#i really like that just with the definitions i got off website/google

[synthshenanigans]

So with this

And this

https://www.tumblr.com/annes-shenanigans/723547917550600192/themosseccentric?source=share

I made this

Its only an idea/sketch of it & they might change but the idea is there!

[leftneb]

There is Something Seriously Wrong with this Logo..... Chapter Two

So. Lots of you have seen this post by my dear partner ( @lailau7904 ) in which the Williams F1 design team get absolutely torn to bits. In the case you haven't read it yet I highly recommend you do because a) it's really fucking funny and b) it makes what I'm about to tell you even funnier. Though you don't have to, this post touches on entirely different things still regarding this one goddamn logo.

The original post starts like this:

Innocent enough, we made an assumption in good faith that the logo displayed on the Wikipedia page would be the same one as the official version used by Williams. Buckle the fuck up because I'm about to tell you why that was the worst mistake we could have made.

Please. Please I beg of you keep reading this took YEARS off our lifespans. Like the original post was fun and all but it was merely the top of the iceberg. If this were an hbomberguy video this would be the part where he reveals that the background was a greenscreen the whole time. More below the cut!!! :333

The Truth

Already after only a few hours after hitting "post" on the dissection, people started pointing out to us that we'd missed an absolutely crucial detail on the Wikimedia page we got the logo from, pay careful attention:

See THIS?

Yeah this means that that image is not, and never was, the official logo of Williams. All along it had been the work of a Wikipedia user by the name of Juanchocarbonero. Here you can even see the (admittedly painful) history of the file as provided by Wikimedia, this image was uploaded all the way back in 2016, it even underwent an update when the team changed their colour scheme to a lighter blue without getting fucking fixed.

But to me the absolutely most painful part about this page is the "File Usage" section. Which gives you a quick preview of just how deep the goddamn disease that is this piece of graphic design sin really spreads.

And just to clarify: the official version of the logo used by Williams on merch etc is perfectly fine. It's a nice piece of graphic design. I still quite like it. But the story doesn't end there. Not even close.

Consequences

When you look up "williams logo" on Google the image provided by Wikimedia the very first result that pops up, if you're looking for a high-quality .png of this logo that, logically, is what you'll end up using. And I mean, why wouldn't you? What reason do you have not to use it? As long as you don't look to close (oops) it's a perfectly fine, high-definition, clean and transparent image of the logo! No shit people are going to use it!

But this raises a question: Why IS it the most widespread version of the logo? That's fucking weird isn't it? Surely if the actual logo used on ex.: the official Williams F1 website (which, again, is perfectly fucking fine) was available they would've just used that, right?

Now. Small problem. If you want you can go ahead and open whatever search engine you use, if you do that I'm gonna need you to type in "Williams logo" into the search bar, and just try finding a picture that is

of the actual official logo (you can tell the bootleg from the real thing by checking if the middle segment of the W has spiky ends or flat ones. We're looking for flat ones here)

high quality (no pixels or blurring visible to the naked eye)

a transparent png (none of that chequered background bullshit)

NOT a logo with any words (such as: Williams or Racing) visible in it. those don't count.

If you didn't feel like doing any of that, I'll just tell you the answer: you fucking can't. Nothing like that EXISTS. The closest I could get are these two, both of which are mid to ass quality, so they don't count either.

No sensible individual is going to scroll google search results for 5 minutes straight just so they can use a 200x200 image, especially when they think a perfect alternative is right there.

I even found several recoloured versions of the diseased logo, including one as a sticker on Redbubble! Fuck me that's a horrible sight!

The Search

Because I wrote the previous paragrahps after we'd figured out exactly what had happened, you might be under the impression that by this point in trying to answer the question "Why the fuck is that image on Wikipedia instead of, idk, the real fucking thing?" we'd at least established the existence of said "real Williams F1 logo". You'd be wrong, because for somewhere around 24 hours after we'd made the initial, horrifying discovery of just how fucked the Wikipedia version is, we genuinely could not tell if that was the official logo or not.

The ones displayed on their website weren't at all downloadable or even copyable, a non-ass quality of the damn thing just didn't seem to exist anywhere, so we didn't dare draw any conclusions. And we were still foolishly operating on the assumption that Wikipedia wouldn't just lie to us. (this is why your teachers hate it when you use it a source btw. like this is the ONE time it's actually been reasonable)

So, in the hopes of finding the offical Williams Racing logo, the non-scuffed one because clearly it exists, somewhere, we consulted an expert on Intellectual Property: my mother!

What this "consultation" actually roughly looked like was: we went on a walk and I started rambling about the Situation from Last Night before she cut me off and pulled up the website of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, aka the place they store all the Copyright information of like, everything.

BEHOLD:

(pictured; THE ACTUAL FUCKING LOGO I CANNOT BELIEVE IT'S EXISTED THIS WHOLE TIME)

Link to the actual real official legal document because goddamn this rabbithole just kept getting deeper so I like, have that now.

For refence, here is the official copyrighted version and the Wikimedia file overlayed on top of each other. As you can tell, it's disgusting. It's a poor, eyeballed imitation at best.

The copyrighted logo is horrifically low quality because, guess what, that image also isn't downloadable or copyable from the page. I really really cannot blame Juanchocarbonero for uploading his own version to Wikimedia because there legitimately does not exist a version of this logo that is freely available to the public. Like that goddamn abomiation is all we have. It's the effort that counts I guess.

My mother suggested that a possible reason for this could be avoiding the production of knockoff merch, or at least making it recognisable in case it is sold. Think about it, when your logo Doesn't Exist online, no one can use it without a license! It's kind of genius! I'm also about 99% sure they didn't orchestrate it so, it was good luck I guess?

interlude: How the FUCK does Copyright even work

I did immediately think to myself "we should REALLY fix the wikipedia version, like, stat" because I cannot in good conscience have this information available to me and not do anything with it, for the good of the people. However, this poses an issue: was the logo really not scuffed on purpose? Could it be that that version uploaded to Wikipedia isn't a 1:1 of the official logo because of copyrighting issues? To find out I had to look deeper, by comparing the official, website-available logos of various other F1 teams I came to conclusion that: [........................]

Yeah so I wrote that paragraph before actually checking for refences, but even after probably an hour of trying very hard to make sense of the copyright documents and copyright law in general we could not make sense of any of it. According to my mother (again, the closest we have to an expert, like she actually works with copyright in the context of companies but she's not specifically an IP expert. just to clarify) it's actually a lot worse for Wikipedia to have a falsified version of the Williams logo, than it would be to use the copyrighted version. This is because they're spreading misinformation by pretending that's the actual logo. And yet.

According to the Copyright Tag (the one on the top) in the Licensing section of the Wikimedia page for the thing pretending to be the Williams F1 logo, it's fine to use it because just a bunch of shapes. The thing is however, that it says that for pretty much every F1 team's logo, most of which are sourced straight from the official website. So this doesn't really mean anything tbh. According to our local expert (still my mother) it's fucking confusing. So I've decided to leave that at that.

update October 20th: as far as the Wikimedia pages on copyrighting tell me, uploading the official logo could, potentially, get me into serious legal trouble with Williams because of copyright laws. Which is still confusing because as said, every other team's logo is sitting uncontested on their respective Wikipedia pages. So basically we still don't know.

Okay. Backtrack. We forgot to ask something very important:

HOW?

HOW does one fuck up a perfectly fine logo THAT BAD.

WHY does one make their own scuffed tracejob and HOW does it end up like THAT. Clearly something must have gone horrifically wrong for it to end up like that.

I have a theory as to what might have happened:

It was either drawn or painted by hand, for a physical paintjob it's actually sort of impressively precise, but still objectively fucked. For a while I outright refused to believe that it could have been done in a digital program with the types of mistakes that were made, but you'll see this theory (partially) disproven later on so I retract it for now.

Operating on the assumption that it wasn't done digitally, a likely theory could be one involving a picture of scan of the paintjob. If the picture was taken at an angle or the logo itself was on a curved surface that COULD potentially explain the weird sort of slide everything has to it.

From then the picture might have been inserted into a digital art program, and the area of the logo might have been automatically selected using the magic wand tool, which could explain the weird growth at the top and that odd rounded off corner.

We also drew the conclusion that the file itself had been "tampered with" (aka cropped manually) by a human, because no computer would generate a resolution of 3356x2543 (you can that this is the original resolution on the Wikimedia page)

WAIT HOLD ON IS THAT IT?

The question of how the Fuck this guy managed to mess up the logo, and even more specifically why some edges were fine and some weren't (ant colony looking thing on the top left) bothered us so much that I at one point started just looking up "WIlliams logo" with the results filtered down to pre-2017 in an attempt to find when exactly the messed up logo was created. As if that would be any help.

Now what I definitely didn't expect to find was THIS

ENHANCE

Yes, you're seeing it right, THAT is the original 'Williams logo with the fucked up arm angles and lenghts'. Which PROVES that, contrary to our previous belief, Juancocarbonero was NOT the origin of the mistakes. Instead it was [checks notes] a DeviantArt user by the name of Nerdkid56?

The original DeviantArt post, which as of 9:47pm CET on the 13th of October 2024 I am about 90% sure is the actual first appearanace of the scuffed logo, is from May of 2015, which lines up well with the original upload date of the fucked up logo onto Wikipedia (November 2016). At the time that DeviantArt post was almost the only source for the logo.

And in the case you needed any convincing that those two logos are the same, here they are overlayed. You may notice that it's one shape (excluding the rounded corner which isn't visible at this resolution.)

This discovery is essential to understanding why the current scuffed version is the way it is. You might remember our confusion about the way some edges are fine while some are attempting to leave the image, the whole thing is a weird Frankensteinian amalgamation of vectors and magic wand mistakes. With this knowledge we can now assume that the mistakes happened in 2 layers:

Nerdkid56: likely just eyeballed the proportions. I'd guess he drew one arm before the other and flipped it around without really checking the angles. Also didn't give a shit about whether the arms lined up with the base or not. Legitimately bad design made in a digital program.

Juancocarbonero: why he used the scuffed W logo instead of the normal ones that were also perfectly accessible by 1 goddamn Google search is a mistery. HOW he even got access to it is another question I do not think we'll have answers to. And I've already explained some of the things we think may be responsible for the uneveness and bumps. Point is he fucked it up even more.

My theory for why Juanchocarbonero used the scuffed version instead of any other available picture goes like this: it was the only png he could find. Practically every other search result for "Williams Logo" that predates 2017 is a jpeg or absolute ass quality (sometimes both for good measure) so, despite it's flaws, Nedkid56's trace of it could have been the best option available at the time (the quality is actually very very good since it's a vector image, and I guess our friend Juanchocarbonero doesn't have an eye for design considering he didn't notice uhm, everything that is wrong with that model.)

Conclusion

The only way to right these wrongs is to go back, to the very beggining of this saga. Wikipedia. Williams I'm so sorry for what you've had to endure. I know what I have to do now. When I eventually make a proper vector image of the official logo and upload it to Wikimedia it'll all be over. And I WILL do it (but not rn this has already robbed me of like 3 whole days of my life. soon)

All of this is, admittedly inconsequental, but also absolutely fucking hilarious. Like imagine. you. one single guy, you make ONE mistake in a silly little "tracing this logo" project because you couldn't be arsed to check the angles of a silly little W. And some other guy, who you likely don't even know, over a whole ass year later, takes your flawed piece of design, makes it even worse somehow and uploads it to a site from which your little tiny innocent mistake becomes the most widespread version of a logo used by an actual real company worth over 700 Million US Dollars. HOW. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN. WHY HAS NO ONE FIXED THIS??? IT'S BEEN 9 YEARS

Just to give you a final look on just how widespread this plague is, here are some examples of media the fucked up version of the logo is featured in:

this Mr V's Garage video (the original reason we started this conversation in the first place)

the thumbnails of these two videos by Tommo, this one by FP1Will, and this one by RicksF1Addiction

such an amount of random places. likely fanmerch and fanart, and like, pretty much any place someone wanted to use the logo. it's everywhere. if you've ever had the Williams logo displayed in anything you've made I can guarantee you 99.9% chance you used the fucked version

and late thank you to everyone ( @bumblewyn @mid-nighttiger @vro0m @lemonsgovroom @mikraas @leclerced fucking hell I kept needing to add people to this list because compiling all of this took absurdly long) who pointed out our misconception in the reblogs of the original post and contributed to us actually looking into this further. and sorry to everyone for accidentally spreading misinformation lmao (it's too funny not to have been worth it tho) (ALSO it's not really our fault is it)

and to keep the tradition of ending on a live discord reaction:

[sirfrogsworth]

Meeting my longtime artist and good friend, Chris, IN REAL LIFE!

So, I hadn't been to a restaurant in over a decade. I can't even remember which restaurant since it was so long ago. But in the past few weeks I've now been to TWO restaurants.

I am becoming a social butterfly. 

And it is exhausting.

But also good.

First I reconnected with my high school best friend, John.

And that went great.

But then the opportunity to see my friend Chris (a.k.a @whosthewhatnow ) came up only a few days later. And this close proximity of social events scared me a bit, but I have been feeling much better since they figured out my heart thing, so I decided to try and do both things even though they were only a few days apart. 

The key to this was strategic resting. As soon as I got home from seeing John, I got in bed and I didn't get out of it until it was time to see Chris. And that was just enough recovery time to pull this off. Typically a short outing requires 2-3 days of rest after. 

I had never met Chris in real life. He has done nearly all of the artwork for my website and comics over the past decade. And he was a main character in my CRAPPRnauts series.

We know each other so well and it is crazy that we've never seen each other with our very own eyeballs.

He is such an amazing artist. He works fast and he adds so many cool extra details that you can stare at his comic panels multiple times and catch a new joke or easter egg each time. He is a dream to work with and my Corg Life series was only successful because he did such a wonderful job bringing Otis to life in comic form. 

So we decided to meet up at a restaurant with his friend Michael and then I was going to take a nice portrait of him after dinner. Chris had never had a professional photo taken of himself and I decided to fix that.

I told him I had a mobile photography setup. Which, in reality, is a trunk full of lights and stands and other various camera gear that I definitely won't need, but bring anyway. It's "mobile" in that it all fits in my car if you are good at Tetris (which I am).

The restaurant was downtown and I had visions of St. Louis's famous Gateway Arch in the background of Chris's portrait. I thought that would be such a cool shot. I could see it in my head and I even dreamed about it.

So I got in my car and headed downtown and my GPS told me to exit at 249B. But I kept looking and I couldn't see the sign for 249B.

This is how much road I had left when I finally was able to see the exit for 249B.

So I ended up taking 249A and going straight to East St. Louis.

Which, if you believe the headlines, is not a place you ever want to be.

Google Maps and I have been having issues lately. They also tried to get me to take the spooky way home that night, but thankfully I actually knew the non-spooky way back from when I used to go to Cardinal games with my parents as a kid.

My short term memory was trashed by shock therapy. And so was a lot of my long term memory. But it finally came through in a pinch and remembered something useful.

