#i have the serious case of art block

[koifoxes]

ummmmm so i heard ppl like religious themes in tma fanart haha…

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #my art #yes mlp is also religious #i have the serious case of art block

[kasieli]

“I like Jujutsu Kaisen for the plot.”

The plot:

#geto suguru #gojo satoru #nanami kento #ryomen sukuna #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #fanart #ok but for real these men are FINE #like idk tbh idk which one of these in my favorite… #I do have a soft spot for Geto tho #and nanami #and gojo #…and sukuna (yuji ver) #brb fanning myself #also hello everyone I’m alive #as usual disaster in the form of art block has struck me #but I guess drawing hot dudes brought me back lmao #anyways pls enjoy my jjk fanart #also yes I know what happens in the manga LET ME LIVE #I got some serious case of copium #also might do some of the student squads bc I also have a soft spot for megumi #I can’t get over how pretty nanami is…

[jonnywaistcoat]

What’s your opinion on the contrast between “silly” and “serious” spaces? Do you think people can have very serious interpretations about a genuine piece of media and also be goofy about it? I’m asking this particularly because I’ve seen people in the Magnus podcast fandoms fight about people “misinterpreting” characters you, Alex, and the many other authors have written. Are you okay with the blorbofication or do you really wish the media you’ve written would be “taken seriously” 100% of the time?

And follow up question, what do you think about the whole “it’s up to the reader (or in some cases, listener) to make their own conclusions and interpretations and that does not make them wrong”, versus the “it was written this way because the author intended it this way, and we should respect that” argument?

This is a question I've given a lot of thought over the years, to the point where I don't know how much I can respond without it becoming a literal essay. But I'll try.

My main principle for this stuff boils roughly down to: "The only incorrect way to respond to art is to try and police the responses of others." Art is an intensely subjective, personal thing, and I think a lot of online spaces that engage with media are somewhat antithetical to what is, to me, a key part of it, which is sitting alone with your response to a story, a character, a scene or an image and allowing yourself to explore it's effect on you. To feel your feelings and think about them in relation to the text.

Now, this is not to say that jokes and goofiness about a piece of art aren't fucking great. I love to watch The Thing and drink in the vibes or arctic desolation and paranoia, or think about the picture it paints of masculinity as a sublimely lonely thing where the most terrible threat is that of an imposed, alien intimacy. And that actually makes me laugh even more the jokey shitpost "Do you think the guys in The Thing ever explored each other's bodies? Yeah but watch out". Silly and serious don't have to be in opposition, and I often find the best jokes about a piece of media come from those who have really engaged with it.

And in terms of interpreting characters? Interpreting and responding to fictional characters is one of the key functions of stories. They're not real people, there is no objective truth to who they are or what they do or why they do it. They are artificial constructs and the life they are given is given by you, the reader/listener/viewer, etc. Your interpetation of them can't be wrong, because your interpretation of them is all that there is, they have no existence outside of that.

And obviously your interpretation will be different to other people's, because your brain, your life, your associations - the building blocks from which the voices you hear on a podcast become realised people in your mind - are entirely your own. Thus you cannot say anyone else's is wrong. You can say "That's not how it came across to me" or "I have a very different reading of that character", but that's it. I suppose if someone is fundamentally missing something (like saying "x character would never use violence" when x character strangles a man to death in chapter 4) you could say "I think that's a significant misreading of the text", but that's only to be reserved for if you have the evidence to back it up and are feeling really savage.

I think this is one of the things that saddens me a bit about some aspects of fandom culture - it has a tendency to police or standardise responses or interpretations, turning them from personal experiences to be explored into public takes to be argued over. It also has the occasional moralistic strain, and if there's one thing I wish I could carve in stone on every fan space it's that Your Responses to a Piece of Art Carry No Intrinsic Moral Weight.

As for authorial intention, that's a simpler one: who gives a shit? Even the author doesn't know their own intentions half the time. There is intentionality there, of course, but often it's a chaotic and shifting mix of theme and story and character which rarely sticks in the mind in the exact form it had during writing. If you ask me what my intention was in a scene from five years ago, I'll give you an answer, but it will be my own current interpretation of a half-remembered thing, altered and warped by my own changing relationship to the work and five years of consideration and change within myself. Or I might not remember at all and just have a guess. And I'm a best case scenario because I'm still alive. Thinking about a writers possible or stated intentions is interesting and can often lead to some compelling discussion or examination, but to try and hold it up as any sort of "truth" is, to my mind, deeply misguided.

Authorial statements can provide interesting context to a work, or suggest possible readings, but they have no actual transformative effect on the text. If an author says of a book that they always imagined y character being black, despite it never being mentioned in the text, that's interesting - what happens if we read that character as black? How does it change our responses to the that character actions and position? How does it affect the wider themes and story? It doesn't, however, actually make y character black because in the text itself their race remains nonspecific. The author lost the ability to make that change the moment it was published. It's not solely theirs anymore.

So yeah, that was a fuckin essay. In conclusion, serious and silly are both good, but serious does not mean yelling at other people about "misinterpretations", it means sitting with your personal explorations of a piece of art. All interpretations are valid unless they've legitimately missed a major part of the text (and even then they're still valid interpretations of whatever incomplete or odd version of the text exists inside that person's brain). Authorial intent is interesting to think about but ultimately unknowable, untrustworthy and certainly not a source of truth. Phew.

Oh, and blorbofication is fine, though it does to my mind sometimes pair with a certain shallowness to one's exploration of the work in question.

#Big thoughts #Big rambles #These are my current thoughts at least #They will likely change #As all things do

[florencemtrash]

Hummingbird: Chapter Two

Miguel O'Hara x Reader

What if the Earth-1610 (Miles’s universe) version of Miguel’s wife was actually Miles’s AP Art teacher?

Masterlist

Miguel grumbled, furiously trying to rub away the oncoming headache as the newly updated Spider-Gang continued to berate him. Jessica only leaned forward on her motorcycle, smirking at the sight of his towering figure surrounded by teenagers.

Gwen prodded him with a pointed finger, “What the hell, Miguel! I can’t believe you-”

“We trusted you and-”

“So what now you’re just on our side like some-” 

Miles’s palms sparked threateningly, “You were going to let my Dad die!”

“Hold the baby, Migs.” Peter tried in vain to shove a babbling Mayday into his hands, “She’s going to make you feel so much better.”

“You and I are gonna have some serious fisticuffs you turtle-”

“You let the power get to your head like some capitalistic-”

Peni’s robot chittered angrily.

“Ok, ok, OK!” Miguel yelled, “Everyone just QUIET!” Turning on his heels so that his broad shoulders blocked out the skyline, he began to mutter, “Dios mío. ¿Qué estoy haciendo? Estos niños me van a matar. Mierda.” He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the words that were about to leave his mouth.

“I messed up.” he murmured under his breath.

Hobie propped himself up against his guitar, “Sorry bruv, don’t think I heard you ri-”

“I MESSED UP!” Miguel shouted, throwing his hands up in his air. Everyone except Hobie and Miles took a step back. This was the closest thing to an apology any of them could hope to get, and far more than they were expecting to hear from him. “Now in case you’ve forgotten, we still have an imminent multiversal collapse on our hands!” 

“Very imminent,” Lyla said, floating on her back and propping her holographic feet up on Miguel’s shoulder.

Miles stepped forward in the silence, all eyes on him. 

He still had to tilt his head up to meet Miguel’s eyes, but he didn’t feel small. No. He wasn’t small. He wasn’t weak. He was Spider-Man, and together they were going to fix this.

“I still don’t like you but,” he stuck out his hand, “Welcome to the Spider-Gang, Miguel.” 

>>>

“Lyla, take a scan of the-” Gwen spun out of a wormhole, crashing into his side.

“Sorry!” A web shot out of her wrist, pulling her towards the skylight as Miles flipped across the room in a red and black blur.

“Spot, please!” Miles’s voice bounced around the room, sound waves rippling out from a hundred spots at once, “You don’t have to do this.”

Lyla flickered to life on Miguel’s shoulder, a holographic lollipop sticking out the corner of her mouth, “I’m on it!” 

Miguel caught himself on the wall, blades screeching on metal as a dozen more spots popped into existence around him. Rain pelted him from all sides, distracting him long enough for the hub of a cop car to fly out and flatten him against the wall. 

The Spot dipped in and out of the ground, basking in the remnants of the Super-Collider and swallowing up bits and pieces of metal and granite in the process. Wormholes had already started to crop up all around New York, threatening the destruction of buildings as cars and trains suddenly found themselves hundreds of feet above the ground.

“It’s a proper mess out here mates,” Hobie’s voice called out from Miguel’s watch, followed by the shattering of glass, “How much longer is this going to take?”

“I just need fifteen more minutes,” Margo said. A crash sounded in the background along with Jessica’s colorful words, “... maybe twenty.” 

“We don’t have twenty minutes,” Miguel grunted, flinging his body across the room. He strung his webs around a battered console, whipping it around and aiming it directly at the Spot. He only chuckled, lifting his hand and opening a portal. The console smashed into Miguel’s back, sending him crashing to the ground.

Lyla pulled the lollipop out of her mouth with an audible pop! “Scan of the room’s complete. You’re in luck! You’ve got about 17 minutes before the structural integrity of the building goes kaput, starting with the northwest corner.” Her finger glitched as she pointed. 

Joder.

“Guys no. I can do this.” Miles said, his voice tight with effort as he continued to jump around the room, whipping metal at the Spot to distract him long enough to swing to safety. He could make the Spot see reason. He had to.

Margo and Jessica scrambled about the control room three stories up, Margo’s virtual reality body glitching from anxiety as she threaded wires together and fumbled around on the computers in the control room. This dimension’s technology was ancient compared to hers and she was finding it hard to make the adjustment. 

“You really think that would work?” She asked Miles. They all stood side by side atop Alchemax, staring down into the remnants of the Super-Collider where the Spot floated around aimlessly in a pool of black ether. Every so often Margo was certain she could see visions of other dimensions poking through the fabric of spacetime - A baseball game, an explosion, a thousand ships cruising past a desert planet.

“He got his powers using the Super Collider,” Miles reasoned, “Absorbed dark matter energy from countless universes. Reverse the process and we might be able to send it all back to their original dimensions.”

“Leaving him powerless.” Hobie finished, shoving his hands into his jacket and nodding, “I like it.” 

“It’ll be a large scale Go-Home-Machine.” Margo murmured, nodding in understanding as the plan fell into place.

“But you gotta let me talk to him first.” Miles narrowed a pointed glare at Miguel. “Let me make him see reason. End this before it even begins.”

“Are you joking? That’s too risky.” Miguel growled out.

“This could kill him!”

“Oh come on, Miguel, give Miles a chance!” Pavitr had to balance on the tip of his toes to sling an arm around Miguel’s shoulders. “He’s Spider-Man! This will be easy for him! Use that charm and compassion and-”

“Fine.” Miguel said, shrugging Pavitr off, “We’ll try it your way.”

The Spot walked forward menacingly, noting with pride how Miles backed away, hands lifted up in front of him, “So now you want to talk?” 

“Listen, Jonathan - it’s Jonathan, right? - We don’t have to do this. I’m sorry I made fun of you before. I’m sorry that I disregarded you after everything you’ve been through. But you have to understand what you’re doing. This is going to destroy everything. Everything. The universe, the multiverse, all of it. You’ve got the power to-”

“There’s no Jonathan anymore, only the Spot. You still think I’m joking don’t you? You still think we’re going to make up after a grand old speech - that you’re going to save me. Well it’s too late for that, kid.” 

He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers, a portal opening to his left. Someone tumbled out wearing a paint stained Brooklyn Visions Academy sweatshirt. 

Miguel’s heart stopped beating. 

He would recognize you anywhere - in any universe.

“Y/n?” he breathed out. 

“Let’s see how good you really are, Spider-Man.” He snapped his fingers again and a portal opened up beneath your feet. The last thing you heard was the Spot's laughter as you began to fall from the sky.

“NO!” Miguel sprang into action, red laser webs flinging out to the walls as he threw himself into the air. 

“Nuh uh.” The Spot shook his finger, throwing a spot at Miguel and portaling him away, “No help! That’s cheating.” 

Miles sprinted up the walls, tracking the small dot of your figure as you flailed about wildly more than two hundred feet up, desperately trying to straighten your arms and slow your fall. The wind carried your screams away.

He dove towards a spot, arms and legs tucked in straight as an arrow after seeing your sprawling form fall past the wormhole, and re-emerged just above you. With a quick flick of the wrist he caught you, throwing out webs wildly towards the neighboring buildings in a desperate bid to slow your fall. The strands held on for as long as they could, slowing your descent before finally snapping from the tension. 

“Hold on!” He yelled over the wind as the last web broke. The voice sounded familiar. 

You both hurtled through the skeleton of a window before landing and rolling onto the floor of the one of Alchemax lab rooms, the faint smell of chlorine and formaldehyde still clinging to the air.

You pushed yourself onto your knees, prepared to kiss the solid ground beneath you.

“Miss Y/l/n?!” Miles’s jaw dropped, eyes as round as dinner plates. 

You perked your head up, momentarily forgetting your near death experience.

“Miles?!” 

“Oh crap,” he cleared his throat, dropping his voice an octave, “Um, who’s Miles?” 

“What the hell are you doing here? Do your parents know about this? Is this why you’ve been skipping classes? Who let you do this without adult supervision?!” You grabbed him by the shoulder, shaking him. He was just a teenager for fuck’s sake!

“Listen, Miss Y/l/n-” Maybe it was because he was so used to unloading his thoughts in front of you that he launched into a half-baked explanation of everything that had happened, “I got bitten by a radioactive spider-” “I met all these Spiderpeople-” “-and he tried to stop me from saving my dad and-” 

Your head was spinning.

“Oh Spidermaaannnnn!” The Spot called out in a sing-song voice. “Where are you hiding, you little insect?” “I gotta go, just-” he held his hands out, “just stay here for now. Don’t move!” And just like that he was gone, leaving you more confused than ever before.

I don’t get paid enough for this. You thought, standing alone amidst the rubble.

Miguel tore through the rooms, sprinting like a madman. The reverse Super Collider was finally up and running and it was only a matter of time before the Spot would realize their plan and go berserk. The ground beneath him shook and groaned in protest as the building’s foundations began to crumble into nothing, eaten away by the dark matter that spilled out of the Spot.

“Y/N!” he roared, kicking down a door so hard it blew off its hinges.

You hopped off the bench. It seemed silly, but as a civilian caught in the middle of a multiverse-ending battle there hadn’t been anything for you to do but sit and wait for Miles to come back.

A Spider-Man variant barreled towards you, all hard cut lines of red and blue with blades protruding to his forearms that glinted in the dim light. You hadn’t made a decision about whether or not to run - whether or not it was even worth it to try - before he had you wrapped up in his arms, burying his face in your shoulder. The mask fell away like tv static to reveal a head of brown waves that smelled faintly of oranges.

“Dios mío, pensé que te perdí.” He murmured, holding you like his life depended on it. 

You stiffened under his touch before awkwardly raising a hand to pat his back. “Umm, hola. ¿Te conozco?”

