#my silly brain was like look at all the elements

[bearitt-creations]

Cuties!

Chibi toons <333

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

2 & 3 for the book asks :)

2. Did you reread anything? What?

... okay, so.

I listened to The Foxhole Court trilogy as audiobooks (and read the Sunshine Court as an eBook after).

And then I went back and reread the the trilogy as eBooks because there were a lot of names to keep up with and I felt like I missed a lot the first time around.

And then I still didn't understand Andrew's character, so I read the entire trilogy from his PoV (a fanwork, but a very complete fanwork).

I have no defense except that this series is fucking insane.

3. What were your top five books of the year?

I am choosing to count series as one "book" and also doing a top 10 because I read a lot of really good books so, in no particular order,

The Poppy War trilogy by R.F. Kuang

The Baru Cormorant trilogy by Seth Dickinson

Lady Susan by Jane Austen

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Poor Thing by Alasdair Gray

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

and as a bonus because I accidentally put it in the wrong place before and therefore didn't count it

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

[imwritingthefout]

A mask of my own face

I love this photo it’s so silly :>

Summary:

reader is worried about ford and his recent... outbursts. they decide to check on him, but find him at the wrong time, or rather, they don't find him, but someone else in his body.

basically: reader gets fucked by bill cipher in ford's body and kinda likes it.

(the title is the song by lemon demon bc it fits)

Warnings: non con elements/ dubious consent, rough smut, p in v sex, some fluff at the end, a little angst but it’s fine in the end

also crossposted on ao3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ford was acting… different. More distant than usual, more…. Off-putting.

He always had a sort of off-kiltered charm in the way he interacted with you, always flipping between being overly confident in himself, and tripping over his own words at the sight of you. Like something in his brain didn’t compute that you were together, that you were his. You got used to this after a few months of dating the researcher, and it evened out for a bit… but now it seems he’s reverted back to his old ways, from before you started dating.

One second he would be holding you tight, saying how much he loved you and wanted you by his side for the rest of his life, but then the next he would push you away to go ‘meditate’ in his lab. He would stay there for hours, only coming up for more coffee. (and strangely enough, to shove forks into his hands when he thought you weren’t looking)

You decided that enough was enough when one evening you realised you hadn't seen him all day. He must've gotten up before you to go to his lab, and hadn’t come up since then.

You went on a search for him all around the house, hoping he wasn't in that god-forsaken lab, but it seems god wasn’t on your side.

When you found him, you saw him sitting hunched over at his desk, writing something down aggressively. You tried to gently touch his shoulder, but the movement caused him to jump so high up from his chair he almost hit the ceiling. You, of course, were startled by the sudden movement and took a step back from him.

He slowly turned to you and his face…. His eyes…. Something about them was wrong. Maybe it was the lack of sleep on his part or your worrying, but you could swear his eyes looked… off. They were slightly different than you remembered, but you decided to brush it off for the time being, more focused on talking some sense into your boyfriend.

“Hey ford? Can i… talk to you?” you said gently, trying not to frighten him again. He shook his head a bit, as if trying to shake off some grub from his face and turned to you with an annoyed look. “Not now, honey . Can’t you see I'm working?” He said the pet name with a mocking voice, as if he was making fun of you for thinking you’re more important than his work.

“I know you are, but you're starting to worry me… when was the last time you ate? Or drank water? Or even went to the bathroom?” you tried to push back the uncomfortable feeling threatening to overtake your words, your voice slightly shaking when you asked him the questions. 

“It doesn’t matter . All that matters is finishing this page” and with that he went back to his desk, sitting down and ignoring you as if you didn’t exist.

Now you were starting to get angry. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Your health is important! If you don't take care of yourself then you won’t live to see your progress come to fruition!” you put your hand on his shoulder again, more firmly this time. “I made you dinner. Now you’re going to come with me, eat dinner, drink some water and go to sleep. Do you understand?” you turned him around in his chair to look at you. He seemed to flip through several emotions before deciding on one. You didn't quite know what it was, but he was smiling, so you thought he might have finally come to his senses and decided to take a break.

You were only half right.

“You know what? You’re right, toots. I'll take a break, but only if i can take you too” he brought you onto his lap in one swift, strong motion and put his lips against your neck. The sudden movement made a chill run up your spine. You didn’t know if you were more turned on or worried, but ultimately decided that maybe this’ll help ground him and bring the ford you loved back.

You wrapped your hands around his neck and kissed him passionately. It took a moment for him to register what was happening until he kissed you back, hungrily kissing you and suddenly biting at your tongue. It wasn’t something you were used to, and it definitely surprised you, but it wasn’t unwelcomed.

You pulled away a little and he went back to attacking your neck with his lips and teeth, leaving various marks that made your breath hitch. His calloused hands started exploring your body as if it was his first time, awkwardly angling his fingers to touch every part of you from your ankles to your shoulders, and finally down to your breasts.

“God you’re mine now, aren’t you?” The question confused you, since you’ve been dating for a while now, but you decided to go along with it. Maybe it was a new kink of his “yes i’m all yours” you punctuate your point by gently scraping your nails down his chest and onto the waistband of his pants. He groaned at the feeling of your nails on him, his chest puffing up to meet your touch. You chuckle at his desperation. “So needy… you’ve missed me, haven't you?” you tease him lightly, but it didn’t affect him like it usually does. Instead he seems… unfazed “sure i have” he then picks you up and moves you so you’re lying chest down on his desk, and he’s behind you, pushing your middle down so your ass is up in the air for him.

He stands up and you can hear him opening his belt buckle behind you. He seems to be struggling, so you try to turn to him and help him, but he only pushes you down more. “Stupid.. Human… clothes… ugh” you hear him mumbling, but you can’t say anything when you suddenly feel his cold hands under your shirt, feeling you up. You moan under his touch, then hiss as he pinches your waist in an unpleasant way. 

“Hey-ah!” you try to scold him, but are interrupted by the feeling of cold air hitting your sensitive area. Ford has pulled down your pants and underwear, and is now angleing himself behind you. You moan as you feel him push himself against you, his chest flat against your back. It takes him a second to push himself inside you, but when he does, he fills you up immediately. 

You groan at the sharp pain mixed with the pleasure of having him inside you after so long without him. Before you register what's happening, he starts thrusting into you wildly, with no rhythm or consistency. You try your best not to moan, but it's hard when you feel him pushing into you in such a harsh way. 

He holds your hips firmly, trying to stop your squirming. “Come on- ah~ do the thing” you hear him grunting behind you. It feels so good, but the statement still confuses you through the fog of pleasure. What does he mean by ‘the thing’? Your train of thought is stopped when his hand travels to your throat, choking you a little. The sudden feeling of lightheadedness makes you even hornier. This doesn’t feel like something ford would do, but damn it turns you on.

His thrusts start to even out, he doesn't slow down but now they have more of a rhythm. With each one the desk starts to creak under you. It’s straight up animalistic the way he pounds into you, holding onto you like you’re his toy, only used for his pleasure. You feel him twitching inside you, getting close to his release. You clench around him the way you know he likes, and suddenly he cums inside of you. You feel the pleasure inside you come to a peak as he continues to thrust at the same pace, even though he just came. 

The pleasure quickly turns into overstimulation as he continues at his rough pace, not letting you go until he finishes inside you again. Your moans turn into screams as you can't even form a coherent thought. At this point you almost reach a second orgasm, but when he suddenly pulls out at you, you’re forced to come down from your high. You whine at the loss and turn around to see him with his hands up in shock, looking down at you guiltily. 

“What's wrong ford?” you look up at him with lustful eyes, wanting him to continue. 

“I.. uh- nothing is wrong! I'm sorry!” What is he apologising for? “It’s alright, but can you please continue?” now you were frustrated, hoping he would get the hint and continue fucking you. 

“Ye-yeah sure.. Of curse” he gently put his hands on your hips, almost hesitating before feeling you up. He gently runs his hand down your stomach and lands on your thigh, stabilising you before slowly entering you. You moan at the sudden change in him. “What has gotten into you- ah!” you moan as he softly circles your clit with his fingers while he starts thrusting into you. You put your hands around his neck and he buries his head in your chest. You hear him mumbling something but you can’t understand it. 

He starts pushing in and out of you gently, and the stark contrast from just a second ago makes you confused. What is with him today? You try to dwell on it, but when he starts kissing your chest, fondling your breast with his mouth, your thought process is cut short. 

