#and I still try to research anything somewhat related

[xxtani16]

As someone who lives in Italy

No It Was Not. At All.

And before someone says anything, YES, I have been to all the places he described.

Did I forgive him for it? Mostly, yes. He isn't Italian. I couldn't expect him to think like one. Did he research? I don't know, but it felt like he just searched for what he needed for plot and stopped at the first result. You could REALLY see it was an American trying to write Italy just from the stereotypes.

Did I expect more? Naaah. But I do believe he did the bare minimum.

And I have to be honest. Some things he wrote going off of stereotypes were kinda offensive.

I have to admire how Rick Riordan pulls out all the stops on European stuff in the House of Hades. The Argo II passed through Bologna and Venice in Italy. We get references to Italian snack foods and to statues and monuments in Rome. Then I remember the Argo II ends up going through Split, Croatia. That's where Cupid is, I think. But my point here is: Rick Riordan definitely did more research than he had to. Finding things like Italian snack food, for example… that's not something he had to do. But it's something he did anyways. And it's interesting to notice it when he bring it up.

[aventoru]

hiii!!! i LOVE your writing style omg,, could i possibly rq headcanons of dan heng, sunday, jiaoqiu, blade, and boothill with a reader who surfs? just dan heng and sunday is okay if you don’t wanna do the others!! i keep thinking about surfing at scalegorge waterscape its rotting my brain,, liek would they just watch or would they also wanna try OR WOULD THEY ALSO KNOW HOW TO SURF yknow….. tysm in advance, have a lovely day/night !!!! <3

surfer!reader

ft. dan heng, sunday, jiaoqiu, blade, boothill

tags : surfing, mild angst on jiaoqiu's blindness, inaccurate depiction of surfing(???)

a/n : i know close to nothing about surfing so apologies for any inaccuracies 😭😭😭 literally had to do research for this LOL

DAN HENG

he already knows general info about surfing considering he spends all his time in the archive, and he’s an expert when it comes to anything water-related since its a part of his powers

when you surf, he’ll mostly stand and just watch although he is somewhat intrigued at your techniques/tricks due to him also having mastered the waves (in a whole different way)

he wouldn’t actively want to try because he spends more than enough time with water itself, but you know he’s cheering you on in his own way

although, if he sees you struggling he might give you some assistance by controlling the water

and if you do competitive surfing, he can even help you strategize — maybe he advises you on the waves you should look out for and how to ride them!!

if you do end up at scalegorge waterscape this man is literally the FINAL BOSS 😭

like he’ll probably use his powers to glide on the water next to you just to subtly show off or something, maybe even control the water to make it easier (or more difficult) for you to surf

but you’ll convince him to get on an actual surfboard eventually and he’ll end up having more fun than he likes to admit

SUNDAY

he’s never surfed before and is lowkey afraid to try when seeing all those big waves

but he thinks you look so cool when surfing and is always impressed by the tricks that you do

acts as your cheerleader on the sideline and pampers you after every surfing session : “do you want some food?” / “do you need new equipment?” / “should we go surf somewhere else next time?”

when you invite him to surf with you, you can obviously see his curiosity even though he refuses, so you propose a solution : he holds onto your waist when you surf

literally wraps his arms around so tight and squeezes his eyes shut like it’s a dangerous motorcycle ride, but when he sees how beautiful the view is, he immediately relaxes

once he finally gets the hang of it, gets his own surfboard and surfs beside you

he’s still a bit inexperienced and nervous to try out the more advanced tricks/techniques but you can tell he’s having fun and that’s all that matters

the days spent surfing also become a mini vacation for the both of you to spend time with each other, grabbing a romantic dinner at night and stargazing on the beach (CUTE)

JIAOQIU

before hoolay attacked, you two usually went surfing together, sometimes for fun, sometimes for actual dates

it’s unfortunate that just when he’s finally become somewhat experienced after your diligent months of teaching, jiaoqiu’s vision was damaged

but you two make the best out of the situation and you help him readjust little by little

you still surf next to each other, but this time your hand is in his, helping him maintain balance and guiding him through the waves

even when he’s visually impaired, he can still clearly see the smile on your face when you do something you love, and that makes him smile too!!

sometimes when he’s feeling a little hesitant and doubtful, you two opt for a beach date instead, laying in the sand and dipping your feet in the waves

surfing brings a normalcy back in jiaoqiu’s life, grounding him in face of all the changes he’s experienced recently and he’s forever thankful for you 🥹

BLADE

as a stellaron hunter, blade has never really cared for anything besides his missions and swordfighting so he’s clueless when it comes to surfing

usually just stands by and keeps watch/protects you from afar as you surf like a personal lifeguard

once silver wolf and kafka discover that you surf, you all convince blade to join in on your fun

when he agrees (is forced) onto the surfboard, you come to discover that he’s SO GOOD AT IT

just imagine his poker face remaining all nonchalant while he’s performing the most difficult techniques with perfect balance

now that you’ve discovered his natural talent, you’ll definitely force him to go surfing with you

he reluctantly agrees and grumbles whenever you pull him along, but you can see the small smile on his face when you two ride waves together

if you’re nice enough, he might even share some of his natural talent and teach you the techniques he’s mastered on his (literally) first try

BOOTHILL

he’s already chaotic by himself, but boothill+surfing is a whole different story

i like to think he’s hesitant at first because he’s a robot(?) but once he finds out he’s waterproof / surfing won’t damage anything, he absolutely LOVES the sport and the thrill that comes with it

you two go surfing together a lot, and he’s somehow even better than you are???

knows all sorts of tricks that he shows off around you, and you two film yourselves doing them together, hoping to blow up on the internet

never plays it safe and always purposefully finds the biggest waves to ride on, even if it means he comes back drenched

loves to surf on the same board with you all the time so that he (1) doesn’t get drenched alone if you two lose balance and (2) feels more intimate/romantic standing so close to you

you two decorate surfboards for each other and it’s so cute omg

he also has DEFINITELY recreated this trend (with you being the cameraman) and gone viral

masterlist

[kinkandkreep]

Celebratory Blue Lock Boi Yandere Interpretations: Ryusei Shidou, Yoichi Isagi, Meguru Bachira, Reo Mikage, Rin Itoshi

A/N:...Hey hey y'all...🙂 Ok, so I fuckin' lied I am so sorry. 😭 These was sposed to be for my birthday yestaday but the day got so busy and I was tied den a mug, so posting these did not happen. 🙃 But! Alas, I am here now, and I have for you all my introductory yandere interpretations for 5 of the Blue Lock boyos!

Keep in mind, I am still getting caught up on the anime so if anything reads off, I apologize. I'll very likely either come back and adjust these as I become more familiar with their personalities or just post a whole new set for each boy.

Anyway, enjoy!

Ryusei Shidou: 

Let me just say right off the bat that I get the strong notion that Ryusei is gonna swiftly become my favorite character the more exposed I am to him (like I already love his design and that weird sexual edge his character possesses 😏)

That aside, as a Yandere, I envision that he maintains that same intense energy he has about football, it just manifests a little differently

You make his heart “explode,” in a similar fashion to his precious football- either that, or you possess an “explosive” quality within yourself that draws him in

I saw someone say that outside of a few specific circumstances, Ryu is a pretty chill dude, which I think is 100% true

And I believe this can even apply to you, in the Yandere sense as well

Ryusei can be intense, and a little monopolizing 

He's also somewhat possessive 

But for the most part, as long as he knows you're his and you continue to make him “explode,” Ryusei isn't the worst Yan to have

Now, in my research, I have seen some interpretations of him where he’s much more sadistic than I personally envision him to be, which of course is fine, but just know that my Ryusei can’t really be bothered to act sadistically unless you try to fight him

Exactly why you’d try to do that is beyond me, but if you did happen to want to start a physical altercation with Ryu, he may be inclined to be a little rough with you, just to show a bit of what he’s capable of and also keep you in check

Yoichi Isagi:

I just look at Yoichi and a single phrase comes to mind- “he’s a sweetheart unless provoked”

You, provoke him

You make this nagging little voice in the back of his head make the Spongebob “wee-woo” sound at like max volume every time you’re in each other’s vicinity

Yandere Yoichi adores you

He’s like a little pup around you, always wanting attention and affirmation and reassurance that he’s the best, and the he’s going to be the best, and that throughout it all you’ll never leave him

But! He can also be kind of intense and maybe a bit of an asshole

Like just look at him and tell me you don’t get that vibe

I’m new to the game as it relates to Blue Lock but from what I’ve gleaned, Yoichi has a sort of metaphorical switch that turns on and off depending on the circumstance

Things get heavy when he’s on the field, and that’s when his “Ego” comes out

It makes him more cocky and confident, from what I understand, and I’d say the same thing applies where it concerns you

For the most part, Yandere Yoichi is just your average puppy with a thigh fetish

But let the “Ego” come out, and now he’s more domineering, controlling and patronizing

Try not to trigger that part of him though, and Yoichi is actually a pretty ok Yandere to have

Meguru Bachira:

Meg’s a weirdo but one of the lovable variety

He’s a very eccentric character, as I’m sure anyone who’s familiar with Blue Lock will know

He talks about the “monster” that inhabits his psyche and manifests itself when he plays soccer

I don’t particularly subscribe to the idea that this “monster” influences his actions on a normal, day to day basis (though that could be the case and I just missed it in my research) but I can definitely see how one would think it does

I will say that years of simple…cohabitation (?) with the monster has definitely left an indelible mark on Meguru’s mind

Yandere Meguru especially 

To Yandere Meguru Bachira, you are perhaps the most important thing in his life

Being bullied for so long and so relentlessly probably wasn’t the best for his mental and emotional wellbeing, as you can imagine, so Meguru has been in desperate need of someone to come along and show him genuine love and support

He’s found that in you, and that’s part of the reason his Yandere personality/tendencies make an appearance when he’s with you

He’s definitely clingy and wants all your attention all the time, and he’s also not very knowledgeable on what it means to give someone their personal space

He doesn’t give you much autonomy either, really preferring to do things for you when given the chance

He can get a little intense, but he’d never hurt you 

Physically, at least

And if by some off chance he were to hurt you otherwise, it would never be on purpose

All that said, I do kind of think that Bachira would be one of the slightly more uncomfortable Yans to have, simply on account of his neediness 

Reo Mikage: 

FIrst off, let me just say, eat the rich 😤

Chile when I was doin’ my research and saw dis dude’s frankly ridiculous net worth I was appalled 

But if he smart enough to know what to do with the money and assets then I guess it’s whateva 🤷🏾‍♀️

Anyway, that aside, let’s focus back up 😂

I could potentially see Reo being one of the more strict Yan’s to have 

He just has so much to protect, and that includes you

He’s also probably very used to getting the things he wants and having things go his way that he can’t imagine you not reciprocating his feelings, or at the very least seeing the benefit in choosing him over everyone else

And as we’ve seen (me only partially really, I’m still makin’ my way through the show 🙃) he already has some form of an attachment issue as it relates to Nagi, or alternatively, the things he’s invested time and energy in and on

Which, as you can imagine, would include you, should he decide to pursue you

As a Yandere, Reo is admittedly controlling and a bit smothering

But he’s just like that ‘cus he wants to ensure that nothing will separate you two!

