#there Will be more content with this combo

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hopefully this doesn't come off as snarky, but I find it genuinely hilarious that every "big-name" Leona fan that I've seen seems to like him against their will lol. I've always had Leona as my favorite, so it's fun to see the journey other people go through to liking/appreciating him!

Look 💦 I can’t speak for other L*ona likers (regardless of size, honestly; I'm a firm believer that one's level of internet fame isn't a factor in the devotion for a character) but for me—to quote Scar—“my words are a matter of pride.” And by confessing to (ick 🤢) LIKING LION… it’s throwing all that pride out of a window. It seriously does feel like these feelings exist against my will.

I have a summary of my story to explain my relationship with the lion lore 💀 I call it a summary, but it’s still kind of long— It's below the cut for those who are interested!

To begin with, the promotional materials didn’t sell me on him. Everything about how he initially presents—from his arrogance to his “tough/bad boy” design (seriously, that biker-cowboy combo of his dorm uniform is SO ugly and shows way too much skin for my liking…)—was so unappealing to me. He seemed exactly like the kind of character and tropes I tend to dislike. The only “good” thing I saw in him was his face (which, ironically, is what Vil says about him) and maybe his UM chant particularly the line where he demands you kneel before him. Then comes along book 2, which is easily the weakest of the main story and does a HUGE disservice to him, making L*ona seem a lot stupider than he actually is. At that point, I had basically written his entire character off. I claimed to all my Twst friends that there was nothing that would ever make me like him.

Around 2022, I decided to get involved in a round of EBG (Epic Bias Game) which is basically like a test of your will?? You’re supposed to compete with your friends to see who can go for the longest without talking about or acknowledging their oshi (which includes not being able to react to fan works of them). As part of EBG, each participant was randomly assigned a “new oshi” to replace the usual one AND GUESS WHAT, I GOT HANDED L*ONA BY THE WHEEL OF FATE 💀

One of my friends (who knew I hardcore hated him at the time) assured me that this would get me to change my mind. They even went out of their way to write a little story explaining how my OC was forced to spend more time with L*ona, which led me into writing interactions between them to build more of the lore. I managed to outlast the friend in EBG, but didn’t win the entire game. I came out of it not really feeling super different about L*ona, but I think forcing myself to write about him extensively helped me gain a little more perspective on his character. I still didn’t like him, but I at least appreciated his presence in the cast a little more.

AND THEN TWST HAD TO COME AND BASH ME OVER THE HEAD WITH L*ONA CONTENT… All the little vignettes and voice lines where other characters would talk about what a good leader he is (*glares at Epel, Jack, Ruggie, Savanaclaw mobs, etc.*), when he sarcastically claims to be a “delicate prince” or a “lost child”, those moments where he sasses others, times when he’s able to use his charisma and/or intelligence to pull ahead, rare instances when he whips out his royal manners, him respecting women… But I think the turning point for me had to have been book 6 OTL GOOD LORD, BOOK 6 FUCKED ME UP 😭 Him using his UM in a creative way to turn falling glass shards into harmless sand? And strategically turning himself in?? Willingly ceding control of the dorm to Ruggie??? Telling everyone about Styx’s lore???? AND THE BEEF HE HAD WITH JAMIL BUT STILL GIVING HIM WISDOM AND ADVICE… Sometimes I still tear up thinking about how L*ona says “You’re not like me,” to Jamil 😔 implying that part of the reason why L*ona guides others is because he has hope in their futures but not his own… (I’m still salty that EN messed up this line by changing it to “I’m not like you,” which makes him come off as way more arrogant 💦) Anyway, I blame book 6 for being the tipping point in my downward spiral 🌀 IT GOT WORSE IN BOOK 7 WHEN HE STARTED SHOWING HE'S MOTIVATED TO ACTUALLY GRADUATE AND TAKES ON AN INTERNSHIP THAT COULD BENEFIT HIS COUNTRY... Special shoutout to the Club Wear card for being especially hot-- I did my best to hold out against the steady drip of content that called attention to his… positive traits… (Not that I’m saying he doesn’t have any; I mean this in that whenever his strengths as a character are brought up, they really get to me as someone who loves intelligent, mature/responsible types and “big brother” figures OTL) BUT IT'S SO HARD WHEN TWST KEEPS PULLING STUFF LIKE THAT???