Thanks to his expert fingers on your clit and his even thrusting, you go over the edge. You moan his name as you pull him up to kiss him. It all feels like too much as he stops moving, focusing on kissing you. He pulls out shortly after, taking his time now.

“Does this mean you’re gonna take a break? I think dinner is getting cold” you say softly, kissing his cheek.

“What? Oh yeah- yeah- of course honey” when he says the pet name this time, it feels genuine, like it just rolls off his tongue naturally. You look at him, and find his familiar eyes looking back into yours- slightly confused but loving and caring. This is your ford. The one you fell in love with.

You try to pull yourself off the desk but your legs start wobbling, so ford takes you by the waist and guides you up the stairs. “I’m sorry” he apologises once again, but you reach up to stroke his cheek “it’s alright, i kind of… liked it”

You see a flicker of something dangerous in his eye before it switches to looking terrified, then concerned. “Well.. I'm glad you liked it, but I don't know what came over me. I’m still sorry if i hurt you, my dear” you thought he might be hiding something from you, but that was a discussion for another day. For now, you got your old ford back, and that’s all that matters.

“It’s.. alright. Just give me a warning next time. Jeez” you laugh a little, and you see he starts to relax against you. 

“Yeah.. i’ll try” he seems to be lost in thought, but as you enter the kitchen and he sees the dinner you made him, he suddenly loses his train of thought and looks at you like you just brought him the moon. 

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you so much! I'm starving!” he picks you up and kisses you, slightly wincing as he feels his muscles tense up after not being in use for who knows how long. He lets go of you and you both go to eat. You’ll have to talk to him sometime soon about your worries, but you stop yourself when you see the look he gives you; full of love and adoration, like you’re the sun to his earth. You decide to confront him another day. You wouldn’t want to ruin a perfect dinner, would you?

[jackshiccup]

auuoou%#^uuuughhhh*&^76!@%$#!%$08*#E&auUUGOhghhhh

Heyy 🤓☝️so um httyd in the god of war universe (they’re aesir!)

And have design stuff

I rewatched god of war gameplays and felt very self indulgent so here they are <3

[drawing-you-as-a-critter]

Hi, yes, do you want to have a doodled drawing of a character, animal, object or other being as some kind of creature? Some sort of beast? Some crawling little thing?

You're in luck! I am opening up the sign to my silly business! For the low low price of NOTHING I will doodle a creature for you based on a concept or design you bring forward. Based on fantastic blogs like @making-you-in-spore or @making-your-fave-in-fr, now you get to have all of the fun with infinitely more possibilities! Who knows what my brain will come up with? I certainly don't!

The only things I ask are that we avoid NSFW, violent or offensive content, and that we do not end up sending in extremely specific requests. If you start listing off design elements you want, it becomes less of a fun doodle design for fun and more something I have to really work to make happen, so to avoid burn out I have decided not to take these kinds of requests. I will, however, take these sorts of prompts for a discounted price on my commissions! For any other stipulations, feel free to ask, or you can check my FAQ down below.

To tempt you, I have left below a few examples of my past experiments. Feast your eyes on what you could have and consider following for more juicy monster beast content delivered right to your door step with a pretty bow.

If you've looked this far you are seeing older art! Isn't that cool? Also, here's a cookie. 🍪

Frequently Asked Questions:

Can I use these creatures as inspiration for my own characters or designs? Yes! I am not overly attached to any of these designs, however I will ask that you not just take the exact design I do and call it your own. Change it to make it your own instead! Add or remove elements! Go crazy, go wild!

Can I color and/or line these designs? Yes! Just make sure not to do so in a way that perpetuates hatred or hurts others, and don't claim the design itself as yours.

Can I use these creatures as icons, banners, or emojis? Yes, so long as you don't claim that they are yours!

Can you add (insert design element here) or change the design to be a certain way? No! These are supposed to be done as a fun quick exercise for me. If you want a design you can have changed and made the way you like exactly, then you'll have to go to my commissions as linked above.

Can I write lore or make stories based on the critters? Yes! Absolutely! Please share them with me!

[martinsorbit]

Oh hey, it's that sun guy.

After two arduous weeks (Aug 1st - Aug 15th) the Sun cold porcelain figure is COMPLETE! DONE! FINISHED! HE IS HERE IN ALL HIS GLORY

Its been a long (and at times painful) process considering the time it took for all the stuff to dry and for me to have free time to finish this project, but now the silly little jester is in my hands and he looks SO CUTE AND COOL!! HE EVEN HAS A HOOK

Thanks everyone for hyping me up and keeping me motivated during this <3 It literally meant a ton and helped me keep working on this bonkus shit

under the read more, there will be some more details about the figure itself and some more pictures ( Like materials, how much time it took, the process stuff etc)

feel free to ask me questions! thanks everyone!

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PROCESS!

Q: What materials did you use for this?

A: White Cold Porcelain, Hot Glue, super glue, pencils, pliers, paper clips, scissors, paint, all purpose varnish, paintbrushes, metalic pens

Q: How long did it take to make him?

A: Roughly two weeks

Q: Are you going to make moon too?

A: yes but it will take a while

Q: [X element of suns character design] is missing.

A: trust me, I know. Ive been staring at his model for roughly a whole week and mentally rotating him in my brain , so if something is missing its cuz i was either having a hard time making it or cuz I took creative liberties lmao

Q: How long did it take for the stuff to dry?

A: The cold porcelain abt 3 ish days; Paint took 1 day and the varnish also a day (as it states in the bottle)

FINAL NOTES:

Yes, you can use colored cold porcelain instead of painting it! It's just easier for me to paint it over

- For the love of god, be careful when applying the varnish, that shit is bad for your health! read the instructions, do it in a ventilated area, and NEVER put it too close to your face, or u might get some not so good side effects ( like yer eyes burning)

No, i dont intend on selling him anytime soon sorry ( this was asked before regarding some other cold porcelain thing I did, so I just thought i would add it here)

- If u dont wanna spend too much money on the colors u can just buy some Yellow, Cyan, Magenta, Black and White (CMYK) along with some skin tones; u can basically make any color from those

- I used two of Sun's main poses in the game as inspo for making this

- His faceplate is supposed to spin but since it keeps falling off I decided to glue it

[thelittlestoflives]

Unravelling the Mystery

a wee Sanji x Strawhat!reader from the perspective of our favourite archeologist! it’s so self indulgent lol but i just love these lil pirates so much!! my first time writing for one piece too!!

barely proofread or formatted forgive me pls!!!!

no warnings, just fluff, use of YN but gender neutral as much as possible

wc: 1k

Robin loved a mystery.

Whether it be a novel, an ancient archaeological site, or even the small cartoon strip in the newspaper that Nami got delivered every so often, she was all over it, the cogs in her brain whirred like a woman possessed to solve it.

Her newest obsession was the mystery of where her fellow crewmate was going when everyone else was asleep. Every night, she would hear the door creak and their gentle footsteps on the floorboards.

Sleepwalking?

No. It seemed too calculated for that. And if it were sleepwalking, how would that explain the way that they managed to always be in their bed in the morning?

Robin knew in her gut that there was something else happening here, and she was determined to find out what. Not by asking, of course. She would find out in her own special Robin way, by following YN as they left the room, and then staying awake all night to see when they returned. Simple enough really.

That night, she laid with her back to YN, breathing steadily to imitate someone who was dead asleep. Nami’s breaths had evened out too, and like clockwork Robin heard the familiar creak of the floorboards and the door carefully being pried open.

She waited a few seconds before getting up and creeping out of their room.

YN tiptoed ahead of her, bare feet not making a sound on the floor, yawning and rubbing their eyes.

Robin felt in her element as she sneaked behind her crew mate, only a slight pang of guilt in her stomach. Her curiosity overrode that particular emotion.

YN turned left, towards the boys’ room.

With precision, they opened the door slowly, and then shut it behind them without a sound.

Ah. Of course. They're sneaking in to see someone. But who?

Robin’s brain raced with possibilities. Was it the stoic swordsman? Their silly captain? The flirty chef? She went back to her bed, puzzling over each outcome.

When Robin opened her eyes, sunlight streamed onto her face and she was hit with a feeling that she forgot something. She rolled over and saw Nami and YN sound asleep in their respective beds.

Dammit! She fell asleep before she could see YN coming back to bed. Tonight, she would do it. The day could be used to gather some more clues.

At breakfast, she watched YN for any signs of lingering gazes or prolonged touches with any of the other crew mates.