I only had to loop around and cross a bridge so I didn't really do anything but touch the edge of East St. Louis. I was mostly concerned about being late for dinner more than its scary reputation. Usually those news stories about a place being "dangerous" are actually just racist and hurtful to people stuck in poverty. I mean, technically my house is in a "dangerous" neighborhood, and we do have trouble with petty crime in some spots, but aside from a few dinged-up mailboxes, I've never felt unsafe in my home.

On the way back to regular St. Louis I could see the Arch on the horizon at sunset and it was kind of magical. And I wasn't able to get a good shot of it, but it sure looked pretty from my point of view. 

My photos kind of remind me of the beginning of movies like Training Day where they are trying to show you gritty, dutch angle shots of the city out of the car window to give you a sense of the location.

As I approached the restaurant I invented a new genre I call "stoplight photography." The sky was orange and the streets of St. Louis were just asking to be photographed. But I wasn't willing to die to get neat photos, so I just took them at every red light.

The big trick was trying to edit the dark area at the top of my windshield out of the photos to make it look like I didn't take these pictures from my car.

After a 15 minute detour through Illinois I arrived at my destination—a Mexican place called Rosalita's. It had a beautiful sign, so I took that literal sign as a metaphorical sign it was a nice place to get a quesadilla. 

Dinner was great. Both signs were right and their quesadilla was very tasty. Chris and I both got one, so we are quesadilla twins. The waitress was one of those "I can remember your order without writing anything down" types. And I am one of those, "I get anxiety when things aren't written down" types. And, to her credit, she did not forget our orders. But she did forget to give us silverware and napkins. So I still feel like my anxiety was valid. 

We told sad stories of the pups we lost. But we also had a lot of fun and laughed and I got to meet Michael who turned out to be an absolute mensch. I sometimes have trouble meeting new people with my social anxiety, but he was very affable and made me feel comfortable with his presence almost right away. He was a fan of Otis and mentioned he still has a Super Otis shirt. I always get choked up hearing that Otis is still loved. Hopefully we get to meet again. 

Dinner ended and it was picture time.

I asked Chris if he wanted the high effort photo or the low effort photo. Either we figure out how to get to the Arch or we find a spot near the restaurant and just take his portrait there. Chris and Michael had a driver because they were coming from a big conference and getting to the Arch would have been complicated. So we decided to go with the low effort option. 

I found a cool shop nearby that had an LED wall that changed to all sorts of different colors. And I thought that would make a neat background and give a colorful edge light on Chris's face. I pulled my car near that spot and started unloading my trunk full of photo gear.

I think Chris and Michael were a little overwhelmed when I started pulling camera gear out of my trunk like a clown pulling an endless handkerchief out of his mouth. But as far as photo setups go, it was actually pretty minimal. 

Light, giant battery, light stand, umbrella, tripod, camera, rolling walker with seat.

My dad's old rollator came in clutch because I wanted to shoot from a low angle and it is hard for me to bend down. In fact, I think I'm going to look into getting an all terrain version so I can do more outdoor photoshoots.

I started shooting in the middle of a downtown sidewalk. And I was super anxious. I could not focus (my brain, not my camera). I was very distracted with all of the people walking by and staring. I was not sure if any of the photos were turning out. I wasn't even sure if they were in focus (my camera, not my brain) because I had not yet had my lens calibrated. But down the street there was a guy with an old school boombox playing random music. His music helped to drown out the ambient noise and gave me some comfort.

I had no clue if the photos were any good, but when I got home and checked them on my computer, I realized I have 12 years of experience and muscle memory built up. I probably should have just trusted myself because the photos all turned out great.

I think Chris can now officially say he has had a professional portrait taken of himself.

This photo has been officially loved by Chris's girlfriend and mother.

There is no greater seal of approval and I am honored.

I was able to comp in any of the colors the wall displayed from other shots in case Chris is feeling a little more green in the future.

A literal rainbow of options.

I also liked this one, though it is a little more "environmental portrait" than regular portrait.

And I got some nice photos of our little group to help us remember the night. 

And I got a bunch of photos of Chris making silly faces like Calvin at his school photoshoot. 

I love this woman's reaction to our little impromptu sidewalk photo shenanigans.

After we said our goodbyes and I gave my friend a hug, I was a little bummed I didn't get to photograph him at the Arch like I had dreamed.

But then I realized I had my own car and it was capable of taking me places. (I actually haven't gotten used to that after not driving for nearly 15 years.)

So I decided to drive a few blocks over to Kiener Plaza—a park with a view of the Arch. 

TO BE CONTINUED...

[sunshineandspencer]

heyyy!! idk if you take requests or anything but I was listening the song “Three Letters” from She Loves Me and heard the line “If it weren’t for your endearing letters/ I’d be flying south will all the geese” and totally thought of Garcia signing up Spencer for a lonely hearts thing (as a kinda joke kinda not) and so he starts writing the reader but don’t know it’s each other. then they agree to meet somewhere and realize it’s each other and?! idk if that makes sense lol thought it was cute though

Three Letters (Request)

A/N: Hello!!!! I definitely do. I just haven’t had the chance to sort it all out (colds and farming sims own my life) but let me tell you this idea has me kicking and screaming. I’ve done something like this before but I can’t find it for the life of me and I love the idea that they’re writing to each other and just don’t realise - I took it as the sense that they’re co-workers and Garcia signed them both up, not expecting them to get each other. I really hope this is what you were looking for!! Also I have never heard of a lonely hearts thing (I’m British) but I love the idea of it, and hope that it’s definitely what google told me it is.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!BAU!Reader.

Summary: Garcia is tired of Spencer being single, and if the only way to fix that is to sign him up for a singles pen-pal society, then so be it. While she’s at it, let her add their other co-worker as well, there’s no way that could have any impact.

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: fluff, implied sa but nothing detailed

be added to the taglist

Some part of him knew that this was a good thing, that talking to someone and hopefully getting a relationship out of this was a good thing.

However, Penelope - loving, caring, thoughtful Penelope - had been hard at work ever since she met him to find him somebody to love. It.. hadn’t gone well, and that is the politest possible way he could’ve phrased that without hurting her feelings.

First there were the dates, with a collection of either Penelope, JJ or Elle’s friends - none of which had turned out great.

In fact, one woman had stormed out the minute she saw him, because she assumed that FBI agents were all muscle and Spencer was the last thing she wanted to see. Another zoned out every single time he started talking, just humming or nodding until even he realised that she wasn’t interested.. she fell asleep in her damn salad. The final straw, however, was the woman who got outrageously drunk and tried to blatantly ignore his aversion to touch.

He got out of that as soon as he found her friend to get her home safely, and swore off ever trusting a date from any of those three women ever again.

Penelope, however, didn’t give up.

Her next plan of attack started online, with dating websites. Notorious in their line of work for usually being full of catfish and UnSubs, and many dating websites led to men and women being murdered. But she’s insistent, and he’s desperate to love somebody.

There are only several things that went better than his first foray into the online dating scene, and one of those is a vehicular fire, which tells you all you need to know.

Several of the women he matched with ended up only looking for someone to help them cheat on their significant others, many of them married. Which made his bright outlook on love slightly dimmer. The final woman from the online dating websites was the woman who turned out to actually be an UnSub - looking for cute young men to complete her ‘collection’, a human version of an antique doll set.

It was not a fun case to take part in, certainly not when he was greeted with the way he would’ve turned out had he met up with the woman and not done a background check on her first.

After that, he firmly shut down Penelope’s insistence on dating apps as well, his technophobia had barely survived having to use a computer for so long, and the library computers were an embarrassing place to try and match with the ‘love of his life’. So an app on his phone. Absolutely not.. he doesn't even know how to do that.

There was a break, a few months where Penelope didn’t try to push him into anything new or exciting, or downright horrifying. He turned twenty-four, he had a failed date with JJ, in which she actually bought along Penelope, and suddenly it all changed.

In his letterbox a couple weeks after that, was a letter. It had his home address on, but not his name, merely addressed to whoever this may concern.

It was gorgeous craftsmanship, a cream envelope with an actual lilac wax stamp on the back, with little flowers pressed into the wax. Of course, assuming this was an incoming case, he called Garcia to try and trace it, where she finally came clean.

“I’m so sorry! I completely forgot, I signed you up to a lonely hearts club. It’s a small society for two single people to exchange letters anonymously so you can get to know each other over time. It’s all handwritten! I thought you’d like that more than having to use a computer again. I’m sorry pumpkin, I- I can take you out of the society if you like?”

He thought about it, he actually thought about it so long that Penelope actually thought he’d hung up on her, or died, or something else entirely because he’s never this quiet.

But.. how bad could it really be?

It could, theoretically, be terrible, but it can’t hurt to try one last thing. He would have contact with whoever this is - he’s assuming a woman from the handwriting and the care gone into just the envelope alone - and if it all goes to hell then it just wasn’t meant to be.

One last try at love, he can grant himself that. Anonymously, he can do that, give himself a pen name and try to fall for words on a page - his written word was always better than his verbal flirting anyway.

As it turned out, however, he didn’t need to give himself a name, she’d given him one already.

“Hello sweet thing! Sorry if that comes off as too strong already, I’m just incredibly nervous and didn’t know what else to call you, so that is officially your name from now on. Unless you hate it, then you can absolutely tell me and I promise not to cry about it. I really don’t know what to say, do I start with my favourite things? Well.. I like Doctor Who, and I’ve always--”

The more he read of the letter, the more he wished it was even longer. This woman, wherever she is, whoever she is, is starting to make this out as the best idea Penelope has ever had.

He all but crashed his way into the stationary store, grabbing the prettiest envelopes and pens, and little details to add to the letter that he was so excited to add. Steamrolling through the store and getting back home to quickly respond. Instantly realising he was being far more.. poetic than he meant.

It was the combination of the childish excitement of having a penpal, his mother reading him love poems as a child, and his extensive knowledge on love letters.

Hell, he even ended his own letter with a Shakespeare quote. Basic, he knows, but it’s hard to think of anything beyond wanting her reply.

“‘Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.’ Yours, Sweet thing.”

It had been nearly three months of exchanging letters, and he was absolutely smitten with this woman. They had stuck to the rules and not given away any of their information, only talking about the things they like and eventually writing nearly daily.

It would be daily if it weren’t for the useless postage system.

He knows that she lives pretty close to him, he knows her address, plus they’d both admitted to searching each other’s houses, and they’re only about twenty minutes away by car.

That’s it, however, they haven’t looked for the other person despite being desperate for it.

They had described themselves through letters, but both ultimately agreed to just talk and see how it goes and base their furthering relationship off that rather than off their looks. Of course, that just sprung up more worries that he won’t visually be enough whenever they finally meet.

Meeting was, by far, the one thing he both wanted and dreaded.

This woman, who he had only ever addressed with a barrage of cute nicknames and poetical references, who understood his every word and reciprocated his nerdy obsessions and added her own.. he wants to know her so badly.

There is a very big underlying fear that the minute they meet, it’ll be over, the magic of what they are will fade and he’ll lose all this. The thought of her letters being sent to someone else physically pains him.

Penelope, ecstatic that one of her ideas had finally worked, had been badgering to meet with his ‘mystery woman’ for weeks now.

Finally, when she also, tentatively asked to meet with him for Valentine’s Day of all days, he knew she couldn’t deny her a single thing. Not when she sent with her letter, a coupon for flowers on their date.

A date. God.. he has a date for Valentine’s Day.

Not really a holiday he’s ever put much thought into before, but now it suddenly felt like the most important day that had ever existed. And one that came up far sooner than he expected it to.

Even with the place booked - a cute little café a little ways between both their apartments - and his outfit picked, and a card and little teddy picked with the help of Penelope, he didn’t feel ready. Perhaps it’s the lingering fear of rejection the minute she has to deal with him in person, or the fact that his last dates certainly didn’t go well.

Even with Penelope’s reassurance that she’ll adore him, especially after she actually read through his twelve page letter after she’d asked for his opinion on Egyptian mythology. Sending back her own absurdly long letter with a bunch more questions and her own fun facts that she could remember. He’s still absolutely losing his mind at the thought of having to finally meet her.

He got to the café about half an hour earlier than he needed to, wanting to make sure it was perfect (definitely not because he would’ve gone insane at home).

Spending whatever time it took for her to arrive making the table look nice, messing with his hair in the reflection and wondering if it really was getting too long. Constantly fixing his tie, and redoing it a hundred times over and tucking into his maroon cardigan sweater which Elle had called ‘dorky’.

Once it got to fifteen minutes before their date should’ve started, he felt a light tap on his shoulder, immediately rushing to get up and turn to meet his mystery writer. But.. it’s just the waiter, asking if he wanted another drink.

Jesus, they probably think he’s been stood up, and he quickly asks for another glass of water. 

As the man walked away, he ran his fingers through his hair again, looking towards the door - he’d been sat with his back facing it or else he wouldn’t have stopped staring for fifteen minutes.

Immediately, someone was looking at him, a vague sense of recognition swimming across her face. For a few split seconds he thinks it could be her, a beautiful woman with a bouquet of purple lilac blooms in her hands, but then he realises who it is, offering a small wave.

She’s friends with Penelope and, by extension, he’s spoken to and interacted with her quite a few times. They got on pretty well but never anything more than that since she’s always busy, part of the FBI’s CSI unit, and she’d even helped on a few cases before. But she isn’t here for him, she can’t be.

Walking over, she gives him a bright smile, eyes darting to the empty table and three empty water glasses - he’s been here for a while.

“Spencer! Hi! It’s nice to see you.”

“You too, I like the outfit.”

Looking down at herself for a few moments, she grins and then looks back up, doing a quick spin and then settling him with a mock-serious look.

“I’ve got a hot date, Penny said he would like this.”

“You look beautiful, don’t worry.”

Ahh, there goes any chance that she’s here for him, offering a smile and reassuring her that she looks great, eyes darting behind her to the door as she bounced on the balls of her feet. Eventually sucking a deep breath between her teeth and looking back as well.

Which got his attention, especially when she looked around the rest of the café with a confused look on her face. Sighing softly and looking around, his date wasn’t here, may as well help her.

“What does he look like?”

Turning back, she offered him a bashful smile, but she wasn’t going to turn down his offer of help, not when he’s tall and can see over all the stupid tall people around the café. Also.. it’s a very weird thing to explain.

Moving a hand to fidget with her necklace, his eyes focusing on it, vividly remembering her letters.

“--honestly, I have the coping mechanisms of a child. I still play with my necklace when I get nervous.”

“I don’t actually know, it’s sort of a blind date. Really hard to explain, Penelope kind of set us up in a way. I’m actually about fifteen minutes early so he’s probably not even here.”

There is.. no way this is happening right now. She’s still looking around the café for her mystery date, who might just be standing in front of her and he.. doesn’t know what to say or how to get his tongue to pick up from the base of his mouth.

Suddenly, and pretty violently, he’s flooded with the personality of the woman he’s been talking to for months, all of it projected onto her in front of him. It matches, from what he remembers.