Then in 2024 came the stupid Lost in the Book with Nightmare Before Christmas event 💀 which finally introduced us to L*ona in full formal attire (MY WEAKNESS) and gave him the opportunity to be in the role of the "hero" and leader... and those Nightmare Suit vignettes 😭 Leona thinking about what it actually means to be "king"... Ugh, it was another strong showing of his character. I'm pretty sure it was this event that started the snowball of my friends (lovingly) bullying me about him and calling me a tsundere about it. Weirdly enough, a BUNCH of things started happening irl to push L*ona at me too. For example, my pet (who usually actively avoids or attacks Twst stuff) was actually eager to pose for a picture with a L*ona standee. In a group fan merch order, I had asked for the bonus Grim sticker but the artist (who had no idea about my complicated thoughts on L*ona) said they were out of the Grim sticker but they had L*ona stickers they could include instead. Most recently, I had just finished this last-minute artwork of Miss Raven eating pocky by herself to celebrate Pocky Day (11/11). Typically the fan art you'd see on this day would involve two characters playing the "Pocky Game" (in which the players try to eat a stick of pocky from either end; usually it's framed as romantic since meeting in the middle results in a kiss). However, I had chosen to do a solo Miss Raven art because I thought this suited her "I want to be taken seriously!" personality better. Well, guess what? I GOT A PACKAGE DELIVERY NOTIFICATION FOR THE TWST MERCH ORDER... WITH L*ONA IN IT 💀 Almost like he heard there was food meant for sharing and he came to claim it for himself... Like I literally did NOT choose for these things to happen to me, THEY HAPPENED ON THEIR OWN. I DON'T BELIEVE IN PREORDAINED EVENTS BUT THE UNIVERSE SURE IS WORKING IN STRANGE WAYS.

So now that the tables have turned, it’s really embarrassing. Everything is coming back to bite me in the butt… It truly feels like L*ona plotted this all along and was on the prowl, patiently waiting for me to get worn down before he pounces and delivers the final blow to my ego OTL Like, it's gotten to the point where many of my long-time friends in the Twst community are now joking that "It's over" for J word... ONE OF THEM EVEN TOLD ME IT FEELS LIKE I'M GETTING DIVORCED AND L*ONA IS THEIR NEW STEPDAD, HOW AM I SUPPSOED TO FEEL ABOUT HTHAT ??????????? ? ? ????? ? ??? ? ?? ?? ? ???? ?

But by the far the worst, the WORST part about everything here is that if L*ona were fully sentient, he would be so smug about recent developments 😡 It makes me SO mad thinking about how he'd look down on me with that hot smug rage-inducing smirk of his and make fun of me for eating my words so badly.

“What was that you said about hating my guts, herbivore? … Hah, it's written all over your face--you're terrible at hiding your true feelings. You can just give in, you know. Tell me how much you worship me. How much you want me. You'll give in eventually one way or another--so why not make this easier for the both of us and save us the time of playing the wait game? I don't bite, promise." (<- a liar)

(Disclaimer: NOT MY MERCH; this is a L*ona Liker friend’s picture that they’re letting me use as a reaction image 😅)

THIS IS FR MY OVERBLOT ORIGIN STORY…

[3gremlins]

i love how short lucanis is, like my rook is not very tall and he's shorter than them.