Unfortunately for her she was in the middle of an intense discussion with Usopp and Luffy, trying to explain why their Captain physically couldn’t eat so much that he would actually explode, and missed exactly the telltale signs she was looking for. Hands brushing, a slight blush of the cheeks, eyes meeting with a knowing glint.

The rest of the day proved ineffective for clue gathering, and now asking YN outright seemed almost like admitting to failure, by not being able to solve this mystery. And that simply wouldn’t do. Tonight she would put an end to this and find out to settle her questioning mind.

Again, she feigned sleep and waited for those creaking floorboards. Once she felt like enough time had passed for YN to settle into whoever’s bed it was they were creeping in to, Robin rose from her sheets and moved towards the male quarters.

She imitated the way YN had opened the door, carefully and noiselessly. She stuck her head through the gap and scanned the swinging hammocks for any signs of her friend tangled up with someone. Wrinkling her nose at the smell of, well, men, she willed her eyes to adjust to the dark whilst internally cursing. She couldn’t see anything! This was beginning to frustrate her. Why couldn’t she solve this seemingly simple mystery? She sighed softly, closing the door and stepping back into the hallway.

She made herself a coffee and sipped it while deep in thought. She would just have to stay awake and see if she could spot YN heading back to bed.

She lay in bed reading her book, so lost in the words that she didn’t realise that it was almost sunrise. The footsteps outside the door startled her and she blew out the candle she was using to read and pretended to sleep once more.

The door pushed open, and she stared intently through half shut eyes.

A familiar blonde head stepped into the room, with a sleepy YN cradled in his arms.

Aha! So it was the damn chef after all.

He laid them down impossibly gently, tucking the duvet around them. He knelt down beside their head, and they exchanged some mumbling words before he pressed a tender kiss to YN’s forehead. Their hands were still tangled as he stood to walk away, and he kissed their knuckles so softly that Robin felt a small jolt in her heart. Sanji left the room to prepare breakfast for the crew, and YN was already back asleep.

She suppressed a smile. The thought of her friend creeping into his arms every night, so soft, so tender, so loving, and him gently cradling their body to his every morning before he started work, tucking them in, was so overwhelmingly endearing she could cry. Now she knew why her friend was keeping it a secret, for now at least. However, she was surprised that the lovesick chef was able to keep something like this to himself, but you didn’t need to be as perceptive as Robin is to see how special and genuine this relationship was. They belonged entirely to each other and were secluded in their small bubble of secrecy. She wasn't going to be the one to pop it for them.

And after all, she got what she wanted.

She solved the mystery.

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

pretty pleeeease tell me more about this and your ideas for a pjo show directed by you? 🥺💚💚

of courseee thanks for asking! most of the points were covered in OP's post but your ask has given me an opportunity to think more about it and expand it more so thanks again!!

(disclaimer: this is really long and I also wanted to say pjotv is a really good piece of cinema even though rick had no experience in film at all and if anyone doesn't agree about anything, don't be mean about it!!)

I mourned the breaking of the fourth wall in pjotv. when rick mentioned that the writing team were thinking of new ways to show percy's internal narration, I expected a LOT of fourth wall breaking. here is a few low effort doodles on how fourth wall breaking could work because I don't have coherent thoughts on describing it in words

When it comes to animation, ugh there are so much things I could say. imagine the funky expressions. Imagine the potential for it to look stunning like the animation for arcane and into the spiderverse. imagine the awards it could get for best animation.

Or i really really LOVE those little animations within live action like how the autumn leaves fly around Nick and charlie in heartstopper and it'd be really cute in pjo with,,like blue hearts from percy and grey hearts from annabeth ugh <3

I'm sure lot of people wouldn't agree but I felt there was wayy less of platonic percabeth in pjo tv s1. a lot of it was deep like all the sacrifices and all the romantic stares which everyone keeps making edits of and whatever. but there was no chance to show their proper development as friends. so in my pjotv there's mostly only platonic percabeth with the little sprinkle of hints of having a crush like how it is in the book.

There's full room for the show makers to do this in the coming seasons, but I love the idea of the characters starting out with a light palette (pale blues/greens for percy, for example) and then getting progressively darker and darker in colour (blacks/dark blues) throughout the seasons, because I love a good story told through fashion <3

No other changes to the plot except extra scenes for character development (sally/Poseidon/lil percy flashbacks), new character nuances (medusa/annabeth parallels aka the most genius thing to come out of pjotv).

speaking on the humour, I would trash seriousness and just give pjo lot of the elements of a sitcom. like you know how sometimes in between sitcoms they have little interviews where they reflect on what they're doing like

this also helps the internal narration aspect. bonus points if rick is the off screen interviewer

of course if it was animated, walker and leah could voice act, but it'd be weird for a black girl to voice a blonde white girl. but i really do love mixed canon annabeth and percy so the animated version of them would be annabeth with tinted blonde hair and well if you really like blonde percy we can have his blonde roots showing BUT ONLY IF WALKER AND LEAH ARE VOICE ACTING

THEME SONG!!! a banger with a silly montage that will send nostalgic memories rushing through your brain and make you sing along even after 10 years because ITS SUCH A CORE MEMORY

I don't know if you know the tlt musical but I would definitely make the campfire song from that as the pjotv campfire song and little good kid instrumentals here and there

also I forgot to mention you're the screenwriter because I really liked your screenplay that you posted

if you read this till the end, finley, honestly???congratulations!!

[cherry-blossom-qf]

Just in the nick of time! I'm done with this weeks Skytober 2024 Catch Up! My wrist is hurting and my brain is a bit fried! So I'll make this quick!

Prompt 9 "Earth": Flashwing! Because I couldn't draw my actual favorite earth elemental, Bash, so I went with my second favorite. Gave her extra crystals on her shoulders and cheeks for that extra shine~

Prompt 10 "Color Variant": Nitro Kript King! Because this one of the color variants actually own! Nothing really has changed cuz I couldn't think of any changes. Sorry Nitro KK! :/

Prompt 11 "Species": Gillmen! Because I love the silly little fish people, and I'm still pissed that we never got to hear their horrible singing voices. LIKE COME ON!! I WANNA KNOW HOW BAD IT ACTUALLY IS WITH MY OWN TWO EARS!! DONT BAIT ME LIKE THIS TOYS FOR BOB!! PLEASE!! I didn't know what exactly to draw for this prompt, so I did a little kiddy doodle that would definitely be on the fridge.

Prompt 12 "Air": Blades! Because I wish I had him! I want the scottish knight dragon! GIVE ME! The only change I gave to Blades was a bit of dark blue eyeliner, cuz he looks like the type of guy that would put on eyeliner.

Prompt 13 "Swap Force": Night Shift! Another Skylander I wish I had! Night Shift is so cool, maaaaan. He's just a boxing vampire grandpa. Gave him golden ear piercing on one of his ears cuz it makes him look more badass!

Prompt 14 "Mini/Sidekick": Spry! The only one I own along with two Mini Jinis. Gave this little guy paw pads and little rosie cheeks cuz all minis deserve rosie cheeks! THEY ARE SO CUTE SKJDKFJFKF!!

Prompt 15 "Magic": Star Strike and Skylander Magolor! BECAUSE YOU KNOW I HAD TO INVOLVE MY SILLY AU INTO THIS SHIT EVENTUALLY!!! Magolor cannot escape my brain nor this blog. In this AU Magolor and Star Strike have a sibling dynamic going on between them, and they are both from the same element (until the time skip happens), so I just knew I had to make this prompt special just for them! And just like with Enigma, I also had a full redesign for Star Strike, so I used that design for this prompt!

Hope y'all enjoy all this! I'm gonna go take some ibuprofen for my wrist!

[regulusrules]

FIC RECS: Tore apart my sanity edition

Missed doing those, especially that the brilliance of this fandom is quite endless. You'd think you've read everything, then a fic comes and makes you stare two ceilings above. I think we all have PhDs in ceiling reading at this point.

1. through storm and hellfire by @prattery.

Look, I know I scream a lot about fics, but this time it's so rightfully, I swear. There is something about this one that just unravels you so fully, so reverently. It was a spiritual experience; reading this fic. Anything written by this author is a spiritual experience. If you're new to my blog, you will soon know that I fall apart for such beautiful prose so easily. And the way Arthur was written here.. holy lord in the sky. I haven't survived this fic as of yet (weeks later). It was not Merlin who got kidnapped here; it's our literal hearts.

2. you hold a knife at my throat (i tell you exactly where to cut) by @nextstopparis.