The vague descriptions, her proximity to the FBI building, the fact she knows Penelope, the little TARDIS pin he’d seen on her lanyard that he never got the nerves to ask her about. Turning up to a date with a guy she doesn’t know, holding a bouquet of flowers that clearly weren’t for her, causing the flower token in his back pocket to start burning.

Fishing it out and stepping closer, getting her attention, surprised eyes snapping up to meet his at his sudden proximity. Until he took her hand and shoved the handmade coupon into it, her breathing immediately coming in short as they both looked down at it. Her voice trembled slightly.

“Oh~ hello sweet thing..”

“.. hello.” At his soft voice, she looked up and she gave him a completely bashful smile that matched the cute little poetic ramblings she’s been obsessed with for months. “Uhm, are those for me then?”

They both looked down at the flowers in her hands and she handed them over, feeling her heart shoot up into her throat as their hands brushed. Pointing at the purple lilac blooms as if he wouldn’t already know the meaning.

Needing to focus on something other than the fact that she’s going to kiss Penelope Garcia hard on the mouth for this.

“They uh- they are usually given to someone you meet for the first time, and signify the first emotions of love. Kind of love at first sight- not- not that I’m saying I’m in love with you, that would be a crazy thing to say on the first date- absolutely crazy--”

He eventually shut her up, leaning down to peck her lips softly, all nerves and panicked rambling dropped to just look up at him, in utter awe. Okay, maybe she can fall in love with him, she’s already halfway there with a month of letters.

Carefully, he guided her to their table with a hand on the small of her back as her cheeks flushed with embarrassment and also he’d just kissed her to shut her up, and it worked.

“It’s fine, I love them, really. And Penelope was right, as your date I love the outfit.”

“Thank you, I love your sweater and-- ohmygod--”

As they sat down at the table, she buried her face into her hands, causing him to panic slightly, reaching out to carefully touch her shoulder. Saying her name worriedly as he set the flowers onto the table.

But she just looked up with a soft whine of embarrassment, peaking at him over her fingers.

“I called you my hot date to your face! That’s so embarrassing.”

Instantly relieved that it wasn’t anything he’d done, easing into a soft laugh and leaning back in his chair after squeezing her shoulder.

“It was cute! You didn’t even know who I was and you still called me hot.”

“It’s mortifying, you’ll never forget it and use it in your wedding vows or something.”

Sure, she was joking, but in the back of his head he filed something away for the future. A tiny, mental box, labelled ‘wedding vows’, wondering how long it would be until he could actually use that. 

Until then, he’d have to stick to ordering dinner on their first date.

Want more?! Good!

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[copperbadge]

Hi Sam, could you please recommend any resources/websites to learn about ADHD medication? Until reading your post about second-line meds I thought Adderal was the only one

I can definitely talk about it a little! Always bearing in mind that I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice, etc. etc.

So, I've had many friends with ADHD in my life before I got my diagnosis and I picked up some stuff from them even before getting diagnosed; I also spoke with my prescribing psychiatrist about options when we met. If you think your psychiatrist might be resistant to discussing options, or you don't have one, doing your own research is good, but it's not really a substitute for a specialist in medication management. So it's also important to know what your needs are -- ie, "I want help with my executive function but I need something that's nonaddictive" or "I want something nonsedative" or "I don't think the treatment I'm on is working, what is available outside of this kind of medication?"

The problems you run into with researching medication for ADHD are threefold:

Most well-informed sources aren't actually geared towards non-doctor adults who just want to know what their options are -- they're usually either doctors who don't know how to talk about medication to non-doctors, or doctors (and parents) talking to parents about pediatric options.

A huge number of sites when you google are either AI-generated, covert ads for stimulant addiction rehab, or both.

Reliable sites with easy-to-understand information are not updated super often.

So you just kind of have to be really alert and read the "page" itself for context clues -- is it a science journal, is it an organization that helps people with ADHD, is it a doctor, is it a rehab clinic, is it a drug advertiser, is it a random site with a weird URL that's probably AI generated, etc.

So for example, ADDitude Magazine, which is kind of the pre-eminent clearinghouse for non-scholarly information on ADHD, is a great place to start, but when the research is clearly outlined it sometimes isn't up-to-date, and when it's up-to-date it's often a little impenetrable. They have an extensive library of podcast/webinars, and I started this particular research with this one, but his slides aren't super well-organized, he flips back and forth between chemical and brand name, and he doesn't always designate which is which. However, he does have a couple of slides that list off a bunch of medications, so I just put those into a spreadsheet, gleaned what I could from him, and then searched each medication. I did find a pretty good chart at WebMD that at least gives you the types and brand names fairly visibly. (Fwiw with the webinar, I definitely spent more time skimming the transcript than listening to him, auto transcription isn't GOOD but it is helpful in speeding through stuff like that.)

I think, functionally, there are four types of meds for ADHD, and the more popular ones often have several variations. Sometimes this is just for dosage purposes -- like, if you have trouble swallowing pills there are some meds that come in liquids or patches, so it's useful to learn the chemical name rather than the brand name, because then you can identify several "brands" that all use the same chemical and start to differentiate between them.

Top of the list you have your methylphenidate and your amphetamine, those are the two types of stimulant medications; the most well known brand names for these are Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Adderall (amphetamine).

Then there's the nonstimulant medications, SNRIs (Strattera, for example) and Alpha-2 Agonists (guanfacine and clonidine, brand names Kapvay and Intuniv; I'm looking at these for a second-line medication). There's some crossover between these and the next category:

Antidepressants are sometimes helpful with ADHD symptoms as well as being helpful for depression; I haven't looked at these much because for me they feel like the nuclear option, but it's Dopamine reuptake inhibitors like Wellbutrin and tricyclics like Tofranil. If you're researching these you don't need to look at like, every antidepressant ever, just look for ones that are specifically mentioned in context with ADHD.

Lastly there are what I call the Offlabels -- medications that we understand to have an impact on ADHD for some people, but which aren't generally prescribed very often, and sometimes aren't approved for use. I don't know much about these, either, because they tend to be for complex cases that don't respond to the usual scrips and are particularly difficult to research. The one I have in my notes is memantine (brand name Namenda) which is primarily a dementia medication that has shown to be particularly helpful for social cognition in people with combined Autism/ADHD.

So yeah -- hopefully that's a start for you, but as with everything online, don't take my word for it -- I'm also a lay person and may get stuff wrong, so this is just what I've found and kept in my notes. Your best bet truly is to find a psychiatrist specializing in ADHD medication management and discuss your options with them. Good luck!

[genericpuff]

saw this pop up on /r/UnpopularLoreOlympus and I-

Full analysis post that inspired this post can be read here, it's a good read, go check it out!

Now my natural reaction to not assume the worst (shocking, I know) is that what Rachel's actual intention behind making Leto a sun god was due to her being Apollo's mother and her clearly having a stronger relationship with him rather than Artemis. I'm abiding by Occam's Razor here, it's the simplest answer and it keeps my brain from getting too riled up right off the bat LMAO

There's a lot of emphasis put on Apollo being the god of the sun in LO, despite the fact that Apollo is one of the MOST prolific gods in the Greek pantheon, Rachel only ever really focuses on him being god of the sun with some loose references to him also being the god of music (as we see with him playing his lyre). There's really no real referencing to him being the god of medicine though (aside from that scene of him condom-bandaging Persephone's hand in Episode 22 ?? which is silly now in hindsight because she's a fertility goddess who can heal herself but ok lmao and the fact that Rachel established him as a LITERAL DAD with his doctor son Asclepius which ... just feels weird to have in LO tbh) and there's absolutely no referencing (from what I can find or recall) of him being a protector of the young, god of prophecy (for some reason he just magically gives Kassandra the ability to read prophecies... just so she can read his prophecy ??) or archery. Like, he's shown doing a lot of these things but they come across more as just side hobbies or extensions of him being Artemis' brother (like his archery) rather than aspects of his godliness or domains that he presides over. It's just like yeah, Apollo can shoot arrows and bandage people's hands I guess LMAO

All that said, I can see Rachel deciding to make him primarily the god of the sun and then going "oh! let's make his mom a sun god! then she could be a common enemy for both Persephone and Hades!" because Hades doesn't like sun gods yadda yadda.

But... we know Rachel has used front page Google sourcing in her comic before.

(literally the 'source' was copy pasted from a 2004 study guide for Princeton.edu. And we KNOW this was taken right from the first result because it just says 'www.princeton.edu' with no slug attached, which is what showed up back when we first looked into this, the princeton version was deadass the first result with this definition word for word. She didn't even remove the typo where there's no space between Xenios:"Zeus !!!).

And while a bit more into sus territory rather than outright confirmed like the xenia thing above, there's the whole Metis / Métis theory, that has us wondering if Rachel seriously googled "Metis" on its own and accidentally used Indigenous Métis cultural depictions in her version of Metis, the Greek God.

The fringe in her outfit, finger wings, and dark orange/red color really got my attention the first time I saw her design years ago, because she set off so many, "Wait a minute, is that an Indigenous woman???" bells in my Mi'kmaq/Cree brain LMAO And not even in a bad way, but now it feels a little :/ because of how much her character has been assassinated and how clearly accidental it was for her to look like that.

Of course, there's still a more likely explanation that her design was based on this vase:

But IDK y'all. That vase is very distinctly orange while the character itself is depicted in dark garbs and with light skin, so Metis being distinctly red-toned with finger wings and fringe?

While the Xenia thing is definitively copy pasted from the first search result on Google (literally there's no denying that at this point, Rachel's REALLY bad at doing research and then pretending like she was being smart by sourcing it from a university website... completely ignoring the fact that that website literally hasn't been updated since Rachel was working on The Doctor Pepper Show) the Metis and Leto depictions are definitely a lot more up for debate as to what 'research' Rachel did and whether or not they got confused with something else during her searching.

And really, the whole thing with Leto being a "sun god" doesn't make sense really when you think about it. Why is Leto a sun god? It's not even like you could argue there are "some versions" of the myths where she's a god of the sun, or other translations out there, or whatever vague source that could be used like what has been used for other gods like Hades and Persephone. Leto is not affiliated with the sun in any shape or form. Remove Apollo, her eventual son, who didn't exist when she was born and given the title of 'sun god', and it quickly falls apart as to why she would be a sun god in the first place.

She is a goddess of motherhood though, and that's NEVER mentioned in LO. If anything, Rachel makes her a terrible mom on purpose. Because god knows we can't have anyone in this comic be a good mom except for Persephone and Rhea (who are literally just carbon copies of one another). Basically the only thing Rachel gets right with Leto is the fact that she's a Titan and that she had Apollo and Artemis after sleeping with Zeus. That's it.

Unfortunately, unlike the xenia thing, there's no outright proof of what Rachel's reasoning was behind these designs or sources. So I'm not gonna accuse or outright state it as fact that Rachel confused Metis for Métis or ripped the idea for Leto being a sun god from an anime, because the odds of that being true in any way are fairly low.

But they're never zero.

[junekissed]

packages, boxes and bags

day eight of junkissed's svt season's greetings event

member — boyfriend!seokmin x reader genre — the sweetest and purest fluff word count — 3.1k synopsis — you’re having trouble finding the perfect gift for your boyfriend on your first christmas together. maybe his friends can help. warnings — a little cursing, reader is called seokmin's girlfriend, pet names (baby, honey), they are so damn cute it hurts, when can i have my own seokmin god please i'm begging notes — lowercase intended. i apologize this is late but i was busy the past couple days and i also didn't have much inspo for this. so imagine my surprise when today i sit down at my laptop and boom three thousand words just. appear. but i am so happy with how this turned out and i hope you will be too. i must warn you all this is disgustingly sweet and precious and i definitely screamed into my pillow more than once while writing this. i hope you enjoy :) p.s. i promise this isn't an ad for kay jewelers— blame @duhnova for that

one reblog = one (almost) engagement ring

you shut your laptop closed and groan, putting your head in your hands. this was never going to work.

you’ve spent the better part of your day off on websites like amazon, macy’s, even walmart, trying to find the perfect gift for seokmin.

despite being together almost seven months now, it’s the first time you’ll be spending christmas together. and… you have absolutely no idea what to get him.

first you thought about getting him some little gadget for his computer at work, maybe a new keyboard or a cute new mouse pad. but then you remembered how he told you in passing the other day how he couldn’t stand how his job had him hunched over his computer all day, and he was thinking about looking for a new one where he wouldn’t have to be on it so much.

then you thought you might get him a nice framed picture of the two of you, something small to keep in his apartment for when you’re not there. but when you came over last weekend, the first thing he did was show you the digital photo frame he found in his closet that his mom got him for his birthday that he’d forgotten about. he was stoked to “finally be able to put it to good use” and had programmed it with dozens of pictures of the two of you.

you’d tried google. you’d looked at every gift-giving website under the sun. you’d even asked your best friend what she was getting for her boyfriend for christmas to see if it might spark an idea. 

but everything you come across is either something he already has, something he doesn’t need, or something he could easily get on his own.

so… you were stuck. thoroughly and completely stuck.

meanwhile, unbeknownst to you, seokmin is currently on the other side of town, running through the mall in a panic, trying to figure out what to get you.

he knows he shouldn’t have waited until three days before christmas to get his holiday shopping done, but he’s been busy– there’s a huge promotion up at his job, and he’s doing everything he can to get it. not only would it mean less sitting at his desk all day and more moving around, it would also mean a big raise, so you can finally move in together like you both have been wanting to. now that would be a perfect christmas present if he gets the position, but he won’t find out if he has or not until the new year, so that rules that out. 

it’s your first christmas together, so he really wants to go all out. winter is his favorite season, and now he gets to spend it with his favorite person, so why wouldn’t he make it something extravagant? except… he can’t find anything to get you.

so here he is at the mall downtown, ducking into every store and searching for something, anything that might give him an idea of a gift you might like.

he doesn’t wanna buy you clothes, because that’s lame, and also because he doesn���t wanna get something that’s not guaranteed you’ll like. what if you think the fabric is too itchy, or you don’t like the pattern? returning or even exchanging his gift would mean a big failure.

he doesn’t wanna buy you the trinkets he found at that one gift shop, because even though they are cute, they’re not special enough to get for you. these are the type of things he’d pick up for you on his way home from work as an everyday treat, or at the very most, a stocking stuffer; you deserve more than some cheap little thing he found on a whim.

he thought about getting you a new purse, because you said you’ve been needing one since the strap on your current one broke, but he’s pretty sure you already bought yourself one when your boss gave you an amazon gift card as a thank-you for all the overtime you’ve been doing lately.

it seems like everything he thinks of to get you is a dumb idea. so now he’s stuck. thoroughly and completely stuck.

you sigh, pulling out your phone and scrolling through your gallery, praying that one of the photos is hiding some kind of sign that’ll tell you exactly what to buy him. but as expected, there’s no magic word or wish list or qr code that leads to the perfect gift.

you’re just about to give up and call him and just ask him what he wants, when an idea hits you. calling him would be admitting to him you can’t think of something special to give him, but calling his friends… now that, that might get you somewhere. they’ve known him for way longer than you have, they must have some idea of things he likes or might want.

you quickly dial the number of his friend minghao. you’ve only met him a few times at some get-togethers, but he seems like the most responsible out of his group, and the most likely to give you a helpful answer.

he picks up on the first ring, but the voice that answers… isn’t minghao?

