#i'd like to imagine that this and the old drawing are two different moment

[kairiscorner]

guys i had this thought now it's driving me crazy

(reblogs are greatly appreciated, it helps get my content out there! if you guys like what you see, please reblog it too <:D)

imagine watching howl's moving castle with noir.

"a moving castle?" he'd ask himself with a head tilt as he'd adjust his glasses to see the title better. you nodded. "i promise you, it's an amazing film, peter." you'd beam. he'd shrug, and smile. "well, if you say so, love." he'd say as he sits back on the couch as you put the movie on. at first, peter believed this was another, probably childish and whimsical, children's movie that you somehow found nostalgic. he doubted that it was as amazing as you claimed it'd be, but he stood corrected. he was already in awe at the different kinds of colors there were on the screen--all kinds of blues, greens, reds, oranges, and yellows--they all blended beautifully and perfectly, in ways he had never thought would fit together.

he loved the witty dialogue from the characters, his most favorite character being calcifer. "poor little flame," he'd whisper as you two watched the scene where sophie was pressing the pan down on him to cook breakfast. he disliked howl at first, he seemed like quite the womanizer. "oh, if i were sophie's father, i'd never let her leave without me." he'd say as he'd lean forward in his trance as he watched. you giggled as you leaned against him on the couch, his arm wrapped around you as you rested your head against his shoulder. "and why not?" you asked with a smile. peter glanced at you and chuckled. "well... i'd never want my own daughter's heart to be eaten." he said as he adjusted his glasses again.

"you know he doesn't actually consume hearts, he just..." you trailed off as peter held you closer to him. "i know, i know; it's metaphorical. but no matter what..." he said as he placed his hand under your chin and slowly turned your head to look at him as the movie continued playing.

you looked so stunning all the time to peter, every little bit of you shone, literally and figuratively. but here, in the dimly lit living room you two shared--with you looking deep into his mesmerizing eyes--with the light of the film's ending playing out in the background as you two swam in the expanse of each other's eyes for a second or two, you looked breathtaking.

"now... it might just be a movie and all, but... i'd never let anyone eat your heart." he said with a slight chuckle as he took your hands in his, a blush coming on his face as the tips of his ears turned a bright red, along with the bright red and pink on his cheeks. "it sounds weird, i know, but i'd never live with myself if i knew someone else would be capable of stealing you away from me, much more a womanizer like that... howl pendragon. i know how you look at him." he teased as he nuzzled his nose into your cheek.

you chuckled. "he's a drawing, peter..." you responded. "yeah, but... i want to be the guy that makes you feel pretty even on a bad day, a guy who'd make you fall for him over and over and over again even if we've known each other from long ago. the guy who you'd... you know..." he said as he moved his face closer to yours. "...the kind you'd... wanna marry one day." he'd say as your eyelids fluttered, tickling his cheeks.

at that moment, you felt like you were sophie hatter; the humble love interest to the most perfect man in the world, peter parker, who was sort of like howl in the movie. he was witty, he was charming, he was emotional at times... and he loved the real, rawest version of you. even if you believed to yourself you were ugly, you were getting older, that nobody would look at you with such pure love that you didn't believe the world could ever give you--peter was always there to prove you wrong. he was there to prove you were perfect, stunning, and most of all: you were beautiful no matter how old you got, how bad your day was, or how tired you were. you were always, always beautiful to him, that much he knew, and that much would never change--ever.

"i love you, my dearest... you're so beautiful. you're too beautiful for my heart to handle, love..." he'd murmur as you planted a kiss on his soft lips that only wished to kiss and be kissed by your own. be it with lipstick or none, with tears coating them or dry and chapped, be it in the morning, noon, or night--your lips are the only ones he'll love kissing, over and over and over; even when an eternity would pass, he'd still remember and fall in love with the shape, the softness, and the loveliness of your lips--for they are the lips of the most beautiful person peter has ever met, and ever will meet.

"that's my girl." peter muttered as he pulled away, blushing fiercely after you kissed him. "you're red..." you pointed out as you pulled him in for another kiss, with him mumbling out some answer that was pretty much a compliment within a compliment for you. the movie had ended, but your night with peter had just begun.

a/n: gonna leave this here for y'all to be delulu about what you two do after <33

tags !! @thecoolerdor @miguelswifey04 @sabcandoit @binibinileonara @connors-cumslurper @luvstarrstruck @maxoloqy @k4tsu3 @fictarian

#spider noir #spider noir x reader #spider noir x you #spider noir x y/n #spider noir fluff #studio ghibli #howl's moving castle #atsv #atsv imagines #atsv x reader #atsv x you #atsv x y/n #itsv #itsv imagines #itsv x reader #itsv x you #itsv x y/n #itsv fluff

[ruiimellowww]

Okay HI hello 👋👋

I saw ur art about Sun & Moon through a reblog and I am such a simp for those two omg so here's a rant :33

(Also if you're not comfy with this pls ignore this rant then, and I am so sry if that is the case!! Will stop immediately if you tell me to /srs)

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CAN I JUST SAY I am sosososososo in love with your desgin for the dca cuz holy shit I have never seen anything hotter. O.O LIKEEE THE HUMANOID VERSION??!?!!?? UGH soooo goooodd 🥵🥵 I love the designs and the- the little EARRINGS as well?!??! Omg sooooo cutee aaaaaa 💞💞

and-and omigosh UR ART IS SO GOOD AS WELL!?!? I straight up just wanna munch it. I am eating ur art fr. In LOVE with ur artstyle it's so yummy 😍

Anywhoooo I also scrolled through your dca tag aND *GASP* ECLIPSE?????? 😍😍AND I?? WANNA??? BE ENVELOPED????? BY HIMM??? (I feel like mans would give THE BEST cuddles on the planet!!!)

HOLLLYYYY SHITTTT thE SIZEEEEEEE

Big tall omigoshhhhhhHHH M- my brain- my heart my- mY EVERYThIng is mELTING! ! ! ! ! Literally his size just does something to me I cannot comprehend why omigosh

(*lays in a puddle on the floor*)

I can imagine sosososo many different scenarios where that height could be used aaaaa >~< <333 ;P

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Omg if you have any HCs (and *wanna* share, ofc.) about him (Or about Sun & Moon) I'd love to listen to you ramble about them??? <333

So curious about ur HCs & would absolutely love any crumbs about the dca ksskksskkdkdjdks ❤️😂

Uhm uhm first off, thank you so much I can't rlly put into words how sweet this is and I totally don't mind the rambles because me too. And also because its been YEARS since I last used Tumblr or did anything answering Ask is a bit tough for me.. MmMM

Although I don't have many HC at the moment.. I can however give you a little insight I have regarding my Human DCA :]

Moondrop (Moon) and Sundrop

- when I first designed Moon (after the game came out) he had a much wilder look to him, especially the face because I was really into the idea of him being simply insane hence the red.

- later when i got back to his design and adding colours I thought that it would be fun to make it Blue and white themed, which I actually didn't see a lot back then

- he wasn't supposed to look human even as a Humanoid, I liked to think that Sun & Moon simply had a renovated body. They are just as much Animatronics as they had always been, robotic parts and everything but with a bit of twist

- So then onto Sun.. the thing is its sad to say but I never explored much with Sun's design back then as much as I did with Moon, so I can't provide a good reference

- although I had a rough idea of how sun would look like I never quite liked the way I drew him, so he's always somewhat been stuck in this unfinished stage

- Then there was eclipse, who was my absolute FAVORITE at that time, I don't think I loved a character MORE THAN ECLIPSE EVER when I was drawing him out

- yes!! It was very much inspired by the 3D render shown here as the ref, though I did make some changes of my own to the design as well

- I had a lot in my head when I was drawing him, but the one thing that I loved most about this design still to thisq day is rhe face. The way I him to look back then was sort of a mix between my Sun and Moon designs, only leaning more towards Sun in colours and Moon in appearance with the crazed look in his eyes

The height was just a funny little thing I thought of, cuz imagine this giant fkn ahh robot just comes in here and picks you up 💀 god I would piss myself

Cough..

So in regards to the new design, I did kind of get rid of the animatronic feel to him that I had done with the DCA and his old design, all of them now look a whole lot more Human which is what I intended for

Eclipse has a few scars around his body; right forearm, left side of his torso that leads all the way up to his chest. Plus a bit of his face that is burnt which you can't exactly see because of the Black spots

Overall I like my newer designs quite a lot and has also changed a lot, this is probably the most insight you'll get out of me abt my art 😭😭 cuz I don't usually ramble this much otherwise

I might come up with some head canons at a later date, but they'll be fun thats for sure ;)

#rants n rambles #ruiis art #digital art #fnaf security breach #humanoid #moondrop #sundrop #eclipse #eclipse fnaf #fnaf daycare attendant #DCA

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi sex witch, i realise that this is not an actual sex ed related question and I hope this isn't overstepping any bounds.

I'm sort of in a weird spot right now a la my sexuality and am trying to figure out if I actually want a relationship and if what I feel is romantic attraction or Friendship levelled up. I've known for a long time that I'm Demisexual or Ace, and I thought I knew that I still felt romantic attraction but now I'm less sure.

How did you come to realise that you were aromantic? In that discovery did you ever wonder if it was a sort of 'mental block' or something similar that would be better off working through? (I ask because I'm sort of stuck in that state of mind right now, and I'm just curious to see if it's a common experience or not)

I realise that this is a fairly sensitive topic, and I really don't mean offense by asking.

I also realise that no two people's experiences will be the same but I was interested in hearing about it from another person's perspective.

I hope you have a great day whether or not you give this ask the time of day.

