#my artist burn out has died finally

[rukiexramen]

Twilight Dust

#my artist burn out has died finally #I CAN ART NOW RAAAAAAAAAAAAH #My art #Desert #Stars #eclipse #hooded figure #sand #digital art

[literalgrill]

Do NOT Support Hard Drive On Patreon

You might see friends today suggesting you support Hard Drive on Patreon today. You know, the funny video games version of The Onion? As a journalist, I will firmly tell you DO NOT GIVE THEM A DIME.

The CEO has pushed out all former staff that have built the site up to its current greatness and has been pushing the use of AI. The staff begged to have a Patreon before basically all being pushed out, but the idea was refused until now, when it will only line the pockets of a single person instead of hard working writers.

I know they might have provided laughs before, but Hard Drive is a shell of what it was once. Let it die and support the people who actually made those moments of joy possible. Don't believe me? Check out what former employees are saying below:

Kevin Podas: Okay you know what, I would feel bad saying nothing about this, so here goes:🚨SAVE YOUR MONEY🚨

We passionately advocated for a Patreon at Hard Drive & were aggressively shot down. The talent & people who built the site were pushed out. To see this now is beyond upsetting. For the past few years or so I put a lot of myself into this website. I pitched a ton of jokes, got over 120 articles published, & met a lot of great people. I'm sure if you've been following me for some time you could easily see this.

However, there is a lot of misinformation. I was eventually promoted to Managing Editor of the site & was ecstatic. Grateful for the opportunity. Felt like all of my hard work in the comedy mines was finally paying off. But things took a turn for the worst, & each day there were new surprises that affected our livelihoods. These were all very avoidable surprises, mind you.

A patreon was going to be our hail mary, but alas, for some reason, the power that be did not want it. Causing us to leave a dream job behind. "At least we did all we could," we consoled ourselves afterwards. I put a lot of myself into this project. I pitched all sorts of ideas that could have helped-- we all did. Merch collaborations, Patreon-integrated YouTube content, so much more. And most of them were shot down out of sheer stubbornness and nothing more. To see lie after lie spread, and multiple big publications and YouTubers that I am a fan of promote this Patreon under these pretenses is incredibly upsetting. There are so many receipts.

Please share this and consider pulling out if you've already put money into this. On Hard Drive using AI, also from Kevin Podas: I can't personally confirm that part aside from some of the recent header images for articles on both Hard Drive and Hard Times are being made with AI. As far as writing, it's been mentioned in the past, but I personally do not know. Maybe others do, maybe not. MORE From Kevin Podas suggesting the owner denying a Patreon being set up earlier cost an artist a job that was replaced by AI: We had a social media person who was awesome! He made the images until this AI implementation. He had to leave because ad revenue was low and a Patreon was aggressively refused.

Luca Fisher: at the risk of burning some bridges, i have to back up kevin here. i've only been part-time, in-and-out of hard drive since i got in last year, but i can corroborate that management doubled and tripled down about not hosting a patreon/crowdfunding and that many other suggestions and ideas, including mine (and ones much smarter than mine!), were shot down in really long, apocalyptic threads of everyone left on deck desperately trying to come up with ways to keep the lights on. managerially it has been messy and sad

i've written for multiple publications that have long since died, ones that were in the process of dying, and ones that, in this case, are soon to be put in the ground. it is sad and sucks every time. i don't know what could have been done differently, but i do know that a lot of great writers and content creators were left shorthanded and unhappy by the way things have gone. and it is sort of puzzling to see the sudden championing of patreon after we were all told plenty of times that it couldn't work and we should move on also, just to add my own personal two cents here, i was really disappointed by the shuttering of many different article sections on the site over the past 6-8 months. i understand cutting corners in a deficit, and i know it had to be done. that said…

all in all, i'm really sad to see this all happen. i don't fault anyone, if only because i don't really know enough about how this all can happen to make sense of it. games journalism is in a sad, sorry state, and will likely no longer be a thing in the next decade

VideoSealMan: I'm gonna say this because I think I deserve to. For months, MONTHS on end I was bugging Hard Drive management about a Patreon. Often I got ignored for a week+, but when I actually got a response I was encouraged to - of all things, write up a Google Doc pitching the concept I did it regardless. I wasn't the only one trying to sway management on a Patreon, but so fiercely was I fighting for it that last night, I was accused of making this comment directly by the CEO! With no evidence whatsoever! After I'd been gone for over a month.

I vouched so hard for Patreon because I wanted all the writers and creatives working with Hard Drive including myself to get paid better. When I actually got a response, the idea was often shut down. Eventually due to the state of my company, my pay was cut for a second time I confronted management alongside a couple other important figureheads at the org and told them that if we couldn't do a Patreon - I could no longer financially justify staying there. The answer was still no, so I left. Baffled at the decision, but whatever.

It is unendingly frustrating to know that myself and many other people who put their soul into Hard Drive LEFT because of management's absolute refusal to compromise on a Patreon, to then see them launch one anyway a month later and get over 1000 people pledging money. I'm seeing a lot of things float around about greed and people being fired. No one was fired. Everyone who left, left because they were sick of management's decision-making. And honestly, management is a lot of things but I would not call them greedy. (From my experience.) They did genuinely make an effort to pay people as much as possible. I found the pay very fair for a while. I am not disputing that I was paid what I was owed - yet management frequently feels the need to remind critics of that. Lmao, yes. I was paid what I was owed. No one is disputing payment. You did the bare minimum a business owner should do and paid everyone their due, very well done. I make no allegations of greed, cheating or foul play. I make allegations of poor management and incompetence that has fucked over other people.

Basically the only people left at Hard Drive have been there for about 2 months. They will reap the rewards of this successful Patreon I and so many others passionately fought for for so long. We will not see a dime.

I do not know the new people at Hard Drive, But I feel bad for them. They were haphazardly thrust into Hard Drive's workplace with little to no explanation on how anything works, or given any context on the state of the place. Even now managements feeds them half-truths and misinformation about other people's grievances. I am broke and have been for a while. I had to move out of my flat in Reading and back with my family because of how little money I was making. This has basically doomed my flatmate to moving back in with abusive parents, which is something I feel guilty about every day. If we had gone with the Patreon I worked myself hoarse over back then, this could have been avoided. Some of my other good pals could also not have been fucked over.

It was a bad judgment call, but it's not a crime. It's just management getting it wrong.

So should you give to the Hard Drive Patreon? I don't know! I don't think any of the new people working there to patch up the holes left by the recent mass exodus have any bad intentions. Maybe they deserve it! But it is not the same site you knew a year ago, or even a month ago. Myself and many people who were there far longer than me and did far more for it than I did are all gone now because we could not deal with management's terrible decision-making and dogass communication any longer. That's what you should know, imo

I had an agreement in place with management that I would receive the next 8 months of revenue from the Hard Drive YT channel from my leaving in November. This was a deal I appreciated, and thought was very fair on management's behalf. So far, the deal has been honoured for 2 months. However as of last night I was removed from the Hard Drive Slack without warning, and as an editor for the YouTube channel. This means I no longer have any way of verifying how much I am owed, I just have to take their word for it. I'm sure management will make their own statements full of half-truths and weird language on the many cases being brought against them - I'd take everything they say with a pinch of salt if some of the screenshots I've seen of them talking about me are any indication lol

To management; I do not want to talk to you. I want you to DM me a screenshot of how much I'm owed every month and then send me the money per our agreement until June, then we can go our separate ways. Do that and admit to your mistakes, and maybe you can recover your reputation! That's it from me, lol. If they pull out of the deal and fuck me over I'll have more to say, but most of what I know is other people's stories of incompetence and poor decision-making, lol. I genuinely get no pleasure out of doing this; I do not think management is evil - I just think they're really bad at what they do and it's cost other, more talented people, lol. You should believe the writers imo

One last thing I wanna say btw, management did often stress that no one should try to make Hard Drive a full time thing. They were transparent about that, and that is fair. I was working on it because at a few points, I was lead to believe we actually were doing a Patreon. Many other ppl have similar stories of being strung along by management changing their minds and stop-starting shit every 2 weeks. We all made the fatal mistake of overestimating our manager - who would tell you one thing one day and something totally opposite the next week lol

Hunter R. Thompson:

I'm not your dad, but speaking as a Hard Drive writer, I don't know that funding Hard Drive on Patreon is worth it

The driving talent on the back end—behind the kickass site I joined in 2019—have peaced out over the years as the site's been (in our view) increasingly mismanaged. Mismanagement like, not setting up crowdfunding before the ship sank and all its best crew failed; or publishing a screenshot of Andy Ngo pedojacketing a trans writer, complete with her deadname; or a disgruntled ex-writer getting falsely accused of shit-talk, by actual staff. I'm grateful for the writing I've gotten to produce for HD (and will forever be kicking myself for not writing even more, in the four years I've had to do it!! i'm a dumbass!!!) but it is very much no longer the site I signed up for.

I don't want to resign as a contributor altogether, because I'm open to the idea of the site recovering and bad practices being retired as finances level out-- it would just be dishonest for potential backers to not be Aware Of The Circumstances, I think.

Jeremy Kaplowitz: i truly don't want to start shit, but feel compelled to say: i want to see Hard Drive succeed w/o resorting to throwing former writers & editors, myself included, under the bus. surely there's a way to save the site without building it over the corpses of those who left. my $0.02 i don't blame anyone who wants to sign up for the HD patreon and i support the website, but that includes those who worked on it for years, have complaints, and don't deserve to be treated like bitter assholes like this kind of stuff is just objectively true, meanwhile there's these new writers who joined the site after i left (meaning, in the last ~3 months) claiming people are liars. decide for yourself if you care, but this is what happened! [Quotes this Tweet]

Seth Finkelstein: Writing for Hard Drive has been a privilege the past few years, and it makes me so angry to see people I looked up to get jerked around behind the scenes. The amount of grenades the editors jumped on our behalf is immense, and I don't think the way they're being treated is right.

