grades that left me stumped and drained for months now- along with technical issues like having to replace some parts of my computer that took a while for me to find to even draw digitally, which I didn't have the time for anyway with how tired and weary I felt every day.

I'm frankly shaken up by a lot of shit rn and I don't know how to be active online with this burden on my chest- Especially as it's been a while since I've even looked at utmv related content and my motivation dwindled. I swear I'd hype myself up to post or reblog something- but I'd see just how much I've missed or the overwhelming amount of posts I'd need to go through and I'd feel so swamped with exhaustion and most importantly guilt, for not clearing the air up sooner to reassure you guys that I'm, y'know, alive, and not dead in a ditch somewhere. And I'd procrastinate cause typing it all out is hard and I'd give up halfway every time and it's just not fair to you all!

I thought I was handling it well when I started going out and socializing more, instead of staying cooped up at home on my computer all day. and in the first draft of this post I made months ago I was gonna detail some of the fun plans I had, for my life and for this blog :D but relaxing my strict study schedule and letting go a bit of my tight routine, thinking it was better than wringing myself dry to keep it up, backfired horribly, to say the least.

I know right?? so silly to be hung up on stupid shit like studies of all things! but this is a very important thing for me considering my career plans and the competitivity encouraged by everyone I'm surrounded by, the pressure of keeping up adding to my already stressful days. I had to fix myself up first and I couldn't handle the strain nor interact with people and thinking of jobs and exams sapped my energy so much it's frankly embarrassing. writing this feels so cheesy too and it frustrates me to know I could've come back a month earlier if it weren't for that, but I also know putting all of this into words then would just sound like incoherent venting (not that this is very different tbf) and I wasn't in the right headspace to address my absence, or anything really- I didn't want everyone to see me return when I couldn't muster up a genuinely positive message, let alone talk to anyone with a shadow of my usual cheer

I feel like a complete mess and It drives me up the wall how depressed I've gotten. I debated deleting this blog so many times 'cause the fear of disappointing my audience and my friends, for lack of a more fitting sentiment, made me feel even shittier. I'm constantly thinking if this wall of text is worth posting, or if it's better not to burden you all with all my sappy troubles as if it's the end of the world. Trust me, I'll be fine. I'm not trying to dramatize this situation, but I don't think I'm up to pretending I'm all sunshine and enthusiasm you're all accustomed to.

So sorry for worrying you all! I'll try to catch up, deliver some missed birthday gifts, and answer some asks while I'm at it! Again, I can't state how much I appreciate your support throughout the years. It's frankly a miracle I kept any of you around with how much I keep popping and leaving at random with no warning. I definitely can't promise for my stay to be without a hitch, and if you don't mind an inconsistent schedule you're free to stay of course, but I'm afraid I can't sustain the pace I had when I first started this blog. I'll keep posting art, but lower my activity in the fandom sphere to reduce the strain on my mental health. so fewer rants and walls of text, more art, and less stress overall. Love you all and thanks for waiting for this long <3

[lauronk]

random recs on a tuesday

drowning in whumptober writing and reading and i just will never catch up ever oh no what a terrible problem to have

no but seriously i started reading with my spinny wheel of destiny at 49 and it's currently sitting at....46. despite all the fics listed below.

💜 - one-shot / 🤍 - in progress multi-chap

💜world around you by @boopernatural - there are few things i love more in the world than worried old dad joel & flannel's adult ellie-verse

💜teeth bared for battle by @two-birds-alone-together - prepare to have your heart shredded and i won't say more than that

💜but it's golden, like daylight by @becomethesun - tess & joel & ellie in jackson i just 😭😭😭😭😭

🤍baby girls, miller by @bumblepony - come here and listen to me closely...joel 👏 cuddling 👏 baby 👏 sarah 👏 and 👏 baby 👏 ellie👏

💜imprints by @penandinkprincess - love me a 5+1 so fucking muchhhhhh

🤍trade your heroes for ghosts by @two-birds-alone-together - sweet little tiny joel all mixed up in the wrong world i ADORE

[unwillingtoreachout]

So I'll admit that I have no clue as to who Sebastian is, HOWEVER... based on the vibe I've picked up here and there, I feel like this is kind of a Sebastian & Aaron coded song

[idyllcy]

happy 2.5k but it’s come to my attention that one of you shitheads have been sending hate asks to another creator while namedropping me please get a fucking life

[jackitk]

Decided to share some of my Sol Spirits designs again.