I've asked you other things in the past and it's always been brilliantly helpful. Thanks a lot for everything you do.

hi anon,

no worries about overstepping boundaries :) this is a pretty reasonable thing to ask of someone, and I'm happy to talk about it!

there's a funny story that I tell about the moment I probably should have known, but didn't yet have the language. in sixth grade my class had an assignment that involved making a collage timeline of the rest of our lives (a proto-vision board of sorts) and I think I was the only kid in the class who didn't put getting married on my timeline. everyone else did, as far as I can remember, and most of them also included having kids. being a pedantic little fuck I pointed out to several of my friends that it was really unreasonable to assume they would find someone they liked enough to marry who liked them back, to which everyone told me (paraphrasing) to shut the fuck up and stop being a little bastard.

but it still seemed very strange to me, because even when I was very young - back when I barely had the language to conceptualize being gay, let alone aromantic - I never imagined my life with a romantic partner. romantic pairings were interesting in stories, sure, I ate that shit up from a very young age! the star-crossed lovers shit going on in American Dragon: Jake Long did a number on my developing brain, and my Barbies and Littlest Pet Shops got up to INSANE relationship drama, but for myself it never really felt, like, relevant? not unpleasant, just uninteresting.

but I still had crushes on people as I grew up, and more importantly I had crushes on people of various genders, so during my teen years I was WAY more preoccupied with repressing my burgeoning bisexuality than drawing any conclusions about my romantic orientation

spoilers: the bisexuality won.

in college I had a friend who identified as asexual at the time, who spent maybe a year trying to convince me that I was aromantic. and I didn't want to hear it! I don't know why, honestly; maybe some part of me, despite loving the community I had found coming into my queerness, was still subconsciously afraid of being too different and grappling with the consequences.

so instead I did this uuuuh real dirtbag thing where instead of just acknowledging to myself that I was pretty fundamentally uninterested in romantic relationships and that that's fine, I spent the first half of college leaning hard on self-deprecation to explain my single status. oh, me? why aren't I dating? well, I'd probably be a really bad partner. yeah, I suck. I mean, I'm so busy all the time! and I'm weird.

(at the time I know I definitely had friends who assumed I was Like That because my parents were divorced, which is hilarious old-fashioned and also categorically untrue. I was Like This way before my parents got divorced!)

it actually took a relationship ending pretty badly to make peace with the idea that maybe I didn't want a relationship at all. I won't get into the details on that, because it involves another person and we were both very young and accidentally hurt each other a lot in ways we didn't mean and I don't think anyone was the villain, but I don't want it to come across like I had one bad breakup and then swore off romance, a thing I'd previously been interested in, forever. it was more like I found myself in a really heightened situation - they really desperately needed a good and attentive romantic partner after getting out of a bad relationship, I wanted our friendship to stay exactly the same but with a sexual component - that made very, very obvious what I was actually looking for in non-platonic relationships. which was, I guess, actually pretty platonic relationships, but with genitals involved.

haha just kidding, I actually didn't get that part through my skull until I spent an entire summer crying constantly, dissociating frequently, and spending way too much time on BAD dates having even worse sex that made me feel gross! but we got there eventually.

that part probably isn't super relatable to you if you're somewhere in the ace realm, sorry about that.

anyway, once the dust settled and I felt halfway human again I was feeling vulnerable and open to change - finally willing to see myself in a new way and reckon with parts of myself that I hadn't been before. I remembered what my buddy had always said about me seeming Really Aromantic, and I let it settle on me. how would I feel, if I actually was aromantic? how would it change my life, how I thought about myself?

and if I can use a cliche with you? it felt like a weight rolling off my shoulders. I suddenly had a whole sturdy base to build a better understanding of myself on, an easy way to justify the way I lived that didn't require throwing myself under a bus.

thinking of myself through the lens of aromanticism felt like a huge, HUGE relief, and frankly I think that, more than anything, is the best way for anyone to decide if they should be applying any identity label to themselves. which brings us back to you! I actually don't believe in the model of sexuality and gender that posits a secret innate Right Answer buried in each person that they'll discover if the just find the right terminology. all of the words we use are the result of our time and place, right? people like us existed all through history with different words for themselves, and they'll exist way after us calling themselves things we can't imagine.

so basically: I came to realize I was aromantic because calling myself aromantic felt like loving myself, and if that's the case for you than I strongly recommend you do it, too.

happy pride xoxo

#queer stuff #aro #god i don't have an aro tag i'm a fake aromantic

[itstokkii]

hi! could you talk more about gerkor? it's a ship i hadnt thought a lot about before but your drawings of them are making me interested!! what do like about them and/or what headcanons do you have?

first off thank you for sending this ask!!! i'd love to talk more about gerkor!!

both germany and south korea share a lot of similarities, the main one being that they're the youngest out of their sibling pair, with the older one being separated from them due to the imperialist forces of the us and ussr.

i like to imagine they'd both find comfort in each other that they can't find in their neighbors due to WW2 and before then. both are resentful towards the allies for their respective partitions. they'd both plan to leave the nations' meeting afterparties/galas early and just go home to cuddle. sure korea pulled up to the party bc america dragged her over but she's leaving with germany because they're playing board games at his place.

i've also heard of people calling gerkor the "river pair" because they both experienced a boom in economics and development, with korea's being called the "miracle on the han river" and germany's being called the "miracle on the rhine."

in the modern day, they'd both be workaholics(more like they have to, esp korea with our record of a 60hr workweek lol) but with different ways to relax and unwind after work.

korea will drag germany along to the best korean grilling restaurants, sometimes she'll take him to karaoke(where germany slowly loses his mind as korea slowly loses her voice), and sometimes they'll order delivery food and drink flavored soju(germany's the first to tap out) as they binge watch netflix.

though germany would initially be surprised that korea would have to go to work dinners(회식) after work in the evenings. He insists on coming around the end of it and being her ride home. it's weird to him because shouldn't work stay in the office?

germany leaves work about 1 or 2 hours earlier than korea(4~6PM), and sometimes even earlier on fridays. he cooks dinner until she arrives home, to which they both eat. Then they spend time together(playing video games, baking, watching a movie, what are other things couples do at home,)

its interesting because both germany and south korea are associated with the work culture, and yet they're both on two different areas of the spectrum. if korea comes home tired from work, they both take a nap(or just sleep, given that it's maybe about 8 or 9 as she comes home due to traffic).

germany sometimes gets irked with the way korea randomly drags him along somewhere when she's feeling bored("im bored lets go shopping") tell him at least a day in advance im soojin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

he's still completely floored every time her age comes up. she's just a 2000 year old nation cosplaying as a 20 year old. hes only just about 150....

as per the small doodle i did, i do think south korea is maybe that big push to finally convince germany to have a skincare routine. all of a sudden his skin glows brighter than usual, and others are able to recognize the difference the moment he steps into the meeting room.

she loves gift giving and will regularly have at least a few gifts ready for him when he visits, ranging from luxury goods to giftcards to plushies. he does this as well, but mostly likes to gift her things that are practical and personal. if she really liked that german snack he gave her last time, he's sure to give her more as a gift.

they both love hiking and absolutely will go on hiking dates. korea is generally a very mountainous region, so there's plenty of mountains and hills to check off the list!

she likes hugging and holding hands in public. when they're waiting in line for whatever reason, she'll wrap her arms around his waist and wait that way. i can see germany not necessarily being a fan of that, aso she's had to limit her pda sometimes.

has joined germany for oktoberfest before and despite 1000 years experience of drinking, become absolutely wasted. neither of them were able to drive that night.

sometimes she sees the way he dresses and almost dies inside. sandals with socks are for when you take out the trash or a trip to the convenience store, not for...shopping? save the cargo shorts and windbreaker for hiking, not for a picnic!!!!! with the way he shows up to world meetings("it's like you shoved a giant stick up his-" she usually says before she's cut off by germany) she'd expect him to dress in a similar ilk in everyday life, but she has no choice but to accept it...

though sometimes she cheats the system by texting him "we're going somewhere fancy, make sure to dress up semi-formal" and he's sure to show up in an outfit put together with thought.

there's been times where she feels jealousy and anger for how she's been separated from her brother and how that split is regarded as "positive," whereas the partitioning of germany was seen as "negative" and its reunification "positive." she holds no ill will towards germany as most of it was beyond his control, and germany has also expressed support towards a reunified korea in the past(at least, merkel has). but sometimes she sees prussia and germany and can't help but wish that was her and north.

#wow that turned a bit sad at the end #tokkii writes #tokki answers #aph south korea #hws south korea #im soo jin #hws korea #aph korea #aph germany #hws germany #ludwig beilschmidt #gerkor #hetalia #hws #hetalia world stars

[notecapn]

Heizou from the arranged marriage au - again, by @throwingstuffhere, very inspiring, thank you

Ayato here for emotional support (and as a point of reference)

some thoughts on that under the cut (and close ups of the coloured Heizous)

i talked previously about this a bit, so there are going to be things i've said previously and a couple of new thoughts. but mostly just rambling

the design choices were made as if Heizou was an in-game character who frequently fights but still needs to look presentable

i’m still on the hakama pants for Heizou, and if not that, he’d probably ask to make the trousers loose (like slacks maybe), with all the splits Heizou can do they’d tear otherwise, unless the material is more flexible than how it looks on Ayato. but quite frankly they look just like normal ones, if a bit more expensive

i am, in fact, speaking from personal experience, dress trousers are very likely to tear if you try kicking something high above your waist level - especially if it's more than once, and i don’t imagine Heizou is very careful about this, and i think he’s used to more freedom in his leg work, or any body part actually, he has a lot of skin showing

as for everything else: it's pending, really.

the vision could be both on his right hip - just like Ayato, or his left one - sort of like it used to be, and mirroring Ayato and also kind of completing the Kamisato's vision placements: Ayato and Thoma on the right hip, Ayaka on her back and Heizou on his left. i also could be reading too much into things (or i'm actually not reading into this enough and it's very important for the characters where they place their visions: like how important their vision is to them, or there's symbolism of the placement, or it's just pure aesthetics)

i had half a mind to put Heizou in a pair of dancing shoes. they look so funky - i have no idea if they are comfortable or not and they look like they could slip off at any moment. for the record i am not planning on putting him in a pair of funky dancing shoes (for now)

tbh i didn't think too much about his footwear previously, i just thought to put him in some dress shoes like Ayato, even if those are not particularly comfortable - but it would be more painful if he delivers some sick kicks: physics of pressure, with the area being smaller and the force staying the same and all that

he could also go with geta (or sandals?) like Ayaka - which would also make sense. Ayato's job requires him to sit a lot so naturally he doesn't walk too much for the shoes to cause him any trouble, but if we're going with the assumption that Heizou tends to work best on foot (old habits die hard, you see), then he'd be miserable if he wore the shoes all the time. counterpoint, however, is that i don't want to draw toes, and i am a coward

also the coloured designs are what i'd consider his formal outfit: as far as my research goes, yukatas (which Heizou usually wears in the au from what i can tell) tend to be worn for less formal events, and it's at the very least not customary to wear yukatas under hakama pants, so..

