#(there are some other lovely pictures in the gallery but the top and bottom ones from this set are my favourite)

[harri-etvane]

Working trip of the President of Ukraine to Kherson and Mykolaiv regions [x]

[luveline]

Hey jade!! i love your writing so much<3

Also what do you think of prison!spencer × Stripper!reader?👀

im not sure if this is what you meant but I hope you like it ♡ fem, 1.2k

"Too much," you murmur to yourself, tilting your head one way and then the other. The bags under your eyes have been dark lately from a severe lack of sleep, but all this makeup won't help make tips. "Way too much." 

You lean back to ask one of the girls for a wet wipe but the dressing room is empty. Swearing to yourself, you duck down for your bag. You have tissues, and they'll have to do it. 

Things have been hard since Spencer's… event. You don't sleep well without him, worse wondering what it is he's going through right now. His friends don't really know that you're seeing one another, and so being kept in the loop has felt akin to begging for scraps. You miss Agent Hotchner in times like this. He always had a soft spot for you. 

You hum a song under your breath as you rub the cakey makeup under your eyes. Washing your face would be nice. Going home would be better. You've been trying to make some extra money in case Spencer never comes home; you won't have his security to fall back on if things fall apart here. 

You don't want his security. You just want him to come home. Sighing, you pick up your phone and open the gallery app. It's a second hand thing you got at a pawn shop but it has enough storage to keep as many blurry photos of your boyfriend as you'd like. Pictures of him everywhere and doing everything, his big smile like a beacon. 

You stop scrolling when you find the one you want. It's favourited with a red heart at the bottom of the screen. Spencer took it, you remember —you were too busy kissing his cheek to navigate the settings. He looks happy. You could never understand how happy he is to be with you, how through everything, a long time of knowing one another and a hundred thousand acts of a kindness you didn't deserve, he's stayed by your side. He doesn't care that you're a dancer. He's proud of your choices. He loves you for you, even if he does get a little jealous every now and then. 

You lay your phone down on the dressing table, cheek flat beside it. "Time to come home, Dr. Reid," you whisper. 

Your phone pings and you ignore it. It pings again and you turn off your notifications. It's probably Spencer's nice friend Penelope, or one of the girls wanting to borrow something. 

You shed your robe to look yourself over in the mirror. The lingerie you're in tonight's not to your taste but a fan favourite, the bra and underwear both plum in colour with lace and black garters to be clipped. You turn to one side and narrow your gaze at a ladder running up your leg. 

You save a bottle of clear nail polish in your bag for this occasion. 

You're sitting on the floor with your leg out in front of you when someone knocks on the door. The girls don't knock. 

If it's a patron you have a taser, and besides, they don't usually knock either. A bouncer, then. 

"Come in, please!" you call lightly. 

You don't bother looking up, a creature of habit. It'll be the same thing as usual, insert man wants to buy insert dance from you for insert amount of time. Are you interested? 

You hum as you paint the rip in your garter. The nail polish will stop it from ripping any further, but you're going to need new ones. 

"You're prettier than when I left. How did you do that?" 

You tip the bottle over as you flinch, you don't care, you look up at the compliment and the familiar voice, and find Spencer standing in the doorway. 

You've pictured this moment multiple times a day since the day he was arrested, hundreds of reactions. In pretty much all of them you throw yourself into his arms and beg him not to leave again, but all those hours of missing him coalesce on top of you. You want desperately to touch him and you end up crying into your hands instead. Tears quicker than you knew they could arrive, hot and thick as your sob. 

"Hey," Spencer says, kneeling down in front of you. He takes your wrists into his hands. "Hey… don't cry." 

You can't help it. 

He wraps his arms around you and lets you sob. "I thought you'd be happy to see me," he murmurs. 

"I missed you," you say, the words dragged from you like agony on a hook. 

"I missed you too." He rubs your back. If he cares that you're in your underwear he doesn't have much to say about it. He eventually started making jokes about all of this stuff when he realised you wouldn't be offended, but he's never cruel about anything. He's far from it now, pulling your shoulder into his chest as he pats your arms. "I'm sorry, honey. I'm really sorry. It got out of control. But, on the bright side…" 

You sniffle and pull your gaze up to his face. When you see the hollows of his cheeks you almost start crying again. "What?" you ask. 

"Well, now I'm cool enough to be your boyfriend." 

You push him backwards and crawl into his lap, knees on either side of him, weight against his abdomen. Your arms weave behind his head and you push your cheek into his likely too hard to be painless. He just sighs in relief. 

"Do you have something in your pocket?" you whisper, your voice stuffy. "Or was prison very hard?" 

He laughs and digs in between you to pull the little box that had been digging into you out of his pocket. "It's for you." 

"Don't want it." 

"I don't care if you want it. I missed our anniversary." 

"I missed you," you say, clinging to him for dear life.

You can't stop hugging him long enough to look. 

Eventually, he peels you off of the floor and you get dressed to go home with him. It takes a long time —you keep stopping to hug him between items of clothing, checking that he's real, that's he's him, even if he looks different now. He has to take the reins or you'll never make it home, pulling your coat over your shoulders and zipping it closed. 

When he's done, he takes your face into both hands. "You've been safe while I was gone? No trouble?" he asks. 

"Nobody messes with me. My boyfriend's in the FBI." 

"Well, we're taking a vacation." He blows out a big breath. "Jesus, I'm sorry, but I really need to kiss you right now." 

"Even though I look junky?" 

"You look perfect." He kisses you before he's finished, his praise smothered by your lips. He kisses you so hard you can't breathe by the end of it. "I'm sorry," he says, pressing a softer one under your eye. "Prison was actually pretty hard." You lean in, lingering nose to nose with him. "I couldn't sleep without you near me." 

"You're only saying that 'cos you saw me in my underwear." 

"Yeah, that's exactly why." He practically giggles. "No, I just love you."

You couldn't sleep without him either. You get home and sleep for days, tangled with each other in bedraggled sheets. 

[fairestar]

How do you make your posts so aesthetic im on mobile and literally can't figure this app out😭

with lots of screen time and scrolling through pinterest! all pictures ive ever posted are from there. i love and live for pinterest.

✿ a little tumblr guide :

for formatting your text, just select it and go from there. for the small text, select it and tap the “<s>” button.

for the collages / banners i've included in some of my posts, i go through pinterest, look for pictures that have similar colour palettes, download them and go to this website to make the collage. i don't recommend changing the size of it while on the page because it can ruin your pictures, just work with the predetermined size and once you're done, download your collage and resize it by cutting it with your gallery app.

for coloured text, you can select it and choose one of the fixed options; but if you want a specific colour, you can only do it from the tumblr website. first make a draft of your post, then go to this page to choose the hex code for the text you want to edit (the hex code is the one that's six characters long and made of numbers 0-9 and letters A-F, ex.: #A77BF9), once you have your code, go to this page, write whatever it is you want, select the “solid text” option (if you want a degradé one, you'll need more than one colour code), put your hex code and copy the text at the bottom of the website. now, back to your draft (remember, you can only do this from the website, not the app), click on the little settings wheel at the top right, at the end you'll see something that says “rich text”, open that menu and choose “html”. now, if you don't know about programming, your draft will look crazy, don't worry, that's just the html version of it. go through it until you find the text you want to modify, select it (only the text, not any other thing around it, if you see something like a <h1> or <b> anything with the < > symbols, do not touch those because you'll either delete everything or lose the formatting you might have already applied —if you accidentally delete those when changing the colour, don't worry, once you're done with the colour you can apply the formatting again just as you always do—), and in its place paste the long text you copied from the website. if you want to know if you did it right, at the top of the post there's a “preview” option, choose it and see if your text is good to go. now that you're done changing the colours, go back to the settings wheel and choose the option “rich text” again, so you can continue working on your post. it's kind of a mess, yes. but your posts will be a hundred times prettier. and you will learn the basics of html coding too.

little side note: if you've modified the html code of your post, always go back to the app before posting it and check if it looks okay because changing the html code makes you lose some formatting you might have already done, like organising pictures or adding a “keep reading” button. also, check the attached screenshots for a more visual tutorial!

hope this is usefull ♡ feel free to reach out again if you need help with anything else!

