#doing this reminded me of my early tumblr days when i'd get so many asks where ppl dropped their ryomina hcs it was cute...

[crescentfool]

What are your ryomina headcanons? I've loved these two since I played P3 FES, and I'm so excited to get back into the fandom^^

hi!! thank you so much for the ask, welcome back to the p3 fandom, it's always a delight to see new and old ryomina fans alike! 🥺💛💙

as for headcanons, here's a "few" i that i tend to come back to a lot! my interpretations of them are influenced from both the source material and other's fanworks, so i've linked to them as i saw fit! hcs in no particular order under the cut because oops this got long (900 word bullet point list, mentions of reload content up to 1/1)

minato's hair is dyed blue (hair originally brown, you can see it in his roots!) and he has a beauty mark on under his left eye. i like mirror imagery and there's definitely a few arts i've rb'd that portray them this way :) (e.g. this one by feliichu and this one by marasschino)

as far as i'm concerned the bathhouse scene from the manga where ryoji's hair down = similar shape to minato? that is canon to me. this art from xierru is a fun depiction of hair down ryoji :D

ryoji is homeless. everyone say thank you foxmulder_whereartthou for this awesome fic it's why i have the headcanon! but like seriously. we have no idea where ryoji lives and i could believe this.

minato dying at the end of the game is sad to an outsider's POV BUT!!! ryomina gets to be together in death for the rest of their lives (this illustration from mafuwara is a gorgeous representation of them as nyx avatar + the seal)!

speaking of the seal, they are like telepathically communicating to me in the great seal together. (mymp3 had a comic wip with this. give it a looksie :D)

ryoji likes cuddling with minato because he's warm :) (something something orpheus has fire affinity, minato is warm by extension and ryoji is cold because he's death)

ryoji's camera roll is filled with pictures of minato! ryoji... loves life, to me. and i feel that photography and journaling are perfect ways of expressing gratitude and capturing the moments in life that are most important to you :3

my other favorite activity for these two is stargazing- i feel like it's something they could appreciate either in life or death (looking at the stars from the great seal...)! they do a bit of this in the fic eurydice's vow by crescentmoontea (P5R spoilers, takes place in third sem it's a very fun fic concept).

between ryoji and minato i feel like ryoji was the one who fell in love first- and it doesn't really click in place for minato that he loves ryoji until december hits (appriser reveal + ryoji transforming into thanatos). its about the realization that ryoji was with him for his whole life and that he gets him like no one else does.

ryoji is like a sad and wet puppy who is so scared minato won't like him back. he is so scared of being rejected by minato to me like. this boy straight up deflates after he does his "i know i said i wanted us to be friends, but... i actually want to be something more." / "what about you?" on 12/1 ???

AND SPEAKING of wet puppy ryoji. ryoji is like. every animal in the world to me. he's a bird. he's a cat. etc. and also ryoji knows every language in the world ever and uses it to express his love for minato. see this fic from superheroics to see what i mean.

both of them are lactose intolerant. "this isn't lactose, it's milk!" i definitely think ryoji would make himself sick eating ice cream and milk he doesn't know what lactose is. (i made a silly poll about this once and the tags were very entertaining.)

i see minato as transmasc or nonbinary depending on the day (schrodinger's headcanons babey they're simultaneously true and not true at the same time!!). either way he's not cis to me and ryoji is like. His Gender. anyway go read this fic by nail_gun for t4t ryomina :D !

ryomina are WEIRD GUYS TO ME!!! they are so strange and they understand each other better than anyone else because of the circumstances of their relationship!!! if you asked them to do the "i wonder what i taste like" meme i think they'd start biting each other (affectionate) tbh but that's just me.

after ryoji gives minato the music box in 12/31 on reload, minato listens to the music box every night in january. this boy has insomnia and also chronic illness to me (things that housing death does to you). but i think he finds comfort in the melody and memories he made with ryoji.

in general, i think it's fun to imagine minato taking ryoji to places and show him things he's interested in! i feel that ryoji takes a lot of interest in minato's life, this isn't really a hc because in reload, minato DOES give ryoji a tour of the school (11/9) and possibly port island (11/12). but ITS CUTE OK! (tangentially related fanwork: this series of doodles from vinnigami: 1, 2, and 3)

not a hc but minato's kindness is like the backbone of their relationship and i think we would not have the ryomina we know and love today if minato wasn't such a kind soul. oh minato.... we can learn so much from you... like ryoji did!

anyway! that's all the hcs that i could think of, thank you for the ask! i had a lot of fun answering this, these two mean a lot to me 💛💙

i hope you don't mind the links to the fanart and fanfic as well, the fanwork people have made for ryomina have really made an imprint on me! if you want to see more of them, i definitely recommend looking through my tag for them because oh. i got a lot of them reblogged alright 😂 (<- SOOO NORMAL)

#UMMM hiiii #this was VERY fun to do thank you so much for the ask!! im very. well-adjusted about these two #this ended up turning into some art + fic suggests (they are like citations to my hcs) #but it was really fun! i love ryomina to bits and pieces i cannot provide a concise answer #this post nearly gave me a scare bc somehow the bullet point list doubled itself and wouldn't let me post #tumblr is a very functional website! but the posts intact so im happy!!! yippee! #i still need to finish reload but some of the hcs i wrote were partially backed by what i saw there #people are welcome to send asks btw! cant guarantee i'll answer them in a timely manner but i enjoy doing them #doing this reminded me of my early tumblr days when i'd get so many asks where ppl dropped their ryomina hcs it was cute... #im sure i will continue to recommend fanworks in the future i definitely want to start reading fic again after i finish reload! yahoo! #also this post is like the iceberg of my brain btw you have definitely not seen all of my thoughts im soo. (twirls hair) normal. #lizzy askbox #ryomina #<- why not i put effort into the post #anyway bye im going to go to the library to learn about my favorite new interest called html and css aren't websites cool :)

[crepesuzette2023]

Hi! Because someone just asked me, I'd love you hear your Top 5 favourite McLennon fics!

You made my day! Nothing could have made me happier than this ask.

I'm not going to evade your question. I will post my top-five, even though it hurts to choose. But you inspired me to finally write a longer (okay: very long) post about some (not nearly all!) of my favorites, which will be under the cut.

(Sorry for not knowing every writer's tumblr, by the way. Please feel free to let me know, so I can tag authors where appropriate. Thank you!)

My Top 5:

MIRACLE WORKER by @scurator. What can I say. Every time I need my heart broken and to feel an inkling of what grace truly means, I go to this masterpiece about Paul and Robert Fraser finding each other again at Cavendish in 1981.

COAST STARLIGHT by bookofapril is "Miracle Worker's" cosmic twin. The sun to its night. Paul and Robert Fraser on Fire Island in 1974. Nothing I can say will do it justice, so I won't try. This is the "other world" conjured in "Tug of War," so powerfully and joyfully imagined, it's real. (I'm always thinking of this story, but I did so extra hard when I came across a prompt recently: 'They aren't each other's first love, but they're each other's true love'.)

SAME AS IT EVER WAS by RedheadAmongWolves. My favorite Outsider's POV. An ageing newsstand owner from Liverpool remembers John and Paul as boys and young men. There's something magical about the relationship coming alive in these glimpses. A story filled with tenderness that reminds me to always look closely.

AN ORGASM OF SOUND by @pauls1967moustache. The insanity of John and Paul in 1967 got the tribute it deserves. I sleep easier since I read this story. It feels cosmically right that it exists.

PLANT A SEED by @eveepe. Paul in his slutty sailor outfit in Miami. He and John are into each other, and happy, and fuck slowly. Afterwards, Paul has an idea for a new song. That's it. Tender, glorious, hot perfection. Apply at least once a week for best results.

For more thoughts about some of my favorite stories, sorted into very much defined-ad-hoc categories, read under the cut.

Young Love:

I love the myth of their first meeting, and stories that speculate about the sexually loaded creative fireworks/gritty jealousies/tentative hand-holding/topping and tailing during the first years. Here are some faves:

Paul finds music, and John, and his life is changing. In STREETS OF OUR TOWN (@with-eyes-closed) you can taste the upheaval and promise of first love and growing up. Deeply sensual, even without on-page sex. The shaky, sweet, and all-consuming fire of John and Paul’s first kiss is immortalized in ALL I KNOW SINCE YESTERDAY (RedheadAmongWolves). In NON NOBIS SOLUM (@downtothe-lastdrop), art student John simply has to know how far grammar school boy Paul will go to please him. But Paul matches him play-by-play. In THE CAST IRON SHORE (@m1ssunderstanding) Paul earns extra money through music and sex. John finds out. They fall in love, and hide their mutual pining behind transactions—but in the end, they man up to pair up, and get their band back on track. (The first part is finished; I can’t wait for part 2.) John and Paul’s ’61 trip to Paris has been honored in fiction many times; WHEN YOU ARE YOUNG THEY ASSUME YOU KNOW NOTHING (@lilypadd23) is a slow-burning, blessedly long story that blossoms sweetly. DON’T THINK ABOUT IT is the concept by which Paul measures both his pining for John and their deeply satisfying (but surely not really queer?!) sex life. Perfectly realized Paul POV by @merseydreams. Finally: I NEED YOU DARLIN’ (verse) (by @beatlessideblog) would have fit many categories, but I put it here, because in the end, it’s about young John and Paul becoming friends, making music, having sex, and falling in love. No more, no less. Embedded in a late 50’s/early 60's Liverpool omegaverse in which there's a place for their bond. But, surprise (?!): It’s still complicated. I can’t overstate how charming and satisfying and funny and hot this work is.

Old John and Paul:

Is there anything as lovely as imagining John and Paul growing old together?

In HERE TODAY (@herspecialagent), John and Paul found happiness with each other in Scotland. On 8th December 1980, they invite friends for a party, and fight an inexplicable sense of doom. A reminder that our other lives can be closer than we think, and to keep our loved ones even closer.

GROW OLD WITH ME (@inherownwr1te): Old farmers and husbands John and Paul enjoy domestic bliss, deal with a broken arm, and make sweet love.

HAVING COFFEE (@feathersandblue): John Lennon and Paul McCartney, “one of the most iconic gay couples in history,” look back on their early love, the Beatles, and being outed in the 80’s, in this oh-so-glamourous, well-written 2020 portrait…

Magical re-tellings of J/P and/or the Beatles Story:

No matter where you come down on the blessed vs. cursed continuum—they were living through something magical.

In KISSING THE BLARNEY (@zilabee) the Beatles draw love and music from kissing Paul, and each other, until the stupid world interferes. But fear not, all ends well. How to tell the truth through whimsy: this story demonstrates it.

In WE ARE ALL TOGETHER (also by @zilabee), John and Paul switch bodies. It helps.

I WAS A YOUNGER MAN NOW (THEN) (POST HOC) BY @fingersfallingupwards: Paul is a time traveler and braids his life together with John’s, out of order, through the years. And yes, they do grow old together—but not without losing each other first. I’m in awe of this story.

A darker time-traveling story is A MATTER OF TIME (D12Fan), in which John and Paul love each other, over and over, and never manage to make it work—but Paul won’t give up.

FOR THOUGH THEY MAY BE PARTED (@downtothe-lastdrop): The misery of the 'Get Back' sessions and memory-stunting technology imported from “Severance” are not enough to kill off John and Paul’s attraction and longing for each other. Again, this is basically what happened, so.

John and Paul without the Beatles?

Yes, please! Sometimes, the best way to dissect and celebrate (and fix?) this mesmerizing and exasperating partnership is to lift it from its context and drop it elsewhere. Anything goes.

WHATEVER FATE DECREES by @dailyhowl: A gorgeous, finely spun, securely handled, self-contained vision of how John and Paul could have worked as artists in love, without a band to 'legitimize' and constrain their bond. I love this homage to their deep and complicated love that needed trust and breathing room.

1967 by @walkuntilthedaylight: What if John and Paul had gone to Spain together and not come back? This story not only explores their relationship layer by layer, it also dives into the the feelings of those who knew them 'before' and who now meet them again, as a couple. A fascinating alternate history. Not a fluffy one.

TOMORROW I'LL MISS YOU (@pauls1967moustache): Paul abandons John in Hamburg—or John stays behind without bothering to write, depending on who you ask. This "Before Sunset"—AU reunites them, years later. They ride a bus and write a song, and the love and tension are sweet and painful.

DOUBLE FANTASY (by @javelinbk): Modern AU in which John and Paul meet at John's flower shop and manage to ignore and creatively re-interpret their feelings for one another for a surprising amount of time, before fate has mercy. I love how their sweet, well-matched eccentricity makes the world a warmer place for both of them.

WE ARE STARDUST (Unchained_Daisychain): AU. John and Paul meet at Woodstock, fall hard and fast for each other, and have to decide what to do with it: Paul's life is back home in England...except...

Angst, darkness, and courage:

Pain, fear, grief, and other dark emotions are part of the real J/P story, so it makes sense to honor and harvest them in fiction. One of my favorite brands of McLennon angst is the one triggered by their feelings for each other, and the thing they become once they're together™. When they're scared of how much they need each other, and of what will happen next.

ONE AND ONE AND ONE IS THREE and MANAGING EXPECTATIONS (both by @pauls1967moustache), for instance. The first is a terrifying threesome with Yoko (at John's instigation, of course), in which trust is never rewarded and sex resolves nothing. The second is Paul wondering, in thoughts both messy and crystal clear, whether he exists independently of John. He turns to Brian for answers. They fuck. It feels like a human thing compared to what is going on in Paul's mind. Just astounding.

SUNDAY DRIVER (@boshemians) dives into the theme of Paul and John being afraid of themselves in the aftermath of Paul's accident (moped, sexual) with Tara Browne. This one, like "Managing Expectations," ends on a lovely grace note.

MACABRE (@dovetailjoints). Lennon and McCartney go too far.

OPEN HEART (@paisanas). Paul drinks John's blood. John lets him. But Paul starts to hate himself for how much he needs John, which John feels as rejection. I love how this story ends on Paul embracing his need. You can see the painful, bare bones of their malnourished love under the lush sensuality of the vampire sex. Raw and rich.

SILENCE (@ohjohnnysblog). Short and piercing. If there is someone you love—tell them. Don't wait.

THE LATE, GREAT JOHNNY ACE (@midchelle). Reeling with grief, Paul is recording an album in 1981. George and Ringo are there. John is not. But in the end—he is. And they touch. I've always admired Paul's resilience in the face of having to perform or "prove" his love of John in public, and this story showed me, without sugar-coating, where this resilience comes from.

