#ALSO random but I g off on tangents

[daily-hanamura]

Do you ever think about how Chie (and Yukiko iirc?) have both previously called Yosuke a disappointment, meaning they were, albeit in part, one of the reasons for his low self esteem

Obviously they didn't do it on purpose, since Yosuke always tries to act like those words don't phase him, always acting like he's very confident

But I wonder, if he were to ever open up to them and start showing his more sensitive side in general, how would the girls react? Like would they feel a bit guilty or something?

Many thoughts... many very, very disorganized thoughts......

Oooooh yeah I do indeed think about this, and apart from Chie and Yukiko, Teddie has also described Yosuke as a "prince of disappointment"/"everyone's favourite disappointment"

Yosuke, of course, also being the one that calls himself a disappointment the most.

So this is just my perspective based on my life experience, but I think that to some extent, it very much reflects the kind of humour that was very pervasive around that time. As a millennial it's pretty typical for friends to rib into each other as banter (see also Yosuke to Kanji) and to employ self-deprecation as a joke, and it's kind of a mark of friendship -- you really only do that to people that you're very close friends with, because it's about in-group jokes (e.g. Chie can call Yosuke a disappointment, but that random classmate can't) and a reflection of just how well you know a person.

It's kind of complicated to talk about because I'm not saying that it was necessarily good, since it can be quite insensitive if you're not conscious of someone's personal issues. And some people definitely don't enjoy that sort of humour, because it's also highly, highly contextual and easy to misread. Some bullies also use that as a justification for why they're saying mean things, which is especially unpleasant in the workplace LOL. I feel like as I've gotten older this has become less common? Or maybe I'm just not as comfortable with the friends I've made in adulthood to want to readily rip into them? But then again I have maybe three friends I'm willing to banter like this with and we've been close friends for about a decade, which I think kind of drives home the point I'm making about how this is the kind of joke you only make with people that you've been through a lot with, which the IT are. I think it's humour that's meaningful in the narrative context because it's a signpost that indicates their shared experience in the TV world was no trivial thing, just like how Yosuke calling Yu "aibou" reflects the same sentiment.

But, as you said, because of how Yosuke puts on an act of confidence, I don't think most people pick up on it other than Yu, because Chie, Yukiko and Teddie probably just think it's part of the bit that Yosuke is doing (Yosuke also refuses to show his weaknesses to anyone other than Yu, but that's probably another conversation). One of the weaker spots of P4/G (and P5), I feel, is that it isn't as revealing about the interpersonal relationships between characters outside of the protag character. Which I don't really expect, but it was really nice to see in P3. So all we have to go on is the spin offs, and I think if we compare Chie and Yukiko's distanced friendliness with Yosuke in the Magician manga vs their expression of reliance and dependence on Yosuke in P4AU, for example, we can see that developed dynamic.

Would they feel guilty? Probably, but they're also teenagers who are still figuring out interpersonal interactions and personal boundaries (and this goes for Yosuke as well), and I think this friction is sometimes just part and parcel of growing up. I do think that if Chie and Yukiko realise that Yosuke does have a sore spot about it they'd change the way they speak with him because they genuinely care about him, especially as they mature into adulthood.

Going a little off tangent now and this is just my headcanon, but I also wonder if Yosuke initiated that sort of humour with Chie and Yukiko shortly after their rescue to help them relax. Yosuke likes to use humour to diffuse tension (which doesn't always work) but it's not hard to imagine him sensing awkwardness from the two of them (they really weren't close friends at all prior to the TV world), so he makes himself the butt of a joke to get them to laugh, and when they latch on to it he's actually kind of happy because it means he's done something useful. (ngl ever since I saw Tamami's clown motif stage in p4d I have not stopped thinking about her parallels with Yosuke)

[mazeinthemiroh]

beomgyu sfw alphabet

genre: fluff, slight crack and angst

word count: 2.5k

warnings: cursing, me crying over beomgyu. yk, the usual

requested?: yes

song rec: poppin' star by tomorrow x together

pls like and reblog if you enjoyed! feel free to request anything <3

a - affection (how affectionate are they? how do they show affection)

he shows affection in a kaleidoscope of ways

he's full of love. sometimes he doesn't know how to express it and sometimes he does. depends on the day, depends on his mood

his affection will come like random bursts of energy. he will suddenly give you a back hug and not let you go or he will randomly start biting your fingers whilst you're sitting together on the couch

b - best friend (what would they be like as a best friend?)

full crack mode: on

he's super. hyper all the time when he's around you it's actually ridiculous

will laugh hysterically at anything and everything you do

will also laugh until he is crying if you do something wrong like idk trip over or stub your toe. he's there to see it and to laugh at you, you ain't getting any moral support out of him

you guys are the funniest duo ever

partners in crime. always found getting up to some sort of mischief together

c - cuddles (would they like to cuddle? how do they cuddle?)

i see him being very cuddly tbh

once he's settled down and much more comfortable with you he's always wanting to snuggle into you when watching a movie or something

might be a bit shy to initiate cuddles; he doesn't know how you will react. but once he just goes for it he's never looked back. now he wants to hold you in his arms all the time, 24/7

d = domestic (do they want to settle down? how are they at cooking and cleaning?)

beomgyu has quite a romantic mind. once he finds his special person, he is willing to stick with them, whatever it takes

it comes as a surprise to you because he is usually so casual and carefree, but he takes romantic love seriously. he doesn't want to get hurt, so if he chooses you, he intends to be with you for a very long time

chores are never his thing. he really is like a child when it comes to this. he tends to procrastinate or put domestic work off until later. don't go easy on him though, he has to learn!!

e = ending (if they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

it would be a very tearful experience for beomgyu

it would break him to have to let you go. he would have no idea how to go about it but the whole situation would make him uncomfortable. he would lose sleep, maybe miss meals. the members would be worried about him and try and help him through it

his voice would break as he would tell you he thinks he should end things between you two. you could see the tears form in his eyes as he softly, lowly expresses himself to you

f = fiance(e) (how do they feel about commitment? how quick would they want to get married?)

loves the whole commitment thing. like i said before, once he's chosen you, there's no way he's gonna let you go that easy

marriage is well down the line for him but sometimes he catches himself thinking of it. he's an idealist, and sometimes his mind wonders off...

'hmmm, i wonder if our wedding should have a theme. what colours would we pick? what flowers? are we gonna have it abroad? maybe we should just elope. ' all of this going through his head when he's watching some random rom-com movie, cuddled next to you

so his mind goes on a bit of a tangent but he likes to think about that stuff

g = gentle (how gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

it's really such a confusing combination for him

the answer to this question heavily depends on beomgyu's mood

in his quieter moods, he is usually the softest little bean, gentler than even. if he comes home to find you sleeping on the couch he will tiptoe over, tuck you up in a fluffy blanket and leaves you to it

in his louder moods, he'll burst through the door and probably flop on your body and beg for cuddles, not realising or caring that you were asleep moments ago

in terms of emotional gentleness, the majority of the time, because he is very in tune with his emotions, he will be very gentle and caring and considerate. he's a great listener and just wants to connect with you on a personal level

there are only very few occasions where he won't be like this. perhaps only when you get into an argument about something, he will become more harsh, more cruel with his words, depending on how hurt he is

h = hugs (do they like hugs? how often do they do it? what are their hugs like?)

he certainly likes his huggles

i think at the start of your relationship he's not that touchy with you in front of the other members. maybe he wants to come off as cool and not lovey-dovey, but the minute they are gone he's all over you with hugs and smooches

but once he's fully in the relationship he will actually go out of his way to give you as much physical affection as possible in front of the members just to annoy them <3

his hugs are kinda full-on. a bit wild, rough, messy. he'll grab you and not let you go until you properly hug him back!

i = i love you (how fast do they say the l-word?)

he won't at the start of the relationship, boy can be shy and his words might come across as awkward and confused because he just doesn't know what to say at first

but he feels this love for you day 1. and he holds onto it and bottles it up until one day it just randomly springs into everyday conversation

"hey gyu, have you washed those dishes yet?"

"i love you"

"what??"

".... what?"

j = jealousy (how jealous do they get? what do they do when they're jealous?)

oh i can see him getting pretty damn jealous

over both petty and serious things

if you haven't spent as much time with him recently, if you've been spending time with someone else, if you've been getting closer to one of the members, if you catch the attention of other men when you go out to a restaurant or club together. the list goes on

k = kisses (what are their kisses like? where do they like to kiss you? where do they like to be kissed?)

he likes giving cute, small, quick pecks

he gets all shy and giggly each time you guys kiss its actually the most adorable thing in the whole wide world

i can just see him leaning over to press his lips against yours ever so softly, before pulling away, beaming widely and nuzzling back into your neck i'm going to jump off a cliff now

l = little ones (how are they around children?)

beomgyu and children share the same brain cell, i can't lie

he will be petty. if something is his, there's no way he's sharing even if a freaking 3-year-old wants it

"you have to learn the hard way *sticks tongue out" yep, that's your boyfriend

if it's a baby though, he's so gentle and kind and caring. he knows exactly what to do to make it happy and to stop the crying it's like he has magical powers???

m = morning (how are mornings spent with them?)

my man does not like mornings

waking up is a chore for him. he moans and groans as you try to pull him out of bed. using his strength while remaining half conscious, he will shift his body onto yours, throwing an arm over and putting his head on your chest so you could stay in bed to cuddle with him

he's a very soft boy ok

n = night (how are nights spent with them?)

loves to just sit back and relax. he works so hard all day and so do you. there's nothing more that he wants to do than just let off some steam by cuddling his baby and watching a drama on tv

probably falls asleep in your arms and then something will happen abruptly in the drama to make you both wake up at like 2 am and then you just casually start talking to each other again, long into the early morning

basically, both your sleep schedules are screwed, have fun!!

o = open (when would they start revealing things about themselves? do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

beomgyu comes across as quite confident and open but he does keep his cards close to his chest

there's only very few select people he trusts with his close, personal, intimate feelings. one person being you, of course

once he realises he trusts you enough to want to tell you about certain things, he will start opening up, in hopes that you will accept and understand him

it would come out in an intimate setting, the two of you alone, perhaps staying up late once more, staring at the ceiling as you exchange thoughts, memories, and secrets alike

p = patience (how easily angered are they?)

beomgyu can be impulsive but i don't see him being quick to anger

in fact it takes quite a lot for him to get fired up like that. but when he's angry, you reallyyyyyy don't wanna be there

usually when he's jealous or something awful has happened or a situation he is facing is overwhelming and out of his control and he just can't take it anymore. then he'll burst. he doesn't know what to do with all this negative energy because he simply isn't used to it

its best to stay out of his way at these times so he can cool down and come to terms with things by himself

q = quizzes (how much would they remember about you? do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

he knows the random trivia but will shamelessly forget your birthday and that's a fact

it doesn't matter whether you're his best friend or partner, it's like his brain is doing it on purpose

he makes up for it by buying you expensive presents and giving you extra love <3333

r = remember (what is their favourite moment in your relationship?)

beomgyu didn't know whether to feel bad, like an awful boyfriend, when he realised that he had no favourite moment with you

but that's only because he viewed every. single. moment with you as precious and important to him

every date you went on, every fleeting eye contact you would make at each other from across the room, every gift you gave, every problem you shared, every tear you cried. they all meant everything to him

you were, and will always be, his favourite moment

moments of alwayness, indeed

s = security (how protective are they? how would they protect you? how would they like to be protected?)

beomgyu can be very protective

when he loves someone, he loves them fiercely and passionately. they become a massive part of his life. so he makes it a priority to protect you and keep you out of harm's way, especially emotionally

and he loves you even more when he sees you doing the same

t = try (how much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

while beomgyu has the tendency to forget dates sometimes, when you remind him or perhaps put it on the calendar that its your anniversary together he decides to go all out

i'm talking fancy dinner, a night stroll along the river, going back to your place to watch a movie, where you'll find a ridiculous amount of rose petals scattered everywhere

oh and a massive stuffed bear holding a heart <3

it's like he makes it his goal to do the most cheesy, cliche stuff you could ever think of, and he gets away with it every time, not only because of his charms but also because you can see him try so hard for you

he is simply adorable

u = ugly (what would be some bad habits of theirs?)

it's hard to recover from an argument if it's a particularly heated one

beomgyu can be quite stubborn. it's hard for him to see another person's point of view when he has such a fixed mindset on something. he always thinks he is in the right

so it can be hard to reason with him on things. especially when he is sulking up in his room somewhere

you'll have to let the argument calm down and give him space before approaching him about it

v = vanity (how concerned are they with their looks?)

beomgyu is mostly confident in the way he looks

man is so beautiful, sometimes i cry

ANYWAYS

i don't think you have to worry about beomgyu in this area. he will get cocky and say "hey y/n, don't i look handsome in this??" before posing and showing off to you, which you love to see. his confidence is totally valid

w = whole (would they feel incomplete without you?)

i'd say so

he takes romantic relationships seriously

so he's in this soulmate shit for life!

x = xtra (a random headcanon for them.)

he sometimes offers to do your hair and makeup

which is super sweet of him

and when he tries he does a really great job. he knows just how to frame your face well with your hair and he is gentle with the makeup side of things

but when he suggests it one time, at the unholy hour of 3 am, it's not something you should put your trust in

he makes you look a mess as he physically restrains you while trying to put on a bright red lipstick. both of you laughing hysterically, uncontrollably, like absolute idiots

it's safe to say that life with beomgyu is never, ever boring

y = yuck (what are some things they wouldn't like, either in general or in a partner?)

someone who is insensitive

because beomgyu is very in touch with his emotions. now that doesn't mean he seeks someone who is the same, but he just wants his partner to take his emotions seriously and not make fun of him for expressing himself

when he is vulnerable with someone, the last thing he wants is for them to say 'stop crying, 'grow up,' or, the worst one, 'be a man'

to put it simply: don't be a toxic ass-hole and you should be fine

z = zzz (what is a sleep habit of theirs?)

like to hold your hand when he sleeps

its just become a routine at this point

he loves, particularly during the winter months. but when its summer and it gets too hot you guys won't cuddle because you would simply melt

but that doesn't stop him from at least making a little bit of contact with you. so he always reaches out to hold your hand before drifting off to sleep

[empty-pizza]

thoughts on gideon the ninth chapter twenty-five, and predictions for the ending

now that's a locked room murder! And if you read to the end of this post, I'll actually have a complete guess for who I think is behind it.

first of all, i do not believe that the monster is something that was there all along. no, someone is taking advantage of the monster story that teacher told, i'm sure of it. there was no monster sighting for magnus and abigail's deaths, but after that, teacher told the story, and now someone behind this is enjoying the effect of showing everyone the monster. but in reality, this isn't some insane, crazy thing — it's just a big bone construct any sufficiently cracked necromancer could make. especially one in a facility that's been teaching them how to improve their necromancy. also, the messages in blood — let's flip the chessboard. why would a random monster want to show them that? i can think of a few possibilities, but i think it's more likely that the person behind this is trying to give off an effect that will scare gideon.

rip isaac. he was a good kid, in the end.

now, the proper locked room mystery is what happened to jeannemary. i don't think i know the full details — we might get some more next chapter as we investigate the scene — but we can still start thinking. Speculation incoming:

Option 1: Jeannemary let someone in while Gideon was asleep. For her to do that, it has to be someone Jeannemary has reason to trust, even without waking Gideon up (I can believe that she distrusts Gideon enough to not wake her up, though). There are only three people this could be; Isaac, Magnus, or Abigail. If one of them is secretly alive, then it's probably Abigail, because we did just see Isaac die, and I dunno, Magnus was very nice while we never actually saw a ton of Abigail. Alternatively, someone could have reanimated and been controlling one of their bodies. It could also be someone Jeannemary didn't trust, but did consider not a threat, like Dulcinea.