All I can say is that I found this one on the night of my final MA exam and risked failing because I stayed up till dawn reading it. And guess what? I'd do it a hundred times over. Because this fic killed me 🤩 With a knife knowing exactly where to cut 🤩

Whenever it's Protective!Arthur that is as much consumed by Merlin's safety as Merlin was with his, then know I am absolutely and utterly gone. And everything that comes with Arthur teaching Merlin how to wield weapons and its close proximity trope. Oh boy. I was literally killed, I'm telling you.

3. Of Course Falling in Love is Awful. Why Else Would They Call It a Crush? by watchriverdale.

Respectfully, how does this marvel of a fic have less than a thousand reads?? If I may, it's one of the best AU - Canon Divergence that I've read in so long! Merlin being an actual physician, Arthur making silly excuses to go visit Merlin and it ending up for him falling head over heels, BAMF elements of both, just everything! Absolutely AMAZING. And the full circle at the end; what an icon.

4. The Walls of Camelot by spqr. (@andthepeople)

I'm literally not joking when I say my brain function grew and developed more after reading this fic. It was so fully-fledged in a way you don't find in literal published books. The amount of creativity and research combined in this fic.. WOW! You just literally live the war with them, all emotions entangled, all thoughts experienced. I think I had the hardest time processing that the fic ended more than anything else because of how invested I was in the story. I didn't want it to end. It was a wonderful, wonderful ride.

5. I suppose that I look different (without the robes and crown) by WingedWolf121. (@lancelotofthelake)

You know when fic writers begin to narrate Arthur through Merlin's eyes and describe him as golden? That is what I would say as the overall feel of this fic. I felt it radiating gold and beauty. It was unmatched, truly. From the AU idea to its execution.. I was hooked all 18K. I'd give it 18K kudos of my own alone. And the way it was written !!! Please. Any Arthur who just loves Merlin a tad too much is unparalleled. And when the same energy is returned by Merlin >>>

Oh and lastly: “Ask me who you were there to me, Merlin.” I'll leave you at that.

+ 1: My heart is readily yours by yours truly.

Have I mentioned how much this one tore my own sanity apart while writing it? (yes. yes I already have like a thousand times, tell me to shut up about it already). But it's for good reason. I am a changed human being after this fic. For better or for worse, I'm still not sure about that.

[convoloutedinjoke]

Rating Disco Elysium characters based on how funny I think their kinks have the potential to be

Harry: the DSM of getting off on things. He likes piss he likes feet he likes the idea of being soooo small and tiny you could step on him like a bug, and while none of these things are funny on their own they are when he does them on account of his being a clown. He would also fuck a clown, incidentally. 8/10, knocking two points off because this lacks the element of surprise.

Kim: Leather and uniform fetishist. No wise guy shenanigans here. Will fuck you serious will fuck you professional. His strap is extremely normal, his daddy/boy dynamics are not a laughing matter. 4/10 because he wants to have relations with his car and is embarrassed about it

Jean: No idea what gets him off but he genuinely believes whatever it is means he’s evil and weird, making him the proud owner of The Worlds Funniest Kinks. 9/10, steals mustard from the homeless without remorse but has a moral crisis every time he cums while fantasising about getting gangbanged in a holding cell. Sad!

Trant: not funny. too passionately open about the things hes into. if you tried to make light of his trampling fetish, he would recite the wikipedia entry on cock and ball torture to you from memory and look delighted to be sharing his interests with you the whole time. 3/10

Klaasje: not funny to most on account of being conventionally attractive and good at billing her sexual encounters as suffused with romantic, literary ennui but it SHOULD be funny to be such a Lana Del Rey motherfucker in the sheets so I’m pulling rank and saying 7/10

Joyce: cringefail class dynamics fantasies. Bodice rippers and the opposite of CEO erotica feature heavily here. This wouldn’t be funny if not for the fact she literally owns a yacht. Also wants to get stabbed a little bit. 5/10, probably read the elysium version of lady chatterlys lover as a teen and still jerks off about it.

Garte: a normal man if there ever was one. has kinks but they aren't funny. wears a bra sometimes and it looks cute. 1/10 probably fun to hook up with and a decent communicator

The Deserter: given the 5 decades of loneliness, im willing to bet his brain has rewired itself into having some interesting potentially bug-related reward pathways but whatever he's got going on is too sad to laugh about. 0/10 :(

Sunday Friend: his kinks would be funny on anyone else, but he’s very very very boring. 2/10, you can pay a twink to do raceplay with you, but it wont dispel the grey miasma of being a mid tier government employee

evrart: I don’t know honestly, the lying and manipulating and petty power plays scrambled my brain despite the rube-Goldbergian elements of all his little tasks. Maybe he’d do predicament bondage? Uh. 3/10. Id let him hit, but he also has kind of a Wallace n Grommit thing going on so I can’t say 0

Steban: big on role playing but isn’t very good at it. Starts giggling halfway through when it becomes apparent how silly the fake muttonchops are. 4/10, less funny than it could be because he has a sense of humour about it

Ulixes: probably has a guro thing but also hasn’t had sex since he started focusing on reading theory and feints at the sight of real blood. This should be less funny than pretending to be Kras Mazov in bed, but he takes himself extremely seriously. 6/10 until he starts getting laid again, then still 6/10 but for other reasons

Gary: cuck chair. 10/10. I am not elaborating because I’m tired now, but someone else made a convincing post at one point

[jennilah]

a very dumb deep dive

gather round, i saw a few people say they want to crawl into the head of someone who had trouble telling Hoffman and Strahm apart upon first viewing. I offer mine for the picking because i think ive identified, at least in MY personal experience, the various elements that came together that formed the ultimate confusion

if this is not relatable nor informative, i hope it is at least a little silly. this is all in good fun and obviously the difference between them is clear as day to me now

this will be longer than it should be.

PRECURSOR POINT NUMBER ONE...

I do not remember character names. Not until they are recurring, or I've rewatched a film a few times. Sometimes it will take me an entire 12-21 episode season length for me to know characters by name in a show. I've seen some Saw films more than 6 times now and I still don't know everyone in the traps 🤷‍♀️

PRECURSOR POINT NUMBER TWO..

at the time of watching Saw IV for the first time, the madness has not yet set in for Hoffman and Strahm for me. In fact, I didn't like either of them. I wasn't looking at them with my deranged eyes yet.

Without my crazy brain activated, sometimes I'll get face blindness between people who have similar enough hair and stuff. I'll use clothes as an identifier if I can

Meaning, I didn't notice anything like face details, mannerisms, body shapes- to me, it was one dark haired white guy in a suit and another dark haired white guy in a suit who both worked in law enforcement.

uh oh

PRECURSOR POINT NUMBER THREE..

in a very elaborate plot like this with many interwoven stories being told, especially with police procedure, has a lot of details that get lost on me upon first watch because I simply easily misunderstand what is happening. I zone out on stuff like legal talk because I don't know that world at all, and the more general plot information to absorb, the more I forget.

"But [character] SAYS..!" oh, I'm aware! If you pay attention and can remember character names, everything is pretty clear in this movie!

so between all three points, you see where I'm starting to go with this.

THAT BRINGS US TO..

Saw IV. let me describe to you what I believe my thought process was to the best of my memory.

This guy shows up. as far as I knew, this was the first time I've met this character. I forgot he was in Saw III because he was only in it for a second and I definitely don't remember him among the sea of other characters.

ok. sure. new detective because the others are dead. got it 👌

next time we see him is a few minutes later, now in this lighting. I don't have his features memorized yet. I'm pretty sure I put it together that it was the same guy as before, and I see he's in a new outfit.

keep in mind he is not at all referred to with a NAME yet, until Perez shows up and introduces all three of them at the same time

here comes "Strahm," as he was quickly introduced in practically the same breath, from the FBI. and he looks like this.

I mentally go "ok FBI guy in the suit" because my occasional bout of face blindness is activating rn. The problems are on the horizon for me

I survived that scene, but the scene right after? I'm doomed.

Major Confusion #1:

this treacherous interrogation footage, ft Hoffman's ass and slutty, slutty suspenders (but I did NOT give him even a second glance here yet. genuinely.)

I'm 100% sure I just didn't know who I was looking at in this footage at all just because of the outfit change

and then the boys are back in town. and they're BOTH WEARING THIS...

This was mean. this was fucked. I was doomed. My brain is already churning trying to keep up with what the footage was, now there's two dark haired white men in dark suits. Who was who again? I think the guy who just turned off the TV was the new detective. The guy who was talking to the Swat guy before. Yeah....

