#i read this thing about how artist really struggle to ask for people to support them
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#i read this thing about how artist really struggle to ask for people to support them#and i think it's really true#so im trying to go outside my comfort zone more and ask for the support that i need#please sign up for my patreon!#the retail market has been REALLY rough this season#and monthly support from patreon really helps to keep me from worrying about paying my bills#every little bit helps and adds up#thank you so much for being here and supporting me!#patreon artist#darling illustrations#erin speaks
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Webcomic rings run by people within the community are cool and you should support them
I've been loudly struggling a little bit with corporate webcomic Stuff lately so I want to mention something positive to balance it out: webrings run by small groups of creators earnestly trying to support each other are slowly making a comeback and I for one am delighted.
If you weren't around for them in the before times, webrings were just some folks who hang out a lot who feature each other on their websites. That's literally it lmao. There's generally no money involved and it only really functions the way it's supposed to if people have control over their own websites AND genuinely want to participate and get excited about other folks' work, which means the practice has pretty well fallen by the wayside over the years in webcomic culture given. Everything. In the rare event someone decides to do something like this it's usually in the form of a link list somewhere on their website; this doesn't usually indicate any sort of mutual support, it's just a list of what the creator is reading themselves.
A webring, though, is an official banner or hub that people gather under intentionally where each member is more or less on equal footing. It's essentially the concept of "a rising tide lifts all boats" put into practice, each creator brings their own audience to the table in a passive, opt-in sort of way that's different from working for a publisher since there isn't necessarily a Top Spot or a paycheck everyone's vying for, and individuals retain autonomy over both their own work and how (if) they promote each other. You're all at your own tables in an artist alley rather than fighting over the table in the front of the book store, essentially.
I have two rings and one collective for you today!
Webcomic Ring was brought to my attention AGES ago by Holly, one of the artists featured there, and I might have brought it up at some point but I'm doing it again lmao. This is exactly the kind of thing you ought to be looking for; a small group of enthusiastic folks having a good time making their weird little comics. You probably haven't heard of much in the catalog, that's PERFECT in the context of webcomics that's where the GOOD SHIT is. Finding something like this is A Gift go dig around in the longboxes for a while.
Then a few people have pointed me in the direction of the KNIFEBEETLE collective and that's neat too! Most of the comics there are already fairly well-known, but the vibes are excellent and I haven't seen a lot of talk about the collective /itself/ outside folks already in the know. I think it's important for this sort of thing to be more visible to folks who aren't terminally steeped in webcomic culture already so here I am telling you about it. You were probably reading several of these before I suggested it, but that's how a webring works! For it to do its job you should take those bigger creators' tacit recommendation of the less popular titles as a sign to go read something new and strange. Wild, I know these are practices held over from the old internet, but I think we should try and bring them back.
Lastly, I want to mention Spiderforest, which is a collective (slightly different from a webring) BUT still a very cool project readers starved for new stuff should pay attention to.
You've probably seen Spiderforest kicking around for a long time already; they're wonderful and have always been an overall positive force in the community in my experience. They really focus on building up a community, and especially welcoming newcomers and helping them get their feet under them. Full disclosure, I've been asked to apply by a few different folks over the years and the only reason I never did is I don't have the ability to participate in their forums and such as frequently as they want their creators to; it's a very good system (from my outside perspective) that might contribute to the community staying mostly healthy in ways that art communities usually don't and I appreciate it a lot!
ANYWAYS that's all I got for now, just trying to balance out some bad feelings I've been having by talking about some good stuff. Please go binge an archive this week.
#long post#contrary to what i say i do love webcomics so fucking much#there are Reasons i'm fucking angry all the time lmao
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doubt anyone will see or read this but if you do, thank you x
I want to be honest with you all, I’m really struggling to feel happy anymore. I’ve never been one to talk about my feelings easily or openly (for various reasons) but just to cut it short, I’m not feeling 100% anymore about my place in the fandom recently.
I don’t want to say I’ve been alienated but more so lonely. and I see the incredible (and so deserving) love and support my mutuals get, but can’t help but think maybe I’m doing something wrong? perhaps I am the problem. I have flaws I know I am not perfect. but I am trying. I tend to overthink which doesn’t help either but oh well, nothing new.
on top of some personal shit, and having to take on some major responsibilities, I just feel down and out. I’ll find my feet I know I will, but for now, I’m just miserable.
so forgive me, if I am not as interactive and vocal as much. I just intend to write, publish, reblog and answer direct asks. I will try to continue to show support to other writers/artists for I feel like the fandom isn’t as active (or maybe just on my end) and I would hate to think anyone else feels the same way.
I have always tried to make my blog a safe and happy place, whether I’ve done that or not is up for question. there is no judgement here.
to my incredible friends that check up & talk to me quite literally day to day, you are so amazing you have no idea. for those that check from time to time, I appreciate you just as much (for I know how life can get in the way, and do not blame you). For the people that interact with my fics and take the time to read, reblog and comment, you are also wonderful, you have no idea. it’s just the small things that are above and beyond for me.
love love love you all, sending my love to wherever you are ❣️✨
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Ayo! New follower here. I love your art and your mind set of just messing around to make cool stuff.
but I’ve also seen you love been to at least one convention (I didn’t scroll far enough to see more about conventions) and I wanted to ask. How you did it?
I really enjoy making art and I would love to make it a career so this boils down to :
how did you do it? And how can I do it too?
not just like first steps but what happens after that? I’m young enough that if this doesn’t work out I have plenty of time to look into other careers before worrying about paying for rent or necessities with money from my future occupation.
I know that everyone’s experience is different but I still hoping you can give me a somewhat clear answer.
thank you for inspiring me
(sorry this ask was so long)
Hello there! Thank you for your message.
These questions are large and hard to answer. Being more specific in your questions helps. "How I did it" is very... large in scope. That question could be answered just by saying, "I did it by never wanting anything else and never losing sight of my goal." But that doesn't help you much. So I'll just try to touch on some key points and contexts.
I'm 32. Only in the last couple years has my practice been enough to make a living doing it. I've always wanted this and literally everything I've done in my life has been to get here. I've worked two jobs my entire working life (age 19-now): retail/customer service and art stuff on the side. Because of the pandemic, I got double unemployment and stimulus checks, which became my initial investment into merch and savings safety net to get started. I started therapy to address my fears of asking for help, my negative self-talk, and catastrophic thinking. (Therapy has helped me with my art so much.) Then I was laid off for real in 2020 and hit the ground running with art. I split rent with roommates, I live very very cheaply, and art is my passion. If art for a living is what you want to do and you're happy to make lots of concessions to get it, this career works. It takes a while to get momentum and regular sales/attention-- just don't quit. The more stuff you do the more people will recognize you and like your work.
It would be dishonest to not address my privilege here, too. My parents have always emotionally supported my practice, my friends too, and I got to go to art school with no debt. I did outside of school art mentorships. My art education experiences taught me a lot of art techniques and self-employed skills and that only happened due to the support of my folks. I had resources a lot of people don't. (Which is why I want to help new artists learn this stuff as much as I can; not everyone is as lucky as I am.)
My advice for you if you want to do what I do, which is being self-employed making and selling art and art merchandise for a living:
Get used to making concessions right at first. Your art career will probably not start out gangbusters, so get used to low sales and saving money and working hard. Make things within your means and grow from there.
Fuck around and find out. Try making merch, try making videos, try things you see other artists doing, try everything and see if it works for how you like to make stuff. I learn so much from YouTube, to be totally honest. Artists are good sharers.
Follow a shit ton of artists and see what works for them. Join artist groups and ask thoughtful, specific questions to learn from those already doing it.
Learn how to write about your art. Write about why you make it. It helps make it more compelling to others. "How to Sell Your Art Online" by Cory Huff is a good book to read for tips on this.
Develop a healthy relationship with art-making. If you sit down at a blank page and it terrifies you: address that first. Don't try to start a business if you're still struggling with making art regularly.
In fact, don't start a business until you're really ready. Art comes first. You can easily do art and build skills and do commissions and run an online shop along with working a job that pays bills reliably while you grow into the artist you're meant to be.
Don't pigeon-hole yourself into only one channel: don't JUST apply to cons, try street fairs too. Don't JUST sell online, get your work into cafes as well. You'll see which routes are more profitable/worth the time as you try them out. Eggs in many baskets, you know.
There's probably a whole essay I could write on this. And you're right--mileage varies between person to person vastly. The part of the world you live in, your access to transportation, education, your mental health, what type of work you like to make, etc. Art careers almost never look the same 1:1 even in fandom spaces like furry/anime. If you're self-made, it will reflect that.
I recommend the YouTube channels Rafi Was Here, Robin Sealark, Cat Graffam, and the website The Abundant Artist (again by Cory Huff) for more resources.
Don't be afraid to take leaps of faith. Try everything. Be true to what works for you and what doesn't feel sustainable. Be authentic with your art and stay true to your interests. And good luck.
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today marks one year since i left full-time art behind to work as a computer person and i think i can say for sure now that it was the right decision for me
it pains me to admit it because i fought against the idea for so long and was so dead-set on being a career artist but, i'm a lot happier now, not because i'm drawing less (trust me, i'd love to draw and work on stuff i'm passionate about all day), but purely because my work is so much less stressful. i had people telling me that because i'd got 25k or 30k followers on twitter that i'd "made it", that i'd hit the holy grail and could now easily make a living from my artwork, but that was so, so far from the truth lol
i was barely scraping by off commissions with a tiny stipend from patreon, and i would have new artists coming to me asking for advice on how to "make it", how to turn their art into their career, and like, how do you turn around to these bright-eyed artists who are making great work, who see you as their goal and say "i put years of hard work into building this following, got a few huge lucky breaks and i'm earning less than £400 a month from doing it full-time", that fucking sucks man
i don't write this to say "don't follow your dreams!" or "don't bother", i love making and posting art and i've met some of the most wonderful people doing it, but i think my thoughts mirror a lot of youtubers you see who give advice to new youtubers and say "for the love of god do not make this your career" - the unfortunate truth is the whole "social media artist as a living" thing, except for a very select lucky few, is a very rocky business model at best, and if i haven't already mentioned, can be extremely bad for one's mental health for a whole bunch of reasons
it's a career path i see glorified a fair bit and a lot of people aspire to it, but having tried to walk that path and been ostensibly "successful", god damn is it tough, if not impossible
i guess my other point, if there is any, is that artists on the whole have it really fucking tough, and if you have an artist you love and it is within your means to support them, please do so. i guarantee they're struggling out there - most artists with similar or even bigger followings that i've spoken to have had experiences that pretty much mirror my own, so i don't think i'm an isolated case
thanks for reading if you did, and i do want to say, i really, really appreciate you all <3 i don't get to draw much these days, but i do get to draw whatever i want, and to post it here and still get such wonderful positive reactions makes me very happy :)
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Why I'll Be Remaining in the Lurking For Love Community
Ok.
Honestly, I really don't want to make this.
I'm way too old for fandom drama, and I don't need to be making myself a target. My gut is telling me that it's a bad idea to get involved, and I'm inviting trouble for myself by posting this.
But the most recent post against Tom is just ridiculous and I can't not speak my piece.
I'm not linking to it or reblogging it because I don't want to send hate anyone's way, and honestly because I'm going to block them as soon as this is posted. You can read mine and theirs for yourself and decide what you think.
As far as the “anti-Latino” posts that Tom liked, I can't speak to whether they do damage, or what Tom’s views actually are. I am not Latino, and I'm not Tom. It's not my place. But I will say I was aware of those posts long before I saw that “callout” post, and it's because multiple Latino artists I follow liked and retweeted them. At the time, I was given to understand that they were satirizing the fact that both were styles of stereotypes, but one was acceptable while the other was not, despite both being bad. I can't say, based on just those tweets, that I see any anti-Latino sentiment in Tom. I'm willing to admit that my knowledge on that front isn't bomb-proof.
The second point, well... I'm sorry to the friend that feels used. They're entitled to be hurt. And I will readily admit that I'm only able to respond to the info within that post. Maybe there IS more to it.
But I don't think that Tom ceasing contact over the hormones is surprising at all, from a mental health standpoint. Put yourself in his shoes: you're a trans person in US, which is its own struggle, and you've reached your mid/early 20s without being able to attain gender-affirming care. Now someone years younger than you just got the thing you want more than anything else. Sure, you might be happy for them. But that is also going to hurt, horribly. You really have three options:
1) stay friends and smother the bitterness/possible resentment. That will either end up ruining your mental health, or coming out and ruining the friendship anyway.
2) Ask your friend not to tell you/post about their transition. That makes it about you and also ruins something that should make them happy.
3) Distance yourself.
Maybe he should have spoken more directly with you about his feelings, granted. But, Tom has not been shy about the fact that he struggles with his mental health. None of us handle every situation well. As far as his occasional venting, I would think, if you WERE his friend, you might have some compassion, and either cease contact if the friendship is not fulfilling, or accept his sincere, well-written apology (Which are the ONLY words straight from Tom’s mouth on the entire fucking post).
Instead, you got the apology from him, and then shared a bunch of gossip between you and another friend, and outed your interpretations of his vent sessions to the world. That's not exactly classy, posting about how he sought people he felt safe with during a time when a big chunk of the community he built is telling him to do horrible things to himself.
I want to make it clear that I don't agree with all of Tom’s views as expressed on his initial explanation post. Again, many of them are issues that I don't feel are my place to get involved in, and therefore I stayed quiet at the time.
