#“it's the first thing I'd do” “give me some tips to forget you”

[jonathanbyersphd]

AGGRESSIVELY ADDS THE ALCOTT TO THE "SONGS THAT MAKE ME THINK ABOUT BYLER AND SOB VIOLENTLY" PLAYLIST

[painted-bees]

A quick, sloppy little comic about Magritte

[OC's]

(image description under the cut)

[Image Description: It's a vertical comic strip of 14 panels arranged one under the other. The style is realistic, done with sketchy lines in a dark burgundy. It is not colored or shaded and there is no background. The comic features the interactions of a couple, Magritte (also called Margie) and Rafael (also called Raf). Magritte is a young woman, she is wearing a baggy armhole tank top with a tight fitting black top underneath, shorts and boots. She has a messy bun and a small messenger bag slung over her left shoulder. Rafael is her partner, wearing baggy pants, sneakers, fingerless gloves, V-neck t-shirt and an open button-up jacket with a hoodie and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hair has short side with long top bangs and a short goatee.

 (First panel): There's only Magritte visible from the waist up. Off screen, Raf says to someone else: “Magritte has our tickets.” Magritte is excited, looking straight forward. Her left hand in on her bag's strap, her right hand rummaging inside her bag. Magritte says: "Yeah! Even made sure to put them in my wallet so that I wouldn't- uh..."

 (Second panel): She is beginning to look concerned, now with her face turned to her back, both left hand holding the lip to open the bag wider and her right hand still rummaging inside. Magritte says: "wouldn't forget.... Hang on, it's not on it's usual pocket. Haha." The last is a nervous laughter.

 (Third panel): Magritte is kneeling on the ground. Rafael is standing to the side and behind her, only his feet visible. Magritte looks frantic, searching inside her bag. Her right arm is forearm deep digging in her bag. Magritte says: "It's definitely here-! It's the one thing I never forget 'cus I never take it out of my bag!" Rafael says, firmly: "Margie, when you took it out to put the tickets in, did you put the wallet back in the bag?" The letters are bolded, with the word "back" underlined for emphasis. Magritte says: "Give me some credit, there's no way I'm that stupid." The last three words are underlined for emphasis.

 (Fourth panel):  The scene has changed and now Magritte and Rafael are in a car. We see them from the passenger's side. Rafael is driving, looking straight ahead at the road. Magritte is hunched forward, hugging herself with the left hand. Her right hand is holding her head. She is looking out the passenger window, avoiding Raf.

 (Fifth panel):  Rafael turns slightly to look at Magritte.

 (Sixth panel):  The point of view is now a side profile view from the drivers side. Rafael has his left arm leaning on the open window, his right hand on the wheel. Magritte is hunched over facing the passenger window. Rafael says: "I'm not mad at you, if that's what you're worried about." Magritte says: "I can literally feel your disappointment."

 (Seventh panel): Back to the passengers side, Rafael is looking at the road. Magritte is frustrated, no longer leaning her head against her right hand and instead her hand is palm upwards. Rafael says: "Well, yes. It is a disappointing situation, but-" Magritte interrupts: "You'd think I'd be able to do the one thing I was asked to do-! That I'd at least learn from the last billion times I forgot shit. Rafael says, quieter: “that's not where I was going with this...”

(Eighth panel):  Magritte has her right hand holding her face with the palm on her cheek, left hand placing the tips of her fingers on her left temple and eye brows. She is frustrated and angry. Magritte says: "It's not like I've got anything more important rattling around in my brain.  But, for some reason, if it's not my music, or like.... food or something, then it's just not a priority. I can't make myself care enough to make it a priority!"

(Ninth panel): She now has both hands in front of her, elbows bent, finger extended in a vague hand gesture as if there was something in front of her. Magritte says: "I'm an adult in my 20s and I still manage my responsibilities like a child. I'd be more dependable if I could just stop and think for a second, but I'd probably forget to even breathe if it weren't for the..."

 (Tenth panel): Her frustrated expression turned to confusion. Her hands are still in the air in the same position as before. Magritte says:"... why are we parked?" Her noticing this stopped her rant.

(Eleventh panel): Magritte straightens up and faces the window entirely, left hand crossed over her body to lean on the car door. Rafael, off screen: "Margie." Magritte says: "Oh." Magritte's inner thoughts are written around her. "He stopped the car to scold me. No, not ‘scold’. Don't be a child about this. He's disappointed and just needs to make sure you understand so you can do better next ti-"

 (Twelfth panel): Magritte is still looking out the window, but now with a shocked expression. Rafael reached with his right hand, and its now resting gently on her upper back. Rafael interrupts her inner monologue with "I need you to stop repeating the shit your parents and teachers and such yelled at you growing up. They were wrong, and nothing you just said makes sense."

 (Thirteenth panel):  The perspective switches back to the driver's side profile. Rafael says: "A poor memory isn't synonymous with poor priorities. Nor does it speak to a lack of maturity. The priority was there, we just have to build a better habit of checking things before we leave the apartment. Both of us. It's gonna take time. You afford everyone else a ton of patience, all the time. Can you please afford some for yourself? The situation sucks, we were both looking forward to this. But it's not the end of the world. We didn't forget things on purpose. So let's take it easy and try to end the day on a good note. Alright?" Magritte says: "Okay... c-can we um...."

 (Fourteenth panel): Magritte has turned to face Rafael and her eyes are filled with tears and they're running down her cheeks.  Rafael looks startled, lifting his arm off Magritte's back. Magritte says: "Can we get some ice cream on the way back?" Rafael says: "O-of course!" End of description.]

This description was written and provided by Hiwi.

[dystopyx-blog]

Stuck in TWST without meds

and also they're yandere or something

@shironakuronatasa here you go pookie <3

Because everyone is different, I'm gonna be focusing on the meds I take and the things I experience! If you're inspired to write one of your own based on your types of meds, go for it! I'd love to see others' takes on this :3

I'm still writing in 2nd person, but you/mc is heavily based off of me!

(And if you still want a personalized one but don't want to write it, my commissions are open/hj)

Tw for one mention of suicidal ideation.

Imagine...

You don't quite have a clusterfuck of things going on in your head, but sometimes it can feel like it. Autism, Anxiety, depression, and ADD. Thankfully, you have access to medication, and they work well for you.

Although you can't keep the downward spiraling from the depression and anxiety away completely, it is far more manageable with your medication. You've found that when off them, you are far more prone to completely fall apart at even the slightest inconvenience. It feels like constant stormy waters, with stormclouds that only make the waves worse. But when on them, the storm disappears. Yes, the waves still get rocky and tip your boat from side to side, but you're emotionally stable enough to handle them.

Then the meds for your ADD. With them you have the razor sharp focus to not only take care of projects and work, but also to simply take care of yourself. When off of those, even simple tasks like taking out the trash can take hours, especially since you so easily forget steps, and will stop the chore in the middle, genuinely thinking it's complete.

But you have your meds, so you manage just fine.

Until you're sucked into Twisted Wonderland.

First of all, even if you had already taken the meds for anxiety/depression, there's not much they could do in the face of being transported and consequently trapped in a different dimension. But they do still help, and instead of bawling, you manage to keep a cool (enough) head and get yourself settled into Ramshackle.

But they don't last you long. They had built up in your system enough to last you a few days, but time and circumstances were not on your side.

Even though Grim is by no means an emotional support pet, and is by all means a little shit, he manages to push his pride aside when he can tell you really need it.

Especially the days where you wonder if death is what will bring you back home...

Grim will act as if he helps you for his own purposes, but he is genuinely there for you.

The others, however...

First of all, quite a few of them don't completely understand... you're extra sad and spacey, but you had some kind of magic to help with it back home, but you don't have them here, and without them you get... sad and spacey?

Riddle probably sees it as some pathetic excuse. It's not until after his overblot that his tune completely changes and he is giving you all the special treatment. Even if you mess up on purpose, even if it's something that really frustrates him, he'll justify it as you not knowing any better. Which is patronizing as hell.

Ace will use it to his advantage. Getting into trouble and having you take the brunt. And you play along with it, because, again, Riddle is treating you like an incompetent child, so you are all for raising Cain with Ace. What Ace really loves about this, though, is that it makes you more willing to hang out with him, and more likely to dislike Riddle.

I imagine Deuce has something going as well, though I don't quite know what, and neither does he. But he finds a kindred spirit in you. Study sessions with him are a MUST, and you share your different study and coping tactics, while he stares at your lovely face.

Trey relishes in caring for you. If you're having any kind of sudden increase in stress or sorrow, he is fucking there. He will scoop you up and take you to the kitchen and treat you with his home baked goodies right then and there. Same with your academics, if you need help with academics, it's to the kitchen for tutoring. And as bad as it is, he finds himself wishing you'd give in and lean on him completely.

Leona will also be there for you in depressive episodes. He sees how you always go to Grim when your upset, notices the little things that Grimm does that helps, and starts subtly using them whenever you're upset. Not even just if it's depression/anxiety related, if you're upset with him specifically he'll start purring in that low register that has your heart slowing. He'll rest his body on your chest as a weighted blanket. He'll let you pet him and comb through his hair. All until all you associate Leona with is safety and comfort–as you should from a mate.

Ruggie is SUCH a little meanie at first! Specifically regarding your ADD. Once he sees how much it genuinely upsets you, though, he'll back off. He does have a manipulative streak, though, and will use your anxiety against you. Any way he can get you to distrust others and seek him out is a good way.

Jack is one who does not fuckin understand at first, but once he does, he's supportive. He asks if there's anyway he can help and you offhandedly tell him about emotional support dogs, and he is locked on. He's embarrassed by it at first, of course, but he can tell how safe it makes you feel, and like Leona he is completely fucking for that. Though he won't just be emotional support, no, he'll be the guard dog chasing away anything that could possibly trigger you.

School is very difficult for you without your ADD meds. You can manage, but it is far more stressful and difficult than it needs to be. So, of course, you have those generously offering to help you–specifically Azul, who's more than willing to help... at a price, of course.

Floyd really likes when you daze off in class... When you're staring blankly, mind thinking about so many things except whatever the professor is droning on about. The way your eyes glaze over, the way you're so focused on whatever the fuck is going on in your head, the way your lips part ever so slightly... All your idle habits are endlessly entrancing to him. And, goes without saying, every single time you're especially depressed, he offers a good squeeze session.

Jade, the manipulative bastard, will purposely set you up for failure so that you feel like you need to go to him for help. Because lord knows Azul will make you pay for it, but not your good friend Jade. Plus, if you ever mention how hiking can help with mood, lord save your soul...

Jamil is such a DICK. He will be degrading you at every second, completely taking over whatever it is you try to do. Even if it has nothing to do with him. God, you remind him of Kalim, but at least you don't have the nerve to be so fucking happy all the time. A sick part of him likes when you're sad. You're less annoying when you're depressed, specifically, without little energy or motivation to do or be anything else. He'd happily take care of you then. He'll do whatever you need done. You'd probably do it wrong anyway.

Kalim feels so fucking seen and understood. He honestly felt like some kind of freak for so much of his life, but you... you're kinda like him! A lot sadder though. Your very existence brightens his life, so he's made it his mission to brighten yours. He also really can't stand it when you're with others. It's so obvious you two are meant for each other! He views your shared ADD symptoms as evidence of soulmateship.

Vil is another case of not fully understanding. You're making excuses. Until he takes it a bit too far, pushes even more than what you can handle, and you fully break down in front of him. You're so completely and utterly vulnerable in that moment. He doesn't know if it's a very dedicated manipulation tactic to get out of his nitpicking, but... he becomes a little more sympathetic with you. Vil recognizes that, for whatever reason, you do in fact seem to struggle more with certain things. And yet, despite that, you still try. You continue push yourself, even if what youre pushing towards is, by other people's standards, the norm/mediocrity/minimum. And in you he starts to see a bit of himself. Especially since, let's face it, with depression, anxiety, and add, it is very likely you relate more to Vil than you do Niege. He helps you, and in turn you help him, though you don't even realize it. Helping you be happier with yourself helps him be happy with himself. And he'll fucking slaughter anyone who takes you away from him.

Rook, like Vil, is easily able to recognize how much you not only struggle, but how much you try. And he finds that incredibly beautiful. Needless to say, he is often watching you. Everything you do is enchanting. He memorizes every. single. stim. and habit. Sometimes when you get frustrated, he just wants to scoop you up in his arms and shower you in kisses, but then you'd realize he broke into your room...

Epel will see how much you get pushed around, and takes it upon himself to defend you. He also sees a bit of himself in you. Sometimes he purposely waits around you, and at the first sign of trouble, he'll attack.

Sometimes you just get too fucking overstimulated and you need a break. And in those times, you've found Idia to be the best person to go to. You both started off pretty distant. You approached him, upset, and asked for a quiet place. You put in headphones and just laid down right there. The two of you just sat in silence, with headphones in, doing your own things, blocking out the world. And, oh, how Idia came to crave those moments. He began to depend on you for comfort, ans hoping that you would similarly come to depend on him. You're different from those other normies, you're the only one who gets him so please just stay with him! He will start to modify his room to be the perfect sensory room, the only place in the school you can go to fully regulate yourself. He starts going out with you, acting as if you're really helping him step out of his shell, when really he just wants to spend more time with you, and will continue to shy away from everyone else and hide behind you. This man desperately needs you to need him as desperately as he needs you.

You are so. Fucking. Cute. Malleus finds your every single quirk so fucking attractive. He doesnt like, however, seeing you so upset. So sad. And the kind of sad where he is helpless to help you. He also really doesn't like it when you're upset at yourself. Don't you realize you're perfect? And who cares if you're not good at any of the school stuff? Malleus doesn't. You don't need any of those skills anyway, with Malleus Draconia here to always take care of you.

if you want the rest of diasomnia or the secret character I subtly didn't include lmk

part two out now!!

