#I’ve seen the middle one around the internet so here’s the artist !!

[dearmouse]

Judy Mastrangelo

#I’ve seen the middle one around the internet so here’s the artist !! #pierrots #clowns #pink clown #illustration

[the-fools-errand]

Three things to end the year

Thank you @thehoneybeet (Three things here) for tagging me into the three things thing :) It’s about to be NYE in the part of the world where I live, and with this well-timed tag, it only seems fitting to end the year with a bit of reflection. 

This year between June and September I moved to a new country, which ended up being an even bigger adventure than I had expected. While I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, I’ve found myself being pulled away from some of my creative pursuits and redistributing that energy to settling in to new habits in a new place and learning a new language. I’ve definitely missed being an active part of the Drarry fandom, but I have loved watching from the sidelines as new fics and fests have posted, and this community never fails to fill me with joy when I need it most. So thank you everyone for making this such a special corner of the internet! 

1. The Secret Keeper (2021, 225K) - My most popular fic by a longshot, SK is a special fic to me for many reasons. HD/BB was the first fest I ever participated in, modded by the incredible @gracerene and @writcraft, without whom this fic would never have seen the light of day. I was travelling for my job as I worked on this fic for the better part of a year, including on 15+hour flights across the globe, and even a particularly memorable setup using an ironing board as a desk in a small hotel room during the final weeks before the finish deadline 😂

I also had the extreme luck/joy/honour of being partnered with @razielim who illustrated the fic with three showstopping pieces that still take my breath away. When Razielim sent me the first drafts, I was standing in a cafe and literally exclaimed out loud. It’s hard to put into words what it means to partner with an artist and see a collective creative work come to life. When I stumbled in the home stretch of writing, I’d take a look back at these pieces and be re-inspired to carry on. 

Without hyperbole, the single most integral piece of SK was working with my incomparable Beta partner, @thehoneybeet. HB was part of the story from the time it was just a collection of sticky notes on a wall, through to middle-of-the-night speed writing/editing sessions, and everything in between. Stephen King once said that every author should write for their “first reader,” the person they can trust to believe in and bring out the best of their work, and for me, that is HB! Love ya, friend. 

Secret Keeper is a Hogwarts-era canon rewrite AU, in which Dumbledore hides Harry’s survival at the hands of Voldemort under a Fidelius Charm, leading the Wizarding World to believe that none of the Potters survived, and for Harry to grow up as a muggle. Draco is set to take up the mantle of a Death Eater once he comes of age, but when Harry shows up at Hogwarts under McGonagall’s direction, he’s brought under the charm to teach Harry Occlumency. The story is an exploration of the clash of destiny and agency, and what happens if we choose not to follow the path laid out for us. Plus there’s a sonnet. 

The last thing I’ll say about SK is that as my first real piece of writing that landed in this community, I had no idea what sort of response to expect from readers -- and was utterly blown away with the kindness and encouragement I received. I read every comment with a full heart, and when @sitp-recs wrote this rec, I thought I would just about explode. I often revisit this AU in my daydreaming, and HB knows, I have fully outlined a sequel if I can ever get around to it! Maybe for the next BB :) 

2. In the Bleak Midwinter (2022, 105K) - I’m cheating on the three things prompt and putting up my second most popular fic, because this one was a surprise even to me! I truly had no plans to write a longfic at the beginning of the year, but as I perused the LCDrarry prompt list, an incredible Peaky Blinders prompt by @seekercass caught my eye and I was hooked. My partner in crime, HB, even watched the full first season of PB for me, just to be able to advise on characterisation and plot points. Fest mod @celilasart was an epic support, and helped me with timing as I dashed to make the posting cutoff. 

In the end, what resulted was a dark AU, where Voldemort had won years ago, and the boys were living in a world where magic was banned, the wizarding world had broken open into the muggle world, and Hogsmeade was a town riddled with crime. Draco (as Tommy) is a complex and tortured head of the Black family gang, keeping everyone afloat while trying to carve out a better life. Harry (as Grace) is an agent of the Order, reporting in to Snape (as Campbell), and sent on a mission to Hogsmeade to solve a case of missing wands, a shipment meant for the front lines of Voldemort’s ever-expanding territory. 

Writing this fic was an unexpected delight, where unlike Secret Keeper, I really had very little idea of where I was going with everything when I started. Getting to weave in characters like Sirius, Tonks, Pansy, Neville, and Narcissa, was such a joy, and it was an exercise in opening up my creative process to different styles of writing. That said, this was probably the fic where I hit my biggest creative roadblock, when I couldn’t get Harry and Draco to stop being Grace and Tommy and start being themselves. HB was there for a major kill-your-darlings rewrite moment, which was totally necessary, and in the end I love where the fic ended up.

3. Silver Lining (2022, 14K) - For my hidden gem, I’m picking a fic that (gasp) isn’t even a Drarry! One of my goals at the start of 2022 was pushing my boundaries in terms of character and voice, and when I came across a prompt for a super small fest, which was simply “Neville re-sorted,” I knew I had to give it a try. Neville had been a surprisingly crucial character in both SK and ITBM, and unexpectedly so. So having the chance to explore him as a character in his own right was a really fulfilling exercise, and this fic ended up being an arc about friendship more than anything. 

SL is a cannon rewrite AU (because somehow I still only write AUs), where Neville is sorted into Slytherin and Draco takes up the responsibility of making sure his fellow housemate lives up to his full potential. Seven short sections, spanning seven years at Hogwarts. This one is short and sweet, and yes, I still managed to fit in Drarry somehow 😜

Honourable Mention: A Mutual Inconvenience (2022, 4K) - after a complete hiatus from writing for most of the year, I pulled together this short gift for my first reader and fandom bestie, HB. A bit of holiday melancholy which scratched a certain itch this season, and is a bit of a deviation from my usual stuff. 

Just want to take a moment to put some love out there again to all of you reading this. it’s been such a delight getting to know many of you and just being part of a fandom as special as this one. If you’re seeing this any you haven’t already been tagged to do your Three Things, please do! Happy New Year, and here’s to a magical 2023!

[norealgoodbyes]

Been trying to think about the news today and it still really doesn’t feel real. Or at least the meaning hasn’t really hit me yet. I’m not sure if or when it will. If I were an artist maybe I get some of what I’m feeling out of my system that way, but I’m not. I’m not much of a writer either, but I’ve seen a few people talk about what Yu-Gi-Oh! meant to them personally and I figure maybe I could try that.

One of the clearest memories of my childhood is of watching the precipice duel- I’d think I’d been casually watching the show for a while up till then, but that’s when it totally changed to me. My parents had routinely been getting me into various sports and extracurriculars that I did not want to be in and that Saturday morning I had a softball game to get to. My dad basically had to drag me out of the house to get me there and I missed the last half of the episode. I remember seeing the rotting BEWD melt around Mokuba in Kaiba’s hallucination and it stuck with me through the entire drizzly game. It had to have been the first time I think I really cared about characters in a piece of media to that extent. And I didn’t have anyone to talk about it with. 

I had friends as a kid, but kids can be cruel. I’d learned a few years prior that Pokemon was no longer a safe thing to talk about at school if I wanted to enjoy my recess. It was clear from the get go that Yu-Gi-Oh would fall into the same category. It’s not like I was getting beaten up, but I was a dumb, sensitive kid who was painfully honest. Kindof an easy target. I didn’t have the kinds of friends who would stick up for me for liking something “uncool”. I wished I had Yuugi and his friends. Instead I learned to lie about my interests at school and hoard manga and cards in a cabinet in my room. I’m not sure it was a happy time, but I wouldn’t have given up on Yu-Gi-Oh for the world. It meant so much to me. I loved the characters, the drama, the card game, the lore, the mystery of the millennium items. All of it. 

I remember when I started getting access to the internet and learning about how different the show I’d been watching was from its Japanese counterpart. It was so exciting! It was like ‘here’s this thing that I already love, but there’s an entirely different version out there with swears, violence,’ -blackjack, and hookers, you get the idea. It was absolutely tantalizing to a slightly edgy tween. I remember there was a fansite that hosted episode summaries and a forum; I think it also had scans of the GX manga, which had just started coming out in Japan? If anyone knows what it was called, please let me know. I don’t remember the name, just that it had a white, sortof silvery layout. It also had a modest little fanfiction section which I poured over religiously. I hadn’t written any myself, but I had so many ideas. Something about a sprawling mess of a story involving magic and other worlds I think? I don’t remember the details, but it kept my mind occupied through a lot of middle school.

I managed to push my love for the series away for a long time after that. Bits and pieces of it would filter over into my life from time to time and I’d pretend it was meaningless, or ridicule it as that ‘dumb card game show’. I’d push it down and try to forget. It wasn’t till I was at a con back in 2016 walking around with my best friend that I confessed that I’d earnestly loved it. I knew he wouldn’t mock me for it, but god. His quiet affirmation that that was ok, cool even, almost brought me to tears while walking through the dealers hall. I don’t talk with that friend very much these days for complicated reasons, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget that. 

I started this blog the following year, in 2017. Since then, it has been an absolutely incredible time to see the amazing outpouring of fanart, comics, fanfiction, meta essays, and love for a series that I had thought I was years late to joining. Even if I’d only vaguely known that there were other people out there who were as deeply affected by this series as I was, I would’ve been happy. To experience what I have since starting this tumblr goes way beyond that. Every day I get to see someone else who's fallen in love with some aspect of the series that I’d never considered, a character examined from a new angle, a piece of art capturing something new about it. It’s so beautiful to me and makes me love the series even more. And it’s so wonderful to not feel alone in that. There is such an incredible community here that I am so glad to be a part of it, even in my own small way.. 

I’ve since gotten better about being more transparent in my love for the series in real life too and the support I’ve gotten from my friends still takes my breath away. I’ve gotten bold enough to hang a print in my room! My boyfriend got me Pot of Greed earrings for my birthday! I don’t feel like I’m hiding my love in cabinets anymore and I’m not wishing I had some else’s friends. A lot of that has to do with who I am and how I’ve grown up, but I think a lot has to do with you all too- and of course, Kazuki Takashi. I’m so glad to be here with you and I know I wouldn’t have any of that if it weren’t for him. 

Thank you so much, Takahashi-sensei, for the gift you have given us and the friends we’ve made through it.

#personal

[voxvalentine]

So You’ve Fled Worse Websites For This One And Wish To Make A Hellsite A Hellhome

Just a friendly reminder that on this godforsaken website you can and should do the following few things that involve going into your settings:

1: Under Dashboard, disable Best Stuff First, Include Stuff In Your Orbit and Based On Your Likes. The former ruins the how the timeline works here, the middle violates the sanctity of anonymity if people you follow don’t want you to see their likes, the latter is a crapshoot and annoying and inaccurate because the likes algorithm is fucked.

2: Under Account, turn off letting people finding your blog through your email address, your email should not be just out there like that.

3: Under Notifications, turn off news because nobody knows what the hell is popular or gaining traction at any given moment. Posts from 6 years ago will randomly gain a resurgence of popularity for no good reason. Also just turn off the stuff that gives you immediate info about notes or updates or notices it’s just so fucking annoying and useless.

Under Appearance, you can choose to make who you follow private and what you’ve Liked private. I recommend doing both of those things. The old days of dumbass slapfights and following discourse are long gone but not yet over. Defend your mental health by just not letting folks know what you’re following or what you like, do what the Bird Site never ever let you do. From here you can also choose to turn anonymous asks off and that’s a good way to learn who you need to block if they’re being a shit to you, which to that I say block early and block often.

This website is different than the Bird Site in that 1: it will not tell you who to follow and 2: Likes do nothing, Reblogs are what matters. Likes are nice but Reblogs keep the blood pumping and posts/works by artists circulating. You can even choose to reblog your own stuff. This site is a massive sea of islands that have boats parked around them and bridges between them. There are, regrettably, Nazis and TERFs and tradcaths on this site. I have never seen them except for when they decide to pick fights with people I follow. You should also make it abundantly clear those people are not welcome to interact with you. You can threaten them with death here. It tends to work. Tell the fascists to die, recirculate the blood of content, treat this site well and keep it healthy and it will keep your mind healthy in turn.

This site allows a shocking amount of anonymity in the modern age. You don’t have to share personal information if you don’t want to. I don’t recommend you do. People can and have used DNI criteria and trigger/content warnings to dunk on people or upset them. Keep yourself and your data safe, you don’t have to have a carrd in your header or a list of kinks or a laundry list of things you believe in. Keep strangers at an arm’s length and moderate what you tell other people about yourself. I know this used to be the internet’s #1 naked picture dump and so many people courted parasocial relationships with folks here. Those times have changed. Don’t be weird and don’t let people be weird to you based on what they know about you.

By many standards on this website, I am an old-timer, even though I’ve been here steadily since 2015 with an initial reg date of 2013. I know the old stories, of the Oncelor, of Dashcon, the Kickstarter scams, the doxxing. I only qualify as an old-timer due to the fact that I stayed through the porn ban of 2018 and kept circulating content. This site...it’s not good, but it is what you make of it. Curate your content, even though the tagging system doesn’t work. Find what you like, even though the search function sucks ass. If you’re here for popularity you generally won’t find it because the algorithm straight up does not work, but also if you were forged in the fires of the Bird Site you likely knew this would not be the case. My advice is to find a handful of people who provide a feed like I do and if any specific names you see a lot interest you, skim their own blogs, follow them if you like, let your network spread, never be afraid to prune who you follow. Also your follower count doesn’t mean shit, it doesn’t really dictate who can see what you’re putting out there, your marketing and self-promotion is more or less tied 1:1 to using the tag system and your own hustle.