I'm aware that the justified and intense hurt felt by people in those communities can mean that even differing opinions feel like a slap in the face. You have every right to see Tom’s views as hurtful and choose to leave, and/or make a separate community for support. I don't blame people who are in those communities for doing so. This post is aimed at the obsessed minority that won't leave the tag/remaining fans/Tom alone.
All of the above being said, the reaction to Tom’s post is the most “touch grass” thing I have ever seen.
Tom liking one or two comics from a dark-humor comic artist so widespread on the internet that I didn't even know he had an actual page, or anything about him as a person (something Tom also stated) = Tom is a Nazi sympathizer.
Tom saying “I don't care for neopronouns, but I won't attack you for using them and will respect what everyone wants to be called” = Tom is a monstrous bigot.
The racism accusation has me especially 💀. All because he liked a post about help from an unexpected source and that we should be kinder to each other.
How on earth are you going to tell a POC that he doesn't know what racism is because he’s NOT THE RIGHT KIND OF POC? Do you hear yourself?
(FWIW, I also don't agree with kink at pride. Sorry. LGBTQ+ people are not "narsty little freaks"--yeah I SAW that post--they're people. They can be kinky, they can be vanilla, whatever. Kink has nothing to do with your orientation, and therefore it isn't part of Pride. Also, my guys, if you're having public sex/being nude at pride for kink reasons, then you're not part of the healthy kink community: safe, sane, and CONSENSUAL. Nobody around you consented to that. Similarly, while I feel that sex education for minors should be normalized in order to give them better tools to tell when they're being groomed, seeing strangers with no pants on is NOT education, that's involving minors in your fetish. And that's fucking gross. )
The LGBTQ+ community in the US is in a lot of trouble right now, and we have a very bad habit of eating our own. We divide and subdivide and allow ourselves to be carved up by a united conservative front.
We do not allow for differing levels of leftist beliefs, and we constantly accuse each other of being not POC/leftists/queer enough, or being the wrong kind, or using a term for ourselves that some other individuals don't like. A great deal of the bullying leveled against him is justified by others saying that he's choosing to support a party that will turn on him and cause him and others like him harm.
Well, to be honest, the only community I see doing that right now is this one.
The amount of disingenuous “OMG, just FYI everyone to everyone hurt by [situation], I’M not transphobic/a bigot, you're all welcome here 😌” posts from people, who did not read his post, did not link to or quote his post. Disgusting. You know very well that nothing in his explanation or in his actions throughout his time in the community pointed to any abuse ON HIS PART towards trans people, non-binary people, people of the Jewish faith, or POC. You're virtue signaling, you're putting lambs blood above your door to keep the baying mob away.
This is insane. When did differing opinions turn into this? You don't have to agree with Tom’s views on anything. You're welcome to not follow his accounts, not like his art, not buy his game. If you feel that his opinions are too severely different from yours, you should be allowed to leave the fandom without people telling you that you should do bad things to yourself because your opinions don't match theirs (sound familiar?).
But…please. Can we stop with this awful parasocial obsession with his personal page? You can't lie to yourself and call it anything other than literal stalking. It's creepy as hell, and it reflects more on you than on him, in the long run. People might agree with your outrage, but deep down, they're afraid of being the next target, and they stay quiet out of fear that you'll stalk them next and send a mob hurling abuse their way.
To Tom, I'm sorry that this happened to you. You didn't deserve anything even close to this level of vitriol and abuse. You started from scratch and created a character and story that I feel was something truly unique. You reached an incredible number of people's hearts with Lurking for Love and Jacob, and no matter what happens from here with both of them, you deserve to feel proud of that. I hope that you are ok. Being a public figure on the internet doesn't mean you don't have a right to private opinions or even just general privacy.
I'm not tagging any characters in this. I'm only tagging the game because I hope other fans get to see that they're not alone. I don't believe the tags should be polluted this way. If you have to discuss a creator, it should be in his tag and not in a fandom space.
I'm aware that there will be deliberate bad-faith readings of this, or nitpicking of things I didn't cover. Whoever wants to, go ahead and respond, but I've said what I came to say, and I have nothing more to add. My inbox is closed and I love the block button.
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A LONG while ago I had made a post considering making a Patreon or something of that sort for my stuff and how I was pondering things about it.
And I had gotten an inbox response (that I didn't post for very obvious reasons y'all will read later on under the cut) requesting I only post NSFW artwork on it as said person said they didn't care about 18+ artwork and went on to explain how everyone's money is tight right now and that they really didn't want to miss out on story and OC stuff.
And I feel like enough time has passed that I can form a proper response. Because I do understand money being tight but...there's just levels to this that made me feel some very offput by this response to me simply thinking about making a Patreon.
The first thing I want to state is that, if I did make some subscriber content, I definitely wouldn't hide lore heavy stuff behing paywalls. It would have been bonus extra content people could def live without or at the very least something they could see weeks or months earlier than people not subscribed to it (which is something many artists I follow do).
The second thing, is that I understand many do not like NSFW work. I totally get it. HOWEVER, I love drawing intimate things, so much so that I already have alt accounts where I post my more adult content for other adults to see for free because I treat it the same as my sfw art. It's just stuff I wanna draw for fun. And it wouldn't be fair suddenly cutting off those people over on my alt and telling them to pay to see my OC's tiddies from now on.
I also very much am not a fan of having people tell me to my face that they don't care about NSFW content in relation to my OCs and stories. Please keep that to yourself or at least in your friend group Discord servers. Telling me to my face is just a major vibe killer.👎🏾
Third, and by far the most important thing I want to say, is that "YES" money is very tight for everyone right now. Believe me, I know.
However, it's super important that people understand creators are also part of the group when y'all say "money is tight". Like I said, society is hella unstable and everyone is struggling. Artists, especially the ones brave enough to be doing freelancing for a living, are also tight on money.
It's why so many have subscription services for their work. Nearly every creator with a story or characters I follow have a subscription of some sort that people can pick as an option to support them.
When I was considering making a Patreon, I definitely was not expecting everyone following me to hop on board. In the past, I have had people ask if I had one. So me potentially making one would have been meant for those people who were interested in it. It would have been a more "out of the way" option of showing support.
That being said, many artists are share their work for free. Many do so because they love sharing their creations with others. While I don't believe the person who sent in the inbox ask had meant to come off as entitled, I do think people have to check themselves when it comes to their responses to artists in general wanting to make a little money off their own creations.
I have seen so many times where an artist starts to do something to earn money, whether it be merch, adopts, or commissions, and people will complain because there's a price tag for something they got used to getting for free.
Just like someone who enjoys looking at art has the freedom to decide if they want to give said artist money or not, an artist definitely has the right to decide "I want to make some money from my art".
"Art is a luxury" is very much a two way street. You don't have to pay, but an artist doesn't have to make all their work free.
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Patron?
I’m going to be making myself a patron and wanted to ask what you guys would like to see on what to offer for tiers for anyone who'd like to support me. And please don't worry I'll always post the finished pieces here and not keep everything on there, so no missing out. I would maybe like to offer up early looks at work, WIPs, HD files to make wallpapers ect. Maybe a say in what I’m going to draw, requests, polls on drawing and what to do, Q&As ect And first look at commissions when I get to do them. I would like to ask what you guys like to see me offer really as I’m stuck and I want it to be worthwhile for people.
And, talking about commissions, does anyone have artists who offer them that you think i’m similar to me as I honestly do not know what to charge? Say for a full colour one character, full two characters, grey piece, pencil piece ect. It's so hard to not be too expensive and rip you guys off nor too cheap as to rip myself off.
I really need ways to make money since mum passed away and doing something with my art will help till I find a job.
I also wanted to thank everyone who left me such wonderful messages since mum died. I won't lie, it's been hard. I've been wandering around the house like a lost soul thinking she'll be back. I don't know what to do with myself. So doing some art will always be a good thing to keep me occupied while job hunting and hopefully starting driving lessons. Though those aren't to be done right away as I'm still struggling with my grief. You don't know how bad it'll hit till it does. But reading your messages helped me when I feel so alone. And sorry if I'm always so late to reply.
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As someone who’s followed you for a long time, and a fellow writer….do you genuinely support chatGPT? Even if it has been proven to scrape people’s writings without their consent? And the fact that its a soulless husk of what actual writing is?
So Ive done my best to avoid AI discourse, but I am bad at it. So to put it clearly.
I dont Support chatgpt specifically. Its a program made by a corporation because they can make a profit from it, and curtail its capabilities in line with their goals. I use it sometimes because its fun ans convenient, but I dont pay for it or anything. I think pretty much all legitimate concerns about AI are really just concerns about corporate ethics, at which point the AI specifically becomes irrelevant
I also dont really think the situation in general is one where "support" is the right word to use; its like asking if I support cameras.
I want to be clear im not trying to be vague though; i think in general AI is pretty cool, and that 99% of the arguments against it are factually incorrect, based on inconsistent or bad moral frameworks, or both. Im not going to get into all the reasons AIs are cool, since I dont feel up to doing a Big AI Post, but I do want to gesture vahuely in the direction of how much more accessible this makes artistic creation and experimentation, and all the insanely fun things people can use AI for. However, i do want to address the common arguments against it, especially since it feels like a lot of people are just misinformed and falling into the very easy tumblr trap.
1. Scraping fics without consent: if you post something on a public site for the public to read, and someone downloads it to read it, its not stealing. Tumblr is generally pretty firmly against strict copywrite laws, so its a bit weird that so many people are Very concerned about AIs "stealing" their work in a way thats even less direct than fanfiction. Like, "your writing is so in character" and "wow youre really good at imitating the authors writing style" are common compliments on fics.
To be clear, there are absolutely ways of interacting with free public content thats bad (like reposting). But AIs arent frankensteining stuff together, or copy pasting anything; they literally could not do that. The training/model files are so insanely tiny compared to the amount of training data that it would be impossible for them to be storing that sort of thing. An AI learning from your writing isnt really any different than a human reading your writing, going "oh I like that" subconsciously, and using that to inform their future writing.
Whats that quote about "to get better at writing, read more"? If you believe that statememt is accurate, then Im a bit confused how youd be upset about an AI "reading" your writing and learning from it?
All of the Actual ways this could be used badly (copying someones art style and then selling art cheaper, etc.) arent actually unique to AI (a person can also do that!), and also usually arent really a thing thats happening enough to be a problem (most people who want art from an artist enough to commission them, are going to want it to actually be done By that artist). Using AI to make an original work, or even to finish a fanfic someone else wrote, is no more theft than if you did it by yourself.
2. "Soulless Husk": im sorry im genuinely trying my best here to be gentle and respectful, but this talking point genuinely makes my blood boil a bit, so im not trying to get personal or insult anyone specifically. Claiming that art made by humans is automatically deeper, that art is all about Meaning and Struggle, comes off as extremely pretentious and just doesnt engage with the reality of art. Im having trouble articulating a good argument here, but like. Art doesnt have to be deep, it doesnt have to have a Message, and the necessity of struggling in order to learn about and create art is an unequivocable bad thing.
Many many people make art (visual, written, etc.) becuase they want to see or read something cool or because they think others will find it fun. Many many people who would like to create art do not do so because it requires talent/practice that they are not willing to put the time and effort into developing, and this is not a moral issue. As Ive said before, laziness is a virtue and self-indulgance is a goal we should aspire to. Using a tool to make the incredibly fun act of creating easier and more accessible is awesome.
Also, who gets to define what "actual art" is? Genuinely seems a bit arrogant and presumptuous to declare that something is or is not "actual art" based on your own preferences.
The posts that Really annoy me are the ones that are like "cant understand the people RPing or playing a TTRPG with AI becuz its soulless. I only ever RP with other people because the fun part is being social or collaberatively building story" or whatever. Cool. I rp and play tabletops because i like to have fun and I enjoy those activities. Im gonna be honest, i find it a bit offensive and kinda.. dumb, to act like its somehow morally superior to only enjoy oneself in a way that Builds Community or Has A Meaning. People do meaningless things because they enjoy doing them and so long as no one is being hurt, thats fine.
3. Replacing workers: This is the only argument that has Any weight, but its still a bad argument. Its absolutrly true that AI is gonna put people out of work. The fact that more people will be out of work and struggling is a bad thing. This is also what happens when literally any new technology is developed, dating all the way back to the industrial revolution (at the Very latest). Automation is almost always a massive net benefit to humanity (im aware this topic could be its own series of posts but You Know What I Mean, please dont start industrialization discourse here), and the fact that it puts people out of work isnt actually an argument against it. Lots of radio operators lost their job when telephones were invented, but that doesnt mean people should have never used the telephone and obstinately stuck with radios. When phone technology advanced, a lot of phone operators lost their jobs, but that doesnt mean people were Morally Wrong to use the new developments that made phones far more convenient.
As in all things, el problema es capitalismo; AI isnt preventing anyone from doing art, its just reducing how many people can get paid to do their art. The correct solution to automation putting people out of work is not to stop the wheel of tech development, but to change society so that one doesnt have to slave away in order to survive.
This also raises the adjacent point, which is that halting tech development like this is impossible. Once the cat is out of the bag, its not going back in. AI tech is going to develop and become more widespread and theres literally nothing you can do to stop that. If you want to be upset about that, its your perogative ig, but im gonna be excitedly waiting for the dam to break and we get an open source LLM that I can use without worrying about data privacy or corporate filters, so I can have fun and RP however much I want and finally be able to write the stuff I want to write but cant do on my own because I have adhd and chronic fatigue, and Id kinda prefer if people stopped trying to rain on my parade because they think im not having fun or creating art in the "right way".