Long story short, @n0rtist shared some Pokemon drawings where they drew Pokemon with different forms based on their abilities. Then the concept really took off with everyone getting inspired to make their own Pokemon forms based on their abilities.

While I haven't drawn any Pokemon like that, it reminded me of something I did with Sol Spirits, where whenever I make a new Sol Spirit, I draw a design for them in a similar fashion.

So, this is what their "default designs" are like. Water, fire, air, and earth respectfully.

So with that context, here's a few various deviations of said Sol Spirits I made.

There's a bunch more, but most of them are just sketches. Though, making this post reminds me that it's been a very long time since I've last drawn any so I'm pondering if I can squeeze the time in to do a couple more new ones.

[mandatory-blog-stop-asking]

I feel like the worst thing they ever did to Xavier's character was putting a mild version of him on a pretty popular cartoon and then a movie where Patrick Stewart played him, cuz it made people think the man never goes full-on "the salvations begins and ends with me" pretty early on in his character biography. So when they go to the comics and he's like, a pretty complex character doing bad shit to good people with a straight face on the regular since the 80s, they go "what is this character assassination???"

Like yeah there's been stories where he was the kind voice of reason who could do no wrong, but damn man, that guy's been canonically a "in my house it's clean mutants only" kinda white savior ever since like... the Morlocks popped up. It's a cool exploration of activism from a place of privilege that shouldn't be stifled by people being used to Captain Picard being above those things. That's an adaptation cleaning up messy aspects of the source material, but the source engages with that shit for a reason.

The guy just does what's on his mind as "the kindest thing to do" so often without caring what it does to others that the X-Men didn't even notice he had been replaced by Cassandra as he was monumentally altering their lifestyles by bringing the entire X-Mansion out of the closet on national television without a heads-up or accounting for their opinions, cuz at the end of the day, that's still something he'd do to them, without really minding what it does to their lives. Because in his head, it *is* his X-Men. He means it when he calls them.

People praise Magneto's 40-year-strong character arc from genocidal maniac to symbol of hope on the same breath they basically go "hey I wish Xavier was nicer", yeah that's the point of the character! I wish he was nicer too! Don't implicitly trust your heroes just because you admire them! They're people and people are fucked! Adapt to them or they might take you down a bad path while their idealism turns cynical and their unrealistic dreams turn into realistic replacements for oppression!

It's just a bit frustrating to talk about X-Men as it comes back into the limelight and having people go "I wish the messy character with complicated opinions and too-real politics was simpler like when I was younger." Like... yeah, I get it, but you can't talk about the traps of white people putting themselves above visible minorities as the example to be followed like that. You can't talk about people being thrown in and out of conflict due to imperfect leaders who they slowly stop agreeing with like that. You can't talk about how starting a movement shouldn't elevate you to godhead status like that.

Morrison knew about it and left us clues in their works, I guess is what I'm saying. Even if that story pretty much ruins Magneto, it does bring this side of Xavier to light pretty well. The adaptations making Xavier a perfect activist and a fair and reasonable leader who's always right and only loses when he's tricked doesn't quite have that PROFESSOR XAVIER IS A JERK energy that I find vital to the character.

