#/always thought these memes were cute but I can't find them

[meadowlarksabove]

I can't find those posts that are like "send me an occasion/scenario and I'll show you how my character would dress for it", but I wanna do that so-- send me prompts

[the-artist-grimm]

Did the couple meme finally! Modified the layout just to add more little notes. Also drew Anthea and Narinder having their typical reactions to seeing each other :3

(As a note for the sliders Anthea's color is RED and Narinder's is BLACK)

Also little facts under the cut!

Anthea

Anthea is short as heck and while they complain about it jokingly they do like how Narinder can just encompass them into hugs/carry them around easily

Borrows all the clothes cause comfy

Loves pet-names, if you can't read the text Anthea calls Narinder Nari, but also Honey, Love, Dear, Kitty, and Baby

Pretty much good with people so Anthea is a bit of an extrovert

Affection via words and actions all at once

Anthea and Narinder both confessed on the night they reconciled, at first Anthea had no plans to since they had tried to keep what the gift they'd been working on that caused the misunderstanding vague, but just decided to tell Narinder it was a courtship sash, and both confessions snowballed from there

Anthea feels just a little bad about killing bugs so Narinder's job

Cars don't exist but if they did Anthea would prefer letting Narinder do it most of the time

Can cook just fine

Big on PDA but only if chaste-so little kisses, holding hands, hugs and leaning on each other

Somewhat overprotective but not extremely so

Very much a bi-disaster. This lamb was a bit too young to think of dating while their village was around, then raised by a group of old knuckle-bones playing men while kinda in hiding till their 20s they have ZERO experience with crushes. When followers their age occasional approach with confessions or get a little too flirty Anthea has no idea how to handle it lol

Doesn't really get jealous

Flustered as heck when alone with Narinder sometimes, they were not expecting him to be as forward in private as he can be. Not that they mind of course-they just gotta wrap their head around how Narinder can be all shy in public, but the second they're alone at home he's all in on the sweet words and touches, very needy cat that one. They also are getting used to being put first so it's this wonderful mix of overstimulation

Narinder

Tall as heck and very much pleased about taking advantage of that-he enjoys how easy it is to just hold Anthea

Anthea's clothes cannot fit him but he doesn't mind, they look cute stealing his things-plus it makes them smell like him which scratches an instincts itch in his brain

Uses pet-names but kinda like old-fashioned pet names. Love, Heart, Angel, Dearest, Sunshine

Introverted as HECK this man cannot do social situations

Affection through actions cause he's not always great with words, so giving little gifts or just being next to Anthea

After Anthea revealed the gift they'd planned had been a courtship sash Narinder went through like 20 stages of grief then a rapid-fire desperate 'I need to say something NOW' as they tried to play it off as a 'I know you likely never saw me like that it was a bit more symbolic but-' thing. He just straight up said 'I love you' and it snowballed from there.

Kinda finds Anthea-a god-killer of 5, being slightly afraid of and feeling bad for bugs cute

Would drive the call all the time cause it's just easier

Really likes cooking once he's taught, it's peaceful and fulfilling.

Can be shy but does like PDA, same as Anthea he prefers to keep things chaste though, but does get a little thrill at being able to publicly reaffirm they're his

Overprotective as heck the lamb gets better at not dying but he still hates when they do.

Zero relationship experience AT ALL this man's never even had a crush before. Demi as heck he never got close enough to a person for it, so with Anthea he actually thought he was sick for a bit at first.

Part of him does still worry about being left behind so he does get jealous-he's working on it though. The only people who do not ever make Narinder jealous is the twins because well seeing his spouse and their children just makes his heart go very very soft. Anthea can spend a whole day with just the twins and Narinder's just in the background purring happily at the domesticity.

When it comes to intimacy Narinder very much enjoys seeing Anthea enjoy themselves first since after bottling up his feelings for so long, now that he has the lamb he wants to ensure they know exactly how much he loves them/remind them how much they're cared for

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[starcurtain]

I wish everyone collectively understood aventurine’s character like you…things would be so much easier! I genuinely don’t understand how people keep getting his motivations wrong??? Could it be because some of the most popular Aven fanfics were written prior to his release? That could have contributed to some of the takes we tend to see about him…thoughts?

I struggled all day to come up with a concise way to answer this and couldn't think of one, so here, have a long-winded ramble:

I don't think early fic writers have much impact in the situation with Aventurine's character now, since most people can look at when a story was posted and go "Oh, this was before we had ____ information."

I think that Aventurine's problem is being a male character in a gacha game. Gacha game characters are designed to sell. Hoyo can sell female characters very, very easily. Give her huge tits and a visible underwear strap and you're good to go. I love all my guy friends, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: straight men are not the hardest audience to please. Hit a particular fetish (feet, spandex, dommy mommy), and you're gucci.

Nah, we all know why Jade's trailer is Like That.™

Male characters in gacha are harder to sell because women as consumers are a little harder to predict. Does every woman want a tall, ripped hunk? Shit, no, small cute boyish models like Aventurine are selling better now? Why?! Would a bad boy be more popular than a nice guy??? It's harder to account for women's tastes, especially because they are often (a little) less visually-oriented.

Hoyo is good at what they do though, and they've figured out that male characters sell very well when they possess at least one of two specific traits:

Endearing vulnerability/helplessness

Gay ship tease

Give a character both, like Aventurine? They might as well be printing money.

That sound you hear is Hoyo's stock prices rising.

So, from the very beginning, Hoyo is incentivized to create a character that appeals to people, a character people will want to crack their wallets open for. And they achieved this, first and foremost, by giving Aventurine traits that female players (in particular, but men too), find especially appealing: emotional and physical vulnerability.

We see Aventurine's pain. We sympathize with his grief. We identify with his struggle to make meaning of his difficult life. He's our woobie, blorbo, babygirl, whatever the hell they're calling it now.

He can't hide his suffering anymore. He's on the very edge. He's a dude in distress. He's surrounded by enemies! He misses his mama! He's been betrayed! No one understands him like you do, dear player!

The ultimate feeling evoked is: He needs to be saved.

When people talk about male power fantasies, I think they forget that women can experience them too, and "Emotionally vulnerable man that only I (or my favorite character) can fix" is actually a female power fantasy.

And from there it's really easy, right: the people who shell out cash to buy warps for their harmed-husbando feel like they've saved him; the people who are into mlm ships look for the nearest hot dude to be the savior Ratio was waiting for his time lol.

Morally and intellectually, this type of deep-down-golden-hearted, emotionally-wounded male character is very easy to digest. There is nothing to dislike about this type of character or role in the story: this character is a good guy who has just gone through so many terrible situations, whose victim status makes him endearing, and whose lack of agency means that any of the questionable or downright bad things he does are always the result of someone else forcing his hand, and never something he would have chosen himself.

His motivations are always clear and consistent: get free, heal, and live happily ever after.

Insert the Wreck-It Ralph meme: "Do people assume all your problems got solved when a big strong man showed up?" But to be fair, a big strong man did kind of solve Aventurine's problem, so--

Anyway, it's simple. It's straightforward. Morally, it's pretty cut and dry, black and white: Aventurine is our hero, which means everyone dictating the course of his miserable life is evil.

Hoyo is not remotely discouraging people from literally buying into this emotional appeal.

And trust me, I get it. I'll be the first to admit that hurt-comfort is its own entire genre in fandom because it is so appealing. People eat up Aventurine's tragic backstory like candy! The idea of watching a character go through hell at the hands of bad guys just to finally find a happy end is like the definition of everyone's favorite story.

In fact... people love Aventurine's suffering so much, they have invented whole new ways for him to suffer that aren't even in the game.

This is where we get all the headcanons that Aventurine was a sex slave, every single person he meets hates him because of his race, the Stonehearts are executioners holding knives to his throat, Jade enslaved him to the IPC with a lifelong contract, his material possessions belong to the company, the IPC is forcing him to take only the most dangerous missions where he is being required by his evil jailers to continually put his life on the line... You name it and I promise you, I can find a fanfic where Aventurine suffers from it. 😂

Bro can't even sleep in on his day off; life is so hard for this man.

Being serious: if the game is telling us that Aventurine is a victim... Why not make him the perfect victim?

Why not envision an Aventurine with no freedom, who bears no responsibility for any of the horrible situations he is in or any of the dubious things he does?

It's so natural to like that version of Aventurine, so appealing to see a totally powerless underdog use his own wits and charms to claw his way up to freedom. Or, if you're the kind who really relishes angst: It's even appealing to see Aventurine lose more. To delight in fics where he loses his wealth, where the IPC punishes him for past crimes while he's powerless to stop them... (I assure you, this is many people's cup of tea and the fanfics prove it!)

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with liking characters who are exactly this straightforward! It's completely fine to embrace characters that are intentionally written to be morally above-board, whose primary role in the story is to generate angst by being a good person who suffers, or those characters who never show unlikable traits, bad decisions, or contradictory actions.

The problem is that that's just not who the game is telling us Aventurine is.

Hoyo may be capitalizing off people who love to envision poor Aventurine still living his life as a slave... But the game also needs to tell a complicated enough story overall to appeal to people who don't care about this specific husbando--Aventurine's role in the actual game's plot has to be interesting enough for almost everyone to appreciate it, not just Aventurine's simp squad. (Don't get mad, I'm in the simp squad with you.)

So his character doesn't stop at just being a pure-hearted victim who is still waiting to be saved.

Aventurine is not that easy to label, and I think the biggest struggle in this character's fandom right now is between people who prefer the even-more-angsty, still-a-slave Aventurine versus people who want a morally grey, self-destructive character instead.

To me personally, while I greatly understand the appeal of fanon!Aventurine and the joy of a really juicy angst fic where characters lose it all, I think that missing out on the depth that canon is suggesting would be a real loss on the fandom's part.