My other advice is to be as queer as you want, support queer people, and most importantly to tell the fascists to die as creatively as you’d like.

[leeus-writing]

What would happen if Sephiroth falls in love with the artist female reader that make gorgeous art and doesn't want to share her

I GOT MY INTERNET BACK!

Sorry this is late. I hope you like it :)

Portrait

You giggled a little as Sephiroth fidgeted on the chair. It was hard being the subject of a painting and you guessed it was coming up to the next break, so you put the paintbrush down and you smiled at Sephiroth.

“Ok you can relax now,” you said stepping away from the canvas.

He was the last of the 1st class SOLDIER’s that ShinRa had asked you to paint.

Sephiroth stood and stretched. His height impressive. The other SOLDIER’s you just needed them to either lean on something or stand near their weapon. Sephiroth, you had to ask to sit. He stepped over to you to look at your Canvas.

“NO! you can’t look before its finished!” You snapped.

He looked as if he sulked but smirked a little, “How about after I look. If I like it, I’ll pay you with dinner?”

Bold move? How did he know you were single. “Ummm alright. But what if you don’t like it?”

“I doubt about that I’ve seen other paintings you’ve done,” he replied looking down at you.

You felt a little crowded out, but you blushed and slowly nodded. You’d mostly heard how Sephiroth was quiet but here, he seemed bold and outgoing.

Once the break was over Sephiroth returned to the chair with careful instruction on positioning.

| 

Sephiroth looked at the paintings now hanging in the hall leading to the SOLIDER department. He’d become your partner not long after finishing his portrait and going out for a meal together. You both just fitted together, and his fame didn’t fuss you given you were gaining your own sort of fame.

He narrowed his eyes, something inside of him wanting to rip down the paintings to stop your name passing around the buildings. The lips within this place didn’t deserve to whisper your name. You were his.

He frowned and walked swiftly away towards the 14th floor were you were in a meeting to discuss Director portraits. You of course were overwhelmed by such high-profile requests and had been in a buzz ever since. You’d rushed to tell Sephiroth as soon as the project had landed on your lap.

Strangely over weeks together Sephiroth had become a little more processive of you. Turning up randomly to your studio whilst you had clients. It was annoying more than anything as some clients required complete privacy however, no one felt as if they could argue against Sephiroth. So, when he turned up in the middle of this meeting, it was no surprise.

“Sephiroth, we didn’t expect to see you here,” Scarlet hissed sarcastically. 

She was the director you were interviewing today. Honestly though, you felt safer with Sephiroth around though you couldn’t work out why.

“Scarlet. I’m just visiting Y/N here. She is after all my partner,” he said placing his hands on your shoulders.

The touch made you shiver a little.

“Oh, and she can’t work alone?” Scarlet asked.

“Yes, though I am reluctant to share her with the world obviously,” Sephiroth replied.

This shocked you, but suddenly the visits, the delaying you and forcing you to change plans due to making you so late made since. Sephiroth was jealous of other people interacting with you. You looked up at him. Eyes a little wide.

“I need to talk with you later but… please stay for now. You give me inspiration,” No way did you want to be alone with Scarlet.

|

You glared at Sephiroth as he sat in the kitchen chair opposite you, “I have to work Seph. You understand that. I love painting. It’s my passion.”

“I don’t understand why it has to be other people though,” he replied voice calm as usual.

“Because Sephiroth That’s my Muse! That’s what I like to paint. I can see their personalities through their eyes, and I like to try and capture that!” You took a breath and realised you’d been wandering about the kitchen looking for the spark. You stopped and turned to look at Sephiroth.

“If you don’t like that then GET OUT!” You snapped and pointed to the door.

You narrowed your eyes waiting, watching. Your heart thumping loudly. Sephiroth’s hand twitched and your heart cracked a little, expecting him to get up and leave. He didn’t though, he ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

“I’m sorry. I understand, I just don’t like sharing and… this is my issue I need to work through,” Sephiroth explained.

You sat back down and nodded touching his hand, “I understand. It’s hard, I’m spending a lot of time with other people, one on one. I promise, you’re the only one for me and I won’t leave you.”

Sephiroth put his other hand over yours and squeezed it, “I know and I trust you.”

You nodded and smiled.

#sephiroth #ff7 #ffvii #sephiroth x reader #final fantasy vii #ff7r #final fantasy 7

[watchmegetobsessed]

Crushing - Harry Styles

a/n: just a little something that was inspired by a tiktok and @pastequeharry​ !

pairing: Harry X Famous!Reader

word count: 2.2k

masterlist

“Welcome back, I hope has everyone returned from our little break because we are playing a fun little game with Y/N, who by the way won a Grammy award for best new artist this weekend, so congratulations on that!”

Ellen smiles at you widely as she claps along with the audience and you’re just smiling shyly, still not quite used to the sound of it.

“Thank you,” you nod looking around.

“Okay, we are going to play a round of who’d you rather. Are you familiar with the game?” she asks you.

“Yes, I’ve seen others play it before.”

“Great. For those who don’t know the game, two people will show up on the screen and Y/N will have to choose one. Whoever she chooses will come with us to the next round and at the end we’ll know who is her ultimate crush.”

“Ah man,” you huff, feeling a little nervous about who they are gonna show you and the audience laughs at your reaction as your fingers dig into the armrest of the armchair you’re sitting comfortably in.

“Are you ready?” Ellen questions with a smile that tells you just how much she is enjoying this.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be, but let’s get started,” you chuckle nervously.

“Okay, let’s see our first pair,” she starts and two pictures show up on the big screen and on the smaller one at the front of the stage so you don’t have to crane your neck. “So we have Zendaya and Tom Holland. Who are you choosing?”

“You really had to start with two of my biggest Marvel crushes?!” you whine and the audience starts laughing again as you chew on your bottom lip, trying to decide. “I love them both, but I’m gonna have to go with Zendaya, because in height, we would be better. I’m sorry Tom, I still love you!” you declare, looking around all cameras, hoping they all got your confession.

“Alright. So now we’ll keep Zendaya and move on to the next person, who is… Harry Styles. Zendaya or Harry Styles?”

The blood rushes out of your face as you see a picture of Harry, memories of the two of you meeting at the award show in the weekend flooding back to your mind. Harry has been a crush of yours since probably forever. You’ve been a fan of his since his One Direction days and your career started to take off sometime around the time he started his solo career, only difference is that it took you a little longer to earn yourself a name in the industry. But this weekend you finally met him for the first time, in real life, without you just watching him on the stage with four other men.

You spotted him at the area that led to the red carpet, he was about to step out when his eyes laid on you and though he was wearing a mask, you still knew he was smiling from the little wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. Your breath caught in your throat, stopping in your track as you were holding up your gown so you wouldn’t trip and fall with all the cameras around.

“Y/N! Hi!” he greeted you stepping closer, as if the two of you were old friends.

“Hi!” you managed to speak up, feeling completely starstruck.

“Love the gown! You look wonderful!” he complimented you and you could feel your cheeks heating up so fast.

“Oh, thank you, but I think you’re stealing the show with the boas,” you chuckled making him laugh as well.

“Thank you. Congrats on the nomination, I really hope you win by the way.”

“You do?”

“Of course. Listened to the album, it’s really good,” he nodded and your heart skipped a beat. Harry Styles listened to your album and he liked it? This must be Heaven, but when did you die?

“Thank you so much! I hope you win too, though your chances are better with your three nominations,” you joked making him laugh again.

“Yeah, just a little,” he nodded. “Here, let me help you.” He offered you his arm helping you step up the few steps that lead to the area where the red carpet photos were taken and you were thankful for the help, though you could already hear all the camera’s clicking in your way and you knew the photos would be all over the internet by the next day.

You only met one more time during the evening and you could only congratulate to each other on the wins before you both were snatched away, but you still play your conversation with him in your head before you go to bed in the evening.

“Um, Zendaya is everything but I’m gonna play this game honestly so I’ll choose Harry.”

The audience starts cheering and clapping at the decision as Ellen smirks at you, nodding along.

“No need to be shy, we all have a crush on Harry probably,” she jokes making you laugh. “Okay, next up we have… Harry Styles and The Weeknd.”

“I’m gonna stick to Harry,” you answer probably a little too fast, but if you’re being honest, they can’t show you anyone at this point who would beat Harry.

“Harry stays, next we have Harry and… Florence Pugh.”

“You guys made sure to make it hard for me!” you chuckle staring at the screen. “But I’m still gonna stick to Harry, though I love them both.”

“Alright, for the next round we have Harry Styles and Niall Horan.”

“I’m upset, because as a One Direction fan, I should not be forced to choose between them,” you point at Ellen, giving her a hard look which the audience finds quite hilarious.

“I’m sure you had ranked them before, don’t be shy,” she smirks and you sigh rolling your eyes.

“Okay, no offence to anyone but Harry stays. Sorry Niall, I still love you though,” you add with a smile.

“Harry is in a winning streak, it seems. Okay, let’s see his next opponent. Harry against Chris Evans.”

“Harry,” you answer with a sigh, crossing your legs, knowing well you will not choose anyone over Harry.

“Fast answer, great. Harry Styles or Ariana Grande.”

“Love Ariana, she’s a queen, but Harry,” you answer with a smile, the audience enjoying your obsession over Harry Styles and at this point you are not even trying to hide it.

“Harry Styles or Henry Cavill?”

“Harry,” you answer right away.

Henry’s picture disappears and Harry’s moves to the middle as the game comes to its end.

“Seems like we have a winner here. Harry Styles beat everyone!” Ellen chuckles as you glance at the big screen, blushing a little, but you are hoping your makeup is covering it well.

“You said it yourself, everyone has a crush on him,” you shrug, trying to play it cool.

“Yes, but not everyone was helped out by him,” she smirks as a photo of the two of you appears on the screen from last weekend and you cover your face with your hands as the audience goes wild.

“He is a gentleman,” you sigh dreamily.

“He really is and I have to say that the two of you look great together.”

“Oh stop it,” you chuckle, playing it over a little, just to make it less obvious how giddy even the thought makes you.

“Well, now we know that he is your number one choice, hopefully he’ll take the next step,” Ellen chuckles before moving on and asking you a few more questions as part of your appearance on the show.

Weeks go by and you kind of forget about the whole interview. It blows up the next few days, but nothing really happens, people just get excited that you are crushing on Harry just like everyone else, but it dies down pretty quickly.

You barely recovered from your Grammy win and yet you are already marching towards another milestone in your career. None other than Gucci asked you to be part of their new campaign in an amazing photoshoot and you just couldn’t say no, not that you ever even thought about it. After some online meetings and sending emails back and forth the first fitting’s day has finally arrived and you are buzzing!

Heading down to the showroom to go over every outfit they want you to wear for the photos, you can’t wipe the excited grin off your face. Growing up you could only dream about owning anything Gucci, now you are going to be promoting them so it truly is a dream come true.

Arriving you are walked into the showroom that is now filled with racks of clothes and there’s a podium with three mirrors surrounding it for the fitting.

“Y/N! Hi! So nice to finally meet you after all the emails and calls!” Nancy, the creative director of the campaign greets you.

“Nice to meet you too!”

“We are in a little bit of delay, I’m very sorry about that, but we can start in about ten minutes, if that’s alright with you.”

“Oh, no worries. I’m free all day,” you assure her before she thanks your patience and runs off to finish off whatever she was doing before.

Wandering around you take a look at the beautiful clothes on the racks, blown by basically everything you see and you can’t wait to wear the outfits that were meant for you. In the back of the room, a part is closed off for a changing area and you hear the door opening as Nancy walks out first, talking to someone following her behind and when you see the person, you freeze.

Harry Styles walks out, wearing a just a shirt and jeans, looking very casual but still, unbelievably hot. The man could wear a potato sack and still look better than any other men.

“Thank you so much,” he smiles at Nancy before his eyes lay on you, a wide smirk tugging on his lips in realization. “So nice to see a familiar face!” he beams, walking closer before he pulls you in for a short hug that catches you by surprise, but also warms your chest.

“Hi, didn’t expect to see you here, though you are kind of one with the brand at this point,” you tease him making him laugh.

“I am, yeah. I heard that you would be featured in the campaign as well. Amazing choice,” he smirks, glancing over at Nancy who smiles proudly, clearly agreeing with him.

“Y/N, I’ll get the changing room ready for you and we can start in five, alright?” Nancy informs you.

“Yeah, thank you!” You nod in her way and she is already off to do the work, leaving you and Harry alone.

“So, I learned some interesting information the other day,” he hums with a serious face and he got you curious about what it could be.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm, you know, I was watching The Ellen Show and you were on, playing a little game.”

“Oh my God,” you breathe out, already feeling the heat crawling up your neck to your cheeks. Harry smirks down at you, clearly enjoying that he got you so nervous and embarrassed of what happened.

“I wish I knew about your little crush earlier!” he teases you, making your groan.

“And why is that? So you could pull my leg at the Grammy’s when I was already shitting my pants?”

Harry lets out a chuckle shaking his head as he hides his hands in his pockets, his eyes running up and down your figure before they meet with your gaze again.

“No. Because then I wouldn’t have talked myself down from asking for your number.”