EDIT: I did want to add one more thing! A US court ruled that you cant copywrite something created completely by an AI, and i think thats an awesome move and I hope it gets expanded a bit and spreads elsewhere. This isnt a position based on whether something produced in this way counts as "real art" or is morally bad or whatever, I just think that reducing corporate and IP grasp on anything is good, and that AI specifically is going to be most enjoyable when its free and open source.
#AI#discourse#im genuinely happy to discuss this so feel free to send more asks or reply#but im turning off reblogs because im not a fan of online discoursing
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okay so
i am fairly new to your blog and understand the anti ts stuff and i just wanted to say that even with all the racism (i only know the recent stuff and im appalled, who knows what has been going on for years) poc from asian countries still love her. im indian and i have SO. MANY. FRIENDS. who absolutely eat up everything she does and follow her blindly even though theyre willing to call out other forms of racism and bigotry by other people and get so hurt if you try and call ts out. they organise ts events and are a really huge and vocal fandom in india as well. their hypocrisy and obsession is so weird and annoying.
I wish I could tell you how many times I read this over Anon. This is INSANE TO ME!! I completely understand why you're annoyed with their hypocrisy, because this is boggling my mind. Like I cannot stop reading this over I am so confused by their actions 😭
I've heard that they're a lot of Asian Swifties but I've never met them IRL or really seen them online either (IS is the only person I can think of), so thank you for letting me know that they do in fact exist and unfortunately in large numbers as well.
I'm also struggling with how PoC Swifties rationalize liking her music despite TS's own explicit racism. Especially since so many PoC Swifties in my life (they are not my friends. I simply know them) are like your friends who aren't afraid to call out racism, sexism, homo/transphobia, etc. yet will openly stream and yearn to TS.
(Although, I will say, ALL of them fetishize white people. Like they only go after and want to date white people. It's the weirdest and most unsettling phenomenon I've witnessed specifically among PoC Swifties.)
I think it's a demonstration of how flawed their own ideological commitments are if they can push aside and ignore racist actions of their favorite artist because their music is just "so good." It shows who and what they're willing to sacrifice to continue justifying their love for this racist musician, and them getting defensive just shows that they know liking her is inconjunct with their proclaimed beliefs.
When I see people act like this on social media, I often question their ulterior motives when they call out racism and bigotry. To what extent does their solidarity apply to, and to who? Why do they present themselves as left leaning politically when their actions say otherwise?
It undermines their actions and commitment and shows their internalized racism that they can continue supporting a racist artist like this. I have dealt with PoC like this, who present themselves as an ally, who say all the right words and right things and yet their actions consistently undermine their actions which led me to distancing myself from them and in my experience, unfortunately reinforcing my skepticism with other PoC :(
It's why people say PoC solidarity is a myth, because your friends are an example of how they would rather continue stanning a racist white artist knowing she's dated someone who's consumed and masturbated to pornographic content that explicitly showed torturing Black women. (here's a link to a reddit post that explains it (sfw)).
It's easier for them to ignore what she did than it is to hold themselves accountable knowing that she dated someone like this and what it means for them and what it says about their beliefs. You're right; not only are they hypocrites, but they display blatant cognitive dissonance by stanning TS.
tl;dr you're not crazy, they really aren't down for their beliefs like they say/act like they are if they continue defending/stanning a blatant racist white woman like her. they should work on their internalized racism and not bother calling themselves allies to other PoC (esp. black women) as long as they stan her.
I hope this is a satisfactory response to your ask, anon (also I really hope this makes sense) 😭 Thanks for sending this in!
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Birdsong: Hard Sell
Fandom: Grishaverse: Shadow and Bone, Six of Crows, and The Grisha Trilogy
Summary: Every other time in her life, when she got everything she thought she wanted, the rug had been pulled out from beneath her feet. What was stopping this from being any different?
Warnings: Depression, self-destructive behaviors, mentions of grooming, fatphobia, body dysmorphia, and anxiety
Word Count: 11,988
Ship(s): Nina Zenik/Matthias Helvar/Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa/Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck
Archive link!
A/N: We've reached the last fic in this series! I may return to it one day but I don't have any plans to do so. I really like the way that it turned out here with the focus on Nina from each of the partners and then herself. I hope that you guys have enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, it means a lot to me as the first SaB fic that I wrote. Thank you all so much for reading! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3
Birdsong:
Hard Sell
A Grishaverse Fanfiction
A Nina Zenik/Matthias Helvar/Kaz Brekker/Wylan Van Eck/Jesper Fahey/Inej Ghafa Fanfiction
By Sissytobitch10seconds
Tour was both everything that she had ever hoped it was and the hardest thing that she had ever done.
Nina had dreamed about being a big enough artist to go out and do tours since she had decided that she wanted to be a performer. When the manager of Shadow and Bone brought it up, agreeing to do it was a no-brainer for her. Alina was the only one that had gone on tour before, with Nikolai doing a mini set back when he was performing as Sturmhond, and she had been a bit more wary of the whole thing. It had been a decision that they had decided coincided perfectly with the official release of their first album, so they took it. They were doing a single show in every city that they went to with a couple of days resting in some of the bigger places. Nina knew that the open days were going to get filled with shows as time went on and there was proof for the demand of them, she was well aware of how that worked.
Shadow and Bone was growing vastly in popularity the longer that they continued to produce music. Even in just the year that she had been together with her partners, which was six months after the band had reformed, they had already exploded in the number of streams that their songs had on Spotify. They were finally in a place where they were getting enough money from the Shadow and Bone merch and album purchases that they could support themselves. Alina was the one that needed that the most, since Kirigan had taken most of the money that she had made under the stage name The Sun Summoner. Zoya came after her when it came to being supported by the band, since the money that she got from being a touring drummer was only so good. Nikolai had never been hurting for money with how wealthy his family was. Nina was still getting quite a bit of money from her Heartrender music, too.
They were apparently also getting a lot more popular because of the imploding that The Fold was doing. More and more artists were following in Alina and Nina’s footsteps as they revealed the shady and shitty business practices that they had. The public opinion of the recording studio was plummeting, which meant that more people were reaching out to Shadow and Bone since one of their singers had been the face of the company for a while.
While they were on tour, a couple of the days that had been free on their schedule were instead taken up with interviews. Alina was the one that was focused on during them, but Nina and Zoya were also asked a couple of questions about everything that they had gone through. Nina released what she was comfortable with and kept quiet about what she wasn’t. That had gotten her quite a lot of flak from unhappy studios that hadn’t gotten the massive scoop that they were hoping for. The fans on the internet backed her up, as did her partners and bandmates, but it was beginning to wear her down.
She had always struggled with feeling like she was doing the right thing and being signed under Kirigan had only worsened that. During the harder days, the words that her mother had said would intermingle with his until she felt like a shell of herself.
“You’ll never be ladylike if you do that. You need to be more graceful. Cut down on your portions so that your future husband will actually want you. No wonder your father didn’t fight that hard in the custody battle if this is how you’re going to act.” Her mother.
“Just trust me, why are you so difficult? Calm down and actually listen for once. You’re just not as talented, it’s something you’re going to have to accept. Maybe if you were prettier then you would be selling better.” Kirigan.
She knew that Alina had it worse. She had been raised in the same kind of strict environment as Nina, which is where they had met. She had the worst of the abuse since she had also been in a romantic relationship with the horrible narcissist stealing their money from them as young teenagers. The words still ate Nina from the inside out, turning all-consuming and threatening to never leave.
She was aware that they would eventually leave, they always did. Regardless of what life threw at her, she was always there to take the next step forward and keep living. She wasn’t going to let something like her own depression and anxiety keep her from living the dreams that she had before they set in. She knew that she was going to struggle on the tour since things in the band were still a little rocky and the manager was going to be pushing them as hard as he could to get as much money as they could out of it.
They played sold-out show after sold-out show. They met with countless fans and spent hours talking to them when they tried to get food. They had even had to take off late one morning because someone had found their tour bus and wanted to get a picture.
Despite the constant go-go-go nature of the tour lifestyle that she now found herself in, there were still good moments. She woke up every morning to a picture of her partners, Inej sending her own separate one, letting them know that they missed her. She got near constant updates about what they were doing, like their group chat had become their polycule’s own specific social media. She knew that the certain set of vibrations in her pocket would mean that her partners were checking in with her, which always filled her up with so much love she felt as though she might burst.
Nina also lived for being able to play the music live. She could only imagine how intense it would be if she had brought some of her more scream-adjacent songs from her Heartrender discography instead of the more chill music that Shadow and Bone produced. She lived for the sound of the fans cheering back at her and the bass reverberating through the stage as it traveled through the speakers. Her favorite part was when everyone heard their favorite song and began to cheer even louder than they had been before.
Their biggest show was in the capitol, which was also where they had been doing a bunch of interviews with famous celebrities for late night talk shows. It was exhausting and so rewarding to finally step onto the tour bus so they could be taken to the next place that they needed to be.
Currently, she had performed her last show and was sitting in the hotel room that reminded her that she was a hop, skip, and jump away from her home with her partners. That idea had been thrilling up to a point, until she realized that she was going to be getting home at just the wrong time. Inej wouldn’t be back until the next day from her own set of shows. Matthias and Jesper would be doing their own respective jobs at the theater, with the former moving around sets and fixing broken props while the latter acted the main roll. Wylan had just had to travel out of the state so that he could attend a conference with other scientists as his study was coming to a close. Kaz would be opening the bar and it was one of the more important nights where he couldn't just step out unless there was an emergency.
Arguably, it was probably better for her to have a night alone in her apartment before she swamped herself with even more interaction. It would give her tired body a chance to actually rest and recuperate like she desperately needed, but she didn’t want it. She only ever really felt safe and warm when she was wrapped up in the arms of one of her partners. Even if Kaz was still feeling cuddled out like he had mentioned in the group chat that morning, being next to him or even in the same room as him made her soul feel like it was finally at rest.
Guilt sprang up in her stomach at the thought. She was the one that had decided that she was going to go on the tour and now she was complaining that even more people couldn’t warp their lives around her own wants in her schedule.
She missed them so aggressively that her brain couldn’t help but mention how much they didn’t. Logically, she knew that those things had to be wrong. They had enough partners with each other that if they really didn’t want her then they would have told her before they got to the point in their relationship that they had. Then again, her mind chimed in helpfully to remind her, they had another girlfriend in the chat that they were likely corresponding with over her.
Nina had been so worn down because of the travel that she hadn’t been able to reply consistently to them. She had instead had to give them a barrage of things and reactions to what they had done when she finally got a break for the night. Even then, she usually fell asleep on her bunk on the bus before they got the chance to reply back to her.
She had been the absolute worst for the last month that she had been touring. She knew that they deserved better than her, and she could see what the better example of her was. Genya had always been a complicated person to get to know but she was quite literally everything that Nina wasn’t.
She had been signed with Kirigan before Nina and Alina had the chance. She was quiet, demure, and beautiful beyond all belief. She found time to call her finance every night before she turned in to bed and each morning when she woke up. She was careful of how much she ate and every action that she made while she moved. Nikolai had always been somewhat ambivalent towards her, but Zoya and Alina were thick as thieves with her. It was difficult for Nina to watch, but she forced herself to do so anyway.
Sitting on the floor of her hotel room by herself, in the dark, her mind really came to life. It began to take apart every single text that she had received that was less than glowing, every single comment and message that she had gotten from fans and interviewers alike, and every action of her bandmates. Her mind rifled through the memories of the past month to remind her of all the bad things that had happened, every action that meant she was unwanted or causing problems in some way.
She had been trying to sleep for the duration of the night and gave up somewhere around three in the morning. She would be able to sleep a little bit on the bus as it brought them back to where they had started. The motion always lulled her into a fugue state anyway, which would work in tandem with her depressive episode.
Nina slipped off of the bed and then dressed in one of Matthias’ shirts that had gotten mixed in with the things in her bag when she was packing. She was wearing the ring that Jesper had given her for their six month anniversary on a chain around her neck, right next to the locket that Inej had gifted her containing a picture of all their partners together. She had a sweatshirt from Wylan that she draped over her shoulders to keep her back warm while she worked. Kaz was the only person that she didn’t have something of, which had been eating at her during their month of separation as well.
She set her phone down on the desk in front of her and then turned on the desk light. It illuminated her in soft yellow light, but wasn’t bright enough that it might shine through the window and let other people know that she was awake. She had become a bit paranoid about some of their fans finding out where she was and coming to her hotel room, likely because of some of the stories Genya had been telling during their trip.
The mirror in front of the desk stared back at her as soon as she turned on the light. Her hair was a little messy, the curls shoved back into the ponytail that she had managed to find at the bottom of her toiletries bag after her post-show shower. A couple of them had already escaped and were falling down into her eyes and across her cheeks. She could see every tiny imperfection of her skin, including the blackhead that had formed next to her nose and the line of zits on her hairline. The discoloration of the freckles on the bridge of her nose was upsetting when it wasn’t being hidden by the makeup that was packed away in her suitcase. She had dark bags under her eyes from her struggles to sleep on the bus consistently.
Still, she had to do something or she was going to lose her mind from stress and the voices in the back of her mind. She plugged in her phone and then got it propped up so that it was filming her entire upper half. She grabbed her guitar and situated it in her lap before she flicked to Instagram and went live. Most of her fans lived in the same country as her since her music hadn’t quite gone international even when she had been making a few covers of traditionally Slavic songs to honor her mother. She wasn’t expecting her fans to be up or willing to jump on a live with her at that time. She also usually announced that she was going to go live an hour before she did, which was also going to decrease the number pretty significantly.
