#i wanted to include more but. but the post is so long already you know? like i couldve done a shorter format BUT AAAAAA

[kaiijo]

ok. bllk and jealousy rate. how jealous can they get over their gf and what do they do to cope lmao

HOW JEALOUS IS HE? — [BLUE LOCK]

characters: isagi yoichi, bachira meguru, itoshi rin, itoshi sae, kunigami rensuke, nagi seishiro, mikage reo, oliver aiku content: gn! reader (request says gf but reader is gender neutral) notes: some of these are lowkey toxic, minor spoilers for kunigami’s character arc, nagi is taller than reader

most jealous: bachira, rin, reo 

bachira meguru ✶

bachira has many, many insecurities. growing up isolated and without many friends, he is more possessive of those he’s close to, which obviously includes you. he just doesn’t want to lose you, which manifests itself in jealousy over anyone he perceives as a threat to your relationship

bachira gets really clingy when he’s jealous. he thinks that inserting himself into the situation, sometimes literally wedging himself between you and the other person. he usually chooses to drape himself over you, nuzzling into your neck and speaking low enough that only you hear, trying his best to divert your attention. third-wheeling is pretty uncomfortable for the other person, especially with the smiling sneer bachira’s shooting at them, so they make a quick irish exit 

itoshi rin ✶

an egoist to his very core, rin can get very jealous. while he’s very sure of himself in nearly every other part of his life, he knows that he is not an ideal partner a lot of the time, though he’ll never admit it. he’s not the most expressive or the most patient, and he’s sure that there are better partners for you out there. 

when rin’s jealous, it’s a silent but deadly thing. like when he’s locked in on the ball in a game, his focus you and his ‘competitor’ is unwavering. he stalks over to stand behind you, his chest bumping right up against your back, and he snarls, “what the hell do you want, you mediocrity?” usually the other person backs off after seeing rin’s bone-chilling glare but if they’re bold enough to answer back, rin bares his teeth and is poised to strike. it’s probably best if you diffuse the situation quickly before it gets uglier  

mikage reo ✶

we already know how jealous reo was over nagi so it’s safe to say that he’s definitely very jealous. having been bored with the world and other people for so long, he’s thrilled when you two get together. it makes his very protective of you and he wants to be one of the most, if not the most, special person in your life. 

reo can go a couple of ways when he feels jealous over someone else but it think his primary response is to tear down the person methodically. he tilts his head a little, looks the person up and down, and notes everything about their appearance — hair, skin, clothes (including brand and cost) and criticizes every little thing. it’s a strategic move in his opinion, using observational skills and knowledge he had given his upbringing to pick apart the other person. he also might make some underhanded comment that includes that he has a black card 

less jealous: isagi, kunigami, sae 

isagi yoichi ✶

he definitely gets jealous from time to time but he doesn’t feel the need to act on it a lot. he’s pretty mature and for the most part level-headed (plus his ability to piece together future events helps him keep his cool a lot). this doesn’t mean that he isn’t jealous 

when isagi is jealous, he’s sulky. he won’t take immediate action and watch from afar, arms crossed and a little pouty. he tries to look as dejected and as ‘wet-cat pathetic’ as possible to make you feel bad and come over to comfort him. when you inevitably do, looping your arm through his and kissing his cheek, he can’t help but smirk at the other person like a cat who go the cream 

kunigami rensuke ✶

i debated where to put kunigami since there are ‘two sides’ to him — pre- and post-wildcard. pre-wild card kunigami is definitely a lot less bothered; he trusts you 100% and is 100% confident and secure in your relationship and himself. post-wild card kunigami is less chill and more forceful. he’s not a hero anymore but even as he plays a more ‘villainous’ role in soccer, he won’t cross that line in your relationship. he’s still very secure in you and himself, but he’s more protective of your relationship. definitely a ‘i trust you/us but it’s other people i’m worried about’ kind of guy

when pre-wild card kunigami got jealous, he won’t act in the moment and will talk to you about it afterwards, in a private setting. open lines of communication were important to him and working out problems like this. post-wildcard kunigami is all stormy looks and intimidation. like rin, he also stands behind you but in less actively aggressive way and more just to be threatening. it’s 95% effective and the 5% of times it doesn’t work, kunigami is not above muscling the other person away 

itoshi sae ✶

i thought about putting sae in the ‘most jealous’ section but i just think that he is someone whose jealousy simmer just beneath his apathetic surface. he sees most other people as beneath him and believes that they are not worthy of speaking to you, let alone hitting on you, but because he’s sees them as so beneath him, he can’t be bothered half the time to do anything since they’re simply not worth it. he gets the most jealous when it’s people who he can potentially view as equals, like other professional athletes 

when he’s jealous, sae literally just pretends they don’t exist, only talking to you. if the other person tries to interject, he sends them a sideways glare — the only acknowledgment of their existence — and then turns away to continue whatever conversation, suggesting that you both get away from the other person as quickly as possible. if ignoring the person doesn’t work, sae doesn’t shy away from spewing vitriol at the other person

least jealous: nagi, oliver, michael

nagi seishiro ✶

simply put, being jealous is a hassle to nagi. it makes him too hot and too annoyed for him to want to feel it so he suppresses the feeling a lot. nagi’s height is already intimidating enough for most people so they don’t approach you when they see you two together but that isn’t a deterrent to everyone

when nagi gets jealous, he does one of two things: just gives a thousand-yard stare that freaks people out or he gets whiny and clingy. his stare is eerie and silent, and the lightness of his eyes doesn’t help it. he towers over you like some cryptid companion. when he gets whiny and clingy, nagi tugs at your sleeve and asks drily, “can we go yet? why are you still talking to them?”

oliver aiku ✶

sigh… oliver is undoubtedly someone who thinks and knows he’s the shit. with so many women and men alike fawning over everything about him, his ego is through the roof. he has very little worry about you leaving him for someone else. honestly, he finds it amusing most of the time when someone attempt to draw you away from him, and let’s it play out a lot for his own entertainment. of course, he’ll intervene if it’s making you uncomfortable but he also believes you can handle yourself 

when oliver gets jealous, he acts as casual as possible. he’s friendly towards the other person and but it’s not hard to uncover that it’s all fake, whether it’s from the glint in his eye or the way his smile is stiff and forced. common tells when he gets jealous is that he pokes his tongue against the inside of his cheek or he clenches his teeth and inhales softly but sharply.  he employs the good old tactic of calling the other person the wrong name and making all kind of underhanded comments that slowly chip at their nerves. (“haruya? haruki? oh! you’re haruto! right, right, you know, they’ve never mentioned you before! crazy, huh?”) 

michael kaiser ✶

kaiser in german literally means ‘emperor,’ and it’s no secret that kaiser views himself as one. similar to sae, he see himself as so above others that he’s not even bothered by other people hitting on you. it displeases him greatly, sure, but these cockroaches will never be able to steal you from him so why should an emperor deal with the plebians? the only time that ever happens is when a peasant is particularly forceful and then, kaiser intervenes

when he gets jealous, kaiser puts on a show. if there’s one thing about him, he’s a bit of a drama queen. he will absolutely posture and puff out his chest at the offending person, looking down his nose arrogantly and smirking. he makes a big display of wrapping himself around you, gripping firmly at your hips and saying, “liebling, you’re very charitable to entertain this insect, but it’s time to end this ruse.”

#.𖥔 ݁ ˖ kaiijo writes #blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #bachira meguru x reader #itoshi rin x reader #mikage reo x reader #bachira x reader #itoshi x reader #rin x reader #reo x reader #isagi yoichi x reader #isagi x reader #kunigami rensuke x reader #kunigami x reader #itoshi sae x reader #sae x reader #nagi seishiro x reader #nagi x reader #oliver aiku x reader #aiku x reader #michael kaiser x reader #kaiser x reader #blue lock headcanons #blue lock scenarios #blue lock imagines

[talia-black]

RELATIONSHIP HEADCANNONS

Mondstadt Boys

Nothing sexual is explicitly mentioned in this, only vaguely suggestive for Venti. For all of the younger characters it is strictly romantic. (And before you come at me in the comments, I went to high school. I’ve seen close romantic relationships between teenagers that never even verged on sexual and would never even consider writing an underaged character in such a light.) 

This is also my first time making a post like this, so please be nice. Any advice is welcome since I’m still relatively new to Tumblr.

Kaeya-

Kaeya would never in a million years consider dating someone with serious romantic intentions, even if his feelings were fully reciprocated. His past, his secrets, his ties to so many dangerous factions would put them in immediate danger at all times, and if there’s one thing we know about Kaeya it's that he would do anything to protect the people he loves. Including breaking both his and their hearts in the process. But if he was free from all of that, Kaeya would love an SO who he could just relax around. Just be Kaeya instead of everything else. They would be his safe space, his only true home outside of Dawn Winery, and the true meaning of freedom for him. 

What Kaeya didn’t know he wanted in a significant other was someone who could see past his masks instinctively. They never commented on his half-truths, his bluffs, his misdirections. But through the briefest of eye contact he knew that you knew exactly what he was doing. He comes back home in the early hours of the morning with bloody knuckles and open wounds, they are still up and bandages him while talking softly about whatever gossip had been hot on the market that morning. 

Kaeya is flirtatious by nature, and his playboy attitude extends to them in public so many don’t think their relationship is that serious. But behind closed doors, with his heart open and gently placed in their hands, you would think they were divine in nature. They laughed at the attempts of other people to flirt with him, because they already knew that his heart belonged to them.

Diluc-

Much like Kaeya, Diluc knows he lives too dangerous a life to consider a romantic relationship. Unlike Kaeya though, he craves that connection just a little more fiercely than Kaeya. While Kaeya is constantly surrounded by the friendly comradery of the Knights, Diluc is far more isolated. Of course he has Adeline, Elzer, and the other workers at the Dawn Winery who’ve known him since he was a child, but he doesn’t share any close friendships that goes to on a regular basis. What Diluc knows he would want in an SO more than anything else is companionship. If he could afford to, he wouldn’t care where they’re from or what their background is if they were able to make him forget about his responsibilities for just a little bit. Someone he can come home to. 

What Diluc didn’t know he wanted was someone who could help him repair his stunted relationships. Someone who invites Kaeya over for tea while they know he will be home and eventually coax both of the brothers to dig up five years worth of skeletons and come to a much better understanding. Someone who helps him at the bar after long days working in the vineyard, keeping an ear out for anything people might not otherwise let slip near the intimidating man. Above all else, Diluc did not know what he wanted was a true partner who was as dedicated to his own wellbeing as he was to theirs.

Diluc would not be showy about his affection beyond what was appropriate for a gentleman. Arm hooked around yours, hand against lower back, and maybe a quick peck on the lips if they had relative privacy. Back home though, this man is so touch-starved that he will be wrapped around his SO for as much time as possible. Playing chess? Too bad, they have to move their pieces while sitting on his side of the board. Reading a book? Someone’s head is in the other person’s lap. Sleeping? They only use a thin sheet because Diluc is a heater and plasters himself to his SO’s back and tucks them under his chin like a stuffed animal. 

Venti- 

Wow. You thought the previous two were traumatized? Venti has watched entire civilizations be wiped from remembrance at the whims of the Heavenly Principles and does everything in his power to make Monstadt seem like less of a threat in order to prevent the same thing from happening to him. Nearly all of his significant relationships have been ended by death or time, so the thought of having an SO, especially an immortal one, would terrify him. Contrary to popular thinking, I think Venti would want an SO who is mortal. 60-70 years of bliss, forever immortalized in song, and out of reach from the claws of the Heavenly Principles. 

What Venti didn’t know he wanted was an SO who was an artist themselves. He was so used to being the performer, the one expected to entertain the audience with story and song. With just a little instruction (and maybe a blessing made on a bet) they were already able to rival Venti’s prowess with a lyre. It made quite the stir in Mondsadt, as Venti had been unmatched for years, and soon fan clubs were formed. Whether they were being shipped or slandered, there was none who could deny the inherent chemistry between Venti and his rival. In fact, there was no clear confirmation on their relationship until Venti drank nearly half of the Angel Share’s stock on a dare and kissed them full on the mouth. And even then the heated debate persisted. Until one day, they climbed on top of the church and belted out a serenade for all of Monstadt to hear before proposing to their “cheeky, bird-brained, bastard who also happens to be the love of their life”. Yeah, Venti may or may not have caused a mini hurricane to knock them off their feet so he could sweep them away to Starsnatch Cliff. 

Venti is flirty, but after he starts seriously courting his SO he noticeably tones it down. Creative and blush-inducing complements to his audience were still common, but nothing truly improper. In private… he shared an ungodly amount of characteristics with those cats he’s allergic to. Spoiled with kisses and cuddles, demanding when he goes without their attention for more than a few minutes, and if they’re open to it, always ready for more exciting activities. Like stated previously, Venti doesn’t want his SO to be immortal. As much as their death will hurt, at least he was able to make sure that their short life ended peacefully and with a full heart. He will sing your songs and tell the tale of the two bards who had captured each other’s hearts. Besides, even he will return to the winds one day. And then will be able to reunite with them, and all of his old friends. 

Razor- 

Honestly, Razor’s concept of a romantic relationship between two humans is either completely nonexistent or radically underdeveloped. He’s seen wolves court and mate (Though Andrius keeps Razor away during mating season. Young pups should not witness such things) so I think that any kind of romantic action would just come off as heavily platonic or familial. He’s never thought about finding any sort of life-partner, all he wants is to protect his family, so whatever vague idea of an SO or “mate” Razor has would involve him taking care of them and being taken care of in turn. 

What Razor didn’t suspect was that his SO would be so willing to be accepted into his Lupical. While he had friends like Bennett and Klee who were nice to him whenever they saw him around, but most people still tended to avoid Razor. It hurt a bit, but as long as Razor had his Lupical and his friends, he never gave anyone else much thought. Until one day, he found an adventurer freeing a wolf cub who had gotten its paw stuck in a hunting trap. Such traps should not have been so close to the wolves’ territory, and Razor found out later that they had come on a commission from the Knights to investigate. However, Razor noticed how in the process of freeing and bandaging the pup, they had torn open their hands. He had immediately gone looking for Wolfhook, and waited until night when they had fallen asleep to sneak in and apply the berry paste. He didn’t want to frighten them, and instead opted to watch over them while they slept. He fell asleep sometime during the early morning, and only awoke to the smell of meat cooking. He opened his eyes to see the adventurer watching him from the opposite side of the fire, a plate of berries and steaming meat set near him. 

