#I should probably upload more in here

[shrimpwineglass]

Just drawing persona lore

[camels-pen]

Hgggggh fic between arcs post timeskip, possibly on the way to Punk Hazard

warning: Usopp having issues related to abundance of food (too much food), self blame

-

The crew was running low on food.

Most of the others had their fair share of worries and thinking of their own solutions and Usopp was no different.

Until he was.

The initial announcement- of needing to cut back on snacks, to up the hours and people fishing- it filled Usopp with utter relief.

And the very next moment, a horrible horrible guilt.

He started to question his own intentions, actions.

Had he really tried his best to lure and catch fish? Why did he still agree to sneaking late night snacks with Luffy and Chopper, all those times before? Why did he bother when he hardly ate their pilfered food anyway?

And on and on and on.

Usopp had a feeling the others would try to say it wasn't cut and dry. That there was no easy blame to give, and no point in trying to find it. That maybe he should go easier on himself- or harsher, depending on who he asked. But even trusted voices like these- ones that were so much stronger now than during his time away- were no match for this particular failure. And yet, even though he'd admitted it to himself- that yes, it was a failure and definitely up there as one of his worst- it didn't mean he knew what to do about it.

The brave thing would be to fess up and figure things out with the crew, with Chopper. The cowardly thing- what he actually did- was fall back on old habits, lying and pretending and hoping they didn't see how he was dragging them down, literally killing them the longer he was there.

Workable solutions were hard to come up with, but he did his best to fix things without admitting anything in the meantime. Like making excuses for fishing duty, refusing late night poking in the fridge, that kind of thing. It wasn't exactly hard or suspicious thanks to their current dilemma. Usopp had been trying to fish for most of the days leading up to his excuses, asking for a break didn't seem so unreasonable. And they were already low on food so of course he'd avoid sneaking any more.

He never did come up with something workable, but still they survived until they docked again, ready to restock.

And they restock they did.

Sanji was antsy for a long while about the food getting low- and for some time before his announcement too- and Nami didn't want a repeat either, so she gave him extra shopping money. A good chunk of the purchases were things that would last ages and could be packed in the back of the pantry. Now, Sanji hummed a happy tune, a pep in his step as he put things away.

They'd all noticed how stressed Sanji was when the food started dwindling and the fish weren't biting. Usopp had heard him once, in the galley, tearing up paper and grumbling to himself. Muttering things about how he wasn't on some rock anymore, wasn't a little kid anymore, and he needed to keep it together. How the crew needed him to keep it together.

So Usopp should've been happy, seeing Sanji like that. Seeing him too preoccupied with his task to tone down his smile or the chipper in his voice. To notice he'd forgotten to fix his mussed up hair from countless nights of pulling and tugging at it. To drop the aloof, cool guy persona for a single moment in time, piecing himself back together bit by bit with every ingredient he put away.

Usopp should've been happy.

Instead, he was afraid.

Because with every piece Sanji built himself with, a piece was torn from Usopp's own body in turn, bloody and screaming.

Usopp wasn't afraid of Sanji. Wasn't afraid for him either.

He was afraid of the abundance.

The last time they'd stocked up this much, they were headed to Fishman Island and threw a reunion feast as soon as they could. He was overwhelmed with the euphoria and sense of rightness that filled him up, seeing his friends again. He didn't have the space to spare even the slightest thought to what hid behind the galley door.

And every meal since, Usopp had found comfort in watching Luffy scarf down most of the table himself. Almost like he was eating the danger away. And seeing Luffy do it, well, it helped Usopp finish his own plate. It felt odd- like he was using his captain as a poison tester- but knowing, logically, there was no danger to speak of, it didn't bother him. A rarity, considering the way his mind seemed to constantly twist in on itself.

But while Sanji put away the last of the groceries and Luffy asked for an early lunch, requesting something with meat- while the rest of the crew was lounging on deck, chiming in with their own requests- Usopp could only feel a growing indescribable dread. One framed by vines, ramen rivers, and cake flowers.

The others cheered, startling him. Lunch would be done soon and everyone was headed for the galley.

"Aren't you coming?"

Sandalled feet were in front of him.

The dread surged.

He needed to finish his drawing, he said.

He was making good progress, he pleaded.

He just needed a little more time, he begged.

"Oh."

There was a moment of silence. It dragged on long enough Usopp was sure he would drown under the mounting feeling suffocating his-

"You should eat when you're hungry."

A sharp inhale through a long nose. A pair of large, wobbling lips.

A moment's pause. Then the hat shading his eyes was replaced with another. Tattered, worn, and straw.

There was not another word before those sandals were slapping their way into the galley, the heavy door following behind.

It closed with a thorny snap.

Usopp's sketch pad was pressed to his chest. He scrambled to pull at frayed edges, trying desperately to block the blinding sun with his mangled grip.

His sketch pad fell to his lap.

The page was blank.

Usopp stifled a sob.

[the-kipsabian]

hi have a lil collection of zack/chris fics i finally got around uploading yayy all rated mature but its the all-smoke-but-no-fire type of stuff. theres implications but no actual act. read the tags that are probably lacking but i cant brain at 4am anymore ough

handle me so right

i can become anything under your touch

i want to show you

how i look at you is something i cant explain

[icewindandboringhorror]

a boye whom'st loves to attack paper balls

[luvuomi]

so american by olivia rodrigo x sethos has me brain rotting so hard and idk why

[prolibytherium]

I'll be real though I think attributing some innate moral or intellectual superiority to atheism is ridiculous and not the answer to questions about the power structures inherent in organized religion. That argument is based on a (conscious or subconscious) belief that atheism makes your outlook automatically rational and your perception of reality close to completely objective. If you think you are beyond falling for cults/magical thinking/your own internal biases etc bc of a disbelief in deities, you are wrong and also might be especially susceptible for falling for that shit

[tofupixel]

⭐ So you want to learn pixel art? ⭐

🔹 Part 1 of ??? - The Basics!

Hello, my name is Tofu and I'm a professional pixel artist. I have been supporting myself with freelance pixel art since 2020, when I was let go from my job during the pandemic.

My progress, from 2017 to 2024. IMO the only thing that really matters is time and effort, not some kind of natural talent for art.

This guide will not be comprehensive, as nobody should be expected to read allat. Instead I will lean heavily on my own experience, and share what worked for me, so take everything with a grain of salt. This is a guide, not a tutorial. Cheers!

🔹 Do I need money?

NO!!! Pixel art is one of the most accessible mediums out there.

I still use a mouse because I prefer it to a tablet! You won't be at any disadvantage here if you can't afford the best hardware or software.

Because our canvases are typically very small, you don't need a good PC to run a good brush engine or anything like that.

✨Did you know? One of the most skilled and beloved pixel artists uses MS PAINT! Wow!!

🔹 What software should I use?

Here are some of the most popular programs I see my friends and peers using. Stars show how much I recommend the software for beginners! ⭐

💰 Paid options:

⭐⭐⭐ Aseprite (for PC) - $19.99

This is what I and many other pixel artists use. You may find when applying to jobs that they require some knowledge of Aseprite. Since it has become so popular, companies like that you can swap raw files between artists.

Aseprite is amazingly customizable, with custom skins, scripts and extensions on Itch.io, both free and paid.

If you have ever used any art software before, it has most of the same features and should feel fairly familiar to use. It features a robust animation suite and a tilemap feature, which have saved me thousands of hours of labour in my work. The software is also being updated all the time, and the developers listen to the users. I really recommend Aseprite!

⭐ Photoshop (for PC) - Monthly $$

A decent option for those who already are used to the PS interface. Requires some setup to get it ready for pixel-perfect art, but there are plenty of tutorials for doing so.

Animation is also much more tedious on PS which you may want to consider before investing time!

⭐⭐ ProMotion NG (for PC) - $19.00

An advanced and powerful software which has many features Aseprite does not, including Colour Cycling and animated tiles.

⭐⭐⭐ Pixquare (for iOS) - $7.99 - $19.99 (30% off with code 'tofu'!!)

Probably the best app available for iPad users, in active development, with new features added all the time.

Look! My buddy Jon recommends it highly, and uses it often.

One cool thing about Pixquare is that it takes Aseprite raw files! Many of my friends use it to work on the same project, both in their office and on the go.

⭐ Procreate (for iOS) - $12.99

If you have access to Procreate already, it's a decent option to get used to doing pixel art. It does however require some setup. Artist Pixebo is famously using Procreate, and they have tutorials of their own if you want to learn.

⭐⭐ ReSprite iOS and Android. (free trial, but:) $19.99 premium or $$ monthly

ReSprite is VERY similar in terms of UI to Aseprite, so I can recommend it. They just launched their Android release!

🆓 Free options:

⭐⭐⭐ Libresprite (for PC)

Libresprite is an alternative to Aseprite. It is very, very similar, to the point where documentation for Aseprite will be helpful to Libresprite users.

⭐⭐ Pixilart (for PC and mobile)

A free in-browser app, and also a mobile app! It is tied to the website Pixilart, where artists upload and share their work. A good option for those also looking to get involved in a community.

⭐⭐ Dotpict (for mobile)

Dotpict is similar to Pixilart, with a mobile app tied to a website, but it's a Japanese service. Did you know that in Japanese, pixel art is called 'Dot Art'? Dotpict can be a great way to connect with a different community of pixel artists! They also have prompts and challenges often.

🔹 So I got my software, now what?

◽Nice! Now it's time for the basics of pixel art.

❗ WAIT ❗ Before this section, I want to add a little disclaimer. All of these rules/guidelines can be broken at will, and some 'no-nos' can look amazing when done intentionally.

The pixel-art fundamentals can be exceedingly helpful to new artists, who may feel lost or overwhelmed by choice. But if you feel they restrict you too harshly, don't force yourself! At the end of the day it's your art, and you shouldn't try to contort yourself into what people think a pixel artist 'should be'. What matters is your own artistic expression. 💕👍

◽Phew! With that out of the way...

🔸"The Rules"

There are few hard 'rules' of pixel art, mostly about scaling and exporting. Some of these things will frequently trip up newbies if they aren't aware, and are easy to overlook.

🔹Scaling method

There are a couple ways of scaling your art. The default in most art programs, and the entire internet, is Bi-linear scaling, which usually works out fine for most purposes. But as pixel artists, we need a different method.

Both are scaled up x10. See the difference?

On the left is scaled using Bilinear, and on the right is using Nearest-Neighbor. We love seeing those pixels stay crisp and clean, so we use nearest-neighbor. 

(Most pixel-art programs have nearest-neighbor enabled by default! So this may not apply to you, but it's important to know.)

🔹Mixels

Mixels are when there are different (mixed) pixel sizes in the same image.

Here I have scaled up my art- the left is 200%, and the right is 150%. Yuck!

As we can see, the "pixel" sizes end up different. We generally try to scale our work by multiples of 100 - 200%, 300% etc. rather than 150%. At larger scales however, the minute differences in pixel sizes are hardly noticeable!

Mixels are also sometimes seen when an artist scales up their work, then continues drawing on it with a 1 pixel brush.

Many would say that this is not great looking! This type of pixels can be indicative of a beginner artist. But there are plenty of creative pixel artists out there who mixels intentionally, making something modern and cool.

🔹Saving Your Files

We usually save our still images as .PNGs as they don’t create any JPEG artifacts or loss of quality. It's a little hard to see here, but there are some artifacts, and it looks a little blurry. It also makes the art very hard to work with if we are importing a JPEG.