She leaned back in the desk chair, looking up at the ceiling of the hotel. She could already see the number beginning to climb until it hovered around a hundred. She gave her usually, dorky little wave to her phone as she said, “Hey everyone! I know that I haven’t been as active as usual, but tour ended up being a lot busier than I thought it was going to be. I hope you’re all having a wonderful night.”
A small smile crossed her face as she saw the messages already streaming in. Most of them were saying hi back to her, or reassuring her that it was okay that she hadn’t been as active. One asked her which city she was in now, which was a question that she could actually answer. She liked being able to interact with her fans on a much smaller scale than usual, it felt almost like returning to when she and Alina were dumb sixteen-year-olds making music on their bedroom floors.
“Where’s Alina? She’s in the other room sleeping right now, probably,” Nina forced herself to laugh. It was getting really old to be pushed to the side for her friend, especially when she was the one that put the most effort into the songwriting and sung most of their album. “What did you guys think of the album? Should I play you something from that or would you prefer something new?”
She was plucking at the strings of her guitar as she carefully turned the pegs back and forth. She was worried that after having to tune her instrument to so many different songs that the strings were finally going to snap, which would result in her being instrument-less until Jesper could take her to the store to buy some more. She winced as she remembered her partner, her mind reminding her time and time again that he had been happier without her. She brought a raincloud with her that ruined and soured the lives that she touched.
She looked down at the chat and forced another smile as she saw that they were all cheering for something new. “I’ve been working on this song for a while, actually, so I’m kind of excited to share it with you all. Zoya has been helping me with it and it sounds much better with her, but you’ll have to settle for now.”
Nina took a deep breath as she found her fingering on the guitar neck and began to sing, “I'm trying to make something of myself. My better days, I go buy the hard sell. But I feel like I'm working with barbed wire and moth wings 'cause I can't really get a hold of many things. I'm one deep breath away from a breakdown. My nerves are wrecked and coming unwound. The world is hostile and I'm fragile and I need someone to kiss the cuts and tell me to keep trying. Is it me? Is it really just me? Does everybody have it together or are we all pretending? Is it me? Is it really just me? Holding it together with one loose string that I can't stop, I can't stop, I can't stop pulling. I rip myself apart at the seams. I find one weak spot and start unraveling, hoping I can find a better me. A fresh new start buried under me. Is it me? Is it really just me? Does everybody have it together or are we all pretending? Is it me? Is it really just me? Holding it together with one loose string that I can't stop, I can't stop, I can't stop pulling. Can we stop pretending now? Can we stop pretending now? Can we all admit that we don't have it figured out? Can we stop pretending now? Can we stop pretending now? Can we all admit that we don't have it figured out? Is it me? Is it really just me? Does everybody have it together or are we all pretending? Is it me? Is it really just me? Holding it together with one loose string that I can't stop, I can't stop, I can't stop pulling, I can't stop pulling, I can't stop pulling.”
At some point during the song, she had started crying. She barely even noticed the hot tears streaking down her face and onto her chin as she sang until she was pulled out of it. Her eyes had been clamped shut as she remembered each lyric that followed the one coming from her mouth. Her heart ached in her chest and her throat felt raw when she had finally stopped.
Her stomach dropped dramatically when she realized that she had started crying. She sniffled and wiped the tears away as quickly as she could. Nina forced another smile onto her face like she had been doing the entire day as she said, “Sorry for that, you guys. I didn’t mean to get all sentimental on you. I’ve had a really long couple of weeks, believe it or not.”
The chat had calmed down slightly but she was still getting a flood of little heart emojis. As soon as the apology had left her lips, people began to rave about her song and a couple even commented that they wished they had been there to hear the whole thing. “I think that I can chat for a while longer, but I don’t think that I should play any more music. I don’t want to wake up Nikolai, you would not believe how grumpy he is until he gets his coffee,” Nina said. She placed her head on her hand and tried not to look at the face that was reflected back at her. She usually felt so confident in her own body, but she had gotten so many comments about it from the stage crews that had helped the band and the interviewers that it was in the forefront of her mind.
She answered a few more questions until her phone started to get really hot from charging while she was live-streaming. She waved goodbye to all of her fans and then ended it so that she could collapse back into her bed.
The smell of Wylan and Matthias wrapped around her in a way that should have just been comforting, but instead made her heart ache even more than it had before. She felt like a pit was opening up inside of her and the only thing that she could get out of it were the horrible things that her mother and Kirigan had said to her. It was sucking all of the energy, the love, the joy that she should have been feeling out of her and replacing it with self-hatred and pain.
She stripped off the jacket and the shirt, placing them tenderly and carefully down onto the bed. She put on the shirt that she was going to be wearing during transit that day and then carefully folded the two garments. She removed the chain with the ring and the locket, even though it felt like she was losing a hand as she did so. She placed it carefully down in the center of the shirt and then layered the hoodie over the top of it. She carefully placed them both down in the suitcase lid and zipped it closed so that it would be safe when it was being moved around but also inaccessible to her.
Nina went to the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror, watching the imperfections of her face crease and move as she tilted her head this way and that. She poked and prodded at the places of her body she didn’t like, the fat rolls on her back and the plumpness of her stomach.
Voices in the back of her mind reminded her of everything she wasn’t. Alina was able to eat anything she wanted and maintained the stick-figure thin outline. Genya took time out of her day instead of focusing on something silly so that she could actually take care of her skin. Zoya had curly hair that she could actually contain and a youthful face. Nikolai never had to worry about what he looked like because he was never subjected to the harsh beauty standards that she, as a woman, had to endure every day since she became a teenager.
By the time that the voices had taken over her mind, she was crying again. Her face was tilted down towards the sink as she tried to stifle the sobs. They threatened to break through the air around her, to make her pain more real. She shouldn’t have been having that pain at all, she reminded herself. This is exactly what she had done when she was signed under Kirigan and it had made her life in the music industry so much harder until she had Alina by her side. The guilt over the resentment her friend coming out and being believed instead of her was going to consume Nina. It was already trying.
She forced down the emotion and decided that she was going to effect as few lives as possible. She pulled out her makeup and covered up all of the imperfections that she hated. A simple smokey eye with catwing eyeliner, like she had done for every day when she was on tour during the time that she wasn’t performing. Her favorite color of strawberry lipstick went on her lips, plumpening them enough that she was more appealing and less pouty.
Nina then shoved everything into her toiletries kit and put that in her suitcase as well. Her bag was packed other than her book, laptop, phone, and its charger.
Remembering the device that lay on the hotel desk reminded her of the next step in her plan. She sat back down in the chair that she had been in before and opened up the texting app. It had brought her so much light and life to see each text as it rolled in while she was being whisked from place to place, but she wasn’t sure the same could be said for her partners. On the off chance that they did love her and they weren’t doing it out of some kind of strange obligation, she knew how much it had to be tearing them up to have her away from them. She had seen how much Matthias and Jesper both pouted when Inej was gone. Having two girlfriends without either of them being in reach had to be torture, she knew that it was for her. So she was going to end that pain for them.
It would hurt for a while to do it this way, but they would have each other to use to recover and then they would be fine. She wouldn’t drag them down and she wouldn’t ruin their lives like she had every other partner, friend, and parent that she had ever known.
She opened up the app and voiced the message as she wrote it, “Hey, sorry for the late text. I just wanted to let you all know that this last year has been the absolute best in my life and I adore you all very much. But I think that it’s time we finally admit that you’d all be happier without me. You’ve done nothing to persuade me of this, you’ve all been absolutely wonderful and the problem could never be with you. It’s just with me, the problem is always with me. I hope that you can help each other through any pain that might come from this break up. Know that I did and do truly love you, I’m doing this to help you live better lives.”
She left the chat and then abandoned her phone on the table. She tilted her head up and blinked furiously to try and keep the tears from running down her face again. She had enough time to redo her makeup if she did cry again, but it felt like giving into the part of herself that she was furiously trying to keep behind lock and key.
Nina marched to her bed and grabbed her laptop. She sat with the duvet discarded off to the side, only using the top sheet to keep herself warm since the other blanket reminded her too much of her now ex-girlfriend. She plugged in her headphones and pulled up her favorite comfort show so that she could forget all of the pain that was plaguing her life until she had to get up in the morning.
---
She went through breakfast without eating anything despite the waffle maker almost screaming her name. Nothing could be louder than the voice of Kirigan right behind her eyes, reminding her that if her body was more desirable then she wouldn’t struggle so much to get the same amount of fame as Alina. Being around her bandmates and manager felt like torture but she stuck through it, smiling pleasantly when Genya said good morning to her despite her wanting to scream and sob.
They were finally back on the bus and she had an excuse to be relatively alone. She was sitting in one of the little booths, the one that had the table where a few of them had taken to eating at, and stared out the window. Her headphones were on and plugged into the phone that she had turned off, playing nothing into her head but being a relatively effective deterrent. She had to prove to herself and the glimmering hope in her breast that her bandmates were fine without her. She couldn’t leave them because it would be more of a hassle to replace her than to put up with her curse, but they didn’t need her as a friend.
She was doing fine, ignoring her feelings and passing the time with her own thoughts and song lyrics, until Nikolai slid into the seat across from her. He grabbed her phone and unplugged her headphones from the jack to get her to pay attention to him, which was actually one of his favorite things to do when he felt he wasn’t getting enough stimulus from the others.
“What?” she asked, immediately regretting it when she realized how snappish the words had been when they came out of her mouth.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“Why do you always assume that I’ve done something?” she asked, snatching her phone back.
He was staring down at the device like it was going to blow up in his hand since it hadn’t immediately turned on when he took it from her like it always did. She removed her headphones so that they were around her neck and then plugged the jack back in while waiting for him to finally explain himself. Nikolai shook his head to rid the thoughts he had been focused on, much like a dog. “Tolya said that Jesper has been freaking out since early this morning. I assume that since he was one of your boys, you had something to do with it.”
Her heart ached in her chest, spreading pain throughout the rest of her body. The skin on her arms and over her chest felt like it was peeling away from her in the desperation for her soul to be pressed back into her body. She felt unlike herself, moments away from screaming or crying. She couldn’t figure out which one was right but she knew that the emotions brewing in her gut had to go somewhere.
Nina shoved it down immediately. She was going to remove herself from everyone’s lives, that had been her plan. She couldn’t allow herself to explode and to hurt others when they had been nothing but tolerant of her. Her hurt was for her to deal with alone, as she always had.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” she lied through gritted teeth. “I’m guessing that Inej came back early or something.”
“I don’t think so,” Nikolai shook his head. “From what Tolya was complaining about nothing that Jesper was doing was particularly… exciting.”
“All you said was that he was freaking out,” Nina replied, a little bit annoyed at the whole situation. She didn’t want him prying into the very tender wound that was her recent breakup.
Every time she thought about the fact that she was never going to see those people again, she felt as though she was going to die on the spot. Her mind kept informing her that she would never have Matthias’ arms around her or hear Wylan practicing the piano while he composed something new, or listen to Kaz argue with Jesper over something unimportant, or smell Inej’s body wash when they were hiding in her loft bed, or dance in the living room with Jesper after everyone else had gone to bed ever again. It felt raw and painful in a way that none of her other breakups had felt. There was no relief at having to fake the love any longer, to pretend that she was comfortable going on expensive dates or getting pricey gifts. She only felt the pain that came with knowing that a part of her life that she had really enjoyed was over.
“Nina, what’s the matter?” Nikolai asked. He folded his hands in front of him and leaned forward so that he was a bit closer than before. He was acting like that was going to make it easier for them to hide what they were talking about, to give them some modicum of privacy when they hadn’t had that since they had stepped onto the godforsaken bus.
“Nothing is the matter,” she said, which even she could tell sounded like a lie. There was a waver in her throat and her makeup had already been destroyed around her waterline. The fact that she had tucked herself away in the booth instead of lounging out over the couch while chatting with Alina and Zoya was a big show of that.
He reached across the table and took her hand in his, holding it like he had when they had first decided to make the band. Everything was making her lust after a time that she could no longer ever have, one that had passed her by and compounded new trauma in the forefront of her mind. “We’ve been friends for years, that excuse really isn’t going to work on me,” he assured her. “You can just tell me what’s wrong. I’m not going to judge you and I want to be here for you.”
She carefully took her hand back from him and then began to fiddle with the edge of her phone case. It was one that Wylan had ordered for her after she kept complaining about how terrifying it was to think about all the cracks she could get while performing with it even just in her pocket. It was a construction grade case that was still sleek and had now been decorated with a sticker from her own favorite band. “I don’t really want to talk about it right now.”
Nikolai sat back in his chair, looking over her with those critical eyes that made her feel bare. She didn’t like people examining her that closely, especially when she already felt as self-conscious as she did. “How about I give you another hour on the bus and then we’ll talk again, okay?”
“Okay,” she finally relented. She had enough wear in her soul already from not being able to sleep the night before and all the crying that she couldn’t keep fighting him. Her only hope at the moment was that he would forget before the time came and she’d be able to avoid it regardless.
He dislodged himself from the booth and walked over to another part of the bus so that he could join in the conversation that Zoya and Alina were having. Nina grabbed her phone and headphones, balling them both up in her hand so that they were constricting around her neck any longer, and then removed herself from the booth as well. She walked back to the bunk that she had been using and collapsed into it. She dropped her headphones and phone next to her, useless since the device was turned off and the headphone trick hadn’t even worked.
She turned her head away from the curtain that was only half drawn to cover herself as she pretended to nap and looked over everything. She had taped several polaroids of herself and her partners to the walls to keep herself happy when she was missing her partners. She missed them even more than she had when she was traveling, now knowing that she had resigned herself to not be able to see them when she got back. She was so dreadfully alone and it was all her own doing, even if it had been for the protection of the people that she loved.
