#<- not actually but it's my tag for others' art :)

[ozz-ball]

THIS. NO IM NOT HIDING IN THE TAGS. THIS!!! The art is amazing and I love geckos so much you have no idea. The design??? Is?? OH MY GOD?? The explanation about how it works is the cherry on top. But it all has me thinking. Could an animal like this exist? (Nerd alert lmao)

So this would be a kind of leaf-tailed gecko, belonging to the genus uroplatus! They live in or around Madagascar. This guy has a face similar to a crested gecko (which live in New Caledonia and do not belong to the uroplatus genus, rather correlophus). But this is because of the limited references for drawing. But let’s just say for now it is similar to other flat-tailed geckos.

You can assume the usual from that alone. Large eyes, nocturnal, tail regrowth and drop, etc. standard gecko stuff. Totally possible!

What I’m curious about is digestion! Clearly this is based off of Venus fly traps, a carnivorous plant. They produce a sweet nectar which attracts insects and then the plant would contract around the prey. The image says that it is a sweet tasting poison in this gecko. Although it isn’t a stretch, I believe it would be unlikely an animal would evolve with an ability to both trap and lure prey in this way. Maybe it could produce sweet saliva with its mouth and lick it onto itself? But an idea a prefer is that the gecko eats fruit, gets the juice on itself, (particularly the tail), which can fulfill the need for fruit in their diets while also providing the bait for prey. They would be eating insects as well (duh), and trapping them with their tail. Now, as for the actual digestion part! There are the obvious options, eating the dead bugs from their tail, and absorbing through their skin. First one is self explanatory, om nom. Normal digestion, BOOM!! Then there’s absorption. Most animals that absorb nutrients through their skin are very moist (for lack of a better term, lol). Amphibians, fish, worms, etc.!! Usually these animals also have some sort of mouth as well, and aren’t just getting nutrients from their skin. If this was the case for this animal, they may be particularly sensitive to changes in their environment. Like salamanders, they’re bioindicators due to their sensitivity to changes in the water.

Onto the tail, the main event! It’s stated here that the tail has unique musculature, and I’m honestly unsure if that part is possible. I believe the tail would look substantially different, but maybe!!!

VERY VERY COOL AWESOME ART AND CONCEPT!! I’m just rambling :3!!

No one:

Still no one:

Me: What if leaf tailed gecko, but the leaf is carnivorous?

[boobilby]

Some drawings based on bdubs’ base

[plutonious]

thinking about my stupid twin dragons au. I think it’s good

[octuscle]

Exchange student: Athens (GA)

Benjamin was not particularly happy that he had come to Georgia as an exchange student. Athens... He had wanted something in New England. Or at least in California. But he hadn't been able to choose. Athens had taken him.

The introductory week had been a disappointment. His fellow students were almost exclusively from the neighborhood, the boys were interested in football and hunting rifles, the girls in boys. It was all so clichéd that it was hard to express. But there was actually a very good grand piano in the assembly hall and Benjamin had been given permission to use it for his daily exercises after a short audition. He had not yet met his roommate. He wasn't due to return to university until a week later because of some family business. Benjamin was hoping for someone who was also interested in classical music and expressionism. Or at least someone who was also studying literature, art history or something similar.

It was the night from Saturday to Sunday when the door opened with a huge crash at around 02:00. Someone threw a duffel bag onto the bed and turned on the light. Benjamin blinked startled at the sudden light. He couldn't see anything against the light. But it smelled of sweat and a few other things he couldn't identify. The shadow took off his shirt, threw it on the floor and sat down on the other bed. Benjamin's eyes adjusted to the light and he began to recognize something.

"Well howdy, you must be Ben. I'm Hunter, no lie, that's my name, partner. Shoo, it ain't even 2 o'clock yet. What in tarnation are ya doin' in bed?" Benjamin was disgusted. He would have to share the room with a redneck. He turned around and mumbled, “Nice to meet you. If you'll excuse me, I'd like to get back to sleep.” Hunter just said, “Well, that’s on you if ya overlook somethin’, darlin’,” rummaged in his duffel bag and disappeared again. It must have been around 04:00 when he returned. Now it also smelled of booze. Benjamin pretended to be asleep, even though Hunter was making a lot of noise. After he had finished clearing out his things, Benjamin heard him burp loudly a few more times. And soon he was snoring.

When Benjamin's alarm clock rang at 07:00, Hunter was still snoring. He was lying naked on the comforter. Benjamin had to admit with envy that he was well trained. His butt was firm. His upper body was deeply tanned and Hunter was pale below the waist. A guy who worked out in the fresh air. Benjamin's cock got hard. He quickly grabbed his scrubs and headed for the washrooms. He wanted to be at the Georgia Museum of Art early. When he returned to his room, freshly showered, Hunter was lying awake on his bed. Jerking off his morning wood. “Well, howdy there, early riser! Ain't that somethin'! You fixin' to hit the pavement for a run?” Benjamin turned around, embarrassed. Because he didn't want to disturb Hunter while he was wanking. And because his own cock was leaking precum into his boxer shorts. “No thanks, I wanted to go to the museum.” “Real neat, we got one 'round these parts? Been here a whole year and didn’t even know. Might just tag along next time, if y'know what I mean.” “That would be nice,” Benjamin replied as he hurriedly got dressed and left the room. He had to go to the washrooms again before he went to the museum. He really needed to wank. He thought about Hunter.

He wasn't really focused in the museum. At the beginning, he made sketches of the halls and the works of art on display. He was actually surprised by the quality. There were top-class works here. But when he caught himself doodling a stag in his notebook the third time, he decided that he would probably be better off getting some fresh air. He took his rucksack out of his locker and left the museum. The fresh air did him good. Benjamin walked along Campus Road. He passed the Georgia Museum of Natural History. It was still early. He went inside.

Natural history wasn't really his hobby. But Benjamin was fascinated by the dioramas of the local animal world. He enthusiastically made sketches of the deer. Why the hell had he already made them at the art museum? And why were the deer he was drawing now often hunted prey? He probably just couldn't get Hunter out of his head. He was getting a hard-on again. Benjamin made his way back to the dormitory. Hunter and he hadn't got off to a good start. But now he would like to put that right.

"Down at th’ park wit’ the boys, tossin’ sum balls ‘round. Y’all come on by if ya wanna join!" The note was on Ben's pillow. There was a lot else lying around the room. It was as if a bomb had gone off. Hunter was obviously not the tidiest of people. There was a camouflage T-shirt on the floor. Benjamin pressed it to his face. It smelled of sweat and masculinity. He couldn't help it. He had to jerk off again. This time it came with unexpected force. Shit, on the floor, on the bed, his cum was everywhere. He took one of his dirty towels from the laundry basket and tried to clean it up as best he could. And then he made his way to the park. He had to watch Hunter play football with his buddies.

