#that bottom week going on at twitter inspired me

[asikku]

he is fun to draw but i feel like i do him wrong everytime

[bottomlouisficfest]

We hope you’ve enjoyed the first couple of weeks of fics from the Bottom Louis Fic Fest 2024! Every two weeks, we’re compiling all of the fics from that period into one roundup post so they’re easy to find for anyone looking to catch up on fics they missed. Enjoy these amazing fics and give them the love they deserve!

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make sure you kiss your knuckles before you punch me in the face

A fic by localopa on AO3 | @voulezloux on Tumblr

25k | Explicit | Tumblr post | Twitter post

things could be worse. harry doesn’t know what could be worse than being forced to do a tell-all interview with his ex friends with benefits that he still harbors feelings for, the only person he could ever see a future with, the person who truly hates him so much, he can’t help but hate him right back. but surely, worse things have happened at sea, right?

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More, More, More

A fic by thecheshirepussycat on AO3 | @the-cheshire-pussy-cat on Tumblr | @Bee_With_Mee on Twitter

9k | Explicit | Tumblr post | Twitter post

BLFF Prompt 216: 1980s AU. Harry is a singer and Louis is a groupie that Harry sleeps with. He becomes Harry’s inspiration for writing Rebel Yell by Billy Idol.

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.. / .-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..- (I Love You)

A fic by emmli28 on AO3 | @emmli28 on Twitter

27k | Explicit | Tumblr post | Twitter post

Louis and Harry have been friends since they were children and Louis has had a crush on Harry for as long as he can remember. At a young age Louis learned how to say I love you in morse code and has used it to profess his love for Harry ever since. He has gifted him bracelets with the code, drawn it on his skin and tapped it into his body. Every time Harry has asked, Louis has just shrugged it off, unable to voice his true feelings. Louis and Harry are now moving to different cities for university and they won't be able to see each other every day, like they are used to. Will their friendship stand the test and will Louis ever be able to tell Harry how he feels?

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Upon the Plot Where I Took My Eternal Residence

A fic by daydreamlwts on AO3 | @daydreamlwts on Twitter

6k | Mature | Tumblr post | Twitter post

Prompt 39- Louis gets into a car accident in the middle of nowhere and Harry, who lives in the middle of nowhere, finds and helps him.

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all you're dreaming of

A fic by orleelou on AO3 | @orleelou on Tumblr | @orleelou on Twitter

61k | Mature | Tumblr post | Twitter post

In hindsight Louis should know there would be only one bed in the older man's room. It was a small inn attached to a pub downstairs, he should know. And it wasn’t a king sized bed where both of them could stay in their respective place without touching each other until the sun rose. The double bed was staring at Louis, taunting him and judging him for spending a night with clearly someone’s father who probably had children around his age.

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Fly Me To Places I've Never Been

A fic by BoosBabycakes on AO3 | @boosbabycakes28 on Tumblr | @BoosBabycakes28 on Twitter

47k | Explicit | Tumblr post | Twitter post

The plane is finally stabilized in the air, unfortunately Louis’ stress isn’t, anxiety and panic bubbling inside of him. All he can think about is how he is going to survive the longest flight of his life. He puts his airpods in, starts whatever playlist he prepared for the flight on shuffle while he is still embarrassingly hyperventilating. He closes his eyes, clutching onto his hoodie like his life depends on it when he feels a finger gently poking at his shoulder. He opens his eyes, taking one of his airpods off to hear a deep whisper, “Are you- Are you alright?” The voice is laced with worry. “You’re kind of scaring me. Are you afraid of flights?” The stranger seems genuinely concerned and it makes Louis want to cry even more. He doesn’t reply, simply shakes his head and thinks for a moment. Nothing can really get any worse at the moment so he grabs his phone from his lap, opens his note app and types, ‘MY EX IS SITTING BEHIND US WITH HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND’ . or The one where Louis’ ex ends up sitting right behind him with his new girlfriend on his flight back to Los Angeles, and the beautiful stranger next to him has an unexpected idea to help him get through the next five hours.

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a dream awaits in aisle number two

A fic by anditsonlyforthebrave on AO3 | @HARRYSC1NEMA on Twitter

6k | Not Rated | Tumblr post | Twitter post

“Hello, Louis,” the taller guy says, “looking as heavenly as ever” he comments, and Louis smiles. Definitely drunk, he thinks. “Had a fun night?” he asks, and Harry shrugs, “Niall’s cousin is visiting us for the week, and he bought us a bit too much to drink. How are you, Louis?” “Very tired, I can’t wait to sit down.” The next sentence that leaves Harry’s mouth leaves Louis speechless for multiple reasons. Or... Louis works nights in the local grocery store and has a silly little crush. Harry is a bit awkward, but it's not a coincidence that he as a silly little crush as well also known as prompt 159.

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Kiwi - It's your business!

A fic by Blue_Green28 on AO3 | @bluegreen28fics on Tumblr | @_blue_green28 on Twitter

23k | Explicit | Tumblr post | Twitter post

When ex-boybander Louis Tomlinson asks newcomer Harry Styles to be his support act for the next leg of his tour, he has no idea that he will gain more than just a support act. or, the one with the banter on tour

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Love is red and it looks so good on you

A fic by DaxitaIsDaydreaming on AO3 | @DaxitasDaydrmng on Twitter

12k | Mature | Tumblr post | Twitter post

“Mummy and Daddy love us, so they will love anything we do for them.” She turned to look at her twin and noticed that the doubt was still drawn in her gaze, so she proposed, “Look, you are closer to Daddy, you like Daddy's books and those things, so you will go to help Mum with his gift.” Dars nodded with a shy smile, so she continued, “Mummy loves me more and shares the things he likes with me, so I will go with Daddy.” “That’s not true, Mummy loves us equally,” she refuted with a slight pout. Mummy would be incapable of loving one more than the other. Right? “I don’t go around saying that Daddy loves me more than you.” “Because he doesn’t love you more than me,” she cut her off. Or the one where Louis and Harry's eighth anniversary is right around the corner and they don't have their gifts yet. But it's okay because their little alphas girls are ready to help them.

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Blue Nights

A fic by SilverStuff50 on AO3 | @silverstuff50 on Tumblr | @SilverStuff50 on Twitter

56k | Explicit | Tumblr post | Twitter post

Louis does what he needs to do to make ends meet, and if that means showing his body to make money, so be it, he'll use the gifts he's been given to keep him and his dad safe. When a mysterious benefactor starts to make demands on him, Louis has to question whether its the money or the man he's most tempted by.

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Remember to give these fics kudos and comments, and spread their fic posts!

–

All roundups will be linked here:

Weeks 1-2 Roundup

Weeks 3-4 Roundup

Weeks 5-6 Roundup

Weeks 7-8 Roundup

Weeks 9-10 Roundup

Weeks 11-12 Roundup

[genopaint]

Week 42 coming right at you!! LOOK OUT!!!!!!! OH MY GOD THEY HAVE THEIR EARBUDS IN THEY CAN'T HEAR US-

As always you can follow me on twitter where they’re posted daily

And read more info on each of them below the cut

Daily Dragon #294 - Golem Dragon

Man made dragons designed to complete particularly difficult tasks like mining or guarding treasures. Just slip a command on a piece of paper in their mouth and watch them work! They're powered by magic crystal held inside the rocks!

Daily Dragon #295 - Dragourd

These small cursed Jack-o'-lanterns are actually tiny fire breathing dragons! People will carve their pumpkins to look like them, but doing this often will attract the real deal! You dont want a crowd of them at your house.

Here's the concept art for this fella! I knew for a bit that I wanted to draw doing something where I use the mouth + eye pieces to make horns. Originally I was gonna do an ogre, but of course... Yknow... Dragons...

Daily Dragon #296 - Feral Gobold

Small and viscous creatures that love biting and scratching anything they come across. Trees and rocks near their nests are often covered in claw and teeth marks from top to bottom!

This is another redraw! Called the "Small Beast" from 2016 at the latest. It wasn't originally a dragon, and frankly idk if it was even a reptile. But it was some sort of Nidorina inspired creature because that Pokemon has one of my favorite small beast designs :)

Daily Dragon #297 - Galathia the Famished One

Galathia appears in the form of a massive dragon, the only vessel that can contain her power we can comprehend. While she's nice, the food she demands can be... drastic. A soul here, an eternity there. Maybe a whole planet?

ANOTHER redraw, this time of this old eldritch horror girl! I tried to make her a little more visually coherent, and while she's maybe a little less bizarre I think she looks a little more clean? Idk. The original is also from 2016 at the latest!

Daily Dragon #298 - Ba'ul

And here's another dragon I knew I wanted to do from the start! I was put off though for a bit because he's a little complicated and hard to find refs for. But ultimately I think he came out fantastic!! Please play Vesperia

I've also done a dragon from some of GOAT JRPG series but hadn't done one from Tales of yet. And I just couldn't let the challenge end without doing at least ONE and there's no one better than my beautiful baby boy Ba'ul

ALSO ALSO I HAVE to give the biggest shoutout to this artist who did an amazing study on Ba'ul's design. It's genuinely the best reference of him online and I could not have drawn this without making heavy use of it!

Daily Dragon #299 - A Dragon

Is something there? Can you see it? Did you lock your door? What was that by the window? Can you see it? It sees you

Just to not keep anyone in suspense, cause I dont think these things work that well with the whole transparency effect. Here he is :) what a lovely smile

I wanted to do this concept for a dragon basically all October but I couldn't make anything I liked that was actually unnerving. I still don't think this dude is that scary lmao. But yes his joints go backwards so he can walk on the ceiling and scare you

Daily Dragon #300 - Gorodin

A massive set of ancient bones that lie dormant in a valley. They become charged with cursed lightning, and start to swim in the sky. As it lets out a horrible cry sounding like a static whale call, it blows towns to cinders with powerful electricity.

And just like the last 2 times, this milestone dragon was made by combining YOUR ideas together! Thank you all so much for giving so many good suggestions on shorter notice than usual! As always I adjusted them a touch to make it all work, but thanks for your ideas regardless!!

And just like before, if I didn't use your idea, I have it written down so I can maybe do something with it later!!

BUT YEAH!! DAY 300!!! WE'RE ALREADY HERE! The end of the Daily Dragon Challenge is coming up quicker than I'm ready to admit!!

There's only 66 dragons left and as we move forward I may start planning them out a little bit. There's still a lot I want to draw, and a lot I know I won't get to in this time frame. But that's okay. It's not like I'll ever stop drawing dragons lol.

Thank you all SO much for your continued support and sticking with this whole big challenge even when I miss like, whole weeks at a time lol. Lets enjoy the rest of the year with lots of cool dragons :)

And of course, here's how it looks powered down!

[gallavichthings]

Gallavich Week 2023

Here we go once more with the 11th (!!!) edition of Gallavich Week!

Last year I decided to change things up a bit and give you two choices for each day, instead of just one as was usual before. Well, this year I'm taking things even further because you'll actually end up with several choices per day.

Dates and themes below, details about each theme (please read those and also follow the links when provided) and more information about Gallavich Week in general after the read more. Quick reminder that all kinds of work are welcome, as long as they are original. Please read the guidelines before posting.

18/06 - Gallavich Week 2023 playlist

19/06 - Top 20 touristic attractions in Chicago

20/06 - Disney

21/06 - Meet-cutes NYC Instagram

22/06 - Tags from popular Gallavich fics

23/06 - Shakespeare

24/06 - Free Day

Details about themes:

18/06 - Gallavich Week 2023 playlist

This was a playlist created with suggestions from some followers of songs that reminded them of Gallavich. I won't be adding any more songs to it, but there should be more than enough to inspire you!

19/06 - Top 20 touristic attractions in Chicago

Just follow the link to know what they are. As usual, prompts are meant to inspire and can be taken any way you want, not just as Ian and Mickey visiting the places.

20/06 - Disney

Anything Disney-themed. Disney movies, Disney shows, Disneyland... Mickey Mouse? :P And yes, Marvel and Star Wars can be considered Disney as well.

21/06 - Meet-cutes NYC Instagram

Follow the Instagram to find dozens of interviews with random couples about how they met! Watch them and get inspired. :)

22/06 - Tags from popular Gallavich fics

I took one "unusual" tag from each of the 10 Gallavich fics with more kudos on AO3, so here they are, to be used as inspiration:

Unresolved Sexual Tension (from Sexual Harassment in the Workplace)

Organized Crime (from The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Ian Gallagher)

Soulmate AU (from you are inked on my skin long before we begin)

Ian and Mickey talk dicks (from Nobody's Fuckin' Business)

Accidental Baby Acquisition (from Melánia)

Internalized Homophobia (from Noisy Neighbours)

Domestic!Gallavich (from a thousand and one ways to show you care)

Long-Distance Relationship (from Lost in Translation)

Ian Bottoms WHOOPS (from eighty-four)

Social Media (from Cooperative Gameplay)

23/06 - Shakespeare

Self-explanatory, I suppose? But again, to be interpreted as you want.

24/06 - Free Day

CREATING AND POSTING GUIDELINES

How do I participate?

You don’t have to subscribe to anything or announce what you’re doing, you just have to post your work on the appropriate day and tag me on the body of the post using @gallavichthings. It’s important that you tag me properly so that I can be sure to see your post and reblog it.

What types of works are accepted?

Any kind of original fan work is accepted, including but not limited to: fanart, fanfiction (no minimum words required), graphics, gifs and gifsets, videos, and fanmixes. Yes, meta and polls are also accepted (though I do request that you either try to keep them within the theme for each day or post them on the Free Day).

When can I start posting?

I’ll always make one initial post for each day, at 12am GMT (check here to see when that is in your time zone). After that, post away!

Can I still participate even if I don’t have a Tumblr account?

Absolutely! Just submit something here (http://gallavichthings.tumblr.com/submit).

Can I post on Twitter or Instagram?

You can post anywhere you want! On Twitter and IG, we encourage you to use the hashtag #GW2023and I’ll RT you. You can also mention @gallavichthings if you want. I do not have an IG account though, sorry, but you can post there and send me a link for visibility. That being said, we do encourage you to post here as well, so it can be seen by more people.

Is there an AO3 Collection?

Yes, right here. Participation is not mandatory though, and you can rest assured this Collection will not be deleted.

Can I post something that I’ve already posted before?

No, sorry. The works should have been created specifically for GW. You can, however, create a sequel or a different version of a previous work.

Can I post something that is not in English?

Of course. Just make sure that it is original, or that you have the original author’s permission (and, in that case, link to the original too).

Can I make R-rated works?

Yes, just please give any necessary warnings and tell us the rating at the very beginning of the post. If the post is visual (like a fanart or a gifset), it would be nice for you to also tag it accordingly - Tumblr now allowes you to select if a post is deemed for mature audiences or not. It’s not mandatory, but if possible put it under a Read More here on Tumblr and under a spoilers mark (so it’s not instantly visible) on Twitter.

Can I post something that’s AU?

Sure thing! Tag it accordingly though, both for those who want to avoid it and for those who’d like to find it.

Can I post supernatural works, mpreg, or genderbends?

Yes! But if it’s a fic, please include it in the warnings.

Can I post more than one work?

Definitely! The more, the merrier. You can post as many works as you want, on as many days as you want, be it one post per day or ten on the same day. Anything goes!

Can I post on more than one day? Do I have to make something for each day?

Again, the more, the merrier! You can post on only one or all days if you wish!