You can’t help the stunned reaction that takes over your face at his blunt flirting, your lips part as your eyebrows shoot up while Harry just stares back at you with a sly smirk on his deliciously pink lips.

“Oh, is that so?”

“Yeah, but now that I know that you are crushing on me just like I’m crushing on you, I think it’s time to make the first step. So…” he pulls his phone out and hands it over to you and continues while you type your number in. “I’m not just asking for your number, but I happened to hear that you have nothing else planned for the day, is that true?”

“It is,” you nod, feeling out of breath as you hand him back his phone, your number saved in his contacts.

“Then how about grabbing lunch after your fitting? I happen to have nothing today as well, we should take advantage of it,” he suggests and you can’t push your stunned smile down.

“Sounds good,” you nod, biting into your bottom lip.

“Great. I’ll run some errands while you are here and I’ll be back in about an hour.”

“You could stay here if you want, I don’t mind it,” you tell him, feeling like he is only leaving because he doesn’t want to intrude.

“I would love to, but I really want to see the final outcome of the campaign and not spoil it for myself,” he smirks making you chuckle.

“Alright. Then see you in an hour.”

“Yeah,” he nods with a boyish smirk before turning around and walking out of the showroom.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed it!

#harry #styles #harry styles #harry styles fluff #harry styles blurb #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shot #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles imagine #harry styles au #harry styles x you #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n

[five-rivers]

Changeling Chapter 1

A DP Fae Au fic. I've been promising you this for so long XD. I can hardly believe I'm finally delivering, even if it's only one chapter for now.

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Chapter 1: In the Beginning, There Was an Offer

.

They studied legends. According to those legends, today, Beltane, was a time of renewal, of birth, of fertility.

It was not supposed to be… this. Their dreams weren’t supposed to be crushed today. Not under this sun, not under these blue skies and among softly blooming flowers.

This kind of news should have come with rain. It should have come with storms.

Maddie wiped tears out of her eyes and Jack patted her on the back. The air smelled sweet and dusty at the same time. The bench was uncomfortable.

“We could try adoption,” said Jack. He sounded shocked, too. Drained. His voice was pulled taught over a great hollowness. “Lots of people adopt. We can- can do some good in the world, maybe.”

Maddie sniffed and cried harder. She’d wanted her own children, and Jack knew it. Adoption was all very well and good, but at this point the suggestion felt like some consolation prize, and she felt terrible for even thinking it was, because Jack was right, it could be a good thing, and…

She wanted children. Her own children.

“Excuse me, I believe I can help.”

There was something about how he said that, about how the voice wound and slipped through her ears that had Maddie’s head snapping up. The man who stood to the side of the bench wore a long coat with a deep hood. Symbols, symbols that Maddie had spent hours, days, weeks, researching were stitched into the fabric. His eyes glittered in the shadows. The fingers of his hands, clasped in front of him, were too long, their coloring faintly lavender, as if they had been dipped in ink and retained the stain even after they’d been washed clean.

This was not a human.

“How?” asked Maddie, feeling hope drip back into her limbs even as Jack tensed behind her. “How can you help?”

.

“We shouldn’t have done that,” said Jack as they drove home. “We really shouldn’t have done that. Maddie, they’re evil, there’s always a catch and it’ll always be looking for a way to push us into it.”

“The catch is in the open,” said Maddie, leaning back against the seat of the car and closing her eyes. “It isn’t as if it’s in the fine print and we’re going to stumble into it. We have one, and then I get my tubes tied, or you get snipped, and we go on with our lives.”

“What if we have twins? Triplets? Maddie, we should have talked about this.”

“There wasn’t any time,” Maddie said defensively. “I had to decide right away.”

“What are we going to do if we have twins, Maddie?”

Maddie bit her lip, her eyes opening without her full permission as she thought. “We know how to deal with things like him.”

The car jerked just a little to the right as Jack failed to suppress his flinch. “Do you remember our work on motivations? On why they take artists, musicians, children?” he asked. He forged on without waiting for an answer. “Creative sterility, we called it. For this one to be able to cure sterility, he has to be powerful. I don’t think nails in pockets and inside-out clothing is going to stop him.”

Such protections were hit and miss to begin with. One faerie might hate bread, another might love it. The sound of bells would drive off one, and another would wear them in their hair. Even cold iron was no guarantee against them.

“We’ll have to find something better, then,” she said, firmly.

.

Maddie laughed. Not a twin. A single child showed on the ultrasound monitor. A girl. A beautiful baby girl. Perfect.

On the other side of the bed, Jack sunk into a chair, obviously relieved. “She’s healthy?” he asked the OB/GYN.

“Completely,” she said. “This is quite the miracle the two of you put together here.” She shook her head. “We must have gotten something wrong during our examination. I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am to have put you through all that, and I won’t blame you if you wanted to find a new doctor.”

“It’s fine,” said Maddie, patting the woman’s arm. “It happens.” Yes, being approached by a powerful fae just ‘happened.’ “The important thing now is to make sure there aren’t any complications.”

.

They made sure Jazz was born on a Sunday, with two middle names, one of which Maddie made sure to forget. They scheduled her baptism for as early a date as possible, even though both Jack and Maddie were as lapsed as it was possible to be.

Precautions.

Jack had his surgery only a month later.

They were safe. They had won.

The family of three snuggled together on the couch. Well, Jazz snuggled inasmuch as a newborn was able. They watched TV.

“Jack, dear,” said Maddie, roused to awareness by a news story about a rising young businessman. “Is that our Vlad?”

Jack blinked at the screen. “I think you’re right,” said Jack. “I haven’t seen him since college. I don’t think we’ve talked to him since college.” He frowned. “Did something happen? The three of us used to be so close… He was the only one in the whole folklore department that would put up with our theories, do you remember?”

“I don’t know,” said Maddie, trying to remember. “It was like he was there one day, gone the next.”

“Do you think he’ll mind us getting back in touch?”

“Only one way to find out.”

.

(As it turned out, Vlad did not particularly care to get back in touch.)

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Jazz was not a normal child.

She saw too much. She understood too much. Her teeth grew in early. She learned how to get the milk out of the fridge at about the same time she learned how to walk. Her eyes were too large, even for her age. She didn’t start talking until she was almost two, and when she did, it was in complete sentences. She took to responsibility like a duck to water. No, she demanded responsibility, from waking up the family in the morning to answering the door. She loved rules and games, and the rules of games.

But they had never raised a child before. Perhaps this was simply how they were. Perhaps this was within the expected variety of humanity.

Most importantly, Jazz was theirs. Completely.

.

Maddie was not terribly concerned when her period missed a few days, or even when it was late by a week. But when it started pushing two…

She bought a test.

It came back positive.

.

Danny’s birth was different from Jazz’s in almost every particular. Instead of being infused with a sense of joy, proceedings were overshadowed by dread. Jazz had been born in a hospital. Danny would be born at home, behind every ward and protection Jack and Maddie could conceive of. The midwife they hired was more than used to odd belief systems and threw a few of her own traditions in as well.

It couldn’t hurt.

.

It didn’t help.

After the birth, Maddie held Danny in her arms. He’d been born in a caul, which had been slightly alarming, even though Maddie had known that it was a thing that happened regularly, and that, by most accounts, it was lucky.

He was such a tiny little thing. Smaller than Jazz. Which made sense, he was a little premature.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” she promised him, whispering into the silky, wispy curls on top of his head.

Someone knocked on the door. Maddie jerked her head up, even though the front door wasn’t at all visible from the basement. Jack flinched hard enough to drop the towels he was holding. The midwife froze.

“Hospitality,” croaked Maddie. Those rules were always humanity’s first defense against the uncanny. Don’t want something in your house? In your life? Don’t invite it in.

Although, she had arguably already invited in the fae they were worried about. Hence all the other contingencies.

The knock came again. And again, louder.

Jack let out a sigh of relief. “It can’t get in,” he murmured. Then he smiled, broad and bright. “We just have to wait it out.”

Maddie nodded, tears in her eyes. The knocking continued. This was far from ideal, obviously, but she’d been half expecting the fae to simply rip through the wards like tissue paper.

Perhaps the theory that more powerful fae were more bound by custom, more vulnerable to their weaknesses, held water? She and Jack had always dismissed it as fanciful, but they’d never been able to gather evidence before.

Then, a sound that made her heart stop.

“I’ll get it!” called Jazz, childish voice muffled by distance and the obstacle of the floors above. She’d been told not to answer the door when Danny was being born, to wait patiently in her room, but for all her unusual maturity, she was only three.

Faster than she’d ever seen him move, Jack bolted for the stairs, pushing aside several pieces of furniture and medical equipment in his haste. He took the stairs four at a time and nearly taking the door off the hinges.

He wasn’t fast enough.

“Who are you, mister?”

“Me?” said a voice Maddie had prayed against ever hearing again. “I am your uncle, my dear. Did your parents not tell you about me?”

.

Jazz tipped her head to one side and stared up at the man, making her eyes extra big. She knew it made a lot of people uncomfortable when she looked at them like that, so she treated it as a kind of test.

The man smiled, kind and patient. He was kind of funny looking, but in a good way.

“No,” she said finally. “Are you Mommy’s brother or Daddy’s brother?”

“Ah, you already know about uncles, then. I was worried I’d have to explain. May I come in? I would like to greet your little brother, as your parents promised I could. I have gifts for both of you.”

Jazz liked gifts. “Okay,” she said. “But I dunno if Danny’s been born yet. Mommy said it can take a while. And I dunno if he can have gifts, yet. He’s gonna be really little. That’s what all my books say, and also the internet.”

“Jazz! Don’t!”

Jazz turned to see her Daddy skid around the corner, just as her uncle stepped across the threshold.

“Not quite on time, I fear,” said uncle. “Young Jazz has already let me in.” He patted Jazz on the head. She ducked away and stuck her tongue out, like she always did when Daddy did that. “Having greeted my niece, I would like to see my nephew.”

.

The fae did walk past the rest of the wards as if they weren’t even there. It didn’t even break them, just ignored them. Some of them he even commented on, as if approving.

He gazed down at Danny with his otherworldly eyes. The midwife had retreated to the corner of the room, refusing to look at what was happening. Jack had attempted to attack the fae with his bare hands, only to be pushed away with something approaching gentleness by an invisible wall. Maddie didn’t know where Jazz was. Upstairs, somewhere, hopefully.

“So beautiful,” the fae said, brushing Danny’s forehead with his off-color fingers. Faster than Maddie could react, he had a pair of scissors in his hand and was cutting off a lock of hair. “A lovely child.” The lock of Danny’s hair disappeared into the fae’s coat.

If Maddie didn’t know better, she’d call the expression on the fae’s face love. But she did know better. Love was as incomprehensible to the fae as fae laws were to humans, so she’d call it by its true name: avarice.

She tightened her grip on Danny, as if she could keep the fae from plucking him from her arms.

“Not now,” said the fae, after another moment. “Soon, I should think.” It ran a hand over Danny’s head. “Soon.” The fae looked up, meeting Maddie’s eyes. “I will return,” he said, “in one year.”

“For what?” demanded Maddie, unwilling to get her hopes up.

The fae blinked slowly. “For his birthday.” He tilted his head. “To determine whether or not he is ready. Perhaps, also, to visit my niece.”

“You stay away from Jazz!” snarled Maddie. “You have no claim on her.”

The fae merely shrugged, then smiled, slyly. “She does, however, have a claim on me. I promised her gifts, before your husband whisked her away.”

“Gifts,” repeated Maddie, hoarsely.

“For the sister of my child, yes,” said the fae, voice and face as calm and even as ever. “Would you ask me to forswear myself?”

“Then,” said Maddie, “you can leave them here, with us.”

“You will give them to her?”

“Yes,” said Maddie, through her teeth. She did not say how long she would let Jazz be in the presence of these ‘gifts.’

“Very well, then,” said the fae, pulling a number of boxes out from beneath his coat. “One year. Be prepared.”

And, with that, the fae faded from view, as if he had been an illusion all along.

Danny was still with them. Their son was still with them. Still theirs.

“One year,” she said, breathless. “Only one year.”

“One whole year,” corrected Jack, rushing to her side. “You’ll see, Maddie. Next time, that fae won’t know what hit him!”

“One whole year,” echoed Maddie, weakly.

“One year to prepare,” said Jack. “Look what we did with half that time! We’re Fentons! We can do it!”

“We can do it,” breathed Maddie. “One year. We’ll be ready.”

Jack nodded, firmly. “We’ll be ready.”

#danny phantom #dannymay #dannymay 2021 #dannymay 2021 day 30: fantasy #fae au #changeling #dp fae au

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Aphid

Debut: Real Life

Welcome to Funky Friday! This Friday is particularly special to me, you see, I get to talk about a creature I am very passionate about, if you know me outside of this blog, it should come to no surprise that Aphids are up there as one of my favorite earthlings ever! They’re part of my username, and hence, my internet persona, I even put little antennae on emoticons like this ==:) I’m obsessed! But I swear it’s all justified!

To protect the peace of those who may be afraid of bugs, I’ll be talking exclusively about Aphids in Videogames! They haven’t had the biggest presence, but in recent years they’ve made some lovely appearances!

Aphids. Just look at them! They’re very green, very round, and very small! They have very long antennae as well! Instantly checking off all the marks that make a perfect creature design!