Light, hope, and fixing things:

There is also much lightness and brightness in McLennon, because John and Paul were ridiculous, and horny, and weird. And also: they deserve a laugh. They deserve the fluffiest of happy endings. They deserve high-quality, life-affirming smut. They deserve silly, because silly is what they were. You know their names, look up their number.

1980. John is in BERMUDA (@scurator), Paul visits. Paul comes prepared, John just comes. Sometimes, it can be this simple. This story always leaves me in such a good mood. Paul is the (more) experienced one, and it...really works for me.

GOT TO GET DOWN (@eveepe): In praise of John's obsession with Paul's...precious. His small and perfect prick.

ADVENTURES IN TOTAL HONESTY (@merseydreams). Pithy and sexy, and, I quote from the tags: #Excessive Margarita Mixing.

ANINUT (@pauls1967moustache): The Beatles heal, together and separately, after Brian's death. Once more, I quote the writer: "The Beatles did not follow any of the Jewish mourning traditions, and frankly, they should have."

The unhinged weirdness of the Mad Day Out, with John and Paul escaping and Francie, Yoko and Mal not missing them...much, is rightfully celebrated in one of the insaner stories I read: JOHN, I'M ONLY DANCING (@skylikeaflame)

FAIR'S FAIR (@javelinbk): John and Paul are being silly during a press conference, resulting in acute arousal requiring John's skilled intervention. I love the unexpected care and tenderness in this one!

WHERE THE POETS WENT (RedheadAmongWolves): Tender and enchanted story in which Paul and John go to a bookstore, where they're not as famous as everywhere else. As delicate as the chiming doorbells and the pages murmuring around them.

TAKEN AWAY (@crumblingcookies) Extraterrestrial Intelligence intervenes to reunite John and Paul.

CAN I TAKE MY FRIEND TO BED? (manhattanvalleys). Paul fucks the band in sequence and gets off in the end, as is his due. This is a story like Prince's KISS. No filler, all effect.

THEY SAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY (@ohjohnnysblog). Warm and nostalgic phone sex in the 70's.

KEEP THE LIGHT WE'RE GIVEN (@backbenttulips). Amidst the rise of Beatlemania, Paul and John expect their first child. This is Paul's 1962 diary.

More Outsider POV's:

STILL MATES (@pauls1967moustache): in 1968, Peter Asher takes the leap to act on his feelings for his sister's spiraling ex fiancé. This isn't about Paul as much as about Peter, and who he wants to be. Gutting character study. It made me love Peter.

ANOTHER GIRL (@boshemians): Astrid reunites with the Beatles during the making of AHDN and registers their words and deeds with the same stark objectivity as her camera. I love how she seeks the shelter of obscurity while they are being dragged into the limelight. But she sees them, wherever they are. J/P in this story feels incredibly real to me.

WHY BUY THE COW (RedheadAmongWolves). The milkman sees everything on his early morning rounds: the arrival of a nice new family, the McCartneys, the mother's illness, the sadness after her death...and the arrival of a new love in the older son's life. He shouldn't approve—should say something, in fact. But a small inner voice holds him back.

SLEEPLESS IN WALES (thinkpink20). Mike overhears Paul and John whisper in bed. He doesn't understand everything they say. I do. Adorable.

Not each other's first love, but each other's true love

THIS YEAR'S FOR ME AND YOU (@skylikeaflame): After a long life, after deep and loving partnerships with other people, John and Paul, encouraged by their grown-up children, finally meet their mutual love head on. A festive story about waiting the perfect amount of time.

THERE ARE ALWAYS FLOWERS (tarenas): The Beatles are in the past; John and Paul's love is in ashes. Paul, who is fragile and bereft, lives with George, who is content. The four ex-Beatles unite for the second wedding of Mike McCartney. At times, the aching grief in this story is almost unbearable. But the love between George and Paul is unusual and real. This is unfinished. I'll keep waiting for the final chapter.

Beyond J/P

WANT ME WHEN I'M NOT THERE (@backbenttulips): Linda catches Paul cheating on her with John. She divorces him. Finally: a story that puts her most likely reaction front and center, with no mercy for the messed-up geniuses.

In the Rebecca-AU LOVE LIKE GHOSTS (@backbenttulips), Yoko becomes Mrs. Lennon. Soon, she discovers that her husband is haunted by the ghost of his first love. It's pleasing how well this re-telling matches the events as they (alas) (almost) happened. The ending is chilling. Genuinely horrifying. I love seeing Yoko as the sensible one and as the focus of empathy.

THE BASS LESSON (@aquarianshift). Paul and Stu fool around without letting go of their mutual resentment for even a moment. And it works. "Let's never do this again." I don't think so.

TELL ME ALL MY LOVE'S IN VAIN (@midchelle). Forget about quote unquote platonically obsessed male rock stars: This about about Maureen and Patti through the years. The web weaving continues.

SPOTLIGHT ON JOHN AND STU (@dailyhowl) A love story in letters—too brief, like Stu's life, but sounding as if the writer transcribed their dictation. Some of the best descriptions of what it must have been like to play on stage with the Beatles during the mania are in NO I IN THREESOME (@with-eyes-closed). George finds himself in the beam of attention between John and Paul, and nearly loses his mind. But he's determined to stay and become part of them. Paul is daddy and "fucks like music" as seen through George's eyes. The whole story is vicious and hot and uncomfortable—until there's the love and quiet at the eye of the storm.

Not for the faint of heart! WHAT THE CIGGIE CARTON SAW (@waveofhand): Paul McCartney having his way with cigarettes.

This is getting out of hand...but I'll stop here. There are so many more stories I love. And I can think of many other categories that would deserve their own post.

So, who knows: To be continued?

#fic rec #mclennon #mclennon fanfiction #mclennon fic #asks #fic recs #overall favorites fic recs

[floralcrematorium]

I don't know if youve answered this before, but what made you come back? I'm not that old in the fandom, maybe half a year and it's so interesting how that fandom changed and how it used to be.

Thanks for the ask! I'm gonna be real with you, it was an accident. This is about to be a loooooooong ass post so I'm putting it beneath the cut:

It happened steadily in July. A very slippery slope.

I left in or around 2018 just because I lost interest. A friend in 7th grade introduced me to it in early 2014. I had been running my Instagram account since Summer of 2014 with my best friend (who at the time had been my partner, and by 2018 we had broken up) and our other friend. We'd all moved on and the account became dead. It wasn't a good account, but we'd amassed 1.1k followers during our tenure. Those were the days of if you wanted to post a comic, there were no Instagram slides. You had to post it all individually. The account was deleted in 2021? I think? 2020?

So come July 2023, I was poking around in my old Google Drive and found some of my old Hetalia stuff. Which included a fic with the aforementioned friends. It uh. Is not good. I reread it and oh boy is it a product of its time (we were probably 13-15 when we wrote it) and it was a 3 way POV that we all wrote with self insert characters. It was basically Heta characters get thrown in the setting of Outlast but with the plot of FNAF. Yeah. So uh. Not much to defend there. I jokingly went to my friends like "Hey, what if we rewrote this but not horrible" and we genuinely thought about it! For a night.

But for me it wasn't one night.

I kept thinking about it.

And one thing led to the next, I was revisiting old Youtube videos I liked and reread a fic I used to like.

I think what really did me in was listening to the character songs again and a couple of hetaloid covers. I was doing artfight and listening only to Hetalia music while I drew.

I genuinely did not really use my normal Tumblr before floralcrematorium came to be. I have an entirely separate account for personal stuff and art (I will not be sharing it) and it got to a point where I was seeking so much Hetalia stuff that I figured, why the fuck not, and eventually made an account. I also eventually made my first A03 account (I was on Wattpad and FFN back in the day) because someone wrote a CanUkr fic where Mattie had overexerted himself and was in the hospital and Katya and Alfred were going to kill him because he kept insisting he could work (I CANNOT FIND THIS FIC AGAIN, I FOUND IT ON TUMBLR ORIGINALLY, PLEASE HELP IF THIS RINGS A BELL!!).

And uh, so here I am!

I draw Hetalia stuff on occasion (I should... draw more considering that's what I went to college for but whatever) and have a couple of ideas for illustration series in my head.

I've got a lot of fic ideas I want to write. I have a literal list on my phone. I think about it in bed, at work, and little things remind me of Hetalia all the time.

I've gotten back into RP (I used to use Shamchat and Kik).

I've met so many cool people and I've been having a wonderful time being back so far. When I was originally in the fandom, I consumed a lot of content, but as far as mutuals went it was just me and my two friends. Meeting so many new people has been absolutely wonderful.

Hetalia is really the only fandom I've been in. I've liked other media and consumed fics/enjoyed art/bought prints (COUGH RWBY), but Hetalia is the only media I've ever had fan accounts for. It's the only media I've so deeply entrenched myself in that I feel comfortable writing fics. My walls used to be covered in Hetalia -- both official wall scrolls and shitty art I'd made myself (I have pictures I can attach at the end of the post). I had... so much merch. When I was 14 I only asked for Hetalia related things for my birthday. Every now and again I get that "am I doing the right thing?" ick because of the negative fandom reputation and reactions I'd get from people when I would admit to having liked Hetalia in the past, but I don't care about that now. Genuinely, fuck that. I like this piece of media whether I want to or not. I'm not going to be a self-hating Hetalia fan like I was in 2018-2021/22. I've come back to the show with completely different... motives? Idk what the right phrase is here -- I'm here to explore the characters of these little freaks (looking at you, Francis), I love all of the fanart I see, I like the exchange of historical and cultural information/resources.

Sure, I'd consider my fandom niche to be humanverse Francis and FACE fam, but I genuinely enjoy exploring outside of my corner of the fandom. I try to spread myself out -- I want to consume everything. I want to be exposed to everything.

Hetalia is one of the single most impactful pieces of media in my life. Without it, I wouldn't have my best friend, who broke up with me for APH Austria in 2015. The friends I ran the Instagram account with and I are all still in contact. I talk to one much more frequently than the other, but they are both so near and dear to my heart and I can't believe that this silly show is what got us to where we are. The youngest of us is about to graduate college a whole year early. I met her when she was 11 and I was 12 or 13? I couldn't be more proud of her, of the three of us, and it's been so fun to have these occasional nights where we (okay, just me) get tipsy and go through old fandom media/watch the dub and go ooooof. I was in a really bad place when I was originally into Hetalia. Coming back now feels like coming full circle.

The old fandom had plenty of its own issues, and the fandom now certainly isn't devoid of issues, but now that the fanbase has shifted to an older audience and I actually have like. Social skills. I love talking to other people. I like creating. I like thinking about these stupid characters before I go to bed.

My single favorite thing about the Hetalia fandom now is the care put into historical work as well as the exploration of portrayals of the characters. Because Hetalia lacks a plot and Hima is constantly retconning things, everyone has their own interpretations of everything. Everyone has their own version of Francis Bonnefoy, Yao Wang, or Alfred F. Jones. And that's so cool!!! You don't see that anywhere else.

I know I'm typically a pessimist on main, but I'm genuinely glad to be back. It's weird to be back. I've had mixed reactions from irl friends that I'm back.

But who the fuck cares?

I'm having fun, I'm making friends, and I can't believe there are still people here.

I genuinely hope I'm here for a while. I have so much I want to write. I want to draw all of the things my skill level was too low for back when I was a teen.

CRINGE IS DEAD AND I AM FREE.

The following images are certainly about to destroy any cool perception anyone has of me, if they even do. I was... certainly a teenager, is all I have to say! I am,,, thankfully not like this anymore. I hope.

Here are those pictures of my bedroom circa 2015 I promised:

DO NOT ASK ME ABOUT THE LIVE LAUGH LOVE.

That drawing of Russia with Neko-Talia Russia? Yeah. Uh. I did that for an art project in the 7th grade for class. I also did a ceramics piece with the mochis, that I've since lost. These images scream "I'm 14 and like Hetalia in 2015."

I used to have little hearts with all the ships I liked in them (I think that's AusHun in the picture on the left?). I also had "I love you" written in like 20 languages on index cards taped above my headboard.

Also a literal timestamp I found in my old emails with the friend who got me into Hetalia:

Being a young teenager in the old fandom certainly,,,, was something. I would not relive that, but by god would I do ANYTHING to get my favorite pieces of fan media back from that time. There was a video called "Hetalia What Did You Do To Panda" which was a bunch of clips from the anime with Katie Herzig's "Hey Na Na" playing in the background. Every now and then a dub audio clip would interject with the song.

I also really miss this one very specific Character Theme Songs video that had Poland in the thumbnail. Mein Gott would play between each song and I could tell you most of the songs that had been assigned to each character.

I would do ANYTHING to get those videos back. I miss them so much.

Anyway, if you read this whole thing, thanks for reading??? I am very Cool And Normal about the things I like, unfortunately. It's nice to come back to Hetalia and like... be a normal person about it.

All I've got to say is, when I like something, I like it a lot.

#floralcrematorium ask box #floralcrematorium is so normal and cool #ne ne papa echoes in my nightmares #soph's public diary

[dhalsimxhonda]

HONSIM ; THE CARNIVAL FAIR

by dhalsimxhonda on tumblr

SUMMARY ; professors dhalsim and edmond honda arrived at the fun fair park after many advertisements from college, only to be caught by surprise when students jamie siu and luke sullivan recognized them both.

AU ; street fighter 6 college au

SHIPS INCLUDED ; lukejamie

"dhalsim-kun, hurry up! i can't miss out on the carnival without you."

dhalsim placed his earrings, getting himself ready for his date afternoon with his husband after a nice yoga session for his students in college. it was fun overall and he's happy to finally step on the weekend. with his black turtleneck along with his long brown wool off-shoulder coat, he double-checked and smiled. he looks very comfortable and cozy.

he left and saw his husband who was impatiently waiting for him to come out. edmond is usually the one who always gets himself ten minutes early before the carnival starts at sundown. concerts, rollercoasters, the foods, prices, it's what edmond usually wanted to go for.

"you're so pretty in this jacket, sweetheart..." edmond stands up and kisses his husband's cheeks. dhalsim laughed and embraced his husband's arms.

"i'd love to say the same, darling." he replied and placed his hands on his shoulders. "can't anisk & datta come along with us?"

"i think datta's already on the fair with his friends. but let me see if anisk would also like to have some fun. you know he deserves a little break from studies."