also also it has been a while since i’ve properly worked with colour so i am extremely unsure how I want this to look, that is why there are two sets of colours of each design. and i don't even think i'm satisfied with that? and obviously the outfit can be a combination of the two styles, i just threw things at the wall to see what sticks

the first version is based on the one i've made previously, with some minor changes, like the Anemo inspired print on the pants and on the inside of the cloak (i don't know if it is noticable, there are sakura petals as well), and the arm guards (also yes, the red does not look very good on him, i just wanted to add something different, spice things up a little). and yes, i still imagine Heizou magically discarding the cloak when he attacks

(edit) additionally, Heizou with more blue in his palette:

the second one is very heavily leaning on Ayato's design, with less layers, loose trousers and a western shirt underneath. this one was done mostly to test out the coat and the trousers

and lastly: i'm not a historian or a fashion designer or a historian fashion expert. i have no idea what i'm doing other than looking at all the pictures available on the internet and drawing inspiration from that

and @raccoonwithacoffeeproblem, if you wish to see it

#arranged marriage au #heizou #shikanoin heizou #ayahei #genshin impact au #will think on it #notecapn art #i guess that is a tag now #hes used to freedom unless its neck lol i have no clue how to integrate the collar (the choker? whatever its called) #i dont think he needs it to be honest but i also kind of think it’d be funny if he left it on. the scandal #why does he wear it anyway? fanservice? i mean it makes him visually more interesting ig #considering the top half of his design looks a lot less detailed than the bottom half. esp without it. it makes sense really #but still it does his reception as a character no good #the fandom at large is convinced hes “sus” #on a completely unrelated note #i need to throw more rope on him #- in a “its a signature element of any inazuman character” way #i swear im not trying to be crass #but it is sort of hysterical #i am not using csp for this one. its procreate this time #i want to draw characters interacting but im stuck here help #started sketching this out after drinking for a bit so dont take it too seriously

[dostoyevsky-official]

How Merve Emre became the hottest — and most divisive — name in literary criticism

Wherever Emre goes, for better or worse, she tends to turn heads. "Merve is the kind of literary 'it girl' of the moment," the senior editor, who's worked with Emre, said. "Everyone's jealous of her because she's extremely prolific, extremely productive, extremely beautiful. And she also is very polarizing. And I think that she is polarizing in great part because she is so prolific and so beautiful." 

[...] "She's somebody who shows you why you might really love something rather than show why you shouldn't love it at all," Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, said. Reading Emre on an author she loves is like listening to someone describe the honeymoon phase of a new relationship — her criticism has an erotic charge to it.

[...] Over the past few years, Emre's reach has grown such that she has the power to represent her field in the public imagination much the way Alison Roman has become shorthand for "cookbook author" or Frank Gehry for "architect." It leaves her in both a prestigious and precarious position, with seemingly as many people in the cutthroat literary world cheering her on as rooting for her to fail. "Academics can't bear it when someone does popular work," her friend the philosopher Jason Stanley said. The stench of misogyny, too, is hard to ignore. As trite as it is to dismiss someone's haters by saying "they're just jealous," her friend Anna Shechtman, the writer and crossword designer, noted, "it may actually be true when it comes to Merve."   

Courting an audience and wearing one's ambition as openly as Emre does is "a complicated variable for a lot of academics," one Ivy League professor noted. "It's a moment where your weird little closed world suddenly gets cool on the outside, and is it gonna get cool in a way that ruins what you love about it?"   

[...] Emre sees her role as part of a larger mission to democratize criticism beyond the walls of the academy. She wants to be "the Avon Lady of criticism," she joked.

[...] Emre is the eldest of three girls born in Adana, Turkey, to two doctor parents who emigrated to the US when she was 3. [...] In 2007, she graduated from Harvard and went to work as a management consultant at Bain & Company in New York. She made a lot of money and was "very, very, very bad at it," she said. 

Her ex-colleagues remember it differently. "Of all the people I've recruited to Bain in the 30 years, and this is in the thousands, she is one of the brightest," said Chris Bierly, her mentor at Bain, who called her "other-level intelligent." Still, he said, "she was impatient with learning the job from the bottom up." When she was toying with leaving the industry a few years later, he asked her why. "She said, 'I want to do your job. I just don't wanna do all the jobs in between,'" he recalled.

After a year and a half, Emre fled the consulting world and applied for a Ph.D. in English at Yale. "Going to graduate school in literary studies was a form of rebellion," she said. "I suspect I got as much pleasure from it as I would have been if I'd been getting wasted in high school." [...] It was there she developed the sociological approach to criticism that informs much of her work; her thesis, "Paraliterary," was about the idea of "good" and "bad" readers and how literary critics need to draw the circle wider in order to keep their field relevant.  

[...] She reads as many as two books a day. For every book she writes, she gets a tattoo of its call number in the Library of Congress on her side. 

[...] She moved to Montreal to teach at McGill in 2016, with Nakarado and 1-year-old Aydin in tow. "The students loved her. She had a line outside her office door," her former colleague Ara Osterweil said, recalling the excitement that surrounded her glamorous, brilliant colleague who wore stilettos to her lectures.

She also rubbed some people the wrong way. "She thought she was Beyoncé coming into the department," one former colleague said. "She didn't want colleagues or students. She wanted an audience."

Even more so than in consulting, there is a fixation in academia on bureaucratic rank that Emre has little patience for. "I was never someone who was going to be comfortable with highly hierarchical and patriarchal institutions," she said, explaining that one of the reasons she never learned to drive was because she couldn't tolerate being taught by her father. "So now my husband drives me," she noted with irony. 

[...] "She should not be in academia because there is a measure of burying your own opinion in order to mentor, and she does not have that capacity," the colleague who thought she acted like Beyoncé said. "She liked to talk about the money she was getting for the book on personality traits, and that was just so hilarious to everyone, because she was so un-self-aware of her own personality."

[...] But not everyone liked Emre's way of doing things. Last year, someone sent an anonymous note about Emre to half a dozen professors around the US with no return address. It's titled "ME, a short biography" and reads: "Daughter of rich doctors with vacation homes in different countries claiming poor immigrant status tears through Ivies like the Ivy pricks she denounces finds tall, useless pretty boy husband to have some children to lie about." Typed out in flowery word-processor cursive, it continues: "Lives eats breathes shits on social media for a decade, wanted by no university in the United States, writes click bait books to become filthy rich to buy followers and bribe half her profession to pretend the emperor has clothes on, badmouths every place she's worked" and "still cannot shake the absolute thirst." 

[...] "People in this business can be really weird," [Michael Berube, a professor of English at Penn State] said, though he noted that they generally don't resort to real violence. "They just tend to be sort of textually obsessed."

Emre was shaken by the incident. "It was hard for me to imagine how thwarted" someone must feel to send something like that, she said. Still, she tried to have a sense of humor about it. "The author probably meant to use the word 'slake,' not 'shake,' since thirst is not something you shake." She has no idea who's responsible. "My sense is that only an academic could imagine that essays on James Joyce or Simone de Beauvoir were driving The New Yorker's advertising revenue," she remarked, noting that the postmark on the envelope suggests it was mailed from near Fordham University. At least, as one of her friends noted upon receiving the letter, "even your haters can't deny that your man is hot."

[...] As Emre became increasingly frustrated with academia, she began pouring herself into her writing career. "When I imagine the way that Merve thinks, it's like the spreading branches of a tree — everything can take you somewhere," her friend the writer Sarah Chihaya said. "She's not always interested in getting from point A to point B but rather in helping to open up all these expanding questions." She did the edits for her first New Yorker web piece in the hospital the day after giving birth to Altan back in 2017. Other academics resented seeing Emre's byline everywhere. There was a bit of a feeling, like, "Why does she get to write for The New Yorker?" her friend Anna Shechtman said.

The media world first really started paying attention to Emre after she panned writer Durga Chew-Bose's 2017 essay collection, "Too Much and Not the Mood." That piece "put her on everybody's radar," said the critic Christian Lorentzen, which is "rare for something in the Boston Review." In it, she laid out her concern that today's personal essayists are concerned not with judgments about "the formal or stylistic features of prose" but with "pretty phrases that mean nothing and teach nothing," whose only purpose is to confirm the "author's status as a beacon of complex selfhood."

Emre was blasted for being anti-feminist; Lena Dunham, a friend of Chew-Bose, tweeted that the review was "rude, patronizing bullshit." Nowadays, Emre is trying to move away from writing about books she doesn't like. "The easiest way to get attention is to have a kind of contrarian take about another female writer," she said. "It is not challenging to get people not to read something. People are not reading things all the time."

[...] The discussion segued to her Twitter presence. Did she feel there was any tension between her philosophy of criticism, which encourages the evacuation of the personal, and her more confessional use of social media? "These are two totally different genres that we're talking about," she said, as we scaled the steps outside the Yale Science Building. The idea that "high-quality criticism" and "canny self-promotion" are trade-offs "seems to rely on an error, which is the belief that just because something is popular, or is marketed well, it can't also be good."

"But the other thing is like, I don't actually think that the work relies on the evacuation of subjectivity," she continued. "It is impossible. So then I think the question becomes, what does it mean to make style charismatic through an act of withholding access to the personal in one genre, and then giving or creating the appearance of giving people access to the personal in another kind of genre?"

"So are you saying this is all a calculated dance?" I asked.

"Everything's a calculated dance," she shot back. "It would be foolish for anyone to think that what happens in a form of writing, whether it's a long-form magazine piece or 140 characters, isn't in some way calculated. I wonder what pure authenticity would even be."

[...] Emre's calling, as she sees it, is no less than the wholesale reform of higher education from the ground up. She is preoccupied with two interconnected crises. The first is an economic crisis of the humanities: Higher education is overpriced yet underfunded, there aren't enough jobs, and college degrees are increasingly devalued. The second is what her friend John Guillory has dubbed a crisis of legitimation within the profession: that literary criticism has become trapped in English departments, talking only to itself, rendered useless and separate from the reading public. Her goal is to make the practice of teaching criticism, which she sees as a public good, accessible to the wider world.