Miguel froze, feeling the tension in your body. You didn’t… you didn’t know who he was. He’d just… he’d been so terrified that he’d forgotten himself - the situation they were all in. 

He took a step back, spine ram-rod straight as he suppressed the urge to hold you again. This version of you looked… different. Different, but the same. You were missing the faint scar on your temple you’d gotten from a car crash at seventeen. 

“We need to go.” he said, voice tight as he gestured to his back, “Get on and hold on tight. This building’s about to blow.”

You blinked at the sudden change in his tone, taking a moment to process what he’d just asked you. 

“You know Spider-Man?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” He said, clenching his jaw. If you didn’t jump on his back in the next ten seconds he was going to chuck you over his shoulder and start running.

The floor beneath you shifted, the building’s dying breaths echoing through the halls.

Hesitantly you climbed onto his back, wrapping your legs tightly around his waist as he started sprinting towards the broken window.

“Si me dejas caer, nunca te perdonaré,” you said, lips accidentally brushing against the curve of his ear. 

He shivered. “Jamás.” 

You were airborne again, feeling Miguel’s body twist and flex beneath you as he pulled you both towards the ceiling like it was as natural as breathing. When you dared to look towards the ground you gasped. The tangled frame of the Super Collider was whirring to life, crackling with energy and exploding with color as Miles spun his webs, keeping the machine together even as it threatened to rip itself apart. 

From within the cocoon of webs, dark matter, and multiversal energy, you could make out the Spot’s form warping and pulling apart, bits and pieces disappearing into the frenetic portal that the collider had split open.

Miles caught up to you both, matching Miguel’s rhythm as they flicked and swung from their webs.

“Hey again, Miss Y/l/n.” Flick. “I see you’ve met Miguel.” Flick. “I hope he hasn’t been too mean towards you.” He called out.

You felt Miguel grumble with displeasure. 

“He’s the guy that body slammed me into a moving train!” Flick. “But I beat him!” 

“Miguel did WHAT?!” 

“Right, Miss Y/l/n?”

“Listen kid, I already apologized for that.” 

“Yeah right.” Miles had to laugh. The day he heard Miguel say the words “I’m sorry” would be the day the multiverse tore apart, and that day was not today.

You slapped Miguel on the shoulder - it was like hitting stone, “¿Qué coño te pasa? He’s just a teenager!” 

“Cariño, can we please discuss this at a later time?” He gritted his teeth. Something was wrong with the collider. It was getting harder and harder to swing you both upwards, like the force of gravity had tripled. 

You froze. “What did you just call me?” 

Crap.

Miles’s eyes swung back and forth between you two like a pinball machine and the dots finally connected - the alternate universe where Miguel had a family, the way he kept looking at you, the way he’d demanded Miles tell him where you were.

“...Aren’t you his wife?” He asked dumbly.

Miguel’s face went white beneath his mask. Did the temperature go up, or was that just him? His hands felt clammy under his spider-suit.

“I’M HIS WIFE?!” 

The collider screeched beneath them and Miguel barely had time to flick his web out towards the remnant of a walkway before - 

One. 

Two.

Three. 

BOOM! 

The Spot burst out from the cocoon in a tornado of dark matter, sending debris flying backward towards the sucking mouth of the collider. The building walls buckled, drywall ripping out and sailing downward at the whim of the collider’s gravitational force.

“Spider-Man!” He bellowed, his voice grating and animalistic, “I’M GOING TO DESTROY YOU!” 

He might get torn apart and sent to a thousand different dimensions, but if he was going down, he was going to take Spider-Man with him.

“Get her out of here!” Miles yelled over the deafening roar. He pressed his body flat to the wall to keep from falling down into the collider.

“I can’t!” Miguel groaned. His hands had begun to slip down the bright red webbing. You were beginning to lose your grip as well, nails clawing into Miguel’s back.

Your legs gave way first, then your arms. 

“Y/N!” Miguel flicked a laser web out, catching you by your waist. 

“MISS Y/L/N!” 

You gasped, arms and legs splayed out to your sides as you dangled precariously over nothing. Miguel stared down at you, shoulder screaming in pain as he did everything he could to keep you both from getting sucked down. His mask disappeared, letting you see the way his red-brown eyes were blown open. Somewhere from below Miguel heard the Spot scream as he was finally torn to shreds, dark matter traveling back to their respective dimensions, but all he could focus on was you.

“Miguel,” you whispered, too scared to say anything else.

“Miguel?” You called out from the bottom of the stairs. 

Gabriella dribbled the football close, just like her father had taught her, before passing it cleanly between your legs.

“¡Túnel!” 

“¡Y la multitud se vuelve loca!” Miguel whooped, thundering down the stairs and twirling a screaming Gabriella through the air.

You fixed the collar of his sweater, kissing him hesitantly on the lips and smiling at the brightness in his eyes as he held your daughter. 

“I’ll see you at the game later,” You said, smoothing back a strand of your husband’s hair, “I love you.” You murmured, hoping to hear him say it back. It had been so long since he’d said those words to you.

“I’ll see you later.” Miguel promised, kissing you again with a smile so wide you felt his teeth against your lips. 

You knew something wasn’t quite right… he knew you knew… but neither of you could find the words to say anything about it. 

What’s happened? Why have you changed so much so quickly? Why don’t you remember things about me - about Gabriella - anymore? 

You wanted to ask those questions so badly.

But you didn’t ask, and he didn’t answer.

So he left without saying those words… and that was the day he lost you.

He wouldn’t lose you again. He wouldn’t lose you like he’d lost Gabriella.

With a roar he pulled you back to him, wrapping one arm tightly around you. You molded yourself into his side, shutting your eyes just in time for the collider to groan to a halt and then explode.

The noise alone knocked you both back, sound waves rattling your bones and pressing you further against Miguel. Golden light emitted from the collapsing collider, sinking into your skin until it felt like you were burning.

The laser web burned away and Miguel could do nothing more than wrap his body around you as you were both thrown up and through what remained of the roof. You landed on hard pressed glass, pain shooting up your side as you and Miguel tumbled in a flurry of tangled limbs. You rolled to a stop, Miguel bracing his arms so that you wouldn’t get crushed under his bulky frame. His suit glitched, unstable molecules traveling over his skin as it worked to repair any and all damage.

The collider stilled, light dimming as it sighed and breathed its last.

“Are you ok? Are you hurt?” He brushed your hair back, frantically scanning your body for injuries as you caught your breath. 

“I’m ok.” You gasped out, “I’m ok,” You promised, resting your hands against his chest. He felt solid and real beneath your fingertips - the most real thing you’d experienced this entire night. 

Miguel sighed in relief, pressing his forehead against yours and closing his eyes. You closed yours too, letting yourself enjoy this delicate moment of peace and quiet. 

“Woooow, you can really feel the romantic tension between the two of them, can’t you?”

“Shut up, Pavitr.” Gwen hissed.

Miguel’s eyes snapped open, suddenly aware of the audience of Spiderpeople that had congregated on the roof. It was at times like this that he envied the others for their spider-sense. 

He rolled lightly onto his feet, pulling you up with him and keeping one arm loosely wrapped around your waist. You found that you didn’t mind the contact at all. 

Sirens blared from every street corner, the flashing red, white, and blue lights of firefighters, policemen, and EMS overwhelming to the eye. 

Someone was missing. 

“Where’s Miles?!” You said, your heart leaping into your throat.

As if on cue he swung up through the hole in the roof, landing with a wince of pain as his right knee buckled under his weight. Patches of his singed suit were still smoking.

“Are you guys ok? I oof-'' Gwen tackled him in a hug, ripping off her mask in the process. You recognized her immediately from Miles’s drawings, but her hair was longer - wilder - than in the pictures.

“Miles,” her breath stuttered, “Oh my god, I-I thought-” 

He shushed her, rubbing her back as she helped hold him up on his injured leg.

“Hey it’s ok. It’s all good. I’m alright.”

“Aight’ bruv!” Hobie and Pavitr whooped, clapping Miles’s back. 

You wrapped your arms tightly around yourself as the others circled around Miles. Only Miguel stayed close, watching you out of the corner of his eye. 

Had you actually just experienced all of that? Had you lost your mind?

“Miss Y/l/n!” Miles noticed you shivering in the cold in your socks and pajamas. He tugged off his ruined mask, exposing the bruise that was beginning to blossom like a purple flower around his nose, “Are you alright?”

You blinked. Were you alright? You weren’t dead or seriously injured as far as you could tell. 

It is taking all my willpower not to pass out or vomit right now - was what you were thinking.

“I’ve been better,” you answered, uncrossing your arms. You took a deep, stabilizing breath and squared your shoulders. It was bad enough that you’d spent the majority of the evening flung around like a rag doll in front of your favorite student, but to do it in your pajamas? That was just embarrassing. 

“Miles, please tell me you haven’t been running around New York alone with no adult supervision fighting crime this past year.” 

He chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his heck. It was like being reprimanded by his own mother, “I mean… I wasn’t always doing it alone.” 

“Yeah! And he had adult supervision - at least for the beginning part of it,” you turned towards the sandy-haired Spider-Man in the pink bathrobe and matching slippers, “I was his mentor and I think I did a pretty good job, wouldn’t you say?” He punched Miles proudly on the arm.

You gawked at him. “Is that… is that a baby strapped to your chest?” 

The baby in question babbled with happiness, chubby fingers reaching out for you. 

Peter grinned, plucking the little girl out from her carrier and mussing up her wild, red curls. “This is Mayday. She’s a wonder isn’t she?” 

He thrust May into your baffled arms where she proceeded to wriggle around like a worm on a hook. 

“You-you brought a baby to a superhero fight?” 

“Sure did! And she did fantastically. Photo time!” He snapped a picture with you and May, adding as a caption “Mayday’s first time saving the multiverse.” “This is going in the scrapbook for sure.” 

“I think… I think I need to go home now.” You said once Mayday was safely crawling around her father’s chest again.

“We should all get out of here.” Miguel said, noting the cop cars beginning to crowd around the perimeter. “Lyla?” 

An orange holographic woman popped to life, hovering in the air between you and Miguel. “You called?” 

You jolted back. Lyla fluttered her fingers in a wave.

“Is it over?” he asked wearily. 

“Hmmmmm,” she flitted around the air, checking holographic screens and typing away on a computer, “Multiverse is holding steady and there’s no sign of the Spot anywhere.” 

“And the super collider?”

Lyla made a poof sound, opening her hands and wiggling her fingers, “Destroyed. No anomalies detected.” 

“Great.” Miguel, tilting his head back and breathing deeply. Lyla blinked out of existence. 

A very pregnant Spiderwoman fiddled around with her watch, opening a portal behind her and her motorbike with only a few quick taps.

Damn, is everyone having kids these days except me? The thought came forth from your muddled brain.

“Let’s get back to HQ everyone. I want full debriefs recorded and uploaded in the next hour.” 

A chorus of protests and half-veiled insults rose up.

A tall, spindly Spider-Man, dressed like a 1920s silent film detective, tipped his hat towards you before calmly adjusting the lapels of his grey coat and stepping into the portal. He was followed by a petite Asian girl driving a robot, and… a pig? You had to blink at that one.

“I hear you teach art.” Hobie said, swinging his guitar onto his back, “That’s ace. Try this out and let me know what you think, yeah?” He tossed you a haphazardly folded zine. The cover screamed out in newsprint letters: THE DECAY OF SOCIETY IN THE FACE OF COMMERCIALIZED ART-MAKING.

“See you around,” he gave a two-fingered salute and stepped back through the portal. 

You immediately felt Miguel’s absence when he brushed past you towards Miles and Gwen. He sized up the two teenagers, grabbed Miles’s wrist, and dropped a watch into his open palm.

“Gwen will teach you how to use it. Don’t make any dumb decisions.” 

“Me?” Miles snorted, “Pfffft. Never.” 

Miguel hesitated before saying, “I’ll see you around… Spider-Man.” 

He was just about to step through the portal himself when you called out his name, voice cracking. He closed his eyes, back tense. 

He didn’t want to turn around. He wanted you to ignore him and let him leave without saying goodbye because… because if he saw you again that just might ruin him. Here was another version of you - another family - that would never be his.

But when you called his name again - this time with more force - he couldn’t deny you. He turned around and stared into your eyes - the eyes of his wife… the eyes of a stranger.

He never had the chance to live a full life with that other version of you. He hadn’t been the one to take you out on the first date, he hadn’t been the one to kiss you at the altar, he hadn’t been there when Gabriella was born. No. All those memories and experiences belonged to someone else, some other version of him that he could never be. But when he looked at you he imagined for one brief moment what it would be like to try it all over again, to be a real husband to you… to be there for you from the start.

“Thank you,” you said, “For saving my life.” 

His lips tightened into a thin, almost angry line, but whether he was angry at you or himself you couldn’t tell. He gave a curt nod, stepped into his dimension, and let the portal close in front of you.

When Gwen and Miles dropped you off at your apartment, the first words out of his mouth were, “Please don’t tell my mom and dad.” 

His phone weighed like a stone in his pocket, filled to the brim with frantic text messages and missed phone calls from Rio and Jefferson.

“Miles… this isn’t-this isn’t safe for you to do. I mean you’re just a teenager.”

“I’m not just a teenager.”  

“Do you even have a driver’s license yet?” Miles shut his mouth, thinking over his next words carefully. 

“Miss Y/l/n, this world needs Spider-Man. You know it needs Spider-Man, And I’m this universe’s Spider-Man. Me. I can’t just let that go.” 

You muttered under your breath. Were you really going to encourage a fifteen year old’s vigilantism? You pinched the bridge of your nose and sighed, hating that he was right. The answer was yes - you really were going to encourage your student to be a superhero.

“I won’t say anything to Rio or Jefferson or anyone else. Your secret is safe with me, Miles. I swear it.” 

His shoulders drooped in relief. Without warning Miles wrapped his wiry arms around you in a tight hug, “Thank you so much. You’re the best.” 

“Don’t thank me. I haven’t even done anything yet. In fact I should be thanking you for protecting the multiverse tonight.” You said, a faint smile growing on your lips despite your best efforts. You hugged him back. “If you ever need anything, just let me know. I’m going to guess even superheroes need a little help every now and then.”

“That would be the understatement of the century.” Gwen said, balancing on the balcony railing with all the grace and poise of a ballerina. 

“We should really get going, Miles. It was nice meeting you, Miss Y/l/n.” You nearly had a heart attack when Gwen fell backwards without hesitation, catching herself in a swing from an old lamppost. 

“See you around, Miss Y/l/n,” Miles said and dove after her, adding a flourish in the form of a front flip.

“See you around, Spider-Man.” You said softly, finally escaping into your apartment and sliding the balcony door shut.

<- Previous chapter Next chapter ->

>>>

Sneak peek at Chapter Three (because I want you all to know what I have planned, but I've made this chapter too long):

You awoke with a start, suffocating under the heavy blankets that you’d buried yourself in last night. You’d been dreaming again about the collider. You’d been dreaming about Miguel - this time in a feverish haze that left your mind in a puddle on the floor. 