Option 2: There are more keys. The fact that there was only one key for each room was a guess, not a fact. Any of the people actively working on stuff could be the one who has it.

Option 3: Someone made a duplicate key. Who was in possession of the key before Gideon? Harrow.

Option 4. There is another way into the room. This would be in violation of Knox's commandments, which you totally can do (Zero Escape), or you can specifically avoid doing for the sake of it (Umineko). I'd lean toward the latter for this story but I can't say for sure.

Option 5: Someone shot the spears of bone that killed Jeannemary from underneath or above the room. It was not described in so much detail so honestly this is possible. How would they know Jeannemary's position, though?

That's all I have for now. Unless someone fed Jeannemary small bombs that exploded into bone spikes inside her body. The chef was the culprit all along :)

Now, let's look at this from a different angle and consider suspects:

It has to be a necromancer involved, due to how Jeannemary died. The funny thing about this whole Locked Room situation is that it typically might make Gideon a suspect, but Gideon literally couldn't kill Jeannemary in this way. Or could she? I mean, I know she didn't, but from the perspective of the others, she could have just prepared preexisting bone spikes. Anyway, that's a tangent.

Judith: Even with them having sucked shit, her team just feels too irrelevant. I don't believe they had it in them to pull this off, I don't believe they would have secretly had a key, and I don't believe Jeannemary would have let her in.

Coronabeth: She would have to have been a big time actor to play this whole act of being inferior to Ianthe only to have been planning all of this on her own all along.

Ianthe: Definitely possible, she's one of the biggest unknowns and potential schemers. The problem with her being the culprit is honestly that she's done so little that there aren't really enough clues to go off of.

Isaac: That would be a pretty hard death to fake, imo, and he'd also have to have faked his bestie's death, since I don't think he'd have killed her. Not hi.

Abigail: A very real possibility, assuming that the magic is so strong that she actually could pretend to be dead. That would feel a little cheap, but it's possible to make it work. Like what if she did one of the challenges and learned to resurrect herself? I don't think it's likely but it's possible.

Palamedes: Kind of a similar option to Coronabeth. He has such a strong existing personality that it's hard to imagine him actually having been faking all along. But that doesn't mean he couldn't have been. I mean, that's kind the point of a secret culprit: That they were faking their personality. I trust people too much, so it's very hard for me to consider possibilities where someone was faking how they act. That said, he's also a dweeb.

Dulcinea: Honestly, very possible. There are clues to pick up and tie together. I don't know what shape they'd form, but they're definitely out there. Maybe sending Protesilaus out is part of some plan. I can definitely believe she's pulling some shit.

Silas: Kind of like Ianthe — possible, but he's done so little that I'm not sure what clues are there.

The fact that I haven't noticed enough clues does not necessarily imply that they aren't there. It could very well be revealed to be Ianthe, Silas, or Palamedes, and turn out to have been foreshadowed in ways that I simply missed. But I can only go off of the information I'm aware of.

There's one other thing we have to keep note of, though, before we get to our final suspect. Other alibis. Many, like Ianthe and Silas, have no alibi. But there are some we know were together while Gideon and the teens were busy. Palamedes, Camilla, Dulcinea, and Harrow.

I think that honestly rules out Palamedes. I don't know how he'll get around it. Short of next chapter saying "oh yeah he left for a bit" I don't think he has a way around it. Dulcinea, probably not as well, unless she had a really clever plan, with some remote controlled skeletons, and whatever Protesilaus has been instructed to do.

But Harrow.

Let's talk about Harrow.

Palamedes says something in particular. He doesn't trust Ianthe, and he doesn't trust Silas, but he does trust Harrow. Mysteries are about subversion. When you say something like that, in a mystery, there's a good chance you're gonna get completely clowned for it. I personally consider narrative framing as important as hard evidence, but you do need hard evidence alongside it.

One possibility is that Harrow made a duplicate key out of bone. But to use it, she would have had to have left the group she was with. So it's likely impossible for Harrow to have entered the room Gideon and Jeannemary were in.

BUT WHAT IF-

SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO ENTER IT!

What are two of the skills we explicitly saw Harrow learn? We saw her learn to create crazy, regenerating skele-constructs, and we saw her learn to remotely watch Gideon. Who else could have created the creature that attacked Gideon and the others? If it's not Harrow, we'd have to answer that with someone else having developed or already had the skill. It's more narratively elegant if it was simply done by the character we already know learned it — a chekhov's gun that seemingly hasn't gone off yet! That would also explain why it didn't chase down Gideon, despite her carrying a lanky teenager — Harrow would have wanted to kill the Fourth, but leave Gideon, and had to improvise after Gideon took Jeannemary away.

Secondly, how do you kill Jeannemary while Gideon is in the room? And how do you facilitate this entire thing while Gideon is there? Simple. You watch through Gideon. Again, Harrow learning this power is a chekhov's gun that hasn't been fired yet!

There are lot of ways this could have gone. Harrow could have left a trap in the room and activated it with the knowledge she got through Gideon's eyes. Harrow could have simply used her knowledge of what happened inside of the room to tell a skeleton to go, with a copy of the key, and stab Jeannemary, while Gideon slept. Of course, a big assumption in this is that making a copy of the key is actually something that you can do with bone — it seems simple enough, but the powersets are vague in this story and it might just not be on the table.

Of course, there's a big difference between watching and controlling. Did Harrow even know she could pull this off? Well, it's more likely than you think. She probably didn't plan on doing it this way, because she didn't realize Gideon would have saved Jeannemary. She might have only realized it worked when Gideon fell asleep. Or, there were several prior times Gideon was asleep in the story — Harrow could have secretly practiced it during then.

But there's an even simpler way. If Harrow didn't just look through Gideon's eyes, but controlled Gideon. Why did Gideon fall asleep so suddenly? It could have been induced by Harrow's powers. Even if it was natural, it could have been taken advantage of by Harrow. I have to go check and see if Harrow watching through Gideon was actually something Gideon could perceive, or if only Harrow felt the brunt of it. Honestly, once Harrow mastered that power, why wouldn't she constantly surveil through Gideon's eyes?

Edit: Alternatively, Harrow could have used the other power she learned, soul siphoning, specifically to drain Gideon's energy and make her fall asleep.

How, then, could Harrow have actually killed Jeannemary? It could be something she left behind in the room in case. It might be a stretch that Harrow could actually use her powers through Gideon's body. But she also could have just opened the door with Gideon and let a skeleton in.

Now, there's the question of why. And here's the thing: I could completely believe Harrow would do this. We've seen some development between Harrow and Gideon, as they've gotten closer and more trusting. But that's been personal between them. It hasn't been making Harrow a better person. And the overall stakes of this — what being a Lyctor even means — are not something the book has really made clear. That means it's open to reveal the details are something that would believably make Harrow sacrifice others for her own success.

Harrow is one of the most pragmatic and smart players in the game, from the very start. As the game developed, we saw the choice established, between working communally to win and working solo. There are no rules. You can try to win as a group or individually. Harrow worked with others, but every situation in which she did is a situation where it would have been disadvantageous to not, or where it would have made her look bad and untrustworthy. None of that means she doesn't WANT to win solo, or that she isn't willing to kill for her success. Just that she is smart enough to be careful and secretive about it.

And Gideon is still alive.

If anybody else was trying to kill off their rivals to win at the game, why would they leave Gideon alive? Unless their way of killing Jeannemary was absurdly indirect, or they have a very specific plan that goes beyond just rival-killing, why would they leave Gideon? Simple. Because Harrow cares about Gideon — and knows she doesn't have to try to kill her loyal ally.

And the thing is, we already have a guess at what a specific plan might be. Death to the Fourth House, the words in blood said. Whoever did this wants people to think that this was done out of a specific grudge. But as far as I've noticed, we haven't seen any hints of another group having a grudge against the Fourth House, so far. Rather, I think this is a cover. This is Harrow's attempt to explain why the killings would leave Gideon out, while still removing her rivals.

Harrow, I just noticed, was even the one who suggested that Gideon and the teens go downstairs, while she waits upstairs with Palamedes and Camilla. She knows to pick on the targets she can handle.

Most of all, I think the answer should be whatever causes Gideon the most pain. It's one thing if it's a really hot girl. But it's something else if she has to face the person she doesn't realize she cares about so much, but is slowly starting to trust, is actually the killer.

If I could say it in blue right now, I would (I don't know how to do that on tumblr). Harrow killed Isaac and Jeannemary, and possibly others, in an attempt to remove her rivals, using the skills she learned to create great hulking skeletal constructs and to watch through or even control Gideon.

I am not 100% sure. This theory has many holes, some of which can easily be filled in simple ways, but won't necessarily be. There are valid alternate explanations that could be extremely interesting. But out of everything I've got, this is by far the most interesting and believable option I can see.

If I'm wrong, laugh at me later. If I'm right, send me money in the mail and don't spoil me.

[daydream-draws]

I literally love listening to people talk. like. if someone has ever said “you talk too much” I probably wanna be your friend. there’s actually something so wonderful about listening to someone talk about their life and share that with you and not having to formulate long responses because they talk and you listen and maybe sometimes respond but. it’s a relationship built on understanding and comfort jgjgjfdfnngdf extroverts have all my love<3

[chibiwritesstuff]

Wait wait omg hear me out hear me out MC WHO PURPOSELY HIDES THEIR POWERS BECAUSE THEY'RE SCARED OF ONE DAY NOT BEING ABLE TO CONTROL THEM ANYMORE. mc takes the chance to hide their powers once the mirror says they have absolutely no magic !!

I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense or is to specific! So, my request is-

mc has been recently adopted into lilias family, due to them being rather reluctant to go back home ( family issues).

So far, they've showed no sign of any magic. until one of the diasomnia characters get hurt on purpose ( random student overblot, or something really big of a threat) , that's when mc can't hide their powers any longer. they're completely consumed in wrath, and with that their ~secret~ power activates on instinct.

All the metals near them just rip off and mc manage to stop the threat with their metal manipulation powers.

in conclusion, diasomnia reacting to an mc who can control metal ? g/n mc also reveals they're even able to control the iron in people's blood.

Headcanons please <3 take ur time <3

I might have gone off on a different tangent this time after remembering how protective the entire diasomnia dorm is when it comes to their group. Hope you like it!

Now, let's enter this twisted wonderland~

When the mirror declared you have no magic in you, you were initially confused.

You chalked it up to the definition of magic in your world and this world is different.

You suppressed any hints of your abilities in fear of anyone knowing.

After the whole dorm sorting, the Diasomnia dorm and students welcomed you more than you anticipated.

The more you interacted with the dorm, the more you get attached to them.

So when Crowley offered a way back to your world, you declined and said that your life is here now.

However, happy days don’t always last and before you know it, one of the Diasomnia students overblotted and injured your friends.

You didn’t even hear what they were saying as all you see is red and only feel anger.

Without knowing it, you’ve manipulated all metal around the vicinity.

That includes Silver’s sword and Sebek’s spear.

Followed with you controlling the body activity of the person, it wasn’t a pretty sight to anyone.

Needless to say, you most definitely stopped the threat…and almost killed the student.

If it weren't for Malleus’ magic, the student will be dead and you’ll be rampaging still.

When you woke up there’s a little stiffness in the air around the dorm and after the whole explanation of what happened, needless to say, they kinda feel betrayed.

Not because you almost killed someone but because you lied to them about your magic.

Even after the whole reasoning on your side and revealing your abilities, Diasomnia’s value towards family and unity is slightly shaken from that event.

It’ll take a long time but the sense of unity in the dorm will return.

Just be honest to them next time.

[teamfreewill2pointo]

Con Experiences

I've been asked about this in PM a few times and thought some of y'all might want to know.

Cast experiences including M&Gs:

I've had really lovely cast experiences at every con I've gone to. I've also made friends through the cons with other con goers, so I've heard about different m&g experiences not only through fandom, but also people who aren't into online fandom.