---
An hour of driving passed by before someone came to rouse her from the nap she had dozed off into. She had still been aware of where she was in her bunk and what was happening around it, so all it took was their hand on her ankle for her to startle awake “Is everything okay?” she asked nervously as she pulled back the curtain so that the other was revealed.
“I came to ask you the same question,” Alina replied. “Do you wanna cuddle and talk about it?”
That was something that they had done often when they were teenagers in high school. They would go to one of their houses, usually Alina’s because her foster mother was almost always at work, and cuddle underneath the blankets. They would hold each other while the other blubbered about boys, girls, breakups, heartache, and all the other shitty things that came with learning how to be a human in the world. It was cathartic and something that had brought them together even more than their shared Catholic school trauma had.
“I don’t know,” she shook her head, which brought her attention to the fact that even more of her untamable curls had escaped the confines of her ponytail.
Alina pouted a little bit. “I think that it would maybe make you feel better.”
“What do you know about it?” she asked, her mouth flickering down into a frown. The idea that Nikolai had brought her problems to the attention of all the others in the band made the guilt inside of her stomach grow even wider. She felt like she was drowning in her emotions, being pulled into the ocean of sadness and pain by a riptide that she had no hope of escaping.
“Nikolai mentioned that Tolya wouldn’t shut up about Jesper not being able to shut up,” she explained. “And I noticed that you didn’t come out when we stopped for lunch.”
“I’m not hungry,” Nina lied. She had been starving and they were getting fast food at her favorite place. The sensitivity around how much she ate was still there in full-force, overwhelming and gnawing at her body.
“You didn’t eat anything at breakfast either,” Alina noted. Her brows furrowed together as she poked her best friend further into the bunk. She climbed in so that they were laying side by side, tilted so that their fronts were facing each other so that they could both fit in the tiny space. “Nina, what’s going on?”
She closed her eyes as she tried to keep the emotions locked where they belonged, deep inside of her heart in the place that only her ex-partners had ever been able to reach. She took a deep breath as she answered, “It’s not a big deal, I’m just having a bad day.”
Nina could almost hear Alina’s frown as she said, “I think that’s actually a monumental big deal.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you’re my best friend and you were there for all of my bad days. You’ve also been going through it recently,” she replied immediately. Alina reached down and grasped Nina’s hand, so hard that the other woman could feel the scar along in her palm. “You were there for me when I finally ended things with Kirigan and through the whole process of trying to reach out to Mal again. The least I can do is support you when you’re having a bad brain day.”
Nina whimpered as she snuggled closer to Alina. Her arms wrapped around the other girl’s hips and her face was lost in the space of her collarbone, hiding away from the world. Alina responded by completing the hug, weaving her arms behind Nina’s back. It didn’t feel as good as when Matthias and Inej did it, or the rare moments that she got to cuddle Jesper for longer than five minutes, but it was better than nothing. It soothed the touch starved ache burning under her skin by micrometers.
She waited for a while, threading her fingers through her childhood friend’s hair for a while before asked again, “What’s going on?”
“I broke up with them, Alina,” she finally admitted. Saying it out loud made the entire thing feel more real. That was why she had verbalized the text as she was sending it, to try and cement it in her head that what she was doing was the right thing in the long run. Finally admitting that she had broken it off with the healthiest relationship she had ever had in her entire life made everything come crashing down around her. “I’m so fucking selfish. All I can think about is how much I hate my face and my body and being second to you even though we make the music together and I just… they deserve so much better than me.”
“What?” Alina asked, pulling back. She sat up so fast and so suddenly that she hit her head on the top of the bunk and immediately winced, being forced back down while cradling the back of her skull. “Come on, we’re going to go talk with the others about this,” she insisted.
They both slipped out of the bunk so that they were standing. Nina was crying so hard that her makeup was already streaking off, she could feel the heat of her tears beginning to seep down to her skin. She wasn’t able to stop the sobs as they bubbled out of that black abyss in her gut, forcing their way through her throat.
Alina grabbed her hand and nearly dragged her to the main living area where everyone else was sitting. She stopped on the way to grab a packet of makeup wipes and a box of tissues. She dumped them both down on the coffee table in front of the couch in the living room area of the tour bus before she pushed Nina down onto the seat beside Nikolai and Zoya. Both of their aforementioned band partners balked when they saw the state that the woman was in.
“You were right, Zoya, she’s not okay,” Alina sighed as she sat down in front of Nina. She held the other woman’s hand again, rubbing her thumb over her knuckles. Another massive wave of grief washed over Nina as she wished that it was Wylan doing that instead.
“We can see that, Alina. And I’m always right,” Zoya said, her chin jutting out with a strike of confidence.
Nikolai waved his hand in between the two of them to get them to shut up before they could start another one of their tedious arguments. “None of that now, we need to focus on Nina.”
“No you don’t,” she sniffled mournfully.
“Of course we do, we’re your friends and we love you,” Zoya informed her, the touch of annoyance that almost always clung to her words somehow gone. She reached over onto the table and handed Nina one of the makeup wipes so that she could get rid of the streaks that were left over after her crying.
She was still sobbing, unable to stop the emotions from bursting forth out of her after what she had admitted to her friend. She still took the offered item and then used it to wipe down her face. When she finished, Alina took it from her and placed the box of tissues directly down into the center of Nina’s lap.
Alina took a deep breath as she finally announced, “Nina is having a bad brain day. She hasn’t eaten anything all day and she broke up with her partners.”
Next to her, Nikolai wrapped an arm around the back of her shoulders to bring her into a hug and winced. “That would explain why Jesper is freaking out.”
“You didn’t think that bit of information was important to bring up to the rest of us?” Zoya asked. She dislodged herself from the couch and walked over to the kitchenette part of the bus. She got out a bottle of water and one of the leftover peanut butter cracker packs that they had. The snacks were rather bare bones at that point in their trip since they were all headed back home. They had just enough that no one would have to get hangry while waiting to pull into town so that they could get something.
She returned back to the table and handed them both to Nina with a no-nonsense expression painted over her strict features. “Thank you,” she mumbled as she took them both. She opened the water first and sipped on it while she tried to quiet her tears on her own. She swallowed and they were gone, the emotion still hovering just behind her eyes and sitting in a lump in the middle of her chest but not visible to the outside.
“It’s fucking horrifying that you know how to do that,” Nikolai shook his head, his nose wrinkling with his distaste.
“Catholic school,” Nina and Alina echoed at the same time. That caused a small giggle from the former, which made the latter smile reassuringly.
Zoya kicked the edge of the couch as she sat down to get them both to turn towards her. “Can I ask why you thought that it was a good idea to break up with the rest of your polycule? Things were good with them and you were having a good time.”
“It just…” she shook her head. “I really don’t want to talk about this.”
She peaked through the curls now hanging down into her eyes as the other shared a look with each other before they turned properly back to their friend. Alina was the one that restarted the conversation, “Fine. Self destructive break up talk can happen later. Do you think you can talk about some of the other things that you mentioned?”
Nina fidgeted. She tipped her head back and finished half of the water bottle in one go. Zoya nodded at her approvingly and then nudged the crackers with her hand to try and coax her into eating them. Despite not being particularly hungry, her stomach clenching into a knot as she thought about all of the comments that had been made about her, she opened the package and popped one into her mouth.
After she had swallowed it, she said, “I just… the comments that some of the fans were making got to me. The interviewers weren’t much better.”
“It was really fucking frustrating to have to watch them fawn over Alina when you’re the one that got screwed over by the company even harder,” Nikolai nodded reassuringly. “Trust me, Zoya and I were about a second away from pulling you out of the chair and refusing to let them talk to you during that last one.”
“That guy was an ass,” Alina nodded her head in agreement so emphatically that Nina was worried she was going to break her own neck in the process. She then carefully said, “I know that we can’t really do anything to undo the damage that he did to you when it comes to your body, but I promise that you’re beautiful.”
“I can think of something,” Genya said, startling them all. They hadn’t realized that she had walked out of the master bedroom space at the back of the bus. “You know that the only reason he kept me around was because he thought I was beautiful, which is why I was fired pretty quickly after the accident,” she gestured to the patch over her eye where the scars around were just peaking past the fabric.
Nina nodded, guilt gnawing at her insides. She knew that Genya suffered from the same self-conscious and poor body image issues that she did, so it made her envy of the other woman feel all the more intrusive and wrong.
The redhead walked over to the table, sitting down beside Alina. “You are beautiful. Just because you don’t fit the modern day aesthetic of skinny women that somehow have huge boobs doesn’t mean that you’re not. Imagine how many young people out in the audience saw you all dolled up and pretty on the stage and saw themselves. You may not have confidence in your own body, but to them you are the walking embodiment of their own beauty and confidence.”
That did make her feel a little bit better. The reassurance that she was getting from her friends was exactly what she needed. The conversation veered back to the less than favorable things that the interviewers had done when they had the whole band or even the two main singers. Nina finished her water and crackers, cleaning her face of the tears with the tissues in her lap. She ended up falling asleep with her head on Nikolai’s shoulder for the rest of the trip.
---
She felt like walking death as she hauled all of her belongings up the stairs to her apartment. The elevator was still broken, as it had been when she had left a month before. Her phone hung heavy in her pocket, turned all the way off so that she couldn’t get any texts or social media messages that would make her bad day even worse. It was good when it came to her sensitivity around her body and place in the band but bad whenever her mind flitted towards her ex-partners.
She had been wondering if they were trying to reach out to her about everything that had happened or if they had all simply deleted their conversations with her and unfollowed her on social media to be well and truly done with her. Her mind kept creating fake scenarios of them reaching out to her, asking what was wrong, and reassuring her that their lives were richer with her in them.
She couldn’t imagine that was true. They would fight valiantly to try and figure out what the actual reason she had broken up with them was, which is why she had turned her phone off for the duration of the day.
Nina was beginning to doubt her decision to tell Zoya that she would be fine getting back to her apartment on her own. She kind of wished that she had taken her friend up on the offer of them staying together for a while until the post-breakup blues and depressive spiral was over. She couldn’t rely on other people to help her with everything, especially after what they had done to help her on the bus. So she had politely declined and made her own way back to her home.
She stopped in front of her door, opening it with the keys clutched in her hand. She deposited them next to her phone and wallet in the little bowl on top of the bookshelf beside her door. She slid her suitcase through into her little walkway and then closed the door before she dumped her backpack next to it. She was so tired from the tour overall, but it was only aggravated by her not being able to sleep the night before and the emotional turmoil that she had been suffering with the whole day. The nap that she had taken on the bus had only helped a little.
“Food and unpacking,” she mumbled to herself as she grabbed her bag and officially turned around. A gasp ripped itself from her lips as she saw that there was another figure in her home, sitting in the light of the quickly setting sun. It had been close to eight at night when the bus had finally pulled back into the town and it took another hour for them to get everything loaded off of it and into their own vehicles.
The man that was sitting in her chair was a very familiar face, one that her heart had been yearning after the entire day. His hair was mused like he had been running his hands through it all day, the scar on his lip aggravated and red from chewing on it. His clothes consisted of a pair of slim fitting satiny pants and a disheveled looking white button down. His hands were bare on top of the cane that he was clutching like it was going to run away from him.
“Kaz?” she asked, her brows furrowing together with confusion. “What are you-”
She was barely able to get anything else out before another pair of lips were suddenly on top of her own. Her back hit the door that she had just closed, sending her backpack and suitcase tumbling over. Nina heard the clatter of the cane join the cacophony of noise as he brought both of his hands to her hips to keep her in place. She didn’t push him off or tell him that she didn’t want it because then she would be lying to him, and she couldn’t do that again. Instead she began to cry as she kissed him back. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders and threaded through his already destroyed hair, holding his body to her own like he would suddenly disappear.
“What… what was that?” she asked when he finally broke away from her to let her breathe.
“What the fuck did you think that you were doing?” Kaz seethed, pain and anger mixing in eyes in a way that made her stomach flip and her heart flutter.
She didn’t know what the proper response to that would have been, especially since her own question hadn’t yet been answered. So she just tried a weak, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I can almost guarantee that you do,” Kaz replied, fire and bitterness seeping into every word that he spoke. He took a step back from her so that she could finally free herself from the wall, but he didn’t remove his eyes from her for a moment. It was like he thought that if he looked away, she would vanish back into the nothingness that she had been before.
Nina shook that thought from her head the second that it crossed into her mind. There was no way that someone could love her that much. “Is this about the text?” she asked, nervously running her fingers along the seam of her pants.
“No, it’s about the fact that Jesper didn’t show up for dinner today, of course it’s about the text!” he shouted. “How did you think that kind of thing was okay to spring on us when none of us were around to talk you out of it?”
She brought her arms around herself so that she was holding in all of the emotion that was threatening to burst forth from her. “I thought that it would be the best way to do it. I know that breaking up over text isn’t something that’s really praised when it comes to judging whether or not an ex has been fair to you but I knew that I couldn’t do it face-to-face.”
Kaz limped past her so that he was sitting on her couch. Silence hung between them for a moment, and she took in her surroundings so that she could look anywhere but at her very upset boyfriend. Her home had pale cream colored walls with a white ceiling, a single black ceiling light hanging from the center. She had a red velvet couch in between two black metal tables, both of which were overflowing with notebooks, lamps, and plants. The entertainment center that held her small collection of DVDs and television matched the coffee table, which had been unintentional but fit the room perfectly. She had a thick black rug underneath it all that she and Wylan had spent almost an hour laying on the first time that they had spent time alone post-relationship. The living room led directly into the kitchen, which was separated from the space with a counter and cabinets.