Other Bits On AI: We do know for sure however that AI art has been used by the site. Its fucking owner confirms it here:https://twitter.com/MattSaincome/status/1743040541603123622. Seems the owner pushed AI written articles as well! TayFabe: My vaguetweet is making the rounds & these made me apoplectic. - owner regularly lobbied using ai. Once he tested it & said ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. - ai images were used on the site & socials w/o consulting the team or disclosing it publicly I found the ai bit relevant to include bc 1) it illuminates a stark change in HD's current direction & leadership, 2) ai images have previously been used on the site and (since deleted) ig posts, 3) ai content fucking sucks, and repeatedly pushing to use it is a telling quality The "handful of writers who chose to leave" includes 2 editors-in-chief (both cofounders who wrote a combined total of >1,000 articles & defined the voice of HD), & at least 3 other editors. These guys put in WORK since 2017, so cool to be corrected by ppl who joined in Nov 2023 [Link to mentioned vague tweet from post.] More from TayFabe: owner continuously lobbied for using ai in every possible way. No one else wanted to do it, but he kept on, saying ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. Also, ai images were used on the site & socials without public disclosure or consulting the team.

The owner has responded now multiple times in a private discord... Thank you for people sharing screenshots! First Screenshot:

Kevin's Response: He banned me from the server for speaking out, so no, I didn't see it. And he gave no indication of a timeline, it was just "we'll do one when *I* say so" and gave every inclination he was totally against it. It bred an environment that pushed our hands to have to leave. Screenshot Round Two:

Kevin's Response: "Starting one in 3 months" is an absolute lie. He denied it, I have screenshots and others who can confirm. No timeline was given. Just "this is what it is now" and like, I couldn't live off of that. I wanted to do more but he was allergic to good ideas from others around him.

Matt, owner of Hard Drive, responds publicly on Twitter.

Matt: Kevin, the patreon launch was delayed because I didn't think it would work. Everyone is happy that it did work. Everyone who left the site because we didn't have money to pay for creative content which didn't revenue is welcome to return home. But unclear why the hostility.

Hard Drive paid out literally every dollar it had, then a bunch more, to creative people who worked on the site. When we ran out of money, we couldn't pay anymore. We did our best.

Kevin: Right, and my point of this thread was that it was completely and totally avoidable. This is reasonable to be upset about. How could I have been any more clear?

Matt: If we knew with 100% certainly that the community would have supported us via patreon, we would have done that. We didn't know. We had tried 4 years ago and got no support. We were wrong this time. We did our best to figure it out. We paid all the money we could.

Kevin: So you knew with 100% certainty this time? Or you took a leap of faith?

Matt: It was a last gasp panic effort after ad rates got cut in half on january 1st due to seasonal spending changes. We didn't know it would work. We were embarrassed to ask for support. We wanted to figure it out.

Kevin: Every site has a Patreon. Every YouTuber, comedy group, etc. But you insisted that nobody cared about Hard Drive. Which is wildly untrue. I know you see that now, but again, I think you can see why I and many others are pretty upset. A last ditch panic effort was long overdue. A couple more things from Matt:

It was about the size of the hole we needed plugged budget wise, the time I had left of personal resources, and the past data I had about us trying a patreon (which turned out to be a bad indicator). I didn't think the Patreon would help us fast enough. I made a bad estimation

aka "if we make $1000 more dollars a month via patreon, which would be 10x what we got last time, we will not solve any of our problems. If instead we try to plow down path B, we might make it out in time." That was the thinking. I chose the wrong path, but didn't mean to Kevin also retweeted this comment from the user Matt was responding to: So you're saying that you're bad at running the business, didn't listen to any of your employees until after they were forced to leave their jobs, and now you're going to get more of the money from the Patreon that was their idea in the first place? Matt's Response: Respectfully, I made a mistake delaying the patreon decision. But keeping a comedy site alive for 9 years is not easy, there are lots of potential ideas, and think overall we've done a good and honorable job. Will leave this thread in peace now to allow people their space.

Sorry for linking to Elon's hellsite (derogatory), but sources need links so...

#video games #patreon #hard drive #ai critical

[factual-fantasy]

10 Asks! Thank you! :}} 🌱

I assume I'm not, it appears to just be a chest cold 😞

<XD I've heard of whiteboard yeah. But I've never used it. I can just imagine people popping in just to scribble all over everyone else's work. I'll think I'll stick to solo drawing for now-

(Post in question)

XDD Sylvester has a tendency to be rather cursed-

@minnesotamedic186

I don't see why not! :}

(Post in question)

Indeed it is! I made a post talking about his backstory but I can't access my archive atm so I'll do a quick recap-

I don't actually know anything about madness combat. Some friends of mine were really into it and made a bunch of OCs and I wanted to be cool like them 🥺 so I made my own madness OCs based on what little knowledge I had.

His name is Casey. And he lived out in the middle of nowhere Nevada with two of his best friends in this giant armored truck that they built.

At some point they were caught in a burning building disaster, some bandits stole the truck and Casey's friends died in the fire. He wandered the wasteland alone for a few years.. before eventually stumbling upon the bandits camp.

He stormed into the camp and killed everyone, unfortunately his truck was nowhere to be found. He did however find this little girl that had been captured and tied to a tree.

Him and "Stefany" then traveled together for a few years before meeting a scientist named Eric. He had gotten separated from his group and was stranded. I had this idea that the people from the wasteland hate scientists. But Eric begged for help. They made a deal that if they brought this guy back to his lab, that he would give them this valuable thing from the lab. He agreed.

Eric didn't intend to keep his side of the deal. But after a few weeks of traveling together and bonding.. when they got to the lab he stole the thing and gave it to Casey. Getting himself booted off the lab team in the process.

So now the three of them travel together. Eventually Casey gets hurt really bad and the group has to camp out for a bit. While Stef was out looking for food, she saw Casey's truck in the distance. She went and hijacked it, kicking out the two bandits that were in it.

She drove it back to the camp but the bandits followed. There was a stand off between the bandits and Casey. When suddenly..

"..Casey? Is that you?"

The two bandits were Casey's friends he thought he'd lost. There's this tearful reunion, a lot of story telling and explanations.. and now they travel together as a family :)

Oh yeah and at some point Stef gets a (probably) rabid raccoon named kitty, even though there aren't animals in madness combat..? Apparently?? Idk I had barely any world knowledge when I made these characters <XDD

But now that I'm thinking about them.. I should draw them again some time.. 🤔 anyways, thank you for the interest and for the ask! It means a lot to me :}}

(video/link in question)

That's how I'd start probably. Then they'd build sandcastles, dig giant holes for no reason and play in the sea! :}

@couchwow

Sorry, I don't take drawing requests. :/ and considering my state, it's especially something I will not do upon request..

And what are you doing askin me to draw? 🤣 I've seen your work, you're quite the artist yourself! Why not draw it yourself? I know it'd come out great! :D (genuinely)

@astaherussy

I don't think much surprises the Mario Bros anymore. 😅 If they saw a crew of talking pirate cookies they'd just think "well this might as well be happening."

As for a bully on the ship, the crew would not tolerate any of that behavior towards Red. They'd shut that down real quick. ❌

@fallingbones

:DDD Thank you so much!! :}}}

@glitchhayden418

Jimmy's doin fine. And I'll draw what ever I WANT when I finally get over this, thank you very much! >:T ☝️☝️thank you tho :}}

#my response #cookie run #cookie run ocs #my ocs #cookie run Kingdom #super mario bros #haunter #sylveon #madness combat

[milkyrrr]

Doubt

"SO IT WAS YOU?!" Moon clenched his fingers on the thin metal neck with special fury, lifting the Ruin high above the ground.

"Ngh, l-let, me-, tell-, ngh..." he answered brokenly, helplessly swinging his legs in the air in an attempt to find support. Due to the difference in height and strength, he could not resist, only clinging to other people's hands to loosen his grip.

"Moon, you're overdoing it." Solar growled, crossing his arms over his chest. He was on edge too. He was also very, very angry that he was being used as a damn "model" in order to resurrect Eclipse. But now Moon was really overdoing it with aggression.

"I don't care, I'm going to squeeze his neck until it breaks and this fucking psycho dies to hell!" Moon shouted, without even turning to the interlocutor.

"Moon, I'm warning you..."

"I don't care! That piece of shit came back because of him! The only thing I fixed turned out to be a problem again! Isn't it wonderful, huh, Ruin? Have you achieved what you wanted?! Did you want me to not hold back my emotions? So get it, get it to the fullest, you, fucking masochist-"

"That's enough." Solar, approaching them a couple of steps away, abruptly pushed the Moon away, standing between them. Moon clenched his fists, watching Ruin, coughing, slide down the wall, trying to come to his senses and gulping for air.

"I won't let him stay alive. I'll kill him." the programmer growled.

"You didn't give him a chance to say a word, but you immediately attacked him. I know he brought Eclipse back, he copied my data, but don't you want to hear why he did it? If you kill him, you won't get an answer to any of your questions."

"Yes, I don't need answers! I can do it without his loud and eloquent words! Just let me get it over with!"

"No. You're not yourself, again. Try to take a step towards him and I promise I will take the necessary measures. Chill out. You can't make decisions based on emotions." Solar turned to Ruin, who was staring at them in fright... He... He didn't look like someone who could coolly bring back to life the main enemy of them. Them, which he almost considers family.

"Thank you, Solar." Ruin coughed. Leaning his hands on the floor, he tried to stand up, but his legs quickly gave way, and he had no choice, just to continue sitting on the floor, bending his knees towards himself and clasping them with his palms.

"Why did you bring Eclipse back?" Solar asked coolly, watching the Moon out of the corner of his eye.

"I didn't mean to, I swear! Me... I was forced." he replied in a frightened and very quiet voice, staring at the floor.

"Recently... A strange little robot came to visit me... He looked like an artist mannequin, and at first I didn't even pay attention to it. He said something about the stars, Lunar, and.. Eclipse... I didn't take his words seriously until he suddenly came right up to me and grabbed my hand. My head, it is... It got very sick. I felt with every grain of my body how everything inside me was bursting at the seams. My new body is strong enough, but unfortunately, the protection has not been finalized... This strange robot threatened me. He said that if I didn't follow his instructions, he would kill me. He said that this pain is the least he can do to me." Ruin swallowed before continuing. It was as if an invisible lump had risen to his throat. "I didn't know what to do, really! I did exactly as he asked, I copied Solar's voice and part of his personality. I swear, I'm really sorry, I tried to resist it, but this pain, it reappeared and pressed very hard on me, as if my rays were slowly but stubbornly torn from my head so that I could feel each wire thinning and tearing, and the sparks at the ends hurt, burning from the inside... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know I'm not worthy to be a part of your family, but I couldn't help it!" There was indeed desperation and helplessness in his voice.