For animations .GIF is good, but be careful of the 256 colour limit. Try to avoid using too many blending mode layers or gradients when working with animations. If you aren’t careful, your animation could flash afterwards, as the .GIF tries to reduce colours wherever it can. It doesn’t look great!

Here's an old piece from 2021 where I experienced .GIF lossiness, because I used gradients and transparency, resulting in way too many colours.

🔹Pixel Art Fundamentals - Techniques and Jargon

❗❗Confused about Jaggies? Anti-Aliasing? Banding? Dithering? THIS THREAD is for you❗❗ << it's a link, click it!!

As far as I'm concerned, this is THE tutorial of all time for understanding pixel art. These are techniques created and named by the community of people who actually put the list together, some of the best pixel artists alive currently. Please read it!!

🔸How To Learn

Okay, so you have your software, and you're all ready to start. But maybe you need some more guidance? Try these tutorials and resources! It can be helpful to work along with a tutorial until you build your confidence up.

⭐⭐ Pixel Logic (A Digital Book) - $10 A very comprehensive visual guide book by a very skilled and established artist in the industry. I own a copy myself.

⭐⭐⭐ StudioMiniBoss - free A collection of visual tutorials, by the artist that worked on Celeste! When starting out, if I got stuck, I would go and scour his tutorials and see how he did it.

⭐ Lospec Tutorials - free A very large collection of various tutorials from all over the internet. There is a lot to sift through here if you have the time.

⭐⭐⭐ Cyangmou's Tutorials - free (tipping optional) Cyangmou is one of the most respected and accomplished modern pixel artists, and he has amassed a HUGE collection of free and incredibly well-educated visual tutorials. He also hosts an educational stream every week on Twitch called 'pixelart for beginners'.

⭐⭐⭐ Youtube Tutorials - free There are hundreds, if not thousands of tutorials on YouTube, but it can be tricky to find the good ones. My personal recommendations are MortMort, Brandon, and AdamCYounis- these guys really know what they're talking about!

🔸 How to choose a canvas size

When looking at pixel art turorials, we may see people suggest things like 16x16, 32x32 and 64x64. These are standard sizes for pixel art games with tiles. However, if you're just making a drawing, you don't necessarily need to use a standard canvas size like that.

What I like to think about when choosing a canvas size for my illustrations is 'what features do I think it is important to represent?' And make my canvas as small as possible, while still leaving room for my most important elements.

Imagine I have characters in a scene like this:

I made my canvas as small as possible (232 x 314), but just big enough to represent the features and have them be recognizable (it's Good Omens fanart 😤)!! If I had made it any bigger, I would be working on it for ever, due to how much more foliage I would have to render.

If you want to do an illustration and you're not sure, just start at somewhere around 100x100 - 200x200 and go from there.

It's perfectly okay to crop your canvas, or scale it up, or crunch your art down at any point if you think you need a different size. I do it all the time! It only takes a bit of cleanup to get you back to where you were.

🔸Where To Post

Outside of just regular socials, Twitter, Tumblr, Deviantart, Instagram etc, there are a few places that lean more towards pixel art that you might not have heard of.

⭐ Lospec Lospec is a low-res focused art website. Some pieces get given a 'monthly masterpiece' award. Not incredibly active, but I believe there are more features being added often.

⭐⭐ Pixilart Pixilart is a very popular pixel art community, with an app tied to it. The community tends to lean on the young side, so this is a low-pressure place to post with an relaxed vibe.

⭐⭐ Pixeljoint Pixeljoint is one of the big, old-school pixel art websites. You can only upload your art unscaled (1x) because there is a built-in zoom viewer. It has a bit of a reputation for being elitist (back in the 00s it was), but in my experience it's not like that any more. This is a fine place for a pixel artist to post if they are really interested in learning, and the history. The Hall of Fame has some of the most famous / impressive pixel art pieces that paved the way for the work we are doing today.

⭐⭐⭐ Cafe Dot Cafe Dot is my art server so I'm a little biased here. 🍵 It was created during the recent social media turbulence. We wanted a place to post art with no algorithms, and no NFT or AI chuds. We have a heavy no-self-promotion rule, and are more interested in community than skill or exclusivity. The other thing is that we have some kind of verification system- you must apply to be a Creator before you can post in the Art feed, or use voice. This helps combat the people who just want to self-promo and dip, or cause trouble, as well as weed out AI/NFT people. Until then, you are still welcome to post in any of the threads or channels. There is a lot to do in Cafe Dot. I host events weekly, so check the threads!

⭐⭐/r/pixelart The pixel art subreddit is pretty active! I've also heard some of my friends found work through posting here, so it's worth a try if you're looking. However, it is still Reddit- so if you're sensitive to rude people, or criticism you didn't ask for, you may want to avoid this one. Lol

🔸 Where To Find Work

You need money? I got you! As someone who mostly gets scouted on social media, I can share a few tips with you:

Put your email / portfolio in your bio Recruiters don't have all that much time to find artists, make it as easy as possible for someone to find your important information!

Clean up your profile If your profile feed is all full of memes, most people will just tab out rather than sift through. Doesn't apply as much to Tumblr if you have an art tag people can look at.

Post regularly, and repost Activity beats everything in the social media game. It's like rolling the dice, and the more you post the more chances you have. You have to have no shame, it's all business baby

Outside of just posting regularly and hoping people reach out to you, it can be hard to know where to look. Here are a few places you can sign up to and post around on.

/r/INAT INAT (I Need A Team) is a subreddit for finding a team to work with. You can post your portfolio here, or browse for people who need artists.

/r/GameDevClassifieds Same as above, but specifically for game-related projects.

Remote Game Jobs / Work With Indies Like Indeed but for game jobs. Browse them often, or get email notifications.

VGen VGen is a website specifically for commissions. You need a code from another verified artist before you can upgrade your account and sell, so ask around on social media or ask your friends. Once your account is upgraded, you can make a 'menu' of services people can purchase, and they send you an offer which you are able to accept, decline, or counter.

The evil websites of doom: Fiverr and Upwork I don't recommend them!! They take a big cut of your profit, and the sites are teeming with NFT and AI people hoping to make a quick buck. The site is also extremely oversaturated and competitive, resulting in a race to the bottom (the cheapest, the fastest, doing the most for the least). Imagine the kind of clients who go to these websites, looking for the cheapest option. But if you're really desperate...

🔸 Community

I do really recommend getting involved in a community. Finding like-minded friends can help you stay motivated to keep drawing. One day, those friends you met when you were just starting out may become your peers in the industry. Making friends is a game changer!

Discord servers Nowadays, the forums of old are mostly abandoned, and people split off into many different servers. Cafe Dot, Pixel Art Discord (PAD), and if you can stomach scrolling past all the AI slop, you can browse Discord servers here.

Twitch Streams Twitch has kind of a bad reputation for being home to some of the more edgy gamers online, but the pixel art community is extremely welcoming and inclusive. Some of the people I met on Twitch are my friends to this day, and we've even worked together on different projects! Browse pixel art streams here, or follow some I recommend: NickWoz, JDZombi, CupOhJoe, GrayLure, LumpyTouch, FrankiePixelShow, MortMort, Sodor, NateyCakes, NyuraKim, ShinySeabass, I could go on for ever really... There are a lot of good eggs on Pixel Art Twitch.

🔸 Other Helpful Websites

Palettes Lospec has a huge collection of user-made palettes, for any artist who has trouble choosing their colours, or just wants to try something fun. Rejected Palettes is full of palettes that didn't quite make it onto Lospec, ran by people who believe there are no bad colours.

The Spriters Resource TSR is an incredible website where users can upload spritesheets and tilesets from games. You can browse for your favourite childhood game, and see how they made it! This website has helped me so much in understanding how game assets come together in a scene.

VGMaps Similar to the above, except there are entire maps laid out how they would be played. This is incredible if you have to do level design, or for mocking up a scene for fun.

Game UI Database Not pixel-art specific, but UI is a very challenging part of graphics, so this site can be a game-changer for finding good references!

Retronator A digital newspaper for pixel-art lovers! New game releases, tutorials, and artworks!

Itch.io A website where people can upload, games, assets, tools... An amazing hub for game devs and game fans alike. A few of my favourite tools: Tiled, PICO-8, Pixel Composer, Juice FX, Magic Pencil for Aseprite

🔸 The End?

This is just part 1 for now, so please drop me a follow to see any more guides I release in the future. I plan on doing some writeups on how I choose colours, how to practise, and more!

I'm not an expert by any means, but everything I did to get to where I am is outlined in this guide. Pixel art is my passion, my job and my hobby! I want pixel art to be recognized everywhere as an art-form, a medium of its own outside of game-art or computer graphics!

This guide took me a long time, and took a lot of research and experience. Consider following me or supporting me if you are feeling generous.

And good luck to all the fledgling pixel artists, I hope you'll continue and have fun. I hope my guide helped you, and don't hesitate to send me an ask if you have any questions! 💕

My other tutorials (so far): How to draw Simple Grass for a game Hue Shifting

[staff]

We Asked an Expert...in Herpetology!

People on Tumblr come from all walks of life and all areas of expertise to grace our dashboards with paragraphs and photographs of the things they want to share with the world. Whether it's an artist uploading their speed art, a fanfic writer posting their WIPs, a language expert expounding on the origin of a specific word, or a historian ready to lay down the secrets of Ea-nasir, the hallways of Tumblr are filled with specialists sharing their knowledge with the world. We Asked an Expert is a deep dive into those expert brains on tumblr dot com. Today, we’re talking to Dr. Mark D. Scherz (@markscherz), an expert in Herpetology. Read on for some ribbeting frog facts, including what kind of frog the viral frog bread may be based on.

Reptiles v Amphibians. You have to choose one.

In a battle for my heart, I think amphibians beat out the reptiles. There is just something incredibly good about beholding a nice plump frog.

In a battle to the death, I have to give it to the reptiles—the number of reptiles that eat amphibians far, far outstrips the number of amphibians that eat reptiles.

In terms of ecological importance, I would give it to the amphibians again, though. Okay, reptiles may keep some insects and rodents in check, but many amphibians live a dual life, starting as herbivores and graduating to carnivory after metamorphosis, and as adults they are critical for keeping mosquitos and other pest insects in check.

What is the most recent exciting fact you discovered about herps?

This doesn’t really answer your question, but did you know that tadpole arms usually develop inside the body and later burst through the body wall fully formed? I learned about this as a Master’s student many years ago, but it still blows my mind. What’s curious is that this apparently does not happen in some of the species of frogs that don’t have tadpoles—oh yeah, like a third of all frogs or something don’t have free-living tadpoles; crazy, right? They just develop forelimbs on the outside of the body like all other four-legged beasties. But this has only really been examined in a couple species, so there is just so much we don’t know about development, especially in direct-developing frogs. Like, how the hell does it just… swap from chest-burster to ‘normal’ limb development? Is that the recovery of the ancestral programming, or is it newly generated? When in frog evolution did the chest-burster mode even evolve?

How can people contribute to conservation efforts for their local herps?

You can get involved with your local herpetological societies if they exist—and they probably do, as herpetologists are everywhere. You can upload observations of animals to iNaturalist, where you can get them identified while also contributing to datasets on species distribution and annual activity used by research scientists.

You can see if there are local conservation organizations that are doing any work locally, and if you find they are not, then you can get involved to try to get them started. For example, if you notice areas of particularly frequent roadkill, talking to your local council or national or local conservation organizations can get things like rescue programs or road protectors set up. You should also make sure you travel carefully and responsibly. Carefully wash and disinfect your hiking boots, especially between locations, as you do not want to be carrying chytrid or other nasty infectious diseases across the world, where they can cause population collapses and extinctions.