"as long as he's doing the best he can, he'll decide if he can go to the carnival."

with their son's door opened, anisk came to the kitchen to find any sort of food from the refrigerator. he looked twice before taking another look at his two fathers.

"you guys going out?" anisk asked.

"yes, your daddy asked if he would like to go to the carnival fair that he's always wanted to go to. want to come along as a family gathering?"

"sorry, i still have some geometry to work on. but maybe tomorrow i can." anisk replied. "it's day one, so it won't really matter at all."

"it's friday, my chicken-katsu! you deserve a break." edmond smiled.

"sometimes you gotta just finish the homework early before its due date, daddy." he chuckled. "but you two have some fun! i hope you can find any prizes that remind you of me."

"we'll keep it in mind, my son." dhalsim came towards his son and gave him a hug. it's usually how parents do when they go out in case something happens.

"take care, anisk!"

"you too!"

after leaving their apartments and walking around the stairs and lobby, they get to their car and turn it on. edmond played the usual radio station and both of them placed their seatbelts. the culinary professor takes the way on the roadway.

"to the carnival? it should be that close to college, right?" dhalsim opened his phone and went through the maps application.

"yeah! why don't you think that principal bison promoted the fair?"

"maybe it's the address?"

"god, i can't wait to win so many prizes for you!"

"i can already feel your adrenaline, darling." he and edmond laughed together. after calming down, he took a glance and placed his hands on the steering wheel to feel closer. "this is our night, darling."

"our night to have fun. let's hit the carnivals!"

with dhalsim and edmond honda holding their hands and walking around the fun fair, they watched other people play their games to win prizes. the culinary professor is one of those people who wanted to win prizes as a gift for his husband and sons. everything was clear for him when he began to focus on the game. although the yoga professor took a glance and played the games for fun, not caring about winning prizes unless he saw a random thing that reminded him of honda.

they laughed a bit more after playing two more games and dhalsim kissed his husband's cheek, embracing his love for just being him. he's so happy and is currently having a wonderful time, something that he's always interested in.

"hmm.. how are you feeling so far?" edmond asked.

"it feels like a good time after all of this work from college... being a yoga professor can be fun, but breaks are more important." he responded.

"i agree with you more than ever, dhalsim-kun. feelin' hungry yet?"

"well, not just yet. i can handle a rollercoaster."

"didn't you say that you're scared of riding a rollercoaster?"

"i rather overcome it. maybe i won't get dizzy."

suddenly, they recognized familiar faces from a distance. two best friends, laughing while the other is talking. hearing the words studying and fun just come right into their mouths, that edmond recognized who the men are.

"wait, i recognize that guy." edmond's eyes widened, and blinked again. "it's one of my students!"

"oh?" dhalsim raised an eyebrow.

"pretty boy, we're supposed to be studying for the test next week!"

"c'mon, meathead! it's friday, a little fun won't hurt."

"but what if there are any professors? they know i failed the test just once!"

"professors need breaks too, dumbass. i heard they're coming in the carnival as well..."

students luke sullivan and jamie siu stopped walking after recognizing honda and dhalsim. 8 feet apart from the two couples, they all went through complete silence. jamie notices both honda and dhalsim holding their hands, so he smiles and gets a little bit too excited.

"wait.. mr. honda and dhalsim?!" luke's mouth dropped. "y'all are a couple?"

"we're just a couple of old buddies." edmond stuttered.

"oh my god, i knew it!" jamie smiled.

"hm?"

"i knew y'all were husbands!!"

the old couple laughed while dhalsim held his husband's arms. "well, you caught us, jamie.." edmond sighed. "mr. dhalsim and i are husbands."

"but we usually keep it professional." the yoga professor replied. "i guess you two are also here for the carnival stuff as well."

"pretty boy brought me there. the college advertisement's making jamie instantly ask me out there."

"we don't mean to interrupt your hangout together, but i do hope you have fun there." edmond smiled. "professors need breaks just like the students do."

jamie laughed and punched his best friend's chest. "what did i tell you about professors needing breaks too?!"

"jeez, siu!" the blonde rubbed his chest. "take it easy on that." edmond and dhalsim didn't say anything until luke cleared his throat.

"anyways, we're both going to play some games in the fair. maybe it would be alright if you guys come along." the dancer asked.

"about that, it's our night. as professors, we prefer to show ourselves as professional rather than publicly display our relationship." dhalsim replied respectfully.

"you don't need to show it publicly with us. your secret is safe with us anyways." jamie crossed his hands. "especially the fact that you both always have that flirty tension in front of your students."

edmond and dhalsim both sweated out and tried to make it up. "it's professional, unlike my husband who's open about it." the yoga professor sighed and crossed his hands. "alright, we'll come along. but just a few games and we'll part ways. deal?"

"it's a deal!" luke smiled and all four of them continuously walked. both honda and dhalsim knew this would become a hangout, but for jamie, it was a double hangout.

they played a few more games and one of them was against each other. usually, it's edmond against either luke or jamie, so dhalsim always cheers his husband and encourages both of them a break whenever they're tired. the basketball blondie was the only one who beats the culinary professor at the games, but none of them had won any prizes yet. now, it was break time and dhalsim decided to bring the foods that both luke and jamie requested. so they were all sitting down in their seats.

luke's phone rang and stood up right away. "give me a moment, guys."

jamie sighed and honda was on his phone, checking up on social media for any updates on the culinary content he could find. after a long silence ahead of them, the dancer decided to speak up.

"mr. honda? i'm sorry to burst your bubble but i just have one question."

edmond took his eyes on jamie and closed his phone. "sure, ask away."

"since when did you meet mr. dhalsim back then?"

honda laughed and crossed his fingers. "that was way back when i was in my late 20s... eighteen years ago, me and dhalsim became best friends in a small friend group. zangief and hakan are one of our old buddies and we still have ourselves in contact. with me and dhalsim, it was love at first sight and we just loved the way we are. it makes us powerful."

"and how did you confess him?" jamie kept asking questions that edmond would just tell his love story about him and dhalsim. it felt like a dream come true.

"well, i said that i liked him and he just kissed me so quickly that he liked me too. the cool thing is that it's my first kiss with him! i felt like a blushing mess that we tried so hard to keep it from zangief and hakan, but knew it. they just supported us with respect, and i'm thankful for that."

the dancer chuckled softly and crossed his arms. "it really does feel like a movie... i've been asking about it because i have a crush on my best friend. please don't tell him that, but i definitely like luke a lot. i just act like i don't. is there anything i can do to make it right?"

"ask him out like a serious hangout like what you did a few minutes ago. if he does the same, that's good too. oh, and if you be honest and do the same thing i confessed to my husband, it'll work out smoothly. just find the right time."

"the right time? i can take it." jamie was determined and understood everything that honda said.

"if your friend has the same feelings for you, you're lucky to meet him." edmond sighed. "i'm lucky to be with my husband and raise two kids. it feels like a movie but it's really real, so cherish those moments with your best friends, especially luke."

jamie blushed and looked away at the thought of cherishing and wonder for what it's like to be with his crush in the future. working hard is the only thing he would do for now. later, dhalsim and luke came back from the table at the same time.

"alright, kids. your snacks are served."

"we're not kids, mr. dhalsim." luke sighed and sits down next to jamie and begins to take a bite in his snacks.

when dhalsim sat next to edmond, the culinary professor smiled and took a glance on his face. "i just saw datta with his friends on the order while i was taking the food. he's having a good time there." the yoga master said.

"maybe he can take anisk tomorrow in the carnival and have a blast there. i think there's a rollercoaster that they'll love to laugh about."

"who knows? daytime for our kids, nighttime for us." dhalsim spoke as they held their hands together. "for now, our first night wasn't really that bad after all with company from our students."

LINK FOR THE PROMPT !

AO3 , WATTPAD .

#street fighter #dhalsim #e honda #dhalsim x e honda #honsim #luke sullivan #jamie siu #lukejamie #dhalsimxhonda

[tackytigerfic]

Two years ago today, I got a message on Tumblr from @sitp-recs

I had come across her rec blog earlier that month and it had struck me how similar our tastes were. She seemed to feel the same way I did about fics, and she always managed to capture exactly what I loved about the fics she mentioned. I remember reblogging her TOBM rec with its brilliant banner and thinking, yes, this person gets it so profoundly.

Little did I know that in the following two years we'd end up staying up far too late/early chatting about fics, that we'd fall completely in love with the same fics (she recs Far From the Tree here), that she'd introduce me to countless new and brilliant authors and fics (like Polar Night). That we'd bond over our love for rare pairs, for short fics, and for watersports, and that i'd get my own rec that made me cry.

I love Liv's attitude to fandom - her eagerness to explore new stories and art, her vast knowledge of fics to fit every trope and theme, her mix of kindness and strong-mindedness, and her genuine desire to uplift creators and give readers the best fandom experience they can have (hello, beginner Drarry reclists!). The recent #LivLaughLove day showed just how well-loved she is around these here parts. And I treasure her friendship, her unwavering support, and how generous and loving she is.

Livvy, here's to many more years of friendship, endless gifs, dog pics, Drarry, and everything in between. I'm so lucky to have you, a horny dumbass looking to kiss as many people as possible. Lots of love from a mysterious and ethereal horny entity.

I started three separate fics for you and none of them worked out (horrid writer's block). Instead of stressing out, as I know you'd tell me off, I'll just offer a little snip of one of them. It involves Unspeakable Draco (and Harry's ex-auror partner) who can see visions... only his visions are inconveniently mostly of Harry either dying or having sex with Draco (and Teddy, and Sirius... basically all your favourite age gap ships babe!) I will finish it someday.

There was a smell to the air, Harry thought, that reminded him of that time in King’s Cross, or wherever it was. Almost sterile, almost nothing at all, but like it was covering something else up, something more ancient and electric and inexorable, like how the air sometimes smelled as one season tipped into another. Did time have a smell, he wondered? Or was that the scent of all the ways in which they tracked and measured and trapped time down here, doing who knows what to who knows when?

“Umm. Malfoy, please,” Harry said politely to the receptionist, who was sitting in the middle of the otherwise empty room at a magnificent black desk which was polished to an onyx, spilled-oil sheen. “Draco Malfoy?”

“Unfortunately,” the person intoned smoothly, features smoothed out into a careful blank so that Harry knew as soon as he left the room, he wouldn’t be able to pick the person out again if he passed them in the hallway, “we can neither confirm nor deny that we have any person of that name under our—”

“It’s alright, Maxwell.” Malfoy’s voice appeared to be coming out of nowhere, until he stepped out of what looked very like some sort of inter-dimensional portal in the centre of the room. “That’s Harry Potter, for goodness sake. I think he’s probably got clearance.”

Harry coughed uncomfortably. He had in fact got clearance, had engineered an entire case’s worth of paperwork just to get Robards to agree to an Unspeakable consult, actually. It was easier to just ask for things, these days. People rarely said no to him.

“Well, why didn’t you say?” Maxwell sounded chippy, and jabbed his wand at Harry aggressively. With a blink, Harry could finally see Maxwell, and the room, properly. The desk was much smaller, just an ordinary Ministry desk like the one Harry had just eaten a pumpkin pasty over before coming down here. Maxwell’s features coalesced from Unspeakable blank to his real face as Harry watched. He somehow managed to look pert and grumpy all at the same time, and as Harry looked at him, he blew a large bubble with whatever he was chewing, and let it pop. Where the portal had been was just a normal office door, and on it—Harry swallowed—was a plaque that read D. Malfoy. If he craned his neck, he could see a little slice of the room. There was Malfoy’s lopsided spider plant that he’d taken off the desk he used to share with Harry the day he left. There was Harry’s Cannons calendar, the one that used to have their weekly hours scribbled on it but now had been turned to the new month, a fresh blank.

“I must say,” Maxwell told Malfoy, blatantly ignoring Harry now, “he doesn’t look like he does in all the magazines.” His tone suggested that this wasn’t a compliment.

“Give over, Maxwell,” Malfoy told him, and then jerked his head viciously at Harry and disappeared back through his office door.

“I thought we agreed a clean break was needed,” Malfoy said wretchedly. His office was quite nice, actually, though looked far too cosy and Malfoy-ish to belong to this miserable-looking version of him who was standing on the rug with his knuckles white and controlled where his fingers clenched in the skirts of his uniform robes.

“You agreed,” Harry said, wondering when he’d start feeling like a grown up about this whole thing. “I never said anything at all.”

“Well, what are you doing here, then?” Malfoy spread his hands, walking to his desk and perching on the edge. It looked the very opposite of casual, and Malfoy knew it too, judging by the tension in his throat, the twist of his mouth.

“You don’t belong here,” he told Malfoy, and Maxwell called back through the door, “Yeah, that’s what Maur— I mean, Head Unspeakable of the Division of Temporal Research always says about him too,” and cackled mercilessly before Malfoy stalked over and kicked the door shut.

“Yes, thanks for that, Potter,” Malfoy said bitterly. He looked pale and tired, not like he’d been working hard, but like he wasn’t sleeping well. Harry hadn’t even known Aurors could move sideways like this, had heard the rumours whispered in the Aurors’ tearoom but which had almost certainly started higher up. Malfoy had called in a favour, Malfoy used his daddy’s bad name, Malfoy used his daddy’s money to get the new job. Malfoy certainly wasn't trained for this job, that much was true. They’d had optional Unspeakable training at the academy, of course, but Malfoy hadn’t taken any of the modules. Neither had Harry, who wasn’t even sure how Malfoy could possibly be qualified to work here, let alone get an office to himself with his name on the door. 

But that wasn’t what he meant when he thought about Malfoy not belonging here. It was just that Malfoy belonged in the field, with Harry. Yes, the work was brutal, and often boring, and sometimes horrifying and dangerous, but having Malfoy there—being part of a team—had made it worthwhile. Harry thought of him after a raid, sweating magic, uniform stuck to his wet back, blood on his teeth, sleeves rolled up, everything under control. That was where he belonged.

“I just came to see how you are,” Harry said. “I wish you’d come back.”

“You can’t just say that sort of thing,” Malfoy said miserably.

#livlaughlove #hmm #i feel perceived #my love language is hiding under a blanket #but liv's love language is in the generosity of telling #so i wanted to tell today #ilysm livvy

[twotangledsisters]

Forgive me if I’ve asked you this before but what’s your favorite headcanon about each of the tts gang?

First off, apologies for taking so long to answer! I don't have a cool excuse I just saw it while out, though I'd remember to answer later and... didn't.

But super cool question so let's get into it!