[kingwuko]

How is Mako when he drinks? Sleepy? Flirty? Angry? Sad? I always pictured Wu as a man who knows how to drink

Okay I have a firmly established hc that I desperately want to write as an actual fic and I've talked about it before but I love talking about it more.

Wu knows how to drink. Mako does NOT.

Mako has explicitly avoided any kind of substance that could impair him throughout his life because he has always had to be hyper vigilant and on alert to protect himself and his brother. He's never felt safe enough to drink. On the rare occasion he is expected to drink, he fakes it. So basically he has no tolerance and no practical knowledge or experience in drinking without accidentally overindulging.

Wu on the other hand has drank socially since he was old enough to do so. Probably had wine with dinner as a teenager on a number of occasions. Sipping on drinks at parties and art galleries and wine tastings. He is well aware or his limits and knows how to drink safely.

SO. After they have been together and out to at least their friends for some time, maybe they have a get together where drinks are served. A Wuko Korrasami Bopal dinner party at one of their places. And there's alcohol. And maybe one or two people are not drinking, like Asami because she's driving home or whatever. And Mako is like... Okay. Maybe I can have a couple of drinks.

Everyone is a little too excited about this. They all want to see Mako loosen up. So he's drinking some plum wine, and Asami tops off his glass when he's getting low. Korra is making a deceptively tasty mixed drink and offers him some. Bolin brought beer and goads Mako into drinking some. None of them consult with each other, so when it all hits him, it hits him fast! They're all like oops we may have over served him on accident.

Anyway all that is to say he's super loving and VERY flirty when he's drunk. The PDA goes off the charts with Wu. Also he's just like way more open about his feelings maybe he cries about how happy he is for Korra and Asami and thanks Opal for being so good for Bolin and throws out so many 'I love you Bo's.

It's all very funny and sweet until Mako leans in to whisper to Wu all the things he wants Wu to do to him when they're alone. But he's drunk so he has no control over the volume of his voice and EVERYONE hears. This is the first anyone learns Mako bottoms 🤣

Korra is like uh what

Asami is like you know what that tracks

Bo is like I DID NOT NEED TO KNOW THAT

Maybe Wu has been drinking a little but not much and he is just like "oh Mako my big tough guy we are not doing any of that tonight you need to sleep this off."

Mako remembers nothing the next morning 🤣🤣🤣

[zeroducks-2]

Hey what do you think of rarepair Brubarry (Batman x Flash)? Too wholesome? Both bottoms? Might actually work if they can find a stud?

hahaha dude I love how you phrased this. To be fair, I tend to see everybody and their cousins as switches (or anyway if they're top/bottom/dom/sub/all of the above changes according to the ship and the situation), mostly because I don't like to limit myself by picturing them just one way that is Set In Stone.

I admit that with some of them it's harder. Like I appreciate bottom!Slade content but I don't think I'd be able to write him bottoming, for example. But with Bruce it comes kind of natural - whereas I see him bottoming with a lot of people I ship him with (Clark, Bane, Jason sometimes, Diana, Slade), I also imagine him topping with a lot of people I ship him with (Dick, Tim, Eddie, Joker, Hal sometimes). But I digress!

The answer is yes, even if it's too wholesome and they might need a stud at times to spice up things,

I ship it! (lowkey though)

What made you ship it? I mentioned that I ship Bruce with half of his rogue gallery, right? Well, I also ship him with half of the Justice League :) Also I'm a sucker for rarepairs.

What are your favorite things about the ship? Actually, how cute and wholesome it can get (I do like wholesome shit lol I appreciate both the extremes depending on how I wake up on any given day). I think Barry might be good for Bruce especially when he's written like a bubbly ray of sunshine, but also a reckless bouncy ball of energy. With how protective Bruce can get, cute shenanigans are bound to happen. I don't really see them as long-term or very romantic, more like a consensual workplace relationship lmao, something bound to pass at some point. But this doesn't mean they can't keep meeting to blow off some steam (saving the world can be stressing yk), especially if some other leaguers are involved.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? I have no idea what would even classify as a popular opinion for this ship tbh

Ask game found here!

[deadliestpieceontheboard]

Minyard-Josten BIOMY Home

This one is the most canon-compliant to the fic I could make it, going back a bunch of times to the flashback chapter where they first bought it and adding the extra rooms they mentioned wanting. Yes, it's extra big. Mostly because I had to fit two bathrooms with enormous bathtubs and Andreil's ridiculously big bed. It was super fun to build!

Individual posts for each house: [The Villa] [Aaron+Katelyn] [Allison+Renee] [Matt+Dan] [Kevin+Thea] [photoshoot]

(All images should be with good res to zoom in)

First detail I wanted to point out is the move of their chairs from the back porch to the front. Because the back now goes into the shared ring I felt they would enjoy more the privacy of the woods around the villa :)

It's mentioned many times how the downstairs rooms are weird and skinny because they closed the floor plan, and anytime you see a funky tile, blame it on the kids (foyer has Nat's water-like one)! Also, no white walls, keeping lighter colors on the down-stairs and darker upstairs.

Living room opens to a huge cat tree because they're spoiled. There's also much more decoration thanks to the art classes and the kids pressuring them to put more pictures out. (you can see them up close on the photoshoot link in the beginning of the post). The pictures include the twins at Nicky's wedding and the pict Dan sent them, and you can see grey and blue bouquets Andreil got each other <3

I can't actually change window glass colors but we know they're all colorful.

Ok, I know, but there's only so much you can do when the characters decide they must have fox-orange cabinets. There was an empty wall so they let Nat and Paige add some trees.

Yes. This is how big an Alaskan bed is. I looked it up. Andrew's corner has a motivacional cat poster his mom-therapist gave him for decor and Neil's has his mom's bones so I guess they match? Shout-out to Andrunior at the window and their super safe knife target.

Paige wanted a pink and gold color scheme, so I went along those lines. She's got her crocheting paraphernalia on the floor, and because I can't put stars on the ceiling there's a cute nightlight.

Why does Nat's room looks purple? because right by that green mirror there's a craft paper lamp, you can kinda see it on the floor plan. Nat's room is very artsy, with a mirror gallery and lot's of paintings on her desired black walls.

Now pretty much all the other rooms, left to right and top to bottom: the foyer (their blue period, with abstract art and a gothic rug), downstairs bathroom (full, in case Neil breaks a leg), guest room, kid's bathroom (the Jack-and-Jill sink outside), Andreil bathroom, and stairs landing. Neil and Andrew let the kids go wild with the tiles, and I love them for that. Very funky. Also, behold their basically-hotubs.