[mcflymemes]

PRETTY WOMAN (1990) PROMPTS *  assorted dialogue from the film, adjust as necessary

people put you down enough, you start to believe it.

i'd like you to spend the week with me.

what's going on out here?

i don't feel like being alone tonight.

i think you have a lot of special gifts.

i'm very angry with my father.

i'm sorry i ever met you.

do you have a wife? girlfriend?

no matter what they say, it's all about money.

no wonder why you came looking for me.

if i forget to tell you later, i had a really good time tonight.

it must be difficult to let go of something so beautiful.

i appreciate this whole seduction scene you've got going, but let me give you a tip. i'm a sure thing, okay?

can we just move it along?

i like him so much.

how was your day, dear?

you should go for him. you look hot tonight.

call me when you're through.

what's your name?

what do you want it to be?

you and i are such similar creatures, [name].

i called and called. where were you last night?

you clean up real nice.

what's your name?

that's my favorite name in the whole world.

i'm gonna rip off all my clothes.

wow, great view!

how much is this?

i don't think this would fit you.

i think you are a very bright, very special woman.

i'm gonna treat you so nice, you're never gonna wanna let me go.

i'm here now.

let's watch old movies all night. we'll just veg out in front of the tv.

look, i'll tell you what. i'll be back.

the bad stuff is easier to believe. you ever notice that?

you can't charge me for directions.

you got that... sharp, useless look about you.

i told you not to pick up the phone.

i just wanna know who it works out for.

name someone? you want me to name someone?

what's your dream?

very few people surprise me.

well, you're lucky.

can i have another word, please?

it happens all the time.

some dreams come true, some don't.

so what happened after he climbed up the tower and rescued her?

i can do anything i want to, baby.

you're late.

may i help you?

do you remember me?

you're stunning.

do you have anything in this shop as beautiful as she is?

could you come down to the front desk?

i was in here yesterday.

i have to go shopping now.

did you enjoy the opera?

i have to go now.

she's sweet. where ever did you find her?

people's reactions to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic. they either love it or hate it.

there's a sofa in here for two!

if they love it, they will always love it.

i want you to understand, i heard everything you said.

this is all i'm capable of right now.

it's a very big step for me.

i want the fairy tale.

you're forgiven.

i'm just using him for sex.

are you sure you want me to stay for the entire night?

[emilykaldwen]

FFWAD 24 - Sins of the Father by @selfproclaimedunicorn

For my first foray into this yearly celebration with @renegadeguild, I picked the brilliant and fantastic story, Sins of the Father by @selfproclaimedunicorn. Misa has taken the fantastic AU premise 'What if Daemon Targaryen and Rhea Royce had kids?' and has run with it in the most delicious and satisfying way. The story isn't complete, but the first 'arc' has a good stopping point at a whopping 160k words, which made for the chonkiest book you could imagine.

This was the twelth book I've bound (both fic and rebinds of old favorites) and I tried several new techniques for it including rounding and backing the spine. I also stretched my legs in the formatting department and went all in with the interior. That meant ordering some special springhill paper to do these fantastic maps for the endpages. Full details behind the cut!

Typesetting: Normally I've kept my settings pretty minimal as I got used to the ins and outs of InDesign (during this, I did purchase Affinity Publisher and might end up moving to that, but I'm finally getting the hang of ID and you can pry it from my cold hands). I really wanted to mimic some of the interior of Fire & Blood for this, so I hunted down the fonts used and took an image of the decorative banner you see on the sides to use for the chapter openers. I also wanted to include timelines and family trees in true historically inspired fantasy tradition.

The family tree was created based off of the author's spreadsheet in Google Drawing, which I found to be the easiest thing to use when it comes to creating chaotic family trees like this (In the past I'd used lucid chart for a printable version, but google worked better here).

the timeline is honestly my favorite thing and I learned how to use tables in ID for the first time. I'm incredibly pleased with it. The formatting is based upon the line of kings in the source. The timeline covers the events of the first arc as printed in this particular story.

The chapter openers are some of my favorite! As the children are proud to be House Royce, I wanted to reflect that. The runes you see behind the Chapter number and title are the Floki font and name the character whose the POV for each chapter.

Since there's plenty of High Valyrian spoken and the author doesn't include the translations within narrative, it was the perfect moment to set up footnotes. I'll absolutely be doing this for my own story when I bind it!

Rounding and Backing: So this was a total adventure, but I really wanted the old book feel. I made the mistake of pressing the book for too long and lost a lot of the swell in the spine to round but it worked out AND I managed to back it a little bit. Since I wasn't doing cord tapes for the spine (this was a version of the three piece bradel), I had to troubleshoot. I ended up cutting strips of the leather cord I bought from michaels and laminating those pieces together and placing them on the oxford hollow on the spine (given how thick the book is, I wanted to give it as much structural strength as possible). The 'leather' covering you see is actually the craft leather (polyester) from Dollar Tree and it's pretty awesome but definitely has difficulties staying put with glue. I followed the normal procedure and slathered both sides up and used twine to compress the bookcloth along those leather pieces. there's a little gaping in some places which I think would help if I'm able to properly apply backing paper to the polyester.

HTV do's and don'ts: Hi! don't be me and forget to apply your teflon sheets before applying the HTV because then you fuck with the polyester but it's not too bad. The other pro-tip is to gently apply the iron to the cover so it's warm before applying the HTV so it can start to stick. I had to apply the front cover in three pieces and do the title twice. Also, it's really difficult to apply HTV to a rounded spine so I'll have to figure out how to set up the spine and cover before applying (since there's a certain amount of stretching the bookcloth over the spine). The spine might end up having to be regular adhesive vinyl for that. Also, it's stupidly hard to find metallic HTV in bronze.

Front matter and final thoughts: The bronze dragon was a lucky find through an extensive google search, and the runes surrounding it are 'we remember with fire and blood', a combination of House Royce and House Targaryen's words. Seems fitting four Yorick, Ella, and Aemon! The copyright page is mimicked off the source's style, including the AO3 information, the creative commons and fair use information, the guild stamp, a QR code to the AO3 page, and my own press stamp! The summary is pulled from AO3 as well.

All in all, I made this book twice and I loved it and learned so much every time.

I'm so happy with this project and I'm so excited to do the next arc! Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful story, Misa!

[undiscovered-horizon]

hello! if you accept requests for one peaceLive action (I hope)

could you write reader x sanji and I have a strange idea

what if with reader flirting.... another cook? and Sanji feels not just jealousy, but double jealousy... it's very strange, I know, but still I think it's quite interesting.

thank you in advance🙏💕

Enjoying my work? You can leave me a tip on Ko-Fi | Have a request?

The smell of spices, ripe fruit and freshly made food hits your nostrils. It's markets like this that truly show the genius loci of the place. Mobs of people roll through the narrow spaces between stalls that are bending under the weight of displayed products.

You glance at Sanji, who's walking next to you. Judging by the bliss on his face, you'd think you're in heaven and not some unmarked island in the middle of nowhere.

Then a specific aroma reaches you - something you haven't smelled in a long time but could never forget. It's tangy, creamy and herbal...

"Can you smell it?" you turn to Sanji, suddenly stopping in your tracks. Excitement bubbles inside your chest and cherished memories of beautiful days with wonderful people flash before your eyes.

"You'll have to be a little more precise, love," he answers with undeniable fondness in his voice. His thumb is softly rubbing the skin of your hand.

"Lemon tarragon sauce," you say as if it's the most obvious thing. Looking around, you catch a glimpse of a pot filled with yellow-ish, creamy dip. "Right there!"

Tugging at his arm, you pull him in the direction of the stall and the source of the delightful smell. The market stand is managed by a man around your age. He has a head full of black, dense curls that perfectly suit his tanned skin. There's a clean dish towel tied around his neck as if it's an ascot. Skilled, muscular hands move between pans, pots and counters as he's restlessly grilling meat, fish and prawns to put them in cones made from newspaper and layer the tarragon sauce on top.

The street cook looks up from the dishes when he notices customers approaching. As his dark eyes set on you, the man suddenly perks up and a playful smile curves his raspberry-coloured lips.

"Mademoiselle," he says with a certain intensity to his voice. It almost sounds like he's asking you something.

Sanji immediately cringes at the man's tone. This suave, decadent drawl is something he's also used the very first time he saw you. And considering the fact that you're tightly holding his hand, it had worked perfectly. Now just to make sure that this terragon-smelling, ascot-wearing sleazy guy isn't as successful.

"How can I thank you for brightening up my day?"

"I'd love a serving of prawns with tarragon sauce," you say thrilled. It seems that you're either missing the flirtatious aura surrounding the man or you're willfully ignoring them.

Sanji feels his chest tighten and a bitter taste fills his mouth. Why would you be so excited about someone else's cooking? Worse - what if you will prefer that guy's food over his?

The street cook gets to grilling freshly caught prawns. His fingers skilfully dance in the air as he seasons the seafood and mixes it in the pan. Garlic and lemon pepper fragrances overthrow your senses.

The ascot-wearing man gives you a curious look. "What are you looking for at the end of the world, flower?" he asks.

But before you can answer, Sanji cuts in. "We're on a shore leave," he answers coldly. "Won't stay for long."

"That's a shame," the local chef continues unaffected by Sanji's impertinence. His eyes are fixed on you, eating you up like you're the local delicacy and not the seafood in the pan. "At night the island looks even better. Not that it could compare," he says with a wink.

In a swift move, the man moves the prawns from the pan onto a page from a newspaper. He quickly rolls the paper into a cone. Clearly, he's been doing this for a very long time.

"You're from around here, right?" you carry on the conversation.

"Born and raised, ma cherie," he answers with pride. That shouldn't come as a surprise - ever since the Marines built a base on the surrounding archipelago, the islands have been filled with immigrants who couldn't care less about local traditions and customs.

Sanji feels his irritation only growing, hearing how the pet name rolls off the man's tongue naturally, as though he's calling you by your given name. It feels wrong down to the marrow of his bones.

"So, as a local, can you recommend something to pass the time?"

The bitterness Sanji involuntarily tastes on his tongue is mixed with sweetness that only you can bring him. Of course you don't notice the flirtatious tone - you just want the tarragon sauce and something fun to do before tomorrow comes and the Straw Hats are off for another voyage.

Then, another nice thought stirs inside his head. Maybe you're too deep in love with Sanji to even notice another man's interest? The idea makes him giddy like he's a schoolgirl with a crush. He almost misses the next part of the conversation, too busy with his adorable, a little cringy, daydream:

"While the weather is still good and the nights are warm, skinny dipping is quite popular," the local cook answers while pouring tarragon sauce over the grilled prawns. "Much better with good company," he purrs out. "Prawns with tarragon sauce, on the house." The man hands you your order but with only one cocktail stick as though the blond chef next to you doesn't count as a customer.

Excited, you take the paper cone from the street vendor. But before you can try the food, Sanji takes the stick and takes the first bite.

A frown enters his face as he chews the prawn. Then he sighs in disappointment.

"Do you seriously call this cooking?" he asks the ascot-wearing man. His voice is laced with anger and disbelief. "A fishman would make a better sauce. It's missing white wine and anise. And there's too much garlic."

You hiss his name out but Sanji appears unaffected. Forcing a polite smile, you turn to the street vendor, who's glancing between you and your boyfriend with a look of superiority. "Thank you for the food and sorry for Grumpy over here."

Only when you're a few paces away from the vendor and definitely out of earshot, do you confront Sanji about his mordant humor.

"No need to get snappy."

He forces his lips into a thin line. "His food is shit and he keeps making piss poor attempts at flirting when you're clearly," he lifts your intertwined fingers, "not a mademoiselle." Although Sanji quotes the word in mockery, it sounds delicious coming from him. If you weren't already sharing his bed, right now you'd be seriously considering it. Planning it even.

"So that's what this is about?" you ask as laughter forces its way out of your chest. Considering how whipped you are for Sanji, it seems ridiculous that you could think romantically about other men. "You're jealous about a smooth-talking cook. Sounds like someone I know."

"Does it?" he picks up on your banter. That familiar, playful smile returns to his face. His eyes momentarily light up, flashing you a glint of various emotions: desire, amusement, adoration. "How many smooth-talking cooks have you seduced?"

You shrug your shoulders and shake your head dramatically. "Don't know. Never bothered to count. I'm just looking for someone to make me lemon tarragon sauce any time I want."

Sanji's hand again rubs the skin of your palm. His other hand reaches for your face, fingers brushing against your jaw. "For you, little dove, I'd make tarragon sauce every day."

"With white wine and anise?" you ask, leaning in slightly. His scent of cigarette smoke and frying oil fills your lungs. Suddenly, the market around you is nonexistent and there's only Sanji.

"The best lemon tarragon sauce you've ever had," he murmurs against your face. His nose brushes against your cheeks.

"I already have the best."

His lips taste like lemons, butter and herbs when he kisses you. Honestly, this is the best version of the sauce you've ever had.

[idkjustlemmedrownlikerab]

Regulus "It's the last thing you wanted" Black

James "tell me, which side are you on, dear?" Potter

Lily "It's the first thing you do" Evans

Mary "give me some tips to forget you" MacDonald

Evan "You tell me your problems" Rosier

Barty "have I become one of your problems?" Crouch Jr.

Remus "And I tell you the truth" Lupin

Sirius "could it be easy this once?" Black

Marlene "It's the last thing you wanted" McKinnon

Dorcas "everything that's mine is a landmine" Meadows

Narcissa "It's the first thing I'd do" Black

Alice "did my love aid and abet you?" Fortescue

[mxltifxnd0m]

𝗔𝗡𝗜𝗗𝗔𝗟𝗔 𝗩𝗦 𝗦𝗖𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗦

»——•——«»——•——«

Summary: You and Stiles can’t choose a couples costume

Pairings: Stiles Stilinski x fem! Reader, Scott McCall x platonic fem! Reader 

Words: 1.6K

»——•——«»——•——«

Warnings: no use of y/n, fluff, language, suggestive, spicy, implied smut, BUT NO SMUT, kinda a college au!

A/N: This was intended to be released in October, but I could not figure out how to finish it for my life. But hey, better late than never, am I right? Anyway I had no clue that Han and Leia’s ship name was Scoundress, but the more you know. Also, it is my first time writing for Stiles!

not beta read but YOLO

𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘬𝘪 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵

»——•——«»——•——«

"I don't know why you insist we should be Anakin and Padme! We would fit Leia and Han more for Halloween." Stiles whispered harshly, not looking up from the notebook that he was scribbling in.

You roll your eyes at him, "What are you talking about? I said we could do either, but I'd prefer if we were Anakin and Padme." You whisper to him. His head snaps up to protest, but a chair scrapes along the carpeted floor and interrupts Stiles. 

"There you guys are! I was wondering where you were." Scott says a little too loud, and the people at the other tables surrounding you and Stiles give Scott a dirty look.

"Scott, I know you don't visit the library often, but we typically use our inside voices." You whisper as he sits down next to Stiles. Scott shoots you a glare. 

"Anyways, I disagree. We should be Leia and Han, and that's final." You can see that Stiles is done with the conversation.