“Why do you think that was?” Kaz asked when he finally got the energy to speak up again. She could see him charging up the attack like a canon preparing to fire before the words fell from his scarred lips.
“What?” she asked, shifting back and forth to rid herself of the nervous energy building up in her limbs. She had spent too long exerting herself to her limit every night and then cramped in a bus every day to just stand still in front of him.
“Why do you think that it would have been almost impossible to ask us to break up with you if you had been in front of us?” he asked.
She tilted her head down towards the floor and tried her best not to start crying again. “I said it in the message. I love you all so, so much. It would have torn me apart to see your faces when you realized that this isn’t going to work out for you.”
“You don’t get to decide that for us, Nina!” Kaz shouted, springing from the couch. He winced, obviously having bent his bad knee too quickly, and collapsed back onto the furniture. “We’re the ones that get to make the decision about who is in our life and our relationship. We’re all consenting adults that are within a few years of each other, there’s no power imbalance. There’s no coercion or pressure, consent is explicit in everything that we do and no judgment gets passed when someone has to opt out of an activity. We would have let you know if we didn’t want to date you. You don’t get to fucking decide that for us!”
“You don’t understand!” she screamed, throwing her arms out in a wide gesture to accentuate her point. “I’m fucking cursed! Every time that my life has been this could something has come out of goddamn left field to try and ruin all of it. I could already see it happening when I was on tour and I wanted to save you all from it. You have each other to support you through the initial pain of the breakup, but you’ll be fine once that’s all over. Don’t you see why I can’t be around you? I’m going to hurt you like I did this time and one day it’ll be so big that you’ll start to resent me like everyone always does.”
Kaz slowly pushed himself up from the couch and limped over to her. He placed his ungloved hands on either side of her face and then brought his lips forward so that he was kissing her forehead. She had started crying again, all of the water that Zoya had forced her to drink on the bus now streaming down her face in well-traced rivulets.
She collapsed into him, letting out a wail that shook her entire body. Her face was buried into his neck and her arms were still wrapping around herself to try and get a small amount of extra comfort that way. He was holding her like she was going to disappear, just the way she liked it. It made her feel grounded and stable.
Nina cried and cried until there were no more tears left. She was hiccuping slightly as she pulled back and used the end of her sleeves to mop up the tears still on her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He was about to say something when his phone went off in his pocket. Unable to contain her own curiosity, she asked, “Who’s that?”
“Backup,” Kaz replied shortly. He was still upset with her but had already mostly forgiven her.
“What, were you going to trap me until I came back to the relationship?” she asked, trying to tease him like she always did before she had done that catastrophically stupid thing.
“Nina,” he warned, looking towards her. He had pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned it on so that he could see who it was that had texted him, but he immediately shoved it back into the pocket of his pants. Kaz’s dark eyes were shining with a kind of fear that he had only see after he woke up from his infrequent nightmares. That struck something deep inside of her and she immediately decided that she was never going to do something like that ever again, not for as long as she lived.
He stepped forward and placed his hands on either side of her face again. “I-I can’t fucking live without you. Any of you. I’ve lost so many people. I can’t lose you too. You hear me? I don’t care if you have some sort of fucking curse, I’ll handle whatever it throws at us. But I cannot lose you,” he spoke with such sincerity that it almost restarted her tears.
Instead, she flung herself around him so that he was buried into the edge of her body. She kissed his neck and then whispered, like it was a secret for just the two of them despite them still being alone in the apartment, “I’m sorry. I promise that I won’t do it again. Never ever.”
“Good,” Kaz replied. He cleared his throat and turned his face away from her so that she couldn’t see the tears glistening on his dark lashes, though she was able to catch a glimpse regardless. He slumped back onto the couch while sticking his bad leg out in front of him so that he didn’t further irritate the nerve sheaths that had been damaged. “I want you to go and put on the locket and ring that you always wear. If you have any clothing from our boys then you’re to put that on as well. They’re going to be coming over as soon as Matthias and Jesper’s show is over.”
“Don’t they have a cast party tonight?” she asked, already moving to do as he had asked. She felt rubbed raw with all of the emotion that she had just had to endure again, after sitting with the turmoil while trapped with her own mind on a bus for hours. She wanted to see the rest of her partners as soon as she could, to apologize to them as she had done to Kaz, but she wasn’t sure how much more crying she could honestly handle.
“Making sure that their girlfriend doesn’t break up with them trumps a cast party that they can attend after every show that they perform in,” Kaz replied, giving her a look that told her she should have been able to guess that.
Nina made herself busy to hide the burning on her freckled cheeks. She opened up her suitcase and got out the items she had so carefully put away early that morning. She secured the necklace right where it belonged, hanging over her collarbone. She then shed her travel shirt and put on Matthias’ shirt and Wylan’s hoodie. The rest of the clothing in the suitcase was thrown haphazardly into the washer so that it could be doing something productive. Kaz let her out of his sight long enough for her to also put away her makeup and the suitcase itself. When she came back, she handed Kaz back his cane and sat down on the ground in front of him.
“I really am sorry, you know,” she whispered.
“I could tell from the crying. I never want to see you that upset again,” he informed her as though he was scolding her. She knew how to see through the Kaz-speak well enough to tell that he was actually telling her how much he hated seeing her when she was in pain.
“Were…” she trailed off, burying her face in the soft velvet of the couch. She put her cheek on it instead, looking up at him while resisting the urge to put her head in his lap. “Were the others also upset?”
“Of course they were, Nina,” he replied. His voice was soft instead of gravely and biting like it normally was when they were having their verbal sparring sessions. She felt special to finally be the one that was receiving his tenderness, usually she was on the outside while watching it be given to Inej and Jesper. He continued, which she had not been expecting, “Jesper immediately started trying to find a way that he could track the bus and find a way to drive out to meet you to prove how much he loved you. Inej got a flight back a day early so that she could be here as soon as she possibly could. Wylan is currently driving back from his conference, he told them that he had a family emergency.”
“But he didn’t!” Nina gasped. Wylan took his job very seriously so the idea that he had lied to his associates about what he was doing absolutely flummoxed her.
“Darling, he did,” Kaz reminded her softly. “One of the only two women in his life that he has ever loved outside of a familiar sense threatened to leave him and break his heart. He had to come back to you.”
She sniffled again, but refused to let herself start crying. Kaz scooted over on the couch so that her head was actually pillowed on his thighs. She relaxed as his bare fingers began to card through her dark chocolate curls, an ever-present reminder of how loved she was. Kaz finally concluded, “I’ve never seen Matthias more broken or upset. He was absolutely devastated that he hadn’t proved to you just how adored you were by both him and us. I felt the same way. I had someone else open the Crow Club tonight just to wait for you.”
“I feel really bad for making you all do that. I thought that this would be the easiest way to protect you, to do it when none of you could come after me,” Nina mumbled as she hid her face away in his lap.
Kaz let the silent hang between them for a moment as he continued to weave his fingers through her curls. “I know. You were technically very clever with how you did it. You let your depression trick you into thinking that you didn’t deserve us or that we wouldn’t want you, and then you decided on a plan that would allow us to supposedly be ‘free’ of you with the least amount of chance of us getting to you to convince you to change your mind. What you didn’t account for was how much we loved you and how desperate we are to keep you near us.”
“Did any of you consider that I actually wanted to breakup?” Nina asked, curiosity getting the better of her. The words slipped through her mouth before she even had a chance to think about why that kind of thing might be hurtful to ask.
“No,” he replied immediately. “You made it very clear in the text that you sent that this was a self-destructive behavior and not something that you actually wanted to be happening. If you had sent any other message then there may have been some doubt in my mind, though.”
“You can read me so well,” she murmured. She grabbed his hand with her own and began to toy with the ends of his fingers.
They both sat in silence for a while until there was a knock on her door. Kaz got up, motioning for her to stay on the couch while he limped towards it. He grabbed his cane from where he had left it on the ground and then answered.
Almost as soon as the door opened, two other members of her polycule had piled in. Kaz had stepped to the side to allow them to, though Nina noticed for a moment that he didn’t actually close to the door or move away from it. Her attention was pulled away from him and to her other boyfriends, Matthias and Jesper immediately crowding her vision.
“Min elskede, vær venlig aldrig at skræmme mig sådan igen. Jeg elsker dig mere end hele verden og kan ikke fatte at skulle være uden dig,” Matthias was speaking so quickly that she was only able to catch a couple of the words that he was saying. Nina had always been naturally gifted when it came to languages, so she had been studying the native tongues of some of her partners so that she could speak with them in a language personal to them specifically. She hadn’t gotten far enough in her Danish lessons to be able to tell what he was saying then.
Her mind was racing to try and figure out what he had said so that she could have some tiny hope at translating it when Jesper dragged her out of it. “Did Kaz talk to you?”
“Yeah,” she whispered with a little nod. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t! Don’t fucking apologize to me,” Jesper shook his head. He knelt down on the ground in front of her and took her hand with his own. Matthias had already fallen to his knees in front of Nina like he was worshiping at an alter. In any other situation she would have found it incredibly erotic, but all she could think about was how guilty she was for causing them pain and how much she absolutely adored them with her entire heart.
He took a shaky breath in through his nose as he wrapped both of his calloused hands around hers. He brought it up to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her palm before he cupped his own cheek with her hand. “I love you, Nina. I truly do. I know that I’m not the best at speaking your love language and sometimes I fuck up and I hurt people, but I love you. Please never make me live without you because you think that I don’t want you.”
“I won’t, never ever again,” she shook her head. She took her hand away from Matthias just long enough to cup his other cheek. She kissed the top of Jesper’s forehead, his coiled black hair tickling the edge of her nose. She then pressed her lips to his for a longer time than was absolutely necessary.
She turned to her other boyfriend then and gave him a watery smile. She was determined not to cry no matter how many feelings she had brewing inside of her, deciding that she had reached her limit for tears. “You’re going to have to repeat what you said if you want me to be able to translate it, baby.”
“I love you,” he said, his English rough and heavily accented with emotion. “Jepser said everything else I had wanted to say. Please do not leave us.”
“I’m not going to, I promise,” she whispered. She kissed him as well.
By the time that she had finished soothing the worries that were brewing inside of her two boys, the door shut. She looked up and around Matthias to see Inej and Wylan standing there. They both looked harried and worn out from the traveling and change of plans that they had to do that day, both also carrying bags from their trips. “I’m sorry,” was the only thing that she could get out of her throat.
“I know,” Inej replied. She stalked over to the other woman, Matthias and Jesper moving away from her so that she had the space she needed. “There was a reason that I sent Kaz to talk you down. Draga mea, you are not cursed. You have had bad things happen to you because bad people were trying to hurt you. Now you have us to protect you from both your own mind and the people trying to hurt you. Never throw away your armor because the knife is shining nicely.”
Nina giggled and then nodded. Inej leaned down and kissed her.
“So you’re going to stay with us? We’re not breaking up anymore?” Wylan asked, his shoulders sagging in relief.
“No, I’m sorry. I got too into my own head and then I guess I just couldn’t keep it inside any longer,” Nina shook her head. She stood up and moved away from the three partners crowding the couch as she wrapped herself around Wylan. He buried himself into her body and clung to her to make sure that she was really there in front of him.
She removed her head from his fluffy brown-red hair to look over all of her partners. They had all gone to such great lengths to make sure that she was still together with them and so that she knew that they loved her. She was never going to hurt them like that again, for as long as she lived.
#fanfiction#fanfic#writing#ao3#archive of our own#soc#six of crows#shadow and bone#sab#grishaverse#the grisha trilogy#polycrows#nina zenik#matthias helvar#kaz brekker#inej ghafa#wylan van eck#jesper fahey#zoya nazyalensky#nikolai lantsov#genya safin#alina starkov#hard sell fic#birdsong series
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Idk if this is appropriate or not (feel free if this is something you don't want to answer) but as a casual kpop stan who really only stans seventeen and listens to other kpop artists on a somewhat frequent basis I just feel as though seventeen is reaching their peak in a way that's far from satisfying. Like idk if this makes sense but to me it seems as tho the members are struggling to keep out of "scandals" with mingyu's incident last year, minghao/seoksoon being labeled as fat phobic earlier this year over out of context clips and now with Joshua (he's not even close to being my favorite member but these rumors and pregnancy stories are honestly making me so upset rn) ...as a fan who feels a genuine attachment to these people it's hard for me to be happy because while Ik the boys deserve every good thing coming their way fame comes with a price and that price is what I'm worried about. Like I get that Pledis isn't SM and seventeen definitely see themselves as family unlike NCT who view themselves more as colleagues I'm so scared that Joshua will eventually leave like Lucas or heaven forbid anything more drastic happens. It's just that I always see these "we could never save them" posts but then the same people who post them also comment the worst things forgetting that idols are humans too. I'm super sorry for the long ask but I just read that jeonghan got hurt and that made me think of the rest of the members and everything else they've been going thru. I'm not even the type of person to get attached to people I barely know but with Seventeen it's like I'm really and honestly praying for their success because they seem that THAT genuine group of people who are just trying their best. Sorry for the rambling
i get what ur saying. dont worry abt sending a long ask! ur welcome to rant abt svt in my inbox whenever! honestly i havent stanned for too long so idk how things were before this past year but i do worry for them lately :/ theyre getting injured too often and they get no rest. i dont like how pledis/hybe are managing them at all. theyve been constantly touring japan very repeatedly for seemingly no good reason at all which has obviously tired them out (theyve been dropping like flies, LITERALLY). pledis had the opportunity to promote them in ways that didnt involve constant performances but have just chosen not to for some reason. i really hope they get to rest soon (unlikely tho since theyre likely gonna have a world tour next year).
about the joshua thing. i feel sosososo bad for him. idk and idc if hes really dating that girl honestly. i do feel like it was kinda dumb of her to consistently post herself in the same places/clothes as him if they really wanted to keep it a secret BUT neither of them deserved the hate/scrutiny they got for it. not even with the pregnancy thingy on her stories. i don't think joshua and lucas' situations are comparable whatsoever since joshua has not done anything wrong unlike lucas. im hoping pledis somehow protects him better but thats unlikely. i dont think any member of svt will ever leave bc as u said, theyre family. cant rlly compare to nct tho lol bc i only stan svt so idk any other groups' dynamics like that. i do get what ur saying tho i have friends who stan nct and svt and theyve said to me that they do see a drastic difference in dynamics between the two groups but thats neither here nor there.
lastly, i have the best hopes for svt. they keep saying theyll only go up from here and i believe that. idk how that will play out with military service in consideration or with what seems to be chronic incidents that keep happening to them (gyu, cheol, and han in the past few months) but i trust and hope they'll be okay. they have a very established fanbase and a rlly good support group with one another so i only see good things for them in the future. hope they get at least a month off soon though.
