#GREAT QUESTIONS THANK YOU!!!

[setacin]

"she's dead scar.... you won."

my cosplay of scar's secret life red life skin!

[lavendarneverlands]

put 5 songs you listen to, post it, then send this ask to 10 of your favorite followers <333

Thank you so much lovely🫶🫶🫶

Oh goodness this is a hard question because I like way too many songs😂 though I am a huge Swiftie & since I’ve on my TOG binge have been listening to a lot of fan playlists so let’s let my history decide🤣 these have been in a heavy rotation:

“Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” by Taylor Swift

“Red Wine Supernova” by Chappell Roan

“Please Please Please” by Sabrina Carpenter

“Blonde” by Maisie Peters

“Can’t Catch Me Now” by Olivia Rodrigo

@impossibelle @iwantavaldezinator @idfendyr @shadowhunters77 @archerons-elain @cheap-spirits @maevecrom @endlessdaydream @somethingsomewhereanywhere @korepio

p.s. as always, no pressure tags :-) 💕

(Heads up for some tags: this is my main account, the side-blog ur probably used to seeing (as I’m more active) is @acourtofquestions I have a terrible habit of mixing up pages/conversations; so if ur going “who tagged me?” it’s just me lol)

[callisteios]

I have a new uquiz for you, go on a pilgrimage with me. discover who you are.

[buttdumplin]

Spoiling Kyle. He needs to know how loved he is.

cw: Gaz x reader, latine!reader, transmasc!reader, established relationship, bdsm dynamics, praise, spanish terms of endearment, reader's genitals are referred to as "cock," “dick,” and "pussy", oral & anal (Kyle receiving), please let me know if i've missed anything! word count: 3958

“Repeat the rules back to me, please.”

“I move and you stop, hands to myself,” Kyle responds, each word breathier than the last.

“That’s right, mi vida,” you smile down at him, hand gently caressing the curve of his ass, light fingers trailing over the seam of where his thigh meets the plush of his cheeks. He can’t see you with his face buried into the bedding under him, his ass high in the air for you, but the honey in your voice is enough to have him arching deeper. “Always so beautiful, Kyle.”

His thighs tremble with the force of holding himself still, thick muscle twitching, and the sweat along his back glitters in the low light of the bedroom. You can hear him swallow loudly before he speaks, “You’ll undress too?”

Your hands continue to roam, keeping touches light to test his stillness, “Would you like me to?”

Kyle nods as eagerly as he can with his face crushed to the bed, hands flexing open and closed in concentration. You keep an eye on him as you shed your clothes, using the moment to also pull your box of equipment for the night from under the nightstand and onto the bed.

“So good, speaking up, telling me what you want,” the warmth of your words has him practically keening, his cock hanging heavy between his thighs. You reach down to give him a slow tug with your hand and his breathing stutters, precum blooming and dripping to stain the bed. He arches just a tiny bit deeper as he feels you position your body behind him, not enough for it to count as movement, but to present himself more fully to you. “Want to spoil you rotten,” you breathe into his skin as you nip at his ass, inching closer to his hole with open-mouth kisses. 

You’ve only just started and already he’s so lost in the sensations, his body heaving with every breath, his lips parted for the little moans you pry from him. It’s a fucking blessing to have such a gorgeous man splayed out like this in front of you, and an even bigger gift to know he’s yours. Tonight, you’re determined to make him feel just how appreciated he is, how loved, how wanted.

“Color?” you pause, your mouth a hair’s breadth away from his sweet hole. The way it twitches makes your heart swell and your pussy drip.

“Green. Very green.”

You reward him with a slow lick, your tongue held broad against his flesh, and a guttural sound rips from his mouth. His cock is so hard you can feel the deep throb of it in your palm. When he quiets down a little, you give another lick. He shudders under you and this time you don’t wait for him to still. Lick after lick, your hand working his length, you take in every little sound Kyle makes. Every sigh, every whimper, every stuttered breath. You can’t help but smile against his skin, proud of the joy he’s getting out of this. 

Once he’s pliant under you, his body rocking gently to keep pace with your mouth, you begin to push your tongue into him. Half a laugh escapes him, and he instinctively pushes against you for more. He’s too fucking delicious to be punished for it, so you let out a little hum against him, appreciating the way he grinds into your hand.

“Don’t need to hold back, sweetheart,” it comes out jumbled, but you don’t care, you just need to delve deeper into him with your tongue.