“hello seokmin’s girlfriend! this is minghao’s phone, how can i help you!”

“junhui, i told you to stop touching my phone!” you hear a voice in the background that you guess is minghao.

“fi-ine,” the first voice—junhui?—grumbles, and you hear a shuffling noise as you assume the phone is being passed back to its owner.

minghao sighs. “hi. sorry about him. what’s up?”

you try not to laugh at the phone mix-up. “just, uh, have a question for you.”

“mhm?” he prods.

“has… seok mentioned anything he wants for christmas? or, like, is there anything you know he needs?” you ask, hoping it sounds nonchalant.

he hums. “mm, not really. are you trying to come up with a christmas gift for him?”

you whine. “yeah. but i’ve tried everything, i can’t think of a single good thing to give him.”

minghao pauses. “he’s really sentimental, but you probably already figured that out by now. the best i can suggest is something homemade, or something related to some kind of memory you have together. he’d like that.”

you freeze. “i… i think i’ve got an idea,” you say jumping up from your chair. “you’re the best, minghao, i owe you big time for this.”

“don’t worry about it. merry christmas.”

you hang up the phone and open your laptop again. this just might work.

you hadn’t planned on spending this much on seokmin’s present, but why not go all out? sure, you’ll have to cut back on your morning coffee for a couple weeks, but it’ll be worth it to see the look on his face on christmas morning.

at the same time, across town seokmin’s just walking out of the jewelry store, a shiny velvet box tucked into his jacket pocket. it’s a lot more than he wanted to pay for it, but it’s better than showing up empty-handed. besides, if that promotion comes through like he hopes, he’ll pay it off in no time. it might have cost a small fortune, but he just knows it’ll look so pretty on you. he can’t wait to see you wear it.

christmas eve finally rolls around and you’re standing outside the door to seokmin’s apartment, your arms full of bags for the weekend you’re spending with him.

his entire face lights up the second he opens the door, and he squeezes you in a tight hug before giving you a soft kiss. “hi baby,” he says, almost shyly. “merry christmas.”

he grabs the bags from you to carry them inside, and you give him another kiss. “merry christmas.”

he takes your things back to his room to set them down, then comes back out into the living room, wrapping his arms around you again. “i’m so glad you get to be here,” he says quietly.

“mm. me too.”

the room is quiet, besides the faint honking of cars outside. you snuggle up on the couch together, picking out a movie to watch, the dim lights casting a soft glow around the apartment.

“do you wanna open your present now?” he asks when the screen turns black and the credits slowly roll past.

“seok, you have to wait until christmas! we can’t open all our presents tonight!” you giggle, and he pouts.

“please?” he says, looking up at you with those big, pleading eyes you adore so much. 

“fine,” you concede. “but only one! or else we won’t have anything to open in the morning.”

he grins and gets down on the floor beside the couch, crawling over to the tree to grab a small wrapped box nestled into the bottom branches. he comes back over and sits at the base of the couch, putting one knee up as he hands you the box.

he grins up at you as you tear open the wrapping paper, revealing the soft velvet jewelry box.

you look down at him, and he nods eagerly, motioning for you to open it. you hesitate. it definitely looks expensive, way more than you would’ve wanted him to spend on you. but you did pay almost $300 renting the place for his gift, so you write it off as being even.

you delicately pry the box open with your fingernail, revealing a breathtaking ring absolutely covered in diamonds and intricate silver gilding. it gleams even in the low light, sitting in its little velvet box, staring up at you.

you gasp, throwing your hand over your mouth. “seokmin, what the fuck is this!?”

his smile instantly drops, the color draining from his cheeks. “do you not like it? i can probably still return it, i have the receipt–”

“no!” you shout, and he jumps, eyes wide. “no,” you repeat, calmer this time. “no, i love it. it’s gorgeous. i just– i thought we were doing… small presents first?” you stutter, still in shock at the beautiful piece of jewelry in your shaking hands.

he blushes. “i… wanted you to wear it now,” he murmurs.

you study him, and suddenly you realize he’s still down on the carpet on one knee. and everything finally clicks.

you scream as you jump up from the couch. “seokmin, you’re not proposing, are you?” you gasp.

“no?” he stammers, confused why you’d think he is, before realizing himself that he looks… well, he definitely looks like he’s proposing.

he hurriedly puts his knee down, sitting flat on the carpet. “i’m not! i’m not. this is just a really nice ring, i swear,” he rushes to explain. “at least, not yet,” he mumbles under his breath, but you don’t hear him. you’re still focused on the fact that there’s more diamonds in this ring than you can count on one hand.

you’re still standing in front of him, mouth hanging open, and he’s starting to get worried because you haven’t said a word in a few minutes. “do you want me to propose?” he asks hesitantly. because, screw it, he’s already got the nice ring; if you’re ready, then he’s ready, might as well—

“no! i mean, yes, i do, i really do, but not right now, i…” you trail off, not sure how to continue.

the room is silent, both of you staring at each other. after a minute he stands up, taking his seat back on the couch. “oh no,” he says, finally breaking the silence with a groan. “i ruined this, didn’t i?”

“no,” you sigh, having recovered enough from the shock to sit next to him again. “no, of course not. i’m just… surprised. i wasn’t expecting this. it must’ve cost a fortune.”

“it’s rude to ask someone the price of a gift, you know,” he says, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.

“trust me, i’m not asking,” you laugh. “i don’t even wanna know.”

“can… can i put it on you?” he asks, his voice getting soft again.

you look at him, and then at the glittering diamond ring in his hand, and you can’t not accept it. you nod, letting out a quiet “mhm” in agreement.

your eyes start to water as he slides it onto your finger, and he looks up worriedly when you sniffle. “it’s so pretty, oh my god,” you whisper, more to yourself than to him.

“please don’t cry,” he says softly, and he looks so upset that you have to reassure him you’re not mad and you just really, really like your gift. 

you admire how it looks on your finger for a second before you scoot closer to him and wrap your arms around him.

“i love it, baby,” you murmur. “you really didn’t have to do this.”

he hums. “but i wanted to. i wanted to show you how much i love you.”

tears well up in your eyes again, and you bury your face in his neck to hide them. “you already show me. every single day.”

he sighs, a happy sigh, relaxing into your arms. “i’m glad you like it.”

you stay like that for a while, gently rocking back and forth on the couch, peacefully enjoying everything. the scent of his cologne wafts around you, a comforting, familiar smell, and the colorful lights of the christmas tree shine softly in the background. you wouldn’t want to spend christmas anywhere else.

you pull away a little, breaking the silence with a short laugh. “mine’s gonna look so stupid compared to yours,” you pout as you snuggle into his side, leaning your head against his shoulder.

“are you gonna make me wait until tomorrow to open it?” he asks, rubbing his hand up and down your arm.

“no,” you sigh. “it’s probably after midnight by now, anyway.” you lift yourself out of his arms, going back into his room to get his present from one of your bags.

it’s a lightweight little box, and you hand it down to him. the gift itself isn’t big in size, but you know he likes taking the wrapping off, so you put it in a box and wrapped it for him.

he waits for you to come sit beside him again, and he opens it, carefully tearing the red and green paper with a grin on his face.

he opens the box, revealing a small piece of paper. he looks back at you. “baby? what’s this?”

your cheeks heat up as you begin to explain, suddenly feeling shy about your gift. “well, i… i rented out the movie theater we went to on our first date, and i thought it would be fun to, just… spend the day there, i don’t know.” you trail off, looking down at your hands, until seokmin takes them in his own.

when you look back up at him, his smile is so wide, it almost looks like it hurts. “i love it,” he beams, his voice breaking a little. “that’s so thoughtful, honey. i really love it.”

he leans forward to squeeze you in a hug, and you can’t help but smile, too.

“this is the best christmas ever,” he sighs into your neck, holding you tightly against him. “love you so much.”

he sits back, pulling you onto his lap facing him. “do you know where i got the ring from?” he asks suddenly, locking his hands behind your lower back.

you look at him. “um, kay? it says it on the box.”

he grins. “and?”

you frown in confusion. “and… what?”

the tips of his ears turn pink. “y’know, their slogan? ‘every kiss begins with kay’? from the commercials?”

you blink at him.

he groans, rolling his head back. “can i just kiss you now, please?”

you giggle, throwing your arms around his neck and rubbing your nose against his. “fine.”

and just as he’s about to, his pocket vibrates, and he pulls out his phone.

“my… boss?” he says, confused, showing you the screen.

you whine, resting your chin on his shoulder. “what does he want that can’t wait? it’s one in the morning on christmas eve– well, technically christmas morning, now.”

he looks at you with pleading eyes, and you sigh. “you can answer it. quickly, though, please?”

he presses a kiss to your cheek in thanks before sliding the button to accept the call, holding the phone up to his other ear. “hello?”

you can’t hear what’s being said on the other line, so you close your eyes, worn out from the night’s big surprises. you have a lot to do tomorrow—today—and you’ll need sleep if you want to spend the whole day with him like you want to.

seokmin sits up suddenly, startling you. you lean back, looking at him, wordlessly asking if something’s wrong. but he’s beaming, his smile so bright you’d think he’d just been told he won the lottery, and you crease your eyebrows in confusion.

he stays on the phone for another minute, listening intently. “thank you so much. merry christmas,” he says finally, then hangs up, tossing his phone to the other end of the couch.

“what? what is it?” you ask, still concerned despite his giddy expression.

he settles back, his hands sliding to your waist and holding you up on his lap. “i just got some news,” he says, and you know he’s being vague on purpose to draw out the suspense.

you pout. “well, are you gonna tell me, or not!”

he giggles, unable to hold it back any longer. “i got the promotion!” he yells.

your mouth falls open. “what promotion?” you ask, tentative.

“i didn’t wanna say anything unless i was sure, but there’s been a position available at the company, and they wanted to hire someone from within,” he says excitedly. “it wasn’t guaranteed that i’d get it, but i did! i got the promotion!”

“aw, seok! i’m so proud of you, baby,” you smile, leaning down to kiss him.

he pulls away after a second, and you look at him expectantly. “i have more news,” he says with a grin.

“and?”

“and… it comes with a big raise, so we’ll finally be able to afford a place together,” he beams, rubbing his hands up and down your back.

you bite your bottom lip to stop it from trembling, and feel your eyes well up with tears, spilling down your cheeks.

he calls your name softly, and you look up at him. “are you… what do you think?” he asks, his big eyes searching your watery ones.

“i– i’m just so happy,” you stammer, leaning down to hug him again. “i love you so much. this is more than i could’ve ever asked for.” you bury your face in his neck, letting your tears of joy fall onto his sweater.

“merry christmas, honey.”

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[dodgeballstuckonthegymceiling]

Hello! I'm going through a rough time right now and I was just wondering: can I request the ROTTMNT turtles x a S/O who has anxiety, depression and PTSD? How would they take care of a S/O whose depression spells make it hard for them to get out of bed, take care of themselves etc? Bonus if S/O is plus-sized/chubby and insecure about it.

Hope you feel better soon 💜

Raph Leo Donnie and Mikey x Reader with anxiety, depression and PTSD

Raphael

★ Oh lawd please let him help. He wants, no, he needs to help you. You are his s/o and he cares about you more than you think. Need a mental health day? He's coming over with sented candles and snacks.

★ Anything you need, he's going to give. If you are having one of those days where you feel you can't leave bed he will stay by your side so you don't feel alone. If he needs to leave your side he grabs a few of his favorite teddy bears and puts them on the bed where he was.

★ He's familiar with the concept of having body image issues but never once thought about you having them. Your body is perfect to him. It's soft and warm, ideal to lay down and cuddle with. What could be missing?

★ You are gorgeous. You're probably tired of hearing those words from well meaning people but to him it's true. In his eyes every single thing you see as a flaw is beautiful.

★ "How was your day?" Is asked every night when the two of you meet up. He genuinely wants to know how your day went and how you are feeling. If something went wrong of if you are stressed out about something you should vent.

Leonardo

★ When you start to open up to him about being insecure he is going to feal really bad. Mostly because he knows what it feels like and the idea that you feel the same hurts.

★ He is going to mess up at first, but he wants to help. He regularly sends you random body positivity photos and memes he finds online.

★ One of his go-to ideas for when you're feeling stressed out is to bring you on a walk around the hidden city and do a little sightseeing. Usually it works and you get your mind off whatever was bothering you.

★ PTSD attacks scared him at first, purely because he didn't know what to do. He felt really bad after he first saw you have one because he had to call his sister, April, to help. Later he went down a rabbit hole of googling and websites to know what to do next time.

★ Nowadays he is much more prepared, he knows a few grounding techniques to try and help you through PTSD attacks. He even put together a "emergency Y/n kit" filled with stuff for you. Among other things it's got gum, a soft blanket and some watter.

★ it's just a tote bag that sits in the corner of his room. It also has a few Lou jitsu movies on DVD to watch together.

Donatello

★ You have unlimited access to his room and lab for the sole reason that it's the quietest place in New York. It's definitely not because he worries about you and wants to give you a safe space. Not at all...

★ When you don't have the motivation to get up out of bed you get to have some very rare and valuable Donnie cuddles. Usually he would cuddle you for so long but you need this, so he does it for you.

★ He tries to gently bring up the subject of antidepressants, hoping that you might decide to try them. But in true Donnie fashion does it by saying "Did you know antidepressants affect two neurotransmitters in particular, serotonin and norepinephrine?" Yea, he ain't slick.

★ He would never force or pressure you into going on meds. If you say you don't want to go on them for whatever reason he accepts it and leaves it at that.

★ However, if you choose to he would go over the different types of medication. Lists off the side effects and benefits along with what they actually do. For gods sake, he might go through the process of drug compounding for you. No doctor prescription needed.

Michelangelo

★ Can't find the motivation to get out of bed? He's joining you and ends up clinging to you while asleep. He's only leaving the bed if you leave the bed.

★ However, neglecting your own health is where he draws the line. You are not allowed to neglect yourself (not bathing, eating enough or letting yourself to give up). Imagine him saying "open wide!" While holding a chicken nugget up to your mouth.

★ Venting session might do you some good. If you can't afford therapy (thanks American lack of public healthcare) he will pick up a book on phycology and try his best. He's not the world's best therapist/boyfriend but he's trying.

★ Over time you end up telling him a lot about where your PTSD came from. Mikey is really good at noticing things that upset you now. Along with that he researches the effects of mental illness, to try and know more about what you're going through.

[banterspam]

[summary, i go on a long nerdy ass delusion filled manhunt for a sick ass bart allen impulse figure and win]

Okay so basically I got my first paycheck from my job and i was looking to treat myself to something cool and was scouring for sick dc stuff. Lately I've been into figurines and shit so I've been looking at them on google and ebay.