It’s innocent really, honest!

And given Reo’s reputation, it would be rather difficult to convince others that he’s, well, kinda crazy if you were so inclined

But other than that, as long as you remain loyal, Reo’s a pretty fair Yandere

Rin Itoshi:

Whoo boy, this one’s a tough nut to crack

I honestly think Rin is more tsun than yan but I could definitely see where the Yandere aspect of him could potentially rear its head

I’m not 100% up on my knowledge of what the hell his deal is with his brother, but from what I’ve gathered, there’s this mostly one-sided rivalry (on Rin’s part) towards Sae (his brother, for the uninformed) because he (Sae) refuses to acknowledge Rin in soccer and he abandoned their shared soccer dream from when they were little

That all being the case, I really like the concept that Rin is a Yandere for you because A.) something about you warms something cold and dead inside him and B.) you recognize him as talented and capable outside of his brother’s influence, and he (Rin) desperately clings to that affirmation 

Rin is undoubtedly possessive, wanting nothing more than to hide you away where only he can access you or, alternatively, make it known to everyone, in whatever way, that you belong to him

Rin is also somewhat domineering and controlling, as he still doesn’t want anything to tarnish his reputation

I think as a Yandere he’s a little more open to PDA (not by much at all, but just a little) 

I also think that, as a Yandere, Rin can be fairly intense without realizing it

Like during games and whatnot, he ups the ante ‘cus he knows you’re watching and he wants to impress you, keep your attention, and have earned your praise when he’s done

That could also apply to him normally sorta, but I think the behavior is more prominent in Yandere mode

All-in-all, Yandere Rin isn’t the most terrible, he’s mostly just…needy, in his own special way

[eurothug4000]

INTERVIEW ON THE MAKING OF THE CANCELLED MMORPG NINELIVES

Ninelives is the most beautiful RPG that was never completed, but can still be experienced as it was left. As part of my video on the game (now up for early access on Nebula), I also interviewed Tota of SmokymonkeyS on its inspirations and development before its suspension in 2016.

What would you say are your main inspirations for the art style in Ninelives? E.g. other artists, film, games, literature, history etc.!

I was a huge fan of Adventure Gamebook when I was a kid. Well, maybe you don't know what that is. Please read the wiki if you need: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebook. I was reading (playing) translated oversea gamebooks well, and love the inner artwork especially what draw by monochrome. I had never seen pictures like that before, and had a strong impact on me. So, I wanted to make a gamebook by my self. When I started making my own gamebooks, I learned a lot about how games are made. That's because a gamebook is a medium in which the player can see all the source code. At first I started making gamebooks because I was attracted by the artwork, but my interest eventually shifted to making the game itself.

Related to the above, do you take a lot of inspiration from real world cultures and places? Are there any that you particularly gravitate towards?

I like the mixed culture, like Chinoiserie in France at the 17 century. Plus, since I'm Japanese and this country has always been greatly influenced by China. So I'm not limited to any one of these cultures, but trying to create as I am influenced by all of them. Sometimes people say that what I create looks Japanese, Chinese, or Asian, which is neither correct nor incorrect. I try not to be only of a certain culture when I create. That's because I want to create an imaginary world that is somewhat like reality, but slightly different.

Why did you want to make Ninelives?

Ninelives was the first game I ever thought of making, I think when I was about 17.

Do you think Ninelives being in an unfinished state provides a different atmosphere when playing the game and exploring the world?

I don't particularly think so. The atmosphere of the game is still complete. I wanted the game to be a relaxed, free-roamed adventure for players.

I wasn't certain during my research, so I wanted to confirm if Tomomi Sakuba was involved in Ninelives in any way?

Yeah, Sakuba was involved in Ninelives lots of ways. As you said, he did some of the texture pictures for flowers, plants and tree leaves. He also drawn the world map and area maps of the game like below: http://www.smokymonkeys.com/kyrill/index.asp?direct=138 He actually walked around the world by himself to make this. He was one of the most earliest game tester of the game. Oh, and I have to tell you this. He's a voice actor of male Nightbreed and Elf! In addition, his wife did some of creature voices. Her voice is also used on Triglav too!

What are your own personal thoughts on Ninelives? Is there anything you would drastically change looking back on it? Or any big changes you would want to make if you were to continue development at any point?

Ninelives was too much for me in many ways. It was a world I had been thinking about since I was young, but there were too many things to actually create to handle, and in that sense it's exactly the dream a child thinks about. We are a team of two in SmokymonkeyS, but one of us is in charge of programming and system engineering, and the game itself was created completely by myself. I had to create all the pictures, models, terrain, music, and story by myself. Now if I'm going to make something, I don't make it on such a large scale anymore.

Apart from the Switch release for Garage and occasional updates on Triglav that you mentioned before, is there anything that SmokymonkeyS are working on for the future?

Not yet so far.

I noticed your banner on the official website (http://www.smokymonkeys.com/kyrill/index.asp) has a character on a train platform, I wondered if that might be a future game?

Once it was. It was a previous project of Triglav for mobile. But it was going to be on a larger scale again, so we decided to port Triglav before that. There are no plans to make that game now. But I may make another game with that worldview and atmosphere. For example, as a mobile game.

A big thank you to Tota for taking the time to answer my questions! You can find SmokymonkeyS and their games here:

[taleeater]

The More Things Change, the More Things Stay the Same

Vaunite Viktor and Runaway Jayce AU

Just an idea, but this just sprung on me and I had a big lightbulb moment.

Jayce goes to the undercity to buy parts for his less than legal experiments from Ekko’s shop. Like he had been doing for a while. And that’s how he knows Viktor, who is mentoring Ekko, and also works under Silco and is a former student of Singed. Since he decided to continue to work with Singed as a child, he never left to join the college in Piltover. Viktor did his best to keep Jayce at a distance at first, despising the Pilties, but Jayce was extremely persistent in befriending Viktor, the enchanting, mysterious, incredibly intelligent Zaunite scientist and engineer. And Viktor could only resist Jayce’s advances for so long before this incredibly sweet and surprisingly smart big oaf of a man began to grow on him. So they become somewhat well acquainted friends over time.

Marcus, after a particularly frustrating meeting with Silco, has some of his officers tail Viktor, Silco’s assistant, to try and dig up some more information and dirt on what Silco’s secret plans are. But Viktor is smart, and slippery, but not at all fast. He manages to lose the Piltover cops tailing him, but what he doesn’t know is that after they leave, they discover Jayce, obviously a Piltie, sneaking into the undercity and follow him to Ekko’s shop where Viktor is now waiting to meet up with him. No one but Vander sees the police there watching them.

Skip ahead to the Incident™️where Jayce’s apartment gets blown up. It’s less of an accident this time, and the kids don’t have anything to do with it. This time it’s the corrupt Piltover police force. Later that week, when Jayce is out with Caitlyn, the Piltover police illegally raid and search his apartment, and make it look like a break in. They try to find any connection he might have to Silco and the Undercity, but all they find are his weird experiments. So they grab anything fishy- and valuable looking, and make to leave. But one of the cops drops a crystal and it explodes as they run out the door. Jayce is a block away when he and Caitlyn hear the explosion, and discover his place in ruins and a lot of his stuff missing. But thankfully he had his research notebook on hand so it wasn’t taken.

The police of course claim that the break in was the work of Zaunite children, and avoid being held responsible. Using the excuse to patrol Zaun and harass anyone who they might think is suspicious for other reasons. But unlike before, the university doesn’t feel the need to search his apartment for anything left, as the police already claimed that anything dangerous looking had already been stolen. (They did their own ‘investigation’ to cover their tracks.) Jayce is brought before the counsel like before, and stripped of his status at the university, support, and funding, and ordered to give up on all his research. He goes home defeated.

The scene in his destroyed apartment still happens, he almost jumps. But he has another idea instead. He grabs anything left related to his research, writes his mother a misleading note claiming he’s leaving Piltover for good, and escapes into the night. And heads straight for Zaun. (In a disguise that covers his face this time, as Viktor had been recently pestering him about doing so anyway for safety.) Jayce finds the Last Drop, as Ekko’s shop is closed late at night, and asks around for anyone who might know Viktor. The whole bar immediately gets suspicious of him, and it’s Sevika at the bar who decides to take him. She thinks he’s a Piltover spy, and leads him away from the bar with the intention to beat him up and rob him. And maybe bring him to Silco to see if they should kill him. But it’s Viktor who comes across them on a late night walk, and takes notice of the suspiciously familiar lumbering shape being led down a dark alleyway by his coworker that draws him to the scene. Sevika shoves Jayce into a wall and pulls off his face covering, Jayce throwing up his arms in defense asking her to wait, when the familiar voice speaks up. “….Jayce?” He would know that voice anywhere. “What are you doing here?” Viktor asks him, and Sevika backs off but is incredibly suspicious as to why Viktor is so familiar with a possible Piltie spy.

Jayce all but melts at the sight of Viktor and rushes up to him to embrace him in a hug, one that Viktor is very surprised and uncomfortable by. But he can tell Jayce is very rattled. Jayce is able to tell him a little bit about what happened in the alley, all in earshot of Sevika, but he’s able to get across that no one will be looking for him, especially not in Zaun, (he thinks) and that’s all Viktor needs to hear before he realizes that Jayce has abandoned Piltover to continue his research and needs a place to stay. After a lot of inner turmoil, knowing he’s probably going to regret it, he brings Jayce back home with him to his private lab and his little apartment.

That night, Jayce shows Viktor all of his research with incredible passion and fervor, and it surprises Viktor how much he finds himself believing in Jayce’s research. There begins their official partnership to share their Hextech dream, not with Piltover, but for Zaun, and the rest of the world.

The Piltover police, with no targets on which children to blame for their break in, and not wanting to piss off Vander, grab a random kid off the streets that was picking a fight with them to arrest, not realizing that the kid worked for Silco. But the kid had Shimmer on him, and injected himself with it to fight them off in desperation. He manages to kill a few cops, but is ultimately gunned down. Silco is beyond pissed off. Marcus is forced to bury the whole incident just to appease Silco, but ultimately their whole bargain is all but thrown in the trash, and Piltover is still enraged that some of their officers were killed in the Undercity. Relations between Piltover and Zaun become increasingly more unsteady, and violent as a result. But meanwhile, Viktor and Jayce are holed up in their own little world working together to develop Hextech. Silco is not exactly thrilled to lose his assistant. But Silco manages to bribe enough people in Piltover to leave the undercity alone in the meantime. Jayce and Viktor quickly realized that they still desperately needed funding for their research, and ended up presenting their work to a sceptical, but soon baffled Silco only weeks after they began working together. Silco sees the potential for the Hextech to benefit the Undercity in many different ways, so he uses the money he makes from his enormous sales in Shimmer to fund their research. No less than a month later, he rescues Powder from the aftermath of a brutal police attack that burned the Last Drop to the ground, killing Vander, Milo, and Claggor. But Vi escaped only to blame Powder for leading the violent officers back home with her after one of her toy bomb traps failed to activate. Vi was still arrested unjustly, and Silco took in Powder.

