God, I Was So Scared About What They Were Gonna Do With Ifa's Design And I. They Just. Did It Perfect.

This. because what do you mean you have watched that show I absolutely adore, you little fuck, don’t ruin it for me.

Absolutely nothing worse than finding out that you share interests with someone you hate. Has you thinking things like fuck you I'm better at enjoying star wars than you are

cuddling is one of the least sexual form of intimacy a

pls rb if you think cuddling doesn't have to be s3xual

im tryna prove a point to my bf's mother help me out

I think this is why I love TOT dudes so much. They appear a trope but instead, are a full exploration and deconstruction of that trope.

From Artem appearing like a Cold Black Suit Boss trope but actually being just some dude who is actually really kind and awkward, learning to better socialise.

From Marius appearing like a Spoiled Rich Boy trope to actually being just someone struggling with ambition and responsibilities of his family name.

From Luke appearing like Childhood Friend Sunshine trope to being just someone struggling with being seriously ill, hypocritical due to his circumstances and seriously self destructive.

And.. well, it's a little hard to dissect Vyn to a trope but I think I have made my point already.

I just love these boys SO much and they all have so much love to give. So much kindness to show. So much affection to lay.

the take of "artem is so boring i don't get why people like him" always makes me laugh because like. .. wording aside, that's kinda the point! the appeal?!

he's introduced as this Serious and Cold suit wearing senior attorney of themis, which in most otome would indicate your typical Sexy and Smooth Daddy Dom. like. the first official art we see of him is him sweating and pulling his tie loose. upon global launch, advertisements for tot always included the first evo of his atmospherics ssr out of context.

but the twist is that he's just A Dude. he's respectful and gentle with rosa. he struggles to make friends because he's really socially awkward, takes his work seriously, and has a resting bitch face. he has a film review blog and likes to write fan scripts. his dad wasn't around much and rarely visits. despite appearances, he is deeply empathetic. he's surprisingly idealistic in regards to his work and the impact he wants to make on the city. he grew up not wanting to cause trouble for the adults in his life and as a result has great difficulty acknowledging what he's struggling with and expressing how he feels. he's easily flustered. he has been called out on his bullshit several times by rosa. his father figure is missing and he would do anything to save him. he is earnest in all he does. he is only friends with one person at work and that's celestine, the founder of the law firm and a family friend of his mother's. he's endearing!

despite the prestige and pedestals people place artem on, he is literally just A Dude and i think that's neat

That makes me feel a bit better about what I write, because its not *good writing* in any way. Its on-the-nose sometimes, a bit simplistic, too feel-y, and filled with dramatized character emotions. But people tell me, they felt so much while reading it, they cried, or laughed too hard, almost teared up, felt personally seen, smiled, blushed, were annoyed- they FELT. And for me, that is a reason enough to continue writing. It might not be perfect, good or even professional at all, but as long as it touched someone, I have a reason to improve. To continue. To write until it DOES become good, subtle and clever. Even if it takes forever. It brings joy to a couple of others. It brings me JOY. And that is good enough for now, I think.

your writing doesn’t have to be perfect. it just has to make someone feel something.

I know I started reading it at 2 of noon yesterday. I know its not even 10 of morning today. I know my exams are going on-

But I just finished inhaling vol 1 of TGCF and now I have a new hyperfixation.

And all I want to say is, oh xie lian, xie lian- how I wish for there to be more like you.

Just finished reading the secret history and lemme tell ya, the moment I reached 450 page mark- it was a whole another moment. audibly yelled, "what, what the fuck, what the fuck is happening" at what the fuck was happening.

VOLUME 5 MOMENTS THAT I ADORE (HUALIAN MY BELOVED) (ft. TINY HUA CHENG!!!!!)

1) Xie Lian watched him in a daze, not speaking a word.

Hua Cheng frowned slightly. “Your Highness, you…” Suddenly, Xie Lian’s free hand reached out and pinched Hua Cheng’s cheek. Hua Cheng’s eyes widened as his face changed shape from the entirely unexpected squishing.

“…Gege!”

Xie Lian laughed. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha…sorry, San Lang, but you’re too cute; I can’t help myself. Ha ha ha ha…” Hua Cheng was speechless.