Personally, I don't pay for m&gs outside of J2M, but that's not for lack of love for other cast members. The whole reason I go to m&gs is to ask the cast members questions about the show and it's very easy to ask questions of everyone except for J2M & JDM.

For J2M & JDM, you have to put your name in a bag and be selected at random for the main panel. For J2, you can raise your hand in gold, but I've never done gold. My friends and I have never been selected for J2 or JDM, but we have been selected for Misha 3 times.

I also usually only go Saturday/Sunday for lack of time/childcare, but I have friends who go Thursday - Sunday and love it. I hope to be able to do that eventually.

There used to be a problem with one or two people dominating a m&g, but they cracked down on that, so I haven't heard of it happening recently. They also changed the rules so if one person starts to talk the whole time, then you can signal for the handler to step in and help, but they should do it automatically.

I've never done an Alex m&g because you can just ask him a question, but I have several friends that do Alex m&gs and just love it/him. I love that he doesn't give a fuck and how he will tease the audience.

Misha's m&gs tend to be more chaotic. The adventure m&gs are super popular. Personally, my interest is in asking questions and, while you can ask questions on the adventure, it's much more chaotic than the regular m&g, so I prefer the regular one, but most people prefer the adventure one.

Misha will probably troll you &, in my experience, he jokes around a lot more. I've gotten Jared to crack up, but laugh more with Misha. He's also sarcastic, which has caught me off guard. He sometimes makes embarrassing jokes, so be prepared for that. I'm the only one of my con friend group that's a Misha stan, so I have less sample sizes, but I've always gotten a question in.

Jared will work hard to try to answer a question from everyone there. Not everyone has a question, but he likes to go on tangents, so if you are sitting towards the end of the room from where he starts, you might not get a question in, but he tries. He often runs late because of it. My friends and I have gotten a question to Jared every time we've gone.

Jensen takes longer to answer the questions than Jared, although we've done less of them because of the expense. We've never been selected for a question in a group m&g and sometimes only 5-7 questions will be asked total. That's part of why his prices are higher because you might have to go to several m&gs before you'll get an answer.

Because photo ops are so expensive, I always split them with friends. I've done way more J2 ops than any others because most of my rl Supernatural friends are GA fans and mostly into the brothers relationship. My bff con buddy did a mishalecki with me and had so much that we do them all the time now, but most of my friends are only interested in J2 so I have the most experience with those.

Plus, I do a lot of J2MA/J2M, which can get very pricey so I don't have much money left over for other actors. It's about $600 for J2MA and over $500 for J2M. A J&M is about $350 and my latest Alex & Misha op was about $215. Each con, I do J2MA, 2 Mishalecki, and a J2 with my con buddy, so that's about $1650 right there alone!

The last J2MA they misheard the pose. We like the result, but that's an extra $600 we have to pay again to get a heaven hug pose. I get hug photos with individual actors, which I don't post for privacy reasons, but haven't been getting them lately because of covid. Some actors will do selfies which are way cheaper than Creation photos.

My favorites outside of J2MA: Ruth is my next absolute favorite. I'm totally in love with her and Rowena. I've always had amazing experiences with her. She's funny and sharp, but also kind and considerate. I don't really post/talk about her much here since it doesn't fit the theme of my blog, but I always always try to get a photo with her and attend her panels. DJ is also an incredible sweatheart. His panels are hilarious and he has ADHD so they are all over the place. He plays games with the fans and his cameos are amazing as well. He puts a lot of thought into his answers. It's incredible to me that, without Jared, he wouldn't be a part of the show because he's one of my favorite parts of conventions.

Rachel Miner is very friendly and engages a lot with fans directly. She has such a huge heart. I really miss seeing her at cons. I don't know when I'll be able to see her again and I hope to get another photo with her soon.

This is just making me want to write up positive things about all the cast members, so I'll just stop for now. I've only had positive experiences at cons and I love them. Wish photo ops were less expensive so I could do more of them!

[freddyjoncs]

𝙲𝙾𝙾𝙻𝚂𝚅𝙸𝙻𝙻𝙴 𝟷𝟿𝟿𝟻.

t a g g i n g : fred jones sr, judy reeves, brad chiles.

t i m e f r a m e : summer 1995

l o c a t i o n :  coolsville

n o t e s : zulema said it’s finally time to expand the coolsville cinematic universe. for more insight to the foolery read freddy’s self-discovery para. 

when the town of coolsville comes to mind you don’t think of the white picket fences, family barbecues in the summertime heat or pleasantville USA. No, you think of the deaths, the monsters, the mysteries that run deep within the town. for years, mayor jones has tried his best to bury the past. He wanted to present this squeaky clean image. a town you could raise a family in, after all, his family was the mold. perfect mayor & father and perfect son. 

and if he couldn’t do that, he would just bank on how marketable the town was.

not everyone could keep up with the joneses after all.

judy reeves knew that all too well. her curiosity is what ultimately lead to her demise. had she only stopped digging perhaps she could’ve had the white picket fence dream her boyfriend always dreamed for them and their son.

being a coolsville native, judy always knew there was something off about the town. bad things always happened to coolsville inhabitants. the neighbouring city of hallow falls seemed to have the same luck, not as bad, she thought. sure, they had the myth of the sanderson sisters but at least people didn’t die every couple of years in their town. coolsville didn’t have that luck. she could tell you the stories of each killer by heart. she had memorized them, found an interest in it like every teen had.  

captain cutler, miner-forty-niner, creeper, fireball mcphan, ben ravencroft, jonathan jacobo, lena dupree and most recently tommy lomis. all infamous for the crimes they had committed against the town. all now stories told to scare children. but judy knew there was more to it. these weren’t stories or just random happenings. it was a curse.

coolsville was cursed.

over the years the stories no longer struck fear into the hearts of the people of coolsville. the last spree had happened in 1978 at the now demolished camp Grimwood. The Jones family had seen to it that the camp would be gone in hopes for the town to move on. They had healed now. it felt right to go back to a life or normalcy. it’s what brad had wanted for them - especially when their son robbie came along.

judy reeves and brad chiles, high school sweethearts turned young parents had always been stuck to each other’s side through thick and thin. Judy a bright girl with an extraordinary future before her. at least, that’s what everyone said. valedictorian,  prom queen, top of her class and just over all a wonderful girl. everyone believed she was going places until she found herself shacked up with brad chiles, the boy from the other side of the tracks who was nothing but trouble. they all said the moment they met her life was over. when she got pregnant her senior year of high school everyone believed it to be true. another waste of a perfectly good future. it’s why the elite of coolsville stayed on their side. 

but Judy had never been like them. she wasn’t a classist asshole like her parents. Brad wasn’t some fun little side project either. she genuinely loved him and their son who game into the world on graduation. she didn’t need fancy titles, nice cars or riches to make her happy in life. the family she had created with brad was enough. life was perfect in her eyes

that is until her brother murdered innocent people. 

it was a late summer in june. Brad’s brother, Jacob, who worked at the local mall was on a closing shift. He was supposed to return home just like he always did but instead they received a call from sheriff stone. Jacob was dead. Not only that he had murdered five people at the mall including his best friend, Alice May. The only way to stop him was a shot through the head.

Judy couldn’t believe it. She refused to believe it. Brad’s brother would never do such a thing. Jacob was a good kid he wasn’t capable of murder. there was only one reason as to why he would behave in such a way.

the curse.

it had to be the curse. Judy was so sure of it. There was no way Jacob could ever do such a thing. 

“There has to be some knowledge about it.” Judy said as she looked through books in the local library. 

“babe, it’s late. we’ve been at this for hours. we’ve found nothing.” which is exactly what brad expected. he didn’t have the heart to tell his girlfriend to stop. nor did he have the heart to tell her that trying to place a curse on his brother’s actions didn’t help the grieving process. 

“brad, I know there has to be something here. everyone chants about that damn curse and spit it in your face. they write it on the walls, for christ sa-” a hand fell on judy’s hand during her tangent.

“our son is at home.” was all brad said and judy stopped to look at him with sad eyes. as much as her stubbornness wanted to keep pushing for answers Judy knew that Robbie was waiting for them at home. Another day, she thought. another day she’d try it again. for now, she would go home and take care of her son.

.....

as much as brad wanted judy to stop her wild goose chase he knew she would never stop. by the end of june he had enough of it. they fought more about her trying to break this silly curse than anything else. he had made peace with what happened with his brother why couldn’t judy just leave it the fuck alone? 

“there is no curse judy!” he yelled, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“Yes there is, brad! Why do you think bad things keep happening to this town? consistent murders don’t just happen like they do here.”

“people are monsters. what do you expect? it can’t all be sunshine and rainbows. I know the north side taught you that it was.” there was a silence that fell over them.

“I didn’t mean-” fuck, but he did, didn’t he? he resented judy at times because she came from privilege because she lived in the land of white picket fences and green lawns and he came from the side of the town where your brothers killed innocent people. 

“I know that I had it much easier than you. You don’t have to throw that in my face. but why can’t you just believe me? The stories-”

“they’re just ghost stories, judy.” 

she turned away from him, not wanting brad to see the tears welling up in her eyes.

“but they’re not.”

.....

it turns out her relentless searching wasn’t for nothing. on her journey for the truth she discovered two of her classmates, Cassidy Williams and Ricky Owens, were believers of the curse as well. in fact, they had a uncovered more clues than judy had alone.

the curse, was believed to be brought upon by annabeth fier. a witch from hallow falls. it was said she cursed the town for hanging her and every so years she came and exacted her revenge on coolsville for what they had done to her. 

for the first time it made sense. a town full of mysteries and this had to be the biggest one of all. Ricky and Cassidy held the biggest clue of all - an occult book with information on the curse and a path to the witches mark. it felt like a long shot and maybe it was but it was also the closest judy had gotten to the truth. she couldn’t give up now that she was close. the truth was being dangled before her. if she could prove that the curse was real maybe she could also break it as well. 

although things were tense between her and brad he had promised to accompany her on the journey. not without a price of course. if this turned out to be a hoax, as he believed it to be, he made judy promise him this is the last that she’d ever bring up the curse. it was the deal judy had agreed to. she would do just about anything to bring back some normalcy between her and brad again. she knew he was mostly going for his own peace of mind since he didn’t trust the stranger leading judy on her wild goose chase.

the four of them were going to uncover the truth of coolsville.

......

The witches mark was located until the coolsville mall which is where the grimwood camp massacre took place. the mall was reopened now that a month had passed after the murder. judy could tell brad was tense sitting the the driveway. the pain would never go away, the wound was still too fresh. there was a wave of guilt that washed over judy as she stared at the building before her. 

Cassidy’s uncle worked as a janitor for the mall so they had access to the place after dark. the only way to get under was to get in. after strategic planning the four made their way into the building once closed. From the looks of the map the closest entrance was a grate near the emergency exit. it was a tight squeeze but the four of them managed to get in.

it was dark and cold. the underlying tunnels under the mall were cave like. the further they ventured the more the air in the channels seemed to shift. there was buzzing in the distance of what seemed like flies and a pounding? why was there pounding in caves. It sounded like a heart, beating rhythmically in time to theirs. it seemed to grow louder, faster the four swore the ground beneath them was vibrating. as they continued the once barren cave was now grown with red moss, littering every inch of the walls around them and soon they found themselves at the heart of it all.

etched out before them was the same symbol in the book cassidy was holding. the witches mark. The four of them stared at it in awe until ricky’s voice broke the silence. “Yo, guys y’all might wanna see this.” the trio turned to see giant slabs of stone before them with writing present on each one. judy got closer to see what was written before her.

 captain cutler, miner-forty-niner, creeper, fireball mcphan, ben ravencroft, jonathan jacobo, lena dupree, tommy lomis and jacob chiles.

all the names of the coolsville killers.

“Every single person written here went on a killing spree.” Ricky said softly as he began to reach out to touch the stone but was abruptly stopped by brad.

“So what does that mean someone’s playing god and forcing people to do this shit?” brad spat, his eyes staring intently at his brother’s name.

“Close.”

a voice called from the distance. 

“I wouldn’t call it god.” from the shadows of the tunnel appeared Fred Jones, the mayor’s son. coolsville’s golden boy in every single way. The Jones family was one of if not the wealthiest family in town with immense power in their hands. the way he was staring at the four of them left judy’s stomach uneasy.

“how do you know about this place?” she asked, pretending to not hear the latter part of his statement.

“better question, why are you and how did you get that?” he said, nodding towards the book that cassidy was now holding close to her chest.

“Don’t make me ask you again or else-” judy started but was promptly cut off. “Or else what? you’re going to cry curse again? my god, Judy, you’ve turned into the town nut. who’s going to listen to a word you say? after you’ve lost your status shacking up with that southside trash no one is going to care what you think. I mean, if you dump him maybe they would but with that brat of yours....” and as if on cue another figure emerged from the shadows carrying a sleeping robbie in their arms. “no one will ever believe you again.”

At the sight of their child, Brad began to lunge towards Fred but was halted by a raised finger and a a string of tsks. “You wouldn’t want to wake the baby now would you?”

“What do you want, Fred?” Judy croaked out, her hand placed on Brad’s arm as she tried to keep her boyfriend at bay. she was barely keeping her own composure.

“I want the book. It belong to my family. I also want your compliance. The four of you know too much. I can’t have you silly little wannabe sleuths exposing the truth. So i want you gone. All of you are to leave coolsville before sunrise. that is, if you’d like to live of course. Give me any problems or tell a soul about any of this and i’ll make sure brad’s name is right under his brothers.” he paused to look brad dead in the eyes who was now looking as pale as a ghost. “you’ll only remember bits and pieces of killing them, Bradley but I know you’ll remember the sound of their screams and their blood on your hands.” the wicked grin on fred’s face struck fear into the very core of all four of them. 