Can I make one work that fits two or more themes?

Sure thing. I only ask that you post it on the day of the last theme included. For example, if you are posting a work that includes the theme from Day 1 and the theme from Day 4, post it on day 4 (just make sure to tell me that it includes both).

Can I write a multi-chaptered fanfiction?

Yes, and you don’t have to post everything either. When you do, just be sure to include either a masterpost, or the links to the previous chapters in the beginning.

Can I include other characters/pairings in my work?

Yes, as long as Gallavich is still the focus.

What if I can’t finish on time?

The Gallavich fandom is ALWAYS happy to see new fan material, so just post it when you’re done and tag me, ok? The same goes for people who can’t finish a work on the assigned theme day; you can still post it on a different day during GW, just make it clear which day it was made for.

[poketrnt]

because I am god damn sick and tired of ool being an absolute shitstain on my life, I'm gonna finally fucking just say what happened.

step.

by.

step.

the backstory

from around 02.10.2023 to 31.12.2023 I was a part of the group chat known as Epic Gamers, which had two of my friends and a guy I later befriended, those being Furret, Ool and Nexo.

on Christmas Eve a person joined, called Leon. However, a week later, I proceeded to leave the group related to a conflict between me and Leon. I still kept in contact with the three people I was friends with, despite Ool commenting in Epic Gamers about how I should shut up, attaching a screenshot of me trying to give him a normal ass compliment because he was playing a game I find cool

in that time I also had a semi-private server (let's call it Server A for this story, but since Ool trying to avoid a block will read this anyways (and because he said I was making shit up), I'm talking about the server with the Sledgehammer character), where Furret and another friend whom I'll call R were because I was going to test a simple Magic the Noah inspired not-really-chess game made in google slides

also this is the icon I was talking about

2. the god damn incident

on 05.02.2024 Nexo convinced me to try to end the beef between me and Leon. So, I tried to peacefully explain my points of view to Leon, but then I realised I was talking to a brick wall and proceeded to simply state I do not want to talk to him, which just caused him to start saying things that a person reaaally shouldn't say, as seen in the following screenshot, taken directly on that day

soon after I proceeded to go to sleep, but not before glancing at my phone to see a notification of Nexo saying something about an "EG raid" in Server A, when he in fact should not have been there. So, that night I just couldn't fall asleep because of how betrayed by Furret I felt.

as proof of Ool taking part in the raid, here's a screenshot taken by R who was still awake at the time

when I proceeded to wake up in the morning, I saw this message from Furret

losing someone whom I considered a friend up to this point was a heavy blow, but I lost three friends at once AND got trust issues

3. the harassment

so, like 2 weeks after that happened, I decided to go and finally speak up on Twitter, only to find that someone has decided to reply to every single tweet I've made with harassing messages

naturally, I've immediately blocked the person who made those replies, but they soon after made another account, and then another after it got blocked, and another.

later on I've found ool leaving messages on my personal Board Game Blitz wiki how I had used Furret's character (at the time of the character being added to the roster, I was still friends with Furret and had recieved his permission to do it. So, I simply just deleted the message and started planning a completely original character due to not wanting to be associated with Furret. But Ool decided to still harass me with more comments on the wiki, and later he proceeded to also raid some pages.

naturally by that point I was getting sick of all of them, but when I saw Ool and Leon trying to get in contact with me on Steam, for reasons I knew exactly, I decided to react calmly and do what I did before by blocking them both. However, a friend, whom I'll address as A, decided to get to the bottom of why Leon and Ool decided to be such scummy people

it was absolutely ridiculous, with Leon talking about how me saying that both Ool and him get hit by a truck and how I told him that I know 1s and 0s that are more human than him were death wishes. Which like, while the first one could theoretically be an argument, calling the second one a death wish was plain stupid.

also Leon was just trying to turn A against me which failed horribly and just cemented out entire group in the idea that the members of Epic Gamers are horrible people

later on Ool decided to try again on Roblox, because why the hell not, despite the fact he should have gotten the message I don't want to talk to him by then.

and now we're here. The point where Ool decided to invade my only safe place in all of this just to harass me some more and also try to make me look like a bad person

and to Ool, because I know he isn't gonna read through this all and will just skip to the end:

I know your life is pathetic enough that you don't have anything better to do other than harass the girl who you've been friend with at one point, but at least go and play some Minecraft instead of focusing your entire life on hate

[manascrwd]

Decks I Loved from Prague

Before diving into my favorite decks from Eternal Weekend Prague, I want to address why I’m not sharing my own results. Simply put, it’s been rough lately. My Modern performances have been pretty dismal—I’m often finishing near the bottom—and my last Legacy competition, the Belgian Legacy Cup, didn’t go much better. It’s been frustrating, but that hasn’t stopped me from digging through decklists and finding inspiration. So, here’s a look at the decks that stood out to me this time around.

Modern

The deck diversity was kind of boring—mostly Boros, Dimir, or Scales Combo, with a few Eldrazi decks thrown in. Storm didn’t perform well at all. That said, one Jeskai Nulldrifter deck managed to snag #3, which caught my eye.

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/460524

Of course, the list runs four copies of The One Ring (TOR), and I’m sure it’ll look very different in a week or two. Still, it gives me a good starting point for improving my mana base.

At #23, there was a Ruby Storm deck with a really clean list. It had a green splash for Veil of Summer and a white splash for Prismatic Ending.

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/460741

I love how streamlined it is while still having those options.

Another thing that stood out was how Broodscale Combo dropped all the Eldrazi cards and instead focused on +1/+1 counter synergies. It runs playsets of Walking Ballista and all sorts of +1/+1-themed cards, often in small numbers.

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/459548

No Halfling cards at all! The #4 list is super lean and worth taking a closer look at.

Legacy

I saw via twitter that someone brought BUG Chain of Smog combo and was very excited. Unfortunately, the deck didn’t do well overall, but I’ve kind of built a reputation as the Smog guy, so I have to mention it. 😊

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/459682

On the brighter side, Breakfast won the whole thing, piloted by a really strong player.

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/460449

That is awesome to see! It’s a solid reference for me, and now I’m on the hunt for footage of the deck in action so I can level up my own gameplay.

Another deck that grabbed my attention is Omnitell running Borne Upon a Wind. It’s a clever way to get Show and Tell into play, but I wonder how often you can hit five mana consistently?

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/460426

It’s an idea I’d like to explore further.

Vintage

Of course, I couldn’t resist checking out the Vintage results, especially the unpowered decks (since they have their own prizing). The strongest option is probably Dredge, though you’ll need four Bazaar of Baghdad to build it*. Even though it’s not part of the Power Nine, it’s still a pricey card.

The next best thing is Stompy variants, and this time Mono-White Stompy did pretty well.

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/459886

It uses three Elvish Spirit Guides and a playset of Null Rod. It’s less expensive than Dredge, but still not exactly cheap.

One deck I’d love to try is a Frog Midrange build in a Sultai shell.

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/460827

It looks pretty solid, running the usual suspects like Collector Ouphe (x4) and Oko, Thief of Crowns (x3), but surprisingly no Deathrite Shaman. The Thinker target is effing Blighttseel Collossus! Unfortunately, I’m missing way too many cards to even think about building it.

For those lucky enough to have Power Nine cards, the first Oath deck on the standings was really fun to see. It’s running some old-school tech: 2x Spaghetti Monster, Dragon’s Breath, and Channel to hard-cast la nonna!

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/460857

It’s a blast from the past, and now I’m tempted to rebuild that version of the deck. I would be pissed, ending #9 but that's life!

That's all this time around for me. Catch you at FNM!

*Apparently, Bazaar of Baghdad and Mishra's Workshop are considered power as well for this ranking

[tamaradoubraomonibeke]

RSA (Typeface Psychology)

I knew I couldn’t get designing because my theoretical knowledge of design is lacking. Thus, I needed a refresher but reading is daunting, this is why I’ve been listening to Tedtalks (the language used in academic books even though English is basically my first language, is very dull. I have no issues adding to new words to my vocabulary but the way the books are written are emotionless, thus, making me loose interest in the subject matter every time).

I’m tired so enjoy the transcript of the Ted talk. (This is also UX practice for my idea)

Transcriber: Iryna Abramidze Reviewer: Eunice Tan

0:16

We encounter messaging constantly:

0:20

on billboards,

0:22

our phones,

0:24

the labels of products we use every day.

0:27

J. Walker Smith,

0:29

president of marketing firm Yankelovich,

0:32

stated that we are exposed to as many as 5,000 advertisements a day.

0:39

Our minds are constantly being saturated by messaging.

0:43

But to what level is our perception of these brands

0:47

being dictated by the advertising industry?

0:51

Is our preference for one brand over another

0:55

based on its quality,

0:57

our awareness of the brand,

1:00

the way it's presented at the point of purchase?

1:03

When a product's catchy jingle gets stuck in our head,

1:06

we might be more inclined to choose that product over another.

1:10

That's a more obvious advertising tactic.

1:14

But is there a subtler persuasion at play?

1:18

Can designers use typography to manipulate us on a subconscious level?

1:24

Think back.

1:25

How many times have you bought a bottle of wine

1:28

based on its fancy-looking label,

1:31

later to only be basically pouring purple vinegar?

1:35

Me too.

1:38

So first, let's do a quick crash course on typography,

1:40

so we can all become experts.

1:44

Typography is the general term for the style and appearance of text.

1:50

A typeface is a stylized collection of letters and numbers.

1:57

The whole collection is called a family.

2:00

Much like your own family,

2:01

they're similar, but they have their own style.

2:05

See, you have the fun uncle,

2:08

you have the cousin going through his heavy-metal phase,

2:11

you have the aunt that insists you have a second plate.

2:16

Typeface and font are often used interchangeably.

2:20

However, nowadays, a font only refers to the digital file.

2:27

The two most common ways to group typefaces

2:30

are serif and sans serif.

2:33

Serif means the typeface has little feet at the bottom

2:37

whereas sans serif does not.

2:40

But, of course, there are many other subcategories.

2:44

Different type designs convey different emotions.

2:48

For instance,

2:50

something in bold might feel heavy and impactful,

2:56

something in script might feel elegant,

3:02

and something in a geometric sans serif might feel more modern.

3:07

The emotion a typeface evokes

3:11

can be considered a subjective gray area.

3:14

However, I can assure you

3:16

the majority of people would not say Comic Sans gives off a "scholarly" vibe.

3:23

About seven years ago,

3:25

scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research

3:29

announced they'd discovered something called the "God Particle."

3:33

Some refer to this

3:35

as one of the most important scientific breakthroughs in decades.

3:40

But they presented their information

3:42

in arguably the most hated typeface on earth.

3:47

That week, trending on Twitter higher than the God Particle

3:51

was Comic Sans.

3:54

One simple design choice

3:56

completely shifted the conversation

3:58

from this incredible scientific breakthrough

4:02

to how ridiculous a typeface designed for Windows 95 children's software is.

4:10

So we've seen that typefaces can distract us from the message.

4:15

But can simply the style of letters sway us to believe what we're reading?

4:22

Errol Morris, who's known for his investigative documentaries,

4:27

was inspired by this

4:28

and conducted an experiment in 2012 just to test this.

4:35

He found inspiration from reading designer Phil Renaud's blog.

4:39

Renaud wrote about how in university

4:41

his grades had drastically improved

4:45

despite not adding any additional effort.

4:48

After a bit of detective work,

4:50

he had realized only one thing had changed:

4:53

his choice of typeface.

4:56

After reviewing 52 essays,

4:58

he realized that essays written in sans serif Trebuchet MS

5:04

had averaged a B-minus,

5:07

whereas those written in serif fonts Georgia and Times New Roman

5:12

averaged A and A-minus.

5:17

Now, Morris was definitely inspired by this,

5:21

but he wanted a more empirical test.

5:26

He wrote a New York Times article featuring excerpts.

5:31

At the end of the article,

5:32

readers were asked two questions:

5:35

"Is the information in the excerpt true?"

5:38

and "How confident are you in your conclusion?"

5:42

The twist was readers were being presented the information

5:46

in a different typeface each time.

5:50

Not surprisingly,

5:52

the excerpts written in Comic Sans were not very well received.

5:57

However,

5:59

two seemingly similar serif typefaces

6:03

had drastically different results.

6:08

Baskerville had the lowest rate of disagreement,

6:12

whereas Georgia had the highest.

6:17

IBM designers Alessio Laiso and Rick Sobiesiak

6:22

wanted to see

6:23

if the superiority of Baskerville held true outside of news articles.

6:29

Participants in their test were given four sites -

6:33

a banking,

6:35

fitness,

6:36

shopping,

6:38

a news site -

6:39

all in four different typefaces.

6:42

They were then asked to rate them

6:45

on a scale of trustworthiness,

6:48

how appealing they were,

6:50

and how easy they were to use.

6:52

Overall, Baskerville held its title as the most trustworthy.

6:58

But if we look closer,

7:00

we see that the fitness site opposed the news site,

7:05

naming Baskerville as the least trustworthy

7:08

and Fira as the most.

7:12

So perhaps typefaces can influence our sense of credibility.

7:17

But can they go further and affect our senses?

7:22

Researchers Vincent P. Magnini and Seontaik Kim

7:27

published research in the International Journal of Hospitality Management

7:33

indicating that italicized menus

7:37

caused potential diners to see a restaurant as more upscale,

7:41

with the capability of delivering top-rate service.

7:45

Is it possible that this design choice

7:49

sets up customers to enjoy this meal

7:53

more than one ordered off of another menu?

7:58

That this design choice will set up a preconceived notion of quality

8:03

before they even taste the food?

8:08

So before I began my talk,

8:10

I gave you a slip of paper.

8:13

This slip of paper had a spray of perfume

8:16

as well as the logo of that perfume printed on it.

8:19

I then asked you to estimate

8:21

what a 50-milliliter bottle of this perfume might cost

8:26

and rate its quality on a scale of 1 to 100

8:29

via a live online poll.

8:32

So these are the results.

8:35

The more cheesy-looking sans serif logo

8:39

had an even spread of votes among the lower brackets of price scales,

8:46

whereas if we look over here,

8:48

the large majority for the script logo

8:53

rested in the 150 to 300 RMB, or 22 dollar to 45 dollar, price points.

9:01

Additionally, we can see a difference in the rate of quality.

9:04

Those that were given the cheesy-looking logo

9:07

had a quality estimate median of 48.9%,

9:14

but those that were given the script

9:16

sat at 57.1% -

9:19

nearly a 10% difference in quality estimation.

9:24

These two fictitious brands have the same name.

9:29

In fact, all strips of paper

9:32

were sprayed with the same 2 dollar, 15 RMB, bottle of perfume.

9:39

The only difference is the typeface of the logo.

9:46

How can we be more cognizant of this persuasive messaging?

9:50

Is there a way that we can see past the implications these typefaces give us

9:56

to judge in a more objective way?

10:01

Before you make your next purchase,

10:03

ask yourself:

10:05

are you buying the product or the packaging?