The character motivations that Aventurine shows in the game are complicated. They cancel each other out. They're basically self-harm! He makes almost every situation he's in worse for himself--on purpose.

He is a good person, but also a person who has done unspeakable things. He does have morals, but he's not above allowing those who don't have them to use him to their advantage.

He's both the victim and the victor. He's his own worst enemy. He's a lost little boy who's been making terrible decisions for himself since he was like eight years old, and a grown ass man who is barely managing to fake his way through an existence that destiny is not letting him quit.

This kind of character is a lot harder to embrace. He's done things that most people would find appalling--like willingly joining up with the organization that let his entire race be massacred. He's invented a whole new peacock persona to frivolously flaunt riches he doesn't even care about (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 101). He actively plays into racist stereotypes about his people to manipulate others through their preconceived expectations. He's made a mockery of his mother's and sister's hopes and dreams by endlessly trying to throw his own life away.

He has flaws! He bet everything he had on a ploy without doing his homework to find out if the people he was risking his life for were even still around. (Maybe he already knew, and couldn't bear to admit it, even to himself.) He's intentionally off-putting and obnoxious to everyone he meets (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 102). He terrifies everyone who gets close to him by (seemingly) carelessly throwing himself into the jaws of death without the slightest provocation.

He knowingly allows the IPC to exploit his power and talents for profit. Did everyone forget that his role in the Strategic Investment Department is asset liquidation?! Like, his actual day-to-day job is ruining people's lives. Canonically, Aventurine kills people when his deals go bad.

His motivations change off-screen in two lines of story text. We're told in one line that his biggest reason for joining the IPC was to make money to save the Avgin, then in the next line we find out that's impossible. And... then what? What motivations does he even have now? The whole point of his character arc from 2.0-2.1 is that he was on the edge of giving in to utter despair and nihilism because he couldn't even perceive a single reason to stay alive. He has no purpose in life before Penacony, and that didn't start with the Stonehearts at all??

People keep saying Aventurine was held in the IPC by golden handcuffs, but how do you tie down someone for whom profit is meaningless? What can you offer to a man whose only desire is to bring back something already lost forever? How do you imprison someone whose only definition of freedom is, canonically, death?

Working for the Stonehearts is obviously not healthy. But that's why Aventurine was doing it--because taking dangerous missions allowed him to put himself at risk. The job that he originally pursued hoping to save his people became a direct means to self-harm, and the IPC's only real role in that was just happily profiting off the results.

The journal entries for Aventurine's quests are there deliberately to tell the player what is on his mind, and none of it has to do with escaping from his job:

Like... Work is the least of this man's problems.

At really the risk of rambling on too long now, he's also just a massive walking contradiction:

Aventurine is among the most explicitly religious characters in the game, yet he's one of the only people in the entire game that we have ever seen actively question his people's aeon.

You might be tempted to think Aventurine's risky gambles with his life as an adult are a result of giving up after finding out about the Avgin massacre... Butttt no, Hoyo makes sure to tell us that even at knee-high in the Sigonian desert, Kakavasha was already willing to risk himself in a fight to the death against monsters because even back then he found his own life to have less value than a single memento.

He's the "chosen one" who will lead his people to prosperity... except they're all dead.

He's explicitly suicidal... andddd also a pathstrider of Preservation.

He wants to die... He doesn't want to die. He wants to make it end, yet goes to staggering lengths to continually survive. (Every plan risks his life on purpose--but every plan's win condition is also to live.) He life is the chip tossed down, but his hand is trembling beneath the table. When faced with an otherwise unsurvivable situation, Aventurine literally became a winner of the Hunger Games. He beat other innocent people to death with his own chain-bound hands just to come out alive.

He knows the IPC failed the Avgin and left them to die... and he still willingly sought out a position of power in their organization. Maybe he really is after revenge... but maybe not.

He starts his journey in the IPC with a truly noble goal in mind: to help his people using his newfound wealth and power. He's a good guy who did genuinely want to save the Avgin and repay all those who helped him. But once it became clear he was too late, once it was obvious he would have no use at all for that monetary wealth and power he risked his life to get... What did he do with it? Unlike Jade, we don't see him over here donating to orphanages. (I'm not that heartless; I'm sure he does actually do a lot of good things with his money on the side, but the point is that the game does not show us that--it shows us, over and over again, Aventurine putting on a wasteful, over-indulgent persona toward wealth. We've supposed to feel how meaningless money is to him, how meaningless everything is becoming to him.)

He outright refuses to use underhanded tactics or to cheat at gambles, which is meant to show us that's he's more morally upright than his coworkers. There's an entire exchange where he says that he'll never stoop to using manipulation the way Opal does. But... he doesn't have any issue fulfilling Opal's exact agenda. He was never remotely morally conflicted about denying the Penaconians their freedom by dragging Penacony back under IPC control.

He's willing to risk his own life, which is one thing--but he's also willing to risk other people's well-being. Topaz accuses him of constantly egging their clients on into dangerous situations; we've actively seen him shove a gun into Ratio's hands and pull the trigger with no care for how Ratio would feel about that on their very first meeting... Dragging the Astral Express crew into the entire Penacony plan in the first place was exceedingly dangerous...

To me, I just think it's vital to understand his character through the lens of these contradictions because they demonstrate the extreme polarity of Aventurine's life: from rags to riches, from powerless to empowered by multiple aeons, from willing to kill to survive to killing himself... He has quite literally lived a life of "all or nothing," and while he is the victim of many terrible situations out of his control, his arc as a character involves facing the truth of himself and the future his own actions are hurtling him toward.

Frankly, the Aventurine that canon is suggesting is a little annoying. You want to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and say "Why are you like this?!" And he won't even have an answer for you, because he doesn't even know why he's still alive.

In the end, to me, this is so, so much more interesting. I can read an endless supply of hurt-comfort fics where Aventurine escapes the evil IPC and Ratio is there to fill the void in his life with the power of love and catcakes and be a perfectly happy clam online, but I want canon to continue to serve us this incredible mess of a man who constantly takes one step forward and two steps back.

Who is fully aware of his role as a cog in the grotesque profit-wheel of cosmic capitalism and still manages to say he never changed from the rags-wearing desert rat of the Sigonian wastes.

Who over and over again flirts with nihility but, ultimately, even if he has to wrest it from the grip of the gods themselves with bloody, chain-bound hands, chooses life.

[myloveforhergoeson]

ash's september 2024 reading round up

find all the books and fics i read (or didn't read...) this month under the cut with a link to the synopsis and my reviews/ratings attached :)

this is just for fun! i'm not a professional, i just like to read <3

booklist:

Summer Reading by Jenn McKinlay(18+!)

• review: this was a solid read. nothing incredible, but definitely better than some of the other crap i've read this year lol. i enjoyed the dynamic between the fmc - a dyslexic chef named sam - and the mmc - a librarian named ben - and the interesting relationship between someone who hates to read and someone who's life revolves around books. honestly i was really interested to see how this played out between the two of them, but like one week into them fooling around he begins to read a book aloud to her and the conflict is magically solved. sam just loves audiobooks now and i wish the author had done more with that. both sam and ben have goals they're striving to reach and i love that ben is able to see his through to the end, but the reader is kind of left wondering about sam's and i would have loved for that threat to have been tied up, but overall this was a cute read. my only real issue with this story was the quality of writing. there were some parts that were super cringe and were clearly written by a millennial emulating the 'how do you do fellow kids' meme that i could've gone without... anyway. i really enjoyed the relationship exploration between sam and her budding teenager brother. after not being in each others lives for a bit, i thought their bonding over the summer was adorable :) would've loved to read a book just about them tbh. neither of the main characters were the kinds of characters to write home about, but overall i did enjoy the progression of their relationship. just kind of a middle-ground novel.

• rating: 3/5 seasons of the bear that taught me all i know about cooking

fic list:

assorted works of @ceruleanmusings <3

look around your world, pretty baby

Blood Diamond; Year Four

i could always write literal essays on your work i swear to god but these two works this month really got to me as per usual. the first mickames one shot for james canon bday was so freaking adorable. i had literal butterflies in my stomach like i was there on the date with them... despite the urgency of the time crunch, which you did exellent in making it seem like it was somehow slow and fast at the same time, god i read this like three times over. mickey and james are just my favorite ;-;!! and blood diamond always hitting in the feels of course... this one in particular really got to me though. the combination of brooke's annoyance with james the last few chapters really came to a head here at the hair salon. he's just a kiddo!! let him play in peace!! and then her figuring out a way to potentially exploit his singing talent... i'll wring her neck i swear. as always tysm for sharing and tagging me in your works 😭 i could read them forever and ever and ever <3

2. assorted works of @partiallypearl/ @praetoravila <3

it's nowhere close to closing time

all over again

be my weekend lover (but don't be my friend)

can i have this dance?

lolive kissssss

you got me paralyzed

you know all my deep dish

this is such a STACKED LINE UP AUGH!! from the beginning with it's nowhere close to closing time... kogan... save me.... i love the first chapter introduction to both the characters and the setting. it's been so exciting theorizing how the story will play out from here and i can't wait to read more!! and of course... all over again with olive my beloved... i just can't get enough of logan and olive and their fucked up little relationship. jo's party chapter literally had me shitting my pants ngl and you already know im thinking of lolive on a daily basis. they're my roman empire i stg... the other three lolive on shots had me by the neck too - from the conversation with kendall 👀 to the quinceañera chapter to their KISS augh im too obsessed for my own good... and saylors introduction one shot!!! ahh!!!! you always have such interesting and well-rounded ocs i'm so jealous!!! i can't wait to learn more about saylor and their relationship with both kendall and lucy :)) macie's story too... she and katie are so adorable. i love the dynamic you've set up between the two of them as they both navigate hollywood!! obsessed as always. im up in your dms literally every single day gushing and i wouldn't have it any other way!!!!!!! <3

