#YOU'RE SO COOL I WANT TO TALK TO YOU MORE ALSO !!!!!

[enigmeyyy-writes]

I definitely think a lot of this is really interesting now that I'm rewatching the show again to write my fanfictions...

Katara definitely had her faults (and it was kinda wrong of her to tell her older brother that he didn't love their mother as much, especially because he most likely had more memories of her alive in comparison), but she was still a 14-year-old girl thrust into adult responsibility in the middle of a war. She is misunderstood a lot of the time from a fan's perspective because (in all honesty) a lot of us watched the show as kids and either thought she was super cool or super annoying. I even only started to find Katara annoying after I was older--and that was mainly because in times when she did attempt to "solve" things or "fix" something she wasn't mature enough yet to understand how to handle it responsibly. Sokka was a lot like this too, and we see him getting blamed a lot less. Both of them were standing in as leaders in their tribe during the war, and both of them left. Sure, the Avatar showed up, but even Aang was running away from responsibility until he realized he had to face the consequences of his actions!

Past this point is a lot of me talking about how I'm addressing a lot of this in my fan works, so check it out if you're interested!

I think a lot of my thoughts on this topic stem from the fact that I want to explore the emotional and responsibility commitments the characters of ATLA have weighing on them. In the AU I'm writing, for example, the characters (set in canon) are aged up and a lot of them have more people they are attached to. Since this was a Katara-centric post, I'll also include what I have in mind for my Katara fic.

Growing Pains centers around the letters Katara sends home to her and Sokka's childhood friend, Mali. He was the oldest of the boys left behind by the tribe because he just didn't quite make the age cut, and now serves as a hunter and protector for the tribe. He was definitely upset when his friends left him, but he knew that if they were to travel with the Avatar he had to stay and protect their tribe. Katara sends her letters detailing the stories of her adventures to Mali but soon realizes that she left a lot behind at home for what was turning out to be a perilous and risk-filled adventure.

And on the Aang side of things (because let's face it, a twelve-year-old boy having childish immaturity and the weight of the world on their shoulders is NOT the best combination), I wanted to explore more of his energy and experience of learning maturity after hardship in a Book 3 and post-war fic titled Spitfire.

Spitfire centers around one of Zuko's childhood friends (an OC because I think he deserved friends he could actually trust prior to joining the Gaang) named Soru coming to terms with the fact that he never truly was against the Avatar even though he's from the Fire Nation. Escapism at its finest--truly. As Aang has to come to terms with the new reality the world is entering after the defeat of Fire Lord Ozai, he has to learn how to deal with the weight of the political aspect of society the rest of his friends (and former enemies for that matter) were already wrapped up in.

All in all, I really think exploring aspects of the characters of such a beloved show that aren't really addressed is such an interesting thing to do. I applaud all other ATLA writers on the platform (and any platform) for either just sticking to canon or coming to terms with the flaws that are either over-exaggerated or under-represented in fanfiction, but I am not one of you! I want to explore the inklings of depth we get from this fun show, especially since I'm approaching this from a perspective in which the characters are older and arguably have more responsibility on their shoulders.

I'd really appreciate it if anyone would check out my stories (will be posted on here and ao3) or at least show interest in them! I've worked really hard to put all the details together behind the scenes, so any support or showing you enjoy my works/ideas is greatly appreciated!

I just watched Avatar for the first time all the way through, and yeah, it’s great, but the one thing that surprised me was how different Katara was compared to the fandom interpretation I’d seen and internalized before watching.

Like, before you watch Avatar, you’ve seen all these memes about Katara and her mom, and based on those memes, you assume it’s one of those lines you have to get used to hearing at least once every episode. But then you watch the show and realize that she only talks about her mom maybe five or six times per season and you also realize she only brings her up when she’s trying to comfort someone or empathize with them because that’s how she processes her grief and that’s one way she connects with people.

Or you hear the infamous line, “then you didn’t love [our mother] the way I did” and you prepare yourself for one of the worst character assassinations ever only to see the scene after nearly three seasons worth of context and realize she was kinda right. She’s been the mother, the nurturer, the comforter. She’s been patient, gentle, and accommodating where everyone else has gotten to be insensible and reckless and childish, and the one moment where she allows herself to feel her grief, suddenly she’s this evil bitch and not, y’know, a 14 year old girl whose been thrusted into adulthood in a way no other character has. A 14 year old girl who should be allowed immaturity and raw emotion and anger instead of the patience and grace she’s been forced to extend to every character without even the smallest amount of gratitude or even consideration in return.

Or you see all of the clips where Katara puts Aang in the “friendzone” and you expect to have this wishy washy back and forth where Aang is putting his feelings out there only to have Katara neither commit nor express any clear reciprocation or rejection. Then you watch and realize that, as cute as the ship is initially, that there’s never a point where Aang returns any comfort or grace to Katara despite her always doing this for him to the point of coddling. That for as much as Aang says he loves her, he never seems to outgrow his perception of her so he can recognize her as someone who feels grief, anger, and pain as much as she expresses love, kindness, and maturity. And instead of having moments where he learns to see her beyond her strength or compassion, you’re instead given moments where Aang forces his feelings onto her, both romantic and non-romantic, and Katara is expected to just…shoulder those feelings the way she shoulders everyone else’s.

Katara is the most misunderstood character in the show. As much as people recognize the complexities of Zuko, Sokka, and Azula, they struggle to do the same for Katara because they see her struggles as somehow lesser, and therefore, less deserving of sympathy. They can handle her so long as she’s being endlessly patient and loving and kind, but the moment her endless love, patience, and kindness runs out, she’s suddenly this annoying bitch who can’t shut up about her mother or reciprocate Aang’s feelings. But Katara’s trauma does matter as much as anyone else’s. No, she wasn’t banished from her kingdom. No, she didn’t lose her entire community, and no, she isn’t the only one who lost her mother. But the difference between her and everyone else whose experienced loss because of the Fire Nation is that she’s never given time to process her trauma. Aang gets to lean on Katara constantly. Toph gets to express her feelings to Katara, and yeah, Sokka also lost their mother, but unlike Katara, he isn’t put in the position of being a substitute for everyone’s parent. He even admits that he sees his sister as a mother. The only characters who ever comfort Katara or allow her to vent is Zuko and her father and that’s, like, three scenes in a show where the other characters are consistently given opportunities to seek out Katara for unconditional support.

The fandom interpretation of Katara has been so bastardized that even those who haven’t watched the show know her for this fanon version and not for who she is. She’s such an interesting character beyond her fandom limitations, though. She’s brave, hot-headed, and hopeful as well as gentle and caring. She wishes to learn waterbending, not only because she wants to fight in the war, but because she wants to continue her culture’s practices because, and people often forget this, she also lost an entire subculture within her already fractured tribe. And she wants to defeat the Fire Nation both because of her deep love and empathy for other people, but also because she wants to avenge her mother. But because some of the fans have reduced Katara to a bitch who constantly whines about her mother and friendzones Aang, you wouldn’t know any of this, and it sucks because she’s the only character whose been dumbed down to such an extent.