And finally, because I loved how they looked: their back porch, with bench and floor painted by the kids, and the wall that faces Matt and Dan's home, where Nat painted a mural. (also, all houses have recycling and regular bins just outside, thanks to Renee)

As always, inspired by the fic Blame it On My Youth, by @yourficstheyglow

[mountainmaven]

Twenty Books Challenge

Hypothetically, you are only able to keep 20 of your books. Only one book per author/series. So what books are you keeping?

I was tagged by @the-forest-library - thank you!

This was way harder than I imagined (and I still messed up because I have 2 books by the same author oops). I was surprised by how many of the books I chose to keep are non-fiction. I also may have messed up with the rules with some of my collection books but oh well.

From the bottom up:

The Lost Words by Robert MacFarlane & Jackie Morris - just a beautiful book that reminds us how important words are.

The Uncle Wiggly Book by Howard R. Garis. One of the first books I read as a child, and this is the copy I've had since childhood. It's also the book that started my book collecting hobby.

The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde - such a sweet, fun story and this one has great illustrations. (this is the book I'd switch out for something else since I messed up with the rules)

Hold Still by various. This was a project started by The Duchess of Cambridge during The COVID Pandemic. She and the National Portrait Gallery collected thousands of photos and went through and chose the top 100 to put into book form. It's a story of life during a modern pandemic. It's incredibly moving.

Collective Wisdom: Lessons, Inspiration, and Advice From Women Over 50 by Grace Bonney. A Christmas gift from one of my kids in 2021. It's a beautiful collection from women, most of whom are average, every day women, very few celebrities or well knowns are in this book. And the diversity is great too (Native, WOC, Disabled, Trans etc.).

The Complete Language of Flowers by S. Theresa Dietz the classic book of flowers and their meanings with beautiful drawings.

Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky. 50 Inspiring and notable women in Science. Fun, cartoonish illustrations as well.

American Prince by Tony Curtis. Because he's so pretty, and his whole face lit up when I told him what I thought of his book when he signed it for me.

The Snow Queen and Other Winter Tales by various. Collection of tales from various Fairy Tale books and authors. I have a few of these but this one I think is my favorite.

The Works of H.G. Wells by H.G. Wells. A collection of stories by Wells. The Time Machine was the first Science Fiction book I'd read. I read it as a teen and I loved it.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (and this would be the one Wilde book I'd keep since I'm only allowed to have one book by the same author). This is my all time favorite book.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen. I have loved and own every book Allen has written, but I think this is my favorite.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I have a few copies of this book, it's a favorite. I chose this version because it's just very pretty.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Because Mother Nature DGAF. Also as I was being admitted to the hospital for my hysterectomy the admitting nurse who was doing all my vitals, giving me my IV etc. was reading this book and we discussed it. We both agreed that this book confirmed for us that we never want to climb Mount Everest.

Timeless by Gail Carriger. The final book in the Soulless series. I loved this whole series. I chose the last book, however, because it's one of the few series that I absolutely loved everything about how it ended.

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore. The incredibly infuriating story of the women who risked their lives in watch factories and how little help they got. This book made me a better feminist and grew my understanding of the importance of women's rights and how important our history is.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I think this was the first Gaiman book I read and it's my favorite.

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. A series I read one summer in my youth. I chose this one because of its iconic cover, and because it's the first in the series.

The Aviary by Kathleen O'Dell. One of my kids read this when they were younger and suggested it to me. It's one of my all time favorite middle grade reads. It's magical.

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. My 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Bauer (my favorite teacher ever) read this out loud to us in class. I fell in love with the story. I never read it again until I was a married adult with children. It's the first book I ever re-read as an adult (Uncle Wiggly is the first book I ever re-read). And I re-read TLtWatW at least every couple of years. I tag anyone who wants to do this!!

[dekusheroacademia]

Do people dislike Uraraka just because of ships? (Part 1/3)

TW DISCOURSE + manga spoilers

I often see people saying "you only hate Uraraka because of ships!", not to me as I generally enjoy her, but to shippers. The thing is... non-Izuocha and non-Kacchako fans, non-bkdk, non-shippers in general do not have a good or high opinion on Uraraka. If you want to know how and why I would say such a thing, well...

I decided to go and check, to the best of my abilities, if it was true or not. This was the impression I always had from interacting with casual fans on discord and reddit, but to make sure I had more informations I used I will support my point in four ways: comments from non shippers, merchandise, popularity polls votes, ao3.

Because tumblr only allows 10 pictures, I will divide this post in different parts:

Part 1 (this post: reddit comments and merchandise), Part 2 (popularity polls), Part 3 (AO3)

For my personal opinion on Uraraka and her arc you can read it here and here. For a quick summary of it: I usually enjoy Izuocha, I used to enjoy Uraraka more pre-crush, I think Horikoshi sidelined her after he decided she should put away her feelings, I also think Horikoshi is not good at female characters, I love her design, I do collect Uraraka figures myself, I generally enjoy her but find her frustrating quite often as well. I enjoy her much more in recent chapters and her fight with Toga is the thing I am most excited about.

Let's start

1- REDDIT COMMENTS

First, I will show you the most voted reddit posts and comments on Uraraka. Reddit is often male skewed and from previous polls done on the Bokunoheroacademia subreddit, the users are generally a bit male skewed or equally divided between female and male, with non binary people and other genders in the minority. You can check this previous two polls to see the general users' opinions in this subreddits.

So, here are some of the most voted comments from non shippers, you can look at the compilation of them here. I divided them in positive comments and negative comments. I decided to stop at the top 10 posts, and in each post at the top 10 comments (which are the most upvoted ones, if there were less than 10 comments in the post I saved however the maximum number was). I divided the posts and comments in positive, neutral and negative.

To actually read all the comments, you can click here and I divided them all in three different galleries.

This was the ending result:

62 Negative 25 Neutral 12 Positive

As you can see, the general result was overall majority of negative comments.

The most frequent comments I found (and you can read them in the link above) were that her character is bland, boring, that Horikoshi cannot write female characters, that he sidelined her and never gave her enough scenes, and that her quirk has been nerfed, plus some frustrations at reducing her whole interesting character to a girl with a crush and then sidelining her.

To compare, I did the same for Bakugou (you can find his gallery at the bottom of the link I shared above):

So you can see that this almost reflects the popularity we see in popularity polls.

2- MERCHANDISE

Now let's talk merchandise. Anime figure collecting has been quite male-skewed for a long time, but more and more genders now partecipate in it. I know I do! Usually, female figures are the most popular purchases. If we look at just the top100 top figures we can see the percentage of female characters in them: 99%. Basically there is only one male figure among the top100: Levi from Attack on Titan. (All the data used here come from Myfigurecollection so it is heavily Western based/English based).

It would be unfair to compare MHA to different franchises that are more female characters centered, so let's look a bit deeper. I am choosing these franchise from the "current popular shounen anime" and I am literally writing this before even checking Myfigurecollection, to make sure that I am not biased by it.

Let's check: One Piece, Demon Slayer, Naruto, Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan.

These are all anime/manga that have a male protagonist, are shounen, are popular, have at least one "main" female characters (I use "" because some of these female characters are very prominent, some are not), are usually found on those "top 20 shounen of the moment" lists, are still ongoing.

For each of these franchises I will do my best to categorize the characters in a similar and comparable way. Please, if I did any mistakes, let me know and I will correct them.

