I went so overboard omg but I wanted to try underpainting :Dc See if you can guess what color was the base for each of em! Reasoning for design choices beneath the cut.
Teeth are retractable so as to not puncture the eye when not in use
Lashes are retractable because I couldn't figure out what else to do with them LOL they're pretty thick whiskers and so he'd have some trouble if they stayed in the way, but having them fully retracted would, I imagine, risk them getting stuck or the pores plugging with oil/dirt
Whether or not his tongue is forked varies in canon, just as his blood color does, so I just chose the ones I prefer! I do really like it when people give him blue blood but I think in subtler hues it can make him look a lil nauseous so it's easier for me to work with red
He cleans himself with his tongue because he's a gross little beast and can't just take a shower or something. Ok but really I just thought it was cute what are you a cop leave me alone
Every villain needs to be able to have claws it's like a rule somewhere I think
The second set of eyelids serve to protect the optic nerve but are mainly something I added partially for emoting purposes and partially because of how many times the animators do this thing where his lashes don't follow his lids and it drives me less insane to have a hc about it
Unlike the whole High Court after the Coronation, I was thinking about Valerian the other day.
His interactions with Jude escalated more into violence but they were somewhat similar to Cardan's: hair-pulling, name-calling, generally getting in her physical space, etc. Hell, they threw the girl into the river together. Quite frankly, in Jude's inner monologue in the first part of TCP, they sound very similar, with one being much prettier - guess who am I speaking of. Hint: they have really long fingers.
However, Jude reacted differently to their "teasing" (trying not to swear on this one). With Valerian, she mostly ignored him and hoped he would go away, following Taryn's terrible advice. She's even trying to de-escalate when he tries to murder her in her bedroom. But when Cardan did it, she reacted to it as if interacting with Cardan was her new purpose in life. Even when both Valerian and Cardan did it. They both kicked dirt on her food and threw her in the river, yet Jude's eyes were on Cardan the whole time. She basically argued with Cardan and ignored Valerian whenever he spoke.
Now, from Jude's mind, this sounds like it's motivated by hierarchy (both in Elfhame and in their friend's group), as we don't know much about Valerian except that he's part of the Gentry. But I wonder if part of his escalation was that he could see the toxic obsession going on between those two and he hated it.
It happened, as things so often did, like a bolt from the blue on one of Pacifica's rare days off from work at the diner.
It was the height of summer and so hellaciously hot, even for—no, especially for Oregon. Having lost access to the private pools and yachts after her father's investments into Cipher capital during Weirdmageddon four years prior, Pacifica found herself at the Gravity Falls community pool, lounging on a pool chair after layering SPF 50 on her skin, and silently telling herself over and over that it was always morally correct to block her parents' numbers on her days off, and that her father probably hadn't yet found where Pacifica's pet rescue opposum, Susanna, had hidden the bell yet, so there was no need to worry.
(Pacifica had rescued Susanna from the diner kitchen two summers ago, when she was fourteen. Susanna was technically a male oppossum, but something about him reminded Pacifica of Lazy Susan, so Susanna he was.)
But it was at that moment that deep laughter followed by a higher pitched "shut up!" and even more laughter from both voices broke through Pacifica's inner mantras. She opened her eyes to see that both of the Pines twins, having once again made their yearly visit to Gravity Falls, had also chosen to visit the pool that day.
Pacifica swallowed hard.
For all that she had tried to deny it even to herself in her tween and early teen years, by now Pacifica had long since accepted that she found Dipper Pines attractive. It was impossible not to, with the way he came back taller each summer, his shoulders increasingly more broad as he grew into the physique promised by his great uncles (or his Great Uncle Ford, anyway), a little stubble that he "forgot" to shave always left around his chin, and his sideburns. Oh, his sideburns. Pacifica hated how much she loved Dipper's sideburns. It was beyond cringe, and the only other living soul who would ever know about her crush was Susanna, but Pacifica Northwest did indeed have a crush on Dipper Pines. She knew, and accepted, this about herself.