You squint suspiciously at your boyfriend, "You just want to see me in Leia's slave outfit from ROTJ, don't you?" You can see a red flush creep up Stiles's face and the tips of his ear as he stammers, trying to defend himself before giving up and returning to his notes. You chuckled under your breath to avoid disturbing the other students. 

Scott looks between the two of you, confused, "What are you guys even talking about?" 

"We are trying to figure out what costume we will wear to the party your frat is hosting." You explain, your voice low, "But we are split between two costumes. I want us to be Anakin and Padme, but Stiles-" He snaps up at the call of his name, focusing on the conversation, "-wants us to be Leia and Han." You glare at Stiles. 

"I thought Luke and Leia were together?" Scott says cluelessly. Both you and Stiles groan loudly at Scott's words. A girl from a nearby table glares at you and shushes you. You apologize quietly and turn your gaze to Scott. 

"We've gone over this before Scott. Luke and Leia are siblings, and Han and Leia are together. Do you just forget the movies as soon as we watch them?" Stiles asked exasperatedly. 

"No, I tend to fall asleep halfway through the marathons," Scott says guiltily as he scratches the back of his neck. Stiles closes his eyes and uses his hand to rub his face frustratedly. Stiles murmured something under his breath, and Scott's face screwed up into an offended expression.  

"I heard that." 

"Yeah, no shit, you did. I'm the one who said it for your little werewolf ears to hear." Stiles scoffed quietly at Scott. 

Scott goes to retort, but you snap your fingers twice to get their attention. "As much as I would love to see the two of you bicker, we all know how loud you guys get when you do, and I don't fancy getting kicked out of the library." You smile sardonically at them. They roll their eyes at you but yelp in pain as you lean over the table and tug their ears. 

"Could you guys be quiet? Some people are studying." The girl from earlier whispered firmly to you guys. 

You wince at her tone, "Sorry, we're leaving now." You whispered. You glared at Scott and Stiles and started to pack up your things to leave the library. Stiles scrambled to pack his things, and the two boys followed you outside the library. 

Stiles wraps an arm around your shoulder as you walk through the quad. You thread your fingers through his hand, and he squeezes your hand three times. The annoyed expression melted off your face, and a smile replaced it. You take a quick glance at your phone, checking the time. 

Your eyes widen, "Shit! I have to go! My class starts in 10 minutes." You untangle yourself, "Our discussion isn't over." You tell Stiles before separating yourself from him, pecking his cheek, and waving goodbye at the both of them as you speed walk to your class. 

»——•——«»��—•——«

The sound of a keyboard clacking echoes through your silent bedroom. You're hunched over your laptop on your bed as you work on one of your papers for your English class. Lofi beats play quietly in your headphones as you read through your paper for the final time before returning to it tomorrow to edit it. A knock at your bedroom door catches your attention. 

"Yeah, what's up?" You say to your roommate as she peaks her head into your room. 

"You have a visitor." She says with a knowing smirk on her face. 

You roll your eyes at her, smiling, "Tell him he's actually banned from the apartment, then let him in." You instruct as you remove your headphones and stretch your back from your hunched position.  

She nods and closes your door before leaving. You can hear the voice of your roommate and Stiles's voice talking lowly in the apartment's entryway. You hear a scoff from Stiles and footsteps quickly entering the apartment and heading toward your room. He burst through your door, pointing at you. 

"You are so mean, you know that?" Stiles says with a slight pout on his face. He removed his backpack and toed off his shoes to leave near your door. He stands in the doorframe for a moment before you see a mischievous glint passes through his eye, and you catch it. 

"Stiles." You say his name warningly. 

He sends you an innocent smile before quickly running towards you and jumping onto your bed. You yelp loudly, closing your laptop and moving it out of the way of Stiles's landing. He lands on top of you, effectively pinning you to the bed. You can feel Stiles's chest move from his giggling fit as you try to squirm from underneath him. You give up after trying to push him off of you and thread your hand through his hair, scratching his scalp. He relaxes on top of you, settling his total weight on you. After a few minutes, he eventually rolls off you and sits on your bed.

"Any reason as to why you're at my apartment?" You ask him as you sit up and shift until your back rests against your headboard. You go to grab your laptop, but it's quickly moved from out of your reach, and you turn to glare at your boyfriend. 

"Oh, don't give me that look, you know what that does to me babe." Stiles sarcastically as he moves your laptop to your desk. 

"Besides, I'm here to present my argument as to why we should be Han and Leia for Halloween and not Anakin and Padme." Stiles moves closer to you and boops your nose after he finishes his sentence. You scrunch your nose at his actions and shake your head at him.  

"Nope, not going to hear it." 

He groans loudly, "I knew I shouldn't have asked you out, you prefer the prequels over the originals." He flops down on your bed, his head landing on your lap as his legs dangle over the side of the bed. 

"Is that your way of saying that we should break up?" You raise an eyebrow at him. 

He shot up from your lap, "NO! Absolutely not. You're like the woman of my dreams. I'd be an idiot if I broke up with you. Especially with the amount of shit we went through together in high school. I actually had dreams about marrying you, so-" His hands wave wildly as he begins to ramble. You roll your eyes at him and grab his chin to kiss his mouth to shut him up. He immediately shuts up and melts into the kiss. You peck his lips before pulling away. 

"You're such a dork." You smile at Stiles. 

"You're dating this dork." 

"Yeah, maybe Lydia was right. I am out of your league." You joke, and a noise of offense comes from Stiles. You chuckle at his pouty expression and peck his lips.

"I'm kidding babe." You say as you pull away. You move around the bed to straddle him, your thighs on either of his hips, his hands coming to rest on your waist, and you rest your arms on his shoulders. 

"How about we make a compromise? We go as Anakin and Padme this year, and then we can go as Han and Leia next Halloween." Stiles opens his mouth to respond, but you quickly put a finger in front of his lips. 

"I wasn't done, and to sweeten the deal, I'll wear Leia's slave outfit underneath both costumes." You lean closer to Stiles, "How does that sound." You whisper seductively in his ear and plant a kiss underneath it before pulling back to see his whiskey-colored eyes darkening slightly with desire. His hands tighten around your waist before flipping the two of you around, you landing on your back. At the same time, Stiles settles in between your open legs and hovering above you. 

"It doesn't sound fair, but if you wear the outfit often then I'll let it slide." He says lowly, lowering his face closer to yours. 

"Deal." You say breathily, your lips brushing his as you speak. 

"Deal." He says before smashing his lips against yours passionately. Your hands begin to wander and tug at each other's clothes. The room slowly grows hot and fills with low groans and whines coming from both of you. After you finished, you guys showered, went out to get the costumes, and tried them on when you returned to the apartment. 

Let's just say the slave outfit came off as soon as you put it on. 

[goldenshrikecomic]

Hello, this is gonna be a long one and I hope I don't bother you too much with it but you have something great going and and I think maybe some advice for someone like me who wants to do a longer comic and I took heart in that one ask you recently answered were you said you are plenty of pages ahead of the readers to not get paralysed by a deadline which seems like a no-brainer now that I read that with my own two eyes black on white but I had not thought to maybe go about it that way and I needed to have someone spell it out for me apparently. So to my question.. see, I have a skeleton of a story I have key scenes that need to happen and that I want to happen and I am sure in between things will shift and change and grow and a part of me can't wait for it to happen but- How do you start. How do you get going. It is in my head I have some written notes but most is in my head and I do not want it to remain there and rot I want to draw and tell the story I had in mind but I feel.. paralysed on the starting line of this journey and I am unsure how to go from there because my mind gets caught up in estimates of if I post one page a week that is "only" 52 pages. That seems so little. How many years would it take. Can I do this. And then my mind fires up in passion because I am willing to commit I want to do this I need to do this and I have a good idea of how to pace myself and how to go about it. I have the beginning of it on the back of my tongue and the tip of my fingers I can imagine it so vividly I wish I could animate it (if that wouldn't take up even more time and be insane I would) But somehow I still feel stumped on how to start. How to get over this first hurdle. It might be the executional dysfunction playing a huge part in it, maybe I am overthinking to much and stand in my way because of it, but like... How did you start your comic. How did your journey on GS begin? I know this was a bit of word vomit I am sorry but you are an inspiration and you seem to go about things (from what I could gleam from the asks) in a way that feels like it could work for me too and the way my brain functions but I do not know how to start? I dunno if it makes sense I am no english native and my thoughts are hard to put into words.

This ask has been sitting in my inbox for a while because it's such a loaded question. I have plenty of asks in this tag about my comicing process, so check them out maybe. This reply got lengthy! The more I wrote the more I noticed I feel very inadequate trying to give people tips on making comics. It's such a trial and error process.

I've seen plenty of advice for people wanting to start out comics to just start small, come up with a smaller story to get a feel of it before you go big. And I absolutely understand it in hindsight because I would've done many things differently if I had just tried it out first, but it's not what I did. I wanted to make a big comic, and a big comic I made, as my first project.

I don't think about the years these things take, but it'd absolutely ease your worries if you could come up with a simple style and be able to make pages faster. I've stripped my comic of shading and gotten more lenient with myself when it comes to backgrounds. You absolutely need to cut some corners if you want to make more than one story during your lifetime. It's a limited time afterall! Being able to turn your sketch into a lineart without having to redo everything with a careful hand would help a lot already. And colors, they take a lot of time.

This is not how I went about it in the beginning, but I'd love to tell you to write those things in your head down before you start. Leave holes, just write in what you know because you will forget some cool details if you keep them in. Write the starting point, middle and the end, even with just couple of words. Add things that interest you in the middle of those points. Do you want a sad arc for your character at some point? Write it in. Come up with what makes it happen. Weave it into the other scenes. If you know what's to come, you can add foreshadowing to the earlier scenes. Even if you didn't know what would come, you can take something from earlier scenes and make it foreshadowing. Writing is a fluid process. You can jump around and add things, you don't have to approach it by putting one block next to the other. Once you have the elements you want, you just have to tie those things together. It's the hard part. And you will change your mind about many things when you get to draw your characters and see them doing the things you've written.

The start! I always say it's the worst part, but I've started to think it might be the second worst. I think the worst part comes after you've started and worked for several ten pages on fumes and you finally run out of juice. Picking up after that is hard, for me at least. But if you can manage, it should get easier. You know your characters better by now, and they carry some of their own weight.

Make a canvas. Think about the scene you want to start your comic with. Night or day? Calm or busy? Just doodle, BIG and loose. Add some frames by just drawing lines, move things around, resize. What do you want to portray with the first page of your comic? I like to establish some of the world or atmosphere, and only then move on to the characters.

Don't try to be perfect, in fact leave that first canvas completely unpolished and move on to the next one. What should this page tell? Will you show the character? I'd leave the establishing shot of them as the last big panel. The rest of the page should build up to it. The last panel is important, it's a hook to turn the page.

Come back to polish those pages more only after you have a few of them done. The most important thing is to get yourself away from that first page, because the first page is scary. After five pages you can move things around and start adding ears to your spheres. You've started a comic now. You can go back to the first page and make it nice, because you already have opened the path to continue.

IT'S HARD. But it's rewarding. It's not for everyone but it's awesome if you can make it yours.

[yuri-is-online]

Hello hello! Anon here. First of all, congratulations on getting accepted for your courses! Don't worry about trying to balance work and the blog, we will always be here waiting for you. Second of all, your whole Yutu AU has been really fascinating to look through. (Though that may be because of my bias toward Fire Emblem Awakening, as it was what got me into the series) Sorry for the incoming wall of text, but it's been giving me THOUGHTS.

So imagine this: whoever Yutu's dad is (I'll pick Azul for this example because I headcannon his English voice somewhere between Matt Mercer's Chrom and Olivert from The Legend of Heroes games) finds out who Yutu really is. You remember that cutscene after Chapter 13 in Awakening, with the Lucina reveal and Chrom has this: "You deserved better than a sword and a world full of troubles. I'm sorry."? Imagine Yutu hearing something like that: the acknowledgement of everything he's gone through, the pain of knowing his dad couldn't do anything and can't do anything more than offer words, and the reality that it might now be really possible to change the future? I imagine Azul breaking down after hearing all that because the last thing he wants to do is hurt Yuu or his son after everything he's been through. Oh goodness, the two of them both need hugs.

Second: did Crowley tip off the Magic Marshalls (because I think he would) and force Yuu to take the blame for his negligence (because he absolutely would)? Now imagine Yutu finding this out and telling his dad. Now his dad knows Crowley is a cheapskate who fobs his work onto everyone else without a second thought. And now he's responsible for having Yuu taken away and starting all this? Knowing the boys and how far they would go for Yuu I'd imagine they don't take that well. In other words, to slightly alter a quote from Regina in Once Upon A Time: "I guess killing a crow suddenly made the top of my to-do list."

Sorry for the wall of text but that's been rattling around in my head for a few days (so make of it all what you will). Hope you're doing well and looking forward to what's next!

-The anon who loves Riddle & Azul

AHHHHH (i feel like I always take forever to answer your asks I am sosososososososososo sorry, this one just drove me crazy in a good good way)

Listen fire emblem awakening was my entire personality for like all of middle school.  The only thing i wanted to talk about was chrobin.  I celebrated Morgan and Lucina's birthdays by drawing them. I think I still have a Cherche x Libra fan art thing I drew on some sheet of paper somewhere in my things because I was SO MAD that no one shipped them and I couldn't find fan art of them anywhere and I just oooooooooooh.  THE WAY CHROM GETS A NEW CRIT LINE ABOUT HOW ANYTHING CAN CHANGE AFTER THE REVEAL???? BECAUSE OF HOW DETERMINED HE IS TO KEEP THAT PROMISE AND GIVE LUCINA A BETTER WORLD???? i just cant be normal about them i am so sorry.  R+A annon I love you, I love you so much for this you made my entire month and possibly my year.  Awakening is also what got me into the series and made me so many friends I just love her so much.  She's an icon and I hope she gets remastered with Sumia either deleted or with a fucking personality.

I should probably sit down and actually write a timeline for myself of events, but since I am free to lean in to the fire emblem pacing, I want to say that monsters from Yutu's timeline start showing up (similar to how the Risen do in Awakening) in the past and stirring up trouble, which leads to an event where Yutu panics and forgets himself in his desperation to protect his dad.  The main way the future kids always proved themselves was by showing their mother's wedding ring, but Yutu doesn't have that so really it's just up to his dad to see someone who looks like him and Yuu blended together, supposedly from Yuu's world using magic and above all else crying out and driving up his own blot levels to protect him calling him dad. For Azul! Yutu it's especially painful, he feels like he already knows what his dad is going to say. That he's disappointed in him. That he has no idea how they could possibly be related. That he hopes in this future he turns out to be different. But that's not what happens.