I will compare mainly four characters: the protagonist, two main secondary male characters who are popular, the main female character. 

Here is my choices of characters, again, I am familiar with most of these manga but not as much as I am familiar with BNHA so let me know if I made any mistake

BNHA: Protagonist (Deku), Two main male secondary characters (Bakugou, Todoroki), main female character (Uraraka)

ONE PIECE: Protagonist (Luffy), Two main male secondary characters (Zoro, Sanji), main female character (Nami)

NARUTO: Protagonist (Naruto), Two main male secondary characters (Sasuke, Kakashi), main female character (Sakura)

DEMON SLAYER: Protagonist (Tanjirou), Two main male secondary characters (Zenitsu, Inosuke), main female character (Nezuko)

JUJUTSU KAISEN: Protagonist (Itadori + Sukuna), Two main male secondary characters (Megumi, Gojo), main female character (Nobara)

ATTACK ON TITAN: Protagonist (Eren), Two main male secondary characters (Levi, Armin), main female character (Mikasa)

Now, to be able to compare, I will check:

A- The top 80 figures for each franchise: how many time is the main female character there compared to the secondary male characters?

B- All the figures for each female characters: how many figures have been produced/announced since the start of the manga? And this is to be able to see if there is a high demand for this character

What I expect:

If the female character is very popular I would expect to have a comparable numbers of buyers to the male characters, to have a comparable number of figures too.

A- The top80 popular figures for each franchise

Let's look at BNHA and how the numbers are:

Each percentage is the % of character presence in the top80 popular figures for the franchise.

When we compare all the female characters I considered:

Compared with other's anime main female characters, Uraraka is close to last. Sakura is by far the very last one, with just 5%. Uraraka has 10%, while all other female characters have higher percentages, in particular Nezuko and Mikasa who almost have double. I think this can explain a little bit how much more popular other female characters are than Uraraka in their own franchises.

B- Total figures

If we look at number of figures for each of these female characters, we can look at the rate of release per year. This is a way to check how much in demand these characters are:

Again, Sakura has the lowest rate. This time second to last we have Mikasa, but this is because of the general very low rate of figures for Attack on Titan. Then we have Nami and Nobara with almost doubt of three times more than Urarakam who is at 10.33%.

Comparing this rate of release within BNHA characters, we can see that Uraraka has the lowest number of releases:

Deku figures release three times more each year, Bakugou a little more than twice than Uraraka, Todoroki almost twice than Uraraka, and even All Might has more yearly releases.

As each anime has different popularities and thus different total figures, I decided to check what is the percentage of each main character, secondary characters and female characters for the total amount of figures. A higher percentage means that the character is very popular and in demand.

As you can see, Uraraka is at the bottom of the list in percentage (in pink). In green I also colored the BNHA figures so you can compare her with Todoroki, Deku, Bakugou and All Might:

While Uraraka is not much less popular than All Might, I think it is clear that compared with other female lead in modern anime the rate is quite low, in particular, look at Nezuko, Mikasa and Nobara. Uraraka only surpasses Nami and Sakura. Keep in mind that One Piece has generally a lower percentage per character because of the very high number of characters.

If we mix these A and B part, we can say that Uraraka is not unpopular, but she is not particularly popular either, at least not as much as Bakugou, for example, who has even a higher percentage than Luffy himself (against because of the high amount of characters in One Piece).

These data are just a way to check how much Uraraka is in demand. Keep in mind that from the previous percentage I shared, female characters are usually quite popular in collections as you could see from the top80 graph, where Uraraka was not as low as Sakura, but still second to last.

If you have any anime you would like me to add, as long as they are shounen ongoing and with a male protagonist, let me know and I will expand this analysis.

[whentherewerebicycles]

time for a HOUSE UPDATE!! sorry this is of interest to absolutely no one but me but I am aggressively nesting and must narrate the process (story of my life).

well I absolutely love my place and literally the only thing I would change about it is the four-foot 1970s-style overhang that juts out over the giant picture window in the living room, which means I only get bright indirect light and never direct light indoors even during the day. but honestly it’s livable and I imagine that soon there will be very little sunlight to speak of so it probably won’t matter all that much.

here’s what’s left in each room:

LIVING ROOM

I swatched three other colors on posterboard and will hang them up to look at throughout the week (including when the rain starts and I get my first taste of PNW winter). I would like to re-paint that room this weekend or next.

I need a TV console but they’re so expensive. I think I’ll keep putting it off a while longer.

two of the gallery wall pieces aren’t quite right but I’m going to wait till I repaint to fix

I could do something better with that plant corner but that feels like a winter project

the blinds need to be restrung but I might ask my parents to help me with that in November. ditto with installing the curtain rod.

everything else is perfect! the new recliner maybe isn’t the best fit in the space but omg it’s soooooo comfy and nice for reading or watching. and the cozy levels of the sectional area are absolutely off the charts omg the extra pillows & oversized throw I bought this weekend catapulted that part of the room to a new level. sooooooo good and so fun as a space for entertaining.

KITCHEN

all good for now. would love to put up a backsplash at some point (the whole area around the sink is just blah—too many shades of white and off-white) but that might be like, a year 2 project. it’s functional! switching up the orientation of the kitchen table + adding a plant cart made such a difference in that space. it’s way cozier!

HALF BATH & LAUNDRY ROOM

now these rooms are both going to be top candidates for a winter renovation project. I think they will be fun rooms to collect lots of Pinterest inspiration for—they’re small rooms so I feel like I can do something bold and fun in there with color and/or patterns. but for now they are functional and that’s all they need to be!

in the short term though I need to declutter the laundry room (might tackle that today)

DAYROOM/OFFICE

no idea why the paint is photographing like that please trust me it is still the most beautiful color imaginable

I still need to fix the standing desk but will probably give that task to my dad

I need to declutter and organize the big closet (currently my junk space). I bought a nicer dresser for my bedroom and I think I’m going to move the old dresser into the closet to use as an organized storage space. this will be a good weekend project—maybe even this weekend if I don’t paint.

I want to eventually transform this room into my cozy winter writing space. my goal is to figure out a good way to slightly partition off the room so that my office/work desk area feels visually separated from the couch area without making the room feel too cramped or segmented. right now I’m using that plant cart but I’m thinking I’ll eventually get a long low bookshelf (maybe waist-high) to put there so I can put a row of plants along the top and have book storage space on the bottom. I may also experiment with moving the tiger rug up here and getting a diff rug that’s a better match for the kitchen. tbd!!

I’m also going to hang the whiteboard, move Pip’s bed over to that corner so it’s hidden behind the partition, get rid of the IKEA chair in the far corner, move in a small little coffee table in front of the sofa, and get some throw pillows and blankets that actually work in that room. I may also put up curtains to pull that window area together a bit more.

I should really get a pullout couch or comfy futon for guests instead of the current beat-up sofa but I’m loath to spend lots of money on that room when I think that might be the nursery (or foster kid bedroom) within the next couple years depending on how things go. anyway it’s fine for now!

OH and crucially I gotta figure out the walls. I think instead of a gallery wall I may do shelves with leaning framed art + small objects like I had in my old living room. but first I have to figure out how the rest of the room will be arranged so I know what to center the shelves on. I think getting stuff on the walls will make this space feel more like an actual room and not just the place where I cram stuff that doesn’t have a home yet.