Years pass, and things eventually calm down again. Without Mel around to seduce and influence Jayce, he realizes his feelings for Viktor much sooner. But he’s still too scared to confess to him as Viktor becomes more and more busy being radicalized by Silco to fight for the Undercity. It’s Viktor who ends up having to step up and take a position of political power, not Jayce. Viktor and Jayce did not have access to any of Piltover’s extensive funding and resources like before, so their research was slower going at the beginning despite Silco’s funding and resources. But surprisingly, with Jinx’s help after years of her endless curiosity and tutelage from a big brotherly Jayve and regretfully resigned Viktor, they refine the crystals to a more safe form. Soon enough, they are able to produce versions of the HexClaw and the HexGloves, which they made for assisting work in the mines and in construction. But without Heimerdinger’s warnings like before, they are able to have Silco fund their mass production to be used all over the Undercity. But it doesn’t take long for the people of Zaun to figure out they can also use the tech for their own self defense against Piltover, and it begins to cause problems again between the two cities. Viktor ends up having to fill in for Silco more and more as a representative for his Shimmer operations and as a political representative for Zaun in talks with Piltover, leaving Jayce alone often in the lab to work alone. So Jayce is not there when Viktor collapses for the first time from the illness he’s been hiding from them. 

That night, Jinx and Silco bring in an unconscious Viktor to their lab. It’s not the first time Jayce has helped a rogue Zaunite with first aid, and they even developed a few useful medical devices, but this was different. This was Viktor, and as far as he could tell with his limited medical knowledge, his condition was bad. Very bad. So Jayce throws himself into working on creating new medical inventions, things he tries to use to treat Viktor, to cure him. But the tension between Zaun and Piltover is boiling over again, and Silco needs weapons to help the citizens of Zaun to fight off Piltover’s oppression. Jinx ends up using their refined crystals to manufacture bombs and weapons, against the strict wishes of Jayce and Viktor never to do so. But it goes unnoticed by Jayce as he gets more and more desperate as Viktor’s illness worsens without real medical attention. He is tempted by Singed into resorting to treating him with small doses of Shimmer like Silco uses on his eye.

Now with Viktor having minorly stabilized, and the usage of an artificial lung that Jayce designed, they work together on the evolving HexCore. Eventually, they accidentally trigger the HexCore mutation, with Huck there bringing them food like usual on orders from Silco, Huck gets sucked up to feed the HexCore as it feeds power to Viktor to transform him as Jayce tries to control it. Viktor doesn’t turn into Machine Harold thanks to Jayce having a better grasp of the HexCore, but most of his body is still transformed to merge with all his metal braces that Jayce made for him, and the artificial lung support and Shimmer that was keeping him alive.

Viktor, empowered by his new strength and powers in his new form, decides to go join Silco in his war against Piltover. But Jayce stops him, and finally confesses his feelings to Viktor, and pleads with him to stay with him. Viktor, still having his emotions, is swayed. Because he knows it too, deep in his bones, all these years they've spent together, he loves Jayce too. He returns his feelings. They kiss, and even sleep together that night. But when Jayce wakes up in the morning, Viktor is gone. 

I haven't worked out all the alternate universe differences in this AU revolving around Jinx, Caitlyn, and Vi, so for now assume most of their storyline outside of what happens with Jayce and Viktor stays mostly the same. 

Someone shoot me. Why can I never write like 1 paragraph for an idea and just leave it alone. Once again running with this until it looks like another rough fanfic instead of a little AU idea. Hope you like it. :]

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

VERY LONG SUBMISSION SORRY I HAVE A LOT TO SAY

SELF DIAGNOSED "I'M SO NICE" NPD CULTURE IS. LITERALLY ALWAYS KNOWING YOU HAD SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU. BUT SOCIETY HAS SPOONFED YOU THE PROPAGANDISTIC IDEALS OF NARC DEMONISATION SINCE THE DAY YOU WERE FRESH OUT THE WOMB, SO EVEN THOUGH YOU PERSONALLY BELIEVED YOU DIDN'T DEMONISE NPD, YOU NEVER ONCE CONSIDERED HAVING IT BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS TOLD YOURSELF "I DEFINITELY DON'T HAVE NPD, I'M WAY TOO NICE FOR THAT!"

BUT YOU STILL KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING SERIOUSLY FUCKING WRONG WITH YOU. CLUSTER B PERSONALITY DISORDER SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT.

"HEY WAIT, I SEEM TO RELATE TO BPD EXPERIENCES!!! THIS IS WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME!"

IT WAS NOT BPD. THE THINGS I FOUND RELATABLE WERE JUST GENERAL CLUSTER B SYMPTOMS OR EXPLAINABLE BY SOMETHING ELSE.

SEVERE IDENTITY ISSUES? JUST NPD.

HAVING A FP AND PLACING YOUR SELF WORTH AND EMOTIONAL STATE IN THEM? ANY PERSONALITY DISORDER CAN HAVE A FP.

SUDDEN MOOD SWINGS? IT'S PROBABLY NPD WHEN I'M MET WITH DIRECT CRITICISM / RUDENESS / AND I FEEL INSANELY OFFENDED OR ATTACKED AND INSTINCTIVELY AND UNCONTROLLABLY GET SUPER DEFENSIVE AND COMBATIVE AND GRASP AT ANYTHING I CAN TO "GET BACK" AT THEM TO COPE WITH FEELING LIKE I JUST GOT FUCKING STABBED IN THE CHEST

FEAR OF ABANDONMENT? CHILDHOOD UPBRINGING + TRAUMA LOL ALSO IT CRUSHES MY EGO BADLY THAT PEOPLE FIND ME SO INSUFFERABLE THAT THEY NEVER WANT TO TALK TO ME AGAIN SO LOWKEY NPD TOO

SUICIDAL THREATS? UMM OK SO THIS IS AN ENTIRE STORYTIME FOR ANOTHER SUBMISSION SO JUST. GO FIND IT FROM MY ANON SIGNOFF TAG IF YOU'RE CURIOUS. TLDR I WAS 10 AND PLAYING ROYALE HIGH 💀

BLACK AND WHITE THINKING? AUTISM. OR POSSIBLY NPD

"WOW, I FEEL LIKE I RELATE A LOT TO HPD SYMPTOMS!!!! I MUST HAVE BOTH BPD AND HPD!"

HPD IS BARELY TALKED ABOUT EVEN IN PD SPACES, THE DSM CRITERIA FOR IT IS VAGUE AND UNSPECIFIC AND WACKY MAKING IT DIFFICULT TO ACCURATELY SELF DIAGNOSE IT (OR EVEN ACCURATELY DIAGNOSE IT IN GENERAL), AND ALL OF MY HPD SYMPTOMS CAN BE EXPLAINED BY SOMETHING ELSE.

UNSTABLE EMOTIONS? LITERALLY JUST CLUSTER B AND AUTISM.

ATTENTION SEEKING + TWEAKING WHEN NO ATTENTION? MOSTLY JUST NPD, BUT COULD ALSO BE SOMEWHAT CATALYSTED BY MY INSANELY EXTROVERTED, OUTGOING AND SOCIALLY DEPENDENT PERSONALITY.

DRAMATIC BEHAVIOUR? I HAVE MANY OUTBURSTS OR EPISODES OF LOSING MY SHIT BECAUSE OF A COMBINATION OF TRAUMA, AUTISM, AND JUST BEING CLUSTER B.

EXAGGERATED AND OVER-THE-TOP PERSONA? THAT IS LITERALLY JUST THE ARTIFICIAL PERSONA I MOLDED MYSELF INTO BECAUSE MY NPD THOUGHT IT'D MAKE EVERYONE LOVE ME BUT MY NPD SWEARS THIS IS THE REAL ME EVEN THOUGH I'M JUST FABRICATING MY PERSONALITY TO BE CLOSER TO THE IDEALISED ME I HAVE IN MY HEAD.

HAVING "STRONG OPINIONS" THAT ARE MALLEABLE AND DEPENDENT ON THOSE AROUND ME? PROBABLY A COMBINATION OF BEING AN FE DOMINANT IN TYPOLOGY (THIS MEANS MY MORALS AND DECISIONS ARE BASED ON HOW SOMETHING AFFECTS OTHERS) AND BEING LOW EMPATHY + COMPASSION (SOMETIMES I CAN'T UNDERSTAND OR CARE FOR HOW SOMETHING WILL AFFECT OTHERS, BUT I TRY AND GUESS / ASSUME WHAT THE RIGHT THING TO DO IS ANYWAYS BECAUSE I'M A GOOD PERSON) *SORRY FOR THE TYPOLOGY MENTION IN A PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTEXT I THINK MANY PEOPLE FUCKING HATE THAT IN PSYCHOLOGY/MENTAL HEALTH SPACES I DON'T TREAT IT LIKE ASTROLOGY OKAY? 😭 I JUST THINK IT'S A GREAT TOOL TO EXPLAIN AND CATEGORISE THE ASPECTS OF YOUR PERSONALITY UNRELATED TO MENTAL ILLNESS OR TRAUMA SINCE EVERY TYPOLOGY SYSTEM IS UNIQUE

THE HPD SELF DIAGNOSIS WAS ON A WHIM BTW I WAS REALLY STUPID ABOUT THAT .. ☹️ I HEARD "PDS ARE VERY COMMONLY COMORBID" AND I TOOK THAT AND JUST DIAGNOSED MYSELF WITH WHATEVER I FOUND SLIGHTLY RELATABLE. I SAW A VID OF SOMEONE WITH HPD TALKING ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCE + THEY MENTIONED SOMETHING LIKE "WE HAVE A GOD COMPLEX BUT WE HATE OURSELVES AT THE SAME TIME" WHICH HELPED ME COME TO TERMS WITH MY EGO AND GRANDIOSITY (WHILE STILL THINKING IT WAS BPD AND HPD), SO I SELF DIAGNOSED MYSELF WITH NPD TOO . WHILE ONLY DOING THE BARE MINIMUM OF RESEARCH 😟 LIKE OBVIOUSLY I DIDN'T THINK NPD WAS Symptoms: Kills people, eats babies, manipulates everyone, takes over the world, is ONLY CAPABLE of feeling EVIL and can NEVER be kind EVER, CAUSE I WAS CONSCIOUSLY ACCEPTING OF PWNPD EVEN THOUGH I HAD SOME DEMONISATION STILL SUBCONSCIOUSLY INTERNALISED BECAUSE OF WHAT SOCIETY SPOONFEEDS US + ABSOLUTELY NOBODY IS 100% FREE OF AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT OF SUBCONSCIOUS INTERNALISED BIGOTRY BUT I BASICALLY HAD JUST JUMPED THE GUN

AFTER A WHILE I LOWKEY REALISED THAT BPD AND HPD DID NOT SEEM TO FIT ME . AND I UNDIAGNOSED MYSELF WITH NPD TOO CAUSE THE TWO MISDIAGNOSES MADE ME ASSUME I DIDN'T HAVE A PD AT ALL. SO I HAD A SHORT PERIOD OF "DAMN I GUESS I DON'T HAVE ANY DISORDERS THAT EXPLAIN WHY I'M SO FUCKED UP AND INSANE AND MENTALLY UNWELL"

BEFORE I FOUND OUT MY FP HAD NPD. AND I WAS LIKE "WAIT, REALLY? BUT THEY'RE SO NICE TO ME... HONESTLY, IT MAKES SENSE". AND THAT MOTIVATED ME TO ACTUALLY DO RESEARCH ON NPD BECAUSE THIS TOLD ME I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND IT ENOUGH. I WANTED TO UNDERSTAND THEM.