“and to make sure no funny business occurs. i’m keeping him. for collateral.” Fred added as baby robbie was placed into his arms. and at that the four of them were being escorted out of the cave by fred’s goons. judy doesn’t remember much. the entire situation was a haze of emotions. the next thing she remembered was driving away in brad’s van, an unsettling silence hanging over them as tears streamed down her face. the sunset before them was a sign that day was here once again. how could she begin to think of a new day when her entire world had been shattered in an entire night?

she should have listened to brad and stopped searching for answers in ghost stories. 

that’s all they weren’t after all.

stories.

......

looking down at the child in his arms fred’s brows furrowed as his index finger caressed the smooth cheek of the child. It caused the baby to stir but never waking up. Fred almost found it endearing. almost. There was no time for attachments. There was a prophecy to be continued. the baby in his arms was the key for their success. 

“Dad always said I needed an heir. you’ll be just perfect won’t you, freddy?”

......

freddy looked down at the book in front of him. when he searched his father's belongings he had found the book hidden next to his files. after the monsters had attacked freddy looked to the book for answers. he was going to show the gang but with all that was going on how could he bring up coolsville mysteries when they were fighting for their lives? he knew how to read a room.

so now here he was alone in his room looking at the book. he hadn’t dare open it since he brought it back. what laid within it scared freddy more than anything but if he was going to get answers about his father he needed to start here.

why else would his father have this if it wasn’t important?

so he opened it only to find that the curse was true. the one he had heard stories of that his father said was nothing but bullshit. just like his pretend mysteries. 

the only way to break the curse was to unite hand with body. 

[jared-19-cant-reid]

A Study In Behavior: Chapter 1

A Study In Behavior (Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader)

Chapter 1: Obsession

Rating: G

Word Count: 1.8K

Series Summary: When you signed up for Professor Reid’s class, you were expecting a low effort but interesting class to fill your psychology elective credit. Instead, your fascination with the professor leaves you spending more time than you’d expected in office hours. 

Chapter Summary: A strange dream and an unusual professor make today’s lecture much more interesting than you thought it would be.

Warnings: teacher/student relationship, cursing, mentions of anxiety, suggestive language, implied age gap.

A/N: I’m planning on making this an eventual smut slow burn, since this is one of my favorite tropes and I want to make it a Realistic daydream lmao. This chapter is focused on introducing you to the world, reader, and this version of Spencer. Lots of potential here, I already have a million different ideas of how this should go... as always dms and asks are open!

~

The pattering of rain on the tin roof seemed to crescendo, a million drummers tapping out a perpetual drumroll on steel drums above your head. You’d always complained you couldn’t hear yourself think with all that noise, but you missed it despite yourself when you left Seattle for college. You were pulled away from that brief moment of self awareness by the touch of a cold hand, clutching yours as if you might be snatched away at any moment if the grip were to loosen.

You opened your eyes, finding yourself in a bed you knew all too well. A bed you’d spent too many hours in, slept too many nights in, and yet was not your own. Turning your head to the right, you took in the sight of your sleeping mother, her expression of serenity contradicted by the deep creases in her face, betraying the frown that she wore most of her waking life. Your gaze trailed down to your hand in hers; her knuckles were turning white from her tight grip, but you didn’t feel any pain. 

Laying next to her, you watched her face for what felt like hours as her chest rose and fell in the lazy patterns of slumber, too afraid of waking her with your movement to breathe. She almost looked happy like this. Suddenly, your thoughts were interrupted by a loud beeping sound. You looked around for the offending fire alarm, but as you scanned the ceiling it began to dissolve before your eyes, the grip on your hand loosening until you broke free from the scene fully.

~

You opened your eyes with a start as you sat up quickly, feeling out of place in your own room. You were a painting placed in the wrong section of a museum, an unintentional imposter. Nails digging into your comforter, you tried in vain to slow your shallow breaths as you looked around wildly for something to remind you of where you were, of who you were. 

Your eyes skipped from your stack of  records from your childhood leaning casually against the wall beside the record player on your desk, to the stacks of books watching over you from the top of your bookshelf, unable to fit on the shelves but too close to your heart to part with. Your gaze finally settled on the floor, taking in the mess you’d been meaning to clean up for days now. 

As you returned to your body, you could no longer ignore the blaring of your alarm, groaning as you reached for your phone on the nightstand. A glance at the screen had you shooting out of bed. Shit, I have to be at class in 20 minutes. You got up, muttering to yourself about how 8 A.M. classes should be considered cruel and unusual punishment, and maneuvered around your clothes strewn across the floor. 

As you raced to your closet, your eyes scanned the clothes you owned, speeding through mental images of a million combinations before giving up and reaching for your comfort clothes. You pulled on the green high waisted cargo pants that you’d owned since high school. Nobody to impress in this class anyway, you reasoned, grabbing the fitted white crop top that your friend had embroidered your name on. 

You tore through the apartment in the most violent and rushed performance of a morning routine the world had ever seen, only half trying to keep quiet for the sake of your neighbors. Hair tangled between your fingers and makeup was swiped on haphazardly as you struggled to make yourself presentable, cursing at the time and throwing random belongings in your bag.

Calling out a goodbye to your roommate only to be met with silence, you realized that in your frenzy you had forgotten that no sane college student would willingly be up at this hour. Shaking your head as you rushed out of your building, you mused that you’d just gotten all your stupid mistakes for today over with quite efficiently. 

Three years of mediocre dorm experiences had left you desperate for a change, and luckily your now-roommate Jordan volunteered to split the rent for the 2 bedroom you now called home. You’d both agreed to ignore whatever ghost stories scared off previous residents and earned you a fair price for a decent place close to campus; ghosts would just add a little intrigue to your domestic life, you’d joked. 

Checking the time once more, you cursed under your breath and broke out into a run. God, I should work out more, you thought as your lungs began to burn, I wouldn’t stand a chance in a zombie apocalypse. Racing through campus, you finally reached the doors of the lecture hall that held your class… which had started three minutes prior. You tried to catch your breath before opening the door, cringing as you heard the professor pause mid-lecture. 

You tried not to meet anyone’s gaze as you quickly made your way to a seat. The first one you could find was in the third row-- close enough to the front to make out the facial expressions of your professor, who had continued his train of thought after you entered, choosing to ignore you in favor of finishing his idea. 

As you got settled and tuned into the lecture, you realized the professor was still reviewing the syllabus. Pulling it up on your laptop, you looked at the top to remind yourself of his name: Dr. Spencer Reid. Finally looking up, your mind went blank. Oh. Not only was your professor way younger than you’d expected, he was... well, attractive. Thats’s a reasonable objective assessment, right? You knew he was just as knowledgeable as older professors-- you’d chosen this course for its fantastic reviews from previous students-- but his youth was a welcome change from the dinosaurs you were so used to in the neuroscience department. 

As you studied him, you only became more sure in your original assessment; he was tall, with tousled brunet hair and a face that was… well, unfair. You weren’t surprised to catch a few other girls unabashedly staring at him, clearly drooling over the man as he spoke animatedly about his favorite parts of the course. 

You shook yourself-- this man was your professor. You shouldn’t think about how attractive he is, it’s unprofessional. You also shouldn’t look at his hands the way you are right now, following them as he gestured along with his words you still weren’t paying attention to. You definitely shouldn’t think about what those hands could do. 

Oh my god, snap out of it, you reprimanded yourself, you can’t afford to spend the semester fantasizing about your professor, focus on the class! You finally tuned in to the lecture, catching the end of what sounded like a tangent about the difference between triggers and stressors. For the rest of the class, you listened intently, drawn in by Professor Reid’s clear excitement about the topic. 

Your efforts to ignore your professor’s appearance were somewhat successful, but as you listened to him speak passionately about the value of profiling as a tool for certain types of criminal investigations, you knew you were done for. His excitement about sharing his knowledge left you fighting back a smile, watching intently as he gestured wildly. You’d always liked listening to fellow nerds, eagerly basking in the pure delight beaming from their faces as they ranted about their subject of interest.

You sighed internally, preparing yourself for a semester of unreasonable dedication to this class, which was meant to be your chill psych elective to leave you more time to spend in the lab. It’s not like this topic wasn’t interesting to you, it was just that you weren’t expecting to be obsessed with it-- or more accurately, the man teaching it.

Before you knew it, the class was over. Professor Reid told everyone to finish the assigned reading by next class in preparation for a discussion, dismissing the class and walking over to his desk. You gathered up your belongings and the remnants of your dignity before slowly making your way to the exit, lost in thought about the overlap between your field and his. 

Your feet changed course before you could stop to think about what you were doing. When you tuned back in, you were horrified to find that you were walking towards Professor Reid. Right when you were about to turn around and try to escape without further embarrassment, you were stopped by his curious but friendly gaze. Ignoring your inner voice’s screams of horror, you composed yourself and made your way over to his desk. 

He spoke before you could, greeting you with a small smile and a polite “how can I help you?”

“Hi! Um, I just wanted to come apologize for being late today. I promise, it’s really unlike me, and I just don’t want you to think that I don’t care about your class or anything, because it seems really cool so far and I’m so interested in seeing how this could apply to my research and I was only really late because of this dream I had-”

You stopped before going into detail, saving yourself from your nervous rambling, and he spoke your name hesitantly. Your confusion must have been apparent on your face, because he looked at your chest, clearly having made the connection from the word embroidered on it. The devil on your shoulder whispered that his eyes had lingered there longer than they needed to, but you dismissed that thought quickly. 

“There’s no need to apologize, as long as you don’t make a habit of it we should be fine,” he reassured you, “and judging from how well you paid attention today, I have no doubt you’ll more than make up for it next class in the discussion.”

You bit back a smile at his praise, shocked he’d noticed you at all. You thanked your lucky stars he’d interpreted your staring as interest in the class, rather than the glaring sign of attraction that it would easily be identified as in any other setting. You quickly nodded, thanking him for his understanding and promising it wouldn’t happen again before exchanging goodbyes as you turned and walked out of the room. 

Bursting out of the lecture hall, you finally filled your lungs with air fully, trying to regain some sense of control over your feelings. As you walked to the library to study, your mind wandered back to Professor Reid. It’s not like he’d ever feel the same way, what’s the harm in a little daydreaming? You decided you could live with a harmless crush. Keeps things interesting, you thought. Stepping into your castle of books, you pushed the events of the morning to the back of your mind, but one thought lingered: This is going to be one hell of a semester.

[heademptyjustvolleyballs]

Karasuno when Drunk

Drink responsibly, and assume everyone is of age.

TW: very brief mention of vomiting.

Daichi Sawamura: Turns into a rowdy fratboy when drunk. Calls everyone “bruh”, chest-bumps his friends, crushes beer cans against his forehead with minimal success. Depending on what he’s drinking, the night ends one of two ways: him passed out on someone’s lawn with sharpie on his face, or crying into a friend’s shoulder while listening to Celine Dion. (Watching Titanic was a mistake he only remembers when wasted)

Koushi Sugawara: Gets great drunk ideas like “hey guys, lets order like 15 pizzas”, “we should all get our nipples pierced!” but when it comes time to follow through on those ideas, he’s nowhere to be found. Most likely to be found chugging red wine straight from the bottle.

Azumane Asahi: Always responsible Asahi has planned his whole night out: he pre-booked his taxi home, there’s aspirin and water on his nightstand before he leaves, and there’s spare blankets and pillows on his couch in case his friends need to crash. Despite this, he always loses something while drunk. His favourite scarf, hairband, shoelaces, bus pass, something isn’t coming home with him tonight. Always ends up doing some form of karaoke, even if it’s singing into an empty bottle in a friend’s living room.

Yuu Nishinoya: Noya’s most dangerous habit when drunk isn’t his propensity for jumping off counters, tables, and road barriers, it’s his online shopping. Something about the light from his phone & the alcohol haze wipes his judgement away. He buys really random crap (3 lbs of hot pink glitter, a Danny DeVito body pillow, a 15 ft tall cat tree [he doesn’t even have a cat!]) but also will order flowers for his third grade math teacher because she taught me fractions and I love her. Someone hide his credit card.

Ryuunosuke Tananka: No one actually knows what Tanaka is like when he’s drunk because he’s the biggest flight risk. One minute he’s downing a G+T and the next, he’s gone. Always makes it home, but never remembers how. Sees a few “Hey man, last night was fun, you’re wild” texts from unknown numbers in the morning.

Tobio Kageyama: Becomes surprisingly talkative, and will start existential or philosophical conversations with anyone and everyone. Once gave a passionate yet tangent filled speech about how mermaids, which absolutely 100% exist, reproduce. Definitely leaves slightly slurred voicemails on his friends’ phones telling them how much he loves them. Is he crying into his phone, maybe.

Shoyo Hinata: Terrifyingly high alcohol tolerance. Can & will drink his friends under the table. However, the first time he got drunk he ended up spilling all his secrets to a stranger and was mortified. Drinking Hinata is the same bubble of energy everyone knows and loves, drunk Hinata is standing in the corner silently chewing his lips to make sure he doesn’t scream out to the whole club which Disney movies still give him nightmares.

Kei Tsukkishima: Doesn’t get drunk by choice, just holds the same half-empty beer in his hand all night. Has his phone out to collect blackmail pics and videos (and voicemails). Yamaguchi once got him to do a (1, singular) tequila shot and he threw up immediately. On second thought, maybe he’s just a lightweight and doesn’t want to admit it.

Tadashi Yamaguchi: Only gets drunk on tequila shots. He sways when he walks and stays tomato red all night, but his personality doesn’t change, same sweet cinnamon roll and can carry on interesting conversations all night. The hangover though...

Shimizu Kiyoko: Has more dancing skills drunk than most people have sober. If she’s out, she’s on the dancefloor. If she’s at someone’s house, including her own, any surface is now the dancefloor and she is the dancing queen, young and sweet, only the legal drinking age. Will walk up to the DJ in the bar/ club and demand they play her song. She never tells them what it is though.

