#Asks and Replies

[cokoweee]

This is how I see u

This is the most accurate depiction of me ever

Yall im just shadow the motherfuckin hedgehog

[lilbeanz]

(might be spoilery, so you don’t have to answer)

Since you’ve reached Book 5 of HP, have there been any plot-points you were nervous to tackle or any plot-points you wished you could’ve added? Also! So far, which character has been the easiest for you to write for, and which one the hardest? 🤓

These are such good questions. I had to spend a long time pondering this ask...

I was nervous about how people would react to the climax of Horror of the Heir - tackling the possession and the diary.

I was extremely nervous about tackling the twist on the Triwizard Cup and Barty Crouch Jr.

(I'm very nervous about how ppl will react to what I've got planned for the climax of Black Family Curse ahhh)

I also wish I'd had the capacity I did now at the beginning. At the beginning, my average chapter was 3-5k long, and kept close to the exact original plot. Now they are 8-10k long. The first book was only 37k in total.

I wish I could've spent more time exploring the story and just vibing with the characters' shenanigans as they developed.

For example, I wish I'd spent more time fleshing out the Durmstrang students, etc...

For your second question, I find each character fun to interpret and write (except maybe Warrington) but Draco's bratty internal monologue just comes to me like an astral projection dfghjkl

And actually, so far I've found Umbridge the hardest to write for. Her portrayal across the different medias are so different -- in the books, she's petulant and speaks baby talk, acting like a little girl with a horrific temper. In the films, she's much more refined and much less slimy.

And in A Very Potter Musical she's -

Thank you for the ask 🥰🩷

[dysfunctional-doodle]

all Leo’s are fruits until proven otherwise

They’re goofy, socially awkward sci-fi nerds on the inside lol. I love the idea of 2003 Leo in particular having this strong and cold exterior to people he meets but his bros are like “nah he spent 4 hours building the Lego Millennium Falcon yesterday and then fell asleep wrapped in his Dr Who blanket, he’s chill.”

[monstersholygrail]

Saw ur recent repost of that dragon couple...! Don't get me started on Dragons omygahhh 😖🥰😫💞🫦 My first loves into monster fuckin, esp that man w/ the horns, yis pls *bows with head down and hands folded* I beg

RAAAAAAA

OMG YES

I love dragons, I could yap about them forever istg. And I honestly fear we may be in the same boat. A dragon was definitely one of my first loves in regards to monster fucking. They’re just so hot. And their voices are always so rumbly and hmmm I’m obsessed

Plus, yes, you make such a good point!! The horns are always a veryyyy nice touch. But I do have to say my favorite are the wings. I’ve always been obsessed with winged creatures of all kinds, especially fantasy. Then finding out that some people make the base of wings sensitiveeeee

Ahhwkfjwockkekc. I’m gone.

I’ll bow my head and then pull it back… then bow it again. And you get where I’m going with this??? 😏

[harmleikurdraws]

Not sure if you’re taking requests, but…..Would you consider drawing something with Bruce and Damian being adorable together? 🥹🥹

Please enjoy

[aspecmemesdaily]

Hi have a meme I made

Have a good day

I love it! Thank you for sharing it.

Day 150

[rainbow-neko-artblog]

So I’m guessing we’re all chipping in to feed the kids, its gonna be expensive

It’s gonna be a weird day for the Food workers

Found family trope but make is SUPER weird for everyone involved.

[cokowiii]

Idk, I just wanted to share this random thought I had at like 3 am last night somewhere with anyone, so as my favorite Tumblr blog, you get the pleasure of seeing it ig

Rise!Leo/Rise!Donnie: Motherless behavior.

12!Mikey: We're not motherless!

prob 12!Raph or 12!Leo: Mikey, don't..

12!Mikey: *shows that empty mutagen container he kept calling mom* See!

Rise turtles: Wut–

I’m no good at drawing the 2012 turtles but this was too good not to draw

[strangerhottotties]

Just an Eddie thought. Him calling reader Girl Scout or something similar after realizing why they know all these knots that are definitely not used for their intended purpose…

Not me immediately researching knots and rigging 🤣🤣🤣

The first time it captures his attention is in the upside down, or right before you come out.