"I understand the purpose of literature as a kind of meeting place between reader and writer. It's the romance of that imagined meeting place, and it's the romance of all of the possibility that still lives there," Emre said. "One very cynical way to think about life is that it's a series of reducing possibilities. And one way to think about what criticism does is that it's a place where possibility is left really open-ended."

[...] These grand ambitions, she suggested, are why she has let herself be profiled, despite her distaste for the endeavor; she's savvy enough to know that building a brand is necessary to her larger mission. Twitter, for instance, "is a way of addressing a very different kind of public" than one gets to address at Yale or Wesleyan or The New Yorker. "We are people who are supposed to be preservers and disseminators of literature or literary culture, and we're not actually engaging people to read," she said. "If you're not trying to get people excited about it, then why are you doing it?"

#emre #this is the profile #the new editor makes it difficult to post these

[oyasumi-ashurii]

Okay, so it might be a little hard for me to cohesively put all my thoughts and feelings into why I care so much about Final Fantasy VIII, but because of the 25th anniversary and seeing a lot of you talk about your love of the game I'll try the best I can. So here's my embarrassingly and extremely long personal history with the game and why it will always be my favorite.

Before FF8 I was mostly a Nintendo kid. Mario and Zelda were all I really knew, and as a hyperactive as I was I didn't really have the patience for anything story-heavy that took a lot of reading. Though I did I get a PlayStation later on I hardly bothered with anything other than Spyro or Crash. Anything similar in graphics to FF7 or 8 was mostly foreign to me too, with maybe the closest being my cousin having the first Resident Evil and I was far too young and too scared to bother with anything like that. So you can imagine the complete and utter shock kid me had going to my uncle's and seeing him play FF8 for the first time. I don't think it had been out too long but he was already on disc 3 in Esthar and, bless his soul, he let me play his save for a while. Being able to fly around the map on the Ragnarok?? The realistic proportions and animations in battle?? The absolute BANGER of a soundtrack?! All of it had me excitedly begging my parents to buy me the game. Nine year old me didn't know roman numerals, though, just that it was called Final Fantasy with some weird lettering. I had no idea of Final Fantasy as a series and I didn't know it was the eighth game or that there were eight of them at all. I couldn't remember what the cover looked like either and my uncle not long after that was going through his own personal troubles so I wasn't able to visit or ask him. We didn't have internet at home until the early 2000s (it was AOL dial-up too, jesus, I don't miss that) and my parents were strict about internet use, so I was stuck. My dad did eventually buy me an FF game as a surprise when I was eleven, and lmao can you believe I was genuinely upset because it was Final Fantasy VII?! That being said, I have an INSANE amount of love and respect for 7. Considering how much easier I think the materia system is to understand for newcomers, having it as my first, full FF experience was a bit of a blessing lol. FF7 hit me in a different way than 8 did, and maybe I'll make a post about it sometime.

So other than the brief times on the internet (I was only allowed on for an hour or two before I was kicked off) and reading gaming magazines I had hardly any access or knowledge about FF8 until years later. I knew the characters briefly and read some small stuff here and there about the world, but that was it. Even so, I STILL loved it. I would draw them (I've drawn most of my life, and I still do occasionally as a fun hobby), write about what I thought they were like, so, so much of me embarrassingly obsessing over it and driving my small group of friends in school bonkers (oh lordy I just remembered my preteen username I had used on an FF forum and now I'm cringing.) You get it. So why did I cling to the game so much, even though I barely played it? Why did it mean so much to me? Because around the time I was twelve I was deeply depressed, and throughout my middle school and early high school life video games and their stories were the only joy and comfort I had. I'm not going to go into much detail because it feels too personal to write on tumblr about and I'd rather not think back too much. If you want the gist it was at a moment in time I was mostly on my own. I felt isolated and alone, and due to growing up in and around strict, conservative circles I struggled with feeling far behind my peers, so my personal and school life suffered. Things got better though and I'm happy in my life now, so that's really it.

As I got a little older I had played other FF's and RPGs in between that I also fell in love with (especially Kingdom Hearts) and funnily enough horror games, but I still didn't get my hands on 8 until I got it on my fifteenth birthday and I was over the moon. That night and many nights and weekends after that I played every single bit of that game. I had printed walkthroughs and a guide of the junction system, with overly-detailed notes I had scribbled down and highlighted. I had written down all the rules of triple triad, weapon upgrades, item refinements and what you get from monsters, side-quests, all of it. I had never went all in into a game before, but I did it because I wanted to experience the game that gave preteen me comfort everything it had to offer. And I remember vividly when I finished it I cried until I was almost out of breath.

But you know, I didn't get emotional because of the nostalgic school-like feel and inspired real-world setting, or the overall main plot with magic, sci-fi and sorceresses. It wasn't even the deeply interwoven love stories, the theme of fate or the gameplay either, though I grew to love all of those things dearly with time.

It was because I was a socially-awkward and lonely fifteen year old girl that watched an equally as awkward seventeen year old boy overcome his own deeply-rooted fears and trauma and come out at the end of it all on the path to healing.

And I knew I'd be okay, and ever since then this game has and will always be that reminder and comfort for me.

Thanks for reading.

#ash.personal #ff8 #final fantasy

[virginmiri99]

Insider anon calling in, here with the show and trusting Tommycrit & Co with it

To start off very general I had a great time, it was very genuinely entertaining and there wasn't a moment where attention or energy was lost. On the technical side it was well paced with a followable structure and characters you did get invested in as silly they were. The audience energy was good and well commanded, and though there were some issues with people staff did get involved. I feel like the way I'm going to describe it won't do it justice obviously because live shows are live for a reason and my memory is awful, but here's the skeleton of it all

(There were two acts, the first act ends after the explanation of the events during the doxxing and the second act starts off with them dealing with it. I'll split the asks to keep the doxxing story in one piece.)

The First act! (- doxxing story)

Slimecicle introduced the show over a video montage, with the joke that he was being held at gunpoint to praise Tommy in absurd ways, it was a great build up to Tommy's show 'character', which entered on stage soon after (surprisingly he was the only one who seemed different in person, or at least seemed smaller than I thought). His character in this is the grandeous, egotistical money-focused persona he tends to draw on hyped to the max (an insane amount of stage presence and full use of his body and exaggerated expressions, I feel like no matter where you sat nothing was lost in translation). The entire show is initially presented as a step-guide on how to be rich and successful and sexy like him - aka. you have to be him, and the steps are consequently a life story (the actual meta reason and purpose of the show does get stated out loud later on). There's alot of crude humour throughout the show and I'd say most of it landed for me personally. There was never a joke in general didn't receive a good response which is great for such a heavily packed live show where there's usually one or two that miss the mark, but seeing certain parents faces in response to the joke poking at Christians was funny in its own right.

As you can imagine, the life story starts off in the, that's right, the womb, where he was planning his potential and success, only for Jack, playing his dad, to come in and tell an unsurprising, embarrassing birth story. Jack's 'dad' character is also the same old man persona he uses alot, the one haunted by war crimes in 'Nam and ever disappointed in his son, so, nothing like Iain at all (maybe the comment about Tubbo being Tommy's boyfriend came from a real place). The running bit in the show being his refusal to hug Tommy (Tommy's actual dad being on the sidelines of the stage the entire time and having helped write the script added to the experience in retrospect). The dad character sort of plays the 'realist' and the downbeat character, with alot of dry humour and directly addressing the audience while also being just as exaggerated as Tom's - got most of the parents laughs.

Then we get the wonderful introduction of Binda, as played by Freddie Badlinu, who is the character of a literal stuffed dog Iain bought when Tommy was a baby and back when they were genuinely pretty poor (also alot of humour about wealth and class which landed great with a British audience, it'd be interesting to see with an American one). Binda as a character is very childlike, and is bullied by the other characters for it, often being sent off stage (much to the audience's sympathy and 'aww's). Pretty much a metaphor for childhood and innocence in the show, being the angel on Tom's shoulder and a great contrast to the two other characters. There was an introduction song (Freddie does have a brilliant singing voice!) and a dance sequence as is theatre requirement (it stretched a few beats too long but nothing too painful).

This continues with a few more stories (these stories are presented as 'oh woe look at these hardships it took to get where I am!' before cutting to an entirely minimal and embarrassing childhood story), how he had to be his own bully because he was a lonely child (Jack, also playing Tommy's mum throughout this with a simply longer wig), how he fought off a monster aka. Betty (A massive two-person puppet of a hound was used before the actual photo of Tommy and Betty as a puppy was shown, it was a genuinely an amazing puppet prop) etc. I'm not doing this part much justice in description because there was a fair amount and it played 'build-up'.

From this it leads onto the introduction of minecraft in his life, and the story of the hammock collar-bone breaking incident, as preformed by puppets in a prerecorded video! (Tommy suits puppetry concerningly well.) He goes on to explain the switch from Twitch streaming to YouTube after being inspired by YouTubers such as Captain Sparkles and DanTDM (big applause, though Technoblade got the biggest) and then the downfall after being told he had to study for GCSEs (there's alot of humour of Tommy being rude to his parents and it going poorly, being either physically threatened or threatened in the 'British mum' way, which the mum I was sat next to found very funny in particular).

And then we get Covid! This part landed very well humour beat wise and the photo shown of the moment Tom and Sarah found out GCSE's were cancelled was borderline renaissance (elation vs. horror-shock.)

YouTube goes great (as we know), dsmp mention (not as big a portion of the show as one might expect, barely mentioned after this) and the shows leads onto the first time Tommy goes to Brighton, again in a prerecorded puppet video and song! Puppets of Tom, Iain (?), Wilbur, Niki, Fundy, Philza, and Kristin were the main ones used, and all of them bar from Fundy and Iain sung a part in the song! Tommy's singing voice sounds incredibly young I will say, not as in unpracticed or unskilled at all, just generally young like some of his older singing clips - for some reason I thought it'd changed more.