“Can’t,” his voice raw, “Wanna feel you.”

You move your hand to cup his balls, gently squeezing and tugging, “You will. Not stopping at one.”

With that, Kyle relaxes further into the bedding, inching his thighs further apart to give you more access. Again, you push deeper, thrusting into him with your thick tongue and only pulling back out to swirl and caress. The slick sounds of your hand on his cock only get louder with the spit running down from your mouth and all the precum he’s producing. It’s lovely, the wet clicking of your touch and the deepening moans falling from his mouth.

You feel him stiffen further, so close to orgasm, broken sobs bursting out of him. So when his hand reaches around to press your face deeper into him, you take the instruction. Pushing your tongue as deep as it will go, you focus on stroking him all the way through, reveling in the way the man jerks and trembles under you. Kyle is loud as he cums, his moaning long and drawn out, drowning in the feel of your hand on his cock and your tongue in his ass. His ears ring a little bit from the force of his orgasm, the world muted around him, his panting the only sound existing. You gently remove yourself from him, letting him collapse on his side, knees too weak to support him.

“Color?” your own voice rough as you lick your hand clean.

Kyle lays there for a moment, not saying a word, eyes zeroed in on your mouth and fingers, heavy breaths moving his chest. 

“Kyle?”

“Green.”

“Thank you.”

He reaches for you, bringing you down to lay next to him. Taking care to cover the wet spot on the bedding with his own body, he pulls you into him, seeking your warmth in his glow. You cradle his head against your chest, peppering his forehead with kisses and compliments. 

“Did so good. What a beautiful boy. So lovely and sweet.”

He melts against you, letting the quiet take over for a moment. It’s a pleasant near-silence you both inhabit, the only sounds coming from your ragged breathing and the quiet static of skin brushing against skin. A giggle escapes you when you notice he’s still hard.

“Ready for the next one?”

Kyle nods. His hand snakes down your side, over the curve of your hip, staring at your visibly hard cock, but you stop him before he can reach your pussy. You giggle again at the whimper he lets out.

“Tonight is about you, precioso. We’ll get there later.”

He looks up at you with such hopeful eyes that you can’t help but kiss him. Those sweet lips greet you eagerly, following your motions in adoration, tongue peeking out to seek yours. He groans at the taste, his chest rumbling with affection. He’ll never get enough of you, of the taste of you. And when it’s combined with his? It’s evidence of you two coming together, how could he not love it. 

You break from his hold, your kisses drifting over his jaw and down the column of his throat. The quick little nips you give there have him gasping. With a dip to the side, you bring your mouth to the stretchmarks on his chest and shoulders, tracing the pattern with your lips, teeth gently scraping. Your path continues down, your tongue laving at the curve of his tits, mouth wrapping first around one nipple and then the other. You take your time there, sucking, biting, teasing with your tongue until you see his shaking hands flutter to clutch at the bedding, the stunted jerk of his hips rocking your body. His nipples are swollen and tender by the time you raise your head, and you can’t help but smile at him, reveling in his grunt as you reach up to roll his left nipple with your fingers. 

“Such a wonderful boy.”

Following the lovely trail of hair, you make your way down his body, kissing and licking and biting, savoring the salt of his skin. A compliment sprouts from your lips each time he makes a sound because he’s so good, so pretty, taking all this love so well. Kyle can barely keep his hands to himself when your mouth reaches his hip, his fingers twisting into the bedding, the warmth of his panting breaths hitting you. You nuzzle into the dip of where his thigh meets his hip and bite at the lush fat of his body, not hard enough to leave a mark, but hard enough for him to wish you had. One of his hands lifts towards you, and you freeze as it comes closer. The pause is enough for him to remember, groaning as he pulls his hand back. 

Kneeling between his legs, your elbows nudge at his knees to open wider, and he immediately obliges. You take a moment to look at him. He’s fucking stunning. His eyes are a little glazed over, moving over your body in anticipation. Those lips you love so much are swollen from your kisses, spit slick making them shine. All along his body, you can see little patches of raised bumps on his skin, temporary marks of where your teeth sunk in with love. His cock jerks at your attention, weeping precum. Little shivers wrack his body, the motion of his breathing making the sweat coating him glisten.

“How did I ever get so lucky?”