I was originally thinking about getting a robin figure and I kinda went down a rabbit hole and learned about porcelain figures which are super freaking cool but anyways I saw that there was a young-just-us set (robin, superboy, bart) and as i was freaking out over the set

I went, oh my god i want a bart figure so bad--and so i went on the man hunt for the coolest impulse figure!

This one's really cool so I was planning to get it

until

BART????? HES SO COOL HERE HOLY CRAP

the website this figure was placed on had the words 'Bart Allen 2000s action figurine, $13.99' so of course i clicked on it because omigosh i need it. Yea so anyways that website was blank and i felt my digital information being drained out of my soul so i closed that out.

But damn that figure is so freaking cool.

and thus i went on a manhunt, screaming, kicking, throwing hands!

Ngl I was actually going insane becauuuuse, this was the only image i could find ANYWHERE (i was praying it wasn't a custom for dear life. hint: it was!)

I almost gave up until i realized i was stupid and there literally was the creators watermark all over the image LMFAO (ironcowprod.com)

So i open the page and go through alllll of his figurine images

let me note that I have become fully aware that I could definitely not buy this bart BUT i just really wanted a sign that the figurine i've been going crazy over exists

so basically im scrolling an scrolling and scrolling annnnnd

Nada. No sign of life at all.

Okay maybe me being heartbroken sounds like an overstatement BUT I REALLY WAS OKAY!

Impulse kinda has a cult following; most people know this character but aside from a few dedicated fans there really isn't any merch specific to him (which upsets me because i love to blow aggregious amounts of money on characters i love lol), so I was really excited to see such a cool figure for him that someone poured love into!

After going through all of ironcow's figurine sections i decided to give up on my search, but, I made one final last ditch effort.

Half heartedly i typed, "ironcow impulse"

Clicked search and HOLY SHIT I FOUND IT WHATTHEFU

I swear in this moment the world gave me a high five.

The figure was created on March 18th, 2000, and it was awesome.

GOSH HES SUCH A COOL GUY

I was super excited just seeing the figure, just admiring it ya'know?

Then i read the description

Oh okay so he didn't make it from scratch and used another as a model haha cool

but what are the chances that base model from the literal year 2000 is still around haha

what.

WHAT.

so guess who has experience: painting figurines, using magic sculpt, and sanding down weird shit for funsies.

Anyways theres a figure in my cart and im ready to paint :]

(Thanks anyone who read through all of this LOL, the figure im making will be heavily based off of iron-cow production's and they are super freaking cool like seriously their work is just inspiration heaven so please please for your sake check out their page it's awesome!)

[pochqmqri]

When I saw this video drop in my recommended, I knew it was going to disappoint me as someone who has done personal nuzlocke runs before, used to be an active member of the forums, and even still is friends with people from there. And I was right. Look under the read more for my gripes.

To start off, he makes a rather big mistake by stating that the original Ruby Hard Mode run ended in a win, when it definitely did not, and was the basis for the Ruby character going to Kanto to start the FireRed Hard Mode run. That one isn’t one I think is too bad compared to the others, but it’s still something you could easily research on your own. 

He’s also a little wrong about ShiroInu being the earliest person to post a nuzlocke comic on the forums, but I can also forgive him for that. In general, he spends only a small portion of the video on the Nuzlocke Forums before branching out to videos, and I feel that was a misstep. For one, he completely glossed over screenshot runs, which were just as important as comics and written logs in the formation of Nuzlocking’s early years. A lot of people at the time couldn’t afford recording set ups for let’s plays, and screenshotting on VBA was as easy as pie, making Nuzlockes accessible to most people especially those that didn’t want to draw.

I also think it’s a bit peculiar that Kynim wasn’t mentioned at all, when he discussed Nuzlocke comics. Myths of Unova is probably the most popular Nuzlocke comic outside of the original, especially so for one with actual effort put into the art and narrative. We can go on all day and week about other popular comics too like Petty Nuzlocke Challenge, It’s A Hard Life, FireRed Kick-Ass Mode, Double Nuzlocke Series, etc. That not much time is dedicated to the narrative aspect of Nuzlocking in favor of the more technical and challenge-oriented ones is such a shame especially since a lot of history was made on the now-defunct Smackjeeves website. Like, in the video, fucking Emerald Kaizo got its own section while the forums, comics, etc. don’t even get that much respect. Towards the end of that video it was basically summarizing specific Nuzlocke runs from popular YouTubers/streamers, rather than an overall look. 

Moving onto recorded Nuzlockes, it’s really baffling that Marriland wasn’t given an explicit shout out. While he wasn’t one of the first to do a recorded Nuzlocke on YouTube (October 27, 2012), he was one of the first people to upload Let’s Play content on YouTube period, and he was also one of the important figures in Nuzlocking since he invented the Wedlocke challenge. Granted, the Wedlocke was mentioned briefly in a list of variants and his videos were shown in a screenshot of Google, but that’s not enough respect I feel.

Also, I think it’s funny that PokemonChallenges is attributed as the founder of the Hardcore Nuzlocke, that is, a Nuzlocke with the added rules of “no item use in battle” and “no overlevelling against important trainers’ strongest Pokemon.” The video claims Jan invented that in 2016 for his streams, when in fact, people have been using those extra rules well before he did. I also want to note that I don’t really blame Wolfey for this misinformation, since he said in the video that the research was primarily done by pChal and some guy named Drew, which, yeah, makes sense with how biased it is. 

No disrespect to Jaiden, even if I don’t find her content entertaining, but I feel she got a lot of undeserved credit in this video too. Like, obviously the thumbnail having her in the “Then” portion is just clickbait, but to go on in the video and say that “the way that [original Nuzlocke comic creator] and Jaiden share their nuzlockes might be what caused Nuzlocking to take off” is plain wrong in the case of the latter. Like, yes, Jaiden’s 87mil+ video definitely brought it out of the general Pokemon fandom, so that people like Alpharad and Ludwig started doing them, but Nuzlocking took off well before she made the video. In fact, Griffin McElroy made a rather popular Nuzlocke video back in 2016 on Polygon’s YouTube channel.

The video also misattributes certain tricks and strategies to that Drew guy’s Renegade Platinum run, saying that it would “define the meta.” Stuff like the repel trick to manipulate encounters, which is not true at all, since the repel trick has been documented on Bulbapedia since 2010, well before that ROM hack.

Overall, I don’t want to gatekeep the Nuzlocke from anyone, but it’s just sad how it has primarily evolved to just adding on challenge after challenge and treating your Pokemon as pawns (i.e. sending them out to die), as well as optimizing the gameplay to reduce the amount of failure such as by hacking in rare candies to save time grinding (when that basically cheeses the periods between important fights and removes the possibility of something bad happening during grinding), and manipulating encounters (esp. in newer games without grass) to your biggest benefit. If you want to play it that way, that’s fine. The storytelling part of Nuzlocking was such a huge boon in how the challenge got popularized, also the concepts of using Pokemon and strategies you’d have never thought to have try before, so it’s disappointing that it gets overlooked especially in a retrospective like this.

[omokers]

horangi headcanon list

as written by a native korean

he didn't choose his own name. horangi is like saying kitty instead of cat. it’s a cutesy word and he is a grown man. he tried to suggest the other word for tiger and halfway through realized he was asking to be called bum (i’m not kidding. that’s the other word for tiger in korean.) and had to drop it entirely.

two weeks later he finds out about the other other word for tiger; san-gun, meaning king of the mountain. he will kick his blanket in the middle of the night for years about the missed opportunity.

he gambled over sports online

the most logical way i see a gambling addiction over sports happening in the 2010s is through online gambling websites. these things are so goddamn accessible, it’s an actual problem.

he may have tried to google webtoon episodes (which is not a nerd thing- non-fandom type people also read webtoons on the reg) and have been led to a webtoon pirating website, upon which there were illegal gambling website ads. after that it’s all downhill.

his family’s upper middle class or even more affluent; enough to send him to an english speaking kindergarden as a young child

i’ve listened to the voicelines and he’s got a bit of an accent but is still fluent. fluent enough to be employed by kortac, even.

he definitely spent a lot of time learning english and that’s easier if you’re richer. you can be fluent in english without your family having paid for an english speaking kindergarden, but it’s definitely easier

it’s also funnier because i also headcanon that

his family didn’t pay off his debt on purpose

it’s a bit of a “you’ve got to learn to stand up for yourself, pay your own way in life” thing. they can protect themselves from the debt collectors just fine, it’s just that they’re not paying for his debts.

with a gambling addiction you’re really not supposed to give them money directly or pay off their debts. you’re just not supposed to.

his family can pay off his debts and be no less worse for it but they’re just not doing it. it’s really a lot funnier that way

more in part 2 because this got long

also here’s a list of korean curse words and other useful phrases so that google translate doesn’t fuck you

also also if you use any of these anywhere my god i want to see it please message or ask or @ me. do it.

[laithraihan]

Hey I really love your art - I wanted to ask if you use references from anywhere specific.

Also, have you considered the idea of Reigan becoming Minori's Guardian Ad Litem? I agree that Reigans not exactly the kind of person to make the most responsible father (at least where we leave him in the show) but I could totally imagine him becoming her guardian for some legal reason.

He's really the only adult she'd know to trust outside her father.

I can imagine they're put a whole court case together with Reigan as her guardian just for legal reasons and they win, and then Minori's like. "Oh shit where do I go? Guess your my guardian for real now." And Reigan is like.

What?

Thank you 🫶💜 hmm well for pose references including clothing etc I just get them from google stock images, I generally try to avoid making the pose too similar to the images I see so I sometimes draw in different angles (honestly most of the time I struggle looking up references because I cant find a picture in a specific angle I want, so I go with my intuition even if it's wrong), honestly google is probably the place I rely on the most for this. Like if I forget what a shoe looks like then I'll just google it.

If you're talking about where I got inspiration for my art style (or what I look to get ideas for my art etc) I'd say the major ones for me are ONE's sketches on twitter (especially his shaky lineart and how he draws eyes), early episodes of Detective Conan (clothing folds, color choices sometimes, body proportions like the chest being pointed etc), Revolutionary Girl Utena (also clothing and body proportions), FLCL (I have no idea what parts of it influenced my art but I feel like it's an obligation to list it here)

Uhh for the fun drawings that require more effort I'd say music is inevitably the most important part of it. 99% of the time my drawings that arent plain sketches are modeled after a specific song I listen to (primarily from ZARD but other artists too although not as often) even then I think my sketches are still influenced by ZARD somehow. Wait I completely forgot to mention I also look up images of ZARD on Pinterest for poses or just... to draw anything honestly. Theres a good number of pictures of her in various angles (I remember one of her photographers said she was very photogenic so most of her pictures are very casual as if a camera wasn't present) I think it's good to look at them if you are looking for something natural. Just looking up "Izumi Sakai" there will give you results.

For text placement/colors/vibe/whatever I like to look at old media I grew up with like MADs, shitty websites made in the 90s/2000s, old anime subtitled in Arabic (I have plenty of DVDs with anime dubbed/subbed in Arabic that I have no idea where we got them from, I assume it's all pirated. Anime openings/endings in Arabic also have very poor aesthetics when it comes to logo placement/text color/text animation/etc but that's exactly why I like them) I also have a Pinterest board with outdated ZARD edits that I look at often while drawing. For image textures or backgrounds I use this website. If I struggle with art block or don't know how to draw a specific thing I also look at everything I previously listed and reference from there. Anyways I talked a Lot but hopefully I could help with that.

As for Reigen being a guardian .... I never considered it seriously but I think he could pull it off. He'll definitely make mistakes but he could succeed if he had a daughter. I just have to kill off Minori's real dad or something and it'll work. The only problem would be that Minori has to live with the fact that her new father is broke and unable to spend thousands of dollars for her every week.

[asirenscream]

a shrimptastic picnic | wren & felix

TIMING: current

LOCATION: the common.

PARTIES: @asirenscream & @recoveringdreamer

SUMMARY: wren's bad attempt at potato salad leads her to the lions & lambs picnic and felix is kind enough to taste test, until they're interrupted by a man insisting they learn more about the well respected shrimp. a totally normal picnic, right? right!

CONTENT: mentions of the potential of food poisoning.

The Lions and Lambs picnic seemed pretty daunting to Wren. Well, not just because she had to subtly find out that there weren’t actually going to be any lions or lambs, but because of how many people would be there. Standing in the grass of The Common, Wren tried not to sweat too much. Her fingers were gripping the tupperware container she had put her potato salad in. She hadn’t ever made potato salad before, but someone had mentioned how that was a common picnic food. She had taken hours attempting to boil the cubed, unevenly sized potatoes and mixing them into the mayo mustard mixture. The website on The Google she had found said that anyone could put what they wanted in potato salad! The comments were very helpful so Wren threw onions, celery, raisins, and walnuts in it. Hopefully people liked it.

Shifting on her feet, Wren tried to coax up the nerve to approach the crowd of people in The Common there for the picnic. This would be a good way to step over her anxiety and fear of humans—of people in general. Should she have brought forks or spoons? She didn’t own many of them… Or plates. Or bowls. Should she have brought those, too? Oh, she was definitely spiraling now. Brown eyes squeezed shut as Wren tried to take a steady breath and ignore the racing of her heart. Maybe if she pretended people weren’t there for a minute then it’d be okay. It’d be fine. Right? Right!

Wren slowly opened her eyes and tentatively started walking across the grass, the slightest tremor in her form. She accidentally bumped into someone and squeaked, looking up with wide eyes. “Sorry! I’m—wait. I know you, right?” She got out in a rush. She felt like she remembered him from online. “You have the cat? Um, right? I’m not misremembering.” Cats didn’t tend to be birds' biggest fans. Wren hadn’t met a cat before so she wasn’t sure how they’d in turn take to her. “I’m Wren! I think we talked before, hi!”

—

For years, Felix had felt fairly isolated. First, they’d had their father as their well-meaning warden in that house in the woods. Then, there’d been Leo and his less-than-good intentions in the apartment they’d shared for years, where Felix made themself smaller and smaller by the day in order to allow Leo space to be big. Felix had never really had the chance to branch out and meet new people until after their breakup with Leo and, by that point, they’d been so nervous that it seemed a herculean task just to start a conversation. But they were working on that. They were doing better now. They were reaching out to people, they were making friends.

They were going to picnics.

It had seemed like a good idea, in theory. They’d even managed to talk themself out of the tempting idea of dragging Mona or Natalia along for the ride, reminding themself that they needed to be able to meet people without the security blanket of someone they were already close to being there to help. They could do this on their own. Just Felix, the muffins they’d brought, and… a whole lot of people. Like a lot of people. Were there always this many people at things like this?

Someone bumped into them in the crowd, and Felix stiffened a little. “Sorry,” he said, at the same time that they apologized. Then, blinking down, they realized they recognized the girl. “Oh! Hi! You’re, um, the bird girl. I mean, the girl who likes birds. I mean, person. Bird person. Person who likes birds.” All right, Fe, reel it in. “I’m Felix! Um, what did you…” The trailed off, looking down at the tupperware in her hand and what they could see of the… substance inside. “...make?”