[supercantaloupe]

What is the antisemitism in TUC season 1? Does it have to do with Wally the golem?/gen

[ID: an ask from an anonymous tumblr user that reads "would love to hear more about the antisemitism in unsleeping city! was a while ago that i watched it and can't remember what you might be referencing but definitely want to be aware of it.]

no, it's not about willy the golem -- i actually think willy is a great addition to the season (even if i wish we got to see more of him), and an indication to me that brennan/the showrunners were definitely trying to be sincere and inclusive. i want to make it clear that i don't think anything antisemitic in tuc is there intentionally; i think it's there out of simple ignorance, which is also why i think fans don't frequently see/comment on it either. but i don't think that's an excuse, either.

my grief with tuc1 is largely centered around its portrayal of robert moses as the villain. especially by making him a greedy, power-hungry lich working en league with bloodsucking vampires. (also his mini is literally a green skinned skull man in a suit. yikes.) here's the thing; i know robert moses was a real life horrible person, who actually was racist and powerhungry etc etc. and i know that robert moses, the real actual person, was jewish. my grief with tuc1 is not that they chose to use robert moses over literally any other person (real or fictional) to be their season villain (though i'd be really curious to know what tuc1 would have looked like with a different villain), but that they chose to take a real jewish person, turn them into an antisemitic caricature, and then only barely add other portrayals of judaism to balance that out.

like, tuc isn't completely devoid of other jewish representation. as you mention, there's willy the golem -- and again, i really like willy, and i love that it's a portrayal of a golem that's faithful to jewish folklore (ie as a benevolent, guardian construct rather than a mindless destructive monster. i am not a fan of how 'golem' is so frequently misused as a generic enemy creature in other fantasy and ttrpg spaces, including other seasons of d20). but as i said earlier, i wish we see more of him in the season, because he's not around very much, and feels a little more like worldbuilding than a full character to me. also, he's not human. jews are people.

the only other human jewish character in tuc1 is...stephen sondheim. which, again, yeah, that's a real person who really was jewish. but i really wouldn't blame you if you had no idea of that when watching tuc1. maybe from the name you could guess he might be jewish, but i don't think people ought to make a habit of trying to 'clock' someone being jewish by having a 'jewish-sounding' surname. as he's portrayed in tuc1, you'd never know he's jewish, unless you happen to already be pretty knowledgeable about the man in real life. it's far more likely you'll know him as a theater legend than anything else (may his memory be a blessing).

now i'm not saying that brennan or the showrunners should have played up the jewishness of Real Person Stephen Sondheim to counterbalance the depiction of robert moses; that just feels weird to me, especially considering that sondheim was literally alive when tuc1 was filmed and released. it's a tricky thing to portray real people in fiction alongside made up characters, especially when they are contemporaries, and i don't think 'outright caricature' is the way to go about that. nor do i think that moses' jewishness should have been played up at all, because again i don't think that would have been particularly true to the person/character, and also Fucking Yikes. but, c'mon, if you hear the names 'moses' and 'sondheim' next to each other, which one do you associate more with judaism?

and as it stands, these are the only representations of judaism in tuc1. one admittedly nice but very minor nonhuman character; one human character you'd never be able to tell was jewish; and a third human character who, while never explicitly referenced as jewish, plays into some really hurtful antisemitic stereotyping. and it was a choice to not include anything else. maybe not a deliberate one, probably more likely one made out of simple ignorance than anything else, but a choice nonetheless. in a city with one of the largest and most visibly jewish populations in the country, and a culture that is inextricably influenced by that jewish population. a jewish population which has been and continues the target of rising hate crimes for years. i know that nyc means different things to different people, and everyone's nyc is their own -- but my nyc is jewish, and it sucks that that its jewishness is referenced directly in only one very minor way, which is greatly overshadowed by its, in my view, really insidious indirect references.

i don't know exactly how to go about addressing this. obviously, the show can't be changed by now. even if it could, i think the final product would be very significantly different from what it is now if the villain was something/someone else. i think including more references to jews in new york, more (human) jewish characters, hell, even mentioning hanukkah celebrations and menorahs in windows (it takes place in late december, after all; depending on the year it's not at all out of place for hanukkah to coincide with xmas!) would help. having literally any more positive jewish representation in tuc1 would, i think, help balance the bad stuff that's there. because, yeah, robert moses was real and he was terrible and he was jewish. but he's one jewish guy in a city with over a million jews, the vast majority of whom are just normal people. i don't want him to be the only vision of us that people get, in tuc1 alone or in any media. i'm not saying that jews can't or shouldn't be villains in fiction; but especially if you are a goyische creator, you should be really careful in how you're portraying us, and if there are other contrasting depictions in your work, too, in order to not (even accidentally) demonize jewish people as a whole.

