#I mean I like it I do I really do

[skoulsons]

“I love you”

It’s quiet and muffled in her hair, but it’s there. It’s real, coming from the one person she’d never doubt it from.

They never needed to say it. They don’t need to. Their loves come out in the way her cheek rests against his shoulder during Friday night movie nights and in how his lips kiss the hair above her ear every morning. Their loves are known in every baby girl and old man that’s said with every ounce of endearment or sarcasm. Their love is found in the way their hands fit together or how they watch each other in the mundane activities.

It’s unexpected to hear, and a part of Ellie wants to ignore it. She wonders if Joel meant to even say it, or if his inner monologue happened to slip past in a moment of vulnerability.

But she takes it and everything she knows it means and she squeezes him tighter to let him know she heard him.

She still debates saying it. If she’s ready to, verbally, at least. It’s no doubt she does. Way too much has happened in their time together to not look at him and for a quick I love you to cross her mind every time.

But actually saying it is a different story, so she settles on squeezing his middle tighter and snuggling her face a little further into his chest.

It’s not until the morning when she brews his coffee does she think he deserves to hear it.

Or see it, at least.

She pours his mug to the top and leaves it atop the counter, a note beside it.

Granted, she was nervous as hell to actually write it out and it took her five minutes of standing there, thinking back to the moments in their journey when the proof of their love only seemed to grow and prosper.

But when she hears him stirring upstairs and knows he’ll be down any minute, she pushes past her thoughts and grabs a nearby pen

She scribbles on a ripped piece of paper and sits it next to his mug, quickly grabbing her bag and running out the door before Joel is all the way down the stairs.

Joel is descending the stairs as she closes the door, shutting down his attempt at calling out for her.

The familiar smell of coffee makes him smile knowing she woke up early to make him some. And when he finds his mug and the note beside it, his smile only grows wider.

I love you :) is scratched on the ripped paper. The L is capitalized and tail of her Y is a bit long, but it makes Joel laugh. Her smiley face is crooked and Joel wonders if she’s ever written a note with a smiley face before.

She had a life before you.

She did, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the one she’s been given with him.

He relishes in the chicken scratch writing and the goofy, though endearing looking smile she thought was important enough to add to the note.

He keeps the note tucked in his shirt pocket for safe keeping.

And when they both get home that evening, they don’t mention it. Joel’s smile is a little brighter and his voice is a little softer and he’s a little more affectionate. Ellie has more of a pep in her step and she clings to him a little more and she laughs a little harder.

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[legolambi]

say it with me melvik pre series toxic situationship

[fairsweetlonging]

truth serum / system reveal au where shen qingqiu gets hit with an uncloaking spell that reveals the system in the reflection of his eyes every time it pops up.

during one of his missions, in the treasure hoard of some dragon-like creature, he finds a golden, oval shaped hand mirror, its gaudy style more victorian based than anything (airplane you hack!), that doesn't seem to do anything when he looks into it. but when he does, it reveals the system's screen in his eyes.

he doesn't notice this, of course, because he can't see it, and the system, surprisingly, stays quiet.

the peak lords think he's cursed.

maybe mu qingfang is the first to notice, during the mandatory post mission check-up, when shen qingqiu is scrolling through his most recently accumulated points and mu qingfang can see the strange vividly-blue lines reflected in his pupils. it's gone when shen qingqiu blinks, like it was nothing but a trick of the light.

it comes out when yue qingyuan is visiting and, just as he's done laying out the plans for a new mission, shen qingqiu's eyes glaze over and a bright blue box takes over the whole of his iris. shen qingqiu goes quiet; the thing in his eyes moves, shifts, pulses for a second, like static worms crawling all over his pupils. then he blinks, and it's gone, and shen qingqiu accepts the mission that yue qingyuan was almost sure he would decline.

maybe there is an intervention, when the peak lords corner shen qingqiu at qian cao peak and try to figure out what's wrong, subjecting him to all kinds of treatments and curse-finding spells that turn up empty, they can't find anything.