i love him so much??? his ambient banter with your other companions about his relationship with rook makes me have so many feels (♡ヮ♡) . there's one line when he's talking to emmerich where he's like "i just like being around them they just make me happy" and i was like SAME BUDDY T.T I also love how his advice to emmerich's gifting works out (he suggests giving his bf knives) and emmerich's like "that was good advice!!!" and he's like "it was?? that has never worked for me" like he's so cute and kinda self deprecating? he's such an interesting character - assured and confident at his job but kind of surprised something nice has happened to him relationship wise. (emmerich's like "oh thank you for that advice" and lucanis is like "oh but rook's advice was prob better" and emmerich was like "yours was great! my bf actually collects knives so he loved that" XD) (it's hard not to constantly have him in my party, like who is coming with me and lucanis, friends? it's also usually emmerich tho i also love his interactions with taash and bellara and his evolving friendship with davrin. i have forced myself to have other combos tho, i do love everyone's banter. having that distinctly bioware problem where i absolutely want to do other romances but will have a hard time not romancing him like 50 more times* T.T polycule included when dragon age) i wish you got to have more directed asides with your romantic partner like even it's just to chat or make out a bit (they're def following more of the da2/mass effect format of making you do story stuff to unlock companion content- which is probably best but also) *because of this i'm not sure if ill ever be able to make that other choice since it locks him out completely and that's too sad for me.

[nat1volition]

it’s not about reciprocation it’s just all about ME!!! baby I love these bozos

[nimblermortal]

Heck yes Tonys halted due to WGA strike

Heck yes Stranger Things halted due to WGA strike

Heck yes no new Last Week Tonight due to WGA strike

IMPACTFUL THINGS AND THINGS I LIKE BEING HALTED DUE TO WGA STRIKE IS GOOD

PAY DEM WRITERS! BOOYAH!

[diosasimss]

i love her and i love her outfit omg 💋🌹🍷🍓

[sabotourist]

i like Tucknut because on the surface they would be like, such an annoying couple to everyone around them. super obnoxious. constantly gossiping. can make everyone else go red with their innuendoes and dirty talk. utterly and completely shameless assholes just having the time of their lives

but underneath that, neither tucker nor donut are actually that good at being... open. at being open, honest, and vulnerable with themselves, much less other people.

i think a big part of their relationship, and the reason why it wouldn't fall apart or fizzle out, would be them having to learn to be open and to introspect a bit more.

for tucker to get more comfortable in asking for physical affection since (in my hc land) he's definitely super touchy-feely but would hate to let anyone know that. but donut would give that freely and gladly. for tucker to not force himself to look and act so tough all the time. to be able to accept looking "weak" from time-to-time

and for donut it'd be like, a safe space to complain. like really complain. to be able to vent about things without having to filter them through layers of entendres or obfuscate them through complaints about chipping a nail or whatever. to make him a bit less afraid to feel and show negative emotions. tucker fucking loves to call bullshit on things. i think he'd be good for donut like that. would be the one to validate his feelings, tell him he's right to be mad or upset or whatever else.

outwardly, they're that annoying couple, bane of everyone. annoying as fuck. but internally? i dunno mannnnn i think they'd just be really sweet together i'm going fucking crazy over them

and look i know i'm sailing alone (or with like, two other people. guy with the ghost roaster pfp, you're the GOAT) but i care very much about this lil watermelon-colored ship of mine (my first ever!) and i shall sail the seven seas with it

also they absolutely ship grimmons HARD

[batataaurdoodh]

@hetalia-rarepairweek day 4: assassin

HRGHHHHHH I LOVE THESE TWO SMMMMM their outfits look more like spy outfits than Bollywood flash mob tbh

[ollyollyartt]

had too much hoffthirst for my tiny body to handle so i,, made a saw oc...

[flovverworks]

WHY ARE U SO TINNNYYYYYYYYYY

[miya-twins]

okay this is mostly abt suna but I'm putting it on this blog anyway. also it's 10/07 so it's sunaatsu day and that's where my thoughts are!

so. at first I was pretty surprised seeing suna went pro after the timeskip, not because he wasn't good enough or anything, he just didn't seem like the type? like, he just wasn't all that openly invested in volleyball, not like hinata or kageyama or oikawa or ushiwaka or bokuto or atsumu.

he's not the type to just not be good at anything else, either, he totally could've gone to university and done some other job if he wanted to

in part I think it's def due to kita. like, suna used to be the type to slack and look for shortcuts on his runs. but by trying to find kita's weakness, suna exposed himself to kita's perfect routine, and through kita's presence, suna had to practice dutifully too, making him improve at volleyball and thus making it more fun

that, I think, suna would admit if pressed. esp to other inarizaki alumni. they get it. they've all been impressed and influenced by kita. they couldn't have slacked with kita's eyes on them, either.

the other part, though, suna will take to his grave. there's no way he can ever tell anyone. because it's atsumu.

