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sunshine-luca · 1 year

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"You're beautiful. You know that?"

(continues from X 'say my name')

Luca threw his head back and moaned a little at the rough thrusts from his bound husband beneath him. He was as weak as always when it came to Ryan’s thick burr as he tried to issue commands. Like he wasn’t the one currently tied to the bed.

Luca cracked an eye open as a thought formed. “Hmm. No. No, I don’t think I will.”

It was a supreme effort – one that Luca would later be proud of – to slide off his husband’s very warm lap and onto the mattress beside him. The slightly puzzled lift of Ryan’s eyebrow and the way his body went suddenly still was worth it though.

“Oh, yeah,” Luca grinned wickedly as he scooted down the bed, kissing a trail down his husband’s chest as he did so. He licked the salt from Ryan’s skin, tasted traces of himself where he had spurted hot ropes hours earlier, and followed the path leading to Ryan’s thick cock, heavy and proud and glistening with leaking precum. “I think I’m going to keep you like this.”

Ryan’s low growl was music to Luca’s. Luca leaned over to press a kiss to the top of his husband’s hooded shaft playfully. “Sorry, you’re going to have to wait,” he whispered to it, fighting a giggle.

Ryan jerked, half to express his displeasure, half trying to find entry into Luca’s mouth. “I cannae fuck you from over there, boy,” he rumbled.

Luca laughed from where he knelt on the sheets. The edge to Ryan’s tone delighted him. It was time, Luca decided, running a small but sweeping dark hand over the pilot’s inked skin. Time for Luca to take what was his.

“I think,” he said slowly, shifting again to nudge a space open between Ryan’s thighs. Ryan didn’t fight him, eagerly accepting Luca settling between them and pushing up his knees. Luca took him in hand, wrapping slim fingers around his hot, thick member. God, Ryan’s cock had always been one of Luca’s most favourite things about him. Uncut, thick and veiny – and currently so proud and straining, leaking from the tip. Luca licked his lips before he dipped down for another quick kiss against the head. His lips met the pearly fluid pooling there and was sticky when he came away. A thin rope of joined them from his mouth to Ryan’s dick, but Luca didn’t bother to wipe it away.

Ryan’s hot eyes watched him and Luca was gratified to see the way his chest swelled and expanded with each hitched breath.

Luca gave his husband’s dick a light stroke. It was so hot under his palm. “I’m going to do the fucking tonight.”

Luca didn’t bother to untie him. He knew if he did, he wouldn’t be able to resist falling into their familiar pattern of Luca on his back with his husband pumping load into load into his guts. And ordinarily, Luca would be crying and begging for more, demanding to be filled until he couldn’t move without it leaking out of his ass and down his thighs and Ryan looked at him with dark satisfaction and bruised more kisses into the skin of his body.

Ordinarily, Luca would fall asleep stuffed and messy and exhausted and utterly blissed out.

But tonight, the talk show host’s fawning had sparked something possessive in him. A need to remind Ryan that even though the world knew him now, it was Luca he belonged to. Luca who knew him best. Luca who wore his ring and had his name and would love him until the stars in this and every other galaxy burned out.

Luca watched his husband’s face avidly as two of his slicked down, black painted nails disappeared repeatedly into the pilot’s tight hole. Ryan shuddered with each intrusion. He cursed and jerked ineffectually against the bonds that held him but Luca refused to let him go.

“You're beautiful. You know that?” Luca heard himself say quietly. He was mesmerized by the vision his husband made – Ryan at his mercy like this didn’t happen often which only made this affect him so much more. Luca pressed a kiss to the inside of Ryan’s leg, over the strange inked fish design neither could really explain away and pushed his fingers in deeper. Ryan was incredibly tight and hot and his cock leaked and jerked and he cursed – with every slow twist of Luca’s fingers as he tried to open him up, Ryan spat curses in a brogue so thick Luca, even with all the time spent in Ryan’s home country, couldn’t hope to decipher.

It was delightful.

“I cannae take much more of this, boy,” Ryan groaned roughly when Luca drew his fingers slowly back. Luca added a third and shoved them back in, effectively halting Ryan’s next protest. A low whine spilled from his husband’s mouth instead – a sound Luca had heard only a handful of times before.

“Holy fuck,” Luca whispered, his own control suddenly starting to slip at the sight of his husband impaled on his fingers, head thrown back and eyes squeezed shut. Ryan was writhing against the bed, hands still bound, breath coming in pants. His skin gleamed and his lips were stained red from where he was biting them with each one of Luca’s insistent probes. “Look at you, Blake.”

Luca kept one hand in his husband, occasionally crooking his fingers just to hear Ryan snarl and spit another curse. With his free hand, he gave his own cock a few quick jerks in attempt to ease the ache of his own hard on. It didn’t do much but Luca wasn’t focused on himself right now.

Right now was all about Ryan.

“My husband, my partner,” he murmured, repeating back Ryan’s words from earlier. “I love you so much.”

Ryan’s tortured whisper of his name had Luca pressing kisses against his hip, He rubbed his cheek briefly against Ryan’s cock, still hard and nestled in a thatch of reddish hair against Ryan’s colourful belly while it waited for more of Luca’s attention.

It was going to have to wait just a touch longer. For once, it wasn't his husband's cock that Luca was focused on.

“Gonna fuck you now,” Luca managed to pant as Ryan squirmed again on his fingers and ground out another curse. “Gonna make sure you know you’re mine.”

Ryan’s groan of frustration was music to Luca’s ears.

“Then hurry the fook up,” Ryan growled, lifting his hands, a dangerous glint in his eye. Somehow without Luca noticing, he’d managed to free himself. “Hurry up, boy, or it’s gonnae be you on ye back.”

Luca didn’t need to be told twice. He scrambled backwards, just enough to be able to shove at Ryan’s heavy thighs apart further and push them up. Then he grabbed his own dick and lined himself up, eagerly nudging at his husband’s hole. Ryan’s body welcomed him willingly but Luca had barely slid into Ryan’s hot sheath before his husband’s arms were around him, binding him tight and crushing Luca to his chest. Hot breath was against his ear. Ryan, all around him whispering encouragement, begging Luca to fuck him, breathing words of praise against Luca’s curls as Luca held on and pumped his hips and groaned and ground in as deep as he could as though he was trying to climb inside his husband’s body.

And he would if he could. Crack open his rib cage and climb inside because no matter how close they are, Luca needed to be closer.

“Beautiful boy,” Ryan crooned in his ear, surprisingly passive under Luca’s working grunts save for the iron like vice around Luca’s shoulders. Luca knew it was temporary. Ryan was letting him take what he needed until he flipped Luca and added yet another load to the white dribble running down his leg. “That’s it, love. Ye feel so good inside me.”

“Blake,” Luca sobbed it, unable to fight the rising tide as his balls drew up and his orgasm peaked. He grunted, whined, cried as it hit him, and he spasmed as he poured himself into Ryan with so much force he was sure he blacked out for the briefest of moments. “Blake! Fuck! God, I love you so much.”

The indulgent smile in his husband’s voice was unmistakable. “Shh, I ken, love.”

Luca was grateful then that Ryan had managed to work his hands loose on his own – he cradled Luca’s head against his chest when Luca had collapsed in exhaustion after dumping his load. Luca didn’t want to pull out yet, couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the dampness at the corners because sometimes the depth of his need and emotion for the man under him still left him completely weak and breathless – still as intense as the day they had first met and had looked at each other and had known deep down in a place neither of them could explain that they would be inevitable.

Their love was the kind people wrote songs about. And all of Luca’s songs were about Ryan.

“Fuck,” Luca mumbled, attempting weakly to raise his head. He was conscious of the fact that Ryan’s cock was still hard between them. “I, um. Hope that was…”

Luca trailed off, suddenly self-conscious.

Ryan’s blue eyes danced with amusement. “I have a lot of words for that,” Ryan said. “But none right now.”

Luca’s head bumped Ryan’s chest as he laughed weakly. “Me neither.”

“Come closer, sweetheart.”