THAT WAS BASICALLY HOW I STARTED TO REALISE I HAD NPD. I TRIED DENYING A LOT OF CORRELATIONS . AND I NEVER SUSPECTED I HAD NPD FOR YEARS BECAUSE THE COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS HAD NORMALISED SO MANY THINGS TO ME + I QUITE UNSUCCESSFULLY TRIED BOTTLING UP THINGS I THOUGHT WERE MEAN (WHICH BASICALLY MADE ME BELIEVE I'M SECRETLY AN AWFUL PERSON AND NOBODY KNOWS IT) . I THOUGHT MY GRANDIOSE FANTASIES WERE NORMAL UNTIL I WAS LIKE 15. I THOUGHT NEVER BEING ABLE TO COMPREHEND YOU'RE IN THE WRONG BUT PRETENDING YOU DO AND APOLOGISING TO "DO THE RIGHT THING" WAS NORMAL. I THOUGHT MY LEVEL OF EMPATHY WAS NORMAL. I THOUGHT MY JEALOUSY AND ENVY WERE NNORMAL. I NEVER WORDED MY THOUGHTS OF CONTEMPT AND SUPERIORITY TO OTHERS IN A WAY THAT WAS LIKE "HEH... YOU'RE SO PATHETIC.... I'M SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOU" IT WAS MORE LIKE "LOL I'M _ AND THEY'RE NOT" SO IT WASN'T OBVIOUS TO ME THAT THIS WASN'T NORMAL . BUT WHEN I DID WORD IT THAT WAY, I DIDN'T THINK I WAS A NARC I JUST THOUGHT I WAS SECRETLY AN ASSHOLE 😭 I SERIOUSLY NEVER THOUGHT MY KINDNESS HAD SELFISH INTENTIONS I THOUGHT IT WAS NORMAL TO ONLY BE NICE FOR PEOPLE TO LIKE YOU ┛◠ ┛ ANYWAYS IT'S 2025 AND I AM NO LONGER BLINDED BY BIAS OR DELUSION COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS AND I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT MY PROBLEM IS NPD!!!!!!!!! AND LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE I THINK . I AM 16 AND GONNA "TRY TO GET DIAGNOSED" SOON (NOT GOING TO EVER SAY "I THINK I HAVE NPD". I'M GONNA SPECIFICALLY MENTION ALL MY NARC TRAITS TO MY THERAPIST AND WORD THEM IN A VERY TEXTBOOK NPD WAY WITHOUT EVER LYING I'M JUST GOING OUT OF MY WAY TO TELL THE TRUTH AND WORDING IT IN A STEREOTYPICAL NPD WAY)

THX 4 READING I LOAV U (^з^)-☆Chu!!

— 🍋‍🟩🍃

[pt: very long submission sorry i have a lot to say

self diagnosed "i'm so nice" npd culture is. literally always knowing you had something wrong with you. but society has spoonfed you the propagandistic ideals of narc demonisation since the day you were fresh out the womb, so even though you personally believed you didn't demonise npd, you never once considered having it because you always told yourself "i definitely don't have npd, i'm way too nice for that!"

but you still knew there was something seriously fucking wrong with you. cluster b personality disorder sounds about right.

"hey wait, i seem to relate to bpd experiences!!! this is what's wrong with me!"

it was not bpd. the things i found relatable were just general cluster b symptoms or explainable by something else.

severe identity issues? just npd.

having a fp and placing your self worth and emotional state in them? any personality disorder can have a fp.

sudden mood swings? it's probably npd when i'm met with direct criticism / rudeness / and i feel insanely offended or attacked and instinctively and uncontrollably get super defensive and combative and grasp at anything i can to "get back" at them to cope with feeling like i just got fucking stabbed in the chest

fear of abandonment? childhood upbringing + trauma lol also it crushes my ego badly that people find me so insufferable that they never want to talk to me again so lowkey npd too

suicidal threats? umm ok so this is an entire storytime for another submission so just. go find it from my anon signoff tag if you're curious. tldr i was 10 and playing royale high 💀

black and white thinking? autism. or possibly npd

"wow, i feel like i relate a lot to hpd symptoms!!!! i must have both bpd and hpd!"

hpd is barely talked about even in pd spaces, the dsm criteria for it is vague and unspecific and wacky making it difficult to accurately self diagnose it (or even accurately diagnose it in general), and all of my hpd symptoms can be explained by something else.

unstable emotions? literally just cluster b and autism.

attention seeking + tweaking when no attention? mostly just npd, but could also be somewhat catalysted by my insanely extroverted, outgoing and socially dependent personality.

dramatic behaviour? i have many outbursts or episodes of losing my shit because of a combination of trauma, autism, and just being cluster b.

exaggerated and over-the-top persona? that is literally just the artificial persona i molded myself into because my npd thought it'd make everyone love me but my npd swears this is the real me even though i'm just fabricating my personality to be closer to the idealised me i have in my head.

having "strong opinions" that are malleable and dependent on those around me? probably a combination of being an fe dominant in typology (this means my morals and decisions are based on how something affects others) and being low empathy + compassion (sometimes i can't understand or care for how something will affect others, but i try and guess / assume what the right thing to do is anyways because i'm a good person) *sorry for the typology mention in a psychological context i think many people fucking hate that in psychology/mental health spaces i don't treat it like astrology okay? 😭 i just think it's a great tool to explain and categorise the aspects of your personality unrelated to mental illness or trauma since every typology system is unique

the hpd self diagnosis was on a whim btw i was really stupid about that .. ☹️ i heard "pds are very commonly comorbid" and i took that and just diagnosed myself with whatever i found slightly relatable. i saw a vid of someone with hpd talking about their experience + they mentioned something like "we have a god complex but we hate ourselves at the same time" which helped me come to terms with my ego and grandiosity (while still thinking it was bpd and hpd), so i self diagnosed myself with npd too . while only doing the bare minimum of research 😟 like obviously i didn't think npd was symptoms: kills people, eats babies, manipulates everyone, takes over the world, is only capable of feeling evil and can never be kind ever, cause i was consciously accepting of pwnpd even though i had some demonisation still subconsciously internalised because of what society spoonfeeds us + absolutely nobody is 100% free of at least a little bit of subconscious internalised bigotry but i basically had just jumped the gun

after a while i lowkey realised that bpd and hpd did not seem to fit me . and i undiagnosed myself with npd too cause the two misdiagnoses made me assume i didn't have a pd at all. so i had a short period of "damn i guess i don't have any disorders that explain why i'm so fucked up and insane and mentally unwell"

before i found out my fp had npd. and i was like "wait, really? but they're so nice to me… honestly, it makes sense". and that motivated me to actually do research on npd because this told me i didn't understand it enough. i wanted to understand them.

that was basically how i started to realise i had npd. i tried denying a lot of correlations . and i never suspected i had npd for years because the cognitive distortions had normalised so many things to me + i quite unsuccessfully tried bottling up things i thought were mean (which basically made me believe i'm secretly an awful person and nobody knows it) . i thought my grandiose fantasies were normal until i was like 15. i thought never being able to comprehend you're in the wrong but pretending you do and apologising to "do the right thing" was normal. i thought my level of empathy was normal. i thought my jealousy and envy were nnormal. i never worded my thoughts of contempt and superiority to others in a way that was like "heh… you're so pathetic…. i'm so much better than you" it was more like "lol i'm _ and they're not" so it wasn't obvious to me that this wasn't normal . but when i did word it that way, i didn't think i was a narc i just thought i was secretly an asshole 😭 i seriously never thought my kindness had selfish intentions i thought it was normal to only be nice for people to like you ┛◠ ┛ anyways it's 2025 and i am no longer blinded by bias or delusion cognitive distortions and i know for a fact that my problem is npd!!!!!!!!! and literally nothing else i think . i am 16 and gonna "try to get diagnosed" soon (not going to ever say "i think i have npd". i'm gonna specifically mention all my narc traits to my therapist and word them in a very textbook npd way without ever lying i'm just going out of my way to tell the truth and wording it in a stereotypical npd way)

thx 4 reading i loav u (^з^)-☆chu!!]

[itsaspectrumcomic]

Hello :),

[EDIT: This is a super long asks, sorry about that 😭. I‘m just very unsure of this whole topic and I tend to ramble when I‘m nervous.] I‘ve been following your little comics for a while now (and always thought "ah, I do have a few symptoms but I‘m surely not autistic, I‘m not that extreme") aaaaaaand it turns out I may have it! At least every single test I did (which were a lot with a few months in between) resulted in a high percentage and I‘m actively looking for a therapist to get an official diagnosis- but that‘s not the point I‘m trying to get to, sorry I‘m rambling a bit.

Ahem I‘m still pretty new in this autism… community? Can one call it like that? And I constantly doubt my self-diagnosis and stuff, especially because I have trouble finding out if something is a special interest or just a hobby. Recently, I saw one of your comics in which you mentioned books would be a special interest of yours (or have been in the past). Is that really a thing? I‘ve had a phase where multiple people told me I was addicted to books because I just couldn‘t stop reading/rambling. Whenever I had the time I read, and that is not an exaggeration, I read from morning to evening. Over the years, I started analyzing the books, making up my own stories and getting into writing. Now (which means in the last seven months) my… hobby has changed to (over) analyzing every aspect of a specific show I‘ve watched, and how every tool (animation, camera work, music etc.) was used to enhance the story. I literally can‘t just… not talk about it. It‘s agonizing to talk about other topics, although it has somewhat gone better over course of the last couple of months. And the worst is that the show‘s second season was a total writing disaster and I can‘t stop thinking about it, to the point that I kind of want to slam my head in the wall just to get it out and focus on idk. My English exam or smth. It went so far that I actually started my own rewrite because it bugs me so much how the writing changed and-

I‘m stopping here. Sorry again I‘m also a bit sleepy rn, so my brain is not working correctly. What I‘m actually asking is: does that sound like a hyperfixation? Because every website so far has told me autism means obsessing over niche topics, but writing and books are pretty mainstream, right?

Oh and how the heck am I supposed to know what is neurotypical and what’s autistic?? Because ever since I started researching, I keep catching myself doing stuff like rearranging spoons so the comfortable spoons are on top, or keeping tissues in my pockets to rip them when stressed, but isn’t that normal? Everyone wants to have the comfortable spoons on top, right? Right??

All I‘m saying is… I’m confused. And nervous. And constantly doubt myself. Your comic made me think that maybe some of the self-doubt wasn‘t as warranted because special interests don‘t have to be super… special?

Yeah and I really like your comics byeee :).

Hello, I'm glad you like my comics! :)

Anything can be a special interest! It doesn't matter if it's considered mainstream or a lot of other people like it too, and it doesn't have to be 'strange' or 'niche'. If you are intensely focused on a subject, activity, piece of media etc, spend a lot of time thinking about it, learning about it, talking about it, and get a lot of joy out of it, that counts as a special interest. The difference is the intensity.