Aphids are sap sucking insects, they just hang around in colonies sipping sap from plants, a very peaceful life, they’re incredibly good at just hanging out and slurping plant juice! So much so that they are sadly considered as pests by humans, but they’re just trying to get by! Like you and me, the way they’re vilified everywhere is really unfortunate, they deserve to live just like any other earthling, but whenever you google em you just get stuff on how to get rid of them, I believe their presence in art like movies and videogames can be very important to change this perception! 

Name: Aphid

Debut: Bee Swarm Simulator (Roblox)

Let’s start with the face of the post, Roblox aphid! Look at this simple model! Just a pea with 2 red orbs for peepers and sticks for antennae, I love the charm of such a simplified bug! 

Bee Swarm Simulator is a lovely little farm game that has you collect nectar and breed all kinds of bees! While out in the flower fields, you may find an aphid while collecting nectar. Like all bugs in this game, they will attack you, but to be fair, you are very tiny, so it makes sense a giant bug could damage you, even if they don’t do anything particularly dangerous!

When your bees defeat them they can drop rare items! And as such, aphid encounters are quite a blessing, matter of fact, they have rarity tiers! And they change their appearance accordingly, there’s Rage Aphids

Armored Aphids

and Diamond Aphids!

Overall very charming inclusion, aphids now come in new flavors! Every time I play this game I hope I get to encounter one of these sweet peas! Silly models of bugs are fantastic, so Roblox aphids make me very happy!

Name: Aphid

Debut: Bug Fables

Now THIS is my personal favorite fictional aphid appearance in media ever! In the world of Bug Fables, they are livestock! And you even get to go to an aphid farm! Here, they keep regular Aphids for their honeydew, Cochineals for their red pigment, and Woolly Aphids for their wool! That’s right! This game gave us representation for TWO kinds of real life aphids! It’s such a delight!

Everyone in the world of Bug Fables respects and loves aphids, people find them very cute! Some of them even keep them as casual pets! Could you imagine? A cat-sized aphid for you to hold? The people in Bug Fables are living my dream and I want in! I hope you can also agree they’re extremely cute, the artists nailed that sweet little drop-shaped face I adore so much! 

On April Fools, the Bug Fables devs released a short game all about aphids! Aphid Festival! Here you can train and breed your aphids! Which allows you to get all kinds of different color patterns for your aphids! Can you believe this? If you told me “In the year of 2021 there’s a videogame that’s completely centered around aphids.” I would’ve never believed you!

Name: Aphid Lurker

Debut: Jax and Daxter

Now I know what you may be thinking, “this is just a dog!” And yeah they’re definitely the doggiest bug I have ever seen, or is it the buggiest dog? Regardless of how you feel on the validity of their buggyness, you gotta admit it’s very impressive we have an aphid-based enemy in a game from 2001, most other aphid appearances I could find were very recent, was Jax and Daxter a trendsetter? Probably not, but maybe at least one kid out there saw Aphid Lurker and went “Woah aphid? What’s that?” googled them, and proceeded to fall in love with them! 

Regardless of their good impact for all of aphid-kind, they are very round, very green, and have antennae! So I really can’t dislike them, they even got spikes!! Which is something I like to see in my round creature designs sometimes, it just works!

Name: Aphid

Debut: Grounded

Returning to modern games, Grounded is a survival game that has you shrunk down to the size of an ant! So you gotta survive among the towering grass blades in the middle of a garden! Fortunately for us, this means you get to interact with tiny insects very up close! Including aphids!

Don’t be fooled by the fancy graphics and realistic aesthetics, aphids in Grounded are arguably the cartooniest creatures you can find! They almost look like a real aphid, but they have a vertebrate mouth! Perfect for opening in surprise when you get close to one, they’ll jump, chirp with an extremely cartoonish expression, and then flop into the ground, before scuttling away!

Now that’s a silly little mouth!

Aphids in this game are peaceful creatures, they’re a bit timid so they’ll run away from you but they will let you get close over time, they also drop honeydew, which you can use as food, so you really want to befriend and protect these little dudes if you can!

Name: Aphid

Debut: Scribblenauts

Scribblenauts is a game where you can type anything and it’ll come to life! So the devs really tried their best at including everything they thought a player could think of, and they thought of silly bug fans like me! People who would type “aphid” in hopes an unloved little bug they love could appear in the game with them, and instead of being met with the usual disappointment, were met with a cute little rendition of this sweet green bug!

Design-wise, I’m a bit sad they added a neck, they have no necks! They’re funny teardrop shaped bullets! But they DID add the cornicles! (The two little horns on their butt). Out of all the videogame aphids I’ve shown you, this is the ONLY one to include the cornicles! Not even Grounded who went with a semi realistic design got it! So thank you Scribblenauts, for considering the aphid, as well as giving them their anatomically correct defense organs.

Finally, I’d like to give a shoutout to Aphie from A Bug’s Life! Not a videogame aphid, but 100% one of the earliest aphid representations in media! And they’re very cute, just a little puppy! They got a puppy tongue and all, given ants herd and take care of aphids, having one of them keep one as a pet is a very cute way to humanize an ant!  Also Aphie has the cornicles!! Good on you Pixar, you did your research.

And that’s all for this special friday! Thank you reader for coming in this journey with me, here’s hoping there’ll be more aphid representation in the future! 

#aphid #insects #funky friday #mod sockop #not mario #aphib post.... I did it #can't believe i'm just allowed to do this #ty everyone who reads these posts by us! We just love silly creatures!

[crowtrinkets]

Analysis of Vesuvia :) Pt 4 Architecture!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3A, Part 3B

*cracks knuckles* ok pals lets get going 

Also let me preface this by saying that I am not Muslim and I do not know a lot about Islamic culture or art (because we only spent a week on it in my art history class, which is a shame, and I couldn't afford my textbook cry) but I will try my best to put correct information that I have found all over the internet :)

This one I was waiting to do cause I find it the most interesting. But also while doing my initial research this one made me go HEY WAIT

When I was making the last 3 parts I noticed a common theme in the bgs specifically in the arches and domes

They dont look like traditional Italian domes or arches which makes sense since Vesuvia is said to also have middle eastern influences.

But what I found most interesting while researching the architecture in Venice, I learned that suprise surprise the Romans saw some art form they liked and copied it. 

Notably there are a lot of gothic influences in Venice.

Ex  The Ca' d'Oro or Palazzo Santa Sofia, that for some reason I could only find decent info about on Wikipedia which I was trying to avoid lmao

Lots of little “windows” minature arches, just a lot of extra. The thing about Gothic architecture is that its EXTRA, Vesuvia is just a little more tame.

But what I wanna focus on are the domes

So, domes were primarily a thing in the middle east, India, and the Mediterranean and ofc the Romans were like, I like that so they implemented it a lot into their architecture. Such as the Pantheon or their basilicas

So remember when I said the Romans took architecture from other places? Well yea one of those places was the middle east and more specifically, the Islamic Style of architecture. source that was hard to find for some gd reason

Because Rome sticks out in the Mediterranean it would make sense that trade occurred often especially with other territories so close by.

The Islamic style was input into Venice around 1300-1500, when the gothic style was very prominent, and so it influenced how Venice was designed aesthetically and structurally

In Islamic architecutre, specifically in Mosques theres a wide variety of styles depending on when it was built, but they all share common characteristics. One of which being a dome. Like I said I do not known a lot about Islamic culture so here is what Khan Academy says

“The interior decoration of a dome often emphasizes this symbolism, using intricate geometric, stellate, or vegetal motifs to create breathtaking patterns meant to awe and inspire. Some mosque types incorporate multiple domes into their architecture (as in the Ottoman Süleymaniye Mosque pictured at the top of the page), while others only feature one. In mosques with only a single dome, it is invariably found surmounting the qibla wall, the holiest section of the mosque.”

Source

And here's the mosque in question

Along with domes Islamic architecture also features a lot of arches, the Pointed and Ogee arch styles resemble the arches we see in Vesuvia in my opinion

Vesuvia’s arches are a little more dramatic✨ probably just for aesthetic purposes

Moving back to the domes they don’t exactly reflect European dome styles which are more half circular shaped, the domes in Vesuvia are more “onion shaped” as its called, such as the Taj Mahal, which is considered Indo-Islamic but thats besides the point

Here’s a nifty image I found labeling its parts for fun :) source

Some scholars believe that the Russian’s took inspiration from the middle east and also used the domes in their architecture, however based off what I’ve seen they're not as common in the middle east. Russians be loving their Onion domes I am not 100% sure on this I saw it on Wikipedia but ofc not a super reliable source and there were no citations on the page so apologies

But I feel that you could also argue that they are not onion domes but cupolas (not much difference but they don’t require a building to be on, they can be found on minarets and can be a little more dramatic with their shape), which like the onion dome originated in Islamic architecture, I feel theyre a better fit 

Along with Venice/Vesuvia having very Islamic looking architecture, the gothic style which is very prominent in Venice also takes inspiration from Islamic architecture as well

I think a great example we can look at is the Hagia Sophia, it was built as a Christian church in the 6th century, under the rule of Justinian I. Although it was built to be a Christian church, the Hagia Sophia resembles a Mosque like to the t

There are lots of domes, multiple layers, arches, and it even has the minarets (towers), on the four corners.

It now is housed as a Mosque today :)

I also find the column in the town square intersting, it has a very simple almost Corinthian shape but is also colored like middle eastern architecture typically is. Also the “capital” designs are usually at the top and not the bottom but it was probably the artist taking creative liberties :)

So while Vesuvia was designed with Venice in mind I would say it has very Indo-Islamic features, more so than Venice does. I also think it’s important to learn where styles originate from, especially when ancient Romans are praised for their architectural domes despite them being done before by other cultures

I was originally going to stop this series of posts here but I kinda want to do more about other parts of Vesuvia like the palace, the courtier estates etc and I can do other stories/worlds if you all want something like that :) 

I also wanna apologize for taking so long on this post even tho its kinda short, school is kicking my ass lmao

#the arcana #the arcana game #the arcana vesuvia #vesuvia #crow talks art history #art history #architecture #i had literally 20 tabs open for this post lmao

[joezworld]

📁

Specifically, any headcanons of the Sodor Engines interacting with the internet, or the internet in general?

For some reason, I’d imagine that podcasts and the like are popular among vehicles in general.

That is a question that I've been working on for some time - because I'm workshopping my own Tornado headcanon (and boy oh boy does she use the internet a lot) - but I have some ideas for the Sodor engines as well: 

Henry is probably the most "plugged in" engine on the island, weirdly enough. One of his drivers gave him an iPod back in the early 2000s, and kindly preloaded it with a bunch of torrented music.

 BTW, that works because all the engines are now equipped with automatic train warning systems, and the little on-board computer has a USB port - as a nice side effect it allows music players to work with the engines in the same way as bone-conducting headphones do. The computer also acts as some kind of computer interface, which I am not going to explain how that works because Jesus Christ I don’t know how it does either.  

 Henry has managed to upgrade his iPod a few times since thanks to hand-me-down units from NWR staff, so he eventually got his buffers on a wifi-enabled iPod Touch and now downloads new music from the station wifi. He does listen to podcasts, but as every other engine will tell you, you could show Henry ten thousand new and exciting songs from the best artists in the world, and his top ten played songs are still going to be Genesis, Phil Collins, and Yes. Bear considers it a win that he managed to convince Henry to regularly listen to Rush after a mere twenty years of convincing. 

 Mavis and Daisy listen to a very interesting program called The News, because as stated elsewhere, they invest a shitload of money and need to be on top of things. Thomas and Percy wish that Daisy would use headphones or something similar to that, instead of listening to Bloomberg TV at loud volumes in the middle of the night. Toby frankly doesn’t mind, as it’s very nice to be kept up-to-date on the outside world.  

In a move that surprises no-one, Bill and Ben have a podcast where they talk about whatever they think about at that moment - usually horse-racing, investing, and clay mining. As such, they have a wide audience, almost none of whom know that they’re that Bill and Ben, as their podcast is audio-only.  

 In an also unsurprising move, Edward and BoCo have been made very much aware that Bill and Ben have a podcast, but are still unsure as to what the hell a podcast is, despite being frequent guests on it.  

Of the main line diesels, only Bear has shown any real interest in the internet, and was immediately put in charge of the Amazon Alexa when a unit was installed in the diesel shed. He also has an iPod that he got for Christmas a few years back. (The NWR has a very good personal  electronics recycling program called give it to Henry, he’ll make use it.)  

Bear does listen to podcasts as well as music, but his choices are so insufferably boring that even Henry refuses to listen to them. (I don’t really listen to podcasts - despite making one - so insert the most boring podcast you can think of here.) 

 As for other internet uses... 

Gordon is very up-to-date on the newest social media trends - somehow - but only really cares when he is involved. He won’t admit it, but he’s been trying to figure out how to work a camera/selfie stick for some time so he can start up his own Instagram account. So far he has been unsuccessful, but one day he will manage it. 

 James has had an ongoing feud with his own Wikipedia page for about a decade now. The article sourced most of its information about his construction off of some out-of-print book about the L&Y. The book in question is accurate about James’ class, but not James himself - as he was a prototype engine. There’s no other primary sources available, so the very dedicated Wikipedia mod who created the page won’t change it - no matter how much James complains that he was there! He knows what happened! 

Every now and again a TTTE fan blog/tumblr will make a post about hypothetical “ships” of the Sodor engines. Most of the time it’s shipping the core characters like Gordon and Henry, much to Gordon’s bafflement and Henry’s amusement! 