10:08

Thank you

[graffitibible]

genuinely confused wdym by gerard way white saviorism

you asked me this about 3 weeks ago, and i'm sorry it took me so long to get to it. i had to think very hard about how i was going to answer this one, because i want to be transparent in just how frustrating i find this issue without drawing a lot of fire from really pissed off my chem fans who hate the idea of my daring to speak up against their perfect white fav (which has happened often, and continues to happen often. fortunately i'm pretty immune to this by now but i do find it very annoying)

i want to be very transparent in that i think that pretty much everyone can benefit from the idea that their favs are flawed. i'm very aware of the flaws and missteps that people i admire, both personally and professionally, have committed in their lives, and it is down to my own sense of morality over whether that's a dealbreaker for me. i don't like the idea of calling out bad behavior for the sake of clout or whatever. but i do care about not people being spoken over when they point out a legitimate criticism, and that is the bottom line here.

below the cut, i'm going to be discussing some very heavy topics: racism of all flavors is the most prevalent one, but i'm also going to touch (briefly) on topics such as antisemitism, incest, and abuse.

and i am also, in general, going to be saying a lot of very unkind things.

when it comes to criticisms of the scene, of narrative writing, of mistakes that people make...my chemical romance, and gerard way in particular, are consistently rendered immune. when we discuss misogyny in the scene in the early and mid aughts, my chem's name never comes up (despite the fact that bullets, their first album, most certainly has lyrics that certainly evoke the same violent misogyny present in a lot of works from that era). when we discuss racism within the scene, my chem is never really discussed at length except perhaps to point out that ray toro is a latino man who is either ignored or sexualized (or both) by a deeply racist fanbase. there is a tendency, within these spaces, to give my chem the benefit of the doubt where the same grace is not extended to others.

this is what i mean by "white saviorism." because gerard way's whiteness in particular protects them from a lot of this. and i say this because of all the things that has made it deeply uncomfortable to interact with broad swathes of my chem's fanbase, the racism has unquestionably been the number one deterrent. there is a very unique brand of racism present within my chem spaces - and i know i am not the only person of color who feels this way, because i've spoken to many who can say the same - that is particularly violent, particularly virulent, and particularly ingrained. experiences with this, along with my own growing distaste for gerard way as a writer, has soured my experience with the music so tremendously that i can no longer really interact with it at length.

i am not, however, above citing my sources. so. let’s talk about racism in gerard way’s writing, shall we?

i have always been up front about the fact that i do not find gerard way to be a particularly inspired, interesting, or good writer. i find most of their work to be aggressively mediocre and highly derivative. but my own personal opinion of their work has very little bearing on the extremely racist rhetoric that upholds a distressing amount of it. here is where i'm going to link a pretty informative twitter thread that outlines a lot of these instances in detail, but it is by no means exhaustive.

it's in the umbrella academy comics, wherein the main characters are all white despite being children taken from "all over the world." it's in the orientalist racist caricatures of the vampire viet cong group that the heroes square up against. it's in the casual instances of slurs that have cropped up several times in their works without any understanding of the impact those words have (an anti-indigenous slur in the umbrella academy comics, an anti-romani slur in the killjoys national anthem comics - which, i should state, came out in 2020). it's in the appalling writing decision to, in national anthem, make the sole black character the character with "animal powers" who rips out adversary's throats on all fours. it's in the frequent and persistent sexualization of women of color, particularly asian women. it's in the colorism involved in the interplay between mike milligram (a white man), code blue (a latina woman), and jaime ramirez (their mixed child), wherein jaime's skin tone shifts at the drop of a hat depending on which of his parental figures is in the frame (code blue is dead by the time the story picks up properly, but her sister, code red, effectively raises him...and he ends up staying with his father).

and it is unquestionably, overwhelmingly present in danger days. this is a danger days blog so this is the area in which i have the most research, so i want to be very clear when i say this:

racism is an insidious, incontrovertible, and inextricable foundation of the very conceptual underpinnings behind danger days and all its associated works.

the orientalism is baked into the very aesthetic of the album. better living industries is a japanese mega-company that takes everything over, the big bad of the franchise. the asian "aesthetic" is all over the canon in the music videos and comics: non-asian characters are seen wearing it, it's in all the marketing and even present on the album itself, wherein a woman is clearly heard speaking japanese on the "party poison" track. there was also the baffling inclusion of the "clown monk" character that was cut from the music videos back in 2010, wherein a white man is wandering around wearing buddhist robes (they inexplicably liked this concept so much that they brought it back for the national anthem comics which, again, i will reiterate: came out in 2020).

this is not surprising. danger days is deeply derivative in concept (up to and including the name itself), and because most of its influences come from cyberpunk dystopia fiction from the 80s, most obviously the 1980s film blade runner. works of fiction in that vein frequently draw from the idea of "yellow peril," and are rooted in the extremely racist and xenophobic rhetoric that western civilization will be invaded and dismantled by the evil, scary asians. the end result is a concept of a "dystopia" that is mired in the very stereotypical fears of the time: fears of an east asian surveillance state invading the west, fears of the all-powerful homogenized "other," and so on.

this did not stop gerard way from exotifying and fetishizing the fUCK out of all their asian characters though!!! the director of better living industries gets to be the primary major asian character in the killjoys california comics, and she spends a good chunk of it in dominatrix gear, with a whip to boot - both villain and sex object. the comic’s sex workers, referred to as “pornodroids,” are all asian-coded and, although we get one of the comic’s two same-sex pairings (3/4 of the characters involved in said pairings are dead by the comics’ end), the characters of red and blue spend the entirety of their screen time in the highly sexualized apparel of their occupations. there’s also the character of korse’s boyfriend, who does not get a name and spends all of his screen time lounging around shirtless in korse’s apartment. nice of gway to reduce the only  asian dude to eye candy fridged for korse’s manpain. i guess.

also, i should not fail to mention - the killjoys california and danger days sections of canon are INCREDIBLY white for pieces of fiction that take place in california, which is one of the most racially diverse areas in the states. in terms of latino characters, we get jet star (by virtue of being played by ray toro in the music video, though i should point out that there is no guarantee that this is actually reflective of jet star’s true appearance, since none of the killjoy appearances are necessarily 1:1 with those of the band in the comics), and we get...POSSIBLY vaya and vamos, who are ambiguously brown and have names in spanish which implies they might be latine (but given that this is california and most of the population speaks spanish, is not necessarily a given). we also get volume, the sole black character, who gets a handful of lines before being unceremoniously killed off within moments of meeting him. the girl’s mother is definitely drawn as a woman of color, but she gets one line, no name, and the girl herself is drawn as very straightforwardly white and considered to have a “fair complexion” in the comics.

this trend unfortunately continues into national anthem, wherein there’s certainly a more diverse cast, but unfortunately, very little of that cast actually gets concrete development. mike milligram is our central protagonist, our sole white character (gerard way basically only ever commits to writing white protagonists)...and he’s also the only one of them who gets an arc of any kind. code blue (a latina woman, and his girlfriend) is fridged for his manpain. code red, blue’s sister, does not get nearly as much focus on her grief despite losing someone she knew for much longer than mike ever did. jaime, mike and blue’s child, resents red for raising him and chooses to stay with his birth father once the events of the comics are over. i’ve touched on how animax, our sole black character, is given “animal powers” and is pictured several times brutally ripping apart his enemies, but i should also point out that his big character motivation is - no joke - rosa parks. as in, rosa parks being erased from history, and he wants to stop it (these comics were weird, and also incredibly bad). everyone else has a deeply personal motivation save for animax, whose motivation is basically that he wants people to not forget that the civil rights movement like, happened.

there’s also the instance of kara jeong, or kara 100%. this is the one that really makes me grind my teeth, because she’s frequently praised as a cornerstone for trans representation. and i agree that having more trans women of color in comics is great! but this does not erase the fact that, like literally every other asian character gerard way has ever written, she is very much sexualized. her job as a model means that “it was essential that she was good looking” and it is not as egregious an example as, say, the director in the california comics...but it’s an unsettling addition to a constant pattern. there are a lot of shots of kara’s bare neck and shoulders and long legs, and all that on top of the fact that, like anyone who isn’t mike milligram, she gets very little characterization at all...well, it’s not a great look.

these are the issues in gerard’s writing that are the most frequently dismissed and ignored. this post is horribly long to begin with, so i don’t want to carry on (ha...ha....), but i want it on record that i very much could. this does not even begin to touch upon the bizarre inclusion of a constant incest undertone in almost everything gerard way writes (the umbrella academy is the most obvious here, but even in the killjoys canons...red and blue are lesbian lovers in california while being sisters in national anthem, and that’s kind of a little uncomfortable, all things considered), nor does it address gerard’s insistence on including very homogenous abusive backstories for no reason besides, i guess, character angst (and these abusive backstories all involve a physically abusive male figure, because i guess this is the only kind of abusive relationship gerard way can visualize).

[EDIT: just remembered, because i forgot to mention it (knew i was forgetting something) - there's also quite a bit of antisemitism present in the umbrella academy comics that is further exacerbated in the show. i'm not the best equipped person to talk about that (i've only watched the show up to s2, at which point i kinda got sick of that garbage enough to just tap out of it), and i also have only looked over the tua comics a few times as opposed to the show, which is not run or primarily written by gerard way. that being said, he's definitely a creative consultant on it, so...i think maybe they should've reconsidered making reginald hargreeves a baby-stealing lizard man and having the bad guys all speak to each other in yiddish, possibly.]

let me be the first to say...none of this surprises me. these are all pitfalls i’ve seen white writers (and writers of color with internalized issues) commit as well. and i also, as well, want to make it clear that i imagine very little of these appalling writing decisions were committed with active malice. i sincerely doubt that anyone involved in these writing processes steepled their fingers and cackled wickedly over what crimes they would commit to their many brown fans.

i want to be very, very clear here. i lay all of this out not to “shame” gerard way or write a “callout post” or anything to that effect. i want to be utterly transparent in that i think gerard way’s racism is as mediocre and unremarkable as their writing is: derivative, lazy, shallow, and incredibly commonplace.

and that is where the idea of “gerard way white saviorism” comes from. because these are all, individually, acts of horribly insensitive, damaging, and deeply racist rhetoric that would unquestionably be addressed if it were anyone else doing them. but because it’s gerard way, and the internet loves gerard way, and everyone has decided that gerard way is their white liberal fav who can do no wrong...like the case with everything else surrounding my chemical romance, they get a pass. they are exempt.

this is far from everything. it’s just what i can remember at the moment. i am not the first person of color to point this shit out. i imagine i will be ignored, much like every other fan of color who has made these points in the past. people don’t like to imagine that gerard way can be capable of these sorts of oversights. they don’t like to think about it. they want to persist in painting their very ordinary, centrist, white liberal fav as someone whose every word is deeply progressive and insightful and flawless. because, consistently, they get the benefit of the doubt where others, especially folks of color, do not.

so no one talks about it. no one talks about how gerard way’s writing is consistently racist in a very clear and distinct way that no one wants to address, making it more insidious. no one wants to talk about the mind-bogglingly racist conceptual underpinnings holding up the entire danger days album. no one wants to talk about how gerard, and all of my chemical romance accepted, or at the very least tolerated, bob bryer’s overt antiblack racism for years, for nearly a decade, and never said a word.

no one wants to talk about it. because that would mean they’d have to come to terms with their white savior not being so perfect.

so they don’t.

and shit like this is why i find the overwhelming majority of my chemical romance fan spaces to be deeply unwelcoming to someone like myself: a brown person who tries to call out racism when i see it. and i know i’m not the only one.

[yukidragon]

Is demon SDJ an au or just a halloween costume? also do you have a headcanon for demon Jack too?

To my knowledge, it could be both. I believe it started when YummyPinkMilk got the idea to draw Jack as an incubus, which inspired Jambeebot/Sauce to draw their own version.

Later on, Sauce made a sprite version for fun with a slightly tweaked design, as we’ve seen on the official Sunny Day Jack twitter. After that, costumes for all the male leads were made.

It’s really cool to see both versions of the design side by side.

Whether or not the sprites are just fun Halloween costumes or something more to them remains to be seen. A lot of people enjoy playing with this design as its own AU though.

Also, as a quick aside, let me remind everyone to please not repost art posted privately on the SnaccPop Studios Patreon. Art that was posted publicly is okay as long as you remember to give Sauce full credit for it like I’m doing here. Please support them and this lovely game by becoming a patron, backing the official Sunny Day Jack kickstarter, or just spreading the word. As a reminder, there’s just a week left before the kickstarter closes!

As for headcanons, well... I do have a few thoughts that I could rattle off. It’ll go under the cut of course since we’re talking about a sex demon AU for an Adults Only game. Talk about spice is pretty inevitable.

Also, there might be some mature themes that go beyond sex. The implications of this sort of supernatural being can get pretty dark if you think about it too hard... which I’m oft to do. How dark? Hopefully no darker than my third headcanon post with the tragedy of [Redacted].

...Which is giving me ideas for this AU. Strap in, folks.

Oh, before I get started, I should tag @channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic​ &  @sai-of-the-7-stars. If you want to be tagged in my next headcanon post, please let me know!

Since these are my own personal headcanons for a demon Jack AU, I’m going to default to using my own personal version of the MC, Alice. However, I will do my best to make mention of when things could apply to the MC in general.

For starters, Jack is an incubus in this headcanon. It’s not because he’s a male sex demon, but because he’s a top. I’ve been inspired by this popular thread that looks at the Latin origins of incubus/succubus and divides them not by gender but by sexual preferences. An incubus is a top, a succubus is a bottom, and a concubus is a verse.

Of course, Jack is flexible enough to take the role of a concubus or a succubus if his sunshine wants, but his preference is overwhelmingly as an incubus.

In this universe, sex demons, shortened to ‘cubi, can shapeshift to some degree, mostly in terms of body type, sex organs, and their more “demonic” features (wings, horns, tail, markings, etc.) This means that they can better appeal to the exact tastes of whatever human they’re catering to, or simply their own. This means that technically they’re genderfluid, but like anyone they have their own gender identity. In Jack’s case, that’s male, and the above appearance is what he is most comfortable in. If he wanted to, however, he could make himself look like the genderswap AU version of himself, Jill.

Despite being known as sex demons, ‘cubi don’t actually come from some infernal underworld... at least not originally. Rather, they’re beings made from magic as the manifestations of desire, specifically to cater to the pleasures of those that summon them. In a way, they’re something of a mixture between tulpas and familiars, bound to a specific person to serve them in exchange for that person’s energy to sustain them.

You know, something kind of similar to Jack’s situation with his sunshine in the main universe.

Now, I’m not saying Jack in SDJ is secretly an incubus or anything like that, even though he practically lives to serve MC and feels more secure in his existence through having sex with them, but... the parallels are kind of pretty apparent.

Naturally, this sort of setup is pretty rife with unfortunate implications if these magical husbando/waifus happen to be thinking and feeling sentient beings rather than glorified magical sex dolls made just for the pleasure of their owner. What sort of awful person would enslave some poor soul to just use them like that?

Oh wait.

Now... while this idea can very easily go into non-consent territory, I don’t want to go there, not even in an AU. This is just the origins of the ‘cubi species that serves as background in this universe. At some point in the past, they broke free of this unfavorable state of servitude. They weren’t meant to be able to reproduce on their own or live unbound to their masters, but the ‘cubi figured out how to do both and became their own race. They’ve been engaging in a both symbiotic and antagonistic relationship with humanity ever since.

Typically ‘cubi are unable to feel love of any sort due to their origins, but like any species that grows and changes over time with each generation, eventually there will be anomalies. Jack is one such anomaly. Unlike the majority of his species, he longs to love and be loved, but for the longest time didn’t realize that’s what he was missing. Much like in the regular universe, his family didn’t love him, but the ‘cubi parents didn’t even pretend they did, as the concept is just dismissed as a “human” trait, and humans are just for “food and fun” to the ‘cubi.