Here are some recent headlines. Quick question, what the frog is going on in the frog world? 

Click through for Mark’s response to these absolutely wild headlines, more about his day-to-day job, his opinion on frog bread, and his favorite Tumblr.

✨D I S C O V E R Y✨

There are more people on Earth than ever before, with the most incredible technology that advances daily at their disposal, and they disperse that knowledge instantly. That means more eyes and ears observing, recording, and sharing than ever before. And so we are making big new discoveries all the time, and are able to document them and reach huge audiences with them.

That being said, these headlines also showcase how bad some media reporting has gotten. The frogs that scream actually scream mostly in the audible range—they just have harmonics that stretch up into ultrasound. So, we can hear them scream, we just can’t hear all of it. Because the harmonics are just multiples of the fundamental, they would anyway only add to the overall ‘quality’ of the sound, not anything different. The mushroom was sprouting from the flank of the frog, and scientists are not really worried about it because this is not how parasitic fungi work, and this is probably a very weird fluke. And finally, the Cuban tree frogs (Osteocephalus septentrionalis) are not really cannibals per se; they are just generalist predators who will just as happily eat a frog as they will a grasshopper, but the frogs they are eating are usually other species. People seem to forget that cannibalism is, by definition, within a species. The fact that they are generalist predators makes them a much bigger problem than if they were cannibals—a cannibal would actually kind of keep itself in check, which would be useful. The press just uses this to get people’s hackles up because Westerners are often equal parts disgusted and fascinated by cannibalism. 

What does an average day look like for the curator of herpetology at the Natural History Museum of Denmark?

No two days are the same, and that is one of the joys of the job. I could spend a whole day in meetings, where we might be discussing anything from which budget is going to pay for 1000 magnets to how we could attract big research funding, to what a label is going to say in our new museum exhibits (we are in the process of building a new museum). Equally, I might spend a day accompanying or facilitating a visitor dissecting a crocodile or photographing a hundred snakes. Or it might be divided into one-hour segments that cover a full spectrum: working with one of my students on a project, training volunteers in the collection, hunting down a lizard that someone wants to borrow from the museum, working on one of a dozen research projects of my own, writing funding proposals, or teaching classes. It is a job with a great deal of freedom, which really suits my work style and brain.

Oh yeah, and then every now and then, I get to go to the field and spend anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months tracking down reptiles and amphibians, usually in the rainforest. These are also work days—with work conditions you couldn’t sell to anyone: 18-hour work days, no weekends, no real rest, uncomfortable living conditions, sometimes dangerous locations or working conditions, field kitchen with limited options, and more leeches and other biting beasties than most health and welfare officers would tolerate—but the reward is the opportunity to make new discoveries and observations, collect critical data, and the privilege of getting to be in some of the most beautiful and biodiverse places left on the planet. So, I am humbled by the fact that I have the privilege and opportunity to undertake such expeditions, and grateful for the incredible teams I collaborate with that make all of this work—from the museum to the field—possible.

The Tibetan Blackbird is also known as Turdus maximus. What’s your favorite chortle-inducing scientific name in the world of herpetology?

Among reptiles and amphibians, there aren’t actually that many to choose from, but I must give great credit to my friend Oliver Hawlitschek and his team, who named the snake Lycodryas cococola, which actually means ‘Coco dweller’ in Latin, referring to its occurrence in coconut trees. When we were naming Mini mum, Mini scule, and Mini ature, I was inspired by the incredible list that Mark Isaac has compiled of punning species names, particularly by the extinct parrot Vini vidivici, and the beetles Gelae baen, Gelae belae, Gelae donut, Gelae fish, and Gelae rol. I have known about these since high school, and it has always been my ambition to get a species on this list.

If you were a frog, what frog would you be and why?

I think I would be a Phasmahyla because they’re weird and awkward, long-limbed, and look like they’re wearing glasses. As a 186 cm (6’3) glasses-wearing human with no coordination, they quite resonate with me.

Please rate this frog bread from 1/10. Can you tell us what frog it represents?

With the arms inside the body cavity like that, it can basically only be a brevicipitid rain frog. The roundness of the body fits, too. I’d say probably Breviceps macrops (or should I say Breadviceps?) based on those big eyes. 7/10, a little on the bumpy side and missing a finger and at least one toe.

Please follow Dr. Mark Scherz at @markscherz for even more incredibly educational, entertaining, and meaningful resources in the world of reptiles and amphibians.

[yu-huuuu]

𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯?| 𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘴𝘪𝘴!reader| chapter: 01, (next part) 02, 03

[🌸] hi hi :> I wanted to upload this here, since probably many don't know it, haha

Summary: Perhaps the most important question is not; "How did you end up in this place?". it is; will you be able to finish the unfinished business that your self from this world left pending?.

...

..

.

You were exhausted, the movie you had gone to see with your friends had lasted longer than you expected. The duration had been three hours, and the idea of a hot bath made the somewhat stiff muscles from sitting for too long cry with joy. It was at least six in the afternoon, the sun was hiding, leaving behind a beautiful sunset.

The air was cool, giving you a little peace. The place you were walking through was lonely, there were no people around, which was weird, since you should be near the park and– oh, you can already hear the happy cries of little children playing. You felt safe, in a way hearing people nearby gave you some security because if someone strange showed up you could run to the park, you know; Just follow the voices and you'll be safe.

Although in extreme cases, you would just use the pepper spray you bought at that cheap store. Fortunately, for you, there has never been an edge case where you had to use it.

You were very close to the park, there was only one more block left for you to arrive. The screams of the children were getting louder, indicating that you were close, you could already hear the adults talking and some dogs playing with their owners.

You were about to get to where the voices were coming from when you felt the air changing and suddenly, you no longer had a ground to step on.

The ground had simply disappeared, leaving you to fall into a black abyss. The laughter of children, the happy voices of adults, became more and more distant until you simply remained in deathly silence. The peace you had before had been giving way to confusion and terror.

The feelings and questions racked every fiber of your being until you simply couldn't take it anymore and passed out.

You didn't know what was in store for you or what would happen once you opened your eyes, if ever.

Maybe when you open your eyes, everything will be alright again.

.

.

.

.

Maybe...

...

The old woman who found you was looking at you with pity... again.

You simply decided to recap what had happened these last few weeks in a lousy attempt to ignore the look 'Laura' was giving you. Apparently, you had woken up in a small town called 'Bibury'... which was in England.

'England?!', was your first thought when you found out where you were, your shock was so great that you couldn't speak for a couple of hours. The kind old lady named Laura had given you some tea to calm you down.

She had practically stayed by your side, patiently waiting for you to come to your senses, for which you were profusely grateful. Sometimes you needed alone time to process things, but not this time, you needed company and before you knew it you were hugging Laura and crying like a baby. She didn't care that you wet her soft coat with your tears. Your worries, your fears began to surface, how-how would you get back home?

You cried for what seemed like the whole day until the moon came up and it was only at that moment that you fell asleep, but before doing that Laura had taken you to a rather dirty and small room, she practically tucked you in like a small child while you sobbed and held on to everything you could reach. She had stayed close to you until you closed your tired eyes.

The next morning, you had a soup for breakfast that Laura had made for you. Having already had breakfast, you called the first number that appeared to you with your phone, which turned out to be your mother's, it rang a couple of times before—

'Sorry, the number you have dialed is unavailable or disconnected. If this is an error, try calling to...-'

"What?" It had been the first thing that had come out of your mouth, this was definitely not something normal. Deciding that maybe it was just a mistake, you called back, only to get the same message as before. With a tired sigh you called your dad, and they answered- but it wasn't your father's voice, you called each of your friends or acquaintances that you had in your contact list, but none of your contacts answered, not even your boyfriend who answered the first two or three rings.

Strangely, your dad's number kept calling your phone, you answered twice before giving up. The voice on the other end that belonged to a man sounded strange, almost as if he was in...shock?, although thinking about it, perhaps it was just confusion. The last thing he said to you before you hung up was a "who the fuck are you–?". You just turned off the phone after the last four calls because it wouldn't stop ringing.

Leaving you in your current state, unable to communicate and in a town you didn't know. Laura kept looking at you worried from her seated position. Deciding that enough of wallowing in misery was enough, you got up from the comfortable sofa you were on and sat down next to her. Perhaps socializing with the only person you knew would be better for now, plus when your headache subsides you might think better of what to do next.

Grabbing the small notebook together with the pen you wrote <<don't worry, everything is fine>>

When the old lady took you in, you learned many things about her.

The first thing you learned was that she was 98 years old. And that she was deaf due to an accident she had as a child.

The second thing you learned was that her husband had been killed in World War II. And all because he was enlisted in the army to fight for the allied countries, he had died due to the impact of a stray bullet.

And the third thing was that his son died several years after his father's death, due to lung disease. You felt bad because you were using her son's room, but Laura had told you not to worry about it.

Clutching the small notebook in her wrinkled hands together with the pen, she wrote to you <<you can always tell me anything>>

It could be said that you were lonely and somewhat hopeless, but with Laura by your side you felt that very soon you would be able to find a way to return home.

...

You didn't know what to think when a blond man appeared at the house that same afternoon. What caught your attention the most about his appearance was his beard and the long jacket he was wearing.

"Shit– I was right". Ah, he had the same voice you heard, he was the man of the phone.

Wait- what was he right about?

- - - - - - -

// curiosities //

World War II ended 79 years ago (1945 - 2024), Laura was 20 years old when the war ended. Her husband died when she was 19 years old, her son died of a lung disease that slowly became terminal when she was 27 years old.

- - - - - - -

I want a Laura in my life~ 😩

reblog and give me a big heart if you like it <3 and also comment and tell me what do you think! you can do it in this post or write it in my inbox!

[dnpbeats]

Dan and Phil 2024 Upload Stats!!

as the year has ended I thought I would share some of the upload stats from dan and phil this year! here is the spreadsheet if you want to see everything for yourself :3 I also have the stats from the year but only before TIT started, so let me know if you want a post about how upload frequency/times/etc changed after TIT started (nothing changed too dramatically though).

for all screenshots: green = AP and DAPG together (as if they were "one" channel), blue = AP, purple = DAPG

accessibility note: in the alt text of each photo, I have put the spreadsheet tab and cell range. I have turned on accessibility on the spreadsheet, so if you use the link above and go to that cell range, it will (hopefully!) read out all the stats!

General Stats:

There were 78 total regular uploads this year (regular = excluding live streams and trailers), with 18 of those uploads being on AP and 60 of those being on DAPG. The month with the most uploads was February (11) and the one with the least was November (2).

The average time between uploads across the channels together was 4.4 days. The maximum time between uploads was 16 days (Aug 31-Sep 16) and the minimum time was 1 day (Aug 30-Aug 31, ironically enough).

Dan was in 8/18 (44.4%) of AmazingPhil uploads. Despite the joking of DAPG not being a gaming channel anymore, only 30% of the videos uploaded to DAPG were non-games.

Date/Time Stats:

The most common day of the week for uploads was Sunday, with 19 uploads. The least common was Saturday, with only one upload. (That Saturday upload is the Aug 31 one, I don't know why it's featured in so many outlier stats/extremes lmao!)

On average, Tuesdays had the latest average upload time at 9:29pm (UK time) and Thursdays had the earliest at 7:21pm. See the full spreadsheet for these same stats broken out by individual channels!

Sponsor Stats:

There were 18 different sponsors this year, with 9 (50%) of those being single-video sponsors. The sponsor featured the most was Dragon City with 12 videos. There were 15 videos without a sponsor, meaning there were more videos with no sponsor than there were videos sponsored by a single sponsor.