Rapunzel

For Rapunzel, I surprisingly can't think of too much, I'm sure I'll think of a million things after pressing post, but I'm going with one I included in a recent chapter because I think it's adorable:

The flowers in Rapunzel's hair are picked from the garden every morning by Eugene for her.

Eugene would pick flowers for her early on because, you give flowers to your girlfriend, Rapunzel would accept the little bucket with a smile, but not knowing to put them in a vase like any normal girl she'd go straight to the mirror and add them to her hair. A constant reminder of Eugene.

And he'd of course pick her fresh one's every single morning because if his girlfriend wants flowers in her hair she's going to have the very best.

Eugene

My fave is one you've probably all seen but will forever warm my heart. It was by guiltyhipster and @dannybird22 on tumblr though the first, I looked it up and they don't seem to have a blog anymore.

In fact, because it only seems to be around in image form, it took me a while to find but here it is:

It's so sweet.

And the idea that neither remember and it's just a coincidence would make it all the sweeter in my mind!

(I also headcanon in my fics Eugene didn't stay put in one kingdom's orphanage and kept running away and ending up in new ones so that would allow for this to be possible still).

Cassandra

There are so many good headcanons with Cass because there is so much left unsaid about her (who's her dad? why did Gothel have a kid? How did she get Owl?). Choosing just one, choosing a favourite is very hard.

But my fave headcanon (which is huge spoilers for many of my fics because I use and reuse it a lot, but I won't be saying which fics because a few have other ideas) is that she's at least half magic.

Let me explain, we know she's Gothel's daughter. But Gothel is literally pure sundrop magic at this point, that's why she dies when Rap's hair gets cut. So any child produces by Gothel is unlikely fully human.

I don't think she can use these powers in the way Raps does, I think it just kinda sits in her blood completely inactive.

This also explains why she can grab and use the moonstone magic without it trying to kill her.

Lance

That the day he got caught and sent to prison he sacrificed himself so Eugene could escape (probably without Eugene realizing that what he'd done), because Lance is the bestest big brother ever and for as many jokes as he makes I just know he'd do anything to protect his friends/family and their happiness.

Where does the tts gang end....? I'm just gonna keep going... sorry?

Arianna

Probably my fave characters!

She's a huge animal lover. Before Frederic she kept a bunch of pets but when she became queen and didn't have the time to give them the attention they deserved, she stopped getting new pets.

I mean she has two dogs a horse and a bird in her royal portrait!

She's also clearly into weapons as she has several (something I definitely dig into deep later in my fic).

Frederic

I think Frederic was probably raised in "royal isolation", that is to say, he had tutors and teachers preparing him for his future duty, there were servants and such, but he didn't really get to hang out with other kids his age, because of that he sometimes struggled with understanding other's emotions and comes of as awkward at times.

Captain of the Guard

So, in Eugene vs Cassandra, I was always really struck by Cass' explanation of how Cap raised her, specifically the line: "how to earn my keep". I don't doubt Cap loved her, but I do believe growing up with the Captain as her father was more discipline than nurturing. Especially because of where she came from.

I think Cap probably wouldn't let her get away with bad behaviour or attitude, not because he wanted to be strict or pushy, but because he was scared of the king and queen and how people would treat the daughter of the princess' kidnapper.

I think he did what he thought was best for her. But I think ultimately it backfired.

I could probably go on with every single character who ever made an appearance but, I've been writing for a while now, so hope you enjoy some of these!

#tts #rta #tts headcanon #rta headcanon #tangled the series #captain of the guard #queen arianna of corona #king frederic of corona #eugene fitzherbert #rapunzel #tts cassandra #lance strongbow

[slashersgostabbystabstab]

Twisted Rendezvous was genuinely the sweetest thing I've read in a long time, and I love the way you write Blight as a character (taking into consideration all the Blight stuff you've got here). It's a breath of fresh air in regards to Blight fics. I'm sure you get a ton of positive comments and I'm just a little anon droplet in the sea of asks, but I'd like to thank you for creating all these pieces. Have a nice day/night and may your months/years be good as well. 🧡

You seriously have no idea how much this message means to me. I opened up Tumblr early in the morning and took a good few hours just rereading it trying to figure out how to respond to this.

I really don't get as many comments as I used to on my old blog so anything I get I value SO much. Especially when it's anything with more than one phrase.

Anon you mean so so much to me and my little blog. You really reminded me that I have been meaning to write for Blight more but I kept thinking about how people just don't really care about him. But the fact that TWO people have commented so nicely about that specific fic about him really makes me realize that there will always be someone that appreciates what I do. <3

Thank you so so much, I'm not kidding when I say this is a message I will constantly remember.

#and just for that #i will make an exception for blight in regards to my latest announcement #my thing is that i want to write for characters that never receive attention #hence why i am so focused on singularity and xenomorph #i need to post something for talbot whenever possible #thank you so so much anon

[drippingmoon]

a 2021 year of writing

First of all, many thanks to @ecwrenn for hosting this lovely event 🥰 this will be my piece, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you and other writers too.

First bits are always the hardest to accomplish, whether it be tumblring or writing. This was no exception 🤣 but also as it happens, it always gets much easier later on.

This will mostly be me ranting, expressing some gratitude, sharing some facts and all in all babbling haha. I even put a checkpoint somewhere in here. Hope it's enjoyable enough to read 😊

It was my most productive year, writing-wise. Perhaps it is because I joined tumblr, but I was actually able to focus on my wip in the long months between summers, and my enthusiasms for it never waned (as might be obvious from my word vomits🤣, this included).

I write only during summer, for university-related reasons. Or at least that's what I call them. I'm pretty adept at finding polite excuses for not writing, but at the end of the day, that's a bad habit I can't shake off. So it was probably my fault that my last wip, The Snow Spirit, ended up discarded after it burned me out so bad I thought I'd never write again. I often ended up forgetting about my writing and what I wanted from it, and... it damaged everything, when I went back to it. Like if I can set it aside for almost a whole year and not sparsely look back on it, was I even a writer anymore?

Anyway, things changed. My relationship with 'quiv is much different than what it was with Spirit. It's much easier to write, considering that it's fully indulgent and the exciting plot beats come sooner rather than later when my enthusiasm has slipped.

So, it wasn't the case here. What with the tag games, getting in touch with you, seeing your enthusiasm for your projects and in turn reminding me of my own... I have a lot to thank you all for 🥰 for this year to have turned out this well, I'm very grateful for you all.

So last year, in the early months of autumn, before I joined the writeblr community, I was finishing the first draft of Aquiver, Aglow, which some of you might now as my main and only wip.

January/February

...I don't actually remember when I joined hahaha. Those two months look the same to me. And also, my life at the time hadn't been the happiest. Actually, until late May my memories are all jumbled, so I'm also using this event as a chance to straighten some stuff out. I might mix up things, I might've forgotten. I hope not.

I didn't know what I expected when I joined the community 🤣 I just knew I needed to get in touch with other writers to get my mind off stuff. I was very lucky at the time to have been received very warmly by some special people. I owe you a lot and if you're reading this, I hope you know who you are ❤ I've never been as grateful to discover a community as when I talked to you.

To be honest, tumblr wasn't my first attempt at doing so. I'd actually been active on Wattpad for some years before the adds thing came on, and it didn't go too well. It was also an attempt to see if I could survive on social media without it making me feel actively worse about writing in general. Needless to say, it went incredibly well 🥰

*For reference, some of my longest comments back then had been to ask if: 1. my mother tongue was English and 2. was I going to add romance because my plot was missing it. The answers were no and no, and though that's beside the point, I felt like getting this off my chest. It was incredibly disheartening back then to finally receive feedback and have it be of that nature, but whatever.

One thing I've observed, it's kind of a writerly rite of passage for everyone to start believing more in their writing and themselves, than random comments. It's a shaky foundation, but I'm also proud of myself for not being dependant on approval as I was back then. I honestly love writing, and will keep doing so even if maybe someday I'll get my wip roasted via anon or something 🤣

Chazzawrites challenge

Okay, I'm 90% positive this took place in February 🤣 but I wouldn't swear on it. I was also a lurker back then.

It was also when I first properly started interacting with you guys. For this reason alone, because I know how many things can be changed during events, I've planned on never missing out on one.

For those who can't remember or haven't participated, it was your typical 31-day-long challenge, whereby we had to answer to one writing-related question per day. Sometimes it wasn't easy to keep up, as some questions went into the rambling realm of introduce a wip or what's your favorite part of writing or how do you relate to writing action, description, dialogue, or something along those lines.

While it was very fun to answer all those questions, there wasn't much interaction, especially between people who weren't mutuals. That is, until towards the end of the event. When we had to tag a favorite writeblr, and explain why.

Then someone simply decided to write what many of us were thinking. That yeah, what was the point of one such question if one of writeblr's main problem was that people tended to keep to their closed off cliques, and even if it was an open event, no one really came to know another? I have to say, when it turned into general appreciation, outright skipping and actually having people pop up in the comments, it felt like something was changing, moving, and I was there to witness it.

It wasn't that grand, but you felt the spark, and it was incredible. Suddenly you felt you had common ground with those people, and it wasn't as hard to reach out anymore. There were only a few days left, but it those few days I made my first row of mutuals that I'll never forget ❤

And, somehow, it'd also proven to me yet again that, most people are waiting or maybe secretly hoping for the other to make the first move. Everyone likes being surprised, especially with heartfelt feedback. And it's not that terrifying to be the one to make the first step.

After all, how many times have I found myself smiling so hard my cheeks hurt because a writeblr I'd never interacted with before chose to send me a message, or a reblog.

(Which reminds me, if by the end of this or anytime during you wanna scream at me or ask something, this is me encouraging you to.)

I stopped lurking after that 🤣

Underwing challenge

This took place in April. I simply did tag games and asks till then haha, no point in bothering you with that. And I can honestly say I've been very lucky to be able to participate. Once more I met some incredible people, and saw again some very dear others I'd befriended in the previous challenge.

I was one of the adopters, so I asked people questions on a kinda daily basis. This was very helpful, I can say it's taught me quite a bit because at one point I was making up questions I would've never thought about otherwise. And seeing the angles from where others tackled the issues, getting to see them gush over their writing, world and characters... it was one of the most beautiful experiences I've ever had 🥺

My only regret is that I didn't also participate as an adoptee. Would've been thrilled to answer those questions too 🤣 but then again, I wouldn't have had as much time to ask, so it is what it is. Some incredibly kind people went rogue anyway and made my day by popping up in my askbox 🥰

Once again, if you happen to be reading this, I'm eternally grateful to you ❤

I don't think it will see a revival this year, but in case it does, I don't have to think twice about it to know I'll be on board.

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The summer months

(Doing one of them commercial breaks. You're halfway through! What to bribe you with... ah yes, there's a cat gif at the end 😊 cheering you on)

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This is where things get a bit long (as if they hadn't already been hahaha). So, what happened? Last summer, I managed to finish draft 2 of Aquiver, Aglow (lemme bask in that victory some more...

...there we go. Basking complete 🤣) I'd actually wanted to finish a draft 3 too, but, uh, things got a bit too long. Many changes to the story took place, but that was kinda to be expected, since I threw in every single idea I'd had over the years. At one point I was very exhausted because it only kept getting longer, and I stuck to my plan of writing one chapter a night no matter what.

*It was practically hell in some days when I kept churning out words and they were all the wrong words and I kept comparing it to my first draft and lookee, you've really managed to make it much worse.

(Now, months later and with a clear, rested head, it's not that tragic anymore 🤣 but yeah, talk about things falling short of expectations. Good thing I can't remember what they were anymore^^ 🤣)

But to see the end result, and how things added up, how some unexpectedly ended up being better than I'd imagined, it was very much worth it ❤ I love writing so much I don't have enough words to express it 🥺🥰🥰

As some sort of confession, I actually started writing 'quiv as a dedication to someone very dear. Also as a way of mentally preparing myself for some things to come. Naturally, it's much changed since its early days, but it'll never forget those roots. So when I'm joking that it's my no-plot-only-feels wip, I'm also talking about how, in it, I wanna safekeep some sentiments and ideas that are pretty precious to me. And as a tribute.

Oh, oh, and one unexpected development, was that I actually wrote the lullaby I'd planned on tackling separately. I cried while writing it, and it's got more plot in it than my entire wip 🤣 it's obviously in much need of rework since: 1. I've never written a lullaby or anything in song/poem format before lol 2. it was still out of its cradle before its time...

But it means a lot to me. And since I'm also writing this and I suddenly got the urge to share the idea behind it, even if it's somewhat of a spoiler. Sometimes I don't care about that haha

So it's called Statue On Your Brow. Not a very traditional or clear name for a lullaby, I know 🤣 but the idea behind it is this:

There's a statue in a graveyard, or anywhere. That statue rests on someone's grave, perhaps on cold earth, separating the departed, beloved one from the mourner by a few feet of dirt. And this statue, the mourner's brought to resemble the one who's currently resting in the afterlife.

But it's not meant to represent the one who's dead. Even if it has their shape, it's not them. It could never be. It's the one who keeps visiting the grave, it's the shape of all their aching feelings which want to see them again, which desperately want to fold themselves into the shape of them.

The statue is there, on their brow, to keep them company. For all the hours in which the mourner can't sit by the grave, can't hold them. Can't weep for them. In all those hours, the statue of the mourner shall keep them company, if they're beneath. If they're not, it's still an eternal reminder that they're missed, they're beloved.

Whew. This was... something to write. I had to take a break after writing this, and my fingers are still shaking a little. It means a lot to me, and I only hope to do it justice in one way or another, when I arrive to its final form. It's not the only lullaby in 'quiv, but it's by far my most beloved.

Oh yeah, lullabies. Why that chosen form of song 🤣 well, because they're all aimed at the dead, and come from mourners. And they all wish their loved ones to rest well.

To depart a little from this subject, I also have another dedication to make. To that one lovely person who sent me an entire playlist and basically boosted my whole progress towards the end, you've helped out so much back then ❤❤

*Also. For the record. So there was this song, with a great soundtrack, light but expressive, perfect for my scenes at the time. Yet I innocently pay attention to the lyrics for the first time, and realize how expressively christian they were and oh my gods my best friend was laughing so much it was making me laugh, I barely got the chapter finished that night. It's one of our favorite stories now. That my non-religious ass had been passionately replaying this song going 'it's all about you Jesus, it's all about you God'. While my face was:

*But yeah, I was asking for it since I somehow decided to write about angels and also touching the subject of (some form of) religion. Now I'm told I write Bible fic 🤣

After that, my writing progress petered out. This was to be expected haha, the summer ended. I think I managed to get 50k worth of notes (draft 2 was 200k), but again, I wouldn't swear on that and it's not important.