Before Azul overblotted he was quiet. There's a similar quiet over him now, a similar look of tense surprise, but Yutu- no- his child doesn't know that. His child is looking at him in fear, in worry for his reaction or his safety he doesn't know but he knows the way those tears start to form. Azul knows the quiver of the lip and the shriek, of all the things he could have passed on to such a treasure.

"You deserved better from me." Because it's true. He might think of himself as a work in progress but he still thinks he has quality; he would have done research, read every book he could get his hands on, taken classes, anything he would need to do to be a good father, a worthy partner. Anything. "You deserved to have the world within your grasp, not whatever shadow of a future and a father I left you with. I am so sorry." He does not expect Yutu to grab him and hold him like he's still somehow worthy of his love, but Azul can't fight the urge to grab back, to stroke his son's hair and let the tears fall on his suit without any care at all. I'm here. It's ok, daddy's here, daddy's got you, he won't let anything happen to you.

As for your second question, I did not really write Crowley like that no. It was more like he was the first person mysteriously arrested after the Magical Marshall's decided to finally do their job. I was writing it like they wanted to ship Yuu away to cover up for their own incompetence in preventing seven overblots instead of properly investigating what might have caused that. He's not completely innocent though, so yes. The boys do not take it well at all. And please do not apologize for sending in your thoughts, I am so so slow but I love hearing from you.

[ash5monster01]

I LOVE PINK SO MUCH OMG!! Could you do a story with Pink and the reader just like hanging out on the football field after school studying or something? I'd literally love you forever, there's so few fics of him.

This Moment

Pairing: Randall ‘Pink’ Floyd x FemReader

Warnings: language, fluff, expression of fear

Summary: What’s supposed to be a normal hang out with Pink turns into deep conversation and thoughts for the both of your futures.

word count: 1k

Masterlist

The hot Texas sun pounds down on the turf, warm underneath your fingertips as you run your hands across it. The bright blue sky illuminates as you lay on the 50 yard line, Pink smelling like spearmint and a faint hint of weed beside you. Only one more week. One week until the last day of school and you were officially seniors. Kings of the school and one step closer to a future that was daunting to you both.

“You ever think we’re not taking things as seriously as we should?” Pink asks, head turning to look down at you, his hair falling in his face just slightly.

“What do you mean?” you curiously ask, hand brushing through the turf until it meets his thigh, fingertips grazing along his jeans.

“I don’t know, I guess I’m just worried I mess around too much. Blow things off, and in a year when we’re out of this hell hole, no one is going to take me seriously” he confesses, shifting his weight to his hand so he can lean over you and brush some hair out of your face. You smile at his sweetness, that caring part of him that made you fall for him in the first place.

“You don’t blow things off and you will always be taken seriously Pink. You have to remember we’re just kids and people will forgive that” you tell him and he smiles, but you can see on his face that the words don’t resonate. Giving him a soft smile, you sit up, and scoot closer to him.

“Baby, I’m blowing off class right now to be here with you” he says and you chuckle, head falling against his shoulder.

“Pink you are so much more than you’re giving yourself credit for. This is the time to have fun, enjoy life, before we have to take it seriously” you tell him, pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder and he smiles, leaning his head a top of your own.

“And if this turns out to be the only good part of my life?” he asks and you sigh, eyes darting up to the bright blue sky and leaning against him just a touch more.

“Then at least we did it together” you tell him and he laughs, the seriousness of the conversation lifting as he turns to look at you.

“You always have the answers” he teases, fingers pushing into your side and you yelp. Giggles fall past your lips as he continues to tickle you, smiling as you fall back on the turf, and he crawls above to continue his attack.

“Pink please, it hurts” you laugh, wriggling to escape his attack and suddenly he stops, weight falling on top of you as you both laugh together. Pink folds his hands over your stomach, chin coming to rest on them as he looks at you with a soft and loving smile.

“Promise me one thing” he says and you fold your arms behind your head, tipping up to look at him.

“Yeah, what’s that?” you ask, a small smirk tugging at the corner of your lips. Looking at the boy who had become so much more than the most popular guy in the school to you.

“That after high school, whether we’re complete strangers or not, you’ll still think highly of me” he says, a forlorn look on his face at even the idea of losing you. If there was one damn thing he planned on keeping from this school it would be you. The girl who saw him for so much more than a football star or cool guy in town. You rode in his El Camino for him and not for the popularity, you encouraged him to actually do his homework, and work towards something that made him better. You didn’t use him to make yourself look better. You loved him and that was all he needed.

“We’re not going to be strangers, there’s no possible way, but I promise. There’s nothing you could ever do that could make me forget what a good man you are” you tell him earnestly, a hand reaching forward to cup the side of his face, and he smiles wide at the answer. Suddenly he’s lifting up, making you squeal as kisses your face, peppering them along your cheeks and neck.

“I love you, so fucking much” is the last thing he says before his lips meet your own and you smile against him, hands sliding into his hair as you keep his face pressed against your own.

Pink kisses you in a way to convey every single emotion he feels in this moment. Still some fear but a little more hope, surrounded by love. A love he didn’t think capable until he met you. In just a week you would both be seniors, you’d have to start applying to colleges, and face the fact you might not end up together. Yet right now, you were just two kids in love, kissing each other silly on the 50 yard line, and knowing that things could only really get better from here.

“We should probably get back soon, any longer and we’ll get caught” you tell him when you break apart and he chuckles, lips a little swollen and eyes glazed from either you or the weed.

“Just a little longer?” he pouts, desperate to stay right here and continuing kissing you before he pops this blissful bubble.

“Fine but as long as you promise to save this midlife crisis stuff for mid life” you tell him and Pink nods, hand reaching up to meet his chest.

“Cross my heart” he promises, hand motioning over his heart and you smile, hands sliding across his shoulders.

“Good, now come here and kiss me” and Pink doesn’t waste a second to obey your orders, lips meeting your own again as the Texas sun now pounds down on you both. A warmth that you would always associate with the boy above you. A love that made your heart yearn for him even when he was around.

No matter what ended up happening to the two of you, at least you had this moment. To hold and cherish forever.

[buckysgrace]

can you write a fight and make up fic with gator? what if gator and reader got into a big fight and it’s only when he starts making reader cry that he stops, takes a step back and then make up?

i love your fics and your writing 💕

Thank you so much!! I hope you enjoy!

Gator had a jealousy issue. Sometimes it was cute, sexy even. He'd kiss up your neck and hold your waist. Keep you attached to his side and make you tremble underneath him in the following hours.

But sometimes it was irritating. You both knew that deep down he was being irrational; that he only acted out because he had some deep fear about you leaving him. Just like everyone else did. And sometimes it didn't matter what you did, he'd still accuse you of running around. It was hurtful, damaging.

"Who was he?" He repeated, tone laced with angry as he asked the same question over again. You were tired of it. The fighting, the accusations. All of it.

"I don't know," You sighed in frustration, rubbing at the bridge of your nose, "I already told you this." You reminded him, feeling like he was being ridiculous.

"You two seemed friendly." He said as he leaned against the table, looking down at you with fire in his eyes.

"It's my job to smile at people," You frowned, unsure of what else you were supposed to say, "I was just being nice. Friendly. That's it." You pleaded with him, your shoulders sagging at the way he scoffed. You had looked forward to coming home all day, but this had not been what you were expecting.

"He give you a big tip? Give you his number?" He continued to ramble on, his hair messy as he ran his fingers through his thick strands again.

"Christ," You covered your mouth, feeling the walls breaking down as the tears fell from your eyes, "Do you really think that low of me?" You asked him seriously, wondering where he had even gotten that idea. You were always loyal to him. Always.

Your shoulders shook as you sobbed, covering your face with your hands. You didn't mean to cry, but you were tired. And you hated your job on top of that. You didn't want something so dumb to come between the two of you.

He gently tugged your hands away from your face, making you sniffle as his lips fell against your knuckles. You exhaled roughly, blinking in confusion as you stared down at him.

"No. God no," He sighed as he wrapped an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close so he could kiss the top of your head, "Of course I don't think that."

"Then why would you suggest such a thing?" You felt angry as you turned towards him, trying to at least feel satisfied with the guilt that was written across his expression.

"Because I'm a moron," He sighed as he rested his forehead against yours, "I care for you. And I know you can do better. I'm just afraid you will." He breathed out softly, nose brushing against yours oh so gently.

"Stop saying that, first of all," You replied sternly as you gripped his chin, "I want to be with you for a reason. Don't forget that." You told him seriously, shaking your head at his thought process. You'd never wanted anyone else. Ever.

"Mhm." He nodded in agreement, looking embarrassed from his outburst. He brushed his palms across your shoulders, holding you tightly.

"And," You smiled as you brushed your lips across his, "Stop accusing me of things I'd never do. I love you. Only you. Not some ugly guy whose name I don't know." You told him with a little laugh, watching the way his lips twitched softly.

"Was he really ugly?" He asked a second later, brown eyes flickering as he turned his gaze towards yours again.

"Hideous," You teased as you held onto him, enjoying his warmth as he pulled you closer on his lap, "His hair was nowhere as nice as yours either." You hummed as you brushed your fingers through his hair, hoping this would be a turning point. You didn't want to keep doing this with him.

"Funny," He smiled as he looked at you, "I'm sorry. I really didn't want you to cry. I feel like a jerk." He told you seriously, resting his chin against your skin. You could tell that he meant it. He didn't apologize much and the regret was written across his features.

"Sometimes you are," You shrugged your shoulders gently, "But most of the time you aren't." You told him gently, smiling as you pressed your lips to his.

[alciedoodles]

hi!! i saw your other post about how you simplify details and it was really helpful - was wondering if you had any tips abt drawing expressions/poses to express a story/emotions. like i saw your recent sumeru char doodles on twt and the way you draw alhaitham and hungover kaveh is so!!! ahh!! all of the lines feel really intentional, from the expressions to the fabric of the clothing and omg i love it so much. anyways sorry for rambling HAHA thank you sm for sharing your art! gl w art school 💪

Hello!

Thank you so much for the lovely words <3 it's really such a honor to hear that so many people consider my art to be very expressive, which I think is an essential skill to have for storytelling in comics!

First of all, I'd like to say this isn't something I can easily answer... you must already know there's no easy step-by-step guide on how to be "good" at art or expressions or whichever aspect you're trying to improve, the answer will always be observation and practice. However, I can tell you some of my methods I use to make sure emotions are conveyed as efficiently as possible(?). Here are the key points I always try to apply (note that these aren't rules, these are just my guiding points):

Understanding the character(s), the context, and how the two work together

Laying down a foundation

Not letting dialogue be the main driving force behind storytelling

Paneling conveys emotion too, actually

The absence of something can also convey emotion

You didn't specifically ask about comics, but since it's my favorite subject and it ties into your question, I'll be using a lot of examples from the comics I made! And it might interest other people who were curious?

VERY long post ahead :)

1. Understanding the character(s), the context, and how the two work together

This is what I think is the most fundamental part of storytelling! I mean, makes sense, right? Obviously you don't need a PhD in The Character to make stories based off them. I literally cannot tell you every detail about my favorite characters despite loving them very much, but I think understanding them and their relationships on a big-picture level is primordial. What drives them, what are their principles, what are their biggest fears, who do they make exceptions for, etc. Also, to me, understanding their relationships is sometimes more important than understanding the character at a molecular level. We can tell so much about someone just from the way they interact with specific people vs how they interact with strangers. The person I am online isn't the same I am with friends nor even with family-- like one of the reasons some characters can feel one-dimensional is because they don't show variation in their character throughout their relationships (and since you mentioned Kaveh and Alhaitham, I don't need to tell you the way both of them interact with each other is far removed from the way they interact with friends, strangers, etc... I think a lot of people forget who they are outside of their relationship, which a huge point of contention behind mischaracterization in fan works). I don't have much to say about this other than this is something I keep in mind every step of the way through.

2. Laying down a foundation

This is what the majority of my comics look like on second draft:

I said second because the first drafts usually look like this, which are barely comprehensible to anyone but myself:

The purpose of these are not only to give me a better guide for posing than whatever i did on the first draft (storyboard), but also have a first pass at motion and emotion. The expressions and gestures are legible enough that you can probably glean the emotions of each character based off the little sketches. Ultimately, some of the things I'll draft will end up adjusted, changed, expanded on or even removed.

This particular panel of Reigen is a favorite of mine, because the first pass already shows his confusion, but the final one is even more distorted because it felt like it needed to be even more accentuated.

This panel where he mansplains is also a good example, because the first pass gave him too much of an arrogant/uninterested look (notable with his upturned face), whereas Reigen is more likely to take pride in explaining something he knows to make himself look like a wise and mature figure (notable with his slight smirk and downturned face, as if nodding to himself; the hand is also slightly more forward as if inviting rather than dismissing). And since I basically made an example of it above: body language is super important! This applies for everyone. It doesn't stop at characters who make grand gestures and exaggerated poses every waking moment of their life, but also characters who are socially awkward, private, reclusive...

The posing here is intentionally stiff but not entirely closed off, giving the sense that he's earnest, tries his best to make connections , but also doesn't want to take too much space, thinking the smallest wrong move could cause trouble. Also, give room for the body to do its thing. Avoid cropping out things that shouldn't be cropped out. Leave enough room between the edges of the panel and the point of focus to emphasize what you want to emphasize. Close-up shots shouldn't be too frequent (in fact, personally I don't like doing close-up shots but it doesn't mean they're bad or shouldn't be done, again, my word isn't gospel!), especially if what you're conveying isn't too emotionally charged. Lastly, I have terrible news for people who hate drawing hands. Hands are possibly the second most expressive part of our body (if we don't count the body as a whole), so especially for your charismatic characters, you will very often want to use hands as a tool of expression.

(Think how much emotion and personality would be lost if the hands weren't there!)

3. Not letting dialogue be the main driving force behind storytelling

With my comics, I play an incredibly dangerous game called "I'll think of dialogue as I make the storyboard and then when I'm done drawing every page I'll write the dialogue over it guided solely by memory and whatever I drew". Don't do this. Have a script in hand or write it at the same time as you draft your storyboard. The reason I do this is because I'm lazy and I don't want to open a simple writing software to type down a script. Genuinely I have no other reasons. Anyway, the only advantage this gives to my comics is that they will generally be able to stand on their own without much dialogue; obviously dialogue is essential, but what I mean is that we don't need it to have a pretty accurate read on the room.