There's also a part talking about lawyers and the wacky things such as having to copyright his own face, which lead to another song as by Freddie Badlinu in a Better Call Saul inspired outfit (my favourite of the songs Freddie sang, very familiar to another production but I can't put a finger on which one).

Up until this point the story arc of the show has been on a solid positive incline which no really conflict, and the tone has only been humourous if not absurd. At this point Tommy alludes to things going to shit and to the point of wanting to quit, and the title card behind Tommy begins to decay in a block by block fashion. This is the start of Tommy's character dropping the act and instead acting desperate and upset, as he begs vaguely for what is happening to stop (leading onto the doxxing part of the show...)

[PART 1]

Maybe I'm just on my period but this first part to the show is legit making me tear up rn this sounds so well put together and a great experience I'm genuinely impressed just reading your TLDR of it. It sounds like it blends together seamlessly and I'm just honestly proud with what they managed to create. Awesome.

#ask #tommy is the problem #insider anon #tmmyLiveShow #long post

[alena-reblobs]

Trigun Bookclub Trimax Vol9 Part1

Vol01: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3  | Vol02: Part 1 | Part 2

Trimax: Vol01 Part 1 Vol01 Part 2 | Vol02 Part 1 Vol02 Part 2 | Vol 03 Part 1 | Vol03 Part2 | Vol04 Part1 | Vol04 Part2 | Vol05 | Vol06 | Vol07 | Vol08 Part1 | Vol08 Part2 | Vol09 Part1

Vol 9 recap start! It's late and I'm not having that many clever thoughts, so more just...reacting and saving cool panels :D

Chapter 1:

Aww Nico and Miss Melanie checking to see how Livio is doing. Nico's really got the big brother vibes.

Great catch, buddy!

Smiling and laughing little Wolfwood! This is killing me with so much cuteness. Also, love how he got his big Wolfwood nose as a kid too (I mean, of course he does, but then you never know, an author might make all kids look kinda similiar even unintentionally by giving them big kid eyes, small noses and such stuff...it's just nice to see distinct facial features drawn in different age states)

*** you for that evil trap, Chapel.

Livio not saying anything to that in that one panel is telling a lot actually. Now we know in what way he himself is tied to that orphanage...does he consider it a burden too? I wonder if Chapel struck a nerve with that sentence.

And just like that I knew I was gonna like Livio. Oooh he had it coming.

Hmm love this page. It really feels like the start of something.

Chapter 2:

So so proud of him...I read other bookclub posts about how Wolfwood symbolizes the humanity that CAN change and boy is that right.

I can only imagine Nightow having SO much fun drawing this!! :DD I have no idea but if I'd have to guess I'd say he was just waiting to draw a full page cool blockbuster scene of Wolfwood riding a motorcycle with an explosion in the backgrounds. Probably been wanting to do this since some volumes. And finally got his chance!! Cause there was no need to draw this so action-movie epic-like and he still did, hehe.

First of all, this page here looks so cool! Wolfwood is so shapey, but also the pose and composition...*mwah* Then in this fight we get to see just how good of a fighter Wolfwood actually is. Not that we didn't witness that before, but it was often together with Vash, or if alone, like with Ninelives, he was struggling quite a bit. But here to me it felt like we get this glimpse of a trained assassin he once was, fully in control of the situation, being fast and efficient (without killing).

Such badassery!!! I'm a big fan of how Livio, despite being fully indoctrined, still kinda protects the orphanage too! Well, maybe it's also because Chapel is prob sitting there too and they still need to use the orphanage as bait but STILL! I chose to believe that at this point some point inside Livio was still acting out of attachment to his old home.

Chapter 3:

Hey! That's not a nice thing to say boy! D: Also, she's obviously trying to reassure the kids so don't make them more scared by saying it won't do anything!

Oh fuck. The kids are talking about Nico here but this obviously applies to Vash, as well. Wolfwood can not rely on Vash now who is not around to help.

Also, may I say, what an utterly gorgeous drawing of Wolfwood and Livio.

RAZLOOOO

HMMMM Livio the Double FANG

And in that moment he thinks of that one moment where a person DID need him, where he saved someone :'(

These two pages look soooo cool. I never knew how ominous laundry cool look!

I do wonder...how did Razlo know about the Eye of Michael? Did he meet an informant some time, or overhear smth?

You're not going to kill your brother now, are you Wolfwood! (Not really brother but brother in heart, you know.)

Chapter 4:

Oh I misremembered, he DID mean to kill Livio? Or only momentarily put him out of order, knowing that he has SOME kind of regeneration abilities? I'm not quite sure now. What I do know is that Chapel has a creepy grin and I want that old man out of my face.

Ah hm maybe I should read at least the next page before rambling off. He really only wanted to incapacitate him. I'm relieved!

Rude! You didn't need to throw him through a suddenly spawned set of wood!

At this rate, Wolfwood must be riddled with bullets. Shot from behind, from the front, lost a HUGE amount of blood from his shoulder...

...and yet he's still going on. Oh my boy he's such an awesome character. (Also quick side note, love how Nightow draws hands)

Saving this because awesome pages. This is only the second time we're seeing these vials being used, right? Funny how quickly they became such an important plot device. (I wonder when Nightow planned them into the story...I'm guessing kinda late? Just wondering)

He must have really trusted on Livio blocking that thing!

Aww :(

Making a cut here! The rest will be done in a part 2 post, I don't want to get to the image limit in the middle of a chapter.

#trigun #trigunbookclub

[noblest-roman-of-them-all]

From a Spaceship

"Poppy!" Janus cried and raced toward Remus who knelt to greet his child.

"Hey, gremlin. You okay?" He asked when Janus clung to his neck.

"You and Mama wanted me, right?" He questioned almost desperately. "You don't think I'm ugly and you love me and nobody made you take me right? Because you wanted me, right? And Logan really is my mom, right?"

Remus eyes went wide. "Of course Logan's your mom and of course we wanted you, Jan-"

Janus let go of Remus and swung around to a classmate. "Told you so, you little-"

Remus quickly covered Janus's mouth. "Don't lick me. Mom is already talking to your teacher in the hall. Let's not add to the charges, okay?"

Janus gave a hard scowled, but nodded anyway, and Remus removed his hand.

Remus glanced up. "He learned to swear listening to Hamilton with my brother," he explained to the teacher assistant who was monitoring the handful of students left.

The young woman stiffled a snicker. "Virgil told me the same with after Patton, achem, used an old fashioned term for illegitimate child."

"I just want it on record that it wasn't me this time."

"I'll note it down," she chuckled.

Logan, another parent, and the teacher came into the room after that.

"Mama!"

Logan bent and easily lifted Janus to his hip, kissing his cheek as he did so. "Let's go home."

---

"Daddy, am I in trouble?" Janus asked as Logan helped him from the car.

"No, pumpkin, I think that happened enough at school. You're teacher told me what happened, but I'd like for you to tell me and Poppy what happened so we know your side of the story, if you feel ready for that."

Janus nodded and held Logan's hand tightly as they made their way to their apartment.

"Are you sure I'm not in trouble?" Janus asked again as Remus locked the door behind the little family.

Logan reached out in an offered hug and picked Janus up when he reached back. "I absolutely promise that you are not in trouble, Janus. I just want you to tell me what happened one: because Mrs. Johnson said you were very upset and two: because you deserve to be heard and deserve to tell your side of the story." He sat on the couch with Janus on his lap and Remus sat beside him.

"I was at the art table for free choice," Janus started, "and I didn't know what to draw so I asked Ms. Emily for ideas and she said I could draw a family picture. So I did. But she had to go to blocks. Then Robby saw my picture and he asked why I didn't have a mommy. I told him I did cause Logan is my mommy. But he said that mommies are supposed to be girls and I just had daddies and that means I was adopted and he said that my real mommy prolly didn't want me cause I'm ugly and she just wanted to get rid of me and people only get adopted cause they make them be adopted not cause new parents want them. Then I punched him and pushed him out of his chair cause he made me angry sad and I was crying."

"I woulda punched him too!" Remus exclaimed after a moment of stunned silence, earning him a glare from his husband.

"I understand that you were upset, I imagine it hurt your feelings to be told that," Logan spoke softly to his child. "You're still not in trouble, Janus, but I think it would help if later we come up with ideas of different things to do when you feel bad. Right now, I want you to know that nobody made us take you. We adopted you because we wanted you and we love you very much."

"And you are definitely not ugly," Remus added, lightly thumbing the edge of the birthmark splattered over Janus's left eye and part of his cheek.

"Does that mean I did have a different mommy before?"

Logan sighed and planted a kiss on the top of Janus’s head. "Yes, starlight."

"How come she didn't wanna keep me?" Janus asked, close to tears again.

"It's not as simple as what she did or didn't want, Janus," Logan started to explain, his voice shaking as he did so.

"Then how come I had to be adopted?"

"C'mere, goblin." Remus held out his arms. "I think Mama needs a break."

"Did I make him sad?" Janus asked as Remus stood and lifted him from Logan's arms.

"No, sweetheart, it's not your fault," Logan answered, trying to keep his composure a little longer. "Poppy's right, I just need a little break."

Remus kissed Logan's head, and held onto Janus as he leaned over to the same, then carried the tot to his room.

Remus gently tossed Janus onto the bed then sat on the floor. Janus giggled as he bounced then clambered over to sit near Remus.

"Did I really not make Mama sad?" Janus asked once he'd settled.

"Your mom is a little sad, but it's not your fault, okay?"

"But he only got said when I asked about my other mom," Janus pointed out.

Remus nodded. "That's true, but it's-" he sighed. "Okay, here's the deal. When we go out there, and if anyone else asks. Your mom and I wished for you on a falling star and after we made our wish the star got brighter and brighter till it crashed into the ground right in our backyard. And when we went to go look at it, it was a spaceship! And you crawled out of the spaceship just like Stitch did and we adopted you just like Lilo did. Okay?"

Janus nodded seriously.

"Now, it's true we adopted you, because just like Lilo we loved you very much and we wanted you. But you know how Uncle Ro is my brother right? And he adopted Patton and that makes him Patton's daddy, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, your mom had a sister. And she had a baby. And that baby was you. And she loved you. She loved you so much, Jan. But she got really, really sick and she couldn't take care of you by herself anymore. So Logan and I adopted you and then Logan became your mom and now I'm your poppy."