[velvetvexations]

I just saw a post that was like “I want to skin all men alive, and I’m only partially joking lol.” And this was in the context of misinformation around pop history of Venus statues being an erotic image/porn for men. And like I understand the frustration around pop history, especially this, but like I legitimately I don’t think fucking skinning people is going to help people stop spreading misinformation. Also forgive me for saying this I don’t think this is entirely the entire gender category of “men’s” fault for this piece of this information and if it was, I don’t think this is an appropriate punishment for it. Something something sins of the father mass punishment is bad. Like it’s complicated in my brain’s way too zooted out to talk about this further in depth. But like, forgive me when I say that I’m really uncomfortable when people say shit like this and label it feminism, I don’t like my progressive messaging to be filled with threats of death and torture, especially as a torture victim. 

Like I keep wanting to play it off and making it seem like it actually isn’t that bad of a thing to say and that I am at fault for being uncomfortable. And then I realize again they’re talking about skinning people alive and that’s what’s making me uncomfortable especially in relation to progressivism. I would ask when progressive spaces got like this, but in reality they always were, it just got a lot easier to see because of the Internet.

I say a lot how I used to be totally onboard the Down With Cis bus, but people trying vainly to LARP their imagined stereotype of a cool radical edgy activist have reduced all their actual activism to mindless hostility that still doesn't touch the people who are actually oppressing others, because it feels most good when you're aiming it at another marginalized group that'll actually be hurt by it.

Like, imagine thinking any of this is transfeminism:

This is what "transfemminism" boils down to for a lot of people on this website. It's just constant, misdirected anger. They will never actually contribute to anything positive, just yelling shit like this in an echochamber for all time, and patting themselves on the back for being on the frontlines of an imaginary revolution. They've copied complicated terms to disguise it, but they know nothing, do nothing, and say nothing but a constant barrage of hostility towards people just as oppressed as them because they make for easier targets.

Like, hey, can someone tell me the number of times any of these people have argued with TERFs? Are any of them on TERF blocklists like I am? Have TERFs ever gone after them personally like they have me? All the harassment they talk about is almost exclusively made up of people pointing out when they said really horrific shit, as though they could not have simply avoided saying shit like this while transmascs are routinely murdered and sexually assaulted at the same rates as trans women:

Genuinely, this is all there is to it. They do this everyday non-stop because it's the only activism they're interested in. It's lazy, it's cheap, and they think they can get away with it by going "but trans men are men and men are the oppressors" because they can't comprehend more than two ideas at once.

Like, yeah, well, trans women are women, so I guess they have all the privilage of cis women too, right? Shut down all the transmisogyny discussion, transmisogyny doesn't exist because if it does you're implying trans women are different than cis women, and who would do that? You're not a TERF, are you?

[ravenstargames]

✦ LOST IN LIMBO DEVLOG #16 | 03.03.2025

Aaand February is gone! Obliterated! Sent to oblivion! Which means a new devlog of Lost in Limbo is here to keep you updated about our work on the game. This has been a very eventful month in our private lives, and there has been a lot of work behind the scenes—but I know that's not what you're here for!

Let's jump into it! 💜

This month, Raquel has managed to finish Amon's new expressions and I've already coded them! She has also been working on Envy's new coat and their expressions, and we can't thank her enough for her hard work. Remember she now works from 8 to 13 and 15 to 18, and is still working for LiL, too!

Our second background for the Extended Demo's prologue is done, thanks to Airyn and Astro! We may make a few tweaks to it but here it is—Master Lysander's shop from the outside! Quite an interesting place, huh? Suspiciously different from the other buildings around it, some would say...

Astro has also finished the 3D modeling of the third background, which our Kickstarter Backers will be able to see in our Kickstarter devlog! :^) Now that he's free from 3D modeling hell, he'll be free to do a few adjustments to our artbook! 💜

This time, I'm talking about writing and programming in the same section, as process has been going well but there's not much to 'show' without spoiling scenes of the Extended prologue—which is something we don't want to do yet!

Kayden is still working on the new mini-cgs for the new prologue, which I hope we can show really really soon!

Our voice actors have also been sending over more voiced names, and we've been working with them to get the best takes for y'all!

This month we have also had to focus on taxes, paperwork, and going back and forth with our manufacturer, plus a few irl things we'll tell you all about in the next section!

Our discord peeps already know, but our Raquel has found a full-time job and we are very happy for her. She finally can start supporting herself, and even if that means she can't work on LiL as much as before, she's doing great sacrifices to keep up as much as she can. Astro now has three jobs and I myself have spent half of February hosting classes in college about character design, which is great! However, I got home at 11 pm (blame it on the flood that stroke my city on October), so I've been a bit all over the place.

We want to apologize if this devlog seems a bit short, or if progress this month lets y'all a bit down. On a happier note, we've joined our first festivals this month, including The Storyteller Festival, and Steam's Visual Novel Fest! Also the Amare Games Festival 2025 over at itch—we hope we can do at least a small update for the deadline, but I'm not so sure about that T_T

Phew! This month has been hectic, and sadly not for the right reasons. As irl things keep happening, you get a bit scared of not being up to the task of developing your game at a pace that satisfies not only your supporters, but yourself. As I write this I'm itching to go back to writing the prologue, haha.

So, yeah! I hope we can keep balancing our lives and LiL as best as we can. I also hope we get a bit of good news from our counselor regarding taxes, and I hope this month is full of cool opportunities for us! 💜

As always, thank you so so much for your support! See you in the next one! 💜

[poisonf0rest]

I saw the prof raf brainrot and now I have Thoughts about the others also being professors so uh I hope the shitty hc dump is ok

zayne is ostensibly a bio professor but I imagine he’d also be a good chem professor. like objectively the best one, takes everything seriously and pushes his students but doesn’t drop piles of work on them when midterm week rolls around, makes interesting labs, etc. everybody wants to work in his lab but like 4 people a term actually make it in

xavier is hard to think of but I feel like either astronomy (we all know why) or quantum physics (he can teleport) is his field. I hate to say he’s the worst prof but I just feel like he’s so much more into his research than teaching. notoriously hard courses but also very veeery interesting ones. I mean why pay tuition if you can’t get your brain melted by your phys prof

caleb is a mech eng prof, easy. curves grades and is very smiley, but leaves slightly sarcastic comments when grading your tests. and the tests themselves are probably pretty rigorous: not so difficult that everyone starts crying, but def very thorough. it’s fine tho cause you walk out of it with like a 94, a very very strong appreciation for the wonderful world of physics, and probably a godawful crush for the rest of the year

sylus is hard for me. I want to say literature. like his courses would hyperfixate on, idk, 18th century gothic lit. you’d go in with three pages worth of analysis on some obscure poem and then he’d systematically rip everybody apart, then you’d walk out a fundamentally changed person. But! For the purposes of humour, sylus is a CS prof (canonical programmer), which instantly drops any hotness factor he had by like 234322.

sorry sylus rip. sadly programming is the act of swearing at your screen at 2am while scouring the same 12 lines of code over and over for any kind of bug (you will find the actual source of the bug 100 lines down). not even he can make that cool

MHMMM ANON YOU'RE COOKING!!