Except that I got so many ideas I wanna test out

Autumn

Mostly I got a bit too busy. Posted tag games now and then, but my newest format is of posting an excerpt every weekend. I'll be taking a break on this too after this week, since I'll get started on reading my draft, which I absolutely can't wait for 🥰

My plans looked a little different in the beginning. After finishing draft 2, I wanted to go back to Wattpad and post it on there whilst editing to speed the process up a little. But after the recent changes, yeah, no chance.

So I'm doing my thing again and I'll be fully rewriting it this summer once more, since I can. And I'm also waiting to see if maybe some new, better writing website pops into existence.

I really wanted to see how it'd fare on Wattpad and use it as a sort of beta reading, but I'll see what I'll do about that. Any kind of talk about publishing just puts a damper on my spirits, so I'm not in a hurry to sort things out.

I'm also very much hoping I can conclude the drafting process with draft 3, and I'll finally be getting to the editing stage and slowly making my way to the final version ❤ but that's still a distant dream.

And those are also my hopes for this year. That by the end, I'll be able to write that dedication that's been weighing on my mind ever since I began. That would make me happy.

Wrapping up

If you've made it this far, your patience is pretty incredible haha<3 but huh, this was actually incredibly cathartic to write. I was expecting it, but it's a very sweet feeling to see it bear fruit.

Now I'm going do address some stuff from Aye's list since I, uh, ended up kinda meandering as I tend to do.

Works in progress count: just one. Aquiver, Aglow, which I've been talking about endlessly hahaha, I love it that much. I don't think there's a point in my adding a summary here, since I have the intro pinned to my blog (which I've reworked by the way)

(Yeah, basically evil angels have wiped off most of humankind. One of them tries to figure out what to do with the remains of the world, while having her beliefs slowly changed by a human child, whose love catches her unawares)

Okay, I could probably add Icy Penumbra, my next series about one misguided touch wizard who made a deal with a dragon and they both wanna end the world.

Unluckily for the main character who's got to stop them, they're also the politest company he's been around in years. It also doesn't help that Ptarmigan's the one who blinded Asp and tries to keep that a secret, and he was also the previous Haw to Diahra, who also blinded him in one eye.

That's because, to make a contract with Diahra, one must promise him a lie they'll strive to make reality. And Ptarmigan was the first to fulfill his lie. It's brought him nothing but guilt and grief.

For reference, Asp's current lie is to free Diahra. As he's currently the last dragon alive, forever chasing the sun to stave off the curse that killed his kind. A curse of frost spreading over their wings, encasing them in ice and having them plummet to the earth and shatter.

*If that didn't convince you, how do trenchbards sound, cartographers of the rifts and trenches at the end of the world, because it's very much flat, and many other quirky worldbuilding stuff I'm very excited about?

I, uh, have it pretty much planned out, for once. Well, generally. Which is more than I can say for all of my other wips, 'quiv included, which still doesn't have an outline. Yay me 🤣

NaNo: haven't participated, not my thing. Tried it once, it kicked my ass lol. But I love cheering you guys on<3

Reading and book recs: to my eternal shame, since I got started on 'quiv, I haven't read that much, or, should I say, at all. But my eternally favorite series is The Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb. It meant a lot to me, and the writing style is so deep and rich with the characters' thoughts, I've never meet better developed characters since her books.

I remember the summers when I would read 100 books:') my best years are far behind me, y'all 🥺 plus these days I can't even be bothered to search for books because that takes time and investment and I'd rather think about 'quiv.

But enough with my moaning.

Okay, this actually marks the end of this long... *squints* shopping list salad with everything. Hope you've enjoyed the cat at the top as much as I have:)

I don't have to think much about what I want from now on. To keep interacting with all you beautiful people and discover your incredible thoughts, and slowly finish Aquiver, Aglow.

What more could I want ❤

So see you all next year, too! May you achieve all your writing dreams, and may we all keep enjoying this community we have here ❤

#ayearofwriting #writing thoughts #my original writing #honestly i didn't know what other tags to add #can't believe i managed to write this in one night #if there be typos... eh i've tried my best but what can you expect when you're writing it all on tumblr

[runeterrankhaleesi]

In case Tumblr ate my message for u, I just want to tell u that if u can do both nsfw & sfw of the Venom HC, I'll be very appreciate 🤗

[A/N: Hi love, thank you for requesting. And no, darling, Tumblr did not eat your ask, I was very happy to see two messages in my inbox. You are more than welcome to ask again.]

Venom SFW and NSFW Headcanons

SFW:

It's not that hard to be in a relationship with these two. On the contrary, it's actually fun.

They have different pet names for you.

Eddie: Baby, babe.

Venom: Morsel, little one, little nibble, nibble. Though very rarely, he'll call you darling.

You love them equally, though from time to time Eddie might get jealous, saying that you love Venom more than him. Partly true.

These two are sooooo protective of you, especially Venom. You reason with him that you can take care of yourself but he just wants to keep you safe. It's sweet.

One day, you got home from work tired as hell, Venom and Eddie went out of their way to do everything you asked for.

They massaged you and cooked for you. Hell, they even drew a bath for you.

A friendly reminder, do not let Eddie cook, unless you wanna taste something burnt.

Dates with them are pretty normal but both have different tastes.

While Eddie likes to take you out on fancy dinner dates in a restaurant. Venom likes to take you on a picnic in the park and stargaze and just talk, of course you'll go there when it's closed so nobody can see him.

They like the color midnight blue on you.

You invited them to a formal party your co-worker hosted.

They wore a tux which was pretty sexy on them. But, oh boy, when they saw you coming out of the room, they were stunned. You're just so beautiful that no words can describe it.

You curled your hair and wore a midnight blue dress with a black bolero jacket and ankle strap heels. Oho, they fell hard.

"Wow..." Both of them breathed out. They couldn't say anything else.

On the party, you almost forgot about them since you talked to your co-workers, especially giving attention to someone who flirted with you.

Needless to say, Eddie and Venom got jealous. Begging to come after pulling you away.

You had a hint. Just a hint though.

So you had to say goodbye to your colleagues early and get home.

Soon as you reach the bedroom and lie on the bed, things start to get a little rough.

NSFW:

Venom quickly comes out, pinning you down and asking why you paid attention to that man instead of them.

And you're like "Oh! So that's what this is about." You laugh, "Baby, I'm really sorry. I just got caught up with my friends." You laugh again, this time kissing him "And no, I'm not paying attention to the guy flirting with me. I threatened him."

Were you drunk?

"You threatened him."

"Yep. Told him that if he wouldn't stop I'd break his nose and stomp on his...nuts."

His heart melted upon realizing that you're a perfect fit to them. So sex with them that night was really passionate.

They took it slow. Kissing your lips gently. Nibbling on your neck here and there.

When it got to the point where Venom wanted to eat you out. Be prepared.

That tongue... God...that tongue can do so many things to you.

He made you cum on his tongue alone for FOUR TIMES. You wanna go for five, you got it.

His size can be different anytime he wants to, or when you want to.

By default, it's thick and long. Perfect, you don't even have to change it.

After your session, he draws a bath for you two and carries you there.

He likes aftercare so he was the one who cleaned you up.

You were well rested after that night.

✨~Requests are open!~✨

#venom #venom x reader #eddie brock #eddie brock x reader #runeterrankhaleesi #Works of Khaleesi

[adhd-adept]

I have self diagnosed adhd and i was wondering if you could provide some advice regarding reading. I used to be able to just pick up a book and read when i was younger, but now that I'm older it's a bit difficult to just pick up a book and read for the sake of reading. I love reading, but i just can't seem to motivate myself to.

Any advice? I'd really love to get back into reading, but I'm trying to find a way to do it easier

Hello! I’m sorry this took me so long to answer, I’ve been mostly off Tumblr for a little while. I saw this some time ago at 3AM and thought “this deserves a more coherent response than I can give right now” and then forgot that this blog existed for several days.

That said, I absolutely have some advice for reading! I was a big reader as a kid, too, and I’ve recently had to re-discover reading after a long gap in any time spent sitting down with an honest-to-goodness book. There are a number of things you might consider!

DISTRACTIONS

First and foremost, recognize the reason it is difficult to read! For me, it is because reading isn’t the most interesting thing available. That doesn’t mean I don’t love reading! If I can manage to sit down and read a book, it is immensely satisfying - but it’s the satisfaction of the effort you put into something paying off. My favorite hobbies - drawing, writing, reading - are my favorite because of that sense of accomplishment that they give me. 

I love the feeling of holding a book and watching my bookmark move through the pages each time I set it down. However, it doesn’t give me the same instant gratification of reading wikipedia, or tvtropes, or scrolling Tumblr, or checking notifications on social media; even when I am unsatisfied, or even frustrated, with the internet, it can be very hard to put down. I know that people will tell you all the time “You need to put your phone down more!!” It gets old. But they have a point. What people don’t tell you is how to do that. 

For me, that tends to be about making it inconvenient for myself to get online, or do whatever is distracting me. This doesn’t necessarily mean making it completely unavailable. The distraction just needs to be less available than the task I want to do. I am the kind of person who gets online out of muscle memory, and then gets stuck there. Thus, many of my tricks rely on disrupting the muscle memory that lets you pick up distractions. I will put my laptop charger in another room, so that my screen time is limited to its battery life. I might tie a string around my laptop, or tape it closed, so when I go to open it I will be reminded “Oh yeah, I don’t want to do this right now.” I will occasionally rearrange the apps on my phone, so when I try to open Instagram and end up with the weather app instead, the thought of “wait, how did i get here” will snap me out of the thoughtless habits that led me to pick up my phone in the first place. I’ve even gone so far as to tape my phone to the ceiling. Whatever works.

If the weather permits, I might also walk a little ways down the block and find somewhere to sit and read. This can come with its own distractions, but it gets me away from my laptop, and I get a tiny bit more exercise and sunshine than I would have otherwise! This depends, of course, on whether you have transportation and whether you feel safe. But getting yourself out of the house can be a great way to get away from the things that would otherwise draw you away from reading. If you have a local cafe or library that permits you to sit and stay, those are also great options! I will bring my phone when I leave the house, but I might put it at the bottom of my bag, or put a bit of scotch tape over the power button, so that I have my phone in case of emergency but it’s just slightly inconvenient to get to without thinking about it.

It may not be the internet distracting you. But whatever the distraction is, it doesn’t need to be less compelling than reading. It just needs to be less readily available than your book is!

ENTHUSIASM

Another thing that prevents me from reading is that it often doesn’t have the same sense of urgency that other tasks might, whether that urgency is real or not. Give yourself a time limit! I may own books I haven’t read yet, but I will get to a book sooner if I have borrowed it from the library, because I know there is a deadline to return it! 

You can also get other people involved. If you have a friend who wants to read the same book, commit to a chapter or two a week and then call to discuss it. 

Or, if you have a friend who would be interested, and you are comfortable with your reading voice, you could read to someone! It might feel weird to offer, but you’d be surprised how many people really do enjoy being read to. If you both have time in your schedules, you could try to set up a regular call to get through a few chapters at a time. 

Generally, having a friend who likes the book is great for maintaining enthusiasm, even if they’re not reading it with you - I get to books faster if someone with similar taste says “This is one of my favorites! You would love it!” If you have a friend who has read the book you plan on reading, announce to them that you intend on reading it. Their enthusiasm might help you feel more compelled to read it, and there’s a good chance that if you don’t sit down and read it, they will remind you by asking “Have you read it yet? What do you think?” the next time you talk to them.

PREPARATION

Another great way to make reading easier is to set up a reading space beforehand. It’s one thing to pick up a book and say “I’ve been meaning to read this.” It’s another thing to put on some pajama pants, make a cup of tea, and curl a soft blanket around your shoulders before you settle down to read. For one thing, it’s just nice. But more importantly, it can function as a signal that tells your brain “it is Reading Time now. We are in the Reading Zone.”

Do you ever watch a TV show or listen to a podcast, and you let the theme song play on the first episode, and then skip it for the rest? Even if I’ve watched a show before, I will play the theme song on the first episode I watch that day. It’s the same principle - it serves as a transition, an intro that says “this is where I am now, and this is what I’m doing.” Give yourself an intro for reading! Have a certain spot that you like to sit when you read. Have a certain snack you eat beforehand.

I have all kinds of tasks with little “rituals” before them that help me focus on that task, or certain items that I interact with which I associate with it. I call them “declarations of intent,” and once I’ve made a declaration it’s easier to commit to it. Sometimes that means simply saying out loud, “I am going to do the laundry now.” Sometimes it means I wear a certain shirt if I’m planning to go for a walk that day, or drink from a certain mug at breakfast if I want to get some homework done. I have a specific hat that I put on when I want to write a certain character. Try to find something you can do to act as a cue that says “When I do this, then I will read a book.” Because of this, it can help to really lean into whatever the “aesthetic” of reading is, in your mind. Embrace a reading atmosphere!

It may also help to recognize that reading is something you can work your way up to! There is no shame in being out of practice with a hobby. I took my reading proficiency for granted for a long time because it was just a part of my life. It may help to think of reading as a skill! Start with something smaller and work your way up. Pick up a book of short stories or folktales before you tackle that six-book series you’ve heard good things about! Set achievable goals for yourself when you’re setting out. An early success can make a huge difference to morale, and it’s much better to start “too easy” and accomplish something than to jump in at the deep end and be frustrated by an early setback.

FORGIVENESS

On the topic of working your way up to things, I would like to say a word about mindset. It is easy to feel self-critical about things. Things that you think should come more easily to you. Things that you feel like you have no reason not to be able to do. One of the biggest things I’ve done for my ADHD is recognizing that there is always a reason why I behave a certain way. Accepting that allows me to actually address my struggles, rather than just feeling ashamed of them. I’ve had to accept that I won’t always do things that I set out to do the way I set out to do them.

I bring this up because not all of my advice here may work for you. In fact, some of it doesn’t work for me every time - a technique may work once, but I might fail to make a regular habit of it. I may make a regular habit of something, only to have it become less effective as the novelty of it, or my enthusiasm for it, wears off. I may eventually talk myself out of implementing an effective strategy because there is some part of it that I find unpleasant; or an intentional unpleasantness I once found motivating may eventually become intolerable.