—

Bird girl. Well, they weren’t wrong. It caused Wren to let out a high-pitched, nervous laugh. That felt a little too on the nose, even if they didn’t realize it. “Yup! Yeah, bird girl seems… fitting.” Her laugh strained just a tad bit more before she reeled it in. “Big fan of birds! That’s me, yes. Um, anyways!” She rocked onto the balls of her feet as she tried to ignore her own anxious, awkward tendencies. “Hi Felix! I’m happy to see a friendly face.” He really did seem friendly from their brief conversation. It did little to ebb her already overwhelming anxiety, but it was something at least. 

Looking down at the container, Wren had to take a moment to remember the name. “Uh, potato salad!” She looked back up and smiled. “The recipe said to just add whatever I wanted! So I did that. I’ve never made potato salad. I didn’t even know what it was! I had to search what picnic foods were, because I don’t think people would like my go to foods.” Raw meat, raw fish may be more accepted, but she didn’t know how well either of those would hold for human consumption. 

There was plenty of activity around Wren and Felix. It was overwhelming, so Wren did her best to ignore the push, push, push of it all. “Um, did you bring anything? Or just come for the fun? Would you want some potato salad? I didn’t bring forks! Should I have brought forks? I don’t know how picnics work, I’ve never been to one. What do you think?” She blabbered on. Wren could tell when she was spiraling and it was definitely happening. “Oh god, sorry. When I start I just kind of can’t stop! Ha.” She winced.

—

She seemed nervous, and Felix wondered if they’d said something wrong. They had a habit of that, they knew, of speaking out of turn and generally making a mess of things. They were trying to do better, trying to improve, trying to… be the sort of person that people wanted to talk to, but it was an uphill battle. Spending most of your teen years living off the land in a murder cabin tended to make social interaction a little more difficult. Trying to save the interaction, Felix nodded. “Uh, yeah! Birds are great. I like birds, too.” They didn’t. Not more than the average person, at least. In fact, some birds freaked them out a little. But, hey! They could pretend, in the interest of friendly conversation. “Yeah! Yeah, it’s nice to, uh, know somebody.” 

Glancing back down to the container again, Felix tried not to let their… surprise show on their face. That was not potato salad. Felix had seen potato salad. Felix had made potato salad. Felix had even enjoyed potato salad. That was not potato salad. But it was her first time making it, and she’d found a recipe that apparently wasn’t very helpful, and wouldn’t it be unnecessarily mean to point that out? “It looks great!” Felix lied, flashing her a bright smile. “I can’t wait to try it!” They hoped they had remembered to put anti-nausea meds in their jean pockets.

“I brought muffins,” Felix replied quickly, holding up the muffins and offering one to Wren. They liked to think they were some quality muffins, but they might have been a little biased. They glanced back to the ‘potato salad’ Wren was holding with a forced smile. “Oh, yeah. I’d love some potato salad. I think, uh — I think there’s forks where the other food is. So we can go over there and get some forks. And then. Eat this potato salad!” They felt a little like they were tying a noose for their executioner here, but it was fine. “No, hey, it’s okay! I kind of do the same thing. It’s cool. Come on, let’s… go find a fork.”

—

Wren’s smile was shaky at best, but it was getting easier to breathe through the anxiety when she just focused on Felix in front of her instead. They seemed really nice and dealing with one person in comparison to several was always going to be preferable to Wren. Especially when they seemed to be as kind as Felix was. “I don’t do this kind of stuff often,” a pause as Wren tried to figure out how to word it, “go out, I guess. Being around a lot of people kind of freaks me out.” An understatement, but she could lighten it a tiny bit. There was no harm, right?

“Thanks! I tried really hard, so I hope it’s good.” Wren smiled, holding up the container briefly to observe the potato mixture in there that had taken her way too long. Humans were really strange in what they could eat and couldn’t. She didn’t want to make something she’d enjoy, but would make humans sick. That was the quickest way to give away the fact that she was very clearly something else entirely. The constant fear and itch to not be found out was persistent enough. 

Baking! That was another thing that Wren was eager to try. “Oh wow, these look amazing! Thank you!” Wren took the muffin excitedly. “Do you bake a lot? Or cook in general? Baking seems really hard, but so fun. Do you have a favorite thing you like to cook or bake?” She practically bounded alongside Felix to go near the other food. Someone was going to eat her food! She was way too excited. “Fork adventure! Hah,” Wren giggled almost nervously and could feel the heat from her embarrassed blush travel all the way up to the tips of her ears. 

There was a table full of other dishes and cutlery, plates, anything you could think of. Wren made work of setting down the tupperware container and popping off the lid. It didn’t look awful, at least. Or to her, anyway. It looked like vegetables and sauce? That was normal, for sure. “If you hate it, it’s okay! Don’t worry.” Wren added quickly, resisting the urge to grimace. “Rome wasn’t painted in a day or whatever the saying is. I heard that one on TV.” 

—

Given her overall demeanor her words — that this wasn’t a thing she did often — felt unnecessary to really say. It was clear that she was uncomfortable, out of her element. But that was okay. Felix was a little out of theirs, too. So they smiled back at her, they shrugged their shoulders. “I don’t really do this often, either,” they admitted, wondering if they were this obvious. Being around a lot of people was pretty scary, but they’d found it was a lot better when you were around one you trusted. They could be that one for Wren, they thought. Or… try to, anyway.

Even if it meant eating her potato salad. They spared it another look, careful not to let the uncertainty shine through in their expression. They weren’t sure she would have picked up on it, but they didn’t want to take any chances. “I’m sure it’s great. I think, um, the first step to cooking and being good at it is to try your hardest. Right?” Wrong. Very, very wrong. The first step to cooking and being good at it was not making anything like what she had in her hands. Felix’s stomach was not going to be happy with them after this.

But Wren was happy, or seemed to be. That made it feel kind of worth it. She took a muffin, and Felix offered her an encouraging smile. “I love baking. It’s something I do a lot. Um, I do more of it when I’m stressed. I like to think I’m pretty good at it, because of all the practice.” They paused. “Baking, I mean, Not being stressed.” Though they got plenty of practice at that, too. “Yeah! Yeah, let’s go on a fork adventure.”

It didn’t feel like much of an adventure. They walked to the table and grabbed a fork, trying not to sigh as Wren popped open her tupperware. It smelled… interesting. Like a lot of things at once. Felix, unsure where to start, stuck his fork in. “Yeah. That’s — That’s totally how it goes. Um, I think.” They tried to remember that meal at the Raven, the one that looked terrible but tasted fine. They did their best to convince themself that Wren’s potato salad would be the same as they brought the fork to their mouth.

—

Wren swallowed hard around the small lump that formed in her throat. Ever since all but crash landing at Wicked’s Rest she had been endlessly surprised by the kindness people showed her. She hadn’t ever really considered before that this may be the norm for humans and their society. Felix was offering her kindness simply because they wanted to. She couldn’t say it made her any less perpetually terrified of those around her, but at least it was comforting to know that kindness was the go to for a lot of people she had, thankfully, already met. 

“Oh, yes! I think so, too. Something about being bad before you can be good at it,” Wren agreed cheerfully. She peeled carefully at the wrapper around the base of the muffin before taking a bite. One of the things that Wren had also come to love was all the various foods humans had to offer. The muffin was sweet and the sugar went right to her head with how ready she felt to bounce all around. “Wow! This is amazing, Felix!” Maybe baking was something people were just good at off the bat. Felix seemed to be at least. 

Nodding along, Wren took Felix’s words into consideration. So they weren’t good at it off the bat then. Practice was the key. She’d have to keep that in mind for herself. All wasn’t lost. “I get that, though. I’m always stressed—especially about things I can’t control, which I’ve been told isn’t great for me, but it’s hard not to and all. Do you make cookies or anything? Or cupcakes? Those are baked goods, right?” Okay, reign it in, Wren. That wasn’t a normal thing to ask someone—a fellow human. It took her best efforts sometimes to not look like a fish out of water. 

Wren clapped her hands together and smiled expectantly. She hoped that they didn’t feel too pressured right now, but this was a big step for her. Cooking and trying to offer it to people without having an anxiety filled meltdown. She thought she was doing pretty well so far. “So? Thoughts? Concerns? Comments? Questions?” She asked, trying to do her best to not look over eager, but failing. 

—

She was right about that, at least; the first step to being really good at something was being really bad at it. Felix’s mother had been particularly fond of that saying, smiling each time one of her children came to her to admit to some mistake. That’s how you learn, she’d tell them. So… maybe Wren’s potato salad was effectively poison. Maybe Felix would regret eating it. But this was how she was going to learn, wasn’t it? Their mother had helped them with that, so maybe it was their duty to pay it forward and help Wren.

They smiled as she took a bite of the muffin, pleased that she seemed to enjoy it. “I’ll give you the recipe, if you want. Um, baking is — It’s about being precise, but knowing when to improvise. My mom used to say it was like jazz music. There’s notes, but some of it is you making it up as you go.” 

It was easy to see themself in Wren. In her stress, her anxiety. Felix had a pretty good idea how she was feeling right now, and they wanted to help. If that meant eating bad potato salad, they’d eat it. “Yeah,” they confirmed with a nod. “I make cookies a lot. Cupcakes sometimes, too, but I’d rather just make a normal cake. I don’t know why, but I like normal cakes better than cupcakes. Those are baked goods, yeah.” Man, Wren wasn’t kidding when she said she was new to cooking. Maybe she was a sheltered kid, someone who’d just moved to town for college or something. She was about the right age, and Felix had heard that some college kids didn’t even know how to do laundry when they first got to their dorms.

The potato salad sat on their tongue, and it was… wrong. All of it was wrong. The texture, the taste. It was hard not to make a face as it settled, and when Felix swallowed, it was… a little too hard of a gulp to pass for neutrality. They opened their mouth, now blessedly free of “potato salad” and tried to think of something to say.

Luckily, they were rescued by an approaching person. The man wore a red shirt and red shirts, with a red had sporting claws on either side. He came to stand beside Wren, the smile on his face a little too wide. “Shrimptastic day we’re having!” He greeted, and Felix, eyes wide, nodded.

“Um. Yeah?”

“Have you seen our booth? We’re just over there. We have pamphlets. Would you like a pamphlet?”

—

Jazz music. Wren wasn’t quite sure what that was, but she could figure it out. The website Google had been her best friend since stumbling right into the thick of human culture. “Sure! That would be really nice.” She nodded, “improvise… kind of like how I did in the potato salad!” She supplied, looking proud of herself. The website did say that you could throw whatever you wanted into it and it’d more than likely work. 

“A normal cake! Like the big ones with a bunch of layers? I saw that on a TV show.” Wren gasped, trying to refrain from getting more muffin crumbs all over her sweater. She wasn’t entirely successful, but that was fine. “Do you have a favorite flavor or anything? I’ve heard that you can’t go wrong with chocolate. I like chocolate loads.” She informed them. Taking another bite of her muffin had her head bobbing along happily as if there was music she was dancing to. 

Mouth full of muffin, Wren didn’t get to hear what Felix thought of her potato salad when someone came up beside her. She did her best not to choke on the baked goods in her startled state. Thankfully with that came not shrieking out loud like the impulse had been. Wren quickly chewed and swallowed, wiping at the crumbs on her face. ‘Shrimptastic day’... what did that mean? Shrimp were delicious, she’d allow that.

“Um, yes?” Wren wasn’t sure if that was the right answer. “What is your booth about? Shrimp?” Someone did say that they had been given a bunch of shrimp they didn’t want. Her brown eyes flickered over to Felix to see if they had any earthly idea what could be going on with this shrimp enthusiastic person. “I didn’t realize so many people here liked shrimp that much.”

—

Felix didn’t want to encourage more potato salads like this one. They really didn’t. But saying, no, nothing like what you did with the potato salad, do the opposite of whatever you did with the potato salad would probably hurt Wren’s feelings, and that wasn’t at all what Felix wanted. So they grit their teeth together in a forced grin and nodded their head. “Yeah! Like that!” Surely not every attempt would be as bad as this one, right?

“Yeah, like that. I like chocolate a lot, but I have to be careful how I make it. I’m lactose intolerant — uh, which means I don’t process cow’s milk well — so I have to, you know, use other ingredients instead. But you can make it work! And if you don’t have allergies to worry about, they make a lot of boxed good cake mixes. Pretty much all you have to do is add the wet ingredients!” Maybe that should be Wren’s first stepping stone if she wanted to be a baker. It was hard to mess up a boxed cake mix, wasn’t it?

It was strange, feeling grateful for a stranger approaching to talk about shrimp. After their experience at the theatre with Mona, Felix had little desire to talk about shrimp at all. But talking about shrimp would give them time to think of something nice to say about Wren’s potato salad, wouldn’t it? It was… was sticky a compliment? No, right? She probably hadn’t been going for sticky.

The man smiled at Wren, something strange behind his eyes. “Isn’t everything about shrimp? If it isn’t, it should be.” His eyes flickered down to the potato salad. “I spotted you from across the way. Your food looks very good. I think we might have similar ideologies.” He reached out, putting a hand on Wren’s arm in a way that was strange; like he wasn’t quite used to having hands. Felix blinked.

“Um, actually —”

The man continued as if they hadn’t spoken. “Of course people like shrimp. Who would deny shrimp? You wouldn’t, would you? Would you deny shrimp the respect they deserve? The fear? The awe? Be honest.”

—

“My friend Van is like that! She offered me medicine once when I cried at her work then got raw meat.” Wren informed Felix. You’re supposed to share stories with friends or people who would become friends, right? She was totally nailing this. Boxed mix sounded a lot easier than trying to bake from scratch. Maybe she’d have to give that a try. She could make something for her friends and hopefully they’d like it! “Oh, that sounds like a nice idea, thank you! I’ll give that a try. I can follow instructions, for the most part. Sometimes I like to do whatever I want since that’s more fun, but I’ll do my best to try to follow it all without too much change.” Jazz, jazz music. Had to follow it to make it work best, but with some changes is what Felix said.

The man had a certain look in his eye that was making the hair on the back of Wren’s neck stand up. She didn’t have a good gut feeling, but when did she ever? This could just be her anxiety talking, knowing her. Poppy always poked at her mercilessly for her fear over the smallest things that she wouldn’t be able to sense real danger if it smacked her in the face. Was this one of those situations? She wasn’t equipped to be able to handle this, she was sure. 

“Oh, ha! Um, thanks!” Wren laughed nervously, the brief grimace on her face quickly being hidden by an equally as uncomfortable looking smile. “I didn’t think everything should be about shrimp, to be honest. Isn’t there other things to enjoy like… I don’t know? Nature? Um, stuff that isn’t shrimp? Right, Felix?” She quickly looked at them with a wild look in her eyes. She didn’t want to do this alone.

Shaking the man’s hand off as casually as Wren could manage, she looked at a loss for words. “Aren’t shrimp usually just eaten instead? Is that what your pamphlet is about? A shrimp eating contest sounds like fun!” 