Razor was quickly enamored by the lone adventurer. They were a new recruit, and had actually heard of Razor from Katheryne when they accepted the commission. Over time, the adventurer ended up taking every opportunity possible to visit Razor. The boy’s excitement whenever he caught their scent on the wind never lessened, and both of them often spent nights in the middle of Wolvendom in blissful silence. Razor never felt like he had to talk much around them, and the same could be said of them. The two were able to discern most of what they needed to from body language, facial expressions, and scent in Razor’s case at times. It didn’t take long for them to be introduced to the rest of Razor’s Lupical. The pup they had rescued recognized them immediately and spent the entire evening receiving head scratches. As midnight approached, the older wolves nudged Razor towards their slumped over form. They had passed out with most of the pups on top of them, and Razor immediately curled up behind them with his chin resting over their exposed neck protectively. Just as he had watched the wolves do with their mates. 

Albedo- 

Wow. Kinda a mix of Kaeya and Razor; he is flirty (His teapot voice lines startled a blush out of me the first time I heard them) but way more subtle about it. But I also don’t think he has ever seriously considered a romantic relationship with someone. While the thought had crossed his mind once or twice, who could he possibly meet who would be compatible with him? His personal identity as a homunculus and a creation of Rhinedottr means he is already a nonhuman entity, and his title as Mondstadt’s Chief Alchemist and his work keeps most of his relationships strictly professional. Even his friendships are mostly cordial, though he does enjoy the company of others at times. This man is always doing something, so entertaining romantic notions for anyone has never entered the picture. However, I think he would like a SO similar to Fanon!Traveler Lumine (And I’m not just saying this because I’m on the Albelumi ship I promise). Someone who managed to catch Albedo’s attention would need to have something inherently unique about them. Someone who manages to keep his attention on them for a significant period of time would have to have an equally appealing, lighthearted personality that practically lit up the room whenever they walked in.

What Albedo did not expect from his SO was someone who showed so much care for him. Someone who is curious about Albedo’s work, even if they don’t fully understand it. Someone who may not understand art, but recognizes the effort Albedo puts into his drawings. Someone who invites (read: coerces) Albedo out of his lab to go eat at Good Hunter or take the evening off to relax at Angels Share. Their occupation and background doesn’t mean much to him personally, the information is only relevant if it pertains to their health or behavior. Only one issue with this set up, even if feelings are completely reciprocated. Albedo has no clue what these feelings are and where they are coming from and will spend far too much time deliberating on what he should do to them. Much to the exasperation of all of the Knight and his fellow alchemists. Once Albedo does a full analysis of himself (bloodwork, brain scans, chemical analysis, a few experiments to see how he reacts to certain stimuli, this man is nothing if not thorough) he will come to the conclusion that he is in love. (Sucrose sighs when Albedo brings the test results to her.) And he immediately launches himself into a new kind of research. He asks around about the best way to confess, and eventually decides to cultivate a new species of flowers specifically for them and then just cut to the chase over a private picnic under the stars. This man already has no filter, so once he manages to correctly identify the emotions he is feeling, the length of time between then and the actual confession would be much shorter. 

Those flowers Albedo cultivates in their honor would be everywhere once his SO admitted their feelings were mutual. He dedicated an entire section of the alchemists’ greenhouse to them and ordered for no one else to touch them except for him. They would find the flowers in their hair, in between books, scattered around Albedo’s workspace, and somehow in their house. Similar to Diluc, the few times Albedo and his SO were out together in public people would know that they’re dating, but beside the fact that the two were almost always holding hands and the occasional peck on the cheek, neither were overly affectionate in public. Albedo would also be incredibly flexible in private when it came to their dynamic. He likes both giving and receiving affection and doesn’t really have a preference as long as he can spend as much time as possible in their company when he’s not working. They like to follow him on his expeditions to Dragonspine, mainly for the excuse to snuggle with Albedo every night when they get cold. The rest of the Knights adjusted well to Albedo’s SO, even if Sucrose needed to take on more work at times so Albedo could spend more time with them. The Knights closest to Albedo watched with fascination as the typically workaholic alchemist actually took lunch breaks, got in late, and left the moment he was satisfied with the progress of his experiments. What they don’t see is how the way he treats his SO in private is almost reverent. They are his muse, his lover, and his eternal companion (because unlike Venti, Albedo would 100% find a way for his SO the share his lifespan if they so chose to) and in one of his dark moments, Albedo realizes just how much he would ruin if it meant they stayed safe. 

Also, Alice would 100% show up for the first time in years just to help her son get ready for his first date. 

Haven’t played Bennett’s hangout quest yet and don’t know enough about his character so I will probably post him with another nation once I get around to it. 

I’ll get around to doing Liyue if enough people decide they like this.

#genshin impact #diluc x reader #kaeya x reader #genshin drabbles #genshin x you #relationship headcanons #venti x reader #razor x reader #albedo x reader #diluc headcanons #kaeya headcanons #venti headcanons #razor headcannons #albedo headcanons

[skania]

OnK Chapter 149

I know it doesn’t mean much coming from me because I’m always complaining about Aka’s writing, but…

And I mean it when I say that I expect nothing 😭 This was literally my first ever OnK-related reblog and its tags are more relevant than ever lmao

These, too:

#honestly I didn’t think too hard about any of this during my first read #because the romantic endgame seems so obvious that it kind of discourages guessing lmao #but re-reading these chapters has made me appreciate Aqua’s side of his bond with Akane a lot more

Back when I first got into OnK, I mentioned that Akane was the entire reason I kept reading the manga. I didn’t care about the romantic subplot, found Aqua/Kana extremely obvious and predictable, and Aqua plain boring.

It’s only during my second read that I paid close attention to Akane’s interactions with Aqua and I ended up playing myself into both, caring about Aqua and shipping him with Akane lol

This chapter has made me realize that despite everything, I'm not emotionally invested in whether they end up together or not. I’d prefer it, obviously, because Aqua truly is at his most interesting whenever he’s around Akane, and their dynamic has the best development in the manga (so far).

But it’s just like I said before: If they don’t end up together, that’s just Aka’s loss, not mine. I’m just here for Akane 😂

And as an Akane fan, I feel like the best thing for me to do right now is to just take a step back and watch things unfold, because Aka will do whatever he wants regardless of how any of us interpret his manga lol

So instead of posting the long post I originally wrote about this chapter when the leaks came out, I'll just share a a clown gif because in hindsight it was silly of me to expect Kana out of all people to have any sort of meaningful insight into Aqua 🤡

And a couple of things that caught my eye because I can't help myself:

Kana didn't even see Aqua and Akane have any sort of meaningful moment, just those two standing in each other's vicinity was enough to make her throw herself a pity party. How many more times is she going to pity herself and give up? How has Aka not tired of writing her this way? Where did her development from the Scandal arc go? 🤡

So Chapter 147 featured Kamiki thinking Ai doesn't love him and Kana thinking Aqua likes her. It even had a helpful "Cut 139: Misunderstanding" panel and everything. Will this mean something? Who knows!

Kana used guilt-trip! It was super effective!

Oh the irony! Poor Akane looks like she's been hard at work convincing herself that she's over Aqua. And you know what? I cheer for her and respect her energy 100%. I'd rather see her doing her mightiest to help him without any ulterior motives than to have her crying for him and hoping to get back with him every other chapter lol

Akane calling Kana out for her pity-party and for being cowardly was so cathartic that if I didn't already stan her, I'd have become a fan right now 😭 It also means that Aka is 100% aware of the way he writes Kana, so when will she finally be allowed to grow?

Kana's praise to Akane made me so sad though because yes, Akane is pretty and she's talented and she's kind. That's sweet of her to say. But that's not what made Akane someone special to Aqua: it was the way she understood him. The worst part is that Kana ends her praise by saying that Akane is a "goody-two-shoes" but... that's the opposite of how Akane views herself. She sees herself as someone who's not decent and not normal. So it's no wonder that while she gets flustered (it's her dear kana-chan praising her), she seems to get a bit sad/frustrated afterward. After all, for Akane it's probably the opposite. Men would prefer a decent, normal, bright girl like Kana - Aqua included.

I wish someone would tell Akane that she is too ignorant of her own charms and that she doesn't have to act like an adult all the time. Truly the pot calling the kettle black! Sadly, unlike Kana, Akane seems to have no one in her corner in this manga. Aqua was the only one there and the poor guy is barely even a character anymore lol

Overprotective mother or controlling ex-girlfriend? Take your pick!

The English translation left something pretty important out in these panels. Akane doesn't just say "if you have a girlfriend", she says "if you have a precious/important girlfriend". This distinction is very important because it goes to show that... as expected, Akane doesn't think she was an important girlfriend to Aqua. It's like she didn't count and Kana would be the real deal. Oh, Akane...

Which takes me to her very silly, very convoluted yet very predictable plan (in true Aka fashion).

When Akane thinks “I know exactly what you hate”, I imagine she means that Aqua hates hurting and endangering those he cares for. So I'm guessing Akane thinks that if she plays matchmaker and quite literally throws Kana at him, someone he has a soft spot, then Aqua won't be able to go through with his revenge because that would mean breaking Kana's very fragile heart.

In other words, it looks like Akane is going to try and use Aqua's guilt-complex against him and her weapon of choice is love. But not her love, obviously, because as far as she's concerned, her romantic love already failed to save him.

Granted, using Kana's romantic feelings to her advantage is kind of... well, wrong. To quote Akane herself, [Kana] is neither her pet nor her property, but a person. But I'm guessing that Akane may be falling victim to the same loophole she got caught in in Chapters 96 - 98. She thinks she knows what's best, so she's putting her own beliefs aside for the time being.

Kind of like Aqua, actually.

And, ironically, it's Aqua himself who first realized how easy Kana is to use.

So! All in all, I'm here for Mastermind!Akane but I hope that Aka will actually make it worth our while. Will Kana realize that she's about to be used as a chess piece in this Proxy War? Who knows, characters in this manga seem to walk in circles, only being allowed to grow when it fits the plot 😂

Last week we wondered whether Aka would subvert expectations or go the predictable route, and down the predictable route he went. His way of making it less predictable is by including a twist in the form of Akane's ulterior motives, but will this be enough to allow this ol' used trope to lead us someplace new? I guess we'll have to keep reading to find out, but given the quality of the writing lately, I'm not expecting much lol

#my aquakane meta #except not quite #being constantly let down by aka is so bittersweet because there's a part of me that's like hahaha I knew it! #while another is just like: sigh why is he always like this #I thought my expectations were already ground level but I'll lower them a bit more just in case #just please let akane keep serving #that's all I ask for #and if someone can at some point in the manga actually #you know #help her #that would be pretty cool too #because she's basically carrying the entire plot on her shoulders right now yet no one offers her any kind of emotional support at all lmao

[eemamminy-art]

You have turned me from a Zenos hater into a Zenos ambilaventer keep posting and you might manage to turn me into a Zenos lover

If you already hated him though is me drawing him really going to make that big of a difference? 😩 Like I know I give him a fat ass and extremely delicious nose in my artwork but now I feel compelled to give you my tedtalk on why I like zenos lmao

This is about to be really long and also contains spoilers for stormblood, shadowbringers, and endwalker

This might surprise you but I like Zenos for his characterization and storyline in the game itself! The fanart is just kind of a bonus. He's one of many examples in Stormblood of a character that is shaped by their experiences, though I think it's not told as successfully as it is for like, Fordola, Arenvald, or Yotsuyu, because a key part of his backstory was locked to a short story in a print-only book (which I think is out of print now). The most you see of it in the actual game is this blink and you miss it line from Lyse at the very end of 4.0:

(Dialog from the quest "Stormblood", patch 4.0)

What really, really appeals to me about Zenos though, is that he is the personification of depression and that really resonates with me. He has anything he could possibly want, he has accomplished a great many things, but he feels completely hollow inside. He's miserable. He slaughtered countless Domans including their leader and felt nothing, commanded to do it by his father because (as shown in that short story) he only ever was acknowledged to even exist to his father when he practiced violence. So it's a given now, that's what's expected of him and that's all his life is. He's completely desensitized.

He finds one thing that makes him feel alive, that is the warrior of light challenging him, and it becomes his sole focus. Nothing else matters but chasing that high, because every single other thing is a low. After being bested by the warrior of light for the very last time, faced with probably prison for his crimes, he decides to die by his own hand on that high note rather than go back to the drudgery and misery that is everything else.

It's why in endwalker he can be swayed to do something good at the very, very end. He doesn't have a moral compass because he was shaped into an attack dog by his father, he sees "righteousness" as an excuse for war. Because I mean, what else is Garlean propaganda but righteousness from their twisted perspective? He asks Jullus if he would be happier had he a good reason to kill so many garleans after killing his own father— he makes it plain that death is death and there is no justice or good or evil in his eyes. He did have a reason, and it was that his father's use of black rose would likely kill the warrior of light, the only person or thing that gave Zenos any joy in life. Later, it was that Fandaniel dangled the idea that the warrior of light would be attracted to the slaughter and would come running to stop him so he killed more people during the civil war after the emperor's death. But he doesn't need to say that that was why. The reason doesn't matter, he knows the action would not change no matter how it was justified. Even if it was a "good" reason, death is death.

(Dialog from the quest "The Time Between the Seconds", patch 4.0)

(Dialog from the quest "As the Heavens Burn", patch 6.0)

I often see people take Alisaie's part in that scene as her convincing him to be a better person but that's really not what happens. He knows if he takes that action that others perceive as good and helps to stop Endsinger, he could have that high again in facing the warrior of light one more time. He could find joy and meaning, even for a fleeting moment. Then once again end it all because he fears returning to the low monotony of life. It's all over his dialog, especially in Endwalker. The dialog at the very end where he asks the warrior of light if they feel fulfilled, I know is meant to be a bit more of a meta question toward the player themselves, but I'd like to think it's Zenos comparing how different his outlook is to the warrior of light's. The warrior of light has many things keeping them going, whereas Zenos is drowning in despair with only one bright spot that he is constantly chasing time and time again.