That’s okay. I’m telling you now, it’s okay if that happens. It’s okay if the first method you try doesn’t work. Don’t set yourself up to feel frustrated. If you become frustrated, take a step back. If you borrow a library book and you still haven’t read it by the due date, just give it back. If you don’t actually enjoy the first book you pick up, put it down and try a different one. If you feel badly about not reading something your friend wants you to read, be honest and tell them you have a hard time sitting down, and that you don’t want to disappoint them if they keep asking, but that you will let them know once you have started it!

It can be easy to convince myself that feeling badly about something means it’s important to me, and that maybe if I feel bad about not doing something, it  motivate me to do it. There is a balance between making commitments, and not committing to anything that is just going to distress me. Sometimes there is a benefit to a sense of pressure, but I have to recognize when the pressure I create turns into frustration. That’s a fine line to walk! For all I speak of inconveniencing yourself, or holding yourself accountable, your strategies should ultimately feel satisfying, and show results fairly quickly! You may not see immediate results, but if it has been several days and your strategy isn’t working out, change tactics! And the moment you feel apologetic or ashamed about the thing you are trying to do, drop that strategy. Again, this can be easier said than done, but it is so worthwhile to learn how to allow yourself to “give up” on things that aren’t actually helping you, without feeling like you’re giving up entirely.

You want to get back into reading again because you want to enjoy reading again. If you set it up to feel like homework, or a chore, or an obligation, you may make it more difficult for yourself! Getting back into reading is about focusing on what you love about reading.

And hey, I’m always happy to help! I do only check Tumblr every couple weeks right now, but I’ll do what I can to be supportive. If you’ve tried these suggestions and they don’t work out, no worries! Everyone is different, and it’s no insult to me if things that work for me don’t work for you. But feel free to reach out again, let me know anything you have learned about how you function best in the meantime, and we can reevaluate your strategies!

I hope that helps! Happy reading!

#thanks for asking!! #nezjazz #let me know how this works out #a lot of the advice i have for reading is advice i have for Doing Tasks With ADHD in general to be honest #i use the same tricks i use to get myself to read sometimes to get myself to do things like wash dishes #it's about making yourself more interested in what you want yourself to do #and making it easier to do the important things relative to the ease of doing the less important things #i will just straight up delete apps off my phone if i spend too much time on them #most of the time i dont miss them #and tumblr i can access from my laptop it's just slightly more steps to actually log in and type in my password #(i ONLY use tumblr on incognito mode so it doesnt save my login and i have to actually enter my password every time) #(that way i know that if i actually take the steps to log on it's because i WANT to) #(because something about doing that is worth it to me) #(i did that today to come and answer this question lol) #(but that's also why it's taken me so long.) #(do let me know if you have any other questions! i'll be back eventually to help as best i can!) #(and i love feedback) #(if you discover something that works better for yourself let me know that too so i can share with everyone!)

[dayseternal-blog]

Hi Days! I'm a huge fan of your work and your tumblr blog bc you give so many naruhina fanfic recs and talk about your stories, etc.

To sum it up, you're my favorite person lol, I'm a bit shy so I'm asking this as an anon, but I wanted to tell you something random just because I've always just thought about it and maybe you would agree or comment on it.

Have you ever listened to mitski? If you haven't I recomend you do bc she's amazing, but anyways I was listening to a song of hers called "washing machine heart" and it reminded me of naruhina, like the fic "together you and I" but different you know, like naruto only married hinata because he couldn't have sakura, she was his second option and every time he looked at her he wished and pretended it was Sakura, so Hina tries her hardest to look pretty and try to be the person he wants, always getting saddend by the idea that she isn't the one he wants, she knows his heart will only belong to Sakura. She let's him trample all over her heart and use her because she loves him unconditionally, maybe cry to her on some nights because he longs for Sakura's love that will never come.

I've read so many fanfics and I've never encountered one using this concept, I'd write it myself, but I'm not good at writing, maybe I'm reaching but it could inspire an angst story made by you or just a prompt or idea/concept for anyone to use. The hurt in this could be inmaculate and I bet a good writer could bring everyone to tears if they read a story like this. You don't have to do anything ofc I'll love you either way, I'm not meaning to push you to write a whole story with this concept by any means or to even post this ask, it's just something I made up/ related to this certain song, so I wanted you to see it, perhaps share your opinion or thoughts on it or just think about it. I love pain a lot hahaha bc I'm not a narusaku shipper in any way, I actually dislike the ship a lot.

Thank you for reading this and pls keep up the awesome work!! I'll always be a fan and support you and your spectacular writing❤️❤️

GAH What an awful fic idea you have 💔

“The Ring that Binds” by softwind - Rated M, Canon-Divergent, Multi-chapter, Incomplete.  Naruto and Hinata are married.  So why is Naruto calling “Sakura” in his sleep?

“Girl No 10″ by meeiwen - Rated M, Modern AU, Multi-chapter, Complete. Naruto makes a mistake with a dancer one drunk night.  Years later when he meets her again, he begins realizing his perfect life is a lie, but he’s too late to fix it.

And

“Territorial” by @bunny-hoodlum - Rated M, High school AU, Multi-chapter, Complete.  When Hinata takes advantage of Naruto’s desperation for love, they’re both a little too much for the other to handle.

Are similar to what you have there.

HERE’S MY VERY QUICK AND INCOMPLETE STAB AT YOUR PROMPT IT’S UNEDITED UNREVISED CANON-DIVERGENT AU RATED T FOR LANGUAGE BUT I HOPE YOU LIKE WHAT I COULD COME UP WITH 😘  THEY ARE NOT MARRIED BECAUSE I WOULD BE TOO SAD

...

Naruto finally makes it to the Hokage’s office, having had trouble shaking off fangirls on his way.  He can immediately tell he’s the last one there, even though it’s the eve of the Rinnegan Festival.  Tense expressions greet him, the atmosphere somber.

Sakura whips her attention back to the desk before them.  “Rokudaime, with all due respect, I don’t think Naruto belongs on this mission.”

Her behavior has confused him all night.  First moving away from him so that Hinata would sit between them at Ichiraku when Hinata could have just sat on the other side of him.  Then pushing him to follow Hinata back home.  He said aloud that he’d be seeing her later, and that he wanted to catch up with everyone first, but Sakura just glared at him...

She’s been pushing him away, more and more every day, breaking his heart to smaller and smaller pieces...whether knowingly or not, he’s not sure about that, but she’s never rejected him from being her teammate on a mission.

Worried, he meets Kakashi’s gaze.

“I understand your concern, Sakura.”  His tone is heavy.  His usual careless attitude nowhere in sight.  “Call it just my gut-feeling...you’re going to need Naruto’s strength for this mission.”

-

Hanabi was kidnapped.

Hiashi and Hinata are nowhere to be found.

“What do you mean...?” Naruto finds himself asking.  “I just saw her.  We just saw her.  Not even an hour ago.”

“When Sai reported Hanabi’s kidnapping, believe me, Naruto, we moved to notify her family immediately.  Anbu can’t find them.”

“What?”  The last memory he has of Hinata abruptly leaving dinner and running off without hardly a word nags at him, inexplicably tightening his chest.  “She’s fine.  Hinata’s strong.  She can take on anybody.  No one would dare-”

“Naruto,” Sakura interrupts, her gaze cutting sharp.  “She’s nowhere to be found.  And as much as you believe that, no one is invincible.  Not even Hinata.  We need to form a plan, otherwise we’re losing precious time.”

“No one is invincible.  Not even Hinata.”

An emptying numbness invades his insides, discomforting slickness muting him.

This isn’t his fault, is it?

-

What if she needed to tell him something?

She was acting strange at Ichiraku.

Quiet, unusual for her as of recent...

But how was he supposed to notice?  Should he have followed after her, like Sakura said?  But they were supposed to meet at his apartment later on anyway, so why did she have to come out early like that and ruin the good time he was having?  She knows how he hasn’t given up on Sakura.

She knows everything about him.  She’s been his rock after Sakura tried to shut him down for good.  So how can it be that she’d just disappear?  There’s no way.

There’s just no way that she disappeared right after she left...

-

Hours.

Hours of wandering around in abandoned, desolate, war-stricken villages in god-knows-where, and nothing.  No one.

He’s asking for the hundredth time, but he doesn’t care, he’s past the point of desperation, and anxiety-laced tension fills the air.  “Taku, you really don’t see anything?!”  The Hyuuga they have on their team led them into this godforsaken wasteland.

Taku turns on him aggressively, getting in his face in reaction, and yells, “What about you??  You think I’m not trying my best?!  This is my family!  Just because you’re Hinata’s boyfriend doesn’t mean you’re any more worried than the rest of us!  You don’t sense her??”

No.  He doesn’t.

His Sage Mode has never been so useless.  In fact, he senses no one besides them in this place, and it’s with terrible unease that he begins to entertain the thought that she’s gone for good.

“There’s no one even here besides us!  Nothing!  Why’d you take us down here?  Where are we even?!  How do we get out of here in the first place?!” he argues back.

“Sakura-san was right!  You don’t belong on this mission!  I don’t know what Hinata-sama could ever see in you, I haven’t seen her smile in months!”

“What do you mean by that?!  She smiles all the time!  I’ve never seen her act so cheerful in my life!”

“So you fucking know it, too!”  Taku glares at him with an incredulous expression.  “That she’s just acting!”

“What the hell do you mean by that-”

And he doesn’t know what happened next, but Sai’s grabbing onto Taku and he himself is locked in Shikamaru’s shadow manipulation.  Chakra’s sparking off his own hands, while blue embers warp along Taku’s.

“Calm down,” Shikamaru orders both of them.  “We’re not getting anywhere if the two of you keep fighting.”  He waits for Taku to loosen his stance.

Sai lets go of him.

Taku throws an insulting glare around before sauntering off.

Shikamaru sighs.  Hard.  “Go cool your head, Naruto.”  He retracts his shadow, and Naruto wastes no time walking off in the opposite direction, far from wherever Taku is heading.

Yet Taku’s ridiculous words ring in his head.  “That she’s just acting.”

But she said that she’s happy to be with him.  That she doesn’t mind that he’s still in love with Sakura.  She said that she’s just happy to be with him.

She said that.  She did.  And she wouldn’t lie to him, right?

She was just acting?

“You’re not going to finish your ramen?” he asked her on their date last month.

“No...”  Suddenly, she smiled brightly, something she’s been doing more often ever since he mentioned that he’s always liked how genki Sakura is.  “Do you want the rest of mine?  I’m dieting.”

He scrunched his eyebrows at her.  “Dieting?  Why?”

“Well...”  She looked thoughtful for a moment before seeming to come to a decision.  “Naruto-kun, you like thin girls, right?”

He knew she was talking about Sakura.  “...I guess...”

“I want to make you happy,...” she started.  She bit her lips for a hesitating moment before continuing, “so I’ve been trying to lose a little weight.”

“Oh.”  He didn’t know what to make of that.  Unbidden, he looked her over. 

“Can you tell?” she asked, her characteristic shyness lowered her lashes, yet she didn’t fidget under his examination, and he could tell how she was trying her best to have that confident persona he admires in his former teammate.

Despite her recent changes in attitude, Hinata’s still been so physically small compared to himself and everyone else.  Under her jacket, he couldn’t tell if she looked skinnier or not, and even if she was, he doesn’t think she really needed to be skinnier.

But then she looked up at him with that heavy, hopeful weight in her gaze, and he couldn’t let her down.  Not when she’s trying so hard for his approval.

He fibbed easily.  “Yeah.  You look really good.”

She shined another smile at him that made him feel good.  Even if their relationship wasn’t traditional, he could at least still make her happy.  He could at least tell her some sweet words and see her sweet smile and-

She was lying.

She wasn’t happy?

He never made her happy?

Then what was the point of any of it?

No, she must have been happy, right?!  She said so!  She told him so!  Many, many times!

After all, he asked her.  All of those times he thought she was faking her smile, he asked just to make sure, and she vehemently told him that she was really happy to be with him.

She said he could talk to her about all of it.  That she could take on his heartbreak because her feelings were so much bigger than...

“Uzumaki Naruto.”

The unfamiliar voice has him leaping to his feet.

A man as pale as a ghost with piercingly icy eyes is floating down to him on some strange platform.  “You’re really as pitiful as I expected.”

“Who the hell are you?!”  He readies his stance.  He’s not in any mood for games, and he’s ready to let loose some of his stress on this very suspicious character.

“Hinata’s fiance.”

“Hinata?!”  Fire races through his veins, heating his feet, and he’s ready to leap at this guy.  “Where is she?!”

“With me.”

His heart rate exponentially explodes, beating into his ears, his skin practically bristling.  “Let her go,” he demands, and the threat of his words leaks from every pore of his being.  “Now.”

The man almost snorts.  “What makes you think she wants to see you?  You only ever used her, broke her...”  His collected expression hardens, and Naruto can sense that he has no intention of releasing her.  “I’ll make her happier than you ever could.”

Several thoughts fly too quickly through his mind to properly process any of it, leaving only residual uncertainty and that deepening sense of his culpability in her sudden disappearance.  But he doesn’t linger on the unpleasant sensations.  “What the fuck do you know?!”  And he’s charging at him, a Rasengan heavy in his hand.

The enemy is far more powerful than he appeared, immediately blowing him back with some kind of focused chakra.  “Weak, pathetic.”

“GIVE HER BACK!”  He replicates himself a dozen times, each of them throwing Rasenshurikens at the man.

Yet more of that strange yellow chakra protects him.  He’s unscathed even under his shadow clone onslaught.  “No.  I gave her a choice, and she came with me.  I’m just here to get rid of you, take revenge against you for her sake.”

He hardly comprehends the nonsense spewing out of the enemy’s mouth, and he rallies his clones into close combat, but the man manages to avoid many of the attacks while landing hits of his own.

Clones poofing away only to be replaced by more, frustration and fury starting to blind him into sloppier and sloppier moves.

“I love Hinata.  That’s why I deserve her.”

He chokes on his own breath, and in his momentary loss of concentration,...

He’s falling.

------------------------*

aaannnnd that’s as far as I want to go with that.  Imagine the rest of the team arriving in time to notice Toneri making his escape toward the sky, and I guess the rest of the story would sort of follow the rest of The Last...Naruto self-reflects a lot in a bundle of depression for a long time and yeah.