Benjamin had to search a bit to find Hunter and his friends. But it was worth it. A gang of young rednecks in the prime of their youth, on their way to becoming real men. Their muscles were glistening with sweat, their mullets sticking wet to their heads. “Yo, Ben!” Hunter shouted when he saw Benjamin. Benjamin was amazed that Hunter had recognized him. Hunter ran up to him and did a fist bump, which Benjamin returned somewhat awkwardly. “Hey there, what in tarnation are ya doin’ just standin’ ‘round like a bump on a log? Get yourself changed and hit that field!” Benjamin said that he had nothing to change into. “Floyd, you knucklehead! You got your gym gear?” Hunter yelled across the pitch. He, who was presumably Floyd, yelled back “Sure thing!”. Hunter went to a bag and threw it to Benjamin. “Here ya go, this oughta fit ya, Big fella!” Benjamin was a little embarrassed to just change in the open field. But there was no turning back now. The last time he had played football was five years ago. And he had been bad. Really bad. Now he was standing on a field in sweaty, oversized clothes belonging to a guy he didn't know called Floyd and had to play football with a guy he hardly knew, but had already wanked off on twice today. The ball flew towards him. Benjamin caught it with a leap. “To me!” roared Hunter. And with a powerful and precise pass, the ball flew to Hunter. “Bloody hell!” thought Benjamin.

The sun was about to set. The boys were lying on the grass, drinking some kind of isotonic thirst quencher. They had all taken off their shirts. Hunter's head was on Benjamin's stomach. “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, buddy! You best be chowin' down more and hittin' them weights less. That belly of yours ain’t got no softness to cuddle up to!” “In your dreams!” replied Benjamin, tousling Hunter's wet hair. Damn, he was well on his way to becoming a jock... Benjamin and Hunter spent the evening together, when the sun went down, they went to the movies and then out for a burger. Benjamin had never spent a Sunday like this before. It felt wrong. But it felt so good!

The next morning, Hunter's alarm clock rang at 05:30. “Dude, running and gym!” he said as he shook Benjamin awake. Benjamin had done more sport yesterday than he had ever done in his life. But without argument, he put on Floyd's dirty and sweaty clothes and the two of them set off. Benjamin actually had his first lecture at 08:30. English poetry of the 19th century. But he couldn't leave Hunter to bench press on his own. And so it was 09:00 when he arrived in the lecture hall. In his sweaty gym clothes. Without his homework. His professor asked him to join her after the lecture to explain to him clearly that this was not the performance she expected. And that he would stink. Benjamin raised his arm and took a deep breath from his armpit. “You're damn right,” he said, nodding appreciatively. His cell phone vibrated. “Fucc dude, 4got my laptop.  Bring it by, bruh. Warnell school of 4estry and natural resources” Benjamin knew where that was. Behind the natural history museum. Next lecture wasn't for another hour. Benjamin sprinted home, grabbed the computer from Hunter's desk and ran into the department. “I'm at the entrance, bro,” he wrote. ‘Cum 2 the library,’ Hunter replied. Benjamin followed the signs. Floyd was waiting outside the library. “Hey y'all, thanks a million! You’re a real lifesaver for Hunter and me. And I gotta say, them clothes are lookin' sharp. And that mullet? Pure gold!” Benjamin blushed and said that he would do the washing today and Floyd would bring the clothes back clean tomorrow. Floyd laughed and said that they had only been on for a week, a bit early to wash them. Benjamin joined in the laughter and headed off to his next lecture. Bloody hell, what had Floyd said. Mullet? What mullet? He ran his fingers through his hair sweaty from running. It was sticking to the back of his neck. Benjamin searched for a window pane to look at his reflection. Shit, he had a similar hairstyle to the boys.

Tuesday morning was Hunter and Ben's first lecture, “Ecosystems and Habitat management” in Professor Castleberry's Wildlife Ecology and Management class. They both got quite a telling off for missing the first lecture the previous week. Hunter's excuse was that he couldn't leave his parents' hunting lodge because of the storm. The story of how the bridge had been washed away sounded super realistic. Ben had to bite his tongue not to laugh out loud. He knew that Hunter simply hadn't wanted to leave without killing the big stag. Ben's excuse was less original. The fact that he was wrongly enrolled in art history and literature led to great laughter in the lecture hall. A guy with “corn-fed Midwestern boy” literally tattooed on his forehead couldn't be in a worse place than in a lecture on 19th century English poetry. Luckily, the two best buddies were given two adjacent seats. They hadn't showered after the gym today either. Very few of their fellow students wanted to sit next to them. But it was their lucky day anyway. Although the registration deadline had actually already passed, they both still got a place on the excursion to the “Population biology and ecology” field trip at the weekend. They could hardly wait for Friday. Finally a chance to get some fresh air and hopefully a good piece of game. Their hunting rifles were already threatening to rust.

A few of his fellow students knew that his real name was Ben. But everyone here called him Buck. Hunter and Buck. It just went together. The two of them studied together, pumped iron together, played football together. They hunted together. And yes, they also fucked together. But only without eye contact. Otherwise it would be totally homo!

Pics by @ki-kink

[dearcauti0n]

Let's see

My current username is actually the third and final username I will ever make! I created it one day somewhere back in 2020-2021 or something like that based on a word I started to like!! "Caution" or at least the symbol. I mostly used the symbol in Roblox games because I didn't really feel like using a normal name

And the word "dear" actually came from an oc I love dearly and their name is Dear Dearest Darling!! And for that random "0"? Eh I wanted to be cool

I do like my current username because it just fits unlike the last two, that were both phases. The first is based on a fnaf YouTuber and the second was based on a phase I thought I could stick with. And that was slendytubbies (gosh saying that again brings back memories)

But yeah, I like my current username, not really based on anything specific so I don't feel the stress of keeping my art in one place for one fandom

Because hey

I do really like a lot of other things besides animals jam

I mean let's do a list, for my sake, just woke up too:

I like uh:

Animal Jam

Cookie Run

Skyrim

Dandy's World (sometimes)

Slendytubbies (sometimes)

Any creature game (it depends)

Favorite childhood horror games

And original stuff that I sometimes have :]

That's about the Lore dump it'll get

I won't tag because uh, I'll feel bad :,]

Tag game🎉

Tag your moots and ask them where they got the idea for their tumblr accounts name!

For my name it was a nickname I was giving back in middleschool! One of our teacher had a system where we worked with 'wifi' eachtime we talked in class we lost a bar of the "wifi" (was a weird joke and we never held count on that) All the kids usually joked if they needed 'wifi' , they would borrow mine if they wanted to talk more. (I was incredibly shy in middle school, I only talked to like 3 people at school;^;)

They called me Ms. Wifi because of that. I just thought it would be funny if I put 'miss' instead of 'ms' because of my terrible actual wifi connection I have at home lol.

That's my story! Now moots, only if you guys want to, tell us your story.