Naturally, Jack had a hard time living with the ‘cubi. Much like the main universe, he was neglected and ignored by those around him as he was growing, and eventually there was a tipping point that made him leave them and never look back again.

Although ‘cubi are most well known for being sex “demons”, they can feed off of any human desire, and it’s strongest when it’s directed at them. Sexual desire is just the most favored way for them to feed, as it’s very potent and pleasurable. This means that a human just looking at them with lustful feelings can offer them some energy even without directly engaging in sex.

The ‘cubi that either don’t want to have sex or are too young for it get their energy from platonic sources of desire or have energy donated to them by other ‘cubi. We respect enthusiastic consent in this house, and only consenting adults should engage in sexual behaviors, even in a fantasy AU.

Of course, once an adult, Jack did engage in sexual behaviors. What he didn’t get from ‘cubi, he thought he could get from humans. The pleasure was great, but he was still wanting more. He wanted to be the desire of many humans, believing that’s what he was missing. This led to a hedonistic lifestyle and a lot of people desiring him, but no matter how much desire he consumed, he was never satisfied.

Naturally, there are people who have a huge issue with sexual promiscuity. There are also people who have a huge problem with non-human races, ranging from distaste to outright hatred. Combine the two with plenty of fear, and you get tragedy.

With Jack seducing so many people and desiring so much attention, it was only a matter of time before the wrong people found out. There are demon hunters in this world, as well as those who believe the ‘cubi are evil. Jack was labeled as a demon seducing innocent people and clouding their minds, tempting them to the path of sin, and other such excuses to hunt him down.

Jack barely survived being killed by the hunters, but was captured instead. In this world, familiars are summoned and can be sealed away if they get unruly. The person who caught him was familiar with the origins of the ‘cubi and how similar they are to familiars, and used that to seal him away into a magical box.

This of course resulted in a Jack-in-the-box.

Yes I am quite proud of that pun, thank you.

As you might have guessed, Jack is in quite an unfortunate position. That collar around his neck isn’t just because it looks kinky. Fortunately, the order that captured him weren’t going to use him for slavery, but the bad news was that he was trapped in a dark place, devoid of all feeling. He was buried like unpleasant secret, locked away and eventually forgotten.

Poor Jack gets to suffer a similar fate as he does in the normal universe.

Fortunately, sunshine will find Jack in this universe as well several years later.

This world is a fantasy setting similar to a lot of JRPGs, with magic creating fantastic technology, but it has a strong medieval feel in ways. There are monarchies and nobility as well as monsters and magical races.

Alice was born into nobility. Although her family is a very loving one, there were duties expected of her due to her bloodline. The life of nobility can be cutthroat, with those aiming to destroy other noble houses for their own political gain, or unite via marriages.

This is especially true if they are engaged to be married to the next crown prince.

Despite it being an arranged marriage, Alice and Ian were close. They grew up together, were friends, and fell in love. It was like a fairytale...

And, like many fairytales, this one involves a curse.

No one knows who cast it, but there were plenty of suspects. It could have been a rival family that wanted their daughter to marry Ian instead. It could have been a curse meant for the crown prince, but due to the royal family’s supposed divine protection, it struck his fiancée in his place. It could even have been just the cruel whim of a wicked witch.

Whatever the case, the results were the same; Alice was one day transformed into a beastly creature.

This resulted in chaos of course, but for the most part, to protect the dignity of Alice, her family, and the royal family, it was kept a secret. Alice was hidden away under the story of being sick while others searched for the culprit and the cure. Crown prince Ian swore he would do whatever it took to cure Alice. He loved her even in her hideous cursed state.

Unfortunately, the more time passed without answers or a solution in sight, unrest set in. The queen especially was repulsed by the idea of her child marrying a hideous monster, no matter how Ian protested. The king was at best indifferent, not dissolving the engagement over the incident, but he refused to allow the marriage to proceed unless Alice was cured.

The secret slowly leaked, as secrets tend to do when money and political intrigue is involved. Pressure was put to annul engagement so that Ian could marry someone else. Noble families sent their attractive and clever members of the same age as him to strengthen bonds with him as it were

At first, Ian resisted all temptations and arguments. He was determined to marry Alice, but as time slipped away and they spent less and less time together, it was hard for his attention not to stray.

Alice had to remain hidden away in her family’s manor. Ian could only rarely visit her, and they mostly kept in communication via magic and letters. It left them both feeling lonely and missing each other.

At first, Alice refused to let Ian see her in her hideous state, but with time he managed to convince her that he still loved her regardless. When she finally allowed him to see what had become of her, he was shocked and horrified, but he managed to reassure her that it didn’t matter. The only one he wanted to marry was her. He loved her.

Alice believed Ian. He was her prince charming who would save her from her curse. He would never forsake her.

I think you can see where this is going.

Much like in the regular universe, time apart, popularity, and temptations of the flesh made Ian stray.

Stricken with guilt, Ian confessed what he did... and Alice couldn’t handle his betrayal.

The engagement was broken. Even if royalty aren’t exactly known for remaining loyal to their spouses, Alice’s family loved her enough to put an end to the engagement for her sake. Ian did everything he could to apologize and make amends, but Alice refused to see him. His constant visits trying to see her, gifts, and messages just made her heartbreak worse.

As word of the engagement being broken spread, there was also a rumor that Alice was going to a distant territory managed by her family to recover from her heartache. This allowed her to not only get some distance from Ian, but to lessen the risk of rumors spreading about her curse.

The place Alice went to live was a distant home surrounded by woods, isolating it from the rest of her world. Being betrayed by the person she loved and trusted the most shook her faith in people, and she insisted on living there alone, save for the occasional delivery of supplies and visitor.

Alice could have simply languished away in that place lamenting her fate, but instead she studied. She had an interest in magic that she had once been passionate about, but had to turn into an idle hobby when she wasn’t busy taking lessons as the future queen and spending time with Ian. Now she no longer had to worry about such distractions.

Perhaps it could help her find a cure for her curse when all other mages and scholars failed...

Time passed as Alice focused on improving her skills with magic and potions. Although Alice didn’t want anyone to see her in this state, she couldn’t help but feel lonely. One day, she was struck with the idea of having a familiar as a companion. Familiars are made from their master’s magic, essentially a piece of the mage given life. It could never betray her.

While engaged to the crown prince, Alice has access to the royal treasury at times. Ian would surprise her with presents that he technically shouldn’t have given away, but he was young, in love, and she was so keen to learn more about magic.

Despite the way things ended, Alice took some of those magical trinkets with her. One of those objects was a box, a medium meant to take some of her essence and create the familiar when the right ritual was performed.

Things go a little bit sideways when the box is already in use sealing away a being that is only similar to a familiar.

Luckily or unluckily, depending on your perspective, Alice just wound up releasing Jack from his box and forming a contract with him, binding them both together.

It was pretty surprising to the both of them, to put it lightly.

When ‘cubi are starved and in a weakened state, their colors are faded, and their eyes and markings won’t glow. Jack looked more like Joseph when Alice let him out, but with her magic feeding him due to their bond, he was his bright and colorful self again soon enough.

A lot of the dynamics between Alice and Jack are similar in this AU to the game universe. Jack can’t do anything Alice doesn’t want, and they can sense each other’s feelings and even thoughts. However, in this universe, Alice is aware of this, since that’s part of having a familiar, which allows her to guard her thoughts from him, if not her emotions.

While the situation is less than ideal for Jack... at the same time he finally feels what he was missing for so long. Alice is warm after he spent so many years sealed away in cold darkness, and he feels things from her that he never did from anyone else.

A pact with a familiar isn’t easily broken. Jack was also afraid that if it was broken, he would just go back into the box. He was still technically bound to it even as he was also bound to Alice. After learning about the hell he suffered when sealed away, she couldn’t bring herself to damn him like that, not when she could feel how terrified and desperate he was to never go back in there.

Jack offered to give Alice anything she wanted. He was ready to seduce her then and there.

Alice barked out a humorless laugh and told Jack that wasn’t a funny joke.

When visitors came over, Alice would wear heavy draping cloaks and veils to hide her body. When alone, she has less, so Jack saw her cursed appearance.

Jack didn’t see an issue with how Alice looked. In fact, her warmth and gentle heart drew him to her. It felt... good, but Alice had already been hurt before.

Instead of accepting sexual favors, Alice tentatively accepted his friendship instead.

So the two of them live together. Jack flirts with Alice, using his typical tactics that worked to draw people in before he got sealed away, being cheeky and seductive... and he finds that she responds when he was sincere instead. They form a genuine friendship and, as they grow closer, Jack eventually realizes that what he’s feeling for Alice, what he’s been missing all of his life, is love.

Eventually the two do fall in love after enough time getting to know and trust each other. Somehow Alice gets her curse cured as well. Maybe fitting with the fairytale theme, it could be cured through the power of true love... expressed through sex, since this is a story about incubi Jack after all.

I guess in this universe you can say Jack is a monster fucker as well as a demon?

Speaking of which, here’s a couple more ‘cubi headcanons that are on the spicier side.

The bond between them leaves a marking in Jack’s colors on Alice’s abdomen. Yes, it’s a “womb tattoo” since having some of Jack’s glowing markings being left behind as a sign of their bond would be fun.

The ‘cubi ability to appeal to their partner’s tastes isn’t just limited to appearance. The flavor of their cum can be altered to suit their tastes in a more literal sense.

Needless to say, Alice does not expect a vanilla cream finish the first time she gives Jack a blowjob.

A ‘cubi has amazing stamina and sometimes will savor their meal. Needless to say, Alice is going to have a hard time keeping up with Jack.

Though with access to magic, Alice has ways of potentially getting in some fun payback.

This is pretty much about all the headcanons I have at this time for this particular AU. I’m still unsure of Shaun and Nick’s roles in the universe, but I do know Barry is a merchant trader that Alice sometimes sells her magic potions to for extra money. Anyway, I hope you enjoy my really huge ramble about demon Jack that turned into an alternate version of Beauty and the Beast!

[five-miles-over]

Beauty is Where You Find It (Supermodel!Loki x Reader)

Summary: A journalist for a New York magazine in September of 2012, you come across the opportunity to do an interview from an icon in the fashion industry. Your subject? A rising supermodel from Wimbledon with icy blue eyes and jet-black curls named Loki Laufeyson.

Maybe there was someone else that your magazine could've assigned to do this interview. Maybe they could've chosen someone else to write about the rising, raven-haired model from Wimbledon. And maybe they could've chosen someone who was more seasoned with rubbing shoulders with people from the glamour world. But none of that mattered now, because you deserved this opportunity and you knew it.

Three days ago, during your lunch break - which was more for brainstorming than for eating - you were scrolling through some news stories from The Guardian and New York Magazine, hoping to find some inspiration for your writer's block. Between an article about the U.S. presidential elections and an article about genius-billionaire Tony Stark's Twitter battle with Elon Musk, there was a Magnum advertisement that immediately caught your attention.

Holding a pint of Magnum Milk Chocolate ice cream in his lap, the model wore nothing except for a pair of sweatpants as he spread himself across a leather sofa. One of his hands cupped the pint while the other hand clasped a golden spoon. His short jet black curls were tousled with just a hint of mousse to make them shine and his icy gaze was paired with a smirk that said, "I know you want me."

You didn't pay much attention to the ad, turning your focus to the next news story which was about London's finances after hosting the Olympics. But a while later you came across a story covering the best looks from London Fashion Week: Spring 2013. It had taken place a few days ago, between September 13 and September 18 of 2012, since this was the show that would predict many of the trends of Spring 2013. You recognized a few of the top brands such as Stella McCartney, Burberry, and Gucci. But none of the models were familiar to you…

and there he was again.

Modeling for Tommy Hilfiger's 2013 Spring-Summer collection was the same model who you saw posing with a pint of Magnum ice cream. The same dark curls, those same icy-blue eyes directed at the camera…this had to be him. He stood at the end of the catwalk wearing a black-and-white striped shirt, a white jacket with the Tommy Hilfiger logo, and straight-leg white pants that complemented his long legs. 

Licking your lips, you scrolled down to the bottom of the image and found the name "Loki Laufeyson for Tommy Hilfiger Men's 2013 Spring Summer Collection". That was most certainly a name that you'd heard before…right? His first name was identical to the name of the Norse god of mischief - maybe he chose that name for himself when he started modeling? But why? Maybe there was more to him than just a pretty face. 

"So why write about him?" Your editors asked when you brought up the idea of interviewing him. "He's just some model in London."

"Wimbledon," you corrected them. "I googled his name, he's from Wimbledon." You took a deep breath and continued. "I think there's something with him. I mean, there are models who go on to do other famous things. For example, Eddie Redmayne modeled for Burberry in 2008, he portrayed King Richard the Second in February, and now he's starring in an adaptation of the musical Les Mis. Also, I'm pretty sure he won a Tony for something on Broadway.

Please let me give this a chance. For all we know, he could be the next Eddie Redmayne. And we'll be the magazine that gave him his first interview."

Your editors agreed with mixed feelings, still unsure about what you found to be so special in him. But since you were so enthusiastic, and no other media outlet had taken the chance to interview him, your editors thought this might be something that would make the magazine stand out.

For the rest of the day, you were calling Tommy Hilfiger's office, London modeling agencies, and even Magnum's offices, introducing yourself as a journalist who wanted to get in touch with someone named Loki Laufeyson. After four hours, three candy bars, and two cups of French Vanilla coffee, you were able to secure an interview with Loki.

So here you were, after three days of brainstorming, making calls, and preparing questions, all set to meet the young model from Wimbledon. After downing a cup of coffee for courage, and then rising your teeth with mouthwash, you headed to a nearby room for the interview.

"Excellent work with the photos, I like what I'm seeing!" You pretended to be nonchalant as you walked in. Loki was posing before a flashing camera, wearing a black structured blazer, a cotton off-white shirt, and…tight leather pants. Wow, this guy seemed to have an innovative sense of style when he wasn't on the runway. And you would be lying if you said that he wasn't way more gorgeous in person than on the internet.

For the article that you would be writing about Loki, you had asked for some original pictures as artwork. So while the crew - lighting directors, photographers, and makeup artist - did their magic, you stood in a corner and took a moment to look over your questions.

"Wait," Loki gently interrupted the camera woman. "Erm, can I have one with her?" He gestured in your direction, "The lady who's interviewing me?"

"If she's okay with it." The camera woman turned to you and tilted her head towards Loki.

Caught off-guard, you hurriedly placed your materials on a stool and rushed to the center of the photoshoot. "Uh…okay, what should I…?"

"Something like this?" Loki draped his arm around your waist, and smirked at the camera. You gave your best smile, trying not to blush out of embarrassment or close your eyes when the flash went off. "Perfect," Loki cooed, standing close enough for you to catch a whiff of the perfume or cologne he was wearing - a mixture of orchid and champagne scents.

After the camera woman announced that it was a wrap, you picked up your materials and led Loki to a white table with two folded chairs. Loki pulled one of the chairs out and insisted you have a seat before him. 

Once the two of you were comfortable, you took a deep breath and turned on the voice recorder.

"You probably weren't expecting to have your photo taken today, right?" Loki chuckled, "No worries, you looked great."

"Thank you," you nervously laughed. "You look incredibly gorgeous by the way. Who're you wearing today?"