"You are not just unworthy to be a part of the family, you are not worthy to live." Moon clenched his hand into a fist again. "Solar, let me through, I listened to the reason as you wanted, now I want to kill him even more."

"No."

This word was hard for Solar. But he understood that Ruin was just as much a victim as they were. He was just being used. You know, under pressure, you can make people do a lot of terrible things. And if the victim is naive and weak, then it is much easier to break it.

"What do you mean 'no'? He's still a traitor! Let me go, I say!" Moon started to boil again, but Solar turned to him, covering the figure sitting on the floor with his hands, hunched over with guilt.

"I said no. If you want to deal with everyone who is to blame for this, then go ahead. Because you know what? The Eclipse was created because of me. If I wasn't here, he would be too. I am the only native speaker of a code like it. So come on, show me your anger and hatred. Pounce on me like a wild dog, tear me apart."

Moon banged his fist loudly on the table next to him, after which he stomped loudly to the other side of the room, cursing under his breath. He stopped at the edge of the room and stood with his arms crossed over his chest. Solar sighed, then turned back and sat down on his knees near the Ruin. Putting his hand on his shoulder, he said:

"It's okay, buddy. I understand that you didn't want to do this. Promise me that we'll figure this out together. I don't want you to be alone and at risk."

"I'm really sorry..." Ruin whispered. The theater attendant shook his head to the sides.

"I know. I see it, Ruin. Now get up. You'll be safer in kindergarten than here alone. Eclipse hasn't done anything yet, and I don't want him to do anything to you. As more supporter he has, as worse it gets."

"I'll try not to let you down! I swear!" he exclaimed, raising his head. Solar snorted.

"I really hope so..."

#sun and moon show #fnaf #fnaf 9 #fnaf sb #fnaf security breach #sams ruin #tsams #sams #sams moon #sams solar #tsams solar #tsams moon #tsams ruin #just a little sketch of my theory

[aberooski]

Fuck it.

Random Yu-Gi-Oh GX headcanon dump part 2!

Part 1

Once again in no particular order, just the order they pop out of my brain.

Most of my headcanons are upsetting so we'll see what gets released from the vault this time 👀

Atticus takes care of anyone and everyone but himself, to an almost self-destructive degree at times.

The J-Squad kept in touch with Chumley after he left

Atticus is 100% a theater kid

Of the Primary Color Trio(tm), Syrus is the only one they trust to cook. As we've established, Jaden will burn down the kitchen if he tries, and Hassleberry isn't a bad cook, but he's the kinda guy who will have something really good and then walk away and accidentally wreck it.

Hassleberry has never measured ingredients in his life. He doesn't know what tea/tablespoons or measuring cups are.

Bastion's top artist on Spotify is Frank Sinatra

After graduation Atticus and Alexis made Chazz write down a list of things/experiences he's never done or had because of how restrictively he was brought up and they make it their mission to make sure he can cross off everything on the list.

Alexis has painted Chazz's nails for him more than once because she does a cleaner job than he does. 💅

Alexis also taught Chazz how to do eye liner

Jim tells people Shirley is his seeing eye croc when they ask why he has her

After graduation, every single one of them eventually starts going to therapy

Jesse was the one who finally convinced Jaden to at least try therapy after he repeatedly insisted to everyone that he didn't need it. He did

This is kinda canon actually, but Hassleberry doesn't remember what happens when he goes dinosaur berserk mode. The headcanon part is that it's not just like fuzzy memories or anything, there are just straight up holes in his memory. And it really bothers him.

Yuki is Jaden's mom's last name. She's Japanese but his dad is American and when they got married, he took her name.

Eventually, Bastion does return from the other dimension with Tania. Everyone is happy to see him. No one ever forgot him.

Aster carries Echo's memory with him until the day he dies. Just like his father, he'll always remember the poor girl who was murdered for a card. The girl he couldn’t save.

Crowler's the teacher everybody added on Facebook and all that after graduation because they're not his students anymore so they're allowed to be friends with him on social media 🤭

Syrus really does love his brother a lot, bit therapy really opens his eyes to how so many of his personal issues and fears and anxieties and inhibitions stem from Zane and how badly he treated him and how badly it stifled him as a person and is able to bring himself to hold Zane accountable for it all so he can actually find a way to heal from it all and they can truly mend their relationship.

Jaden regrets not holding Zane accountable for how he treated Syrus past their duel in episode 8 where the subsequently drops the issue because of Zane's dueling skills.

Bastion can play the piano

Chazz is the most bisexual little man on the planet 💖💙💜 pretty sure we all agree on this one

Atticus is pan 💖💛💙

Jaden and Jesse have gone as Jed and Octavius for Halloween at least once

One year Atticus used the fact that Halloween is his birthday as an excuse to convince Chazz be Snow White for Halloween so they could go as Snow White and Prince Florian.

By the time they're grown up and he and Atticus are living together/married the only family member of his that Chazz still keeps any contact with is his mom

Aster has intense trust issues after learning the truth about The D and his father's death

Hassleberry tilts his head like a dog when he's confused

Syrus actually gets sick a lot. 🤒

Zane giving kids cards to stop them from bullying Syrus was a common occurrence when they were little kids

Before Zane went off to train at Sheppard's dojo and before he started abusing Syrus in his own ways they were actually decently close considering Zane's inherent emotional distance

Slade and Jagger hated Chazz from day one.

Alexis has nightmares about Atticus being taken away again after he comes back. If they're bad enough, she'll go to his dorm in the middle of the night to check on him and make sure that he's safe, and often ends up sleeping on his couch for the rest of the night.

Chazz knows his family is homophobic so after he cuts his ties with his dad and his brothers, he comes out to Crowler because he's the closest thing to a genuine father figure he's really ever had

Crowler officiates Chazz and Atticus's wedding 💍

Inspired by Yusei, Jaden got a motorcycle post Bonds Beyond Time. He thought it would impress Jesse. It did.

Jesse is the first one to get their driver's license

Axel is the only one who has never crashed their car

Axel will always come whenever anyone needs help. No matter who, and no matter how far away they are.

While working on Chazz's experiences list Atticus and Alexis took him to the mall. She left them unsupervised for a few minutes to go to the bathroom. When she came back, they were gone, and when she found them again, Chazz had his ears pierced. Atticus had taken him to Claire's. She will never leave them unsupervised again. 🤦‍♀️

I think I'll call this one here for now!

Maybe next year I'll come back with part 3 🤭

#genuinely didn't realize it has been almost a year since I did part 1 oops #I'm sure I've mentioned a few of these in the meantime #anyway enjoy! #yugioh #ygo #yugioh gx #ygo gx #yugioh gx headcanons #jaden yuki #judai yuki #syrus truesdale #sho marufuji #tyranno hassleberry #tyranno kenzan #chazz princeton #jun manjoume #atticus rhodes #fubuki tenjoin #alexis rhodes #asuka tenjoin #bastion misawa #daichi misawa #jesse anderson #johan andersen #jim crocodile cook #axel brodie #spiritshipping #stormshipping #abby's just rambling don't mind her #abby after dark

[ninemelodies]

two worlds apart

written for doctordonna week 23 day one: fire/glow also on ao3

“Couldn’t you have picked a cooler time to visit?” Donna complains. “Even my eyelids are sweating, Doctor.” 

Behind her, the Doctor scoffs. “You’re the one who asked to see fireflies!” He steps out of the TARDIS, still clothed in his suit jacket and coat. He pulls the door closed behind him and turns to face Donna. With his hands on his hips, he begins a rather impressive imitation of Donna's voice. “Doctor, that last three planets you picked have been rubbish, it’s my turn to pick! I want to go see fireflies, a lot of fireflies, like that song.” He drops the accent and gestures to the landscape around them. “So here we are, in the middle of a field in the middle of summer because fireflies are most active during the summer. Which also reminds me - you really need to stop consuming media from your future.”

“Those planets were rubbish! We nearly got arrested! Three times!” Donna defends, and then, in a flash of childish annoyance, she sticks her tongue out at him. The Doctor returns the gesture. 

When she had first told the Doctor what she wanted to do, he had spent 30 minutes trying to convince Donna to go to some planet where there were literal fire flies. As in, flies that set themselves on fire when they died. Donna had found it a bit morbid and knew, with their luck, that a trip to that planet was likely to end with one or both of them missing their eyebrows. And now he wanted to try and warn her about spoilers? Traveling with him was one big spoiler! 

“Like I'm going to go home and copy down the entirety of a song to claim as my own before the original artist can make it.” Donna rolls her eyes. “I can promise you I'm not that talented. And besides, it’s not like I'd be getting rid of The Beatles or anything.” 

“That did happen once…” the Doctor mutters, but before Donna can ask him to explain, he’s already moving on. “Come on,” he says and begins trudging through the ankle high grass. “I know a good spot.”

“It better be worth it,” Donna threatens, but there’s no real heat behind her words. She follows behind him. Despite her complaints about the heat, the Doctor has taken her to a rather beautiful field. There are wildflowers blooming everywhere and the air is alive with the sounds of nature. Every step they take sends grasshoppers and other tiny green bugs scattering. If it wasn’t so bloody hot, Donna could imagine herself spending a lot of time here. 

They haven’t traveled far before the Doctor stops. There is a clearing in the field where the grass has been mostly flattened and nothing too prickly grows. The Doctor pauses and digs around in his coat pocket for a moment before he produces a blue and white checkered picnic blanket. He lays it out on the ground and then steps back. “Ladies first,” he says as he bows low and gestures to the blanket. 

“So you're finally recognizing my lady-like qualities, hm?” Donna asks. She settles cross-legged on the blanket and fans herself with her hand. 