How was it possible that a stranger could occupy so much space in your mind? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he’d held you like you were everything and then left without saying goodbye.

Are you thinking about me too? You wondered, opening your eyes in hopes of chasing the memory of him away.

…Maybe you were still dreaming, because the last time you checked you hadn’t fallen asleep under a tree in Central Park. And even if you had, you highly doubted you could have lugged your bed frame with you all the way from Brooklyn.

Oh por el amor de Dios.

Author's note: I hope you guys are enjoying where the story is heading! To those of you who reached out and offered to help with the Spanish - thank you so much! I've been a little overwhelmed by the responses on Tumblr and haven't been good about keeping track of things, but I have a friend who will be helping me out moving forward. I'll be updating the masterlist once the next chapter is scheduled. In the meantime, have a great weekend everyone :)

#miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x wife reader #miguel o'hara x y/n #miguel o'hara x you #miguel x reader #miguel x y/n #miguel spiderverse #miguel spiderman #miles morales #gwen stacy #peter parker #peter b parker #hobie brown #pavitr prabhakar #atsv miguel #atsv x reader #atsv x you

[autolenaphilia]

Some thoughts on The Coffin of Andy and Leyley

I found out about The Coffin of Andy and Leyley from an ”antiship” blog that I was on solely to block, because these people are always violent callout culture transmisogynists. Them getting very upset about this game having incest in it piqued my interest. The art looked interesting, and if these people hate it, it can’t be all bad.

(Case in point about the transmisogyny, from my understanding some people tried to dox the pseudonymous and secretive developer of this game, Nemlei. And the motivation was to prove the doxxer’s suspicion that Nemlei is a trans woman, because “only a trans woman could create such degeneracy.”)

Sure enough, TCOAAL is actually a nuanced and well-written psychological dark comedy /horror game. This is going to be more of a preliminary analysis than a review so full spoilers beyond this point. It’s by necessity preliminary since the game isn’t finished yet. My review is: go buy it if you are a fellow sicko who enjoys interesting stories about cannibalism and incest and like visual novels.

TCOAAL uses a trick from more transgressive forms of horror fiction, where the protagonists are not the heroes, but the villains, and the story is from their perspective. Andrew and Ashley Graves are murderers who kill people, sacrifice their souls to demons and cannibalize their bodies. They would be the villains of a more conventional horror story, their crimes investigated and thwarted by some heroic detective perhaps. But in this type of story, you are denied the comfort of heroes, or even innocent victims as you watch the protagonists twisted psychology lead them to commit terrible deeds.

The tone of the story mostly isn’t really horror, but very dark comedy, kinda Jhonen Vasquez-ish. The horrors are portrayed with a gleeful flippant tone, and cute appealing art. The tone mirrors how especially Ashley feels about her crimes. The game’s tone gets serious sometimes, going for straight horror occasionally, acknowledging how heartbreaking yet insane the Graves situation is, but there is a deep vein of the blackest humor.

Andrew and Ashley

Andy and Leyley themselves have this co-dependent toxic abusive sibling dynamic. Ashley is emotionally abusive, extremely possessive and manipulative towards Andrew. But her beloved Andy is the only person she actually cares about, and the rest she is able to kill with gleeful abandon in her heart.

Yet Andrew is not purely a victim. I’m going to talk at length about him, because the gap between how he describes himself and what the game shows is fascinating. I’m not the first to point this out. And it even extends to the game’s promotional material, like this official art on the game’s steam page is actually subverted by the game itself.

His character is not "doormat extraordinaire" who just "exists", the words "very not good, in fact very bad" apply to him too.

He is a victim, and loves to point at times how exploited, manipulated and abused he is by Ashley and he’s of course right. But he also uses that as an excuse for the horrific violence he commits, that he is just a doormat has been manipulated and corrupted by Ashley. “I was just being manipulated by Ashley to do it” is his variation on the old Nuremberg defense for his crimes. He has no sense of personal responsibility, no understanding that even if someone else tells you to do it, you are still responsible for your actions.

And the game itself proves that “it’s all Ashley” is not really true. A lot of the violence and murder are definitely on Andrew’s own initiative. He is violent towards Ashley too, the abuse is reciprocal. And he like Ashley doesn’t care much about other people. He gets distraught about killing people, but if you follow his dialogue, he is mostly freaked out about the consequences for himself. He is dependent on Ashley as someone who he can lay all the responsibility and blame for his own actions for. And of course, there is genuine affection there, because things are complex. He was parentified to take care of Ashley as a child and still has the drive to be her caretaker and protector.

It’s a fascinating pair of characters, and an interesting dynamic to observe.

“Der Mensch lebt nur von Missetat allein”

And the game’s writing is smart enough to have them not be an individualized evil, that came out of nowhere. Andrew and Ashley are the products of a neglectful and cold parents. Their mother made Andrew the favorite, but basically in order to parentize him to take care of his younger sister. And their dad can’t even remember the names of his kids. Not that the cycle of abuse starts with the parents, the mother had Andrew and Ashley when she was 15 and 17 respectively. But that doesn’t excuse how they ultimately, sell their kids’s lives for money to an organ harvesting scheme. This scheme is strongly implied to be part of an hilariously over-the-top soda company, toxisoda (it’s implied their soda is literally made from humans, so the company is doing the same thing that Ashley and Andy does, but on an industrial scale).

This is the situation that pushes Andy and Ashley to become evil murder-cannibals horror movie villains they become. They are deliberately being starved to death, and decide human meat is preferable to that. And the point here is obvious. To quote Brecht, “Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral” or in english translation “Food is the first thing. Morals follow on.” Andy and Ashley are bad people who kill and eat other people, but they are the product of an evil society. A family system where children are property of their parents to be abused and sold. And ultimately a capitalist system which kills people to feed others, a societal and systematic version of what Andew’s and Ashley does. They literally become cannibals to escape becoming literally or essentially cannibalized themselves by the capitalist system. Capitalism is a system which works on prey and predator dynamics, and they just fought to became predator instead of prey. To further quote the same song by Brecht, in capitalism, “Der Mensch lebt nur von Missetat allein” or in english “mankind is kept alive by bestial acts.” And in that broader view, Andrew and Ashley’s small-scale evil is dwarfed by the system they are born into.

Incest

It’s with all this context the game’s treatment of incest must be understood. It’s a horror game, about two siblings with a fucked-up abusive relationship. Of course there is incest, it’s far from being the worst thing these two do. The game only gets more explicit about incest in one optional ending, but it’s there explicitly and subtextually from the very start. Ashley jokes about it repeatedly, it’s there in the possessive jealousy Ashley feels for any of Andrew’s girlfriends, it’s implied in the casual physical intimacy of the siblings. Like it’s very obvious that their fucked-up but close relationship can lead there right from the beginning of episode 1. It’s a very natural conclusion to their dynamic. And the characters know it, Ashley definitely knows it, and their own mother accuses them of it. Andrew denies his mother’s accusation of fucking Ashley, and he’s probably not lying at that moment, but his relationship with Ashley leading there make perfect sense and he is not just capable of admitting that. Anyone who claims to have played this game and then claims be shocked that there is an optional incestous ending can’t have been paying much attention. This is the incest cannibalism game.

The Graves siblings are heading towards committing more murder as long as they stay alive, and incest is a minor sin for them. And probably not even the unhealthiest way for their relationship to develop. It definitely won’t fix them, but I doubt it will make things much worse.

And condemning the game morally is just absurd. This is a horror game, and you are outraged about the incest and not the murder-cannibalism? The Graves siblings relationship is not portrayed as healthy and the incest is part of that.

In fact the game portrays this double-standard in the actual story. It’s the possibility of her kids committing incest that finally makes Mamma Graves admit she is “the worst mother ever”, and not the whole selling the lives of her kids for money thing.

Sure, there is a fair argument to make that the incest is romanticized and fetishized. Ashley and Andrew are certainly drawn as attractive, and even the abusive elements can be part of the fetish. But the thing is, Ashley and Andrew are not real people, it’s fiction, it’s not real incest, so if people get off to it, I have no reason to see it as a problem.

The antiship blogger was actually especially angery about this official art from a devlog and honestly after playing the game, it kinda sums up my feelings about the incest controversy:

#the coffin of andy and leyley #my writings #gravescest #kinda #also i had much fun quoting brecht here #the coffin of andy and leyley spoilers

[ivysangel]

I am dead serious when I say that you guys need to start giving writers feedback more often. I have a fic here that has a total of 4015 notes and only 218 aren't likes. So, let me break this down for you a bit.

Of 4015 notes, 186 are reblogs and 32 are comments. Two reblogs, as well as comments, are mine so I'll subtract them from the equation making the total number of notes 4011 (184 rbs, 30 comments, 3,797 likes).

Of the 184 reblogs, 16 are private, meaning they're absolutely useless in spreading and sharing the piece. The remaining 168 consists of 136 reblogs falling under "other reblogs" while only 32 fall under "comments and tags." And of the 32 under "comments and tags," only 9 have something besides a copy of the tags that I included in my initial post.

The 184 reblogs make up 4.6% of the total notes, the reblogs under "comments and tags" make up 0.8% of the total notes, and the reblogs under "comments and tags" with anything besides tags copied from the initial post make up 0.2% of the total notes.

At one point, I reblogged the post, asking if anyone wanted a part two. That's when I got my first comments. The first 6 comments were in response to that, and of the 30 total comments (excluding my own), only two were unrelated to a part two. Which means I can guarantee that I wouldn't have had that many comments had I not posed the question of a sequel fic.

And if I add those 2 comments to the 9 reblogs, I get 0.3% of the total notes on my post that make up the portion of notes that aren't likes, empty reblogs, or comments about a part two. And that's me being generous because two of the reblogs actually do mention a part two.

I also posted a poll asking what people wanted in part two, and that poll got 238 votes. That is 54 people more who voted for what they wanted in a part two that didn't reblog or help push part one.

Don't get me wrong, I love seeing people in my notifs liking my posts, but sometimes it's just not enough. It is utterly exhausting waking up to multiple hundreds of notifications and not seeing a single person compliment your work. You guys will like stuff, follow, and then head straight to the inbox asking for more. I know it's been said a hundred times before, but we are not machines; we do this for free in our spare time.

The post in question was written when I was tired out of my mind, and I ended up not liking it, so I let it sit in my drafts. I briefly mentioned it on my blog and was met with one of my followers showing interest in the idea, which prompted me to revise, edit, and post it. It was a gift, as are all fics and pieces of art by writers and artists on this site, and yet it was treated like a commodity.

When people say it's unmotivating they're not kidding. When I had 100+ asks in my inbox, all of them being requests, I felt like I had the worst case of writers block known to man. I would open my inbox and immediately close it because the idea of posting anything knowing the only response would be more requests, was awful.

When people leave little messages in the tags, full-blown commentary, or kind messages in my inbox referencing posts, I feel more motivated than ever. Those responses are what drives me to write more. But when I, and other writers, are being treated like we're here to cook up whatever fantasisies you have in mind, I can't help but side-eye a little.

We wouldn't write if we didn't enjoy it, but the moment it feels like a job, it becomes that much less enjoyable, and then everybody loses. Just send a kind message to your favorite writers every once in a while. I promise it'll make their day.

I would also like to say that as I've written this, I've seen more people like that post. So, there's that.

#i hope this makes sense #it's 5 am and i haven't slept yet #★ just yappin ★

[ryuichirou]

Replies

I’ll start with some news.

I am currently locked out of my twitter account. We did everything we could to try to get it back, but no matter what happens, it will most likely take some time.

I don’t like bringing attention to this kind of stuff because we have tons of other things to talk about which are more important than some toddlers trying to obliterate us for 1000th time (frankly I would rather talk about the colour of Leona’s butthole), but this time it’s kind of serious and important. We don’t know what’s going to happen next, but for now I wanted to say that if we won’t get the account back in time or will lose it indefinitely, we will have to ask for your help. I am sorry for that in advance.

Also, if you were discussing/working on commissions with me via DMs there, please email me or contact me via any other platform as soon as possible. Just in case.

Mass-reporting is wild, eh?

I am rambling a bit, and I didn’t really want to complain, because I know for a fact it would give satisfaction to some people, but you know? I am going to complain: it sucks ass. It happened at the worst time possible and it happened over nothing (literally, the art that got it was a Todd/Wallace non-sexual piece that got too many likes for children’s liking). I don’t care if people don’t like us, I don’t care if they gossip with their girlies about us, all I want is for them to leave us the fuck alone and let us do our thing in peace. Imagine being so unbelievably boring and so incredibly unlikeable and unable to make meaningful connections not only with other people but also with any kind of media that you just have to go out of your way to ruin things for others because this is the only thing that makes your immature brain produce something that even remotely resembles joy. Because your own pathetic self is so deeply insecure and constantly frustrated at yourself that you just have to create an illusion of control over someone else to feel important. I can’t even call it a troll behavior – at least trolls are funny sometimes. This is just someone who hit a midlife crisis at the age of 16 and made it my problem for some reason.  

And yet, it’s okay. Even if we end up losing our account, it’ll be a huge disappointment and it will hurt us tremendously, it already did. And it’s scary to think about this scenario, and it’s difficult to talk about how, if it happens, that it’s going to be okay. But eventually we’ll get over it and build ourselves up again, just like we did before several times. And these clowns will still be boring, unlikeable, lonely and very likely shit at drawing.

So yeah. Take care of yourself and block everyone who seems suspicious on sight. It’s not a panacea, but certainly is helpful.

Alright, time to talk about Leona’s butthole (not really, but we will talk about SebeMal, and it’s even better) 💪

Anonymous asked:

Seeing Vanitas made me curious about something: did you ever read Pandora Hearts? I think for a lot of people that series went hand in hand with Black Butler as the main "victorian aesthetic mangas" from the late '00/early '10. Gothic lolitas really had it all back then..

Ohh you’re so right Anon, it was the ultimate late ‘00/early ’10 aesthetic! Boys in vests with bows/ties, crosses and rosaries and traumatic and problematic backstories lol I really miss it sometimes. What an era.

I personally haven’t read/watched Pandora Hearts, but Katsu did! But it was even before we met… So my only association with this title is that Katsu’s old username was “ozbezariusnya” 🥰 Oh, and that Gilbert (?) looks very cute, but let’s be honest, of course I would think he is cute.

nebula-ryuu asked:

Regarding my question, I mean if the Malleus and Sebek ship has a dynamic or a context 😅😅 a background or a story. I have a certain feeling about what it is like but I don't want to affirm anything hehe

I don't know if I made what I said better understood, in any case I can explain it again, no problem 🙏

Oh! Thank you for clarifying!

As for our background for shipping them, we just really really love loyal characters that are a bit unhinged about their loyalty and love/obsession. So we didn’t even have a choice, they stole our hearts… and Malleus is very interesting in his interactions with Sebek too; he is annoyed by him sometimes, but he tolerates a lot and teases him.

As for the ship itself, we tend to think that in addition to Sebek being loyal and obsessive with Malleus, he is also deeply in love with him ever since he was a child. He is conflicted because he really wants to be his lover, but also thinks that he isn’t worthy. Malleus is amused by Sebek and allows him to do much more than he probably should. Actually, I think I talked about their dynamic in this post!