For example, a neurotypical person might like Marvel shows, enjoy watching them and chatting about them with friends and maybe own some fandom related merch or occasionally write fanfics, whereas an autistic person with Marvel as a special interest might rewatch them over and over, have dialogue memorised, want to collect every figurine, write about and analyse it, know trivia about the production and the comics etc.

(This is a generalisation btw - a person can be obsessed with something without being autistic, they'd need to have other traits too. And you don't have to know absolutely everything about a subject for it to be a special interest.)

All that to say yes, if you have an intense interest in books, reading them, writing them, analysing them, then it definitely counts! Same goes for your show :)

If you relate to that and other autistic traits, you are welcome to consider yourself part of the autistic community.

(Btw, I think most neurotypical people don't really think about whether the most comfortable spoon is on top. I think they just put the spoons in the draw and move on to something else.)

[daniwolf9005]

Sorry this came so late- but Merry Christmas @part-time-pixie !! I was your secret Santa for the @mlsecretsanta 2023 event! This piece went through a lot of complications because I was so unsure about a lot of things! Let me run down the process!

I knew it had to be your AU since that’s a lot more personal and I myself am a big fan of personalized stuff! So I actually never knew anything about Winx before this so I researched- about 6 episodes for context of the fairy and specialist relations- so that’s one reason why the startup was slow but then!! I needed to figure out a setting- originally I was going with Magix City- but the color palette was more green and I wanted a more warm palette- but for the life of me I couldn’t find a place that screamed romance- eventually I gave in and just looked up “date in Winx” or something like that- and boom!! This place showed up- so heavy inspiration of the setting from this screen shot (lots of details were forgotten waaah-)

And then it was little things- from my research I realized they only transformed when battling so I needed a casual outfit (note for some reason I forgot to apply this logic to Luka’s fit I’m sorry 😭) for Adrien that wasn’t his powered up form for a casual setting- I ended up just asking- and I hope that didn’t clue you in but nonetheless I hope it was still somewhat a surprise! I’m so glad I did though because at that point I could finally finish the sketch- which was around the end of December so I was stuck on that for a while 😭

I finished the line art and coloring in a rush and man you can tell ;v; I went through a lot in coloring stage- I tried finishing this piece during a family outing and my markers (about 80+) fell out of their holders and went everywhere- also learned coloring over my white pen did not in fact keep it solid and the white began to get washed away from the marker on top, revealing the line art I messed up on beneath- one of the things that made me glad I was late is when you made this piece and I realized his gem clasp was teal- I was gonna make it yellow since that was the last red fountain specialist color not used and I assumed he’d just take it lmao! Though in short I went through all the stages of grief when doing the coloring ;v;

All to say though I hope despite all the flaws you still like it! I was really happy with this around the line art stage and even now- I’m just harsh on my own work but this is actually the biggest piece in my art book (I’ve been working on this book since Summer 2022!) so I suppose that is to say I’m glad I was able to try something new with this one!

(Also small note but I realized the quality turned out really fuzzy on here- if you want @part-time-pixie I can send a zip file to you in dms?)

[coupleofdays]

Next month, the Swedish film Watch The Skies (originally titled UFO Sweden) will finally recieve its American premiere. I am very excited about this, because I think it's a great movie, and I'm looking forward to more people being able to see it.

One aspect of the American release that has recieved a lot of attention is the dubbing. All of the voices in the film have been dubbed in English by the original Swedish actors, which is pretty cool. However, the big news is that the filmmakers has also made use of a type of AI technology to animate the lip movements in the film so that they will match up with the English dub. I know that this might make many people leery about the film, to say the least. But for what it's worth, the filmmakers have claimed that they're making "ethical" use of AI in this case, in the sense that it's not stealing from any other sources, it's only "trained" on the film itself. And since I've already seen a few people misunderstanding the usage of AI in the film, I think it bears repeating: The AI is not used to generate the English voices, all the lines were re-recorded in English by the actors. I've even found one article that states that the film is "compliant with SAG-AFTRA". I'm not going to fault anyone who's still hesitant to support a film using AI technology, but I think that an argument can be made that this might be an acceptable way to use it. And I have to say that I think the lip-synching works fairly well, if the American trailer is anything to go by:

I hope, however, that the film might be appreciated for more than just this new-fangled way of dubbing. The reason I fell in love with the film when I saw the Swedish version in 2022 has to do with its general tone and theme. Here's something I wrote on Cohost (R.I.P.) a few years ago, explaing why I like the film:

The film is set in the city of Norrköping in Sweden during the 1990s, and the main character is a young woman, Denise, whose father had some wild theories about mysterious electrical and gravitational phenomena, somehow related to inconsistencies in the Swedish weather service’s predictions. Denise’s father disappears mysteriously after apparently making some kind of breakthrough, and she’s obsessed with finding out the truth behind his disappearance. To this end she joins forces with the organization UFO Sweden (based on a real life Swedish ufologist organization), consisting of a group of slightly kooky but enthusiastic ufologists. While they are focused on unexplained phenomena, the group insists in researching them systematically and scientifically, performing field research in order to eliminate any possible regular explanations. They soon discover that something strange is indeed going on, and have to dodge the police and other government representatives while trying to find out the truth, a truth that turns out to be somewhat more complicated that just “flying saucers”.

Watch The Skies was created by the “film collective” Crazy Pictures, who are dedicated to producing Swedish genre film with relatively high budgets, and taking obvious inspiration from Hollywood. So there are many car chases and other action sequences in the film, and an overarching structure with many plot beats similar to things in typical Hollywood films. It is pretty interesting, not to mention slightly funny, to see those things happen in a small Swedish city, but it’s never done ironically or with winks at the camera, but with obvious heartfelt enthusiasm. But there is one other thing in particular that truly makes me love the film, one thing that despite its influences makes it truly “Swedish”.

The central theme of the film is the well-worn “power of friendship”, that you can’t achieve the same things by going at it alone as you can by accepting and cooperating with other people. It uses the classic ufologist slogan “we are not alone”, not in the sense of “there are aliens out there”, but rather “we have each other”. The thing I love about the film is that this theme is mainly reflected through the Swedish concept of “föreningsliv”, a word that is probably directly translated something like “association life”. The term refers to an important part of Swedish civil society, namely the many organizations, big and small, that citizens can create and be a part of. These organizations have a common way of organizing and decision-making, consisting of board meetings where every member can vote on who will be chairman, secretary, accountant, etc., and come with suggestions on what the organization should be doing, which are also put to a vote. It’s often referred to as “a crash course in democracy”. The organizations can be everything from large national worker’s unions or tenant’s unions, to small clubs with all kinds of interests, such as politics, hobbies, games, or, for example, ufology.

To me, Watch The Skies above all else is a celebration of these organizations. The film gently jokes about the sometimes dull and awkward nature of the board meetings in small basement locales, with home-brewed coffee and dry pastries and grumpy old men who insists on strictly following organizational statutes and protocol. But it also celebrates the ability of “association life” to gather and unite people, often those who might otherwise be cooped-up loners, outcasts with specific interests outside of those accepted by regular society. It shows that when those people unite and work together, they can achieve great things, influence the world, or at least give the members of the organization a social connection they might not have had otherwise. I think that’s an important message, very relevant today, where many of the big challenges the world is facing can only be overcome by people, especially those on the lower rung of society, gathering together, organizing, unionizing, supporting each other, striving together to have their voices heard and hopefully change the world for the better. Sometimes that might even include having to take radical action, breaking the law, opposing power structures, in order to find out greater truths. But as Denise learns through the film, it can only be achieved by cooperation, by working together. You are not alone. We are not alone.

[the-laughing-lunatic]

Hiya! I was wondering if you could how would the tf2 crew act with a reader who has chronic pain. I would like it to be platonic.Thank you and Have a wonderful day ☺

(ofc! I tried to do my research but I don’t have chronic pain, apologies if anything is wrong :< thanks for requesting!)

Scout, Medic, Spy, Engie, and Heavy w/ a reader who has chronic pain (PLATONIC)

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

☆Scout☆

He doesn’t get it at first honestly

Once you explain it more he feels really bad for you

Like you just hurt? All the time? And he can’t rlly do anything to make it go away?

If you have to cancel plans of going somewhere to hang out he’ll stay with you inside

“Scout, are you sure you don’t want to go with the rest of the team to get drinks? I don’t want to make you stay in my room.”

“Pally, I’m happy as hell bein’ here. You’re my bud, I ain’t just gonna leave ya here when you already feel like shit. Now just relax, aight? Back to what I was sayin’, lemme tell ya ‘bout the time I absolutely destroyed alla BLU…”

Major yapper alert

Perfectly content with just being near to you, he likes being entertaining for you to at least distract you from the pain

☆Medic☆

The most educated about it (obviously) 

Constantly has all your meds on hand along with refills

Is a huge hypocrite about making sure you’re okay

“You must sleep now fruend, it is twenty-two right now and you need your rest.”

“Medic you haven’t slept in four days.”

“That is entirely beside the point.”

(mf looks thru ur window to make sure ur actually sleeping /unreality)

Is intrigued about how your pain is triggered by certain things and will want to run experiments (dw he’ll undo whatever he did w/ his medigun and give you a lollipop)

Will offer you different surgeries to help but they all seem a little too experimental in nature 

Will give you the privilege of feeding his doves if you’re having a bad pain episode 

☆Spy☆

Relates to you somewhat (I headcanon him as a cane user)

Always has his smoking room open to you if you need a place to rest

If you’re sensitive to sound his room is perfect

It’s far from the other rooms and common areas, and if he is there with you he is often just reading a book with the occasional glance to make sure you don’t need anything

Never says it but he does enjoy your company a lot

You notice after a while that theres stock of all the things you typically use for pain episodes 

“Spy? Why are there heat packs in here?”

“Ah, those are for me, but please feel free to use them if you would like.”

“...don’t you just only use cold packs for your pain?”

“Let’s change the subject, shall we?”

“Alright. …thanks.”

Does a lot of favors for you secretly, and knows you know it’s him but he’ll still never say it outright

☆Engineer☆

Literally has a mental list of foods that you should and shouldn’t eat if youre having a pain episode and will act like a strict parent abt it

“No more soda for you, it ain’t gonna help ya with that pain of yours. If ya need a drink I got some tea that’ll actually help ya.”

“But–”

“No buts, tea, water, or nothin’.”

“Fine, I’ll have some water.”

In his workshop he’ll come up with loads of gadgets to try to make your life easier :3

Will prolly make a robot for you to do your menial tasks that take up too much energy

☆Heavy☆

Is there constantly to help you with anything you need

You don’t have the energy to make yourself a coffee? Boom, he’s got it for you.

Debating whether or not it’s worth it to do the laundry to then be in bad pain all day? He already did it hours ago.

He’ll offer you to join him exercising to help with the pain

“Ugh, h- heavy I’ve done thirty pushups already, can we quit?”

“Net, exercise good for you.”

“C’mon! I’m already in pain, can’t you give me a little mercy?”

“And now are in different pain, da? This one good!”

Dw, he makes sure to not actually push you past your limits

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

[bluesaltyseas]

Who will care for the fish? [PART 1] [PRESSURE FANFIC]

[Part 1 - Part 2]

Working for Urbanshade wasn't that bad, you guessed.