80.8% of videos overall had sponsors. 100% of AP videos were sponsored, whereas 75% of DAPG videos were sponsored.

Editors:

Dan and Phil had a hand in editing 89.7% of the videos, but edited only 4 (5.1%) fully by themselves. They have been involved in the editing of every video since February 29. They have had 3 outsourced editors this year. SuperSeizer was the most common one, with her having edited or helped edit 38 (51.4%) of the videos this year. The 4 videos edited by d&p alone have all been on DAPG.

Runtimes:

The average runtime for videos overall was 20m50s excluding outliers (AKA Poppy Playtime Chapter 3). Including outliers, it is slightly higher at 22m20s. The shortest runtime overall was 9m30s (AP video) and the longest was 2h17m20s (DAPG video [Poppy Playtime]).

If we exclude a couple of sponsors that were only featured in one/two videos (AFK Journey and EA), the videos with no sponsors were on average the longest videos at 26m31s (this is also excluding Poppy Playtime btw!). The shortest videos on average were those sponsored by Relatable at 15m49s.

Series:

The series with the most uploads was the Sims, with 11 uploads total averaging 28 days between each upload. The series with the least amount of uploads was Golf With Friends, with only 1 upload this year.

I am realizing if I'm including BitLife and Phan Twitter I should probably also include the TikTok reacts, lol. There were 4 of those and the average upload time btwn them was 94 days. I will update the spreadsheet later!

Visualization of Uploads:

There is a full calendar sheet that shows the days videos were uploaded on, but I also created a visualization of every upload this year. Black squares are days not in this year (Jan 1 was a Monday, Dec 31 was a Tuesday). Imagine this is just like a squished up calendar!

Light purple is an "irregular" DAPG upload (live streams, WAD/TIT ads, etc.). Light gray is a Daniel Howell upload (WAD ad and WAD). Yellow is other uploads (WAD livestream and DAPCrafts upload).

And that's all! There's a ton more data and graphs/charts on the spreadsheet so feel free to take a look. The full calendar page also has the information of what TIT shows were happening each day. There is also specific info for each individual video (upload time in the UK (and where d&p were at the time), who edited each video, who tweeted about the video, etc.). There's also still the interactive part where you can select two videos and it will tell you how long there was between them!

Please let me know if you have any questions or notice any errors! :3

[livlaughloveluke]

omgomg can you do a charlie bushnell x reader smau where they do a soft launch?

ᡣ𐭩 𝗶 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗶’𝗺 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗻𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝗵𝗮

feminine reader x charlie bushnell smau

IN WHICH.. two famous pjo stars decide to make their relationship public

[a/n]- reader just plays an imaginary character in the first season, also request more smau’s i love them!

🎧- i know i’m funny haha by faye webster

liked by walkerscobell, jenna ortega, and 143k others

therealyn- beach trippp!

view comments…

diorgoodjohn- ok wow i don’t remember receiving invitation ?

↳ therealyn- i’m so sorry bae ilysm 💔

walkerscobell- you are NOT the son of poseidon lil bro 💀🔥

↳ therealyn- don’t make me get sally up in here

↳ walkerscobell- I WAS JOKING

user2- gorg

user6- holy shit she’s stunning

iamcharliebushnell- surprised you didn’t almost drown

↳ therealyn- THAT WAS ONE TIME.

↳ walkerscobell- hey why don’t I remember this so called “drowning”

↳ diorgoodjohn- i don’t remember this either 🤨

↳ therealyn- 🤫🧏‍♀️

user8- why is no one addressing the last pic

↳ user5- fr who is that

↳ user4- it’s probably charlie omg

↳ user3- can we let people be friends without automatically assuming they’re dating??

aryansimhadri- you’re my favorite castmate ❤️

↳ therealyn- awe you’re my fav too 💕

↳ walkerscobell- excuse me??

↳ diorgoodjohn- i thought you loved me yn 😔

↳ iamcharliebushnell- wait what

liked by diorgoodjohn, iamcharliebushnell, and 124k others

therealyn- the big 🍎

view comments…

diorgoodjohn- i’m 😭 so 😭 happy 😭 for 😭 you 😭

walkerscobell- hey so you can’t just post this with no explanation

↳ therealyn- hey so actually i can

oliviarodrigo- i’m in love with you omg

↳ therealyn- omgomg i love you too

iamcharliebushnell- pretty cool post

↳ therealyn- pretty cool indeed

↳ walkerscobell- this feels oddly intimate

aryansimhadri- what’s goin on here 🤨

↳ therealyn- i’m in new york duh

leahsavajeffries- maybe reply to my texts instead of posting your (not so) mystery man 💕😄

↳ therealyn- i’m going to ignore that last part ☺️

user4- HA tagged user3

↳ user3- they haven’t confirmed anything 😒

iamcharliebushnell uploaded a new story!

seen by therealyn, walkerscobell, diorgoodjohn… (view more)

liked by rickriordan, aryansimhadri, and 217k others

iamcharliebushnell- guess what

view comments…

walkerscobell- I KNEW IT

walkerscobell- GUYS I KNEW IT

walkerscobell- also that last photo is yucky 😀

↳ iamcharliebushnell- can’t you just be supportive

leahsavajeffries- so this is cool and all but i’d appreciate photo credits for the first one

↳ iamcharliebushnell- my dearest apologies i am greatly sorry

↳ leahsavajeffries- yeah you better be 💯💯

rickriordan- ❤️

↳ therealyn- 💕

↳ iamcharliebushnell- ❤️

diorgoodjohn- hey girly i know you don’t know me but…

↳ iamcharliebushnell- square up 🤺🤺

aryansimhadri- wowo so cutsies

↳ therealyn- so so cutsies

therealyn- who’s that gorgeous and funny and smart and sexy babe on the first slide 😍

↳ walkerscobell- someone’s humble

↳ therealyn- i was talking about charlie but okay

user4- I TOLD YOU tagged user3

↳ user3- i know i should be upset that i lost this argument and all but they are so cute

andrewalvarez- wow this is SO unexpected and I definitely did not know at all!

↳ walkerscobell- WHY DID HE KNOW BEFORE US

↳ iamcharliebushnell- he walked in on us 😔

ᡣ𐭩

MASTERLISTS 𓏲𝄢 REQUEST / TALK TO ME 𓏲𝄢 RULES

reblogging + showing support is highly appreciated :)

[spiderfriend]

in need of dgs/tgaa character ref sheets? i got you!!

i posted a thread of these on twitter quite a while ago but i only just realized i never posted to tumblr- so here you go! in this google drive folder you will find reference sheets like the one above for most of the characters in dgs, including wagahai and toby! it should be spoiler free unless you open the spoiler folder. i also have a folder of all of the character models i have ripped from the game so that anyone can open them in blender! i even have the model for the old bailey in there in case you need a reference for it! (some of the models are old uploads and not all of the meshes are properly named/textured, i am in the process of going through and fixing them up) all of that said, i have not ripped every single model from the game, so if you have any requests for models/ref sheets that i haven't made yet, please let me know by DMing me either here on tumblr or on discord @/alaskanbullworm- you can also send me an ask about it. unfortunately i am currently unable to rip the dlc costume models, as much as i wish i could. anyway, i hope these are helpful! :D UPDATE: i have found a way to use more color-accurate textures for the models- i probably won't remake all of the ref sheets but if you want to colorpick from the character models, i recommend doing it from the updated textures i am currently adding to the google folder!

[seiwas]

₊˚⊹。so this is what it means to be in love | gojo satoru

wc: 8.9k

summary: gojo finds out what it really means to be in love. 

contains: f!reader in mind, friends to lovers (prev. slowburn), suggestive scenes, might be mature/mildly explicit? (i only mention ‘butt’ once though…), ‘being in love’ as a journey, almost like a falls in love first (you) vs. falls in love harder (gojo), they fight, they swear, character death/s mentioned, shibuya onwards spoilers, lots and lots and lots of love

a/n: this is better read after the other parts in the collection but can work as a stand alone too!, there’s a jump between this and tell me about love (show me how) so gojo would have developed a lot in the relationship since then! 

collection masterlist: conversations on love  +02 (extra). look my way, you're what i crave <- you are here + (extended scene) too good to be mine -> 3.5a. this feeling inside of me—

MINORS PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT.

this is a re-upload! (because i accidentally deleted the original one!)

Gojo catches onto love slowly.

He takes the hand you leave open just for him, and closes the space between your palms, reducing infinity. 

Maybe he’s felt it all this time without knowing; after all, love looks a lot less profound as friends in your early 20’s. 

But being in it—being in love? That’s uncharted territory. 

Gojo’s been to a lot of places, has travelled back and forth from point-to-point endlessly. He’s survived battles, a war, near-death, and cursed spirits reincarnate; he’s got eyes—two bright blue and an extra four hidden, ones that see beyond human comprehension. Unearthing this simple truth shouldn’t shake him, shouldn’t even faze him. If anything, he should have seen it coming—

Except, he doesn’t. 

It sneaks up on him, bit by bit, until he finds that being in love means getting to experience you all over again, just differently.

.

.

.

It starts with the little things. 

Gojo has known you for so long (a decade and a few years more), but has only recently begun to notice everything: how your baby hairs stick out in the humidity of summer, the way you purse your lips in thought before finally deciding on a drink to order. You play with your fingernails subconsciously, out of habit, the soft taps on your nail beds an accompaniment of anxious conversations you’ve had since you were 23. 

He knows you always blink twice before focusing on him, and it’s a mystery whether this is a recent development or something he’s just never noticed, but if you’re trying to enchant him by the flutter of your eyelashes, he wants to let you know that it’s working—except, he knows that you aren’t, because you’re just like that: a daydream without even trying. 

These aren’t new things; he’s sure he’s probably encountered them all before, but lately they’ve evolved into cute things, and there’s no hiding the slight curve of his lips every time he spots them. 

.

The sun is beaming brighter this summer, the ocean a faraway blur from the beach towel you set up under the shade. Going to the beach is never your go-to when you think of an extremely hot afternoon, but Yuuji’s been eyeing a weekend getaway since sorcerer work’s lessened significantly. 

‘It’s a good effort,’ Gojo convinces you, ‘to get everyone together again.’

And it is—you see it now: Yuuji and Megumi preparing to fling Yuuta into the water while Nobara and Maki race along the shoreline. Toge stays close to Panda but he watches fondly, eyes crinkling every now and then, happy. 

When you blink, the image of them softens—a captured memory in the heat haze. 

The only older ones here are you and Gojo; Shoko’s always disliked the stickiness of sunblock on her skin, and Ijichi’s new position has made him constantly busy. Somewhere in the distance, you can maybe envision Nanami. He wouldn’t come if you or Gojo asked, but if it were Yuuji—

You rub at your eye, resting your chin on your hand as you will your tear ducts to please, don’t cry. 

Yuuji's been smiling a lot more lately, an observation you note from the way his ears are perked up every time you look his way. It’ll never be the same as it used to be but it’s relieving to know that he can exist living as himself now. Just Yuuji. 

You hug your knees tighter to your chest, wrapping your arms around it. Your place under the coconut tree provides ample enough shade but your back still burns from Gojo haphazardly slathering sunscreen on it after hearing an ice cream stand from miles away. 

The mind is a weird place to be at times like this—split into bittersweet reminiscing and telling yourself to just take this moment and breathe, to live in it. You think about Megumi, and how you hurt for him, always will, for all that he’s lost despite every attempt to avoid it.