[pfhwrittes]

Talk Shop Tuesday:

What piece(s) has (have) been most influenced by friendships you've formed here, and how is that reflected in your work?

hi gemma, i love you 💜

(and heads up, this is going to get long)

oh boy, so many of my fics have been inspired by my friends here!

it's absolutely mental to me that i started this blog because i wanted to yell at @391780 on tumblr instead of in her ao3 comments. so i think we can all say thank you to the lovely early for being my entry point into the cod fandom (her work The Arrangement was one of the first fics i read in the fandom - and one of the fics i've mostly recently re-read. i finished it up around 7.30 this morning).

in fact the entirety of the Retail Hell AU was inspired by this ask which came off the back of a post of hers talking about john price working in retail post-141 life.

in fact, a lot of my Masterlist is the result of me going "EARLY I'VE HAD ANOTHER IDEA!!!" in her DMs. she has my eternal love and gratitude for being such a fantastic writer and cheerleader for my writing.

next up, the lovely @kaadaaan is the sole reason i have so many john "soap" mactavish is a Certified Freak posts in my Here Be Kink Masterlist (heed the tags with that one, it's 18+ for a reason). most notably my most recent fics featuring slightly pathetic!johnny x pervy housemate!reader (part one and part two or on ao3 here).

vi is the WORST for letting me run my mouth on her posts or in her DMs. i have a whole document of notes on how i want to expand those fics into a truly depraved universe (rip to kyle, he's about to get put in the middle of the weirdest threesome of his life while simon slowly loses his mind over the fact that his stolen t-shirt is now a cum rag for the most disgusting couple he knows).

then there's @syoddeye. i found For the Record on ao3 and fell in love with the way they write the messy reality of living with addiction and being kind of stalled out in your life. it dragged emotions i hadn't felt for years out of me and i think as a result it's given me the courage to be vulnerable in my own writing in a way that i wasn't confident enough to do when i first started writing for the fandom.

it's really fucking scary to leave parts of yourself in your writing, intentionally or not, but the fact that they continue to pour love on my kyle x transmasc!reader fic from my Binders and Boyfriends series and have called it a comfort fic just means the absolute world to me.

and finally, there's you cariad! yes that's right, you of @gemmahale fame! you have been one of my biggest and brightest cheerleaders for anything involving our beloved kyle "gaz" garrick. it has been an absolute joy to yell in your DMs over The Contract (and some other stuff 😉). i would apologise for going "wait, what about if we did THIS...?" and accidentally turning our lovely self-contained demon au into an entire universe BUT that would be a lie. i am deeply in lesbians with your brain and ideas.

i can't pinpoint a specific fic (aside from some still unseen stuff) that you've had the most influence over but much like sy has, you've encouraged me to trust my instincts with my stories. oh and to never ever scrap a single piece of a wip, just to put it in the odds and ends section at the bottom 😉.

special shout outs go to @greatstormcat, @mortuarywriting, @dragonnarrative-writes, @eilidh-eternal, @ceilidho, @secretsynthetic, @sentientcave and so many other fantastic people that i've seen pop up in my notes just to cheer me on and grace us all with their fantastic writing. every single one of you that i've mentioned (and some people that i'm sure i've forgotten) have encouraged me to keep writing, or to be conscientious and considerate in regards to keeping this little corner of the fandom i inhabit a diverse and welcoming space to ALL readers. from the bottom of my very mushy heart, thank you 💜

Talk Shop Tuesday