Tags-> @slipping-lately @firequeenofficial @noagskryf @twinklstarrrr @halfbakedspuds @polterwasteist @rokushi-san @mygedagtes +anyone that sees this and wants to do this as well

[agarthanguide]

Okay so this is interesting-

Last night I posted three polls. This was in the name of Fun, but the goal was to figure out how artists perceive their own skills. I suspected that elements of art that require high manual dexterity, like line work, are most instinctual. But elements that don’t require any manual dexterity at all, like color choice, are more cerebral. Here are the polls as of now-

So actually- after just 14 hours, it’s kind of bearing out my lazy and non-scientific hypothesis.

I intentionally wrote the questions to be matching and with very little nuance, but also very open to interpretation. I wanted an instinctual response that wasn’t based on logic, but how artists felt about their skills.

For the first few hours everyone seemed to get it. But then something interesting happened. The color poll broke containment. Not much. But enough to alienate it from the context of the other polls. And people started reacting with bafflement and, in some case, frustration.

I’m not surprised that the color poll specifically was the one to get this response. The poetry and grammatical vagueness of the phrase “where does your color live,” outside of the context of the other two polls, implies that you own a color and it lives somewhere.

I’m a little surprised at the total lack of curiosity of the people responding. When I see something baffling, I immediately check out the OP and see if there is a context I’m missing. All of these polls are at the top of my blog right now, and my pinned post explains pretty well what kind of artist I am.

So yeah. No lesson, here. Just an observation from like 5 asks (all of which were very nice and kind of excited to see what the results will be) and kind of a lot of comments and tags demanding explanations while searching for none.

[sungiescheotluv]

champagne supernova ⭑.ᐟ park jisung

pairing: park jisung x gender neutral reader

word count: 4.2k

tags/warnings: fluff, friends to lovers, emo(ish) jisung, non-idol au.

summary: making friends as an adult is difficult. luckily for you, the rock/alternative online community welcomes you with open arms, one person in particular catching your interest.

notes: hi thereee! 😁 back again with another jisung fic, one that i actually came up with myself lmao. since getting back into the dreamies, i've been a bit surprised by (but absolutely love) jisung's taste in music. hence this silly fic, which i do hope you enjoy! thank you so much for all your recent support, it makes my heart smile whenever you like or comment on a post! anyways, happy reading! much loveeeee! <3

The concept of internet safety is lost on you. How else could you explain sharing a hotel room with someone you’d never met before in real life? 

Perhaps, you should retrace your steps. See how you’ve managed to find yourself in such a dangerous position, the front door locked and your body pinned to the bed.

Making friends as an adult is difficult. On par with counting every grain of rice in a field, you’d say.

You underestimated how easy maintaining friendship was when younger, third places like school, daycares, extra-curricular activities demanding your presence, inadvertently strengthening your social life. Not that you were the most social, you had a hard time approaching people actually, but maybe that was a part of your charm. Bringing you out of your shell, like all your friends did before your bond was cemented in tree trunks or sandy beaches. University is the last place you take this ease for granted, exposed to all different kinds of people and relationships, some platonic and not-so much. Either way, despite the barge of assignments and countless nights out, you’d make it into adulthood relatively unscathed.

Adulthood, however, doesn’t turn out as you expect. You’d been sold a dream, one eight-year old you envisioned dabbling with the stars accompanied by a lavish life and all the ice-cream you could get your hands on. Unfortunately, no star would be rubbing shoulders with you anytime soon and any that would, you’d have to pay a large sum of money to even see. A large sum you did not have. So, yeah. Just that, toxic work culture, endless bills and a whole host of other obligations linger above your head like a grey cloud.

What helps is finding the small joys in life. Slow mornings when the city is asleep, the scent of coffee at the crack of dawn, the sunshine against your skin, friends who despite their busy schedules carve out time to see you. All pieces of your life that make it worth living. Music is in there too, the art of melodies and lyrics strung together having the strange ability to carry you throughout even your worst days.

Your moods refuse to stick to a certain genre and in the midst of dark afternoons and frost covered roads, you find yourself gravitating towards alternative music. Slow, steady and aching. Like how your life moves with the severe lack of sun. It’s not a genre your circle of friends dabble in as much as you do. It’s to be expected, anyone who deviates from a standard of ‘normalcy’ was outcasted, one too many examples found in your high school days where kids got called weird and satanic for wearing a Green Day t-shirt to school. The thought makes you laugh now, but back then, when all that matters is fitting in, it was sad and suffocating. Seeing a part of yourself denied before your very eyes. Sometimes you’d hang out with those kids, bond over your collection of CDs and even go to a few gigs together. However, when Monday came around and they’d approach you and your friends, raving about the concert - you froze. Confronted into either owning yourself and being outcasted like the rest of the emo kids or ignoring them, deny yourself for the sake of social standing. 

You pretend like they’ve grown two heads, feigned confusion knitting your eyebrows together while your friends laugh and hurl insults at someone who you considered a friend - a better one than the ones at your side. And yet, you let the laughter continue, a coward with its tail between its legs as you depart, the taste of iron on your tongue.

Maybe this is payback for those poor decisions. A dead-end job, a successful but shitting ex and enough inner turmoil to make a therapist clutch their pearls. 

You abandon those friends when you get to university, getting better ones that wouldn’t make someone feel small due to their own insecurities. You make amends with the emo kids, your apology marking the true end of your friendship. You search online spaces for like-minded people, showing up as yourself and being embraced as. Everyone in the Reddit community is unbelievably sweet, sharing their music recommendations, concert wishlists and pictures of their cats. Some members, including yourself, form a closer bond, taking your conversation to a Discord server that becomes your escape in a way. A channel for heartfelt discussion that extends past your love for music. You’re not as active due to work obligations, but whenever you pop up, one member in particular always greets you with a warmth like no other. 

Linkin.parkjisung is his user, his icon the rock and roll hand sign over his face. Likes Blur, Green Day, Oasis and of course, Linkin Park. He’s like you, dips in and out, types a few responses before he’s gone again. It’s a scenario where other members grow closer, and your anxiety around speaking in the group begins. They’re already close, it seems almost futile to interrupt, right? 

What if you’re ignored? What if you’ve missed your window of opportunity? 

It’s a line of thinking that crosses your mind when you send in an apology for being inactive, moments later your phone pinging with a notification.

Linkin.parkjisung: no need to apologize! life gets busy for everyone, myself included. hope you’re doing ok (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶) .ᐟ.ᐟ

Other group members echo his message, sending in their own real-life obligations that the group ends up bonding over, complaining of rising car insurance and overly demanding bosses. 