Zayne is definitely an orgo professor-- everyone wants to hate him since they're failing his class and lab, but honestly he's just strict with the material and has little tolerance for error because error in the real world costs human lives. But should you come to his office hours with the intention to learn then you'll find he's actually a very patient, receptive, and likeable professor with an amusingly dry humor. Everybody definitely wants to work in his lab.

Absolutely agree with Xavier lol, his students hate him since he does NOT want to be there.

Caleb would be the type to answer stupid questions with a little more bite and subtle snark that makes any students who are actually paying attention snicker and hope not to get on his bad side. Would be the campus professor crush, no doubt.

HOW DARE YOU TALK DOWN ON CS PROFESSOR SYLUS- HEY, CS PEOPLE CAN BE HOT :( He absolutely would teach either machine learning or maybe game theory if not then a high level C++ class be so fr. He absolutely can make coding cool, if anything than for the fact that he has a stacked resume and single-handedly proving that you CAN be a CS major and still end up running your own company, marrying the love of your life right after college, and raising a happy family while still being a nerd. and taking more than regular showers

[alarajrogers]

If you want to make your whole identity about the shortage of serotonin in your neurological system, well, that's an interesting choice. But if not... depression is a malfunction that blocks your brain from doing what it is supposed to do, what your identity and self would otherwise dictate that it do. Medication doesn't change you, who you are, unless you identify as a person who can't do any of the things you want to do because you can't really want them, you don't have the energy to do them, or they don't make you happy the way they should.

Here is a vastly oversimplified description of one of our current theories of how depression works. There's some evidence that maybe this isn't quite how it goes, but we've been operating on this paradigm since the 90's and it's helped millions of people, so lets go with it for now.

There are three neurotransmitters that most antidepressants work on. You've got many others, but these are the ones they make most depression medication to affect, so we';ll talk about them. Vastly oversimplified: dopamine regulates desire and motivation, norepinephrine regulates energy flow, and serotonin regulates happiness, satisfaction, contentment... probably involved in other moods as well, but for this model, we're talking about happiness. (Not pleasure. That's dopamine and endorphins and oxytocin and I think maybe vasopressin. Just happiness.)

Let's say you're a normal person, no mood disorders, no dysregulation disorders, you don't have ADHD, you don't have fatigue, everything works great. You're not hungry and you're not tired, and you see something you want, or that you want to do. So here's what happens.

First, neurons recognize that that's something you want, based on the gestalt of all your memories and experiences and genetics -- who you are. This is a kind of wanting, but it's more like a precursor to the want most of us feel most of the time that we want things. It's more of a "hey, wouldn't it be nice if" feeling than a full desire. That comes next, though honestly, this is all happening too fast for you to perceive the stages.

Your neurons that recognize you want something release dopamine. Dopamine is the substrate of want. It is willpower and motivation. It's also cravings when levels get too high.

Now you feel the want. It's not a "hey, it would be cool if..." It's "I want that." It sounds like fun. Or it sounds like it would make you happy. You feel this desire. Maybe you see a basketball hoop and you really wanna shoot hoops. Maybe it's a video game icon and you really wanna play that game. Maybe it's triggered by a fleeting memory of riding a roller coaster and you really want to go to an amusement park. Maybe it's something that will objectively make your life better, like, you really want a clean kitchen. You don't want to clean the kitchen but you want the end result very badly.

Next, or maybe at the same time, your brain releases norepinephrine. Norepi controls energy flow -- where the energy resources of your body are going -- and in this case, it's directing energy to your brain and muscles so that you have the energy to do the thing. Remember, in this model, you're well-fed and well-rested and not sick, so there's no good reason for you not to have this energy.

So you have the energy, you do the thing... and you get the reward. Serotonin makes you feel happy and content. You did the thing, it felt good. Maybe a little dopamine to make you want to do it again, but right now, you are satisfied.

Now, I want you to imagine a comedy sketch where a guy is really hungry at a formal dinner where he's waiting for the food. And the servers lay a plate in front of him, and it's great, he's about to eat, it looks good, he's starving... and then the bussers take his plate away and throw it out before he has a chance to eat it.

Funny, in a comedy sketch. Absolutely devastating, if it happens in your brain.

Because there's a mechanism in your brain called reuptake, and it removes neurotransmitters you're done using. And if you didn't make enough of those neurotransmitters in the first place, or if reuptake is malfunctioning and triggering too early, then the busser is coming by and taking away your serotonin or your dopamine before you were done with it, and now you don't have any.

So you see the thing you want. But no dopamine releases to make you feel the want, so you are unmotivated to do it. Or, you have motivation, but you don't have enough norepi to have the energy to do it. Or, you had motivation and energy so you did it... but it didn't make you happy. There's no serotonin. Nothing will make you happy.

Reuptake inhibitors -- most of them working on serotonin, so they are SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, but my medication in particular is a DNRI, a dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, and there are other combos as well -- prevent the busser from taking your meal before you're done eating it. They ensure that there is sufficient available neurotransmitter for whatever emotion your brain is trying to trigger.

Let me repeat: your brain, full of your experiences and your genes and your memories, is trying to trigger an emotion based on all those things. The gestalt of you, the identity that you are, should be feeling an emotion. That emotion is caused by a neurotransmitter that the you of you is trying to summon. And if it's not there... you will not feel the emotion that your brain has decided you feel. This is interference with the operation of you. This is the process of you being cut off before it can run to natural completion. This is your emotion, based on who you are, being squashed because the chemicals that make you feel the emotion aren't there.

An SSRI cannot make you happy, but it can make it possible for you to be happy if your brain thinks you should be happy. A DNRI cannot make you want something, but it can make it possible for you to feel motivation and energy to do the thing you wanted to do. These medications do not change who you are. They cannot. They don't give you artifical serotonin or dopamine. To the best of my knowledge, this isn't biologically possible yet without sticking electrodes in your brain. That's science fiction. What they do is make sure that the available pool of neurotransmitters your brain draws from to make you feel the emotions that your brain thinks you should feel contain enough neurotransmitters to actually do the job.

The idea that antidepressants change who you are in any way whatsoever is absolute bullshit and needs to die in a fire. Antidepressants work to prevent a brain malfunction that causes interference with the emotions you should be feeling, based on who you are.