(Dialog from the quest "Friends Gathered", patch 6.0)

those three tiny lines can hold so much zenoswol yearning in them AAAAAAAAAAAAA I AM not well

I personally still feel like there was room for him to survive that and to be gently guided into more and more good and try to undo some of that conditioning but I think he might be too polarizing of a character for him to become a permanent ally in canon. Much as I would love to see that! I have to wonder if the mentions of him in the 6.X patches that bounced between positive and negative were testing the waters, but I will leave my tinfoil hat aside because this post is already WAY too long lmao

I understand why people dislike him: they think he enjoys murder because he does it without "a good reason", they don't like how obsessive he becomes toward the warrior of light who is an extension of the player themselves, they don't like that in Fandaniel's scheme in "in from the cold" Zenos is the one inhabiting the warrior of light's body. Totally get it, totally understand.

I'm just saying I see the complexity to him and I find it compelling. Just as I found the overwhelming grief and despair that motivated Nidhogg or Emet-selch or Elidibus to be compelling. I think what people miss though when you like an antagonist is that feeling empathy toward them means you don't feel empathy toward the people they harmed, or that you somehow agree with what they did. But really, I just love seeing these characters that are faced with such tragedy or misery that they start to lose sight of right and wrong. They're driven entirely by emotions. For a story where emotions are literally power, I think it's a really interesting angle to take with the antagonists of that story.

Man, where was I going with this? 😂 I just love Zenos... I don't think I will be convincing anyone to like him who doesn't already, and that's not at all my intent. I just thought I'd share my perspective a little bit after getting this ask!

#ffxiv #zenos yae galvus #replies #hope this all makes sense #also please don't come at me with wank or discourse about how much you hate zenos #I've heard it all before and you're not gonna convince me to hate him with wank I'll just block you lol #endwalker spoilers #long post

[cassidymb121]

OMG It’s You… (Part 6.5)

YouTube! Fem reader x Stray Kids

Summary: Y/N’s YouTube channel is taking off after her reactions to Stray Kids MV God’s Menu. Now she’s making videos nonstop along with working a full time job. What would happen if she got offered a job of a lifetime and met the boys of her succession?

⚠️Warnings⚠️: cursing, crying, confusion, fatigue, Lee Know coming in clutch, Chan admits to being jealous of reader (let me know if I missed anything)

🏷️: @laylasbunbunny @weirdowithaphone (Taglist open)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Third Person POV

Y/N never thought she’d ever be called into the conference room at her own job. Especially when she’s being surrounded by people who she didn’t recognize and knew they weren’t from the States. Yet, here they were on one side of the table while she was on the other side with a stack of papers in front of her. With the word “CONTRACT” written across it.

“So, what do you say? Would you like to work with us?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Y/N’s POV (One week ago)

I had been staring at my computer screen for too long. Knowing I wasn’t getting anywhere, I pushed away from my desk and collapsed on my bed. I never felt exhaustion this bad like I did now. So much as happened during these past few weeks that I feel like I can’t keep up. Maybe I need to start from the beginning.

Flashback (Two weeks prior)

Pulling up my camera, I press record and wait three to five seconds before starting. “Y’all.” I huff, still trying to catch my breath. “When I made this address, I was expecting to get some packages here or there. The post office called me and told me that I need to come pick up my packages now. Because they were overflowing. I thought….You know what, let me just show you instead.” I pick up a huge draw bag of packages inside. “I have three of these and that’s not including these.” I grab a basket of letters or other small packages. “I had to take my grandfather’s truck because my car was too small to fit everything in it. I honestly thought that I wasn’t going to get this much stuff. Hell I’m afraid that I won’t be able to get through all of these before they call me again saying I have more waiting. I told y’all I don’t need anything, I already have too much.” I start looking around my room. “Where the hell am I going to put all this? I have no room, ugh.” I turned back to the camera. “I love y’all to death but this is way too much.”

Looking around, I let out a big sigh. “I’m grateful honestly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mad or upset. I’m more surprised than anything. I don’t want y’all to waste your money on me. I rather you keep that for bills, food, clothes, etc. Though at the end of the day, I can’t stop you from sending anything.” I sit down in my chair, worn out since those bags were heavy. “I know I made a promise to all of you that I will record everything that I open, but then again I didn’t expect to get this much fan mail. I’ll do my best to record what I can. Hopefully. What I can’t, I’ll try to out Thank You letters.” I laugh a little to myself. “I feel like I’m digging myself a hole. Making all these promises and talking about sending out letters. I just don’t want to let anybody down. I want all you to know that I appreciate everything that you do and I don’t want any of you to feel left out if I don’t show me opening up your package or letter.”

I get up and grab one of the big bags. “I’ve got to record an upcoming video, but as soon as I can I will record myself opening up some of these packages. I could do a livestream of me opening some of them too. I’ll have to see how I’m feeling that day. Either way I love y’all and I hope you have a great day. Bye!” I turn the camera off and I instantly drop my shoulders and head. ‘Why do I do this to myself? I knew I was in over my head when I did this.’ I look down at all the stuff people sent. “Well, I better get started on the album review before I worry too much about these.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Third Person POV (Before Y/N’s video above)

The boys had been worrying/stressing over what to send to Y/N. Chan had convinced the rest of the boys to send a gift and a letter from each of them so that she would know who it’s from. Some of them knew exactly what they wanted to send, others couldn’t make up their minds. Each one decided that they would all send their stuff at one time so hopefully she would get them all around the same time. Lee Know walked into Felix’s room, seeing the Sunshine himself writing a letter. He knocks on the door to announce his presence.

Felix turns to his older Hyung. “Hey.” Lee Know grins, and Felix responds back. “Hey.” His Hyung sits by him. “How’s it going?” Felix drops his head on his gaming desk. “Terrible. I can’t think of anything to write.” Lee Know observes him before replying back. “You don’t have to think about it so much. Just write what comes to your head.” Felix scuffs. “Easy for you to say. You don’t overthink everything like I do.” Felix runs his fingers through his hair. “Normally I could already know what I’d want to tell someone. Right now, I’m coming up blank.” Felix frustrated with himself, pulls on his hair.

“Do you want to see what I wrote?” Felix turns to his Hyung. “I don’t want to copy what you wrote Lee Know Hyung.” Lee Know smirks. “I know. I wrote two of them, in case you couldn’t think of anything. They’re not the same letter. Here, take it.” He pulls it from his back pocket. “You can always rewrite it in your own hand writing if you want.” He gets up to leave before turning around. “We’re sending them out tomorrow, so have it ready by tonight.” Felix nods his head smiling. “Thank you Hyung.” Lee Know returns the smile. “You’re welcome.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After Y/N had recorded and edited both versions of the review for Oddinary mini album, she sent one to JYP and saved the other for when the release date comes. She decided she’d take a small break before she would start recording herself on opening fan mail. She had to waited a couple of days before she got the chance to record herself again.

“Hello Lovelies and welcome back to the channel! So today we are going to start opening some of these packages today since I have so many. I will fair warn you, I’m bad with names so if I don’t pronounce your name correctly, don’t get mad at me.” I laugh lightly. “These will probably be different videos since I know I’m not going to be able to open all of them in just one video. Okay let’s get into shall we?”

Little did Y/N know there were eight boys who were waiting for her videos to come out. They wanted to see her reaction to their gifts they gave her. When the day finally came, they all gathered around a TV watching her. “What in the world is this?” She pulls out a package and sees there’s no name on it. It’s also from a PO Box address, but it’s from Seoul, South Korea. She looks at the camera with a questionable expression on her face. Pulling out her scissors and cuts the package open. The first thing she grabs is a letter with her name on it. She opens it and what she does next makes all the boys happy. Her jaw drops, “There’s no fucking way. This cannot be real.” She looks at the camera, back to the letter then back to the camera again. She swallows slowly before speaking.

Dear Y/N,

I’ve been following your videos since you reacted to our MV God’s Menu. The guys and I have been quite the fans of yours. When we saw that you created a PO Box, we knew that we wanted to give you something from each of us. We hope that you enjoy everything that you get and thank you for always supporting us through our journey.

Signed,

Lee Felix

She tears up a little bit and she wipes her eyes immediately with her hands. “So that means you’ve seen me make a fool out of myself this entire time. Damn. Well at least you know this is the real me. What you see is what you get. Now you just made a lot of Stays very jealous.” She laughs and points at the camera. “Y’all don’t come after me now.” She puts the letter to the side and opens the package more so she can see what’s inside. She pulls back and starts laughing really hard. “Felix, have I ever told you how much I love you? Because I really do. Hold on everyone, I’m about to show you what he got me.” She pulls out a container of brownies he made along with the recipe on top. “I knew the package looked weird but I know understand why. He said that he had to use vegetable oil to preserve them while being shipped.” She looks at the camera and smiling. “Thank you Felix, really. I will definitely enjoy these.” She puts them off to the side and grabs something else out of the package, she turns it over to see a little bracelet with him skzoo on it. “Ooh , I love that. That’s very precious.”

She turns to look at her other bags. “Just so I’m not constantly thinking about the other guys’ packages. I’m going to see if I have them all, so I can open them one after the other. I’m quite nervous now. Especially since I know they’ll be watching this video.” The boys can’t help but smile at her. She searches through the bags and manages to find all of them. “This one looks promising.” She had grabbed Hyunjin’s and carefully opened it. What was inside made her gasp. It was a painting of flowers in a glass vase. The painting itself was kind of mute, but had pops of colors on the flowers. “That is so beautiful Hyunjin, I love it. Did I ever tell you that my grandmother is an artist herself?” Hyunjin’s eyes widen hearing that statement and the boys do too. She steps out of view and calls for her grandmother.

Her grandmother comes into view. “One of my fans painted this far me.” Her grandmother complements the painting and Hyunjin lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He had also given her some facial mask since he knew she enjoyed those more than makeup. Each member gave her a letter with similar words to Felix’s with hopes that they will get to meet her one day. Since they knew she didn’t like very expensive items they went for more sentimental value ideas. Seungmin had given her a book that he enjoyed reading and even went out of the way to get her a box of tea he liked. I.N. gave her their Oddinary album book and an unreleased box of photo cards. Changbin had given her a couple of their shirts from the Oddinary merch collection. Han had gifted her a new light stick with a Quokka keychain.

Y/N thanking all the boys for their wonderful gifts had finally reached the last two members. If anyone ever asked her which two she would consider as her biases, she would tell them Chan and Lee Know. While she loves all of the members equally, those two (including Felix) stood out the most to her. One package is bigger than the other, but only by a little. Both feel soft like a pillow and she’s torn over which one to open first. She almost forgets that she’s being recorded. “I don’t know which one to open first.” She laughs to herself. “I have a feeling that there’s more clothing in both of these. I guess I’ll go with this one.” She grabs the slightly smaller one and cuts carefully. Inside is a hoodie and not just any hoodie, one she’s very familiar with. She pulls the letter out and opens it. She’s glad she knows how to speak and read Korean, otherwise she would have to use her phone to translate.

Y/N,

I normally don’t like sending things to people, but for you I will make an exception. Your channel has brought me comfort on days that are hard. I never realized how much they meant to me until I unconsciously found myself looking up your videos. I want to give you this, to have on your bad days. To know that you’re not alone and have people who care about you. I have included a small bottle of my cologne that you can spray on it when my smell starts to fade. I also included a special Leebit plush that hasn’t been released yet. Thank you for being your true self and making others happy.

Sincerely,

Lee Minho

Y/N had tears rolling down her face, but she didn’t go to wipe them. Lee Know didn’t know whether if he went too far or if his gift wasn’t good enough. But she turned to the camera and smiled at it, hoping Lee Know could see her. “리노님 정말 감사드립니다. 너무 마음에 들고 잘 보살펴 드리겠습니다.” He smiled right back. “천만에요.” She grabs a tissue and wipes her face. “Okay this is the last, then I’ll end the video here.” She opens the last package and inside is black jacket with white writing on it. Her eyebrows scrunch together as she looks at it. Once she realizes what it is she looks at the camera with her hands on her hips. “Christopher. Now I know damn well that you better not have spent a lot of money on this jacket. Don’t act like I don’t know my clothing brands, I know just how much this cost and it’s too much.” She shakes her head like a mother would when she’s disappointed in her son. “Good grief. What am I going to do with you, mmhm?” She pulls out the letter and opens it.

Dear Y/N,

I wanted to be honest with you from the start. When Stays first talked about you and how much you were like me, I didn’t know how to feel. I felt like someone was trying to copy me. It didn’t help that the rest of the guys absolutely adored you and talked about you constantly. You were always somewhere in my head, and I couldn’t get you out. I tried but it only seemed to make it worse. It wasn’t until I found you crying your eyes out that it all changed. I’m not saying that you crying is what made me change my views about you, but it made me realize that you’re a human being like me. Seeing you upset made me want to comfort you. You were holding my skzoo to dear life. I let my emotions control my thoughts of a person without getting to know who they were. I wanted to give you something to remember me by. This jacket is actually mine, and I also included something to spray on it when the smell starts to fade. There’s one important item in here that I want you to have. It’s not mine but it’s a replica. I want you to have it and remember that not also are you by our side, but we are by your side too.

Sincerely,

Bahng Christopher Chan ❤️

Y/N’s emotions were all over the place. He was jealous of her because he thought she was copying him. But it changed when he realized that she was a kind person all along?? Chan was definitely feeling the heat from not just waiting for her response but also from the looks on his members faces. They see her pull out a bracelet. It’s the same Stay bracelet that Chan wears. She finally spoke up. “Wow, um I don’t know how to feel about this. I for one appreciate you being honest with me. I don’t understand why you would be jealous of someone you’ve never met, but then again I don’t see things from your point of view. I mean I guess I could understand, if you have people who say that I’m exactly like you. Though that’s not entirely true. Um, I’m kind of at a loss for words right now. I don’t hate it, believe me I don’t. I love the gift, I love all of them. The letter just kind of makes me want to ask, where did I go wrong?”