3. assorted works of @selangkir <3

mrs. knight one shot

girl time rush (anniversary reread🙏)

iconic work as ALWAYS!!!!!! i truly think your character interptetations of btr/side characters/ocs are so unique and bring such a fresh perspective to the story! the mrs. knight one shot, on top of being hilarious, began to expand on her pretty one dimensional characterization in such a short story and it blew me away. unmatched creativity!! lord knows she needed the j anyway if im being COMPLETELY honest. and i cannot believe gtr turned one year old this month what the fuck!! what the actual fuck!! i swear i've read all three chapters about a bazillion times. ty for being so accepting of roxy and using her as a vessel to tell your story too <3 i'd be lying if i said i wasn't so inspired by sabrina carpenter rn i already have another chapter draft of my own cooking in the google docs..... <33

4. assorted works of @inkameswetrust <3

the windowsill pt. 4

the windowsill pt. 5

oh LORD such incredible updates to this sweet story. these chapters always pack such a punch! i expect nothing less from kames fan #1... im obsessed with the continued relationship between katie and kendall in pt 4. btrtv lacks so heavy on their sibling-ness so i always love seeing it expanded on in fic! and JAMES AND KENDALL GOING OFFICIAL AOAJFOBOBGA i had knots in my stomach! you've also so clearly set up stakes and kendall's future fears it's so genuine and just real it hits so hard. pt 5 with brooke had me almost throwing my phone at the wall if im being honest. the way she spoke to kendall was bonechilling and i'm nervous yet excited for their future together <3 never stop kamesing the world needs it so so sos sooo bad !!!

5. assorted works of @naquey / @ithinkyouhealedmyheart

ghostwriter chapter 1

ghostwriter chapter 2

hi <3 welcome to the reading round up! i love your story sm i'm so grateful to be here for the very beginning of kenonnie and their sweet relationship. ronnie is such a cool character! there is so much depth and dimension to them and i love that every single chapter we learn something new about her!! from her relationship with addy and callie (who i also ADORE and can't wait to learn more about) to his struggles with his father's health... god... the amount of thought you put in is clear and i'm just astounded! the second chapter was also super cool too; i love how you took existing characters and tweaked their relationship so we could learn more about how you view the two of them. i'd never thought to write something with just kelly and rebecca - it's so inventive, just like the (spoliers lol) other chapters you've published since <3 tysm for sharing your writing with us, i'm so excited to see ronnie's journey progress!!!

[sootyships]

for the different versions of Kelly/Callie: 6 and 10 from the character asks? 👀

Thanks for asking! <3

6. What was the thought process behind their appearance? Did you go mostly for the aesthetic or are there other reasons they look the way they do?

Ooooh, boiii. What I do seem to remember is that I to a degree randomised the appearances of the members of Calamity's team (She originates as a transformers OC!). Calamity got a purple visor and the main colours were off-white and petrol blue. She takes some visual inspo from Ricochet--I mean, really some specific fanart. She has fangy fangs. Also, inspired by a particular fanfic's version of Wildrider, she has a strong Russian accent. -> Russian car -> Button-eye Lada, obviously.

Anyways. So then the human version.

Obviously her parents need to at least originate from Russia or former Soviet countries, what with the accent and everything. There's some Fivel Stewart and a bit of Lydia Graham there, but mostly I just went by vibes. She's pale because vibes, she has curly hair because vibes, she has black-brown eyes because humans can't have purple eyes and I didn't wanna do blue eyes since I find it trite, she has snaggle teeth to approximate fangs, she has glasses as a callback to the visor, she has piercings because vibes. She dresses like a Russian tracksuit meme. I do like to bring in the petrol/teal/turquoise and off-white as callbacks in her non-Cybertronian designs, too.

Merformers. Nuff said. She's based on a Fiji Devil Damsel.

The robot design is the newest one.

It's meant to evoke a couple of things. 1. She was found in the trash. She was pretty thrashed! So there's the leg that's clearly not original, and the arms, and the hand, and loads of the parts are different colours, to imply that everything is a bit cobbled together. The belly plates are original--yellowed--and most of the faded blue parts are original, but for example the torso plate and the one knee are replacements 3D printed from orange plastic and painted to hopefully match.

Her face is faded and there's a scratch on her lip. She's not a new bot. The light is a DBH callback; never, ever blue. Her hair is meant to evoke fiber optics.

And she's meant to look creepy. Creepy grin, tiny pupils. That's something that travels across all of her iterations; she's unsettling.

The 2nd thing her robot design is meant to evoke is danger. Sort of? The damage, the sharp claws, what's all that for? Yeah, she'll sit all cute wearing a wholly unnecessary human cardigan and call Kieran's dad "Dad" but she brings with her calamity.

10. What is their main character arc in the story? Where do they start and how do they develop? Do they get a happy ending or is their story a tragic one?

Calamity's story arcs are generally "learning to be a functional person, somewhat?" type arcs. Also romance. In the mer story, she meets Grace and finds herself motivated to try to be a legitimate member of a mer pod lest she get driven off from their waters. She wants her human! Fine! She'll jump through the stupid hoops to have her! Ugh! In the robot story, she's learning a lot of stuff from scratch, including the concept of having a family and protecting her own people, not because she has to, but because she wants to. For most other versions of Callie having a family and a choice is a given.

From the very beginning, Calamity and Gridlock have been two peas in a pod, with Grace|Gridlock as Calamity's (sometimes questionable) voice of reason and motivator-to-behave-according-to-society's-rules. Calamity by herself does not give a slag.

She always get what she wants, btw. Except in the story concept where Gridlock dies. It's interesting because, despite it all, Calamity would be able to continue on without Gridlock. Gridlock without Calamity? ... The whole Umbracon team would be fragged. Somehow, this mis-clocked loose cannon is the fuel keeping them all going.

[elliestation]

ALYXCAT'S PAWSOME PLAYLIST - MY FAVORITE PARTS OF MY OWN ALBUM

I WANNA…i love the stereo space in this track. it just feels so wide to me and im being hugged by my guitars. im just so proud of myself to making this so quickly as proof of concept that i could make something really good if i just chose to have fun.

ANYTHING….the first and last verse of the song was written by my girlfriend. she wrote a song for our first anniversary that turned me into a SOPPING WET CRYING MESS and i had to reference it in some way. i ended up making this song for this years anniversary with a bunch of cute art i doodled with the lyrics on it…she cried and i was so glad.

TRACK THREE. this one encapsulates what writing this album felt like to me. everything was in perfect alignment. i feel like i really cracked the code. like i finally crossed (krossed haha) a hurdle that i'd been stuck on for many years of my life. its so corny and full of things i love about the songs i love, but thats the point. this is the song that taught me to embrace the rough and scrappy drafts and ideas and throw my feelings of inadequacy to the side. Polyana's verse really cemented this for me too because she just freestyles at the end and it just felt right to keep it in. TLDR: this song taught me to trust my gut. i love it so much.

HEADSPACE. i wrote this song after having a "regular" conversation with someone in my family and i was realizing i was dissociating as a defense mechanism whenever a specific sort of interaction would occur. i've always wanted to write a song that gets really intense and is really grand, rough, and intense, and this song really did it for me. its the first time i really appreciate my singing and screaming voice in its natural range, so im glad it was the first one on the album to feature it.

RECHARGED. i wrote this on a bad day but originally as a joke to make myself feel better. the starting sample is actually a stupid deku meme put through many layers of botanica ass sound design to hide it. i got a bunch of funny reactions from my friends after showing them. i actually did feel pretty refreshed after making this. enough to keep moving forward for the day <3

HOLD ME (sunglare from the sun). aside from the weird title shit thats going on with this track, this song is about a conversation i had with myself. my weeks kept feeling like moments of drowning mixed with the most euphoric times of my life on repeat. as much as i wanted to give up on everything i held dear to me, some part of me couldn't let go and encouraged me to keep going. despite all my self-sabotage, a part of me still had some fight left. the way that this song progresses is something that i never thought i could ever accomplish, and im glad that fighting side of me won because i would have never made this song without it.

CANT LET YOU KNOW. the person that this song is about changed my life. i know that the chorus and all that sounds like they sucked, but really i can't help but hope they're doing okay. though i may be afraid to tell them to their face, i hope they find this song and know that im glad they were apart of my life. i just love how corny this song is and I LOVE POLYANA'S VOICE SO MUCH. okay anwya yeah I ALSO LOVE THIS FUCKINNN OUTRO ITS SOOOO PRETTY TO MEEA AAA

SENTIMENTAL ALIBI. kros… FUCKING. KROS. THIS GUY IS MY FUCKING GOAT. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. THIS SONG WASN'T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE ALBUM!!! i made a little sketch one day and sent it to him just to hear his thoughts and HE CAME BACK WITH A WHOLE VERSE THAT MATCHED THE VIBES PERFECTLY WITHOUT ANY CONTEXT! and it ended up becoming the WHOLE SONG and one of the biggest projects i've ever worked on. for this entire album being the first times i've ever started working with people, im SO GLAD that my first experiences have results like this. these people have become such important pillars of my life and im so glad we were not only able to communicate that into a song together and work so well together doing it. my fav part of this song is the final climax…this is the first time i really sang my heart out on a chorus,,,,,and I LOVE HOW IT SOUNDS!!! THAT USUALLY NEVER HAPPENS!!!

TAKE A STEP. this song pushed me with the sound design a little and im really happy about it. when i hear this song i always feel a bit of me choosing to be a little hater and cringe at the conry ass message i have in this, but strangely i feel such comfort knowing i can look at those feelings, accept them, and move on despite them. i may think its stupid, corny, cringe, whatever. but i'll keep following those feelings because they have only led me to create this entire project. i will keep taking a step towards the realest parts of me no matter how fucking stupid i sound because its the only way to grow. im really glad this is the last song on the album for this reason.

the entire album means so much to me because this (and hopefully future projects too) will continue to serve as reminders of the lessons, memories, and joy i experienced when creating this project. dare i say, i would need a Sentimental Alibi to free myself from the nostalgia of this project.

i really hope these messages resonated with you <3 thank you so much for reading.

love you, stay safe.