They can indeed have side effects. Paxil is known to cause sexual problems, and in teenagers has sometimes triggered the strength and motivation to carry out a suicide plan before it has improved mood enough to remove the desire to die. Prozac made me "anti-depressed"; it made me flat, no strong emotions at all. But there are many, many such medications. My depression manifested more as fatigue and lack of motivation, with the unhappiness coming from the feeling that I can't make myself do anything I want to do, so they gave me a DNRI and I've been on it for 22 years. The first week I took it, it made me a little high, full of energy and driven and needing less sleep, like a stimulant, but that wore off pretty fast and left me closer to normal than I'd been in the four years previous. Other people I know have had good luck with Zoloft or Cymbalta. They all operate in slightly different ways and affect different brain systems variably. Odds are, if you are depressed, one of them will work for you. And it won't change who you are. It will make it possible for you to be more like who you are than you can be with unmedicated depression.

(They are not perfect. I fight with the black dog a lot. They also don't block depressive, negative feelings when the trigger is real and very strong. I was just out of work for six months and over that time period spent most of my time playing video games and surfing Tumblr as my anxiety about my lack of money grew and my lack of energy or motivation deepened. I struggled to look for work as it got worse, which made me even more anxious because I knew, logically, if I didn't find work things would get even worse, but it started to feel so pointless and I felt helpless. So I didn't write, I didn't clean my house, I did look for work but maybe I could have looked harder, I didn't train my skills as much as I wanted... and now I have a job and my energy and motivation are back. If your situation warrants feelings of depression, no prescription can save you. Antidepressant medication is about allowing you to feel what you should be feeling. If what you should be feeling, rationally, is anxiety and unhappiness, they aren't gonna change that.)

90s movies: Psychopharmacology is as good as a lobotomy. If you take pills to treat your mental illness it will literally murder your imaginary friends and you will become a boring, lotus-eating conformist drone.

Me after taking my meds: drives the scenic route home to see if there are any geese on the pond and does a little dance in line at the grocery store and comes home to throw everything​ in my fridge into a stew pot because I can finally taste food again while singing songs at my birds in which I replace all the instances of "she" with "Cheese" and doing a Dolly Parton impression on the phone to my sister

[sillygoofyqueer]

Papa, me want more movie (fish x doctor (Leviathyuan x Mu Qingfang)). /ref /nf

I had a funny response to this yesterday, but then I deleted the entire post accidentally so joke cancelled, let me just tell you about the stupid freaks (affectionate). Okay so Mu Qingfang and Leviathyuan bond first through learning about Leviathyuan's weird ass anatomy, and then through learning about the many different flora and fauna of their world together because Leviathyuan already adores listening to him reading the books that he has in his office, and Mu Qingfang loves talking about his special interests. And learning about Leviathyuan's love of monsters. Also, Leviathyuan has this terrifying method of learning through shoving different plants into his mouth and seeing what happens! This, paired with how he plays with other beasts/monsters (following them around and then getting into roughhousing so violent that even Bai Zhan are horrified when he comes back covered in blood and sporting a slightly manic grin), means that they also learn about how they all affect demons differently! ("there is no agony from that plant..I ate it yesterday" "yeah, but you're a demon, it can affect you differently" "I'm not the only one who ate it!" *cut to Bai Zhan disciples writhing on the floor*) I suppose I moved onto how they fall in love next because my next bullet point here says that Mu Qingfang falls for the needlessly kind and gentle soul who enjoys listening to him, and "LVY falls for THAT ASS!! (and everything else cool, I guess)" See, unlike 'normal, base model' Shen Yuan, Leviathyuan has no qualms with being attracted to men because demon norms and human norms are completely different, so I'm basically giving you a sick as fuck demon who is heavily attracted to men and will deploy any courting methods necessary to get that freakish doctor man! For Leviathyuan, his falling point is watching this always calm but often stressed out man standing up and defending him against a snide sect leader who keeps making horrid accusations towards him. it might be a bit basic, but Mu Qingfang has told him many times that he thinks arguments are pointless and that a structured discussion can make everything so much easier, and then there he is, the first to stand and get ready to verbally (and possibly physically, judging by how he grips the hilt of his sword) decimate this nobody who isn't even worth his time! Of course Leviathyuan wants him carnally, he's a demon! He's seen how demons of the lake courted each other, violence equals affection!! For Mu Qingfang, his falling point is being on a mini, low stakes mission with Leviathyuan and some disciples, and then seeing this demon - someone who actively learns through touch and taste from his time in the dark lake - drag a few disciples away from a dangerous plant after they go to touch them and then start scolding them. This is this something that Mu Qingfang always has to do because most others don't care to educate themselves on plants that don't cause death. Leviathyuan is pushing aside his natural demonic instincts of learning to make sure that these children of a different race don't do something stupid, and his disciples are actually listening to him. GET HIM THE WEDDING ROBES!! (The original post was so much better...I'm so upset.....)

[midnightshindig]

I need to see Donald being a wingman for Cecil 🙏 Like maybe the reader is also a high-ranking member of the GDA and Donald knows they both have trouble opening up? Ty!

omg finally getting to my requests omg!! happy days, everyone

I love this request, I LOVE Donald as a character I'm so happy to write for him ^^

hcs under the cut

You were one of the GDA's lawyer, inspecting the place to make sure-- legally-- everything was as airtight as possible. Suing a superhero is much more difficult than suing the government, after all. And the people want an outlet.

Your job was to make the GDA as un-suable as fucking possible.

And Cecil admired you for it

You provided a valuable service, you were always courteous to him and his subordinates, and you looked pretty good in a suit

What wasn't to love?

So you saw him quite a bit, it was an easy enough job with your team doing most of the difficult paperwork for you

It wasn't unusual to see you chatting up Cecil or Donald or really any higher up about the ins and outs of the process-- PURELY for research, obviously, and not because you're just cool and friendly

You would talk to Cecil quite a bit, inquiring into the functions of his job and just generally picking his brain about anything and everything

It was nice to have someone be so interested in him, Cecil couldn't help but grow fond for you

Instead of his initial annoyance, he quickly become excited when you entered his wing of the Pentagon.

"Heyyy big man! What're your thoughts on that attack this morning? Crazy stuff, right?"

He subconsciously moved to straighten his tie and fix the cuffs of his suit jacket, looking back at you with a wobbly, unpracticed smile

"Yes, Y/n. It was interesting all right- I have Donald and the boys at the lab working on samples from the monsters dna right now."

A beat

"Care to see?"

And so Cecil slowly grew to trust you more, not enough to show you the White Rooms by any means, but that wasn't personal, that was national security.

This had gone on too long, it was messing Cecil up

he liked you, he was grown up and mature enough to accept that fact

but there was no way you-- some hot shot lawyer with an intelligent mind and knack for conversation-- would find him worth your time

Position as head of the GDA be damned, he didn't think he could pull you.