—

“Oh, hey, I know Van!” And… they also knew that humans weren’t supposed to eat raw meat. Felix could handle it — the jaguar was built for digesting raw meat, and they did share a body — but it made human sick. Maybe Van didn’t know that, or Wren didn’t, or both; either way, Felix felt it was their responsibility, as an adult in the equation, to say something. “You cooked the meat, though, didn’t you? You really need to cook meat before you eat it. I mean, um, there are some kinds you can eat raw, I think — like sushi and stuff — but for the most part, you’re really supposed to cook it.”

At least she seemed willing to accept boxed cake mix. Felix thought it would be a big step for Wren, the kind of thing that could really push her in the right direction. Boxed cake mix would be so much better than this potato salad, because anything would be better than this potato salad. Not that Felix was going to say that. They were not breaking kids’ spirits. “They usually put the instructions on the box with the cake mix. But, um, you know, you can still add stuff to it! Like… chocolate chips.” And not onions, they wanted to add. Definitely not onions.

They wondered what had drawn this shrimp-loving man their way. Surely he didn’t really want Wren’s potato salad, did he? He kept looking at it, something like hunger in his eyes. Felix moved to grab him a fork when Wren spoke, drawing their attention away. “Um, yeah. Shrimp is cool, but it’s not everything. Haha.”

It was like a flip had been switched. The more Wren spoke about shrimp, the less friendly the man seemed. His hand dropped from her shoulder, his eyes narrowed. “Eaten? You would eat them? Shrimp are to be adored! Worshiped! Eaten, perhaps, but only after a natural death. Only to keep them close, to make them a part of you.” He reached into his pocket, retrieving a pamphlet which he shoved into Wren’s face. “You will educate yourself. You must.” 

“Hey,” Felix took an uncertain step forward. “Look, you’re being a little —”

The man turned to them, reaching out and shoving them. It wasn’t a particularly hard shove, but it caught them off guard enough to send them stumbling backwards and make them drop the tray of muffins they were holding. “You cannot possibly understand,” the man mumbled, seeming to grow more and more frantic. “You could never. But you!” He turned back to Wren, gesturing again to the potato salad. “You must! Come with me. Come with us.” As he said it, he reached into his pocket again, this time producing… a shrimp.

—

“Oh, wow! She’s great, huh?” Wren smiled happily. Oh. Right. Humans didn’t eat raw meat. Sometimes she forgot how far away from human she was the longer she was in her human form. Though, then stuff like this would happen and she’d be very much reminded how human she wasn’t. “Um, sure! Yes. I definitely cooked the sausage. Don’t worry. I am very much a food safety expert. I watched two videos on the site YouTube about it. Especially since I didn’t want anyone getting sick from my potato salad!” She looked it up after realizing that human stomachs couldn’t handle what a siren’s stomach could. 

Wren really wished that they were still talking about boxed cake mix instead of shrimp. Which, that was something she never thought she’d think. She loved eating shrimp. This whole shrimp loving man seemed to take it to another level than her casual enjoyment. Casual enjoyment of shrimp was also another thing that Wren didn’t think she would ever think to herself before. The longer Wren is in Wicked’s Rest, the more she is convinced it’s an odd place to live. It worked out, though, she was pretty sure she also was considered odd to most people.

Blinking owlishly, Wren merely stared at the man with wide eyes. This… was so bizarre. She flinched back with the pamphlet being shoved in her face. At least this wasn’t as distressing as Regan taking her to see a dead bird. Wren had almost transformed in front of the woman with how upset she was, so she would take the building anxiety over that any day. Especially when it was with some man insisting that she educate herself on the worship of shrimp.

“Hey!” Wren said sharply the moment that he shoved Felix. “That was mean! Don’t touch my friend!” She shook her head rapidly as he seemed to get more frantic and set his sights on her instead. Snatching the shrimp out of the man’s hand, Wren bit off the shrimp leaving only the tail. She chewed thoroughly and shook the tail around, “that’s what I think of your shrimp! Go away! You touch my friend again and I’ll claw a chunk of you and your shrimp! Again!” Wren scowled at the man, shoving his shoulder hard to get him away from the pair. “Get out of here, weirdo!” 

—

“Yeah! Van is great. And, um, so is cooking sausage. Before you eat it. Which you should do!” Did watching two YouTube videos make you an expert on something? It was hard to judge without knowing the length of the videos, Felix supposed. They’d seen videos on YouTube that were up to eight hours long, though they’d never ventured to watch any of them. There was every possibility that Wren was an expert on food safety, even if the content of her potato salad made them doubt that she was an expert at food anything. 

In any case, she was probably better with food than… this guy. This guy who was so angry at the prospect of them eating shrimp, a popular food item! Felix didn’t mind the shove, really — they’d suffered far, far worse, after all — but it was nice that Wren was so upset about it. They offered her a small, grateful smile. “I’m okay, Wren,” they assured her, glancing down at the muffins. At least they’d managed to let one person eat one before they were ruined. And Wren had said they were good!

They glanced back up, away from the muffins and back to the situation at hand. The situation which saw Wren… eating the man’s pocket shrimp. That couldn’t be healthy, could it? It had been in his pocket! Shrimp needed to be stored at certain temperatures, probably! Felix took an uncertain step forward, faltering when the shrimp man’s wail cut through the air.

“You would dare? What makes you think you’re worthy? What makes you think you’ve earned this?” He pointed a finger in Wren’s face, wagging it around. His own face was red with fury, growing impossibly redder as he was shoved away. He looked from Wren to Felix and back again, eyes narrowing. “We won’t forget this,” he said lowly. “You’ve made our list now. You!” He pointed to Wren. “Are an enemy of the shrimp.” 

And with that, he turned on his heel, stomping away and tossing the pamphlet behind him. 

Felix knelt, picking it up and flipping through it. “Um, that was… weird,” they admitted, shoving the pamphlet into their pocket. They’d find a garbage can to dump it in later. “It was nice of you to stand up for me, though. I really appreciate that. Are you okay?”

—

Felix insisted they were okay, but Wren felt so angry. How dare this man think he could just shove people around because they don’t like shrimp? All Felix’s hard work was on the grass. It made Wren’s heart hurt and that only increased her anger. She let out a shaky breath and managed a small smile in Felix’s direction. “I’m glad you’re okay, Felix. That wasn’t okay what he did! I’m very sorry for your muffins. That’s so mean of him. Mean people don’t deserve good things!” She turned her sharp glare to the man in question. 

“I would dare? No, you dare!” Wren threw back in return. Though it wasn’t the best comeback, but she was too mad to think of anything better. “Get your dumb finger out of my face, weirdo! I hope you stub your toe every morning when you wake up and every night when you go to bed! It hurts really bad and you deserve it!” Wren shrieked back at the man. “That shrimp wasn’t even that good so I’m not that worried about being on your list! List of bad shrimp recipes and storing, I bet!” She huffed. “Watch some long YouTube videos and maybe you’ll be a better person after!”

Enemy of the shrimp. Wren would eat shrimp for breakfast if it meant telling that man what’s what again. She huffed and knelt down to carefully pick up the now ruined muffins. “That was really weird. I don’t think normal people keep shrimp in their pockets.” Her head shook as she held the muffins with a sad sigh. “I’m sorry about your muffins, Felix. They were very yummy and he ruined them.” The younger girl sniffled, feeling the tears start to well in her big, brown eyes. “I’m fine! Sorry, I cry at everything.” Wren hiccuped weakly. “I’m just so sad that he was so mean to you! Maybe we could make muffins some other time? Ones that won’t end up on the grass.” 

—

The anger on her face was a familiar thing. Felix didn’t get mad often, didn’t tend to rage against any machine or whatever it was that people did when they were upset with the world at large, but the jaguar did. They felt his anger in their chest sometimes, burning and directionless, upset at a situation he had no control over but was stuck in all the same. Did Wren’s feel similar? Felix wondered, sometimes, how things felt when your body was only yours. Was it preferable? Or was it good to have that ‘out,’ that thing inside of you that you could point the finger at if things went too far? 

The shrimp man stormed off, not bothering to respond to Wren’s words. He’d said his piece, it seemed, put them both on some… list that Felix hoped wasn’t a literal thing. (He didn’t know their names, did he? Felix had called Wren by hers, but only her first name! You couldn’t do anything with just a first name. Could you? Anxiety ebbed in their chest.) Felix watched him go, unable to relax even after he’d disappeared into the crowd.

Turning to Wren, they tried to offer a comforting smile. They wanted to be a force of good, a steady thing to lean upon. It was hard; Felix hadn’t felt steady in years now. But Wren was clearly upset, even if she said she was fine. “I can make new muffins,” they assured her. “And, um, yeah. You could help. If you wanted to. Um… I don’t know about you, but I’m not really… feeling the picnic anymore. If you want, we could go back to my apartment, and I could show you how to make muffins? Maybe we can come back tomorrow and bring them. Does that sound okay?”

—

Using her free hand, Wren wiped beneath her eye where a tear had escaped. She felt like a tsunami inside right now. Everything was a swirling mix of chaotic emotions that she was having a hard time tampering down. She couldn’t remember a time she felt so angry and so upset in one breath. That man was just mean and he was mean to her friend. That wasn’t okay. She didn’t want her friends to be upset or hurt because other people didn’t know how to be kind. Part of her contemplated actually going flying for the first time in… well, ages, but immediately decided against it. She wouldn’t be any good flying like this, even if she already wasn’t the best flier there was. 

Wren managed a small smile in return. “That would be fun.” She agreed after a moment and a small sniffle. “I don’t think this picnic sounds very fun right now, either. That sounds like a lot more fun.” She sighed shakily, standing to her feet to reluctantly throw away the newly ruined muffins. Wren wiped her hands on her jeans and contemplated whether or not she wanted to take the potato salad with her to Felix’s apartment. Maybe people would enjoy it and she could come back for the tupperware container tomorrow when they brought the new muffins.

“Okay! Okay, muffin mission time. We got this.” Wren did her best to be optimistic after the torrent of emotions that had been swirling throughout her. “I’m thinking we make sure to taste two of them, one each, that way more than just one person gets to have them.” She reasoned, practically skipping beside Felix as they headed away from the picnic. The picnic definitely hadn’t gone like Wren envisioned, but she got something out of it regardless. More time with a new friend and apparently on the list of the shrimp… Whatever that may mean she could only hope for the best and be optimistic for what could come. Not everything had to be scary, right? Right.

[corrodedparadox]

wow looking at your rat king thing, you improved SO MUCH in the last two years. what did you feel helped you improve?

There’s a handful of things I would say but the main one was switching from a screenless tablet to an iPad!! Obviously iPads are kinda pricey so I can’t recommend it for everyone, but I genuinely feel like switching from a screenless tablet (I used to use Huion) to screened one REALLY helped me get a better grasp of everything, along with procreate just having an easier layout to use compared to the other programs I used (SAI and CSP) which made me less afraid to mess around with brushes and other fun things like halftone textures and chromatic abbreviations, ect ect . Definitely play around with brushes!! While a different brush won’t suddenly make you the Best Artist Ever, finding a brush that works well with your style/art process can help a TON (almost all my brushes are from @/thedawner brush packs, I highly recommend their brushes!! Lots of free packs too, I use the bonobo chalk as my main painting brush)

The other big thing is references!! I rarely used any references until like last year, I’ve been taking my own pose/expression/ect references (yes that means looking at a weird picture of you for like an hour to get the pose right but you get used to it) and going on walks to get nice landscape shots for my work (all my giant ass floating fish drawings are based on images I personally took), but if you don’t wanna do that websites like unsplash, Pexels, and pixabay are great for royalty free (VERY IMPORTANT, I have seen LOTS of artists end up in legal battles because they just used a random photo they got off Google that ended up being copyrighted) pictures and vectors to help get ya started.

The last major big thing is my drawing process in general!! I was hardwired to believe you HAD to do art in the steps of sketch, lineart, color, then shading all on separate layers. Don’t be afraid to use what process works for you! When I threw lineart out the window and started painting all on one layer it became WAY easier for me to block out shapes (highly recommend doing greyscale paint studies, it helps SOO much with more coherent color pallets and lighting) and really helps the entire work fell connected rather than a character that feels poorly overlaid on a separately drawn background.

Don’t be afraid to fuck around! Its art! It’s supposed to be messy and weird! Merge your layers! Use 30 different brushes because you feel like it!! Have fun and mess around with the process and see where it takes you!!!

[bunglegaydogs]

Hiiii I'm just sending an ask because they're all different posts (read : I'm lazy) so please don't mind me lol

First and foremost, YOU ARE AMAZING AT EXPRESSING YOUR THOUGHTS AND YOUR ESSAYS ARE ALWAYS SO NUANCED?? SO YOU SAYING THAT WAS A HUGE COMPLIMENT OMG- I love reading your bsd essays so much and it's just now that I realised that they're all your essays abaammw some of the best in the fandom really. I'm always baffled when in the middle of an essay you go "I may not be articulating my thoughts right" or "this is kind of just put together" because girl you're amazing! Never stop writing these please ajajahsbw ALSO! Hearing your little thoughts and feelings pop up in the middle of an essay makes it so endearing to me. Like, that's a whole ass person writing these many words just to express how much they like this show and they're so adorable! (So sorry if that's offensive idk if calling someone adorable is)

Also, completely unrelated lol but this is exactly why I prefer to ask people questions instead of googling! Knowing that the person explaining is a human has their own opinions and hearing their feelings and experiences is so much more better and relatable than reading stuff off a Google website. Also your pfp is the cutest everyone has cute pfps nowadays 😭 anyways yes cute pfp :D

Actually getting to the point now:

1) yes yes Oda and Dazai's relationship is so dear to me I love them sm and I adore seeing Atsushi all caring for his mentor 😭 he's basically Dazai's emotional support cat!! Dazai let the boy in please I'm begging you he can purr probably and it would melt away your stress pls pls (Maybe everyone in the ADA sees Atsushi as their emotional support cat...)

2) Mori is a piece a shit, and you should be allowed to say it. I'm never biased in my writing but I loathe that guy with my very being and the whole people who like Mori thing really got me reconsidering...was *I* the bad guy for not liking a character when I actively liked a character very similar to him? Then I realised, I completely respect and treat equally all the people who don't like/hate Dazai. I don't treat them any different just because they don't like a character. And that's what I should expect too!

There's no post defending Dazai, and yet I still like him because I accept his wrongdoings and want him to keep getting better, like Oda told him to. Yknow, the argument would be MUCH different if Dazai was a woman and not a man, imagine bashing someone for liking a teen girl and not liking the guy who groomed her to be his heir. Yeah, really puts things into perspective. I'm not sexist, I treat (respectful) men and women equally, but Mori is just. No.