[freckliedan]

Hi!!! I just wanted to talk about how Dan and Phil as a brand is so relatable to neurodivergents in the way that they've been treated recently. So DnP built their careers off of being "weird" and "quirky" and socially awkward. That was Their Thing. Dan spoke for years about being violently bullied (quotes such as "being punched in the head by dickheads" stand out as a pre-BIG example of just how violent it got at times), Phil had the Why I Was a Weird Kid series, they both were frequently talked about as being "weird" and "awkward" by other YouTubers - they WERE the "weird" ones of the vlog group. The ones that awkward teens could relate to. Unfortunately, this got the attention of the #imsoquirky crowd who talks like they're experiencing all of these things while also being the same people who would mock me for my autism.

And that's the crowd now saying Dan is too old to be posting catboy photos or saying that the two of them "give the ick now, idk why." And I just can't help but notice how much I relate to that as an autistic and ADHD person. So many times over the years, I've made "friends" who were slightly into my interests, but then got weirded out by how hard I went into them. I think what we're seeing is the same thing happening to Dan and Phil. Drawing cat whiskers on your face to answer questions? Well that's "so cute and quirky"!! (/s). But actually playing as Catboys in JRPGs, dressing up in cat ears, making animal noises (which the two of them always did but ig this group overlooked), etc? Well that's "too far" and "so weird."

I think Dan especially got hit with this because he has more subscribers. When he talks about being bullied, most people can relate to that. But then when he goes and honks a horn in a game repeatedly (which tbh I've done before myself, very ADHD coded of him) or talks about hiding behind vending machines to avoid talking to people, that is suddenly "too annoying/weird" for some of the audience that got into him for his "relatably weird" content.

Sorry this is such a long ramble, but basically Dan and Phil have accidentally become the perfect examples of how kids with autism/ADHD/social pragmatic disorder/nvld/dyspraxia *insert other neurodivergencies that can cause atypical socialization* are treated. People might find your initial "quirkiness" relatable because everyone feels awkward or socially anxious at times, but it's when they see that you are Actually Just Like That and it's not to be #relatable that they turn on you and start saying that you're "too much" and "too weird."

Dan and Phil were the "weird" ones of the British vlog scene, and those of us who tuned into the younows or watched their older videos knew this, but someone who only subbed after watching a meme review or the two of them playing undertale might have assumed that they were the "right" kind of quirky/weird.

This is probably incoherent, but I hope you get what I mean.

this isn't incoherent! just such a well thought out ask i don't have anything to add. there's really specific ways i'm comfortable talking abour dnp + neurodivergence & neurodivergence in general so it's not something i've ever done super in depth posts abt!

i've actually gotten a few really lengthy asks like this over the last few weeks, so this is to you and to my other askers: i really appreciate that folks want to share their ideas with me but sometimes i genuinely don't have enough to contribute in response to add on to what's being said! and that makes it pretty impossible to answer asks like this.

so this is to everyone: feel free to @ me in the replies on your posts! (doing that leaves things cleaner than @ ing in the body of a post, which in my experience means folks are more likely to engage, if that's what you're looking for). especially loop me in about dnp + neurodivergene or dnp + gender!

this isn't a promise i'll rb or even see things, this website's functionality is shit, but like. it's actually way easier for me to see and support than if yall are sending me essay length anons, and this way i + others can find more people who share the same opinions as us! make ur own posts & ppl will follow u i prommy

[theroomfloor]

Today I will speak as both a reader and a beginning writer. Sit down because a big text is coming.

And sorry for any mistakes, my English isn't the best

I want to say some compliments and thanks to @evilwriter37! <333333

I've always loved the HTTYD franchise, I've lost count of how many times I've watched the first movie. But I was never part of the fandom, I was always outside of it. Until one day, when I was watching RTTE again, and I remembered how much I liked the dagcup ship. I searched for fanarts but didn't find much on Instagram, so I ventured into Ao3. And it was like falling into a bottomless hole, a hole that I never want to get out of. Guess whose first fanfic I read was? That's it, one of yours. Well, (un)fortunately I choose a complicated fanfic to be my first, it was Ball, Chain, and Dagur, and wow, it was an… experience.

I can't measure how angry I was reading this fic. How painful it was to see my favorite character doing those atrocities. I think I like seeing myself suffer. Every chapter was me wanting to kill Dagur in several different ways. And when I got to the end and discovered that there was no ending because you gave up on the fic (a little warning at the beginning would be nice), it made me want to throw my cell phone against the wall.

Anyway, I just let it go. So at that time I never paid attention to who wrote the fics, I never left comments or kudos either (but in my defense I didn't know how to use ao3, it was new to me). I read other dagcup fanfics by other authors and yours too, but I didn't pay attention to who wrote them. Until one day I read Ruined Together and All Because of a Kiss and I loved it (even though they are far from being cute fics, I always read them again. I think I really like seeing myself suffer).

That's when I first looked at who wrote it, the name was familiar and then it hit me "wait, is this the same guy who wrote Ball, Chain, and Dagur?". It got me thinking, the same guy wrote a story I love and another one I hate. Then I bit my tongue and cursed myself "stop being an idiot, there are people who wrote that".

So I started paying attention to the authors. I went deeper into your fics and threw in the towel, you're my favorite for sure. And with that I arrived here on Tumblr, and god, the fandom was all here and I didn't know. From then I started trying to interact more. You weren't the first person I commented on in a fic, to be honest I was embarrassed to comment especially on your fics, but today I do as much as I can to show my support. And I started to loosen up more here too, making drawings, posting memes, reblogging a lot of things.

It's been a really fun phase and I'm very grateful for it. You were like a light to me, you opened doors to many new things that I never thought I would like. I hope it takes a long time to end.

The irony of it all is that, today, when I think about Ball, Chain, and Dagur I have a feeling of great affection, because it was the beginning of everything. And it's among my favorite fics now, even with all the hate. Whenever you post a new fic, even if I don't favorite it, I'm sure it will be a read that I won't regret, because everything you do is so good and well written, that just for the experience it's worth it.

You brought me into the fandom. And you encouraged me to create for it, with fanarts and now with my own stories. I'm just starting out but I want to move forward with this. So… Thank you very much!!💗

I hope you always stay motivated to continue because I will definitely be here!

[bbnibini]

apothecary diaries anon here again! yeeees, the amount of times i've thought 'this would make a great icon/meme' while reading the manga is amazing! pretty sure most of them are of maomao too haha. (very tempted to edit her and jinshi into the 'woman screaming at cat in restaurant' meme lol) aaaa, don't get me started on how female friendships are treated in fiction; a story app i play keeps on having so many 'rivalries' or 'pretended to be your friend but isn't' plots, but it's almost always with women! like, no, can't i just befriend the characters??? have lovely friendship scenes??? i cry

unfortunately, i haven't had a chance to watch the anime of apothecary yet, i've just seen gifs and screencaps of it. instead, i binged over 10 chapters of the manga when i first messaged you, then another 10 the day after lol. i think i know the triggering plot point you're talking about though; like you say, it's amazing how they put all these dark details in the story, but handle the topic well and sprinkle it into the world building/character backstories. i'm at chap 26 rn, and i'm super interested in a certain character who just showed up + their motivations. (ooh, i'll check out ascendance of a bookworm too; sounds like my cup of tea!)

ah, as for the light novels, i looked it up on amazon (the only place i know where to buy light novels in the uk) and there's a physical release date for next year! i understand what you mean abt LN vs manga collecting; i like having a physical book in my hand for novels, but having digital copies for manga.

thank you for your reply before; it was fun to read!

🐱🍃 - (emojis that remind me of maomao)

Aniwkwkdkdk I REALLY NEED TO READ THE MANGAAAA maybe I should go the same route as you and just buy manga digitally and novels physically cause there were some manga I bought that I kinda regret buying physicals of. 🥲 (By that I mean I don't reread them as much and it feels awkward to read manga physically? Is it just me?? Maybe I got used to longscrolling in manhwa lol)

Right?? I can't judge the manga cause I haven't read it but in the anime, the tone is wonderfully executed and it's the right balance of exposition and pacing. WAIT WHAT REALLY?? OMG next year fr?!?!? if that's the case I'm gonna continue gatekeeping my digital copies and wait for the physicals! 😭 Thank you for this info!! (I only use my digital copies for annotating and for reading in bed. Idk ik I'm weird. If I really like the series I buy the soft copy and hardcopy wkjdkdkdkdk).

Honestly it's why I got tired of shoujo isekai. They always pit women against each other over some guy. It's so hard to find good series in that genre anymore cause they almost all have the same formula. I want my female MCs but I don't want any of the unnecessary catfighting. I just really hate how that side of the community has blatant misogyny cause you know fr they won't treat a morally ambiguous and handsome male character in that way. :/

Let 👏 women. Support women! 👏 (The emojis are really cute! ;v; <3 I just realised her name sounds like a cat's meow! That's so cute omg)

[megashadowdragon]

Jaguar & Tezcatlipoca's Reunion Photo Tour!

Commentary: You can consider this a spiritual successor to Babylonia Omake: Jaguar Man's Último Adios.

"

Jaguar PELIGRO!!!

Commentary:

You thought I was out of Jaguar Memes? You're wrong! I just saved the best for last.

As a loyal minion of Tezcatlipoca, Jaguar Man joining up with Quetz is kind of like the pet (or No. 2) of the villain shacking up with the protagonists for an episode. It's a cute change to the dynamic, but you know it can't last because that mutt's only really doing that out of convenience until the status quo kicks back in.