I hope I understood you correctly. Thank you for your question! And if you have any more questions, please let me know.

Anonymous asked:

would Lilia and Azul ever fight over who gets to have Idia?

Replied here! Thank you for your question, Anon.

#replies

[cabotwife]

Hi hello! I saw that you opened your request again. I’ve got one for Johanna Mason. It is post war and reader has been helping Johanna through her trauma and healing. Johanna has taken up wood carvings and during a rainy day, when reader checks up on her carving progress, Johanna responds happily and includes “I’m so happy to be alive” at the end. And then she realizes that for the first time she really meant it. Maybe she gets emotionally happy at that milestone too.

The Sun Shines Once More

Johanna Mason x Fem!Reader

warnings: ooc Johanna, (man baby Johanna..), not proofread

word count: 1224

a/n: this took me 5 hours (most of which was spent scrolling through tiktok after forgetting what i was doing)

✮

“Jo?” you mumble as you’re brought out of your peaceful sleep by the shuffling woman.

Johanna freezes at the sound of your voice. her eyes snap towards you, guilt flashing across her face for having disturbed you. "shit," she mutters under her breath, an apology quickly following. "sorry," she murmurs, making room for you to snuggle closer to her, your eyes still squeezed shut and your mind fuzzy with sleep.

curiosity nudges you towards wakefulness. "why're you up?" you mumble, peeling your eyes open to look up at the brunette. it is still dark outside, and the soft pitter-patter of rain against the cabin window only adds to your confusion. nothing but a serious case of insomnia could have pushed Johanna out of bed this early.

"got antsy," she avoids your gaze, her eyes darting away from yours.

you hum in response, burying your face in her bicep as you try to come up with something to say, "what were you gonna do, baby?" you finally ask.

Johanna takes a moment to respond. "was gonna go work.."

"outside?"

"outside."

you can't help but roll your eyes at her stubbornness. "you're not going outside, it's raining, stupid."

her glare is almost palpable. "i'm not fucking blind."

a silent standoff ensues, your mutual glares clashing in the dim light. eventually, you relent, "can't you just work on a smaller project.. one you can do inside? maybe use a piece of firewood."

she huffs, obviously not thrilled about the change in plans, but she considers your words. "i guess i can," she finally mumbles, her voice gruff.

you smile in satisfaction, "okay then, you go do that." you give her arm a playful shove, rolling away from her to reclaim your sleep.

⚘

after a few hours you get awoken again by a particularly loud crash of thunder. you groan in annoyance, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes as you push yourself out of the comfort of your bed, making your way to the cabin kitchen to get something to eat.

as you enter the kitchen, you notice the hunched over form of Johanna at the small dining table. you tilt your head, puzzled at what she could possibly be doing. then you remember your conversation from earlier in the morning.

a smile tugs at your lips, "how's it going, baby?" you ask softly, walking over to her. you place your hand gently on her shoulder, careful not to startle her.

Johanna looks up at you, a grin lighting up her face, "good," she hums in reply.

curiosity piqued, you try to get a glimpse of her new project, "whatcha working on?"

her chuckle is low and teasing, "not telling," she says, pulling the sculpture against her chest to hide it from your prying eyes.

you huff in mock annoyance, "why not? i just wanna see your pretty art."

"it's a surprise, dumbass," she retorts, rolling her eyes as she glares up at you.

you squint your eyes back down at her, "ugh," you grunt, pushing away from her and walking back to the kitchen, "what ever am i to do without my lovely girlfriend's attention?" your words are playful, a light tone teasing the edges of your voice as you begin to prepare something to eat.

Johanna chooses to ignore your dramatics, her response limited to a small chuckle.

the cabin is filled with a comfortable silence, punctuated only by the steady rhythm of Johanna's carving knife against the block of wood.

"want anything to eat, Jo?" you ask, breaking the silence as you pull out a carton of eggs from the fridge.

Johanna's head snaps up at your question, her eyes brightening at the prospect of food. "yes please," she responds.

you raise an eyebrow at her, "and what do you want?"

"whatever you're making. i'm starved," Johanna mutters, shuffling in her chair as her gaze lingers on you.

with a sigh, you turn back towards the counter, "did you eat anything for breakfast?" you already know the answer but ask anyway.

"no."

you can't help but huff in exasperation, "what am I gonna do with you, girl.."

a wide grin spreads on Johanna's face, "feed me?"

you roll your eyes, hiding the smile that threatens to spill over your lips. "eggs and bacon okay with you?"

"and toast?"

you turn to her, squinting your eyes suspiciously, "you gonna toast your own bread?"

Johanna grunts in reply, turning back to her work.

"needy ass," you grumble, reaching for the bacon. but despite your words, you can't help the warmth that spreads in your chest knowing that Johanna trusts you enough to let you take care of her.

the brunette merely mimics your grumble, a teasing note in her voice as the two of you lapse into silence once more.

the soft sizzle of bacon and eggs cooking on the stove fills the cabin, accompanied by the rhythmic sound of Johanna's carving.

after a while, the food is ready. you carefully dish it out onto two plates and walk over to the table. "here, baby," you say as you place a heaping plate of food in front of Johanna.

her face lights up at the sight of the food, and she quickly pushes her carving knife and the half-finished sculpture away so she can dig in.

you seat yourself next to her, an eyebrow raised in question as you watch her eat. "you're not going to wash your hands?" you ask, a hint of judgment creeping into your voice. Johanna, however, chooses to ignore your words, focusing solely on the food in front of her.

you roll your eyes in defeat, "whatever, nasty." but despite your words, you can't help but admire the small sculpture that now sits abandoned on the table.

"what is it?" you ask, nodding towards the piece of wood.

Johanna looks up from her plate, her eyes following your gaze to the sculpture. "it's you," she says.

"me?"

"yeah. you."

you can't help but smile, "it's very pretty, i love it."

"very pretentious of you," she teases between mouthfuls of food.

you huff, rolling your eyes, but stay silent, choosing instead to focus on your meal.

you and Johanna have this routine, comfortable silences punctuating your day. she's not one for idle chatter, and you respect her boundaries. you don't force anything on her, not even a simple conversation.

eventually, Johanna finishes her meal, pushing her empty plate away as she pulls her sculpture back towards her, eager to resume her work.

you remain seated, watching her as she works, fascinated by the way her hands shape the wood into intricate forms.

"hey, Jo?" you say, your voice soft as you lean forward, your eyes still locked on her hands.

"mhm?" she hums in response.

"i love you."

Johanna looks up at you, a cheeky grin on her face. "yeah?"

you nod, holding her gaze. "i love you too then," she chuckles out her response before returning to her work.

it’s silent for a moment before she speaks again, “i’m happy, y’know.” she mumbles, not looking up from the wood as she glides her knife over it. “that i’m alive ‘n able to live this life with you.”

your heart clenches at her words. "yeah?" you whisper back, mimicking her previous response to your words.

she chuckles softly, nodding in response, "yeah."

#johanna mason #johanna mason x reader #the hunger games #thg x reader #thg #catching fire #mockingjay #finnick odair #finnick odair x reader #katniss everdeen #katniss everdeen x reader #peeta mellark x reader #peeta mellark #coriolanus x reader

[dampsleeves]

Okey Dokey, so no more tiptoeing around the issue, with many people's helpful private opinions, I've come to the conclusion it does need to be addressed.

AI "art." From here on out, anyone I see posting it is getting blocked. I'm not arguing with anyone about this, that's not what I'm here for, but I've seen it too much as of late, and I feel I should at least say something about it, especially as an artist myself. There's never an excuse for it.

- Need a visual/reference of what your oc(s) would look like, but don't think highly of your own artistic abilities? Surprise! There are still plenty of ways to obtain one, without using AI. The amount of incredibly talented artists in this community, some of whom are in need of commissions. The incredibly talented artists who sometimes draw for free, out of hobby or perhaps need for practice. And then even if neither of those work for you, try some of the character customization mediums we've all used before, that have existed on the internet for years now. (Think Gacha, Picrew, etc. Even if it's seen as "cringe" by some people, it's better than this.) Or hey, try drawing it yourself. "Bad" art is allowed, and everyone starts somewhere. Even if you don't like how what you're drawing looks at first, you will eventually if you keep trying, I promise you. Watch speedpaints, animatics, cartoons, study the way things look through your human eyes, and apply them to your process. Learn. Grow.

- Ignorance? There is no way that you've dipped your toes in AI generated images, without knowing what needs to occur for an AI to generate said images. It does not come from thin air. These robots use real people's faces to produce images of people, real animals to produce images of animals. So, in the case of "art," that's right, they're using a real artist's artwork to produce it. In short, stealing. If you've not heard about this by now, and have still been using AI generators to generate "art," then I'd have to assume you've been doing it blindfolded.

- Just for fun - or worse - for fet? ...Let's be serious. As I've explained above, there's no reason to be using it at all, but especially here on fucking SNZBLR of all places! Like... Guys, this is a sneezing kink/fetish community. And you're really knowingly using a robot - which grotesquely melds together other people's work - to generate fetish content? Do we... not realize how gross that is?

I'm not coming after anyone specifically, because I've seen more than just one person doing this, but if the shoe fits, wear it. And that's all I'm saying about this. I'm really tired of seeing it, so if those of you doing it won't change, I will. Though considering the blatant disregard some of you have for human artists, one blocking you shouldn't bother you too much, right? ♥

Anyways, sorry if I freaked anyone out with my cryptic ass posts from before, I was hesitant to say anything, because I didn't wanna start shit, but sometimes it's just not worth it to bite your tongue. If the snzblr art community can (rightfully) come down on tracers, then we should be doing the same with AI "art."

#snzblr #snz #snz kink #sneezeblr #sneeze kink #snzfucker #snz thoughts #snz fet #not snz #spiidervent #rant ahead

[arkus-rhapsode]

Are We Returning To 2000s Era Shonen Anime/Manga (A Discussion)

So this is going to be way more of a thinkpiece than I usually do for this blog, but recent trends in the space and niche that I devote a lot of time to, Anime/Manga, have been showing themselves that got me thinking. This is not meant to be a serious sociology case study taken as fact, it's going to be more a theory based on observations of the community that I, like many others, devote a lot of time into than a full on claim, but I do want to ask, is the anime and manga community is experiencing a resurgence in 2000s era shonen manga?

Background

Now let me get this out of the way, there is bias in these observations as I am a western anime fan, but also a North American anime fan. Meaning my gateway and gauges of pop culture are mostly determined by the history of my area of the world’s relationship with anime. From the OVAs of 80s hyper violent and hyper sexual sci fi that you had to purchase from the backs of video rental stores, to the Toonami era of 90s and early 00s programming block the centred around action anime and cartoons, the 4kids era of mass market japanese animated kids shows that were really just giant commercials with some of the earliest memetics in western sphere, and the explosion of shonen battle series in the western sphere in the mid to late 2000s marked by the rise of the colloquially named “Big 3” of shonen jump. I understand that continents like South America or Europe may have undergone a different exposure to the Japanese medium, but as I am going in with some bias in this observation, I would like to make it clear on where the formula is coming from. I also would like to lay down a certain clarification before making this, when discussing the topic of nostalgia I think a lot of people have forgotten what it actually means. If we go by the Cambridge dictionary definition, Nostalgia is “a feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past.” This is often invoked when talking about pop culture because people from say 20 years ago don’t seem to enjoy or relate to the interests of today. The belief is that nostalgia is generational ergo if you grew up in the 80s you’re likely wishing to recapture the feelings of childhood that you associate with those trends from 20 years ago. In fact, most revaluation in media has often been catalyzed by a difference of those who grew up in an era rebuffing the opinions of those who didn’t. 

There is the well known “20 Year Rule” regarding pop culture nostalgia. That every decade it longs for what was popular 20 years ago. Probably no better example than “That 70s show” being popular in the late 90s, the return of many beloved 80s-90s franchises like “Ghostbusters” returning in the 2010s as well as series like “Stranger Things” that wrapped itself up in 80s aesthetics. DC's New 52 relaunch that seemed to bring back trends from 90s era comics.

Now it goes without saying that the 20 year rule isn’t a “real” rule, rather an observation that certain trends make a return to popularity because the ones who grew up with a certain media will be the ones who add to the discourse when they come of age and will be the ones having a chance to create consumable art for the masses and that may just be revivals of once popular IP. This isn’t necessarily wrong in regards to nostalgia, but I do believe that one doesn’t need to have been born in a certain era to be nostalgic for something when we discuss pop culture. Pop culture is really just trends and preferences that become en vogue and people can acquire a taste at any given time. Sometimes it can be due to those who grew up with something now having the chance to create and drawing upon their own childhoods, sometimes it's just due to not being exposed, other times it can be a certain feeling of disillusionment of the now, and seeking something that peaks your interest, and even sometimes it can be major corporations or networks looking for things with existing audiences to draw upon that actually expand the audience. In fact one of the most prominent Netflix adaptations of the 2020s has been live Action Avatar the Last Airbender and One Piece, both shows that got their start on American televisions in 2004 and 2005. One of the biggest animated shows right now is Invincible, based on a comic book from 2003

So I want to stress this is not necessarily about how if you grew up with the original Mobile Suit Gundam show you are being replaced by the kids who were watching GetBackers. And or if you are a fan of shows that came out in the 2000s you yourself were born in the 2000s.

But what was the landscape of the English speaking anime community like back in the 2000s? Well let me paint a portrait for you.

What was the 2000s like for anime fans?

The term I used, “shonen boom period”, is somewhat mythologized in the western anime sphere. There was a glut of high profile shonen anime running around the same time that most people identified with this time period and was arguably when we saw the most influx of people getting into the hobby. One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach served as big series known for their massively large casts, MCs with a level of attitude, some of the most hype centric power supernatural/extraordinary power systems, and certain brand of “Japanese-y” humor. We can’t deny that it wasn’t just these series however, as series like Fullmetal Alchemist became many people’s introduction to more narratively intricate series interspersed with a somewhat gothic action style. The gothic and somewhat edgy Death Note became many fans' first ever “battle series that’s not a battle series” that also incorporated many biblical and gothic horror elements into its presentation. And things like Code Geass also incorporated this combination of hyper stylized cat and mouse with ornate and gothic aesthetics and fighting robots. 

Series like Ouran Highschool Host Club and and Haruhi Suzumiya were basically gateways to the more hyper extraordinary slice of life series that didn’t shy away from fanservice and loud comedy. With ecchi like Rosario + Vampire taking it to an even greater extreme. For people willing to go even deeper, series like Fairy Tail began to pop up and share a distinct similar flavor to series like One Piece and Naruto which arguably started the popular conception of it coming from the same magazine as the latter. That’s not also discounting the amount of holdovers from the 90s like Dragon Ball z, Trigun, and Yu Yu Hakusho, which also had an edge towards fantastical combat and comedic oriented series.