LITTLE LIBRARY

I adore this little room that is all lol

I need to finish scraping paint off the ceiling (it’s not hard it just takes some elbow grease)

I may want to get a little side table for my squirrel lamp + a little plant to go under the Rohan poster.

I want to get a small round rug but it’s not urgent! I also kinda have to decide if I want this to be a reading nook with a beanbag or small cozy chair or if I just want it to be a nice-looking open storage area.

oh and I need to organize my books at some point lol I just threw them on the shelves so I could get rid of the boxes

MY BEDROOM

this will be a winter project… it’s functional for now but it’s very bare bones. I am leaning towards doing a rich dark teal accent wall behind the bed and leaving the rest of the room white OR maybe doing a terracotta pink accent wall but we’ll see—I reallyyyyyyy don’t want to paint right now lol

I have two nightstands and a dresser coming this week so that should be a big upgrade to that room visually

I am going to buy a cheap new headboard to replace my cheap old headboard

for art… I think I may want to do a small gallery wall of fandom stuff (My Guys!) over the dresser in this little recessed area of the room—it’s visible from the bed but not from the hall so I think that’s a good compromise on Decorating Like An Adult and following my heart’s desire to plaster images of My Guys everywhere aha. for the rest of the room I think I need to do more Pinterest browsing for inspiration… maybe some bigger art pieces or maybe some shelves with plants or maybe something else who can say!! the space is perfectly usable right now and I can slowly acquire things & ideas to improve it.

[levi-supreme]

Hi there! I’ve got a self-shipping question for you, I’m in love with the reivi ship 💖

How does Levi act when he’s jealous over you? I think he’d be a little annoyed by his partner’s jealousy, but he’s not immune to the feeling lol. I love you ❤️

Hiiiii anon!!! 🥺 thank you for loving Reivi and for entertaining me <3 I am very touched!!! I love you very much too ❤️

Haha I've actually answered this jealousy topic over here, but I am more than happy to answer and elaborate on this again 🥰I'll talk about both Levi and I when we're jealous!! Please enjoy some cheesiness and jealousy/possessiveness XD

It's quite obvious that between us, I am the more jealous and possessive one XD I'm the crazy wife that checks my husband's phone and reads through his messages, checks his phone gallery, and looks at who he liked on Instagram etc. Well... you can't blame me when Levi is so good-looking and attractive, right???? On top of that, I am a pretty insecure person especially when it comes to this, so I feel extra possessive of Levi.

I show my possessiveness over Levi and flaunt our relationship through things like wearing matching shirts or shoes, watches, spectacles, phone brands, phone covers etc. We even have matching display pictures on our social media accounts, and I make sure his phone's lock screen and home screen are our photos (or any family photos) 😂 and like you mentioned, Levi does get annoyed about it haha, but he still does it anyway. He lowkey loves being matchy with me hehe.

If we can't wear couple outfits, we'll colour coordinate our clothes!! Like, we may have a denim theme, or our tops and bottoms will have matching colours. It's my way of showing him off to the world that yes, indeed, this hot guy beside me is taken. Women still try to hit on him even though he's married with four kids 🙄 it's like they all can't see his wedding ring on his finger 🙄

To be honest, Levi doesn't get many opportunities to show me his jealous side though, since I don't really receive stares from others (haha). But!! When we're out with the children, he gets really protective. Somehow, when we're out with the kids, we get a lot more stares than usual (is it because we look too young to have four kids? Lol), and Levi gets really annoyed by it. He always makes sure that his arm is around me when we're out, and he holds me reaaaaaaaaally close to him by my waist too.

I like wearing shorts, and Levi has a love-hate relationship whenever I wear shorts out haha. He loves staring at my thighs but he also hates it when people (guys) stare at me too 😂 he loves it when I flaunt my thighs in shorts and jeans but he hates it when people look (what is this logic???). So, like what I mentioned above, he always holds me by the waist and keeps me close to him haha.

Also, he doesn't really post on social media much, but when he does, he always subtly include me inside to show me off hehe. Like, he'll repost my Instagram stories that I tagged him in, or if he's posting something, you can see me in the background even though I'm not in focus 🥰

So... the tl;dr answer: Rei is the more jealous and possessive person in the relationship, but Levi's jealousy and logic can be very weird sometimes XD

[neversleepever]

My secret Santa gave me "art" they "drew" but it's ai art.

I just have to get this off my chest.

So for the past couple of years I've been doing an online secret Santa. I've had a good time both giving and receiving.

This year my secret Santa sent me a few little things I really loved. They also gifted me two pieces of "art" that they "drew". It's blatantly obvious it's ai art.

When you send your gift you notify the system. In your notification you can add shipping information as well as a note for your giftee. The note my secret Santa sent me only referenced their "art" and they specifically said that they "drew". I thought that might be the only thing I would get, which I would have been happy with if it was real art. I would have been happy even if it was real crappy art. Because at least a person put in time and effort. That's love.

Luckily their "art" was not the only thing they gave me. The gifts they did give I really did love. It was a few fun little things and an art book from one of my favorite artists. But trying to pass off ai art as their own just sours things.

Before I show you the "art", I'm going to have to add some context. When you sign up for this secret Santa you have to fill out a profile with things you like. I added a bunch of random things I like. Like how I love cyberpunk (the genre and the video game/ttrpg). I also listed all my pets. Including my 4 tarantulas. Clearly they just put "tarantula + cyberpunk" into an ai.

Cyberpunk is a fantasy genre. You can take a certain amount of artistic liberty. I just can't imagine an artist who can make almost photo realistic art make so many fundamental mistakes

Without further-a-do.

Where to begin? Nothing is symmetrical. Forget 8 legs. I would be happy if the same number of legs were on each side.

Many of the legs don't touch the ground. Probably because many of the legs aren't even full legs. They just stop at the first joint. Legs are going in all directions. The leg in the top right corner of the bottom picture looks like it's going behind the building.

Items in the foreground are blurry but the background is crisp and clear. It looks a little better in the pic I posted but in person it's really obvious.

"Hey there handsome. You happy to see me?"

"Yeah, you should have that looked at"

Where is this even coming from?

I just can't believe they thought they could get away with it. Obviously I know tarantula anatomy very well. You also don't need to be an anatomy expert to know legs need to touch the ground to use them. It's the lying that I hate. If they were honest that it was ai art, I wouldn't be so mad. I hate ai art but I hate people who try to pass off ai art as their own even more.

But also, I put in my profile that I'M AN ARTIST!!!

I did say I was a beginner. But just because my skill level is still beginner doesn't mean I don't know art basics. I've spent my whole life surrounded by art, going to art museums, art shows, art festivals. Looking at art critically. I even have family that works in an art gallery. I've spent my whole life around artists.

I was originally not going to call them out. I've been trying to be a nicer person.

With this secret Santa process, it is considered customary to make a post of what you got and a little thank you note to your Santa. I did make a post thanking them for the other things I got. I did genuinely like the other things I got. But when it came to the "art" I just said it was... Interesting.

I was going to leave it at that until my secret Santa commented on my post. I knew it was them because their username matched the name they signed on the back of the pictures. Because of course they signed the back of the pictures.

They once again brought up that they "sketched" these pictures. That's when I just couldn't take it. I replied thanking them for the gifts and said the art was ai. They haven't responded yet and I don't care if they do.

We are truly in the worst timeline.

[fleurcareil]

Alberta: Hinton & Edmonton

After driving down the Rockies towards Edmonton, the landscape changed to rolling green fields interspersed with woods, much greener than the yellow hues further south around Calgary, presumably because of more rain/snow (which I luckily didn't get ☺).