Only one blog (a ttte fan tumblr by the curious name of @mean-scarlet-deceiver  ) has gotten it right. Henry actually reached out to congratulate this blogger, but was unfortunately mistaken for a very dedicated roleplay account.  

James is very annoyed by these blogs, as they have never once correctly guessed who he is “shipped” with! He has tried several times to be seen in public with Delta, but these events have never gone as planned - the “best” instance is when Edward rolled by at exactly the wrong moment, leading to months of speculation that JamesxEdward was the ship to look out for! 

Thomas, being a generally oblivious sort of engine, was totally unaware of the online fan community around the TV show until he started getting actively harassed by vloggers and Instagrammers in the early 2010s. He’s fine with it now, but it was a deeply unusual experience for most of 2012.  

Toby has developed an unexpectedly popular following on social media following his collab with Stormzy. His official twitter is huge now, with over a million followers, even if he has no idea what to do with it. He posts rarely, but usually manages to make an incredible post when he does.

No-one is sure who told Oliver what a “fan-production” is, but if you manage to get ahold of him for any period of time and ask him nicely, he will lend his voice to your TTTE fan-project, so long as it isn’t about [INSERT TERRIBLE SOCIAL/POLITICAL VIEW(S) HERE]. This means that he has 100% voiced dramatic readings of NSFW Fanfics before, which is always an absolute riot to spring on people unannounced.

There is a series of slice-of-life TTTE fanfics on Ao3 that have been written with such accuracy and innate railway knowledge that people are sure it was written by a Sodor engine, but nobody knows which one.

The Culdee Fell Railway has very active Instagram, Twitter and YouTube accounts, with all of the engines and coaches showing up regularly. It’s about the closest any of the railways on Sodor have come to what those outside the UK would call “normal locomotive social media”.

The Skarloey Railway has social media accounts too, but they don’t really feature the engines in any meaningful way, instead being used as a normal service announcements page.  

 The SR is a real working railway that doesn’t rely on tourism money as much as the others do, so they get a bit of a pass here.  

 The Arlesdale Railway has Twitter and YouTube, which didn’t usually get a lot of hits until 2020, when Ivan and Amanda Farrier started badgering the staff to make some videos just to alleviate some boredom. So far the most popular videos on the channel are a front-mounted camera video of the entire line slow-tv style, Bert explaining how steam engines work, and a video of Mike complaining about Justin Bieber for a solid half-hour.  

 That’s about it as far as Sodor goes, but before we’re done, I want to take a moment to talk about Tornado, because I have some fun ideas for her... 

First of all, we need to establish that Tornado is very young. Her construction only started in late 90′s, and she was steamed to life in 2000, putting her firmly into the “Zoomer” category. Add in the fact that she was built by a bunch of old men who didn’t really know how to treat a new engine, and she was raised much more like a human than a locomotive - I’ll get to this much more in the proper Tornado Headcanon post, but what this means here is that when social media started being a thing in the mid-to-late 2000′s, the people at the A1 Trust decided that they needed a young person to run things like Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace... and, well, Tornado was the youngest person in the trust by a large margin.

I should state here that in the rest of the world, locomotives are on the internet at roughly the same level as humans are, so there’s plenty of equipment to connect a phone/computer/camera to an engine - being English, the A1 Trust didn’t know how common it was, but they managed to get it up and running just the same.

 So Tornado has very quickly become attuned to the internet, just like any other teenager would. (yes, let’s let that settle into our minds for a moment - Tornado is barely old enough to drink in the US!) Quite naturally that means that she knows social media inside and out, and is actually quite a proficient social media manager for the trust, managing all of their social pages. More than one person who has complained about the trust on twitter has unknowingly been complaining to Tornado herself! 

 “On the internet, nobody knows that you’re a dog Engine”. 

 Tornado has her own personal social media accounts too, but most/all of the time she gets mistaken for a very dedicated role-player, as the general perception of British Locomotives is that they don’t tweet. This has resulted in some amazing reactions from podcast hosts (because, as you might expect, Tornado is very knowledgeable about steam traction in the 21st century, and tweets about it often, so train podcasts want to talk to her) when she gets invited onto video calls, turns on her webcam, and is met with screams from people who suddenly realize that her profile picture is accurate.  

 By far the best instance of this is when she was invited onto a video call with a railfan podcast. She was at the NRM at the time and managed to convince them to let her use their Skype setup. A wide-angle lens was needed because she was on the turntable in the Great Hall, so that podcast quickly got sidetracked when her webcam was turned on and revealed Tornado, with Mallard, Evening Star, City of Truro, and Green Arrow visible behind her. Whatever the original topic was quickly got thrown out in favor of a 2-hour Q&A with some of the most famous engines in the UK. 

#ask response #the internet #ttte thomas #ttte toby #ttte bill and ben #ttte gordon #ttte daisy #ttte mavis #ttte henry #ttte bear #ttte oliver #tornado #nrm #trains using the internet #ttte #sodor #sodor shenangians #the formatting on this one is super fucked up and i can't figure out how to fix it - sorry

[nightswithkookmin]

Hii, me again. 😅

Jungkook made a three syllable poem with "min yoongi" name. At the last name of "Gi" He made yoonmin. Is he try to expose that yoonmin is a thing/ or real??

Ahjumma.... why are you being like this?

What did I do to deserve this ghettory?😟 It's too early in the year to be this ghetto uno.

Don't be like that😒

You are asking me, Goldy- GOLDY of all shippers, if I think JEON JUNGKOOK is confirming his boyfriend of seven years and counting is in a relationship with another member within the same group...

Doing what exactly in that relationship??

Is JK cockholding? What's going on.

KWENCHANAYO?!

You think BTS will survive two members dating the same guy in the same group???

Never mind that it's Jeon Jungkook and Park freaking Jimin- Mr I'm greedy and Mr I don't share my friends.

Like make it make sense to me please😭

After everything we've been said on my blogs for months now, you still asking me this??

You are bold, I'll give you that.

Now tell me slowly and in coherent words why I shouldn't pull your hair and give you three quick punches to your throat- ninja style👀

Someone get her before I snap their neck💀

For the last time-

NEITHER 🤺OF🤺JIKOOK🤺 IS 🤺 WAS🤺 HAS🤺 HAD🤺 PURPORTS TO HAVE🤺 WOULD HAVE HAD🤺 COULD HAD HAD🤺 HAD HAD HAD🤺IS HAVING 🤺 ANY 🤺ROMANTIC🤺 FEELINGS🤺WHATSOEVER 🤺 DESIRE🤺CRAVING🤺 WET DREAMS🤺 YEARNING🤺 PASSION🤺ATTRACTION🤺 AMOROUS 🤺INTENT🤺TOWARDS🤺 ANY🤺🤺MEMBER🤺 IN🤺 BTS🤺BESIDES🤺 EACH🤺 OTHER🤺

GET🤺 OUT 🤺OF🤺 YOUR🤺 IMAGINATION🤺

If you are new to the shipping community I suggest you familiarize yourself with every ships dynamics or at least Jikooks- if multishipping isn't exactly your thing.

Jikook's entire dynamics is founded on JK teasing JM to death. It's their thing.

He's said he enjoys teasing Jimin because he loves Jimin's reaction to when he's being teased. In fact, the entire group have said same about Jimin.

Did you see JM's reaction to when JK called out the Yoonmin comment in the dynamite reaction VLive?

Did you see RMs reaction too?

He is trying Jimin with these Yoonmin jokes. He's gonna get stabbed. Lmho.

Jimin reacts strongly to when JK in particular teases him with ships, Yoonmin more recently. Yet he didn't seem to mind when V did it.

V used to be the biggest Yoonminer on the planet rooting for and encouraging certain interactions between Yoonmin. Lmho.

Jimin himself perpetuates Yoonmin as a ship.

It would be an insult on his intelligence for anyone to assume he didn't know exactly why people ship two people together or what interactions and moments is considered a moment in shipping sphere.

Statements like, why can't Suga hyung look me in the eye, why does he say I'm irreplaceable to him, insinuates something and he knows this.

Once upon a time, JK couldn't look you in the eyes too. Still can't sometimes.

Jimin has a presence and he has a hold on these men and he knows it.

He goes out of his way to create the impression he and Suga have a very close bond and dynamic- I'm sold on it. Lol.

'5 Jms? As expected. You'll fall in love with them' not sure if JM said the last bit in the BE.TS Vlive, yall check for me.

It's crazy then that he turns around to react the way he does when JK teases him with his ship with Suga.

It seems to me, Jimin knows the intent and energy behind such seemingly harmless jokes- JK can be petty and passive aggressive with these things. You'd think he is joking but deep down he would be pouting and throwing tantrums behind cams🤧

It's Jimin apologizing and looking like his spirit left his body as he sat on the edge of JK's bed in the new Jersey VLive for me.

He needs to free Jimin.

Talk of things I'm getting too old for- Let's talk about why he posted his version of the bridge in disease online🤧

Not to say he shouldn't have posted it. I support that he did wholeheartedly. Deadass found his groove since he started unbuttoning the front of his shirts in 2020.

He's reclaiming the spotlight, putting himself at the forefront unlike before where he'd resigned himself to a supportive role watching his hyungs be at the center of things.

Now he's been talking about that he wants have sexy dance performances like Jimin, write rap melodies for RM, share his own music, try on a solo career one day- we get it. You found yourself Mr I'm independent asserting myself yall better fuxk off but chilee not at the expense of Jimin! 🤺

I mean it's a broad spotlight and they both can share it but damn is someone changing drastically. Not sure if I should be proud or terrified.

It's great and amazing and I'm really truly happy with where he's at mentally and physically since 2020- it's a great sign, don't get me wrong. Significant improvement. His becoming is long over due but he didn't have to grab the spotlight from Jimin like that.

Jk vs JM isn't something I'm a fan of.

It's a shame it didn't work out? What do you mean JK. I'm sorry but Jimin's version is amazing too!😟

What the actual hell JK😭

Back it up. This is not how to Jikook🤺

On guard sir🤺 on guard🤺

Dude did Jimin dirty🤧🤧🤧🤧🤧

I need a refund😭😭😭😭

Here I was waiting for y'all to get on your Jikook agenda and post that first Jikook selca of the year and you are there shipping Jimin with your bandmate and thiefing his shine. Who taught you that?!😥

Y'all are competitive but y'all don't compete with eachother's shine! JIKOOK 101😭😭😭

You share it😥

Show me where in the books this new development falls under. Show me

You winging it and it's unconstitutional😟

I rebuke it in Jesus name!

Someone beam me up.

You got these 13 year olds coming in my DMs telling me you are not supportive of your man's career.

I don't have time for this shit.

SOMEONE BEAM ME UP! Kirk!

If you've watched their Be behind video, and you've seen Jin talk about how RM complained to him when Tae chose Suga's version over his version you'd know where JK is coming from or where I think he is coming from having JMs version chosen over his.

Watch their Be self interview on yt too.

He said there's a melody he worked on for RM and when Jhope thought he got snubbed he recommended he release it instead- to quench his artistic drive perhaps.

That is why he released this song. He did it for himself. Like he said, he won't put out a song unless he was confident about it.

Suga have said time and again how the music and melodies they create never go to waste because they can repurpose it like he did with Telepathy I think.

Even JK explained he was reserving the melody he made for RM for a future group song.

He could have repurposed this or something.

When Jin talked about V vs JM's Christmas song and kept repeating how much he preferred Jimin's song to Tae's because Jimin"s was bright and upbeat, he made sure to clarify he wasn't implying Tae's song was bad. He was just indicating preference.

I won't lie, I was happy he preferred my bias's song but it made my VMin heart ache a little.

V and JM made very different songs, they shouldn't be compared to eachother in that way.

I don't like competitions. And I don't like when two artists are pit against eachother- which is exactly what these two versions of the bridge is doing out here.

I will literally die if in an interview JM is asked about his part and JK isn't. I can't do this😭

Those saying JM's is better make me sick, and those saying JK's is better make me nauseous. They both great. Point blank purr.

What's even more heartbreaking is hearing how excited he really was to share that bit with Army. Dude's eyes was glistening and everything. His bunny smile! 😥

Thats what makes this very hard for me.

The JJK in me is overjoyed and excited that he is doing things that make him really happy. I'm proud of him.

But the PJM in me just😕

I even feel more guilty that I prefer JM's version this time around😭😭😭😭

I feel like I'm betraying JK🤧

I was so happy seeing JM recieve all the love and attention I know he deserves.

Then here comes his boyfriend

'Hold up what about me!' Lol.

Imagine if RM releases the version of Blue and grey he made for Tae and it turns out we prefer that to the version Tae chose💀

Imagine that.

This has been a recurring theme throughout late 2020 to date. Jk's been choosing authenticity and self interests and passions over anything else and I couldn't be more happy for him.

Like we discussed, he's been learning to compromise too lately, which is great.

But honey this is a red flag. Deadass.

To me anyways😏

I've been a strong advocate for a certain level of independence and detachment in Jikook's dynamics because they lowkey exhibited codependency tendencies in their dynamics which is great for us shippers but not so great in the long run for their relationship or them as individuals .

Maybe I'm thinking out loud and prematurely here. I mean we are only beginning to have intimate access to their raw unscripted selves.

I don't think it's not that much of a big deal. RM and JM have equally shared their own versions of fake love on the internet but it is an interesting development in their dynamic to me.

I remember how happy JM was about his version of fake love, and it remains to date one of my favorite beats even though he was just spewing nonsense on that track. Lol.