Before he can say anything, you bend to take Kyle’s length into your mouth, as deep as you can manage. A choked sound spills from him at the warmth of your mouth, his cock gently following the curve of your throat as you take him deeper. You lift up, gently suckling, to see a dreamy smile on his face. It doesn’t stay for long, his lips falling open with another moan as you continue to bob, tongue swirling around the tip every time you rise. Your hand wraps around the length you can’t reach, stroking in rhythm. When his thighs start quivering, you release him with a soft pop of your mouth, much to his dismay, please please please pouring from him.

“I got you, cariño.”

A quick reach into the box next to you and you’ve got lube to coat the fingers of your free hand. Kyle, knowing exactly where this is going, spreads his thighs even wider. Bringing his cock back to your mouth, you gently lick at the tip, refusing to waste a single drop. Your other hand moves lower, gently sinking a single finger into him. He stills, his breath catching, until you slowly start working your finger in and out of him. 

You keep your mouth on him as you work him open, gently adding a second finger and then a third when he’s ready. His hands flutter at his sides, clearly struggling to keep them to himself. Each moan he releases, each gasp and choked breath, makes your pussy gush with need. You might be leaving a little wet spot of your own soon. But when you look up at him, his head thrown back against the pillow, his shoulders shaking with the effort of holding himself back, you can’t seem to care about anything else.

When you finally feel he’s relaxed enough around your fingers, you curl them just a fraction, brushing against his prostate and making his hips jerk. You press a little harder and he clenches around you, his hips bucking up, thrusting deeper into your mouth. He mutters out broken apologies as you repeat the motion over and over again, unable to control his body anymore. You’d tell him his apologies aren’t necessary, that he’s free to take as much as he wants, but you’re too focused on sucking, giving his needy slit extra attention.

Reluctantly, you release him, the wet smack of his cock hitting his belly loud in the room. He lets out a long whine as you gently ease your fingers out of him. 

“Color?”

His answer is immediate and breathless, “GREEN.”

You can’t keep the smile from your face as you reach into the box again, this time pulling out your hand harness and the small blue dildo he loves so much, curved to hit his prostate. The smile Kyle throws at you in response is devastating, eyes soft and his bottom lip snagged on his tooth as he bites it. Strapping the harness into place, you straddle his thigh for a better angle. His eyes widen as you take your seat on his thigh, the position allowing him to feel just how wet you are for him, your cock throbbing against him. You wink at him, coating the dildo with a generous amount of lube.

You move slowly as you push the dildo into him, pausing every couple of seconds to let him adjust. Your other hand continues to work his length from root to tip, slipping down every now and then to cradle his balls as you know he likes. His hips rock the smallest amount, trying to take more, and you can’t find it in yourself to mention it. He’s been so good, so patient, he deserves to feel good. Once the toy is fully seated in him, your fingers curling beneath him, your blunt nails biting into the swell of his ass, you pause so you can both catch your breath. 

Kyle cups your jaw with one hand, turning you to face him, “I’m okay.” 

He strokes your lips, slipping his thumb into the warmth of your mouth. You suckle eagerly, rewarding him with a thrust of your hand, your wrist moving to make sure you hit his prostate. His whole body jolts with pleasure, your first couple of tentative thrusts hitting all the right spots. You know you’ve set the perfect pace when he lifts his hands to tease his nipples. Keeping your motions steady, you watch him writhe beneath you, his back arched in ecstasy, his head tossing from one side to the other, his tummy covered in the precum leaking out of him. One last check in and he replies with a chant of greengreengreen. You could cum untouched at the sight of him.

You scoot a little lower and bend, your mouth at his cock again, tongue running up the underside before allowing yourself to fully take him into your mouth. When you wrap your lips around him, you feel a hand come to rest lightly on the back of your head. He doesn’t push you or hold you, he just wants to follow the rhythm you’ve set, hand and mouth moving in tandem. Riding it out, he does his best to hold on, not wanting this to end even as you push him higher and higher towards a blinding orgasm. You glance at him quickly only to find him already searching for eye contact, unrestrained moans erupting from him. A grin breaks out on Kyle’s face as he lifts his knee to grind it against your soaked pussy, the pressure making you groan around his cock in your mouth and grind your dick against him. You both buck into each other, the sensations heightened. 

“Dámelo, mi amor,” voice whiney, practically begging him for his cum. 