She looks back up at the camera before continuing. “I’m willing to look past this, as long as you and I can both get along together. And to Stays, please do not go bashing Chan for any reasons. I better not find any of y’all being mean to my boy. I’ll find you.” She points her index and middle fingers to her eyes then to the camera. As if saying ‘I’m watching you.’ “I could see that if it were the other way around, I’m sure that he would react the same way as me if I were him in this situation. But outside of that, I greatly appreciate the gift Chris. Thank you.”

“Thank you all for watching! I hope to have more of these videos up soon. Until then, I will see you next time. Bye!”

End of Flashback

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Present day

Which brings Y/N to today. When she arrived at work, the overhead boss told her that the CEO wanted to see her. She started replaying everything she’s done and nothing stands out. The only thing she could think was something outside of work that had to do with her channel. After her Oddinary review went up, she had received a call from an out of country phone number. She didn’t answer as she didn’t know anyone outside of the States. Maybe besides the email she got from JYP, but there wasn’t a phone number listed.

She had let it go to voicemail, hoping that if it were important that they would leave a message. They left a message and what she heard stunned her.

“안녕하세요, 저는 MNet Digital Studios에서 전화를 겁니다. 나는 여기 입장에 대해 y/f/n과 이야기하기 위해 전화하고 있습니다. 다시 전화해 주시면 감사하겠습니다. 안녕.”

(A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I kind of threw some things together hoping that they’d work. Wasn’t really sure what I wanted each member to gift to the reader, but I hope it makes sense. Anyways there’s more to come!)

((A/A/N: I forgot to add the translations in.

Blue- “Thank you so much Lee Know. I love it so much and I will take very good care of it.”

Green- “You’re welcome.”

White- “Hi, I’m calling from MNet Digital Studios. I’m calling to speak with Y/F/N about a position here. If you could please call us back. Bye.” ))

#bang chan #changbin #han jisung #hyunjin #jeongin #lee felix #lee know #seungmin #stray kids #stray kids x reader #bang chan x reader #lee know x reader #changbin x reader #hyunjin x reader #han jisung x reader #lee felix x reader #seungmin x reader #jeongin x reader #skz scenarios #stray kids x you #stray kids scenarios #stray kids imagines #stray kids x y/n #skz x y/n #skz x you #skz x reader #skz fanfic #skz imagines

[graysparrowao3]

Heyyooo!

I'm popping in cause i just wanted to let you i really love your stuff and miss seeing you on my dash.(why tumble timeout??) I'm sorry someone felt the need to come at you with unkindness but i bet there's a lot more people who LOVE seeing you roll across their timeline (self included). I love your writing, its super sweet and i adore how you present the characters. I do hope that person didn't dampen your spirits too much, You're a gem!

Helloooo! 💛 This was such a kind thing that you took the time to say, thank you so much. It really, really lifted my spirits and to hear that you enjoy my presence and writing is so touching (and especially as I absolutely adore all your content and posts too!). You're absolute royalty. I'm so glad to actually be able to be back in your presence and respond to you now as well!

I don't know if you remember this post, but in celebration of being freed from Tumblr jail and in gratitude for your kind words, I finally wrote you something based on this prompt. It's just a series of three short scenes but I hope you like it! I'll put it below a cut.

Summary for bonus part 4 of the Rolan, Cal, and Lia sneaking in and out for dates series: Cal and Lia are sneaking around trying to hide their romance liaisons from Rolan, who, unbeknownst to his siblings, already knows about them both...

Words: 1,174

Cal gathered up the usual stack of envelopes, scrolls, and a copy of the latest Baldur’s Mouth that filled the postbox and began to sort through them as he sauntered into the kitchen where his family was seated.  

“For the owner of Ramazith’s Tower.” Cal handed an unusual, sealed paper over, then dropped the rest of the assorted junk onto the middle of the table.

Rolan tucked the envelope quickly away.

“Love letter?” Lia teased.

“Not that it would be your business if it was.” Rolan returned the light-hearted tone.

“Just joking,” Lia leaned casually on her shoulders, “but now I’m interested.”

“Never you mind.” Rolan waved her away, taking another bite to break his fast.

“Not that you have to tell us,” Cal settled back onto the table and flipped idly through the Gazette without reading it, “but it would be nice if you found someone.”

“I’m sure it would,” Rolan mumbled, “alas, your curiosity will remain unsatisfied. I promise it is not about my personal affairs.”

“If you say so,” Cal was already distracted by one of the illustrations, dropping crumbs onto the page as he chewed. “Weird thing the other day. Could’ve sworn I was being followed.”

“How’d you figure?” Lia’s brow creased with concern as she placed her drink down.

“Pass that here,” Rolan ignored the conversation and gestured for Cal to hand him the newspaper.

“Not sure exactly. Might’ve been imagining it.” Cal grimaced as he tried to recall, “was probably nothing.”

“Worth checking, though,” his sister insisted.

“I’m sure you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.” Rolan glanced briefly over the top of the page.

“Yeah,” he shrugged, “you’re probably right.”

“Rolan,” Lia pulled down the top of the paper in front of him, “think it’s worth a check – to be sure.”

He opened his mouth, then scoffed, reluctantly agreeing,

“Fine, fine, I’ll check up on it today. I’ve got more than a few favours I can call in. I’ll keep us quite safe, fear not,” he folded the newspaper and tucked it under his arm.

“Thank you, Rolan.”

When they were done and the crumbs cleared and the plates cleaned, Rolan restrained his interest long enough to nonchalantly stroll to his office. Once inside, he quickly applied an Arcane Lock to the door and hurried to the desk, eagerly taking out the envelope and opening it with rushed hands. The letter unfolded, finally the favour he’d called in had paid off. He huffed as he read – they could’ve been a little more subtle about it, at least; he wasn't supposed to have been aware of them.

Archmage Rolan – as you wished, please find below the following information regarding the individual that has been seen in the company of your brother. Stand up member of society, as far as I can tell. Boring, honestly. And not that you asked my opinion, but they did seem rather happy in each other’s presence. It was sickening.

No, I didn’t ask, Rolan thought, but he couldn’t help but smile.

Rolan sat, legs and arms crossed. Eyelids falling gently shut before he commanded them to remain open. It would be morning soon. Lia should have been back long ago. His foot tapped restlessly against the floor. Then… a sound. He leant forward in the chair, ears willing it louder. Two sets of poorly concealed footsteps lazily approaching the door outside. He exhaled. At least she was alright. A click in the lock and the door creaked open. With a quick flick of his wrist, Rolan shrouded himself in Invisibility.

An uncharacteristic giggle followed by a soft gasp of excitement. His sister stepped backwards across the threshold,

“Shh,” Lia pressing her finger delicately against her partner’s lips, “lest my brothers hear.”

Rolan raised an eyebrow.

Lia fell back in, replacing her finger with her own lips. She pulled them in close, willing them to step into the tower with her body, hands in their hair. They obliged, their hands on her, searching the edges of her corset, exploring the material tight against her sides, sitting on her hips, teasing at her waist.

Oh, Gods, no. Absolutely not.

A sudden sound caused Lia to pull away. She turned to see a heavy tome that had slammed onto the ground nearby. She crept over and looked around, finding no obvious place where it could have fallen from or been dislodged.

“Tower is Gods damned cursed.” She muttered. She returned to her lover at the door, lacing her arms around their shoulders and pulling them in for a passionate goodbye. Rolan rolled his eyes and shuffled away, grateful to find his bed.

Rolan was enjoying a glass of his favourite red and warming himself by the fireplace after a long day. Long, but rewarding. Honestly, he couldn’t have imagined better, more fulfilling days. He heard the comforting noise of two tieflings moving into the room to join him before the night called to them all.

“I thought we might,” Rolan gestured lazily with his glass, “spend some time together tomorrow evening. Games, drinks, what have you.”

“Tomorrow?” Lia stopped before she made it to a chair, her question tenser than it ought to have been.

“Does it have to be tomorrow, Rolan?” Cal exchanged an uneasy look with her.

“I suppose not, though,” Rolan took a sip of his wine and smiled indulgently into the glass; he’d let them sweat just a little, “what’s the problem with tomorrow?”

“Just…” Cal stumbled, “something else might come up.”

“Might it,” Rolan raised an amused eyebrow.

“I just mean, there was something going on, maybe. I’m not sure. Better to be free for it than not.”

“Is that so,” he took another sip, enjoying himself immensely.

“All got our secrets,” Lia crossed her arms defiantly, “don’t ask you about yours.”

“I think you’ll find you do,” Rolan waved his goblet, “all the Gods damned time, actually.”

“Fine, have it your way.” Lia said, wishing she didn’t sound as disappointed as she did.

“No, no, by all means, do have your mysterious plans tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll figure it out sooner rather than later.”

“Don’t know about that,” Cal relaxed.

“You are many things, dear brother, but a master detective is not one.”

“Is that so?” Rolan’s smug smile loosened by the wine.

“Not saying you’re not good at other things,” Cal added, quickly.

“Just that you’re not always the most insightful. That can’t be news to you.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Rolan swirled the claret liquid around the class, “I might have picked up a thing or two over the years.”

“Go on then,” Cal tempted him, “if we’re hiding something, what is it?”

“Let me guess,” Rolan feigned ignorance, “a friend I might disapprove of – someone from the guild, perhaps? Or perhaps an unwise game of chance in someone’s basement somewhere.”

Cal and Lia shared a cheeky look.

“Yeah,” they settled into the chairs beside him, “something like that.”

“You see,” he relaxed back, a smile of contentment on his face, “I’m sure I wouldn’t have a clue.”

#bg3 rolan #rolan #rolan bg3 #cal #lia #bg3 cal #cal bg3 #lia bg3 #bg3 lia

[wreckedhoney]

MASSIVE SPOILER for one of the endings.

it's been a while since i tried looking, but i did hear that something like this happens last year and over time started to think, "was it a fluke?" bc no one posted footage or caps of it then, and i aimed for a completionist run in my first playthrough. turns out it's real! and definitely shines a new light on a character that, for most other types of playthroughs, will not give this much emotion! EDIT: transcript now included, and some stillshots under the cut

[0:28] Marie: Henry, this is the man who kept you from doing the right thing tonight. Kill him. [0:15] Forrest: Henry, you don’t have to do this. If you’ve not killed anyone yet, there’s still time to make the right decision. [0:05] Out of shot: (Gunshots) Henderson Police! Freeze! Marie: No! Henry, get out of there!

#killer frequency #henry barrow #these hands……… #so yes MORE spoilers and further commentary ahead here in the tags: #yes this is a fairly tragic ending if you already know how to get it. but again TERRIFIC VOICE ACTING BEFOREHAND AND AFTER. #feel free to reply in post if you want to ask about that part. #i didn't include that in the vid bc it's so visceral and raw but i love their performances. that shit hit hard dang. #but i want to ask anyone if their perspective on henry changes after seeing this? mine does tbh. i didn't expect a possible show of remorse #like at most hesitation! but bc of the context of forrest's dialogue- does it lean into remorse? a large definite shift in his mind! #even if he Has killed already then he's still taking forrest's words to heart and reconsidering everything which DAMN- #-my videogamey headcanon of forrest's character stats showing his Persuasion and Charm MAXED OUT is pulling tf through here!! #also can anyone reply re: would forrest's dialogue change but he still survives if henry kills maurice or murphy? or would forrest die? #and if the devs Actually gave henry other official kills in the game but didn't disclose them in the narrative- then is this the test? #like if henry kills AT ALL in game even though the player isn't privy to knowing which victims are his then is this ending unattainable? #also placing this scene/character moment behind THIS ENDING SPECIFICALLY heck that's cold. dang fellas. #going to eventually pull out a hc i've been holding back for a long time in a later post and i'll mention this scene again then- #-but this part in particular as well as another “easter egg” has really put more fuel to it

[thelunaticghost]

xvn fic recs !!

i have been meaning to do this for a while : mostly because fic recs are fun to compile and also thee seems to be a BIG shortage of any fic rec posts!! so here are some fics i have enjoyed over the years!! ofc this list is non exhaustive please note the ratings of each fic and heed the tags before reading! sorry, that i am putting in the shorter summary

anyway!! feel free to put in more fic recs too!! :D

End OTW Racism | over the edge of all our knowings by merthurlin [ G, 10,146 words , 1/1 ]

Years down the line, after the whole business with Lumine and her brother has been concluded, Venti decides to go on a world tour. He sends Xiao letters.

merthurlin got me into xiaoven so ofc my list starts with her fic! this is just so so sweet and even if its not necessarily fluffy there is a warmth to the writing it is a comfort read for me! i recommend every work by her (regardless of fandom). though in xvn End OTW racism | never dreamed of nobody like you is another excellent fic!

nocturne by yanrans [ T, 34,540 words, 4/4 ]

In which Venti sells magical music boxes, Xiao is his unwitting customer, and there is absolutely, definitely nothing more to it at all.

modern au where venti is - a scammer? - i mean a music box seller and xiao is just a regular guy and and. its funny and delightful and absolutely breath taking. i wouldnt elaborate more so as not to spoil anything further but the fic has many unexpected surprises in it! yanrans is another writer i definitely recommend to check out more! their writing style is very flamboyant and poetic.

what hides in neon shadow by morii_tea [ T, 7,547 words, 1/1 ]

In which Xiao is a cyborg, Venti is a thief, and the glittering city of Teyvat hides more secrets than they’re prepared to find out.

its so rare to see morally grey venti is potrayed (even though he isnt v morally grey but still. xiao having to remembering that venti isnt as honourable as he appears is yesssss wohoo). this fic has some thrilling action and a v fun cyberpunk world!! i wish it was longer but it is v exciting nevertheless

every morning in the dark by magicites [ M, 77,124 words, 34/34 ]

Stuck in a time loop where he succumbs to his karmic debt, Xiao struggles to see the point in moving forward. Venti struggles to save him.