Hitoka Yachi: Has a tendency to wander away from her friends after a few drinks, but don’t worry, she’s THAT GIRL in the bathroom complimenting everyone. She’s helping with makeup, fixing wardrobe malfunctions, and hyping her sisters up! If she doesn’t convince at least 2 girls to dump their boyfriends by the end of the night, her work isn’t done!

[laceymorganwrites]

SFW alphabet: Suna

A=Affection

He gives a lot of hand kisses, neck kisses, forehead kisses, loves holding your hand, hugs you from behind a lot, just makes you feel safe in his arms.

B=Breath

Sometimes you go off on tangents about all kinds of things and he is mesmerized. Suna loves listening to you and is very perceptive so that´s really one of his favorite things to do, just while listening to you he feels like he gets to know you better.

And you always manage to cheer him up when he had a bad day, he melts when you compliment him and tell him why you love him.

C=Cuddle

He loves to cuddle you, it´s so soft and warm and he feels save. Loves being little spoon too and will hold your hands during it. 

His favorite cuddle position is when you face each other and he can trace his fingers over your cheek, he likes being so close to you that he can feel your breath, likes resting his head on your shoulder and nuzzle your neck.

When you lie on top of him he´ll wrap his arms around you and feel like he protects you, he loves that feeling.

D=Dream

He wants to have a cat with you, or two or more. He just really loves cats and would love raising them with you.

E=Effort

Suna might not seem like it, but he gives it his all in the relationship. He knows he´s not the best at showing his love or doing something romantic, but you can always tell him everything, he´s always there for you, he will not hesitate to run over to you no matter how far away you are just to get you your favorite snacks because you mentioned them briefly while you called the other day.

F=Fear

He´s the best at comforting you when you´re scared. Knows what´s up immediately and will never make fun of your fears. He´ll just cuddle you and soothe you until everything´s alright again.

G=Gifts

The best gift giver! He´ll always give you the most meaningful gifts because he knows you so well. Sometimes he knows you better than yourself, gets you gifts you didn´t even know you needed or wanted. And when you mention something that isn´t even that important he´ll have it by the next day. 

Suna gets so emotional when you give him gifts, even if it´s just his favorite snacks because you noticed they were out. He almost cried when you got him the new flavor of his favorite jelly fruit sticks.

H=Hugs

Have you seen his arms? He gives amazing hugs! They´re not the short half assed ones either, he gives long and warm hugs where he´ll pull you even closer and cradle your back.

I=Intimacy

He seems rather cold and uncaring on the outside, but the opposite is the case, he´s just shit at expressing his emotions. Intimacy is kind of hard for him because he doesn´t really know what to do, you definitely need to show him what it means but once he understands the concept he feels so safe and loved, he´ll try his best to be intimate with you all the time, those moments are always the most special to him.

J=Jealous

He doesn´t get jealous often and when he does he doesn´t show it in a toxic way, more than anything he talks to you about it and explains why he was jealous. Gets overprotective when you´re out in public though, he doesn´t like the looks you´re getting and won´t let anyone come near you.

K=Kiss

Somehow an expert. Master at those slow kisses that make you dizzy, smirks when you whine into the kiss, make out sessions will be so chill and lazy with him, he´ll just put you on his lap and lay an arm around your waist while kissing you. 

Has an obsession with your hands and will not hesitate to place kisses all over them.

L=Love

He takes a long time to say it because he´s not sure if it´s really love, he knows he feels very strongly about you but the thought of this relationship being serious serious just scares him. But when you tell him you love him, he feels relieved almost? He tells you about his inner struggles and you tell him it´s okay to take his time and figure it out, that you´ll be there for him the entire time. That´s when he knew it was really love and he was more than willing to make this work.

M=Marriage

He honestly never thought about it, for him all he needs is you, be that in a long term relationship or in marriage, he doesn´t care. However there comes a moment when he really realizes that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you, he prepares the most romantic proposal.

N=Night out

He´s not one for fancy dates, prefers it when you stay to yourselves. Take out and movie dates are most common. But he also loves nightly strolls around the city, stargazing and hiking if you like that. He´s a nature man, he just feels so at peace in the forest for example and wants to experience it with you.

O=Out of the ordinary

Sometimes he stares at you for a long time and spaces out at how beautiful you are.

P=Playful

He´s not really playful in a relationship, he´s more of the serious type, but he loves hearing you laugh, so he´ll tickle you often. If you have any fun ideas he´ll indulge in them of course, always wants to make you happy.

Q=Questions

A strong believer of communication is key! Midnight snacks and 3am conversations are his strong suit, loves listening to your opinions and thoughts on different topics and loves discussing deep topics too. 

R=Random

Suna pretty much is always spontaneous because he rarely plans something. He doesn´t like planning too much because there´s always a risk that it doesn´t work out and he´d much prefer to do whatever you´re both in the mood for.

However if an important date comes up such as your birthday or anniversary, he´ll go out of his way to plan out the perfect day, has a lot of spare plans too in case something goes wrong.

S=Sleep

It is almsot impossible to sleep next to him when you don´t contain him somehow. Changes positions every five seconds and sprawls out a lot, so honestly to be near him when sleeping you have to lay on top of him so he can´t escape.

T=Trust

He trusts you completely, you´re always there when he needs you, you don´t judge him, in fact you only think the things he´s insecure about are charming. You´re always honest with him and honestly, he doesn´t trust anyone like he trusts you. 

U=Unique

Suna is the kind of guy where you never know what he´s thinking so it always takes you by surprise when he proclaims his love or compliments you.

V=Vulnerable

He doesn´t mind being vulnerable around you and he never suppressed the feeling either. He knows he´s safe with you and will always tell you what´s on his mind. 

The first time he was vulnerable around you, he just slumped against you and sighed, he dragged you to bed with him and you just held him the whole night.

Suna then told you how you´re the best thing that´s ever happened to him and how he isn´t sure if he´s good enough for you but how he tries his best and yet he can´t help comparing himself to other couples, the others always look more romantic and he feels like he isn´t doing enough and...

Needless to say he needs a lot of reassurance.

W=Wildcard

He naps everywhere, once you found him fully clothed in the bath tub, then the next day he just sat at the kitchen counter with his head on the counter. You never know where he might end up and it´s the funniest thing.

X=X-Ray

He´s a master at taking care of you when you get injured or sick. When you´re just sick he´s the bset at making soup and tea and just being there for you to take care of you. When you´re actually injured he manages to keep a calm exterior. He´s good at figuring out whether it´s a bad injury or not, so he´ll always be honest with you about that. 

Honestly, with the bullshit the twins did in high school, he´s overprepared to take you to the hospital or treat you himself depending on the injury. He´s very reliable.

Y=Yuck

I don´t think Suna has any pet peeves, maybe just that he´s not too much of a fan od heavy PDA but that´s about it. Even if you´re the polar opposite of him, he loves you because of that, he loves all of your habits.

Z=Zeal

He is very passionate, just bad at expressing it. He is so happy to have you and will get so excited whenever you tell him about your hobbies and things that interest you. And he´ll tell his friends about you a lot.

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

hello lia! just here to remind you how much i adore you and your content. i was wondering, since you seem to be very much aboard the logince train right now but seeing as you're still captaining the losleep ship - has brain been offering up anymore rolosleep? thought i'd give you an opportunity to ramble about them, if you wanted :) have a nice weekend! - ✨🌟

ROLOSLEEP YOU SAY

well if i’ve been given an opportunity it really would be rude to pass it up-

this ship is best summed up as ‘two chaotic fools + a braincell who is coincidentally the only reason they’re still alive’

logan loves remy and roman dearly but that doesn’t make them any smarter

not that they’re dumb, of course, they’re both very smart, they just... don’t like to apply their smartness often

aka

they also lack common sense

logan helps keep them alive and they are both very grateful for this

they all have different things in common

for logan and roman it’s poetry + classic literature (especially plays)

it leads to a lot of good-natured debates between the two of them

it also leads to them killing remy a lot

if they use poetry on each other, the other will simply respond with more poetry and it will become a battle

if they use poetry on Remy, they become a gay mess and die

for logan and remy it’s video games

roman likes them too but logan and remy get DEEP in lore for them

remy likes them a lot bc they burn their energy so they can sleep and logan likes learning the strategies of them

and ofc, as said, they both like getting deep into the lore of the games and learning every thing they can about them

they have many inside jokes bc of this that roman doesn’t understand but it’s okay bc he thinks it’s cute nonetheless

for remy and roman it’s chaos fashion

all the types of fashion- make-up, hair, clothing, shoes, everything!

why yes this does include the beautiful fashion of sweats and oversized shirts

they like to do each other’s make-up and paint each other’s nails and do stupid things to their hair and if they’re allowed to go to the mall they will be there for hours just to try on  e v e r y t h i n g  in the store

sometimes logan will tease them about this and they’ll say ‘but lo we have to be pretty :(’

and logan will kiss their cheeks and tell them they’re already pretty and no matter how many times he says it remy and roman never flush any less

ofc... for all the good things they share... they share less than good ones too

roman and logan share overworking

roman mostly does it on accident- caught up in an idea, he loses track of time and doesn’t remember to stop to rest or eat or anything

he does it on purpose a few times too, tho, normally when he feels like he isn’t creating enough and pushes himself even when he knows he needs to rest

logan almost always does it on purpose, sadly- he’s aware of his limits, but in his attempts to keep up with work (even when he’s plenty caught up) he’ll often ignore those limits and keep working

remy has become skilled in both figuratively and literally dragging the two of them away from their work as a result

logan and remy share sleep deprivation

logan normally ends up with it as a result of overworking, but there have been nights where he’ll just... stay up. no clear reason aside from that he just doesn’t want to/can’t go to bed

remy does it more regularly

it’s normally due to drinking too much coffee or insomnia, but too much energy + too many thoughts can also be causes

they normally play video games through the night when this happens- a problem for when logan’s also up, since more often than not remy will let him join the game and then neither of them’s going to sleep that night

luckily, roman is very warm and a very good hugger/cuddler, so if he can catch either of them staying up he can normally get them to sleep or at least rest by cuddling them

remy and roman share insecurity

roman easily gets insecure over his work- is it good enough? is it good at all? has he created enough? will he ever create enough?

he also gets insecure over his personality- is he too much? is he too loud, too dramatic, too out there? does he annoy everyone?

remy gets insecure more over lack of their own work- logan’s so smart and roman’s so talented, after all, and they’re... just them. they don’t contribute anything to the world or to their relationship

a majority of their confidence + flirty attitude + etc is to cover the fact that they really don’t think they’re worth anything

logan loves both of them very much, however, and if they’re feeling too insecure he can and will Kill their insecurities with love and facts

angst aside

these bois like to CUDDLE

roman’s naturally cuddly, and both logan and remy are lowkey touch starved

they can’t be left together for longer than five seconds without ending up wrapped around each other

their friends think this is ‘weird’ and ‘kinda clingy’ but they know their friends are just jealous

they also like kisses!!

roman’s a sucker for back of hand/palm kisses but he’s happy to pepper his partner’s faces in kisses too

logan likes to kiss his partner’s heads + foreheads but will kiss the tips of their noses to Kill Them on occasion

remy just does all the kisses. face, head, neck, hands- if they can smooch they will smooch

there is a difference for lip kisses tho

logan’s normally okay for brief little ones but never more, remy’s always good for lip kisses but only sometimes down for making-out, and roman is ALWAYS down for lip kisses and making-out but he RESPECTS HIS PARTNERS’ BOUNDARIES

this does, however, mean that when remy’s in the mood to make-out logan will not be getting either of his partners’ attention for at least half an hour

for the sake of my heart i must also note it never goes further than making out- they’re all ace, remy + roman being sex-repulsed and logan being sex-neutral. they like to cuddle kiss and sometimes make out- that’s all

slightly random but important tangent: they can all break into their house and every room in their house

remy can open any window- locked or not-, logan can lockpick any door, and roman can and will break down any door/window

this is mostly so none of them can isolate themselves but also bc remy and roman often forget their keys and logan can’t always save them

that tangent aside, a new one: how they got together

roman and remy were dating first, and logan was their friend who kept them from doing every thing they wanted to do, aka, kept them alive

and then somewhere along the way... he accidentally fell in love with them

whoops

he kept the lid on it pretty well at first

but then remy one day was reallllly tired and they kissed logan’s cheek while the three of them were hanging out

roman pulled remy away and rushed to apologize about how remy gets extra affectionate when tired and they also have a tendency to mix up who their dating and who they’re not

except logan just blushed and mumbled something about how he didn’t mind and... well... that’s Gay

for a while, logan and roman were metamours of remy, but logan already loved roman and roman’s gay and dramatic and logan knows poetry so, really, it was only a matter of time before they started dating as well

i could probably say more but my wrist’s starting to hurt something fierce so i’m cutting it off there

[sysig]

2020 Art Purge

I had quite a few doodles that I didn’t end up posting ‘cause I ran out of room or they didn’t fit the theme or any number of reasons, so here they are now with a little ramble about what I remember about them

I had a few leftover Camp Camp doodles, especially from earlier on, thus why David can look a little funny and off-model. I very much wanted to see how he’d look in a suit, I got a few different chances to draw him so! I wanted to post the “Break the Cycle” one but never found the opportunity, it was something along the lines of breaking the cycle of abuse, from his relationship with Campbell and Max’s with his parents. And then a moody Max as well hehe, that one was in October so it was the most recent! Just wanted to draw an angry lad

Mostly fanfic or random ZEX doodles leftoever from SCII - DAX’s intimidating figure in one of the fics really stood out to me but I don’t know I fully captured just how freaked out he’d be. I remembering wanting to be very emotive with his pupil, both panicked and high off adrenaline and still maintaining just a bit of his aloofness, it’s hard! And the first draft of YIK throwing down a rope for ZEX from the pirate fic, I liked this one but it wasn’t energetic enough! A quick Captain from the sword fight (still so cool!), and a silly interaction of if Hayes shamed an openly xenophilic Captain lol. I really need to design a Captain myself so I can wander around being obnoxiously alien-loving on main lol

Around the same time smol and I made this beautiful idiot, she proposed the idea of trauma and generational traits affecting bending, which I was all for, and I made a cute little non-bender family with different dominant and recessive traits. They both live in the Earth kingdom, she’s a refugee and he’s been a resident for generations, and they met and fell in love, aw ♥ And then one more Mac n’ Cheese for the road because I drew him once in reaction to drawing the Solitaire crew and then never again

Unposted sona stuff mostly from the beginning of the year and then I posted the rest of it! Sometimes it was just a bad style day, sometimes it didn’t fit or would be very late (cough cough the Valentines’ Day one) or came off as weird (the spare murder was in reference to reading edgy stuff lol - considering I had just come off Put That Kid Down and the Vargas update hadn’t come out yet - phewf! I did get exactly what I asked for, that’s for sure) The daily pages one is especially funny to be because a) it’s true I still do but b) it was immediately before Bar’s redesign and his whole Deal™ changing, so it had to be left out for being too whimsical lol. The last one still makes me laugh, a happy version of “please anticipate my upcoming response”

More sonas! Oh and a Coffee, since he was the only other Just Desserts character to get left out. Well, I guess I had one of Kaiein too, but does he count? Ehh

It was a silly one at least lol.