2) Hua Cheng clasped his hands behind him. “Yes. I’ve endured this for too long. I can’t wait any longer.”

Just as he finished talking, Xie Lian slipped his hands under Hua Cheng’s arms and lifted him. He raised him high in the air and laughed.

“It’ll be such a shame! I won’t be able to pick you up like this once you’re grown again. I’d better hug you as much as I can right now. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…”

3) Xie Lian held Hua Cheng even tighter, and his hand smoothed his hair.

4) Hua Cheng reached out and lifted Xie Lian’s chin. “His temper is certainly nice, but mine is bad. No one but me can touch the things I love.”

5) “Try touching him, I dare you,” Hua Cheng warned frigidly. “Do you think I would so easily allow you lot to touch my heart’s dearest treasure?”

6) Only a single “ha” had left his lips when Xie Lian flung out his silk bandage; it whipped out so hard that Pei Ming was almost sent flying. He only barely dodged with a backward leap.

“Your Highness, just how deeply do you treasure Hua-chengzhu? Can’t even take a joke?”

~~~~

Ps. I LOVE PROTECTIVE XIE LIAN.

yall ended up deciding on your favorite men on TOT? How? does marius's 'onee-san' not entice you? Does Luke's sunshine not call you closer? Does artem's domestic fluff and househusband core not affect you at all?

You chose a favorite and never wavered? How?

We are ineffably elated to confirm that Good Omens will return for a third season! This calls for a round of hot chocolate and sweet treats!

@neil-gaiman

The Searcher

That’s enough, I think. Enough. It is 2.43 am when I glance at the ancient clock, ticking away. The room is ridden with dust, home of papers and sheets and ink. Pen and books. 

I have been trying and trying to write since long. It is not that the words have not been coming to me– they come, they ebb and they flow. But they miss something. And I am sure, so sure they miss something. 

I know this because they didn’t miss it when I was a kid. I remember my words having that something, that spark and that shine. They not only ebbed and flowed, but sung and danced and set up for the grandest of plays. 

And it’s not today, I am realizing this. I have been realizing it for a long time indeed. I have been trying to find that thing for weeks– the muse of the stories, the core they hold.

I have tried working in my college’s dorms, in public libraries, in the central park, countless different places at countless different times. I have tried searching for answers in the words of the greats, in the sermons of my professors and nothing worked. 

Nothing works. 

Maybe different, far from this modern life, I think. That is where I will find it. And so I decide to pack my bags and leave for the mountains in the North.

This may seem like I was overdoing it but I was not. I am obsessed– I need, need the words to come. I need to write the perfect story, the immaculate tale, the haunting novella that I have dreamed about since I was a young kid.

~

In my time in the mountains I seldom meet people. I usually spend my time working away under the trees, writing on paper after paper– disappointed, wandering from one corner to another until I reach a village. 

I meet an old woman there, sewing a bamboo hat together for herself. She has wise eyes, unkind face. She looks at me and asks, “What are you looking for, young lad?”

I tell her what I am looking for and ask her if she can help.

She shakes her head. “I am afraid not. I used to paint, you see.”

I ask her, “Used to?”

“Used to,” she confirms. “I don’t anymore. I lost it.”

Lost what? I ask.

She goes on that she used to paint, you see. That she was nearly 40 when she quit and she didn’t really know why but she stopped because the colors were not coming from long now, the muse was long gone. “I suppose it was inevitable,” she says. “I forced it for many years, couldn’t force it for life. I took up crafting then.” She holds up the bamboo hat. 

I ask her if she still feels natural at it. She shrugs, she says she is not sure.

“But I will advise you,” she says. “You won’t find it in people you are looking at.”

I am surprised and I ask, “Then where will I?”

“Ah, I..” she frowns. “I think I saw it in my young son once.”

“Where is he now?”

“Oh you know.” She waves her hand dismissively. “In England, studying.”

~

I leave the mountains soon to head for the rainforest. It is a strange thing, one can think. Why go so far for this? 

But if one thinks that, they won’t truly understand why. 

I believed– have believed from long that if you love something, you must be willing to love it till madness. You must continue to love, to create even if it drives you mad.

And in these moments, I thought, I was nearing a sort of madness. A madness of not men but gods.