He's too much of a rock to say anything, but Donalds entire job is to observe Cecil and his needs, to keep the GDA running smooth

"You know... I hope this isnt' out of line, Sir. But Y/n has taken quite a liking to you."

Cecils eye twitches with stress "What...?"

Donalds eyes widen a little, trying to save the situation "I just mean that it is unusual for Y/n to spend so much time here. With you. Data shows elevated heart rate and dilated pupils when they see you. It would make sense, is all."

Cecil let out a frustrated sigh, leaning against a desk "And what do you propose I do about it, Donald? Fire them?"

"No!" Donald was frantic, fixing his glasses and recomposing himself "The opposite, actually. I think it would be beneficial for both parties as well as the greater good of the GDA if you asked Y/n out to coffee."

Cecil was skeptical, like he always is, like his job requires.

But Donald knew it would make the both of you happier

Maybe you just needed a little push?

The next few days are torture for everyone working at the GDA

everyone can see you enjoying Cecil's company, and even casually hitting on him, and Cecil losing his edge over it

He's frazzled by you, shaken a little by Donald's suggestion he ask you out

But he steels himself and presses on, content to ignore his silly crush

Donald ain't having none of that shit.

So he finally confronts Cecil

"Cecil, sir, with all due respect, you need to make a move."

"What."

"This whole pining thing is disrupting everybody else's work, nobody can focus with the will-they won't-they sitcom happening."

"Donald please, Y/n is a professiona-"

"They really aren't. Ask them out. I'm serious." and Donald leaves, leaving Cecil disincensed and frazzled

So, two days later and you're back for a visit

but things are different?

the GDA analysts and office workers are all quiet around you, not in a gossipy way, just.... quiet?

You go to find Cecil, wanting to pick his brain about something you saw on the news

When you get there, Cecil looks nervous, not anxious per se, just.... hesistent?

"Hey Cecil! What's going on today? Everyone's super quiet... did I miss something?"

"No, y/n... uhm-" he pulls at his tie a little "Everything is fine, have a seat? I have something I want to talk to you about."

You raise an eyebrow at his formality, taking a seat in the leather chair across from his desk

"Y/n...." He sucked in a deep breath, clearly nervous

"What? Is there some huge lawyer scandal I'm not aware of?" You try to lighten the mood, cracking a smile

Cecil sighs, combing his hand through his hair "Y/n, would you...." he looks past your head to see Donald giving him a thumbs up through the door window

jesus christ

Ugh- fuck it-

"Y/n, can I take you out?"

silence.

"Like...." you start cautiously, a concerned look on your face "Like on a date? Or like...." You drag your finger across your throat, poking your tongue out to mimick death

Cecil's eyes widen as he stands up, placing his hands on the desk "Like a date! Not- ugh.... I should've phrased that better..." he seems so defeated, deflating back into his chair.

Much to his surprise, you perk up and grin "Sure!"

"What? Really?"

"Yeah! I've been waiting for like weeks for you to ask me out. What do you say to coffee?"

He blinks in surprise, straightening his tie and sitting up straighter "I would like that."

BONUS:

As you leave, you notice Donald standing casually outside the door to Cecil's office, presumably needing to tell him something important

after you leave, Cecil comes out himself, giving Donald a side eye

"Donald."

"Sir."

"....Thank you."

Donald gives a small smile and adjusts his glasses "You're welcome, sir."

[namgyunation]

Do you see Nam-gyu introducing his s/o to drugs or do you think he’d be the type to shield you from that type of thing?

cw; talking about drug usage and unhealthy stuff here

mmmm based off of my interpretation of him, i don’t think he’d really try to “shield” you. just doesn't seem like something he'd do

i also don't think he would gaf if you knew about his substance abuse. you're his s/o. if you're with him, he's prob thinking "this is what you signed up for when you got with me." i could see him hiding it from his family, but not you.

with a job like his, it'd be pretty hard to hide, anyways. if anything, i think he'd try to at least hide or be vague about the intensity of the drugs he takes and just how addicted / dependent he is on them. he'd probably try to convince you that it's just something casual that he does or brush you off if you display any concern

i could see him wanting to keep the details of his drug usage off your radar, but not because he’s like. concerned that he’ll be a bad influence or rub off on you, or anything. nor would he do it with the intent of trying to protect you or keep you "innocent" / drug-free.

i don’t think he’d enthusiastically be like “here baby, snort this!!! take this pill!!! ❤️” out of nowhere or straight from the jump when he enters a relationship with his s/o. he also doesn’t seem like the type of dude to go out of his way to share what drugs he’s taking or even just his emotions in general. he seems like he’d be very closed off and be more than happy to keep that part of his life from you if you never asked / pushed the issue.

i think he’d just want to avoid his s/o giving him a hard time: asking too many questions about what he’s doing, how it’s affecting him, his health, their finances, and their relationship, and/or trying to get him to stop. he just wants to do what he wants while still keeping you in his life. he doesn't want you to complicate or overdramaticize things with your concern. he knows what hes doing and can handle himself.

but i think if you expressed any sort of interest or vague curiosity, he might initially be shocked, find it amusing, and be surprisingly interested in the idea of introducing you to something, jokingly offer to get you stuff, though he genuinely would if you just straight up asked him to do so.

i think he’d find it interesting / somewhat exciting to see your first-time reactions to things and would find himself enjoying it more than he expected to somewhere along the way, though i don’t think he’d force it on you. if you wanted to stop, he would be cool with that and drop it immediately. it doesn't matter to him whether or not you do drugs or are on the same page as him. he's doing his thing, and you're doing yours. he wouldn't mind and would be just as open to it if you were to ask him about it again later down the line, though.

if you asked him to give you something and lead you through it, i think he’d derive some sort of enjoyment from knowing a lot about something that you don’t, being your sole source of information on the topic, and knowing he's the first and only person that you experience those types of things with.

i could see him being an obnoxious ass trip-sitter just because he thinks it's funny / even getting some sort of ego because of it.

eg. if you start off with weed, he’s laughing at you for coughing, not knowing how to inhale right, and/or making a stupid, exaggerated face when you exhale. when you overestimate your tolerance and get high as fuck, he’s purposefully putting stupid shit on the tv to gauge your reaction (maybe some dumb children’s cartoon or compilation of idk. plants growing timelapse), laughing at you when you're super focused on it (not mean, just teasing / amused), and maybe he takes a few selfies with you to tease you about it later. he would smoke with you, too, but purposefully stays mostly sober so he can take care of you. also, his tolerance is naturally way higher than yours, and i think he'd find it funny if you got high extremely quick.

he says shit like "oh, i invited your entire family and also a hundred of your friends over to the apartment, and they're outside right now. i hope you don't mind" just to get a funny reaction out of you.