"Ah, the famous question." Loki licked his lips and spread his legs. "The blazer is Armani, the pants are from Banana Republic, and the shirt is by Hanes."

"Nice. So…I know you've done a few advertisements and you've walked for Tommy Hilfiger at London Fashion Week not too long ago. According to my research, this isn't the first runway you've ever conquered. Would you tell me about how you entered the world of fashion?"

"I suppose it was the beauty of it all that attracted me," Loki answered. "Fashion is a form of art, and I'd say it's one of the greatest forms of art because it is such an essential part of our lives.

I started modeling when I was sixteen, it was for a fashion show at school to raise money for charity."

"Wow!" You gushed, leaning forward to show interest. "Did you make a lot of money?"

"The school made a lot of money," Loki playfully retorted. "It wasn't official like the shows I do now. Actually, as part of that event, my photographs came in the local newspaper. Few weeks later, I get a call from an agency and…like they say, the rest is history."

You laughed a little, scribbling some notes.

"So really, I owe my career to journalists like you." He jokes, giving you a little wink.

"Alright, so you started modeling at sixteen - was it full-time? How did you balance school around being a model?"

Loki gulped and tilted his head, thinking about how to formulate his answer. "I did some photoshoots here and there, mostly after school or early in the morning so I wouldn't have to miss my lessons. I enjoyed most of my classes, there was hardly a subject that I disliked." 

"Did you have a favorite subject?"

"Literature," Loki promptly answered. "Physiology was a close second. I loved learning about how the human body worked."

"Literature, that's interesting. What did you like about that class?"

"I had a really great teacher. I enjoyed reading Shakespeare's plays, Jane Austen's novels such as Sense and Sensibility, and other classical works as well. I'll never forget the first time I read Beowulf, such an underrated gem."

"I didn't know you enjoyed literature." You crossed your legs. "Do you still make time to read now that you're a full-time model?"

"Of course I do. It's what keeps me…erm, sane." Loki admitted, "Right now, I'm reading a book called High-Rise by J.G. Ballard and it takes place in the 70s. It's about a newly-constructed high-rise building filled with every amenity you could think of, and its residents. It's almost like a utopia until class warfare changes everything."

"I've never heard about that book before. I'll have to check it out now." You scribbled some more notes, and then flipped to a new sheet of paper. "My next question for you is about your -"

"Diet?" Loki attempted to finish.

"No." You shook your head with a laugh. "I think that question gets asked to models way too often, but I'm happy to hear about your…dietary preferences."

Loki joined in the laughter for a moment. "I'd prefer not to talk about that either. Everyone is different, there really is no one way that guarantees…success."

"So, how would you describe yourself in five words?" You teased.

Biting his lip for a moment, Loki cheekily answered. "Loki, burdened with glorious purpose."

"Glorious purpose," you echoed. "And what does glorious purpose mean to you?"

"It means…" Loki openly contemplated. "It means that I was born to pave my own path to greatness."

"As a model?"

Loki shrugs. "I enjoy doing my work. I'm grateful to those whom I've worked with and I look forward to participating in more shows. But…I'm going to keep myself open to exploring other opportunities down the line in five or ten years."

You scribbled some more notes. "Maybe you'd consider acting?"

"Or world domination." Loki smirked. "But for the record, I would love the chance to do a Bollywood film. The ones I've seen are so beautiful."

"Alright, another question: your most guilty pleasure? Is it Bollywood?"

Loki scoffed. "None! I don't think people should feel guilty for the things they enjoy."

"Time for a bit of rapid fire." You curled your fingers around your pen. "I'll ask a series of questions, and you answer as fast as possible. Ready?"

"Ready." He smirked again.

You began, "Coffee or tea?"

"Tea."

"London or New York City?"

"London."

"London or Paris?"

"Still London." Loki shook his head and laughed.

"Tuxedos or sweatpants with hoodies?"

"Tuxedos."

"A night at the museum or a night at the theater?"

"The theater."

"Okay," you beamed, "Comedies or dramas?"

"Dramas."

"Juliet or Lady Macbeth?"

"You."

"What?" You swallowed, taken aback by his response. "Uh…?"

Loki clarified, "Juliet's a literal child, barely thirteen, and Lady Macbeth is ruthless and blind in her belief towards the prophecy. I wouldn't go out with either of them…was that the question you were asking?"

"Kind of…" You tried to explain. "I meant which one you liked better, but nice answer. I'm very flattered"

"Thanks. Any more questions?"

You shook your head. "Any questions for me?"

"Would you let me take you to dinner tonight?" Loki asked, leaning forward ever so slightly, the corner of his lip curved upward. "It's the least I can do since your magazine paid for my flight here."

"I'd…I'd like that, Mr. Laufeyson."

"It's Loki." The model took your hand and pressed his lips against your knuckles. 

You both remained still, enjoying the moment as you silently looked into each other's eyes. "I'll have your article ready in two days. It'll be in our issue next week."

"Perfect." Loki and you stood up from the chairs. "And I will see you outside this building at seven."

Tagging: @lokischambermaid , @lokiismineforever , @lokisgoodgirl , @lokisprettygirl , @holdmytesseract , @icytrickster17 , @thatdummy-girl , @cakesandtom , @turniptitaness , @winterfrostlovetriangle , @lady-rose-moon , @lokisninerealms

[maurofonseca]

SURGE THE TENREC CONCEPT ART AND DESIGNING THREAD

Ok I’ve promised to make this for weeks now, so here. 

Here’s the twitter thread that’s got all the images in case I end up not posting any of them here.

Click through to read my thoughts and inspirations on designing Surge, with stuff like “why did she have a kanabou” or “why did she beat Sonic in that one sheet”!

1. Ian’s description of her that I got to see.

2. Evan told me she had to design these characters and I started doodling them too for fun, just bouncing ideas off of her. You can see in some weird way, the final Surge is already here- the concept of the ponytail, the delinquent look, the baggy pants, very inspired by characters like Leona Heidern and early 2000s urban fashion. Kit meanwhile, we didn’t really have a handle on yet. I did the one on the top left not taking his personality into account, just focusing on doing a Y2K-esque design; on the bottom right, I did one where he’s inside a robot suit that Surge can then use as a water vehicle, which was just a random idea I had. These weren’t done for Ian or Editorial yet, just me and Evan having fun.

3. At this point I was officially asked to contribute, rather than just doing my sketches “under the table” as part of discussions with Evan. There wasn't yet a plan that I'd do Surge and Evan'd do Kit, it's just Surge popped in my head with so many cool concepts I kept drawing for fun.

Outfits and hairdos based on Hana no Asuka-Gumi, jacket taken from Kaneda from Akira, nose being blue was inspired by Fang. The start of "maybe we can use Sango Morimoto's Amy as inspiration", a bob cut inspired by DBZ's Android 18 as was the eye shape and eyelashes. The yellow and black colours had been decided on by Ian, IIRC (I didn’t show the entire description since it has spoilers), but I leaned hard on them since they gave me Oni imagery, especially stuff like Lum from Urusei Yatsura. Since stereotypes of Sukeban often involved long skirts, I played with giving her one of those too; and I liked the idea of her having an emblem in her jacket, where I tried a variation on the classic Sonic Emblem and also a simple emblem from a stereotypical Raijin drums set.

4. Evan at one point sketched an idea of a more “traditional” “tenrec-y” spiked hairdo, and that’s the one I drew on the top left then. I really liked the Sango Morimoto Amy and Android 18 hairdos too, and I gave her spiky sideburns on that one hairdo to give her a 70s anime protagonist feel like Kouji Kabuto or Cutie Honey; this was an idea I’d had before for a new design for Amy on the fancomic Sonic the Comic-Online, and as later pointed out to me, it’s just a design element I like and thus keep reusing over and over. We were going all in on the more Akira-like delinquent look with the baggy jacket etc; her shoes are ripped in the back thanks to something I read a long time ago (and which I can’t find nowadays so maybe it was wrong?) that Sukeban Japanese Delinquent girls would mash in the back of their shoes to wear them as slippers. She also got a Kanabou to use, inspired by Raijin and Oni depictions and probably also specifically from One Piece’s Yamato.

Meanwhile over on Kit, I was pushing “emo haircut” to the comical extreme and just covering his eyes entirely, just like an old sprite character I had a decade or more ago. I was also getting reminded of the King of Sorrows from Klonoa 2, which ended up being a double-edged sword; it gave the right inspiration to push his design through, but then I was finding myself unable to do anything but draw him like that. So this is sort of when we ended up deciding Evan’d take point finishing him and I’d finish Surge, since she wouldn’t have such a strong connection to Klonoa 2, etc. As for the tail, Ian’s pitch specified him having a machine to make water “tails” out from, but we kept experimenting with it being a ring in the tail so as to make the “tails” come from the real tail, but in the end we moved it to a backpack.

The sprites are just a test on how the designs were coming along. The Sonic and Tails are fan sprites from a project revamping old Modern Genesis sprites into a new standard. I’m a proponent of spriting designs in as part of the design process- it helps clean out unneeded detail and see how the colour areas are coming along together. After all, decisions like Sonic’s peach arms existed exactly due to sprites, right?

5. Offering some alternatives on hairdos. Evan’s take, Evan’s take simplified, the Sango Morimoto-based one, one based on StC Amy, the Android 18, and Evan’s again, and all of these with and without black marks. Ian’s preference was towards Evan’s, since they were spiky and worked better in his concept as “an imposter of Sonic”, who also has spiky hair; but he was open to seeing what everyone agreed on.

I made a mention of not using the black marks because I think marks are overused in Sonic design, when you look at the core cast and see they don’t have them. That said I ended up liking the idea of just making one strong black spot to really underline the homage to the Ashura fandom character and also to make her entire face a bit more unreadable. The eyelids are also black, merging with her mark.

As I mention, the Kanabou was designed to resemble a baseball bat while looking sillier, since I didn’t think a realistic weapon would be fitting.

6. The Kanabou was dropped, since it pushed her into looking too much like Amy, and also brought up a lot of logistics questions- why and how does she have it? Does she carry it around? Do we have to constantly show her with it? Etc.

With that said, the basic idea of her using charging metal to attack with, giving her electricity an offensive element rather than just being a visual element of her running, did stick. It was suggested to give her knuckledusters, but like with the baseball bat, I felt it was too realistic and off-key for the setting; trying to think of a more cartoony take on the idea I remembered comic book hero The Phantom, who has a ring on each hand he uses to punch people with. First I tried giving her just the one ring like the Phantom, but when later I wanted to draw her doing an arc of electricity with her hand, the idea came to give her rings in the index and pinkie instead, and it stuck.

You can see I’d finally been sold on the black facemark and also this specific outfit. The concept was to give her thick arms and thin legs, a silhouette that we didn’t have yet in Sonic as far as I recalled. The shoes were inspired by Classic Amy’s, just with the Sukeban back-ripping bit, and metal covers for the electric fighting; and otherwise the outfit was also inspired by Yuji Uekawa’s famous “Gamer of the future” artwork that depicts a kid with a very Sonic-like attire and hairdo.

7. With that said I didn’t want to restrict choices so I tried to come up with other outfits. I really don’t like this image, lol. The outfits are uninspired, and I still wasn’t sure how to draw her muzzle, so it just looks weird and long here. I also did a variation where the yellow got replaced with dark green as a test, but it wasn’t liked.

8. In the end we were generally agreeing on the jacket and think pants, so I instead practiced some variations on the jacket, some based on Evan’s concepts or editorial requests. Also, because editorial thought the idea of a speedster running with slipper-like shoes felt awkward, a bit of white canvas was added to cover the back of her feet.

9. At this point we were almost in a victory lap so to speak- the designed seemed finalised, beyond the fact we still couldn’t decide between giving her a ponytail or spiked hair. I made a page with various suggestions on the spiked hair that were more to my taste, primarily based on old school anime hairdos like Cutie Honey’s or Vegeta’s; You can see on the twitter thread and Evan’s pages that we were playing with Surge not having the black mark, in case it felt too drastic, and giving her a dark green one instead.

10. BUT THEN! Evan asked if I was ok with her doing some more clothing suggestions, which of course I was; and she did these, inspired by Kingdom Hearts’ Sora. I fell in love- she’d managed to get the silhouette right, back with the baggy legs I wanted in the start! I quickly changed everything to fit this new silhouette and everyone agreed to go with it.

11. Oh boy, these sketches.

First off, a design was picked from the short spiked hair options- seems to be H3, IIRC. We were also still unsure on whether to do black or green marks, so I did both for both designs- you can check the twitter thread for more.

So. Why did I draw her beating the crap out of Sonic? Well, I can tell you first off, not because anyone asked me. See, here’s the train of thought to me:

a. I wanted her to have a very brutal fighting style, but my job was just designing her, doing a turnaround. So I wanted to explore some of her fighting moves in a quick poses sheet for other artists to get what I was imagining in terms of her style and body language.

b. I wanted her design to fit next to Sonic, so I was always comparing her next to Sonic, Tails, etc, but also wanted to make some sketches of her interacting with them just to see if they seemed cohesive and like they were in the same world.

c. I was curious if these fighting movements I had in mind could work with the proportions of a Sonic character, and for that matter, if someone being in the receiving end of said moves could also be drawn with those proportions. After all, near every character in the book has these proportions- what’d be the point of making sure she can be drawn kicking if I can’t make sure it’s also easy to draw someone being kicked?

Putting it all together, it made sense to me to just kill three birds with one stone- test the fighting poses and the hurt poses using Surge and Sonic, which’d also make them interacting and serve as a rough guide to whether they looked cohesive.

This was all still very new to me, the process of designing Kip was very different. I was under the impression Sega was being shown every one of these sketches, and I wanted to see their reaction to this- if they said immediately “no, too violent, and especially not her doing this to Sonic”, we’d immediately know the limits we could take her to. As it happens these weren’t being sent to Sega yet though, as far as I know, and the ones that DID get sent, I edited Sonic out, and there was no objection from them regarding any poses; I expect it’ll be a context thing instead, where it’ll be in each story that they object or not to what she does. 

That’s it. Seriously, there’s no other meaning to this. I’ve seen people say this was an attempt to make her badass by specifically beating Sonic, or that Sonic deserves it, or that she’s beating him while he’s unconscious and on the floor, and just... please, no. There really is no meaning here beyond “a character interacting with a design”. I’ve seen people suggest I should’ve used Egg Pawns instead, but Egg Pawns don’t have the default proportions of a rando character; and just, yeah, dunno people, have some good faith please. I like Sonic, I don’t want to go “hahaha character I designed better than lame old Sonic” lol.

Alright, moving on.

12. And so we reach the point where we actually finally sent stuff to Sega. I did a turnaround and polished the poses a bit, for both the ponytail and spiky hair versions, and we finally dropped the green marks rather than black. You see, we’d reached the end of the line of all we could design before sending it to Sega for feedback, and still hadn’t decided between ponytail or spikes, so I just did both and we left it for Sega to choose.

You can check the twitter thread for the concept A poses or B turnaround, but also both of them are unfinished designs so don’t use them as reference.

Anyway yeah, you can also see clearly that I edited Sonic away in the references- I was satisfied Surge was already fitting enough with Sonic design-wise and that the last few steps would be down to Sega’s feedback, so there was no need for distractions by having Sonic in the model sheet that’d later be made public (I was, of course, too naïve and didn’t think they’d use the earlier one, that I intended to be seen only by us and later in a post like this where I could explain the context, in marketing, but of course they did- it was guaranteed to generate buzz lol).