But then, on that hellaciously hot summer day at the community pool, Mabel Pines took her sweater off right in front of Pacifica's eyes.
Mabel pulled her sweater up over her head, and it was as if time slowed down. Mabel's arms were just as toned and strong (if not maybe a little more toned, the way the sunlight hit her muscles) than Dipper's. She had been wearing a bikini under her sweater—a pink one decorated with stars that fit her perfectly—and her thousand watt smile revealed she'd finally gotten her braces off to reveal a set of dazzling teeth. And when she tugged her hair free from her ponytail, it swished around her in a cascade of long, brown waves.
Dipper had thrown his tanktop onto a pool chair, and Mabel followed suit, throwing her sweater and hair tie on top of Dipper's shirt. But as Dipper was in the middle of saying something (they were too far for Pacifica to hear clearly), Mabel whipped back around with devilish speed and shoved him straight in the pool.
Mabel laughed uproariously as Dipper came back up for air, sputtering water and shaking his sopping bangs from his eyes. But he was only off guard for a second, and Mabel's mirth kept her off hers for longer. Dipper grinned wickedly and snapped his fingers around Mabel's wrist, yanking her in headfirst after him. Just as Dipper had before her, Mabel resurfaced immediately, though she had to use both hands to shove her curtains of damp hair out of her face. But her smile was just as impish as Dipper's own, and within seconds they were splashing each other, shrieking and laughing as they caused the biggest ruckus the pool had seen all day.
And as she watched them play, the water making their skin glisten and their smiles making their eyes sparkle, Pacifica felt a swarm of butterflies in her gut and a flash of heat in her face that had nothing at all to do with the summer sun above. She curled in on herself in her pool chair, and tugged her sun hat down over her face.
The thing is. Bad/gross food is rarely a DISH - when food is bad it's because it's been badly made, whether because of skills or available ingredients. but a dish p much only exists recognisably and has a name because someone likes at least one version of it.
which is to say. there isn't really a way of naming a dish, school of dishes or specific food culture and going EW ISN'T THIS DISH UNILATERALLY CONCEPTUALLY DISGUSTING without denigrating quite a lot of people.
like you don't have to like it in any form. but it's eaten and shared because it's good to a not insubstantial number of people when cooked right.
(and I don't really understand how you approach that with total incuriosity when it's a dish you haven't tried like. ARE rocky mountain oysters good? Maybe! I would very much eat some to find out!!!!)
this is actually something the British food poll did in a way the American ones I've seen haven't really - they described how the food they're imagining is, specifically, badly prepared (grey meat and veggies; unseasoned shepherd's pie). which is wildly tipping the scales by calling it British Food but. like. that is an on point definition of why that food is gross.
(this also applies to American chocolate, which like. Broad category but I think most of us understand this refers to low-cocoa high-sugar chocolate, probably with bucolic acid. so we are being invited to imagine Badly Made Chocolate not. the concept of chocolate)
personally I just think it's very rarely a good or funny idea to shittalk how gross any given food culture is. partly because food is important and culturally evocative for most people, partly because it's very...alienating? to be like WHO COULD EAT SUCH A THING? just because you wouldn't, and largely because to be frank it says more about you than about the food that you have so little imagination or curiosity that you can't imagine why a food might be enjoyable to folks who aren't you.
yes this includes jello salad, I would like to try it. ONCE. if it wasn't appealing to someone it wouldn't be so widespread.
d&d's obsession with punishing sansa for being a child and having her have all of these speeches or chats with other characters where she puts herself down like they really thought that was an empowering girlboss moment
'Let people enjoy things' warriors r like yes I'm anti harassment unless you make a general negative statement about something I like not targeting any one specific person in which case we're all gonna dogpile on you to tell you you're being a mean bully :((( bc of how anti harassment we are
parents will literally let their kids do whatever they want to the EXPENSIVE things we sell in our store and then have the nerve to giggle n smile acting like its cute... you just handed me something drenched in random baby juices and now I have to handle the rest of your things AND the items of everyone behind you. Disgusting.