So Quetz treating her with suspicion is pretty justified. They've been enemies for an entire mythos and she knows that Jaguar's only trying to kiss up to her because her usual boss isn't around.

Likewise, I'd like to think that Jaguar wouldn't mind getting a good hit in on Quetzalcoatl before scampering off back to the Throne and the Court of the Smoking Mirror. At least, that's how I like to regard their dynamic.

This comic and its punchline were partially inspired by this X-Play sketch. Anyone else remember X-Play? Good times.

The title of the comic is a reference to "Mi Ultimo Adios", the final poem of Filipino writer and national hero Dr. Jose Rizal.

While Cabron technically means "male goat" in Spanish, it is usually used as a catch-all expletive/insult. Please don't recklessly say it in public. I wash my hands of the mater.

Jaguar puts the (True) label after her boss' name to further distinguish him from how his four fellow creator gods Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochti and Xipe Totec are alternatively known as the White, Blue, and Red Tezcatlipoca respectively.

Tony the Tiger and Star Trek references. Couldn't resist. Sorry.

We'll be going back to the regular schedule after this strip. I hope you enjoyed these back-to-back marathon miniseries!

Do you guys prefer to call not!Taiga "Jaguar Man" or "Jaguar Warrior"?

"

orojuice commentary More Primeval Villain + Cat Archetrope Adventures! Had this idea since LB7 dropped, but I could never get Georgios to look right for the lead-up panel. That is until I remembered that CE of his. Finding that red waterfall background was also a huge boost since initially, I just placed a blood splatter on the final camera shutter background before the last panel would show the same background before that but without the duo. Much more fun this way. For Quetzalcoatl. According to the 8th Anniversary FGO interview with the creators, the giant robotic ghost that Tezcatlipoca summons for his NP sometimes? Apparently, his illustrator Shou Tajima was given complete freedom to do whatever he wanted for the Sun God's Third Ascension so long as he followed the specifications for the first two. The robotic ghost was his initial submission for that. And yes, this Third Ascension Tezcatlipoca was always that big. Nasu and the other creative heads liked it a lot, but they couldn't find a way to feasibly program it into the typical three Servant line-up. Mr. Tajima was asked to make a more typical Third Ascension in its place. However, while they couldn't have it in the game as a playable sprite, they did model it for use in Tezcatlipoca's First and Second Ascension NP sequences. So if he had, theoretically, transformed into that to fight Quetzalcoatl in this comic, he could've produced roughly this much blood.

spacebattles comments

Mash: Jaguar Man! Tezcatlipoca!

Fujimaru: D-D-Did you just take pictures of a m-murder?

Georgios: That's the scary part, Master. I didn't.

Fujimaru and Mash: Huh?

Georgios: Those pictures you're looking at? All of them were taken at the same spot at roughly the same time. It was supposed to be a photo of them enjoying their day in the city. Then, when I took more shots, I got those images. (shudder) The whole thing just creeps me out. I'm thinking of brining my camera to a temple to have it cleansed or something along the line.

Mash: What could this mean, Senpai?

Fujimaru: I'm not s-

Jaguar Man (passing by): Oh boy, nya! I can't wait to go on that hiking trip! Just you and me, Tez!

Tezcatlipoca: Yup! Just the two of us in the woods! No one to bother us as we enjoy ourselves! Wait, what about Coatl?

Jaguar Man: Nyot to worry! I sent her on a wild goose chase across the Sahara Desert!

Tezcatlipoca: Ha ha! What an idiot!

Fujimaru, Mash and Georgios: …

Georgios: Umm … guys? Do you think that my camera could have been taking photos of the future?

Fujimaru: Georgios? For our remaining sanity, please just drop the subject.

Georgios: But-

Mash: Senpai said to drop it.

[theherdofturtles]

Fanfiction Ask Bingo

Since this was the fanfic that led to me discovering all your other works:

welcome to my broken ankle

And also, your fic that I've reread obsessively:

On Politics and the English Personification

This ask came at a perfect time, my goodness there could be no better timing. Thank you.

It's also funny that this combination came up specifically, as I think these are two very different types of fics. welcome to my broken ankle:

Of all my fics, welcome to my broken ankle stands apart as an odd one? It's separate from everything else; and I can't say I truly considered deleting it after posting... more I considered deleting it before posting ? I never planned to share this one until July came around, the last chapter was finished, and it made sense to toss it onto ao3. It really doesn't appear to fit my usual modus operandi... The reason I wrote it in the first place: Spite? Sort of? I was bored of reading England's fandom tropes I suppose? Especially in older fics or memes I crossed. I was relatively new to the fandom at the time, and I was trying to learn what had happened before I knew what Hetalia was, what the fandom was about, and I was finding that the fairies were nearly always depicted as cute, England was often soft and 'mum,' England's brothers were usually evil / unreasonably mean, and the American revolution was rehashed into oblivion. The fanbase these days has branched out more, but I didn't find that at the time. The reason I fell into the fandom was because I loved history, but I thought the tropes that came up in Hetalia could be very funny on their own if they were done with slight twists— a refresh or a silly spin, if you will. In a way I was poking fun at these fandom tropes but I was also adding to them ? The goal was to have a fun time, not taking the story seriously, and to discover more about the characters.

In the end I lost my mind.

On Politics and the English Personification:

This fic is my soul.

I'm bad with words. But not when I use words for stories. I can make stories. But I'm bad at talking to people or saying things face to face. Stories can express things without saying them, and when a thing is left unsaid, it retains potential. So I wrote this fic to explain myself to myself.

Also I've not done a thesis before, so there is a potential that I researched more for this fic, but I am skeptical. One day I will do a thesis and I will then know.

[tackyink]

Convention haul! There wasn't barely any BG3 merch and the only thing I was interested in was gone before I found the artist's table. Still, my poor wallet...

First is the last volume of a very cute fanzine I've been reading for years, two Ace Attorney prints and a DS charm with the least heterosexual lawyers ever, all by the Wonderpun folks, Paula and Diego, who I barely see once a year for five minutes but are really lovely and funny people. They are exquisite pun artists and regale us with fanzines solely dedicated to them, not to mention the constant stream Diego posts on Twitter. They also make assorted merch for Pokémon, Ace Attorney, Yakuza, Resident Evil... There's a ton, check them out yourselves. Here's their online shop. All the JJK stuff is from an artist that didn't include any kind of business card and now I can't send you to his social media. OTL The print and Geto charm are for a friend.

As if this were exonerating at all, I feel I should stress that the fanzine and all its extras were already paid for because I joined the crowdfunding campaign this summer.

I also picked up a cheap set of dice and Fire Emblem cipher cards because you know, it's been a long time since I spent any real money at a convention. Prices are inflated, you can buy everything off the internet nowadays, and I had left the Artist Alley pretty unscathed, so I knew I wasn't going to spend much more.

Then I found a retro videogames stand with Japanese imports. They had Vita games. Japanese otome Vita games.

THEY HAD THE ONE HAKOUKI GAME I'VE WANTED TO GET FOR 10 YEARS WHAT THE HELL

They also had Amnesia World for the same price and I thought about going back for it if I didn't spend a lot the following three days.

One shop had a bunch of YYH figures, including two I'd never seen of Hiei and Kurama that put together replicate the cover page of the Two Shots chapter, and sent a video to a friend who's a huge Hiei fan but couldn't make it to the con to ask if I should get it for her. She took three days to make a decision. More on this later.

After this, we found a place that sold vintage haori and I kind of fell in love at first sight with one. The sign said they were 30€ and up, but I have a vintage silk haori with some damage on the sleeves and that one was already 50€. I'd never seen one in good condition for less than 60€. Knowing that the price would be way out my budget, I asked anyway.

It was just 30€.

Excuse the shitty picture, but !!!! Those cranes!!! The lining!!!!!

And remember the lady who ran out of her stand to do my hair? This below was the result. 10/10 marketing tactic.

At this point I'm repeating over and over inside my head "This is fine" like the dog from the meme. I'm getting extra pay this month, no harm done, it's not like I spend money the rest of the year. This is it, I've already seen the entire venue, I'm immune to temptation, I'm probably not getting that second game. <-this is not foreshadowing

Before calling it a day, I asked my friends to try and find again the retro games shop to remember exactly where it was in case I wanted to go back, because the next days were going to be much busier and it's always difficult to move with so many people.

Turns out on the way there there was another import shop I had glossed over because it sold mostly trading cards and CDs, but I went to look at the table anyway because haha what's the harm you already know where this is going. (⊙x⊙;)

The harm was basically half the recent group discography of Quartet Night. ಥ_ಥ They were pretty cheap, but I painted over the price because I'm still embarrassed and pissed, why the hell did I have to look. I am now the not so proud owner of the Quartet Night single where they dressed the idols as bullfighters without shirts and I can't even be angry about it because the song was good. Look at this. The second hand embarrassment is killing me. Anyway! Not getting the game for sure.

The next two days passed without any further damages to my wallet, which were admittedly quickly forgotten as soon as I got tackled by the girl I totally don't have a crush on when she saw me dressed as Hancock and whose dinner I paid for only because she treated us to a lot of places when we visited her city this summer. That night, before the last day, I had to insist to my home-bound friend to make up her mind already because I couldn't be glued to the phone while wearing cosplay, pushing a wheelchair and socializing with people I only see twice a year.

I'd decided the first day I'd get the Kurama figure only if she told me to get her a Hiei as well. She sent me a text past 12 AM saying she wanted it. In the morning I receive a message from the friends I was arriving to the venue with every day saying that after three days they cannot fucking move and are tapped out. I cannot fucking move either because Hancock's shoes destroyed my feet, but I go anyway, as soon as I can, because I'm a woman on a mission to retrieve a friend's husbando.