“Oh,” the Doctor says, like he’s been reminded of something. He reaches a hand in his coat pocket and then continues reaching, until his arm up to his elbow is hidden from view. He digs around for a minute before he frowns and pulls back a bit. “Hang on.” Using his other hand, he reaches over and pulls the pocket open further. He digs for just a moment longer before he pulls his hand out with a triumphant noise. In his hand is a small bottle of sunscreen and a bottle of water. 

He tosses the sunscreen to Donna before settling onto the blanket. “The sun should be going down soon, but..” the Doctor trails off with a shrug that Donna takes to mean ‘better safe than sorry.’ He's not wrong, Donna burns very easily. 

She catches the sunscreen and begins smearing a thin layer over all her exposed skin. When she’s done, she hands the sunscreen back to the Doctor and takes the bottle of water. It feels like ice in her hand. “How is this still cold?” Donna hasn’t seen the Doctor near any kind of fridge or cooling station in several days. 

“What,” the Doctor says, “are your pockets not thermoregulated?” 

“No!” 

“Would you like them to be?” he asks, like it’s a casual thing to have pockets that are climate controlled. Donna gives him a look and he raises his hands in surrender. “It's just an option! I can update them on the TARDIS, if you want.” 

Donna is positive she doesn’t want the Doctor doing anything to her pockets. “I think I’ll keep them as they are, spaceman.” The Doctor’s experiments tended to always have some kind of unintended effect, like boiling an egg from several paces away. Knowing him, he’d accidentally make a black hole in her trousers or something equally ridiculous. 

The Doctor shrugs. “Suit yourself.” In the calm that follows, the Doctor goes digging through his pockets again and produces two sandwiches, one cucumber and cream cheese (Donna's favorite) and the other peanut butter and banana (the Doctor’s favorite), a whole banana, a variety pack of crisps, and another bottle of water. “Asked the TARDIS to make some snacks,” he explains as he arranges the food on the blanket. 

She snags a packet of spicy crisps and the cucumber sandwich. The sandwich, much like the water bottle, is still at the perfect temperature despite being in the Doctor’s pockets for who knows how long. Donna decides she’s probably better off not thinking too hard about it being a pocket sandwich and takes a bite. 

Across from her, the Doctor starts with the banana and quickly demolishes it before moving onto his sandwich. He's got a large mouthful of peanut butter and bread when Donna speaks.

“So where are we?” 

The Doctor smacks loudly and swallows the bite of sandwich in his mouth before speaking, “We’re in Re:America, sometime around the oh…” he sticks a finger in his mouth and then pulls it out to hold up like he’s testing the wind. “23rd century? Ooooh,” he sounds excited now. “It's Independence Day! We’re in for a treat!”

Donna frowns at him. “You brought me here and you didn’t even know what day it was?” 

“That's what you’re questioning?” the Doctor asks with a raised eyebrow. “You said you wanted to see fireflies, Re:America has the largest population of native fireflies in all of history,” he explains. “I set the time coordinates to bring us here in the summer, but I didn’t specify a day.” He takes another large bite of his sandwich.

In all honesty, Donna isn’t sure if the Doctor is just incredibly bad at navigating or if the TARDIS just decides to drop them off wherever she thinks they’re needed. Given the way the Doctor likes to smack the console with that rubber mallet, Donna has a feeling the TARDIS is a little more obstinate than she will ever know. 

The sun is just starting to set when Donna finishes her sandwich and crisps. She puts the trash in her normal, not dimensionally altered pockets, and lays on her back on the blanket. The sky above her is painted in shades of orange and purple. They still have a few minutes before dark, so Donna asks, “Re:America?” 

She hears the Doctor huff out a laugh before he shifts and lays down next to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him settle with his arms crossed behind his head. 

“Re:America was created in response to rising capitalistic ideas in America that were oppressing the working class,” he explains. “The common people didn’t like the way they were being treated so they carved out a section of central America, around Kansas,” he wiggles his hand in a so-so gesture, “Nebraska area and created their own government and economic system.” 

“So…Re:America like re: in an email?” 

The Doctor turns his head to grin at her. “Donna Noble, you are amazing. That’s exactly it. Re:America was named because it was literally a response to the increasingly harsh atmosphere in America.” He turns back to look up at the sky. “Unfortunately, Re:America will only last for another 50 years or so before it gets dissolved back into the rest of the United States. The impact is astounding, though. New laws for protection of workers, a revised economic system that lifts millions out of poverty and the nations of the world begin to come together and space travel becomes a priority. This is where the First Great and Bountiful Human Empire starts before it spreads out amongst the stars. Isn’t it brilliant?” 

Donna hums in agreement, but quickly gets distracted by the first flicker of light above them. For a minute there is nothing, and then suddenly there are hundreds of fireflies all around them. They twinkle like stars and Donna can’t help but laugh. She turns to look over at the Doctor and finds him staring at her with a soft smile on his face. 

“Well?” he asks. “Worth it?” 

“It's beautiful,” Donna says. “I've seen them before, in the country when I was young, but it was never like this. This is amazing.” 

The Doctor shifts and pulls a hand out from behind his head. He sticks it up in the air and the fireflies dance around it. A few land, blink for a moment, and then take off again. Eventually, as the fireflies scatter off to places outside of their clearing, the Doctor begins to point out constellations and stars in the sky. There are a couple stars that Donna’s never heard of, and the Doctor explains that their light only began to reach the Earth long after the 21st century. 

Now that the sun has gone down, the night is beginning to cool off, and, with the soothing sound of the Doctor speaking lowly beside her, Donna begins to doze off. She’s comfortable and she’s safe and she’s almost asleep when a bright light and a loud boom shatters the night. 

Beside her, the Doctor jerks and his description of the far-off Treyas Galaxy cuts off. Before Donna can truly process what happened, the Doctor is hovering over her, ready to shield her from any other explosion or debris. 

Another bang sounds and the sky lights up again in a shower of blue sparks. It’s fireworks, Donna realizes. Someone is setting off fireworks, very close by, judging by how loud they are. She can hear the tell-tale whistle as another is launched. 

Above her, the Doctor is wide eyed and pale in the brief flashes of light. She can’t say for sure what the explosions are reminding him of, but she can take a guess. Gramps had that same look whenever fireworks went off. It was the look of a man haunted by war. 

Without hesitation, Donna rests her hands gently on the Doctor’s cheeks. She keeps her touch light, so he can pull away if he wants. “Hey,” she says, softly, in the silence between fireworks. “It's Independence Day. You said so earlier. They’re fireworks. We’re okay.” 

The Doctor blinks once, twice, and Donna watches as the panic fades from his eyes. He draws in a ragged breath, and Donna suddenly realizes that in his alarm, the Doctor had stopped breathing. She shifts her fingers down, just slightly, and can feel his pulse racing under her fingertips.

“You alright?” she asks.

Instead of answering her, he rolls away and settles back into his original position, like nothing had happened. Before he can tuck his hand back under his head, Donna grabs it and shifts closer to him so their sides are pressed together. She squeezes it gently. 

“Doctor?” she calls, and this time he turns to look at her. “Do you want to go back to the TARDIS?” 

He shakes his head. “No, it’s alright.” He squeezes her hand in return and turns back to the sky as another firework explodes into a shower of brightly colored purple sparks above them. 

She continues watching him for another few moments. With each deep breath he takes, more of the tension leaks from his shoulders and his face smoothes out. His pulse still seems high, but he’s calmer now, more aware of himself and the situation. He flinches slightly with each mortar that explodes above them. She suspects that he had known about the firework show, given his mention of a treat earlier, but had been startled when the first one lit up the sky unexpectedly. 

Satisfied that the Doctor isn’t going to vibrate out of his skin with anxiety, Donna turns back to the sky. “It's okay, you know.” She's not looking at the Doctor now, but she can tell he’s listening by the way he stills in his fidgeting. “It happens to Gramps too, when the council starts up a firework show he isn’t prepared for.” 

The Doctor doesn’t answer her, but he shifts impossibly closer and begins explaining the mechanics behind these fireworks and how, in the early 22nd century, scientists discovered they could engineer the gunpowder to burn in impossible colors and form extremely intricate patterns. 

She listens closely, oohing and aahing like a child when a particularly complex pattern or pretty color lights up the sky. She remembers the Doctor finishing his explanation and going quiet beside her. She remembers the Doctor’s hand in hers and then, the next thing she knows, she’s being carried, gently. 

Donna stirs, confused at the situation, but the Doctor shushes her. “You fell asleep,” he whispers. “We’re going back to the TARDIS now. Go back to sleep.” And his voice is so soft, Donna can’t help but do just that. 

The next morning, she wakes in her bed in the TARDIS. She’s still in her clothes from the night before and she’s sticky with sunscreen and sweat. Donna showers and then finds the Doctor in the console room, fiddling with a button that has been sticking on their last couple trips and is making landings rougher than usual. 

He looks up as she enters and grins at her. “So!” he says as he abandons the button to circle the console and stand in front of her. “Where to today?” 

“Surprise me,” Donna says.

The Doctor laughs with glee, flips a lever and with a familiar wheezing noise, they’re off. 