he's not entirely mean, though, and despite having his fun, he still wanted to make sure that your experience was good and comfortable from the get-go. he thought ahead and set out snacks and drinks for when you inevitably got the munchies / dry mouth. he has a line up of funny things to watch and a blanket set out to make sure that you're fine. he doesn't leave you alone. even though it's just weed, he doesn't want to scare you.

he feels good and pats himself on the back for taking care of you. he probably enjoys knowing that in that moment, you're completely depending on him and looking at him like he has all the knowledge in the world. he deeply enjoys the fact that you trust him enough to rely on him and trust that you'll come out of the experience okay, because he's there.

nowww, getting on to other drugs outside of weed, i could see him being more serious about it and wanting to make sure that you're okay. he's open and more than happy to provide you with the things you're showing interest in. sharing his knowledge that's completely foreign and new to you and bringing you into 'his world' is satisfying for him, but once it starts to get a little more dodgy / serious, he's very firm on asking you if you're sure and asks a lot more questions. "what are you feeling?" "what do you see?" "do you need water?" "tell me what's going on." etc. he doesn't completely coddle you, but he's not going to leave you alone, either.

also, i was obsessed with breaking bad in middle school LMAO, so it's leaking into this post... sometimes when i think about nam-gyu, i can't help but think about jessie pinkman. there's a particular scene in the show where jessie's gf, jane, introduces him to heroin for the first time, and i think i could see nam-gyu being like jane in this particular scene, with jessie being his s/o that he's introducing shit to.

over time, if you continued to express clear, enthusiastic interest and prove to him that you could handle it, i think that's when he'd finally let himself relax and do drugs with you, rather than staying sober to monitor you. i think he'd grow accustomed to doing things with you, almost falling into a routine or having it be "your thing." he'd sneak things from work that other people gave to him or things that he was supposed to be giving to VIPs and bring it home to share with you. he'd find that getting high with you specifically was more fun for him than when he did it with others.

ending it off with something somewhat lighthearted: after a while, nam-gyu realizes that he's actually kind of excited to have a long-term buddy to get high with. he would start suggesting that the two of you smoke a joint and then go to the aquarium, art gallery, the zoo, etc. if he got something new, he wouldn't let himself try it and wait until he got home to be with you.

tldr; i don't think he'd shield you, but he wouldn't be super open about it either if you didn't ask or push him to talk about it. if you asked him to introduce you to it, he'd find himself oddly excited by the idea. he'd do it but would make sure to keep you comfortable and ask you over and over if you were sure once you got to the more serious shit. he wouldn't push it, either, in the case that you wanted to stop or were uncertain.

[rhube]

I bought seeds from some gardening company once and they signed me up to their free magazine. Every quarter, at least, I was getting this thing that I know I never consented to. I never once opened it. And I never ordered from them again.

The weird thing is that it *isn't* complete nonsense. (Having worked in marketing.) A certain amount of just seeing a company's name more can make you trust them more, think of them more, buy from them more. And for a certain percentage of people - like those who would fall for email phishing scams - they genuinely won't see anything wrong with all this unsolicited mail. They may even appreciate it. Those people go on to actively subscribe, and the monthly donation or regular purchase from that small number of people is worth pissing off the majority who might have only bought from you once or twice anyway.

*Sometimes* that's what's going on. Sometimes it's stupid competitor research that is cheaper than user research, and which is used by poorly funded marketing teams because seeing what your nearest competitor's are doing and making sure you're doing it too is way easier than sourcing a sufficient quantity of users/customers to see if it actually works.

So enough companies with business models who have the scattergun approach, because they only care about the small number of people who won't mind or might even like being bombarded like this, means that companies for whom this isn't a good approach just copy them because it's such a huge trend.

To be honest, your C-suite bod doesn't have opinions about this (unless the business IS data harvesting or marketing, in which case they are selling this model to other companies). They are interfering in marketing in other stupid ways, like saying that every new thing has to be called an 'app' even if it's not an app, or that the business should be called 'X' because they think it's cool.

No, the way C-suite dicks affect this bullshit is by not adequately funding their marketing teams. I know a lot of people on this webbed site talk a lot of bollocks about marketing because they hate getting spammed, but if you're GOOD at marketing, you know what you need first and foremost is USER RESEARCH. That's gold dust. But it's expensive. It is UNDER-funded marketing teams that resort to this bullshit, because they can't do proper research where users can say 'yeah, we hate that'. And this happens a lot in tech companies, because the C-suite thinks the only parts of the company that matter are the devs and Sales (sales is not the same as marketing; they work on commission, so are motivated to be in your face all the time until you cave). Marketing is a department full of writers, designers, and sometimes researchers. C-suite generally think of those types of people as dead weight.

C-suite idiots will also hire department heads that only tell them what they want to hear, and that they want to hear is 'costs go down, line goes up' - it is the only thing they care about. And THOSE people hire people who either do shoddy competitor research because it's cheaper, or pressurise others to cut costs and meet tight deadlines that mean that user research simply cannot be done.

Tech C-suites behaving like this is also because a lot of tech is heavily invested in data harvesting to tell companies who to spam when and where. So their sales teams are deeply invested in convincing the senior management (below c-suite) to buy their crummy 'spam these people all the time' tech.

So yes, C-suite fools have a role in this bullshit, it's just more complicated and far reaching than most people think. And ultimately it is ALL driven by the Quick Sale ethos of venture capitalism, which doesn't care about pissing customers off long-term if it can get a sale now. Those people will be gone to the next thing when the company is floundering after alienating a large percentage of customers.

One of the surest signs that business executives are failing their way to the top is that every company you so much as order a toothbrush from thinks it's a sound marketing decision to email their customers multiple times per week, and then when people inevitably "update their email preferences" to tell the company never to email them again, they add more and more checkboxes to the email preferences page and say, oh well you never explicitly told us not to email you about toothpaste, because they only just added the toothpaste checkbox, so now you have to go uncheck the toothpaste box or just start marking all their emails as spam.

And it's not just retailers that do this! If I donate to your nonprofit, why are you punishing my donation with a constant barrage of spam? A few times a year, sure, send out a newsletter that actually has something to say. Anything more than that indicates to me that your nonprofit is dumping my donation into the bloated salary of some C-suite executive that spends half their day watching TED-X videos and the other half driving competent staff crazy by demanding they do stupid marketing schemes that will drive away donors.

[frakts1ya]

smoke ft. jeong jaehyun

-> or, jaehyun needs a way to cool down in the heat.

warnings + a/n : suggestive! lot of skinship, implied fem!reader, 0.5k wc || hey guys. i missed you. shortest hiatus i swear but the short break was needed!

Summer was a great season. When you and your roommate weren't melting completely, that was. It was 100°F and you were about to stick to your bed. You only wore a tank top and your roommate stayed in only his boxers.