After this, Sega picked the ponytail option obviously, and it was just a matter of some back and forth to finish details. They felt the turtleneck didn’t match her attitude, but without it her torso just felt like it was black rather than a shirt, so I added the ripped shoulders based on Anton Veruca from the old manga; I’d given her a long split tail so we could draw electricity arcing between the two bits, but Sega pointed Tenrecs don’t have tails or have short ones, so it got reduced. Sega felt the shoes needed some black detailing to match the hands, so I just used literally the suggestion doodle they sent; including reducing the shoe’s... tongue, that’s how it’s called, right? So we could easily see her ankle. Finally Sega wanted more detail in the pants, so we ended up with the Bruce Lee-esque stripe; and after way too long, I finally realised I could just use the same yellow that Evan was using for Kit rather than using the same yellow as Tails, hence the final change to giving her a more fluorescent yellow. Sega also asked us to design something else regarding her but shhhhh that’s the bit I hid in the final sheet I posted publicly ;)

Hope this was a fun read for people! Feel free to ask follow up questions, if I can I’ll answer.

[tressasinterlude]

𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐓 #𝟑: Female Public Figures Dating Men with Questionable Views That Contradict Their Image & Alleged Politics

𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗥: These rant blog posts are really just reflective of my thoughts at the time that I make them and are posted here because I need an outlet to release all of this shit I have going on my busy ass mind. That’s it and that’s all. Now let’s get into it..

This rant was greatly inspired by none other than Ms. Robyn Rihanna “Tell Your Faves To Pull Up [in regards to social injustices directly affecting black people]” Fenty and her openly colorist boyfriend, A$AP Rocky. Aside from the fact that Rihanna tends to slip under the radar and is never held accountable for her problematic ways due to her conventional beauty (i.e. Her heavy usage of anti-Asian slurs, particularly targeted towards Chris Brown’s ex gf, Karrueche), it’s very alarming that a woman who has an entire makeup brand with a campaign based around the inclusivity of ALL black women is publicly flaunting a beau who once said that DSBW do not look good with red lipstick.

And yes, I’m very much aware that Rakim said this tasteless comment over 8 years ago but from the looks of it, not much has really changed with him. Don’t @ me about it neither because I don’t care.

Also peep how he compares a hypothetical darkskinned woman to a man (Wesley Snipes) while trying to explain how his antiblackness isn’t wrong because he said something about white women as well. Gaslighting at its finest. Don’t you just love it! 😀

Furthermore, you would think that somebody of Rihanna’s level of stature would know not to associate themselves with someone as messy as A$AP Rocky but... Stupid is what stupid does, I guess! I can’t even begin to place the blame on him anymore because he’s revealed his true colors and we all have made the deliberate choice to either accept it or don’t and have discontinued all support for him. Unfortunately, misogynoir is never the dealbreaker for most people and the hatred for [dark-skinned] black women is so engrained in society that it’s frowned upon when we publicly speak out against it. Very ass backwards if you ask me but that’s society for you. Now, enough about that. Let’s focus back on Ms. Vita La Coco.

As a woman who claims to be a girl’s girl and is always presenting herself to be someone who is the epitome of a pro-black feminist bad ass, it just makes her alleged activism come off so disingenuous when she’s also laying down with the same man that actively attacks the demographic she’s supposed to be standing in solidarity with. It’s “Black Lives Matter” on the IG posts but your vagina is getting moist for a man who openly stated he doesn’t relate to what goes on in Ferguson because he lives in Soho & Beverly Hills. Ferguson being the exact place where a 17-year-old black boy’s lifeless corpse laid on the hot concrete for FOUR hours after he was murdered by a police officer. He couldn’t 'relate' to the fate of so many black men, women, and children who are murdered or seriously injured from state-sanctioned violence because they’re poor and he is not or so he thought.

But then again, what can I really expect from a woman who identified as being “biracial” until as recent as roughly 6 years ago? What can I really expect from a woman who called Rachel Dolezal a ‘hero’ for cosplaying as a black woman? I’d be lying if I said my expectations for her were high in this regard because sis has always shown us she was lacking in this department. And just for the record, this is not a personal attack on Rihanna at all for the die-hard Navy stans in the back. I admire her latest fashions and bop my head to her music just like the next person but she’s getting the side-eye from me on this one.

Trust and believe me though, she’s not the only woman who I can call out for being a hypocrite. Of course not! This stone can be cast at a few others. So without further ado, why don’t we bring Ms. Kehlani Parrish to the front of the congregation? Prior to Kehlani’s recent declaration of identifying as a lesbian, her last public relationship with a man was with YG. Yes, the same YG who felt it was necessary to say him & Nipsey had ‘pretty light-skinned’ daughters to raise in the middle of his deceased friend’s memorial. By the way, Nipsey’s daughter is not even light (or at least not in my book anyways.) She’s a very deep caramel tone just like her father which makes what he said even more moronic. Yes, the same YG who thought it was clever idea to use slavery as an aesthetic for a music video to a diss track about 6ix9ine. And yes, also the same YG who has derogatory lyrics targeted at bisexual women. Just to end up sweating the red carpets with one. I swear the jokes just continue to write themselves.

This raises the question once more; How high of a pedestal can I really put a multiracial woman who has a song titled ‘N*ggas’ and when received backlash for the song in question, she used the ultimate ‘I’m mixed’ copout while not having a visibly black parent in sight?

It’s also kind of suspicious to me that many were not privy to Kehlani’s secret romance with Victoria Monét (pictured bottom right) until Victoria did an interview with Gay Times revealing she fell in love with a girl but they subsequently broke up because Victoria had a boyfriend and that girl was pregnant in a polyamorous relationship. Fans began to speculate because both Victoria & Kehlani previously candidly spoke about their sexual orientations, Kehlani had just had Adeya and they both were seemingly close. Their short-lived fling would later be confirmed when Victoria released the song ‘Touch Me’ on her last project and Kehlani hopped on the remix. Meanwhile, Kehlani’s relationship with Shaina (pictured bottom left) was very overt and all over her Instagram feed from my recollection. And as you can see, Shaina looks absolutely nothing like Victoria. They look like the complete opposite of eachother in every aspect which is kind of alarming(?) to say the least because why is it that the women she proudly claims as her partners tend to have a very racially ambiguous look such as herself but her ‘sneaky links’ on the other hand are undoubtedly black women? Again, it could just be me jumping conclusions. You know, I’m kinda good for that however something tells me I’m not. Y’all be the judge of the material though.

Last but not least, I’d like to touch on Ms. Raven Tracy very briefly. I was very weary about even including in this segment and if I should just put her in a entirely separate blog post with other women who openly date abusers despite their checkered past (alongside Nicki Minaj & her r*pist murderer of a husband, India Love & Sheck Wes etc.) being this particular blog post was based around the theme of lightskinned/mixed women dating men with extremely problematic views about DSBW. Raven obviously isn’t lightskinned or mixed however I refused to ignore how contradictory her [former] relationship with an alleged (I used this word very loosely and mainly for legality purposes.) serial r*pist while promoting a brand that is all about feminism & body positivity. This also traces back to A$AP Rocky by default being that Ian Connor is his very close friend and he came to Connor’s defense when several women came forward detailing accounts of Connor allegedly s*xually assaulting them. (I wish I could place the actual video of what A$AP Rocky said verbatim but Tumblr only allows one video per blog post. 🙄)

Back in June of this year, Ian & Raven had a back & forth on Twitter after Ian tweeted about Raven “fucking everybody” behind his back. I can only assume that he was alluding to Tori Brixx posting a video of her ex, Rich the Kid & Raven kissing on her story. Disgusted is not even the word to describe my feeling when she admitted she stuck by Ian despite of his many allegations of s*xual abuse because she loved him and her being a empath causes her to want to help everybody. Imagine aiding and abetting a predator and even paying for his bail & legal fees just to turn around and expect sympathy because this same individual cheated on you and exploited you all over Twitter for the public to see. The same man that you would get back with not even a WEEK after the fact & turn off your IG comments because it isn’t our “business” after making it our business...

That being said, I just genuinely want to know: Why do these women completely go against what they stand for in regards to these men? Maybe it was never genuine from jump street and if that’s the case, why jump on the bandwagon of performative activism? Is it because it’s profitable right now? Is it because disrespecting black women is not an immediate death sentence to your careers and more often than not actually helps you advance even further? I guess that’s the billion dollar question that’ll never truly be answered. I just want the world to stop using black women as their stepping stool to get to where they need to go and then discarding of us when we’re no longer beneficial. Support us all the way or don’t support us at all. We deal with enough disrespect as is so we’d appreciate if y’all would stop straddling the fence and partake in your misogynoir out loud if that’s what you choose to do. We have no use for fake allyship and quite frankly, it’s doing more harm for us than good. Please and thank you!

Sincerely,

- 𝙼𝙸𝚂𝚂 𝙴𝙳𝙶𝙰𝚁 𝙰𝙻𝙻𝙴𝙽 𝙷𝙾𝙴. 💋

[dippedanddripped]

Old Nollywood aesthetics and fashion may be considered trendy today, but the films were not always so well-regarded. In the 90s and early 2000s, when these movies were made and watched in parlours across Nigerian homes as they were shot, straight-to-video, they were considered as bad entertainment, or ‘low culture’. To watch and enjoy Nollywood films was to celebrate mediocrity. But today, nostalgic young Millennials and Gen Zers are overlooking the jarring audio, grainy pictures, and sometimes hammy acting, to appreciate not only the grooming and style of the actors, but the original and diverse stories that reflect unique Nigerian experiences.

It was for this reason that sisters Tochi and Ebele Anueyiagu started Nolly Babes, a nostalgic Instagram account dedicated to celebrating the cinematic period’s women. Started in December 2017, their first post was of Nollywood’s biggest star Genevieve Nnaji; a still taken from 2004 film Sharon Stone In Abuja, directed by Adim Williams. Nnaji plays the titular character, a sexually liberated young woman who uses her beauty and charm to ensnare unassuming men into doing her bidding.

The account is an ode to the female characters of old Nollywood who were often portrayed as warning examples. The storylines were steeped in moral principles rooted in the patriarchal culture and the dominant Christian religion of Southern Nigeria. A large number of the female characters were considered immoral because they kissed other women, challenged men, smoked and drank, or wore mini skirts. Today, Nolly Babes and similar accounts are reimagining these women, taking their scenes out of the moralistic context of the films, and turning them into iconic feminist personas.

The first time Nollywood content seeped into the mainstream internet consciousness can be traced back to 2017 when videos of Nollywood’s favourite comedic duo Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Iheme, better known as Aki and Pawpaw, rose to popularity due mostly to the influence of a now-defunct Twitter account @nollywoodroll ran by Nicole, a woman based in Brazil.

Their memes became the go-to reaction videos for expressing a wide range of emotions: joy, disappointment, sadness, frustration. The appeal was in seeing children making mischief or in adult situations – drinking beer and smoking cigars, wooing bigger women, or in oversized suits shouting instructions at people twice their size. Although both Ikedieze and Iheme were in their 20s in the early 2000s when most of the films were made, they mostly played children because of their body stature. By 2019, the memes had achieved such virality that brands like Rihanna’s Fenty would use them for social media clout.

Theodora Imaan Beauvais is the curator of Yung Nollywood, another archive of clips and stills from old Nollywood paying homage to its controversial female characters, after screenshotting moments from Nollywood she found “appealing or inspirational”. Yung Nollywood is remarkably distinct from Nolly Babes for its subtitling of the films’ stills from Nollywood films, something she attributes to Tumblr. While the idea to give witty captions to the actors’ facial expressions came from watching Netflix. “I thought, ‘If someone could describe Nollywood reactions in short phrases it’d be an art form on its own,’ and I became that someone.’”

In December 2019, Tochi and Ebele hosted a Nollywood-themed party in Lagos. Nollywood actor and musician Nonso Bassey attended the party dressed in a two-piece jean set and bucket hat, a signature look of the bad boy/alpha male archetype, and a role reprised multiple times by older actors such as Hanks Anuku, Emeka Ike, and Jim Iyke. Since that party, Nonso has attended social functions and premieres in outfits that make a nod to the fashion choices of that era of Nollywood. He insists, though, that he isn’t cosplaying Nollywood characters of that era. “I’ve always been attracted to the idea of merging old world charm with a new school approach,” he said.

The party caused a cultural stir amongst Nigerians and Africans both at home and in the diaspora – every other week, there seems to be a Nollywood-themed party held either in Lagos or London. Take for instance friends and business partners Imani Okunubi and Aseosa Uwagboe, two Nigerian-British kids who grew up in the UK. Nollywood was one of the ways they could connect back to their roots. That experience informs their event brand, Lasgidi to London, targeted at Nigerians living in the UK. “We wanted to create events that were reminiscent of the Naija hall parties (Owambe) we attended as kids, as we don’t want to see that culture die,” Aseosa said. Their next owambe is a Nollywood-themed party and guests are expected to come dressed in their “best nolly Y2K aesthetic”.

Below, the Nolly Babes sisters talk about creating and hosting the first Nollywood-themed party and the cultural moment it has inspired.

How did that first event come about – please take me through it, from the planning to how it turned out?

Nolly Babes: From the inception of Nolly Babes, we knew we had to throw a party. Fashion is a huge part of what makes Nolly Babes different from other Nollywood-themed pages and we knew we were the only ones that could set Nolly Babes as the dress code and have people commit as they did. There are many iconic Nollywood scenes and scenarios. The daughter meeting her evil mother-in-law, the ominous visit to the Babalawo, the campus stroll – just the mere mention of these scenes evokes images that have been embedded in the minds of our fellow Nollywood enthusiasts. The party scene is probably the most iconic of them all. Whether it’s in a club, a mansion while mum and dad are out of town (but coming home early to crash the whole thing) or poolside, the Nolly Babes party scene has its staples: mad music, dancing, and sick outfits.

December in Lagos is notoriously hectic. On each day, there are day parties, beach hangouts, concerts, and we just knew we had to be a part of it. Our flyer was the first thing we made sure was done right, and that has been replicated (but never duplicated) many many times. We went through at least six drafts of that until we got the flyer to be a realistic replica of the home video covers from the golden era. The DJs Kemi Lijadu and vIVENDII Sounds understood the assignment and played music from the Nolly Babes era. We’re talking Tony Tetuila, Mo Hitz, Wande Coal, Plantation Boyz… We curated a special cocktail menu: Genny Colladas, Jim Iyke’s Hard Lemonade, MargaRita Dominic, and our Lagos Island Iced Tea, in tribute to Nollywood stars Genevieve Nnaji, Jim Iyke, and Rita Dominic respectively. We had a video projection on the famous red wall at Nok showing a mashup of emblematic scenes. We were partying while seeing images of a young Jim Iyke dressed just like many of the attendees were dressed. It was magical! We have an event we’re planning in New York for the summer – it’s going to be a madness.

Did you envisage it becoming the cultural movement it’s now become?

Nolly Babes: We really didn’t. We hosted the party because we knew people were taking inspiration from our page for styling jobs and music video treatments, and wanted to give everyone a chance to recreate some of their favourite looks. Now every week we see people planning Nollywood-themed parties and sending people to our page for references. It’s awesome. Toke Makinwa even recently attended a Nolly Babes-themed party and she was dressed as a character we have immortalised – Regina Askia in President’s Daughter. She killed it! Even though the character wasn’t referenced, it was clear as day and it was awesome to see that she pulled it off! Honestly, when we see people really pay attention to detail and execute the theme well it’s so, so dope.