It’s the start of it all, really. That one message, a hand extended to yours that breaks you out of your shell and kick starts your friendship with Jisung. From that day onwards, you move more freely throughout the server, making good friends with everyone but better friends with Jisung. Somewhere down the line, you end up privately messaging each other. What starts out as simply giving each other music recommendations (since he apparently always loves the songs/artists you send into the server) becomes sneaking into the bathroom during a busy family reunion to call Jisung about how your grandmother wore a catsuit to impress her ex, your grandfather. You grow that close, no details spared on life events. How else is there space for secrecy when you’re video calling drunk, watching festival performances of Fontaines D.C.?

In any case, you’re close. You text everyday and call every week like clockwork, namely because you live some hours away from each other. During your calls, he’s shrouded in a low darkness, self conscious of the way he looks, he says. You’re unconvinced, slivers of his features in photos he sends you with his roommates’ three cats or on call saying otherwise. Regardless, you let it slide because Jisung becomes more than his face - he becomes a source of comfort, someone who makes you laugh as much as brings you calm, someone you slowly can’t imagine your days without. In hindsight, this is where your romantic feelings develop. And with convenient timing too because one of the bands you recommended to Jisung, Wunderhorse are on tour, set to perform in a city two hours from the both of you.

“Tickets are going onsale at 10 am on Thursday,” Jisung murmurs, the clicks of his cursor coming through your laptop speaker. “Remember to set your alarm.”

“Will do. Lemme set a remin-” opening up your calendar, you see an unwelcome surprise. “Fuck.”

“What’s up?” Jisung’s voice echoes with sincere concern.

“I forgot I have a shift that day,” you groan, already knowing by the time your lunch break came, the event would be sold out. “We’re understaffed as is, so there’s no way I can get someone to cover for me.”

A deep hum vibrates from Jisung’s chest, a few more clicks of his cursor sounding before he asks in a small voice. “Well, I could just get the tickets for us both.”

“You would?”

“Yeah, I’m meant to be working from home that day anyways. And not to flex, but my internet’s pretty decent.”

You laugh. “Is that for your job or your crippling gaming addiction?”

“A bit of both,” he chuckles back, the sound blooming a warmth of happiness in your chest. “Working in CompSci has its perks.”

“So, I’m finding out,” you smile, an underlying layer of discomfort shifting you against your desk chair. “Are you sure, though?”

“Of course. I’d hate if you lost out on this knowing I could’ve done something to help,” Jisung explains. “You were the one to introduce me to them anyways. Plus we’d have a better chance of sticking together in the pit if we get them together, right?”

You swallow a lump in your throat, something taking flight in your airy chest. “Yeah, you’re right. Just send me your bank details so I can transfer you the day of.”

“Coming right up!” he jokes, and you laugh, however lame he claims himself to be.

On Thursday, he sends you a photo of his solid black high-tech set-up, a PC he’s constructed himself with more monitors than you can count. The side of his face is included in the picture, silky black hair, a brown eye and a beauty mark on his cheekbone you dream of kissing later that night. You find out he secures the tickets on your lunch break, your debt towards him being booking the hotel you’d be staying at. Due to the limited funds you’re working with, you end up getting a shared room, an option that gives him pause before he agrees in a tremored voice. You’re a bit apprehensive yourself, but you booked for two beds, so it should be fine. If worst comes to worst, and something happens between you two – like him turning out to be a sexist neckbeard loser he couldn’t take no for an answer - you’d sleep in your car (or kick him out, actually). At any rate, you had options (and a friend tracking your live location).

In no time, weeks fly by and Wunderhorse drops their latest album. It’s the best thing you’ve experienced since sliced bread, an opinion Jisung shares as you two listen to it over call late one Friday night, speaking about your favourite songs amongst other things. You don’t know how it starts, perhaps it’s a lyric that sticks out to him that he mentions or something else entirely, but suddenly, you’re reminded of high school you. How deeply you wanted to be accepted by others, and how that satisfaction depended on the person you got it from. That you preferred conformity instead of individuality, because being seen with popular shallow kids meant something to you.

“I wasn’t a good person in high school,” you find yourself admitting, your body hollowed out with guilt. Regret like ash on your tongue. “I hurt people because I valued other people’s opinions over my own. I know I was young, but-”

“You said it yourself: you were young,” Jisung comments, the serious intent in his voice catching you off guard. “The fact you recognise your behaviour and feel remorse for it shows how much you’ve grown. I mean, high school can be very unforgiving because nobody really knows who they are or what the fuck they’re doing, so it’s only reasonably to make choices you may regret. What’s important, I think, is how you’ve chosen to move forward,”

“You said it yourself, you’ve apologised to those you hurt. Not many, if any person in your position, would do the same, which shows how much you genuinely care to make things right,” you sniff, vision blurring with tears of relief and sadness. “So, if you ask me, I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself. It’s all a learning curve, you were doing what was best to protect yourself then. And now, you’re a better and kinder person because of it.”

Another time you should’ve known you’d fallen for him. Yet, you remain none the wiser. All the way until concert day, getting off work early that Friday afternoon and making the journey down to the bright city lights of Seoul. Everything twinkles and dazzles, a 180 from your modest living in your hometown. You suppose your excitement for the concert has some role in this too, but considering the lack of vibrancy in your life, you allow yourself to sink your teeth into this. Feel the goosebumps against your skin, the lightness in your limbs and the uptake in your heartbeat.

You check into the hotel first since Jisung has a last-minute team meeting at work, setting yourself up on your side of the cosy room of wooden and white hues. As you slip on your Hello Kitty headband to do skincare, a knock rasps against the door, audible above the sound of your music.

With furrowed eyebrows, you approach the door, revealing a sight that stops your heart in its tracks.

On the other side of the door is who you should’ve expected: Jisung. What you don’t expect, however, is his sharp features, black smooth hair with matching formal clothing to contrast so beautifully with his porcelain skin. The dark, ocean blue contacts he wears with a pretty pink lip tint. Not to mention that beauty mark you’ve been thirsting over for the past few months? Yeah, that’s all in eye-view now, close enough to touch and it’s this fact that sends your brain into overdrive.

While you malfunction, Jisung dips his head, a large fist curled to his lips to hide his sheepish smile. Chuckles in a bit of an awkward and embarrassed way. 

Oh my god?!

“Nice to finally meet you,” he greets, black leather overnight bag clutched to his side. A fluffy blue and pink keychain of Little Twin Stars hangs off the zip, a cute juxtaposition to his intimidating outfit. And height. God, he really wasn’t lying when he said he was nearly 6 ft. 

“I texted you I’d arrived, but you hadn’t read them,”

A forceful blink out of your trance brings you back to reality, one where you’re not openly drooling over how handsome your internist best friend is. “Yeah, sorry. I was busy getting ready.”

“I figured so,” his eyes scan your clothes - your ripped baggy jeans, leather platform shoes amongst what you have on - and his lips curve, admiration in his eyes. “You look great.”