Luca snickered slightly. “I’m still inside you. I’m not moving. Couldn’t anyway.”

God, they were both sweaty and sticky and the room probably stank of their spunk but Luca couldn’t care less. This was only an interlude before Ryan re-established their usual dynamic anyway and Luca was already excited for it.

Luca said as he traced a fingertip through the fuzz on Ryan’s chest. It was a mixture of reddish blonde and silver, not hiding any of the intricate ink that adorned almost every space along his body. Not for the first time, Luca wondered if he could convince Ryan’s cousin tattooist to tattoo his name on Ryan’s dick and giggled to himself at the thought.

He knew his husband would be all for it - it would only be finding someone willing to do it.

“I meant it though,” he said after a moment, circling Ryan’s left nipple with his mouth before idling drawing it into his mouth. Again Ryan’s breath hitched although he tried to appear unaffected.

“What, love?”

Luca lifted his head and propped it up, one hand under his chin. He could feel the strength coming back to him now. He gazed at his husband with a familiar swell of emotion rising up in his chest. It was overwhelming how much he loved this man. It was terrifying how much he needed him.

“You’re beautiful,” Luca said honestly. “Every inch of you.”

#he has.... uh. wanted to do this for a long time #but for some reason wouldn't #but its different now #sorry this kinda got away from me

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itsthesinbin · 28 days

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How about some Velvette x anxious new assistant?

I FUCKING LOVE VELVETTE!!!!!!!!! also ik u didnt specify demon type so i hope its fine i made reader a rabbit demon for funsies

Velvette (Hazbin Hotel)

After Valentino ripped apart Velvette's last assistant, Vox got to work on the hiring process for new candidates. Your ability to type quick, memorize complex orders, and move REAL fast when the fear of Lucifer was put in you got you the job.

You had walked in when she was yelling at a model for not being able to keep his back straight long enough to do a photo shoot. She didn't realize you were the new assistant as she shoved you into place, insulted your clothes and then popped new ones on you in an instant.

You were trembling when you held up her favorite coffee and stammered out that you weren't a model. She frowned, then did a 180 when she realized you had caffeine for her.

"Well, aren't you a doll! Hand the coffee to mama and then start taking notes for me, hm?" She snapped a more comfortable outfit onto you, knowing you'd need to keep up with her.

You followed her instructions to a T, and she thought it was cute that you couldn't really look her in the eye. Started calling you 'bunny', both from how jittery and nervous you were, and the fact you were a rabbit demon.

You stood at her side at meetings if you were allowed, holding her things. You followed her on her and Val's shopping sprees, holding her bags. Sometimes she- and Valentino- would play dress up with you in the stores and she'd be nice enough to buy the clothes they liked on you.

A few other Overlords would hit on you, and Velvette would literally drag you to her side and snarl at them. You squealed when she grabbed your ass.

"This ass is mine, shithead! Shove off 'fore I blow your fuckin' brains out!"

With your face burning, you asked if she meant it. She scoffed.

"You think I'd buy you anything if I didn't? Now c'mon, we're gonna be late." She slapped your ass on the way by, nearly making you drop your drink. "Y-yes ma'am!"

#hazbin hotel #velvette #velvette x reader #hazbin hotel x reader #sorry this one kinda got away from me

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trashpandacraft · 10 months

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hi! ok so i'm going to talk about one of my top-five favourite things, which is: dyeing stuff! this is going to be specifically about dyeing protein fibres (animal fibres—wool, alpaca, silk, etc) in a pretty low-key way in your kitchen.

to be clear up front: this is not the most scientific, most perfectly reproducible, or most Objectively Correct way to dye things. i get a lot of fibre that i like this way, though, and i think that other people can, too.

fibre i've dyed that i think is neat:

you can also dye yarn like this:

yes, i like blue a lot. i also really like variegation and heathering, which is why most of the fibre here has patches of white—it's an intentional choice that i've made. you can make different choices.

here is what you need to dye things:

fibre, vinegar, dye, a pot, heat, and some water.

that was so you don't get overwhelmed by the impending wall of text. here is what you need to dye things (it's the same stuff!), but with way more detail:

fibre or yarn. this is the big one, obviously. i tend to dye in 100-200 gram batches, because that's approximately what fits on my stovetop easily. if you're very nervous about felting or harming your fibre, you can use stuff that's been treated to be superwash, start with yarn (which is harder to felt than fibre is), or use a felt-resistant breed like dorset or suffolk. honestly, though, i learned with merino because that's what i had, and it was fine. again, though, this guide is only for protein fibres. it will not work for things like cotton. the only exception to this is nylon, which will take on some colour, but less than a protein fibre will.

a mordant. this is a fancy way of saying a thing that makes dye stick, and for what we're doing here, it's citric acid or vinegar. your grocery store definitely has at least one of them, though if you can choose, i prefer citric acid, because i love wet wool smell but i do not always love wet wool vinegar smell.

dye. i use acid dyes, and am personally deeply loyal to dharma acid dyes, but ashford and jacquard acid dyes work the same way. if you don't want to buy dye or don't have access to it, food colouring will often work, as well, though i haven't tried this with natural food colourings and have no idea how well they'll work.

a dedicated dye pot. ok, if you're doing food dyes, you don't need this. if you're not, it's definitely best practice, though i don't know how dangerous it is not to. any large metal pot will do, but my favourite option is hotel pans, which are those huge metal pan/tray things that hold food at buffets and the like. i have a full-size one that's 15cm deep, and a half-size one that's 4cm deep. they're great because they let you lay out the fibre you're working with so you can see most of it in a single layer.

dedicated dye utensils. as before, i don't know how much of a huge deal this is. i'll be honest and admit that for several years i had a single pair of tongs that got used for all tong-requiring events, including dyeing, and i'm still alive. i suggest that you have at least a big spoon, and a big spoon and tongs are even better.

something to mix the dye in. yeah, i use empty plastic sports drink or soda bottles for this. you can be fancy and get mason jars or little squirt bottles or whatever, and if you get super into dyeing you'll want to mix up dye stocks, but that's way outside the scope of what we're doing here. i like the powerade bottles that have a little squirty mouthpiece, because it's fun to squirt dye onto things.

personal protective equipment. i think this is the part of things that freaks people out. ideally, you wear plastic gloves and a mask (yeah, like your covid masks) when you're working with dye. realistically, i almost never remember to put on gloves and just accept that my hands are going to be blue sometimes. you should wear a mask, because dye is an irritant, but the world is an imperfect place and i have wicked bad adhd and sometimes i forget. this isn't advice. i'm just being honest. you should use some kind of safety stuff. you probably won't die if you don't.

you might also want some little random bits: an old toothbrush or paintbrush, a pipe cleaner, some toothpicks, etc. this is mostly if you like speckles, or if you want very small patches of colour.

so first: there are a million ways to dye things, and i'm not convinced that any of them are objectively correct. i do what i do and it works for me. some of the things i do are the opposite of what most guides suggest, but i do them because i like the effects they create.

ok, that's all the background stuff you need. let's dye some stuff!

the number one most important thing to remember when you're dyeing is this:

you can always add more colour. you cannot take it away.

that's in fancy writing and bold because every once in a while i forget this, and every single time i end up regretting it.

here is how to dye things:

put water, citric acid (or vinegar), and fibre into a pot. add dye and heat. let cool completely. rinse the fibre in cool water, then hang to dry.

like, sure, we're going to go into way more detail, but push come to shove, if you do that, you're going to end up with dyed fibre. there are a lot of tutorials telling you that you must soak your fibre first, or you must add your citric acid this way, or hold the water at exactly this temperature, and i'm here to tell you that while any of these things can give you different results, those results aren't necessarily better.

the only way that you can totally screw this up is by accidentally felting your fibre, so before i get into the way more detail part of things, i'm going to talk about that.

how not to felt your fibre

i feel like if you've read this far, you know how things felt: wool, heat, and agitation. you may also notice that at least two of these things are required for dyeing. this can be stressful! but you don't have to be afraid of it. there's only been one time that i felted something to the point that it was unusable, and that happened because i literally fell asleep for several hours while the pot was on the stove. you can avoid doing this by simply setting an alarm—this is a good idea anyhow, because you'll want to check on your dye pot!