I went straight to the shop before joining up with anybody else and the Hiei figure was gone from the display case, along with another Hiei, the only Kuwabara and one Kurama. Mission failed. I asked one of the sellers about the Kurama one and she told me all except the one on display were sold out, so there was no box, and it was for the best because I was able to store him inside my bag. Here he is. I'm jealous of his sweater.

After that, I joined my totally-not-a-crush for the rest of the morning and went to a panel where they gave us a bit of sake and Kobe beef while we waited for our other friends. The rest of the day went well, we saw a lot of people and said goodbye to everyone, and instead of going to the Korean BBQ place we had planned, the remaining four of us moved the dinner to the sandwich/pizza/crepe place across the street from our incapacitated friends.

I am now taking a vow of poverty until April.

[mannatea]

Predictably asking for Symphonia for the fandom meme!

I stan. 🙏

the first character i ever fell in love with: Raine. Even as a teenager she was my favorite and I loved her immediately.

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: I actually think I used to really like Zelos and found him hilarious when I was a teenager myself, and now I'm like 😨 about half of what he does and says. Yikes, bro. It actually makes me wonder how differently he would be written if the game was coming out for the first time now, because a lot of the stuff in the game just would NEVER fly these days.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: Ah. Behold, my personal cringe: I used to ship Kratos/Raine. It didn't last very long because my fellow shippers in 2004 made me abandon ship entirely & do a heelturn toward my current OTP out of pure spite. If I'm being honest I was only shipping it because they were the only two adults in the party for a while, anyway, so it wasn't a serious attachment. 🙄 But like, it should be noted that this happened while I was in the middle of writing a love triangle fic. (My other personal cringe, shh.)

my ultimate favorite character™: RAINE, MY BELOVED. 🤍 I literally love every single thing about her.

prettiest character: You thought I was going to say Raine didn't you? WRONG. It's Yuan, actually. Look at him.

my most hated character: RODYLE. He's just so hateful.

my OTP: Regal/Raine. I will die on this hill, actually. (And have been quietly since late 2004.) This is the only ship I just won't compromise on. What can I say about it? Their dynamic just hits on a lot of notes that work exceedingly well for me personally. I won't write a manifesto here (you may thank me for holding back for your benefit) but I love both of them so much and think their personalities balance one another out incredibly well, which is a lot of fun to write.

my NOTP: Basically any Raine ship that isn't my OTP is a NOTP for me, though I do have two in particular I would consider NOTPs. IYKYK.

favorite episode skit: The My Sister skit. IT GETS ME EVERY TIME.

saddest death: Marble. SHE'S AN OLD WOMAN. PLEASE.

favorite season side plot/scene: Virginia, honestly. It messes me up every time. The doll haunts me to this day. Also, that they so INTENTIONALLY made Raine look exactly like her. Poor Raine just can't escape. And the trauma?? AHHHH.

least favorite season side plot/scene: That buffoonish Peeping Tom thing at the hot springs. I wanted more meaningful conversation with my girls and I had to deal with that instead. NO WAIT I HATE THE SCENE IN SYBAK LOOKING FOR THE LITTLE BOY'S MOM SO MUCH MORE. ZELOS'S BOOTSTRAPS SPEECH WAS THE WORST THING I HAVE EVER HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF READING, not because it wasn't 100% in character for him (HILARIOUSLY IT IS VERY IN CHARACTER 🤣) but because I feel like nobody else in the scene was written in a believable way—not Regal, not Colette, and not Lloyd. WTF WAS THAT SCENE?

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate am lukewarm about: Hate is a strong word here so I toned it down. I feel very lukewarm about Kratos. In fact, I'd go so far as to say his potential was a bit wasted just because they didn't bother to do enough with him.

my ‘you’re a piece of trash, but you’re still a fave well-liked’ fave: This is a hard one, because the trash characters are still trash to me. I'll maybe go with Kate or George for this. They both did terrible things but I still find them interesting and compelling as characters.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: Colette, always. Also? Presea.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: I don't have one because you'll never see me shipping something like this. It's not my cuppa.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: This is a hard one. Maybe Genis/Presea for this? I think they are good for one another but they're both too young BY A LOT to really be thinking that deeply about things. However, their respect for one another and their compassion/understanding of what the other has been through could lead to something nice later in life. I'm not over those adorable skits where Genis asks for advice from others on what present to get for her and they all collectively give him the worst advice imaginable and he ends up buying her a whetstone because he KNOWS HER AS A PERSON and she LOVES THE GIFT. This is what peak performance looks like in a person, actually.

Thanks! ♥

[hlvrfreakyfriday]

HLVRFF: Chapter 4

Yeah, Benry was very obviously posing at himself in the mirror just now. But luckily for the alien, Gordon's too preoccupied with other thoughts at the moment to question him about it.

Thoughts that he REALLY shouldn't be having. Especially not about BENRY of all people. Can you even call whatever the hell he is a person? You can call whatever the hell he is surprisingly cute NO. NO. THOSE ARE EXACTLY THE THOUGHTS HE NEEDS TO NOT BE HAVING.

Damn Gordon's lonely, bisexual heart.

Just- fucking- why Benry? Why this fucked up alien monster from beyond the veil who tried to kill him once? Who succeeded in killing several other defenseless people? Who got his hand chopped off by the military? Who still occasionally plagues his nightmares? Why would he EVER have feelings for someone like that?

If you hate him so much, then why have you let him live with you for the past four months, Gordon's brain supplies.

He's… not really sure why. Resignation to the fact that he's never, ever getting rid of the guy, and thus might as well get used to it, perhaps? Then there's Tommy, who Gordon pretty much owes his life to. Tommy never seemed to want to give up on the idea that Benry wasn't evil. Hell, even during the final battle on Xen, Tommy was still insisting that they not fight Benry, just try to understand him. When Benry inevitably popped back into their lives, It was Tommy who convinced Gordon to give the guy a second chance and let him move in with him. Gordon had questioned why he couldn't just stay with Tommy in that mansion the older man lives in, but Tommy's excuse was that his equally eldritch dad was territorial or something.

That, and that Benry had apparently wanted to live with Gordon more than with Tommy, despite him and Tommy being apparent best friends.

Gordon was sure that it was just so he could continue to make his life a living hell… but he really hasn't been, has he? Sure, they'll still have their arguments, but they're less straight-up fights and more just. Banter. Benry's gotten plenty of laughs out of the physicist, too, since moving in. He'll act weird when out in public pretty often, but it's always in just completely harmless ways. He's even proven to be surprisingly good with Joshie, the eldritch entity and six-year-old boy having long conversations about video games, cowboys, dinosaurs, et cetera. It's…

God. It's fucking cute is what it is.

Uhg.

IT'S FINE, THOUGH. It's fine. He can find someone cute without it meaning he has feelings for them. Totally. Yeah.

Just keep telling yourself that, Gordon.

So lost in these thoughts, Gordon didn't even notice he'd made it into Benry's bedroom and had the closet door open. Right, right. Get dressed, go to store. He kiiiiind of really doesn't want to go out in public like this, but they really do need that stim chew and shampoo. So Gordon starts to dig through Benry's messy closet for something clean to wear.

Half of Benry's shirts are a bunch of stupid gamer memes and PlayStation logos, while the other half are all skeleton-themed. Gordon obviously goes for one of the skeleton shirts. He also throws on some black jeans, and the only pair of shoes Benry owns; his old combat boots. Gordon's offered to help him buy some new shoes, but Benry refuses every time. Whatever. At least the boots were high-quality and thus not in danger of wearing out any time soon.

Now fully dressed, Gordon heads back into his bedroom to grab his phone and wallet. He finds Benry's gotten dressed finally, too, having picked out a Metallica shirt, featuring the art for Ride the Lightning. Good album. Benry likely picked that because of the blue, Gordon guesses. Guy's wild about that colour. When he found out there was a special edition PS4 that came in blue, Benry'd acted like he'd found the Holy Grail.

"You ready to go, man?" Gordon asks as he grabs his phone and wallet from the dresser. "We're gonna have to take the bus, since you don't have a license and so I can't drive while looking like you."

Benry gives him a little shrug. "'s cool. long as your weak human legs don't collapse on the walk to the bus stop. seriously, why are your legs so shitty, bro?"

Gordon scowls at him a little. "Sorry we can't all be immaculate, god-like beings like you."

"ha ha, yeah, sucks. your senses are all like, turned way down and shit. thought you were going deaf at first. and blind. and completely numb. and losing your sense of smell. and-"

"I get it! I get it! Human beings suck compared to you! Can we just go now?"

Benry laughs, but doesn't talk any further, opting instead to follow Gordon out of the room. Though, when they reach the living room, he suddenly stops.

"oh, yo, wait a sec," he says, and then dashes off to his room. He bumps his borrowed shoulder into the door frame, causing Gordon to yell out a 'stop trying to clip through shit!' to him. Gordon hears Benry rummaging around for something in his room, he probably forgot where he put his own phone or something.

It doesn't take long before Benry's returned to the living room. "aight. ready freddy."

Gordon gives an amused little huff, and they head out the door.

The moment they step outside, Gordon's new heightened senses are completely assaulted anew. He'd gotten pretty used to everything in the house, but the great outdoors was a whole 'nother ballgame. There are just SO many sights and smells and sounds and feelings and it's like they're all at max volume and thensome and Gordon can already feel the inside of his head and chest start to outright writhe in a very worrying way and-

"hey," Benry speaks up, resting a hand on Gordon's borrowed shoulder.

Gordon turns to him, and notices he's offering him something. A fidget toy shaped like a game pad. Oh yeah, that's right, Benry never liked to leave the house without it. Then why is he..?

"bro, just take the toy. trust me on this, man. it'll help," Benry says, shoving the fidget pad in Gordon's chest.