Sure, your life constantly hanged by a thread due to the company's strict rules, constantly being monitored by people over your rank. But it payed well for what it was, and you could finally stop worrying about retirement. Though you'd probably end up using a lot of that money for therapy after everything you've seen...

You were vaguely aware of the work that was done in the company before accepting the job. They told you they had certain things and did experiments you wouldn't see elsewhere, but that barely described the horrors you'd witness.

It was hard to describe the feelings you had once you saw the horrific experiments they did on animals, entities and humans alike. Their research was written in never ending piles of files; every procedure, picture, detail compiled and classified in drawers. And so many 'anomalies' caged and showcased as trophies of sort.

It took you a while to get used to the job, way longer than you expected, but it was reasonable after witnessing so many horrors in the span of a few days. You found more increasingly horrific things in the blacksite as the days went by, but eventually it stopped surprising or shocking you anymore, becoming your new normal.

The entities that laid behind the walls of the blacksite became less scary, you felt more confident being in their vicinity as you learnt more about them. You had to work with them and make sure they were taken care of after all, so you needed to eventually lose that fear.

There was one thing that still creeped you out though...

Not necessarily because of it's looks, nor what it might be capable of, no. It was because Z-13; or his real name Sebastian Solace, was still human. Though he didn't look human anymore, severly altered by countless experiments Urbanshade performed on him. It was creepy to know all this was done on a human being, who turned out to be innocent of the crimes he was 'punished' for, and somehow managed to function after all that.

The scientists didn't call him by his name, either using his codename of Z-13, or the nickname of 'handy man'. Some wouldn't even glance his way. You couldn't tell if it was out of shame or lack of humanity from their part. They definitely did somewhat regret what was done to him, as they made him a MR-P to have better living conditions, but clearly didn't care enough to try and reverse the mutations.

It was clear Sebastian held a grudge against them all. Why wouldn't he. The looks he gave them, the cold way he'd act towards them, barely saying a word...

Who could blame him for the way he acted...

At least you were lucky enough to not be a scientist involved in the experiments, being just a bit nicer to you. Clearly not trusting you though, as after all, you worked for the company that did that to him, helping the scientists with their tasks.

You did your best to stay on his good side, never getting involved with what the scientists might be doing with him whether it was for his good or not. You didn't want him to know you as another person who assisted this man made hell Urbanshade created for him, didn't want to add to his pain, didn't want to know the full story of it. You had arrived too late to see it unfold, and you were glad about it.

Everytime you passed by him, a shiver ran down your spine. He's had it so bad, a never ending nightmare. And the other's don't seem to care...

Is he even well taken care of? He's got scratches and bruises all around his body and he can barely keep his hair out of his face...

Maybe I could help?

As much as you didn't want to involve yourself in his case, you did want to try and at least make his stay here more bearable, offer some help. And so, you asked the ones in charge of his case if you could assist them with things related to him; performing check ups, getting food to him, anything of that nature.

They agreed pretty quickly to your surprise, though they probably didn't want to interact with Sebastian as much as he didn't want to interact with them, so they most likely were eager to pass some tasks to a willing subject.

With that done, now you could actually try and hopefully help Sebastian a little. But how? You hadn't thought about it that far yet, but you would worry about that once you were in front of him and assessed the situation better.

For now, the scientists gave you everything you needed, like his case folder, info sheet about his diet, and medical files to know what you had to do. It was a hell of a read that would probably take you days to finish. You decided to only read some of the papers in your free time throughout the week to get in the loop, while taking other papers to read over as you did your tasks.

You were expected to start right away the next day, so you woke up earlier than schedule to make sure you'd have time for everything. With a quick shower and breakfast, you were ready for the first task, getting him some food to start of the day too.

You read over his diet sheet as you walked towards the cafeteria, and you couldn't tell if you were disgusted or shocked by what he ate, probably both. "Raw fish? How many kilograms a day? Geez..." You muttered to yourself before putting the paper away, a bucket filled with fresh fish waiting for you on a table. It was heavy to say the least, and you had to carry it with both hands all the way over to his room, trying to ignore the disgusting smell.

Luckily, the door to his room wasn't locked, so you could simply push it open with your upper arm without letting go of the bucket, letting it drop on the floor with a thump as soon as you were inside.

"Agh-" You let out a quiet groan, your arms sore after carrying all that weight through so many corridors. Sebastian was already awake by the time you arrived, sitting on the floor and watching you closely as soon as you entered, raising an eyebrow.

Well, you're now in front of him. Great. Now what.

"H-Hey, um... Here's your breakfast." You awkwardly waved at him, pointing to the bucket in front of you, trying to push it a bit more forward with your foot before stepping back.

He looked at you up and down for a moment, his eyes squinted as if judging you, before approaching the bucket slowly. Without a word, he pulled the bucket towards himself and took pieces of fish out of it, starting to eat while now looking away from you. Not a bad start? Could be worse.

You stood there in silence for a moment, watching as he calmly ate the fish straight from the bucket. It wasn't cooked, barely even cut into more manageable pieces, and the smell, oh the smell. "Uh, wouldn't you prefer it if the fish were cooked?" You spoke a bit quieter than intended, with no answer coming from him. "No?...Okay." You muttered more so to yourself, your shoulders slumping a bit.

Sebastian finally glanced up at you after a moment, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before speaking up. "I don't care if it is or isn't cooked, I've eaten it like this for years so..." He said before digging back into his food, keeping an eye on you, though his look was now less intimidating.

"What's up with you anyways? Are you substituting or something?" He spoke once more, straightening up to look directly at you, biting into his last piece of food. You could see his face more clearly now, especially his teeth. It terrified you.

"N-No, no. I'm here to work as an assistant for... As long as they want me to." You stuttered a bit, unable to hide some of the fear and nervousness you felt. He tilted his head to the side, before shrugging to himself and pushing the bucket back to you with his tail.

"Of course they'd send a random nobody to do their job instead. Thought they knew better after the incident with Eyefestation." Sebastian scoffed, before turning around and slithering to the back of his room without another word. You were confused as to what he was talking about, but with how things were here, you preferred not to know what he was referring to.

You simply picked the bucket back up and decided to not bother him any longer for now, leaving to continue with your other tasks. You were unsure of what to do or say to him still, but you'd have time to think of something before you saw him again later in the day...

[otakusheep15]

Hey, sorry if your requests are full, and don't bother if you don't want to do it. But, I have four autoimmune conditions, and I'm wondering if you can make the Obey Me brothers (and any others you want) react to them. I have arthritis, which, for me, means the cartilage between my joints swells, causing pain, especially when it rains, snows, etc. I also have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which is hyper flexibility (that with my arthritis means my joints pop out of place a lot), and I have localized scleroderma which means "hardening of the skin" and anywhere I get hurt has a chance of becoming a scleroderma spot which is where my immune system attacks the muscle underneath it, causing silvery bruised areas that dent in and i scar super easily. I have one big one right over my shoulder blade. And finally I have multi-connective-tissue-disease which means I have symptoms of other autoimmune conditions, the most noticeable one if occasionally my lungs try to fill with fluid (not bad enough that I can't breath, but enough that my lungs feel half the size). I got all of these diagnoses between the ages of 10 and 14. If you want to only do one or two of these, it'll be fine, but I haven't been able to find anything remotely close to this in someone else's posts. I do have a high pain tolerance, so I can still do almost anything others can do (except the monkey bars 🥲), and I walk with a cane on bad days. Stress does make my conditions worse. (Also, Mammon and Levi are my faves, and I like Asmo less.) Thanks a lot if you decide to do this! 😊

Of course, I can absolutely do this! I'm not the most familiar with autoimmune conditions, so a lot of what I mention is coming from google research and outside sources. If anything sounds incorrect, please let me know so I can fix it!

Also, so that this can relate to as many people as possible, I'm going to try and keep the specifics vague. I hope that's alright!

So, first things first: the Devildom is not exactly the most accommodating for you. It's unfortunate but it's true. If you need anything specific, you need to let someone (like Lucifer, Barbatos, or Diavolo) know so that they can better help you during your stay. Otherwise, you'll pretty much be on your own.

The first couple of weeks are a struggle. As you're getting to know everyone, not many of them are willing to help you immediately. As you make pacts and form bonds, they're more willing to understand your condition(s) and help you out, but it takes a while.

Getting around the Devildom is probably your biggest struggle, especially if you use any sort of mobility aid, or if you're less physically capable. Everything was built with demons in mind, and demons are already more advanced than the average human, so you can imagine how someone with your condition(s) might fare.

Luckily, you have all of the Devildom's most powerful demons on your side, and they're more than happy to help you once you've made connections. If there's a long set of stairs you can't get up, Mammon or Beel will absolutely carry you. If you need to take a break and catch your breath, Levi and Belphie will stick with you so you don't feel lonely. If someone is making fun of you or bullying you, Asmo, Lucifer, and Satan are all ready to throw hands on your behalf.

You also (somewhat accidentally) help bring about a lot of change to the Devildom. Diavolo sees how often you struggle to get around, what with all of the demon-centric architecture, and decides that it needs to change, especially if he wants to better relations with humans. He makes a lot of areas more accessible to those with mobility aids, and he also makes sure to place more rest stops (such as benches) around places that didn't previously have many places to rest. He also introduces more education on autoimmunity into RAD so that more demons can know about all the different types of conditions a human can have.

If you're having a bad pain day, your favorite brother is by your side the entire time, tending to your every need. Since the request mentioned Levi and Mammon, I'll use them as examples.

Mammon is lowkey worrying over you if you're having a bad pain day, but he's doing his best. Most of his day is spent grabbing things around the house for you. He brings you water, cooks you food, and finds sources of entertainment for you. If you have any sort of ointments or creams applied to your skin, he's very gentle with you as he helps you. He's also good at massages if you think it'll help you. If you desperately need to go somewhere, he is picking you up and carrying you there himself.

Levi is surprisingly good at taking care of you. He originally wanted to keep you in his room, but he realized his bathtub might not be comfortable to you while you're in pain, so he stays in your room. He brings plenty of snacks and drinks, as well as games and anime to keep you entertained. Most of your time is spent cuddling in bed while watching comfort anime. He does worry about accidentally making your pain worse somehow, but he does his best.

Overall, having any sort of autoimmune condition will definitely be a struggle during your time in the Devildom, but it gets better as you spend time there. You have a great support system of demons ready at your beck and call, all more than willing to take care of you.