3) I haven't see it before in any canon source material but I feel like it's definitely true. It's clear that Dazai WANTS to want to keep living, but he can't bring himself to want it because of all the pain he's endured. He literally said in dark era that the reason he joined the mafia was to try and seek meaning in life by being close to death and violence. It's ironic, Dazai feels the most alive when he's about to LOSE that privilege. It could also mean that Dazai only realises the "value" in living when he's about to lose it. Perhaps he thinks of things he could've done, things he'll regret, and that helps him to stop before he actually does it. But in my opinion? I don't think he finds anything of worth in that time. He just convinces himself that he does. This is a personal hc but it's probably likely to be the case.

If you've listened to the song My R, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.(totally recommend btw!).The girl in the song speaks to herself about her woes and the 'other' version of her comforts her telling her about all the things that she DOES have, but by the end of the song, she has lost everything of meaning and she can't comfort the "girl". It is only revealed that the girls she comforted are different versions of HERSELF that she stopped from jumping.

Anyways, in conclusion, SOMEBODY PLEASE GIVE THIS BOY A HUG HE DESERVES IT

oh my god oh my god oh my god

i am sat here on the verge of TEARS in my goddamn chuuya cosplay

okay okay give me a second i need to collect myself

you are singlehandedly the SWEETEST person ever im sobbing

literally i cant- thank you so fucking much! you dont understand how much this all means to me WOWOWOWOW <33333333

literally, my brain doesnt let me consume my content positively and so i always think that theyre quite bad or that im the only person who thinks that or that im saying all the wrong things lol

i have so many words and thoughts floating around in my little brain that i just cant find the words for, so thats honestly what those rants are, my delusional 4am thought processes when i deep things too much

and YOU THINK??? genuinely, thank you!!! i love reading people's essays and thoughts, so hearing you say that genuinely just warms my absolute heart <3

and yes yes i do get quite sidetracked very often and start just rambling and adding my own personal twists- genuinely i thought that was annoying for people to read, but you're just putting a big smile on my face right now :) and PLS DONT THINK CALLING ME ADORABLE IS OFFENSIVE I LITERALLY GIGGLED READING THAT SHIT FR. <333

i like to add personal experiences and thoughts into it, just to get my point across, put it into an irl perspective and let people also relate and see what im getting at. (unfortunately) i have the same experiences as most of these characters, and so that is why they're so dear to me and why i get very defensive and passionate writing about them!

and yes! getting your answers and stuff from irl people instead of strange irrelevant responses is much more preferred lol. it's more raw and in depth and definitely a lot more personal! and thank you so much!!! it's genuinely one of my favourite dazai panels istg hes such a pretty mf

1.) i love love LOVE their dynamic, i think it's one of my favourites in the show along with skk and ranpo and yosano. it really fucking hits hard, as all family dynamics do with me fr, idk what it is about them, they just get me. and yes!!! i love when atsushi shows that he cares for dazai it MAKES ME FEEL NICE <3 and that's so real oh my god hes a tiger please PLEASE he can fucking PURR (there was a tumblr post i saw, i can try and find it but it made me actually cry laughing)

THIS ONE i was fucking howling but yes! their relationship is also one that really really gets to me! and yes, he is just the ada's support cat, it's canon, i'm ranpo's sweets

2.) thank you thank you THANK YOU mori is an actual degenerate human being. he's not made to be liked or appreciated or revered, it's just fucking AEUGH. i'm not going to demonise the people who enjoy him as a character, but seriously, it's a big red flag to overlook the canon pedophilia. i saw someone make a defense against him saying "yes, but he's never actually touched kids, so that doesn't mean anything" SORRY? they also went on to say that he "restrains himself" from having pedophilic thoughts with elise, and basically praised him for that. needless to say, it got me feeling fucking icky. and yes! i feel exactly the same. i always think that "oh, maybe i'm the awful one for not liking him? am i bad?" even though, no, i'm perfectly fine thinking that way and i am allowed to think that way. and exactly again! dazai is my favourite character, but i recognise his flaws and his mistakes and don't forgive them. but he's actively trying to "be a better person" (i say this in quotation marks because dazai sees everything he does as inevitably pointless, but still wishes to uphold oda's dying words. i am definitely going to make a post about this in the near future lol) and i dont make my analyses biased towards him, and i stay on neutral ground UNLESS personal opinion comes up, to which i then say that it's my personal opinion, not fact, and that it's anybody's choice to think however they want. if somebody doesn't like dazai; okay! i'm interested in talking with them, and we can both talk about things we're very passionate about and have healthy conversations! unlike some people i have seen on reddit, goddamn. but no, we're not the bad people for hating that knobhead fr. we should all treat and be treated the same as any other fan in the fandom and get along, and i wish we could ALL do that in non-toxic ways. 99% of this fandom are the loveliest people ever, but that 1% just needs to get a grip like omg. we should treat others how we want to be treated, regardless of who favours what ship and who likes what character. and real!!! if gender roles were reversed for dazai, this would be much more problematic, and that's upsetting! dw dw, i dont think its sexist, i think its putting things into perspective bc, either way, its shitty how he was treated. i fucking hate mori. whenever i see people defending him to like, the bone, like not getting into a decent discussion and being civil but instead bashing everyone who says otherwise and completely overlooking the abuse, manipulation, grooming, pedophilia and just him as a sick and twisted person in general, it just really irks me. as someone who has in fact had to deal with separate strands of abuse including many fucking counts of sexual abuse and pedophilia, it disgusts me seeing people overlooking it and it makes me feel fucking sick. that shit is not just something to be overlooked because of the fact that you enjoy mori as a character, he's not supposed to be a character that's consumed positively, he's a bad guy. a lot of characters in bsd are morally grey, but mori is just fucking morally black. he's downright evil.

(TW for suicide and self harm next btw :) )

3.) yes yes yessss!!! again, bringing personal stuff into it, i deal heavily with the whole topic of suicide and self harm. i've attempted twice and still deal with thoughts of it every single day, as well as self harm. so, this is one of my main reasons of dazai being my absolute favourite character, because of the representation and actual presentation of these topics. at first, we're shown them in a whimsical and whacky way, then it gets so much darker once we get into the dark era. it's a complete tonal shift, and it really sets in the gravity of the situation for him. and, as you said, he wants to have that ability to want to keep going and living, and he wants to be able to put the effort in, but he can't/ he physically cannot. as much as he would want to try, he can't. and yes, when he said that it fucking BROKE me fr. just at the chance that he's not able to keep living on anymore as a human is the one thing that keeps him alive, i fucking love asagiri's writing, it's so complex and beautiful. and its so so so real!!! youre literally right idc lmao. youve so eloquently said it im crying, youre putting all my thoughts into words <3

and yes!!! i have listened to the song, i absolutely LOVE it! and i never fail to think of dazai whenever i listen to it </3 and, i also think it's very very much like dazai, because of the multiple different versions we see of him too. chuuya hasn't exactly changed much, but he has gone through some very very complex and deep character developments, such as in fifteen and stormbringer. hes a lot more "tame" and respectful now, and a lot more mature. (except with dazai lmao) aku, we see he's changed slightly thanks to atsushi, but still no major character fucking flip arounds. all these characters we've watched slowly become better and more complex throughout the series. dazai? he just does 180s every single fucking year. hes different at 14 and 15 than he is at 18. hes different at 18 than he is at 20-22. and the different faces he puts on for each and every person, all his masks that he has. there's much variety to dazai; you never know what you'll get. there's so many different sides to him, because he doesn't know who he is. as odasaku saw him, "a lost child crying out". no matter the age, no matter the state, dazai is always going to be harbouring that broken child with him, trying to hide it and build up walls around it, because the only time he's ever shown it, he's gotten hurt or betrayed and lost some key figures in his life. trust issues much?

anyways i am sorry i am sorry i rambled too much lmao

in conclusion, YES, GIVE HIM A FUCKING HUG OH MY GOD PLEASE I JUST NEED SOMEONE TO HUG HIM PLS GOD LET ATSUSHI GIVE HIM A BIG HUG WHEN HE COMES OUT OF MEURSAULT I SWEAR-

thank you so so so SO much for your kind words!!! sweetest person EVER fr <333333

thank you my love!!! /p have a lovely day/night :) <3

[passportinspection]

Remake (from memory) of this. Gordon and Borrower!Barney hanging out in Gordon's room. Poster suggestions welcome. :>

Extremely long rant about this thing's creation under the cut.

aaaAAAUUUGGGHHH okay. So imo this poster is kind of a mess and I'm not happy with the lighting at all, but if I work on it for a single second longer I will simply cry.

So there's a gordon model on the sfm workshop that has outfits like the one above, and I was quite determined to make this in gmod, so I had to learn how to port ragdolls from sfm to gmod. You'd think this would be a fairly easy task - they're both source, after all, and there are tutorials - but it was a multiple-weeks-long journey of roadblocks followed by breakthroughs followed immediately by additional roadblocks. There was vital knowledge not in the tutorials. And I didn't fully succeed, anyway - the above image is his sfm body with his gmod head so so so carefully aligned to it in-game (there is a whole additional invisible gordon body in this image). If I wanted to put him in a different pose, I would have to re-align his head. Which is, like... way harder than it has any right to be. Sooo much harder. And that's with the "reference" head I have - like, okay, sfm-gordon's body does have a head attached, but the issue is that it doesn't have the correct facial posing. So I use it as a reference for placing gmod-gordon's head. I know why getting a functioning sfm-gordon head in gmod is harder than than the rest of him (or at least I think I do), and I think I know what I need to do to make it happen (though it will sacrifice a bit of his sfm-level complexity), but I don't yet know how, and at this point spending like 2 hours getting his head aligned juuuust right in-game is so much less time and effort than figuring out how to do that, so... Later, I'll figure it out. Maybe.

But yeah, there was a hell of a lot of very frustrating trial-and-error involved in that whole process because it's very difficult to find resources for a lot of stuff unless you already have the knowledge to know what to look for.

And that was my first trial.

I liked this desk model the best, but it didn't have a bumpmap, so I generated one for it, which made me feel very fancy and tech-proficient, but really all I had to do was open up the texture in vtfedit and click "generate normal map" or whatever. Oh, yeah, I'd been looking into porting models from sketchfab and such into gmod for a while, off-and-on, a while back (and dabbled a tiiiny bit in map-editing too), so the knowledge from then definitely helped me a lot. I probably wouldn't have gotten this poster done if it wasn't for that, because at that point it would have all been too arcane and overwhelming.

But yeah, you can't even actually see anything but the top of the desk, so I could have just chosen a good texture and used a rectangle instead, and the bumpmap is barely visible in this poster, lol.

Then there's the mousepad. It's a re-textured street sign, by the way. :) I put an absurd amount of effort into that too. I got the black mesa logo off google, but the large majority of the effort to turn it into a mousepad involved messing with the texture with tedious in-game tools.

Then, that book, I got it off a free 3d models website, because I didn't like any of my already-available options. I had to learn a bit about UV maps through trial and error in blender to get it to work right, because nothing is easy. That's the first time I've ever actually ported a non-source object into gmod, so that's cool. (Gordon being the first time I've ever ported something at all. To my recollection, anyway...?) Oh, and I had to learn about how to convert a more modern texture format into valve's obsolete one. That involved being subjected to sights like this:

Thank you, developer.valvesoftware.com. (Though really, this part wasn't that hard. I ignored the scary math(?) and it was fine.)

Next was the mug. All the mug models I had were not smoothly circular enough for me (Or I think maybe there was one or two, but I really didn't like their shape either way). They were quite obviously made of a few flat planes arranged into a circle-ish shape, and that just wouldn't do. So I went and found another free 3d model, slapped the black mesa logo on it, and put it in gmod. I... Did not consider how much more complex it would be as something intended for 3d art / ads rather than video games; I think it has more vertices than Gordon, LOL. It's not so many that it actually lags the game, so it doesn't really matter, but I do find it funny.

And then those papers! I remembered that letter sent to Gordon from the PS2 Half-Life case had a coffee mug stain on it, and I wanted it on the table, but, remembering how much of a pain it was to make the mousepad, I opted to actually create my own models for them this time. They're just rectangles, after all, so it's not like the modeling part was going to be a challenge.

Well, it wasn't a challenge, really, but it did take quite a bit longer than I had expected, partially since I had to muddle through stuff I only sort of had an understanding of. Anyway, it took like, an hour and a half, or two hours? I finally get it into the game, and as I'm putting it on the table, I realize... The coffee stain is in black and white. OTL

So. I put the other page on top. Sad. I mean, I could have just added a free in-color coffee-stain png to the texture somewhere, but. *Gestures.* I had expended too much energy so far to be in the mood to do that.

And this barney model... It is cursed somehow. Or it hates me. The more you pose it, the more resistant it becomes to being posed. The posing tools just.. don't do what you ask them to do after a certain point. So I wasn't super happy with the pose but it was good enough. ToT Originally I wanted to post 3 posters with them in different poses as if they were having a conversation, but yeah, I am not posing that Barney any more, lol. It may have been the fault of the tool I used to make him Small, I'm not sure. Will need further testing.

And THEN.

I take 18 different lightbounce renders, writing down the settings I used and whatever I did differently each time, trying to feel out the tool and find a render I really like. (Last time I kinda just did whatever and settled on an early render I liked without really bothering to figure it out much). At render #18, I get one I'm happy with, so I throw it into GIMP and- oh, now it looks different and bad. Wtf. I try a different image editing program and the same thing happens. I google the issue and decide it probably has to do with some crappy default windows color settings getting imported into the program along with the image, and decide I'll go to bed and deal with that tomorrow. (Oh, yeah, I kept staying up way too late thinking I'd just finish the poster before I went to bed, but never finishing it...)

But no! As I find out the next day from more googling and experimentation, it turns out the windows photo app auto-"enhances" your photos. I'd been judging the renders by how they looked in the app this whole time, so the way it looks in GIMP is how it actually looks. All that experimentation on what looks best the night before... Done on the basis of how they looked after windows "enhanced" them without me knowing.. OTL

And so today I do some more lightbounce render experimentation. I try again and again, but I can't get it to look the way I was able to make it look before, even accounting for the auto-"enhancement". No clue what I did different that night, but okay. So I settle for the way the renders have decided to look tonight, and try to get one that I like the best out of the options it's giving me, but... This tool was created by arcane wizards. This tool is a wild, untamed beast. Even in the same session, I'll be like, "How did I do that and how do I make it happen again." Eventually I kind of gave up and just worked with the most inoffensive one I could generate. I suspect this tool wasn't designed with such small scenes in mind.

The main light source render - well, i hardly experimented with it, because I just wanted to be done with this freakin' thing already.

Anyway, that's... most of it. How long has it been? Like a month? And I was working on this nearly every day. All just for this thing. But it consumed me, man. I couldn't focus on anything else.

Maybe now I can do other things... Like I said, I'm really not happy with the lighting, but I'm so excited to just put this behind me. orz Hopefully my dissatisfaction doesn't turn into an un-ignorable need to keep fiddling with it. I refuse. I refuse! I am doing something else now!

Oh, however! In the process of all that, I may have found out a way to be able to facepose resized-barney, something as-of-yet impossible for me. Still have to try it out. Exciting stuff...