For example, if I remove all the dialogue from this page, you probably can't guess exactly what's being discussed. However, you can identify through their emotions alone that there is disbelief, bargaining, and finally a pretty devastating info was dropped. Alternatively, cutting down dialogue from your page and leaving room to expressions/body language alone can be entirely more beneficial than having any dialogue to begin with.

AKA Readers aren't stupid (some may be, but the majority can extrapolate just fine). You'll realize how much you don't need words and how your stories can be even more funny/impactful by pushing forward visual storytelling.

4. Paneling conveys emotion too, actually

Being a "good" artist isn't enough to make good comics. The way you panel things is extremely important, because it sets the tone, mood, pace, you name it. Some of the best works out there are the ones with the most care put into the flow of the comic. You need to understand how people will read it, and it starts with what order you deliver the information and how. This is paneling 101, but a page with irregularly shaped panels, multiple changing camera angles and such will be exponentially more dynamic than a page where each panel is the same size, have similar compositions and/or repetitions with little to no diagonal or curved lines of action.

The two examples above are WIPs from 2 different stories so unfortunately you'll have to make do with the rough sketches. That being said, you don't need to know the context of either pages to know the kind of emotion that should be felt through the paneling alone. Give time for the important emotions to be processed by the reader (unless it's intentionally fast-paced). Every emotion that needs to be emphasized should have its own panel.

In this example, I could easily have condensed these two panels into one by transferring the dialogue from the second into the first and jumping on to the next action. However, it would undeniably give much less impact to Kaveh's disbelief. On an inverse situation, sometimes you will want to condense two panels you made into one, because whatever those two panels are doing are perhaps not important enough to deserve separate panels! Lastly, you can notice that the space on the page is not always filled. Leaving space between each panel and/or between the edges of the page gives room for the reader to breathe and slows down the flow; and inversely, if you want to make the situation more frantic, make everything look more tight and constricted.

5. Not showing facial expressions sometimes conveys more emotion than doing so

This ties nicely to the point I made about body language. You don't need to see a character's face to know what they're going through, necessarily. Sometimes, their posture or their dialogue is enough. In my opinion, a story is more compelling when this equilibrium of facial expressions / body language / paneling / dialogue is correctly adjusted-- you will not need to have all the elements to convey the message or it could be a little overbearing. I don't have many examples for this one because they tend to be more relevant in dramatic scenarios, which I haven't done that many of.

(The first one is once again from a WIP)

And that's about it for my insane guide on comic-ing. I hope ANY of it made sense.

***

Here's a round up of extra tips, focused entirely on the drawing part which might be more of what you asked to begin with :'D

- That little line/wrinkle that adds so much character

Yall know what I'm talking about. In my opinion, too many artists are afraid of giving laugh lines/wrinkles because it makes their characters look older, except when it's to add those sexy sexy eyebags. I'm encouraging everyone to add them to their art little by little and see how much it can improve the expressiveness! Obviously, I don't use it everywhere, but it's a very effective way to make your expressions feel even more... well. expressive.

- Line of action

You've probably seen this picture going around before, from Preston Blair:

Although it's called line of action which implies action, this line is important even when the character isn't really in action.

You can gain a lot in expressiveness when you think of the body as one whole fluid instead of a sum of multiple disjointed parts. This is why drawing a very rough base comprised of only lines and circles can help figure out if the posing works before you start refining it.

On a different note, animation principles work very much in comics as well! I recommend looking up animation guides especially those that show how to make key poses.

- Shadows and/or color fill

This is one I will use quite often for different situations.

Shadows can immediately set a tone when they're used dramatically. For example, a shadow over a character's face can convey unease and/or evil intent.

On the other hand, I will use color fills for different purposes:

Differentiating ground layers

This can help with readability.

2. Conveying a certain mood

It can separate the character from the color of their background to give a sense of isolation, reflection, realization, being disconnected from their surroundings, etc...

- Don't be scared of using codes / tropes / archetypes

...As long as it benefits the narrative, of course. By codes / tropes / archetypes, I mean posing or expressions or visual effects that are universally understood and used for specific expressions. The semicircle sweatdrops and blush made with slashes are incredibly typical of manga/anime, but it doesn't mean they're bad! Visual effects are there to help remove the ambiguity of an expression considering a single expression without visual codes could convey multiple emotions!

- Find what inspires you and take notes!!!

In my case, what greatly shaped my art style to what it currently is: One Piece, the Ace Attorney series and Mob Psycho 100 (yes, I only watched the latter last year but it still managed to become a source of improvement/inspiration for my art even at my current level, because you'll never stop improving :) )

I hope this wasn't too long or too off-topic, and I hope it can also help other people who might be interested! Thank you for reading!

[cyberdragoninfinity]

wild dana spotted howling and barking about yugioh arc-v out in the parking lot

oh BOY oh boy it's bout that time again. i can't believe it's been OVER A YEAR (?!?!?) since i last did one of these 'i just finished a yugioh here's my little rambly retrospective about it' posts but we are BACK!!! Finished my first ever watch-through of Arc-V last Tuesday after some 8 months of it putting me through the spin cycle and now as it's wedging itself permanently into my psyche i need to talk about its Everything or i will explode. so LET'S SWING INTO ACTION!!! I'M TAKING CONTROL OF THIS DUEL STARTING NOW!!!

[SPOILERS ahead for this decade old anime, of course]

WOW. YUGIOH ARC-V, HUH. before i started it watching it, I knew two things: A.) every single bit of knowledge I'd learned about it from Duel Links events or otherwise had me so, so, unbeliebable fucking hyped. I was absolutely certain this Yugioh was going to be so full of Danabait and completely fry my brain like an egg on the griddle. I had to physically restrain myself for TWO YEARS to keep from jumping the gun and watching Arc-V before I'd finished all the series before it (a decision I'm ultimately thankful for--Arc-V hits kind of fuckign crazy as a chaser to four other yugiohs.). And also, B.) when people Talk About Arc-V they always talk about it in a Very Particular Way. like. it's hard to describe. I feel like you know it when you see it. There is the full range of human emotion in the way people talk about Arc-V. People talk about Arc-V like its a confusing, malicious specter haunting their living room. And this admittedly got me even more hyped to watch it.

And then I watched it and here I am and I KNOW NOW. I KNOW NOW WHY PEOPLE. TALK ABOUT IT LIKE THAT. FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. SLASH POS. SLASH NEG. SLASH SECRET THIRD THING.

Arc-V is a fucking MESS. It starts out SO strong and then it starts setting plot threads on fire and writing conceptual checks it absolutely cannot cash. It falls down the narrative stairs like it has a goddamn death wish. It introduces 342052805 characters and then forgets to do anything with 99% of them. It does things to its girl characters that makes the back half of 5Ds's girl writing failure look like the height of feminist theory. If the stories I've heard about its deeply troubled production are any indication it is some kind of MIRACLE this show got made and aired at ALL. IT'S LIKE WATCHING A CAR WEAVING THROUGH TRAFFIC AT 90 MPH ONLY TO PLOW DIRECTLY INTO THE SIDE OF A PARTY CITY.

and goddamn if I didn't have a FUCKING BLAST watching it. GODDAMN IF I DIDNT HAVE SO, SO MUCH FUN. goddamn if Arc-V might very well end up being my FAVORITE yugioh out of ALL of them when all is said and done. WHOOOOOPSSS!!! 🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴

like. imo Zexal is absolutely from a quality/art direction/narrative/everything standpoint leaps and bounds better than Arc-V. Definitely one of my favorite cartoons I've ever seen period, and most people should give it a shot. Such a beautiful work of art. But Arc-V....... girl they put something In this one. My pre-show hype was absolutely warranted. This show is just one blast of Shit That Makes Dana Crazy after another. Every character absolutely delights me and is my best friend. I'm going to be losing my mind over Yugioh Arc-V for the rest of the year and maybe forever.

As usual I primarily watched the dub, with some sub episodes sprinkled in if I got tipped off about a big change, or just if I wanted to see what was going on back there. (glad I did, of course, for a number of reason--least of all that Arc-V's OPs and EDs are SO fun and so charming!!) (THOUGH SIDE NOTE: THE DUB OPENING SHREDS SO HARD IM SORRY. IT'S UP THERE WITH THE GX DUB OPENING FOR ME. CAN YOU FEEL THE FUCKING POWER!!!!!) Anyway, gotta say, really was blown away by this dub!! It's tied with Zexal for what's imo the 'best' yugioh dub--the majority of the voice performances were just fantastic (truly all the love in my heart for Michael Liscio Jr.'s performances as the yuboys, they all have such unique and charming voices and im OBSESSED WITH THEM.) and having watched some sub eps side by side with the dub it's really cool seeing a dub that genuinely tried to faithfully translate Most of the Original. idk it's just a really solid localization to me!! I loved it a lot!! ALSO IT'S EXTREMELY FUNNY. I SAY THIS ABOUT EVERY DUB BUT IT'S TRUE. there are line reads in the arc-v dub that have me SOBLAUGHING.

anyway. I like to do these little subsection breakdowns in these little retrospective roundups, so let's get into the weeds with it:

Stuff I Didn't Like: loooooooooong inhale through my nose. looks at you with mildly pained eyes. alright. let's get this one over with.

though I did really try to go in as blind as I could/avoid most spoilers with this one, I did inevitably get spoiled by some things from Duel Links, but in the case of. uh. Riley Getting Turned Back Into a Baby At the End. 👶🏼 I AM glad I had that spoiled for me, so I knew it was coming. Because if I didn't know that was going to happen and that clocked me over the head I would have been on the NEWS. I WOULD HAVE BEEN, SO MAD. HEY, YUGIOH: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼 WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO RILEY!!!!

"character gets permanently turned back into a baby for Critical Plot Reasons" has gotta be one of my LEAST favorite tropes in anything, it's NEVER GOOD. AND IT'S ESPECIALLY BAD HERE!!! Riley is such a good character, he's got such an interesting arc going on, and THEY JUST RIP THAT TO PIECES. SO RILEY'S JUST FUCKING GONE NOW I GUESS. COOL. ALRIGHT. SURELY THERE COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER WAYS TO DEFEAT ZARC. SURELY. just. good GOD. it was a small miracle to me when this happened like 8 episodes before the end, it was like ripping the bandaid off early, it was like "oh thank christ i got past that. ok well whatever happens it cannot possibly be as bad as the shit they did to riley"

^ (and imo it wasnt. thank GOD. actually let's talk about that)

LIKE. MAKE NO MISTAKE ARC-V'S ENDING IS CONFUSING AND CLUMSY AND SO STUPID AND NOT GOOD. WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH DOES THIS SERIES NEED EIGHT EPISODES AFTER ITS BIG BAD DUEL.WE COULD HAVE WRAPPED THIS UP IN 2-3!!!! it feels like watching Chopped and the contestant has 20 seconds on the clock left and theyre like "i gotta make my whipped cream" like WEEEE DONT NOT HAVE TIMEEE FOR THAT!!!!! WHAT ARE WE DOINGGGG. why are we dueling jack AGAIN. FOR TWO EPISODES. EVERYONE IS YELLING AT YUYA LIKE ALL OF THIS IS HIS RESPONSIBILITY AND FUCKING IS IT??!?!??! HE'S 14. AND THEN THOSE EPISODES HAVE THE GALL TO THROW SO MANY COOL IDEAS ON THE TABLE (Gong fully exploring dueltaining, the Dimensional Highway, etc) AND IT'S LIKE. COOL!! WISH WE COULDVE HAD THIS ANY OTHER TIME THAN THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND!!! WHAT ARE WE DOINGGGG

BUT all that being said, the way people talk about that fucking last episode I was expecting some genuinely godawful 'zuzu is yuyas mom again like in the manga' tier absolute nightmare scenario. i literally made a secret prediction chart of what insane plot twist i assumed the last episode was going to drop on me.

AND THEN THE LAST EPISODE WAS JUST. FUNNYBAD. just a run of the mill whimper at the end of eight episodes we KIND OF REALLY DID NOT NEED. THE SHEER AMOUNT OF RELIEF I FELT. like absolutely i think going into it completely blind/encountering that ending watching live I would have been pissed, folks are rightfully frustrated with it, but I WAS TRULY. EXPECTING MUCH WORSE. IT ENDS LIKE A FAKE TUMBLR POST. "AND THEN EVERYONE CLAPPED" ASS ENDING. I DO HAVE TO LAUGH

^ YIPPEEEE SIX CHARACTERS HAVE EFFECTIVELY STOPPED EXISTING YAAAAAYY (😬😬😬😬)

ALSO, IN GENERAL. SPEAKING OF. GOD. THE BRACELET GIRLS. YALL ARE SO COOL AND THEN POOR LULU AND RIN DIDNT GET TO DO A GODDAMN THING EXCEPT HAVE WORMS IN THEIR BRAINS!!!! HELL ON EARTH!!!!!! WHY DID THEY DO THATTTT GAHHHHH again!! show that introduces SO many characters, so many FUCKING COOL CHARACTERS, and then does NOTHING with them. Or hits them with PARALYZING NERVE GAS FOR 20 EPISODES. CHRIST!!! WHY DO ARC-V GIRLS SUFFER MORE THAN JESUS. LEAVE MY GIRL ZUZU ALONEEEEE

TO THAT END, ARC-V JUST MAKES; SO MANY CONFUSING CHARACTER DECISIONS. AND CHOICES. why is Yuto just out of the picture for like 60 episodes!!! Let him be Yuya's brain buddy!!! WHY WASNT HE. DID YOU NOT WANNA ANIMATE HIM FLOATING NEXT TO THE DUEL RUNNER??! BE REAL. It's like. GRAHHH In general Arc-V has a pacing problem that is like. Atrocious even for yugioh's bad pacing problems. This series needed to be 400 episodes long. I like the IDEA of a yugioh with a big cast, spending episodes cutting between different groups of characters like some kind of bulky YA fantasy novel, but in practice it got. Real Muddy. RIP Xyz dimension arc you shoulda had so much more to you. And then there's that combined with this way it's trying Really Really hard to ape the themes of the past yugiohs ('dont forget to have fun,' grief/moving on after loss, classism) but it's hitting every damn branch on the way down and just completely fumbling ALL of them, it's not actually doing much to Earn being able to have those kind of themes resonate properly. IT'S SUCH A BAFFLING SHOW. IN THE THEMES DEPARTMENT. AMONG OTHER THINGS. "DONT EVER BE VISIBLY PUBLICLY SAD" IS A FUCKING INSANE MORAL. AND IT TAKES THAT SHIT WITH IT TO THE BITTER END. WHY IS THE FATE OF THE WORLD HINGED ON YUYA MAKING A BABY LAUGH. WHERE AM I!!!!