#doctor who #donna noble #10th doctor #my fics #doctordonna week 23

[arcofacatboy]

@scottishgremlin & I talk semi frequently about how strange scythe merch is - my theory is that because a lot of it comes from subscription boxes, the product designers need to make it somewhat palatable to the general reader & non-scythe crazed individuals. This is usually achieved by slapping a marketable quote on a thing only barely related to the series. However, out of all the scythe merch I’ve seen, this piece is by far the worst, and I love it.

like all respect to the artist since this art is really good, but the presentation is hysterical. This is the scene in the vault where Citra and Rowan are about to fuck nasty, which brings up multiple questions. Why is this a Polaroid? Who took this photo in the vault? Citra and Rowan were there alone. How did Citra and Rowan obtain a Polaroid camera? Most likely explanation is that it was just chilling in the Vault Of Relics, which, okay, I’m sure a Polaroid is a relic to those in the postmortal age, but would Citra or Rowan even know how to use a Polaroid camera? also, the quote - “ours is a perfect world…” besties what are you TALKING about? The full quote is from Curie’s diary entry before we learn that Curie and Goddard have to go to Endura, and reads as follows -

“Ours is a perfect world—but perfection does not linger in one place. It is a firefly, by its very nature elusive and unpredictable. We may have caught it in a jar, but that jar has broken, and we are in danger of shredding ourselves on its shards.”

okay so curie is kind of foreshadowing her own death and the sinking of Endura here. Good job Neal, good writing. But this scene in this print takes place only mere minutes after curie fucking DIED, and in her final moments, allowed Citra and Rowan to live. Curie was Citra’s mentor and a motherly figure to her, she’s certainly not going to be thinking it’s a perfect world while she’s sinking to the bottom of the ocean while knowing full well that Curie is dead. Rowan didn’t have as much of an emotional attachment to Curie but in this book alone, he’s been held prisoner, watched Tyger die and have his body snatched by Goddard, who stands for everything Rowan is against (who also led to the death of Volta in the previous book!!!!!) and would have been murdered by Goddard in front of the grandslayers, if Rand, who murdered and manipulated his best friend, didn’t free him as an act of revenge on Goddard and out of guilt for killing Tyger. Rowan has seen the deepest depravity of the world, and you’re telling me that after he just watched Goddard sink an entire island and kill like, thousands of people, just to win an election, being able to fuck Citra finally is gonna make him think everything is fine again???? Like, even at the end of the series, when Rowan is on one of the rockets, when he and Citra will finally be safe, he’s shit talking Cirrus because it won’t revive Citra. Rowan is not one to forget the deep injustices of this world because he sees Citra’s tits. So Citra and Rowan are both very upset and about to die, which, in my speculative opinion, is probably why they ended up being intimate in the vault in the first place - they were hurting, they were scared, and all they had in that moment was each other. They did it to comfort one another. However I’m calling BS on the perfect world thing lol. Same vibes as, idk, putting Volta’s quote about not wanting to self-glean over a scene of the tiniest monastery burning down.

idk I just think it’s hilarious that this book subscription box chose this of all scenes to make scythe seem like a YA romance. Like you could have made a print with Jeri/Greyson, Curie/Faraday, Scythe Ashcorp/Goddard, or even Citra/Rowan in another context, just NOT THIS SCENE LMAO.

Thx for coming to my ted talk

#arc of a scythe #scythe #the toll #thunderhead #neal shusterman #aoas #gleanings #rowan damisch #citra terranova #scythe faraday #scythe curie #scythe goddard #Tyger Salazar #scythe rand

[symphonic-scream]

Okay

Phantom Pirates au time

This would be a Persona 5 (Royal) Pirate au, and I'd love to make it a full fic but I've got my plate full for now, however, as always, I'm super down to chat and post about it here

So, without further adieu, it's pirate time

So it all starts with a boy, and a ship. No one knows the kid, where he comes from, or how he managed to acquire such a fine vessel. Most guess that he must be about 12, smudged with soot and sporting a bright yellow scarf

He dreams of a life on the high seas, of adventure and doing what's right to the end. However, no child could manage a ship the size of the Velvet Room all on his own, and finding a crew that matches ones ideals would be a hard task.

...or would it?

-

A young man is sentenced to death, sitting in a damp, solitary cell awaiting his trudge to the gallows. Falsely accused, no fair trial in sight. He stares up at the stars through the bars at night, and wishes that he could be given another chance

Two foreigners fall under the thumb of a business they hadn't intended to be sucked into. In order to save their own skins, they hand over their only daughter to be bought or sold, to be done with however her buyers please. She cries silently at night, dreaming of escape and loving for herself

The streets are a dangerous place for a youth. His father owed a debt, one his mother payed for with her life. Left on his own, an injury rotting away one foot, he stole to pay for a shabby peg, his meals. Treated like a rat scurrying under the feet of the townspeople. He prays for a chance to make them all pay, to bring hope to those like him

Each is given a chance, an offer from a small boy; Join his crew, help his cause, and a life of glory will await them on the other side.

And how could they say no?

Within a month, an infamous sex trafficker finds his fort burning up around him, cowering in the shadows of three figures; one with a false leg, the image of a skull painted over his face; a woman in a red leather corset, fire spreading with each snap of her fingers; and a man in a long, dark coat, the burning flames of rebellion in his eyes

Suguru Kamoshida burns that day, but the evidence of his crimes does not. That is the day that whispers start to spread, about a new pirate crew, one to be feared;

The Phantom Thieves of Hearts

-

In a port a few months later, they pick up a new member. A young artist, who reveals all in his work, being hunted after revealing the sins of a baron in a public portrait. Cornered by guards in what he believes are his final moments, the young man accepts his fate. However, his time has not yet come. A figure in a tall dark coat comes to his aid, and he makes a deal with a young boy with a yellow scarf

-

Left to die, bleeding out on the sand of a small island, a young woman cries for her sister. She'd gone blindly down the same path that had gotten her father killed, and had been named a military deserter for maintaining her morals. Shes found there, on the brink of death, a wound from a musket draining her life away in her gut. A young boy patches her up, and accepts her vow to repay them for her life, fighting by their side

-

Stowed away below the deck of the Velvet Room, they stumble upon a girl. Small, frail, terrified. Her death is sought after by many, as she carries the last proof of the crimes her mother died trying to bring to the light. Making a deal with the youngest Phantom comes easily to her, an urge for vengeance fresh in her heart.

-

A young royal, heart and soul locked away in her father's palace, promised to a man whose eyes boil with sludge and sin. Both ignore the calling card sent their way, and their fortunes burn around them in the dead of night, the blood of their hired guns soaking the marble floors. Smoke fills the locked tower, the door flung open. The heiress is escorted back to a ship she's only dreamed of, and given a choice. For her, it is an easy decision to make. She shakes the hand of the young boy with the deadliest of pirates at his back

-

Twin performers, hair as red as the dawn, favoured throughout the lands for their talent. However, their troupe leader owes money he does not have, and the elder erases the debt with her own blood, spilled unwillingly one cold night. Framed for her own sister's murder, the younger is forced to flee. Starving in a port not known for its generosity, she finds a young boy staring down at her with the bluest of eyes. When he offers her a chance to make things right, she takes his hand

-

Their Monikers, spread through carefully painted portraits posted after shabby wanted posters made their debut, spread fear among those that do wrong.

Joker, a man who is as deadly as he is mysterious, always heading the Phantom charge in the dead of night

Skull, who man's their canons with a deadly force, just as loud and bombastic as the artillery he fires

Panther, a beauty with flames that dance from her fingertips, flint sewed into a pair of rose gloves

Fox, as handsome as he is beautiful, hidden in the shadows, master of disguise

Queen, her shots always deadly accurate, blood red eyes haunting survivors until their final breath

Oracle, a mastermind in her own right, planning each heist and raid as easily as planning what to eat for dinner

Noir, a deadly force that spills blood with glee, fighting with elegance, grace, and rage

And Violet, quick with a blade, her hand always steady as she drives it through another victim's chest

They are the Phantom Thieves, pirates of the Velvet Room.

--

Anyways yeah so there it is. What do y'all think? Thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Please I wanna talk about this

#persona 5 royal #persona 5 au #persona 5 #p5r au #p5r #p5 #p5 joker #ryuji sakamoto #ann takamaki #yusuke kitagawa #makoto niijima #futaba sakura #haru okumura #sumire yoshizawa #phantom pirates au

[ellzilla]

Finally finished watched Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

Good god this is the most mixed feelings I've felt after watching something. Spoiler warning ig if you care about the almost 10 hour long show that has 5 minutes of total godzilla but If you don't want spoilers, I rate the 60's segments an 8/10 and the 2015 plot a 3/10 I really REALLY wish the whole show was about the trio in the 60s, that or they were the main focus and not the 2015 group. Cate was good at first bc I liked the angle of "G-Day PTSD and survivor's guilt" because it was cool! And then I found the plot of the Dual Families super interesting but then. It felt like nothing happened. And also she went from enjoyable to annoying because she started acting like a teenager and not the almost 30's she's supposed to be Kentaro was just kinda there but yknow what, I relate to being a tired sad artist who's dragged into family tragedy so whatever. His mom was also super sweet and I felt so, so, SO bad for her. May uh. Yeah she's there. I guess. It feels like she's just there to be [maybe?] Cate's slow burn love interest and is there so someone can betray the mcs. In the last few episodes it feels like she's only there for Apex to be connected to the show in some way and it's like? Okay? I guess this is happening. Pretty cool that she's Bi tho. Bill, Kei and Shaw on the other hand? Oh my GOD I LOVE THEM. I love Bill and Kei's relationship so much. I love how sweet Shaw and Kei were and made me actually care about a LOVE SUBPLOT!!! Which I always find boring or forced!! But they were sweet!! I love how the writers were a little too accurate with how the uh.. social climate? was back in the 60's. I think it was also smart to have Kei's kid be neither Bill or Shaw's, but instead her husband who died in the bombings, although I do NOT like the man he grew into. Really wish they didn't 'sacrifice' Shaw in the way they did because it was really stupid imo. Like bro, how aren't you being dragged towards the portal? The GIANT METAL BALL was, how are you not? I would have preferred he simply sacrificed himself while trying to plug the machines again. The way I would of written it is that prior to getting out the Orb, he and Kei have their sweet n' sad final moment together while in the safety of the metal coffin. He jumps out and has his struggle with the cables, only to be eaten by the Ion Dragon the very moment he succeeds. The machines get tossed around by Ion flying with the cables in his mouth, only for Godzilla to legitimately save the day and knock Ion tf out the way he does regularly and The Gang gets thrown into the portal that way. Also I'd make the fight scene last longer than like. 1 minute. It was over before I realized it and I was so bwomp :( Also I liked the ice dog thing earlier in the show. uh yeah that's it from me.

#monarch: legacy of monsters #ramble #yeah

[justforbooks]

In 1943 the artist Françoise Gilot, who has died aged 101, accompanied her teacher, the surrealist painter Endre Rozsda, to the Gare de l’Est in Paris. Rozsda was Jewish and Hungarian; the occupying Germans had begun rounding up foreign Jewish people, and he was leaving for the apparent safety of Budapest. As his train steamed out of the station, the 21-year-old Gilot wailed: “But what am I to do?” Her teacher, laughing, shouted: “Don’t worry! Who knows? Three months from now, you may meet Picasso!”