#hope i didnt sound like im coming at u anon i agree with most of the things u said 😭#and i totally underatand ur worries theyre very valid! things have been very hectic in caratland for a while now#hope theyll all be ok#and also hoping han has a speedy recovery poor guy shouldntve been performing on a bad ankle this whole time :(
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Hi Gina! I hope your weekend is going well!
I have been a lurker in this fandom for a couple of years now. I am too old and have zero interest in the discourse regarding entertainers personal lives within this fandom and just wish to support entertainers I happen to like.
If it’s ok, could I share my review of Louis’ concert in Atlanta last night with your readers?
I am 59 and have been a concert goer for different types of music, for most of my life.
The Crowd
I was really impressed by a few things. The crowd was diverse. Age, socioeconomic, race, queer and straight. There were a group of people organizing the fan project and it was something to witness the vast majority of people wanting and asking to help and participate.
Kindness prevailed throughout, which I believe is a testament to how Louis’ curates his public image. There was a consistent atmosphere of simple joy.
The Music
The first act, Andrew Cushin, is remarkable. His song, 4.5%. Powerful. The new song he played, Love Is For Everyone, I hope he releases it soon. If you haven’t yet, give him a listen!
The second act, The Snuts, are a powerhouse, live. I don’t really listen to their music personally, , but will definitely go see them live again!
Now to Louis.
Vocally, Louis has a limited vocal range. This is not new news. He has struggled and continues to do so in live performances whenever he steps out of his comfort zone. The overall strength of his voice has definitely improved with his personal confidence and he he gives 110%.
Musically, his band is a fun live band. Like the Snuts, Faith in the Future, is not necessarily my personal musical style, but as Louis has previously stated about this album, it was made to be played live, and he and his band absolutely smash it!
Lyrically, the man surrounds himself with other great songwriters, and together as a team, they write profound and emotional music. Even if a style of music is not my first choice, you can still own me lyrically.
Fan interaction. Though like any artist, giving the same speeches every night, you might think he is simply providing lip service, I really felt his sincerity. He is incredibly grateful for everything he achieves.
Final thoughts.
This is a man who is very aware of his privilege in the music business and is very aware that at least part of his current tour success is based on the support from 1D fans. With that said, he is slowly building a personal fan base, with his live performances, music and lyrics.
I don’t kid myself. Louis obviously wants to increase the marketability of his personal brand first and foremost. With that said, he happily uses his established fan base to lift unknown musicians up and provide them the opportunities and stages to have their music heard. Guess what? That benefits all of us! I like to believe at the end of the day, that will turn out to be, his real legacy.
Thank you for your time!
Hi darling. So glad you enjoyed yourself. This is so interesting to read and I’m so glad you shared it. I especially loved your last point about his legacy… I tend to agree with you there. 🩷
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why do you make art? is what you make honest and true to your beliefs and values? does your art center, or distract? These are a few questions I’m thinking on after attending an artist teach-in for Pal3stin3 yesterday.
I’ve been sitting with current events and processing a lot lately. We are out here watching whole human beings being mass bombed and murdered every day, because the powers that be are fine with sacrificing entire family lines and destroying history and cultures for oil and land. It’s soul-crushing. The islamaphobia, orientalism, and casual anti-asian hate I’m seeing people in my life share on social media, is also soul-crushing. as william faulkner once said, and as all my professors have always said, the past is never really past.
when i see all this, i feel consumed by horror, and disgust, and anger. when i see our government continue to murder Indigenous people like it always has, it’s still jarring witnessing what has always happened, happen again. Hearing my partner’s refugee family stories, and watching more people become refugees, is terrible. I don’t understand why Pal3stinians need to do so much to prove their worth and humanity to others, and am equally freaked out how videos of their struggles are not enough for some to care. But watching the homies continue to make art, share stories, share information, and build community through protests + teach ins, reminds me that people have always been fighting oppression, and always will– the past of our resistance continues to the now.
I make what I make because it’s useless to just sit with my feelings and the facts, and take them nowhere. I would also rather die than make dishonest work. I hope that if I keep writing and posting about this, that you dear friends, will consider how much power your individual and group actions can have towards creating a world we can all live in. Your feelings right now are important– they’re motivation to do something. It’s a privilege that we’re able to sit with them. If you’re unsure of what to do and are feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry– I’ve got a list of things you can do right here.
1) you can learn more! If you don’t feel well informed enough to be sure that your actions match your intentions, you can check out @palestinianfeministcollective, or @bayareapym to sign up for a teach-in session with organizers and academics. You can also check out the readings & educational resources they have linked in their bios. Ethnic studies and Feminist studies scholars from around the world have a lot of great stuff to say on these pages.
2) you can attend protests, and share info on protests! @JVPLA is the LA branch of Jewish Voice for Peace, a great org that has been leading huge c3as3fir3 protests all around the world. @bayareapym is also another great page to check out for protest information and political education. If you are located near a school or university, you can also check out its branch of SJP (for example, @ucsbSJP), or students for justice in pal3stin3. JVP, SJP, and PYM all have local branches all over the place, so see if your town or city has a branch you can get together with! USCPR is also a great org that’s working to end US military support to 1sra3l. Our elected officials are ignoring us when we ask politely for them to stop murdering, so going out and protesting will help make sure they hear us and actually represent our values and beliefs.
3) if you don’t have money or time, there is also the power of boycotting! Never underestimate the power of a “no”. Check out the next slide to see how boycotts work to help defund the war machine, and save lives. Art credit for slide 2 goes to Mona Challabi. Withholding your time and money from corporations that are willing to sacrifice people’s lives for resources will teach them through boycotts, that people are not down for mass murder for the sake of material wealth. I definitely don’t want my tax or spending money going towards killing random people. if I can help it, I will make sure my money goes somewhere it will do good.
4) email or call your elected officials to tell them directly that the people want an immediate c3as3fir3! Check out @woketeachers for info on what numbers to call, and some scripts if you need help figuring out how to voice your demands. You can even use those phone scripts as a template for emailing your elected officials– I like to use it as a little outline before expanding it into a longer message.
Anyways, there are four powerful ways to take action instead of stewing directionless in feelings. Please do something– your voice matters.
(photo credit from @/eye.on.palestine of a father saying goodbye to his child who was murdered by the occupation)
#my art#free palestine#palestine#falasteen#antti zionism#lgbtq#social justice#decolonize#land back#mutual aid
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Chapter 6 Thoughts
Finally finished chapter 6 after a busy weekend 😩 I'm planning to make a more well-thought out post regarding certain aspects of ch6 later, but for now, I want to list down everything I love about this update and probably the whole chapter overall. It also serves to answer a few asks in my inbox all at once HAHAHAHA This post is gonna be very messy, just to let you know, but I’ll write something more comprehensive eventually.
EN players and JP players who have yet to pass the time gates, I advise you to scroll past this post or read at your own discretion. This contains spoilers for Chapter 6 and alludes to other events not released in the EN version.
Firstly, about the gameplay, I may be in the minority for saying this, but I really like that they limit your cards and leave you without a support for 6-66 and 67. Main story was always easy on the battles, so learning about buddies, stats, etc about the different cards was always seen as a tests/exams thing with the only rewards there being madol/thaumarks and exam coins, so most people didn’t super care about it. As someone who really levels up the cards to get higher scores in the tests, it was really gratifying to see all that hard work finally paying off in main story. Lowkey gave me a power trip on everyone else struggling to bypass the battles 😂
Ngl at first, I thought we were supposed to clear all the points 😭 so I didn’t care about getting the right box until I clicked a box that cleared the chapter before I cleared the other points. I wish I didn’t know about it because it definitely made clicking on boxes less irritating hfhjhjsghkhjkgsdg
I absolutely love how we get to see character development of the OB boys?? It's something that I was really hoping for in ch6 since the boys are taken to an unfamiliar place.
Regarding that, I do like how NRC boys could just . talk about other things while in dangerous situations HAHAHA it was like this too in Halloween 2 😭 when there's nothing happening, they somehow get into conversations, like,, how LMAO most media would have their characters talk something about the situation or remain quiet. But these boys are really chatty and talk like the world is not about to get reseted or something
Starting with Pomefiore, the revelation about Rook being from Savanaclaw originally was a bomb I didn't expect but wasn't surprised about. I think it was more common to hear about it in 2020, but a lot of people were curious about Rook and Leona's relationship with each other. They mainly noted that Rook pursues Leona and the latter expresses much disdain for him. Then there was also the fact that Rook and Leona (and Ruggie) hailed from the same country. While country doesn't necessarily determine what dorm you'll be sorted in (see: all Shaftlands/Pyroxene boys in three different dorms), it did make people curious back then. So I do like that TWST (unintentionally) answered those speculations
AND LONG HAIRED FIRST YEAR ROOK IS ACTUALLY CANON,,, all long haired Rook artists and lovers rejoice for your headcanons and wishes are now canon. Now we wait for Lilia /hj
I do like though that Rook in his first year was kinda meh about his own appearance mostly because I was the same when I was around 15-16. Like, why do I have to care about the clothes I wear as long as I'm comfy in them? 🤡 Maybe the shirt looks kiddy but I mean, it shouldn't matter so much 😭 But it really is worth beautifying your wardrobe and learning to value your own beauty just as much as you value others. It makes me happy to see a bit of myself in Rook.
Vil seems a lot more expressive now than he was in chapter 5 🥺 I think it might be because he has to keep up the image of being a leader figure in VDC, but he feels much more approachable with how he doesn't seem to care as much about looking professional.
There was one part where Vil and Rook would tell Epel to stand back, and obvs Epel at first took this as “are you saying I’m weak?” But then Vil and Rook said it’s because they trust him to have their backs, and it’s like 😭 FUCK THAT’S SO CUTE,,,, THE WAY THAT THIS SHOWS EPEL’S GROWTH BECAUSE NOW HE CAN BE RELIED ON BY HIS SENIORS........ I think this is also a cute allusion to Dorm Vil’s and Dorm Rook’s buddies, specifically the fact that they both have Epel as a buddy— Dorm Vil has Epel giving him an ATK M boost, while Dorm Rook has Epel giving him a HP M boost. Notice how it’s an M (medium) boost and not an S (small) boost 😭 they really can trust Epel by that much,,,
Now for Leona and Jamil, hooooo boy, I really like this one and do wish to discuss this in depth in another post because Leona essentially humbled Jamil brutally. Jamil was trying to protect Leona because he’s a prince and all, but at some point, he got pissed off at Jamil for getting in the way. I love how Leona pretty much compared Jamil to Riddle and Azul, saying that the latter two are in a much different league than Jamil. Riddle has book smarts and amazing magical power, not to mention a killer UM, and Azul is quick on his feet and works really hard to get to where he is now, but Jamil just goes "if only I could use my full potential" while blaming others for his setbacks. He even points out that Kalim has something that Jamil doesn’t, which is money (much to Jamil’s surprise). Sure, he isn’t the smartest, but he’s generous, and he’s going to inherit a very successful business
Then he points out that Ruggie and Jack know when to listen to him to survive. Ruggie obvs follows Leona because it’s his best chance at surviving in NRC, and Jack, while strong, is young so he knows when to listen to older people such as Leona
I just like that the overall lesson he’s telling Jamil is that he isn’t the strongest person, and he needs to know when he isn’t the strongest, and he shouldn’t blame others for his setbacks. It’s essential for Jamil’s growth, but it also shows Leona’s own growth, considering that what Lilia said to Leona back in ch2 that triggered his overblot was also along the lines of Leona being slothful but blaming others for everything wrong that happens.
While it gets annoying to get the wrong box in 6-66 (and 6-67), I found the boxes where Leona just opens all of a sudden and Jamil going “what the FUCK are you DOING LEONA” really really funny like 😂
Now hoooo boy I LOVE AZUL AND RIDDLE'S INTERACTIONS SO MUCH;;;;;; I'm biased because I tunnel vision for Azul and Riddle is top 2 for me, but the way that both of them were written in this chapter is so chef’s kisses
I really like the way Riddle was written. He still has that sort of “I’m right, so you need to follow me” mindset and I like that because it shows that while he is making the effort to change, his personality at his core is solid enough that it’s not going to change that much. While his lacking knowledge regarding social cues is already a bit obvious when inferring from his upbringing, it’s really emphasized in 6-66, particularly when Azul was angry about being told to ‘stand back’ and said something like “hey I know someone like me who shifts from 2nd to 10th place in rankings can’t be seen as a rival b u t” and he wanted to be seen as equals but Riddle took that literally,, , and then he’s like “oh so you’re trying to compete with me?!”