[zelenbug]

i did it again i sat on a draft for a million years

i haves rayman ocs heres my bunch of mostly just weird women. and not a single one of them is a rayperson

most of them are named by my friend because i cant name crap

-

this is the first one i had made, i brought her back years later with tweaks (and ive even drawn her more than twice now!)

typha (teye fa like the plant i named her after) is comically short for a globox person and is strangely antisocial for one too. she just can NOT stand other people and flips them off for bothering her (some people mess with her on purpose)

she lives in a hut in a swamp, theres a small community of other people there but she refuses to befriend any of them. shes annoyed by anyone and everyone. goes off to pick up some pickles or something and says as little as possible to the cashier and ignores everyone else

seemingly the only person she likes is this tiny little mosqito (which also has been around the whole time but i still never named) which also lives in this hut. she takes care of the mosquit but im not sure what the relationship here is

typha is not like. actively rude in the way glombrox is, she actively goes out of her way to AVOID people instead of messing with them

-

now all the other ocs are more recent. i originally made this one for a bestiary type thing that i havent done much with still, but i like the oc that resulted out of it

plume (Plume van Teenhoek) is a teensy biologist, intensely dedicated to documenting all the wildlife in the glade

shes also comically tall for a teensy (a bit taller than rayman). sort of less susceptible to back issues though because some of her relatives are nookins (nookins are just built different). the fact that shes so tall makes her almost as tall as typha though, which is nuts. like thats a globox species person and a teensy being basically the same height!

anyway plume is like. kind of unhinged. when shes not pestering other people with questions about their biology, shes traveling everywhere into dangers and putting herself into trouble just to find out stuff like the behavior of these robotic morays they have at the spy bases. nobody loves animals as much as this teensy. she would do anything for animals

she can be a bit scatterbrained when it comes to stuff that doesnt directly relate to biology though. and definitely doesnt know what a proper etiquette is

also shes bald and has no eyelashes lmao

-

for both typha and plume i answered an oc questionnaire a while back so heres some highlights that describe more about them

2. Can they take care of a plant? What about a pet? What about a child? typha if only like… that little mosquit? idk what exactly the relationship is plume would in theory but shes too busy moving all over the glade studyidng other animals to take care of her own anything

3. Ask them to describe their love interest. typha: "No" plume: "study of organisms all across the glade! wait you didnt mean that"

7. Describe them in three words. Now let them describe themself in three words. typha: "short mean green" and "leave me alone" plume: "insane biology woman" and "[teensy genus name] [teensy species name]" (forgets the third word)

8. Do complex puzzles intrigue or frustrate them? i tink typha would be kind of frustrated but stubbornly keep going plume would be ecstatic to try and fgirue these out though

9. Do they empathize with non-sentient things (dolls, plants, books…)? typha … yeah sure somewhat plume only really if theyre like, biological living things ie plants

11. They’ve won the lottery. Spend, or save? typha lives in a swamp i dont know if she even knows or cares about the concept of money. so i dont know what she would do. she doesnt know what she would do either plume would use it to fund her research efforts

14. Would they agree with the term ‘guilty pleasure’? Do they have any? typha yeah. wouldnt be caught dead engaging in these ( i also dont know what they are ) but plume has absolutely 0 shame

15. What would they consider a waste of time– other than school or work? typha: other people. plume: having to wait to just get anywhere with nothing in particular happening

17. Do they like children? typha just finds them annoying. plume is very intrigued by the biological aspects of children and how they develop and stuff, also just finds them cute

19. Do they study before tests? Practice before job interviews? again typha lives in a swamp but i think she wouldnt care to do it until its too late. plume studies feverisjly for fun if its what she likes, but otherwise forgets to do it until its almost too late

30. What would they do if they knew it would be forgiven? i dont think typha would want to really do anything if she just doesnt like to interact with peopel so its not even just being mean to them or whatever plume would use the opportunity to really annoy someone with biology questions if she knew she would actually get answered and not shoved aside

and reiterated throughout the answers here is that neither of them are in a relationship, nor do they want to be in one. one of the only common traits they have with each other lmao (besides height)

-

orletta was originally also made for me and my friends' game concept (as a kind of replacement for red globox, and a playable red wizard at the same time) (to be clear this isnt a fangame concept, just Imagining A Really Cool Game That Could Exist In An Awesome Alternate Reality) but. yeah might as well be an oc

shes a red wizard. just kind of stoned all the time (often chews on strange plants) and is constantly zoned out. but like. not too much so she can sitll focus on platforming stuff (cuz shes from a ubiart 3 concept). uses spells to attack, but sometimes gets scared of bad guys and generally far less confident in combat stuff than globox is

heres a plant trying to chew her (somewhat early design)

shes short (noticeably taller than rayman but not that much; also noticeably shorter than globox even with ubiart sizing), still taller than typha is

-

theres also a grey mosqiter i have that i also didnt name (this ones bigger than typhas mosquito buddy). this one originated in an rp that me and my friends did (and hasnt really gotten any development since those)

this one is an office worker. too busy Working to care about gender. went on some wild adventures but would still prefer go back to office work. tendsszzz to ssszzzpeak like thiszssszzz. likes nectar. may drink blood but doesnt prefer it

The Origin

-

mermaid name pending (but a stupid idea i have is like. verdana or calibri or candara or helv or lucida). shes like a tour guide to her place (atlantis but with globoxes (thats from origins i elaborated upon it)) for any land people who might visit

likes land people in general. sometimes sits on rocks above water and does the whole siren song thing, except its to get the land people to come close so they can hang out with her and play like. Underwater Checkers

despite this she can NOT go on land, i mean she can breathe there just. cant move around (without crawling and potentially damaging her fins). sitting on a rock is about the most shes gonna get

weird aquarium fish ^

side note. Atlantis But With Globoxes has them all as merpeople. teensies live there too but still have legs and such and just had to make buildings encased in air bubbles for themselves (lake kingdom supe rmario odyssey). they all had a prosperous civilization on their island (on land) but had to quickly adapt when some other great spirit got mad at them and sunk their island underwater forever. it was long ago so red fish lady here already comes from several generations of mermaids

also this is all in sea of serendipity. so red wizards are decently used to mermaids showing up (and pestering them about how to fish better)

also tail fin is horizontal, like on whales rather than fish. the paired back fins are more on the underside of the body, on the beige portion, i just accidentally got it wrong in one of the drawings here

-

pirate captain (i think the names bonny, feels a bit on the nose though) literally lost her eye, and sails the glade to find it (but its been so long shes mostly just sailing for the sake of it at this point). and keeps being in scraps with sea creatures in general, therefore numerous scars, even more under the cloak. shes actually far less threatening than she might seem at first though

also has a pet glute like a shoulder parrot. it doesnt do much other than caww(?) at random times and steal the leftover fish reserves. AND it eats the rats that get on the ship which IS pretty useful

best way i had to describe pirate lady here is basically rockhopper from club penguin. same type thing of being nice and not actually doing any piracy. its more of an aesthetic i guess. and the pirate accent she ABSOLUTELY has the accent

-

pirate sidekick to the above ALSO no names yet because i am bad at names missing their left (non dominant) forearm and hand, lost it at some point during childhood for reasons unrelated to sea creatures. has a prosthetic forearm and hand that functions with magic. they still use their right arm more for gestures and other things bc it takes less effort to use (and also just out of habit)

(to be clear with the drawing. the right hand is intact i just didnt draw the thumb, they have all 4 fingers on it)

otherwise theyre like. completely non threatening. very friendly and spends a lot of time reading whatever books are on the ship, can read incredibly water damaged texts somehow. you look at what theyre reading (just reading casually with no frustration whatsoever) and it looks completely unintelligible. like matey how are you reading that

manages to avoid trouble from sea creatures by running very fast. also only kinda above average height for a teensy

they have to kind of force the pirate accent but bonnys(?) accent is totally natural

might have engaged in software piracy

-

quidee (named after a spore creature because of course). i made her in starbound. sillyfunny. dual axe wielder but often uses some other weapons (mostly this thing). has a pet walking shell, which randomly changed colors once (which is my justification for the fact that i completely broke it while trying to change something in the mod and the game just spawned a new walking shell when i undid the changes)

as per my starbound mod lore, is from the glade but volunteered to be transported to lord knows where in space alongside other glade people, and she kept getting in Situations

(i only recently made her not ass naked so shes ass naked in this video)

in any case shes having fun on this random aimless journey beating up bad guys and talking to random bird or ape or sun people etc. and she made a village to get new buddys from the glade : ) (theyre tenants)

-

also quidee has one crewmember so far. her name is cookie and she is a dumb of ass and also goes :D all the time

her first appearance was in a quest where one of the tenants (lee, hes a green guy of the same species) requested to find her because she somehow managed to get lost deep in an avian tomb (where literally every quest npc on this planet winds up being for some reason)

then another tenant (who was a teensy, mouche) wanted to become cookies bestie (by getting me to give her a. single gold ingot, which is like, not rare at all) and THEN cookie literally immediately after had a quest for ME (to beat up unrelated avians in the same avian tomb) and then i completed it and she decided she wanted to be a crewmember now. so i gave her some clothes i had on hand (i dyed the shirt blue though) and i immediately love her forever

she is stupit<3 as ive said. and she has a big shotgun and shes really good at knocking back enemies with the big shotgun

also that is the 6th or 8th (depending on whether you count the quasi ocs or not) addition to my collection of Women Globols. i am the #1 worldwide export of ocs that are globoxes and women

also theres my sona which is a teensy (and the shortest of the bunch cuz im short) but the sona doesnt have any lore or anything. its just something to put on a pfp to represent myself . as a teensy

[erabu-san]

I think my favorite personal headcanons of Cyno and Tighnari would be them actually being childhood friends. Since I hc Cyno being really shy and easily frightened as a child, it would it hard for him to make friends. But Cyrus knew that having some interaction with kids his age would be good for him, but still, he wanted to be careful of how he went about it. On Tighnari's side, I picture him being a very curious kid, but in the end, isn't too interested in friendships. For example, while all the others kids played tag or something, Tighnari would be drawing in the sand. He wasn't shy, or anything like that. His mind just wasn't that focused on forming relationships with kids his age.

So, Cyrus met up with Tighnari's dad (assuming they somewhat knew each other) and decided to let their kids meet. Cyrus trusted Tighnari's dad parenting, and wasn't worried about his son meeting Cyno. And Tighnari's dad thought that Tighnari should really make at least one friend.

So they met, and at first, Tighnari was only hanging out with Cyno cause his dad ushered him to, but he grew to enjoy his company. Cyno was really nervous around Tighnari, but learned to relax and be more verbal and expressive with him. Tighnari was a very talkative kid, and would ramble on and on about some sort of plant he discovered, and Cyno would listen intently, making a small comment every now and then.

Long story short; Cyno was scared of forming friendships, Tighnari wasn't interested in friendships. And both of them became each other's first friend, and helped each other open up to other people :)

Also, I read somewhere that Cyno got his humor from Cyrus, but I also think it'd be sweet if during them time Cyno was still trying to figure out how to "friend" properly, Cyrus offhandedly mentioned that humor helped people become closer. So, he decided to try and tell Tighnari some jokes in an attempt to get closer to him. They weren't funny. At all. But Tighnari forced a laugh because Cyno had such a hopeful expression.

Which I think would lead to this conversation later in life-

Cyno: *Sigh* You used to laugh at my jokes all the time....

Tighnari: My sense of humor improved, you could say (He still doesn't have the heart to tell him he forced himself to laugh).