when you're dyeing, use the lowest heat that you can while still keeping the water at a simmer. if your stove, like mine, has one burner that's wildly unpredictable and sort of out of control, you may want to look for some sort of flame diffuser, also called a flame tamer or a simmer ring. i bought one on amazon for about fourteen dollars, and it's literally just a thick metal circle. it works fine.

you can also keep the heat low by using a pot with a thick bottom, though in my experience those are expensive, and if i had one i would be using it for soup, not wool.

avoid shocking your wool—never put room temperature wool into hot water, and never put hot wool into cold water. leave your wool in the dye bath until it's cooled completely, which for me usually means overnight.

finally, obviously you have to move the fibre around some. you'll need to peek under it in the pan, and when you're done, you have to rinse it and squish out the water. try to minimise handling, though. don't run water directly onto the fibre, don't get a wooden spoon and stir your dye pot around, don't wring the fibre dry when it's done.

you're probably never going to be perfect. i often find that i lose a gram or two of wool where fibres have grabbed onto each other, or where parts of the ends clumped up. it's not really felted, just sort of compacted, but it's not great to work with, and i'd rather lose a gram of fibre than fuss with the clumpy bits.

back to how to dye things

let's take it step by step, assuming a hundred grams of fibre.

put your pan on the stove and fill it halfway with water. add either a teaspoon of citric acid or a tablespoon of vinegar. this is going to help the dye strike, or stick to the fibre. the teaspoon/tablespoon is a guideline, but one that it's fine to exceed. adding more will help the dye strike faster, which can be useful if you're trying to create blocks of colour on your fibre. i usually err on the side of a little more than the guidelines, and just eyeball this—if you feel like the dye isn't taking well, you can add more later.

add your fibre to the pan. this is the first place you have to think about what you want the finished fibre to look like! you can put it into the pan any way you want, but i suggest trying to keep it in a relatively even layer, regardless of what that layer looks like. here are some ways to get specific effects:

if you want a gradient from one end of the fibre to the other, use a rectangular pan and lay your fibre out so that the line of it is parallel to the short sides of the pan

if you want a short, repeating gradient, use a rectangular pan and lay your fibre out so that the line of it is parallel to the long sides of the pan

if you want something that starts with very close repeats that get further apart as you go down the fibre, make an approximate spiral

if you don't want A Pattern (i usually don't) just lay things out in a single layer, more or less

here comes the next exciting part! decide if you want to let your fibre soak or not. again, doing or not doing this gives you some different effects!

soaking your fibre will mean that dye takes more evenly. if you want consistent colours, you'll want to soak.

not soaking your fibre means that the dye takes less evenly. the fibre on top will have less acid available to it, spends less time in the dye bath, and also has to actually get wet before it will start to dye. i actually love doing this, and think it affords a lot of cool opportunities to play with and layer colours.

if you're soaking, leave the fibre there until it's submerged. if not, don't.

now you're going to add dye! decision time, again.

you can add dye when the water is cold, which will give you more even dye coverage, and in my experience gives the colours more time to mix together

you can add dye when when the water is hot, which will give you less even coverage, and tends to encourage the colours to stay more delineated

probably surprising no one, i tend to heat the water first unless i'm starting with a base colour or i'm doing a two-colour gradient.

time to mix up some dye

as i mentioned earlier, i'm assuming that you're using powered acid dyes for this. if you're not, this mixing up part is technically optional—but doing it gives you way more control about how and where you place your colours, so i'm going to assume that you'll do it.

i usually mix dye in some sort of empty drink bottle. regardless of what you're using, before you add dye to anything, put some water in the bottle, wipe off the lip, put the lid on tightly, and shake the bottle vigorously. if there is any leakage at all, do not use that bottle. find a better bottle. if your bottle cap doesn't seal well or if you have an empty condiment bottle that's just a little wonky or whatever, you will get dye all over the kitchen, and your landlord will be really really mad about it, and you will regret your life choices. (if you own your kitchen, you can do whatever you want, but this isn't about you and you know it.)

so you have a bottle that seals tightly! great job. dump out the water and carefully put some dye powder into the bottle. remember earlier how i said you should be wearing a mask? this is the part where you should be wearing a mask.

i know that people are reading this and going, ok, but how much dye do i put in?

my answer is put in the amount that feels right in your heart, and don't forget the number one rule of dyeing things, which is that you can always add more colour, but you cannot take it away.

this isn't a very scientific answer. most dyes have a guideline about how much to use, expressed as a percentage of the dry weight of the fibre, which is what you use to get the whole quantity of fibre dyed evenly. for dharma dyes, it's like 1.5-2%, i think ashford is 1%, and jacquard is more like 2-4%, depending on the colour.

here is the problems with doing that in your kitchen: first, using that much dye will get you an evenly dyed piece of fibre, which—for me, at least—is basically the opposite of what i want. second, and more importantly, unless you have one of those teeny tiny scales used by jewelers and drug dealers, your kitchen scale will not weigh out such tiny quantities with any accuracy. third, if you do it like this, you really have to plan what you're doing ahead of time, because there's a point after which no more dye will bind! the fibre will be like enough thank u that's it i'm good and that'll be it, so you lose some of your ability to decide that actually, you want more green.

you can probably guess, at this point, that i don't weigh the dye. once you've done a couple batches of fibre with a given brand of dye, you'll start to get the vibes for how much you should use. if you really want a guideline, for a hundred grams of fibre, start with a quarter teaspoon of a given colour. you can add more—either more of this colour or a different one—later, as desired.

put your dye in the empty bottle, and then fill the bottle partway with hot water. the amount of water doesn't really matter here, nor does the specific temperature of the water. i usually fill about 3/4 of the way, because that way there's plenty of room for this next step, which is: wipe the lip of the bottle, recap it tightly, and then shake it up real good. the dye powder is going to dissolve into the water, and you now have a bottle of dye!

if you're going for a gradient, you might want to mix up your second colour so you can add them at (basically) the same time for more even mixing. if you're not, or if you only have one mixing bottle, you can do them one at a time.

oh my god we're finally putting dye on the fibre

are you ready? it's time!!

you have basically infinite options for how to do this, and many of them will give you different effects. here are some ideas:

pour the dye all at one side of the pan. and if you don't add anything else, your fibre will fade from the colour of the dye to the natural colour of the fibre

pour two colours, one at either side of the pan. depending on how much dye you use (and remember, you can always add more), this will give you either chunks of colour surrounded by white, or a two-colour gradient

add all the dye to unheated water and mix it gently, then let the fibre soak for a few minutes longer before turning on the heat. this will give you a fairly even colour

pour randomly all over, and you'll either end up with a tonal yarn or a heathered one, depending on how much dye you're using

add the dye to the water under the dry fibre, which will sink in and take up more dye on the bottom of the fibre than the top

if your heat wasn't on before, it should be now, and you're going to let the dye hang out in the hot but not boiling water for a while. how long? well, one of the cool things about dyeing with these dyes is that they exhaust, which means that when the dye has been sucked up by the fibre, the surrounding water will be clear. how long this takes will depend on the specific dye, how much of it you used, how much mordant you used, etc. i try to check every fifteen minutes.

reminder: if you started with room temperature water, the dye's not going to start taking until the water heats up, so don't check it after fifteen minutes and freak out that nothing has happened. it is fully normal for it to take up to an hour for the dye to exhaust. don't turn up the temperature, just give it time.

yay it worked!

at this point, you have a pot of hot water with some beautifully coloured fibre in it! but maybe it's not beautiful enough. maybe you want...more colours.

that's cool as hell and you should go for it. we mentioned two-colour gradients up there, but what if you want something else?

the answer, probably obviously, is adding more dye.

first, a caveat: while you can successfully make multicoloured gradients like this, it's more difficult than you think, and if it gets messed up—all the colours bleed into each other, say—it turns into a muddy mess. my suggestion is to stick to two (or three at most!) colour gradients until you have a much better feel for what you're doing.