Major Confusion #2:

Next time we see them, Strahm and Perez are watching the interrogation footage. They quickly start talking Jigsaw stuff and my mind is already working overtime figuring out what information is and isn't important to hold on to.

Hoffman says hello for like 1 minute and then fucks off.

My brain is going "ok.. that footage was an old interrogation... mhm..."

this is the information my brain has decided to retain from that scene for later.

Major Confusion #3

this dark haired white guy in a suit got kidnapped idfk. the shots are all very short and he's enshrouded in shadow or SUPER close-up, and I don't know to recognize him by his lips yet. clearly Im more focused on his hair color and suit, so this could be fuckin anyone

Perez said something about officers being in danger earlier, I think I thought maybe it was irony and the cocky FBI guy was the one who got kidnapped instead? i dont know.

then after the first test of Rigg's game, you see Perez and Strahm again for a SECOND. I def didn't pay them much attention. My mind is elsewhere- the insanity of the previous scene

Major Confusion #4:

then FINALLY... we see Hoffman again in the slut chair

and what have we learned about me so far?

let me sum up my logic for you

Now, if only I was certain on their names..

I'm not going to go over every single scene, but I guarantee you, the confusion was fully set in by this point. That detective from the beginning either really just went home, or he was working with Perez. Or maybe it's the FBI guy and someone else is in the chair? No idea.

My brain retained that one slightly misguided bit of information from the interrogation footage and thought This Guy, Whoever This Guy Is, was interrogating Jill a second time. (Wrong.)

there was no memory of the guy's big ass in that footage or anything. that was also way the fuck in the intro and there was a LOT more that happened between then and now in the movie to remember now. and people really don't say each other's names that often.

Yeah there's also that flashback footage showing The Guy In the Chair and Rigg back in the day, but I was too far gone. That was simply the story of how That Guy and Art Blanc knew each other.

and boy does Chair Guy not do much for the rest of the movie, so there was not much more info about his identity that I could try to work out. Maybe he was just some new random guy meant to die in someone else's game because he is kind of a dirty cop?

Pretty sure I was resigned to the fact that I was watching completely utterly confused by the third act.

then fucking JEFF DENLON shows up and i remember either mentally or physically throwing my hands up like "ok now i REALLY dont know whats going on"

I remember I was still excited by the thrill of it, just completely lost as to who was who and what the fuck was going on.

as Eric Matthews was yelling "WHO'S COMING THROUGH THAT DOOR?" i remember going "I DONT KNOW, MAN!!!!!!"

The Grand Clear-up:

THE REVEAL.

Through the power of the Hello Zepp reveal montage, I finally understood "OHHHH YOU'RE THE DETECTIVE FROM THE BEGINNING!!!"

i had other confusions that i eventually worked out, but I went into Saw V much more clear on who was who. There was Hoffman the evil detective, and Strahm the jerk FBI guy (who I then softened up to throughout V, no longer thinking he was a jerk)

and, if I couldn't physically tell who was on screen because I still struggled a little bit with that... I looked for Strahm's bandage :)

and thats my story lmao...

anyway finding out just how many other people mixed them up or confused them or couldn't tell them apart makes me feel so validated thank u. i understand u

[itadores]

an airport kind of love

note: bsf!maki save me! i love friendship <3

pairing: zenin maki & gn!reader

word count: .8k

tags: gender neutral reader, platonic relationships / friendship, slice of life, silly

“would you run through the airport for me?”

maki has long grown used to your seemingly random questions. your mind races a mile a minute, thoughts pin-balling from one topic to another in a matter of seconds. your brain forms connections that she still can’t comprehend, even after all your years of friendship and your endless explanations that you swear make sense.

“why do you ask?”

she wonders what prompted you to ask the question out of nowhere, breaking the peaceful quietness that settled over you.

maki casts a glance past the foot of her bed where you’re sprawled out on the floor. she’s told you countless times to just sit on her bed or at her desk, but you refuse time and time again, insisting that the ground is more than comfortable for you to lie around on. maki highly disagrees, but she knows by now that your mind won’t be changed. at least you’re lying on the rug she bought awhile back.

you place your phone face down, resting a cheek onto your folded arms, and meet maki’s gaze.

“i watched a rom-com the other day with kugisaki, and there was this whole big scene where the male lead was running through the airport to catch the female lead before she got on her flight so he could confess his feelings. of course he managed to catch her and confess to her, leading to them kissing and the end. they live happily ever after together.” you pause, scoffing. “it was super cheesy.”

maki sharply exhales through her nose, making a noise that resembles amusement.

she knows from experience that you have a love-hate relationship with romantic comedies. you do enjoy watching them, subjecting her to more rom-coms than she would ever need to watch in her lifetime, but you’ll complain the entire time, making comments here and there throughout the movie until maki tells you to stop talking every few minutes or she’ll leave.

you continue on. “so it got me thinking. would you run through the airport for me?”

“to confess my undying love for you?” maki dryly says.

you roll your eyes. “i expect nothing less,” you reply, words dripping with sarcasm. you roll over from your stomach onto your back. your fingers rake over the threads of the rug. a childish pout that maki is much too familiar with overtakes you. “obviously i don’t mean it like that, but for whatever,” you lift an arm and wave a hand around in the air, “reason would you run through an airport for me?”

“no,” maki says point blank.

your reaction is instantaneous.

you quickly prop yourself up with your palms, your brows pinching together and the corners of your lips downturning as you twist your head to look at maki.

“you’re so cold to me, maki,” you whine, “you might as well tell me you hate me at this point.”

“you are so dramatic.”

maki rolls her eyes.

“do you know how much effort would be needed to pull a stunt like that?”

maki sits up a bit straighter, so she can properly look at you.

“i would have to buy a plane ticket for a flight i don’t plan on getting on, wait in line for security, try and figure out your terminal and gate number once i get through security, and then try and make it to your gate in time before you board the plane,” maki lists, counting on her fingers each element of what it would take to pull off something like running through the airport for someone. she looks over at you, raising a brow. “would you run through the airport for me?”

“of course i would,” you respond instantly, almost defensively. you fold your arms over your chest, turning your nose up at maki. “unlike you who obviously hates me,” you take this moment to place a hand on your chest, inhaling deeply and dramatically before exhaling loudly. “i, on the other hand, love you and would have no problem running through an airport for you.”

maki scoffs.

“really?”

maki doesn’t really believe that you would run through the airport for her. maybe in this hypothetical scenario you’ve thought up, but in real life? there is no way you would do so. but then again, you are you, so it’s not entirely out of the question.

“really,” you affirm. you’ve toned down the dramatics, sounding a bit more genuine than you did just a few seconds ago.

“you are such a sap,” maki says in return.

you shrug your shoulders and give her a little smile.

“and yet, you’re still friends with me.��

“maybe i need some new friends,” maki sighs.

a bark of laughter escapes you.

“yeah right. you know you love me,” you tease, playfully winking at maki.

she groans.

unfortunately, it’s true.

she does love you.

she loves you enough that you’re the only person she would even entertain running through an airport for.

but she won’t tell you that.

[asherashedwings]

FNF CONNECTED UNIVERSE LINE UP Part 1: The Boyfriends

Chat. I spent 34 hours in this canvas. I am so tired.

Anyways, when I began working on Connected Universe AU, I already knew I'd be making line ups. Cuz I love making line ups and I also love suffering.

Close-ups and lots of yapping under the cut

THIS IS ABOUT TO BE A LOT OF READING IM SO SORRY-

Alternate Universe Boyfriends

So all these guys, unlike the other BFs present on this line up, are actually BF but from different universes. They're the same dude.

I thought it'd be neat to display the fact that they're from different universes by drawing them all in different art styles. It was also a fun exercise to test my art style range.

So starting from the left, we got Base Game BF. The main universe one. He's drawn in my usual art style. Not much special about him. Boyfriend.XML my beloved. I will note here though that I did take some of the elements form my own BF design and threw them onto the AU BFs. So that's why they all have some sort of jacket/hoodie etc.

Then we got Yourself. I reverted to old tactics and used my sketch for his line art, which results in him having thicker line art in general. I also further distinguished him by giving him harsh black shading. He always has that. He already had it on his face, so I just gave it to the rest of his body too. Cuz silly. You. You could even say. Silly Billy- 💥💥💥

Then we have Funkadelix. Him and a few other BFs make use of the Blackburn brush for their line art, cuz idk I like that brush. I referenced the Mutant Mayhem style when making him, since in the Connected Universe, he's in the same universe as those turtles. His colors are mostly yoinked from the actual Funkadelix sprite. I think. I may have tweaked them a bit/eyeballed them idk. I prolly eyeballed them.