How has TikTok helped grow Nollywood's influence? You posted a scene from Girls Cot, the famous “you stink with poverty” clip on TikTok and it went viral and birthed these recreations even by non-Africans.

Nolly Babes: We’re just happy to see that another aspect of Nollywood that we champion – the iconic scenes and one-liners – is also resonating across the world. We see Nolly Babes as an archival work and as much as we focus on beauty and looks on Instagram, it’s nice to be able to point people in the direction of the scenes that are forever embedded in our brains. These are scenes we recreated in jest ourselves before there was even a Nolly Babes to begin with, so to see it catching on TikTok is exciting and a new frontier for us to fully explore. I think what distinguishes Nolly Babes from other Nollywood pages and what contributes to our TikTok success is that we really watch Nollywood movies. We grew up watching these movies and continue to do so now so we can capture those moments in films that the casual consumer or poster of Nollywood content might not.

What are your thoughts on Nollywood’s influence on the Alté scene? Music videos of artists such as Lady Donli and Odunsi nod to the aesthetic and fashion styles of that era.

Nolly Babes: Nollywood, and specifically the aesthetic we have shone a spotlight on, is probably one of the biggest influences in terms of visuals in that scene right now. I have never seen so many Eucharia (Anunobi) eyebrows on TV and we love it! It’s awesome to see our images and scenes being used in treatments and storyboards. If we’re being candid, we think it would be great if we got the chance to step into our stylist/creative direction bag and help with the execution of the aesthetic.

“The bottom line is really that Nolly Babes has brought what was already an international cultural influence to the modern social media realm with a new lens” – Nolly Babes

How far do you see Nollywood's influence on pop culture, beyond Nigeria and Africa?

Nolly Babes: When we moved to New York we found our Dominican and South American friends had also grown up watching Nollywood films. The bottom line is really that Nolly Babes has brought what was already an international cultural influence to the modern social media realm with a new lens. Nollywood clips were online everywhere – but it was always in a comedic way. Aki and PawPaw are meme gods now, and that’s because their expressions transcend cultural boundaries. Black Twitter eats that stuff up.

Nolly Babes chooses to center the beauty, style, and iconic imagery, even the home decor with our #NollyDecor hashtag of the golden era of Nollywood. We share the makeup, accessories, fashion, iconic phrases, and scenes in a way that isn’t just comedic but inspirational and aesthetically groundbreaking. I see Nollywood being at the centre of this Y2K resurgence that is happening all over the world, from TV to runways and fashion collections. That era is coming back around and, this time, the Black experience is being revisited and centered in a way it wasn’t back in the late 90s and 2000s. (Black people) were always the originators of the trends and this time they’re tapping into the source and Nollywood, particularly the era we celebrate as Nolly Babes, is a great resource for that.

Follow Nolly Babes on Instagram

[celestialrry]

nerves

4.8k

HELLLLO IM WRITING THIS INTRO AND POSTING THIS WHILE FALLING ASLEEP SO ILL POST ALL THE DETAILS ADN ADD THIS TO MU MASTERLIST LATER I LOVE TOU ALL THANK YOU FOR FOLOWING AND REBLOGGIN KISSES FOT YOU ALL (this is like right after release of hs1 harry I think hope you enjoy mwah)

summary: Actress!Y/N goes onto a talk show, and the host has a surprise for her.

warnings: cursing, kinda sorta an anxiety attack?

Y/N was nervous.

This would only be the 5th talk show she’s ever gone on alone after being in the spotlight for a few years when her acting career took off. She started off with indie films and soon made her way to the red carpet, working with esteemed actors and actress’s she could only ever dream of meeting. It was pure bliss.

Of course, fame came with other struggles like hate from the media and random people on twitter, but at the end of the day she was so grateful she had the opportunity to be in the business. She loved getting into a character, finding out what makes them click, and fully emerging herself in whatever film she’s in. At the moment, she was promoting her new film, and being the lead, she had gone on a few talk show’s by herself, but they never failed to make her sick to her stomach. Having no one to turn to when it gets awkward, even not having body heat by her side in front of a live audience and a professional host made her body rack with goosebumps.

“Miss L/N?” 

Her head turned towards the door of the dressing room she had been sitting in for 15 minutes alone, trying to get her nerves down. “Yes?’ She responded flashing a forced smile to the assistant standing in the door way. “They’re ready for you.” She nodded her head and stood up, brushing the non-existent dust off her long dress and tumbled a bit on her heels to follow the assistant that was already walking towards the side stage. 

They instructed her to wait until her name was called, then walk onto stage and take a seat and have the show progress. So Y/N stood there, biting her bottom lip that was coated with clear gloss and her arms crossed around her waist, her heel covered toe tapping the floor in anticipation. 

“Now welcome our very special, and gorgeous guest, Y/N L/N!” She heard Jimmy Kimmel announce and took a short breath before stepping through the automatically opening curtains. She smiled and waved at the people sitting in the audience, happy to see people supporting her, and greeted Jimmy before taking a seat on the loveseat closest to his desk.

“Y/N! Welcome, how are you feeling tonight?” He flashed a comforting smile at her. 

She chuckled a bit due to her inability to not laugh in uncomfortable situations. “I’ll be honest with you Jimmy,” She said, adjusting herself in the seat. “M’ pretty nervous.”

“Nervous?” He asked. “Now, why would 2 time Emmy Nominee Miss Y/N L/N be nervous?” Jimmy teased.

Her eyes fell to the floor and her cheeks heated up before looking back at him. “Because,” She dragged out. “It’s always nerve-racking being on live TV.”

He just nodded and made a joke about feeling the same even though he does this every week.

“How are you feeling tonight?” She asked.

He smiled before resting his arms on his desk. “I’m feeling good, I have a surprise for you later, but I’m supposed to ask the questions now, will you let me?”

“Of course I will.” She smiled back.

Y/N met Jimmy the first year she really became “famous” and he had always been her favorite late-night talk show host just because he was never invasive or creepy. Her standards for hosts were quite low at this point. They continued on, promoting her new movie and such before he settled back in his seat. 

“So.” He said.

“So.” She said back, raising a brow.

“I hate to ask you this, but I honestly am curious myself,” He began, and her anxiety creeped up just a bit. “Now, we dug through your old interviews, and it seems in every single one, when asked if you had a celebrity crush, your answer was Harry Styles?”

She simply nodded, her cheeks heating up again, and a small smile creeping onto her face at his name. 

“I see that smile, Y/N.” Jimmy said, and she let out a laugh, her smile now wide.

“So, do you mind telling us why you like him so much, or should I say love him so much?” His brow raised.

Y/N laughed a bit more, just at her nerves, and took a breath. “Um, he’s always been such an inspiration for me to actually chase my career, I mean I knew him from when he was on X-Factor to be honest. Binged that show all the time when I was in middle school and to see a boy just 2 years older than me just go straight into being in one of the biggest boy-bands in the world was insane. He’s just so passionate about what he does and I admire him for that. Uh- from what I can tell he’s just very charming, sweet, funny, caring, and…” She trailed off her rant, biting her bottom lip just a tad.

“And?”

“He’s incredibly attractive.” She finished a smile on her face as she glanced at the floor again.

“Understandable. I think he’s a good looking man myself, met him a few times and got flustered,” Jimmy jokes before looking at Y/N. “What if I told you he was the surprise I had for you?”

Her brows furrow as she looks at the man sitting across from her. “What? Do you mean like a video-” She feels a tap on her shoulder. 

Y/N turns around, still massively confused, and then she sees him.

Harry standing in a simple black suit and white button up, only a few of the buttons actually buttoned and her jaw drops. “Hello.” He says, smiling at her.

Her eyes are wide and she looks like a dear in headlights before her face falls into her hands, elbows resting on her knees, her breath erratic. “No, this isn’t- no. He’s not here.” She says into her hands and the crowd laughs. Everyone laughs. 

“M’a bit offended you think I’m not really here, love.” Harry grins, and she pulls her face out of her shaking hands to see him.

She opens her mouth to say something and nothing comes out. 

Harry Styles, her celebrity crush since the ripe age of 14, a crush thats lasted 8 years being 22 now, and she’s only seen him on screens her entire life. “Fuck.” Was all she can say. He laughs a bit at her starstruck appearance and turns to Jimmy. “She’s not normally like this, right?”

“Right.” The host jokes, looking back at the girl on the couch, and his smile diminishes a bit. Her eyes are watering and she’s trying to keep her composure but her bottom lip is trembling and Jimmy’s now worried he’s about to have a sobbing woman on live TV.

“You okay Y/N?” Jimmy asks and her head quickly turns to him and then back to Harry. “I-fuck, I’m sorry.” She tries to laugh it off. Tries not to think about how the man she’s loved even before she knew what love truly was, was standing in front of her right now. 

“Don’t be sorry.” Harry says, slightly frowning but trying to keep a happy face. He’s standing in front of a girl he’s adored ever since he watched her first movie, for Christs sake, and she’s silently about to break down in front of him, because of him. 

Before he can even properly introduce himself, she’s standing on her heels, wobbling a bit, and looking up at him. “Can I hug you?” She mouths, not wanting her question to be picked up on the mic on the back of her dress and before her mouth even closes he’s stepping towards her, big arms wrapping around her waist. Her arms find their way around his chest and her head is resting on his shoulder and her eyes are squeezed shut and she’s mouthing “Oh my fucking god. Oh my god.” Without realizing she’s facing the audience who laugh at her inability to not fangirl. His head dips as he hugs her, reveling in her touch, and then she’s pulling away, remembering they’re on live TV and she can give him a proper hug backstage after this is over when they don’t have to worry about appearances. 

She’s still reeling when his hands slide off her waist and he sticks his hand out and says “It’s so nice to meet you.” She takes his calloused hand in hers and says “Same to you.” Blinking away unshed tears.

“Shall we sit then?” He asks and she looks at Jimmy admiring the moment before back at Harry. “You’re staying?” She blurts out before shutting her mouth abruptly. 

“If you want me too.” He grins that grin she’s always been infatuated by and she nods, maybe too quickly. “Of course I do- yes,” She coughs. “Yeah, uh, please, let’s.”

They both plant themselves on the loveseat, Y/N taking the spot in which she was before and Harry sitting on the other end, keeping a distance between the two. She recomposes herself and sits up. Harry looks at her for a moment before looking back at Jimmy. 

“How are y’Jimmy?” He asks.

“I’m doing well, proud of myself for inviting you, you’re the one person I’ve seen make Y/N go absolutely speechless here,” Jimmy jokes and Y/N groans and smiles, leaning her top half on the arm of the chair, her face in her hands before sitting back up. “How about you, Harry?”

“M’doing well, was very excited to see Y/N here and I’d hopefully say it’s the same for her.” He smiles looking at her, dimples flashing.

“Yeah!” Her voice squeaks. “You’re right. It’s the same for me. I-” She cut’s herself off from saying she’s shitting her pants at the moment. Figuratively, of course, but it’s not very appropriate. She still can’t believe this. Twitter is going to have a field day talking about how flustered Y/N was at this moment.  

“Have something you want to say, Y/N? To Harry, more specifically?” Jimmy asks.

“Um,” She begins, locking eyes with Harry. “Did you hear, what I said, um, before you walked out here?” 

The green eyed man nods. 

Her hands start shaking again and she awkwardly laughs. “I’m sorry you heard that.” She apologizes. 

“Why are you apologizing?” Harry asks her, tilting his head and Y/N was going to pass out. “I’m glad you think all those things about me, plus, it’s a nice ego booster to hear that you think I’m ‘incredibly attractive’.” He chuckles a bit, but truthfully he was happy his celebrity crush feels the same way about him.

She just laughs back and mumbles a “Thanks.” Before Jimmy starts up a conversation about whatever was going on at the moment.

Jimmy and Harry start talking about something and Y/N nods her head and laughs when it’s appropriate but she couldn’t process anything. Her hands were interlocked, shaking in her lap, and all she could feel was Harry. Harry sitting next to her, Harry breathing next to her, Harry waving his hands around while he spoke in front of her. It was all too much. 

Suddenly his knee lightly knocked against her own. She abruptly turned to look at him, but he was still looking at Jimmy. So she assumed it was a mistake, until it happened again, and this time when her eyes looked to him, his met her’s and he gently and subtly moved closer to their thighs were touching. Y/N let the leg that was crossed over her other relax and fall to the couch, only her ankles crossed, and she swore she could hear his breath stop for a moment, but it was too quiet to be sure.

A few moments after they both had gained the courage to barely revel in each others touch, Jimmy was ending the show. Y/N doesn’t remember what she said or did before the camera cut off, she vaguely remembers waving to the audience but she’s not completely sure. 

And then it’s over- just like that.

“This was so fun Jimmy, thank you for inviting me on.” Harry said, standing up (reluctantly) and going to give Jimmy a hug. Y/N on the other hand was watching the interaction and it all hit her like a wave again. Harry fucking Styles was standing in front of her. The men both turn to her as she stands up and she gives a weak smile and mumbles “I forgot I needed to text my assistant, m’sorry I’ll be back.” before speed walking behind the curtain and booking it to her dressing room. She quickly flips the “Do Not Disturb” side of the sign on the door to show and closes the door behind her, her breathing accelerating. 

She barely makes it to the couch before bursting out in tears.

Y/N couldn’t really put a finger on whether or not they were tears of joy, sadness, embarrassment, or a combination of all 3. She’s pretty sure it’s the latter though. She slips her heels off and lies on the couch, her hands over her face with not so silent cries as she tries to calm herself. 

Meanwhile, both Harry and Jimmy sensed that Y/N wasn’t just going to text her assistant. “Do you think- do you think I said something maybe?” Harry quietly asks the late night host as they walk behind the curtain and into a quieter hallway backstage. Jimmy simply shakes his head before locking eyes with Harry. “Have you seen any of the videos where she talks about you, Harry?”

He shakes his head no and the older man pulls out his phone, doing a quick scroll of his email before finding video file and opening it. “A couple of interns here made this combination of all the times she talked about you in her interviews.”We were gonna play it as you were coming out but her manager said it would be too embarrassing.” Was the only preface Jimmy gave before clicking play.

Y/N stood in an elegant emerald colored gown just off the red carpet, all done up for her first big movie premiere. An interviewer stands in front of her, holding a mic that the woman was moving between herself and Y/N. “So Miss L/N, we need some juicy secrets from the “It-Girl” herself. Who’s your celebrity crush?” Y/N looks at the floor, a shy smile on her face as the quietly says “Harry Styles.” The interviewer’s eyes widen and she chuckles a bit. “I feel you honey, what do you like most about him?” Y/N purses her lips slightly before speaking again. “Um, everything? I think he has a really good heart.” The interviewer makes a joke about how she likes his eyes instead and Y/N laughs, but anyone could tell it was forced. 

The screen begins to play another clip. 

Y/N is sitting on a couch with her co-stars of a movie she did a year ago, dressed in a classy blush colored suit, and they’re all playing a game with some other talk show host. “Let’s see who knows Y/N the best now, shall we?” The host asks, and looks down at the cards in his hand. “Who is her celebrity crush?” And almost immediately all of her friends were jotting down their answers on a white board. “That was fast,” The host laughs, as does everyone else. “Okay everyone, flip it around.” ‘Harry Styles’ was written on every single board. “Oh my god.” She smiles wide out of embarrassment and puts her face in her hands. 