READ THE TAGS!!! character death and suicidal thoughts are two major warnings. but DAMN this fic it's just so. SO FULL of everything WRONG with xiao!! and venti too but such a GREAT angst fic!! it gets everything so Right. magicites also happened to have written one of my most favourite genshin fic too :] and if you havent read her other works!! you are missing out!!

the half-life of the yaksha is absolute by GStK [ G, 1,000 words, 1/1 ]

Venti digs his thumbs in to keep open the wound but it is too late His gaze snaps over to the teal essence dancing over Xiao’s fingers. Now all those words will belong to him And Venti will belong to him, only.

READ THE TAGS!! now that i have went into the time loop fic ofc i have to mention the beautiful corrupt xiao prose. the imagery is flowery and grotesque!

foreigner's god by smallghosts [ T, 3,818 words, 1/1 ]

Lord Barbatos falls asleep for a few hundred years. Xiao copes with his absence in strange ways.

a pre-canon fic where xiao becomes - in a way - a worshipper? it's SO GOOD. its about the yearning!!!!!!!!! SCREAMS i dont think i have to explain further

love me like you do by Limerancy [ T, 3,000 words, 1/1 ]

They aren’t the kind of friends that touch.

TOUCH STARVED AND TOUCH AVERSE XIAO!!!!!! this fic makes me a lil bit feral. a little unhinged. i absolutely enjoy reading about the yearning , the desire JUST!!!! AAAA. this writer also writes v fluffy modern au one shots!!! so be sure to check them out too :)

The Kissing Tree by Princeliest [ G, 7,581 words, 2/2 ]

Venti kisses Xiao, and Xiao does not understand why.

VENTI COMMITMENT ISSUES!!!!! as much as i adore reading xiao angst, venti angst is still something i love seeking out and its a tragedy that its not explored enough in this ship :c but anyway!!! such amazing characterization and exploration!! princeliest is one of fav genshin writers and this fic delivers!

wishing on dandelions all of the time by OedipusOctopus [ T, 8,270 words, 1/1 ]

When Venti first catches sight of the swords artfully hung on the wall of his new roommate's bedroom, he regrets putting up the sublease on Craigslist. Firmly believing this guy is a total weirdo, Venti is more surprised than anyone when he realizes the total weirdo is actually adorable. It's not against some invisible Roommate Code to dream about kissing your roommate, right?

ofc there is a classic roommate au fic!! this was one of my most favourite fic from last years xvn week: its hilarious and silly and just a perfect relaxing read!! the characterization and their banter is so entertaining i admit i have read this multiple times!

Where Words Fail by kavvueh [ T, 27,926 words, 11/12 ]

"You're Barbatos," Xiao repeats breathlessly. The young man in front of him nods. "Yep." "But..." Xiao cuts himself off and tries again. "You're the God of songs and poetry." The Anemo Archon nods his head sagely. "More or less." Xiao fixes Lord Barbatos with the most incredulous look he can manage. "... You're failing Music Theory."

this fic is such a delight!! it has some light background lore, some silly shenanigans, miscommunications, pinning - a truly fun mixture! the fic is v light hearted but written with a lot of tenderness. i am v excited to see its conclusion!

what queer sins stain thy soul by Anonymous [ M, 3,232 words, 1/1 ]

In which Xiao, long-established asexual, learns that identity is not as stable as he’d like to believe.

there is some explicit things in it (in non explicit way) i believe religious guilt is one of the best flavouring to xvn. it is an under-explored area in this ship imo and this fic not only has that but also!!! asexuality !!!!!! this fic so so personal and its exploration of desire that gets to me a lot

unholy virtues by morphasia [ E, 17,065 words, 6/6 ]

In exchange for his body in more ways than one, Venti summons a demon to reclaim something that has been stolen from him. It's a just contract. That's all it's supposed to be. That's all it was ever supposed to be.

READ THE TAGS!!! this fic truly went creature/creature. this au is just so fascinating and funny in a twisted way (but not bad). this fic isnt for everyone though but it is definitely worth the shot.

#luna rambles #genshin impact #xiaoven #venxiao #thats all i think ? #anyway this made me realize that i forget to bookmark so many fics..... #whoops #and also that i tend to like fics on how much i like venti's characterization. hehe #but yeah this is non exhaustive list! if someone wants to add they can ofc! sorry for my over commentary #and even though i repeat it in the post itself 13804 times: check out other works by the writers!!! #i wanted to include more but. but the post is so long already you know? like i couldve done a shorter format BUT AAAAAA #i could idk it's just not. the same #making such posts is just a destress activity to me tbh

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: May 14

"Diamond on a Landmine” by Billy Talent

#song of the day #buckle up babes this one's a nice showcase of how my brain retains memories which is to say it's a long path to a close destination #in early 2011 when Leverage's season three had recently wrapped #one of my friends was writing a character study piece for Eliot with a partial focus on his toxic relationship with Damien Moreau #and they made a writing playlist for the fic that included this song #(and also 'Laughing with a Mouth of Blood' by St Vincent. absolutely killer song) #and I like the song but for whatever reason I never looked up anything else by Billy Talent #(I was at the time not spending so much time looking up new music but more just letting it come to me #in 2017 St Vincent came out with 'Los Ageless' and I was like oh I know her!! and I started paying attention to her albums #which is good because then in 2021 she released the Daddy's Home album which has 'Pay Your Way in Pain' /and/ 'The Melting of the Sun' #which are absolutely incredible tracks and my life would've been less without them) #and then today I saw a Call of Duty post with lyrics from Billy Talent's 'Afraid of Heights' #and I didn't recognize the lyrics so I went and pulled up the song as how I do #and as it played I was like. do I know this? no. I know something like this. what is it? #and at first I was convinced I'd just been listening to it but then why couldn't I place it? and then I realized I hadn't heard it recently #but I had been /thinking/ about something /related/ to it--which I had been. sort of. there's a Damien Moreau post queued for tomorrow-- #and then in Afraid of Heights the chorus was wrapping up #'you're the only one I'd follow til the end of time / if we fall we fall together baby don't think twice again' #and something clicked and I dragged 'Diamond on a Landmine' up out of the depths of my various-artists folder #it's a great song got an excellent build to it #'alone at last / I can't wait til we're alone at last / all I wanted was a second chance / a second chance / to hold you in my arms at last #and the visual of 'better watch your step / she's a diamond on a landmine' is fantastic #anyway! I made giant scotch eggs with my family's spicy sausage ball mix instead of the normal breading and they're amazing #a good day #two weeks into May already can you imagine

[cak31ssuperi04]

Do you have any general hcs of the 1bit/1beat cast? Anythings fine

Kind of rough but

-I've played around with the idea with Eruno being from an orphanage/foster home(the "because you've got a proper family" bit) but I go back and forth on this one.

-Nio and Sakuma are friends! He does shifts at Bitwave they hang out there. The poor boy needs someone to fend off the fangirls.

-Eruno and Akitaka accompany Haruya on deliveries sometimes. Pals.

-When Aira's mimetic muscles get installed she doesn't really quite get how to use them immediately. Her expressions start out real stiff(which she expresses dissatisfaction with, and gets help from the others) to real exaggerated and overplayed(think unbridled rage or pained anguish at things that just kind of annoy her).

-Also she has Kiri make her taller so she can grow alongside her friends!

-Also Also by 1beat she has at LEAST one sibling who's just, a really muscled out doll in frilly clothes.

-Meru listens to death metal. She'd hoped it'd help her stay up better but now she just kind of likes it.

-Outside of tending to the shrine, Hakuhi has embroidery as a hobby.

-Izuchi took piano lessons when he was younger(parents made him do it to try and play up the prodigy genius image). He quit.

-That potion thing he made in 1beat was ripped from Kirai's anime but in part he'd made it after Eruno came to him Demanding a way to make her dog live longer.

-He went to Blue sun college(less because he thought he needed to and more for the benefits a degree there would give him) and got into an apprenticeship with Kiri. He keeps the lab when Kiri moves to Coco Alley(easier to skirt by the law). Familiar with the Blue Sun Trio to some extent.

-He has a sweet tooth but doesn't really admit it because he deems it unhealthy.

-While he did have a hand in the creation of the master program, he doesn't stay on the team after it's finished. Does continue to get occasional updates about it from Hiyu and Nanase though.

-His room is all clean and organized on the surface(maybe a few seashell displays, a poster covering a hole in the wall) but he keeps all the goofy weird shit stored away in drawers and under his bed.*

-I've played around with the idea of there being a 3rd Nasuga sibling who's just too young to be relevant in the game(<-no canon basis i just thought it'd be fun) but I'm not sure if I'd keep that.

-Enri has a pet hamster! He's like the band's son.

-The gang Kirara used to be a part of was like a sparkly gyaru girl gang. She never really enjoyed fighting but took a lot of lessons growing up so she was really good at it. The gang is still going strong though and at least a few of her Gyaru Friends are members(and there's at least one member who's just a plain normal ass girl that hangs around them but that's getting into oc territory).

-Rocca ends up growing up to be like Really Fucking Tall. Momori models clothes on her and remarks that she could be a model if she didn't trip over herself so much(not that she'd want to be one anyways).

-Mary has 3 siblings, they've done a way better job at staying out of the public eye(and have grown somewhat distant from her as a result).

-On account of being friends with a lot of the townspeople and having a lot of relatives, Hitohito is just one of those guys with a lot of connections. In a "guy who knows a guy" way.

-Chino is Coco Alley's mom jkasdsa.

--She brings Sora(was familiar with his family and doesn't want him to get too lonely) cookies and flowers sometimes and while he's dismissive about it he does secretly appreciate it.

-Tobari is the heiress to a big tea emporium who dipped because she got bored and/or got into a disagreement with someone over there, but continues playing up her Elegant Fancy Lady image despite living paycheck to paycheck(which I mean, good for her I guess.)

-Although Sagara knows Asuto through Hitohito, they actually interact fairly regularly in anime forums.

-Hitohito, Izuchi, and Sagara were on friendly terms when they were kids but grew distant for reasons. Hitohito and Sagara had gotten back in touch and still hang out. Heat reached out to Izuchi but was promptly brushed off, still looks out for him. Izuchi and Sagara have a weird frenemy/rival thing going on.

-Sagara has no siblings she just kind of lives alone with her mom who may or may not hate her.(although it's less "hate" so much as disappointment)

-Sagara's chicken avatar is modeled after one of her childhood pets.

-Sagara definitely Naruto runs.

-She holds DnD(\Dnd adjacent. Just some ttrpg I'm not an expert) sessions at every couple of weeks. I'm not saying Izuchi willingly participates(those commoners are hopeless without his guidance), just that she didn't exactly have very many other people to invite(Hitohito and sometimes Meu and eventually Nanashi).

-She has a knack for trying to help townspeople as part of some sort of Magical Girl Code but isn't as good at it as she thinks she is.

-She has a compartment in her arm warmers that's full of bird feed, she's made an alliance with the pigeons.

-While she does cool it with the Organization stuff, she never drops the chuuni behavior. Eventually opens a small cake shop with some edgy chuuni-esque title(debated on whether it should be in the same place Little Berry was, like after little berry closes its doors).

-Nomiya and Hiyu butt heads a lot but they both get along fine with Azusa. Somebody needs to be nice to her god damn it.

-The Kujohs have a pet dog but it's actually Azusa's. Following with the rest of the family, it's a big intimidating dog that's actually just really chill. Enri has tried to look past it but he's always very leery about visiting them.

-Nomiya's riding an adrenaline high throughout most of the game but his more calm demeanor in his events is just him going in the opposite extreme as a result of coming down from it. He's usually fairly loud and confrontational, just not THAT loud and confrontational.

-He keeps in closest touch with Tobari after the hackers are disbanded. Somewhat on account of her being able to hold her own in Break Passage the best out of the other three. She views him as a weird little brother.

-The hackers hold gatherings in memory(or what little of that memory they even retained. It's mostly secondhand from Nanashi) of Mikado where they commit minor crimes. The gathering was Kotora's idea the crime was Nomiya's.

-Sagara has a journal that she calls the Abyss Tome that's just full of fanfiction and anime drawings of herself and her friends(/enemies). Has a bunch of spell names listed down in it.

-Saaya and Meu are friends! Saaya comes to her for divinations about her love life a lot and just ends up venting. Meu's happy to listen though and tries to comfort her the best she can.

-Speaking of therapy though, Saaya does get therapy sometime post-canon and distances herself from Nanase(while a lot of Nanashi's friendships that start off on the wrong foot have room for growth, the memory thing makes things kind of... weird with her). She's in a much better state by 1beat.

-Saaya writes a lot of poetry.

-Yoh and Sagara are related. Somehow(I did consider nephew at one point but that didn't really pan out).

-So are Hiyu and Arumu. They've got that green hair and funky eyebrows.

-Akuta and Kaori date briefly(well, she's a fan of his work, and he is rich, and while he can't speak multiple languages he is well-spoken, what could go wrong?) which just ends in them breaking up over a disagreement over a book's ending. That was more the final straw though, actually getting to know him put into perspective just how far from her expectations he actually is and she's not super pleased about it. They do stay friends but something something important lesson about your idols being people.

-I feel like I've said somewhere that Kotora leaves the cafe to Rocca when he retires but I need to clarify that Kotora keeps being the cafe guy well into old age and that Rocca would be a whole adult by then.

-Kaori was the youngest of her siblings and only one to stay with her mother, she sees her dad as a good for nothing deadbeat(it wasn't an amicable divorce) and the ordeal heavily influenced how she views romantic relationships as a whole. Grew up somewhat distant from Kotora and their sister but reconnected in adulthood.

-Her "ideal guy" is just the best traits of her favorite book leads cobbled together like some kind of frankenguy. (And she might be internalizing something... who knows)

-The world did enter a more 'cyberpunk dystopia'-esque futuristic state a long time ago and the return to more traditional old timey ways is sort of in response to that, but Yasune is the only one who'd actually lived through it. Although then again the 2nd oldest character in the game is only 36 so...

The post is starting to not process so I'm going to cut it off here.