"Shit!" Dustin curses for the forth time, trying to tie the sheets together above you. You watch the sheets slip apart as the yank, not holding at all.

"Dustin! Throw them over here!" You finally demand through the chorus of groaning. Dustin glances up at you.

"I can do it!" He yells.

"Dustin! It is cold, and gross, and slimy over here! Throw me the goddamn sheets or so help me, I will climb through it without it and you do not want that!"

Dustin yeilds halfway through your speech, using Lucas to help him haul all the sheets up and throw them through in balls of fabric. Eddie watches with amusement as you don't even stall once, dropping into a low squat to retrieve them. Your immediately not just tying the ends together, but using real knots.

It's a practiced motion. You've done this, he thinks, more than once. There's no hesitation and in under ten seconds you have the first two sheets linked together.

Eddie tilts his head as he watches you tug them tight and slide to the next knot. You barely even looking, still paying avid attention to the conversation around and contributing. You are sparing glances at your hands but in under a minute your launching the rope of sheets into the air and Eddie is wondering to himself, exactly how you knew how to do that.

"Good job, girl scout," he comments and in the dim lighting, he watches as your cheeks darken.

"Uh, yeah. Thanks." You reply, avoiding eye contact.

Eddie knows in that moment. He doesn't have solid evidence, but he knows. You're either a rigger or a rope bunny. At least until everyone's trying to find something in Eddie's music collection that he catches you staring at the cuffs slung on the wall.

It's inopportune to ask further questions for well... nearly the whole day it ate him. And then when he was hot wiring that RV... oh, did he see the way you were looking at him. That far away look in your eyes, he caught in the wide rear view mirror, made him flash pearly whites your way.

When Eddie hops up to allow Steve to drive, climbing into the back he makes a beeline to the seat you're in. As Steve pulls out Eddie's dropping down beside you, and the rough run out of the trailer park has you toppling right into Eddie's lap.

"Sorry! Shit!" You squeak in a way that goes south in the best possible way for Eddie.

"S'okay, Girl Scout," he purrs in your ear. He eats the flustered glare you give him right up as Steve evens the rig out on the road.

"Stop calling me that," you hiss, "I'm not a girl scout."

"Oh," he tells you with a malicious grin, "I know." He leans into your ear. You blink owlishly at him, and loves to watch your face go all horrorish and flushed pink. "But, uh, when this whole thing is over... You'll have to show me the, uh, other knots you know."

"Oh," you repeat and after a beat of silence, "okay," is your response. For a moment, Eddie thinks the universe might be balancing out for all the shit that it's slinging at him.

He spends the rest of the ride to the store with his hand on your thigh.

[cokoweee]

I appreciate that Donnie doesn't actually wear his prosthetic fingers that often. A lot of times it's so much more comfortable to not wear disability aids and it's just nice to see

Doesn’t really need them when he’s home since all he does is sit around and mope

[starrysnowdrop]

Heyo! So I happened to see your recent ask response regarding Zenos randomly, and, honestly, I'm kind of curious on what people miss about his character! I'm not a personal big fan of him(ngl he kind of creeped me out with his, projecting himself on the wol it felt like? Note I say that as a WHM main who plays as truly heroic WoL(s) most of the time admittedly, so most of his stuff made me go no? alot XD I don't mind people who do like him tho! They're cool!), but I'm interested in understanding him better if possible, cause I know I miss things that others don't and I don't think I've seen anyone explain his intricacies without being somewhat rude about it, but you explained what you did without coming off as that. So I'm kind of curious on that essay you almost wrote if you'd be alright writing it XD (Sorry for being on anon, I am, very shy qwq)

In case you’re not familiar with what this anon is asking about, this is in response to my answer to this ask HERE. Feel free to go read that one and come back!

So, I first want to say thank you for being brave enough to reach out to me about this, even on anon!! I’m really glad that you didn’t find my comments to be rude, as that is the very last thing that I would want! If anyone did find me too abrasive in my previous post above, then I wholeheartedly apologize for that. I would never want anyone to be afraid to reach out to me because I came off as rude at some point, so I appreciate you letting me know that you didn’t think I was. 💖

Alright, now let’s get to the topic at hand: Zenos, and why I truly think that he is the most misunderstood character in FFXIV.