He tenses at your words, you can feel him clenching down on the toy in your hand, his balls drawing up tight in warning. His grunts grow sharper, clearly holding himself off to make this last just a little longer. With a tiny twist to your wrist, you have his mouth falling open. You take him deeper into your mouth with a hard suck, and that’s all he needs. His cum floods your mouth, threatening to spill out the corners with how much he’s releasing, but you’re not wasting a drop. You’ve worked for this, you’re swallowing it all. You keep both your hand and mouth moving as he grips your shoulder to keep you from pulling away. You follow your orders, not withdrawing until he’s hissing with oversensitivity. 

Easing away slowly, you drop one last sweet kiss on the head of his cock. Kyle waits until you put your equipment aside to maneuver you over him, sitting up to wrap you in his arms and plant a heady kiss on your lips. You eagerly welcome his tongue, knowing he’s searching for traces of himself, loving the taste of his cum in your mouth. As his breathing evens out a little, and yours quickens with the intensity of the kiss, you break apart. 

“Good?” a little bit of self-consciousness creeps into you. 

“Heavenly,” he replies in between the kisses he leaves all over your face.

Encased in this bubble of intimacy, you both soothe each other for a while, hands lovingly running over skin, love-struck chuckles bursting out every now and then. Eyes lock a couple times as a check-in, joyful grins serving as affirmative answers. This could be the perfect end to the night, but Kyle has other ideas.

His touches, as calming as they are tracing patterns on your skin, wander lower. One of his hands makes it down to gently cup you. You want to tell him that you’re fine, that he doesn’t have to do anything, but a sharp hunger in his eyes silences you before you speak.

“This is still for me,” his tone possessive as he slides his fingers between your folds. “So fucking wet, so hard, just for me.”

You can’t stop him. You don’t want to stop him. You’ve been dying to feel his touch this entire time, and now that you have it, it’s rendered you silent.

Kyle smiles down at you, fully aware of what he’s doing, “Gotta work you open, tesoro. So you can take all of me.”

He strokes your cock between his fingers for a moment, enjoying the way you thrust against him before shifting to slide a single finger into you, and your eyes flutter closed. You start panting almost immediately, tongue darting out to keep your lips from drying. Watching you with rapt attention, he works another thick finger into your pussy, feasting on each twitch of your body. His hand is drenched in your juices when he finally adds a third finger, the loud squelching splitting his face with a boyish grin. 

He bends his wrist a fraction, bringing the heel of his palm to press against your dick, and you all but fall apart in his hands. You chant a soft don’t need it, don’t need it even as you grind into his hand, your nails digging into his shoulders. The grip he has on your hip is nothing short of encouraging, adding to the momentum of your rocking. You feel like he’s barely touched you and still your whimpering grows louder, your body too worked up from the pleasure you’ve given him. This is meant to be about him, and yet he’s whispering in your ear that he needs it, that’s right grind that sweet little cock against him, his teeth sinking into the flesh of your shoulder. That possessive marking sets you off. The fragile thread in you snaps, spreading a tortuous heat through your body, cumming so hard that your pussy clenches down on Kyle’s fingers and nearly locks you into place. Still, he keeps moving and curling his fingers as best he can, drawing out your orgasm until you’re trying to flee from his touch. 

“Thank you,” he says, placing little kisses on your cheek, “I needed that.”

You playfully shove at him and stick your tongue out, laughing at his silliness and lifting yourself off him. He quickly sneaks his fingers into his mouth, eyes closed tight as he practically growls at the taste of you. His cheeks hollow with the intensity of how he sucks your juice off his hand, his palm smearing the rest onto his chin. He wants to make a comment about needing to suck you off directly, but his mouth is too full to talk around.

Reluctantly, you break his private moment, “Still good for another?” You gently grasp his cock, hard again at the taste of your pussy, and give a tentative stroke.

He hisses, bucking immediately into your hand, “Won’t last long.”

“Don’t need to. Just gotta fill me up,” your strokes growing more confident.

His hands come down on your hips and he practically wrestles you into place on top of him again, eyes dark and focused, but he restrains himself a little as you pull back. You motion him to sit higher on the bed, help him settle so he can lean against the headboard comfortably. 