...ahhh...  I encourage you to write the fic you want to see in the world ❤️

#anon #thank you for thinking i could do your fic idea justice #but in the end 😅 i'm sorry that this is a letdown #i'm not much one for angst you know #who wrote white lilies not me #thank you for laying the praise on thick 🥺 don't know if i'm deserving #thank you for reading!

[lorirwritesfanfic]

Ask game

Thanks for the tag @missameliep 💕

Nickname: Lori

Zodiac sign: Cancer

Height: 1.59 m

Last movie I saw: Mary Shelley, I think...? 🤔 I don't remember. I don't watch movies so often. I'd be better at pointing out the last series or YouTube video I watched

Last thing I googled: Crème anglaise recipe

Favorite musician(s): Paul McCartney, Mike Shinoda, Marisa Monte, Sara Bareilles, Norah Jones, Silva.

Song stuck in my head:

Other blogs: @lorircreates a dump of reblogs and shitposts since 2011 (yes, I’m old in life and in Tumblr), @write-baby-write my personal dump of writing resources, tips and prompts. I have @misskinkywrites but I'm thinking about deleting it (I don't feel like posting original stories on Tumblr).

Blogs following: fandom blogs (Choices, TWC, Reign, Bridgerton, Turkish dizi) artists blogs, writing blogs, feminist blogs, funny blogs

Sleep patterns: I can easily adapt my sleep to any sort of changes (I wake up early if I have to and I have no trouble sleeping at any moment of the day), but I need at least 7 hours of sleep per day

Lucky numbers: I don’t believe in this kind of stuff

What am I wearing: wine red nightie

What would I do of capitalism didn't exist: write, read, learn everything I want, travel everywhere

Dream trip: I don't know... there are too many cool places in the world. Obsessing about only one place feels kinda silly to me

Favorite food: the good kind? 😁 I don't know, I love Brazilian food, Japanese food, Italian... But it's hard for me to point out one single dish that I like more than anything else

Instruments I play: I used to play keyboards and guitar, but I'm out of practice. I'm better at singing

Languages I speak: Portuguese, English

Favorite Song: I hate this kind of question so much because I never know what to say. I don’t have one favorite song. I don’t even have one favorite playlist

Random facts about me:

I gave up a career as psychologist because working with mental health made me mentally and physically ill (even when I tried to get help), I have zero knack for teaching, the money is crap and creating stuff is more my thing than helping people (the money is also crap, but I'm happy. Go figure...). I still read psychology/neurology articles and books because I love studying about it (I apply it in my writing when I'm creating characters, studying characters or developing a plot related to mental health);

I've always loved writing, but I only started writing (fan)fiction in 2018;

I'm learning how to draw. Sometimes it's great, some other times I think about giving up because everything sucks, I have zero confidence in it... Kinda reminds of writing 😀

Learning how to draw has improved my makeup skills immensely;

I'm currently addicted to podcasts. I wash the dishes, I listen to a news podcast. I do the laundry, I listen to a horror podcast. I'm cooking, I listen to a podcast of a drag queen I'm huge fan of, I wash my hair, I listen to a history podcast... The list can go on forever lol (I don't like interviews podcast though).

Tagging: @lilyoffandoms @moonrisedreams @storyofmychoices @peonierose

#tag game

[kaleidographia]

[Review] Tales of Vesperia: The Brightest Star in the Night Sky Doesn't Shine as Strongly as I'd Hoped

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Warning: Contains allusive/thematic spoilers.

The day is finally here! Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition, containing content previously unseen outside of Japan, has finally been released, so that us English speakers and/or non-PS3 owners can experience the new storylines, characters and features for the first time! Alas, this isn’t a post about that, firstly because this post is going up day-of-release and I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, and secondly because I am writing this from outside of the country and won’t be united with my pre-ordered copy until I return next week, RIP.

Therefore, this post is written from the point of view of someone who has only played the Xbox 360 version. I will try to keep it brief for the sake of not spoiling newcomers to the game, and also hopefully not to complain about things that are fixed (or broken??) in the Definitive Edition.

Tales of Vesperia is a game in the long-running “Tales of” franchise from Bandai Namco, the first one in HD, originally released for the Xbox 360 in 2008, later receiving an updated PS3 version in 2009, exclusive to Japan. Like many older fans, my introduction to the Tales of series was with Tales of Symphonia for the Gamecube, and I fell in love hard; I was therefore extremely excited to play the next games, but unfortunately, I never owned the platforms for them until very recently. Along with Tales of the Abyss, Vesperia and Symphonia form the “holy trinity” of games in the series almost everyone loves; find a Tales fan and ask them their favourite game, and the answer will likely be one of those three (note: I’ve heard very good things about Graces and the two Xillia games, but unfortunately haven’t had a chance to judge them firsthand myself). The three games, while not directly related in terms of plot or setting, share a lot of things in common, as they had mostly the same creative team, often referred to as “Team Symphonia” (as opposed to “Team Destiny” which made most other games since then). One notable difference is the scenario writer, Takashi Hasegawa, while Symphonia and Abyss were written by Takumi Miyajima.

The Tales series is known for its reliance on anime and JRPG tropes, often used in a way that plays off cliché expectations only to then layer plot twists and character development and produce a much deeper experience than what would be expected from the get-go. When used effectively, these methods produce a story that is both fun and emotionally challenging. Tales of Vesperia is no different, offering a cast of archetypes that should be highly recognizable to those familiar with the genre, and yet this may be best set of characters in a Tales game. The party has impressively good banter, chemistry and dynamics and several scenes had me laughing out loud or yelling, and I never had a bad time watching their relationships unfold.

Unfortunately, the game spares little time fleshing out backstories or learning more about each individual character outside of the main plot. By the end, I was left wanting, as the cast was so endearing and vibrant, yet I knew next to nothing about them aside from what had been relevant to show onscreen. I longed for more information about where they had come from and how they had gotten where they were, but it is a testament to the strength of the character writing that their storylines reached a satisfying conclusion despite this relative sparse amount of information about them. “Backstory is not story”, Craig McCracken and Frank Angones were fond of saying to fans of Wander Over Yonder, but for a game with the size and scope of a 60-hour JRPG, not providing that window of information feels like a hole in the worldbuilding.

Mechanically, Vesperia builds on the model established by Symphonia and refined in Abyss, where combat takes place in a 3D arena and the player can run around, hit enemies and rack up combos fighting game style (the franchise calls this “Linear Motion Battle System”). While Symphonia was in 3D, it restricted the player to a single side-to-side corridor of action. Abyss added the ability to run around in 3D space by holding down a button, a feature Vesperia also has. This makes combat easier and more fun, as nothing is quite as satisfying as avoiding an attack and then running around and hitting the enemy from behind. And, as the game allows up to four players controlling different party members, and I have a player 2 (shoutout to my roommate Opal), Vesperia’s system is the most well-suited to multiplayer. If nothing else, I never felt lost while on the battlefield yelling for backup. The one major flaw is that boss fights come with massive difficulty spikes and I often had to grind and formulate careful battle plans with Opal just to not get continuously massacred by bosses.

Storywise, Vesperia starts off very strongly, sort of peters out near the middle, and then the third act falls apart. At first the theme is anti-authority, with a protagonist who grew up in the slums, neglected by nobles, who became a knight and then quit out of disillusionment when it turned out all they did was squabble about politics, and the inciting incident and early driver of the plot is his quest to “fix the plumbing” as a popular Tumblr text post put it. It’s clear Yuri has all the reason in the world to not trust authority and he even goes full vigilante against unjust abuse of power, but while this thread seems like the most important theme in the story, after a while so many other elements come into play it ends up lost and doesn’t really make much of an appearance except to highlight the differences between Yuri and Flynn’s approaches to life and how they prefer to help people. On its own it’s a compelling idea, but it never gets the follow-through it deserves, and my expectations were certainly subverted—but in a bad way.

It’s hard to talk about the third act without spoilers so I will probably come back to it for a proper analysis at a later date, but its ultimate message was already kind of limp in 2008 and is even more laughable now. For a game whose initial premise was so strongly against authority, the ultimate resolution of the main conflict reads as incredibly daft in light of just about everything that is happening in politics at the moment. There’s a very strong environmental allegory and the comparisons to climate change are not subtle, but the writers probably bit off more than they could chew because realistically trying to solve this problem in the time the story allotted would have been next to impossible; I still would have hoped the implications of the given solution had been actually explored instead of settling for an “oh well, guess everything’s been fixed now”.

I’m being harsh about the plot because to me Vesperia has a lot of wasted potential. Don’t get me wrong: I do love this game. It is in fact up there with the holy trinity as far as my opinions of the series go, but it lands in third place out of the three because it just fails to live up to what its first half promises about the world it created. To put it bluntly, if the story had just ended at the conclusion of the second act, it would have been much stronger. That the game continues for another 20 hours on a completely different track with an unsatisfying, unrealistic conclusion is a huge shame because it brings down what could have been a real masterpiece of tropey anime JRPG narratives. I live for that stuff, there’s a reason I want to play every Tales game, but that’s what makes this letdown the most disappointing. At least the characters themselves get good conclusions; it is unfortunate I can’t say the same for the main plot.

Despite all this I think Vesperia is a worthwhile experience, and one of my favourite things about is its aesthetic sense. Every location is immersive, polished, and the pinnacle of what I want to see in a videogame, to the point I dream of Symphonia and Abyss remakes made in the same style (and every other game in the series, to be honest, but that seems unlikely with the direction it’s taken since then). I genuinely cared about the party and I wanted to see them succeed and I was ultimately happy that they did even if I did roll my eyes a lot. The combat was so satisfying and so fun to play with a player 2 it makes me twice as mad that Zestiria’s camera goes completely wild during multiplayer and prevents me from joining in. I should note that for someone who plays as many games as I do I am notoriously terrible at them so I heavily favour story over mechanics, but Vesperia is a game that reminds me that engaging gameplay can make a huge difference. Yeah, I suck, but at least I’m having fun while sucking. That’s more than I can say for a lot of games.

If you like JRPGs, games that let you run around and hit things, or fun and intriguing character dynamics, you’ll probably like Tales of Vesperia. If you’re looking for a coherent story from start to finish, you’ll probably disappointed, but there’s just enough there to keep you engrossed until the end. Overall, Vesperia is solid, and the parts it fumbles aren’t bad enough to ruin the whole thing, but hopefully the extra content in Definitive Edition helps to smooth it out; I’ll have to find that out for myself.

Aside from how it messes up the voice acting this time around. Oh, Bamco.

#Review #Tales of #Tales of Vesperia #videogames

[deeahhnuh]

2018!!

I've done this year-in-review thing since 2007! 2007-2012 are over on my old LiveJournal, and 2013-on are right here on my Tumblr. :)

2019 is coming. What?!?!?

Happy almost New Year, Tumblr! :)

What did you do in 2018 that you'd never done before?

Huh... I don't think I actually did anything too different this year! Well, this review is off to a great start, lol!

Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

As usual, no real official resolutions - I like having little goals as the year goes along!

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yes!! My cousin had a precious baby girl!!

Did anyone close to you die?

My grandmother - Ma - passed away in late November. It's difficult to articulate, mostly because I just can't quite comprehend it yet, how much I will miss her. Ma was the biggest, warmest presence in our family. All of my memories have at least some trace of Ma in them!

One memory that I've recalled a lot lately is of the times we played my Barbie board game, sometime in the late '90s. There were so many wonderful times, but those Barbie game nights with just us girls - Ma, my mom (her daughter), and me - were magical. I would set the game up on the dining room table at BaBa (my grandfather) and Ma's house and we would play and talk and laugh! Ma was in her early 70s then, but her peals of laughter and her face lit up with smiles gave me a glimpse into what she must have been like as a teenager.

That was Ma!! ❤️ She was always up for having fun, for reminiscing about funny memories, for enjoying life. Ma was there for every big event and for all the quiet moments, too. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had Ma for so long into my life. I love her, and I miss her.

What countries did you visit?

None! I really need to get out more, lol!

What would you like to have in 2019 that you lacked in 2018?

Of course there are things I'd like to have, do, and learn in the next year - but I'm happy to say I didn't really lack anything in 2018! :)

What date(s) from 2018 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

The end of November and beginning of December were marked by sadness and loss, but also with connection and love - my family really helped (and continue to help) one another through a hard time. I feel closer than ever to my fam. ❤️

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Been a Registration Assistant for two years now, and I love it!! Less real-lifey, and actually very goofy - I hit (and passed) 10,000 scrobbles for the year. I haven't hit that kind of high number for a while, so... Achievement!

What was your biggest failure?

Didn't do anything too stupid this year, haha!

Did you suffer illness or injury?

No, yay!

What was the best thing you bought?

I love fragrances, so my fave purchase this year is, of course, a perfume! Calvin Klein Euphoria Amber Gold just smells soooo gooood. It's rich and sweet, kinda syrupy - really beautiful.

Whose behavior merited celebration?

My family. The mama, the dad, the bro - they are so awesome. We're always there for each other - I love them more than words can say!!! ❤️

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

No one really! I've been pretty even-tempered all year, haha!

Where did most of your money go?

Probably perfume, lol! But music is right up there, too. Maybe movies as well! Basically, entertainment!

What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Kylie's new album, Golden!! Actually, a few other music faves had new releases too, and I was hyped about them all - Richard Ashcroft (Natural Rebel), Florence + The Machine (High As Hope), Lykke Li (so sad so sexy), Emika (Falling in Love With Sadness), Sarah Brightman (Hymn), and Arctic Monkeys (Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino). Great music, all year long!

What song will always remind you of 2018?

List time!

"Dancing" by Kylie Minogue. Of course! My queen returned with a lovely album this year (see above!), but this seemingly simple first single had to grow on me. I say "seemingly simple" because at first listen, it is! Guitar, stripped-down beat - where's the glitter? It's in Kylie's voice, in how she declares with gusto: "When I go out, I wanna go out dancin'!" A quietly bombastic grower.

"Breathe" by Jax Jones. Catchy and bouncy!

"One Kiss" by Calvin Harris feat. Dua Lipa. Breezy fun!

"In My Mind" by Dynoro & Gigi D'Agostino. Hypnotic!

Compared to this time last year (2017), are you:

Doing really well, kinda like last year! :)

What do you wish you'd done more of?

Quoting last year's year in review: "wish I'd listened to more new albums, and not just compilations." But I loves my dance music comps so much! :O I really think I'll try to listen to more new music in the new year.

What do you wish you'd done less of?