If there weren’t societal ideals of an inappropriate reaction to that compliment, you would’ve tattooed it to your forehead, or on your lower back. Maybe ripped off your shirt and kissed him before combusting because what do you mean, this very handsome man, thinks you look great?!

“Thank you,” you blush, your body running hot like a furnace. Even so, you decide to take advantage of the situation, leaning in for an embrace that he reciprocates as you mumble into his shoulder. “Nice to finally meet you too.”

The rest of the afternoon blurs, the few moments of scattered glances and awkward silence incomparable with the ease of conversation that flows between you once his favourite song, Poppy, comes on. Catching up to speed with each other’s day as you two get ready, it’s not lost on you how domestic the scene is - how familiar, or right it feels. Jisung, in all aspects of the word, is endearing - flustered by the compliments you send his way, brightening up at the new additions to the setlist and best of you, timid with pink cheeks when he hands over a ‘first meeting’ gift - an assortment of snacks, a Hello Kitty plushie and a card that makes you coo. It takes everything in you not to sink your teeth into him, overwhelmed by the sweetness that laces his actions and words, riding the high he and the music gives you as you make your way to the venue after you’re both finished.

Long lines snake around the arena, grey clouds permeating the area as rainfall clatters to the pavement. Jisung, ever so prepared, brings along an umbrella that you share, squeezing underneath so much you feel the warmth of Jisung through his bare, very defined bicep. How someone looks so good in a silver sequin top under a tattered sleeveless black vest is beyond you. Then again, him being single is beyond your comprehension too. Considering his calm and thoughtful demeanour, coupled with his good looks, you would’ve expected people lining up by the thousands to plead their case. However, whenever you two talked about this, he’d simply say his go-to phrase and change the topic, his phrase being:

“I’ve got my eye on someone. Just working up the courage to ask them out.”

Whoever managed to catch his eye, you’d thought to be lucky. Maybe they’d saved a small village in their past life because as people push when the doors open, Jisung shields you from any damage, reminding you how good of a romantic partner he could be. Especially so when you’re inside and he snaps all your photos, accompanying you to the bar and merch table where you get matching t-shirts before he keeps them with him so you’re free throughout the concert. Dimmed red lights and chatter fill the spacious hall, a flood of warm bodies surrounding you as you peer at the stage, the band all set up and ready to go come showtime. You sing along to the host of songs the venue plays beforehand, enough nudges in the shoulder to get Jisung to sing along and of course - of course - he has a beautiful voice too. At this point, you were convinced he either had a missing toe or had weird opinions about the order of cereal because the more you spent time with him, the more he shines in your eyes.

Eventually, the chatter dies down and all lights go off, screams rising through the crowd as Wunderhorse comes onto the stage. Buzzing at a frequency unheard of, you bounce off the balls of your feet, hand holding Jisung as you exclaim, “It’s them! It’s really them!”

Missing how flushed Jisung becomes at the contact, you sing with all your heart - offkey and all - to their opening song, Midas. The energy is through the roof, a dizzying world of flashing lights and music that retches the lyrics straight out of you. In a moment’s chance, Jisung and you turn to each other mid-song, smiles bright as the stage lights outline your damp faces, chest heaving with a mouthful of lyrics in their wake. It’s the happiest you’ve been, holding his hand like this, and as the night winds to simmer, you sway to slow songs and thank your lucky stars for finding your way back to this.

After the show, you two chatter with other adoring fans before trekking to your nearby hotel, stomachs growling for food. Jisung finds a great Chinese place that delivers until 2 am, a gesture you simper at, unaware he’d even remembered you’d liked the cuisine. At this point, you’re drained in the best possible way, a dull ache in your feet but riding a high of something you’ll remember forever. 

Now, you’re up to speed. Great. Let’s get back to your current dilemma.

Somehow, someway, your unlaced and stubborn platform shoes cause a stumble, one that Jisung tries to save you from but ends up caught in the mix. How, you might ask? Well, you’re not entirely sure but what you definitely know is that you’ve fallen on one of the beds, Jisung’s body caging yours as he braces his own fall. Face-to-face. With you.

Ok.

You’re close enough to share a breath, within reach to see his long lashes and shaky pupils that dart from your eyes to your lips, back to your eyes again. Suddenly, the room temperature dials to an unprecedented heat, walls closing in on you two as you lie in waiting. Waiting for the other to make their move. To lean in or pull away, heads or tails on a coin.

His phone rings, cutting through the tension-filled air with a knife. The moment, gone. 

“You okay?” he rasps, a knit in his eyebrows as if he’s holding himself back. You blink wordlessly, your answer in an absent nod. “I’ll, uhm…get the food.”

It’s not a suggestion, nothing that you can object to, particularly when he’s long gone and you’re clutching at your chest, months of infatuation knocking the breath out of you.

When Jisung returns minutes later, you’ve turned the TV on, preparing to fill the silence if need be. It proves necessary, only groans of pleasure and compliments to the chef shared between you two as you eat your weight in noodles. Not much is said when you’re getting ready for bed either, brushing your teeth together as if you're a couple and settling into separate beds, all the lights turned off.

Still reeling for the fall, and convinced his shallow breaths allude to his slumber, you’re startled by the call of your name, head turning towards Jisung beside you.

“Yes?”

“You sure you’re ok?” he asks before clearing his throat. “That was…some fall.”

You can say that again.

“I’m ok,” you lie. You’re on high alert, frazzled at every end with a heart you’ve just realised longs for the man not even two metres away from you. “Are you?”

Silence. The only feedback you hear is the crinkle of his duvet as he shuffles in his bed.

“Ask me another question.”

You turn to him, shrouded in darkness. “Like what?”

He doesn’t speak again, lets the silence devour the space between you before he says. “Ask me about the person I’m interested in.”

Water that rivals the arctic pours down your back, a harsh call to reality as you remember. Right, he has someone he’s interested in. Someone who he’ll devout his time to, listen to their music recommendations and hold their hands at concerts. And you? Well, you’ll still be friends, but maybe not as close. Maybe not even friends at all.

The thought closes an iron fist around your heart.

“Why haven’t you asked them out?” is what you manage, because it’s on your mind - what time and place he’ll find himself in when he confesses his feelings.

“Because I’m scared,” he admits, small and in a whisper. “Considering we met online, it’s kind of hard to gauge their interest or read any signs. You don’t give me much to work with,”

You still. “I don’t?’

“I mean, I haven’t been too obvious, but I’m crazy about you,” he confesses. “I love the light in your eyes and the kindness in your heart. You’re so deeply human and live life like it’s your first and last. There’s no one like you and I think the idea of knowing how special you are triggered my fear of rejection. Because what would my life be without watching festival performances while drunk with you? What would it be if you didn’t laugh at my lame jokes and didn’t command my every thought?”

Jisung shuffles again, a flicker of dim light in between you two at a lamp source as he stares over at you, wholehearted and vulnerable. “It’d be an empty one - not worth living.”