One last check in and green has you sinking down onto his cock, your pussy almost unbearably tight around him. He twitches inside you, and choked sobs ring from both of you as you try to adjust, his hands gripping tight at the plush of your hips, keeping you locked in place. You wrap your arms around his neck, blindly pulling him into a kiss with too much teeth but it’s too fucking good to stop. The press of his bush against your swollen dick has you moving, needing the friction. With Kyle’s help, you rock back and forth against him, keeping him nestled deep inside of you and still giving you both the motion you need. 

You don’t know exactly for how long you stay in that position, hips rutting and sweat pooling, your chests pressed to each other, breaths shared through open mouths. It’s too good to stop. Every time you pull your hips back you can feel his cock brush against yours, and you’d kill before letting yourself lose that. He’s of the same mind, dragging your hips back and forth as he leaves a trail of bites along your neck and shoulder. But the pleasure is quickly building in you both, and you know what he needs.

Without breaking your stride, you lean back enough to create space between you. A deep sound rumbles in Kyle’s chest in protest, but it dies when you slide two fingers into his mouth and press down on his tongue. He immediately devotes himself to coating them with spit, unsure of where it’s going but too excited to ask. When he’s done enough, you reach between your bodies to circle his nipple with your wet fingers. He jerks with a curse, hips moving involuntarily. You keep at it, pinching and rolling his nipple, moving to the other one for equal attention. His pace picks up, taking over your movements and rocking you against him. You bring your mouth to his ear, just enough to reach and not disrupt his rhythm, to whisper praise into his ear, tan lindo, tan dulce, taking such good care, taking you so well, what a perfect boy. Using the honed strength of his arms, Kyle stops your rocking and instead lifts you to bounce on his length, his hips rising to meet yours as he cums deep inside. He moans into your neck and reaches down to place his knuckles on either side of your cock, quickly jerking. This time he’s the one speaking, need this, need this, cum for me. His thumb gently brushes against the head of your dick and that’s all it takes. You writhe in his arms, and he bites into you again as he feels you pulsate around him, stroking you through your orgasm. 

Neither of you can bear to move as you catch your breath, soaking in the affection clear on both of your faces. You can even feel his smile as he kisses your forehead. You kiss every part of him you can reach, savoring as much as you can. The sweat on your bodies starts to cool when you finally break apart. 

“Thank you for letting me do this tonight,” you tell him, noticing his eyes are starting to droop with sleep just as yours are. You cup his face and bring him in for a sweet kiss. 

“Si algún día llego a decirte que no, corta conmigo de inmediato.” he says, the seriousness of his stare belying his laughter. 

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[queerliblib]

Most libraries in the US are free only to people in the library's taxing district. Who will be able to get a QLL card? Is it a subscription library? I am watching with great eagerness - I can't wait to add a QLL card to my Libby account :)

Hello! you're absolutely right, and that's partially due to how public libraries are usually funded through local taxes. That's one of the unique things about QLL, since we're a 501(c)3 non-profit and fully funded through donations, our library will be accessible to anyone across the US* who signs up for a digital card with us! We've already met with Overdrive/Libby to confirm that we can do this.

*we are currently limited to the United States because of how ebook licensing works. It would be exciting to expand in the future, but we're just getting started.

[toki-toro]

Springtrap how many maggots live inside you. Have you started naming them

Hundreds. But springtrap is the perfect environment for numerous other insects/infestations to live in. Case in point ,

He names each one Michael so he doesn’t feel bad killing them

[drawnfamiliarfaces]

In one of the episodes, Jun mentioned that she wanted to pierce her ears twice. in your version she has already done this?

oh dude you either have memory of a steel trap or someone had a good rewatch recently! But, wow, tbh I do not remember this and in HoM AU designs I only delibarately added earrings/piercings to Kim and Jake to sort of break their design more from their og looks (especially Kim lol, I barely changed her anything xD) but also for practical in-verse reasons. I didnt even think about Jun or anyone else... but you know? I like it, so now she does!

AND now she got 7 of them!!! Some are just simple hoops or studs, but others are magical gem stones for emergencies (small spells and protections), and she can just swap them out when needed.

After you mentioned it, I wonder why out of all characters Jun is like almost the only one without piercings of any sorts? I mean even Lila got a fang earring and she has been human-shaped for like less than a year?? Which led me to a headcanon:

What if Jun's invulnerability is so strong she couldn't even get piercings in a normal human way? So, going with her Mom or her friends to get her ears pierced in a mall was out of the question. She and Jasmine had to enchant a needle/make a spell (or maybe just visit a monster beauty salon), just for her to do it and after they just show up to her parents like: "Oh look Barbara, Michael, I took Jun to pierce her ears, doesn't she look wonderful?'