After checking in at the camp cabin in Hinton, I grabbed some salads-to-go at the grocery store and headed to the town's Beaver Boardwalk which has an extensive network of boardwalks around a 20-year old beaver colony. This is a prime example of why I love boardwalks so much; they're easy to use without having to worry about getting your feet wet or muddy, and the effort that the builders put in to show their guests why they should care about the "presented" nature, implies that it's worth paying attention!

Here, after seeing the beaver lodge (of which I've seen plenty before), I was shocked to actually watch a large beaver emerge from it, swim around a bit and then go back under! 🤩 A woman mentioned that there's also two young beavers and indeed a bit later, one came out and swam right under the floating dock where I was!! ❤😍 For the next hour, I sat eating my dinner and watching the little one eating his own reed snack, whilst the brother/sister would swim lapses (we only saw it go in one direction and never back so presumably it made a loop out of sight). Really very cool & perfect way to spend the evening!

In the morning, I was really happy to be in the cabin because although it was the same cold outside,1q it was toasty inside which made it hard to get up. 😁 I did have a good reason to get going though, as I wanted to get in time to Edmonton to visit the Art Gallery of Alberta, which is (or at least at the moment) differently than the one in Ontario entirely dedicated to modern art. The road to Edmonton was nothing special but oh so empty! 🤩 I'm already dreading my return to the GTA mayhem...

The building is impressively designed with metal shapes weaved in & out of the glass facade... artsy indeed! 🤩

The top floor was dedicated to a video exhibit about dance, and although I didn't film it, I rrally liked a Brazilian installation called "Swinguerra" showing dance groups rehearsing a multitude of war-inspired dances... when I finished the rest of the exhibits,  I went back to watch again 😍.

The 2nd exhibit was a private collection of PopArt, with works of Andy Warhol (top picture left), Roy Lichtenstein ("Cow Going Abstract" top pic bottom right), and a huge collection of Banksy originals (2nd pic) to others (Tom Wesselmann, top pic top right) I hadn't heard of... I LOVE popart and have spent many many hours in galleries whenever there's an exhibit... 5 hours in Ottawa once 😂, the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh ofcourse and even a few hours in a random Peru gallery... not sure what about it is that attracts me, a combo of the bold colours, the abstract, the exaggeration, the playfulness?? I had Keith Haring posters growing up and have 2 Warhol ones at home (now in storage) 😍. There were also a series of videos from Banksy that made social commentary about Xmas, Disneyworld and showed how a $1M auctioned painting got shredded moments after purchase! 😝

The final exhibit was also really interesting; embroiderery interlaced with LED lights, such as the left one below named "Selfie Girls", something that I had been shocked at in Banff to see how many young girls would spend ages on taking the perfect picture (& getting upset if their hair/ face/boobs/ass was not showing up exactly as they wanted it to be)... I've also been taking a lot of selfies on this roadtrip but I think you'll agree that most are not necessarily very flattering 🤣 and are just meant to show I'm still alive & having fun!

There were also a few embroideries such as the one on the right where you were invited to send a text... see the response I got! 🌈🤩 (found out later that the texts had been sent by the receptionist downstairs, she must be happy it wasn't very busy!).

My airbnb for the two nights in the city was a room in an older but renovated house of a wood furniture refurbishment couple who were very friendly, so I sat for a few hours in the garden chatting with them and got a great Mexican restaurant tip.

Next day, I had a completely different art experience at the ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) River Lot 11∞ Indigenous Art Park on the south river bank, located where a Métis farm used to be as one of the first settlers in the area. It's probably not the best place to be in the evening but in the middle of the day it had a great view of the city and no one to bother me 😀.

Each artwork was described in 4 different languages; top left is Cree as the artwork represents the word "fire"in that language, and I assume the top right is in Michif (the Métis language) as I recognize some French words but have no clue in what language the bottom left text is....

The two turtles had colourful mosaics on them of birds, feathers and a beaver but what stood out to me most was the description of the amphitheatre in the picture below... the highest seat at the top references to the past, which is farthest from our reach when you're at the base, but it provides the greatest vision and perspective. When you sit in a lower seat, you are closer to the future but not able to see so far in the distance... so true! My favourite course in high school was history, where the teacher was amazingly good at linking events from the past to the current state of affairs. Listening to my playlist while driving, there's quite a few '70s-80s songs about the nuclear bomb threat during the Cold War (e.g. "Russians" by Sting & several Dutch ones) and it's saddening to have history being repeated... 😔

After those sobering thoughts, it was time for some consumerism 😉, so I paid a visit to the West Edmonton Mall which is truly gigantic with an indoor wave pool (which at $64pp is a bit outrageous), zip line, pirate ship, sea lion show, mini golf etc. I browsed the Lego store which touts true Canadian themes like a forest fire and a bear chasing a hiker 😜) and found a cute wildflower bouquet which I'll buy once I'm in Chile!

When I no longer could handle the crowds, I escaped just west of the city to the BLESS viewing platform of Big Lake and nearby wetlands. Sitting there for 2 hours with only ducks quaking and cooling themselves in the lake (it had returned to a balmy 30C, much better than the cold mountain weather a few days earlier) was the perfect antidote! Seeing another beaver swimming and eating reeds was the cherry on the cake 😍.

Wildlife: 3 beavers (Hinton) & 1 beaver (Edmonton)

SUPs: none

Hikes: one at Hinton

[nar-nia]

You already know I'm gonna ask you too answer them all

Hehe <3

~M 🐝

and now i have time to do so 🤩 let's go! (I don't know how long ago that was and i'm so sorry, i just found that at the bottom of the editor list)

1. What are your top 2 favourite types of weather? Why?

summer rain and a light spring wind 🤩 both are just comfortable and peaceful

2. What are some youtube video you have watched multiple times and would go back and watch again?

i've already answered that but mostly music mvs!

3. Who have you see live at a concert?

most importantly of course enhypen 🤩 everyone who was at kpop flex (enhypen, ive, g-idle, mamamoo, ab6ix, nct dream and kai) and tiziano ferro, an italian singer

4. Who is ur go to Mario character?

either toad or yoshi!

5. Who is ur comfort streamer(s)?

gronkh! he's a german youtuber and from time to time i come back to watch his old let's plays.

6. How many ppl/gcs have you currently got left unread

4... i'll answer them now.

7. What languages do you listen to music in?

mostly english, german and korean, but occasionally italian, swedish /norwegian, dutch and french too

8. What is one music performance you always go back and watch?

puh... i'd say the mama performances from itzy and enhypen!

9. Whats one WIP (any kind: song, story, art, ect.) you dont know if you will ever finish? Give us a sneak peak or tell us the concept/idea?

i had an idea for a mamma mia retelling with enhypen characters, but i'm not sure if i can pull it off. and yesterday i found the beginning of a story involving jake and a reader who works in a cafe, that i might continue if i get new ideas.

10. Whats ur MBTI?

ISFJ

11. Big spoon? Little spoon? Both?

both, depending on the day and the circumstances 😊

12. Go onto Pinterest (or google or picsart or smth) rn! and put together some sort of outfit you would wear and show us

13. Have you made anything by hand recently? Show it off!

does this count?