He was so excited when he shared it with JK and Jin. He said when he showed it to JK the first time, JK said he loved it very much- how loving and supportive is that!

More of this please. Thank you.

PMS is a bitch y'all🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Has me in my feels about this.

I'm pretty sure JM is the one that even encouraged him to share his part in the first place. Won't put it past him.

'Ya Jungkook, release your version too'

'Army will love it'

'Right but I don't want it to seem like- Goldy is crazy you know'

'Goldy who now?'

'What about the thirteen year old fans-'

'Aht aht aht Who cares about them.'

Lmho.

I mentioned a few times on here how I felt JM seemed to have been demanding 'space' and a little bit of breathing room in their dynamic which was causing a little bit of tension here and there middle 2019 through to March last year and it all sounds like drama and speculation but...

May be if I told y'all I am a witch and my analysis of their relationship is based on mediums, phantom whisperers, empathetic readings or tarot cards y'all will leave me alone?🤥

Y'all don't seem to have a problem with the witches and empaths who be doing the same shit I do out here😒

Like we are all 'reading' these mens!

There's nothing wrong with 'psychoanalytically' evaluating a ship you know? Chilee.

Imma call myself a witch if it will get y'all off my back😹😹😹😹

I mentioned JK equally embarking on his own journey to assert himself within the group and within the relationship due to this?

But damn I did not see this one coming.

This is a red flag for me. And no, it doesn't mean they are broken up or having issues in their relationship.

Jk's TMI indicates they still been spending a lot of time together.

This is just a sign there's too much independence in their dynamic now- if you know what I mean.

Relationships flourish based on how attached we are to people- too much attachment is a problem, too little attachment is equally bad.

Jikook have always had a problem with over attachment in their dynamics in my opinion, to the point it was lowkey unhealthy- the jealousy, not being able to 'act professionally' within a group and work environment, having problems with being separated however briefly, constantly wanting to be where the other is etc.

Less attachment isnt necessarily a bad thing either. It means less of all the 'toxic' aspects of their relationship that over attachment brings but too much of that too can trigger anxiousness and insecurity and resentment.

Especially if one of them hates change. Cough Jimin.

With that comes all the wild aspects of love such as possessiveness, jealousy and I know JM doesn't do too well in that department...

In my opinion, I see JM as having a problem when JK breathes down his neck emotionally speaking, and at the same time he has a problem when he is too emotionally distant.

All this is interesting to me.

Who do I need to talk to to give me more of Jikook interactions individually or jointly?

I want to see more of their interactions beyond the overly staged, dramatized fanservice and official content.

Spending a lot of time around eachother and eating each other's ramen- pun intended, does not reflect on how intimate you are.

Intimacy requires depth and depth requires attachment.

How you treat eachother's needs and goals, dreams and desires is equally indicative of the intimacy in your relationship.

That has always been one distinctive quality of Jikook's ship.

And so I wonder the thought process that went into this decision. I know JM wouldn't object to JK sharing things like these or doing things that make him happy even if it has the potential to impact his own shine in any way.

Jikook don't compete against eachother.

I keep saying this.

Remember when I said I found it sus that JK was lying there staring at JM with his hands in between his legs?

Did yall see what the run editors said when JM and JK went up against each in the pool?

'Jikook don't play by the rules'

Jimin had to push JK in the water to end whatever ancient sex ritual foreplay rooted in kamasutra they had going on. Bless him.

And in so doing, he lost to JK.

Whenever they go up against eachother, one of them intentionally lose even though they are both very competitive.

Isn't that why JK said he'd rather 5 Jms so he can watch them compete against eachother?

When JK first made that post, I felt it was out of pettiness or a move to 'humble' JM.

I thought of when he'd posted that photo of himself with a hickey after JM had 'dated' him during the JinMinKook live.

I rolled my eyes and asked, 'what yall gays up to this time?' Why you out here humbling your man?

Anywho chilee we will never know.

At ease.

Signed,

GOLDY

[ambassadorquark]

here’s a long post about a bunch of webcomics i love and recommend. i’ve certainly read & liked other ones and have just lost track of them somehow but these are like, mostly classics that basically anyone who reads newer webcomics will recommend to you and a couple i’ve found more recently that i loved. tried to limit it to FAVES that update pretty regularly or are already completed so you can get quality stories out of it but it still ended up mammoth so uh, it’s goin’ under a readmore

namesake - super long-running comic with beautiful art, consistent and frighteningly frequent updates, made by Webcomics Pros. it’s about people who have the ability to enter the worlds of essentially any fairy tales in which the protagonists happen to share their name, and the lore only gets more intricate from there. this one is a very engaging archive binge as it’s been running for about a million years

gunnerkrigg court - honestly if you’re not already reading gunnerkrigg court i'd be very surprised since this is another one that’s been going easily since the invention of webcomics (not really, but THAT ARCHIVE!). i don’t know how to summarize it beyond saying it STARTS as a story about a girl attending a quirky boarding school and is now kind of a sweeping epic about the intersection of technology, nature, and divinity. there’s time travel or something in there now?! you will love renardine. i love renardine

paranatural - another one i’m sure you’re already reading and if not, WHY? it’s a fun li’l action-comedy about middle schoolers fighting ghosts with the help of other ghosts. has been running for a good while and gone through some weird changes but is also probably one of the funniest serial comics i’ve ever read

he is a good boy - a super weird, cerebral, since-finished comic by online comics vet KC Green, about a little acorn finally leaving the tree he grew on after it dies. this one has more “adult” content than any of the previous ones, but if you can handle some cartoony gore and obscenity it’s really funny, strange, and worth checking out

anything by evan dahm tbh - these come recommended by absolutely anyone with taste because evan dahm makes beautiful fantasy comics. rice boy and order of tales are both completed and have a bizarre, super-unique setting and bittersweet approach to these delicate, human stories (despite having no actual human characters). vattu is still currently running and is a slightly more grounded fantasy comic about a little girl from a nomadic hunter-gatherer culture getting caught up in the machinery of the empire that’s moving in on the land where she was born. cannot recommend these enough TBH

also anything on johnny wander - this site contains a bunch of comics by a couple of married comics pros; a big backlog of their really funny, charming autobio comics, the entirety of their graphic novel lucky penny, a whole bunch of shorter comics you might have seen around, and also their new, longer-form webcomic barbarous, which is about a wizard school dropout who’s appointed as a super at an apartment building full of weird magical folks. recommended because there’s a lot of quality stuff in there for you

the sword interval - on webtoon, completed. legit my favorite thing i’ve read in a hot minute. modern fantasy about a young woman who tracks down a legendary, but retired monster hunter for help on her quest to find and kill the lich-like being who killed her parents. gorgeous art, super awesome monster designs, twists on twists, characters you will never want anything bad to happen to ever. reggie the golem.

widdershins - a pretty well established comic i only just read recently. a series of connected stories following different characters from a big ensemble cast and their various adventures in a magical town in victorian west yorkshire. full of fun old-timey shit and wizards. i read it obsessively in like a day. super funny, super long archive. extremely endearing characters who you also will never want anything bad to happen to.

the last halloween - abby howard is a godly horror artist who’s been doing this comic since her style and sense of humor were almost completely different, but the story really does grow as it goes and is both very spooky and very funny. book one is about a little girl facing the potential extinction of humanity after the spontaneous appearance of billions of monsters. it’s currently in book 2, which is a direct sequel about different characters that actually updates sporadically at the moment because the artist is making other cool stuff. definitely still worth it though. gets intense as hell

string theory - this one got back into regular updates pretty recently! i’m linking the about page, not the homepage, because this one is about nasty people doing nasty things and there’s a few CWs that the author mentions right in the summary. it’s an alternate history sci-fi set in a near future where the USA was devastated by nuclear weapons after the cuban missile crisis but is mostly a character driven story about a jerkhole scientist having a terrible couple years. i can’t explain this one at all. if you like terrible men as much as i do you’ll probably enjoy it

tiger, tiger - a beautifully drawn maritime fantasy about a young noblewoman who impersonates her sea captain brother in order to launch an expedition to study sea sponges. there is a sexy nonbinary sea monster character if that sweetens the pot for you any. awesome, subtly integrated worldbuilding. super funny and charming. i love this one a whole bunch

bybloemen - i’m not just recommending this because i’m vague internet acquaintances with the author, it’s ALSO an extremely one-of-a-kind comic about the dutch tulip mania, and also demons. the art is gorgeous and the character designs are some of my favorites out there in newer webcomics. just kind of an extremely good concept that i think everyone should check out. and it’s funny, duh

mare internum - completed. an extremely affecting sci-fi set on Mars. you really just have to read this one, honestly. i’m also linking to the about page on this one because it contains CWs to keep in mind; it’s an incredibly well-constructed character study of some flawed, complicated people and also awesome if you like space aliens.

ozzie the vampire - another supernatural action-comedy because i know what i like, about a recently turned vampire girl and her best friend defending their small new jersey town from demons. super funny, super exciting, and really grounded and realistic for a story that’s about a vampire punching demons. the artist is also a superhuman wizard who draws a whole other comic, a shounen inspired action story called station square that you should check out if you end up liking ozzie.

#beep boop #i could probably come up with recs for people with slightly different taste than me but these all have my personal seal

[threecrowsinatrenchcoat]

Paint My Spirit Gold

Dukeceit Week Day 2: Green/Yellow

Fans of the YouTubers "Deceit" and Remus "The Duke" Sanders start to suspect that maybe, just maybe, the two of them are more than simple internet pals.

AO3 Link: [here]

Word Count: 2187

Warnings: n/a

@dukeceitweek <3

-

[ID: A screenshot of a Twitter post by user @CallMeDukie. It features a watercolor-style painting of a snake. The snake appears to be made of melting chocolate, and there is a large bite taken out of its tail. Cherries and jam are leaking out of the snake at the bite wound. The snake's expression of horror is overly-exaggerated to the point of comedy. The caption reads: "liked your snake boi, @SerpenThyme. thanks for the inspo." /end ID]

- 

A notification ding cut Janus off mid-sentence. 

“Wow, someone left their cell phone on, so professional,” he said, giving the camera a dramatic eye roll. That someone was him, of course, because he was the only one in the apartment- just him and the running livestream- but that was no excuse not to be a drama queen about it. He finished wiping flour off his hands and grabbed his phone to silence it; but the notification made him pause. He flicked his eyes up toward the camera and gave a slight smirk.

“My goodness, I’m famous,” he drawled. “The Duke himself has graced little old me with some fan art.”

Most of the comments in the chat wanted him to show it, so Janus opened up Twitter to see the full post he’d been tagged in. It was a watercolor painting of the coiled-snake chocolate sculpture- lovingly named Jake by his viewers- he’d made for his YouTube video last week; it was wearing an expression of such comedic horror that Janus had to stifle a laugh. He flicked his phone screen toward the close-up camera on his counter so his viewers could see.

“How kind of you, Remus,” he said. “All of you should go scold him for what he’s done to poor Jake here.”

Most of his viewers would know he was joking- after all, they were the ones to nickname him Deceit when he provided neither a real or fake name for his online persona. They knew full well what he was like by now.

The oven timer dinged. Janus silenced his phone and set it aside.

“And our first batch of cookies is done. You know, why don’t we show the Duke some appreciation?”

-

[ID: An Instagram post by user @SerpenThyme. The photo is an artistically-framed shot of a stack of sugar cookies with green, yellow, and pink icing. Propped up against the stack is another cookie, with an intricate icing-drawing of an octopus. The photo appears to have been color corrected to have high contrast, low saturation, and a dark vignette at the edges. The Instagram user @OctoDukie is tagged. No caption. /end ID]

- 

“You know, I have often been accused of actually being a little old lady, what with my fondness for knitted jumpers, rocking chairs, and incredibly fucked up murder mystery books. Today I am doing nothing to dispel this accusation, by making soup.”

The studio was dark and empty aside from Remus' workspace. Everyone else had left long ago, even his own brother, which meant that it was officially ass-o'clock in the morning (or, as most people called it, somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m.) But Remus was stuck in hyperfocus, honed in on putting the last touches on a commission that he'd been putting off for weeks. It's not that it was a tough painting- once he'd gotten started, it was actually a very creatively satisfying piece- but man, executive dysfunction could go suck a dick

“French onion soup, specifically. Because while I do like to pretend I am a classy bitch, I am also, regrettably, a lazy bitch with a distaste for anything that takes longer than one bottle of wine to make.”

Remus hated working in silence. It was stifling, almost suffocating. His brain needed noise like his lungs needed air. So when the studio had grown still and silent, Remus had flipped open his laptop and queued up some YouTube videos. 

“So we have here three pounds of onions that we need to slice up, pole to pole. You’re going to cry no matter what, so if you have any memories you’ve been repressing since middle school, now is an excellent time to dredge those up.” 

And if it happened to be 90% SerpenThyme videos, well. Sue him. 

“Now the first rule of caramelizing onions: fast and sloppy is always better than slow and thorough… at least, that’s what every man I’ve ever slept with tells me.”

Remus choked and glanced over to his laptop screen just in time to catch Deceit's trademark smirk directed at the audience just for a moment. It was the deadpan delivery that always got him. Remus could barely hold onto a joke long enough to get through it without cackling mid-punchline, but this fucker could say the funniest shit like an off-hand comment. 