There wasn’t a whole lot of unpublished AGE this year, or in general, but it’s a shame because they really turned out cute. I remember I was practicing PigPen when I made that Adara, and I just wanted to draw some pretty Zis while I was still working on the animation meme draft. What pretty ladies!

And a couple little doodles of the fantasy duo! They weren’t actually designed as a pair but I can’t stop, so hey why not have them live in the same world. Opal eyes still doesn’t have a name whoops, but their cute little tail pokes out the back of their robe! Lily is a good head and a half shorter, probably about to rib-height on an average human haha

Lots of little and/or original doodles! A lot of these are either original characters, random designs, or brainstorming - there’s the first ever doodle of Marionette! Nice. I also made that lady with the scars and cut sometime around Feb. 2019 but never posted her or her daughter, they are cute tho. The little night and day one was based on a little Insect-based RPG class system I was working on at the time, Butterflies and Moths being Paladins and Warlocks respectively

I’m so sad I didn’t get to post the wives earlier! I love my angels lads, they’re so cute. I went on a bit of an axolotl tangent, the scary one’s name is “J” lol. Lots of silly little things

I also made a bunch of extremely random fanart over the year lol, from Wilbur Soot to Smokey the Bear but On Fire which is a reference to something but I no longer remember what. There’s also Chiffon from Sir Fluff, a Wooper, Barold from the Villager makeover series, CORPSE Husband, ENA from Joel G, and some little Among Us blobs. Fun designs abound!

[gottlem]

summer fl(in)g. gigi/crystal

a/n i made crystal sad about 3/4 through and im SORRY i was projecting. anyways theres a tiny tiny bit of angst but MOST of this is just dumb gays in l*ve. im still getting used to writing fics so be nice pls !!!! also if u want a pt2 be sure to let me know!

summary: lockdown in summer can be lonely, but Crystal and Gigi make sure they never feel alone. thank god they have good service. (3.8k words)

When lockdown was announced, Crystal wasn’t surprised. The pandemic was taking the world by storm and yeah, it fucking terrified her. But she had to look on the bright side. So that's what she did. Just as the announcement came to an end, Crystal’s phone pinged from her pocket and she smiled to see her friends' names light up on the screen.

JANtastic: well its official

miss cox: Yeah I’m gonna miss u guys!!!

goodegirl: you say that as if u won’t be spending lockdown with jan. i’ll be ALONE thanks for asking

CRYstal: hey i’ll be alone too !!! I’ll text u everyday to keep u company :-))

goodegirl: i’m gonna hold u up to that

And Gigi did hold her up to that. The country was two days into lockdown when Crystal received her first message.

goodegirl: ugh we are how many days into lockdown? And ive already had A MILLION people hit me up with “hows quarantine treating u ;)” i am SICK.

When Crystal read the text, an odd feeling bubbled in her stomach. She told herself it was because she wasn’t used to out-of-the-blue messages from Gigi yet, they just didn’t talk that much, but looking back she admits there was probably (definitely) more to it than that. Of course the girls had already been friends, but Crystal had never found it in herself to speak to Gigi that much because, well, she was intimidatingly gorgeous. They got on well in groups, where Crystal could try to focus her attention on someone who didn’t make her face red every time she looked at her, but she knew if she invited Gigi out by themselves, she would make a fool of herself. It was stupid really, it wasn’t even like she had feelings for her - she was just too pretty, and Crystal didn’t know how to handle herself around someone who looked like they belonged in a vogue magazine. A ping shook her from her thoughts.

goodegirl: like i get that ppl are thirsty rn. i get it. i am too. but is that really the BEST they can come up with?

Crystal needed to reply. But what could she even say to that?

CRYstal: at least u have people trying to hit you up ://

goodegirl: omg what??? ur telling me not ONE person has tried to slide into those dms? they need to get on that! ur a catch

Crystal felt her face flush at the comment. Did Gigi really think she was a catch? Or maybe she’s just being nice? That was probably it. Just friendly banter. 

CRYstal: nope haha! ANYWAYS. hows quarantine treating u ;-)

goodegirl: very funny. bitch.

From then on, the texts flowed easily between the two and Crystal started to ask herself why she hadn’t done this earlier. So what if Gigi was offensively attractive? They clicked so easily - Gigi was smart, quick witted, and didn’t take anything too seriously. So really, she was Crystal's perfect match. As a friend. Platonically. That night, they texted until Crystal was struggling to even keep her eyes open. It was a conversation that felt natural to them, bringing up anything that came into their heads and letting eachother start stupid tangents without fear of judgement. Gigi found Crystal's ability to ramble on about any random subject impossibly endearing, but she wouldn’t admit that out loud. Not yet, anyways.

--

After three days of almost constant texting, Crystal facetimed Gigi for the first time. She picked up within seconds with wide eyes and a grin on her face. 

“Hey you” If Crystal couldn’t see her smile (which she absolutely could) then she could definitely hear it. Gigi’s voice was soft and she hadn’t realised how much she missed it until she was reminded of it. The best thing was that Gigi sounded genuinely happy to speak to Crystal, it made her ecstatic. Crystal had called in the late afternoon, just before the sun had started to set, so she could see golden light shining gently onto Gigi’s features. It left her speechless for a second. How many times was Gigi going to leave her completely unable to reply by merely talking to her? This girl was going to be the death of her. When Crystal finally came to, she managed out a soft, but casual, reply, hoping that she had covered up the embarrassing amount of time it took for her to speak. If Gigi noticed, she didn’t mention it. 

It took them a while to get into the rhythm of actually talking to each other - texts made it easy to think over before you send, and Gigi had never really been one to think before she spoke aloud anyway. She didn’t want to scare Crystal off with how blunt she could be, but after some awkward laughs and stuttered jokes, the pair slowly fell into a rhythm they felt surprisingly comfortable in; they bounced off each other's jokes and soon enough their cheeks hurt from smiling. A few hours into the call, Crystal was sitting comfortably on her bed, her phone propped up with pillows so she and Gigi could still see each other. She caught herself staring again. It started off as small glances that lingered a bit longer than they should, but it was easy to do that and quickly cover it up, especially on facetime. Soon enough, Crystal would completely daze off for minutes, just staring at the girl on her screen. She figured out she really liked looking at Gigi, and Gigi didn’t seem to mind.

Gigi thinks Crystal’s voice is her favourite sound. After about 5 minutes of hearing run on sentences about god knows what, she had already decided she could listen to her talk forever. About anything. She really didn’t care as long as it was Crystal and she was talking to her. As the call progressed into the late hours of the night, the pair had started to get giggly - the tiredness they were feeling was starting to take effect, but it made them anything but sleepy. At 11:56pm, Gigi decided Crystal’s laugh was her second favourite sound. She would sometimes giggle, sometimes she’d shake with silent laughter, but her favourite was when she gave into a full-belly laugh. The kind of laugh that substitutes for a full core workout. That was Gigi’s favourite. 

Crystal was obsessed with Gigi’s smile. It softened Gigi, showed a side of her that Crystal hadn’t been acquainted to previously, but she was so glad she knew now. Gigi could be harsh sometimes, she had learned this years ago and had just accepted it as who Gigi was, but after seeing that damn smile, it was hard to think that Gigi was even capable of hurting a fly. Crystal was quick to realise the mean girl facade (which had only made her scarier to talk to, and somehow more attractive) was just that - a facade. Walls she had built up. Crystal was eager to break them down, and she felt like she was making a good start everytime Gigi smiled like that.

They hung up when Gigi started yawning more than she was talking, she insisted it was just because she was tired, and Crystal wholeheartedly believed her. When Gigi’s face disappeared from her screen, Crystal was still smiling. Her cheeks hurt and she felt whole. She took a deep breath and took in the silence for a moment - she was alone again. She didn’t feel lonely. Despite her ever-growing fatigue, Crystal just couldn’t fall asleep, her head was buzzing with Gigi’s voice, and her laugh, and her smile, and her eyes, and- Crystal was in deep shit. She was all too familiar with the feeling of butterflies manifesting in her stomach, the thoughts of a particular person on her mind constantly. To be completely honest, she hated it. Falling for anyone had never ended well for her, and falling for someone she was already friends with? Even worse. There was no way this would end without somebody getting hurt, and that somebody would probably be Crystal. And yet, being stuck in isolation, she thought the idea of possibly having a girlfriend didn’t sound too bad, but that might have been the lack of human contact talking. 

Gigi let her thoughts wonder as she drifted off into sleep. She wasn’t one to get crushes, but when she fell, she fell hard. And willingly. There was just something about the drama of having such strong feelings for someone, and playing guessing games on how they felt. And by the way Crystal had been staring at her all night, Gigi felt like she was on the right tracks. She liked the way her cheeks would flush if she thought too hard about the girl, or how butterflies would dance around in her stomach, making her feel lighter than a feather. Maybe she was just a hopeless romantic, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. She allowed herself to dream up scenarios of herself and Crystal being together once this whole situation was over. She quite liked how it looked in her head. 

--

As the days passed, Gigi and Crystal found themselves spending more of their waking hours talking to each other over facetime than they did doing anything else. They were both falling quickly, only mildly aware of each other's adoration. It didn’t take very long for the casual flirting to start. Everytime Gigi gave an off-handed compliment about how Crystal sounded “really pretty today” or how her laugh is “the prettiest thing”, the other girl would turn bright red and freeze up. Gigi would tease her about it, which only made her more and more flustered. She thought she’d eventually get used to it, but she never did. Crystal tried to flirt back,really tried,  she wanted more than anything to make Gigi stumble over her words like she does to her so often, but she would always be completely unfazed by every compliment Crystal could think of. Crystal found her ability to keep her composure so easily both irritating and compelling. 

It took Crystal a few days to find something that would finally, finally break Gigi down. Pet names. When she had casually let ‘babe’ slip in the middle of a sentence, she could practically see the breath that got stuck in Gigi’s throat before she started to choke on nothing but air. When Crystal asked if she was ok, she answered with a question.

“Did you just call me babe?”

“Yeah. Is that a problem?” Crystal genuinely wanted to make sure that it was ok, but the comment came off as less of a question, and more as straight up flirting. 

“No. Nope. Not a problem at all. What were we talking about?”

Crystal doesn’t press further, taking pride in being able to make the girl so speechless, and continues what she was saying as if nothing had stopped her in the first place. She watched as Gigi’s blush died down very, very slowly, only to watch it burn up again every time Crystal repeated the pet name. She absolutely adored it. 

“You’re cute when you blush, babe” Gigi made a noise at this. Crystal made a note of that before deciding that this would never get old.

--

Soon enough, the girls were in a comfortable routine - talking every day until one of them would give in to sleep. It was usually Crystal. Gigi would stay on the call for a bit, just to listen to the girl’s breathing, it provided an unexpected comfort to her. Plus Crystal was adorable when she slept. The routine was broken one day about a month into the lockdown, though nobody was really paying attention to what day it was anyway. Gigi had been awake for no more than an hour when she started to miss Crystal, so she gave her a call. Crystal didn’t pick up. Gigi called again, just in case Crystal had her phone on silent, but she was met with no answer. Instead, she was sent a text, a text which really didn’t explain anything. At all.

CRYstal: hey !!! sorry can’t pick up rn but i promise u i will call in like an hour or two ???? speak to u soon love !!!! <3

It was unusual for Crystal to miss out on a call - she was usually the one to be ringing Gigi. What could she even be doing? Gigi needed a distraction, something to pass the time instead of sitting and waiting. That was when she realised she hadn’t worn any makeup in weeks, so she sat herself down and started on a full face - the process of doing her makeup always calmed her down, so it was a welcome distraction. Just as she finished, her phone began ringing. She didn’t have to check to see who it was. 

“Hi! Sorry I didn’t answer before I was kinda busy” Gigi was speechless. A pixelated Crystal was beaming at her from her phone screen. And she had green hair now. This is why she didn’t pick up? The bitch was dyeing her hair? It did look really pretty though. Like, really, really pretty.

“Quarantines really getting to you that much huh?” Gigi decided against gushing about Crystal’s new hair - that would be giving her what she wanted.

“Do you like it?” She loved it. Adored it. 

“It’s nice” 

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

“Needy are we?” That shut her up. She changed the topic in an instant. 

“So... you look really pretty today!”