You should have been there for Tsumiki, you could have been there for both of them. 

Your guilt never leaves you even on days that shine as vividly as this, but perhaps that’s the silver lining—that they’re still with you, always. You can carry pieces of them to these places, and scatter them to the wind, to the sand, to the sea, and maybe to the ice cream stand Gojo’s waiting in line of, surrounded entirely by kids. They all rise to half his size, but if you squint, you think the bounce in his step makes him blend right in. 

A chuckle escapes you. 

You could sort through your memories and land on one where he looks just like this—freakishly large limbs towering over a tiny, excited Tsumiki. Back then, an ice cream stop after school consisted of your pseudo-family of four, with Megumi on your hand and Tsumiki on his leg, both gripping tightly to combat a chilly 10°C.

Things are different now, evidently. Megumi’s outgrown it, and Tsumiki is no longer here. But Gojo has stayed the same, and it’s comforting to know that he will continue to be this Satoru, your Satoru, even when some things are gone. 

You don’t realize you’ve spaced out until he waves the ice cream cone while walking towards you.  

Gojo is a sight in trunks the color of his eyes, with seahorses and starfishes in an alternating pattern of peachy-pink against cerulean blue. 

You could have sworn you asked for your own cone, but he plops down beside you holding only one. For the both of you. The side-eye you give him is almost criminal, if not deadly, but your lips twitch from the smile you’re hiding (terribly). 

He raises an eyebrow and you break character, shaking your head while laughing. 

“Did you eat the other one on the way here?” you tease, craning your neck to lick at the bottom scoop (vanilla-strawberry-vanilla, Gojo’s signature order). 

Your tongue lands dangerously close to his fingers, and he feels it, but his eyes only land on you—your lips, how they part for your tongue to glide smoothly on his–both of your–dessert. You look every bit of an angel in the soft, pale hues of your bikini, but Gojo’s thoughts are anything but saintly. 

He blushes furiously, the tips of his ears and nose bright red as he turns away from you quickly. 

“I’m fulfilling your dream of sharing an ice cream cone with me.” he tilts his chin up, proud, smirking slightly. He jokes about it knowing full well that this is his dream come true, just by the look of you. 

You stay quiet, rolling your eyes but never meanly, no. You only ever do it fondly—he knows, being on the receiving end of it one too many times. 

The beach towel scrunches when you scoot closer, looping your arm around his as you both rest your elbows on your knees. Gojo holds the cone between you two, tipping it towards you when it’s your turn to lick. 

He shouldn’t stare, shouldn’t hyperfixate, but it’s so cute how you get the tiniest bit of ice cream on the tip of your nose—as if it belongs there, soft and sweet just like the rest of you. 

You look up to find Gojo gazing at you, eyes glimmering like sunlight on the ocean, and a tiny smile that only widens when he realizes you’ve caught him red-handed. Your eyes narrow suspiciously, scrunching your nose in an effort to stop yourself from grinning. 

When Gojo looks at you this way, as if you are his favorite place rediscovered, your heart thumps furiously against your ribcage. 

“What…” you drawl, your smile impossible to hide in the lilt of your voice. 

Gojo thinks he can count every eyelash, every speck of sand dotting your face, and stil not be bored of you. He can’t stop beaming. 

Is this what it means to be in love with you? 

“Nothing.” he replies, almost giggling, a little bashful but with every inch of sincerity. You know that smile, the only one that holds every ounce of Satoru. Gojo smiles big and wide to everyone else, but this small one you know, is reserved just for you. 

He leans in, lips coming closer to brush against the tip of your nose. Your eyes fall shut, instinctively, and the pink dot is wiped clean, a hint of strawberry dancing on his palate. He’s done this more times than he can count, has gotten this near to know that close will never be close enough, but you still jolt a bit—PDA has never been your thing. 

When he pulls away, you continue to stare at each other, locked in a gaze until the ice cream begins to drip down his fingers and onto the beach towel. It misses his trunks by a hair and you both laugh at how he belatedly tries to escape it even though it’s already there. 

It’s indescribable, this moment, seeing you in slow motion, laughing as bright as the sun—the sweetest sound he’s ever heard. It takes every bit of him to look away so he can wipe his hands clean from the dripping dessert.

You hand him a packet of wipes and beckon him to sit in front of you after. Squeezed onto the palm of your hand is a copious amount of sunscreen you plan to slather all over him. A touch-up, if you will. 

Gojo has sensitive skin, pale as bond paper and burns just as quickly. The high points of his face are already reddening, warm to the touch when you dab at them with sunscreen. 

You’re so near, so close, sitting cross-legged in front of him with your knees touching his. The tip of your tongue sticks out just slightly as you focus on his skin. 

Even though he knows, he still wonders what your lips would taste like, SPF chapstick and crumbly bits from the wafer cone. He wonders what your eyelashes would feel like, fluttering over his own. 

The light casts a halo around you and he thinks it’s fitting for all that you do. You pamper him like this, slather love all over his chest and back, massage it in so it dissolves into him—and he feels it so deep that he tastes it.

How can your love be so sweet? He thinks, sighing as your fingers work sunscreen up his neck from his collarbone. You always apply his skincare like this: upwards, gently—‘no tugging, please!’—something about keeping his baby face even when he’s old. 

“You should join them,” you mumble, rubbing more product onto the nape of his neck. You’re leaning over his shoulder, neck brushed against his cheek. 

Gojo hums, watching everyone from a distance. It’s been a while since he’s had a day like this. 

“But maybe after 30 minutes, so the sunblock doesn’t wash off. You’re already burning.” you note, coming back to sit. 

Of course, he’s already burning. How can he not when the sun is right in front of him? 

.

You join everyone for a game of beach volleyball in the sunset of the afternoon. You’re transported back to high school, the last time you did this—you and Satoru against Shoko and Suguru, with Haibara keeping score. 

From the way Gojo’s eyes are glossed over, you can tell he’s thinking about it too, the memory having seared itself into your brains forever, it seems. 

Being paired together should feel familiar—the same, but it doesn’t—isn’t, because Gojo can’t concentrate, sneaking glances to notice all the little things about you that he never used to. Your skin shines from the combination of sweat and sunscreen, and when you crash into him it’s both sticky and slippery. He should really ask for a time-out before you blind him completely. 

You look unfairly good in your bikini, too good he can barely hear you calling for him; between the ocean and his blood rushing, any other sound is drowned out into nothing. 

Maki and Yuuji absolutely demolish the both of you, reaching 15 first in the final set. Gojo blames the loss on you of course, even though he’s missed every pass you’ve sent his way and netted 60% of his spikes. 

And maybe it technically is your fault—you and your (very distracting) little things. But it’s entirely on him that he’s fallen for it, fallen for you as much as this. 

.

.

.

Gojo thinks of love differently when he sees a picture of himself and all it does is remind him of you.

There’s a photo tucked safely in his wallet (saved and set as his homescreen too). Shoko snorts when she walks in on him printing it, all six-foot-three of him hunched over the small inkjet printer in the faculty room. 

“It’s all digital now, Satoru,” she scoffs, taking a puff on her cigarette. 

Gojo doesn’t say anything even though he knows it’s true, too focused on watching the printer push out the two-by-three inch image he’s about to cut into. 

Print photos aren’t as important anymore when cloud storage spaces are just as–if not more–accessible, but Gojo is admittedly sentimental despite every front he puts up to hide it. 

He’s kept every single gift you’ve given him and camouflaged it as decoration in his office, and the family drawing 10-year-old Tsumiki made is still folded between the pages of a self-help book Yaga had given him when he first decided to teach. 

When every moment is experienced so vividly, seen through a muddle of infinite energies, there are those he wishes could stay still—ones that take up space to remind him: ‘this is real, it happened, and here is proof that it did’. 

He already has one of all of you, fresh-faced and barely pushing the peaks of youth at 16. A tangle of arms wrapped around each other—one of his gripping tightly on Suguru, and the other hanging loosely over you. Utahime is crouched in front, holding the hand you’ve placed on her shoulder while pulling Shoko into a semi-squish-semi-hug (because out of the four of you, Shoko is her favorite—completely valid; if given the choice, she’d be your favorite too). Nanami and Haibara stay close to Suguru, squatting low to balance the photo, and Haibara is smiling, the ever cheery grin Suguru loves to dote on, while Nanami is Nanami—sharp features and a serious gaze that you all know he’ll grow into someday, handsome with age. 

For the longest time, Gojo has kept that photo hidden, locked away in the drawer of his bedside table as if keeping it there means the memory will stay guarded forever—untouched, unspoiled, unruined. 

It would have stayed there if you didn’t stumble upon it while looking for his painkillers during another one of his skull-crushing migraines. 

You approach him with the image hesitantly, eyes damp and glossy. Years have faded the colors ever so slightly, but the corners remain crisp from being stowed away neatly. You say sorry, that you shouldn’t have looked through his things, but you remember the moment it was taken so fondly: a visit to the Kyoto campus on a one-day break to train with other students. 

Gojo has many theories about time and the multitude of spaces it takes—like how a person can exist at different points in time, disparate at each instance, and still take up the same big chunk of space. The opposite can be true too, that someone can live finitely (just once) and occupy spaces in every place you look: the face of a passerby down the road, a sign at the corner of the street, or even a photograph that immortalizes people you once knew. 

He only shares when you ask, aware that he tends to be a bit of a nerd about it whenever it’s brought up, but you don't mind. You like listening to it all, no matter how insightful or confusing they are for you to make sense—a version of him not many get to witness. His explanations are comprehensible for the most part, except—

When Gojo tells you that he’s kept the image in his drawer, hidden, because exposing it to the space-time that exists now will erase every reminder that it ever happened, you hug him tightly. 

Your sniffles are heard from the way his head is tucked into the crook of your neck, your fingers gripping strands of his hair in empathy. 

He considers your near-tears as a sign that the memory is long gone, decayed into the brittling tragedy of reality. But you smile, the corners of your lips bittersweet as you express disbelief that he’s kept it all this time. 

You tell him delicately that some precious things are meant to be celebrated, put out to be remembered—to be experienced. 

And it becomes clearer to him then, by the look in your eyes and remembrance soft-spoken, that what good is a photo unseen? 

What good is a love unwitnessed?

When you gift him a frame a year after finding the photo, he hangs it by the wall next to his office door. The image is painful to look at, always has been (even when it was hidden in his drawer)—during Suguru’s defection, and death anniversaries especially. 

The recent one for Nanami was heavy; the first time he’s ever been able to process grief fully. 

Gojo can argue that it grows more difficult every time he catches a glimpse of it from his desk, but you have a way of honoring pain that doesn’t make it sting as bad—that turns it into a reminder of a love that was once there, of feelings that hurt as evidence that someone cared. 

Now, he wants another photo printed, one of just the two of you. Not because it hurts, but because he wants this precious thing to be remembered and seen—for this love to be witnessed too. 

It’s self-timered, snapped under the shade of a cherry blossom tree in full bloom. The picture is far from perfect: your eyes bright and mouth open mid-fear of his phone falling off the bridge railing. 

You may look a teensy bit funny, but Gojo will always find it cute. Anyone can see it, at how he looks at you in that moment—like you are every bit worthy of the distance travelled and seasons waited. He gazes at you fondly, eyes holding clear skies and pink lips curling into a small smile. 

It’s cheesy, but if you ask him what he thinks about this year’s flowers, he’ll tell you none of them (not even any of them combined) could compare to you. The cherry blossoms could be gone and he’d still see them everywhere (in the softness of your lips, the fullness of your cheeks, the radiance you emit when you are truly, solely content and happy). 