And later Jun just took the needle/spell to covertly make more piercings with her friends, which Ophelia was more than happy to do. The other three she got a bit later over the years. ;D

[finemealprompt]

DP x DC Prompt #38

The observants are in a bit of a pickle, at the moment. The young Danny Fenton is refusing to be the Ghost King, saying he is too busy and doesn't want the responsibility that comes with it. Clockwork insists they don't need a king, but what does he know?

Who else could be their king? The other halfa, Vlad Masters? No, no, he'd be almost as bad as Pariah Dark. The clone? No, she's not nearly stable enough. Ruling the realms would be the definitive end of her.

That's when they remembered. There was this guy who reeked of death in Gotham. He had started a legacy, he helps lead one of the strongest team of heroes in the world, surely he'd be a great fit! He's not exactly a ghost, but beggars can't be choosers!

[1think1twasvodk4]

MIN HO? MORE LIKE MEAN HOE

[rapidhighway]

I can't believe people give advice that's basically "be less stressed". How can I explain to you that I've been scared of walking down the stairs since I learned to walk and I get an intrusive thought every time I cross a road. And then I have a lot more, actually real and important stuff to be anxious about!!

[avonne-writes]

hc for sick Gale in your kitty AU, does he prefer to be a cat when he is sick? can he even be a cat at that time, does he need cuddles or does he prefer to be alone, how different it is for Gale considering the time before and after the war, etc. etc. :)

Baby boy 🥺 It depends on what kind of symptoms he has. He'd rather die than deal with gastrointestinal issues in cat form, I mean, look at that cream-white fur... Stuffy nose makes him panic as a kitty, so he stays human until that resolves. If he can breathe through his nose but he has a high fever, he likes being a cat because he can burrow under the blankets better. He doesn’t like to be picked up then because his bones ache, but he finds cuddling comforting.

Sometimes, he tells Bucky verbally in which position he wants to cuddle before shifting into his cat form and climbing into Bucky’s arms. When he has the flu, he prefers being in cat form. It always makes Bucky's heart ache when Gale is really sick and lethargic but still purrs a little.

Before the war, Gale spent almost all of his sick days in human form. A few times, he huddled with the barn cats. Bucky is the first - and basically the only - person who gets to hold him in cat form when he's sick.

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

hey silly question maybe. do you know why cars are so boring now? like im on the wikipedia page for the cadillac eldorado for Reasons and it's a really visually interesting car through all the generations up until like. the tenth in 1979 when it just kinda looks like. every other car (if a bit more square) is this just like, the Capitalism Thing of shit getting more and more boring and samey over the years? or is there like a reason. idk much about cars but this has always annoyed and confused me, i miss interesting looking cars :(

Well, it should be noted that the tenth generation Eldorado's case is a peculiar one. As I've gone over, old American cars tended to be refreshed every other year, and the Eldorado, meant to represent the top of the top of that uniquely American idea of opulence, was perhaps the car most supposed to do so. Hence, as you'll have found, its ninth generation launched in 1971, just 18 years after the first - thats' how long the only generation of Italy's best selling car at the time, the Fiat 500, was sold for.

You wouldn't have expected that generation to stick around for more than four years - no other generation did, and almost all lasted half that. However, 1973 had other plans. Namely, the fuel crisis that completely eviscerated demand for mastodonic fuel guzzlers.

Sales would decline the following years, with little tweaks here and there but no major update, which would have been money down the drain as existing owners could barely afford to fill up the damn things, let alone upgrade, and what were potential customers before couldn't afford to fill up the damn things full stop. So when the new model finally came, this big aspirational car was shrunken down to get on with times of shrinking aspirations.

Nigh on 5.20 meters (for yankees, that's roughly 4/207ths of a Titanic) will hardly seem short to European sensibilities, but let's remember, that's coming from 5.70. You could walk between two walls that far apart. The width, too, decreased by a whole 20cm (for yankees, that's roughly half a rabbit), which in car width terms is massive - like, it's the difference between a Mini and a Mustang.

This to say, the tenth generation Eldorado is oft maligned as a fall from grace, one of the most popular examples of why the malaise moniker stuck to this era of American cars - so not exactly the fairest assessment of how cars changed with time. How about, then, we start our analysis by looking at a car with a much better received update, shall we?