let's talk about ways you can add more colour. you have two options: big colour and little colour.

big colour is going to add a lot of colour—you're going to mix up the dye and pour it just like you did before, but paying more attention to places that don't have dye yet. sometimes it's the middle of a gradient, or the white splotches from random pouring, or the half of the fibre that wasn't submerged when you started. or maybe you dyed the whole thing yellow, and now you want to add a blue gradient over top. whatever!

if you don't want to freehand pour, consider buying a couple large syringes, or a bottle with a squeezy top. these are also fun because you can easily get more colour between the laid-out fibre, or even under it.

in the pictures at the start of this post, the red-and-gold top and both yarns were dyed by adding big colour.

little colour isn't going to add big patches, but is going to add speckling, tonal depth, or smaller patches of colour. all of the blue-base fibres and the yellow-and-blue yarn were dyed like this.

if you're still reading this closely, you might have caught that i just said both yarns were dyed with big colour, and that the yellow-and-blue yarn was also dyed with little colour. these are both true! the base colours of the yarn were done to make big colour, but if you look at the full-size image, there are also a bunch of speckles. you can do whatever you want! no one can stop you!

here are some ways to add little colour:

mix up some dye, but use less water. add drops of the dye, either directly onto the fibre (more dramatic!) or in the water (tonal!)

use a toothpick to grab a little bit of dye powder and drop it into the dye bath (similar to the previous one, but a little less predictable)

put on a damn facemask. take a clean toothbrush, paintbrush, or pipecleaner, and just barely touch it to the dye powder. gently flick or tap the brush to add speckles of that colour

find a salt shaker that you're never going to use for anything but this. put citric acid, salt (to make it distribute better), and dye powder into it, and shake it up (with the holes covered, please cover the holes) to make sure they're evenly distributed. gently shake this over the fibre to add speckles, but more of them, and clustered together

put a little dye in a spray bottle and gently mist the exposed fibre, kinda glazing it with colour

another thing is that if you like a natural coloured yarn with dyed speckles, you can do any of these techniques without doing big colour first. the only thing to note when doing this is that you'll want to be very sure to spread out the fibre well, and maybe to consider dyeing one side, then very very carefully flipping it over and getting the other side.

ok, now what?

let's say that you've added all the colours that you want, and you've let your bath simmer long enough that the water is clear, or nearly clear. (if it's not, check troubleshooting, below.)

put the lid on your pan and walk away. if you don't have a lid, just walk away, but it's less dramatic.

the super frustrating part here is that the safest thing to do is wait until the water and fibre is fully cooled before you do anything else.

have i ignored this? yes

has it ever gone horribly wrong? not horribly wrong, but it's definitely caused me to lose an inch or two of roving on occasion

is it way more stressful if you don't wait? absolutely yes

honestly maybe just go to bed and deal with your fibre in the morning

so now let's say that it's morning and you slept long enough that your water and fibre are both room temperature, which often actually feels quite cool on your hands.

you have to drain your fibre. there are two ways to do this:

lift the fibre out of the water. this has the upside of not risking dumping your beautiful fibre into your sink, and not needing to maneuver a full pot of water, both of which are admirable. the downside is that wet fibre is fragile, and you'll want to be careful to support it.

dump the water out of the pan. this has the upside of minimising how much handling you're doing of the fibre, as well as (in my opinion) making rinsing easier. the downside is attempting to keep the fibre into the pot while you dump the water into the sink, and also needing to carry around a full pot of water.

secret third option: dump the fibre (and the water) into a strainer. upside: very easy, and you can keep the fibre in the strainer while you rinse, minimising both how much it needs to be handled and the weight on the fibre. downside: i never remember that this is an option until i'm already elbows-deep in acidulated water, discovering every tiny cuticle tear.

you're going to fill your dyepot with water again so that you can rinse the fibre. you want to minimise thermal shock, so keep the water temperature as close to the temperature of the fibre as you can, and don't run the water directly onto the fibre. i like to pull all the fibre to one side of the pan, and fill the pan on the other side.

side note: if you, smart person, remembered that you can use a colander, simply fill a pot with water, put the colander in the pot, and gently agitate the colander.

if you, person who is deeply relatable, did not remember you can use a colander and now have a pot with clean water and fibre, gently move your fibre in the water to encourage any excess dye and also citric acid to get out of there.

drain your fibre again, and this time, you're going to squeeze it dry. you're still trying to minimise agitation, so this isn't a 'wring it out' situation, it's a 'gently squish it between your hands and/or a hand and the side of the pot' situation.

hang your fibre to dry. remember what i was saying earlier about it being fragile? let me suggest, here, that you do not simply drape the entire length over a single hanger or something and hope for the best. if you literally have a single hanger, at least drape it back and forth a bit, but better if you can use more than one hanger, or a clothes drying rack, or that weird metal wine rack thing that came with your fridge that you've never used, or whatever.

important reminder: drip-drying things will make your floor wet! if you live somewhere very clear with no major roads or pollen nearby, you can probably dry things outside, but if you don't, you'll probably want to position the drying rack in a bath, shower, laundry area, or otherwise over something that will catch and/or absorb the water.

how long it takes for the fibre to dry is another unknowable variable. if it's warm and dry where you are, it might literally be overnight. if it's damp and cool, it can take days. the batch i posted a couple days ago literally took almost a full week to dry. spread it out as best you can, gently squeeze out the water you can, and otherwise you just have to wait.

you're done!

when it's dry, that's it, you're done! you might find that you need to pick off some little lint balls or a bit of compacted or slightly felted fibre from the tips, but other than that, you should be good to go.

like most fibre stuff, this is best maintained by handwashing in cool water. you may see a little bit of dye or colour loss the first time you wash it, which is pretty normal and nothing to worry about.

congratulations! you made it to the end of this incredibly long post, and if you followed along, you've just dyed some fibre!

troubleshooting

this isn't dyed enough! i want more colours!

add more dye! i'm not the boss of you.

this is true even after the fibre is all done and dryed. there's nothing that says you can't dye it again—you can, and i have.

some fibre seems to require more dye than others. silk, for example, dyes beautifully with acid dyes, but also needs way more dye than i expect it to.

remember that if you're dyeing something that's a wool/cotton blend, for example, the cotton isn't going to dye. the only exception is nylon, which will kinda dye, but not as dramatically. this guide will not work for plant fibres.

this is too dyed! i want fewer colours!

please refer back to the number one most important thing about dyeing, which—as you know—is: you can always add more colour, but you cannot take it away.

pull out some more fibre and try again. this has a learning curve, just like any other fibre craft.

these colours don't look like i expected!

this can be about a lot of things.

colour guides, especially if you're looking at them online, aren't always very accurate.

colour guides tend to assume that you're dyeing a single colour at the suggested dye percentage of weight, and using less than that will give paler colours.

dyes, especially if you're mixing brands, can interact with each other and behave in ways you didn't expect.

dyes can also break, which is when they split into their component colour molecules. this happens commonly with blacks and browns, food colouring, and anything that dharma trading has marked as 'advanced'. some people find this very desirable and seek it out; some people are very frustrated by it.

the ph of your water can sometimes affect your dye. i've been lucky enough that i've only lived places with lead problems, not weird ph stuff, so i haven't investigated this closely, but if you're consistently not getting the results you expect, even going for a single, solid-colour dye, look at the ph.

my dye water's not clear!

if you used a quarter teaspoon of dye and a hundred grams of fibre, and it's been, say, 45 minutes of actually hot water and your water still isn't clear, you probably didn't use enough mordant, and you should add some more citric acid or vinegar to encourage the dye to get in there and do its thing.

if you used you used more like a teaspoon of dye, or if the citric acid doesn't change anything, you used too much dye for your fibre. you can either shrug and pour it down the drain, or you can add some more fibre and dye that, too.

my rinse water's not clear!

you probably used too much dye. it's ok—just keep rinsing it, gently, until it's more or less clear.