I just know suna saw atsumu and went 'oh this guy is an idiot and kind of a dick. funny tho' and made no secret that that was his impression of atsumu. recording the twins' nonsense was his biggest source of entertainment at inarizaki

but when he's on the court, atsumu always gives 100%. he does everything he can to set the ball perfectly, and he expects his spikers to do equally as much to score.

suna might've been reluctant at first - if you do everything you can with all your heart, failing hurts way more than if you just kinda tried a little bit, and it opens you up to ridicule which suna hates - but there were people like osamu and aran on the team, who answered atsumu's demands every time, so half-assing it would absolutely not fly. and at some point suna stopped wanting to half-ass it.

he got addicted to hitting tosses perfectly tailored to his unique style, and to toying with opposing middle blockers, and to winning, and to trying his best, and to volleyball.

after three years at inarizaki, he couldn't imagine quitting anymore.

he's kinda happy about it, too, likes going pro and being able to be openly passionate

he just kinda hates that he got inspired by miya atsumu of all people. esp since he considers osamu his best friend. if osamu found out, he'd never, ever let suna live that one down

even worse if the inspiration and passion comes with a crush. imagine having a crush on atsumu. embarrassing. mortifying. suna considers becoming a monk or leaving the country before he ever considers admitting to said crush. probably needs osamu to catch on and give him a push before he does anything about it. hates every step of it.

but it's worth it, in the end. just like putting his entire self on the line for volleyball and being rewarded with fun and victory and the best tosses, putting it all on the line and voicing his feelings gets him atsumu. atsumu who loves suna with the same honesty and intensity that he loves volleyball with. it's exhilarating, and addictive, and soon, suna has no idea how he ever lived without it.

[notmoreflippingelves]

EoA for ask meme

otp: *coughs* Elena/Esteban. sorry not sorry.Look if they didn't want me to be unhinged about them, they shouldn't have spent an entire season soulmate-coding them and then capping it off with a BATB homage.

favourite canon pairing: ymmv on how canon it is, but considering it was pretty strongly teased in the series finale, Julio/Doña Paloma. I do find Carla/Mateo pretty cute as well.

worst pairing ever: I wouldn't say any of the pairings for the show are bad. It's just a lot of them don't particularly interest me. I could say Elena/Mateo, because personally I find it overrrated and I'm already gonna talk about it later. But I am going to go with Esteban/Doña Paloma.

I did actually kind of ship it the first time I watched the show...right up until the episode where their AU selves got married. And even though the whole point of "to Queen or Not to Queen" is that everything is absurd and everyone is wildly out-of-character (especially the two of them), they just seemed so miserable together and I couldn't unsee it. I also find it kind of annoying that Paloma is treated as sort of the default "acceptable" Esteban shipping option for people who don't want to pair him with OCs. And just...it's fine and I understand why many people would feel uncomfortable shipping him with certain characters (even if I don't)...but like...Victor is also right there. And honestly, I'm able to get a lot of the same vibes that I initially liked about esteoma out of estevictor, esteban/naomi, gaberico, and Julio/ Paloma---plus just I find those dynamics are more interesting in general.

guilty pleasure pairing: It used to be estebalena, but now, I have much less shame over it. It helps that I really only see it happening in S3 or later and that I hc that Elena would be the much more dominant/instigating partner in the relationship. I mean I guess Shuriki/Esteban is the obvious answer. But it is worth noting that I don't like it when it's genuine/mutual/romantic. I only like esteriki in the noncon/dubcon "Shuriki abusing her power" sense. So my guilty pleasure ship is less Shuriki/Esteban and more "Esteban/severe Shuriki-related trauma that leads to extreme woobification." I want him sad and pretty and haunted by the Dark Times™ so that he can have allll the angst, whump and hurt/comfort.

a pairing you want to see more: Literally every ship that isn't just some permutation of the Four Amigos. There are so many great characters in this ship that can be paired in so many interesting ways, but they rarely get acknowledged. I think I am particularly baffled by the lack of m/m in this fandom, since it's like the complete opposite of every other fandom ever. There's a bit of Mateo/Gabe, but honestly, it's positively dwarfed by other pairings for the amigos. (Also I don't care about Mateo, lol). There's also a criminally small bit of Gabe/Rico, but there could be so much more.