All of this is to generally illustrate the media diet of what an average anime fan was expected to have some level of access to. As this was far before the eras of Funimation or Hulu having online services. Not a homogenized spread by any means, and im certain plenty of readers could name more underground or smaller series like Mushishi or Elphen Lied, but generally the popular mainstream you could tell that there was a consistent theme of long form media with a very loud, very flashy, and very action oriented type of series. Which I think is fair to say had skewed some people’s perception. And while I cannot claim with utter certainty that Japan was the same in this regard, you can look at magazines like Shonen Jump and notice a somewhat synchronistic trend. With series like Hitman Reborn, Gintama, D. Gray Man, Eyeshield 21, Bobobobo, etc.making a clear marcation of what was commercially successful at the time. Even series not inside the magazine but had smaller nicher, Tokyo-pop-esque series like Rave Master, Flame of Recca, Air Gear, History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi, Soul Eater, etc all had a similarity to the shonen jump magazine. To the point it was not uncommon to see so many jump characters in a collage and one from shonen sunday or shonen magazine in there as if this was all coming from the same place.

Changing Landscape

Now with the advantages of the modern internet, we have the ability to actually keep up with the jump magazine in real time as opposed to the common practice of relying on scanlation site and fansubs that were often devoted to the most popular works. But with simultaneous publication and services like Crunchyroll, being able to access a wider variety of shows and series that we may or may not have access to. I believe that the 2010s in the english speaking fanbase was the decade we saw a somewhat expansionism of what people perceived as anime. Anime could be One Piece and Naruto, but it could also be Erased, it could be the Promised Neverland, Attack on Titan, K-On, Haikuu, and Durarara. With the representatives of the 90s no longer being holdovers in syndication like dragon ball but rather full on revivals of the likes of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Hunter x Hunter. 

All of these could be "shonen" but also other genres like Seinin, Josei, and Shojo all had their own varying layers of what they could be in their demographic

The mood of what was popular was also changing, not just in the fact that more flavors of anime and manga were becoming mainstream, but new works from shonen jump showed a rise in almost subversive series like My Hero Academia and Demon Slayer that seemed to consciously deviate or place new spins from traditional tropes of the 2000s characters, and we saw works that were derivative of previous serious like Black Clover drawing upon Naruto the same way it was known that Naruto had drawn upon Dragon Ball before them. Series like The Promised Neverland and Doctor Stone offered up more dramatic series that still infused a certain energy of the shonen genre. 

And of course the series like Attack Titan whose much more darker and gorey storytelling seemed to have become one of if not the biggest hit of the generation with a well regarded adaptation, but something that had felt so removed from what were once contemporaries like the then ending Bleach or Naruto. We can also note that the late 2010s saw the rise of series like Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen that began a trend of popular urban fantasy stories. Where fantastical concepts were now in contemporary Japan and the stories that focused on concepts like self identity and the harshness of maturing were juxtaposed to the real world inhabited by monsters. 

It seemed many tropes of the previous decade were still alive in the rise of Isekai anime. Which was particularly the only popular outlet for fantasy stories with an action orientation. But these almost felt disconnected from the wider world of manga as things like heavy harem action series had actually decreased in mags like shonen jump. There was also new tropes being established in this subgenre that became unique popularizations of tropes all on their own, such as the overpowered protagonist whose power everyone believes is weak. But many of these were based on light novels, a form of media that only in the last few years western readers are having official access to and not simply scans found on the internet.

We in North America truly have gone from anime being a niche that was primarily accessible through dedicated TV blocks like Toonami, to a full blown cultural relevance shift.

We also need to talk about this era in its perception of the past also shifted. The 90s and the early 00s often blend together as classics of the anime community. Somewhat encased in amber. However, there is no denying that “feels like a 2000s series” had become a bit of a shorthand for very goofy, Very horny, very action heavy series. Series like Fire Force and and Undead Unluck had their show what more problematic elements be equated to the problematic trends of the past that people just accepted as “a part of the medium.” But lets keep in mind, this is not really describing a time, more a trend. Superficial elements that invoke similar feelings of the past. 

Speaking of anime fans…

Fan Culture

So while I wanted to paint a picture of creatively the landscape has changed, there’s no denying that in the age of internet accessibility, the anime fan community has also changed. It is much much easier now to get in contact with people who are anime fans now than it was to rely on word of mouth like it was back in the day. I can still distinctly remember my anime club which wasn’t even really a club devoted to anime but rather other geek stuff like D&D and TCGs. Our hobbies just happened to have similar overlap.

Now though, anime fan culture is much more relevant and thriving. Going from just posting weekly reviews, to long retrospectives, comedy videos, abridged series, clickbait articles, fan theories, and podcasts. However, I think a defining feature of fans of the 2000s era of anime that were at their most prominent was hype culture. 

Due to many of the biggest anime series at the time being released weekly and focusing on action, many many many discussion boards and videos were often about staying in this cycle of wanting to see what happens next and the action made people very excited to see just how characters were going to win fights or even if they’d have fights at all. 

I want to make it clear that this type of activity doesn’t belong to a certain era, but you can see it shaped by the 2000s era. Especially when discussing “what is the next big 3.” As if it were a true position and title, rather than a moment in time where there were just three very distinct shonen series in the fanbase.This doesn’t necessarily have a “negative” effect on the discussion of anime/manga but you can see that certain genres lend themselves to hyping fans up more and more. 

Someone isn’t reading the most recent chapter of a romance like Blue Box with the same level of anticipation of who will face who like it was One Piece. But there have certainly been series that try.

The Present

Now we reach the 2020s and this decade is still young, so it is hard to say what the future will hold for certainty, but we can look at the last four years and notice some significant waves being made recently in Shonen Jump alone. I already spoke of Undead Unluck, a series that almost wears it would now be considered retro inspirations on its sleeve. With an opening chapter that establishes an MC that seems motivated by a sexual joke, A power system follows a verbal naming gimmick, and a loose enough world that allows for characters of varying aesthetics and to be incorporated into groups. With groups of these powerful characters splitting up to face each other and use their ridiculous power to the extreme. Even in the series' own meta arc about creating manga, the in-universe analogy for Undead Unluck’s manga is commented on as feeling retro. There is no doubt the biggest viral hit of the decade so far has gone to Kagurabachi, a manga about sword fighting and magical crime lords that seems almost indulgent in its stylistic slicing and or dicing of baddies. Its memetic success was primarily due to a somewhat sincere and somewhat ironic belief that it would be the “next big thing” as it promised to be a stylized action series. Another surprise viral success has been the manga Nue’s Exorcist which sees another supernatural swordfighter boy harness the powers of his sexy spirit lady while getting into harem shenanigans that echo a particular form of ecchi of anime’s past that had actually been somewhat absent in the past decade in jump. Both of these series have a somewhat noticeable similarities to Bleach, a long running shonen action series that has seen its own revival in the last few years of writing this with the long awaited adaptation of the final arc of the bleach anime. 

While the other members of the “big 3” never truly went away and became almost inter-generational, Bleach truly did feel like a “come back” as it was absent for so long. And unlike Hunter x Hunter and Jojo which were never really popular in the west and even their older anime are more regarded as anime deep lore. Bleach was one of the most popular series in the west at the time to never receive a conclusion animated. 

Speaking of anime of the 2000s Trigun Stampede was a reimagining of the original late 90s show. This errs a bit similar to Hunter x Hunter’s style of revival, but also seems uniquely its own in actually trying to find a balance between the original series but adding in things cut from its original late 90s early 2000s counterpart. 

And now we must examine other shonen magazines. Series like Gachiakuta created by a former assistant of Okubo, the creator of Soul Eater, carries with it much of the similar energies of that series. Its also noticeable as being a truly dark fantasy series. Not an urban fantasy, but rather a completely new world that had a very grunge and dirty world building. And then there is Daemons of the Shadow Realm, a series by Fullmetal Alchemist creator Hiromu Arakawa. This series is also set in modern day japan with supernatural elements, however Arakawa’s style of writing is practically unchanged from her time on FMA. With an emphasis on action, intricate mysteries, and character building comedy with her trademark over exaggerated blocky style. There is of course Hiro Mashima who has started another new series, Dead Rock, and his style has also not changed that much. Then there is just flat out sequels to 2000s series like Gamaran Shura.

This to me shows that we are  seeing a bit of a combination of people who are now entering the workforce inspired by creators of the past, but also that creators of the past still exist 20 years later and are still making content that hasn’t really undergone significant change. 

Of course, we can’t also forget the implementation of the Manga Plus/J plus service which has opened up a very interesting ground for creators to have some of the most creatively out there series than what you may have expected from the shonen jump brand. I genuinely don’t think series like Make the Exorcist Fall in Love or Fire Punch would’ve ever been acceptable in the pages of a weekly shonen series. However one series in particular does feel like it could've and boy its been quite the success. Kaiju no 8.

Kaiju no 8 almost feels as though it is the AoT of a new generation with the amount of anticipation this one series has as well as the similarities between the series superficial elements. However, I'd say the key distinction between the two has been the tone. AoT took a dark and practically dour tone on its titan infested world. With an MC declaring war on all of his enemies. The pain was realistic, with human bodies being brittle and vulnerable. And the belief that just because you were a good person you weren't going to make it out alive. Kaiju no 8 instead opts for a more action oriented tone. Down playing the bleak realism for more "Hell yeah!" moments. With super science weapons that feel more akin to a tokusatsu show and fights and battles between humans an kanji the feel like the Dragon Ball style wrestling matches of old.

And of course, that’s not to say Jump hasn’t continued with series that feel more modern like the realistic and mellow romance of Blue Box or the dramatic coming of age story of Akane-Banashi. 

But the presence of these series has caused somewhat of a friction with the popular conception of the magazine. Its safe to say that while “shonen” tends to think of action male oriented series, it can really just mean works aimed more at adolescents. But I think many tend to associate this familiar feeling of “what is shonen” with their popular introduction of the magazine. With a saturation of action and brash comedy series. This is further complicated by the fact many action series in jump are actually ending over the last decade. With new ones not popping up to replace them as frequently and series like One Piece and MHA and Black Clover basically stretching out across an entire decade or longer. In fact, I don’t think it's unreasonable to believe that the hype for something like Kagurabachi was in part a belief that it signaled a return of a type of familiar series and genre that had been missing. Or at the very least, looked to fill an inevitable gap the magazine was obviously going to be facing. Followed by the other commercial success of Nue’s Exorcist, we are likely to see these series last for a long time. At the time of this writing, Tokyo Revenger’s author Ken Wakui has released Astro Royale, a series that feels very similar to his previous work yet infused with this almost GetBackers flavor.

So that leaves us with the question at the start, are we seeing a rise in 2000s nostalgia in anime and manga?

Conclusion

So I'm sorry if I disappoint, but the best I can say is, I’m not certain. I do believe that from my observation I think it is reasonable to say that we are seeing a rise in creators in the shonen space being ones inspired by series from 20 years ago. However, I think we are also seeing creators who are from that time period also returning to write how they have always written. 

On the consumer side, I think we can see that fans of anime and manga have changed in the sense their tastes can now be shaped by a much larger catalog of series at their disposal. But in the case of shonen, I think we are simply seeing those who likely got their start in anime at around the 2000s resonating with newer series drawing upon those series, but also with younger fans now likely to grow up with the tail end of what was popular in the 2010s now being influenced by the 2020s. I also believe that one of the defining features of the anime community in the last decade is hype culture. And currently we are seeing a rise in series that actually feel more catered to hype, be it a revival of a series they liked or predicting what will be the next success. 

All and all, this piece was trying to tunnel on the shonen demographic in general, which is more likely than not going to have similar traits relative to itself. I do see us as a community endorsing trends of the past and there’s an excitement for these things to “come back” even if they may or may not have left. If you liked this please drop a like or reblog because I may do more of these think pieces in the future.

#anime #manga #think piece #discussion #shonen #shonen jump #kagurabachi #gachiakuta #nue's exorcist #undead unluck #kaiju no. 8 #bleach #one piece #naruto #yomi no tsugai #attack on titan

[yveaart]

365 strokes of love — hjs

joshua hong x reader

genre: fluff, angst

synopsis: when an immaculate artist have scavenged the wonders of the world to create her own masterpiece, she fell right behind disappointment knowing that she had more passion within her. finally having a muse for her recent painting— her life, she experienced a tragic event damaging her gift in life; the hands of a god. she fell into a rabbit hole of depression, slowly hoping that as she climbs up the fiery hells of paralysis she desires to find love in life, art, herself and the man who strokes her heart away from her chest.

warning: disability, depressive episodes, smut

your eyes welded up with tears as you stared at your hands. being sad was an understatement, you gazed around your painting studio filled with tools and colorful objects, but today it seems like it didn’t bring you an ounce of hope.

you were living like this for months, now that it was your 9th month, it felt like forever.

you wanted to remember how it was like to have your wooden brushes pressed against your fingers, the texture of your favorite cup smoothing around your fingers for a cup of tea before you start sketching your way into your fantasies.

these things seemed such small irrelevant things, but now that you have temporary lost your ability to do these things, it feels like eternity to have them back again.

but today was much sadder, you thought that there was no way that you would gain your abilities back.

the doctor said it was supposed to be 3 months, for the usual cases.

you had to fight back to horrid screams you wanted to release, why did it had to be you? why was there a careless driver swerving to your lane in a sunday evening.

you were an artist, your hands were your everything. you would jokingly laugh about how your friends would tell you that you could always learn with your feet while you were recovering and soon curse away the pains of you straining yourself for a huge leap of recovery.

you were useless, you thought so yourself. how could you walk around the house but not make yourself breakfast. it was absurd to be held guilty of the karma that wasn’t supposed to yours.

you were sure to sue the drunk bastard that drove his truck.

you didn’t want his money, nothing from him at all, but your abilities back to its uses.

“y/n” a faint knock was heard from your door

your gaze shifting to the door, you saw joshua with a smile on his face greeting you merrily.

“joshua, come in” you forced out a grin mirroring his.

“please stop that ugly ideas from that beautiful head of yours, i could sense it from a block away” he told you as he sat on the stool next to your canvas.

he knew you too well, it was from all the time you spent together, he was an apprentice sort of.

he wanted to study your art and everything about it, it was absurd for you. the trophies, medals and certificates told you otherwise though.

he had a job and he wanted to learn painting as a hobby, you were surprised that he hadn’t withdrawn his payments and sessions right after the accident.

“why do you even bother going here, i can’t teach you anymore” you sighed.

“sure you can, doesn’t mean you can’t show me that i cant learn anymore” he smiled

“that’s the way i teach, don’t worry i won’t be mad when you don’t contact me anymore” you said with honesty

it almost felt like you were just robbing the poor man his money.

“now you just have to learn to be flexible, now just teach me with your words”

he picked up the brush that was hanging by your hand.

you couldn’t get serious control over your hand, the grip spasming if strained a lot.

you could barely do anything at your 9th month, if this went on maybe you should close your studio because its scooping all the money you made.

“as long as you’re the one pushing it then” you sighed. “let’s start?” he nodded at you with a huge grin

joshua made sure to come often to your studio, he made sure that you both made progress; him on art, you on your mobility and motion.

your motion therapist already dropped you saying that there was a low chance of improvement so you had to work with yourself.

your hands were able to develop into grabbing objects and have a proper grip on them, but you were unable to have them rotate properly.