Then we got Monday Dusk Monolith (MDM). I really went with the mentality of "NO ROUND SHAPES" with this fucker. Just wanted him to look super sharp and scratchy, since that AU is literally dealing with an apocalypse. So sharp shapes just made sense in my brain.

I had a lot of issues settling on a style for Mix, so I just chose to take inspiration from the FNF loading screens, cuz it just fit in my brain, idk. His design also features present in my Pico design, like the stupid cleat shoes and stray hair lines. Yknow, since he's literally a mix of BF and Pico. He also uses Blackburn

Finally, HD. I decided to try and go for a semi realistic style for him, proportion wise at least. Cuz. Yknow. HD. He also uses the blackburn brush, but I also pulled an old tactic for him and made his sketch visible over his coloring. Cuz idk, I think it lends towards the vibe.

"Side" BFs

Okay, now we're REALLY getting into AU territory.

So from here on out, all the BFs are separate people from THE BF, and have their own names and shit.

So staring off, we got Blake. I was reading through his wiki trivia and saw them say his style was more "radical and funky" than base BF's. I saw the word funky and ran with it dawg. So that explains this clothes. I also tried my darndest to get rid of a lot of the BFs caps, cuz dude, I can't have that many fuckers having cubic backwards caps. So I gave Blake a pair of star shaped sunglasses cuz funky, chat, FUNKY. We decided that his stage name is Love Bird, and he chose that cuz that's a pet name his GF has for him, and if he had a band it'd be called The Birds of Paradise.

Then we got .XML. I immediately knew I wanted to give him a mullet. Look at this man and tell me he wouldn't have a mullet. Besides that, not much changed. Since he kept the name of .XML, I imagine he is actually related to BF in some way, and he just goes by his last name. They might be cousins or brothers or something idk. There's also more dumbass info on him here:

Then there's River, or G-Sides BF. I took a lot of inspiration from his teaser designs, cuz they were silly. Literally named his river after the dumbass river design on his sweater. I don't got much info on him besides that. I can't talk about River without including this image so here:

The New Yorkers

This group is literally named after the fact that they all live in NY in my AU. Technically, the Minus BFs should also be here, but they're their own group.

Starting with Bartholomew, or B3, I just took the shape of his glasses and ran with it. Chat I needed to get that shape language from somewhere. I actually drew him twice, since the first time around I really was not digging how I drew him. He's fine now tho. His ass only got brim, cuz he had to be different somehow. Other than that. not much changed for him.

Now Evan.. Evan gave me so many issues. Like, dawg I drew him three times. I kept on trying to make the orange in his upcoming design WORK but I just COULDNT chat i COULDNT

So, per @braveboiart 's request, I ended up getting rid of it entirely and replacing it with his blues and grays. They also gave me the advice of brightening the colors a bit, which was very easy for me to do, I love bright ass colors. I also touched up his design shape wise, since that was also lacking the first time around. So boom, zippers on the pants and baggy ass sleeves. I'm content with how he came out. Chat I did all his design touch ups while I was exhausted out of my mind. Sometimes you gotta be delirious with sleep deprivation in order to cook, kids, trust me (please do not be like me-)

Benjamin was pretty simple. Kept him soft, kept him round, kept him pastel. Got rid of the caution sign on his hoodie since .XML already had that, and just replaced it with paint splatters. Not much more to say.

With X's design, I got a lot of help from my good good friend @minxtheeenby , mainly when figuring out his hair style. Those braids are not actually his hair, and are fuckass cords that connect to his headphones and can move independently. Don't ask about the logic, I will not be thinking about it. He was born in Philly cuz of his fuckass white eyes. White eyes means Philly, I don't make the rules here.

Minus BFs

The colorful critters, these guys are.

So. Beta. I had actually drawn him before this point, and he didn't change much from then

He has arrow shaped top surgery scars cuz I love giving constantly shirtless characters top scars and I just. HAD TO once I had the idea to make them arrow shaped. Main things to change since that drawing are some details on his pants and some of his colors; notedly the fact that his hat is a darker color compared to his skin to further distinguish it. Also Brave kept trying to get me to make parts of his design the same color as his nipples. So that happened /lh

Chat. I let my furry show with Blue. BUT CHAT HEAR ME OUT. On the wiki it's stated that he's a "Dog??". You think I could look at that and not go all the way? So yeah. Dog. He's silly and he got his weird ear ring things from his sister (Minus Miku).

Not much to say on Mean, he barely changed. I just drew him in my style and added a few details. He might also be an alien, idk.

Now, I posted about Golden a bit, but for those who didn't see that insanity: I made him an Alien Hominid. Cuz small yellow alien=Alien Hominid in my brain. Flawless logic. (Don't worry chat, I sat down and extensively researched the AH series to the best of my ability to check if it made sense. And I didn't see anything that would make it not make sense?) But yeah, silly. Him and Otis might be buddies, cuz goofy.

Who Fuckin Knows

These guys are just all the guys I had nowhere else to put. Miscellaneous group.

So first we have Bonnie, or Saturday Night Swappin' BF. He's another one that I had to go back and touch up. I actually touched him up the same night/morning as Evan. He ended up turning purple. The name we assigned him was an omen /j Chat I swear he was originally blue, I don't know what happened

HC that he just got really into FNaF when he was younger and has just been cosplaying a humanized Bonnie the Bunny ever since /hj

BIDU GAVE ME SO MANY ISSUES AND IDK WHY. It's prolly cuz by the time I got to him I was getting SUPER burnt. But I prospered and was able to finish him. And I don't hate how he came out, so bonus points there. Main change was replacing the prohibition sign on his shirt with a lightning bolt, cuz no one but BF is allowed to have that symbol, and Bidu already had lightning bolt imagery, so eh why not. His eyebrows being green, at least in my style, implies his hair is naturally green, and he just added the blue and pink, and I find that slightly humorous, idk.

Keith (StarCatcher) was another one I had to go back and touch up, but that's due to the fact that I was informed that him and his GF got a redesign before the creator deleted their FNF stuff. So I had to go back and fix my design according to that. I also leaned into the scape suit direction cuz SHAPE.

Now, you might be wondering, why is Flippin BF here and not with the other alternates? He was grouped with him in a previous post? Well, that's because after more assessment, I decided that Friday Night Flippin' is in fact, in the same universe as Base FNF and not an alternate universe like I had previously decided. So I changed his design a bit (mainly just getting rid of his hat and changing the color of his shoes) and boom. Different guy. He is staying pixel art tho. I do still need to come up with a different name for him tho.

Now this next one, Heath, is not from a currently existing mod, but from an FNF AU my friend Minx is making.

I decided to include him cuz he's silly and I love him. Their AU is canon to the Connected Universe.

Okay, so Cam (Hellbeats BF) changed A LOT. I let my furry slip out again. BUT I HAVE ANOTHER REASON FOR IT. See, in this connected universe, it's not just Newgrounds stuff that is canon. I also made other fandoms I'm in canon. So that means the Hellaverse is canon (specifically my rewritten version of it), and Hellbeats has to fit in with that. So I had to assign the characters species from that universe as well. So I made Cam a cherub, cuz I wanted him to stay short as fuck. He's also a raccoon cuz he's a lil shit and I thought it'd fit If ur curious, this is what everyone else is:

Okay I'm done yapping now. Gonna be doing the GFs next.