some colours just like to run—you know how every once in a while you get a yarn and it just bleeds a little bit every time you wash it? sometimes it's just like that. i wouldn't worry about it too much.

my fibre has felty/clumpy bits!

a little bit of this is normal, especially at the ends of a fibre that felts easily (this means you, merino!)

pick off the bits that you don't like—this is generally fairly easy, and involves very minimal fibre loss. i don't bother doing it until i sit down to spin, and then just pull off bits as i come to them.

if there's a lot of felty/clumpy bits, more than you can reasonably pick out, you agitated the fibre too much. there's not much for this other than trying to card it out, which may or may not work.

sometimes this happens because your stove got weirdly aggressive and boiled your fibre. especially for wool that's prone to felting, the bubbling and jostling can be enough to encourage more clinginess than you'd like.

i want my dyeing to be reproducible!

this is kinda doable. it's a handmade thing, so it's always going to have some natural variance, but you can do it.

buy a jeweler's scale that measures in fractions of a gram.

start measuring your dye and acid, and take detailed notes about what you do.

follow those notes in the future, and you'll be probably 90% of the way there.

i want to dye with natural dyes!

i fully support this and have played around with it a little bit myself, but absolutely do not know enough about it to advise you.

the internet is very large and full of many people who are much smarter than i am, and i feel confident that at least one of them is desperate to tell you all about how to do natural dyeing.

i am, at this point, not that person.

i want to dye plant fibres!

i am begging you to find another guide, because this one will not work.

you didn't answer my question!

that's what my inbox is for

i have to reiterate that i'm just a person with real specific interests who started dyeing things because i couldn't find or afford the kinds of colourways that i wanted.

i am not a professional

i will do my best to answer questions, but sometimes the answer is 'just fuck around until you find out'

plant fi—

shhhhh

the end

thank you for reading this incredibly long post! i might make another one in the near future, either so i can show pictures or because i took out an entire section about how to choose colours and pick a colour scheme and work with colours, and i kinda want to talk more about that, but this is no joke almost six thousand words long, so i thought, you know. maybe not tonight.

anyhow, i hope that this was useful to someone! thank you for letting me talk about one of my very favourite things.

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ohbo-ohno · 6 months

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congratuwelldone on 1k! well deserved!! how about 'being followed' for the prompt game?

-391780

1k game here - no more please!

i know it's been DAYS lmao im so sorry for dropping off on these. i actually forgot how to speak english for like 4 days there. anyways!!! @391780 tysm for the prompt! i went with price since i know he's your guy :) hope i did him justice!

1.2k of walking home from the bar and running into price. no smut! very sweet actually, i think (cw for implied past bullying in like 3 lines)

Your hands are buried deep in your pockets, one hand wrapped around a can of pepper spray and the other trying not to shake.

God, it's cold. Your nose has gone completely numb, and every puff of breath nearly blinds you until the air clears again.

You curse your past-self for ever being stupid enough to go out with an old group of high school friends. You should've known they'd leave you stranded, and you certainly should've known better than to not take your own car to the pub.

Now here you are, a couple glasses of wine in, taking the miserably long walk home.

It's shameful. You're shamed.

You're so caught up in your own self-pity, you don't even notice that there's someone following you, the crunch of ice and sleet beneath their boots loud. You don't notice until there's a hand wrapping around your elbow, and a low voice saying, "Excuse me, miss-"

You don't think, just react. You're already screaming as you whirl around with your pepper spray held high, spraying it into the night air.

To line up with the rest of your horrible night, it doesn't work. You push down the button at the top over and over again, and yet nothing comes out.

You and the stranger stare at each other, both with wide-eyed shocked expressions.

He's far more properly bundled up than you, with a matching knit hat, scarf, and gloves, and a thick green jacket that looks impossibly warm. You can still see that the tip of his nose is red, even surrounded by all of the bushy facial hair he's got.

You both stand silent for a few moments, your aggressive taps to the top of your pepper spray slowly petering off. Then it just gets... awkward. Just you and the stranger you'd try to pepper spray.

"Uh," you finally say, taking a few steps back from him. His hand falls away easily, but he's quick to reach out and try to steady you again when your heel slips against the sidewalk. "Can I help you?"

He makes a low sound, somewhere between a noise of disbelief and a laugh, and his whiskers twitch around his face. "I was trying to help you, love." He holds a small black square out to you. "You dropped your wallet."

It's hard not to let your mouth hang open, but you manage to keep some of your dignity. Instead of gaping, you snatch the little square of leather with fingers that are just barely shaking, stuffing it and the pepper spray back into your pockets.

"And you thought it would be a good idea to follow me - for multiple blocks - and grab me?"

He rubs his chin with a gloved hand, and you're quite sure that if it were any brighter out you'd see a blush coloring his cheeks. "Well," he gruffs, voice deepening slightly before he clears his throat and starts again. "I suppose I hadn't thought of how it might seem to you."

"A stranger grabbing my arm in the middle of the night? You hadn't thought of how that might look?"

Now you can see his blush. "I'm sorry for the scare, love, truly. Better off scared than without a wallet though, yeah?"

You're still a little shaken up, so you cross your arms tight over your chest and turn up your nose as much as you can. It doesn't work too well, considering no matter how much you try to look down at him he still towers over you.

"I guess," you concede. "Still. It's bad manners to scare a woman like that."

Now he smiles, his eyes crinkling. "Well, I wouldn't want you to think I don't know my manners. How about I take you to dinner, to make up for it?"

Your first instinct is to say no, to continue on your way home and keep an eye out for any shadows following you. And maybe it's the few glasses of wine, the rejection you're still nursing, but it occurs to you that it has been quite some time since you went on a date.

You give the stranger another long look. He's tall and broad, big in a way that sparks interest low in your belly. He's also blocking the wind from chilling you further, and you're not in any rush to lose that.

You sniff, shift a little and roll back your shoulders. "Why?"

He cocks an eyebrow. "Why?"

You make a hurried little gesture with your hand, like yes, obviously.

"Does a man need a reason to ask a pretty woman on a date?"

"He does when he's just followed her several blocks from a bar."

He laughs again, a harsh, booming sound in the nearly empty street. "You're not going to let that go anytime soon, are you?"

You try to bite back the small smile you can feel growing, know you fail when his own grin grows. "No, I don't think I will."

He steps a little closer, offering an arm. "Good. I like a woman with a spine."

You laugh as you take his arm, leaning probably a little too close considering this man is still a stranger. "You'll get all that and a little more with me. Now, if you expect a date, we're going to have to find the closest breakfast place."

He hums, tugging you a little closer and beginning to walk a different direction that your house. "Breakfast?"

"Yep," you pop the 'p', just barely resisting the urge to burrow further into him. He's warm. "I've had wine, which means I need pancakes. No pancakes, no date."

He laughs again, and you feel the vibrations through his side. You can't help but giggle yourself, feeling unexpectedly comfortable.

"Pancakes it is, then. By the way, what's your name, love?"

You tell him, then he repeats it back to you.

"I'm John. John Price."

"Do you carry an ID? I should send someone a picture if we head off together. Make sure they can find my body and all that."

He shoots you a bemused glance, eyebrow raised. "If you're worried I might hurt you, shouldn't you be running the other direction?"

You roll your eyes. "If I ran away from every person I thought might hurt me, I'd never go on a single date again. Is that a no to the ID question, then? Because I'm afraid we'll be cutting our date early if that's the case."

"No, no," he assures, digging his own wallet out of his pants. He holds out his ID a moment later, and you pluck it easily from his fingers with your phone camera already pulled out. "It's good you're so vigilant, love. Feel free to send that to whoever you'd like."

You hum, snapping a picture and quickly making sure it's come out clearly before texting it to your best friend with a quick recap of your little meet-cute. "Military?"

"Yes, ma'am. Captain."

You nod like you know what that means, tucking your phone away again and nudging him forward. "Are you important, then?"

He laughs, this time wrapping an arm around your shoulder and tucking you into his side. "Something like that. Now, I believe you demanded pancakes?"

You can't help but giggle at the word demanded, doing your best to nod seriously. "Of course. Lead the way, Captain."