Of course, the Mk1 Volkswagen Golf (for yankees, that's roughly a Rabbit) was a smash hit the world over, so much so that in Mexico it remained on sale as the Citi Golf as recently as 2009(!), and if I didn't think it the best looking Golf that ever was I probably wouldn't own one...

...but unless the only kink you're into is the Hofmeister, I don't see how the second generation's styling is such a downgrade as to bemoan the state of things. And frankly...

...maybe it's just the boiled frog syndrome, but I can't spot a point in which anything 'went wrong', so to speak. Which leads to the all-important question:

You say you miss interesting looking cars, but I do have to ask - when did they ever leave?

Have a browse of my pride post (no, really, go read it, I think it's one of my best ever) and point me to the boring cars within it, because me, I don't see any. And I suspect the reasons are similar to why you see older cars as more interesting.

For one, given the point of the post, all the cars shown are some flashy color, and each is different from every other. This, however, is increasingly becoming an anomaly as greyscale gobbles up an ever increasing share of the market, meaning on average, modern cars are less colorful, and thus less visually interesting. I've written about cause and effect of the greyscalification of cars, and suffice to say I'm not a fan of it - but I feel like that is a discussion separate from car design itself.

Then, of course, there's that those in the post are all cars that I like, so that selection was curated (albeit only by my personal taste). But that is also the case when we look back at older cars: what you see around and what you hear about is what people cared enough about to preserve and to discuss - not just in terms of models but of versions, specs and even colors. If you look at car shows like Radwood or Oblivion, which celebrate 80s and 90s cars, the very time period you referred to as the beginning of the end for interesting design looks like its heyday!

Yes, that trailer is factory.

Unfortunately, it must be said that unique and interesting cars have become fewer and fewer, as the ever increasing regulations make it even more expensive than it already was for smaller brands to emerge and the economic status of things makes it increasingly harder to justify a funky, daring picks for the biggest purchase of the average person's life - let alone the purchase of a second car, which tends to be what more extreme offerings were bought as. A brighter future seems to be ahead, though, with Toyota's incredible GR Corolla/Yaris and 86 apparently about to be joined by yet more spicy goodness and Mazda teasing a return of the rotary engined sportscar. For the twentieth time, sure, but after having seen the Motocompo revival actually happen, I am ready to kick that football.

(because you knew about the new electric Motocompacto, right?)

But there's another thing that post's selection had going for it: variety. Pretty much every car in it was in a wholly different category from all the others, and that is bound to make each car within it seem a lot more interesting than if it had been surrounded by cars of its same segment.

The survivorship bias outlined above also results in far more variety than you would find in normal traffic: even setting aside the halo car dynamic whereby the most special -and therefore most interesting- cars are usually niche offerings with very low sales figures, people tend to remember, discuss and seek out cars that represent some extreme - be it the fastest, the most expensive, the greatest, but also the slowest, the cheapest, the worst... and the tallest, the lowest, the biggest, the smallest, and so on. In short, the cars you'll find the least interest for are the everyday, quietly competent cars that make up the bulk of vehicles on the road.

Although, going far enough back in time, even those appear interesting to us, because their context's norm was so different from ours that even the cars that most adhered to it seem exotic to our sensibilities.

But when actually viewed in their own context...

...that impression tends to be stifled.

Unfortunately, it seems to me as though variety is also being stifled nowadays, with a growing share of body styles on sale becoming SUV/crossovers, and the increase in platform sharing reducing automotive outliers (for better and for worse).

And I should note: as for the other industry shifts I mentioned, the driving force isn't Big Capital or The Evil Economic System or what have you. It's the consumers. Sure, we can blame manufacturers for turning every model into a more profitable SUV, but they couldn't do this if they didn't sell, and they wouldn't do this if people didn't see them as more prestigious vehicles worth paying more for. We can blame manufacturers for killing weird car projects, but usually they get axed because people don't buy the things. Dealerships still order grey cars because no one digs their heels about having theirs yellow. So on.

So in short, old cars have always looked more interesting, because time alters our perception of them in ways that make them seem as much - and it also happens that lately the car industry has gone in the opposite direction to those alterations, causing new cars to seem less interesting. So, in short, the problem is the comparison just isn't apples to apples.