He wiped his hands off on his jeans (what use were clothes if you couldn't use them as paint rags?) and pulled his laptop across the table.  He typed out a quick comment, citing the timestamp of the joke, and after it was posted, he shut his laptop. 

'Cause ass-o'clock was short for "get-your-ass-home-or-I’ll-kick-it" o'clock. 

-

[ID: A screenshot of a YouTube comments section. The first comment is by user TheDuke, and reads: "10:42 wow, rude." The second comment is a reply by user SerpenThyme, and simply reads ";)" /end ID]

-

Janus plopped down on the couch with a slight groan. He didn’t need to stream today, but he really hated missing days. Besides… he was fine. Really. 

He adjusted the camera until he was happy with the framing, and then checked the settings on his streaming software. Satisfied, he started the stream, and watched as his usual viewers rolled in. 

“What do you mean I’m not in my kitchen?” Janus drawled, addressing the chat. He glanced around with an expression of faux-shock on his face. “My goodness, when did that happen?”

He chuckled, and then gestured to his surroundings. “Yes, we are in my living room today. If you must know, my closest and most trusted friend tried to murder me today- yes, Virgil, it was attempted murder and nothing less- and I survived with nary a scratch… and a broken foot, but that is beside the point. Anyway, I’m not allowed to stand for long periods of time, and I may or may not be somewhat inebriated by pain pills and couldn’t stand even if I wanted to. So we are cooking from my couch today.”

Janus paused for a few moments to read the chat messages as they popped up. A few get well soon’s, a few theories about the “attempted murder,” Virgil- who moderated his chat for him- vehemently denying the “attempted murder” but otherwise refusing to clarify the event, and a large volume of wtf why are you streaming today, take care of yourself comments, which made him smile. But one particular comment caught his eye, almost lost amid the torrent of an active chat: wait this kinda looks like the Duke’s living room?

“Oh, VampSuga,” he said, addressing that commenter in particular with a slight smirk. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Anyway, since I can’t reach my oven from here, I thought some no-bake cookies were in order. For these you will need-”

-

[ID: A screenshot of a Discord conversation. The text reads:

“VampSuga: Ok ok hear me out. Dukeceit. 

Starstruck96: who?

IneffableSnek: lmao

FeralBeauYasha: lol

VampSuga: Deceit and Remus Sanders! They’re totally dating. I will die on this hill. 

FeralBeauYasha: Isn’t the duke w/ PatPat?

IneffableSnek: no thats his brothers bf

FeralBeauYasha: ohh

VampSuga: Did anyone see Deceit’s stream today? I swear that’s the Duke’s livingroom. 

StarStruck96: idk that seems like a stretch

IneffableSnek: no wait i kno what u mean

IneffableSnek: im watching the duke’s old videos and that one where he shows off all his old weapons he’s in a living room kinda like deceit’s 

FeralBeauYasha: They were acting all cute on twitter too

VampSuga: DUKECEIT”  /end ID]

-

"Hey guys, been a while since you've seen my face and not just whatever my hands are busy with, when it's within YouTube's terms and conditions I mean. They used to be way more lenient…" Remus trailed off for a moment, then shook his head sharply and plastered on a grin. 

"Anyway! In June me and a few other creators did a fundraiser for the Trevor Project, and y'all smashed the goal, so I let you decide what video I'd make this month." He paused, and gestured to the mountain of clothes piled behind him on the bed. "And you had so many juicy ideas to choose from, but you decided to dress me up like a Barbie instead."

Remus paused to scroll through his phone for a few moments. "Ah, ok, here we go. Twitter user YoonIsMyCat- oh, BTS, nice- sent in this first outfit. Uh… future Remus, put up the post here somewhere." He gestured vaguely to his right. "Y'all went with either a fuckton more clothes or a fuckton less clothes, which I respect. Apparently this outfit is called…” He squinted at his phone. “Amish chic? I take it back, no respect at all.”

Remus cycled through the outfits his viewers sent in, which ranged from the aforementioned “Amish chic” to “2008 rave attire” to “ok now you guys are just fucking with me” (which consisted of one of those big puffy snow coats, lime green in color; booty shorts with the shrug text emoji across the ass; fuzzy pink boots; and a yellow cowboy hat to top off the whole thing. It was awful. Remus loved it.) The mountain of clothes on the bed gradually became a mess of clothes spread across the floor instead, until there was just one outfit left. 

“Ok so Twitter user VampSuga sent me this outfit that I’m gonna call ‘sexy librarian.’ I couldn’t find this exact sweater online, but-” he paused for dramatic effect, before brandishing a sweater toward the camera like a bullfighter. “My boyfriend had something that was close enough.”

Remus hopped up from the bed and switched off the camera so he could change.

“They’re going to lose their minds,” a voice drawled from the doorway. Remus threw his shirt at him.

“Shoo, I’m getting naked.”

-

[ID: A Twitter post by user @CallMeDukie. It features a selfie of YouTuber Remus “The Duke” Sanders, a Hispanic man with his hair dyed green and styled into a spiked mohawk. He is wearing a yellow knitted cardigan over a black button-up shirt. He is grinning widely at the camera. The caption reads: “my viewers pick my outfits! now live on youtube. go see what i look like as a sexy librarian!” /end ID]

-

DukeceitStan

first and only dukeceit shipper ig

DukeceitStan

wow there’s so many of you now! Hi!!

DukeceitStan

i want this to be canon so bad omg

DukeceitStan

i mean just look

[image]

how 

[image]

cute

[image]

[ID: A series of three gifs featuring Youtubers SerpenThyme, aka Deceit, and TheDuke, aka Remus Sanders. Deceit is a black man with long, dreadlocked hair, and vitiligo patches along the left side of his face. Remus is a Hispanic man with green-dyed hair styled into a mohawk, many ear and facial piercings, and tattoos covering both arms. Each gif is edited so that the highlights are tinged yellow when Deceit is seen, and tinged green when Remus is seen.

The first gif depicts a close-up shot of Deceit’s hands as he carefully decorates a cookie with green and yellow icing. The cookie art he is working on appears to be a half-finished octopus. The gif then fades into a mid-shot of Remus, with his back to the camera, facing a canvas. The canvas is blank, and Remus appears to be laying out paints on a table to his left. 

The second gif depicts Deceit seated at his couch, facing the camera. He has many ingredients spread across his coffee table (including oats, cocoa powder, and butter) and appears to be in the process of laying out several more. The gif fades to show Remus seated at a similar couch with a similar coffee table in front of him. The camera is angled slightly downward to better show the myriad of knives spread out across the table. Remus is gesturing wildly with a morning star held in his hand. 

The third gif depicts Deceit in his kitchen. He is pulling on a bright, yellow knitted cardigan, and smirking toward the camera. The gif fades to show Remus in his bedroom, seated on his bed. He is holding up a similar-looking cardigan toward the camera and grinning. /end ID]

- 

“Remus, it’s almost two in the morning. Come to bed.”

“I’m coming, sorry. Twitter distracted me.”

“Mm. I can’t believe the bird app is more distracting than I am.”

“You should try harder.”

“Come to bed and maybe I will.”

“Ok, ok, I’m coming. Hang on though, is it cool if I post this?”

“Sure. They figured it out anyway.”

“Sweet. Ok, Jannie, I’m coming.”

-

[ID: A screenshot of a Twitter post by user @CallMeDukie. It reads: “Dukeceit is canon.” /end ID] 

#dukeceit #dukeceitweek #remus sanders #janus sanders #sanders sides fic #kye writes

[moved-whitetogalily]

I'll write a note to you

✎ Synopsis: You thought that moving to a new city and a new apartment would be easy. But that proves to be wrong as a whole new problem begins to surface. Your apartment is haunted. Haunted by an "icy hot ghost" or as he prefers to call it, "half-cold and half-hot ghost".

Pairing: Todoroki Shouto x reader

Word count: 2,9k

Genres/Warnings: ghost! au, fluff, paranormal activities, a hint of angst

Author's Note: Everything is fun and games until you want to write a ghost story with Shouto. Honestly, it took a bit longer than I’ve wanted. But it was so enjoyable to write this. I hope you’ll like this, puddings!  🥺

“This should be everything,” you said to yourself as you put the last box down in the small hallway.

The dark wooden floors were far too cold for your comfort, but you had to accept it. You didn’t have money to choose a different apartment. Truthfully, this was the only apartment you could afford. Choosing to suddenly up and leave the place where you were raised may have been a rash decision, a very bad one at that. But you could feel a new chapter of your life opening up, for the better at least.

It was a nice small apartment. With a small bedroom, although it was perfect for one person, a living room joined together with a small kitchen. And of course, the bathroom. It wasn’t as maintained as it should be, but this was the best you could get.

The saleswoman was eagger to sell this apartment to you, almost too much. Her sweet smile was too forced and her lines were spoken in a weird fashion. But who were you to say? You never had any experience with people with that kind of job, so you didn’t know if this was normal. It seemed like this apartment had been hard to sell. You didn’t know why, perhaps most people can afford better living than you can.

The sun shone brightly through the windows as you looked around the apartment. If you wanted to grow some flowers, they would grow quite well. That is when you’ll be able to afford them. Living alone was a new thing for you, you could do what you wanted. At least if you didn’t have to spend money to do it.

Thankfully, you already looked for a suitable place for you to work at. All that was left was an interview with the boss and if you did good, you would be sure to get the job. Working in a supernatural society wasn’t exactly the easiest. Not when you don’t have the connections or the power to do what you wanted.

You walked through the living room, carrying one of your boxes full with clothing, slightly wincing at the coldness of the floor. You should have taken some socks on today, not go just in sandals and expect that everything would be alright. In your defense, it was the middle of the summer after all. You didn’t expect for the floors to be so cold. Last time you were here with the saleswoman, the temperature was unbelievably comfortable. Which meant very warm.

You put the cardboard box on your bed, letting out a small sigh: “That’s one.”

This work would be tiring, you could feel it. Packing things is so much better than unpacking. You had to figure out where to put it and everything, not to mention how much time it would take. It’s completely different from how fast you packed your things the moment you decided to leave. It wasn’t easy, but you were able to get away with all the boxes quite nicely.

“Did I open the window?” You walked out to the living room to see the windows open, as if you needed to air it out. You would only make it worse for your already freezing feet. You didn’t open them, right? Or maybe you didn’t notice that they were opened? That would be too stupid even for you.

You walked over to them, swiftly closing them. It looked like it was such a good weather outside. It didn’t make sense how cold you were here. „Weird.“

You walked over to the hallway taking another box in your hands. Perhaps you were imagining things? Maybe you needed some rest. That had to be it, the moving just tired you out. You read many cases of people seeing weird stuff thanks to their exhaustion. Maybe that was it, that had to be it. You walked through the living room, focusing on your goal to get everything out of the boxes. Only to hear a weird creak coming from the other side of the room.

The windows were opened, almost as if mocking you. You could only stare at it surprised, you were sure you closed it last time. So why did they open again?

„Are you serious?“ You questioned no one in particular, but you wished someone could have just whispered it into your ear. You crossed the room in wonder, reaching for the handles to close them. Only to hiss at the burning temperature of the metal. What was happening?

You were uncertain of what was really happening. Was it normal for this to happen? Or were you just crazy or something? There was no possible way for this to happen. Two widely different temperatures. One that froze you to the core and one that burned your hands, as if threatening you. You had to put your hands under cold water to keep them from hurting, any second later and you’re sure that the burns would stay on your skin permanently. It still stinged and burned. Your hands were stained by what should have been a bright future.

You had to bandage them to do anything else, but you were lucky that for the rest of the afternoon… it was quite peaceful. The floor didn’t feel as cold as it did before and everything remained like you left it. Maybe you were just tired after all. The wooden floors sometimes creaked when you stepped on them, but that didn’t frighten you. Everything was in your head together with the first night in the apartment.

It was warm, a perfect thing to have a good night’s sleep. But it felt suffocating, as if it was reaching for your throat. As if it was prying your mouth open to get inside and suffocate everything with it’s heat. It wasn’t the best way to fall asleep, unless you wanted to sleep forever.

You sat up, bedrugingly dragging your body to open the window you had in the bedroom. The handles were cold, freezing almost, but it wasn’t unwelcome. There was frosting on the window, painting it in inticrate designs as if an artist reached up to your window and painted your sweetest dreams. Perhaps, you should believe it’s just a dream and let yourself freeze over. But you didn’t want to suffocate, you wanted to breathe so you opened the window.

„What are you doing?“ You felt a shiver running up your spine as a male’s voice whispered in your ear. You whipped back to see the culprit, only to see nothing. You stood there for what felt like minutes, looking into the darkness of your room, waiting for a sign. That this wasn’t just your imagination or just a dream, that what you heard was real.

„Hello?“ You spoke out in a shaky voice, just to make sure it was really nothing. It couldn’t be like some ghost or something, right?

„There’s nothing there,“ the male’s voice deadpanned.

„Where are you?“ What was happening?

„Here,“ a guy suddenly sat on your bed, the moonlight illuminating his features. He looked tired, far too tired, as if he saw this happen thousands of times. His white and red hair was already a striking feature, but the scar that laid on his face was far more prominent.

This had to be a joke. A guy you have never seen before was sitting on your bed, looking at you like it was the most normal thing ever and like you were the one who was crazy here. Even in a supernatural society this was too much. Too much for you, for anyone.