He hums, rubbing your shoulder, and you can't help but feel hopeful for where the night will go.

#this one kinda got away from me im sorry 🫠#1k celebration #john price x reader #price x reader #cod fanfic #call of duty fanfic #bo writes #391780

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grandorderconfessions · 4 months

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#hey sorry for the unannounced hiatus #me (mod ip) and mod pollux got marriiiiieeeeed <3 #and went to visit mod lolly and their gf for a few days #also christmas #confessions kinda got away from me gomen #ANYWAY #fgo #sfw #fate grand order

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setsailforthestars · 1 year

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Vex and Vax get it so right.

Being a twin, and an identical one at that, is having a part of your soul detached and walking around in a different body. “Do not go far from me” is not a request but a demand, because you cannot bear it.

It’s a disorienting feeling looking at another person and seeing a mirror of yourself, but you blink and they’re just a few steps sideways of who you are. They’ve always been there, as constant as your own reflection, and nearly as accurate. They’ve always been who you wish you were.

When you grow up joined at the hip against the world, sometimes with no one else but them, it feels like every fight, every disagreement pushing you apart is the most devastating hurt you can imagine. It feels unfixable, until you cannot bear to be apart any longer and you fall back together like you were meant to be.

There is an incandescent rage flickering in your heart on their behalf at all times, even at the mere thought of an injustice against them. And when they’re hurt, or worse, of course you’re going to do everything you can to make it right. To fix them.

There is also sorrow. The knowledge that someday, somehow, inevitably, you will be the only one left. And you will be alone, and only half a person because you could not bear to make yourself whole when that would mean separating yourself from them.

And maybe one of you is the strong one, maybe one of you needs the other more, maybe you both think that about yourselves.

Maybe you would sacrifice yourself over and over so the other may live — selflessly, but also secretly selfish — so you don’t have to be the one left behind at the end of it. You don’t have to be the one who is alone.

#okay this got away from me but fuckkkkkkkkkkkk #I’m sorry to my twin who has to read this #they’ve died before fun fact I kinda know what it’s like #critical role #the legend of vox machina #tlovm spoilers #tlovm #TLOVM meta #cr meta #vex and Vax #vex’ahlia #vax’ildan #the sneak twins #do not go far from me

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skyafied · 11 months

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if you are still taking requests, could you draw heavy surrounded birds like a disney princes and medic looking lovingly from the distance

Hey anon how does it feel to have an absolutely massive brain, like just ginormous

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bhaalsdeepbat · 4 months

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Like the way Astarion lights up at the prospect of killing the Githyanki patrol and his excitement when Ethel runs and he's all "now it's a hunt !!"

Heroic Astarion who still fucking FROTHS at the mouth at a good chase because anything worth eating is a little dangerous. He's still sweet and emotionally available, but he also still needs to hunt to eat and that prey drive gnaws at him regardless of if he hunts innocents or bandits. He might as well try to enjoy himself (and he does. Without guilt. Durge is actually quite into it)

#bat rambles #astarion #im sorry i am not ok about this vampire twink #durge who also still has some prey drive instincts bc theyre still made from the body of bhaal #i promise im trying to be normal #bg3 #astarion is durge's princess and durge throws their body across running water for astarion to step on so he dont get hurt #he's still pathetic but he is also a predator #i also like the idea of that being part of the me vs them dynamic he constantly has to work through #cus can you imagine? e #everyone you meet is a propsective meal and he just got out of his “arrangement” where that was part of the deal #he HAS to see himself as better than the cattle and Cazador kinda #reinforces that kind of thinking #but redeemed durge or a good tav helping guide him away from thinking like that #i think hed still have those moments of #awe is the snack trying to fight back #and be intense abt his bloodlust and hunger #but he'd move away from being like GNOMES DONT COUNT AS PEOPLE BUT POULTRY RIGHT

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obsob · 2 years

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im like tamftgebka (thinking about maia from ‘the goblin emperor’ by katherine addison)

#mine #original #the goblin emperor #maia i would die for u i would kill for u #u would not BELIEVE this problems this drawing gave me. outstanding #i actually did a whole other drawing. maia and th little people are taken from that drawing i had to frankenstein them #the like. idea is the same kinda but the other comp was bad. like if i draw and i dont have a colour palette in mind i just draw for that #comp to work in black and white. and then if i try to put colour on top it like always looks awful. why do i do that.#anyway. here he is. im pretty happy w it th colours arent exactly what i wanted but thats fine svbkdbgvd #my mum is away this week im playing house and having a good time #i got!!!! more isopods!!! ik i said i would post pics n of my magic potions and didnt but thats bc theyre very small and shy rn skjlf bless #i got more armadillium vulgare but a gem mix theyre so pretty!!! n one of them is like absolutely huge. enormous.#however th seller was very stupid th packaging for their postage was rlly bad n th ventilation holes were too big n they didnt pack th #tupperware tight enough so loads of babies fell out n died :(((((((((( i sent her a message like. maybe dont do this n she was like oh sorry #n was like this has never happened before but im like. ur stupid. why did u use such a big box all u had 2 do was put more moss in.#they were rlly dry as well theyve spent all day hanging out in th damp moss. poor babies. theyre absolutely destroying some cuttlefish rn #so i think theyre fine <3

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pennamepersona · 3 months

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the thing that finally let me understand wyll was seeing a couple posts about how he's like. unfazed in the beginning. this is normal to him

very "the day you were taken by the nautiloid was the worst day of your life. for the blade of frontiers, it was tuesday"

#bg3 #bg3 wyll #he really did get off the ship and then saunter over to the nearest place that needed saving #oh i was abducted by mindflayers? eh time to teach these kids how to hold a sword #and also to believe in themselves #the thing about wyll for me is that i accidentally didn't recruit him right away #straight up just missed him. got distracted by zevlor and that merc asshole #and in my first run i was very task oriented so i missed karlach as well #fully got through the whole thing up to the party in like 8 hours #then learned it should've taken me more like 30 #oh also didn't get lae'zel til the end of the act either #so wyll and lae'zel both took a backseat #i did hang out with karlach ill admit to that #partly bc her vibes are immaculate from day 1 and partly bc it was shadowheart astarion gale and me (cleric) for ages #do you have any idea how fucking incredible a barbarian feels when you've been living with 3 casters and a rogue #anyway sorry for thinking you were normal and kinda boring lawful good wyll #didn't realize that actually you're unhinged and have absolutely no point of reference for regular behaviors

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kinos-fortress-2 · 5 months

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does this even looks like a tf2 fanart anymore

#just experimenting!#i was gonna say im gonna delete this later bc i will ofc change the colouring here but just wanted to show bc i think is pretty #ONLY THIS ONE DRAWING bc is more... pretty me thinks but totally not from the way i wanted to go #but yeah little spoiler for something im doing bc i am so drunk and in love with them i cry a little bit but im fine now #i just love love #kino art #piss mauling #this looks very far away from my art style... but it reminded of my older style too... and like those 2016 shipp art if ykwim #this looks so personal im sorry i promise i will draw funny gore tf2 ugly art back again dont unfollow me bc im happy tonight is 1am buak #- i just wanna feel... happy and pretty and being in love space thats. how im feeling right now... dont drink wine guys my last words #watercolors dont go w my style i just realized that... but this looks pretty for me imo i feel kinda happy with this but is not the idea tb #ughhhh that sniperpauling playlist got me in the feels #really. this doesnt even looks like tf2 art anymore literally like. what tf2 game did yall play??#this two are basically my ocs atp #im so annoying with them ugh

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horsechestnut · 8 months

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Reverse Robins!

But specifically Stephanie and Tim (with a little Jason added when it's relevant).

Note: I'm of the opinion that in Reverse Robin AUs they wouldn't actually use Robin as their code name, but for convince and clarity's sake I will be using it here.

Damian is gone. He left in a blaze of anger. They'd fought before, but this time came with a finality Bruce doesn't known how to handle.

Batman is spiraling. Without Damian around there's no need to be Bruce Wayne, no reason not to follow one more lead before turning in. No young eyes looking to him to be an example. Nothing to keep him from beating the bad guys into a comma.