That night, the girls fell back into their easy routine. It had been hours since she first saw it, but Gigi couldn’t keep her eyes off of Crystal and her new look. It really suited her. It just felt so utterly Crystal. The green haired girl was in the middle of a long rant about how One DIrection “are definitely planning a reunion really really soon” when Gigi had to stop her.

“I fucking love your hair, Crys” She blushed at the out-of-the-blue compliment.

“Really? I thought it was just nice?” Gigi shook her head.

“I was teasing, of course I love it. It suits you so much, you look beautiful” She was smiling ear to ear. Crystal loved it when Gigi gushed over her like this. It made her feel like there could be something there, like this was more than friends bored in quarantine.

“Thanks,” Crystal paused for just a moment before her face lit up “Oh my God, you should do something to your hair too!” Gigi hated that idea, and shook her head affectionately at the girl's adorable excitement. She felt slightly bad when she told her that she would be caught dead before doing anything to her hair - she loved the deep brown colour it had always been, and was happy with how the length framed her face. Crystal however, was incessant. Gigi was surprised when she found herself telling Crystal that she’d “think about” changing her hair up. 

Saying this was a huge mistake. Crystal reminded her every other hour that she had to dye it or cut it or just do something, and it drove Gigi insane. It took her all but two days to finally cave in - it irked her that Crystal had this much power over her. She wanted to do something shocking, something that would shut Crystal up about her damn hair for good. So she shaved it. 

She did it when Crystal fell asleep after a particularly heated debate about her hair (the second of the night) and Gigi hung up to get to work on it. To call it an impulse decision wasn’t perhaps the most accurate, seeing as though she had been bugged about it for a solid 48 hours, but waking up that morning, Gigi hadn’t expected that all her hair would be gone by the time she went to sleep. Once she had finally bitten the bullet, it took her an hour to admit that she actually kind of liked the look - plus it was fun to touch. 

When Crystal called her that morning, Gigi took a moment to herself before answering. She hadn’t told her about the change in her appearance and hoped she would like it, or at least be pleased that Gigi finally listened to her. She took a breath and picked up, feigning confidence with a casual “morning!”. She watched Crystal’s eyes go wide and her hands cover her mouth. Gigi acted oblivious.

“What's up? Is there someone behind me or something?” She looked at her screen and patiently waited until Crystal composed herself - she was used to her staring anyway. When Crystal finally spoke, she was practically squealing out a string of compliments. Apparently, she loved it. 

“Are you keeping it like that? Please say you’re keeping it like that, it's so hot” Gigi wasn’t sure if she would grow it out, but after Crystal had said that, it was an easy decision.

“I guess I’ll keep it then. Just for you”

--

Crystal loved being so open with Gigi, and she really appreciated how close they had gotten during lockdown - but she really just needed today off. She had woken up one morning with a feeling of dread that she couldn’t quite place, and a persistent headache. This was going to be a bad day, but she was used to bad days. She ignored Gigi’s calls and sent no follow up text. She could speak to Gigi later. Right now, she was just going to go back to sleep. 

So that's what she did. She woke up in the late afternoon and finally dragged herself out of bed to make some food in the evening. When she got back to the safety of her bed, she was still tired. And she kind of felt like crying. So she cried. Sometimes, especially on bad days, Crystal’s mind could get the best of her, she had learned to just let herself get all her feelings out when she got like this - bottling them up had only ever made them worse. This was when Gigi called for the millionth time that day, her texts had become concerned, then angry, then concerned again. Crystal felt like she owed an explanation, so with bloodshot eyes and a puffy red face, Crystal finally picked up.

“Ugh finally! You haven’t spoken to me all day I- what’s wrong?” Crystal felt a ping of guilt at Gigi’s initial response to her answering. Had she really kept her waiting all day? It felt silly, like an unreasonable excuse, but deep down Crystal knew what was good for her. She also didn’t know how to answer Gigi’s question. She was starting to regret picking up, having Gigi see her like this - god, she must have looked a mess.

“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have picked up. I'm probably bringing the mood down” She saw Gigi’s features become impossibly softer at that.

“Hey, no, it's ok. We don’t have to talk about it, but we can if you want to. But you’re not hanging up. And neither am I. If it means I sit in complete silence with you for the next few hours then so be it” 

This was when Crystal knew Gigi was a keeper. Whether whatever they had going on would continue, or whether they would return to strictly just friends, Gigi was someone she needed to keep in her life. They eventually started talking, first it was about how Gigi’s day went - Crystal didn’t feel like speaking much, but once she warmed up to seeing that all-familiar smile, she felt comfortable enough to start to open up. They talked for hours. Crystal cried. Gigi cried (though not as much). 

“I just wish I could be there to help, or at least give you a hug or something, god this sucks” Crystal saw this as an opportunity to lighten the mood.

“As if you would settle for just a hug” Crystal winked pitifully and Gigi laughed, but didn’t disagree. 

Of course one chat didn’t fix Crystal’s problems, but at least now she had someone in her corner - and that was half the battle.

--

It didn’t take the pair very long to fall back into their rhythm, feeling closer and more comfortable with each other, their feelings getting stronger as each day passed on. Crystal found herself falling back into the habit of sitting silent, and admiring the girl on her screen.

“You’re staring.” Gigi told her. Crystal hummened in agreement.

“You’re pretty”

It was normal for the pair to bounce words like pretty, and beautiful, and gorgeous between them. It was as if they both knew exactly how the other felt - like it was completely unspoken and yet so obvious. And maybe it was.

Two months into lockdown, Gigi was really starting to miss physical contact - she was starting to feel a thrill when she made eye contact with strangers on her way to her weekly shop, she was getting desperate. It was brought up with Crystal.

“I just miss human contact. I want to hold a hand. I want someone to hug me. I want a kiss! Oh my god I miss kissing.” Crystal felt herself blushing at the mention of kissing (kissing Gigi, nonetheless). She would give anything to see Gigi right now, to be close to her.

“When this is over, I’ll kiss you, don’t even worry about it” Crystal was only half joking. GIgi went red, but tried to act as if the thought of Crystal kissing her didn’t phase her at all.

“Oh will you now?”

“I’m not kidding”

“Well. I’d very much like that Miss Methyd” Gigi gave in, she refused to play hard to get with someone who she had fallen so hard for. She just hoped Crystal would stick to her word.

--

Summer was halfway through when lockdown was lifted. The instant the announcement was made, Crystal phone pinged - it wasJan, and she suddenly felt a wave of deja vu from when the lockdown started.

JANtastic: GUYSSSSSS i’ve missed you so much PLEASE say y’all are free to meet? Like right now?!?! 

JANtatsic: Jackie’s already with me so, she’s down too :))

CRYstal: i’ve missed you too !!! i’m free to meet!

goodegirl: me too !!

The group reunited within an hour, Crystal shed some happy tears, and Gigi laughed as she wiped them for her. It was nice to be with her, to be able to stand next to each other. But it also felt odd - like something had shifted now that they were right in front of each other. So for the rest of summer, the girls shared lingering glances and awkward smiles, too scared to make an official move.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #475

Top Ten Films Named After the Protagonist

I’m afraid this is another of those weeks where the list is not only plucked-as-if-from-nowhere, but is also going to be relatively perfunctory. I’ve had quite a few mammoth lists recently, and the kids have been off for Easter so I’ve had less time to sit down and waffle with my keyboard. As such, we’re going off on a random tangent (the best kind of tangent, let’s be honest): films named after the protagonist.

I remember when Michael Clayton came out, and without knowing anything about the film, I was a bit confused; “Michael Clayton” seems such an ordinary name. Was it a true story? Was I supposed to know who this guy is? It seemed a strange, non-exciting, non-explanatory title for a film that’s actually relatively twisty-turny. And, of course, once you sit down and think about it, there are actually quite a few films where the whole hook is “here’s a movie about this guy you don’t know”. Furthermore, some of them are pretty darn great.

Obviously I had to establish some rules, because if you say “ooh, yeah, films where the title is the main character’s name,” then instantly you could say, well, that’s every superhero movie, right? So I instantly discounted that; if it’s a pseudonym or a codename or whatever, it’s out. Sorry, Batman. Sorry, Spider-Man. Also, by that same rationale, sorry, The Quiet American or The English Patient; technically, those are characters, but they’re not their names, so they’re out. I’m also discounting anything where there are other words in the title apart from a name; so, yes, that discounts Batman Begins and The Amazing Spider-Man, but also Get Carter. And it has to be one person, so no The Blues Brothers (or, I guess, Ghostbusters, Gremlins, or Goonies).

Where I have taken a moment is whether or not to consider one-word titles; WALL-E, for instance, or Dave. In the end, I have decided – and this feels even a little arbitrary even for me – that WALL-E would be excluded on the grounds that that’s not a real name. it’s not a codename, necessarily, but it’s more of a model number; it only becomes a name because WALL-E is, to all intents and purposes, a person. If you want you can slot WALL-E in at number one, because that’s where it would be if it were included. Dave, as it happens, wouldn’t have made the list (although it’d probably be in the Top Fifteen). But another one that I’ve decided – after much internal deliberation – to exclude is Amélie, because I feel like its real title is Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain. That’s words other than a name. Sorry, Amélie. But like WALL-E, that’s a masterpiece, so would have probably been about number three.

So there we go: utterly arbitrary rules established, we now present a Top Ten.

John Wick (2014): it’s a film very much about a bloke called John Wick, a name that’s simultaneously very ordinary and also a bit weird. And then it gets into its stride, and Keanu is just offing dudes like a cross between Batman and the Terminator. Excellent action, a great stoic performance by Reeves, but also a rich and deep mythology that slowly unfolds. The sequel is better, but it all started here.

Jackie Brown (1997): Tarantino’s forgotten film, a far more subtle and slower film than most of his others, lacking the histrionics and heightened alternate-reality stuff he’s getting more famous for. Despite QT being relatively young at the time, it’s actually a really sweet meditation on aging and chances passing you buy, anchored by a great, humane performance from Pam Grier. Despite the twisty plot and crime chaos, she’s the dead centre, cool but also realistically vulnerable. Also has Samuel L. Jackson being a badass.

Forrest Gump (1994): often criticised for its sentimentality (unfairly, I think) and its politics (yeah, I’m with you there) Gump is still great. Tom Hanks gives the character a ton of heart and pathos, walking a difficult line between a broad portrayal and nuanced characterisation. As a whirlwind tour of boomer history unfolds around him, he remains an engaging centre. The end of the film, when he struggles to ask if his son is smart, is a beautiful, heartbreaking moment.

Barton Fink (1991): a great exercise in stylised Coen weirdness. John Turturro’s Fink is a delightful arsehole, a writer full of his own self-importance, but as he is sucked further and further into this Hollywood hell, we still root for him and sympathise with him, even if he is in many ways the architect of his own downfall. Kudos, too, to John Goodman for his supremely demonic performance, which really should have bagged him an Oscar nom.

Jerry Maguire (1996): another film that could be criticised for its sentimentality, or maybe even its hypocrisy, criticising the commerciality of the sports industry whilst also cheering about one of the characters bagging a multi-million-dollar contract. But Cruise himself, as Jezza, gives one of his best performances as a man struggling to remain moral and ethical both at work and at home as he rushes into a hasty marriage. The oft-ridiculed “you complete me” scene is actually amazing and really emotional. And the kid is cute.

Donnie Darko (2001): a twisty oddity that came out of nowhere, starring a brother-and-sister team of actors we’d never heard of before, with famous people (her off E.T., him off ER) in supporting roles. But Jake G anchors the film with a great performance, genuinely making us wonder whether trippy supernatural stuff is going down, or if he’s just becoming unhinged. A really cool, interesting, unnerving film, that managed to successfully weaponise 80s nostalgia before that became annoying.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004): another one of those films that sort of came from nowhere, full of unknowns, but instantly built a huge cult following almost immediately. It’s delightfully weird, with its own internal logic, creating a world of weirdos and outcasts that we just completely root for right from the off, and it all hinges on Jon Heder’s central performance as the gangly, strange-looking, crazy-named Napoleon. Altogether now: “Yes, I love technology…”

Michael Clayton (2007): only this low because I don’t remember its twists and turns as well as I should. This is a taut and twisty thriller, with a man discovering a conscience and uncovering all kinds of nefarious corporate behaviour. Its great because the stakes aren’t world-altering, just big-scale bad behaviour and people earnestly opposing it. Full of tremendous performances but it’s got another heartfelt turn by Clooney at its centre.

Erin Brockovich (2000): another great person-investigates-corporate-bastardry, with Julia Roberts never-better as the earnest and earthy Erin who transcends her comparatively lowly status to throw her heart and soul behind the battle for justice. Her performance defines the film (and rightly won her an Oscar), which in terms of events and plot is relatively straightforward, but is shot through with a level of down-to-earth realism and a beautiful portrayal of friendship between Brockovich and lawyer Ed Masry (Albert Finney).

Ed Wood (1994): a film made at the peak of Burton’s powers, before his stylisation became a bit overbearing, and before his constant casting of Depp became annoying (and well, well before Depp himself became problematic). This is a love letter to the golden age of moviemaking and also to the schlocky B-movies Wood himself traded in, finding heroism in the example of one under-talented man making poor artistic choices. Depp is sweet and endearing with an earnest drive behind his good nature, making us root for him throughout. Arguably Depp’s best performance and Burton’s best film. But all due respect to Martin Landau, Sam Jackson should have won the Oscar that year.

[dominicvail]

Hey! Random question for you: How do you decide if/how you're gonna crop the gifs you make when putting together a set? I struggle so bad with the aesthetic elements of building a set it ends up discouraging me from finishing them most of the time.

I get the feeling anon, i struggle a lot with certain types of sets Still, which affects what i end up making A Lot. And i’ve only been making gifs for lol, 6 years, yikes? I tend to stick to what i Have learnt these days. But, anyway. 