Janus frowned thoughtfully. "Does it make him sad that I call him Mom if my other mommy was his sister?"

"I can promise you, it makes him very happy for you call him mom," Remus assured.

"Did she get too sick like great gramma?" Janus asked quietly and Remus sighed.

"Yeah, she did."

Janus nodded a slight pinch to his brow. "Is it bad I don't remember her?"

"No, baby. You were really, really little when it happened. It's okay to feel sad that you don't remember her, though, and it's okay for you to express that. Or you might even feel angry about it sometimes and that's okay too. If you need someone to talk to your mom and I are always here for you."

Janus squinted at his poppy. "You're gonna tell him I didn't really come out of a spaceship, huh?"

Remus chuckled. "Yes, I'm going to tell him that I told you the truth. But not yet. He still needs a little time and that's okay."

"Can I tell him that you call me gremlin cause I came out a spaceship like Stitch?"

Remus broke into a grin. "I like the way you think, kid. That's a very clever idea. Here's the plan. I'm gonna go check on Mama and see how he's doing. You play in here for a little while and when we come to check on you, you can tell him the reason I call you goblin and gremlin is because of the spaceship thing. Deal?"

"Deal!" Janus shook the out stretched hand.

Remus tousled Janus's hair as he came to his feet. "I'll see you in few minutes, goblin."

---

"How's Janus?" Logan croaked, quickly swiping at his cheeks when Remus re-entered the living room.

"Janus is fine," he answered. He slid onto the couch and enveloped Logan in a firm embrace in one fluid movement. Logan buried his face in Remus's shoulder and gripped fistfuls of his shirt. With practiced ease Remus carefully lifted Logan's glasses from his face and set them aside, then leaned back against the arm of the couch, pulling Logan against him and holding him tightly. Logan let out a shuddering gasp as he fought to keep him composure.

"Don't do this, babe," Remus whispered. "Don't bottle it up. It's just me, my love, let it out. It's safe to now."

And Logan did so, quietly crying into his husband's shoulder as Remus held him steady breathing in a even rhythm he was able to match after several minutes had passed. Several more passed before Remus kissed his head.

"You good?"

Logan nodded and sat. "Yes. Thank you."

Remus held the back of his head and kissed his jaw then his cheek then his temple and Logan smiled.

"We should check on Janus," he said and slipped his glasses back on.

"Go wash your face first," Remus advised, thumbing away some of the moisture from his cheek and resisting the urge to kiss him again.

He failed and gently tugged Logan close and kissed just above his temple.

Logan laughed softly. "Are you going to let me?"

"Maybe not," Remus murmured, leaning his forehead against Logan's head. He gently pushed forward, kissing the corner of his jaw.

Logan closed his eyes, allowing himself to enjoy the moment and the comfort of Remus's presence.

"Remus." He touched the hand that cupped his cheek and gently pulled it away. Remus sighed but sat back. "Janus will probably need help with his homework."

Remus nodded. "He shouldnt even be getting homework," he grumbled. "Poor little dude's only six."

Logan chuckled. "I agree. But that's why we help with it. Do you want spelling or math?"

"I suck at both of those," Remus complain and followed Logan to the bathroom. "We want the kid to pass. How about I cook dinner and you get homework duty?" He passed Logan a towel to dry his face with after he'd spashed some cool water against his skin and waited patiently for Logan to dry his face before offering his rebuttal.

"There has to be at least one vegetable as part of the meal."

"Counter offer: there's fruit."

"Pineapple on pizza does not count."

"Why not?"

"Because it's gross, darling."

"Okay, alternate counter point. We still eat pizza, but it's pepperoni and we have fruit salad as dessert."

"Fine, but no whipped cream."

"Whaddaya mean no whipped cream?!" Remus demanded playfully.

"I mean, you and Janus are both lactose intolerant! He's had a hard enough day without adding a stomach ache onto it at the end."

Remus groaned dramatically, drawing more laughter from Logan. "You just want me to suffer!" He punctuated the last word by dropping his head on Logan's shoulder with a pout.

"Alright, how about this," Logan slipped his arms over Remus's shoulders. "I'll take homework, you take dinner, and I'll make the homemade caramel sauce you like so much and we can have caramel apples slices for desert."

"I guess!" Remus complained and lifted his head. He grinned cheekily and stole one last kiss. "C'mon, let's go check on the gremlin."

---

Janus ran at Logan when his door opened. "Mama!"

Logan knelt to catch the tot and hugged him tightly.

"Are you still sad?"

"No, I'm okay now. Poppy sat with me and let me be sad for a little while and I'm feeling better now. Are you okay?"

Janus nodded. "Poppy told me everything."

Logan tried to conceal the alarm that flared in his chest. "He did?"

"Mhm," Janus nodded. "He told me aaalll about the spaceship I crawled out of and that's why he calls me gremlin."

Logan blinked and let out a long sigh.

"I'm sorry my space ship almost crashed the house and got you kicked out of the apartment."

"Whoa! I didn't say that!" Remus objected.

Logan shook his head. This was a problem for a different day. "Why don't we just get started on your homework?" He suggested.

"Okaaaay," Janus complained dramatically. Logan snickered, he was so much like his poppy.

#sanders sides #sanders sides au #remus sanders #logan sanders #janus sanders #intrulogical #familial lociet #familial demus #silly parent aus #my writing

[justashadetalkative]

Spire Teleportation Mishaps

Figured I'd put together a list of some of the more common potential causes as inspiration for future use! It's an easy trope for tossing folk into your setting and having them be Actually Stranded for at least a little while, and can serve as fodder for additional complications besides.

(This is mostly for my own reference, but feel free to DM me if any of these capture your imagination and you want me to put together a starter. ^_^)

.

Vector wyrms:

These are creatures that are drawn to the energy of connections between planes and try to eat anything traveling through. The Spire has had one or two infestations over the years.

Most of the folk who can enact interdimensional travel from the Spire can react in time to avoid getting eaten, but this often involves reaching for the metaphysically "closest" destination, and can also involve arriving with quite a bit of speed. (Or, rather, a lack of necessary motion; a failure to completely sync up with the motion of a given planetary body.)

Injuries from the landing are pretty common, and the emergency spellwork during the save itself usually isn’t gentle, either.

This can be just the messed up teleportation, or the wyrm could get pulled through into the new setting as well and everyone would have to deal with a cranky void critter!

.

Minor disruptions:

On a less extreme front than the vector wyrms, sometimes Shit Happens and there’s a magic surge, or one of the Spire’s less scrupulous inhabitants decides to mess with folk, or the target destination is protected with a redirection spell, or somebody disrupts the casting at the last moment, etc.

Due to his epilepsy, Diamond builds most of his teleportation spells with a strict pass/fail structure. Either he completely finishes casting the spell and successfully enacts the final instantaneous 'trigger', or he doesn't trigger it and the spell fizzles harmlessly.

But other less cautious mages can be more susceptible to this, and it doesn't protect against active outside redirection and such.

.

Plain old mistakes:

If Diamond (or other teleporting party) doesn’t have a pre-made anchor to target, the spell can literally just misfire.

This is pretty rare – otherwise teleportation wouldn't be trusted as a frequent mode of travel! But it does happen.

In Diamond's case, it's more likely if he’s rushed (e.g. fleeing from something), unwell, or burnt out from too much casting.

.

Spire connections:

In much the same way that the Spire itself sometimes draws in (seemingly) random people from random worlds, it does sometimes send its inhabitants to places, too.

This one is literally, in-universely narratively convenient. It absolutely tends to involve showing up in some moment when the arrival will help or disrupt something significant.

People being trapped, in danger, or feeling like they’re short on options or don't have a safe place to go are pretty common triggers.

The other direction of “the Spire needs something these people or this world could theoretically provide” happens, too!

On the other end of the intensity spectrum, sometimes literally all that prompts it is dramatic irony

.

Banishment:

Cueing off the D&D spell: Some enemy caster (or Clemcy in a bad mood sdlghdf) decides to planeshift someone to get them out of the way.

.

Losing a tail:

During certain plot events, Spire casters might be forced to hop through a fairly rapid sequence of teleportations to different realms in an effort to keep someone from tracking directly back to the Spire.

Needless to say it’s a bit draining, and can result in mistakes -- or in the caster simply running out of energy and being forced to rest before they'd intended!

.

Malfunctioning equipment:

Some of the Spire’s engineers are a little, uh, reckless. Sometimes folk get caught in the crossfire. :')

.

Others to be added as I think of them!

#queue #wishlist #plot bunnies #wishlist: general #starter call #plotting #details #details: the Spire #details: Diamond #the spire #Diamond

[eggs-can-draw]

First, I bring the sneak peek

this master post is being made by a person who has a monster energy drink cans hung above their bed as a pride flag (the 8 colors version), I get to make it an eyesore (would make anything rainbow if given the opportunity to do so)

I am going for chronological events over chronological posting, definitely not done adding subcategories there, I know The Horrors will include Live Parents Reaction section and the alt ch 3 section. Speaking of which. I have an oumatsu question, I mentioned in the tags while reblogging the fic you wrote for Shuichi and Kokichi. Or more like multiple, is the alt ch 3 canon to the AU timeline or is it a what if? In the fic that I will be writing, would you rather I be evil and made their confession during a very emotional (crying & more crying & hugging) ch3 moment or be nice and do it after Kokichi wakes up in a soft kind of tender moment with a proper conversation (the Shuichi plan) they're going to have either way happening as part of the confession? Unrelated question, but did you reblog the outfit kitties just bc they're cute or are you doing the drawing meme? I just think Raspberry has Kaede vibes all over it, Kokichi would look good in Lilly Pilly Berry and Shuichi could match them in being pink as Strawberry or Pine berry, but like, I already visualized them in my head so no pressure if you weren't going to be taking requests on that. If I could get one request of them, I'd rather get this one I've had since last night, it's something I am going to put in the fic so it'd be an illustration basically.

post-game cuddle pile, Kokichi's old cat (10 years old at this point) sleeps above their heads, Kokichi himself is sprawled on top of the two of them, basically on Shuichi, would be listening to his heartbeat if they weren't asleep, but with an arm and a leg thrown over Kaede, who's snuggled up to Shuichi's side, it's Summer and they're in a sunbeam, so the blanket is nearly fully kicked of, tangled between their legs. They weren't supposed to have that sleepover, but Shuichi had a nightmare and when they checked on the groupchatTM after he calmed down it turned out Kaede was awake too, so they texted her to come over, knowing that none of them would be able to go back to sleep on their own.