Tim Drake has been watching Bruce Wayne for awhile. He's been watching Batman for longer. He saw the turn, the way the Wayne Foundation is slowly being corrupted without Bruce's over site, and the more extreme injuries criminals are coming in with. He looks at Bruce Wayne and Batman, and the man behind them both and thinks "Yeah, I can fix that." Maybe it's teenage nativity, maybe it's a drive to do something good, maybe it's the need to be in control of something in his life. Whatever it is, he acts on it.

Bruce doesn't want to let Tim be Robin. Damian was his son, and a trained assassin, Tim is a random kid with no formal training. But Tim is a random kid who figured out his identity and is actively blackmailing him with it, so he doesn't have many options.

Batman and Robin are back together. Bruce Wayne is back in board meetings. The criminals are getting a lot less bruises. Robin is far more impressive than Batman ever would have guessed he could be. Tim is falling asleep in math class, but he already knows it all anyway so it's barely worth mentioning.

There's a new vigilante in Gotham. One who sets a dangerous precedent. It's one thing for Batman to have allies, it's another for outside agents to start taking matters into their own hands. Especially when they're untrained teenagers who are looking for personal vengeance.

He does everything he can to get Spoiler to quit. He tells himself it's not just about his personal dislike of her, it's for the sake of every other misguided kid who might try to follow her lead.

He fails.

The Joker attacks Robin. He doesn't kill him, he has a worse fate in mind. He takes Batman's prodigy and makes him his own. Tries to prove that even the Bat's closest ally can be corrupted if he has a bad enough day. He succeeds, and for one terrifying night The Batman faces off against Joker Jr.

Tim survives, but he's not the same. It takes months for his injuries to heal, and even then he's haunted by what Joker turned him into. Terrified that he could snap again at the wrong moment. He tells Bruce he can't be in the field anymore, it's to big of a risk. He promises Batman he'll find another way to help.

Cluemaster is dead. He died on a suicide mission. No matter how Steph feels about it personally, logically she knows Gotham is safer without him around. Part of her can't help being relieved, and she doesn't hate that part of herself as much as she knows she should. There's no longer any need for The Spoiler.

There's an opening for Robin and Steph wants the job. Wants to prove she can do it. That she's just as good as Tim. That she's not her father. That she can make a father proud.

Batman doesn't want Stephanie. He wants Tim. But maybe Stephanie is a way to get there. To make Tim jealous enough to come back.

Bruce tells himself it's for Tim's own good. Stephanie's too. Tim needs the push, needs to be Robin again so he can overcome his fear about being the field. And Stephanie needs the training, and the focus now that Cluemaster is gone.

Robin tries, she really does. She does everything Batman asks of her, always. Except once. And once is all it takes. Robin is fired, but as she leaves the cave Stephanie grabs on to one last desperate chance to prove herself. Batman never intended for the file to be used, but Stephanie doesn't know that. Batman didn't tell her. He never told her anything.

The war that erupts is unlike anything Gotham has ever seen.

Damian comes home. It's not for Bruce. It's for Gotham, for the city that took him in despite everything.

Batman isn't listening to Oracle. He's cutting him off, overriding his systems, and treating him like nothing more than a glorified phone operator. Tim can't just do nothing. Not when his city is burning.

Black Mask captures Spoiler, and nobody notices.

Robin is back on the scene. He's reluctant at first, but once he starts it's like a switch flips. The moves are second nature, the danger is exhilarating. It isn't a game, but part of him can't help relishing it all the same. He can't remember why he stopped.

Spoiler manages to get free. She manages to ambush Black Mask. She manages to pin him to the ground, gun pointed at his head. But Steph can't pull the trigger. Two months ago she would have, but now Batman's voice is in her head. She can't let him down. Not again.

Stephanie hesitates, and in that moment Black Mask breaks her hold. He gets his gun back. There's no moral code running though the back of his head. He doesn't hesitate.

Gotham is safe. Batman did his job. Damian is back. Robin is in the field again. But Bruce is haunted by what happened. Damian is injured, Tim has nightmares, and Stephanie...

Jason Todd isn't new to being poor. He knows how to be hungry, how to fend for himself. But he is new to being homeless. The gang war left lots of kids in the Narrows orphaned, of course some of them were going to fall through the cracks, and Jason happens to be one of them. Maybe it's for the best. He's heard how the Gotham Foster System treats kids. Maybe he's better off on his own. He just needs to find a way to make some money.

Batman descends with all the furry he's been holding in. But instead of an overconfident car thief, he finds a twelve year old boy desperately clutching a tire iron, trying to seem angry instead of scared.

Bruce recognizes something in him that he can't fully explain. He takes Jason back to the manor. Gives him a home. Does everything he can to keep him away from the cave.

That lasts about two weeks.

Jason wants to give back to his community, to make sure kids don't have to deal with the shit he had to deal with. He wants to thank Bruce for helping him. He wants to be nothing like his dad. He wants to make his new father proud.

Damian is against it. Tim is against it. Bruce is against it. Jason is insistent. He decides to take matters into his own hands, to steal an old Robin suit and sneak out after the others have left. It doesn't go well. He thinks he's blown his chance, but to his surprise Batman relents. If he doesn't Jason will find a way to do it on his own, and he won't let another kid go out untrained.

Tim goes back to Oracle. The way he felt the night of the gang war still scares him sometimes, reminds him to much of Batman back when they first met. Guilt washes over him whenever ever he thinks about it. How happy he'd been, all well Steph...

He should have been in the Clock Tower that night. Should have been keeping better tabs on all of them. He should have known she was missing in action, should have been monitoring her suit's location or trying to reach out instead of just listening when Batman said not to involve her. So if there's a new kid running around in the suit, their suit, he's going to make sure this one is safe.

Robin is good. Really good. He's to angry, he's rash, he's impulsive. But he learns fast, and he seems to almost fly over Gotham. He fits the role in a way Tim never truly did.

Black Mask is dead, and someone else is using his name. Someone who's dismantling the Gotham underworld piece by piece.

Steph has a duty to the people she hurt, a duty Batman will never understand, and one she has to handle her way. Batman stopped the war, but he didn't stop the gangsters. He didn't stop Black Mask, or Scareface, or any of the others. It's not about what they did to her. She deserved it. It was her own fault. But so many others suffered because of them, because of her, and Batman did nothing to stop it. So she will.

Black Mask isn't planning to confront Batman. She doesn't care about him. She's done seeking his approval and following his rules. Doing that got her killed. It got other people killed. But there's another Robin running around, and someone needs to explain that. Steph knows by now that she was never really Robin, it was all just a trick to get Tim back. A trick that worked. So who the hell is this kid? Is he like Tim, someone Batman will keep safe, or is he just another pawn he'll sacrifice the second it's covenant? And when she finally gets around to asking, she lets more slip than she should have.

Batman knows the truth, but that's okay. It was only a matter of time before he did, and it doesn't change anything. Bruce tries to appeal to her, but what can he possibly say that could make a difference? That he's sorry?

He is, but it's to late for that. Stephanie knows the truth. She knows he never took her seriously. She knows he never trusted her. She knows it was all a game, and that in the end Batman got what he wanted even if not in the way he intended. And Bruce can't argue, because she's right. He created her, and he knows it.

Stephanie Brown is dead. She died in Leslie's clinic. She died because her doctor decided teaching Batman a lesson was worth more than her life. A lesson he didn't even bother to learn. She died because she listened to Batman even though he never bothered to listen to her. And she died because Batman used her as a chess piece. Because he wrote her off before she'd even properly begun.

Black Mask is not Cluemaster. She refuse to ever be her father. But she's not Batman either. He never gave her the chance to be. She's something else. Something between those two extremes. Something that's fully hers. She's going to protect the people Batman's to busy to care about, and if she has to kill a few people along the way, so be it. She's not playing by his rules anymore. She never will again.

Black Mask is Batman's greatest failure. Not because she died, but because he never took the time to teach her how to live.