#*The example I had listed on my hc file was 'life sized Danny Devito cardboard cutout' but I don't know if I want to keep that #The piano hc was more the remnant of a sweet beach band au I had because I was thinking about rainbow rocks again #Sweet beach is interestingly enough my go-to for aus. I've never even told you guys about the fantasy au #(they're just adventurers though it's nothing extravagant. It doesn't even cover all the characters) #Mary's parents were in the picture when she became an idol but her siblings were raised by their grandparents. #Tobari stays at hotels and spends most of her paycheck on fancy tea. #she's kind of ridiculous levels of Jack-Of-All-Trades but it helps that she's a fast learner #Chino wasn't incredibly close with Sora's parents(friends maybe) but that won't stop her from looking out for the boy. New son #Haruya was probably pals with his brother. Regardless of how he may have felt about Sora himself(scary) #Kirai probably made an offhanded comment about outgrowing everyone someday so he's really pissed when he ends up #shorter than both Haruya and Rocca #You probably were wanting more 1beat hcs but as much as I love the 1beat cast I've only replayed recently #so none of my thoughts about the cast are quite fully formed yet #Might make a follow up eventually though because the hc file is Long #Omitted most of the ones I've already talked about but since those are scattered about my tags and the server I probably #should've included some of those too. Feel free to ask for elaboration on anything #Some of them get kind of lengthy too and I left most of those out but I did leave a few in and just heavily handwaved the details #Some of the shorter ones were shortened too because the post just wouldn't process ashsaldhjka #pieceofcake.txt #cakeheadcanons

[autismserenity]

know someone who enjoys horror stories? share this one! it's true!

hahahahahahahahahaha aarrggghhhhhhhhhh 3,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19 last year. Globally. Three million. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. The reason people are still worried about COVID is because it has a way of quietly fucking up your body. And the risk is cumulative.

I'm going to say that again: the risk is cumulative.

It's not just that a lot of people get bad long-term effects from it. One in seven or so? Enough that it's kind of the Russian Roulette of diseases. It's also that the more times you get it, the higher that risk becomes. Like if each time you survived Russian Roulette, the empty chamber was removed from the gun entirely. The worst part is that, psychologically, we have the absolute opposite reaction. If we survive something with no ill effects, we assume it's pretty safe. It is really, really hard to override that sense of, "Ok, well, I got it and now I probably have a lot of immunity and also it wasn't that bad." It is not a respiratory disease. Airborne, yes. Respiratory disease, no: not a cold, not a flu, not RSV.

Like measles (or maybe chickenpox?), it starts with respiratory symptoms. And then it moves to other parts of your body. It seems to target the lungs, the digestive system, the heart, and the brain the most.

It also hits the immune system really hard - a lot of people are suddenly more susceptible to completely unrelated viruses. People get brain fog, migraines, forget things they used to know.

(I really, really hate that it can cross the blood-brain barrier. NOTHING SHOULD EVER CROSS THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.) Anecdotal examples of this shit are horrifying. I've seen people talk about coworkers who've had COVID five or more times, and now their work... just often doesn't make sense? They send emails that say things like, "Sorry, I didn't mean Los Angeles, I meant Los Angeles."

Or they insist they've never heard of some project that they were actually in charge of a year or two before.

Or their work is just kind of falling apart, and they don't seem to be aware of it.

People talk about how they don't want to get the person in trouble, so their team just works around it. Or they describe neighbors and relatives who had COVID repeatedly, were nearly hospitalized, talked about how incredibly sick they felt at the time... and now swear they've only had it once and it wasn't bad, they barely even noticed it.

(As someone who lived with severe dissociation for most of my life, this is a genuinely terrifying idea to me. I've already spent my whole life being like, "but what if I told them that already? but what if I did do that? what if that did happen to me and I just don't remember?") One of its known effects in the brain is to increase impulsivity and risk-taking, which is real fucking convenient honestly. What a fantastic fucking mutation. So happy for it on that one. Yes, please make it seem less important to wear a mask and get vaccinated. I'm not screaming internally at all now.

I saw a tweet from someone last year whose family hadn't had COVID yet, who were still masking in public, including school.

She said that her son was no kind of an athlete. Solidly bottom middle of the pack in gym.

And suddenly, this year, he was absolutely blowing past all the other kids who had to run the mile. He wasn't running any faster. His times weren't fantastic or anything. It's just that the rest of the kids were worse than him now. For some reason. I think about that a lot. (Like my incredibly active six-year-old getting a cold, and suddenly developing post-viral asthma that looked like pneumonia.

He went back to school the day before yesterday, after being home for a month and using preventative inhalers for almost week.

He told me that it was GREAT - except that he couldn't run as much at recess, because he immediately got really tired. Like how I went outside with him to do some yard work and felt like my body couldn't figure out how to increase breathing and heart rate.

I wasn't physically out of breath, but I felt like I was out of breath. That COVID feeling people describe, of "I'm not getting enough air." Except that I didn't have that problem when I had COVID.) Some people don't observe any long (or medium) term side effects after they have it.

But researchers have found viral reservoirs of COVID-19 in everyone they've studied who had it.

It just seems to hang out, dormant, for... well, longer than we've had an opportunity to observe it, so far.

(I definitely watched that literal horror movie. I think that's an entire genre. The alien dormant under ice in the Arctic.)

(oh hey I don't like that either!!!!!!!!!) All of which is to explain why we should still care about avoiding it, and how it manages to still cause excess deaths. Measuring excess deaths has been a standard tool in public health for a long time.

We know how many people usually die from all different causes, every year. So we can tell if, for example, deaths from heart disease have gone way up in the past three years, and look for reasons. Those are excess deaths: deaths that, four years ago, would not have happened. During the pandemic, excess death rates have been a really important tool. For all sorts of reasons. Like, sometimes people die from COVID without ever getting tested, and the official cause is listed as something else because nobody knows they had COVID. But also, people are dying from cardiovascular illness much younger now.

People are having strokes and heart attacks younger, and more often, than they did before the pandemic started. COVID causes a lot of problems. And some of those problems kill people. And some of them make it easier for other things to kill us. Lung damage from COVID leading to lungs collapsing, or to pneumonia, or to a pulmonary embolism, for example. The Economist built a machine-learning model with a 95% confidence interval that gauges excess death statistics around the world, to tell them what the true toll of the ongoing COVID pandemic has been so far.

Total excess deaths globally in 2023: Three million.

3,000,000.

Official COVID-19 deaths globally so far: Seven million. 7,000,000. Total excess deaths during COVID so far: Thirty-five point two million. 35,200,000.

Five times as many.

That's bad. I don't like that at all. I'm glad last year was less than a tenth of that. I'm not particularly confident about that continuing, though, because last year we started a period of really high COVID transmission. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. Here's their data, and charts you can play with, and links to detailed information on how they did all of this:

Here's a non-paywalled link to it:

https://archive.vn/2024.01.26-012536/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

Oh: here's a link to where you can buy comfy, effective N95 masks in all sizes:

Those ones are about a buck each after shipping - about $30 for a box of 30. They also have sample packs for a dollar, so you can try a couple of different sizes and styles.

You can wear an N95 mask for about 40 total hours before the effectiveness really drops, so that's like a dollar for a week of wear.

They're also family-owned and have cat-shaped masks and I really love them. These ones are cuter and in a much wider range of colors, prints, and styles, but they're also more expensive; they range from $1.80 to $3 for a mask. ($18-$30 for a box of ten.)

#covid isn't over #covid 19 #disability rights #disability advocacy #wear a mask #covid conscious #covid cautious #mask up #wall of words #public health #health care

[andivmg]

My experience with Luke (Punz)

CW: toxic relationship, racism, dubious consent

I know in the past i said that i would no longer speak about him publicly, and when talking about my experiences with abuse and emotional mistreatment i begged to keep it anonymous but after reflecting on this for a week and seeing so many incredibly smart and strong women tell their stories. they have given me the strength to say his name.

this is really scary to talk about because of the copious levels of harassment i have received from his fans in the past so if this spreads or gets out of hand i will simply log off.

If you read my last post, i nicknamed him 1.

So aside from everything i said there, there were a lot of things i didn’t include because they would’ve made it obvious that it was him and it could potentially backfire on me so, i’m very afraid to post this. but i’m going to do it scared anyway, because it’s not fair that he gets to just go and live his life worry-free as if he didn’t practically ruin mine.

Because I already made a very lengthy post about him, i won’t include everything i said last time to avoid being redundant but if i repeat myself, please bear with me.

In our year long relationship i had to endure emotional neglect, gaslighting, verbal abuse, one instance where there was dubious consent, and much more.

Starting off at the beginning of our relationship, that’s when i was getting copious amounts of hate and harassment from his fan base (warranted or not), he decided that our relationship must be kept private. he said it was to “protect” me from his fanbase when in reality it was to protect himself. it was so he wouldn’t get all the backlash i was getting. this is funny because one of the things i got called out for was saying the B slur (derogatory term used against mexicans/latinos). I won’t get into the nuances of if i could say it or not as a puertorican because that’s discourse that does not pertain to this specific situation. But you know who definitely can’t say it? A white boy from Massachusetts. When i was getting cancelled for this and getting thousands of tweets calling me names, he decided that was the perfect time to say “I mean you are a b***** aren’t you? my little b*****.” Now, he said this completely unprompted. I was in the process of writing my apology and he just said that. I tell you this because i immediately shut him down and told him that there was no universe in which it was okay for him to say that word and especially not one where he could just call me that. While i was reprimanding him, he was smiling and laughing. he apparently found it amusing to call me a slur. regardless, he gave me a half-assed apology and said he wouldn’t do it again. and he didn’t. but this wasn’t the only time he was weirdly racist to me. this was my first time being in an interracial relationship so i was led to believe that this was normal by all the white people around me at the time. But, sometimes my spanish accent would come out and he would make fun of me and the way i pronounced some words. He also refused to visit me in Puerto Rico when i lived there or come meet my family when i really wanted him to because he “didn’t like the heat” or “it’s dangerous there isn’t it?”. Once, while we were watching season 2 of Bridgerton, he implied that the Sharma sisters were “too dark” for him to be attracted to them. This hurt me because they are brown skinned girls. I am a brown skinned girl. Then this, combined with the fact that he told me once he wasn’t attracted to me made me feel like my skin color was unattractive. These are only a few examples i can think of at the moment, but i’m sure there were more. Our relationship ended in 2022 so some of my memory is a bit hazy. But, I do remember feeling inferior to him throughout the relationship because he was white and I was not. I chalk that up to all the micro aggressions i had to deal with because i had never felt that way around white people before.

Another thing i had to endure was him constantly making me feel like he was embarrassed to be with me. Because i was cancelled, he didn’t want to associate with me too much. He did defend me on multiple occasions, I’ll give him that. But, he only did it because his name was getting dragged in the mud along with mine. Excusing my actions made him look better for being around me. In reality he didn’t really care. Because he was such a big content creator and someone i looked up to professionally, I took his advice as law. He told me to tone down my personality, to keep a low profile, to change things about myself to be more palatable to his audience. The same audience that spoke about me like “The pussy can’t be that good punz please stop defending her”. So i changed a lot of things about myself and my content to better suit what his audience liked. He made me feel like if his audience liked me, he would be public about our relationship and stop hiding it. He told me the reason why he wanted to keep our relationship a secret was because he didn’t want to get hate for it. But this wasn’t true. On my 20th birthday he went to Las Vegas for a twitch rivals event. That night i asked to facetime him to say goodnight and he refused because he was at a hotel room with his friends and he didn’t want them to know that we were together. It was as if my mere presence or the utterance of my name was a source of embarrassment for him. And he didn’t let me forget it. It wasn’t just a public thing at that point. He didn’t want people to know we were together, period. This was devastating to me because I would talk to all my friends about him. I was so proud to be with him and I was just one more problem to him. He made me feel so small and insignificant just because his fans didn’t like me.

He would berate me a lot. Not just due to getting heat online, although he did do that a lot. But in general whenever we would get into an argument or a disagreement he would always call me names like annoying or weird or stupid. He would raise his voice at me if i did something he didn’t like and call me an idiot. And that really hurt, i felt like i couldn’t bring up anything or do anything without getting insulted. If I hadn’t seen him in a few days because he was too busy streaming and i asked to hang out he would call me needy, clingy, and annoying. Granted, he might not have been wrong, but that is not something you say to someone you claim to love. He also insulted me when i was in depressive episodes. I have BPD and at the time i was not being treated properly for it. So, I was all over the place emotionally and he was what i clung to for validation, reassurance, and love. I talked to him when we first started dating about my disorder and told him that if it seemed like something he couldn’t handle that he could opt out of the relationship. I guess he didn’t think it was that bad or something idk because whenever i had really bad depressive episodes, he would tell me I was too sad to hang out with. He said that my sadness was a burden to him. Which would be fair. But, once my mother had a conversation with him about me. She told him that i am someone who needs a lot of love and caring. She said that if he wasn’t willing to put in that kind of effort into a relationship to just leave me alone. He reassured her that he would be there for me no matter what. He told my mother that he would protect me and my heart. He did not. He took all the warnings I gave him and ignored them and then made me feel like I was the problem. And even worse, he would say that i was pretending to be sad to get his attention when he would neglect for days at a time.

There were also some smaller things like the fact that he made me feel really guilty whenever he would spend money on me. Also, he would be really mean about my eating habits. For context, i used to suffer from an eating disorder. I was anorexic and had a really unhealthy relationship with food during high school and my first year of uni. This relationship began when i was recovering from my ED. For me, eating was really hard. So i had certain comfort foods that, while sometimes unhealthy, at least it was something to eat when i didn’t feel like eating anything. He knew this. Yet, whenever i would crave some of these foods he would call me fat. Constantly told me I’d gain weight from eating all that junk food. Saying that to someone with an eating disorder is crazy. Other smaller things were that whenever I would post tiktoks where i was lip syncing or just looking good he would yell at me and say i was looking for attention. Same with Instagram or Twitter whenever i would post photos where I looked hot. He never planned out a single date for us. I would beg him to get me flowers and he did maybe once but i’ll get into that in a bit. He would make fun of me in front of his friends to make himself look better. He let his friends say really degrading things about me in his presence. For example, once when i was showering, i overheard him on a discord call with George and Sapnap and i heard George say “if you don’t go in the shower and have sex with Andi, i will”. Once, when i was really struggling with my legs (for those of you who don’t know, i have arthritis and it’s very painful. at the time i wasn’t diagnosed but i was in a lot of pain) I literally could not walk. I had to beg him to take me to the ER because i didn’t know what was wrong with me. He didn’t want to take me but eventually i convinced him, and while we were there all he did was complain about how long it was taking and that he would have rather been at home streaming. Whenever I would talk about my interests that i was excited about like shows or books he would be incredibly uninterested and say that those things were stupid and he didn’t want to hear about them. I know all of these seem very silly or superficial but cumulatively it was awful.