It doesn't have to be today or under this ask, if you don't have time for drawing when you see it, I need answers for questions more.

Last bit: them playing house as kids and having all those weird ideas about what a normal family is like because as little kids they have no idea their parents are... pretty unique. Only in funny ways, tho. Like, I just imagined that as opposed to Kokichi's mind blown Kaede's reaction to polyamory was just like "that's how things are, I am going to have that in my future" and she makes a drawing of that future, explaining it to Mikan "this is my husband A, cooking dinner, and this is my husband B cleaning, and I am on tour playing piano like a girlboss", M: Hmm... A girlboss? Did Monaca teach you that word? K: Yes, when I learned playing that pop song to make an original TikTok soundtrack for her last week, it's not a bad word right? M: It's not, but... what song? K: Uhhh, the Boss... girl song. Or like "So which one of you is the one that gets a lobotomy?" type beat

Phwoof this is a biggun get ready for WORMS

YOOOOOO THATS SUPER COOL DUDE!! I like how organized it is that’s so fucking dope my dude <- (is going to be thinking about this for the next few hours)

QUESTION TIME:

✨ The alt ch3 is canon it scratches my brain too much

✨HONESTLY EITHER WOULD PROBABLY MAKE EMOTIONAL

✨ honestly it was a mix of both lol, cute fruity kittties and if anyone wants I can draw fruity blorbos lol

✨ALSO IVE GOT YOUR REQUESTS SCREENSHOTTED AND ILL GET TO THEM ASAP (which means I’ll probably thumbnail it during work and get started after work lol)

ALSO ALSO I LOVE THEM HAVING DIFFERENT TAKES ON WHAT A “NORMAL” FAMILY IS LMAO. I kinda like the thought of Kokichi’s polyamory realization being that you can just have more than one parent lol

They’re silly funky

#eggs can answer #monster energy drink pride flag is fucking awesome #kokichi ouma #shuichi saihara #kaede akamatsu #oumatsu #MORE TAGS LATER

[princesssarisa]

Beth March for the 7 questions ask?

Three facts about them from my personal headcanons.

She's on the autism spectrum, or would be if she lived today.

She probably couldn't put into words why she's so especially close to Jo out of all her sisters, when on the surface they're opposites. But deep down she knows the reason why, besides "opposites attract": it's because they're both misfits. Meg and Amy are much better at following the rules their society expects of young women; Jo and Beth never fit that mold, Jo because of her tomboyishness and Beth because of her shyness. This mutual sense of being different draws them closer together, even though they're different in opposite ways. (I headcanon them both as neurodivergent – ADHD Jo, autistic Beth.)

If she had lived, she might have eventually and unexpectedly fallen in love and gotten married. I don't think that would have been impossible. But it would have to have been with a very unique, understanding young man. He might be the only Little Women OC I'd ever be tempted to create.

A reason they suck:

She doesn't think she was ever meant to live long, because she never wants to leave her family, get married, or lead a "normal" adult life. What does that say to those of us in the real world who have that in common with her?

A reason they are great:

She's one of the kindness, most loving, most unselfish and generous people you'll ever meet, and she shows just how valuable the most easily-overlooked person (sickly, shy, never leaves home, etc.) can be.

A reason I relate to them:

I'm also "young" for my age, don't have any grand ambitions, and just want a quiet, peaceful life near my family.

(what I consider to be) the top tier otp/ot3 for that character:

None.

Five things that never happened to the character that I believe should have happened:

Someone (maybe Jo) should have taken time to imagine what her life would have been like if she hadn't gotten sick. That someone should have told her, or at least spelled out to the readers, that even if she had lived with her parents until they died, and then maybe moved in with Jo and Friedrich to help care for the children at Plumfield, that even if she reached old age without ever marrying, having children, or "achieving" anything outside the home, her life would still have been happy and valuable.

Her musical compositions should have been published, even anonymously or under a pseudonym.

During her final months, she should have talked with Meg and Jo about a subject that's not even brought up again after Part I – the idea that the scarlet fever that started her decline was Meg and Jo's fault, because they wouldn't go to the Hummels in her place when she asked them to. She should have told them never to blame themselves, that she had been caring for the sick baby for a week and was almost certainly infected already when she asked them to go. Though it isn't mentioned, I suspect that Jo wouldn't have been so crushed with grief and depression after Beth's death if a part of her didn't still feel it was her fault.

She should have had more one-on-one interactions with Meg and Amy; even though she's clearly the closest to Jo, it would be nice to see more of her relationships with the other two.

After her death, someone (maybe Laurie in one of his ignorant moments) should have made a passing comment that she was "too fragile for this world," and someone else (either Jo or Amy) should have argued against that perspective. I'm just sick of seeing critics say that Beth has to die because she's too fragile for this world, and I wish the book spelled out that she wasn't.

Five people that character never fell in love with and why.

Laurie. He's a good friend; that's all.

John Brooke. Ditto.

Mr. Laurence; he's much too old and is more of an honorary grandfather.

Friedrich Bhaer. She sadly never meets him, but even if she had, he would just have been a good friend.

Frank Vaughn. Another friend, but not a love interest.

Fred Vaughn. Unlike Frank, he has nothing in common with her.

#little women #beth march #7 questions #fictional characters

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Ten stolen classified documents says Public Access Caligula sees no jail time while preteens are forced to deliver their rapists’ babies.

[The Daily Don]

* * * *

Before switching to the NBA Finals tonight, I watched the Chris Christie town hall on CNN. I guess I'd forgotten what a talented politician he is. At present, he's being written off by the groupthink punditocracy, but spare a moment for the former Governor of New Jersey. If we're very, very unlucky, we might see him take the GOP nomination in 2024.

Christie is being written off early for two reasons. First because he's bashing the cult leader, and second, he isn't hard-hard-right on social issues. And, sure, those are tremendous obstacles now, and I don't expect to see him near the top of the polls any time soon, but he's running a different campaign than the rest of the non-Trump contenders, all of whom are running for second place with the hope of a catastrophe that will somehow break in their direction.

Imagine it this way: All the other candidates - DeSantis, Haley, Scott, Sam the Eagle from South Dakota, Vivek Crazypants Ramaswamy - are packed into a car being driven like a madman by Donald Trump. None of them are wearing seatbelts, and all of them are rooting for the vehicle to barrel off a cliff and then crash, tumble, and rip itself apart in a way that will somehow miraculously hurl them free unscathed.

They all think that tying their fate to a career-ending accident for Trump will somehow redound to their benefit, blessing them with the imprimatur of "his political heir." They all think that, once the chief bully is gone, the next logical choice will be the one who most dutifully and slavishly licked his balls - and that's just dumb.

If we've learned anything about Trump voters, it is that they gravitate to strongmen, and NONE of the Republican candidates outside of Trump and Christie give off that vibe at all.

Mike Pence on his motorcycle? Gimme a break.

Meatball Ron? C'mon.

As noted, I don't expect to see Christie anywhere near the center podium for a long time, but he's quite intentionally running as a dark horse. He WANTS to be back in the polls for now. He WANTS to be discounted. He WANTS the second-tier candidates to chew one another up while embarrassing themselves in acts of public servitude to their master that would shame a scatporner. He WANTS to stand alone, independent, and proud while the rest of them play by the rules of cowardice and Hippocratic distance from anything that might cause harm, anything that might draw blood.

He wants to win this thing, in the end, as the warrior who was never afraid to fight - and THAT is a solid closing argument in any campaign.

Mind you, to win Christie needs the crazy car crash, too. He needs Donald to go up in flames and twisted metal. He needs the same catastrophe as the rest of them to pull this thing out, but if and when it happens, he will be the only one with any reasonable claim to a soul. He'll be the only one left with anything close to his dignity, and once the old king dies, a new one will need to rise.

Two things draw voters to Trump. The first is his Fuck-You Attitude, his sense of personal surety, his "only I can fix it" bravado. The second is the hate he channels. The question is which of those two attributes is stronger.

Chris Christie is betting that his personal brand will be there, in the end, to gather up, magnetically, the wreckage the Trump disaster leaves behind while DeSantis, Haley, and the rest of the losers sing encomiums to the exalted one's chilling bones.

It's a long way to go from here to then, but don't count Christie out yet. He's on a mission to take out Trump and, by so doing, to reclaim the Republican Party from the feral assholes currently in command.

I wish him just enough success to lose the nomination in the end. Of all the candidates on the Republican side, he's the last one I wanna face in November of 2024. He is heads and shoulders better at this than anyone else in the Republican field.

Love to you all.