god. god. ok. ok im calm now. im sure in the coming weeks i'll have more barking about arc-v's various fumbles. but i'll leave it at that for now, i wanna talk about stuff i DID like now lol

Favorite Season/Arc: ok well. this actually is a hard question. um. hrm. LIKE. I'LL GET SHOT BY SNIPERS IF I SAY IT WAS SYNCHRO ARC BUT ALSO

IM SORRYYYYYYYYYYYYY I GOT THAT DOG IN ME (A BACK HALF OF 5D'S LIKER'S SOUL.) and unfortunately I WILL go in there and think about it that hard (the absolutely fucked to hell sociopolitical situation happening in Arc-V New Domino City and how it contrasts with the NDC in 5D's) (one thing about me I love weird fucked up yugioh old people I love those bitchass old centrists apparently governing the entire dimension and doing a piss poor job of it it's just like contemporary American politics!!!!!!) ROGET WAS JUST REANIMATING DEAD PEOPLE AND PUTTING MIND CONTROL CYBERNETICS IN THEM AND WELL YEAH SURE I'LL BE NORMAL GRIP ABOUT THAT. NORMAL. i need to make an arc-v AU Aporia so fucking bad THEN YOULL ALL SEE *talking to empty room*

YES synchro was way too fucking long. but regretfully i love turbo duels and will never not be charmed when yugioh puts guys on motorcycles that have no business being on motorcycles. DAMN I JUST FUCKING WISH YUYA AND YUGO GOT TO ACTUALLY TALK AND MEET IN THE SAME ROOM THOUGH!!!! BUT ANYWAY!!!!

im. kidding at least a little, I actually thoroughly enjoyed like...all of Arc-V's seasons/arcs at least a little (barring a lot of the Weird Post Zarc Duel 8 Episode Dead Zone.) The first 50 episodes really are just peak banger Yugioh, I do love action duels to absolute bits (though Action Spells. Uh. Need Some Workshopping 8| If I See Evasion One More Time Im Gonna Lose It) and the shit especially that first season does with the crazy Action Fields is AWESOME. GENUINELY. GO DUEL IN THE VOLCANO. DO A FLIP. RIDE YOUR MONSTER. it's practically running on Pokemon universe logic i cant NOT love it. And well Fusion Dimension arc does just have a whole lot of episodes that make me go cuckoo bananas crazy. Truly something for Dana in every crevice of Yugioh Arc-V.

Favorite Characters: god I do think like a solid half of why I think Arc-V may be becoming my top fav Yugioh is that the cast is just, really Really fucking good. Like yes so many of them are underutilized but the time we Do get with them really just shows off what delightful characters they all are. Half the reason it took me so damn long to finish was I was having so much fun and was going to miss seeing them!! IT'S GENUINELY HARD TO PICK A TOP LINEUP OF FAVS. THERE'S SO MANY DANABAIT GUYS IN YUGIOH ARC-V. YES EVEN THE SYNCHRO ARC GUYS. LUCAS SWANK I MISS YOU SO FUCKING MUCH.

The Lancers alone are SO good, theyre up there with Team 5D's in terms of Favorite "Main Yugioh 'Friend Group'/Organization". Group of guys who kind of have horrible synergy and only like 3 of them are actually competent. Declan came up with it when he was 13. Funniest group of teenagers imaginable, I love them all. LIKE .YUYA MAY BE MY FAVORITE YUTAGONIST??? IM NOT SURE YET BUT. I DO LOVE HIM A LOT. HE'S A PATHETIC WET PAPER TOWEL AND I WANT TO GIVE HIM A NOOGIE. SLASH POS.

And I mean I'm always gonna be Z-one biased but I do like Zarc as a Big Bad a lot too... damn if I don't love Just Some Guy Has Become God and Is a Huge Tool About It <3 WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE THIS!!!!

ah. but. of course. i'd be remiss if i didn't bring up. Rainbow Carrot Rock Your World.

hey guys. why'd it happen again. why'd the Yugioh Carrot and Company get in my head and completely fry my brain AGAIN!!!!!!!! ORANGE CARROT. PURPLE CARROT. YELLOW CARROT!!!!🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕 YUGO ISNT EVEN MY TOP FAV BUT HE'S IN MY HEART AND IN OUR HOUSE FOREVER NOW. meanwhile i dont want. to talk about what yuri is doing to me. if i think too hard about this little purple freak i'll start going bonkers ballistic chewing my leg off. I like all the yuboys but he is especially. Gripping Me. La Cucaracha Loca. My shithead gay son.

dennis needs his own post he's just. a Lot. may very well be one of the funniest yugioh characters ever. Among Other Things. his dub VA's performance needs to be marked as culturally significant. AND THEY JUST KEPT BRINGING HIM BACK.

IN GENERAL, AS I WAS COMPLETELY EXPECTING, FUCKED UP AND EVIL DUEL ACADEMY REALLY DID ME IN I love you Fusion Dimension kids I love getting sick in the head thinking about card game child soldiers.My Actual favorite Arc-V character may just straight up be Sora..... I just like him a lot. He's got a really solid character arc, his deck rules, he's a little fucker AND an absolute real one. Just 10/10 little guy.

GOD WHAT EVEN IS MY TOP FIVE FAVORITES. UHHHH Okay Sora and Yuri for sure, and Declan, I love Declan. Yugo..... god. GOD IS THE FIFTH ONE DENNIS FOR REAL. I FEEL HIM IN MY BRAIN SO BAD. AAAAUUGHHHH (Runners Up: Yuya, Yuto, GONG MOTHERFUCKING STRONG!!!!!!, Rin my girl my badass mechanic girl IM ON MY WAY. I'LL THINK ABOUT YOU THAT HARD., Riley, Arc-V Aster unfortunately a Dana Guy ever. Why Is He Here. He Didnt Even Go to DA in GX. But all of this is subject to change in coming months as the entire cast continues to hit me with weapons. An honor and a privilege to induct these characters into my Blorbo Hall of Fame)

Favorite Duel: HEY QUICK QUESTION: WHY ARE ARC-V'S DUELS SO FUCKING WEIRD. LIKE. NARRATIVELY. There's like 4352984589 ties and duels that get cut short and DUELS WE JUST NEVER GET TO SEE THE FULL OUTCOME OF ON SCREEN?!?!? WHAT WAS GOING ON THERE. It feels like another symptom of arc-v just desperately trying to bite off more than it can chew 😭 Frustrating!! And god I LOVE the zaniness of Action Duels, but we neeeeeed to do something about Action Spells... GRABBING AN ACTION SPELL SHOULD NOT BE THE CRUTCH OF YOUR WHOLE DECK.........

coughs. anyway. My actual honest to god favorite Arc-V duel is Yugo vs. Celina in the Friendship Cup <3 IVE ALREADY TALKED ABOUT IT BEFORE BUT IT'S JUST SUCH A FUN ONE. It's got some great character moments on both sides, a yugioh girl Getting to Be Cool, the colors are gorgeous, it's SO funny, I just get such a kick out of it....I think part of what I Do like about the Friendship Cup is it really shows this sense of kinetic energy that the WRGP in 5D's really needed. I also really like the Shay vs. Dennis Friendship Cup duel for just going completely off the rails. Blow Up This War Criminal and The Whole Stadium With the Giant Bird Satellite Cannon. DOES NOT GET MORE YUGIOH THAN THAT!!

for all its weirdness Arc-V has a LOT of really fun duels that i enjoy--Shay vs. Sora is beloved for a reason, it also goes hard as hell. So many Season 1 duels are just a goofy blast, I really need to rewatch the quiz show one. For as much of an unnecessary mess as those last 8 episodes are, I DO really like Yuya and Dennis's duel too (THAT GETS REALLY REALLY GAY AT THE END???!?!? ARE WE ALL SEEING THIS.)

Hell even the Zarc duel started making me kind of sick in the head--watching Yuya's friends passing around his pendulum necklace while trying to save him makes me turbo emo WHAT CAN I SAY!!!

Arc-V also has the thing I had with Zexal where there's just some individual episodes that are absolute bangers for me. i love the Prison Break episode, it's fucking INSANE. HIP HIPPO SAID FUCK COPS FUCK THE PRISON SYSTEM!!! I love the episode where Gong and Dennis duel. FOR HOW LONG IT DID DRAG SYNCHRO HAS SOME REALLY FUN ONE-OFF EPISODES which I just really enjoy. Also love when Zuzu and Sora beat the shit out of a pack of cops. Based for that for real.

i do also love Yuri and Yuya's duel. Of course.

Other Miscellaneous Gushing/Shrieking/Losing My Mind About Yugioh Arc-V For Good and Bad and Everything in Between: arc-v arc-veeeeee yugioh arc-fiveeee theres just so MUCH. TO TALK ABOUT. THIS ONE'S GONNA BE IN MY HEAD FOR EONS I FEAR. THINKING ABOUT THE EVERYTHING. The sheer amount of narrative traits that make me specifically lose my mind (in a good way. as opposed to. the babyfication making me lose my mind. in a Real Bad Way :////) that they crammed into this. It's like digging in the treasure chest of elaborate fanfics I was writing in my brain in freshman year of high school. The Sick and Twisted Evil AU Version of Duel Academy. The Trained to Be Weapons Child Soldiers. Mind Control Reanimated Corpse Brain Chip. Alternate Dimension Selves. All of the Split Different Dimension Bullshit. Soul Splitting and Soul Fusion Framed as Fucking Terrifying. It's good I didn't have Arc-V growing up it would have been doing IRREVERSIBLE THINGS TO MY DEVELOPING CREATIVE BRAIN. INSTEAD IT'S DOING THEM TO ME NOW.

(side note, re: terrifying soul fusion: Arc-V is SO FUCKING SCARY SOMETIMES?!?? Like "ohh i wish yugioh was still a horror story" DAWG ARC-V ROUTINELY HAS SOME OF THE MOST DREAD-INDUCING CONCEPTS GETTING FLUNG AT YOU AT 90 MPH. SKIP BOYLE FORGETS HIS DAUGHTER EXISTED AND IT'S ONE OF THE MOST HEARTBREAKINGLY HORRIFYING THINGS IVE EVER SEEEEENNNNN )

The shit Arc-V does with Yugioh's themes of identity, these "when does a piece of yourself stop being you and start being their own person?" "what happens when multiple free standing people are one person" type ideas, you KNOW that makes my Aporia Turbofan ass go CRAAAZYYYY. AND THEN IT HAD RELIGIOUS MOTIFS TOO <3333 YOU'RE ME AND IM YOU AND IT DOESNT MATTER WHO DOES WHAT THE DEVIL WILL COME BACK REGARDLESS 😊💞💞💞

Arc-V takes such bold swings at things and 95% of the time it misses the ball entirely and spins up and out and directly into the fireplace but that 5% of sheer genius and thematic weight hits like a truck. Is Arc-V good? FUCK IF I KNOW. PROBABLY NOT. BUT ALSO YES IT IS. BUT ALSO IT'S NOT. BUT ALSO IT'S SOMETHING SO SPECIAL, AND I LOVE IT. That first like 50 episodes makes for such a good yugioh starter course tbh, the way it goes over different summoning methods and is very engaging and energetic, and then the rest of the show is an 18 car pileup of Card Game War that makes me automatically like DONT. START WITH THIS ONE. WATCH ANOTHER YUGIOH OR TWO FIRST AND THEN COME MELT YOUR BRAIN IN HERE. AND THATS SUCH A WEIRD DICHOTOMY TO HAVE WITH ONE YUGIOH. weird like everything else with arc-v i suppose. :,)

For all the mess and all the madness there truly is so much I love, though. I love the character dynamics, even when the show isnt doing much more with its cast--Yuya and Gong's friendship may be one of my favorite 'yutag and best friend' bonds, it's SO sweet and I'm going to be mad forever that Gong isn't more popular in western ygo fandom. I love the DUEL MONSTERS!! Performapals are SOOOO sillygoofy I have to adore them, the dimensional dragons all kick so much ass I love you Clear Wing my big legless weirdo. I love Shay's increasingly bigger Bird Guns. I LOVE FRIGHTFURS!!!! I LOVE D/D/DS!!!!! SO HAPPY TO SEE THEM ON ESPECIALLY SCREEN AFTER PLAYING THEM FOR MONTHS IN DUEL LINKS. MY FREAKY DECLAN DEMONS. I love the miscellaneous callbacks to past iconic monsters and funky weird AU retrains of the Legacu character's decks. Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend my friend Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend

I also do love that Arc-V in theory is trying very hard to be a celebration of past Yugiohs, but it's also instead being completely fucking insane with its 'tributes.' Oh you like Heartland City from Zexal? It's a carpetbombed warzone now! LIKE... HUH!!! When Lazar showed up at the end of season 2 i SCREAMED. I WANT TO KNOW THE LOGIC OF THESE CHOICES. THEY DONT MAKE ME MAD OR ANYTHING REALLY IM JUST FASCINATED BY THEM. i cant really be too angry at arc-v I'm just. transfixed. at every baffling choice it's ever made. I've really truly never seen a show that's so thoroughly felt like some kids doing a roleplay on a forum somewhere, players dropping in and out and mods not really knowing what to do with the lore anymore as things become more and more convoluted. I watch arc-v scenes and i can picture the text RP in my head, the players' forum signatures and all. It's truly some kind of feat to achieve that inherent vibe, that's for sure.

ok im running out of steam i think... what else. god. Yugioh Arc-V is just.... such a teetering Jenga tower of a show, a complete nuclear meltdown of clumsy writing and fantastic vocal performances (dub and sub) and confused handling of its own lore and occasionally some of the fucking coolest most intense expressions and gorgeous shots of any yugioh

I held out on watching it for so long cuz i just fuckin KNEW it was going to grab me by the brain and swing me into the wall and WELL!!! I WAS RIGHT!!!! SHES A MESS BUT SHES MY MESS BABEYYY!!! IS ARC-V GOOD? MAYBE NOT BUT, BROTHER, I FUCKIN LOVE WHEN YUGIOH IS BAD ❤ ive been a disciple of Bad Yugioh for 20 goddamn years and im not stopping now!!!!! I love you Pendulum summoning you insane busted ass mechanic. I love you all four completely fucked up dimensions. I love that they localized Maiami to Paradise City. I love the little nods to past yugioh things (like fusing with a motorcycle <3 Primo Moment...2!) I hate you Leo Akaba explode and die forever (though 'parent going mad trying to bring their child back' do also go me a little bananas.) I love the kickass shots of Yuya's monsters being set in the pendulum scale.I love Sora's relationship with Yuya and Zuzu. I love every fucked up crazyass expression Yuri makes. I love the sense of character design in this show. I love the Action Duel start chants. I love seeing the Synchro Math again and the Overlay Units and the deeply unsettling fusion hand gesture kids use with Polymerization. I love that third ED thats just the Lancers dicking around in different locations and having fun. I love Declan and Riley's complicated but deeply loving bond. I love when characters RIDE THEIR DUEL MONSTERS!!! AND I LOVE THAT DESPITE EVERYTHING I ALREADY WANNA SEE THESE CHARACTERS AGAIN. THEYRE MY FRIENDS!!!!! THEYRE IN MY BRAIN!!!!! MY KIDSSSSS

I KNOW NOW. WHY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT ARC-V LIKE THAT. AND IM ABOUT TO START TALKIN LIKE THAT TOO. YUGIOHHHHHH!!!!!