Slowly, your body brings you upwards, the two of you hanging off the edges of your bed. So close if you’d reach out, your hands would touch. 

“When?” you croak, unable to meet his eyes. “When did you…start feeling this way?”

His eyes lower, a slight curve to the corner of his lips. “Around November?”

Electricity zaps your back straight. Five months ago? “When we joined the server?”

“Shortly after that,” he admits, a coy grin breaking out against his flushed features. “I was having a really hard day and you’d recommend a song in the chat, Favourite by Fontaines DC, and said how nostalgic and hopeful it felt to you. I gave it a listen and…it was like a battery in my back. I cried, but I also smiled too because I understood what you meant by it all,”

He threads his fingers together, peering up with shining eyes as he adds, “it felt like a peak into your soul, and mine too….I think that’s where it started.”

Your hand finally reaches out, overlaying his as tears fill your sight. “You know you’re my favourite, right?”

“No one stood a chance after that drunk video of you singing along to Champagne Supernova,” you share a laugh, reminiscing of the video he accidentally sent into the server one December night. A die-hard Oasis fan till the end. “I mean it. There’s no one I’d want to spend my days with, listen to music with and discover all there is to life. No one but you.”

His bottom lip gives a wobble, hands unearthing from yours as his thumb grazes your knuckles, bringing the hand up in a searing kiss. One he looks you right in the eyes for as he says, “Can we push the beds together please?”

You bark out an unexpected laugh, fondness shaping your smile as you speak with all of your heart. “I would love nothing more.”

[fatphobiabusters]

This is an ask that wanted to be kept anonymous:

Sorry for multiple asks (please keep anonymous) but just wanted to know - is it appropriate to tag art as "plus sized" "fat positive" "body positive" or other such tags if not every character is fat, but there are fat characters present as the main focus (or part of the main focus) of the artwork? Or would that only be appropriate if there are only fat characters in the work?

No need to be sorry! I just wish I was better at answering asks. My ADHD and the shortage of medicine for it make me not the best at answering messages quickly.

I think so, yes! I especially think that's okay because it is very difficult to find fat representation, including for this blog. If more people tagged their works involving fat people with those types of tags, it would be much easier for me and other fat people to find fat representation. Even if a fat person isn't the exact main focus of the work, I still think you can use those tags.

One thing to be wary of is making sure the characters are actually fat when you use those tags. I very, very, very often have to see thin people in fat-related tags because they tagged themselves or thin characters as words like "plus size" when they objectively aren't, and there'll be no other fat people in the post. And I truly mean objectively. Like somebody a size 2 tagging themself as "plus size." This is sadly an extremely common problem when looking through fat-related tags. If the post has both fat people and thin people in it, then that's okay.

I hope this answer helps!

-Mod Worthy

[kristiliqua]

[read this after reading the tags because fuck i hit the tag limit LMFAOO]

— and jason (n the bunch) definitely makes fun of him for it because holy shit you absolute tryhard (he copes and seethes every time tim manages to snipe his slow ass dynamo — which is basically every fucking time tim is there . he has to rush tim like a fucking madman in order to actually splat him , and then usually dies right after bc he rushed into their base , tunnelvisioning tim and tim only , as a fucking Dynamo . tldr he calls him a tryhard to cope)

(and do Not get me wrong ; its not as if jason’s a thoughtless or bad player [i hate ppl calling him a brute . like istg he’s smart too] . its just that dynamo vs charger is a horrible matchup for him , as the dynamo . he Does manage to get tim without rushing him sometimes , but he needs coordination with his team distracting tim or smth in order to get the advantage he needs , since theyre both equally skilled pretty much . but a 1v1 is just Hard in this matchup [said by a dynamo And charger main . trust me on this one LMAO] , and he usually just gets sniped in those situations — its either a trade or death for him most of the time . thats not a jason thing ; its a charger vs dynamo thing lol)

golly i’ve been talking abt this too long (esp abt tim and jason when tim is nowhere to be found in the og post LMFAO Uhm .! i just like them . jason n tim are my boys) . in fact im going to yap more bc i feel i havent given dami enough appreciation

jason would totally love rolling damian over while dami’s sharking him . he’d laugh in his face and clip it on his switch , before saving the clip on his phone or smth just in case damian attempts to delete it

see it as a punishment for trying to shark a dynamo as a splatana/octobrush instead of just ,,, outmaneuvering the dynamo . bc both splatana and octobrush have good enough range to easily take down a dynamo (he outmaneuvers a lot too ofc ; he just tests his luck sometimes by sharking around jason , wanting to surprise him lol)

they are a Unit on the same team tho . damian as the faster splatana/octobrush supporting jason’s slower dynamo/stamper (he’d play that too . def didnt start playing it bc it pairs rlly well with [damian’s] splatana ,, no siree ,,,) as they both kill the enemy team with terrifying efficiency . (i’d say they’d be extra good with tim making callouts in comms — bc ofc im still thinking abt tim too istg 😭 — but i also feel like neither of them would listen to him half of the time . and take joy in his misery whenever they lose , ignoring their own misery from losing in favor of making fun of tim and blaming each other for losing [like “if you hadnt died when they started pushing we could have defended successfully , todd !” / “oh MY BAD that i TRADED with their stupid quick-respawning motherfucker and couldnt paint under my feet to get away from their bomb because im a fucking DYNAMO —” (can you tell i definitely main dynamo and have experienced similar situations . WHY is it so FUCKING BAD at PAINTING UNDER YOUR FEET . MY GOD .)])

anyway holy shit thats it im done Fucking Hell . here’s your essay op ! i love the art . it has clearly stirred my love for batfam and splatoon (im sorry LMFAOAO)

is this too niche

[sevicia]

omg. hi dante.... i was just running thru ur oc tag for my oc blog, but who is mary and how can i learn everything about her?! mary cheat sheet please, blab as much as you want on this ask, im so curious 🙂‍↕️

HIIIIIII God I'm so happy you asked I love to ramble about her!!!

Prefacing this by saying that in all honestly some things kinda may not make sense because I'm uhmm. Figuring it out<3 Also there's mentions of violence but nothing graphic. Due to the way she is.

OKAAAY so some basic things about her are that she's 24, currently working at a gas station (previously a fine arts student), has no family to speak of, and is dating Agnes (wet guy you may or may not have seen</3). Her "life goal" or biggest desire is to be "one" with somebody in the most literal sense of the word.

A very not brief maybe even unnecessarily long recount of her life so far:

As a kid she was odd, spacey and awkward, and could not grasp "basic" concepts as quickly as her peers did. She often had to be told what was right and what was wrong because her understanding of morality as a whole was just... not there at all. She would stare intensely with a blank expression at things/people she found interesting, and had a pretty flat tone when speaking overall. She never had any pets; her behavior towards animals raised concerns in her parents (+ their friends) since she had a tendency to squeeze, pull or even strangle them whenever she could, all because she thought they were cute and liked feeling their warmth when she held them and as they struggled, kinda like cute aggression maybe. She just really struggled to understand others and have them understand her in return; most people wouldn't even bother trying.