But honestly, the ship that I am genuinely baffled isn't more popular and really really want to see more of is Victor/Esteban. Like it just seems like a no-brainer to me. It has so many tropes that people normally go feral over. Childhood friends to lovers? Enemies to Lovers? Foe yay? Mutual redemption arcs? There isn't even an age difference and Victor's marriage is all-but-over. So, what is stopping people? I've seen at most a handful of ambiguously romantic ship art and not a single fic. Where is it? Where is the estevictor? Give me the estevictor!

that pairing everyone likes but you’re like “lol no” : Elena/Mateo. I mean I get why it's so popular given the popularity and attractiveness of both characters. But personally, I just don't find them interesting. I feel they both have better chemistry and interesting potential with other characters than they do with each other. And its popularity within the fandom certainly doesn't help, as my little contrarian hipster brain turns its nose up about 90% of fandom juggernaut pairings. Plus, I just don't care enough about Mateo to care about a ship with him. He's casually cute with Carla and I can see him with Gabe as well. But otherwise, nope. Don't like him enough to care who he's shipped with.

favorite non-romantic pair: There are a bunch of dynamics that I do ship sometimes (or more than sometimes) but I also love platonically. (Esteban & Elena, Elena & Naomi, Esteban & Naomi, Naomi & Gabe, Elena & Gabe, Elena & Valentina, Elena & Marisa, Chloe & Maliga, Cacahuate & Bobo, various permutations of "Team Isa"). But in terms of pairings that I only view platonically, either Victor & Carla or Isabel & Elena.

[welcometogrouchland]

Btw in a hypothetical amphibia/toh au, Luz is Marcy, Willow is Anne and Amity is Sasha, except Luz is the Heart gem, Amity is the wit gem and Willow is the strength gem. Amitys green hair era takes on the connotations of her toxic need for perfectionism, and Willow's calamity powers invoke both the catharsis and the danger of her mind during understanding willow. In case you were wondering

[rebirthdinosaurs]

i just want to give a shout out to this fic that i cant stop thinking about. it doesnt have very many chapters out yet, but i think its a great concept.

so if you like my babysitters a vampire and the tv show daybreak, i recommend reading canadians and their knack for surviving war by Pillfriend on ao3:)

its about the mbav crew going to america after the whitechapel explosion, and then having to deal with the apocalypse in glendale, la. going from dealing with supernatural situations to deal with one specific supernatural situation where they end up being more experienced than the people around them.

please show the author some love ❤️

[the-busy-ghost]

Um Duolingo, what the hell is this:

As if it wasn't bad enough that the new pathway removed a bunch of my progress (AND takes ages to move onto the next topic so I'm not improving), and that they removed the wordlist so I can no longer keep on top of vocabulary, now I have no idea whether I'm meeting my own daily target or not?S

[yonghoonsleftnostril]

I think my favorite thing about being a multi fan is watching how the different fandoms perceive each other and perceive the treatment they get from artists.

Like not meant in a bad way at all. It's just funny hearing how different the expectations are from solo stans vs people who follow a lot.

Being a multi also makes it harder to be delulu. It's still fun to make the jokes with friends but when you get the same message (nearly copy/paste) from multiple idols on the daily it really makes it easy to remember that while it is a unique industry and there's a dual parasocial relationship not present elsewhere, for sure, but it's not as strong as some fans think.

[electronic-elevator]

bad news: influx of porn bots spamming the site. AGAIN

good news: I saw one that used this combo of tags directly next to each other