14. What is the 107th most recent photo in your gallery?

15. What is your toxic trait? (Non-serious answers only)

gatekeeping heeseung and failing 😔

16. What are you procrastinating rn?

... my bachelors thesis 🤐 (rn it's writing applications for internships)

17. Do you have any plants? What are their names and do they have a personality/any notable traits?

i do! but i also have a history of them dying, so i don't really give them names. i had one called bob but he sadly died at the beginning of this year. i do have two plants on discord which have names! one i can't say because i'd probably have to censor it, but the other one is called wonie 💀

18. Show me another picrew (or 2) you really like!

i don't have any on my phone rn 🥲

19. Whats the most recent reaction meme/image in your camera roll?

.. yeah

20. Have you got any random concepts/plans/ideas sketched or scribbled out on paper somewhere that you want to share?

just some story ideas but those are kept secret 🤫

21. What are 3 songs that are definitely on your road trip playlist. Why them?

Ooh.. good question. I think i'm too indecisive for that

22. Can you drive?

i can but i won't ever do it again

23. Who's the most famous person you have met? How, why, when, where?

i have a picture with three very famous voice actors from germany! and my boss is a famous singer for kids songs.

24. Is there a famous someone you are only a few people away from?

does my boss count?

25. Do you have good time management or are you failing as badly as I am? 💀 Credits to the love @nar-nia for q.25

i am clearly failing

26. Have you got anything (other than this blog) that you want to plug?

not really

27. Do you enjoy giving or receiving things more?

giving!!

28. Show me something you've drawn.

see above 🤭

29. What app/website/game is underrated and you think more people should use/play? Why?

idk but please drop some game recommendations!

30. What is the next social event you have planned? Are you looking forward to it?

a holiday with my parents, and yes!! also an ice skating show.

[abanobblog]

My image analysis

As our new technologies kept evolving, digital drawing has become more and more influent over the last couple years. This type of drawing is now more common than hand and paper drawing in the creative and commercial space. The picture I have chosen is a digital image created by an artist called JUSTIN. This photograph-like image was in a collection called Daydream published on Behance on the 22nd of August 2022. JUSTIN conveyed the daydream theme of the picture using artistic shapes and techniques. He did this by contrasting colours and textures, and using different patterns and shapes that shows distinctive emotions and themes.   

First, we see that the artist went for a realistic camera look on the grass side of the image, while staying in the purple dreamy sky. This is achieved by using different levels of realism in the picture. For example, the grass is sharp, and has defocused and focused parts, but the sky has a brush painting texture. But, it’s not the only contrast we see in this digital art-piece. The colours of the grass and the sky are opposite on the colour wheel. The purple being on the top right and green being on the bottom left of the colour wheel. The space is also one of the ways he separated the 2 sides of the image. The bottom left of the image has grass that takes more space of the image because it’s closer to us creating an empty space. This creates perspective and movement with our eyes going from left to right, closer to far away, and darker to lighter. Then, the couple in the center is creating an interesting symmetry, therefore putting emphasis on them. In short, the digital artist utilized artistic shapes and techniques like : space, colours, texture, proportion, balance, and movement.  

Secondly, this art piece has a lot of themes and meanings that the artist wants to convey continuously and subconsciously . Therefore, some themes are visible and others are interpretations from analyzing the image. The most obvious one is love because it is shown literally by the two lovers holding each others hands. Another theme that is abstract is hope. It’s shown by the lovers watching the sky that is darker to lighter, from left to right. The way they look up tells me that they could be looking up for hope of a better future. Another meaning of the image could be the difference and contrast between day and dream. Daydream is the title of the collection this is why I think it’s a main component of the image. It is shown by the contrast between the sky and the grass. This means that the grass is the day because of its realism and camera feel. The sky means dreaminess because of its paint brush feel, and because of how faded it is. In conclusion, this image has many themes like: love, hope, and daydreaming.

In brief, my opinion of this image really changed as I was doing this process. Now, I can see a lot of other significations and I have analysis techniques to prove my point. This image got me into the world of image analysis and digital art which I never paid attention to before. 

541 words

Link of the image: https://www.behance.net/gallery/148370541/daydreams/modules/840068411

[pictureamoebae]

THE SALT BLOCK - a multi-purpose no cc lot by amoebae

Originally owned by Abigail Harrington and her husband, Samuel, the Salt Block was built at a time of great prosperity and glory. After Samuel's passing, Abigail had to sell off the building part by part, until only the corner basement apartment remained, which is where she still lives today. The rest of the building has been repurposed into a mixture of commercial and residential properties, and is a bustling hub for the people of the Spice District.

---

There is an album bursting full of lots and lots of pictures of the whole build here: https://imgur.com/a/0xbZRTo

---

In the tall row-house section of the building are separate apartments, each fully furnished.

- in the bottom right basement apartment, Abigail Harrington lives surrounded by those few pieces of dearly loved furniture and trinkets she was able to hold onto. Her husband's portrait sits overlooking his beloved ashes, and other family portraits adorn the walls. Abigail's most prized possession is the scale model of Brindleton Bay, which was founded by her grandfather.

- in the bottom left basement apartment a single sim has just recently moved in and is slowly renovating. He has completed the kitchen and bathroom, but the rest of the apartment is still to be finished. No one really knows what he does for a living, but he has been seen accompanying different rich and successful sims to various events around the city.

- in the middle right hand apartment that spans 2 floors there lives a successful couple, an engineer and an ad executive. They enjoy entertaining, and appreciating the finer things in life.

- in the middle left hand apartment that spans 2 floors there lives a younger, fame-hungry couple. One of them has produced some music for films and also has a band that she hopes will one day find success; the other is an actor who, despite his hard work, has yet to make it big. They think they have excellent taste...

- in the top floor right hand apartment lives a young professional architect and designer. She one day hopes to build her own home, but for now is enjoying living in a vibrant and busy city hub.

- in the top floor left hand apartment lives 2 young sports fanatics who love nothing more than to spend their weekends on the piste. Originally living the bachelor life together, they recently discovered they have feelings for each other.

In the commercial, low-rise section of the building is a boutique bakery and a trendy new coffee shop called The Llama Bean. Above them are 3 small apartments [furnished just for show to look lived in from the outside - they are inaccessible]. In the basement is a lounge and comedy club called The Underground, which also serves food (for the brave).

The lot has everything you need to be set as either residential, a lounge, a cafe, retail, a bar, or a restaurant. It is set as a lounge by default. You can change it at any time.

---

IMPT: My lots are always heavily detailed. During my play-testing I experienced quite a lot of simulation lag. I expect this is because of the sheer amount of stuff on the lot that can be interacted with. If this bothers you, consider saving the apartments or sections of the buildings you won't use as rooms (in case you want them later) and then deleting everything inside them to free up some capacity.

This lot was intended to reduce the need to travel elsewhere (the Spice District is my favourite neighbourhood), and also to act as a backdrop for photo shoots. If you use this lot in your pictures I'd love to see them.

Note: You may want to lock the doors to whichever parts of the building you aren't using if you want to keep sims out of certain areas.

---

You can download the tray files at Patreon (free), and place them loose in your tray folder, or you can search for the lot on the gallery. It has no cc. You can search for The Salt Block, or under my gallery ID - pictureamoebae.

---

Find me here:

pictureamoebae @ tumblr

amoebae @ twitter

amoebae @ patreon

amoebae's TS4 screenshots @ flickr

amoebae's cc, builds and ReShade presets in one place @ flickr

amoebae's amoebas discord server

[foxglow-diner]

☾ The Dress ☽

In honor of going prom dress shopping today I wanted to write something for Moon Knight. My friend was doing an accent and saying things Marc or Steven might say about dresses, so the inspiration was sparked.