I think this is why that Golf evolution does not show any trend towards boring or away from interesting in my eyes - because it mostly strips those factors away. Here's a bunch of generations of the same car, all silver, all presented with no context bar the version before or after, all in the same body style which, for its entire history, was a common sight pretty much anywhere. (Also helps, of course, that the Golf's evolution had no wacky twists and always nailed the zeitgeist.)

This not to say that I can't complain about modern car designs - but for that, don't compare apple to apple... compare it to Microsoft.

See, I can think of many modern designs I find bland and devoid of personality, not because of a lack of styling effort but precisely due to an overabundance of it: so keen were the designers to put a crease here and a fold there and a kink somewhere to make the brand's seventh SUV set itself apart from the other six that the design became too overburdened with details to have a clear message - like a story with too many events for them to express a cohesive point.

Or, indeed, like this parody of Microsoft packaging in which their design principles are applied to the iconic, nay, legendary packaging of the original iPod.

This is an actual Microsoft video btw. This was made internally by Microsoft's marketing department.

Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question: if you liked this post, you might like those - or the blog’s Discord server, linked in the pinned post!

[bakathief]

What your favorite Kaito and Conan/Shinici expression?

Both manga and anime

Oof, actually gotta check the manga again. I don‘t have a favorite expression I think, I love so many of them. I‘ll come back to this but herr are some of my favorite expressions to draw and my favorite anime expression of Kaito 😆

[swaps55]

What was the deciding factor that made you write Opus from everyone else’s pov and not Sam’s? Going back and reading it again while waiting (with rabid patience) for Mezzo, I’m truly seeing how fleshed out you’ve made Sam. And is it possible that we see another pov from Hannah? The small piece that was in Mezzo was really eye opening

It was a couple of things!

One is that we spend three games looking through Shepard's eyes, and if I was going to cover canon events in a fanfic, I wanted to look at them through the eyes of someone else to give events we all know about already a fresh perspective.

The second is that one of the things I wanted to do with Opus was really emphasize the 'larger than life' aspect of Shepard's legacy. As the player character of a video game, Shepard by design is the center of the Mass Effect universe. They are the only person who can save the galaxy, the person everyone looks to as a leader, the person through which all decisions flow. But fanfic isn't a video game, and a question I really wanted to answer about Sam specifically was...why him? What makes him the person who saves the galaxy? What makes him a hero? Because "he's the player character" isn't an answer.

Part of answering that question was making him feel larger than life to the reader. And one of the ways I thought I could do that was never letting the reader really see what's going on in his head. His narrative is entirely filtered through the eyes of others, so that all you see is what others think of him. They all offer pieces of the full picture of Sam, but no one has all the pieces. And even the people who love him the most - like Kaidan - still get him wrong sometimes. The reader is the only one who gets the most complete picture of him, but even you are missing one vital piece of the puzzle - Sam's.

It felt like a fun way to add a little mystery to who he is. There is always some part of him that's unknowable, which feels important to a character who exists as a symbol to so many. There's a person underneath the mantle, but you have to work for him, and what you get is a little different depending on whose eyes you're looking through.

It's been an interesting and really fun challenge to develop a main character whose thoughts you never see, but who nevertheless has a lot of depth and compels people rather than frustrates them when you don't know what he's thinking.

As for Hannah Shepard, I am all but certain we will get another POV from her. Her involvement in Mezzo and in the next story, Requiem, continues to evolve in ways I am really pleased with. I'm learning a lot about her, and I hope you will be surprised with the direction I think her character arc is going to go.

[kikker-oma]

how hard was it to choose fics to draw for Fan Joy July?

Honestly, the choosing which fic I would draw for wasn't that hard, it was reading all of them!!

I had already had a number of fics I knew I wanted to draw for and sooo many people reccd their favorite fic or authors to me which made choosing MUCH easier!

It honestly was just the act of reading through the stories that was SO time consuming. Im a pretty fast reader too haha

Of course that being said, picking and choosing was still difficult because I'm restricted to a certain number of days and there are so many fics and authors to draw for! I did have to use some discernment in choosing which ones I would draw for. Some fics were wonderful but maybe I didn't have a clear mental image of what I would draw, or maybe it's well done but just not my cup of tea, y'know?

Overall though, the process was really fun, I discovered some FANTASTIC authors in the process! 80% of the fics I drew for I had never read before❤️