"Err, okay," Gordon says dumbly as he finally takes the offered toy. He's never actually used a specially made fidget before, always opting to just play with his own hair. But this… does feel pretty nice in his hand. Has a nice little weight to it. Gordon experimentally runs some fingers over the various buttons and wheels, testing them all out. He finds himself drawn to the back-and-forth switch, the circular smooth indention reminding him of a worry stone, and the click of the switch as he moves it is highly satisfying to his borrowed ears. He just stands there, playing with it for a good minute, as Benry watches with a satisfied look on his face.

Whatever writhing feelings that were stirring within Gordon are completely gone now, and he looks back up at Benry. "Uh… thanks," Gordon says, a bit awkwardly.

"no prob, bro," Benry replies with a grin, looking oh-so proud of himself. "i know all my bod's cheat codes and pro strats- don't gotta worry about it. you'll be uh, S ranking this shit in no time."

Gordon lets out an amused exhale at Benry's terminology and pats him on the arm with his free hand, before they finally start making their way for the bus stop. Gordon makes sure to keep his focus just on where he's going, which is much, much easier thanks to the fidget toy in his hands keeping him grounded.

The bus ride from their neighborhood and into town is pretty uneventful, which Gordon thanks his lucky stars for. As they approach the store and head inside, he hopes that this trend continues. But who is he kidding. Knowing Gordon's luck, it probably won't.

At one point on their way to the store, Benry had mentioned that he wanted to check out the different smells of the various kinds of scented shampoo, now that he actually has a nose that can handle them. And thus, they are now hanging out in the hair care isle, Gordon having already found some good scentless shampoo, and Benry delightedly taking in all the different fruity and flowery smells of the soaps. Gordon's once again hit with the 'oh god that's adorable' feeling as he watches Benry, but manages to swallow the starfruit lights back down this time. God forbid Benry see that shit and make a comment about it. He decides to turn away from Benry for the time being- and comes face to face with a familiar stout old man in a brightly coloured Hawaiian shirt, a lime green glow in his eyes and equally green glowing patterns on his skin, in designs that seem more reminiscent of circuit boards than Blaschko's Lines.

"Ah, hello, Benry! Or should I say, hello, Gordon?" Dr. Coomer greets in his usual cheerful tone.

Gordon blinks at him in confusion. "Dr. Coomer? How- how did you..?"

Coomer taps at his face near his eyes. "I have special eyes, Gordon! As does Benry, as you've no doubt noticed. And orange is definitely not Benry's colour."

Ah, yeah, that's right. Some of Coomer's cybernetic enhancements had apparently given the man a few eldritch abilities. Gordon already knew that Coomer could use Sweet Voice and peer into the cosmic void, so hearing that he's got vision like Benry's isn't too surprising.

"Hey, yeah, I keep meaning to ask Benry about that- what's the deal with the eye thing? And the glowing body patterns, too," Gordon asks.

"It would seem that many beings from the cosmic void have the ability to detect and see the 'Life Energy' of most living things. Everyone's energy signature is uniquely colour-coded; yours is orange for example, mine is lime as you can see, Tommy's is yellow, and my dear Bubby's is a lovely shade of cyan."

"And Benry's is apparently the entire rainbow," Gordon adds.

"He's very full of 'Life Energy', Gordon! With a direct connection to the infinite cosmos itself fueling him, it's why he never stays dead!"

Well, there's those questions answered, Gordon guesses. Both the glowing thing, and Benry's weird 'respawn' power. And speaking of Benry, it seems he's finished huffing hair care products, as he strolls up to join Gordon and Coomer.

As does Bubby, who just now appeared from another nearby isle. Gordon notices the patterns on the lankier older scientist's body are a lot different from all the others he's seen; probably having to do with him pretty much being a homunculus and not a normal human. The bright cyan patterns on Bubby look more like hotrod flames than anything else, and Gordon can't help but be a little amused by that.

Bubby notices the younger pair as he comes up beside Coomer. He gives Benry, in Gordon's body, a very judgmental-looking once over, and before anybody else can say anything, he says, "Gordon, why the fuck are you wearing one of Benry's hats? You look stupid as hell in it. Are you two finally dating or something?"

Bubby's words have Benry looking like his brain just short-circuited, while Gordon starts sputtering, trying to say something, but his tongue keeps tripping over itself. What does he mean 'finally'? The fuck does he know that Gordon doesn't!?

Finally, Gordon manages to spit out, "W-we're not- we're not fucking dating!"

Bubby raises an eyebrow at that reaction. "You're acting like Gordon," he says to who he still thinks is Benry, before turning to Coomer. "Why is he acting like Gordon?"

"Astute observation, dear! It would seem our good friends Gordon and Benry are having a bit of a 'Freaky Friday' situation, and are currently in each other's bodies!"

"Oh. Well, that's fucked up," Bubby says flatly.

"You don't even know the half of it, man," Gordon groans.

"yeah, seriously," Benry speaks up. "being human is like, SO sucks, bro. how do you even fuckin' deal with this shit?"

"I don't!" says Coomer. "I'm more machine than man at this point. Been this way for a quite a while!"

"And I'm the ultimate life-form, grown in a tube, so I've never really had to deal with being human," Bubby adds. "Sucks to be you."

Benry huffs at Bubby's ending comment, and Gordon grumbles at the implication that he's inferior to everyone else here when in his normal state of being.

I mean, yeah, sure, that's kind of true. But hey! He LIKES being human regardless! At least when he's human he doesn't have to worry about his body literally turning itself inside-out just because he got a little overstimulated! He should be asking how Benry deals with THAT shit!

Or, well, how he dealt with it before he discovered fidget toys. Gordon still can't believe that simply fiddling with a chunk of plastic covered in buttons is all it takes to keep him from turning into something out of H.P. Lovecraft's nightmares, and yet, here he is, flicking a little switch back and forth and feeling totally fine and focused because of it.

...Well okay, maybe not entirely focused. Gordon's only now noticing that the others were still conversing about something while he was entirely checked out, apparently. And they're all looking right at him now.

"…What?"

------------------------

"Sucks to be you," Bubby smirks, and Benry huffs at him.

"it's not funny, man. for real. i'm all, like, weak and shit. i feel like- like i'm gonna drop dead at any minute. everything's all dull like somebody put a fuckin', uh, glass box around me. muffles everything. can't see good, can't hear good, can't smell good. buncha other stuff i can't even feel at all anymore. only thing i DO feel more than before is pain. it's major fucked up, yo."

It really, really is. Benry had no idea this was how Gordon, and presumably most other humans, experience the world every day. He feels so... fragile. It's finally giving Benry a good idea about why Gordon always fusses at him to be more careful even when Benry's not in any kind of real danger.

Because it's dangerous for Gordon.

...Shit, that's another reason he was always so scared in Black Mesa, too, isn't it. Not just 'cause he can perma-die, but because it's stupidly easy for him to perma-die.

Benry looks back towards the human in his borrowed body, and the two older scientists follow his gaze. It takes a minute for Gordon to notice, and when he does, it becomes very apparent that he wasn't listening to a single word that was just said.

"…What?" Gordon asks.

"Oh my god," Bubby blurts out, amusement clear in his voice, "you just completely spaced out like Benry usually does!"

Holy shit he sure did, didn't he? Guess the spacing out thing is tied more to how Benry's physical brain is wired, rather than his consciousness. Come to think, he hasn't been spacing out much himself since ending up in Gordon's body. Huh, go fig.

"Ffff," Gordon practically hisses, "oh, fuck off, man." He looks away from Bubby, clearly embarrassed. Bubby chuckles, but shuts right up when Coomer elbows him in the gut.

The shorter older scientist then speaks up, "Well, gentlemen! It's been lovely seeing how completely batshit your worlds have gotten, but Bubby and I need to return to our shopping."

Gordon sighs, and nods. "Yeah, yeah, same. It was good seeing you, Dr. Coomer. It wasn't good seeing you, Bubby." Bubby just flips Gordon off in response to that.

The younger pair leave the old couple to their shopping, and get back to finishing up their own. Benry manages to find a silicone stim chew shaped like a blue raccoon that he informs Gordon 'speaks to him on a deeply personal level'. He is this raccoon, this raccoon is him, and he is going to gnaw the FUCK out of it once it's officially purchased.

And GOD is it satisfying when he finally is able to start biting it. Tommy once got him another silicone stim chew shaped like a t-rex, having underestimated how adept Benry's sharp teeth are at tearing through… most things, pretty much. What can he say, he's an extreme omnivore by nature. Gotta be able to bite a lot of things if you wanna be able to eat a lot of things. Gordon's teeth, however, are all flat and lame and barely leave any dents in the silicone as he gnaws on it.

The trip back home is about as boring as the trip to the store was, though the bus ride feels like it drags on longer than the last time. As Benry sits there and chews the raccoon, his mind can't help but wander back to thinking about how Gordon acted in Black Mesa, during the Resonance Cascade. About how all his actions and emotions, which Benry thought were exaggerated and overreaction at the time, were completely valid. About how he wasn't just acting scared, he WAS scared. Scared to death. Of death.

Benry had found out about humans' inability to regenerate body parts while they were still in Black Mesa, just before Gordon got the gun-arm. Tommy told him, and Benry was going to apologize to Gordon for all the teasing he did due to not thinking it was so serious. But then Gordon kept shooting at him. A lot. It may not have been enough to kill Benry, but it still really hurt. And so instead of apologizing, he just acted like a petulant child, getting mad and angry right back at Gordon.

When they got to Xen, Benry saw it as an opportunity to really fuck with Gordon. He did try to make nice with the human at first, but then Gordon just kept making accusations that Benry was the cause of all their problems, yelling at him, insisting that they were never friends. 'if you want me to be the big bad, then i'll be the big bad,' Benry had thought. He stalked them all throughout Xen, toying with them, putting the fear in them. Benry even went so far as to kill the actual threat the lab coats back at 'Mesa had sent the Science Team to deal with. Killed it, stole its lair, took its place as the 'final boss.' Of course, Benry didn't really want to kill them. He was just messing with them all. Fuckin' around, you know. They were still his friends, in the end, even if some of them (Gordon) didn't think so.