Seven decades later Gilot was to recall those words as both prophecy and curse. Two months after Rozsda’s departure she was having dinner at Le Catalan, a Paris restaurant patronised by Left Bank artists. Halfway through the meal a short, bull-necked man approached her table proffering a bowl of cherries: it was Pablo Picasso. Captivated by the fine-boned Gilot, Picasso, 40 years her senior, invited her to his studio in the Rue des Grands Augustins. By the end of the summer they were lovers.

The mismatched pair were to stay together for a decade, during which time Gilot bore him two children, Paloma and Claude. Picasso remained married to his first wife, Olga Khokhlova, throughout the relationship.

As Gilot was to recall in her bestselling book Life With Picasso (1964), he set out to undermine her from the start. “One day,” she wrote, “we were looking at dust dancing in sunlight … [Picasso] said, ‘Nobody has any real importance to me. As far as I’m concerned, people are like those little grains. It takes only a push of the broom and out they go.’” Later, angry at her lack of attention to him, he burned her cheek with a cigarette.

From the early 1950s, Gilot had begun to exhibit with members of the French réalités nouvelles school and when, finally, she was given a show of her own at Galerie Louise Leiris in Paris in 1952, Picasso refused to go to the opening. He had, he said, seen all the paintings already. “Pablo wanted me continually pregnant, because then I was weaker,” Gilot recalled. “After the second child, I said enough was enough. Picasso made this sculpture of a pregnant woman and when I told him I didn’t like it, he hacked her feet off.” By her own telling, Gilot retorted: “I can walk with my own feet,” and in September 1953, she did.

All this and a great deal more was revealed in Life With Picasso, ensuring the book’s huge and immediate success: it sold a million copies in the first year. Enraged, Picasso tried to prevent publication. When he failed to do that, he set about destroying his ex-partner’s career, refusing to show his work at any gallery that showed hers, and cutting contact with their children. Already, in 1955, following Gilot’s marriage to the artist Luc Simon, the Leiris gallery had quietly dropped her.

That, at least, was her story. Whether the gallery would have taken her on in the first place without Picasso’s cachet is a moot point. Although she would later insist that she had been attracted to the older man only because all the men of her own age were off at war, Gilot enjoyed the trappings of being the partner of Picasso.

It was through him that she met Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Gertrude Stein and Paul Éluard. Shortly before she decided to move in with Picasso, he had taken her to stay with Henri Matisse at the latter’s villa, Le Rêve. In 1990, with her ex-lover dead, Gilot published another book about him, Matisse and Picasso: A Friendship in Art. This, too, was a financially rewarding bestseller. “I was capable of understanding the whole problem of money,” Gilot said, blithely. “You might say that I am a little bit hard-boiled. I have to admit that I was never so much in love with anyone that I could not consider my own plan.”

After her separation from Picasso, Gilot kept their villa, La Galloise, using the profits from sales of her books to extend it. Summers in the early 60s were spent cruising the Greek islands with Paloma and Claude on a chartered yacht with a crew of three.

From these trips came what was to be perhaps Gilot’s most coherent body of artwork, the Labyrinth series. Untitled (Red and Yellow) (1963) is typical of this, being powerful if compositionally unresolved. Inevitably critics descried Picasso in its southern colours and anguished forms. This was unfair. Untitled (Red and Yellow) was, generically, a work of its time, neither more nor less Picasso-esque than many other French paintings of the day.

In return, some of Picasso’s best portraits had been of Gilot: his biographer, John Richardson, was of the view that: “Picasso took from her rather more than she took from him.” Nonetheless, Gilot remained dogged by his shadow, and not just as an artist.

She was divorced from Simon in 1962, and in 1969, in California, was introduced to the American virologist Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine. Salk was instantly taken by the elegant Frenchwoman. Pursuing her to Paris, he asked her to marry him. Gilot, by now wary of powerful men, replied that she would, provided they spend six months a year apart. Salk agreed.

For the 25 years of their marriage Gilot would divide half her time between Paris and Manhattan, spending the other half with her husband in La Jolla, California. This seemed to suit both well enough, although there were raised eyebrows among Salk’s friends and colleagues.

In its report of their wedding, the Philadelphia Inquirer described Gilot as “mistress of the late Pablo Picasso”, but she was, apparently, untouched by such barbs. Asked by an interviewer how she had managed to end up with two of the world’s most eminent men, Gilot replied baldly: “Lions mate with lions.”

She was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, an exclusive suburb of Paris. Her father, Emile, a rich manufacturer, was an authoritarian figure, forcing his left-handed only child to write with her right hand and insisting that she study law rather than art. Françoise’s lessons with Rozsda were a secret between herself and her mother, Madeleine (nee Renoult), a keen amateur artist. Scandalised at his daughter’s mésalliance with Picasso, Emile cut all ties with her for a decade.

Free of her father, Gilot signed up to study at the Académie Julian, but if Emile had been autocratic, his tyranny paled beside that of Picasso. She was, though, unique among his women in having survived him: his first wife was deeply affected by his treatment of her, as was another lover, Dora Maar. The model Marie-Thérèse Walter hanged herself; his second wife, Jacqueline Roque, shot herself. Gilot lived on, painting every day, increasingly in her vast, barrel-vaulted flat in Manhattan’s Upper West Side and working on projects for the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 2021, her 1965 portrait of her daughter, Paloma à la Guitare, sold for $1.3m, and a retrospective of her work was held at the Musée Estrine, Saint Remy de Provence.

She was made a member of the Légion d’Honneur in France in 1990, promoted to an officer of the order in 2009.

Afflicted by growing blindness, she was as unsentimental about herself as she was the world at large. In her mid 90s she said: “I’m done with life. When I was 86, I thought, this is the end, because this is the age my mother died. Eighty-nine seemed impossible, and 90 was really the last straw. I thought, ‘You are going to have to take your own life if you ever want to die.’” As to her critics, she remained philosophical: “You have to admit that most women who do something with their lives have been disliked by almost everyone.”

Salk died in 1995. Gilot is survived by Paloma, Claude and a daughter, Aurelia, from her marriage to Simon.

🔔 Françoise Gilot, artist and writer, born 26 November 1921; died 6 June 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Françoise Gilot #in memoriam

[jazminetoad]

Guess who made a Hazbin OC

Not me, I just hazbinfied an OC

Meet Shoko Takamoto, her alive version in this post

Okay so I was thinking what if Shoko was in Hazbin Hotel (cuz hyperfixation on Hazbin) and when a sinner spawns they have traits for how they died, things they hate as their appearance, and other traits that express who they are

Therefore Shoko would look like her mom and have red-tinted skin/hair, plus horns because she likely died fighting a demon (literally or metaphorically depends if this is crossover or not) and because her family is associated with dragons, they're dragon horns, she also got her rollerblade skates because I said so. When she first arrives Shoko is extremely uneasy because she is surrounded by a red atmosphere but she toughs it out (cuz her dad taught her that) and strides through the city and to her luck finds a shop that sells hair dye and body paint, so she buys blue shiz to cover up the red.

How did Shoko die?

Well, it was not long after Reverb died (he went to heaven) that she began to lose herself, becoming more aggressive, becoming a senseless killing machine, she lost her positive friend, who encouraged her to be herself, who never did any wrong in the world, and it sent her spiraling. Out of touch with her emotions, she was only set on pleasing her father on the off chance she would receive a positive comment from her father, maybe it'd make her feel again. That was her downfall. During her final fight, senseless to her surroundings as she killed, she got hit vitally and died

Around this time, sinners only had flip phones (since progress is delayed by a lot) so she creates a smartphone from flip phone and tv parts (which catches Vox's attention because he's a tv man) Vox pops up

"Well aren't you a pretty little demon."

"Usseewa oni before I shank you."

Then she takes a proper look at him and sees he's blue. While he does come off as a little sketchy, Shoko can't help but feel relaxed at the sight of someone so blue when everything else is burning red

"So this is the latest technology up on Earth?"

"Yeah what about it old man?" (Shoko says this in a chill way since she feels at ease around him)

"You know how they operate, become my business partner and I'll make you one of the most powerful overlords."

Shoko agrees on the condition she didn't have to get her hands bloody and mass-produces smartphones, followed by flat computers, with Vox. She only brought Twitter and YouTube since she thought the other social media apps were stupid. Using YouTube she grew her fame as a rap artist, and her power developing to weakening others when she disses them (basically vicious mockery). Her first distrack about radio and how it plays crap no one cares for and surprisingly for Shoko, Vox praises her for her it (cuz it was weakening Alastor, though he disappears for other reasons obviously). Their business turns more friendship, Vox reminding her of her old pals Saikoro and Reverb (she misses them but her friend eases the loss)

Shoko doesn't like Val since he reminds her of a few mafia playboys, however I think it would be funny if this happened

"You remind me of someone."

"Really? Who I remind you of, dollface?"

"Doflamingo."

"Is he some big shot on Earth?"

"...Yeah, yeah he is." *proceeds to gaslight him into believing Doflamingo is a real mafia boss pulling strings in the navy*

I just find it funny

Anywho, Shoko is only there for about a year before Velvet shows up, surprise surprise, she's an old classmate of Shoko (I might not keep that idea, eh) and proceeds to info Vox of the many other social medias there is and how she has far more knowledge of modern technology, thus Vox who is a corporate asshole that priorities power and money, cuts Shoko off, giving Velvet her place

Not sure where Shoko would go next, my thoughts are many she teams up with Neon Dino Overlord, but either way she in a way ended up as a hazbin

Yeah, she works with Neon Dino, together they run all sorts of music hotspots: Rollerskating joint, clubs, rap battle joints, and rock concerts. They monopolize the music industry, banning classic, country, jazz, and girly pop from their places. You know they own the location when the name has "Kaiju" in it

I feel like sometimes Vox would look back at photos or items that remind him of Shoko and feel a bit of remorse, he cut off his first friend since Alastor and it sucks at times since friends are hard to come by down here. Course his anger for Alastor takes over or the Vees distract him from his thoughts and he forgets about it

#hazbin hotel #hazbin oc #hazbin original character #hazbin hotel oc #hazbin hotel original character #oc #My oc #hazbin art #hazbin hotel art #hazbin vox #hazbin vees #hazbin hotel vox #vox #Shoko Takamoto #Hazbin Shoko

[srarizard]

Back on my Rayman bullshit.