You wouldn't mind if this was an average roommate. But your roommate definitely was not average, oh definitely not.

Enter Jeong Jaehyun, your roommate who's just as hot as today. With jet black hair that framed his perfect jaw and soft eyes that you swore lingered on you far too long to be just platonic, he was definitely above average.

"It's really hot, huh?" You say to start a conversation and try to avoid the awkwardness.

"Yeah, sure is," Jaehyun says. More silence. "I don't talk to you much, y/n."

The sudden change in subject has you shocked, but he's not wrong: you only talk to Jaehyun when you have to, like if you have a question about something or if he didn't do his share of chores.

"Yeah, we don't talk a lot. You're usually busy with your other friends, though." Plus you're kind of intimidated by him, but you don't say that.

“You're the same. You're always hanging out with Yeji or whatever her name is.”

“I'm-” You stop. Jaehyun knows more about you than you thought. You scan his face, and he seems to be looking at you with a look you've never seen on him before. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Jaehyun clears his throat, clearly embarrassed at you noticing, “Was just thinking.” 

“About what..?” You ask. The air in the room changed, and suddenly, you're much more aware of everything. Your outfit, his outfit (or lack of), the way he's sitting so close to you.

“You.” He confesses, looking you up and down like he's gonna eat you alive.

“That means we have something in common,” Your heart starts beating faster as Jaehyun approaches you, taking your chin in his hands.

“Can I..?” He whispers, breath warm against your lips. You nod, and he tilts your head and starts kissing you slowly.

“I really missed out on this, hm? I should've done this sooner,” Jaehyun says when he breaks away from the kiss, “You're perfect.”

“I could say the same about you,” You reply, hands going to his chest.

“Really? So why didn't you do anything sooner?” He's continuing the conversation while also trailing his lips down from your lips to your jaw to your neck.

“I- God- I don't know, Jaehyun…” Your head was racing with all sorts of thoughts and feelings, but all of them were about him. He ran a finger down one of the marks he left on your collarbone. “I was scared?”

“Of what?”

“I don't know,” As if being this vulnerable to your roommate wasn't enough, you're certainly embarrassed now, “I didn't want you to hate me.”

Jaehyun sucks at your skin again, a new bruise blossoming under his plump lips, “I could never hate you, dear. Can I continue..?”

“Please,” You mutter, and under the hot June sun that you're so used to, you've never felt yourself burning like this.

[the-real-list-of-ominous-threats]

unfortunately for you fucks enough people (like, three) told me they actually want this so GUESS WHAT CHUCKLENUTS STRAP THE FUCK IN WE'RE DOING THIS

(it's VERY long so like. uh be warned before you click that 'keep reading' button)

Okay, so my oc is the Chemical Weapons Specialist, but you can just call her the Chemist--it's shorter, easier, and more efficient. Chemist is a feral goblin for science. She's autistic (as am I lmao but of course I am I run THIS stupid blog) and enthusiastic like 'HOLY SHIT I LOVE SCIENCE COME HANG OUT WITH ME AND DO SCIENCE LET ME TELL YOU ALL THESE COOL FACTS LET'S TEST SOME WEIRD SHIT.' Literally every friend she has on the team is due to her love of science. Ironically kinda dogshit at math tho lmao. Needs Engie to help her double-check her calculations because she's never *quite* sure they're right (since The Incident that gave her chemical burns all over her hands).

Slightly unethical science but not a traditional mad scientist. She's not doing it BECAUSE it's unethical or reveling in the madness (unlike a CERTAIN other OC I happen to have for tf2 but she's not as well fleshed out), she just does whatever it takes to get her results. Sometimes those things are bad. Sometimes the ethics board figures that out and she has to defer her phd candidacy and take a job working for Mann Co lmao.

Practices lab safety holy shit!! Kind of a stickler for it actually, at least for herself (also due to The Incident).

Her best friends are the other scientists on the team, Engie (who's into her but she's Miss Stupid and totally doesn't notice) and Medic but she's also on good terms with Demo and Heavy.

Does NOT get along with Spy (she thinks he's a know-it-all and he thinks she's annoying) or Soldier (is slightly terrified of him). Doesn't talk to Sniper basically ever, pretty neutral on Pyro.

VERY complicated relationship with Scout (they dislike each other but also are in love with each other but she doesn't actually want him as a boyfriend but is addicted to his body even though he's the same pathetic cringefail as always and makes his ego worse except also she bullies him which cancels out the ego boost also their sex is FREAKY (she tops, obviously) that man gets PEGGED REGULARLY). Yes this causes a terrible and insane love triangle with her and Scout and Engie. I personally think it's funny. Does it make my OC a mary sue to have 2 love interests? It's MY oc and I can make her a mary sue if i want lmao.

Has PERSONAL BEEF with Merasmus (magic isn't scientific at all! Tell me how you do it or DIE! She doesn't not BELIEVE in his magic, she just hates it on principle. which is ironic because she's really into paranormal legends; she and Demo talk spooky stuff all the time).

Favorite band is the Velvet Underground, friends with @haphazardfun and @smokeycreampuffs (my friends' ocs lmao), and yes, she and Hazard were hired for the same job position by mistake but were both kept on the team due to working best together.

Here's her game loadout:

default 1st slot: powder gun (induces slowness+dmg over time on anyone it hits): canonically shoots toxic chemical compounds as a concentrated powder like a paintball (in the color of whatever team she's on!)

default second slot: acid gun (water gun containing acid, does straight damage in a continuous stream--hold down the fire rate instead of shooting)

default third slot: hypodermic needles (melee, not very good for when you're cornered unless you're near your teammates. does a small amount of immedate damage but heavy damage over time. good chance to crit or minicrit)

alternate loadouts:

Second slot: mustard gas canister. thrown object, works like demo's grenade. creates a cloud of poison wherever it lands that poisons (dmg over time) any enemy that walks through it. does not affect enemy pyros (since pyro has gas mask)

Other second slot: thrown bottles of acid--does more damage than acid spraygun (because of the glass impact+shatter upon hitting an enemy) but needs to be thrown (not a continuous stream, though no need to reload--reload time for acid spraygun would be relatively long bc Chemist has to fill it back up from a bottle on her sling)

Third slot: chemistry textbook: straps to her back, more of a 'traditional' melee weapon than the needles (straight damage, short range to hit just like the needles, no dmg over time but more immediate damage

alternate first slot: Monsanto Menace (same mechanism as powder gun but mechanically different because it shoots DDT engineered to work on humans--meaning that instead of inducing slowness and reduced enemy accuracy, it reverses enemy keybinds for 5 seconds and then freezes enemies in place for a period of time, maybe 10 seconds, during which they take heavy dmg over time--based on how DDT kills insects by inducing seizures, then paralysis, then death)