Now for arguably the most serious thing i’m going to talk about. I want to preface this by saying i am just telling my side of what happened. You can come to your own conclusions about this.

On April 25, 2022 it was our one year anniversary, and i had made a dinner reservation for us. I expected him to plan something throughout the day for us to do. He told me he was going to spend the whole day playing Valorant so I got upset and cancelled the reservation. After a very heated argument, we calmed down and i asked him to come over. He came over about an hour later with flowers and drinks (I was 20 at the time so I couldn’t buy the drinks myself). He brought Smirnoffs and Trulys. For context, I am a lightweight. I always have been. I literally get tipsy on half a cocktail. And that day, I hadn’t eaten anything because i was in distress over our argument. So we get to talking and drinking. I blacked out after my second Smirnoff. Apparently I drank 3 but I genuinely cannot remember anything after finishing the second one. The next morning i woke up naked in my bed. I woke him up and asked him “Luke, why am I naked?” and he said “Because you didn’t want to put your clothes back on.” When I clarified to him that that was not what I meant, he got defensive and said that he didn’t realize how drunk I was. He proceeded to tell me that I initiated sex with him and that i was very enthusiastic about it. He said he didn’t know i could black out on three smirnoffs. He made fun of me for being a lightweight and continued to make light of the situation. Then he mentioned that i fell off the bed at some point in the night and that it was funny how drunk I was. I then questioned him. Because if he thought that me tripping and falling off the bed because i was so drunk was funny, how did he not know that i was too drunk? He responded by saying that i fell off the bed only after we were done. That day I broke up with him. I’m still really confused about what happened that night. I don’t remember anything and all I have to go on is what he said to me. We were in a relationship at the time and he says he didn’t know how drunk I was so I’m not sure what to call what happened. A while after that day, his friend that hmu while we were broken up and I started talking again and i confided in him about that night. He told me to be careful saying things like that because they could get me into trouble. I spoke to some of our other friends about it and they told me it was no big deal and that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know how drunk I really was. Because I don’t remember, I have been led to believe that this is not a serious matter. You can think what you want, come to whatever conclusions you want. That is just my side of the story.

I want to add that I’m not proud of how I acted after the relationship ended. I felt really angry at all the shit he put me through and I guess a part of me wanted him to hurt even a quarter of how I did. So I started talking to his friend and got involved with him. This backfired on me because his friend ended up really hurting me too so ig i got my karma. But the thing that hurt the most is that because of what I did, some of our friends took his side in the break up. I was told that I did something terrible by getting involved with his friend that he was already insecure about and that he didn’t deserve that. These are the same friends who were witness to the dumpster fire of a relationship we had and all the things he did to me. They turned their backs on me because of this one thing I did. But stood by and watched as he treated me like garbage for over a year.

I will conclude this by saying that while this relationship has been “over and done with” for almost two years now, I carry a lot of trauma from it still. I still talk about him in therapy and have had to put in a lot of work to heal from what he did and i still cannot say that i am okay. I am very blessed to now have a patient and understanding partner who has helped me heal from that trauma and i just want to quickly thank him for that. Nobody deserves to go through what I did. While yes, it was a toxic relationship, and I had a part in that, it does not excuse all the awful things he said and did to me. This is my truth, thank you for taking the time to read it.

#sorry if the formatting is all over the place

[sm-baby]

I want to see all the carnival AU bios again, but finding Zooble's is too hard, even when using the search. I hope there's a more organized way to view them.

(Trying to come up with nicknames that said characters would give my characters.)

CARNIVAL AU MASTERPOST + BOUNDARIES

Augh... I never know how to organize stuff! But here is a mini master post of the TADC Info Cards (edited):

The Main Cast (Minus Zooble :C)

Zooble ( Plus Zooble!!! :3)

Shiny Cards ✨

Lesser AI

THE GLOINKS!!!

Level layout

OFFICIAL COMIC:

The Entire Comic has also been dubbed by @volticglitch !! If you're not a reader, You can watch their dubs instead!! Here is the dub

Your best friend!

Jesterly duties

The hallway

Crying

First clue

Special event!

Foul language - a silly

CONCEPT ART:

Characters Relationship Chart ( Bonus, OC relationship Chart!)

The Tent

The Funhouse

Cutscene

Pomni expressions

Character design

Meet Pomni

ALT character skins (Bonus, Maid skins because of course I did)

Pomni expressions AGAIN!!! (and a bonus)

The Jester's Circus tent (and a bonus)

References

Shape language ramble

LOREEE:

Neck pieces

Neck pieces (prt 2)

Neck pieces (prt 3)

Silly Frilly

Toxic Positivity Duo

Quick Ragatha Doodle

The Rabbit

Non-sentient Pomni

Pity Laugh

First act of violence

First and only visit

DOODLE DUMPS:

First look

Meet Jax

Meet Ragatha

Meet Kinger

Meet Able

Zooble's room

Theatre shinanigans

Thanks for listening

Jax Doodles

Ragatha doodles (Feat. Kaufmo)

Caine doodles

Queenie?

Colored doodles

Eye popping

Jax Ko-fi request!

SILLIES:

Final boss Pomni Theory

Ofcourse you would

Shoulder Pads

test

omg showtime teeheeh ehehehe

CUTIES!!!

MORE SHOWTIME (HAVE I REALLY NOT ADDED THIS IN BEFORE??)

Carnival AU meets Original

its ok she's not drowning

The Amazing Digital... Circus???

A Christmas Carol Play!

Carnival Freakshow AU Merge!! (Freakshow AU by @hootbon)

BUZZBUZZ!! Fan character by @awful-little-goose

Whore Pomni Inside joke - more slutshaming

Pomni where yo pants at

shitpost doodles

SCANDAL!!

SCANDAL!! (alt)

Genderbend time!!

Stupid fucking doodles i made at like 11 pm

Stupid fucking doodles i made at like 11 pm (I dont know why I keep making these ToT)

stupid shinanigans involving Pomni's tent (Pomni's tent for context)

POMNI LET GO OF HIM!!!!!!!!

BUBBLE DAMN

Please hear her out guys

Kinger with no robe!!!

Bunnydoll real?!?!!?(Kofi request by amazing people :3)

Genderbend Jax!

Dollar store Carnival AU

Gangle simping over Able slay - Gangle PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER

Carnival GAINE!! - bro's so strong and cool and awesome

Flirty non-sentient pomni Inside joke (TW For suggestive themes): NON-CANON

Start

Context

Flirty non-sentient pomni (shitpost)

Pomni..........

Memory storage restart

the silly!!

no you're not.

oh god

someone paid me 10 bucks

SOMEONE PAID ME MORE MONEY

╔══ ❀•°❀BOUNDERIES/FAQ❀°•❀ ══╗

"Can I make OCs In Carnival?" - Yess!! Multiple people already have and they make me so happy! do whatever, as long as you're happy and having fun!! " Can I make NSFW?" - Yas and slay, just be sure to warn and spoiler it, etc. etc. be responsible when posting NSFW! " Can I make Fanfics?" - Yes and please show me!! that would be lovely!! " Can I dub/voice your stuff?" - Yes but, I have only one rule... show me pleaaasseeee pls pls pls 🥺🙏 " Can I ship the characters/self ships/ OC x Canon?" - Aughh.. this is gonna suck to explain cuz its a lot to ask.. You're allowed to ship any ship! My only boundary is that it doesn't include either Pomni or Caine being with others who are not eachother! For example: Ragatha x Jax ✅ Pomni x Jax❌ Kinger x Queenie✅ Kinger x Caine❌ As long as the ship does not include Pomni or Caine individually, I'm all aboard!! I respect Jax x Pomni shippers, as well as Kinger x caine shippers, I just don't like them myself and don't want to accidentally stumble upon them in the tag! I do apologize if that's a lot, it just makes me uncomfy! Bounderies can be very tight! :')

#The amazing digital circus #the amazing digital carnival #carnival au #pomni #caine #zooble #gangle #kinger #Ragatha #Jax #tadc #tadc fanart #the amazing digital circus fanart #queenie #kaufmo #able

[brainrotdotorg]

imagine a dashboard for alligators. what do you think that would look like

2 notes

🍏gatoridae Follow

Controversial opinion. If you're doing nothing but eating meat, what are you even doing. Remember to include bugs, fruits, and legumes into your diet in order to help aid digestion of the meat that you get from snakes, fish, and mammals.

Just because we have the reputation for eating lots of meat, that doesn't mean we have to stick to it.

🥒biting-you-biting-you Follow

counterpoint: fuit yucky

🪵blog-from-a-bog Follow

wdym reputation of eating meat. i float lik ea log thats what im known for

4,904 notes

🌿swamp-ass Follow

asked dad if i could go and steal some Floridian guy's lunch and he said "we have prey at home" girl we have been doing shit ALL DAY i am an awesome 600 pounds and I need some meat left on me to deathroll with. let me get a quick snack that i don't need to kill mmmmmmm burgers I want people food soooooo badddd....... i know they shouldn't feed it to me but I have such a lovely smile oh please oh please give me your burger.........

182 notes

🥗aliali-seeyoulater Follow

mom says it was cold the season she laid me so i have to be a girl. because girls are always born from eggs laid during cold seasons.

cope and seethe mother first of all, second of all, the reason i am transgender is because you kept me too fucking snuggly warm in the nest.

#i guess if you wanted a daughter you should have. idk. made a shittier nest? #thats not really my fault man

81,337 notes

⛰fuckyeahhugesnout Follow

You'll never guess how I just learned that we have the honor of being the "loudest reptiles in the world"

🫑teethem Follow

Yeah yeah, the 90 decibel mating bellow, we've all heard it.

🤢ch0mper Follow

we've all heard the what

135,633 notes

🩲gaytorrr Follow

this guy asked if i wanted to see his gator hole and i said fuck yes. why this boy take me into a 65 foot long hole in the mud at the bottom of the lake

6,421 notes

🏞daily-clawsitivity

✨Remember to take it easy sometimes!✨We thrive in slow-moving waters!✨Even though we can run fast, we get tired fast too-- it's okay to let yourself take breaks!✨Let yourself relax, that's how we made it this far as a species.

mud-rocks-deactivated20140706

Yeah, imagine telling your prehistoric great great great great great great great great great great grandpa or something to calm down and relax when he should be doing nothing but deathrolls. the longevity of the species should be your only goal. It's irresponsible to encourage your fucking species to fall behind even more than it already has? Have some pride, you're not a crocodile.

scalesssss-deactivated20150310

jesus christ calm down

alidile-crocogator-deactvated20140709

Okay, this post has a lot of misconceptions in it. There aren't as many differences between crocodiles and alligators than you think. It's really harmful to think that we have nothing in common with each other. So what if they're carnivores and we're closer to omnivores, or their snouts are more U shaped while ours are V shaped. We're both badass miracles of nature that have no reason to be pit against one another all the time.

Don't listen to guys like this. It's just hateful and small-minded.

stop-jawlock-androll-deactivated20140911

crocs are like. like them shoes that float right

wetlandia898 Follow

i wish i was a crocodile because i could have a virgin birth and i wanted to see what it would be like to eat an immaculate conception.

bigchallengesrealblog-deactivated20190412

welcome to the no notes gator/croc discourse post.

🦖l8rg8tr-z Follow

omg this is the post.... i can't believe i would see this naturally on my dash

🎍taildraggers Follow

Uh are we just going to ignore the virgin birth reply orrrrrrrrr

🐊gator-heritage-posts

gator heritage post

0 notes

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Follow

hgwiow h

hsfhjs

howw ws i nbevyrboy tyopingssaog oo vd wi hhrth rh thrre cl alawas ?>>

🌴a-l-g-t-r Follow

lmao this idiot never learned how to use their tail to type

#/j lol yeah its kind of hard at first #actually i'd say cut your losses and forget how to type bring the laptop back to the dumpster its not worth it

39 notes

🐍bellowbellowmygoodfellow Follow

am i fucking stupid. i just learned theres another species of alligator other than just me and the guys in my swamp. and i said "oh wow I didn't know that! which one of the two are we haha" and my buddy just stared at me like I was a fucking idiot. how am i supposed to know if no one ever tells me this . WHICH AM I

🍖meet-eat3r Follow

there are only 70-80 mature chinese gators in existence while there are 750,00-1 million mature american gators . do the math.

🐍bellowbellowmygoodfellow Follow

i could have just hatched you don't know me.

20,570 notes

🍀gatortears Follow

a group of queer gators in church call that a congregaytion

#reblogging this one bc none of you appreciate me

1 notes

👞makemeintoshoesdaddy Follow

I'm seeing the no notes gator/croc post circulate again and ha ha yes it's very funny, but we are NOT starting gator/croc discourse in 2024. lets leave that shit in the past. i know that's not what the post really ended up being about but i am soooooo sick of it.

🌾clawstothewalls Follow

okay, so the one with a fetish for getting turned into handbags is gonna talk down to us now.

👞 makemeintoshoesdaddy Follow

Not to be a pedant but its Shoes Actually. It even says so in the name. Shoes.

2,663 notes

#this post was all an excuse to tell you alligator fun facts #i fucking got you dude. i got you

[guzhufuren]

A Guide to Some of the Best Queer Asian Shows

The guide includes a show’s basic summary; main genres/tropes/themes and official streaming links (additional info on how to watch at the end of this post)! You can find some content warnings in the reply section of this post. Shows are listed by countries, numbered by the order I recommend watching in, not by rating. All shows have happy endings unless specified otherwise. The list will hopefully be updated regularly (last updated on 04/04/2024, 98 queer shows in total).

Most shows are about mlm, I specify with coloured notes those that are focused on wlw, polyamory, aromantism/asexuality, etc.