“so like a semi circle?” he asked

“something like that” you responded

he swiftly grabbed your hand in a soft manner, he was barely grabbing on it.

he assisted your hands moving in the motion of a circle.

slowly your hands followed suit, everything was stable, so familiar, like learning how to walk again.

“a-ah” you hissed as you felt your hand weakening as you dropped the brush

“fuck, its been what? like a month and i could barely move it freely” you laid your head on your hands

“thats not only what you could do, you did this also” he said pointing at the portrait with a group of brush strokes on it, clearly unfinished.

“it’s like a one brush stroke a day, give me a break” you huffed

“that may be, but we see progress, you could barely make a line then, but now you’re starting to make shapes” he offered you a smile while caressing the back of your hand

another day had shifted over your eyes, joshua has been visiting your own place before you know it.

“joshua?” you queried in pure confusion as the man stood by your front door.

“good morning y/n” he grinned widely at you

he brought you some sandwiches for breakfast, he ended up cooking for you because he wanted you to be consuming nutritious meals instead for better recovery he stated.

“you really didn’t have to do that shua” you smiled at him.

“it’s no problem, really” his ears flushed burgundy as he heard your little nickname for him.

“oh and i need to give you this” he quickly shifted to the seat next to you in the sofa, it was a small hand held object that had a minimalistic packaging.

“it’s a new hand cream, it’s vanilla scented, it reminded me of you. i thought you could use this while massaging your hands to wake up your muscles you know?” he said shyly as you were left there just looking at him.

he grabbed your hand slowly applying cream to it and then slowly massaging it, you wouldn’t expect your student to be doing services for you instead.

“does this hurt?” he asked softly

“no not at all” were the words you could only mutter

“good” he whispered as eh focused back on massaging your hands, giving it a small peck

you came over by the studio again to finish your personal painting.

you would try to hide this specific canvas from joshua, because this one was your last project before the incident, the canvas was now filled with striking shapes and bold colors representing your resentment towards the gift of fate.

you spent hours raging at it, the minuscule dips within the canvas held every little detail of fury, happiness, despair, and adoration you had in yourself.

but most of the images were created under rage.

you didn’t know that he was there to watch you by the entrance, watching in awe.

and that was the last time

days passed and you still came to your studio, slowly trying to complete your unfinished canvas.

to say that you’re sad when joshua slowly drifted away from your studio, days that he came by became hours to just stopping by to nothing at all.

its been two weeks since he didn’t come over, you were left there learning alone, learning how to be your own all over again.

it was painful, you were so used to relying on joshua for your improvement

now you felt betrayed, it’s wrong of you, but that doesn’t mean that you weren’t extremely grateful for what he did to help you.

you were a helpless case if it wasn’t for him, he lit the flame into your whirlwind of despair. you gave up before he did.

but now all you were hoping for was him.

you sighed deeply as you signed the contract from your landlord who sold you your studio.

“i’m sad to see you go, i really hope you find yourself— and quickly” the land lady said, she was a middle aged woman who treated you like one of her own daughters for the extensive time you had the studio.

you had to sign the contract which stated that you had to move out when greater inactivity and progress were made by your work.

it won’t be long until you had to budget your money, probably by next year.

you didn’t know why but you felt like you had to update joshua with every single thing about you. and you didn’t mind if he didn’t listen to it the way u hoped he was.

… is it recording now? ..oh ok right, hi joshua i just wanted to tell you that i stopped renewing the renting payment for my studio because… well i don’t think i can do it the same way. *sigh* i know that you told me that i should keep it, but it felt like my passion isn’t filling the space in the right way anymore. i don’t know why i had to tell you this, but i think you should know….. bye

… i started painting again, i can create portraits again too! but i can’t make it more realistic… the tiny strokes strains my hands too much, when should we finish your painting?

…i guess u don’t want to come for classes anymore… i understand, i hope u use the skills to great use or i will stab you into a canvas !! *light chuckles fading out*

you weren’t one to be naive, it was your third voicemail, and it had to be the last, maybe he was sick of it, and the worse part is you probably seemed like you were desperate for his money, all you needed was his company. he made you forget about the suffering laying on the palms of your hands.

you didn’t care if it would reply with a thumbs up, even with just a one letter word, but this doesn’t seem like him. you frowned at your phone and after those days everything about joshua went radio silent.

it hurt more that your purpose of passion flickered into nothingness. it hurts more than your palms twitching yearning for movement.

but wasn’t movement your purpose? your passion? should you quit, maybe quit on life as well, was there any reason left for you to stay.

it was time for you to whisper your prayers, and all of those were about him.

maybe god is a woman, because she knew that you needed a man, or she was just being petty making you lonely without joshua for a month.

but now you didn’t give a shit because you loved his facade ay your door more than anything else.

“joshua?” your voice faltered

“you’re really here?” you asked almost too passionately

“are you tearing up?” he said alarmingly

“are you okay? did something happen?!” he said checking your body wandering his hand around your hands around yours, scanning them

“how dare you act like you know nothing of what pains me, how can you smile like that” you sobbed lightly striking his chest lightly

the fact is that you held no resentment towards him. all you had was the sense of longing and joy now that he was here.

“i’m sorry if i didn’t visit your studio, i heard from the landlady that you stopped signing for the rent” he started

“and i’m sorry that it took me this long, but i have a reason… that is where i’m getting to if you allow me to come in?” he stared at you hopefully.

the moment you said yes, he stepped right into your home embracing you in his arms.

“i missed you” your voice cracked

“well i’ve longed for much more” he whispered

you both held back from each other from all those days wanting to just drop all the brushes and kiss.

as you both calmed down from the build up of the situation, you settled in your living room.

“so uhm tell me about recently” you started. you didn’t want to make him guilty for not being your client anymore, for you weren’t upset about your income but the absence of him

he smiled at you reaching for his bag, a random black box encasing a mysterious object

“i didn’t wanna ruin this for you, i also didn’t expect this to take so long. as you know its almost a year since your accident…” your ears deafens his words

its been that long? and he knew it better than you?

“… so i hope that you appreciate this as to this helping you as well” he smiled at you with his doe eyes like he always did, slowly handing you the box.

“of course i’ll appreciate anything you give shua”

you started unraveling the content that you held, the box intricately held a pair of what looked like a glove with lots of gaps.

“i went to america to study your case, i went to every doctor for consultation of the best treatment. all i came up with was this, with professional help of course, i didn’t want to harm you”

“you what?…” your voice faltering once more

“i didn’t want you to continue drinking all those horrifying amount of pills just to ease the pain with no progress..” you just stared at him with new hope, adoration.

“i made you this, so you can start to feel like yourself again” he explained the cause of his motivation

you couldn’t believe he squandered his money to travel and for all those consultations as well as for the production of your unique and one of a kind, specialized gloves, for you.

“thank you” words could not measure what you felt right now.

“well it’s no problem, won’t you try it on?” he asked.

no problem? how could he belittle all of his endeavors for this?

“i don’t think i can joshua”

“why not, does your hands hur-“ you cut him off with your love-driven confession. a kiss.

you wrapped your hands around his neck as his quickly adapted to encase your hips.

“i’ve been wanting to tell you how i felt as well but i guess you beat me to it y/nnie” he giggled with his lips on yours slowly altering the aura.

his sweet pecks turned to long loving kisses, slowly adjusting his mouth to encase your lower lip and gradually easing it open.

his tongue entered your mouth as you slowly moaned by the different feeling of his tongue, moving your head to the side to encase his lips better.

“maybe you can confess to me in my room?” you moaned at his lips.

“maybe i will” he smirked

he carried you with ease as your thighs wrap around his hips and your arms resting at his wide shoulders, your hands in his hair.

carefully putting you down on the floor as you entered your room, a hint of vanilla surrounded you and invaded your scent.

joshua still stared at you lovingly, slowly pacing towards you he caressed your face endearingly. his breath lightly hitting your face. you felt at home now with him.

his lips now once again caging yours, building up tension as it danced with each other. your hands now roaming his chest unbuttoning his clothes, he chuckled deeply in response.

his large warm hands roaming your cool hips as it slipped under your shirt, you shivered gasping against his lips.

“fuck you don’t know how much i waited for this” he breathed out, your walls were long destroyed and you were far along drunk on joshua, you just moaned in response.

“please don’t leave anymore” you whined, all you could release right now is the whole truth.

“i wont baby, but tell me once right now— to stop, and i would leave out your door now” he whispered to your skin

“joshua, just fuck me senseless.. i beg you” you responded as your knees went limp already needy for him. he groaned at your ear deeply. if he wasn’t hard earlier, he definitely was now.

he pushed you gently on the bed, quickly following suit crawling on top of you. his arms encasing your head as he kissed your cheeks, slowly tracing down your neck.

he slowly gathered your hands in front of hid face and started kissing each finger tip.

peck, beautiful

peck, gorgeous

peck, talented

peck, lovely

peck, adorable

peck, immaculate

peck, pretty

peck, home

peck, art

peck, mine

you couldn’t help but feel touched the way he assured you that you were no less of yourself despite your accident. joshua became your hands, your confidant.

“joshua” you spoke, cupping his face and leading him up your face, kissing him deeply battling your tongues. joshua let you dominate him while his hands lingered aroubd your body soon encasing your heat.

his big warm hands moves swiftly against your clit and caressing your entrance while slowly entering his finger. his thick hands filled your clenching hole seamlessly.

“how am i supposed to fuck into you if you’re being so tight right now love?“ he teased

“ i guess you’ll just have to fuck me harder hm?” you said as you tighten your hands around his arm.

“don’t hurt yourself baby” he used his other hand grabbing yours softly and placing it above tour head as he continued to fuck you with his fingers.

“fuck– mmph a-ah, shua” you stuttered further as his fingers caressed the sensitive spot within you, fucking you harder and harder until a knot formed in your stomach.

you loosened his grip on your hand and slowly travelled it to his crotch, stroking it gently.

“fuck” his breathing went heavier. pre cum already painting his tip

“please fuck me, fill me up with your cum” you moaned like it was a mantra while you slowly squeezed his length, further pushing him to the edge of his control.

“since you asked so nicely sweetheart” he turned to reach for your nightstand

“no” you quickly said

“wait, are you sure?” he asked his eyes pure waiting for your clear response

“yes, please” you sighed impatiently

he propped himself on top of you, swallowing your moans as he sank himself deeper into your cunt, he grunted when he was balls deep. he could feel your warm walks embracing his length and clenching around its girth

the stretch sent you into a bliss, your back arching towards joshua, your eyes rolling to the back of your head.

“baby are you okay?” he kissed your tears away as he slowly pumped his hips to yours once you gave your go signal again.

his cock drilling deeper into your hole, your hips went around his making you feel him pound into you much deeper, the room echoed the collision of your skin, joshua’s wet kisses, and your porn worthy moans synced to his thrusts.

your hands strengthen themselves as they marked joshua’s back, he was grunting from the sensation, the sting.

he sent his other hand down to your clit hastily massaging it. you were sent over the edge as you bit into joshua’s shoulder. soon after your hole was practically squeezing out all the cum he can give, filling you to the brim.

he slowly pulled out and lapped his tongue around your cunt. you writhed and pulled on his hair due to overstimulation.

“wait-fuck” you whined

his mouth making vibrations, draining you out of all your energy.

“mm, have to make sure you keep it all in” he sighed, his gorgeous face glistening from sweat and both of your release.

you giggled at his eagerness if wanting to keep both of your orgasms within you, his eyes staring at your cunt as it slowly dripped out of you.

he crawled back into the bed, laying next to you as you lazily made out until you both passed out at dawn.

the moment you wish you didn’t cherish.

—————————

“so how much is this painting?” a critic calmly queried

“it was recently rounded up to 5,000,000 dollars by the artist, there was quite the amount for demands” the girl replied

the critic slowly read the description encased by framed glass.

shan’t fix that’s yet to be broken, love better to those who shall.

“is that so? are the scarlet dips on the canvas quite popular?” he scoffed joking lightly.

“no, like any other artists, this was made with emotion. the artist made this during the time of recovery of her hand injury, so its quite impressive that she had made damages to the canvas that almost made the brush pierce through it. not only that, she was in love? or so she believed. the guy was as passionate as her of her art, he helped her recover…”

“well at least this artist didn’t end miserably like all other ones” the critic said intrigued.

“quite the opposite actually” the latter started. the art gallery sounded busy with all the people moving around discussing about all the paintings made by the artists, displayed on plain cream walls.

“he left her the next morning… giving more grief to the disabled artist. he loved her because she was miserable, she loved him because he was dependable….”

“how do you must know this? are you perhaps the masked artist?” the critic asked once more.

“i guess you could say i’m a painting as well”

#seventeen #seventeen oneshots #seventeen smut #seventeen fic #seventeen x you #seventeen x reader #seventeen fluff #seventeen oneshot #seventeen imagines #joshua hong smut #svt #svt oneshotes #svt smut #svt fic #svt x you #svt x reader #svt fluff #svt oneshot #svt imagine #svt joshua #joshua svt #hong joshua #hong jisoo #joshua x you #joshua x reader #joshua oneshot #joshua smut #joshua imagine #joshua fluff #joshua hong

[etincelleart]

The more I'm on internet and the more I see harassment and call out posts every single day on various fandoms/artists spaces for all possible reasons and honestly I don't even know what to say outside of the fact that this is so freaking dangerous and wild to put labels and accusations on people you don't even know, or to not even try to understand and seek knownledge about the situation outside of what you want to see and understand. There are real predators doing illegal stuff who need to be stopped and yet people having fun and imagining things for ocs, various characters and ships are being accused of the worst things ever and it follows them everywhere. Tiny things are took as obvious signs of predatory behavior or racism or whatever and this is supposed to be fine.

I don't even mean to bring back the topic of my own story but experiencing dog piling and rumors and serious accusations for months because of a follow is just completely wild when I think about it. With some distance, I think I could have handled everything better when I spoke about it publicly. But I never should have wrote this post in the first place.

Block button exist and report button exist as well for serious problematic elements. My take is that no one deserves harassment and cruelty. But when you say "I'm against harassment and I don't want this person to be harassed", people take it as you defending "problematic" elements and completely distort it anyway. It's honestly exhausting and stupid.

Everyone has something that make them uncomfortable or that triggers them and I have my own standards as well. There are things I consider seriously weird but we don't know people and we don't know any of the intention behind the art. The way you explore something, how you do it, for what reason is what should matter. There are so much things you don't know. Nothing is black and white. I honestly think that as an artist, your art is connected to you, but the themes you work on are NOT reality. Again it's about the intention and how you go about something. I just think media literacy should really be teached at school because wow.

I just thought about expressing myself on this because it's just too serious and harming a lot of people who did nothing. I got attacked over a FOLLOW for someone who did nothing but imagine a future AU for characters and I think that's insane. Everything should be analyzed case by case. There are a real dangers who need to be exposed but this is never a reason or a justification to become cruel or to wish harm to anyone and assume the worst on people you never met. Just take a breath, go outside and learn how to block people, because that's insane the amount of people I had to block because they were being shitty but didn't block me or were still even following me.