I literally have nowhere to talk about Rayman but the Tumblr tag seems to be popping so here goes. I am probably the only person on planet Earth who cannot stop thinking about Reflux. I will always be critical of Rayman 3 for its very surface level characters and unfunny "humor", but it still has a lot of environmental storytelling if you look for it. For example, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Knaaren are bipedal toads.

Artistic liberties were taken, of course, but it's almost a perfect match. It also explains the dot on his forehead, as most toads have warts all over. The warts only become more prominent during the final boss battle, too.

Not to mention, the tunnel system they live in is directly outside of a ravine full of poisoned water. This implies that there might have been a time when they were semi-aquatic. They also have flat teeth, with no canines. I like to think it's because they are herbivores forced to feast on whatever they can find, because they have no plants within miles to feed on. It would explain why they prefer the brain, as it's squishy and easy to chew, as well as the zombie eggs that are the only notable, reliable food source seen in the desert.

Now, what about the way that they evolved? Most of this is speculation, but I can at least tie it together. Knaaren are invincible canonically. Reflux contradicts this in two ways; he has defeated other Knaaren to claim the title of champion, and he dies at the end of Rayman 3. It can only be concluded that he isn't a "normal" Knaaren, and the best way to explain this is to acknowledge the fact that the champion receives the power of the Leptys. Not only is Reflux the only Knaaren to use magic, his boss battle is, quite frankly, insane. I just replayed it yesterday, and it came extremely close. It's possible he used his power to exhaust the other Knaaren to the point where they can no longer fight in order to claim the title of champion using those powers.

In theory, it can also be said that the power of the Leptys creates a weakness. God powers must take a lot of energy to channel no matter what sort of creature you are. So, in theory, Reflux was burning the candle at both ends, pridefully striking down challengers and assuming that he would never be defeated with how much power he has come to earn. He becomes a monster in his thirst for revenge at the end of the game, which ultimately kills him. What this implies about the Leptys is vague, but it certainly has something to do with the deity.

Now, this is my favorite part. Reflux is actually the only character Rayman has ever done wrong. I'd say he's the only one Rayman ever killed, but uh, depends on your view of canon, so I'll be focusing on what is undeniable. Rayman blasts into the desert without warning, and granted it's to save his friend, but he ruins Reflux's life in doing so. He had no choice but to become the champion and shame his opponent. Reflux made his entire identity on being champion, and eagerly accepts when André promises the ability to claim revenge. Rayman was just supposed to be a fun exercise for him, and now Reflux finds himself outcast due to an outsider who doesn't even want to be champion. It's the fault of his pride, but it is still a way that Rayman has made someone's life worse.

It's also interesting to think of them as cultural opposites. Rayman comes from a lovely dream world, and Reflux comes from a hellish nightmare that he had to claw his way to the top. Rayman was born a hero, and Reflux had to earn it. Ubisoft really shot themselves in the foot by not expanding on that, I think. They could have really made something out of the contrast of dreams and nightmares.

Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk. If you read this far, please stan Reflux.

#rayman #rayman 3 #knaaren #blorbos #long post #hyperfocus moment

[quinthejester]

finally drew the twins! Amrod and Amras. Didn’t do as many sketches as usual because my hand has been acting up a lot lately, so I’ve been trying to take it easy. Regardless, I love these boys and have a lot of thoughts on them. 

Basically a lot of this is me looking at them and thinking ‘Oh, free real estate for making stuff up since not much is really said about them’. And I’ve done just that, so personality headcanons below:

(I ended up writing a lot oops, so decided to put it under the keep reading thing. TW: there is a brief mention of self harm at the end)

Links to the rest of the brothers before I delve into rambles: Maedhros, Maglor, Celegorm, Caranthir and Curufin

(In Valinor)

So, while they were pretty similar, being the mischievous twins of the family, the two aren’t all the same and have some very distinct differences, I imagine. I see Amras being the more extroverted and confident twin and Amrod as a bit more introverted and sensitive. Amras was the one who was more actively mischievous, while Amrod was more subtle- but when around his brother, he’d come out of his shell more and the two could cause a lot of chaos together. 

Interest wise, both are very outdoorsy people. Running around, hiking, probably liked playing with Celegorm a lot when they were kids. However, Amras was always more into hunting and animals (and hunting style wise, he’s stealthy and great at setting traps; in contrast to Celegorm, who I see enjoys the chase more), while Amrod is more gardening and plants. 

Skill wise, Amras is a great hunter, but also a really good artist. He often sketches animals, plants, buildings, lots of still life, but often with notes which basically deconstruct the things he draws. And I see Amrod as being good at gardening, but very scientific about it as well, often seeing if he can crossbreed plants etc. Basically both take their interests in a very Noldoran scientific creative way, and their father is very proud. 

The two are each others best friend, and when together they act in a way that is nearly indistinguishable, and they were almost together. Though catching them on their own will make their differences more clear. Amrod is quieter, more gentle, and more shy, and while Amras is more imaginative and reckless. And while back in Valinor, Amras often seemed more carefree, he was the type of person to hide his true feelings behind a smile and people could rarely tell if he was upset- except for Amrod, who can always tell and push his brother to open up to him. 

(After the first Kinslaying to the ship burnings)

So, with my headcanon of Amrod being the more sensitive one, I also just see him as overall the most sensitive, empathetic and pacifistic of all the brothers. As a result, he was the most effected by the first kinslaying. Completely guilt ridden and horrified, wanting to stay home, atone, etc. Complete emotional wreck after the fact. Amras on the flip side kept his feelings pent up, but seeing how his brother looked, ultimately convinced Amrod that, when they arrive at Middle Earth, Amrod should just stay on the ship and Amras will just try make it seem like both he and his twin are there until Amrod is long gone. Amrod ends up agreeing to this, despite not wanting to seperate from his brother. And then the ship burnings happen, Amrod dies, and Amras both blames himself for coming up with the idea, but also blames his father, because what the hell. As a result, Amras grows to kind of hate Feanor, and the death of his brother causes Amras to just lose his old happier personality. 

(Just Amras headcanons, post Amrod death. TW: Mention of self Harm) 

Amras overall just becomes a more distant and cynical person. I imagine he does grow to sometimes pretend to be Amrod as a way of coping/or as a way to make it seem like the Feanorians haven’t lost as much as they have, convinced by the rest of his brothers, so that their enemies can fear all seven sons (idk if that makes sense, it’s hard to explain my thoughts). As a result, sources are mixed on whether Amrod is dead or not.

With my headcanons of Amrod being into plants and stuff, I see Amras as going out of his way to learn all about middle earth’s flora, sketching them and writing notes, all that. He learns the lands the best out of all his brothers, becoming highly skilled at surviving in the wilderness, discerning dangerous plants from safe ones, hunting. He very much became one of the best hunters and survivalists of his time.

I think out of his brothers, I see him as the most disillusioned with the oath and Feanor’s will. He’s bound by the oath, but holds a massive distain for his father and their cause. This anger and grief at what happened leads to him burning and scarring his hand, which has a tattoo of the star of feanor on it. All done in an unhealthy way to deal with his grief, anger, an attempt to regain some sort of control, to show his anger to his father for killing his brother, and to get rid of his father’s mark on him. 

I probably have more thoughts and I do really love these two, these are all my thoughts at the moment. 

I hope my rambles made sense. I am tired and have a lot of feelings. 

#amras #amrod #ambarussa #Amrod and Amras #silm #silmarillion #the silmarillion #silm fanart #silm art #Silmarillion Fanart #sons of feanor #feanorians #finweans #tolkien #pityafinwe #telufinwe #ambarto #umbarto #my art #fanart #digital art

[olivereactsaboutgarbage]

Higurashi When They Cry - Tatarigoroshi Chapter 1

Good news, everyone!

I got my tax refund this past weekend, so I was finally able to buy the next arc of Higurashi. Plus, the personal life drama that had been distracting me from One Piece has settled down now.

So those are both of the posts you can expect from me this summer!

And this is the first of them.

This episode starts with the dramatic reveal that the well had a happy snake in it. Presumably the well in question is the murder well from the end of last time. However, it's also clear that this snake is not the sole perpetrator of the incidents in Hinamizawa, because anything which happened anywhere other than the well is something the snake doesn't even know about. Still, I'll have to keep this plot-essential snake in mind for all my future theories.

A miserable faceless woman gets tormented by a faceless cackling man. There are all sorts of corpse varieties, like Cuddly Creature variety, Feathered Friend variety, and Naked Normal-lady variety. Wow, are we skipping the entire no-murders-have-happened-yet first half of the story this time? And also skipping the part where Keiichi, Rena, Mion and the Toddlers are involved? Neat!

A faceless cop wants to eat the Naked Normal-lady corpse. Not a lifestyle choice I agree with.

Oh, darn, now Keiichi is the POV character. On the upside, though, it's well and truly time for a genuine return to Lunch Arc. Here's what happens in Lunch's return: -The Toddlers proclaim that Mion has an excellent lunch -Mion reveals that this so-called excellence is naught more than a ramshackle old people menagerie -Keiichi points out the importance of visual artistry towards any mealtime experience, devastatingly countering Mion's humility -Everyone wholeheartedly agrees, but Toddler 02 provides an opportunity for Rena to assert artistic dominance -The Toddlers just wanna grill for God's sake -Toddler 02 claims her rightful place as heir to the Housewife Throne -Five seconds into the events of this arc and Keiichi already hasn't been paying attention to his surroundings -Seven seconds into the events of this arc and Keiichi is already screaming -Toddler 01 almost dies -In a tragic flashback, Keiichi's parents are revealed to be busy right now -Keiichi says that curry is bad and everyone starts panicking -The teacher with pronouns is revealed to be a security guard from a stealth game -Keiichi almost dies -Rena tells Keiichi not to be a bitch baby, but Mion and Toddler 02 are also bitch babies -Keiichi willfully ignores that and is now emboldened and shall no longer be a bitch baby.

Finally, we segue out of Lunch Arc and into a recap episode of Kaiji Joke Part 16.