[twistedwonderlandshenanigans]

"Interview" With NRC Students

Last set of my December Drabbles posts. Written after Chapter Four / Scarabia Chapter, burnt out and taking no shit Yuu. Word Count: ~5k ----------------------------------------------- You read over the set of questions Crowley had provided to ask for end of year interviews. Technically, it was supposed to be Dire's job to check in on all the students, but yet again the task was passed onto you. As you looked over the questions, you felt your eyes glaze over but a certain burning in your chest. None of these had anything to do with checking in with mental health, which was clearly what the students needed. You're no therapist. You're no faculty member, you're not someone who should be doing this anyways. You flip the paper over and think over a question you could ask. Just one. You have so many people to get through, and your emotional capacity and mental tenacity are nearing their limits. As the first person walks in an the two of you get to chatting, you finally settle on a question, maybe seeking some wisdom for yourself, and a glimpse into the way your friends, enemies and acquaintances think "What advice would you give someone who's looking to improve their day to day life? Or just advice in general?"

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Riddle is slightly taken aback by the question, before smiling assuredly. "I've been learning quite a bit myself what improvement can mean from one person to another. As you know, the standard for improvement and growth has always been set very high for me, but I think...I think that perhaps the best advice I can give is to learn to set a high standard for yourself rather than....someone else's approval.....it's not advice I've learned to follow, but I received it from a close friend this year and I believe it's sound. At least if you are disciplined enough to do so for yourself." -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Trey laughs a little bit in response, grabbing at his glasses frame and tipping them up slightly, before crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair, sighing a bit. "Advice, huh? Well, I can't say anything for sure, but I guess...don't sweat the small things. It's old advice, but there's a reason it's been said." "Did you want to elaborate on that?" "What else would there to be elaborate on? I thought that was pretty straightforward." "Maybe it has a little more of a personal meaning to you?" "I mean, I've got a bunch of younger siblings, and as vice housewarden I end up looking after a lot of people in the dorm, including Riddle. If I had to worry about every single thing everyone shorter than me was up to or doing, I'd have grey hair by now." He had a shit eating grin on his face as you stopped writing and looked up at him unamused. "You're not funny." "I like to think I am." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cater's face almost falls a bit when he hears your question, but he keeps himself smiling. "Could...could you repeat that please? Cay-cay's um....I need to make sure I heard that right." "What advice would you give someone who wants to improve their day to day life?" He looked almost haunted, though he was trying to maintain his happy disposition. "Did...do you want a different question?" "Ahah um well no! No, it's ok, I got it I just...need a minute I guess! It's...I guess nobody's asked me for advice...ever. I've given it just never asked...specifically, y'know? Ahhh, never mind, can you forget all that and we can take it from the top?" You can't hide your concern and confusion all that well, but you nod a bit and smile reassuringly. "What advice would you give someone who wants to improve their day to day life?" Cater lights up as if the emotions he was conveying a moment ago had never existed. "That's easy! Cay-cay's got you covered! Find something to smile about everyday, because if you don't-...just find something to smile about everyday. Even if it's just one thing that'll keep you going, you're still going, and that's what matters." His smile falters just slightly. "That's all you needed from me, right? I can go now?" You give him a small smile and nod, and watch as he leaves the room, an awkward tension still sitting in the air. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Deuce looks like a deer in the headlights at the question. "Why would you ask me that?" You gave him a knowing smile, cocking your brow a bit and he cleared his throat awkwardly. "I think you have plenty to contribute to this, Deuce. We both know you've undergone a lot of personal growth to get to where you are now." "Well yeah but it hasn't been easy! And you were there when I've had.... when I've flown off the handle and just gone right back to who I was before." "But you're not the same as you were before. You feel regret, which was what made you want to change in the first place, because before you heard your mother on the phone, you didn't. I wasn't there when you were a delinquent, but I've known you for a few months now and can say with confidence you're doing a good job Deuce, you're making a lot of progress towards your own goal. If you could just share a little bit of insight on what's made it easier, or what's been a motivator other than seeking your mother's approval, I'd really appreciate it." He thinks it over for a moment, nodding slightly as the words slowly come to him. "I...I don't really know, but I guess....I've never stopped trying my best...and I give myself room to be angry when I need it. I think a lot of people either try their best most of the time, or don't put very much effort forward at all, so I think the second thing might be the advice I would give someone. To give yourself room to feel your emotions, big or small, just make sure you have a safe place to do it where you won't hurt other people too." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ace looks stupidly unamused and kicks his feet up on your coffee table, blatantly ignoring the look you gave him for doing so. "You're bein' so formal. We're friends why are you acting like that?" You couldn't help but huff a bit, amused but not wanting him to know that. "I have to do this for Crowley, it's not like I want to. Just answer the question Ace, then get out, I have so many other people I have to get to today." You regret the second part of your sentence when you see his shit eating smile from across the way. He settles even deeper into the seat and sighs deeply, happily and puts his hands behind his head. "So I get your full, undivided attention until you get the answer you're looking for? Cool." "Mmm, mhm, you get my full undivided attention until you waste my time and I throw something at you and the countdown is starting my patience is paper thin right now Ace, do not test me." He scoffs and sits up properly, groaning out of boredom. "Fiiiine, but is it really wasting time if you're hanging out with me? You owe me an hour after thi-" "Sure, yeah, whatever, shut up and get out, or answer the goddamned question and get out." "Sheesh, ok, fine, the best advice I can give is for you to loosen up, Great Sevens you're tense." "NO SHIT SHERLOCK." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leona didn't even come to you for HIS interview, you had to go track down the lazy lion yourself. He mumbled something when you knocked at the door, but you didn't hear nor care if it was to come in or to go the fuck away. You let yourself in, sat at the end of his bed and waited for some sort of response. "I will throw this clipboard at your head I know you're awake." Clearly, he thought you were bluffing, as a few seconds later a very angry cat was growling at you, and your clipboard had bounced off his head and sat on the floor. You remained unphased, tapping your pen against his nose once, lightly. "You don't scare me, now what advice would you give someone who wants to improve their day to day life?" "The fuck kind of question is that to wake me up from my nap from?" "The kind that if you don't answer I'm calling your sister in law and asking her to make you because I don't have time for this shit either Leona. Answer the question. And before you say anything about me not having your family's contact info, I do have both your phone and password so tread lightly." It hadn't been hard to get, Ruggie was an open book for the right amount of Thaumarks, and Leona's phone had been on the floor, but Leona looked mildly impressed for a split second before remembering he was annoyed, huffing and laying back. "You're lucky I don't eat you alive for throwing that piece of shit at me, herbivore.” “Are you going to answer the question?” “Yeah, I just woke up, give me a damn minute.” “Mira, set one minute timer.” Setting one minute timer. “Oh for Great Seven’s sake, is that how petty you’re being? Fine. If you can’t sleep it off, get something to eat. Now get out of my room, before I decide to eat you.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ruggie didn’t even bother sitting down, he recognized the set up from the year before and laughed a little. “Shyeeheehee if these are the same questions from last year, can’t y’just hand over the paper and pen and I can pretend to write something that Crowley won’t read?” You couldn’t help but snort a bit. While it was tempting, your curiosity for what the hyena boy had for advice outweighed your want to be a little lazy. Besides, at this point it wasn’t for Crowley, it was for you. “Not this time. I’ll be honest. I have a question for everyone, I’m just trying to maintain my sanity though, this isn’t about the headmage anymore, this is me holding on by a thread and looking for some hope for the future.” You laugh weakly, and Ruggie smiles a little, concerned, but it was understandable. You had a lot on your plate, and he was kinda happy that you were that honest with him. He finally sat down across from you and slung his bag from over his shoulder to sit on his lap as he dug through it. “I’m not great with advice, but my gramma always said something about if you wanna go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. So surround yourself with people that are gonna getchya to the end of the school year, ok? Or until Crowley can send’ya home. The other freshies are doin’ a pretty good job from what I can tell but if y’ever need a lil pick-me-up y’can let me know. Might even do it for free.” He grins and winks at you as he finally produces an apple from his bag, rubbing it gently with his sleeve before offering it to you. “I don’t got much, but you’re doin’ a good job prefect. Hopefully y’can pretend that’s like…a bigger prize or somethin’. And I wasn’t kiddin’ when I said I could be a part of that group if y’want me to be.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack’s ear flicked a bit at your question, his rather stoic expression making you question exactly what was going through his mind. “That’s a pretty broad topic…but my grandparents and parents always say that ‘we will be known forever by the tracks we leave’…so…don’t do anything you wouldn’t want to be remembered for.” “Is that all you want to say?” He simply nods once, happy with his answer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Azul pushes up his glasses and chuckles a little. “That isn’t something Crowley had you ask, now is it? If advice is what you’re seeking, then perhaps scheduling an app-“ “Azul. I would love to hear you out but frankly I don’t have the time nor the fucks to give about your business deal you’re about to offer, so if you won’t answer the question, I’ll just inform Leona that you refused to co operate and I know how to push his buttons in just the right ways to do so.” An awkward silence filled the air before Azul cleared his throat a bit. “That won’t be necessary. Wisdom that had been imparted on me by my nonna goes as follows: chi non fa, non falla. In other words, he who makes no mistakes, makes nothing. The path to greatness is full of obstacles but can be paved as you learn how to get rid of them. In my case, I recognize that I was fortunate to have seen the road paved by my nonna, and learned from her mistakes so I wouldn’t have to make my own. On the other hand, not having had that example to follow would have allowed me- er…and individual to learn on their own so that they understand and appreciate just how much effort is required. As long as you’re learning, you’re not failing, and sometimes that’s enough.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jade looked rather amused at your question, folding one arm across his chest and holding his chin with the other. “Tried and true advice is the best advice I have to give. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, you never really know who you can trust.” He smiled a bit at you, but you weren’t quite sure how to feel about it. “I’ll be going back to the lounge now. If you require anything from me, I’m simply a call away.” Did having his number make you a friend or an enemy? Did you really want to know?? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Floyd giggles as he turns the chair around to sit in more comfortably, rocking a bit, before your question finally processes and all his excited movement stops and he slumps in his seat. “Awww but that’s so borin’. It’s not like under the sea where if y’don’t like someone you can just y’know…” he draws his hand in a slitting motion across his neck, tilting his head, and making a wretched squelching noise. “Soooo I guess the only advice I can give ya is if someone’s bein’ stupid to ya, call me! I’ll squeeze ‘em reaaaaal good for ya shrimpy!” He rocks in the chair a bit before he gets up. “I ain’t answerin’ any other questions, so ya better be happy with whatchya got.” It was good enough. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kalim was bubbly as ever, but tilted his head like a confused puppy at your words. “Oh um, I don’t really know. I did hear this one saying though that I thought was really pretty and it was like..um well it went like ‘don’t let the shadows of today take away tomorrow’s sunshine’.” He sat, expression rather blank but happy. He looked rather expectant though, as if he was awaiting praise. You smiled a little bit at him and decided to dive in a little further. “What does that mean to you?” He looked a little surprised, but really thought it over for a moment. “Well, everything can’t be great all the time. Things are usually ok at best for a lot of people, most of the time. But dwelling on the mistakes we make isn’t going to make us feel any better, so why hold onto them when we can let them go and be happy?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jamil frowned, shaking his head a bit. “You’re asking me this now? What question are you going to ask everyone else?” He looked rather haggard, but you couldn’t decide if after the whole hostage situation, you thought he deserved it, or if you felt bad for him. You ignored your feelings on the matter for now and sighed. “Everyone’s getting the same question.” “Very well then. My advice is don’t fucking overblot.” You looked up to see a somewhat smug expression. “Ask stupid questions, you get stupid answers. I’m going back to my dorm prefect.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vil was poised and ready as ever. “That’s easy. The only way to ever improve is to practice. Most people say practice makes perfect, but that’s simply not true. If you don’t put your full effort into practicing, if you take short cuts, then you will never reach the level you hope. Perfect practice makes perfect. You must be persistent in achieving greatness; persistence is what sets apart the greats from everyone else. Regardless of what you’re practicing for, whether it’s a role in a movie or to develop patience, the saying remains true.” He smiled a bit and sat up more in his chair. “Was there anything else you wanted to ask me?” You smiled back a bit, finishing writing his response best you could. “Nope, that’s all for now. Thank you Vil.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rook tilted his head a bit and smiled. “Ah, mon trickster, is that all you are looking for? Surely the head mage would not be asking a question of this depth.” He hummed a bit to himself, not really looking for an answer from you- he already knew. “I don’t so much have advice as I do a saying I learned in my time in Pomefiore. There is no rainbow in the soul if there have been no tears in the eyes. Isn’t there such beaute in that? Your soul only grows more beautiful as it does strong when you face hardships, so do not despair when the clouds blur your vision and a downpour slows you in your path. I could simply go on for hou-“ “You really don’t have to Rook, I got the gist….I think. Thank you for your time.” He smiled and tipped his hat politely. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Epel was more prepared than you may have thought, but it was appreciated. "You don't ignore the fuel gauge on a blast cycle when it says its empty. You don't ignore the flashing lights and alerts that let you know when your bike needs something. So apply that to yourself. You need fuel too, so don't wait until you can't go anymore to eat. Don't go until you're so exhausted you break down. Sometimes circumstance makes it difficult, but don't ignore the really big signs that's something's wrong and assume its gonna get better." As if on cue, his stomach rumbled, and he flushed a bit. "That bein' said, my dorm ain't exactly a picnic.  The servin' sizes barely fill me up and peanut butter can work miracles, but not that big. Jack sometimes brings me leftovers from the meals at Savanaclaw, and Deuce sneaks me desserts but it ain't the same as one home cooked meal a' comfort food, y'know?" You nodded apologetically. You refused to get actively involved, but you could offer a fellow freshman a hand. "If you bring ingredients, you can use my kitchen. Just don't get caught. And make me some food too." He looked surprised, then absolutely beamed and laughed softly. "Y'betchya! I'll make sure it's the best damn food y've had in yer life!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Idia’s tablet floated in front of you. There was a drawn-out silence, and you wondered if he was even paying attention behind that screen or not. Finally, he responded. “Just advice in general? Lol why would you ask me? You want gaming advice, reqs, strats, sure then yeah, you could shoot me a text or something I guess but this is just p. stupid. I literally don’t leave my room and I’m a nepo baby what relevant and useful advice could I possibly give to a normie?” “Just give me an answer I can write down Idia, it really doesn’t matter.” “Fine then. Avoid middle schoolers at all costs. I can absolutely destroy newbs in game, but IRL? Those guys can pin down your biggest insecurities in two seconds flat and won’t be afraid to call you out on it.” “You took that from a comedy sketch.” “….shut up, I tried, ok? I guess…..read all the tips on the loading screen of a game when you get the chance. Does that work?” You sighed softly, before giving him a tired smile. “Yeah it’s good enough.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ortho let out a sad sounding beep. “What’s wrong Ortho?” The little robot kicked his feet a bit in his seat, processing. “I’m not human. I could give advice, but it might not apply the way I think it does. I could search for it, but it would not be my advice to give. Even if I said something as simple as ‘do your best’, I don’t know, really, what that means. If I give 100% effort in something, I’m pushing the extents of my hardware and software. I run the risk of overheating. I might hurt myself, and in doing that, waste my brother’s time in making him repair me over something that could have been avoided. I have my “best” programmed into me. A human can push past that discomfort, past that risk if they so wish, and in theory, achieve giving more than their best, or something that would be recorded as an anomaly or outlier in a research setting. I have no advice to give.” He lets out a sound like a sigh and sits cross-legged. “Even when I try to give big brother advice, when he follows it, things seem to go wrong. I don’t think I should be who you ask.” You looked over his defeated looking figure. You couldn’t help but feel empathy for him – clearly this had been on his mind for a while. You set aside your clipboard and held your arms open. “You look like you need a hug.” The little robot looked up surprised, then visible relief flooded his features as he nodded a bit and floated into your arms, hugging you tightly, but took care to not let his hair get too close to you. “Doing your best, regardless of who or what we are is all that matters Ortho. My best on a day-to-day basis fluctuates. Sometimes my best means I got out of bed in the morning. Sometimes my best means I finally do those tasks I’ve been meaning to do for weeks. Sometimes my best means I’m on top of everything, getting things done, and feeling great. Everyone’s best looks a little different, sometimes even within the span of hours. You’re doing great. You have people that care about you and will pick you back up if you need a little self help. While some of your capabilities are limited by programming, your actions are not. You still choose to help where you can. You are kind when you want to be. I think that’s when you’re at your best.” Ortho pulled away, nodding a tiny bit. “I think I understand. Thank you, prefect. I appreciate it.” Even though his mouth was hidden, the wrinkles around his eyes told you he was smiling again as he went on his way. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Malleus seemed intrigued, but a little surprised at your question. He shut his eyes gently as he thought it over. “For the fae, years pass by like seconds. To give advice that would only aid you in growth for the next year seems rather near-sighted, though I suppose for you, that is plenty of time to develop your character.” He hummed softly, trying to think of something he could give you, that wouldn’t be overwhelming. You gave him his time, rather happy in the comfortable silence the two of you were able to sit in. “I suppose I’ve always taken the passage of time for granted. Perhaps that is something I will work on as I set my own goals, though with that comes the advice I wish to impart upon you. Your time is precious. However, the only thing more precious is how you spend it. I only wish for you to be happy, healthy, and successful Child of Man. Ensure that the time you spend with others lifts you up, encourages you, and allows you to grow into your potential. I hope that one day, I will see you grow into your full potential.” He smiles softly, hoping that you catch on that he hopes you’ll include him in that circle of friends that will help you continue growing. However, it’s the wording he used that has you wondering if he has had something to do with why you haven’t been able to go home yet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lilia giggles softly. “Asking for advice from your elders, hm?” He settles in his seat on the ceiling, enjoying the fact that you couldn’t hide a tiny smile from forming from his antics. He pouts thoughtfully and taps his chin. “There’s a lot I could say. Learning to change with time, to live everyday to it’s fullest, to learn to not be afraid to take risks, that there is value in re-evaluating who you’re friends with, that you should follow your heart until your mind screams no, icicles are ideal weapons, you can train crows to sound like humans and then send them after people you hate, develop your vocabulary to the point where if someone makes you mad you make them feel stupid in your response, that you should never swim on an empty stomach, but never go on a roller coaster with a full one, don’t stick metal where it doesn’t belong, never trust where a toddler’s hands have been….I was going somewhere with this.” He paused, spacing out for a moment before shaking his head and coming back to earth to finish what he needed to say.  “Truth be told, I think the most important advice I can give is learn to tell others how you need to be loved. Nobody will ever know what you need, so even if you can’t tell the full extent of what you need, someone close to you will do their best to interpret what you mean to get you what you want. The second step to that then, is to let yourself be loved. You are the only person who sees you in as harsh of a light most people see themselves in. Let other people in to make it better.” He beamed and turned right-side up again. “Will that suffice, prefect?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Silver looked very concentrated, but needed you to repeat the question. He closed his eyes a bit as he thought, but seemed to startle when he opened them again and sighed. “Be grateful for what you do have, what you can do, instead of being upset at your incapabilities…you have other talents…and other traits than mistakes and shortcomings.” He sighed softly, mumbling something under his breath. You couldn’t make out much, but it sounded like something he had heard many times before, himself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sebek puffed his chest out, looking disproportionately proud at being asked for advice, though as soon as he opened his mouth you realized you forgot to set a very important boundary and interjected. “It can’t be about Malleus. At all. Or any specific person for that matter.” Sebek’s shoulders fall a bit and he looks a little annoyed. “You did not specify that BEFORE HAND HUMAN!” “Well I did now, so deal with it.” “FINE! I will share with you something that has been shared with me often. It’s-“ “Please your inside voice?” “THAT WAS NOT WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY.” “I bet you hear it a lot though.” “THAT IS IRRELEVANT. NOW BE QUIET SO I CAN COMPLETE THIS TASK, BENEATH ME AS IT IS, THAT I MAY LEAVE YOU TO YOUR PATHETIC UNDERLING WORK FOR THE HEADMAGE!” You didn’t justify that with an answer, just gestured with your hand for him to get on with it. He cleared his throat a bit and tried to calm down a little. “I was going to say…the more challenging a conflict, the more glorious the triumph. You mustn’t forget to allow yourself to be proud of what you have achieved. While your conflicts and mine may vary in how difficult they are, it does not change the fact that on an individual basis, we must acknowledge the effort we put in to overcome them.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grim sat across from you, his tail swishing curiously side to side, his head tilted and eyes wide before he grinned widely. “Course ya want advice from the Great Grim? Now listen up hench human, ‘m only gonna say it once so ya better make sure y’write it all down, got it?” You nodded a bit, trying to downplay your smile a bit at the toddler-like energy your companion emanated. He stood up on his chair, pacing back and forth a little bit like a drill sergeant. “Never eat expired tuna. If you’re really that hungry, no YA AIN’T. If ya need something from the tallest shelf, climbin’ on the counter is sturdier than any chair in Ramshackle. Sneaking food from the cafeteria works real well if your cheeks are big enough to store it!... And if ya don’t eat it as you’re tryin’ to make a break for it. Ace’s most ticklish area is behind his ear, which is why he always pushes me off when my fur rubs up against him when I’m on his shoulders. If ya ever need me to bug’m, let me know! I think that’s all I got for now.” He stopped and placed his paw on his chin in thought, before one more thing came to mind and he hopped over to you, pushing his face gently against yours. “Oh yeah. ‘Nd don’t forget t’tell the people y’care about they mean somethin’ to ya, in one way or another, 'kay?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ivesambrose]