I'm trying to not let my emotions get the better of me but that's honestly insane many others and myself got caught into this. The only thing I always did is drawing Nuts and Dolts because that's the only ship I could ever care about in RWBY. Being against harassment is not about defending "bad" people. It's so easy to judge people and make your little assumptions harming REAL people like that.

#fandom #ship #proship #anti #discourse #just rambling

[brighterdaysarebeforeus]

Soooooooo...basically a rewrite of Hobie's entire part in the movie? Except more awkward teenager and much, much more rambling. This does feel a bit all over the place so...enjoy, if you wanna.

Meeting Gwen for the first time wasn’t anything particularly memorable or anything like that, Hobie didn’t think. It was a simple thing, really; LYLA had found an anomaly, Miguel had reluctantly put Hobie on the case, Hobie had gone out of his way to ramble on about how he wasn’t a cog in Miguel’s system (man looked like he wanted to punt Hobie out of the office, and that just added more pleasure to his insubordination), and then Jess had sort of insisted that Gwen tag along to learn how to inter-dimensional travel and also how to deal with the anomalies as they occurred. Her exact words, if he remembered right, were “she needs to learn how to deal with these things in a team setting, and also maybe get some more friends her own age” or something similar that Gwen had immediately protested against.

He’d protested as well, as if it would change anything, as if these two would take him any serious. Hobie told them that he didn’t believe in teams, or in teamwork, and Jess put her hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eye, and told him very sternly to get over himself. Miguel was in the back, rubbing his hand over his face with one hand and waving the other at them in a motion that screamed ‘just go’. The mission itself was fine, easy job for a sole Spider let alone two Spider-People, but Gwen had been pricklier than he’d been expecting. He thought she was spunky, but particularly withdrawn for a Spider, and she’d snapped at him several times before the mission had ended. Afterwards, they’d gone their separate ways and he didn’t think too much about her, focusing on being the one and only Spider-Man (Spider-Punk, the newspaper headlines screamed, and he’d hated the name with a passion when he was younger, but found the title had grown on him over the years) in Camden.

Then they got paired together again. And again. And again. There’d been a genuine moment of concern that Miguel and Jess were punishing him for something, because they kept sticking him together with this small wisp of a child who looked like she wanted to bite his head off any time he asked her anything remotely personal, whether it be about her family or even her favorite kind of music. Hobie couldn’t even begin to figure her out, but decided that if he kept pushing, especially if they kept getting put on missions together, she’d have to crack eventually, right?

(It was worse when he realized she was actually older than him, even if it was only by three months. She held it over him for days, blocking his every question and prompt with “I don’t have to tell you anything, I’m older than you are.” Like a kid. Like a little kid, and how in the hell was she older than he was? It was unjust, it was.)

The sad part was, Hobie wasn’t even sure when things changed, with Gwen. Rather, he wasn’t quite sure why they had changed, though far be it from him to criticize someone’s changing of their mind. They’d gone on a mission, catching an inter-dimensional Doc Ock in some bizarre backwards universe made up of graffiti art that had her particularly subdued and snappish with him; she’d just given a thirty second rant that had cut Hobie deeper than he’d wanted to admit and they were swinging around searching for the Doc in a strained silence that had lasted until they’d found the fucker; at some point in the fight, the Doc had her pinned and Hobie’d yelled for her to cover her ears, and used his guitar to blast the scientist off of her at the last second, using his regular webs to yank her from where she’d been embedded in the ground; they’d, somehow, ended up victorious back at HQ and handed the Doc to Margo to send back to the proper dimension, went to Miguel and Jess to report their success. Hobie set his watch to his home dimension, the portal had opened up, and then —

“Hey, can I…” He’d half-turned to Gwen, eyes wide on his mask to showcase his paying attention as Gwen held her left arm tightly in her right hand, pointedly not looking at him and using the longer left side of her hair to cover her face. She’d taken off her mask, though Hobie had never really felt comfortable enough in the Spider Society to do so very often, and he could see the uncertainty in her face as she finally spit out, “can I…crash with you? For a bit?”

“Like, in my dimension?” Hobie’d asked, and she rolled her eyes so hard that her head followed the motion automatically. Something warm and pleased grew in his chest as she pushed past him roughly, muttering something sarcastic under her breath, and he didn’t even notice Jess watching them from behind as he nudged her shoulder playfully while they walked through the portal together.

Gwen started hanging around more after that, even when they had to keep moving from abandoned house to abandoned house in order to keep a roof over their head for the night. She didn’t stay over every night, but it was often enough to leave some of her shit laying around for him to trip over. He discovered she like playing drums and incorporated her into his band, more or less the only permanent member aside from him despite the inter-dimensional shenanigans. ‘Gwen’ became ‘Gwennifer’ (she threw her drumstick at him) which then became ‘Guinevere’ (he’d barely dodged the swing she leveled at him for that) became ‘Gwendolyn’ (she’d webbed his mouth shut) became ‘Gwendy’ (she rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, but he’d caught the pleased look on her face for that one). Over time, she started opening up about her dad, her indefinitely on-hold Spider-Woman work in her home ‘verse, her Peter…

Miles.

The name lit up something at the back of his head, the first time she’d mentioned it, and Hobie couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was. It wasn’t until she mentioned something about a particle collider that it came rushing to Hobie; he was Miguel’s “original anomaly”, the one who had apparently weakened the multiverse apart enough for the Spider Society to be kept busy damn near constantly. Hobie could respect a Spider who could throw the multiverse into chaos like that, even if was accidental and wasn’t even his fault to begin with. He tried prompting her, through trial and error, into talking about Miles damn near constantly; it worked better than he’d hoped, and for a hot minute all she would talk about was Miles. What he looked like, what he’d say, the way he’d stuck his hand to her hair when he’d first gotten his powers and she’d had to cut it off on the sides (“and you kept the hairstyle?” “Fuck off, Hobart — ” “Ew, no thanks mate, ‘o the fuck is Hobart — ”). She talked about him so much that Hobie felt like he knew the damn kid all on his own without ever having met him.

And then Gwen got herself assigned to a mission in his universe. Not only that, but she was allowing herself to miss her friend enough to stop off to visit when she went, though she had a brief moment of panic before she’d left and she’d called him for ‘moral support’ or whatever it was she’d hissed at him when she called. Hobie felt proud of her for that, even though he couldn’t find his chucks the day she left and he nearly brained himself tripping over her damn jumper when he headed to the bathroom.

It was her first mission on her own, officially, and Hobie was pulling out damn near every trick in the book to keep him from worrying. He was sitting at her drum set where they had it set up in a practice warehouse, listlessly banging on the cymbals when his watch went off a second time. Heart jumping up into his throat, Hobie answered the call and whipped his way into Mumbatten, which was exactly where Gwen was not supposed to be at this current moment. He’d barely even taken the time to suit up, nearly forgot to grab his damn guitar, and didn’t even pause to take in the situation before strumming the thing and bursting through what looked like a barrier. He’d heard Gwen and Pavitr shout, but he’d landed with his back to them and then he’d gotten rushed by Pav the second he caught his breath.

Then he’d turned fully, pushed Pav off of him, and nearly swallowed his tongue when he caught a good, solid look of him, dressed in his black suit with pops of red; it had to be Miles, the Spider-Man-Who-Wasn’t-Supposed-To-Exist-In-Earth-1610-Specifically, which for some reason both was a surprise and yet was completely expected.

“This the kid from 1610?” He asked first, like he wasn’t fully aware of who Miles was to begin with. Gwen’s head rolled, a sure sign she was rolling her eyes, and he’d glanced her way briefly before looking back at Miles, who was complaining to Gwen. He’d gotten close enough when Pav thanked him for destroying the barrier in time to hear him (“I weakened it!”) and shot a quick demonstration of “use your whole palm, mate, not just your fingertips”, complete with hand visuals. Miles looked, low-key through his mask, like he wanted to strangle him. Gwen looked away, but Hobie could tell her shoulders were shaking from held-back laughter.

He wanted to crawl into a small hole for a minute. For a hot second, Hobie debated the pros and cons of potentially just jumping back through the portal and going home, there were three Spiders to deal with the Dalmatian over there, he wasn’t really needed for this, was he? He was distracted for all of two seconds before remembering there was supposed to be a fight going on, and he was supposed to be helping, and that Miles was standing in front of him.

So, naturally, once he was back online and fully focused, he opened his mouth and immediately put his foot in it.

“What’s up with his suit, is he bleeding from the armpits?”

“Wha-Who even is this guy?” Gwen introduced them quickly, Hobie talking even faster as they prepared to fight the Dalmatian-looking dude in front of them, and though Miles looked slightly lost (“I thought you hated labels?”), Hobie had hope that they’d be able to get along swell.

Then he stuck his foot in it again.

“Gwendy, you left your jumper ‘round my place.”

“What’s a jumper?”

“It’s a sweater!”

“How many sweaters do you own?”

And, because he couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut to save his own damn life even as Gwen clearly tried to salvage that mess, Hobie continued.

“And your toothbrush.” He kind of wanted to die. What was the deal with this spotty dude? Hobie wondered if the dude would shoot him into another dimension if he asked him nicely enough. He hated asking nice though, and it was pretty obvious this guy happened to be the villain of the week (as it were), so his best bet was staying here. Shame, that. He was really fucking things up right about now, and he just knew Gwen was gonna give him shit for it later too.

Things happened…weirdly fast after that. They fought the Dalmatian, they lost the Dalmatian, Mumbatten’s AlcheMax began crumbling and they had to save the people. Normal Spider stuff, and Hobie was glad for the distraction — well, not glad glad, he didn’t want Mumbatten to fall apart and Pav was far too little a Spider to be dealing with this kind of cosmic mess — just because Miles took off with Pavitr and left him and Gwen to hold the building up. Even better, Gwen was all the way over there, so she couldn’t even give him shit for how he’d been acting the fool in front of Miles.

God, he just hoped it wasn’t noticeable. To Miles, at least.

Then after the building collapsing was the bridge falling apart, and Miles diving to save the Inspector. Hobie had skid to a stop next to Gwen, the both of them staring down as Pav tried to save the bus and his girl, and Miles tried to save the Inspector. Gwen’s eyes were wide, taking up the entirety of her face as she held onto the railing in a death grip with one hand, the other still outstretched; she’d grabbed Miles then, right before Hobie had gotten there, and for a moment he wasn’t sure why she’d done it.

“He’ll be aces, yea?” Hobie said to her quietly, eyes still on the bridge.

“It’s a canon event. He’s interfering with it.” Gwen said somberly, and Hobie scoffed with a roll of his eyes — she sounded just like Miguel, there, for a hot moment, and he wondered if he should begin extracting them both before the man’s ideals managed to get in any deeper — but Gwen didn’t seem to notice him. When the bridge finished collapsing, she didn’t hesitate to jump over the rail, yelling for Miles as she did so. Hobie followed after her, beelining his way to Pav first to help him with the bus. Once it was on solid ground, relatively speaking, the passengers disembarking and Pavitr trying to smooth things over with his girl, Hobie turned on time to see Gwen lift a giant piece of rubble to reveal —

Miles. Holding a small child, with the Inspector right behind him. Both were fine, probably filled with adrenaline but relatively unharmed, and Pav’s girl was rushing past them all to embrace her father. Hobie followed her, not to the Inspector, but to Miles; Miles, who had been facing Gwen, who hadn’t heard him approach and therefore wasn’t anticipating it when Hobie grabbed his shoulders from behind and shook him eagerly.

“Miles, my guy!” He said cheerfully, and even the city cheered for them (and wasn’t that just novel, that’s never happened to Hobie before), and then —

There was a hole, big and black and looking similar to the spots on the Spot, sucking in pieces of Mumbatten. There was Jess, and her team of Spiders trying to keep it contained (points to Spider Society!) and her just blatantly blowing off Miles in a way that made Hobie’s hackles rise and ordering them all back to HQ to talk to Miguel (negative points for their diligent leaders!). Panic spiked at that, briefly, for Hobie; he leaned on Miles and tried to get him out of it, get them both out of it, but Miles shrugged him off in order to practically run into the belly of the beast with his fist in the air like he’d won something. Hobie dropped his face into his palm, but followed along anyway. Just to see what was going to happen.

Miles looked slightly awed when he took off his mask, which was kind of an ego boost, if Hobie was being honest; his whispered comment was met with one of his own comebacks (“how are you even cooler under the mask?” “I was this cool the whole time.”) that made Gwen press her lips together as she repressed her snort of laughter. Hobie glowered at her slightly, and she rolled her eyes in the opposite direction. Even Jess looked somewhat amused, and Hobie grunted softly at both of them.

He tried, honest to god, he tried so hard to keep Miles from meeting Miguel. Once he’d realized that Gwen had met with Miles and yet told him nothing about the Spider Society, told him nothing about how he fit into all of this as the supposed “original anomaly” (he had ThoughtsTM about Miguel’s thought process, is all, ThoughtsTM that he didn’t necessarily have time to delve into at this specific moment) — he couldn’t let him walk in blind. Miles didn’t deserve the way Miguel was gonna treat him on a normal day, short-tempered and blunt as the man was, let alone a day where a mission was fucked up bad enough that the BBG got away and another dimension was in peril of nonexistence. There was just no time to prepare him, not right at this moment, and he’d completely messed up his entrance to begin with so it wasn’t even like Miles would wanna even listen to anything Hobie had to say, let alone believe it, so…Hobie stalled.

Easily reaching out and grabbing anything potentially useful, Hobie distracted Miles as best he could. Bet this don’t even do anything. Why’d you wanna join up anyway? (The scoff Miles gave him when Hobie told him to make his own watch was not cute, Hobie did not find it endearing at all, and he was shit at lying to himself) What’s your set up — loving parents? (He was thankful Gwen was walking ahead of them for that one and not paying them any attention; the way he’d leaned on that unused portal more or less broadcasted his interest, especially combined with the way he’d fallen through it. He was also infinitely grateful Miles was too preoccupied to notice that blatant display). Hell, he even planted himself in front of the damn kid, sitting in the chair and stretching his legs out onto the table top so that Miles wouldn’t advance anymore, and felt his heart flutter in his chest when Miles simply pushed past him without even stopping.

Then it stopped when Miguel showed up, acting more Miguel-ish than usual. Miles greeted him brightly, holding up the empanada he’d gotten from the cafeteria, but Miguel was having none of it at the moment. Hobie glared at him out of the corner of his eye when he threw the empanada, then dipped out of sight in order to steal more tech that he needed; he lost track of what was happening all the way up to the loud crashing noise, and he’d popped his head back over to see Miguel yelling at both Gwen and Miles. Sniffing irritably, Hobie opened his mouth and was cut off immediately by Peter Parker from Earth 616 making his appearance. Miles was happy to see him, Hobie could hear it in his voice, and against his better judgement he went back to what he was doing.