He remembers that afternoon well: the spring breeze that jolts his phone sideways, his hand resting on your lower back, unseen in the image. There’s no real reason for visiting the blossoms on this day of all days, but Gojo doesn’t believe in coincidences, and he’s counted down exactly to a year since you both had your first kiss.

It’s so silly, because he’s never thought of things like this before. He knows you probably don’t think much of it either considering that neither of you have made anything official yet since. 

And he feels a little stupid for that, honestly. 

You have a drawer of his clothes for the nights he stays over (more often than not), and even though you go on these little trips that are so obviously dates, you both still just tell everyone you’re ‘hanging out’.

He’s not fooling anyone here, not when he looks at you then with the feeling of his chest expanding, stretching to accommodate the overflows of his affection since learning the ways to love you—tenderness caught in little pixels of eternity.  

When Gojo goes through all 179 photos from that afternoon, he filters out the ones to delete and picks this one out especially—favorites and resizes it to fit his home screen and his wallet too. 

There’s something about the look on his face that reminds him of every time he’s caught the same one on you. 

He slides the photo into the little sleeve behind his credit card, catching himself smiling—this must be because of you, he thinks, and the bits and pieces of yourself that have somehow become part of him slowly, sneaking into him unknowingly.

If this is what it means to be in love, with you, then he’s fucked. 

Don’t you know that he’s insatiable? These traces of you will only make him want the whole of you. 

.

You find the photo while he rushes to the restaurant restroom. On ‘hang out’s like this, you insist on splitting the bill, but Gojo has always been stubborn and you’ve learned that you can never argue. 

He hands you his wallet to pay with his card, and when you slide it out, the photo falls. It’s face down on the floor when you pick it up, fully expecting it to be a photocard of some idol you know Gojo follows. 

But it isn’t, and your smile widens. 

When Gojo comes back, you’re looking up at him affectionately, biting your lips as if to stop yourself from speaking—the same way he always does. 

It’s funny because, slotted between your two fingers is the photo he’s kind of flustered you found, but he has no time to be embarrassed when he sees a little bit of himself in the way you’re staring at him right now.

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.

.

“So, Yuuji asked if we were together.” 

You quirk an eyebrow, looking up at Gojo from the pile of laundry you’ve begun folding on your bed. He emerges from the bathroom, ruffling his hair with a towel. 

Over the past year, Gojo has spent his weekends off with you, sleeping over and traipsing around your room in his pajama set as if he’s lived here just as long as you. 

You snort as you fold, amused that this is even a question to begin with. Yuuji’s always been known for being exceptionally dense, but you didn’t think it was this bad. Gojo was especially touchy with you during that beach trip, and you’re sure Megumi and Nobara have caught up to let him know by now, somehow. 

“What made him ask?” 

“I think he wants to take you away.” Gojo teases, wiggling his eyebrows as he throws the towel on the chair across your vanity. 

You roll your eyes, still sweetly, indulging him, “Sure.” 

It’s now a running joke that Gojo’s threatened about Yuuji stealing you; you’ve always had a soft spot for bright eyes and even brighter souls and Yuuji is as close to that as anyone can get.

It’s not like that though, it could never be; Yuuji is just like your Megumi—the two boys you want to protect and care for in hopes of treating them better than their lives have ever. 

Gojo feels the same, you know, otherwise he wouldn’t have guided them as much as he has (despite his... questionable ways). Still, your hands have always been gentler, kinder—and though shorter, have always outstretched much farther than his. 

You have a way of inching yourself into people’s lives that just fits. He’s experienced it first-hand, can’t even dare to imagine what his life would be like if you didn’t. 

He walks across the room to you, bed dipping as he steadies a knee before draping his entire body over your shoulders. 

Now that you think about it, it makes sense that Yuuji’s confused, because Gojo has always been extremely touchy to everyone, just never when the feelings mattered, with you. Kiss him once, though, and it snowballs into an avalanche of firsts. And what he’s about to do right now, he thinks, might just trigger another one to form all together. 

“As if I’d let him.” he mumbles right by your ear, chin tucked by the crook of your neck. It tickles when he speaks, his nose poking at your cheeks. 

“Who put you in charge?” you scoff jokingly, unfazed. 

He moves away from you in disbelief, mouth open as he stares at you mindlessly folding.

To be fair, he can’t fault you. You aren’t technically official even though you have kind-of-been for a little over a year. There’s no particular reason, just that you haven’t talked about it—part because you wanted him to approach it whenever he was ready, and also, because it just never seemed like a priority.

You laugh as he stares at you, stunned into silence, the pout on his face borrowed from all the versions of yours. 

There’s no point of contention because you’ve only ever loved Gojo since you were 17. 

“Kidding,” you kiss his cheek as an apology. 

“Don’t even joke about that.” he huffs, you’re starting to take after him a little too much.

“You’re mine.” he murmurs after, arms wrapped around your waist and legs stretched out wide to encase you. 

He says it as if it is the simplest truth. 

Your heartbeat quickens, too loud and pounding; this is the first time you’ve ever heard this from him, and a part of you thinks this is just another one of those flirty side-comments he makes on a whim.

“You tell him that?” you hope he can’t hear your voice shake as he nuzzles your neck, your fingers trembling on the pair of socks you have yet to roll. 

He hums, hugging you tighter. He waits for you to finish folding before letting you lean against him, offering his fingers for you to fiddle with. They’re cold, long and slender, veiny just by a bit, and he always gives them to you like they’re yours, you like to think. 

There’s an inhale, a breath of hesitation, before he exhales.  

“Something like it.” 

You don’t say anything, only nod, and it’s nerve-wracking. He’s so nervous even though he knows he doesn’t have to be because it’s just you. And there’s no need to doubt what you’re feeling. But—

“You are though,” he pauses, “right?” 

He has to be sure. This is a testament to you more than himself that he’s learned to ask instead of bulldozing you like he does with everyone else. Who else will he pick that up from but you? 

There’s hesitation you hear that you think shouldn’t be there anymore; the fact that you’ve given so much of yourself to this man and he still thinks you’re unsure—

“‘Cause I’m yours.” he speaks, clearly, definitively, before you can even answer. And you know—you’ve known ever since that party years ago. A simple admittance: ‘I’m taken’. 

You turn around to face him, eyes shimmering. 

Can he see? You’re meant for him only. 

All you’ve ever wanted was to love him; everything else he’s done up until this point is already more than you could ever imagine. The labels can only do so much to capture the gravity of what you are to one another: years of history unpacked into a mishmash of feelings overlapping—it’s a lot.

You sit cross legged in front of him, your knees touching his. He’s biting his lips again, an anxious habit you want to kiss away. 

Gojo has proven far too much of himself already that he’s serious with you—your kind-of-confession, that confrontation, and the days after, all the ways you’ve both learned to love each other. 

You cup his cheeks. 

A single word cannot possibly define what he is to you.

“I mean, o-only if you want me to be.” he adds on, blue eyes darting back and forth.

Gojo runs his mouth almost all the time and you’ve never heard him stutter once in his life. Except now. 

He’s endearing like this—a version of him you are slowly discovering. 

“Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” you finally say, and it’s a relief. 

He feels good, releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding. His arms pull you closer, hugging you tighter as you both smile. 

He kisses you once, twice, maybe a million times all over, travelling across your eyelids, the center of your forehead, down to the corners of your mouth before landing a real one right on your lips. 

Gojo always looks pretty but he looks prettiest like this, worry-free, with love in his eyes and nothing but pure happiness in the way he holds you. 

He won’t tell you that Yuuji asked about your anniversary, not if you were together. 

At least now he has an answer.

Gojo stares at you like he wants to say something, a thank you maybe, but he bites his lips instead. No words will ever amount to this feeling, he thinks, of his chest expanding and heart hammering. So he kisses you with all of it, trailing soft smacks of his lips down your neck, tickling. The tips of his hair are still wet from his shower, leaving droplets on your skin as he nips. 

You laugh—sprinkled in love. 

“S-stop!” you push him away, “Satoru,” giggling, “tickles!” 

“We have to consummate it now.” he whispers, grabbing you by the waist to place you on his lap, squeezing your sides while nibbling at your neck playfully. 

You roll your eyes at his antics, “It’s not–” you laugh out loud when he pinches your hips, “–marriage, Satoru.” 

Oh, if only you knew, he thinks. 

The image you’ve planted in his head is dangerous when he’s this drunk on love right now. 

More decades, more years spent with you? In another life, or maybe even in this one, if time permits, he wouldn’t mind making that come true. 

.

It’s crazy how much things can change—for all his life, he’s ruled out the possibility of love ever taking root in his ribcage. 

You’ve managed to make it feel so easy, so good, even when he was shit-terrified not knowing how to love you like he should. 

Now, he thinks, how could he ever miss out on love this way? A love this good, with you? 

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.

.

For all of Gojo’s life, he’s never had to be anyone else—always the strongest, the only one. He’s never had to change anything about himself, because what’s there to improve when you’re already the best?

In a way, this is why it works with you. You’ve taken him as he is, all the good and ugly and never asked for anything more than what he can give. 

But being this in love with you—it’s foreign. There are pieces within him shifting, all on their own without him knowing. 

How he wants to be better, for you. To be good enough to deserve all of it, and give back more of it too. 

Gojo doesn’t realize how much love has changed him until he feels it uprooting every insecurity he never even knew existed, pulling it all up to the surface. 

When things are going great, it’s hard to imagine them ever going the other way. 

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.

.

“You don’t mean that.” you mumble, voice trembling.

Gojo stares at you, at your lips quivering and the fists clenched to your sides. There are tears collecting in pools by your eyes, and if there’s anything else he hates in this world, it’s seeing you cry. 

So why?

Why couldn’t he just shut up? 

“Please tell me you don’t mean that,” you take a step closer, gripping the edge of his jacket, “Satoru.” your voice cracks, begging. 

It’s an out-of-body experience when Gojo registers that he’s fucked up, and he sees himself now, bird’s-eye-view, and thinks this is the worst thing he could do to you after all you’ve been through. 

“I need some time to think,” he says, finally, the only words coming out of his mouth—but he can’t hear himself speaking. 

He should have said sorry, taken it all back, he thinks, not make it worse by leaving. 

He heads for the door, heart crunching under each footstep away from you. 

Is this what being in love’s supposed to do? Break his heart while yours is bleeding?

.

You’re too good for Gojo, in every sense of the word—and he knows it.

You are far too kind, far too generous, far too patient with him. You give him more love than he deserves, definitely, and admittedly enough, with how he is, you have been settling for the bare minimum but that’s on him, not on you. 

He had no right speaking to you the way he did, hurting you with accusations born from insecurities he’s never before had to deal with. 

He knows it. 

Who accuses you of ‘meddling’ as if everything out of you doesn’t come from the goodness of your heart? Of provoking you with ‘chasing the bare minimum’ as if he isn’t aware that that’s all he’s given you to work with? 

Utahime was right in telling you to be careful with him, and he doesn’t blame her for it. He would have done the same. 

He should have told you there was something brewing inside of him already—should have talked to you instead of bursting from all the things people have been saying lately.

Gojo hasn’t spoken to you in three days and the feeling this compares to is worse than anything else he’s ever had to face. 

.

He knocks on your door at night, a little past dinner and too early for bedtime. They echo loudly within the walls of your apartment, and you drag yourself up despite your obvious look of heartbreak. 

Gojo hears your footsteps and everything moves entirely too slowly; the lock, taking far too long to turn, the gap between the door and the door frame widening incrementally. Even your face comes into view as if in stop motion, frame-by-frame, gradually.