Stephanie is Bruce's biggest regret. Not because she died, but because he didn't care about her until she did.

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suffarustuffaru · 8 months

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I don’t speak Japanese so I’d LOVE to hear more about the differences between the English and Japanese Re:Zero fandoms

yeah sure its very interesting to me now that ive noticed it more lately :o !! though ok disclaimer - i dont speak japanese either hah so if anyone is seeing this and does speak japanese + is familiar with the japanese speaking side of this fandom please add info if youd like!! and of course ill be mainly speaking from the english side of things bc im more familiar with that yes (sorry anon again im not a japanese speaker T^TT so sorry if i tread on info you already know!!). but yeah im speaking from my own experiences given the Topic at hand. ive been in this fandom since... 2019?? which is so wild to me aljsdfljsd.

anyway so - i think the big difference is mainly that the english fandom and many english speaking people that engage with rezero are. to put it bluntly, misconception runs Rampant to a very Interesting degree. to the point where it seems like the english speaking side of the fandom is More. Aggressive. than the japanese fandom. not that the japanese speaking side of the fandom is perfect - also bc what fandom is ever perfect 100% of the time, tbh - but that the louder people in the english rezero fandom are. well its a Very low bar. Very low. and from what little ive seen and heard so far, the japanese fandom tends to understand rezero and its characters better than the english fandom. which ig makes sense bc you know, rezero is japanese media, and also im sure cultural differences come into play here as well (im not familiar enough on this to speak about it in depth but the cultural differences feel Pretty Clear even though i cant 100% put my finger on what they specifically are).

but also bc yeah. its not That hard to beat some of the english fandom when it comes to media comprehension. misreading rezero is unfortunately Extremely common, both in and out of the rezero community. its Everywhere - youtube, myanimelist, ao3, ff.net, reddit, twitter, various rezero discords - and from what ive experienced, rezero tumblr basically kind of feels like finding an oasis after crawling through the desert for days on end lajdslfjs. which is probs bc rezero tumblr is Smaller and also a lot of us seem to be lgbtq+ in some way or be allies, so you dodge a lot of the misogyny and homophobia that happens in other rezero english circles. its why you see a lot of openly queer rezero-related posts on here while its a bit more. barren. in other rezero english places yes. bc its more safe to post queer rezero things on rezero tumblr rather than rezero reddit for Sure.

im not sure how the japanese fandom is with that exactly but theres some interesting differences between whats popular in the english fandom vs the japanese fandom. i mean as an otto fan ive been noticing how hes more popular with the japanese fandom—and on top of that, ottosuba is Way More popular in the japanese fandom too. reinsuba and julisuba seem to usually be the most popular mlm subaru ships in both fandoms but ottosuba is like A Little Up There in the japanese fandom. not sure if its on the same level as a ship like reinsuba but ottosubas Definitely loved as a ship. from what little ive seen it also seems like ships like vichisha are more acknowledged by the japanese fandom? im not entirely sure on like—Complete differences regarding what the japanese fandom finds interesting that may differ from english fandom, so ill really have to look more into the japanese fandoms fanart and fanfic when i can bc im pretty curious too. in general though, it seems like the japanese fandom has a bit more variety…. you can find fanart on So Many characters in rezero (which already has a very Massive cast full of very fleshed out characters) there. not that you cant in the english fandom bc theres a Bit of variety too, but id more so contribute that a little more to the Big Cast and less to having actual variety in fancontent. and of course im not saying that the japanese fandom may be a bit barren in some areas of fancontent—bc inevitably when u have a big cast of characters, side character content is gonna be more sparse compared to the main characters, but to me it does feel like the english fandom lacks variety in comparison. (and also yeah. seems like the japanese fandom acknowledges gay ships more in general tbh.)

whats focused in fancontent makes it easy to tell what may be popular in a fandom in terms of how fans perceive the source material and what fandoms want to do with the source material, if that makes sense. and its very easy to tell that with the english fandom if you just hop on rezero ao3–or even better, rezero reddit given theres a fanfic ideas thread thats usually pinned right at the top of the site. again i havent looked at japanese fanfic for rezero yet (bc i dont know where to look oops ajdndn) but when it comes to the english fandom you can tell that theyre generally more focused on the female cast both in fanart and in fanfic bc. theyre women and many fans on say, reddit or various rezero discords, are cis straight men, so inevitably… well lets just say you can tell when a man makes content for this fandom o.o theres also the. very weird reaction fic trends and trends following popular fics in the fandom, the two biggest being the watching him die again and again react fic and re:forgotten, the former of which includes a harem plot with subaru and the main girls of rezero while the latter is one of those subaru gets tortured by his ooc friends and then he gets revenge on them fics. which i suppose says something about the english fandom too.

of course on ao3 its dominated mainly by english fics (of course not all fics on there for rezero are in english— big shoutout to all the non english fics on rezero ao3 ur doing great <3 — but the majority are in english). and while yeah ur occasionally gonna find stuff like queer content or side character content or rarepair content, its definitely not that big in amount and also comes with the risk of. Hate. if anyones reading this and remembers the lone star stuff. (if u dont know—lone star was a julius x emilia fic where they NTR subaru or some shit and then it got bombed with hate bc of the ship? yeah.) so yeah english fandom is very cis straight oriented, ironically with the nastiest people being the very people that rezero criticizes. though this is also my personal experience, i do know several people personally whove been in this fandom for a while or were here for a while and yeah english fandom isnt very welcoming at times???? and it seems like at the very least the japanese fandom is A Little Less Aggressive than the english fandom is.

otherwise. yeah im very very curious about more of the differences in popular content between the japanese vs english fandom. i mean the english fandom’s main focus on the female cast for. Interesting Reasons other than their actual character depth is… interesting. and the astreas being popular in general vs otto + ottosubas popularity fluctuating is also very interesting to me (but i have several guesses as to Why that is), among other things. yeah id love to know what else the japanese fandom likes about rezero and see more of their content. i also have to wonder if characters like emilia and subaru are hated less by the japanese fandom…. T^T well that and the english fandom and many english speaking people engaging in rezero have this interesting pattern of either hating subaru No Matter What, wanting subaru to Not Be Subaru (ie using him as a self insert almost or attempting to change him into virtually another character), or putting subaru on a pedestal and ignoring his flaws and mistakes and that he Can do wrong. like theres Really not a lot of nuance there. so i wonder if the japanese fandom is. A Little more chill when it comes to character opinions like this too.

#rezero #tldr: english fandom sets the bar so low (unless ur on rz tumblr) that the japanese fandom def seems a bit better by comparison #in terms of. Calmness levels.#every time i step into a rezero space that isnt tumblr i get a little worried my heads gonna get bitten off by someone HAH #recently someone tried arguing with me over how i interpret otto (this was on reddit) and then said stuff that showed they did Not #understand his character that well so that was awkward 😭😭😭#even just by looking at otto fanart from the japanese fandom it seems like more people understand his character there. in the english fandom #he is. either Not There or his flaws are just handwaved away or replaced with Different flaws #atm hes the most obvious example i can think of when it comes to. how differently characters can be percieved by different parts of a fandom #for rezero. like hes near invisible here but ottosuba being almost on the same level as REINSUBA in jp fanbase is crazy to me #kinda reminds me of the disney’s duffy and friends line and how it failed in the us but its SUPER popular in asia. really fascinating #and also yeah some of the english fandom seems. more loudly misogynistic and homophobic which is very unfortunate #also im sorry ill never forgive that random person on reddit i just said one (1) thing on otto and they came for my throat like fr 😭😭😭#ask #i do wonder why reinsuba is so popular but thats probs bc reinhards well loved too and also hes op. which is a bonus for the english fandom #bc theyre into all the power scaling stuff. and also reinhard gets the other bonus of being a guy and he isnt shafted by canon. hes treated #very sympathetically which is another bonus akdnsn #i say this as a reinhard fan btw but as an emilia fan im also crying bc theyre SO SIMILAR and yet why do people hate emilia….#but u know. reins a guy and we havent got his pov yet so there isnt much to hate.

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