When Miguel trapped Miles, way before literally trapping him in a cage, Hobie made his way to Miles’ side while keeping a small distance from him. He kept his eyes on him, watching how he ranted against Miguel’s idea of ‘keeping to the canon’, how he fought against the idea of letting one person die just to save others, how he argued that as Spider-Man they should be able to do both. Watched how he turned to his original allies, Peter 616 and Gwen and even Peni, and how they all couldn’t look him in the eye for longer than a few seconds. Encouraged him when it seemed like he needed it (“Here we go.” “Hobie, you’re not helping.” “Good.”). Miles realized it was a trap a second too late, and once Miguel had him caged, chaos began to descend upon them all. His friends were yelling at Miguel, who was yelling back, and Miles was panicking. He couldn’t break himself out, and Hobie’d had enough.

“Oi, Peter Pan.” Hobie hissed at him, and Miles stared at him with wide eyes. He didn’t touch the digital net, all too aware of the fact that it would draw attention from the others, but he spread his hands out just in front of it. Hobie repeated his advice from earlier, complete with visual demonstration, without speaking out loud. “Use your palms.” Miles seemed to take a breath at that, his shoulders lowering from around his ears as he pressed his hands fully against the barrier, palms and all. Since Hobie was the only one paying attention, he knew to brace himself when electricity started crackling up and down Miles’ arms; when the barrier exploded, he was the only one who wasn’t knocked over aside from Miles, who seemed to freeze for a sec when he realized he was free. He chuckled, smiling proudly when Miles’ wide brown eyes met his again, without the barrier this time.

Then Miles turned heel and booked it down the corridor, where the door was wide open and awaiting his exit. Hobie sort of regretted that breaking the door so it would stay open meant that the other Spiders also had easy access to go after Miles, but they were still trying to pick themselves up off the floor and that gave Miles a solid four second head start. It was the best Hobie could do for him, given the situation, along with one last thing.

Miguel yelled for everyone to go after Miles, and they complied. Hobie activated his watch, creating a portal to his home ‘verse. Sneering at all the Spiders rushing past him, Hobie shouted “for the record, I quit!” and threw his watch off once he was safely in the portal.

He crash landed towards the edge of the bed in the room, close enough to where he was aiming originally. Sighing heavily, Hobie sprawled out on the bed and listened to the drones flying overhead, watched as their lights illuminated the room he was staying in currently. Gwen’s jumper was still on the floor where she’d left it, her shoes dropped carelessly two feet beside it. (Seriously, her shoes were right there, did she really have to take his?) With a soft sigh and a quiet groan, he pulled himself back up, stretched, and started pulling shit out of his pockets. He’d actually grabbed a lot more things than he’d needed, courtesy of trying to hold the door for Miles, and he tossed aside the things he didn’t need in order to get started. Several other watches dropped out of his pocket as well, the ones he’d made before staying on him for safekeeping — one for him, one for Pav, one for Gwen.

Just because Miles didn’t want to make his own watch didn’t mean Hobie couldn’t make one for him.

#punkflower #spider punk #spider gwen #miles morales #hinted punkflower #like just a taste of it #spiderman atsv #more hobie pov of his part in the movie than anything else #starts before the movie events

[nico-esoterica]

"Nico, I wanna be a famous artist!" (A Case Study Using Manifestation and Astrology)

Lady Gaga went from no one knowing her name in a hand-made outfit at Lollapalooza in '07 to eclipsing and redefining pop culture in '09. And later headlined Lollapalooza in 2010. She told herself, "I'm going to make a Number One Record," and "The Fame is inside of Me," over and over again. This was what meteoric 'BTS-like' success looked like for millennials (which also happened in the same amount of time).

She manifested that shit like a motherfucker. She's living proof that a small indie artist who can barely move a crowd and who got INITIAL lukewarm reception after releasing her breakout album that only gained traction A YEAR LATER that YOU, IN FACT, CAN DO THIS SHIT. Gaga was performing in hole in the wall gay clubs in Europe and radios didn't care about that album until Just Dance blew up in the US. Every millennial remembers exactly where they were in life when that single became a hit song. This is also the woman who performed in an Ikea Parking Lot to promote said album.

This is a sign for all of the artists in the audience to NOT give up on your dreams. Even if things seem to be slow, delayed, or as if nothing is going on. There will always be SOMETHING behind the scenes if you commit to thinking in your favor. You're human and can have shitty days, weeks, etc, but it's important to NOT COMMIT TO BEING MISERABLE. Your engagement's gonna go up, you can find a new melody for that song, work through your writer's block and just WRITE the damn thing, and you're going to GET the right gig for you. Your dreams will be handed to you if you believe that they will. TRUST YOURSELF.

Astrologically, Gaga was in her 10H profection year when she first performed at Lollapalooza. But between 07-08+ she experienced the classic Jupiter and Saturn squares to her natal planet equivalents which occur in your early 20s that could've served as catalysts or hurdles she chose not to overcome and did the former. Contrary to what we hear about 10H profections being about finally being seen or getting promoted, etc, it's not inherently explosive. It depends on the chart and what the person does with their potential. Gaga used it as exposure and to further build her career that'd soon snowball into legendary success.

This isn't some Capitalistic tale about 'hard work paying off.' I don't believe in toil and 'hard work' in an exploitative economical sense. I believe in all-encompassing self-belief. Gaga could have easily thrown in the towel when the radios weren't gagged or the people weren't moving in the crowd. She, imo, was performing for audiences only SHE could see. Huge ones based on the scale she believed in.

Even if we could say her Mars-Neptune conjunction in Capricorn where she already had an exaltation or that her Moon-Mars or Moon-Pluto helped her, those harmonious aspects could have motivated her in the opposite direction if she wasn't seeing results. Because all of that Mars can easily wear out through exhaustion or entrap itself in the idea that it simply 'can't come easily.' Martian and Saturnian folks tend to enjoy suffering as a kink. She also could've easily been a flash-in-the-pan one hit wonder artist and faded or her era could've been very short. Maybe in hind sight it was from a musical perspective, but that 5 year run between The Fame and pre-Art Pop undeniably gave her quarter century defining success. And she'd later go on to win big accolades as a serious actress and is still going.

And speaking strictly astrologically, I see another big musical era for her coming. I saw it in Galliano's chart when his fire points got activated and will be emblazoned by Neptune in Aries transiting soon. I also see the same coming for our Mama Monster.

So, um, why are y'all giving up out there in the stands? COME GET ON STAGE AND CLAIM IT AS YOURS ALREADY.

#manifestation #loa #celebrity astrology #lady gaga astrology #mani essays #lady gaga

[cirilla-fiona-riannon]

Battle in Rhodolite: Team Deer Bonus Story

Translations may not always capture the exact nuances or tone of the original text. Expect grammatical errors.

------------Flashback------------

Emma: "Is there a reward for the winning team?"

Sariel: "Yes. They will be presented with a ticket that can grant any wish within reason."

Sariel: "Our committee will have to hear their requests."

Emma: "I understand. I'll prepare myself from now on."

---------Flashback Ends--------

Emma: "So, congratulations!"

Emma: "The winner of the first International Friendship Martial Arts Tournament is Team Deer!"

Emma: "As the organizing committee, we will do our best to fulfill everyone's wishes."

Keith: "That's great. Although it wasn't a serious martial arts tournament, a victory is still a victory."

Leon: "Hold on. There was one person in this team who slacked off."

Chevalier: "..........."

Leon: "You disappeared for your own reasons, but it's still considered skipping."

Silvio: "True. It's a bit funny that everyone gets the reward equally."

Rio: "You say that, but you just played in a card game."

Silvio: "And you just made sweets. That's not called a martial arts tournament."

Luke: "I did participate in the martial arts tournament properly."

Sariel: "The cleaning afterward was hell, though. Fufufu."

Luke: "Well, it's not my fault."

Keith: "Things are starting to look ominous. Emma, what should we do?"

Keith: "In the first place, the ticket that grants any wish is one per team, not one per person, right?"

Emma: "Yes, that's correct."

Keith: "I can't imagine everyone here agreeing on a wish."

Keith: "What should we do about that, Sariel?"

Sariel: "Let's just forcefully gather and summarize their opinions."

Keith: "Understood. In that case, how about something like this?"

Emma: "Do you have an idea?"

Keith: "Yeah. We're going to have a martial arts tournament with everyone here."

Keith: "And the person who wins will receive the ticket."

Emma: "I see!"

Emma: "Wait, what?"

Silvio: "That's easy to understand."

Silvio: "Alright, I'll start by taking you down."

Rio: "Whoa!?"

Rio: "Attacking out of nowhere一are you some sort of a barbarian!?"

Silvio: "Tch, you even threw a knife at me right away."

Silvio: "But don't think you can crush me with such a feeble weapon."

Emma: "Ah, crap, it's really starting!"

Luke: "Hey, wait, Rio! Don't throw a knife at me!"

Rio: "Then why don't you help me, Prince Luke? I'll behave myself if we defeat this jerk!"

Silvio: "Ha? Are you my enemy too, big guy? Then come at me."

Luke: "Alright, the way you said that just now pissed me off."

Luke: "I'll kill for unlimited honey."

Emma: "Ahhh! You too, Luke!? Wait, what you said sounded really dangerous!"

Sariel: "Please step aside, Emma. At this point, we can only leave it to fate."

Sariel: ".........."

Keith: "Heh, I've known for a while that you're no ordinary guy, but I didn't think you'd block my sword with a whip. Impressive."

Sariel: "What are you planning, Prince Keith?"

Keith: "Nothing. I'm just thinking of taking responsibility and joining as well."

Sariel: "If you say you'll take responsibility, then could you please stop this?"

Keith: "Sorry, Sariel. I'm as fragile as a weed, so stopping this is beyond me."

Keith: "Though, I don't really intend to stop it."

Leon: "Emma! Come over here!"

Emma: "Leon! W-W-What should I do? Even Sariel has started fighting with his whip."

Leon: "Calm down. Do you know what to do in times like this?"

Emma: "No. I have absolutely no idea."

Leon: "It's simple."

Leon: "In this world, the strong devour the weak and make the losers submit."

Emma: "Um, why are you drawing your sword too?"

Leon: "Stay behind Chevalier."

Emma: "Wait! And he's gone."

Keith: "Oops, haha! I never thought I'd have the chance to fight you, Leon."

Leon: "Don't let your guard down. This fight won't end until there's a winner!"

Silvio: "Hey! Who the hell tried to attack me from behind just now!?"

Rio: "Ah, damn it! I missed. Seriously, this guy's so persistent!"

Luke: "How about I just blow everyone away together?"

Sariel: "That wouldn't be good. Please calm down."

Emma: "No one..."

Emma: "No one seems willing to listen to me."

Emma: "If everyone wants to fight with swords so badly, they should've done it in a martial arts tournament."

Emma: "The only person I can rely on in this group is..."

Chevalier: "............"

Emma: "You've been reading a book since earlier. Sorry, but I have a favor to ask."

Chevalier: "............"

Emma: "Could you please settle this commotion?"

Chevalier: "............"

Emma: "I'll give you some rare books. The owner recently said he found books from a lost nation!"

Chevalier: "Oh?"

Chevalier: "Lost nation's literature sounds interesting. Most of it is said to have been burned by Obsidian."

Emma: "The owner is an incredibly lucky person. Having one or two books from a lost nation is a real bargain!"

Chevalier: "In that case, it is certainly worth it."

Chevalier: "Stop, was it?"

Emma: "Eh? Huh? He disappeared."

Rio: "Waah!?"

Luke: "Whoa!?"

Silvio: "What the!?"

Sariel: "Oops."

Leon: "Chevalier!?"

Chevalier: "Keep your promise, simpleton."

Emma: "T-Thank you very much."

Emma: "I didn't expect you to disarm everyone in an instant."

Leon: "Isn't this unfair, Chevalier?"

Luke: "Sneaking in when our guard is down and taking the easy part is really sneaky."

Rio: "Exactly!"

Silvio: "Seriously, why are you the most motivated one here? That's not like your character at all."

Keith: "Your swordsmanship was impressive, Chevalier. How about sparring with me next?"

Sariel: "Prince Keith seems unusually spirited today."

Emma: "Okay, everyone, did you cool your heads already?"

Emma: "If we continue like this, we'll never be able to fulfill your wishes."

Emma: "Let's have a constructive discussion, please!"

Rio: "Emma looks cute when she's mad."

Luke & Leon: "Agreed."

Silvio: "You guys, shut up."

Keith: "Hmm."

Keith: "In that case, how about having the Second International Friendship Martial Arts Tournament?"

Silvio: "Ha?"

Keith: "I'm talking about the team's wishes."

Keith: "Well, everyone seemed to still want to fight, so I thought having it regularly might be a good idea."

Keith: "That way, the chance to have your wishes granted might increase from once to two or three times."

Keith: "I believe it could improve things without engaging in useless fights like this."

Leon: "You were the one who started this useless fight."

Emma: "Prince Keith's suggestion is wonderful!"

Emma: "Having the exchange event two or three times would deepen our bonds even more than just doing it once."

Rio: "Emma's eyes are sparkling. Cute."

Luke & Leon: "Agreed."

Silvio: "I told you guys to shut up."

Silvio: "If there's a next time, I want a different team from this damn mutt. I'll knock you guys out with all my might."

Rio: "Wow, so much confidence. Hopefully, you won't get beaten up in return."

Luke: "I'll be on a different team from that bastard Clavis. I'll take him down next time, for sure."

Sariel: "Where's the word friendship in all of these?"

Leon: "You don't have any objections, do you?"

Chevalier: "............"

Leon: "Oh, he ran away. Well, I guess that means he has no complaints."

Emma: "So it's decided then."

Emma: "I look forward to the day when we all get together again."

Ikepri Masterlist

#ikemen prince #ikepri #ikepri jp #ikepri silvio #ikepri chevalier #ikepri leon #ikepri luke #ikepri keith #cybird #ikepri translations

[infohazardouz]

where everything’s at

hey hello everyone :0)

i know its not that serious and perhaps im a bit silly for feeling the urge to explain but i wanted to let you guys know where things are at in terms of the demon au, what i’m posting, art in general etc etc

first! updates for the demon au will probably be slower, as well as art in general! why? because my laptop EXPLODED.... no, not really .

my rig right now for everything -from college to art to personal use- is literally just one office grade laptop that was defective from the get-go (thanks HP) with a mean overheating issue that’s killing it internally. however i also spilled sugary, milky coffee on it once and it survived so i am very thankful for it lol :0)

point is... today the back cover totally popped right off and won’t go back in because the casing is deformed- my temporary solution ever since it stopped closing properly months ago was... tape, but it’s working! however, i also got an error that basically said my battery was degrading really quickly, and i know that i can’t afford to replace it if it does die on me. i’ve been looking into investing in building my own PC for a while, but i know that it’s certainly expensive and time-consuming so it’s gonna take me a long time before i can set up a real rig.

how does this have anything to do with me? you might be asking. and you are right for asking because... it doesn’t, kind of! but i just wanted to let folks know that updates will be slower because i’m trying not to overwork my laptop as opposed to like, art block or a lack of interest! i would love to finish the demon au storyline and make a ton more content for WH and otherwise and plan to for the forseeable future :0)

also i want to let you folks know that something interactive is in the works for the demon au...

#meta #info #update #welcome home demon au #welcome home excon au #shiva #welcome home oc #long post #my art