[dailyhmsw]

HIHIHI!!!! i’ve been seeing that you’re accepting asks now and it’s been such a joy to read them and know this entity (you :]👋) of daily awesome art better. as a bystander who follows you. your work is so neat and i will never hush up about it‼️‼️

as for my ask….hmmmmm…..what’s your favorite like…aspect of either an element you included in ur personal hms designs, or one you’ve seen in others’? it can be themes, color palettes, psychology, demeanor, metaphors—anything! examples include celestial theming, how a character thinks/a struggle they’re dealing with, or parts of their design that mean something literally or metaphorically. objective observations??

i’m really inspired by how creative the cj fandom is. no design is superior over another ofc, as how people interpret the characters reflect what they like and see the fellas as. interpretation is an art form! wow. writing that makes me realize that chonny’s fandom came from him interpreting music into his own thing (and ergo hms narrative), and then the fans interpret that narrative into their own thing. the loop never ends 😔💀/silly

FIRST AND FOREMOST, THANK YOU ^_^ !!! i agree also, the fandom never fails to inspire me, everyone in it is so crazy talented and makes me even MORE insane about the stupid guys from my songs,,

NOW favourite aspects,, there are a lot of things i love seeing on different hmsw designs but one thing i will always be insane for is when people make them look distinctly inhuman,, i will forever preach about robot/android mind or creature animal heart or whatever the fuck soul is (empty vessel?) because whatever they are they're NOT humans!!! not entirely!! and i love when people write this into their behaviour too! making mind stiff and speak more robotically while heart is always fidgeting and jittery and he has claws and these massive uncontrollable wings.. auaygauaghj

another thing is when people include aspects/colors from the others into their designs,,,.... for example heart with red accents or mind with purple accents and so on..,, or better yet when people include orange in their designs AUGH. it's so good

CELESTIAL THEMING IS ALWAYS BANGER of course heart and mind as the moon and sun is absolutely perfect, but i also like when people throw other planets into the mix?? and i love soul as the stars, it fits him well, but i'm personally subscribed to the headcanon of soul as the sky,, which holds the sun and moon,,,,

something i do personally is to always break up their faces, if that makes sense? with heart's blindfold, mind's screen and soul's shadow/clouds ...,, the face is something that makes your brain recognize what you're seeing as a fellow human, but as previously stated, i love when there's something Wrong with them, so maybe their faces being broken up makes them look much less human...,, hehehe

there are countless things that i love to see on these character designs and if i wanted to rattle them all off we'd be here forever. but i'm just saying, i haven't seen a single design that i haven't liked!!!!! i'm talking a lot about visual details here because once i get started on their psychology i never shut up and i don't want this post to be too long HJAHAHHA but yeah!! cheers!

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 大理寺少卿游/White Cat Legend.

White Cat Legend is the 2024 live-action adaptation of a funny historical manhua about a country bumpkin who winds up working with a bunch of mystery-solving officials led by a beautiful boss whose tragic past means no one can know he's also a kitty.

This is one of those cases where television comes in to adapt something that has both unfilmable elements and a very non-cinematic storyline that hasn't even been finished yet, and as such mostly just takes the characters and the basic conceit, then creates an entire vaguely nonsensical 36-episode AU fanfic of it. To call this show tonally inconsistent would be an insult to shows that are only merely tonally inconsistent. It is full-on tonal whiplash, the kind you should go see a doctor about. This shit is all over the place. It has arcs and situations that are genuinely emotionally moving, and then smash cut! to wacky nonsense happening with the B-plot. It does not know if it wants to tell a Serious Story or just have bonkers antics, and it will deal with this indecision by doing both at once.

So if you're in the mood for something fun with charming characters that won't tax your brain parts, let me give you five reasons this could be exactly the junk food you're looking for.

1. Just a family of all boys

If you're looking for a show rife with female characters, go watch Legend of Fei or Story of Yanxi Palace. Over here, it's Boys' Night Out.

The show is set in the Court of Judicial Review, which solves crimes. The boy in charge of all of them is Li Bing, who is secretly also a cat for reasons he doesn't understand. He picks up naive yokel and total sweeheart Chen Shi and brings him back to work with the Court's current occupants: a sad-eyed scribe with catastrophically bad luck, a former soldier who wishes he'd been born recently enough to be into Crossfit, a generic "foreigner" whose superpowers are spending his parents' money and pronouncing things badly, and the 8th-century Chinese equivalent of a mediocre white man.

And I'm going to tell you right now, up front, above the cut, that these boys' character interactions are the #1 reason to watch this show. You watch it because you like to see them bounce off one another like the unsupervised toddlers they are. They all love and care for one another in the best ways they know how, which sometimes aren't very effective, but darn it, they're trying!

What's especially cute is how they're so touchy with one another -- and not in any kind of sexual or creepy way, but in a sincerely affectionate bro way. There's lots of hugging and supportive arms around waists. Sometimes when they get scared, they hold hands. They grip one another when walking across unsteady ground or climbing over walls to break into yet another house. There's never any gay panic or no-homo reassurances. It hits that sweet spot right between brothers and boyfriends, where you can read their interactions as fraternal and/or romantic as you like (see below).

I mean, who needs a plot when you have half a dozen charming boys canonically working, eating, and sleeping side by side? That, my friends, is quality television.

2. Jam-packed with goofball nonsense

White Cat Legend is a show that will make you laugh out loud, and mostly even on purpose.

About 2/3 of this show is silly, and the other 1/3 is trying so hard to be emotionally resonant. But you know what? Screw emotional resonance for the moment -- let's embrace the antics!

There's a lot of silliness happening even at the production level. The show also starts out doing some very cute visual things, like breaking shots into multiple "panels" that give everything a real comic feel. It's especially effective during fight scenes and other visually confusing setups. ...And then about 1/4 of the way in, it forgets about this gimmick and stops almost completely. This is a shame, because I liked it! I liked that VFX tomfoolery that paid homage to the story's webcomic roots! (Also, someone behind the camera clearly got told that the way to make a scene more visually interesting is to slowly pan in during every shot. Once you notice it, you can't unsee it.)

The main villain is ... well, he's a lot. He's just a whole lot. I'd call him Evil Garfield, except Garfield is already kind of Evil Garfield, so this guy's Eviler Garfield. He's not chewing the scenery, but is instead treating it like a cat with a vendetta against some drapes. He's just hilariously over the top at all times. It starts out vaguely entertaining, then gets annoying, then wraps right back around to entertaining again.

Also, his wig is terrible -- and it's not even the worst wig in the show! White Cat Legend has decided that the way you style foreigner NPCs is just to jam unbrushed women's wigs on extras' heads and call it a day. There are indeed a lot of foreigners in the show, and the show has chosen to handle them by assuming everything beyond the borders of 6th-century Chinese territory is a great undifferentiated vaguely Persian-flavored mass. Who's that shady-looking guy? Oh, he's Foreign. What country is he from? A Foreign one. What language does he speak? You know, Foreign.

You are not ready for the score. This is a show that spent its entire musical budget on a handful of middling pop songs, realized it still needed ~40 minutes of music to put in each episode, and decided that it could just pull things at semi-random from whatever the Chinese television equivalent of the YouTube royalty-free sound library is. The result is some laugh-out-loud hilarious soundtracking. Do you know why they usually pay people to do things like score television shows? It's because when you don't, it sounds like this.

True story: During one antics-filled scene, I frowned, listened a second, and asked my wife, "Is that ... 'Deck the Halls'?" It was!

The mysteries are -- and I'm quoting myself here -- the celery that gets the cute boy peanut butter to your mouth. Not only can you, the viewer, not solve them, I don't actually remember what most of the resolutions were. Hell, I barely remember what most of the actual setups were. The individual storylines are mostly unimportant pieces of fluff that kinda sorta tie into the big mystery of the show: Why is that boy a kitty? ...And if you think you're going to be satisfied by the resolution to that one, honestly, you haven't been paying attention to what I've been saying in this post.

Basing this on absolutely nothing but vibes, here is my guess: The original vision for this series was as an ongoing thing, something that might hew a little closer to the comic storyline in later seasons. At some point in the production, the decision got made that there would be no further seasons made. The resulting drama is something that's technically self-contained, sure, but has a lot of little lingering weirdnesses that look like foreshadowing.

As just one example, the way they frame and shoot the empress is bizarre, and she might as well have a big SHE'S GOING TO TURN OUT TO BE EVIL neon sign above her head. ...Except that, no, she's fine! Perfectly fine, mostly normal empress, mostly normal levels of evil, nothing to see here. She is, however, evil as heck in the source material (and that's not a spoiler, she's a little pink thing who's clearly sinister all the way from the get-go), and I have to wonder if the showrunners weren't planning some future heel-turn villain arc for her. Well, we'll never know now, so whatever you choose to believe, the show won't contradict you on it!

Your reaction to all of this will 100% depend on how charitable you are feeling toward staring down a firehose of (mostly) intentionally slapdash shenanigans. If you go into this demanding coherence and substance, you will wind up disappointed. If you go into it expecting nothing more than a fluffy good time, you'll probably enjoy yourself tremendously -- and you'll maybe even be moved by the rare times it does work out to being something of substance! Such as...

3. We are never ever getting back together

The first thing you can tell about Qiu Qingzhi and Li Bing is that they are as divorced as two dudes in a c-drama can be. They aren't just a little divorced. They are nuclear divorced.