She attended a religious school up until she graduated highschool, and her parents would take her to church very often, but all she'd do was space out until service was over. She didn't really care nor understand what the priests and church members talked about, and her mindset was that she just had to do as she was told and everything would be ok; it didn't matter that she wasn't all the way there.

Around middle school age she managed to make friends (through the power of practicing facial expressions and noting what other kids said and did). This was a bittersweet experience as she got made fun of quite a bit for not really getting why certain jokes or games were funny, but also found friends that did like her and that she liked beyond just tolerating.

At one point they'd planned an outing together to go see a movie, and Mary brought it up to her parents, but they said no. This was the first time in years she'd been excited and actually wanted to do something, so she tried to convince them by telling them that one of her friend's parents would be watching over them at all times (which was actually true! They planned it this way so Mary could come in the first place), but they just wouldn't have it, and the argument ended with her father slapping her after she just wouldn't give up and drop the subject.

Mary had never been hit before, and she'd always had a freakishly high pain tolerance, so really it wasn't the pain from the slap itself that shocked her, but the fact that her dad had hit her at all for something she had figured wouldn't escalate to that point, based on watching her friends' experiences. In her head then she started feeling like a child again, thoughts like "I just have to do as they say" and "what I want doesn't really matter", but with an added layer of "I'm not worth being listened to", and a feeling of dehumanization she couldn't really put into words yet.

In the end, the shock lead to her avoiding her friends completely and only going outside for school and church, basically losing all those years of progress regarding her individuality and her ability to even see herself as an individual at all.

Towards the end of highschool, she was confessed to by the son of her parents' friends from church. He told her to "think about it", and when she told her parents later that day, they told her that it'd be wonderful if they dated, and joked about her still being "such an airhead" to even ask in the first place.

So they start dating, and through his and her parent's pressure she kinda just... molds into whatever he wants. This is why she dyes her hair black and starts dressing in more modest, plain clothes, all the while losing sleep over "this is my life now and forever", a horrifying thought that became all the more real once he proposed to her and she saw no other option but to accept.

Here I just have to mention that those notions of her self not mattering and never being listened to/understood, plus being constantly reduced into something sanitized and non-violent, much less threatening, had all mixed together into wanting just that; to be understood, listened to and accepted as a whole, including every violent and/or sexual thought she'd ever buried within herself after being told they were "unsightly". Basically, what she wants is to be known entirely, inside and out, by someone who'll let her do the same and take her as she is.

While she had no desire to ever pursue the kind of "love" she wanted and couldn't care less about the "sanctity" of marriage, she did know very well that it would trap her legally, physically and mentally into a life she'd hate and would never escape until either of them (or their parents) died.

The wedding was planned to take place early in the year; only a few weeks after her 22nd birthday.

To "celebrate" her birthday, her and uh. that other guy (that I cannot refer to as her boyfriend/fiancé)(I'd rather shoot myself) "decide" go on a camping trip, something only he'd done before and that Mary was fully dreading.

They get there, and the day is pretty much spent on him taking her around the site and talking at her or with other men while she nodded along, barely present enough to know when and where she was. By now her sense of reality had been so shattered due to trying to run away from her own life, she'd stopped caring about anything at all.

And then night comes and they're camping with a view of the lake and he falls asleep but Mary's still awake, now used to not being able to fall asleep until very, very late into the night. She's just sitting outside their tent, and when she looks towards the forest she sees some sort of faint glow that she just... decides to follow for something to do, not caring whether she'd get lost, or murdered, or abducted, or ever make it back to the campsite.

She follows the glow for a while, her brain getting more and more scrambled with every step, and suddenly she's in a clearing and hearing whispers both from inside her head and all around her.

...there is some dialogue of sorts but this is so long already I'll try to be brief here... at least... plus this is where things are kinda loose so yaaay</3

Basically, an odd whisper that she ends up referring to as an angel offers her a gift to help her achieve her desired form of "love": she will be able to heal and reconstruct another person, as long as they're wounded and so is she, by pressing their wounds together and merging their bodies this way; she would, in a sense, be part of them in the most literal sense.

The only caveat is that she would be completely removed from her previous life. As in, everyone that ever knew her would never even know she existed in the first place; she would be 100% wiped from their memories and any records they had of her would be adjusted so that she wouldn't be in their lives anymore in any way.

Obviously she says yes, some flesh-absorbing stuff happens, and when she gets back to the campsite she wakes the guy up, watches him get startled over some stranger standing over him, and promptly bashes his head in with a rock until he stops moving... and then some more.

Now she's finally able to think and act by/for herself, and she kiiinda doesn't know how to do that very well? So it takes her a while to adjust to. She slowly goes back to her habit of staring blankly for extended periods of time, but is now able to smile genuinely and stumble her way through saying "no", though she's still polite to an almost unsettling degree.

She's also finally started to look for someone that she can love and share herself with, and she realizes pretty quickly that her type is gloomy, lonely and pitiful-looking people that flinch at everything, both for cuteness aggression sadism reasons, but also her believing that someone who doesn't value their life much would be a lot more willing to take her in and let themselves be taken as well than someone more lively and strong-willed.

For a while she chases people who fit her type, trying to find "the one", with the final test being her getting them alone and trying to kill them (basically), just to see how little they really value their life. The trick is, if they fight back or hesitate she goes through with it and kills them, but if they let go and give up their life to her, she lets them live.

By the point she meets Agnes she's pretty unapologetic about it all, and has stopped caring much about anyone but whoever she's set her sights on, though still disconnected from reality and society as a whole in many ways. They meet when he stops by her workplace and she's like Ohhhhh he looks so miserable I have GOT to torture him. And she chases him around and scares him a little (a lot) but he makes no effort to run away or even acknowledge it in any way, and is the first one to ever pass her test!

I think that's um. Pretty much it... uhh some fun facts: she's super bad with technology, has a wide creepy and sweet (TO ME!!!) grin on her face more often than not, her apartment's a mess, her favorite artificial flavor is strawberry, she loooves to scratch certain surfaces (mainly Agnes), and is like if The Downward Spiral YES THE WHOLE ALBUM!!! was a girl. And your honor I love her.

[qiinamii]

new guy in the Express

bonus:

adding more to the whimsy

[thedissonantverses]

I’m allowing myself one salt post today because these comments are a mess. It’s pretty obvious in hindsight how….targeted the “critique” of Veilguard feels. Like now people don’t even want you sharing your opinion on these like, really bad takes even though you tagged your stuff properly. I’ve been called a lot of stuff for loving this game. Had my intelligence and morals questioned.