Toddler 01 declares that Toddler 01 is competent. Keiichi says nuh uh. Toddler 01 says "Double-nuh-uh, I will someday be competent." Um, moving the goalposts much??? -_-

Toddler 01 asks Toddler 02 if Toddler 01 will ever be competent. Toddler 02 says nuh uh.

Rena declares that Toddler 01 is competent. Keiichi says nuh uh. Asshole.

...Admittedly I'm already primed to expect Toddler 01 angst from this arc. But also, I can relate to Rena's propensity for smoothing over social situations, and it would tick me off something fierce if someone cockblocked my kindness like Keiichi did to Rena just now.

I shan't be forgiving Keiichi for this... ever... I will soon kill him...

Anyway, Toddler 01 gets TOTALLY OWNED by one of Rena's sickest burns.

Rare green cauliflower...

Anyway, the stage has been set for a Lunch Arc Kaiji Joke Part. This is it... the ultimate culmination of everything Higurashi has been building towards...

okay this bit of narration right here is kind of hysterical

Keiichi says that he's gonna make Toddler 01 take her shoes off and everyone gets excited.

...God, my opinion of Rena has risen to high-as-fuck levels over the course of the break... I remember thinking of her as a Keiichi-tier loser like it was yesterday, but she's actually kind of based and Mion-tier and the light of my life. Anyway, I'm not going to describe this Rena scene to you because it's not that interesting. Trust me. ;)

oh god dude

"more exciting"

yeah manm

Keiichi succumbs to the Devil's Influence and decides to wreak evil, but Toddlers put a stop to his madness.

this is so awesome

i like higurashi

Ah, you can tell it's the Toddler 01 arc this time because of her new and previously-unseen behavioral patterns. What's with her eyeball. Why is her eyeball acting like that.

Toddler 01 tells Keiichi to admit to being a hothead and a dweeb, so Keiichi wails that he's the scum of the earth. I guess that counts as going above and beyond... so that's admirable then...

You can tell she's 8 because she thinks a 9-year-old is 19. Unlike me, an enlightened 25-year-old whose views on people's ages aren't skewed in the slightest.

The Beast within Keiichi is not satiated by these meager offerings. He demands Pandemonium. The only Relic with the power to quell his Inner Inferno is Toddler 01's Cursed Eye...

Hmmmm methinks I detect some SEXISM from Toddler 01... very uncool... -_-

Toddler 02 delivers exposition about how Toddler 01's sexism is actually nostalgia for when her brother hadn't yet exploded. Fascinating.

Even with this correctly-forecasted sudden hailstorm of Toddler 01 character depth, it's kind of hard to take her seriously when she keeps doing her ohoho laugh. Still, I suppose nothing less than the exact bearing and manner of an Ojou-sama is appropriate for the Bearer of the Cursed Eye.

BECAUSE OF THE HUMAN PISS

BECAUSE OF THE HUMAN BLOOD

BECAUSE OF THE HUMAN NEEDLE

I've already figured this arc out. I know all about the dark upcoming plot twists.

Yeah... you're still cringe as hell man.

Ah, good. I was getting worried about where he'd get his daily intake of Rena Points in this timeline untouched by Rena's warmth.

wtf, apparently this 3-year-old is bearing the weight of the entire world

Meanwhile, in Side Story Land...

wtf, apparently this 3-year-old is a little shit

normal reaction to encountering any object

self-explanatory

#higurashi #when they cry #is what i'm consuming

[coolpeopleonlyexist]

I think i know you.

Emily Davis x Jessica Riley!Tattoo artist

A lil bit of smut lol

Emily sat on the tattoo chair sighing as the pain of the needle sunk into her thigh "God fucking-" emily bites down on her lip looking to the artist to strike up a small conversation to distract her.

Its only been up to 10 minutes though it felt like an eternity "Is it always this- gah!- painful?" emily lets out a grunt as she looks down to the blonde woman working on her thigh, she has never even looked up to emily even once nor rose her head whenever a coworker said something. She just hummed and went back to work so emily just chalked it up to her being very deticated to her work. Though she was definitely sure she recognized the top of the womans head odd place to recognize.

Emily was getting bored, her phone died on the way to the tattoo shop and she didn’t have anybody so might as well make small talk with a random stranger "Ever had somebody so whiney? maybe even worse?" the girl nods but nothing comes out of her mouth.

Emily lets out a frustrated sigh "Hello? Im speaking to you." the girl doesn’t respond, emily stares down at the top of the girls head "Hey, i don’t wanna sound like a creep but..i think i know you." emily sees the girl freeze, pulling away "No, you don’t." emily stares at her with her mouth agape as that was the first time she spoke to her, this entire session!

Emily glares at her "So this is the first time you talk to me, huh." the girl doesn't respond making her ball up her fists in annoyance, shes pretty sure she heard the girl snicker but clear up her throat when emilys hand twitches "Sorry." the girl whispers.

Emily looks down at her head again, blonde hair with dark roots. She definitely knew this woman from somewhere but where?

Emily catches her face as soon as she got up and when the girl realizes her mistake she turns quickly to the counter. Emily stares at the woman as she gets up to pay her.

Emily sighs "Its unprofessional to not make eye contact with customers." emily says as she grabs her wallet to hand her the money, and finally the girl looks up at her.

And thats when it hit her, it was that girl.

....

Emily moaned holding onto the blonde womens head that was inbetween her thighs, the girl groaned as emily tugged on her hair to bring her closer "Faster- plea- Oh fuck." emily threw her head back "God- Your so fucking- GOOD!-at this." emily whined as the girl pulled back to look up at her "The best, right?" emily nodded "Yeah, yup whatever just- Finish." emily whimpered when the blonde swiped her tongue on her clit "Stop teasing mee- Jess." emily bit down hard onto her bottom lip.

"Oh fuck- im close i-im close." jess pulled away again "Fuck- i hate edging." emily whined as she dug her nails into jess's hair. "Just a bit longer gorgeous." emily sighed as jess came back up to plant kisses on the brunettes neck "Just a bit longer, i wanna keep this in my memory." emily looked at her with blurry eyes trying to stop the tears from coming out so her mascara doesn’t smudge.

"Fuck you." jess smirks as she kissed the corner of her mouth and then went back down "We are gonna get caught if you keep this going." Jess laughed making emily shiver "Let them watch, babe." emily let out a moan at that.

...

"Oh, its you again." emily smirks at the woman but she still didn’t look up "The jig is up, i already recognize you sweetie." emily chuckles as the woman looks up at her with her cheeks a very red "What was your name again?" emily looks around in her memory "Hm, was it jasmine, jessie, jennifer?" the girl shakes her head "Jessica." emily rolls her eyes "close enough." jessica sighs "Just pay-" emily takes out a pen and a piece of paper, writing on it.

"Here, both for you. Jess." emily winks at her "Text me, i'd love to see you again." jessicas face begins to burn as she watches emily sway away "Jesus, shes so fine." jess licks her lips looking down at the piece of paper.

"901-631-548** Call me.♡

-Emily"

Jess giggles as she places the piece of paper into her pocket "Yup, definitely gonna call her."

#until dawn #until dawn emily #until dawn jess #emily davis #jessica riley #emily x jess #emily x jessica #jess x emily #jessica x emily

[dinosaurchurch]

This was my twenties, an entire decade gone just like that.

For some funny reason when I started, I didn't think I'd get this far. Thirty definitely seemed like a lifetime away but here I am. After going through some of the toughest and sweetest times in my life I'm closing this chapter for good.

Sometimes I'd wonder what past me would think about the person I am today, would she be okay with the outcome or would she wish for something different? Would I have changed anything if I knew what was going to happen? The past decade has definitely been a learning curve, I think it was mainly discovering myself and knowing that other people too are on this journey is very humbling. Albeit not everyone goes at the same pace and some never do find themselves.

If I can say anything is my fiery side doesn't crop up nearly as often as it used to but that doesn't mean the flame has died. I've come to be a little more wise when choosing my battles because time isn't infinite or at least it isn't in this life. I'm only here for a small while so I might as well get the best out of it. Learning to channel my energy where it really counts is something I've gotten comfortable with.

Over the course of my twenties I've battled obesity, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, self doubt, and moments of weakness. I've also achieved some great things for myself. I've gotten DIVE just about finished (it's currently sitting at almost 650 pages), I've improved greatly as an artist, got better at cooking/baking, picked up powerlifting and have gotten decently strong, and I'm happier than I've ever been. Progress is not always linear but the main thing is to keep pushing, even in my lows there was still something to cherish and appreciate.

My twenties have been about pushing my comfort zone and learning to swim with the tide rather than feeling like I'm drowning. It's been tough but without hardship I wouldn't be me. Spite the hell I went through I don't think I'd change how everything happened. Every one and everything had something to provide with the time and the place that they were for me regardless of if the experience was positive or negative.

There's been a lot that's come and gone in my journey - people, places. Having found a life long romance deepen to saying my final goodbye to a handful of people that have passed away, it's been very bittersweet. My twenties certainly has been riding the hurricane through to the other side, even passing through the eye not knowing what else is to come other than I have to weather the storm. I've burned more bridges than I can count but the one thing that hasn't wavered is my moral integrity.

That's probably the biggest thing I've achieved over the past decade. I know who I am and where I'm going with myself. I may not know entirely what the future holds but I've got a guideline written up for myself on the goals I want to accomplish over the next decade. I may never be perfect but it doesn't mean that I can't try to be the best version of me that I can.

It's a good feeling knowing that I've crossed off some major things on my goal list. I've completely mellowed over the course of the past few years especially, my twenties definitely have held some of the hardest mental battles I'm sure I'll ever face. The inner turmoil of leaving things unsaid, having to walk away when necessary is something that's an underrated skill but it's something I've had to learn.

All in all I’m happy to move forward with the next chapter of my life, although I’ll never forget the memories I made over the past ten years. There were absolutely some great highlights that I’m sure I’ll probably mention at some point.

Onward and upward.

Cheers to thirty.

#personal #birthday #summer 2023 #twenties #thirties #hello thirties #30th birthday #inner thoughts #looking back #closure #looking ahead #reminiscing #introspection #self reflection #happy birthday #another trip around the sun #selfie