2023 𝓜𝓮𝓼𝓼𝓪𝓰𝓮𝓼 🫧

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HAPPY NEW YEAR and my new year gift to you all. You thought I'd forget huh? 😉

Choose the gif / gifs you feel intuitively pulled towards the most ✨

To book a personal reading with me DM or email me at jovescorpioreadings@gmail.com with your name and query 🌙

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Winter & new years readings

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Gif 1

Themes :

Expansion, learning and exploration.

Messages :

You'll be feeling a lot more youthful and playful compared to the previous months. Like you've been serious and taking things to heart for so long and feeling like Eustace Bagge from Courage the cowardly dog most of the time but now you feel more like Bugs Bunny. This is the best analogy I can give.

Its your turn to inspire the people around you or those who get to meet you this year.

Some of you might pick up cooking as a hobby or profession or would want to start experimenting with recipes at home or better eating in general instead of eating out.

You'll be showered with compliments a lot this year so if anyone tries to dull your shine you know it's irrelevant.

You'll have some decisions to make in terms of career / study opportunities and you will feel indecisive at first as to which is the better option but trust in yourself to choose the best one.

You'll be getting out more or would simply be on your way to something that leads to a lot of financial bliss.

Things will take off soon and suddenly maybe even sudden travel plans and receiving everything at once that might seem overwhelming and you might get anticipation anxiety, certain jitters or just worrying about what's ahead or even improper sleep. But things will be alright. Keep your focus on the bigger picture.

Make that vision board for the love of God.

Romantically you'll have really high standards. Yet I see you nitpicking yourself. Stop that! (pretty please) I do see you being offered love by someone head over heels for you but you'll take your time opening up and be fixated on yourself and your goals for the most part so perhaps a slow burn in that department or you'll just relish in finding a sense of yourself and the career you've always wanted this year.

Gif 2

Themes :

Dreams, imagination, subconscious, spirituality.

Messages :

You'll be focused on the positive and positive only. Seeing things in your favour. Feeling more optimistic, manifesting friends with the same mindset and in turn finding more clarity. I see that some of you have literally put your foot down and decided that, "nope. Show me how good it can get."

You've matured so much and are at this point rather unfazed by the ups and downs life throws at you. You've always made or will be making peace with yourself. That you don't need to plaster a label on your personality and niche yourself down to be more palatable. You're a mix and match of several things and that's perfectly okay.

You may inherent some wealth. Some of you might move to a new house or redecorate your house in a way you've always wanted. You'll feel like you've achieved something tangible this year that you're really proud of.

There may be a moment where you look back at the past and judge yourself harshly. Please refrain from dwelling in this.

You'll be educating yourself on a certain topic you feel drawn to. Possible topics I'm seeing : how your subconscious works, neuroscience, mythology, language, music, skin (dermatology or cosmetology)

I see you letting go of your sorrows because you have faith that what's yours won't pass you by.

A lot of vivid dreams and possible precognitions. Learning to lucid dream as well.

Romantically I'm sensing there's someone that matches your energy. They will end up being your muse or you'll end up being theirs. You'll grow closer when you least expect it even though you'll intuitively see it coming.

Gif 3

Themes :

Overcoming a dark night of the soul, curiosity, collaborations and connections.

Messages :

Oh you're walking away. Literally. People, places, situations, mindsets, mostly manipulation. It's like you finally decided to pack up and leave and the right opportunity showed up for you to do it. I see relief after grief.

You may be managing two jobs/income sources/multiple daily life things. At first it might be difficult but you'll soon get the hang of it and also find time for yourself.

I see some of you getting into skincare and wellness. Even fragrances? Things that make you feel calm and are therapeutic. You have neglected yourself for a long time so now that you've finally decided to make yourself priority little things like this feel like therapy almost. As if you're pretending to be in a vouge beauty secrets video just for yourself.

I would like to remind you, if no one has. I'm very proud of you.

There will be a lot of boundaries you'll establish this year. Be mindful not to end up being too sharp tounged to people who really do mean well. Not everyone is out to get you.

Things are changing this year and even if this change feels uncomfortable due to its newness. Its something you've been wanting. Also, improved finances. Sudden windfall even. Making the right connections that lead you to your own growth be it personal growth or growth in business or otherwise. By the end of the year you'll feel like you have more than enough. That you don't need to feel on the edge all the time. Like the bright sunny morning has finally come after a long stormy night.

Gif 4

Themes :

Self expression, travel, foreign cultures and strength.

Messages :

I can hear Freddie Mercury sing, "I want to break free." loud and clear near my ears.

I see you rebranding and reconstructing yourself. It reminds me of Maxine looking at the mirror and saying, "I will not accept a life I do not deserve."

I actually see that something that has been challenging for you suddenly just being swept away. Like you really don't have to physically exhert yourself so much. Drop the baggage my loves. Not yours to carry this year.

Its okay to manifest or seek the easiest ways. Simplify things for yourself.

I see a lot of you just realizing your worth and falling in love with yourself. Looking the way you want, dressing the way you want, courting yourself and taking yourself out on dates to the point your standard is you yourself. Honestly? Truly? Love that for you.

You'll be very determined. Like nothing stands in between you and your desires. You know what is yours. Period.

You'll realize how a simple perspective shift and not forcing yourself to do something or reacting is the key to getting what you want.

Some of you will love to document moments for yourself a lot. Maybe invest in a Polaroid camera or digital or point and shoot camera for yourself.

There's so much creative spark around you, I just see you going at with no desire for perfection. Simply fun.

You'll reap your rewards especially monetary. And have several projects to look forward to. One symbol that might follow you are spiders or spider webs or little stars when something good is about to happen.

Romantically? Oh you will be pursued alright but why am I getting y'all just don't pick up on hints? I'm literally hearing the song Loco by Itzy for y'all. So you'll be having an impact on maybe many people but you'll be oblivious to it. I think you're choosing peace and harmony so you'll rather want to be around who feels the same and go with the flow.

If you're already taken I just see more harmony and cooperation in your existing relationship.