Zenos: The Most Misunderstood Character in FFXIV

((I wrote way too much, so it’s under the cut.))

Alright, so let’s start with what I have seen as the popular take on Zenos that I see as wrong: A lot of players see Zenos as a one dimensional character that has no depth, and doesn’t have a character arc in which he grows as a character. They see him as the annoying antagonist who has a battle boner for the WoL and that’s it. They only see his bloodlust and nothing else. They don’t think there is anything else to him, and that’s where I must strongly disagree.

So, how is he not a one dimensional character? Well, that’s because he really is a complex character, but you need to be paying close attention to what Zenos is actually saying and what his actions are throughout the story.

One can piece together Zenos’ complexity purely from watching the cutscenes, but just in case anyone is curious about going into more depth on his backstory, then I highly recommend that you go read his side story from the Chronicles of Light book entitled “The Hunt Begins”. It shows how Zenos was raised, and it reinforces why he thinks the way that he does.

Without going into his backstory too much, for brevity's sake, Zenos is actually a prodigy, someone who was born with not only incredible strength, but also incredible intelligence, and you know what happens when gifted kids don't get enough of a challenge? Yup, they get easily bored. So keep that in mind as we move along. Now, mix that boredom with a good dose of Anhedonia, or the inability to experience pleasure or joy. Now we aren't sure if he was born with Anhedonia, or if he acquired it through some mental health condition, such as PTSD, depression, etc. I'm no psychologist whatsoever, so I'm not here to diagnose Zenos with any particular disorder, but it is clear that he suffers from the lack of feeling joy or pleasure in his life.

This is actually what characterizes Zenos the most when we first are introduced to him in 4.0; he is suffering from Anhedonia AND Ennui, which according to Webster's Dictionary, is not just a feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction, but its a profound sense of boredom that arises from feeling jaded with one's life.

Zenos is suffering from a lack of joy and pleasure in his life, seeing the world as meaningless and dull, and he has found only one sole pleasure in all of it: The Hunt*. But what he means by The Hunt, is that he wants to fight the most challenging foes, challenging enough that he must put his all into the battle and be pushed to the brink of death. Only this kind of challenging battle will give him any sense of joy at all. For him at this point, there has been nothing else which has brought him joy, so he seeks out this sole pleasure.

And THAT is what Zenos' motivation is. He is not mindless in his pursuit of battle. His bloodlust stems from the desire to feel some kind of happiness at all, and unlike what some might think, not any foe will do. Zenos does not fight mindlessly against anyone at any time. That is not true. If an enemy is no threat to him, unless they purposely get in his way, he will not fight them.

This is true from the first time you see Zenos on the battlefield. At Rhalgr's Reach, Zenos sought out only the strongest fighters there, and two of them (Lyse and Y'shtola) got in his way first, and he defeated them easily. When he fights the WoL, the one who he has heard so much about, and definitely the strongest opponent among them, he becomes curious and hopes that we will give him what he wants. But in that first battle with him, he swats the WoL away like a fly, and they pose no challenge to him at all, to which he calls them "Pathetic", and then he immediately leaves, ultimately disappointed.

Note that Zenos had every opportunity to kill Lyse, Y’shtola, and the WoL if he wanted to, but he doesn’t. He leaves them alone after he defeats them. That’s not the sign of someone who is so sadistic that he’s only out for blood. The fact of the matter here is that Zenos is trying to feel something from battle, something that he has never experienced before: pure joy.

Zenos doesn’t experience this joy until he fights the WoL again several times; first he gets just a hint of it, a tiny spark, when the WoL breaks a piece of his helmet off, and he feels it even more later on when Zenos fights the WoL in the Ala Mhigan throne room. This is when Zenos goes into his monologue before he releases and takes over Shinryu, and note that the joy and pleasure he is describing seems to have a sexual tone to it, which I promise I have a point to make about that in a bit.

After the battle with Zenos as Shinryu, he finally feels the joy that he has never felt in his entire life, and because he doesn’t think he’ll ever feel anything like it ever again, Zenos takes his own life, happy to have played a bit part in the story of his “first friend”.