„Who are you?! What are you doing here?! This is my apartment!“

He sighed, his energy already leaving him: „I’m a ghost, what else would I be? It’s not my fault that I’m here. I’m bound to this place.“

„HUUUUUUHHH?!“

The apartment that was supposed to be just yours to stay in soon changed into living with a roommate and sharing your space with him. Although, you didn’t know how living with a ghost was supposed to go, much less about sharing space. He didn’t tell you much about himself, frankly only his name. Todoroki Shouto.

There were no records of him on the internet. No one knew who he was. How did he end up in your apartment? How is he bound to it? Is this his quirk? A ghost quirk? You haven’t heard of anyone having such a quirk and such an anomaly would be talked about sooner rather than later. Maybe he lost control of his quirk? Or someone else did and bound him to this place?

You saw him around sometimes, sitting in the living room. You were sure that if he could he would drink coffee or something of that sort. His bicolored locks hanged slightly over his eyes and hid a part of his scar. What did he get it from? Was it from when he was still…alive? What was such a young looking guy even doing here?

„Hey,“ you called out to him to have him look up at you with his heterochromatic eyes that you haven’t noticed before. Or rather the night you saw him first didn’t give enough light to notice the different colors adorning his eyes. You haven’t paid enough attention to them, even though it has been some weeks since the reveal. „This may sound bad, so you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, not necessarily.“

He looked at you, waiting for your question. „But are you like dead? Or is this because of your quirk?“

He stared at you, not blinking. Maybe you shouldn’t have asked. What if you made him uncomfortable in any way? It must have been rude to ask someone that. WHo asks someone if they are dead? What kind of person does that? Back to your life being a living hell… You turned back around, not expecting an answer.

„This is not my quirk.“

„Then what is your quirk?“

„I can control ice with my right hand and then control fire with my left,“ he informed you, his eyes showing confusion. Cute. But –  Was he the one who did that temperature thing?! You got used to it throughout those day but –

„Wait, so you’re the one who makes the temperatures go crazy?!“ You pointed at him as you yelled out. He was the reason your hands got burned that night and why it was so painful!

„For some reason, I can’t really control it while being in this state,“ he gazed at his hands, his face contorted into a frown. „Did it cause some problems or?“

What was it with him? It looked like he hasn’t ever realized it was happening. You thought for so long that he just loves to pick on people and that he did so even on other potential buyers of this apartment. This just made it sound like he hasn’t been a ghost for long. That could only mean that it’s not so long since he died, but the saleswoman mentioned that no one has been living here for months. Everything about him doesn’t make sense. He kept to himself and showed around you as little as possible, as if he was avoiding you. You thought it was because he despised you, but maybe that’s not the case? You weren’t sure.

„So you’re a icy hot kinda ghost, huh?“ You sat down beside him, keeping a mildly teasing voice.

„That’s wrong. My quirk is called half-cold and half-hot,“ he watched you with slight irritation shown on his face, he didn’t like it much when you mistaked the name. „Why are you asking?“

„Because you’re in my apartment and I would at least like to know why I live with a dead guy,“ you retorted, catching him slightly off guard.

„I’m..not dead though.“

„THEN WHY ARE YOU HERE?“

„I got stuck here thanks to someone’s quirk. It will take some time before it wears off though.”

He turned his face away from you to gaze out of your window. It didn’t change the fact that he was imposing on you and your life at your new apartment. But it must have been quite difficult for him to be here. To be stuck here and not able to do anything about it. He has to wait until it wears off. You didn’t understand that type of lonelinness. But it was mirrored in his deep eyes, as if a curse was following him around.

You didn’t talk about it more. You had a feeling that if you asked, he wouldn’t tell you anything. You felt like you got enough clarity to know what happened, but in the end, he didn’t tell you anything else. Like why he was here in the first place? Why has that quirk affected him in this way? Or who he is.

It wasn’t until a few days later when you saw him again. Or rather, you came home from your work shift. You wanted to relax and forget about the stress you felt at your job. Only that you came home to a pile of ash on your floor. An elegant, big ash pile near your couch, innocently laying there.

„Todoroki!!“ You knew who the culprit was. After all, he said he couldn’t control his quirk very well ever since he was in his ghost form.

„What is it?“ He walked out of your bedroom, with a confused look on his face. If you knew any better, he would definitely come out with a cup of coffee in his hands. He looked like the type to do so, but he was a ghost. His body wasn’t able to touch anything, or at least not in a way that normal humans could understand.

„You destroyed something, didn’t you?“ He tensed up in his place, but decided to keep looking at you head on. „Don’t try to lie, young man! I can see that pile of ash there! What did you destroy?“

You were met with silence as his nose scrunched up in a childlike fashion. He didn’t want to tell you, mostly because you would get mad and he knows it wouldn’t end well: „I just tried to touch the pillows on the couch…“

„And they just turned to ash? I bought them last week! They were new!“

„I’m sorry,“ his face fell, he didn’t want to disappoint you. You were the only one he could really talk to now and he knew that concerning money it wasn’t going so good for you.

He apologized for the first time you knew him. It wasn’t a look that you could get used to. Sure, he was stubborn and often times short tempered, but also quite oblivious. As if he wasn’t able to pick up on social cues easily. The air around him felt always heavy, as if he carried around a burden that was too hard for him to carry alone. He never told you and you never asked him, afraid that he wouldn’t talk to you afterwards.

You didn’t see him after that day. There were no big or small ash piles anywhere to see. Nothing burned and nothing was freezing cold like you knew it from him. His presence that seemed to always loom over the apartment was gone, the unsettling feeling of his burden disappeared as well. You didn’t notice it immediatly, but over the next day it became almost suffocating. No matter how many times you called out his name, he didn’t return.

The weeks you’ve spent together seemed more like a feverish dream that could never come back or show itself again. In its entirity, it seemed more like a simple illusion that took over your senses. Perhaps, that’s how it always was supposed to be. You couldn’t help but miss him, but the other voice inside your head kept you up all night asking you if it wasn’t just something that you’ve made up. At nights you layed in your bed, thinking about his bicolored locks. Looking back, it seemed almost ironic how they seemed to represent his quirk, almost. He always had two sides, not just one side. Knowing one, but not knowing the other would make the person feel like everything was just a dream. Like sand running through their fingers, unable to ever return back in the same form.

The dream was gone and only the reality remained. But was it such a bad thing? No, probably not.

It was after one of those dreamless nights that you woke up in a cold sweat by someone ringing the bell on your door. You didn’t order anything and you wouldn’t even see a reason to do so. No one from your neighbors would show up on your door too. Your legs quickly took you to your door, swiftly opening it even before you could truly process what you were doing.

You were met with the same heterochromatic eyes that you knew, the ones that haunted you dreams. But instead his figure seemed too real, as if he wasn’t made out of thin air anymore but of flesh. It was Todoroki Shouto that stood there, seemingly the real deal. It felt like you were meeting him for the first time again. And not by some weird icy hot accident, but rather with a small bouquet in his hands, as if he wanted to apologize for something. He scanned your eyes that were filled with worry and the hint of tears incoming, you were worried sick. Even if you didn’t admit it.

„I see that I should have warned you that this would happen.“

„You should have,“ you muttered out, your voice cracking up.

„I’m sorry. Next time, I’ll write a note to you. Deal?“

#bnha #mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha scenarios #mha scenarios #my hero academia scenarios #boku no hero academia scenarios #bnha x reader #mha x reader #my hero academia x reader #boku no hero academia x reader #todoroki shouto #todoroki shouto x reader #todoroki shouto scenarios #todoroki shouto imagines #bnha imagines #mha imagines

[overthinkinglotr]

Can I just ask what...is the contest for the Boorman adaptation? I mean... This is not a normal movie script, right?

YAY OBSCURE LOTR ADAPTATIONS TALK TIME!!! (We’re talking about the context of John Boorman’s LOTR, the one where Frodo has sex with Galadriel)

OK SO

Yes, John Boorman’s screenplay is so completely baffling and incoherent that it seems like it can’t possibly be real. I really don’t know for sure if the draft that’s floating around the internet is really the Real Thing. However-- the weirdest aspects of that screenplay seem to be corroborated by other sources?

Some sources say the screenplay exists in physical form at Marquette University, but idk if that’s the version that’s online. Maybe it is!

And I’ve come across multiple sources discussing the scene where Gimli gets beaten up and buried alive to “unlock his magic ancestral memories,” the infamous poorly written Frodo/Galadriel sex scene, etc.

But again! I personally don’t know how reliable all these sources are. A lot of the old Reliable Sources discussing the screenplay have kinda just Vanished off the internet, and finding Definitive Confirmation would take some digging. That someone else can do, because I’m not good at this. :P

But I’ll throw information at you and you can decide what’s real--

Here’s what I DO know for certain is true:

In the 1970s, John Boorman approached United Artists with a pitch for a movie based on Arthurian legends (which would later become the film Excalibur.) UA turned him down, thinking Arthurian legends weren’t marketable enough.

They instead commissioned him to write a screenplay for a live-action film adaptation of Lord of the Rings.They were kinda like “Lord of the Rings, Arthurian legends....same thing, they both have a wizard and a medieval sword guy in it. But Lotr is popular right now, so well have this guy write a tolkien thing. Someone who likes arthur legends will also be good at writing lord of the rings, because they’re basically the same.”

(But like...they’re not, obviously. King Arthur legends are a bunch of folklore that doesn’t have one single ‘plot.” Writing a King Arthur film means using a few characters and some famous imagery and throwing them in a medieval setting to vibe together, creating the film’s plot by cherry-picking the Arthur stories you like most and throwing them together in a blender. But Lord of the Rings isn’t like that! It isn’t a collection of folkloric stories with no clear plot! Lord of the Rings is ultimately a single story with a single coherent plot! Someone who wants to adapt their own take on something as plotless as  folklore might really Struggle to adapt a plot-heavy book like LOTR!)

So anyway, John Boorman wrote this screenplay for them.

But John Boorman’s movie was never made.

Why was it never made?

Here’s where we get into some SUPER FUN “unreliable narrator” territory!!!!

John Boorman’s claim:

According to John Boorman in his biography, the film was never made because UA was tight on money and the special effects required were simply too expensive for the 1970s.

Boorman really did try very hard to make his screenplay good! According to Boorman, he and his writing partner Rospo Pallenberg  “covered all the walls of a room with a breakdown of all the scenes in all three volumes,” “drew a map of middle earth,” “wrote detailed analyses of all the characters,” and spent several weeks devising a structure for the film. Then they wrote the script together-- Boorman wrote one scene, Pallenberg the next.

But alas, it was too expensive to film in live-action. The technology just wasn’t there yet.

So the studio was forced to have the film made by an animator, Ralph Bakshi.

Boorman says that Tolkien wrote a letter to him saying that he approved of his screenplay (which Tolkien hadn’t read) solely because it was going to be a live-action movie. Tolkien hated animation. Boorman says that Tolkien’s death “spared him” the horrible pain of seeing his story adapted into animation. According to Boorman the problem with the Bakshi film (which he never saw) was that it was animated, and therefore inherently bad. Unlike Boorman’s script, which was an amazing work of art that would’ve been a wonderful live-action (and therefore inherently superior) movie!!! If only it was made! Boorman mentions that the working conditions on the Bakshi film were horrible (because they were) and laments that budget constraints meant the studio was forced to sell the movie to a low-down NO GOOD “ANIMATOR!” >:((((

BUT

Ralph Bakshi, obviously, tells a very different story!

Ralph Bakshi’s Claim:

According to Bakshi, John Boorman’s screenplay was so UTTERLY incoherent that it was unusable. UA gave Bakshi the rights to make a film because they had paid a million dollars for a trash script, and now they were dealing with the Sunk Cost Fallacy(tm). Bakshi was allowed to make his film because UA had wasted so much money on Boorman that they were desperate for ANYONE to use the Lord of the Rings IP in a way that wasn’t completely incoherent and could make sOME money:

“I thought, ‘Wait a minute, why don’t I go make the film?’ recalls Bakshi. “So I call up Mike Medavoy and I go to United Artists, which in those days were on the same lot as MGM. In the main building on one side of the building was MGM — which Dan Melnick ran in those days — and on the other side was Mike Medavoy at UA. I went to see Mike in his office and he says,

“Look, I’ve got this (John Boorman) script and I don’t understand it. I never read the book. We don’t want to make the picture. What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I want to animate it. Three pictures.’

He said, ‘We don’t want the picture. What we want is our three million dollars back for the screenplay that we paid Boorman. So I’ll give you the rights, and if you can get our money back you can make the picture any way you want.’ True story.”

So it is a fun game of, which director of a failed unfinished LOTR project do you believe?

John Boorman later reused a lot of his Lord of the Rings script ideas for his film Excalibur. I haven’t seen the full thing, but the film kinda feels like proto-Game of Thrones? I feel like it adds credence to the idea that the bad screenplay was real-- a lot of the weird way Boorman writes women/gender in Excalibur is reflected in the parodically awful FrodoXGaladriel Fanfic Stuff.

Plus, I’ve seen the Andrew Davies BBC adaptation of Les Miserables! And ithat adaptation is so terrible that I can believe that the nonsense in the Boorman screenplay, like FrodoxGaladriel, can seem perfectly reasonable if you approach it from the perspective of a mediocre middle-aged male writer. :/ Anyway! But my BBC Les Mis Salt isn’t really relevant here! :D

But yeah! That’s some context I have on hand. The exciting fun story of the Lotr movie that was never made! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

#lotr #lord of the rings #john boorman lotr

[bobgoesw00t]

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