It wasn't until after Black Mesa, after Benry had been brought back out of the void Tommy's dad had locked him in, that Benry learned about just how fragile and easy to kill humans are.

Though they were half-hearted, if any of Benry's attacks during the fight had landed, his human friends would've been very much dead and gone.

The thought turns his borrowed stomach, and if he could still use Sweet Voice while in Gordon's body, he just knows the air would be getting filled with guilty and loathsome sanguine and shadow.

…It's no wonder Gordon still has nightmares about Benry.

Benry, so lost in thought, doesn't notice when Gordon looks over at him for the briefest of moments, a look of slight curiosity and mostly concern on his borrowed face. He doesn't say anything, and just looks back away elsewhere, remaining silent for the rest of the trip home.

[disdaidal]

super late but i just saw the gif related asks in my likes that u rbed, so: 1, 8, 9, 32, 34, 36, 41, 49! i'm nosey as shit and love hearing u talk about ur gifmaking skills 🥰💝

Awww Melia 🥰🥰😍😍💖💖

1. What are your top 3 favorite sets you’ve made?

This is such a tough question because having to choose three sets out of everything that I've ever made?! I've made hundreds of gifsets in different fandoms, how could I possibly choose only three?

Okay, okay, here goes:

JJ/Emily from Skins UK. I thought they were so cute and I just really like my coloring here. :3 I really miss this show and I keep thinking about making new Skins (gen 2) gifs every once in a while.

Sarge/Cleo from Cleopatra 2525. This remains one of my all-time favorite sets because a) it took me several hours to make it b) it was actually my first 2-gifs-in-1-canvas set ever and c) again, I just really like my coloring here. :)

Billy in purple. My favorite boy in one of my favorite colors. :) I just really, really like this one.

8. What gif trend do you hate?

I can't exactly remember what year it was when people used to make those colorless/washed-out gifs all the time? 2014? 2015? Anyway. While I kind of liked the look of some of them (and I made a few myself so I'm not so innocent heh), when literally everybody was making them, it made my dashboard quickly look so fucking dull and lifeless. I kept asking: where are all the colorful gifs / why do you guys hate colors so much? Ugh.

Also some of the recent trends... You know when people make those transitional b&w glitchy gifs? I go back and forth about it. Like, in a way, I kind of like the look. I think the effect looks cool and I can tell it's taken a lot of time & effort to make it happen. But I also have this thing called astigmatism in my eyes, and that glitchy effect makes me go all 😵. So I'm not a huge fan of that trend because of that. I still think it's cool though.

9. What/who inspired you to start making gifs?

Honestly, I can't even 100% remember anymore. XD I think I always just thought that gifs are cool and I guess I was just hoping to see more gifs about X and Y and couldn't find them, so, I figured I gotta do it myself. I made my very first gifs in the J-rock fandom and later, as a fan of the Norwegian actor Kristoffer Joner (who has like 5 fans on Tumblr, including me haha), so, I'm guessing I got my original inspiration from there. And here we are.

32. What is your favorite tool/adjustment layer in Photoshop?

Color Balance! :)

I nearly always use the same tools for my base coloring (curves, levels, b/c) and then finish it off with vibrance and curves. But obviously, coloring/color correction is my favorite part of gif-making. And I love Color Balance because you can make such powerful changes to your gifs with a minimum of fuss - also give them depth if you adjust Shadows and Highlights as well (and I nearly always do that).

I also like using Photo Filter, especially before Color Balance - especially when scenes are strongly tinted in yellow, blue, or green (ugh). It generally works great as a color neutralizer (or an emphasizer) and saves you from a lot of cursing and swearing most of the time.

34. A set that took you a long time/was really hard but you’re really proud of how it came out.

There are quite a few of those sets and some of them really didn't do quite well in the sense of popularity. XD

I would honestly say that most of my color palette, fake scenes, and lyrics edits all took a fair amount of time and most of them are something that I'm quite proud of.

In my less popular fandoms - Young Hercules, Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, Fear the Walking Dead, Z Nation - I spent hours, even days to rip them & convert them from my DVD/BR, not to mention the whole process of finally gifing them and all, so. They definitely took me a lot of time to make and I am still quite proud of them. Even if some of them are very old now and don't necessarily look as good anymore (thus why I've already started working on some fresh remakes :D).

36. Do you gif with something specific in mind or do you just wing it?

Both. Sometimes I have such detailed plans for gifsets (even now I have so many different projects in mind, just very little time or energy for all 🙃) and I spend so much time planning them and working on them (and then they get 30 likes and 2 reblogs, one from me lol). Then sometimes I just want to make something, fuck details and plans, I don't want to think about it all lmao. So I just make these simple character episode gifsets or random scenes that I liked etc.

41. What is your least favorite part about your gif making process?

Oh, let me see. Using software that requires at least 16GB RAM to run effectively, and my poor laptop only has 8GB, so. 🙃 Not always being able to run other programs (like Spotify) in the background - or having to restart PS - or occasionally having to wait for several minutes for it to even fucking import anything, then having to wait a few minutes more for it to crop and resize the goddamn thing - yeah, I love it so fucking much. 😎🤗 Not.

Not to mention how PS keeps crashing occasionally (especially CS5, which I no longer really use for that reason + crappy fonts and it's a shame because it actually works faster on my laptop so kjkgjkggk), plus countless other, lovely errors that may occasionally pop up with this otherwise lovely, "user-friendly" Adobe feature. Thus, I am so 🏴‍☠️☠️ this shit. Not sorry. 😇🤭

49. How much would you say you’ve improved since you first started giffing?

Some of the first gifs I've made (somewhere between 2012-2014 I think):

I think there's a clear improvement compared to my most recent ones 1 & 2. :) I try to pay more attention to the speed of my gifs now - I no longer try to make them slow or skip any frames if I have to. I also strive to use mostly HQ videos these days (albeit sometimes you really just can't find them anywhere and that's something you just gotta deal with 🙃😎).

Albeit I actually still do like even some of my older colorings, I no longer usually have to spend hours and hours (except on very rare occasions) fiddling with different coloring settings and feel depressed every five minutes because now I have more experience and knowledge with different PS tools. Of course, now that Tumblr also allows us to upload even bigger gifs (from 1MB to 10MB ftw), it's obviously given me more freedom to explore and improve myself as a gif maker. :D There's still much to learn ofc, but then again, there are still people who make such awesome gif tutorials here, so I love to take new tips from them whenever I can.

—

gifmaker questions 💜

[ffsg0jo]

Match ups?? Sign me up!

Id like to b matched up w a male character from jjk plz!!

My mbti is an INTP..or INTJ. That switches up from time to time, but the same 2 mbti! I like drawing, ANIMALS. EVERY ANIMAL. IDC., and i play the piano!! I dislike really loud environments, crowds, and being forced to open up!! Idk if needed, but i would do any activity/hobby/interests my s/o likes! And they say im a great listener and a very big yapper when it comes to my interests (my few close friends)

Id take any jjk male!! Teehee! Hope ya pick me ^^

-🗣

Itadori:

Itadori 100% fell in love with you from the first moment he saw you. When you were first introduced to him, his face was as pink as his hair, and he turned into that one lego batman meme. He saw your future together and started thinking about a mortgage and everything. Safe to say, he was incredibly embarrassed after Megumi snapped him out of his stupor and finally spluttered out his name. The more he got to know you, the deeper he fell for you. He was careful not to push you, but he really enjoyed listening to you talk about animals. When he found out you played the piano, his heart stopped, and he knew he wanted to be with you for the rest of his life.

How he confesses to you:

He defo requires some encouragement from his peers, but eventually, he learns a simple little tune on the piano and writes you a (terrible) song confessing to you. It's more embarrassing, tbh but it's from the heart.

What it would be like dating Itadori:

Constantly stealing his hoodie and his sweatshirts because 1- they're so comfortable and 2- they always smell like him

He’s constantly finding new places and restaurants for you guys to go on dates and check out

He tries to learn to play the violin so you guys can be a cool little duet. He doesn’t get very far, but he can play hot cross buns pretty well!!

You’re both laying down on his bed, and he’s staring at you all starry and heart eyed, listening to you talk about all your interests. He has the cheesiest smile on his face.

Teaming up with Megumi whenever Itadori and Nobara get a little too annoying and loud in public and just leaving them to it.

Inumaki:

Upon meeting Inumaki, he has never hated his cursed technique more. He wants to get to know you. He really really does, but there’s a whole language barrier to get over. You guys still talk and hang out a lot, but he wishes he could tell you how he feels properly. You don’t mind, and you’re so lovely towards him, which makes him fall for you even more. His heart melts at how understanding you are and how you’re always listening to him and paying attention to his cues. He knows Itadori likes you too, and part of him wants to back off. But no one’s ever made him feel this way before, and he so desperately wants to be yours.

How he confesses to you:

He writes you a handwritten letter containing all the thoughts and feelings he's never been able to verbalise and has yuuta help him sneak it into your dorm. You catch him in the act though, and he borderlines smacks the letter in your hands and legs it.

What it would be like dating Inumaki:

Cuddling every morning before you guys have to go and get ready for the day, just soaking in eachothers warmth.

Adopting a cute little doggo together and realising you can't have just one dog, so you adopt another one. And then you realise it would be really cool if you had a kitten too and next thing you know you guys have a mini farm.

Watching him play video games whilst sitting on his lap. He claims that you're his good luck charm, and he needs you next to him.

Matching outfits 100%. You guys are always complimenting each others outfits and you're so in sync sometimes it happens completely randomly and by accident.

He shares your dislike of loud environments and does his best to set up cute little dates at home, always catering to your needs.

a/n: thank you so so much for sending a request in <33 lmk if you liked it and who you'd choose 😊