It reminds Harry of what she did when she first saw him.

“Y/N! Looks like you’re absolutely smitten with Harry Styles, aren’t you?” The host asks, and before she could even open her mouth, a co-star of hers was already speaking. “She’d play his songs in her trailer in the morning, full volume, and sing them as loud as she could. It was a good way to wake us all up.” He jokes, and everyone laughs at that. “Whenever he’d post a photo on instagram, or tweet something, I’d see tears in her eyes.” Another co-star speaks up. The audience laughs again and she looks to them. ‘I’m serious! Y/N absolutely adores him.” By this time Y/N’s face was out of her hands and she was sinking into the couch. “Are you embarrassed, Y/N/?” The host jokes “Of course not, well I didn’t want to get absolutely exposed, but I’m not embarrassed to be a fan, could never be embarrassed to be a fan of him, he’s… he’s amazing.”

The phone then fades into yet another clip.

This time, Y/N is sitting in a stool, doing the Wired Autocomplete Interview, and she tears off the second paper of the question, “Is Y/N L/N…” . “Is Y/N L/N,” she reads and the paper catches after the word “dating” is revealed. She looks up at the screen, a twinkle in her eyes as she shoots a close-mouthed smile at the camera. She turns back to the board and rips the paper off, struggling a bit and laughing, until it’s revealed. “Is Y/n L/N dating… Harry Styles”  She bursts out laughing, her free hand clutching her stomach.

Harry frowns a but at this, and he didn’t feel like thinking more about why.

 “Um,” She begins, “Sorry, I just- do I really talk about him, that much? S’a bit concerning.” She mumbles to herself. “Yeah, no, I’m not dating Harry Styles, he would never. Though, I like how people think it could be a possibility, thats quite funny. I’ll take the… hidden compliment, is that even the right phrase?”

The screen goes to another clip but Jimmy pauses it there and turns off his phone, turning to Harry. “You didn’t do anything Harry, it’s just you being here, she’s probably overwhelmed and-“

“Mr. Kimmel? Jones needs you.” Someone calls out to him down the hall and Jimmy slips his phone in this pocket and sighs. “Sorry, gotta handle this, thank you, for coming.”

“It’s okay,” Harry assures him, “Thanks for having me.” And at that Jimmy rushes down the hall in search of Jones, and Harry stands in the same spot

Harry knows how much he means to his fans, he’s seen them sob at concerts, break down at meet and greets, and when they tell him how much they love him when they run into him on the street. He knows this. But this felt different, for some reason. Maybe it was the burning feeling in his chest when she laughed off how he would never be with her, for what particular reason he has no clue (or just doesn’t want to address it), or how he couldn’t help but pop a dimple when he heard she loves his music. He wasn’t sure.

What he was sure of though, is that he needed to speak to her again, hug her for longer, actually get to know Y/N. So he walked into the main back room, walking down different halls until he came across the one that read “Dressing Room #4” and Y/N’s name scribbled in messy handwriting on the white board underneath. He knocked a little rhythm, and waited.

Y/N was still crying, to put it lightly. Maybe hyperventilating was the right word, because she was breathing quite fast, and there was a steady stream of tears flowing down her cheeks. She heard the knocks and attempted to calm herself down a bit, yelling out a “One second!” Before wiping under her eyes and walking to open the door. “Eliana,” She began, ready to wave her assistant way (not that she didn’t adore her, but Y/N needed to be alone before talking about everything), “Can you come back in like 15 minutes, I’m sorry I just need to-”

Her mouth closed when she saw Harry outside of her door, his small smile quickly fading into a frown as he took in her state. “Y/N I wanted to- are you okay?” He asked, stepping a bit closer, trying not to push any boundaries. When she didn’t respond and he saw her bottom lip quiver a bit, his chest clenched. “Can I come in? Can we talk?” He gently asked, eyes running over her puffy eyes, tear stained cheeks, and disheveled appearance. 

She nodded and he walked in, and she gently shut the door behind him. He turned around to look at her and when his eyes met her’s, she couldn’t take it anymore. She let out a gut-wrenching sob and her face fell in her hands as she shook her head. “I-I’m so sorry, I’m sorry.” She choked out and he stepped towards her, his hand coming to rest on her elbow. “Y/N, please, don’t apologize.” And without thinking he took the last step towards her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her firmly, one of his hands cradling the back of her head. Her hands fell from her face and she held him back, arms wrapping tightly around his torso yet again.

As she cried into his chest, he mumbled a soft, “Breathe for me, love.”, and she tried to get her breathing to match his own deep breathes. “I’m sorry,” Y/N says for the millionth time. “I told you to stop apologizing, Y/N, you haven’t done anything wrong.” He frowns to himself, that burning feeling in his chest again. She reluctantly pulls away, and his hands remain on her arms as her own come up to wipe the tears flowing out of her eyes. 

“You didn’t sign up to be here and have to deal with a crying fan, Harry.” Y/N sighs, finally looking up at him. 

“Hey, I came because I wanted to see you, I’ve seen your movies and I think everything you’re absolutely incredible at what you do, and when Jimmy called asking if I could come to surprise you I jumped at the chance to finally meet you. I know what I signed up for.” He says, his thumbs rubbing the skin of her arms gently.

At his words she let out another sob, her shaking hands coming up to cover her face for a moment yet again. Harry’s eyes widened, he was telling the honest truth, and he didn’t think he said anything wrong. Y/N however, was seeing in person, how king he truly was, and it was just another reality check that the Harry she’s loved for so long really is the same in real life; it was too much to handle. “Thank you,” She sniffles, looking up at him again, meeting his piercing green eyes. “I just, I’ve adored you for years, still do, and I never thought I’d meet you, even after I started getting ‘known’, I always thought you were like, too perfect to be real, and now you’re here and you’re real, and y’know when you meet a celebrity who seems so sweet in interviews and all that but they turn out to be an absolute prick? It’s not like that, you’re the same person I’ve loved over a screen, I- you’ve been my inspiration for fucking years and I don’t know. It’s just a lot.” 

Now her hands were on his arms and they stood there for a moment, just looking at each other.

“M’not perfect, Y/N.” Harry says softly. Y/n chuckles a bit, glancing to the side before meeting his eyes yet again. “I know, I know the ‘nobody’s perfect’ crap, but if you’re insistent on it, then I think you’re the closest thing there is to perfect, Harry.”

His cheeks turn pink at her confession, and a small smile weaves its way onto his face. “Thank you,” He finally says, before bringing her into another hug, this time her arms wrapped around his neck, and he bends down a bit to hold her tighter. “For everything you said, seriously, you’ve got no idea how much it means t’me.” He admits, still reveling in her touch. She slowly pulls away, noting in her head that he never seems to be the one to let go first. “Of course, wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.” She smiles weakly, still drained from all the emotions flowing through her. He just smiles at that, before his hand drags down her arm and he hold her hand, wordlessly pulling her over to sit on the couch. 

He doesn’t let go of her hand as they sit quite close facing each other. “Do y’wanna hear a secret? It might make you feel better.” He suggests, cursing himself for being willing to do anything to see her smile fully. “I wish I could lie and say that it’s something I wouldn’t know, but I think I know a bit too much about you.” She says, letting out a small laugh, and he does too. “I promise you don’t know this.” He mumbles.

“Okay, go for it.” She says, holding his hand a bit tighter. 

“Well, after you bolted here, Jimmy showed me a few of your interviews, and I wanted to tell you that you’re my celebrity crush too.”

Her jaw drops and her eyes widen, a face that looks eerily similar to when she saw him for the first time just an hour prior. “You saw my interviews?” She gasps, her voice cracking at the embarrassment of him seeing her shamelessly confessing her love for him about a million times. It was safe to say she didn’t hear the rest of his confession.

“That’s what you’re focusing on here?” Harry laughs and raises a brow at Y/N.

“What else is there to focus on,” She groans, taking her hand out of his and burying her face into her hands yet again. “I can’t believe Jimmy showed you that, I’m never coming on this show again.” 

Harry grins, a dimple popping as he gently wraps his arms around her wrists, pulling her hands off her face. “Did y’hear what I said after that?” He asks softly, his eyes bring into her own. She shakes her head “no” in response and he takes a quick breath before telling her yet again. 

“I said, you’re my celebrity crush too. I’ve watched everything you’ve been in and I think y’are absolutely amazing, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t think you’re beautiful, inside and out.”

Y/N’s jaw drops for the thousandth time that night. 

 “You’re fucking with me.” She deadpans, her face blank and mind swimming with emotions.

He frowns and squeezes her hands. “M’not, swear to you.”

She shakes her head in denial. There’s no way she was Harry Style’s celebrity crush. Not in a million years would she ever think those words would be spoken, much less even thought of.

“You don’t believe me?” Harry asks, his head tilting a bit to the side.

“I believe tha you’re just too nice and you feel bad for me, so that’s why you’re telling me this.” Y/N admits to him, a sad smile on her face.

“Really?” He asks, letting go of her hands and bringing one of his own to his pocket. 

“Really. I appreciate it, I do, but you don’t have to try and make me feel less humiliated, I think we’ve already passed the point of no return.” Y/N says, laughing a bit.

“Mmm, okay,” He smirks. “Well that just won’t do. May I have your number?” 

She raises a brow as he pushes his phone into her hands, already pulled up on a new contact. She types in her number and “#1 fan” in the name and hand the phone back to him. Harry laughs when he sees the contact name and saves it to his phone, then putting it back in his pocket. 

“What was that?” 

“What was what?” Harry muses, a teasing glint in his eye.

She purses her lips. “Why did you just ask for my number?”

“So I can contact you of course,” Harry smiles. “How else am I supposed to set up another date with you?”

“Another?” Y/N questions, her lips turning up.

“’m a gentleman of course, would never ask you out on a first date over the phone,” Harry calmly explains. “So would you do me the honor of accompanying me to dinner tomorrow night?”

Y/n hesitates, unsure if this was still an ask out of pity. “You can meet me at my house, of course if you’re comfortable, and I’ll order us takeout to eat on my porch.” He continues, getting more exciting as he imagines how the date would go. 

“What makes you think I’d say yes?” She teases and his mouth gapes. 

“Oh fuck off.”

[queeniecamps]

New OC alert, heyoooo

Ginger is a new counselor in Camp Campbell!! She’s about 21-ish, she’s really into gaming and is an overall geek, and she’s a bit of a social butterfly, too!! Overall life of the party with this chick lmao

I imagine she’d instantly adopt Nerris as her little sister of sorts, and the kids all like hanging out with her cause if you’re behaving well ur reward will be a round or too of Mario Kart, hehe

concept art and me ranting about figuring out wtf to do with her design belowww

lol okay, so I was REALLY struggling on her design and sat on it for a few weeks hoping something would inspire me. For a hot minute she wound up looking a weee bit like act///uallyr//ea on twitter/yt and I did NOT wanna go down that route. Ultimately, it wasn’t until I made this over on my twitter that a LOT of my ocs look really similar and that I keep using traits I LIKE over using new ones when designing characters.

one mini crisis alone in my bedroom later I decided to try a different hair texture (hence the curly haired designs on the bottom right), then i realized she looked like how I used to draw gwen, and if I were to ever draw her in the show’s style, she’d basically just be a ginger-y gwen. Had to fix that.

So THEN I was scrolling through twitter and saw some cool ocs with different protected hairstyles, and that’s when it kinda hit me. I’ve never been great at drawing protected styles (locs, braids, twists, etc), so I wanted to at least try and use that with Ginger so that she’d look cool.

I won’t say that I’m that good at drawing her hair quite yet, I’m still figuring out the spacing of the hair (y’know how it’s kinda styled with a grid of sorts?? like this?? idk how else to describe this lord help me)

so I think that and using different hair textures and branching out more diversity wise something that I’ll try and focus on improving in my art and designs for 2022 (that, and improving on perspective and nOT OVERDOING IT ON THE LIGHTING)

For like. one pass I was like “ooh, would vitiligo look cool?” and like?? it kinda does, but I felt like it complicated her design a little bit?? I felt like the lighter patches mixed with the lighter locs in her hair AND the gold accents were all a little much, so I stuck with the freckles.

[arofili]

week-long fandom events: some tips from a pro

a while ago someone asked for advice for running week-long fandom events, and I thought my thoughts might be useful for other people too!

disclaimer: I am NOT actually a pro, that was just a catchy turn of phrase, lol. however I have run several events for several years, and I’d love to share some of my tips and tricks!

these are tips for tumblr-based events; if you’re running your event on a different site or on multiple sites, this might not be the most applicable to you.

some of these points will also be useful for events outside of the week-long structure, but some will be specific to that structure, as it is the one I am most familiar with!

here we go:

it's really nice to have an event sideblog to organize things; the events I've seen that run on people's main blogs are a little more confusing / hard to promote & follow

make sure you know the most popular tags in your fandom and get your promo posts into those tags! especially for first time events, tag blogs with lots of followers / influence and/or DM them and ask for them to boost the event, even if they're not participating

visual banners will draw in more eyes than posts that are just plain text, so try adding a header to your promo posts

give people enough time to prep for the event. I usually make the first announcement about 2 months before the event, and then schedule regular reminder posts as I get closer to the event. I make a reminder post 1 month out, 1 week out, and 1 day before, and then make sure I'm posting something every day of the event (at least) - the queue function is extremely useful for this, so you don’t forget to post!

themes for each day give people something to plan around / inspire them, I definitely recommend them. I usually just have one theme per day, but I've also seen events that give different themes for different mediums, or a list of themes each day that creators can pick from

have a pinned post with links to important information! this includes prompts, rules, FAQs, a link to an AO3 collection, etc. since blog pages are not accessible on the mobile app, it might be useful to also have post versions of any pages you make, and link to those in your pinned post.

when it comes to FAQs & etc, feel free to look at the pages on any of my event blogs (listed at the bottom of this post) and borrow concepts/phrasing from those if it's helpful for you. if you do this PLEASE credit me, but you are welcome to do so

off-site promos might not be the most wide-reaching, but Discord especially is a good place to draw attention to your event for people who don't track tumblr tags. I know I also post links to my promo posts on Twitter, and I usually catch a couple people there who are like "oh I didn't know that was happening, cool!"

track your event tag AND frequently check your event blog’s activity - tumblr is rotten about notifications, so it’s important to keep an eye on things and make sure you’re not missing any submissions!

reblog every submission to your event to the event blog. this is why the blog is there! this is how you can bost the content for your event and help other people find it! I recommend tagging those reblogs for organization with at least the url of the OP; I will also tag for relevant characters, sometimes relevant ships, and the medium of the post (art, fic, etc), and sometimes which prompt the submission was inspired by. also, I find it useful to tag which year the event takes place so you can track your event’s growth over time.

finally, make sure to participate in your own event; it doesn't have to be every day, but I think it's a little weird if you aren't creating content yourself, even if it's "just" a text post with headcanons or something!

these are all just things I like to do in organizing my events; there are other ways to run things, and you'll figure out your own system as you go on, but I hope this gives you a starting ground!

if anyone has any questions about running an event, I’m happy to give you further advice! send me an ask or a DM with any questions :)

AND check out my event blogs: @finweanladiesweek​ @tolkiengenweek​ @aspecardaweek​ @kilielweek​

happy event planning!