His hands are in his pockets, lips bitten to bleed. He’s pretty sure he isn’t breathing when he takes you in—puffy eyes and a sweater that belongs to him. 

(Is it sick of him to say that he still finds you beautiful this way? Even when you look every bit the part of heartache?) 

Gojo didn’t have a plan coming here, didn’t have a list of things to say, just the feeling that he needed to talk to you, see you, even just be around you today. 

When your eyes meet, it’s quiet. You stare into him for one–two–three– (Can you tell that they’re watery? Can you see they’re puffed up too?) and then open the door wider to let him in. You head straight to the kitchen, never once looking back while dragging your feet. 

He stands outside a few seconds more, waiting for you to take it back—but you don’t, so he walks in and closes the door.

He’s been in your apartment plenty of times before, has practically lived in it by how often he stays over. But this is the first time he’s felt wholly out of place, not knowing where to put himself, just standing in the space between your kitchen counter and the living room awkwardly.

You push a glass of water towards him and he can’t stop staring at it—at you, at your fingers that he wants nothing more now but to hold. 

Even with all his faults, all his wrongs, you open your arms for him to walk into, allow him in as if he didn’t just hurt you. 

And he wants to cry, at the fact that this place still feels like home, at how it’ll always feel that way wherever you go. 

How are you still treating him so kindly? Still taking care of him? A glass of water is one too many for someone like him. 

You turn away from him to pour yourself your own then he speaks—

“You should be angry with me.” Gojo says softly, but you hear it. 

You pause, tilting the pitcher back upright. 

“Why aren’t you angry at me?” he says, a little louder this time, more desperate, more pleading.

Why are you never angry at me? he wants to ask. 

You turn around to face him, putting the pitcher down.

Under your kitchen lights, his eyes shine like sunlight on the ocean, waves lapping on the shore. You think it might be a trick of the light, but his lips tremble when he closes them, as if he can’t speak any more. 

It’s just as you’ve said, there’s no point being angry with him when your heart can never take it. 

You always give Gojo the benefit of the doubt, and though he’s hurt you—though this might be the most painful thing he’s told you yet, you know that he’s been under immense pressure lately. Stressed beyond belief from negotiating with the government on policies for jujutsu society. 

It’s not an excuse, you know, but Gojo always has his reasons. He'll tell you eventually, you believe that much. 

You give him a sad smile, struggling to stop your tears from spilling. His fists are clenched too tightly, nails digging in hard enough to bleed. He hasn’t moved since coming in, so you push yourself off the kitchen sink towards him. 

You take his hands first, unfurl each finger pressed upon his palm and rub gently. He cries quietly for a love so pure that only you would attempt to ease his hurt despite the pain he’s dealt you. 

You tiptoe second, pulling the sleeves of your (his) sweater before reaching up to wipe his eyes—beautiful and blue just like you’ve always known, droplets of the ocean at your fingertips. 

“Be mad,” he whispers, “please.” squeezing his eyes tightly. 

It hurts more when you aren’t, he thinks. 

His hand comes up to grip your wrist, bringing it down to cup his cheek. You stroke your thumb across his skin, soothing, loving, and that’s all it takes for him to pull you in. He hugs you tight, arms wrapped around you, clutching. 

He wouldn’t deserve you. In any life.

Gojo’s never cried this much before, head pressed to your neck as you rub circles along his back, shushing him softly. You start sniffling too, small at first until it turns into soft hiccups when you finally cry. 

Your grip on him tightens. 

“‘M sorry.” he mumbles, lips moving against your neck. 

“‘S–” you hiccup, “–okay.” 

“Stop saying that when it’s not,” he presses against you, nuzzling your neck, “I hurt you.”

“Then don’t–” another hiccup, “–call yourself–” hic, “–bare minimum.” you cry harder. 

Gojo knows your heart and the tears that leak out of your eyes; he knows they hold pain for more than just yourself but every single person in your life. You, crying now, is evidence of that truth—shedding tears for him not just because of him when he thinks he’s the bare minimum. 

This must be what it means to be truly, deeply loved, he thinks, to have someone know what you mean without even having to speak it—to know your heart, and all the good and bad parts of it. 

“I don’t think I’m good enough to you,” he admits, pulling himself away from you.

When he sees your face, wet, with your nose and eyes puffed up from crying, he decides that he hates it more than anything else. Makes it sick to his stomach, even. 

He cradles your cheeks, thumbs wiping away your tears. A whole hand of his could cover your face entirely, but he always, without fail, holds you delicately. 

“That’s not–” hic, “–true.” you gather your breathing, holding him by the wrists as he presses his forehead against yours. “Only I get to decide that. Not anyone, not you.” 

You kiss his lips, a small peck before nudging his nose with yours. You soothe each other this way—in the quiet, swaying to your own tune. 

“You’re good to me plenty, Satoru.” you whisper, once both of you have settled. 

He opens his eyes to look at you, smiling sadly as he cradles your face, “I didn’t mean it.” 

Whatever he told you that day, taking it all out on you.

“I know.” you mumble, nodding. 

You always do. 

.

.

.

Gojo has always loved you, in some type of way—as friends, colleagues, a-little-bit-more-but-less-than what you are today. 

But how he feels right now? It’s kind of ridiculous, borderline out-of-hand, and it’s driving him insane. 

It’s such a simple, ordinary thing for you to do: you rush up to him, phone in hand and scroll to some video you found online. You’re so excited, a bounce in your step as if he’s the first and only person you want to show this to. Your eyes shine bright with a megawatt smile to match, and you’re talking so, so fast, completely lit up like fireworks in the making. 

He knows you think that he’s listening but, he couldn’t care less about it honestly. Sorry. Not when the words go in one ear and out the other, because all that registers is how adorable you are, giddy and everything. 

He makes a joke—completely unrelated, but you find it so funny. Then you’re laughing, full on smacking his arm, doubled over, arms hugging your stomach, guffawing. Your feet are kicking the air as you sink deeper into your couch. Gojo’s standing in front of you, post-enactment of some impression he made, and he’s frozen in place but warm all over. 

Seeing you laugh like this, smile like this, being so pretty when you’re happy, the pounding in his chest goes crazy. 

This isn’t the first time he’s made you laugh; he does it all the time. You almost always roll your eyes and chuckle, sometimes giggle with your eyes squinting and laugh lines creasing. But it might be the first time it’s like this: with you so bright, more than the sun and every other star in the sky. 

And he thinks, this is all he could ever want—to make you happy for the rest of his life. 

There’s too much of this feeling inside of him, clawing at his throat, itching to get out. He’s filled with it, has been filled with it for so long that it’s starting to overflow and if he doesn’t say this now he might just—

“I’m so in love with you.” 

Gojo breathes it out, as if finally releasing it after all this time. You don’t think he processes it because he just stands there, in the middle of your living room, staring at you. 

Your laughter dies with maybe a little part of you too (in a good way). 

He looks so sweet, so sincere, and you see his heart, so big, so honest and pure. You get flashbacks of every Satoru you have ever known, at 15, 17, 23, to now. 

It’s not like either of you don’t know; it’s plain as day, how you feel about each other—and you would have been fine going on without ever having to hear him speak of love this way.

But hearing it now, it’s far better than anything you could have imagined. 

You stare at him. He stares at you. 

He’s shocked too. 

You don’t want to embarrass him, especially if he didn’t mean to say it, so you chuckle, moving on to break the quiet.

“I can unhear it if you want,” you offer shyly, genuinely. 

Gojo looks at you, confused, before a pout makes its way onto his face. You sit up on your couch, playing with your fingers as you look up at him.

Sure, he practically blurted it out, maybe in the heat of the moment, or something, but it doesn’t make it any less true. And he’s realizing that the only thing he really wants from this—

“Though…” you continue, biting your lips, “I think I’m pretty in love with you too.” 

The little laugh you make has him, completely. 

The grin that breaks on his face is infectious. Gojo, who is normally so pale, is now pink all over—red by his ears and down his neck. There’s a sparkle in his eyes that can be found in yours too. 

This moment right here feels like first loves—teens first saying ‘I love you’. 

“You think?” he asks incredulously, joking, “So you’re not sure?” he walks closer to you. 

You laugh, candy for his cravings, and take his hand to kiss each knuckle before guiding it to your cheek. He runs a thumb across your skin, affection on his fingertips. His index finger hooks itself under your chin, tilting it to rest on his stomach as you look up at him. 

A kiss to your forehead, tenderly, gently. 

The best part about being in love? 

He gets to be in it with you. 

.

.

.

Gojo can’t sleep. 

It’s not anything new—4 hours on average, maybe 6 on a good night. He doesn’t remember a time when sleep ever came easily.

Sleeping with you, beside you, has helped, but it’s never solved the problem. You’ve gotten him to a full 8 hours before, but never consecutively, and he’s starting to think that if you can’t do it, nothing ever will. 

Your sleeping positions change every night, but they always come out as some variation of hugging. Gojo firmly believes that he might as well sleep alone if you aren’t touching. 

Tonight, you’re spooning, arm slung over his waist and palm right on his chest, fingers interlaced with his. Your legs stay tangled together with soft puffs of air blowing at the back of his neck. 

He opens his eyes and checks the clock by his bedside. 3:24 a.m. 

He sighs deeply, carefully maneuvering his body to slip away from you. You used to wake up the first few times this happened, worried about an emergency or some kind of accident. Being a sorcerer trains you for things like that. 

You’ve always known Gojo had bad sleep, just not the severity of it. 

You don’t wake up to it as much as you used to, having grown accustomed to it after more nights together, but on the off-chance that you do, Gojo always kisses your forehead gently as if to tell you that it’s okay, you can go back to sleep.

You don’t wake up now, thankfully, so he grabs his phone and heads for the kitchen. There’s a sinking feeling in his chest tonight, far heavier than others he’s woken up from. He pours himself a glass of water before hopping on the kitchen counter, ready to sort through the bowl of candy sitting on the island. 

The date today is October 31. Halloween. It’s been a few years since Shibuya but he still feels like he’s suffocating. 

In the train station. In the box.

In front of Suguru—or Kenjaku, both, whatever. 

He’s gone to therapy, just like you wanted, for the both of you, and grieving has been an interesting concept to wrap his head around since.

But no matter how much he trains his mind to deal with it, his body will always remember the feeling. 

He snaps out of it when he hears your footsteps padding on the floorboards. Your figure emerges from the hallway, bed hair and eyes still sleepy, squinting. 

“Satoru?” you rub at your eyes, his sleep shirt entirely too long as the sleeves extend past your fingertips. The extra fabric swings in the air. “You okay?” you whisper, approaching him. 

Waking you up is the last thing he could ever want right now, but it’s hard when you’re also the only one he can talk about this with. When you know what it’s like to grieve everyone too.  

He has every intention of brushing it off, of telling you to go to sleep, but one look at you—one look at him and it’s like you just know. He doesn’t even need to explain. 

It isn’t hard to piece together, knowing what today is and seeing him choked up the way he is. You tell Gojo it’s your intuition, but he has a tell, and maybe you’re the only one who knows it. 

His eyes—they’ve always given him away. There’s the Satoru you know, then a Satoru that’s far removed, gone away. You can spot it though, the moment it loses its sparkle, the moment it turns from blue to gray. 

He feels a little selfish sharing this with you; he’s not the only one who’s lost people. You have too. 

You stand in front of him and offer a sad smile, outstretching your arms as an invite, as if to tell him: you can stay here for as long as you’d like. 