[Michael J. Tallon]

#jail time #The Daily Don #Chris Christy #Michael J. Tallon

[thotsforvillainrights]

Let's see, let's see

I hope you don't mind another match up in case they're getting old for you if you don't mind thank you

I'm 5'4" genderfluid aspec

I'm dominately female presenting but I tend to get euphoria of being referred to as a man (most of the time) I like looking like a pretty boy I guess

I also humor sometimes I'd have a love based quirk because when I crush I crush Hard; I'm obsessional, in the moment I think this is the only one for me and this has only ever been the one for me and I'll never feel the same again

I think confidence is sexy so much so I'm the most confident person I know in terms of physical appearance (showing it off) and abilities in fact I come off as super aggravatingly arrogant sometimes

My skills include drawing and writing mostly I'm a natural with writing but don't do it often and my drawings aren't limited to cartoony but that's my thing my guy

When I'm crushing I doodle my affections sometimes I'll dedicate pages to them

Otherwise I'm good at physical labor as long as I can chug as much water as I please or ironically office work between the two I'm terribly charismatic I didn't work 4 years of managerial retail for nothing to not be good at all these things somehow

I have a boisterous infectious laughter and as my friends tell me a charged up laugh I'll start off breaking into giggles before just exploding

Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry the weird part? I laugh (genuinely) maybe once every few or handful of months

Speaking of which I cry even less but when I cry I'm having a built up full on meltdown the world is over and I need to cry

Shoutout to that one anon I also have a flock to me aura I'll attract anyone to me I used to hang out with a variety of people back in highschool in fact the more so someone was believed to be antisocial the more of a chance they came to me

I believe in the power of parallel play even for adults just parallel work/vibe sitting in not awkward silence is my form of intimacy

Speaking of intimacy I'm actually partially touch repulsed and I'd either need someone who's going to accept that 100% or help me push through it I think my major problem is people I don't want touching me

I'm actually two very different people on and off the phone on the phone I could be lovingly affectionate even daring but off I'm just... Not I could talk about hugging and kissing and all those daring things over the phone but irl I have little intention of following through

I like sending people saucy pictures and getting good reactions and then never following up on that however it's always been with people I was never crushing on just on good terms with to do that I imagine I'd change with someone I'm just absolutely obsessed over

I do fantasize about being touched just fiction is very different from reality

I guess some straight up negatives about me is I have resting bitch face, if I'm taking a picture I have to take the picture because I'm self conscious but hate saying it, I'm very fickle and my opinion could change day to day (hour to hour), I'm prone to mental illness I have to take medication for (anxiety, bipolar, depression, etc) and even on medication I'm still a rollercoaster to be around, and finally my Fight or Flight response is freeze and then one of the two usually fight I've tackled someone to get my friends backpack once and the guy just laid there wheezing for a while, I quite basically blacked out and bitch slapped someone who accidentally threw something at my head and he talked about how it stung for a week, and when someone ran into me I before I knew what was happening turned around and punched them square in the mouth busting both their lips and in shock walked away laughing

(No I don't mind! I worry about them getting old for everyone else haha! Feels like my writing is in a box and can't get any better when I do them. I'm glad they're still rolling in. It's good practice for me!)

Match-Up #20

-I match you with Tomura Shigaraki-

headcanon|scenario|imagine|match-up

-Hard to say how he feels about you but I'm sure the both of you know it's true love, no matter how sappy it sounds to say it. He's likely never felt the need to seek something like this and figured he could go his entire life without it, but you waltzed right in and stole his heart without you even knowing it really. At first glance the two of you seem like you wanted nothing to do with each other. You weren't the only one with a case of RBF. He was also the very same. In fact you two probably connected pretty well over it. It's also true you two feel the same about pictures. However, his reason is likely not being identified by law enforcement. (When you started dating he still snuck blurry candid pics of you to secretly set as his lockscreen) You likely ended up falling harder for him than he did for you at first since your quirk affected you pretty heavily. It took him some time to catch up with you since he's not the romantic type. Really without Twice, Toga, Compress, or Kurogiri he'd have no damn idea what he was doing in the first place. He hopes that despite how bad he is at being a romantic guy, you won't get tired and bail on him before he has a chance to show you what he can do.

-It's not hard to see why you'd fallen for him to be honest. At the time he was rather confident (which had proven to be his downfall time and time again). You can mirror it if you want, but remember to not be too arrogant considering you don't want to get harmed dealing with villain business if you so choose. Not only that but you also found him rather attractive than most people would. When you caved and showed him the drawings you did of him for the first time it set his heart on fire. The corner of his lips tugged into a small smile and he probably took the pages as a keepsake. No one had ever drawn him before (unless you count a police sketch), so this was important to him. He'd also fallen for you for your aspects too. Whatever you felt most confident as during any time or any day, he was there for. He'd compliment you based on what suit you for the time and he damn sure meant it. Everything about you seemed to make his skin burn in a good way. He probably can't tell he's blushing or staring sometimes. It's a funny sight to see lol.

-There's going to come a time in the relationship where he wants to touch and to be touched. Although it's not inherently sexual, it's still very present between the two of you. He knows how you feel about the touch repulsion thing. To be honest, he's fine with it in the start of the relationship considering he's worried about too much contact due to his quirk. The longer you date, the more he starts to want it. He will help you work through it if you want, and he's patient enough to keep hanging in there for as long as it takes. The other interests start to come along when you become a bit of a phone tease. By no means has he ever been intimate with anyone, but that doesn't mean he's blind to attraction. That man probably had so many incognito tabs before he met you. If you pull anything on him then he's of course going to want to follow through (fitting your pace of course).

-He's quiet around you, observant sometimes. He likes to just sit and watch you do your thing. Sometimes he asks questions and other times he just stares. His favorite thing to do is watch you draw. Bonus points if you make the same face as the picture you draw or maybe if you have this weird thing you do when drawing like leaning or something. He thinks it's endearing really. As for your writing, he watches and reads along for a moment but he doesn't have the attention to keep going with it. It's probably the same thing if he were to play a game with too much dialogue. That doesn't mean he doesn't support you! When he's not watching you with interest doing your hobbies, he's grimacing at you pulling too much with the League. Because they seem to hover to you, they let you in on helping do some things around the base. Tomura doesn't like the idea of you having to work like that. Even watching you drink the water, he still would prefer having you relaxing next to him.

-The first time you laughed really hard around him scared the shit out of him. It was so sudden and he had no warning. You must've seen something extremely funny on your phone because you had tears that showed up. It was odd to him since he rarely saw it, but it also made him want to chuckle a bit as well. Maybe he was just happy seeing you happy, yknow? Sometimes though, he doesn't get the rare laugh. Sometimes he gets the very rare crying. Having a breakdown around him for the first maybe made you think he would think different of you right? Wrong. In the moment (if you'll let him) he wants to be there for you more than anything. He knows sometimes you can have it rather rough with everything going on in your life. Don't ever worry about how he'd feel. His main concern is protecting you and making you happy...cared for. He's used to you by now of course. Years down the line he's used to your RBF, your fickle behavior, that funny laugh you do, how hard you work sometimes, how quickly you can drink water, etc. He doesn't love you any differently than he did from the moment he'd first fallen for you.

#match up

[ceciliaglass03]

I love Edie Sedwick. I don't know when I first discovered her image, who she was, and every ounce of her history. If I was going to give a ballpark guess I'd say Pinterest or previous fixations on other factory members. She is so impossibly beautiful, like this bright light of intelligence and genuine spirit. I was recently in a gallery that had a series of Andy Warhol's screen tests and they placed hers a few screens away from Dylan's. Everyone's screen tests were postured with this very curated look to the camera. Most of the women who were in the screen tests were models or actors, as was Edie. But she was independent from all of them. She was the only person who looked as if they were truly being looked at or even looked through. Her expression is like when you've noticed someone has been staring at you a good long while sitting in a restaurant or cafe, that type of uncertainty if a person is looking at you for the right reasons. Is it disdain or admiration?

I had drawn a cartoon cat on a postcard in exchange for some good ol' pot a few weekends ago. It was my second time in a real Irish apartment, not a dorm or hostel or other nightmare. The guy I did the drawing for was a bit odd but he lived with 4 Italian girls who were able to coexist with him pretty soundly. He didn't seem to quite live in a room in the apartment, rather the janky closet beside the kitchen. His books were piled up to the top of the windows in the living room, titles on European archeology and Irish medieval history. A pizza box was sort of tucked away by his knee. He asked me if I wanted to play the new maps on Mario Kart after I had finished the drawing for him. He handed me a pipe that looked like a hinge off a door or some metal screw left around as a spare. His broken lighter burnt my hand. We played two rounds and he told me stories about a former roommate he believed to have some social issues for about an hour. I've got this problem with not knowing how to end a conversation. I hate lulls in every type of interaction because it makes me feel like I'm being punished. Whenever I could've ended it I was barely at the start of drooling out another sentence. Eventually, I just started to close my backpack as he kept talking and stood sort of haplessly in front of my chair. Nothing was interesting out the window, there was a poster on the wall that seemed out of character for the guy. Before I left, he showed me a spear he had made out of parts he had found, made me try on a jacket (I was a bit confused by that one because I had on a jacket), and stood in his kitchen for a few moments. Three hours after I had arrived, I left and walked to the mall off the town square.

I hadn't eaten too much and went to a coffee shop in the food court. Where I grew up, most local malls were outdoor functions and not quite the pinochle of Christmas commercialism. We had music and decorations it’s just not authentic when it’s absolutely boiling on December 15th. Plus, the magic of Christmas music echoing through the sterile halls of a local mall is special. It’s that once a year sort of goodness, the time where it feels good to be a bit of an idiot and buy into something.

I ordered a gingerbread man and tea. For a moment I sat there in this cafe trying to draw different types of boxes for a comic strip I had planned in my head. Three separate pages and I couldn't do it the way I pictured. I’d to the boxes, uneven. I’d do the title, smudge it. I looked up from my work and this woman was staring at me. Sometimes I imagine things so my knee jerk reaction was to assume she wasn’t staring at me, I wanted attention or I was high and confused. Then I looked up again and she was still staring at me. She was an old Irish lady crouched in the table across from me. She finished her drink a while before and it was right in front of her with a crumpled napkin sitting against it, and she looked disgusted. Or horrified, or absolutely placid. I was sure she was staring at me and she knew I had noticed because I looked up at her three times in quick succession. Like Edie’s uncertainty in Screen Test I felt some inkling of white hot embarrassment. I was being picked apart. It’s what you want, to be noticed. It’s what I’ve always wanted at least. When you’re given everything you want, it becomes a bit disgusting. That scene in Daises with the food all laid out before them comes to mind. Ideas are really the best things to desire.

The woman came up to me and said, “I’m so sorry for staring at you. I was just looking at your makeup.” In fairness, a large quantity of black and grey crap was around my eyes. Recently I started wearing makeup everyday which I haven’t done since high school. I said back to her before she got the last bit of her sentence in the open, “It’s all good! Thank you!” I wonder if that was the real reason she was looking at me that long. Maybe I caught her?

Edie Sedgwick said when reflecting on her time in New York, “You have to put up with people projecting their own attitudes, ideas, misunderstanding you.” I think a do a little misunderstanding rather than being misunderstood. If my life were perfect, it would be the other way around.

(writer’s note: god I’m so cringeworthy, forgive me internet and the no one who likes my posts)

#text #writing #edie sedgwick #the factory