But as we know, Zenos doesn’t stay dead. He finds himself alive once more, and he has a singular goal: to feel that pure bliss, that overwhelming joy that he felt when he fought the WoL in the Royal Menagerie in Ala Mhigo. From ShB through EW, Zenos’ goal doesn’t change, but he does change in his understanding of what it means to have a “friend” and how he can feel happiness.

During EW, Zenos has several scenes where his understanding of his feelings seems to grow, and though that sexual tone to his descriptions of what he’s feeling towards his battle with the WoL is still there, I would argue that over time, it seems to have more and more of a romantic tone to it as well. And with this shift in his tone when describing his feelings, he also seems to question his understanding of it all.

Zenos’ character growth is the whole point of two very important scenes: the Scions and Jullus encountering Zenos in Garlemald while fighting the blasphemies, and later when Zenos goes to the Royal Menagerie alone. The first of these scenes reinforces the themes of EW with Zenos’ philosophy of life, but it is also the first time that someone says something that makes Zenos question his beliefs.

Alisaie’s words to Zenos hit him hard, and Zenos goes back to the Royal Menagerie, to the scene of where he had his one transcendent moment, his one time in his life when he felt joy, pleasure, and happiness. He realizes in this moment that, whatever you believe Zenos’ true feelings are for the WoL, which I personally argue that it is love that he feels for them, but regardless, Zenos cannot continue to be selfish and only think about his own wants and desires. He must act selflessly, and assist in the WoL’s battle against the Endsinger and stop the Final Days, in order for the WoL to give him what he wants in return. He finally realizes that it’s this give and take, this reciprocation between people, is the key to building bonds with others… Zenos finally learns what it is to be a “friend” to someone. After this moment, Zenos goes to Sharlayan to find a way to help out the WoL in their mission to save the star, and to finally be a friend to them.

And you know what that is? That’s growth. That’s having a character arc. That’s Zenos in all of his complexity. Which I still say that it’s perfectly fine to not like his character, but I only wish that people would not like him with a clear understanding of what he really is, and not what others think he is.

Alright, I think I have blabbed on long enough, but I hope that I have answered your question anon! If you need me to clarify anything further, please don’t hesitate to ask me! Thank you so much for your ask anon, and thank you to all who have read this! 💖

[lilbeanz]

Not really an ask, more of a personal observation but I love how Draco likes to feel tall at all times 😭😭 he keeps standing on tables and from the recent promo art of book 5 he's wearing HEELS

Like damn boy you're already tall af no need to add those extra inches 😭 Harry's gonna have to physically turn his head up to look at Draco by the end of JODT ☠️

Omg how did you know that was my master plan all along?????😳

[dysfunctional-doodle]

Imagine: all the Leo’s trying (and failing) to help Casey jr with math homework or something.

They’re learning as they go along.

They refuse help from Donnie.

“MATH IS MATH”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY CHANGED IT”

I always have this hc that 2003 Leo is very collected and level headed until he just isn’t. I wrote about it a bit in Too Many Turtles, but think of him playing something like Mario Party. One too many stars stolen from him results in him very suddenly and abruptly launching a Wii Remote into the stratosphere before resuming his calm persona.

[monstersholygrail]

Do you make money every time you use the words "gummy walls" in your (amazing btw) stories

Would this be considered a backhanded compliment?

Genuinely don’t know how to take this

But if you’d like me to use something else you can surely pay me to do that instead. I take commissions <3

[harmleikurdraws]

cozy request ??! if u still do requests

dick and jason sleepy after a patrol

or after a long fight (over alfred’s cookies)

There will never be peace.

[aspecmemesdaily]

Okay, this isn't a meme, I just want to share a little story from a couple years ago-

I was in school, in the auditorium for Chorus class, minding my own business and doing an assignment, and this girl who sat next to me started to ask me about who I liked. She had done this multiple times before and I had enough. So I snapped and said: "the only crush I have is crushing anxiety so leave me alone, okay?" And I sat in a different area of the auditorium so I could do my work without needing to deal with her bullshit.

Anon that is hands down the BEST answer to that annoying question I've ever heard! I'm totally stealing it if you let me!