Not to be too serious business, but doubting myself. I worry I'm not doing enough, or not doing it right, or could have done it better. I guess a little self doubt keeps you on your toes - keeps you challenging yourself - but I'm happy that as I've gotten older and a tad wiser, and gained more confidence in myself, these worries have lessened. So this year, I did doubt myself, but not as much as last year, or the year before. Here's to an even more confident 2019! ;)

How did you spend Christmas?

Fam, ham, and fun! :)

What was the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in 2018?

I managed to not embarrass myself all year, haha!

How many one-night stands?

None, lol

What was your favorite TV program?

Forever a fan of goofy cartoons!

Real Housewives! All of 'em are wonderful trash TV. :) (Gif source!)

And for no good reason I watched every season of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! on Hulu. Cracks me right up!!

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2018?

Put-together and polished, I like to think!

What kept you sane?

Lots of music, movies, and TV. Always up for some entertainment!

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

Nah!

What was the best book you read in 2018?

Ooh, just got a New Year's Resolution for 2019 - read a book, lol.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

I rediscovered some old faves! "Love Today" by Mika has forever been pure joy, "You Can Dance" by Bryan Ferry can't be any smoother, "Spirits" by Jamie Woon stays majestic, "212" by Azealia Banks still slaps, "Reagan's Skeleton" by Yeasayer continues to be massive, and "Watch Out For This (Bumaye)" by Major Lazer is always a banger.

What did you want and get?

Lots of good things - I'm very fortunate!!

What did you want and not get?

Nothing! Like I said, fortunate. ❤️

What was your favorite film of this year?

I didn't see many movies released this year, but I did really like Ant-Man and the Wasp!

And A Quiet Place!

I also saw Midnight in Paris (2011) after years of meaning to - it's such a lovely film!

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

32! Little fun things - used CD shopping (a fave thing to do), movies, good meal...!

What three things would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Can't ask for more!!

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I've never watched American Horror Story because it seems pretty spoopy and I'm a wimp, but I was going around the channels and that guy who plays the Antichrist lol - Cody Fern - caught my eye. He fine!

What political issue stirred you the most?

There's something new stirring every day, ugh!

Who did you miss?

Ma. ❤️

What is a valuable life lesson you learned in 2018?

Family matters - not the TV show, although that's good too! I already knew this, but I really really felt it so much this year. ❤️

What quote can be used to sum up your year?

"When I go out, I wanna go out dancin'!" No matter what's going on, I want to try and have a good time and enjoy things! Here's to a 2019 full of goin' out and dancing! :)

#deeahhnuh #year #2018

[akabluekat]

Ok first of all, I'mma need Tumblr to do something about putting the Unfollow button right next to the ask button. I have accidentally had to Unfollow and Re-Follow so many people.

ANYWAY I'd like ☕ on "The Classics" (and if that's to vague Classical American Lit)

So, I want to first acknowledge that “the classics” that I was taught in school were predominantly white and male and I have made strong efforts to diversify my reading since that time. Some thoughts:

A few people have told me that my writing reminds them of Jane Austen. It’s a tremendous compliment and I’m very grateful, but I also think it’s hilarious because I do not like Jane Austen. I was never able to get into Pride and Prejudice (though I like some of the movie adaptations. Bride and Prejudice is excellent. Go figure). I’m more of a Bronte sisters gal. Give me Mr. Rochester over Mr. Darcy any day.

He’s an acquired taste, but I really love Dickens.

I love Shakespeare, but the most embarrassing gap in my reading is Hamlet. One of these days I’ll get to it.

I don’t really love classic American lit, with the exception of Mark Twain. I tend to prefer British Lit.

Robinson Crusoe made me irrationally angry when I had to read it for a class on the early novel. Catcher in the Rye provokes similar feelings.

I used to love To Kill a Mockingbird, but my feelings on it have changed a lot as I’ve learned more about race and racism and I think it occupies a more complicated place than I previously realized or understood. I haven’t read Go Set a Watchman, but I have a feeling that would’ve further changed my opinion on it.

I read a lot of classics as a kid/teenager, but as an adult, I tend to gravitate more toward YA novels and children’s books. My controversial take on children’s/YA literature is that it’s often written better than a lot of adult books because they have to work harder to keep a kid’s attention. Adults will put up with more tediousness.

[bloodandrosesarenofun]

Landrymat - The Reincarnation Series

(After a long time out of commission I am back to writing! I thought I'd share the excerpt of the first chapter of my novel, inspired by the last two pictures I posted. Let me know your thoughts. <3

Tag list:

@luna-evans-writes )

I feel the night air push at my hair and flannel as both stir up at it's touch. The clock on my cellphone says it's only four-thirty but the sun is already on it's way down for the night, early as every winter. It's taken a while for me to actually feel the winter. Strangely enough it's actually just starting to get warm in Jacksonville again but at the same time all of the typical winter shit is just starting to happen. People ringing bells for charity and lighting up random palm trees in an attempt to be festive, and complaining about seeing people's breathe as though breathing doesn't really happen till it's cold out.

The bus thankfully drops me off only maybe a two or three minute walk from my destination so I don't have to deal with it that much. The being outside. I hate this neighborhood, sort of. It's not like it's particularly bad, and I know I grew up better than my mum did, but it is still pretty ghetto and run down. The laundromat is not so cleverly named 'Landrymat' but the word looks cooler to me on the marquee so I chuckle at it, glowing like an old school neon sign in some Tumblr kid's bedroom. I feel my face warm up as I go up to the door, pausing as anxiety creeps it's way up the back of my neck. I doubt anyone'll know what they are, or even care what I'm washing, but I still feel that despite the logical side of my brain arguing against it.

'CLEANERS AND DRY CLEAN

WASHING MACHINES ONLY 50 CENTS PER LOAD

COME IN AND ASK ABOUT OUR SPECIALS'

I question what kind of specials a laundromat could possibly have but I suppose they mean deals on multiple loads? I glance at my backpack's strap and realize I'm not sure if I need to wash anything separate. The idea of asking up at the desk makes my heart go number than all the years of abuse so I decide to just go in and figure it out myself. "I'm only carrying somewhere over a hundred dollars worth of material in my bag, what's ruining a couple of them," I mutter. 

Walking into the laundromat the first thing I see are all the washers and dryers so it takes me a secound to find the desk. 

I hold my tongue about how stupid I think it is that it's in the back of the room (which it is about the size of a large master bedroom) as I walk up to the counter, I'd never been to a laundromat before and my anxious ass wants to eliminate as much risk of my looking stupid as I possibly can. "Hey," I try and lower my voice, standing straighter than I usually do. It's an effort given I've spent years training my voice to be high when I wanted something from people since mine was too low to be as quickly helped as the prissy tea kettle sounding girls, of course the years of manipulation would bite me eventually. I always hated that voice. "I need to wash, um, two loads of laundry."

"Do you need a dry clean?" Asks the burly desk lady, her hair braided back in a frizzy mess that said she probably didn't care much about work appearances and her tone suggesting she didn't really care about work. I shake my head 'no'. "Then pick a machine and just let me know if you need change." 

"Oh. Okay. Thanks." I walk over to the wall that obviously has machines with wet clothes and soap tumbling in them and want to scream at the lack of signs. I survey the room, finding that there aren't really many people in here, thankfully. One woman sits on her phone in a waiting chair, charging it in the wall and speaking about as loudly about her divorce as it takes to let the whole entire room know her life story. A man strikes out with a red head a couple machines down from me, and an Asian lady who might be the manager talks with one of the employees apparently about the detergents. I pick a machine near the end and set my backpack down on a miscellaneous chair at the last machine. All of my binders are bundled up and shoved unceremoniously in the bag. I grab my wallet out and go to figuring out starting up the machine before I take them out, zipping back the backpack. 

Living in a house where either your grandma or your father do all of your laundry (mostly because they insist) is feeling much less convenient as the feeling of intimidation from trying to figure out a new basic skill sets in. I stare blankly at the space beside the laundry machine, feeling fog set in, when the beep of the woman on the phone's laundry being done sets me off I jump, my heart thudding erratically in my chest. I don't know why I feel this way, and I can't find a rational way to deal with it. I try to do the breathing and focus thing but with nothing to focus on I panic, I dig my nails into the skin just under my wrist, grabbing my hoodie to try and hide it underneath as I claw at myself. It helps me. I feel dizzy but after a moment I'm back on the ground, almost like getting off something unstable for the first time in a while. My mind felt like it was still thinly veiled but I find myself able to lean against the washers. Shaking my head, I nod at my reflection, fixing my t shirt and going to figuring out the laundry. When I get it together, tossing everything from my backpack and quickly shutting it seems more discreet and I contemplate only doing one load just for the convenience of it, but I decide against it thinking about my lack of a job and money to replace for that. The machine turns on with a loud sound and I shut my eyes against it. Feeling physically sick I hastily take out my headphones again from where I've shoved them into my backpack's pocket and begin playing a song from Quietdrive, thinking the guitar and easily placed sexual lyrics will help me take my mind off my mental breakdown. The seats in the 'Landrymat' are cheap but they aren't as uncomfortable as I thought. I sit with my legs up weirdly crooked in the seat, looking around to see if anybody will care about it. The red haired girl from earlier is looking my way but her expression doesn't look irritated so I ignore it. The air is clean smelling, and the chemicals burn my nose, but it's all something to focus on as I zone out, inconsequentially digging my nails into my skin again, my hoodie wrapped inconsequentially around my hands like I was trying to bide off the cold. I feel alittle less stranded with the music blasting. It drowns out the other sounds. It takes a little while for my darks to be done, and I find myself way too intrigued by the fact you could never tell what the mass of black fabric is. It looks so inconsequential when it feels like if anybody saw it, knowing what it was, it would ruin my life.

I remove the clothes and set them in the dryer, taking a secound to pick the right cycles and having to google it to be sure, then put my lighter binders in for the same cycle. Feeling eyes on me, I turn and glance around the laundromat. The manager is nowhere to be seen and the employee is sweeping, the woman on her phone is talking to the man from earlier, and the red headed girl is staring at me. I turn to glance at the counter, and turn back to find her still watching. 

I check my chest, making sure my shirt is on right and you can't see my binder through it or peeking over the top. I haven't said much since I got here and since I know my voice is the least passing thing about me I find it difficult to pinpoint what could be wrong with me. Is she really clocking me? Or trying to figure it out maybe? The girl doesn't seem deterred by the fact I've noticed her staring at me and I can't tell if I find that more unsettling. I get a strange vibe off her, almost like I've met her before, maybe a few times. My head tilts to the side as I study her. She has tan skin, and I can tell she doesn't use as much lightener as most Asian girls. Her face and eyes remind me of a wolf (and I'm not sure if that's crazy to say but) despite her not coming off as intimidating at all to me. Something about her's intriguing, and I find myself wanting to talk to her. She's dressed in all guys clothing, stuff you could probably find after a few minutes of digging through the small grungy punk section of Walmart or the closet of you dad's old teenage bedroom, but she wears it like a model on one of the magazines on the table. Her makeup is carefully done and her eyes are piercing as the stare into mine. "D-Do you need something?" I question, being conscious about my voice as I hear it waiver with nerves. I figure either she'll let me know where I know her from or maybe my saying something first will keep her from outing me, even if there aren't that many people in here. I don't think my heart can currently take being called out as trans* or gay.

Her eyes cut from mine to something behind my head and I turn around with an eyebrow raised in question. In the top right corner to the room is a little TV monitor playing the news on mute. Headlines role over the screen as they talk about the state of the world. I knew things have been bad, but the newscast for the day just seems to be 'The world is fucked pretty well' and I'm shocked at how little I've heard people talk about change despite even the holiday season's passing by. I turn back to find the girl grimacing at the screen. She looks down at me then shakes her head, "No. Nothing at all."

I make a face, closing the washing machine I hit start. She doesn't stare directly but I still catch her looking. "The world's pretty shit for just past the holidays isn't it?" Mentally, I kick myself for talking. If she chose to leave alone why wouldn't I let her? 

She looks at me and nods slowly. "Yeah," she says, "Yeah it is. I don't think anyone gives a fuck." Her worlds hold a specific malice and she grits her teeth, looking back at the screen like she's thinking of someone specific. "Did you really think they would? Are you really into rights or something?" I realize that's a stupid question. "I mean, um, like activist work? Specifically."

She shrugs. "Yeah, no, but I guess you could say I work closely with someone-" she stops herself, "who has a pretty good hand in this business."

"You work for weather station?" I ask.

She smiles, shakes her head. "No. Don't worry about it, I'm probably just over reacting as always. Thinking people have more power than they have. Nobody was gonna pay attention to this," she gestures to the screen and crosses her arms, "anyway."

"Well maybe it'll blow over with at least as little damage to people as it can manage."

"Yeah, I doubt it." She goes up to a machine and pulls out her dry clothes, beginning to fold them for a wicker basket.

I look down at my phone, my mum's texted me and I groan inwardly as I text to let her know I'm okay. "What about you?" I hear the girl ask. 

My eyebrows furrow. "What about me?"

"What do you care about?" She asks. 

It's a strange question. What do I care about? "I guess the environment."

"You guess?" she pauses.

"I mean, yeah."

"That's not a lot of caring." She continues to fold her things into her basket without looking at me, reminding me of an old movie scene. "There's no passion in you guessing."

"I guess-" I stop, then shrug. "I don't care much about a lot of things right now." I admit. Something about the girl's demeanor changes, and I try but I can't read her expression. She seems weirdly different then and I try and find a time when I may've seen her like this. "That's a sad way to live. But I guess I get it."

I shrug awkwardly, shifting my weight on one foot. "I just can't find that passion I suppose."

"You know supposing is just guessing with a different style?"

"I'm surprised someone else does."

"Well. My advice. Find something worth fighting for. Fast." The jokingness fades from her eyes and she suddenly looks very serious, her tone almost a warning.

"Okay." I say. "I'll work on it."

"Good." She smiles, grabbing her basket and heading for the door. "I suppose I'm just not gonna get a name after that." I turn back to my wash and see there's still five minutes to wait for the dryer.

"It's Rosé." I hear a girl say. Turning around, I see the red head walking away without getting an answer from me. "Scorpious," I doubt she heard me. 

When I'm done with my laundry I'm happy to fold my binders back into my backpack without incident. The laundromat is only a short walk and an even shorter bus ride from my house, but considering the fact that the next bus is an hour away I take my phone out and do the next best thing.

"Hey, George. You wanna get pizza with me? I'll pay if you drive."

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