Eventually he clarified in 6-67 as to why he doesn’t want Azul to get hurt which,,, IS HONESTLY SO CUTE ?? ?/ LIKE ,, SURE IT’S BECAUSE HE’D END UP PROBABLY BREAKING THE LAW TO GIVE TREATMENT TO AZUL BUT HE STILL CARES 😭 not to mention that Riddle even pointed out that he WOULD break the law to help Azul, like it was out of the question that he’d leave him behind to go ahead, he WOULD make sure Azul is ok 😭 besties it hurts because AzuRido was one of my first Twst ships and it’s still a cute ship till now. But this also really shows that Riddle still needs to learn a lot about social cues + proper communication xD he didn’t think that it could be taken the wrong way
THE PART WHERE AZUL GOT ANGRY AT RIDDLE ,,, bitch that hurt a lot. Like, Riddle going “if you didn’t waste time on Mostro Lounge, helping out other students, etc, you’d have a chance at first”, bestie Riddle I love you but what the fuck? I kinda felt the sting because at the time I was reading that, I was mulling over how I hadn’t been trying hard enough in the things that I do or want to pursue so I end up being the kind of person that I’m not content with. But it also just,, really fucking hurts to be told that your passion is a waste of time, and we all know how much Azul works so hard in everything he does 😭 his insecurities coming out when he got angry really tugged me badly. It was 2am when I read that part and I wanted to cry lmao
WHEN HE LAUGHED THOUGH . when he laughed .. oaoghuooHOHOFAHOHSGOSAOHAOGHOASH WHEN HE LAUGHED AND SOUNDED SO MIRTHFUL AND AND AND AND . .... passes the fuck away
I do love the lore dump about Ariel and transformation potions! Ariel went to the Sunshine Lands, so she set up the mermaid boot camp facility there. Transformation potions also now last from a week to 10 days, and the mermaid boot camp facility provides them,,, for free, ,, , , like shit dude, that’s a big ass steal.
GOD WHEN AZUL MIMICKED FLOYD’S VOICE THOUGH ,,,, , the fucking DROLL???? God I’m not your strongest soldier I am down on the ground
Azul started magic at 8 yrs old 👁 Riddle started his studies at 3,,, , yummy yummy yummy
AND WHEN AZUL FELL ASLEEP ON RIDDLE’S SHOULDER;;;; LIKE BYE I ALWAYS IDNULGED MYSELF WITH THE IDEA OF AZUL SLEEPING ON MY SHOULDER OUT OF EXHAUSTION but fuck,, they made Azul sleeping on someone’s shoulder canon, not caring about who it is,,,,,, God send help
idk man, this whole part really just made Azul feel more relatable. Ch3 and even ch4 to an extent, he was mostly scheming and smarmy and smirky and that’s hot shit sure but HIM BEING SO,,, LIKE, GETTING ANGRY OVER A REMARK THAT MADE YOU FEEL INSECURE, LAUGHING GENUINELY, SLEEPING ON SOMEONE’S SHOULDER...... besties I feasted so much this chapter, I am so fucking FULL
I actually really like Idia’s OB design!! He seems to have designed it himself given that he’s willingly doing it, which is really interesting to learn 👁 some people were saying that they don’t like it because he doesn’t look like Hades but .. none of the OBs were meant to look like their villain counterparts?? nKSNKDGKSNG and not to mention that Idia’s face resembled Hades a lot. If we’re talking about outfits, though, again, OB designs would more likely shape themselves according to the person overblotting rather than think about the villain inspiration. If anything, Ortho’s the one wearing Hades’ toga.
I JUST HAVE TO SAY THIS,,,, IDIA’S UM CHANT IS THE BEST ONE SO FAR ??? “Game, set, match, Gate to Underworld” that is so sexy like ??? the alliteration of game and gate, and there was this musicality to those words, like you’re saying a poem out loud. It sounds so badass too. Like a final boss line (which knowing Idia, he’d definitely do that)
Shoutout to Riddle and Azul for being the funniest duo on earth: “You drive this chariot, I don’t have a license” “BITCH I DON’T HAVE A LICENSE EITHER ????” “I should have enrolled into driving school if I knew this was gonna happen” “IS THIS THE TIME TO THINK ABOUT THAT NOW ??????”
Also “wtf why are you taking the risky option??” “well you know this is the best option anyway” “ok yeah you’re right, if anything happens to us, our seniors are there anyway 🥰”
Anyway I still can’t believe Azul actually drove a chariot (and successfully too)
It was a good thing too that he was driving because Riddle fainted from using all his power and being exposed briefly to the underworld 😔 it’s so funny of Azul to just think “ok this guy’s gonna use all his power, so I’m just gonna hold back a bit because it’s gonna be enough <3″ and it turned out to be a really good decision or we’d be finding two old people
Riddle with white hair was really cute. It reminded me of the white rabbit, and with how he nearly fell into the underworld (kinda like falling into a hole), the allusion seems stronger. I also saw some tweets on Twitter suggesting that it could symbolize Riddle starting out with a blank slate to become his own person and not just someone following his mom, which is pretty interesting 👁👄👁 kinda matches well with the white rabbit idea since it’s “falling to wonderland” or “heading to an unknown place”
I find it funny how Leona and Jamil just . took the time to analyze why Azul was able to not faint/fall to the underworld from fighting Ortho. but hey it worked for them, they didn’t put too much power into it and they came out well
I love how Vil was just like “I need Idia to come out alive so that he can close this damn gate and fix everything” and then said that he Will make Idia do all of that NRC style, aka “the weak must obey the strong”
VIL FINALLY GOT TO BE THE HERO THAT HE WANTED TO BE 😭 GO QUEEN, SLAYYYYYY. You may not have been casted as a hero in a movie, but you saved the world in real time, and I think that’s even better
I really just like how even in OB, Idia was still talking about the idea of who’s hero and who’s villain while Vil was just like “we’re just classmates fighting and for the record, I’M standing till the end”
When Vil jumped to pull Idia, Ortho, and Grim out of the underworld, idk, something about that just made me go 👁👄👁 there’s something mesmerizing about someone catching someone else as they fall from a very tall height. Even if it’s to make sure Idia’s alive to close the gate, Vil really just,, that was so noble of him
IDIA JUMPING TO GO WITH ORTHO THOUGH 😭 like holy fucking fuck, I don’t know what to say... I think that moment speaks for itself.
Vil being Hercules and Idia being Megara... damn, it kinda makes sense. Vil-Hercules for the hero thing, and Idia-Megara for the reason that they’re trapped by the underworld to an extent
THE FLASHBACK HONESTLY . it was expected, but it did hurt 😭 being a witness to someone’s death was one thing, but being the indirect cause of someone’s death is just,,, Idia was just a child then. That shit would be traumatizing
Whoever voiced child Idia’s cries, good job but also fuck you. When he was showing off AI Ortho and then going from laughter to crying ?? I think that’s where my heart truly broke. That was genuinely so painful to listen to.
Maybe I’m being delusional, but the way Idia broke down over losing Ortho reminded me of how Azul broke down when his contracts were dusted. There was that plea from them going “give it all back” (give Ortho back; give Azul’s power back). And then they reassure themselves that they could fix their problems.
I... I really like how the overall problem for Idia and Ortho was that they just wanted to live like everyone else, but because they were born into the Shroud family, they, Idia in particular, had their lives planned out for them at the start. I think Hades in the myths was like that??
The part where real Ortho’s soul talks to Idia..... his face being fully revealed, when he said “please continue to live, make our dream of going on an adventure come true”, when Idia was shouting for Ortho’s name at the end........ wow thank goodness that I can’t understand anything or I’d be crying onions
The way Idia was saying that with all the damages he has to fix, he’d have to drop out possibly, but literally None of them letting him go xDD true NRC students
When he revived Ortho again,,, and he had a heart this time,,,,,, I really like how he was resurrected and not at the same time. Like real Ortho will be gone no matter what, but his soul will still live on through his robot self. Kokoro was also playing in my head during that scene 😂
OLD MAN VIL “I’M 18″ SCHOENHEIT IS SO FUNNY. Best content is seeing him cry for 3 hours straight about how he wanted to be casted as a middle aged man someday then calming down only to cry again when Jack went “wait who’s this old man”
Vil’s kyaaaa when Malleus managed to turn him back to his 18-year old self was so pure. 😭 I’m so happy for him
RAMSHACKLE UPGRADE KINDA 💅 we are now material gworls
I find it funny how they couldn’t upgrade our room bskbdgjsndgksd like it’s still the same even after how much Charon trashed it?? At least Vil was kind enough to give us projection mapping to make it look pretty HAHHAHHA
ORTHO BABY,,,, ORTHO BABY IS NOW A FIRST YEAR !!!!!!! I’M SO HAPPY THAT HE FINALLY GETS TO STUDY IN SCHOOL LSGJSDLGSDKGLSJLSJSK YES ORTHO YOU’RE A REAL BOY ENJOY NRC LIFE UEUEUEUEUEUEUEUEUEUE BABYBABYBABYBABYBABY I CAN FINALLY SAY I HAVE A FAVORITE FIRST YEAR AND IT’S ORTHO 😭
AND HE HAS A NEW UNIFORM CARDDDDD uwehhhhh his lines are so cute, and his story !!! him choosing a club !!!! and and and his profile change!!!! He chose Vil’s club 😭 Vil made that much of an impact in his life. I heard that the story seems to be longer than some SSRs though, which is . well d a m n
Chapter 7 seems to be really spicy 👁👄👁 from Lilia talking about how people are weak but they intertwine together and create a strong presence in history, Malleus mulling over those words, to Mickey saying that he saw “a mysterious silver-haired boy” on his side of the mirror (not his room, though), which implies that it’s Silver and bringing up the possibility of him traveling to people’s dreams or him being from the same world as we are since Grim can’t see Mickey and vice versa....... oooooonga boonga ch7 is gonna serve us so well
Overall, I think chapter 6 had the excellent pacing and writing that ch3 and 4 had. They wrote every character so well, and the wait for Idia and Ortho was absolutely worth it. This might be the new fan favorite chapter actually, and it sets the bar very high for Diasomnia. Good job Twst. Thank you for serving us a very good story.
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hi! not really sure if this is the place to ask but i'll give it a shot. do you have any tips on helping alters who dont speak to communicate better? at the moment theyre only communicating using emotions/feelings if that makes sense? but when they front it gets a bit tricky since they feel uncomfortable using words at all, including writing. we have another alter cofront with them to help "translate" but we dont really want to be doing this long-term since we want them to be able to do things for themselves too
Hi! We have a few alters in our system who are nonspeaking or who experience speech loss. Some of these alters are still struggling to express themselves, but we can share the tools we’ve been using to make it easier, and others we’ve heard about!
1) AAC
We use a combination of SoundingBoard and Visuals2Go, both downloaded from the iPhone AppStore! They’re free and easy to use, but they have a limited vocabulary. We’d suggest maybe getting some free apps for your headmates to try out, and keeping what works! If they like using AAC, it may be worth it to buy a paid app that has better options and a more user-friendly UI.
With AAC, you can string together words (with pictures) to form sentences, that your device will then speak aloud. No writing required, and reading isn’t essential for many of the available words and phrases! We’ve heard there is AAC that you can use to write and make posts as well, but we don’t know the name of any programs like this - sorry!
2) Communication Cards
We’re at work now or else I would include a picture of our communication cards. We have a bunch of index cards we’ve written words and statements on and grouped them together for easy access.
One group has common starter statements. “I want…” “Let’s go…” “Can I…” “Where is…” “How many…” “I can’t…” “I can…” “I don’t want…” and all sorts of little phrases. Another has verbs like “eat” “drink” “talk” “play” “sleep” “leave” “call” “walk” “sit” “stay” “look” and “go”. There is one with nouns, sorted by category (places, people, items, foods, weather, pronouns, and animals). And one with names of different alters, our POSIC hoarde, and our support team! It’s taken us a while to put it together, but we have one alter in particular who really benefits from using the cards to communicate.
3) Sign Language
None of our alters have learned any sign language, but if it sounds like it could help your headmates, perhaps your system could attempt learning some basic signs. This way you can help them sign to answer questions and express themself!
4) Drawing
If words and language in general is difficult, maybe getting them a little sketchpad or white board and encouraging them to draw out what they’re thinking may help! They don’t have to be great artists in order to express simple ideas, and this can allow them to connect with others even if both reading and writing are challenging.
5) Accessories
It may be a good idea to get some bracelets, rings, or other accessories that can express a few basic, essential ideas. We have three bracelets that we keep on us. The green one means “I’m happy and feeling comfortable!” the yellow means, “I’m okay but I’m a bit anxious and need some space.” and the red means “I am having a meltdown/doing poorly. I need to get somewhere calm and safe.” Maybe your system can get some sort of accessories and determine beforehand what sort of messages they convey. This way, your headmates will be able to express some basic or essential ideas quickly and effectively.
We hope that one of these options can help your headmates learn to communicate and express themselves better. Be sure to use ideas in your own way to make sure your accessibility tools will be useful for your headmates in particular! Thanks for reaching out, and take care!
Followers, if you have any ideas about communication tools or how to help alters/headmates express themselves, feel free to share!
🌸 Margo and 💫 Parker
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