It is such a cute HC ! But I believe it would be more an AU than a HC ? Since it is canon that Cyno met Tighnari and they became friend when Tighnari was still a student in Akademiya (and Cyno was already a general mahamatra) But I still believe that Tighnari and Cyno become each other's first genuine friend !! A friendship with akademia related, nor beneficial for research/job ! And yes bahaha if I remember in.. kaveh's hangout I guess ? we can hear Cyrus saying pun jokes KSLKS But bahaha young tighnari laughing at young cyno's joke by politeness, it is a pretty funny picture

[sanmonmusoutan]

they're not quite fleshed out, but i thought i'd share my headcanons for the past lives, and former human names, of gummi, chocolate and pine before they became jiangshi...!

to me, narrow created the jiangshi when it was younger as just something to draw. then, later, when narrow grew up, it created names and backstories for them. some of those backstories are partly based off of figures in history, particularly an emperor from the chinese sui dynasty, and a chinese philosopher. for the time being, these are surface-level inspirations, but i intend to do further research later on 🙏

themes of death, grief, and suicide follow, so please exercise caution when reading...!

gummy: her human name was kugumiya megumi. (久々宮 恵, surname → first name.)

kugumiya is a surname that consists of the kanji 久, meaning a long time, 々, a kanji indicating repetition of the last, and 宮, meaning shrine or palace. 恵 means blessing. these meanings did influence my thoughts for her backstory...! not only that, gumi appearing in both names is intentional, since i figured narrow would try to implement name puns in each name.

she was a musician (as pictured in the image,) and she was affiliated with a shrine. perhaps she played for religious ceremonies, or simply as a hobby alongside her shrine duties.

gummi was a cheerful girl, someone a little too fond of sweets and other delights. despite being stubborn and quick to be angered, she was an embodiment of fun and joy. though, in truth, she burdened herself with a lot of grief. grief for all the people around her that passed away (perhaps from plague or war?) but most specifically, the mentor figure in her life. the person that taught gummi music.

she played music for fun and joy, but also as a tribute, as something to channel her prayers and feelings into. the concepts of grief and tribute are major themes for her.

gummi's cause of death was being lost at sea. perhaps after playing something to the ocean, to let those who are gone hear her. or, simply playing, frolicking.

chocolate: their human name was chou kanra (長 神羅, surname → first name.) 

長 means long, which has no specific relation to chocolate, but it is a homophone to 蝶, meaning butterfly, which is related to their character. 神 means god or deity, and 羅 means silk or gauze. it is not as clear of a name pun as gummi's human name, but still somewhat similar sounding... it is meant to be vaguely either chinese or japanese, as narrow hesitated to give them a clearly chinese name at the time.

chocolate was an author, philosopher, and perhaps a poet too. the main inspiration for their character is zhuang zhou's butterfly dream parable, something that is mentioned within the song itself, as the second to last lyric. it details zhuang zhou dreaming of being a happy and carefree butterfly, but awakening from the dream, finding himself contemplating if he is a man dreaming of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of being a man.

in this timeline, chocolate was the one who wrote this parable, much later than it was first written. their sole focus in life was writing, honing philosophies, contemplating the intricacies of anything and everything around them. in particular, they were dedicated, if not madly obsessed, with their butterfly parable. chocolate constantly wrote about it, debated it, and even wished to test and prove it.

mental illnesses, their obsession in philosophy and literature, and their wish to prove their parable and metamorphose, eventually got to them. chocolate died by suicide, falling from a height, the flight of a butterfly that they wished for.

pine: his human name was bai nanbao (拜 南宝, surname → first name.)

拜 is a rare surname in chinese, meaning to bow to or to worship. the hanzi for it is also used to transcribe bye-bye in chinese. (拜拜 👋) a grim nod to pine's nature as a jiangshi... also, the variant of this hanzi that is used in japanese is 拝, which appears in the lyrics of for dear life as 拝まれて. 南 means southern (which is traditionally associated with sun and light,) and 宝 means treasure. the romanisation system commonly used for chinese is pinyin, where 拜 would be bai and 宝 would be bao. this is what i use. however, in wade-giles, they would be pai and pao. when pronouncing the name with the W-G romanisation, it sounds much more like pineapple... 🍍

he was mostly known as a brash and arrogant crown prince in late imperial china, but was also an artist. pine's character is directly inspired by emperor yang of sui, an emperor regarded as one of chinese history's worst tyrants. in his youth, the emperor had his older brother deposed through lies and deceit, then ran more schemes to secure his place as crown prince.

an excerpt from the wikipedia article on him is as follows:

Emperor Yang was also a patron of the arts, having expanded the number of foreign orchestras (from across Asia) at the Sui court from seven to nine. He was, in fact, quite a gifted artist himself, but one prone to horrible fits of jealousy and stubbornness, who seldom listened to the advice of more talented individuals. He was a talented poet but killed two poets after he found their stanzas to be superior to his own.

pine was quite similar. he was conceited yet still horribly insecure in his craft, brutal in his pursuit of being the best artist. pine behaved as he pleased, all while trying to earn the favors of his parents and secure himself a role as the heir.

he abused and fooled around with his newfound power, which likely caused him to get into deep trouble. his cause of death was capital punishment, being beheaded. i headcanon that as a jiangshi, his head falls off sometimes because of that... 😭

here are more thoughts, and below them, picrews that are how i imagine the three looked like as humans...! these are not historically accurate, especially pine's. his is meant to look much more like a c-drama prince 😭

[theromanticscrooge]

Challenging Burnout

One of my favorite advice columns to scroll through is Ask a Manager. Alison Green gives very empathetic, helpful, and as accurate career-related advice as she can whether its a mundane, just entering the workforce question or something stupidly absurd and weird. If she doesn't have relevant expertise or experience, she regularly pulls in other blog writers, authors, or whomever else that can give the info needed.

A few months ago, Alison shared a piece on how she dealt with burnout by taking on more, but very different work from writing and working on her blog. She started volunteer work making much-needed medical equipment for cats! The key element she points out: This new activity involved using part of her brain for something very new and different from the source of her burnout. It was personally meaningful to her and relevant to cats; another very important part of her life.

Alison's situation absolutely confused me until Dr. Ana, a psychologist that makes opinion pieces and general advice about psychology on YouTube, shared about her very similar experience with burnout. Here, she outlined how she approached and reorganized her very busy schedule and cluttered, chaotic life. In a nutshell, she started dedicating a specialized two hour block every morning towards working on one of her novels. By starting the day with an activity she was really excited about, it helped revitalize her and started the day in a more satisfying way. She lays it out as a potential technique for structuring the day based more on individual wants and how someone functions vs just 'this needs done.'

I lost 5 years of my life, potential career development, and spending time pursuing anything enriching or spiritually meaningful to a mix of burnout and depression. At the time, I was so desperate to be seen as a normal, functioning adult that could juggle a weird schedule and make an unconventional job work. I wanted to feel validated so badly that any kind of work took priority over whatever disengaging, introspection, therapy, and healing I actually needed. I left both YouTube and the workforce entirely thinking that escaping from the source of stress entirely was the best solution. Instead, I stayed away from both efforts long enough that I felt like there was an invisible wall in my way.

Any time I took on a new job or even tried writing something close to what my old YouTube scripts looked like, it was like walking through thick quicksand and sinking so deep I couldn't climb back out. I still made art and eked out nerdy thoughts or rambles on something every once in awhile. But it'd slowed down to feeling motivated enough to write something once every three months vs something once a week or every two weeks. It took years to start recovering enough that I can hold a part-time job now and finally reached a point where I can somewhat confidently make videos again.

What's scary is that I've recently noticed warning signs of burning out again. At least this time I have a better idea as to what the root cause is and how to better address things than last time. Also, I decided to try and figure out what my equivalent to Alison's or Dr. Ana's approach looks like. I've been looking at the wilder ideas on my list of things I want to try but never felt confident enough to or reluctant about for whatever reason.

So far, I've researched, work shopped, and made a video about the cowplant from The Sims 2. Sims 2 is one of my longest-running interests and easily eclipses my interest in O.K. K.O. or cartoons period. It's been 15+ years since I attempted recording or doing anything close to Sims 2 machinima. I felt like there were already enough people covering Sims 2 and mining every possible inch of lore that I didn't have anything unique to offer. But then I couldn't find the video I was looking for and wanted, so I made it myself. The game footage is shaky and janky but this was so far out of my comfort zone from videos I've made so far that it helped me pivot and re-evaluate what my videos could look like. They don't have to be just essays playing armchair psychologist or tropes identifier. I can and should talk about weird topics like the cowplant too.

Back in early December, I fell down a rabbit hole watching Nerdforge videos and fell in love with what big, detailed, and complicated masterpieces Martina and her husband put together. Especially the sprawling landscapes or diorama scenes for Warhammer miniatures. I've also been watching a wide variety of doll customizers and keeping tabs on my friend @enlightenedrobot's attempts to bring their characters to life through felt, plush, and paper dolls.

While I don't have a massive budget to work with and amateur hour skills in sculpting, they all inspired me to try and make something anyway. I found a sturdy Ikea dollhouse at Goodwill and a little dollhouse with peg dolls set from Michael's. I've slowly been tearing up cardboard, cutting craft popsicle sticks, and using ungodly amounts of hot glue on two different in-progress dollhouse renovations. I didn't originally plan on sharing these, but I'll share them in their crusty, awkward glory in hopes it might inspire someone else to try that absurd thing they want to regardless of skill gap and budget. There's a way to make it happen anyway and I think its worth scaling back and figuring out what is realistically possible in whatever set of circumstances you have.

My most recent attempt at challenging burnout is writing what I considered a 'forbidden' fanfic for a long time. My friend @rhazberriquartz and their partner both have fully designed and illustrated self-insert characters that they actively illustrate and format to plug into whatever fictional world or story they're currently interested in. At the moment, Rhazberri's character Rosie lives in a custom world catty-corner between Transformers: Earthspark and pulling in elements from her other favorite Transformers series. She's a mechanic that became Megatron's partner in both the Earthspark bracelet sense and otherwise. I'm not well-versed with Transformers but I enjoy my friend's art and world building. I also like looking at and following others' fan characters or stories and watching how they incorporate their little gremlin into everything whether it's just shipping fodder or a character with a rich backstory that operates as if they were always an organic part of the world. (Fandom is probably why I lean towards open source and stronger emphasis on community owned and operated things at large.)

(Note: The left picture is my hero self-insert from around 2009. The right version is the most recent/current version).

I used to write big multi-part fanfics following self inserts and fan characters all the time in high school. That was what started most of my interactions with fandom, when I felt the most connected with what community someone can find there, and I had fun. I used to have so much fun with this stuff and lost track of it somewhere in the past 14 years or so. So, I took another crack at writing that kind of fic off and on since July. My most recent attempt fully integrates my self-insert character with what world-building or concepts I've set. This was what I was missing. Its one thing to write my big character analysis pieces but I really want the part where I add my own little piece too. I don't think I have the technical skill, expertise, or connections to ever work on something like the official thing, but this lights up part of my brain in such a way that I'm making it anyway. I like it. It feels satisfying to me. Its boosted my mood. Its made getting up in the morning more exciting in a way similar to how Dr. Ana described her success with working on her novel.

Link to my current ongoing fics on A03:

https://archiveofourown.org/series/4251421

If you think writing self-insert fics or making miniatures might help you like it has me, go for it! That said, there isn't an exact blueprint for what will help an individual person with something like burnout. I'm not done wrestling with my own case either. This is more sharing what I've been trying to do and found nuggets of success with. Honestly, I think the biggest change has been letting myself show the dorkier, awkward parts of me. I shut down partly because I was trying to hide or escape from parts of me I don't think other people would like. No. Its been healthier to embrace and express the dorkier side, regardless of the consequences attached.