He moves into your space slowly, hopping off the kitchen island to slump against you. 

He doesn’t hug you yet, not immediately, hands still shaky at the memory. You rub his back, hooking your chin on his shoulder as he bends down to rest his head by your cheek. 

You take his hand delicately, bringing them to your lips so you can kiss every fingertip gently. When you finish, he wraps his arms around you, squeezing tightly. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” you whisper, like a hushed secret. 

And he wants to, but also, there isn’t anything else to say that you don’t know already. You were there the first few times he had therapy, and when he felt comfortable enough to go alone, he told you all about it anyway right after. 

If there’s a secret to fighting the Gojo Satoru with guaranteed victory, they’d only have to get to you—he’d be gone, entirely. You know too much of him, own too many parts of him already. 

He chuckles dryly, vibrating by your neck. A step back and he’s leaning against the counter, bringing you closer by the hip, thumb stroking. He tucks away strands of your hair behind your ear, flattening down the bird’s nest that it is from your sleep. 

“Nothing you haven’t heard before, pretty.”

Gojo’s been more tender lately, especially in the night when his piercing eyes turn soft, gazing. 

You pout, the same one since you were 16. You don’t know if you’ll ever get used to it, the way he calls you such sweet, honeyed things; you’ve only recently begun to call him ‘baby’ and that alone has been enough to make your head spin. 

Still, he wouldn’t be your Satoru if he didn’t surprise you. With how he is now, it’s hard to imagine a time when this was all so difficult for him, when even the slightest bit of your hands touching was challenging. 

It’s hard to imagine that both of you are here now, living in the same space, by the kitchen at night, with the contents of your hearts memorized—the sorrow, the pain, the joy, all the love, every single one. 

He kisses your nose, and that’s comfort alone. 

This is his reality now, with you, and it’s safe.

It’s good. 

“Do you want to make waffles?” he hears you mumble, running your hands over his chest, soothing.  

The clock reads 3:56 a.m. Early breakfast doesn’t sound so bad, could also be a midnight snack.

(But he knows what you’re doing). 

You don’t tell him to try to go back to sleep, never forcing anything you know he can’t do. Instead, you offer yourself to stay up with him, keep him company. Whatever he needs. 

(And he loves that about you). 

.

.

.

Gojo will forever argue that you might have fallen first, but he’s definitely fallen harder. 

He could map out every single location he’s laid his love on—your eyes, the flutter of your eyelashes, the curve of your nose, and your lips, the same ones he’s kissed and nipped, bitten until he gets his fill. 

Your neck and chest—a canvas for his desires. He glides a finger across your collarbone before lightly tapping on it thrice. 

There’s the little dip at the base of your spine, and your thighs—

Oh, he could get lost in them. 

He knows. 

He has. Many times.

There’s an animal inside of him that only answers to you. 

When you kiss his neck and grip his back, soft moans by his ear—short and sweet. He’s a gone man, wholly devoted to you, and you only. 

You breathe his name out, “Satoru,” raspily, and he sinks into you—everything, all that he has spilling in the depths of you. 

How can he possibly contain all this love?

It’s scary how so much of him already belongs to you, all these years—how you’ve been carrying pieces of him, all versions of him throughout every birthday, every moment you’ve touched his life and have it irrevocably changed. 

.

“Are you happy?” he mumbles by your ear, voice deep and lazy. 

It’s the morning, sunlight barely peeking through your curtains. Gojo hugs you from behind, arms caging you as he traces little hearts on your sides. 

“Right now?” you whisper back, chuckling, “That’s not fair.” 

He nips at your ear, a small bite, before you turn to face him.

He supposes you’re right, it isn’t fair to ask that now; both your bodies are sore, well-exhausted, and littered with conversations on love. 

Gojo is pretty in the mornings just like he is all the time, his hair lending well to sunlight as much as it does to the moonlight. And his eyes—they shine a different shade during the day compared to the night. 

You though, you’re an entirely different creature of your own: a goddess in bedsheets and pillows, wrapped in immaculate white.  

You giggle when you face him, nose-to-nose, and he pulls you in tighter, grips you by the butt to slot you in right where you belong. 

Are you happy with me? 

He wonders, and you can read it—his eyes his greatest tell. You kiss him tenderly, lips moving gently against his. Then you smile, sincerely, before whispering—

“Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

this is a re-upload! (because i accidentally deleted the original one!) thank you notes: to @stellamancer for being there since the very start!! col wouldn’t even exist without you!! you’re every much part of the creation of this as i am :'), to @crysugu for being so ever supportive, cheering me on all the time!! and for loving col reader as much as i do!! and to you reading this and everyone else who has loved this collection so far!!  of course!! a credit to all the writers whose works have inspired the way i view and write gojo: to @seravphs for teen dad!gojo and cruel summer influences, i draw so much of the way i understand these characters and their dynamics from you and your beautiful way of writing them and i hope my interpretation gives justice to that!!, to @augustinewrites for keeping up with the fushigojos, this series and the way you write them, with so much love, has always pushed for me to view gojo that way!! you’ve inspired so much of my understanding that gojo does believe in love and that when he falls in it, he falls in it hard!!

comments, tags, and reblogs are greatly appreciated ♡

[melannen]

How To Make Your Own Fanfiction Archive, In Just Ten Easy Steps

As the go-to "person who knows about AO3" for quite a few people who read fanfic but aren't really linked-in to wider fandom culture, I've fielded a lot of questions about how to do certain things on AO3 to which my best answer is "you should really start your own archive!" I think, in general, more fans starting their own small archives would be a net good for fandom. AO3 was never meant to be the only archive for all fandom, or even the main archive, and the more spread out and backed up we are the more resilient we are.

But of course I have to be reminded that a lot of fans these days don't really have any idea how little "you should start your own archive!" really involves. (Also, that I should practice what I preach.) So I am now making my own fanfiction archive, and writing up this post as I do it to tell people how to make theirs!

Go to https://neocities.org/ and sign up for an account. It only needs a username (which will also be your website address), password, and email. Pick a username that will be related to your archive's title!

Choose the free account option (if you ever need more than what the free account offers for a text-only archive, you should probably look into graduating from neocities.) This should take you to a menu of "how to make a website" tutorials. You should do them! They're useful skills. But let's get your archive running first.

Hit the big red Edit Site button, or open the menu under your username and select "Edit Site".

Select the "Index.html" file to edit. You're now in an HTML Editor. Congrats, you're a web developer c. 1999!

Find where it has text between the < title> tags. Delete the filler text, and put in the title of your new archive. This text will be what shows on the tab when people go to your archive.

Find where it has text between the < h1 > tags. This will be big header text at the top of your page. Put the title of your archive here again. If you have no experience with HTML, you should read over the other sample text. It covers the basic basics very well! Once you've done that, you can delete everything else between the < /h1> tag and the < /body> tag. Save your index.html file.

Get an HTML file for a fanfic you would like to add to your archive. If it's on AO3, you can use the html download option built into AO3. If you have it as a word processor/google docs file, you should have the option to save as an html file. Save that html file to your computer.

Go back to Edit Site on Neocities and go to "upload". Find the html file you saved and upload it. (You can also drag and drop files to upload.)

The file you uploaded should now be showing with your other neocities files. Right-click on the title and select "copy link".

Go in to edit index.html again. Under where you put your header text, type < br> < a href=" . Then paste in the link you copied. Then type "> Then put in the title of the fic. Then type < /a> . Then save the index page again when you're done. You can do this for every fanfic you have.

Congratulations! You now have your very own personal private fanfiction archive that you are 100% in charge of and make all the rules for. It's at least as good as half the ones I was reading on when I started reading fanfiction and will serve its function well as a way to let people read your fic. You can link to it from anywhere you want! (Including your AO3 profile.)

Blogpost version, with FAQs and discussion

Anyway, here's my beautiful new fanfiction archive made using this tutorial:

Melannen's Fanfiction Archive

(I am honestly way more disproportionately proud of finally making that than I expected to be. It's nice to have your own archive.)

If you make one, share it here ! I want to see!

[dedfly]

Before book of Bill finally comes out I feel like sprinkle you with silly headcanons I have for Bill x reader. I mean I should dump this nuke before the book crossed out all my headcanons am i right guys? No? Well too late

And and I need to tell you guys my favorite genre of Bill x Reader fanfics then he suddenly live at your house or something like that because man... What are you doing in my house go party or something

So it's basically living with Bill headcanons more than actuall romantic ones but there is folks who did it better than me

Oh and yes sorry for any mistakes I proof read it but grammar is not my strongest point

Bill as your roomate

Bill x reader headcanons

∆ As I established earlier Bill now your roommate.

��� How? Well it just happened, deal or it's past weirdmageddon it's doesn't really matter

∆ Well after weirdmageddon he would be more wary and pissy that's for sure. But less obnoxious

∆ Bill is the kind of guy who will say, “I borrowed your car,” after he already drained almost all the fuel from it and give you back the keys as if nothing had happened.

∆ or just throw the keys at your head

∆ And miss

∆ Now your car keys are lost somewhere among the trash

∆ Basically the guy is destructive and does shit simply because he's bored (what a shoker /s)

∆ He is bored constantly so it's a disaster

∆ He can tear up the wallpaper and try to pull some bricks from the wall. And that's the best case scenario

∆ Downald him a Sims 2 he would love it

∆ Especially how easily this game crushes

∆ He would eat spoiled or moldy food and comment it with only "It's taste funny"

∆ And yes if you tell him it's expired he just continue eating while you tell him not to

∆ He knew

∆ Literally stealing your food and drinks while you eating

∆ Good thing he does this few times a week at best

∆ Doesn't pay rent

∆ Doesn't help around the house

∆ Terrorized your neighborhood

∆ Terrorizing you

∆ Hides in whatever his flat ass could fit

∆ Brings in all sorts of rubbish as gifts

∆ and yeah his usual "gifts" are more like like a severed head, but here just really garbage

∆ He found a broken bottle on the street? Present

∆ Roadkill? Present

∆ This dead rotten fish reminded him of you he bring it home

∆ Charming

∆ He might even just spit out a live rat into your lap

∆ Ew.

∆ Watches you sleep. Like a creep he is

∆ But he does this with everyone so it's not like it counts

∆ Overall experience? Terrible

∆ Do i love this idea? Absolutely

Would I upload more? No idea

Well probably just little things i find in my notes

[theharlotofferelden]

The Manifesto posted to Substack is fake

I've been seeing people uncritically share this (now deleted) substack article claiming to be Luigi Mangione's manifesto. If you believed this was real you should know that it's fake.

The real manifesto wasn't posted up until a day ago by Ken Klippenstein. You can read the manifesto here:

“To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

And on the subject of disinformation, you should know that the "Countdown to Truth" YouTube video people were claiming was uploaded by Luigi was also fake.

Please share this. There's too many conspiracy theories going around right now without believing disinformation.

ETA — editing this post to debunk this manifesto I’ve recently become aware of. I haven’t been able to find anyone talking about this one online, but using Whois to check when the website was created reveals it was made December 9th, which is the day he got caught. It also shows the website was registered by someone living in Reykjavik, Iceland.

ETA 2 — I didn’t think I would have to say this on a post trying to combat disinformation, but since that person called me a “narc” after calling them out for trying to derail this post with conspiratorial thinking, I feel the need to say that at the time of me writing this post, Luigi Mangione is, at most, the main suspect in the murder of Brian Thompson. I make no claims that he’s the perpetrator (although I will admit the evidence is stacked against him). I am in support of a trial by jury and am in favor of a not guilty verdict (and jury nullification).