In the rainforest, I spend my days by the trees, canopies and bushes. Near the streaming river as the hot sun casted glow on it, making the water sparkle. On the 3rd day, I reach a cabin in the middle of the woods. A man greets me. He is middle-aged and toys with a cigarette in his fingers. He glances at me and says he can tell I am looking for something. “What are you lookin’ for anyway, man?”

I tell him my troubles and he huffs.

“Get that, you won’t find it here,” he says.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“Well, I've been here for years. And I haven’t found it.”

“You are an artist?”

“I used to make music,” says the man and tells me about his life. From the man of city and modern worries to a nomad of forests. 

By the time he’s done and the next morning rolls around, I have left the forests. I wonder to myself what is it that the old lady and he are missing? What is it that we all are missing? 

I continue my search for months to come– like a wayfarer, going from one place to another, searching for what?

I didn’t even know anymore. The muse, was it? Or the inspiration. Perhaps a sort of contentment with what we create, the words that flow– the oomph, the x-factor, or simply the joy?

I do not know anymore.

At last, I come to England and meet the son, who is now about 28. He looks at me with skepticism but that fades away when he hears me talk about his mother. He smiles and sighs, saying he misses her. I tell him about my conversations, my search– and his smile falters.

“I don’t have it anymore,” he says. “I don’t.”

I plead, request him to give me something. By this day, I am tired. Exhausted, beat and at my wits ends. I need something. I am getting madder and madder.

“I am sorry,” he goes on. “I really don’t. I still write. But I just.. It’s gone. It was something which is just gone.”

“When did it slip away so?” I question.

“Perhaps when I was 14,” he answers. “Perhaps older or younger.”

I stare and he laughs. 

“We may never know.”

He offers me a stay in his university, saying we could try working together and I accept. I am tired, hopeless but I accept anyway. Weeks pass and nothing comes together– it’s all the same. The same. 

I leave England in the most desolate mood and by the time I am back in my college, I have given up. I rush to my room and I throw my papers in frustration. The ink bottle is hit and dark blue, nearly black, spills onto the floor. It seeps. 

One last time, I pick the old pages up and the new ones. The new ones are better– the better technique, grammar and they are certainly more intelligent. But it is with one look I can tell that they don’t have the ‘it’ like the old stories do.

~

I gave up on writing years ago and I am married now– I have a beautiful spouse and the sweetest little daughter; my little girl, my joy. 

By the time she is nine, she has found my old trunk from the attic. It has the papers, old and new, crumpled and well kept. Countless stories, finished and not. She reads some of them and later asks me about it. I tell her some of it– about my writings, about how I wrote some of them.

“Why did you stop?” she asks. 

She is a child and I don’t know how to explain. “It was only a hobby,” I say. The words ring as false. It was never only a hobby. I had spent months being driven insane, to the brink of my sanity by it. I had spent years honing it, wearing it as my identity. And then I had let go, being as torn as a lover parting from a beloved.

I come back from the office one day to find her. She has been writing, my spouse tells me. And I find it sad how my first instinct was to discourage deep down. But I do not. Instincts and choices must be kept separate. 

She has been writing in afternoons after school and on one such, I go to her. I ask her about it and she says it is a story about a girl who gets a device to make an infinitely huge chocolate sprinkled with candies and sour bites. I throw my head back and laugh. She keeps writing, uncaring.

I manage a glance at her work and my laughter drains.

My daughter has it.

I see it. I see it all too well. Then I look at her and her big eyes, working with no hint of doubt or hesitation– contentment and I am assured that I am right. She hones it masterfully, all that I had been searching for.

She glances at me and her face falls. She lets go of the pen. “Daddy, are you okay?”

I am nearly pale and I am praying.

Praying, hoping, wishing and begging– for her to not lose it. 

Her words are sloppy, her writing is messy– the grammar horrible and the punctuation painful and yet it is perfect, I know. It is enough, I know. It sparkles, it shines. The words dance and sing and form the grandest of plays. 

She nudges me, worried.

I shake my head and then manage a laugh. “You are a genius, you know that?”

She blinks but then realizes that was a compliment. 

She grins. “Just like you.”

~