Except -- and this is the juicy part -- they obviously still work really well together. If it's just the two of them head-to-head, they will be assholes to one another with no mercy. If circumstances change and they have a shared target, God help that shared target.

The unspoilery version of their backstory goes like this: They were adorable little tween besties who grew up into adorable little teen besties, until Qiu Qingzhi went off to join the army and came back a real cold bitch, and Li Bing has no idea why. Now the two of them control state agencies that should work together but actually wind up competing more often than not (think the FBI and the CIA), a competition not helped by how the Jinwu Guards (Qiu Qingzhi's group) are actual professional soldiers in very nice armor, while the Court of Judicial Review is, well, [gestures to points 1 and 2].

And yeah, baby, this right here is The Ship.

I spent a nonzero amount of time while watching this series laughing out loud because Wei Zheming's face is just too beautiful to be believed. With his sculpted jaw and his perfectly practiced looks of disdain, his Qiu Qingzhi looks like a damn Disney prince. His face could not be more perfect if you'd assigned a team of animators to draw it. This actor is the reason I found this show in the first place -- he was so beautiful in Word of Honor that I found myself wondering what else he might be getting up to. Turns out, he is again being a smug bitch and capturing the heart of a doe-eyed younger man.

Don't let me oversell how much these two are together in the show, because they're not. Qiu Qingzhi is not part of the main crew, so he's not in most of the episodes. Most of his screentime comes in flashbacks during the last story arc, to a time in his past when Li Bing wasn't even around. But when they're together, oh, the sparks do fly.

I think it helps that the actors seem to have understood the ship, even if in that video, Ding Yuxi (Li Bing's actor) is trying so hard to do the Please Do Not Cancel Us dance of plausible deniability. I honestly don't even think this is the show's doing; after all, the source material (see the section near the end) is not BL in the slightest. I'd believe the show meant to create a normal platonic bro-relationship between these two. I'd even believe that it thinks it succeeded.

Still, if you're not the biggest fan of Lovers To Enemies? That's fine! Here's the relationship that's the real core of the show:

4. Here comes a special boy

All the boys of the family of all boys are special and wonderful, but truly, Chen Shi is the specialest and wonderfulest of them all.

He is your everyman character, the little country bumpkin overwhelmed by all the big-city dealings he's stumbled into. With his cute little twang and his natural inclination to trust everyone he meets, he's the perfect cinnamon roll, too good, too pure. I want to pinch his angelic little cheeks.

Fun fact: I have been informed by someone who speaks with the same dialect he does that said dialect is very sweary, which brings to mind the wonderful image of Chen Shi just casually and sweetly dropping f-bombs while everyone else stares in shock.

In a show where the characters are way more important than the plot, having a good POV character is key. Your audience lives or dies entirely on how much they want to see that POV character put into situations. To me, Chen Shi is a rousing success at this. He's not stupid! He's just extremely sheltered and on his own for the first time in his ife. He's the bravest little toaster, the goodest boy who's not going to let the little things stop him -- like, say, illiteracy, or a lack of familiarity with city living, or an inability to give any substantial details about the brother he's looking for beyond 'he looks just like me.' That's why he's got his friends help him out!

You better believe that when it comes time to save the day, Chen Shi will do it through the power of how everyone loves him.

And he and the kitty are ... romance? Kind of romance? Romance-adjacent? I could burn even more wordcount explaining the dynamic, but @uovoc has already said it best:

cdrama Li Bing is like: I've taken an inexplicable liking to this simple country boy so I'm going to entrust him with my life's greatest secret because I'm whimsical like that. And cdrama Chen Shi is like: this man is the most beautiful cat I've ever seen.

No matter how romantically you slice it, it's a dynamic I absolutely love: where a guy weighed down by his own past meets another guy who could not care less about that. Chen Shi is Li Bing's chance to figure out who Li Bing is, without the burdens of his family history, connections to the court, job, status, or any of the other things everyone else sees when they look at him. Chen Shi looks at Li Bing and sees Li Bing, whiskers and all.

I mean, Chen Shi makes Li Bing an entire office full of human-sized cat toys. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

And if you're not into besties-to-worsties or the pure and purrfect love between a man and his cat who is also a man? That's okay! I've helpfully made a chart to demonstrate the many flavors of exciting relationship dynamics White Cat Legend makes available to you:

Imagine the possibilities! Make your own fun! And then get over to AO3 and share it with the rest of the class! The White Cat Legend tag is sparsely populated and mostly not in English, and that's a shame, because there's so much smooching potential.

5. Not as dumb as it looks

Wow, that's kind of a backhanded compliment, isn't it? Well, no, not actually. You saw my earlier points about what a bag of goofs this show is. What's easy to miss, though, is how unexpectedly clever a whole lot of its dumbassery is.

A lot of this, I'm going to chalk up to the actors, who on the whole turn in some comedic performances way better than they have any right to be. That's the thing about comedy: to do stupid well, you have to be smart. They're all very funny, and they've got some great chemistry in combinations and permutations. It's a testament to their abilities that you can take any two of them, give them a scene together, and get something worth watching out of it.

Of course most of this is the main boys, but the major supporting characters largely have the same clever sense of comedic timing. Their actors know they're not performing some great work of literature, so they've decided to have some fun with it. I'm not going to praise anyone's performance here as particularly great, but by and large, the recurring cast members are doing solid work.

The aforementioned goofball nonsense also does a fair job of distracting from how creative the show can be. For example, the fact that many of the fights and chases are comedic makes it easy to miss how the fight choreography is often really tight. I don't think the show is trying to hide its moments of cleverness, so much as it's just grabbing them where it can without drawing attention to them.

I know a lot of people gave up on this show only a few episodes in, and I suspect I know why. It's not even that it just takes a while to find its footing -- it never quite finds its footing, on account of being such a patchwork creation. It's an adaptation of an incomplete story, forced to make changes because of budgetary limitations, promising things it's not allowed to deliver on, and further cut down between filming and release. That's what you call having the deck stacked against you. The fact that the final product is not only watchable but downright enjoyable is a testament to how the production got some critical fundamentals right.

In short, it's not just dumb fun -- though it is a lot of dumb fun. But it's dumb fun with just enough to sink your teeth into that it eventually becomes a compelling ratio. I don't blame the people who bailed, but I'm glad I stuck with it.

bonus: It comes in other flavors!

If you like the series and you want more, you're in luck! There's a whole ongoing comic and animated series!

The comic is the original version of the story: a tall vertical webcomic with a cute, distinctive style. It's still being published, and it's very different from the drama. There's a great ongoing translation project at @whitecatlegend, so if your Mandarin skills are as bad as mine (or worse!), you can follow along in English as well!

The donghua is a pretty close adaptation of several parts of the comic. You can find the whole first season at this YouTube playlist, though please note that the playlist is out of order, so you don't accidentally start with episode 8. The translation is ... eh, it's a little rough in places, to put it charitably, but it also makes some charming localization decisions, so I'm all for it. Oh, and here's the second season! It's even prettier and better-translated than the first!

Also, hey, furries? Li Bing's a perma-kitty in both of those versions of the story, so have fun with that.

The drama's casting is spot-on. Whoever picked these boys went out of their way to keep the original artistic vibe as much as possible, to the point where if you'd told me the drama had come first and then someone had drawn a comic starting from the actors' likenesses, I would've believed you.

(And yes, if you've read it, Qiu Qingzhi and Lai Zhongshu aren't technically Qiu Shenji and Lai Junchen, but I'm declaring them close enough for the purposes of this demonstration.)

I have heard that some fans of the comic are unhappy about the live-action adaptation, and I get that, I do -- they are not the same thing. There are plenty of things the drama leaves out where, okay, I understand why that person/event/factor got cut, but at the same time, dammit. In the end, I like them both as very different stories featuring the same(-ish) characters. Still, the drama is definitely not one of those situations where you get to tune in to watch the same things you loved on the page, just in a different medium. The delightfully accurate casting is about where the similarities end. Everything beyond that is its own legend.

Kitty.

Here, kitty, kitty?

The drama's an iQiyi exclusive, so that's where you'll get it.

It's a fun show, not a perfect show. It has some captivating elements and lots of promising nonsense worth thinking about. And like I said, it's a tiny-ass fandom -- a paltry 277 works on AO3, a mere 44 of which are in English. Somebody get in there and make some combination of those boys kiss!

Also, it is criminal that Kitty Li Bing has fabulous red eyeliner that Person Li Bing does not get to wear. Call makeup and fix that.