of course, the silencing threat is still very much up and running. at first shen qingqiu was kind of confused by the whole ordeal, but when the peak lords start describing a "strange blue box", he realizes, with sickening suddenty, that they're describing the system. and he can't say anything.

this only makes everything worse, because their fellow peak lord now keeps evading every question and acts like he doesn't understand. liu qingge points right at his face and asks, "that blue box, what is it?" and shen qingqiu laughs nervously and starts talking about how bright the weather is and surely it's the sky and nothing to worry about!

even worse, during the intervention the system thought it was a good idea to start talking to him, so now even the peak lords who hadn't seen it and who might have been persuaded by light tricks and reflections, get a first row view that no, that definitely isn't a trick of the light.

they try to do the whole thing of "are you in danger, blink twice" but shen qingqiu can't even do that because it's still a direct admittance!

maybe eventually he starts saying vague confirmations that don't actually confirm anything, like "this master hears what you're saying", or maybe he goes with a classic "this master can neither confirm nor deny that." but the system starts warning him for that too and eventually he stops saying anything, which worries the others more.

luckily mu qingfang catches on that every time they ask a direct question about the box or shen qingqiu says anything vaguely confirming, it appears. it doesn't appear when they ask about curses or demons, so it must not see that as a threat.

for a little extra angst: maybe the peak lords keep pressuring him for answers, and at some point shen qingqiu gets fed up and snaps out something like, "why don't you understand that i'm not allowed to answer that!" the system counts this as a direct admittance, threatening it's existence. so it punishes. shen qingqiu has a qi deviation so bad it lasts two weeks and takes two people every day to cleanse his meridians. the system doesn't appear in that time. it doesn't appear for a long while after that, either. the peak lords stop asking, mainly because shen qingqiu will instantly leave the room if they do. they don't stop searching for a cure, though.

shang qinghua returns from a business trip and catches on the second someone mentions a blue box and forced silencing.

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

the high guards littlest fan

[egophiliac]

So.... what are your thoughts on Ace's UM, if you haven't been asked this already?

sneaky magic for the sneakiest boy

no but really, I think it fits him really well! I had thought his UM would probably involve something kinda sleight-of-handy or pickpockety! and I looooved that it made such a nice loop-around back to episode 1. ❤️ I was. kind of half-expecting him to just run out and punch Riddle in the nose again. but instead this time 'twas he who offed the queen's head! it was great! and he did it while stone-cold terrified out of his mind! because Ace is the only remotely normal or well-adjusted person at NRC and therefore the only one who is like "we're going to literally die, this is super effed up". but he did it anyway!!!! I AM SO PROUD

[joshuamj]

Hero.

[myoduri]

a franmaya comic i made two years ago but i still really like! based off of that one very sweet tumblr post

[bowenoke]

I bet they used to sing along to worship songs in the back of the car on the way to church

[puppppppppy]

who is your favorite AA character? 👁️👁️

ziska… I hope capcom brings her back someday

[umblrspectrum]

happy solvermas

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[fictionadventurer]

How did Treasure Planet manage to come up with the greatest aesthetic in all human history? Victorian elegance plus space-age flair, with just enough dirt and grime and wear and tear to make it feel real? A combination of traditional and computer animation that perfectly embodies the movie's blend of old and futuristic? How does it get any better than that?

[egophiliac]

doylist explanation for why Gidel is only in Fellow's non-idle lesson animations: probably something about space constraints and making sure two sprites in one seat aren't covering anyone else when they're not in focus

watsonian explanation for why Gidel is only in Fellow's non-idle lesson animations: he snuck in and is hiding from the teachers, don't give him away 🤫

(I've reached my limit of unsuccessful attempts at pulling them before I need to save keys for Halloween, so I've been living vicariously through youtube videos...but the fact that Gidel just pops up from under the desk to wave his arms around happily is really testing my resolve. D: I'm gonna die when they finally get to do alchemy...)

[knightofleo]

Angela Orosco Silent Hill 2

[rendevok]

Moon dance 🌕✨