Tumblr does not allow large texts or more than 30 images per post at the moment, so you can click on every country’s list to expand them and view them fully in a separate post. You can access this guide in a google doc here.

Thailand 🇹🇭 (full list here)

1. KinnPorsche mafia boss/bodyguard; action; kidnapper/kidnapee side couple

Kinn, a son of a prominent mafia head, is ambushed by an enemy, and meets Porsche, a bartender who comes to his rescue for a price, thus beginning their reluctant relationship as boss and bodyguard, which soon turns into something more.

iQIYI

2. Bed Friend friends with benefits; office setting; trauma

King and Uea work in the same office. After a company outing ends in a drunken hook-up between them, Uea and King agree to keep seeing each other on a strictly physical basis. With no strings attached, will these two be able to keep things between them simple and carefree or will their emotions eventually get the better of them?

Uncut 18+ on iQIYI or GagaOOLala or cut on YouTube

3. The Sign reincarnated lovers; fantasy; thai mythology; police

The story of the love between Phaya and Tharn who used to be mythological creatures Naga and Garuda in their past lives, and were forced apart. But fate intervened, and two men were reincarnated in new bodies. Now, they work together as partners in the Special Investigations Unit to uncover violent crimes and supernatural mysteries while their love is tested by mystical forces and past enemies.

YouTube

4. I Feel You Linger In The Air period drama; time travel; bittersweet

Jom, an architect overseeing the renovation of a rundown villa, continuously dreams of a man he's never met. When a twist of fate transports Jom to Chiang Mai in the 1920s, he assumes the role of a servant to the affluent young master Yai, the mysterious man from his dreams.

GagaOOLala or YouTube

5. You're My Sky sports; university setting; coming of age

Thorn, a young basketball player follows his senior Fah to university as a result of the promise they’d made — to become national basketball champions. However, to his dismay, he finds that Fah has already given up on basketball. --- Aai has to work in pairs throughout the semester with San, 1 year footballer; in order to receive a scholarship to study in Japan, Ai must be willing to do everything to get an A grade. --- Track running requires the compatibility of the team members to be very high. Vee, who became the new racquet 4, has to speed up training to fit in with the team as quickly as possible, especially with Dome, spending extra time together to train. Is love actually a major obstacle on the path of being an athlete?

Viki

> more tv shows from Thailand

GMMTV Thailand 🇹🇭 (full list here)

1. My School President high school setting; secret crush; school president/rebel musician

Gun is the head of his high school music club. Tinn is a school president and Gun's long-term rival. The Principal wants to disband some of the school’s “useless” after-school clubs, especially the music club. Per school rules, the student council president is the one who has the power to dissolve clubs. Gun is now at Tinn’s mercy, so he attempts to do whatever he can to persuade his rival not to cancel the music club. Little does he know, Tinn actually has a secret crush on him. Could romance brew as Gun makes a desperate attempt to secure the future of his band?

Viki (MSP) & YouTube (Our Skyy special 33-40) & YouTube (special)

2. Moonlight Chicken adult romance; age gap; deaf character

Jim is an ordinary guy running a chicken rice diner. One night, he meets Wen when he stays past closing drunk. Brought together by fate that night, intangible feelings arise. Neither can stop thinking about the other despite Jim's efforts to remain unattached. Jim also takes care of his nephew Li Ming, who is falling in love with Heart, a deaf teenager who is practically kept under house arrest by his affluent parents.

YouTube

3. Not Me revolution; freedom fighters; secret twins

When his twin Black is viciously attacked and subsequently left hospitalised in unconsciousness, White is unable to endure the harm done to his brother in silence. He learns Black was a part of a gang of anti-capitalist freedom fighters, and it was one of them who betrayed him. White disguises himself as Black to discover which one of them betrayed him and put him in a coma.

YouTube

4. 23.5 wlw; high school setting; secret admirer

Ongsa moves to a new school and meets Sun, a cute popular girl who she immediately falls for. However, she decides to approach Sun in instagram dms under the pseudonym Earth, leading Sun to believe she's talking to a guy. But Ongsa does not want to lose the opportunity to talk to Sun, so she decides to keep the fact that she is a girl a secret and continue talking as Earth.

YouTube

> more tv shows from GMMTV Thailand

Japan 🇯🇵 (full list here)

1. Cherry Magic!   mind reading; secret crush; office setting

By still being a vіrgin at 30, Adachi gains a magical power – the ability to read other people's minds by touching them. At first, he’s overwhelmed by his new ability, and it’s not proving to be helpful to him. But that all changes when he accidentally touches their office’s most perfect guy Kurosawa, who he learns has romantic feelings for him.

WeTV (Cherry Magic) & no international streaming of Cherry Magic The Movie is available to my knowledge, so watch on bilibili or KissKH

2. Kieta Hatsukoi (My Love Mix-Up!)   misunderstanding; high school setting

Aoki has a crush on Hashimoto, the girl in the seat next to him in class. But he despairs when he borrows her eraser and sees she's written the name of another boy — Ida — on it. To make matters more confusing, Ida sees Aoki holding that very eraser and thinks Aoki has a crush on him!

Viki

3. Our Dining Table food; child character

Salaryman Yutaka finds it difficult to share meals with other people. However, his life starts to change when one day, his cooking attracts the attention of a young boy named Tane and his older brother Minoru. The two brothers are impressed by Yutaka's cooking skill and invite him to their house to cook together. Yutaka's dreary life begins to change, and soon he finds himself looking forward to the meals he shares with the Ueda siblings together, as well as developing a taste for romantic feelings.

GagaOOLala

4. She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat wlw; neighbours; self-discovery; food

Nomoto loves to cook, but tends to make too much food and has no one to share it with. Luckily for her, turns out her neighbor Kasuga has a big enough appetite for the both of them.

No international streaming available, translated to english by Furritsubs, S1 & S2, watching instructions provided, please support translator on kofi.

5. Takara-kun to Amagi-kun high school setting; relationship exploration

Takara is a good-looking popular guy in class, while Amagi is a simple but bright and pure fellow classmate. The two begin to date in secret after Amagi's blurted out confession.

Viki or GagaOOLala

> more tv shows from Japan

China 🇨🇳 (full list here)

Most chinese shows are adapted from explicitly queer novels, the shows are undeniably and obviously queer, but nevertheless the queer romance part is censured. The only exception is number 4 on the list, it is not censored.

1. The Untamed period drama; fantasy

An epic fantasy led by a problem child who comes back from the dead 16 years later in order to fix the broken world he left behind — and finally unite with his soulmate.

YouTube

2. Word of Honor period drama; fantasy

The leader of assassin organisation Zhou Zishu quits his position in pursuit of freedom with drastic measures. In his travels, he meets Wen Kexing, the leader of Ghost Valley who wants nothing but revenge. The two become entangled in various machinations within the martial arts world, and eventually become soulmates instrumental in each other's redemption.

YouTube & Special Episode on Tumblr or DailyMotion

3. Couple of Mirrors wlw; period drama; socialite/assassin

You Yi is a kind-hearted socialite and a successful author. Her perfect life is turned upside-down when she discovers a betrayal by the two most trusted people in her life. With no one left to turn to, she finds refuge in the friendship and support of Yan Wei, a lonely female killer disguised as the owner of a photo studio.

YouTube. the show doesn’t have a happy ending, but it can be a happy ending for you if you stop watching at episode 12 timestamp 28:02.

4. Stay With Me enemies to lovers; high school setting; unconventional families; slow burn

Su Yu is a high school student who lives with his single poor father. Su Yu gets a new classmate Wu Bi. The two clash right from the start, and after getting off on the wrong foot, their explosive relationship takes a turn.

YouTube or GagaOOLala. the show doesn’t have a happy ending, but it can be a happy ending for you if you stop watching at episode 24 timestamp 05:00. OR watch the full thing and look at this post after

5. The Spirealm inside of a video game; mystery; fantasy; horror-ish; hopeful ending

A game designer Lin Qiushi is transported inside of a game he recently played, and now he must go through 12 horrifying survivor game doors to survive in the real world. Inside his first door he meets Ruan Nanzhu, a mysterious man who offers him to team up.

The show was taken down from streaming, download files here and subtitles here.

Various WLW mini web-dramas here.

Various WLW short films here.

South Korea 🇰🇷 (full list here)

1. Love for Love's Sake inside of a video game; high school setting; healing

At the age of 29 Tae Myungha finds himself transported into a fictional video game, and now 19 years old, he meets Cha Yeowoon, who is in the darkest moment of his life. And a translucent window appears where he receives a mission — to make Cha Yeowoon happy.

iQIYI (better subtitles) or GagaOOLala

2. Semantic Error enemies to lovers; university setting

A serious programmer and a rebellious artist clash over a school project. Their animosity keeps escalating to new extremes, defined by petty pranks and feisty arguments.

Viki

3. Love Tractor farm setting; farmer/city musician

Sunyeol, a city man with zero ability to survive in the countryside, comes to his grandfather's rural home. In front of him appears Yechan, a passionate and kind young farmer. While learning about rural life and assisting with farming tasks, Sunyeol gradually finds himself drawn to Yechan's warm and straightforward nature, while Yechan helplessly falls for Sunyeol.

iQIYI

4. Our Dating Sim high school friends to lovers; office setting

After 7 years, Lee Wan meets his first love, Shin Kitae, in a gaming company. When they were best friends in high school, Lee Wan was in love with Kitae. But he ran away and disappeared after confessing his feelings to Kitae after graduation. When the two of them begin working on a new dating simulation game and get more immersed in the project, old feelings are rekindled.

Viki or GagaOOLala

5. She Makes My Heart Flutter wlw; bar setting; niece and aunt dynamic

The extroverted Gang Seol is hired by her aunt Jung at her only-women bar. Even though they are both lesbians, they seem to be worlds apart and have very different love stories.

YouTube

> more tv shows from South Korea

Taiwan 🇹🇼 (full list here)

1. History3: Trapped mafia boss/policeman

The story of a police officer who becomes trapped in the underworld, as he develops feelings for a gang leader.

YouTube or Viki

2. Kiseki: Dear to Me mafia; age gap

Bai Zongyi, an exemplary high school student with dreams of becoming a doctor, is one day unexpectedly drawn into the world of a charismatic and mischievous gangster Fan Zerui, who blackmails him into taking him in and treating his wounds. Just as their love story begins to unfold, Fan Ze Rui's criminal life catches up with him. On the other hand, Chen Yi and Ai Di are two orphans who grew up in the gang together. Ai Di has always loved Chen Yi, but Chen Yi only notices their boss.

Viki or GagaOOLala or YouTube

3. My Tooth Your Love dentist/chef; trauma healing

Bai Lang is a successful bistro owner with an severe fear of visiting the dentist... until a toothache forces him to come face to face with the handsome yet cold dentist Jin Xunan.

Viki

4. Anti Reset android/human

When Chu Yi Ping, an emotionless man, dislocates his hand in an accident at school, his uncle gives him Ever 9 as a caretaker, an experimental intelligent robot that his company is secretly testing.

Viki or iQIYI or GagaOOLala

5. History2: Crossing the Line sports; high school setting

When an injury sidelines a high school senior from the volleyball team, he develops feelings for a recruit.

YouTube or Viki

> more tv shows from Taiwan

Philippines 🇵🇭

1. Sleep With Me wlw; radio; disabled character in a wheelchair

A science textbook writer with a sleep disorder meets a wheelchair-using radio host who runs the midnight shift. This chance encounter at the radio station quickly sparks their interest in each other.

GagaOOLala

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You can watch many shows for free on YouTube, and watch others on the streaming websites by setting VPN to one of the countries in the list. In other cases I recommend paying for subscriptions to show appreciation and support of content in order to get more of it in the future, but if you can’t, watch on KissKH (better quality), Dramacool or get files from MkvDrama. Enjoy!  🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

#queer #lgbtq #lgbt #gay #lesbian #mygifs #mine #tuserkatherine #usermor #23.5 degrees #kinnporsche #kinnporsche the series #the sign #the sign the series #cherry magic #the untamed #cql #word of honor #love for love's sake #kiseki dear to me #i feel you linger in the air #my school president #the spirealm #semantic error #ql master guide #if you find mistakes or something isn't working please let me know!!

[journeytothewest-daily]

Welcome to The Journey to the West (西游记) Daily!

You are about to beging a reading journey to get the hidden Buddhist texts accompanied by the monk Tang Sanzang, Sun Wukong, Sha Wujing, Zhu Bajie and Bai Long Ma.

To beging this journey you must subscribe to the newsletter, which you will find at https://journeytothewestdaily.substack.com/. You wil receive your first email this week, welcoming you and sharing information about what's to come and what I will include in the emails.

However, beforehand I want to tell you already that you won't receive a daily email, despite the name of the newsletter. The chapters are dense and full of references to folklore or religion references that you might be unfamiliar with, so you will receive an email every 2 or 3 days maximum.

If this is the first time that you hear about this newsletter and you don't know what Journey to the West is...

The classical Chinese novel Journey to the West is an extended account of the legendary pilgrimage of the Tang dynasty Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who traveled to the "Western Regions" (Central Asia and India) to obtain Buddhist sūtras (sacred texts) and returned after many trials and much suffering. Gautama Buddha gives this task to the monk, whose name in the novel is Tang Sanzang, and provides him with three protectors who agree to help him as an atonement for their sins. These disciples are the Monkey King, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing, together with a dragon prince who acts as the monk's steed, a white horse. The group of pilgrims journey towards enlightenment by the power and virtue of cooperation.

The novel is perfect for the epistolary format, since it's is divided in different and disconnected adventures, so you don't have to always remember what happened in the previous chapter to read the next!

We'll be reading Anthony C. Yu's translation since it is the first unabridged version that we have available in English. It is about 100 chapters long.

As I said, you will receive a first email as soon as you subscribe and an introductory email in a few days. Please, share this post so more people can read along. Use the hashtag #jttwdaily if you want to comment your impressions. I'll share the most important dates soon.

May the Buddha help you in your endeavours.

#journey to the west #journey to the West daily #jttwdaily #西游记 #Dracula daily #chinese literature #classical Chinese literature #cdrama #the untamed