Another alternate second slot: universal antidote (direct counter to enemy Chemists, can undo the effects of Chemist-induced debuffs. does not work on jarate as it's an antidote to toxins, not to grossness)

I’m going to tell you guys about my tf2 oc

[icewindandboringhorror]

sometimes looking at like Self Help Strategies lists for the symptoms I'm having is always just like:

thing that I already do

thing I have tried 10 times

thing I already do

thing that I don't have the money to do

thing I already do

thing I've been doing since I was 10yrs old to no avail

thing that is impossible given my situation

thing that doesn't apply to me

thing that I already do

thing I have already tried

hrmm, oh wait, maybe finally- OH, yeah.. okay. thing that I already do but it was just phrased slightly differently

thing I have already done

[storgicdealer]

OKOKOK so im re classpecting the sticks bc i understand much more abt classpects now than i did when i first classpected them. i hope you dont mind if i drop em here bc youre very smart and you know both avam and hs so

tsc - lord of space (this stays, its way too narratively relevant for it not to)

green - prince of breath (very passionate, perfectionist, tries to be carefree even when he cares way too much about what other people think)

yellow - mage of light (moreso on the knowledge front than the luck front, similar to rose but more active in his role, likes to figure things out but using what shes previously learned)

blue - witch of life (FEFERI WOOO obv shes very witchy, leaf feels like theyd be more rebellious, life player bc its very energetic and tends to take on a healer role in the group)

red - knight of heart (tends to jump straight to protecting her friends, very impulsive and passionate/soulful, acts confident but is sometimes more hesitant than others realise)

victim - thief of hope (man i was so on point with this one)

chosen - mage of doom (has a lot of firsthand experience with doom and suffering, also suffers from their aspect, and very good at causing doom *cough* chosen has never won a fight on the right side *cough*)

dark - heir of time (very destructive by default, causes a lot of death, RED 🔥🔥🔥, but also logical, at times a bit too laid back and chill)

striker - maid of mind (maid im not sure on i just wasnt sure what else to do, mind bc shes very straightforward, thoughtful, plans ahead, very serious and logical)

purple - prince of blood (accidentally or on purpose fucks up almost all his relationships at some point, at the same time is also the reason most of his friends met in the first place, Prince = royalty theming, also matches with green)

mango - rogue of life (acts very skeptical and un-lifey but takes life from others to give to the people they care about)

gold - sylph of hope (loves to cheer people up, very hopeful and energetic demeanor, fairly childish, wants to make everyone happy all the time!!!)

hangman - bard of rage (calms people down, fairly chill compared to the other players, prefers to support and wishes people were more peaceful and mature)

ballista - knight of breath (session lacks breath for reasons i dont feel like describing rn, acts chill but actually feels like he cant live up to the title of Hero and isnt that carefree, protects the few people he attaches himself too <- that one scene in his original short where he draws upon the memories of his friends to open the door)

hazard - seer of void (ngl this is mostly just process of elimination but hazard feels pretty void oriented tbf. hes so chill hes not minding anyones business)

paleo - witch of heart (same as above </3 very passionate headstrong etc etc)

sorry for the word vomit in your inbox i want to talk to you more and idk how to initiate conversation other than random infodumps

OH I ABSOLUTELY DONT MIND PLEASE DO SEND ME STUFF LIKE THIS

oh this is so good. this is so good

my knowledge on classpects is probably slightly closer to surface level than yours lmao but from what i get GOD yes !!!!!! yellow being a mage of light / red being a knight of heart is literally them hello. absolutely. its in their code

PRINCE OF BLOOD PURPLE !!!!!!!! WOOOOOOO !!!!! thief of hope victim OH this is so good. im eating this up (id say my victim leans towards being a rogue a little bit. my whole rambling on how much i associate the motif of them being a "divine being sharing the gift of the animators with the outernet" typa thing) mage of doom chosen DONT even joke with me lad. im shaking him shaking him so hard

MAID OF MIND AGENT !!! MAID OF MIND AGENT !!! (even if not a maid shes still very much a mind player methinks)

oh knight of breath ballista oohhh ... this is so smart oh my god (and very obviously. already fits with one of his forms in "wanted" of literally looking like a knight lol)

wait i just realized green & purple knight and princ. cinder im gonna. im. oh this is SO good

[happylittleshrub]

Thank you!!!!! That's such a nice thing to say, and it really does mean a lot to me! I wouldn't say there's no reward though, as admittedly having a collection of Rocket pictures is a reward in and of itself for me lol 😂 But I get what you're saying! 😊

And yes the Rocket fan community is so great on here! I lurked around at the start and was shy about joining but there was no need to be because everyone's really chill and nice here! The mutual love of Rocket bonds everyone together and it's so beautiful 🥺 Your fics are really good btw! The Glitches series is my favorite, I commented on one and I meant to comment on the others but I got busy, I need to fix that soon! I go by QueenBanana on AO3 :) I'm more of a reader than a writer but I did write a one-shot for Rocket (because if anything was going to bring me out of fanfiction retirement it would of course be Rocket) I might try to write more GotG but who knows!

The Guardians game is AMAZING you're in for an absolute treat when you play it and/or watch someone else's play through! I've made a couple of posts talking about Rocket from that game but if you don't want spoilers it's better you wait to read them because I do talk about some of the plot points in the game. I'm currently in my own process of finding and consuming every piece of media Rocket has ever been in and it's been so fun! (I literally joined Rivals just because of him lol)

Also I just wanna say I love your outlook on art/media and how you can learn from it and the people who are its fans, it's really cool to have that kind of perspective on things!

Quickly sketched some concepts for Rivals Rocket skins. Close ups on each down below ⬇️

[anonymusbosch]

today after work i sat in the car in the parking lot for 30 straight minutes staring at my phone ("vegetarian options near me") staring out the windshield at the gray sky (slowly getting darker) staring at my phone ("hi [manager] i was not cool with") and staring out the windshield trying to swallow some seething and a headache to drive back with a cool head.

i don't - i don't get angry. not really. frustrated, grumpy, irked, annoyed - sure. i am not moved to out-loud anger: raised voice, yelling, outbursts. whatever rises I am capable of biting back.

kept my cool long enough to get a Vegetarian Options Near Me (note: bad) and long enough after that to go buy ingredients that i can make food with in a hotel microwave. took care of some of the needs of the flesh. called partner. could relay nothing but the insanity of the work conversations and, in speaking, heard again the words that had driven me to muteness earlier

"I would have just said 'what the fuck' out loud" says the phone.

and I had, alone, in my car, quietly, "what is wrong with you" and "what the fuck" and "what is your problem", but not in conversation.

for which i am giving myself several gold stars today and resolving for tomorrow:

* literally leave the conversation and walk away while they're talking to you if they don't give you grace to leave

* don't play their games

* data, document, propose solution. ask for nothing. especially permission to do your damn job

* buy a fucking soldering iron.

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 5!!!