And like I don’t care if people didn’t like the game. I know for a fact op doesn’t give a fuck about other people’s opinions on it either cause that’s one of the reasons we’re friends. You can like or not like whatever you want! That’s what’s great about opinions. But I do care if you’re just parroting bad or wrong critiques all of the time without critically thinking and spamming the tags with it constantly to the point they’re unusable to people who liked the game and want a positive space. Especially when a lot of those critiques are buried in shallow readings or are just repackaged bigotry or both.

Since I actually uh like Dragon Age and Veilguard I’m gonna keep “spamming” the tags with positivity because well, I can. And I do care if you insult someone like op over and over for pushing back against some truly, impressively bad media literacy. Good media literacy right now is more important than ever and we’re both in excellent positions to know this because we’re both directly affected by it.

If you get to treat art like a commodity and artists like trash then I get to express my love of this damn good art and my appreciation for the love and intent behind it and if you don’t like it tough titties that’s what the block button is for.

This game has been out since Halloween.

In that time, there have been numerous Veilguard positive posts in which patient, loving, wonderful, insightful and intelligent individuals attempt to impart lore onto a fanbase which doesn't deserve their time and attention.

I can't believe I'm running across posts made within the past five days which express disgust and frustration towards the devs over things which have been explained in great detail multiple times on this site, BUT IN THE DAMN GAME.

AND Y'ALL KEEP COMPLAINING THE GAME TELLS BUT DOESN'T SHOW. AND YOU DON'T EVEN LISTEN OR WATCH.

"the crows are presented as wholesome" - they are not. this site has a crow fanbase which has run off and lionized Viago as Daddy, conveniently ignored all the in-game details which either hint or baldly state things Definitely Aren't Cool, and generally fetishized what it means to be a Crow because of Zevran and Lucanis. Then the same people, or others who weren't paying proper attention, whined when the headcanon crowded out the actual in-game material, and they said "Antiva is whitewashed." There have been multiple posts about this.

"slaves are meant to be everywhere in Tevinter and we don't see that" - we aren't everywhere, we're specifically in Docktown which is poor and people generally can't afford slaves there, but we do see evidence of slavery, and we run around with abolitionists and help save people from fascist slavers and free people who will either be slaves or victims of blood magic so IDK what to tell you, there have been multiple posts explaining this too, maybe leave your slave or savior fetish somewhere else.

"Racism is supposed to be rampant" - fuck off. I actually will not be explaining this because for once it was nice not to be called a slur. If you need this to feel "immersed" or to feel there are actual problems, I need you to check yourself fucking hard. If you want to masquerade what it feels like to experience bigotry, go play one of the prior games. This has also been discussed in multiple posts.

"Handling pure lyrium is fine now" no handling the dagger is fine Solas cleansed it, the dagger woke something up in Harding specifically she talks about how some dwarves are connected to the stone, she previously had not been one of them and maybe the dagger woke something up in her, or did you need a pop up explaining this? Were you paying attention during cut scenes and dialogue?

"Adult Dalish without vallaslin" - in the 10 years since Inquisition/Trespasser, doubtless some dalish have come to adulthood and found out what assholes their gods were and made the decision not to go through that specific cultural rites. Or maybe city elves joined the Dalish. Who knows who made up the elf population at that ritual site. Elves are not a monolith. We've made multiple, multiple posts about elves not being monoliths.

"Solas' opinion on blood magic went from neutral to negative" SOLAS FUCKING LIES. We've made multiple posts about Solas lying, if you need this explained further I suggest you play the game all over again, he lies to you throughout the entire game.

"Re-write of the after credits scene in Inquisition to recontextualise the Flemeth and Solas interaction" it's recontextualized because now we know who and what they were to each other. Learning new information does that. This is literally what happens all the time in science and history. You recontextualize what you thought you knew with new information. You're supposed to change your position, not whine about how the new information makes everything different.

These are just some of the things I pulled from a list on a post in which someone was really just upset about everything. Everything. Varric, Morrigan, Solas, everything. But I can't take their criticisms seriously, because they're upset that "too much was told" and "not enough shown" and yet didn't even pay attention to DA lore or in-game dialogue or context clues around the world of Northern Thedas to answer their own questions.

Everything in this game makes complete sense if you use lore from prior games and a single iota of imagination to see how it fits. We've had many delightful posts discussing this, seeing how things could be explained, when approaching the game from a place of curiosity rather than being upset because personal headcanons weren't satisfied or long-held expectations weren't met.

[eydilily]

would you bite the hand that feeds you?

[musubiki]

my favorite fields of mistria boys 🥰

[mangozic]

archivist be upon ye

[ashirisu]

i am a big supporter of both knowing the Rules™ of writing and also of breaking them wherever and whenever it fits the vibe.

the thing about these snappy, frequently recycled pieces of writing advice is that yeah, they're really great rules of thumb if you're trying to avoid the common pitfalls of amateur writers, but they get tossed out so much and so passionately that people start treating them like they're the end-all, be-all rules of How To Write Good And Proper.

and they're really not—there are going to be a lot of times in your writing when it's better to tell instead of show, or to use adverbs, or to use "said" or toss out the dialogue tags altogether, etc. and like the previous commenter said, creating a structure piecemeal for yourself is damaging. it will actively hold you back because you'll never allow yourself room to see what other techniques will do for your writing.

writing is like any other skill and art form in that you actively need to practice, improvise, make "mistakes," and evaluate those mistakes in order to grow. something that you currently define as a poor writing practice may turn out to be a cornerstone of your unique style.

(personal example: i had a fear of run-on sentences drilled into me all throughout school, only to get into college and learn that not only is polysyndeton a thing, it is positively marvelous for the exact flavor of anxiety that i love writing)

i do think there's a balance to be struck—my experience is that it's much more helpful to learn what the Rules™ actually are and how to use them before you start breaking them on purpose, but you also don't want to go down the self-invalidating path of assuming you're never good enough to start playing around and doing things you're not "supposed" to.

this isn't chemistry, nothing's going to blow up. have a silly fun time.

hi it's me. "telling" in writing is sometimes fine. if you think a scene is better served by summarizing a character's reaction in plain, direct language, that's a thing you're allowed to do. you could consider elaborating from that direct language and using that to "show".

but like "show, don't tell" is absolutely not always the case unless you really want to buff out your word count. i had a writer early on quote "show, don't tell" to me when i showed her a scene that included what was essentially a set-piece character i described as a "sleepy-eyed dancer". she wanted me to spend time describing this character's exhaustion instead of just directly saying it. This dancer - who is referenced once in the initial description of a setting and never, ever shows up again.

that was probably the day i learned that you can hear writing advice and respond politely but quietly think "mm no". you can also do this.

(feel free to fight me in the comments but know that i despise catchy and generalized writing advice like this and the way it can hinder new writers when stated with no room for exploration. and i will die on this hill. i am not normal about this)