    。☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆。

Pairings: Marc Spector, Steven Grant, and Khonshu (by default) x reader

info: self-indulgent fluff

warnings: none

    。☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆。

So, you have to go to a gala with Marc and Steven. It’s a multi-purpose event. You get to have some fun looking at things for an art gallery, but also spy on someone for the boy’s vigilante work. 

In order to go, you need a dress. Not many have a lot of outfits laying around that you think, “oh yeah, I have those clothes for art galas!”. Shopping it is. 

You were originally going to go by yourself and just text pictures to a group chat of friends, but it was Marc who insisted upon joining. Something about making sure you find something appropriate. You didn’t think it’d be as difficult as he was making it sound. Though, it was Marc who said that. Of course it was going to be difficult. 

You both arrived at the first boutique at ten in the morning. It was a pleasant morning, air fresh and dewy. You swear you could smell rain in the future, but shook it off as you stepped inside. There were all kinds of shining materials and gems and textures. All of it was sorted into sections by color. 

As you crossed the floor, to browse, your shoes clicked against the wood floor. Your favorite color was first to look at. Steven was training behind you, eyes darting to take in so much at once. 

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” he asked, a tilt to his head.

You shrug. “Not really. I have a feel for what fit and colors I look good in. So that’s a start. If I don’t find anything there, I’ll broaden my search to interesting dresses. And if you have any suggestions, I’d love to see.”

Steven nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll look, then.”

You picked out mostly long dresses, only one cocktail dress because of its accents being unique. One by one you walked out of the dressing room to show Steven. 

Three dresses in and he wasn’t being helpful. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but you look great in all of them.”

A grin crossed your face. “Thank you. Just try to give something besides that, love.”

“Alright, alright,” his lips matching yours. “I’ll be back with some of my picks.”

He got off the velvet couch and dwelled into the tulle and lace. You returned to your dressing room and put the previous dress back on its hanger. The zipper of the one on your person was undone, awaiting Steven’s suggestions. 

A couple moments later a soft knock came from outside the room. “Babe, it’s me. You want me to come in?”

One hand holding the dress over your chest as not to slip, the other one opened the door to let him in. Steven was so focused on getting the mass of assorted fabric in his arms inside the dressing room that he didn’t notice your state. 

He set the dresses on the bench and picked up the one on top. It was long and straight and had feathers wrapping from the shoulders and all the way down in a elegant curve. Not conventional, but it wasn’t completely ugly. 

“I know this one is different,” Steven explained. “Maybe just try it because I thought the style was nice.” He continued to go through the rest and hung them up. There was one at the bottom of the pile he didn’t talk about. It laid behind him. 

You slipped off the emerald you were wearing, careful to keep one hand covering your chest. Steven got up to retrieve the discarded dress and put it back on its hanger. 

On went the feather dress. Honestly it wasn’t great. Steven inhaled through his teeth. “Yeah, no, not my finest idea.”

“I think I’m going to have to agree.”

On came the next dress. “This one reminded me of the sunset we watched.”

The single strap didn’t fit you right.

Another one. “I don’t have a reason behind this one except for the fact that the sparkles are really big.”

Steven was not wrong. Gemstones the size of your thumb dotted the material. it was silky and soft, flattering your body beautifully. This was the first dress you felt comfortable in. 

“Wow,” Steven breathed. “That one is really nice.”

All you could do was nod in agreement. It was. Steven got off the dressing room bench to admire the stones. His hand hovered over your hip. With a quick eye contact of approval, it connected. Both of Steven’s hands trailed around your waist, back and then out front, moving down ward to smooth out the dress.

“You're stunning, love.”

You turned your head to look at him behind you. A smile masked your hammering heart. You delivered a quick kiss to his jaw. Steven made a short laugh. His hands tightened on your waist. The demeanor shifted slightly. “Now, I know you like this one, but there’s one more dress. Marc helped pick it out.”

His hands slid off your waist, instead you turned around and took them in your own. “Did he now? Well, then, let’s see it.”

Steven nodded and went to get it. His fingers graced your hands until he was forced to leave them due to distance. He had his back turned to you when picking up the dress. And when he was facing you once more it was no longer Steven. 

“Why’d you pick this one?”

Marc looked down at the dress in his hands. “I helped with all of them, actually. Can’t let psycho Colonel Sanders let you walk around looking like a fashion tragedy.”

You crossed your arms. “Says the guy with a cape and mummy outfit.”

“It’s not an outfit, thank you. It’s armor,” Marc corrected with a innocent scowl. “If you’d rather me get hurt, I don’t have to wear it.”

You scowled with him. “You know that’s not what I meant. Now, show me the dress.”

Steven hung it on the hook above the mirror, and went to removed the one you had on. “What do you think?”

If the last one had you at a loss for words, this one made you loss your brain completely. The dress started out white on the top, the bodice had sections to show where the breast padding starts, gathered, and gathered at a section that depicted a belt. Glitter was integrated in the fabric. Thick beading lined the top and the straps. 

Going past the waist, the dress was shiny satin, then fanned out into strips, backed with layers of tulle. It was a pleasing mix of mermaid and ballgown. And with the gems at the top, it reminded you of the prior dress. 

Between the strips of fabric and how it began as white, pooling into black at the bottom, with gold peppered throughout, you could see similarities.

“It’s like your armor and the suit,” you said awestruck.

“Want to put it on?” Marc’s American accent was much different than Steven’s marbled English one. 

“Would you unzip this one?” you breathed.

Marc obliged. Your arms hung at your sides, only in your panties. This wasn’t an unfamiliar sight. It did make you happy that Marc still paused and his eyes still softened. 

He set down the old dress while you got the new one off the hanger and unzipped it. You slid in with ease and Marc was there to close it up. His fingers ran up your back, feeling your shoulders. He grabbed your hair and pulled it behind to properly observe the dress’s front. 

His words were nearly spoken right into your ear. “Thoughts? Steven has many.”

You remembered to breath. It had been awhile since you’d remembered how pretty you look. Steven and Marc told you that in moderation, never making it a keep point of the relationship. That was an upside. Less pressure to look ‘beautiful’ all the time. He wasn’t there only because of your looks. He loves all of you like how you love all of him. Both of them. 

“You two are very good at this,” you mused. stepping to the side, you turned to observe the dress from different angles. Staring absentmindedly, playing with the dress’ layers you said, “Man, I’m rather excited to be Miss Knight.”

The words hung in the air. 

As if you knew it was coming (and you did) Marc brought his lips onto yours. He could be an ass, but he was an ass who could kiss. Any kind of emotion could be pressed in and you would feel it. He wanted to convey how he felt–––wanted you to know how much he loved you. 

Marc pulled back for a few seconds. 

Steven intertwined his hand with yours. His posture stooped down slightly, making himself more level with you. He practically melted into the lips and against you. His free hand came to cradle the back of your neck. His thumb brushed its base. 

And so you walked out with a dress and your shirt positioned just the right way as to not reveal any of the marks on your neck.

    。☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆。

I hope that was satisfying enough. Wrote this at two in the morning because why not?

    。☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆。

Tag list: @bblueology @itsyoboysparkel thank y’all for putting up with my indecisive ass today.