I mostly think that the aesthetics of what you’re giffing depend heavily on how you should decide to crop it to fit on here.

I don’t know what kind of sets you make? Because I make like, gifs of scenes  very differently to something i make just for the sake of it being pretty.  

I personally have preferences for what dimensions i think look best for certain types of gif sets on tumblr, i do not Usually ( i make exceptions) stray from these, and the dimensions have an effect on your cropping.

Say like, [This] set, the dimensions i used were 268x180 which is my preferred choice for either 6 gif set or an 8 gif set formatted like this and if i don’t use those dimensions, it’s because i had a good reason not to.

Typically, face close ups in sets like this look Far better than like, a shot in the first gif of that set with half of granger’s body in the shot. This isn’t because head shots look better in gifs, it’s because head shots remove a Lot of the background which is what, 9 times out of 10, is what is messing up the aesthetic of a gifset. Also, an aside, try not to have dialogue cover anybody’s face, sometimes with already close up shots it’s impossible to avoid, but if your text is obscuring somebody’s face, you’ve cropped too much off. 

------

Backgrounds are often messy, busy, and eye drawing. If you’re making edits just for the sake of being pretty, negative space is your best friend, i really can’t emphasis that enough. I think people think it’s what’s In your gif that will make an aesthetic set look pretty, but i personally think it’s in how you use what it Not there. 

'what is not there’ also applies to shadows on negative space backgrounds, you Really need it to look as plain as possible, imo, take this gif for example;

Without edits, the plain wall behind the height chart was heavily shadowed, i used brightening techniques to remove the harshest shadows and also cropped it so the gif was thinner b/c the shadows were darkest at the far corners of the gif. It’s not a major edit, but the effect it had on the set it was in was Massive. It went from ruining the look of what was a ten gif set to fitting in perfectly and it was such a small, simple thing to edit. 

Also, for examples of how different a seemingly plain background shot can look with and without editing, This;

and

(the over exaggerated white was for Aesthetic reasons, i wanted it to look weirdly coloured, the bg was empty anyway) but this same shot looks totally different when i remove the small lines from the elevator he’s in that i left there in the top gif. His malevolence levels shoot through the roof. Just simple things like that can entirely alter the look of something. 

I don’t have an example of this next technique with that specific G shot, But with some scenes like the above it would be possible to crop it in as close as the second gif has been, then increase the canvas size again and just paint on the same bg colour as the bg behind him and you’d have a panoramic gif with an entirely negative space bg without it even looking like you’ve even edited it.

i did that here, kinda:

I cropped the bottom of the gif off because originally there was a Lot more mountain on it, and added to the canvas at the top of the gif, and just coloured the blank canvas the same colour as the rest of the sky and presto! i have a Ton of more negative space and it took me like a minute. You can use the same technique for width as well as height, this was just the first gif i’d found. 

----

anyway i went on a tangent, but dimensions;

for 2 gifs in a set, if they’re face close ups i’ll for them side by side and like, rectangle, you can do them square but i just think it looks better if they’re higher than they are wide, i don’t always use the same dimensions for the height of these types of sets, just what i think looks best for the scene.

if it’s more of a view than a close up for 2 gifs, i’ll do one gif on top of the other, Usually if i do it like this it’s specifically to showcase a view, so i probably won’t crop the scene at all for this type, and just resize for tumblr, but if i do it will be to crop out a network logo but i’ll leave the gifs as large as i can do so while taking it off. If possible i will paint over a logo, so if the logo is over a bit of screen that’s just one plain colour it’s easy to obscure, but otherwise its a crop. If i ever leave a logo on, it’s b/c i had no choice because i Hate leaving logos on. 

for sets of 4, like, dialogue scene gifs e.g. this one [here] the traditional square 268x286 is best, tbh. However, for that set there, not sure if this counts as cropping but it is aesthetic, in the show the shots were eric, nell, nell, eric. Because, in that format, doing it that way would have had them looking Away from each other in the bottom two gifs, i switched them around in the set and it looked So much better. When possible, always have people physically speaking to each other  in gifs actively face each other. Sometimes this involves flipping the whole gif which i Try not to do because our brains are trained to look at these people through a backward lens, so when you flip it over we think it looks weird because very few people Actually have perfectly symmetrical faces so like, they look Wrong to us. But looking a little wrong normally looks less weird than having people insets face the totally wrong direction. 

for 10 gifs, displayed 2 by 2, i will not make them as high, 10 gifs of 268x180 is too long, it looks weird, and even shaving 10px off each gif makes it look more aesthetically pleasing. 

for gifs displayed one on top of the other with text over, where you have a lot of them, they look better thin, i usually use somewhere between 230-245px for each gif’s height. Like this one. 

if you’re making Huge gifs like... 540x440px for Aesthetic reasons, that Can work really well but is Exceptionally difficult imo and i really can’t offer any advice or tricks because i am hopeless at it. 

On of my other tricks of the trade is, when i see a scene i think will make great gifs in the caps i’ve taken for something, i will save the caps. Like, that G moment of him looking into the camera, i took caps of the scene for a specific reason, deleted the rest of them when done, but saved those ones away. Scenes with minimal background that Also contain a look into the camera are Rare, exceptionally good looking on edits, and u will never remember where they are in the show if u delete them lol. So if you find shots you love, keep the caps! reuse them! to this day, i’m the one one to ever call myself out over excessive reuse of the same shots over and over. 

Also, zig zags and diagonals are more attractive visually. like, this is from my main but i can’t fine one off this blog atm, but [this] You see how i’ve made this so your eyes flow in a seamless diagonal downwards? You eyes don’t flit back and forth in 3 different directions, it has a flow to it. The first shot on that set isn’t actually like that in the show, her face was on the right side of the screen, i cropped off everything on the left, added to the canvas on the right and used the wall she was standing next to to make it less obvious i cropped it so dramatically to achieve that. You can only really tell if you’re looking for it in that one. But like, if you can crop something so the gifset has a decent flow to it, so your eyes slide over it rather than attempt to look in 6 directions in jerky moments, it helps a lot. I did the same thing with this one, [here] every gif on that is cropped into a different angle as it was on the show. 

This works specially well when you have a lot of gifs in your sets, which is where the zig zag thing comes into it, like, those 2 i linked two didn’t last long enough to zig back, but if i’d done another 2 gifs on there, i’d have put it back so your eyes slid back to the left side again. Can’t find an example rn, it’s Hard to do the more gifs you have, but pull it off and it looks really good. 

however, if you Can make each gif centered perfectly it looks Really cool but it’s really hard to do b/c show content just.. isn’t great sometimes. But it looks so cool. 

tldr: Negative space is Super Important!!! backgrounds can be super eye grabbing and you don’t want that, choose your dimensions well, make sure you make peoples eyes flow across your work rather than dart. 

idk, i hope this made sense, but making things look aesthetically pleasing is Really hard and takes a lot of work, it just looks like it should be easy, it’s not you finding something hard that other people seem to find super easy, it’s not easy, it involves a lot of tricks and editing that you Have to obscure because if it’s too obvious it doesn’t look attractive. A lot of work goes in, if i had my way i’d make mostly aesthetically pleasing edits but it’s too hard and i don’t have that kind of time. I hope this helped in some way? 

[sofhyuck]

Greasy Baby

Genre: fluff, greaser!hyuck

Word Count: 2.4k

A/N this au stems from some enlightening conversations with @cinanamon who is graciously allowing me to use some of her ideas, this one’s for you bb ;))))

greaser!hyuck is...a lil shit to say the least

like ye he’s a handsome boi i mean,,,imagine him in a leather jacket,,,hair gelled back,,,yes pls

but he knows him and his group of bois (dreamies hello) are hot shit and he’s not afraid to show that he knows it

him and the dreamies are always seen cruising around town,,, harassing hollerin at the ladies from the inside of hyuck’s beat up mustang (is that a time period correct car??? idk and idc to look it up lol)

he never actually physically harasses anyone, it’s all fun and games (for them at least don’t accept cat calling kids men ain’t shit)

there’s just...nothing else really for them to do around town

the only forms of entertainment come from the drive in theater and the soda shop that all the kids hang out at after school

he attends his local university since him and the gang come from a small town and didn’t really care to leave or have the grades to go to a better school

and you...well you don’t really know why you decided to attend a university in such a dinky little town

maybe it’s because you wanted a change of pace from the city, and maybe it’s because it’s your mother’s alma mater and you spent a few of your summers there

but somehow you find yourself at the school

the only problem is,,,everyone who attends the school grew up in the dumb town,,,meaning everyone already knows each other and has their friend groups and cliques

leaving you to fend for yourself and kind of live as an outsider

sure you make acquaintances in your classes but,,,it’s hard for you to make solid friends when everyone else already knows everything about everyone else 

so you’ve been living your life on campus, smiling at the acquaintances you’ve made when you pass by them on the street, but you never really hang out with anyone after school

your sophomore year you got a job at the soda shop bc college ain’t cheap and they were hiring

surprisingly enough you made close friends through the job, your coworkers went to the same uni as you and the clientele were also in some of your classes

so you began to actually go out more (when you weren’t working obvi)

on day you were on campus walking to your next class and you saw one of said new friends

but while you were distracted with waving to them you bumped into someone and woop guess who????

you guessed it our boy hyuck with the rest of 00 line walking past

he was bouta pop off but then he sees it’s you the cute lil waitress from the soda shop that he’s lowkey seen around and been crushing on for a few months now

so when he sees you stuttering out an apology bc boi is brighter than the damn son and took your breath away

he just smirks and lets out a lil chuckle and just says ‘don’t worry about it sweetcheeks’ with a wink and then he’s off

you stand there for a moment in shock bc like obvi you know who he is even if you’ve only been around a few years who tf doesn’t know hyuck and co

and ofc your friends all saw and were like...b don’t even worry about it he just be like that sometimes ya know

and you’re like yea u right and forget about the whole encounter

but guess who doesn’t ohohoho it’s mister lee donghyuck himself he be thinking about it the rest of the day bc wow you’re even prettier up close huh

and the rest of dream are like...mmhmm ok mr. lee not sus at all we’re on. to. you.

so guess where hyuck ever so casually zooms off to after his classes are over????

oh boy you guessed it right off to the soda shop but oomph poor bb you’re not actually working that day and bb is sad :(((( meanwhile his boys are just laughing at him bc omg hyuck is so w hi p pe d

so now bb is going to the shop every moment he can until!!! finally!!! you’re working again god bless!!!

as soon as he sees you’re working baby sits bolt up right and starts fixing his slicked back hair that he had totally not been running his hands through out of nerves

the other boys weren’t there bc??? they have better places to be than at the soda shop for the 50000 time that day even though chenle and jisung had been there earlier just to laugh at him

but now holy shit you’re coming over and you look so cute in the dumb poodle skirt they make you wear as a uniform with your hair placed in a high ponytail

meanwhile you’re sw e a t i n g bc shit it’s hyuck and he’s still a handsome ass boy and you have to serve his table n ow f u c k

so you sidle on over and give him your usual spiel asking what he’d like to order n shit

and this boy omf remember when i said he was annoying?

well yea he fucking goes ‘are you on the menu bc I’d certainly like to have a piece of you’

and you’re like...boy tf oh my god i want to SLAP him 

but you grin through it like ha ha...funny ok...our specials for today are...

hyuck ain’t listening anymore bc he’s busy mentally kicking himself bc??? really hyuck??? you’re trying to make her like you wtf were you t h in k i ng

so he just points at some random thing on the menu, his head hanging in shame

and yea you’d think it was cute if he hadn’t just gotten on your damn nerves

but, alas, you have to continue serving the boy who had ordered literally just a fried egg but you know who were you to judge

he eats the egg rather quickly and then just...sits there...not doing anything...and you don’t know what to do like you can’t kick him out he did order something and it’s not particularly busy

meanwhile hyuck’s head is spinning trying to think of how to woo you after completely embarrassing himself earlier

after like an hour passes you head over to him, ready to ask him again if he wants anything else to eat 

but as soon as you get to him he jolts upright scaring the shit out of you and he’s like fuck sorry i didn’t mean to scare you 

and you’re like it’s fine now seriously do you want anything else-

but he cuts you off and suddenly...lee donghyuck?? is grabbing onto your hand??? and rapidly apologizing to you for being so Gross earlier

you gotta shake the boy off of you and honestly,,,he’s really endearing like aw he’s so embarrassed what a bb

when you get out of his grip you’re like bro it’s ok tbh i get much worse all the time

suddenlt hyuck is ready to f i g ht like who tf??? i will square up 

in your head you’re like,,,bitch ik you catcall don’t even try...but in reality you’re like mmmhmm sure ok you couldn’t hurt a damn fly

hyuck is angery now like wdym im tough >:( don’t you see my leather jacket and cool hair and car???

and you,,,oh you little reader pat lee donghyuck’s fUCkiNg head and now he is blushing oooooh

in a smol voice he asks for his check and leaves you a v generous tip despite your protests

and by that time his confidence seems to come back bc he winks and tells you he’ll be back

you giggle and give him a lil wave bc...wow lee donghyuck is just a cute shy lil bb hehe

and now hyuck is coming in every day,,,sometimes with his boys,,,sometimes alone but no matter what he’s always sure to, in a respectful manner, flirt with you and chat you up while dream just look on in amusement bc, again, hyuck is wh i p p e d

y’all just kinda...live like that for a few weeks but it’s v clear to e v er y body that there is shit going down between the two of you

like at this point hyuck’s hanging around campus with you too so like,,,everyone and their mother knows at this point bc,,,like i said earlier,,,everyone in this damn town knows everything about everyone

so ya’ll are stagnant, hyuck flirting, you laughing and sometimes flirting back

until one day ohhh boy there’s a new boul in town and he is not ashamed at all

and by that i mean he’s the biggest fucking asshole to ever step foot in the town, thinking he’s hot shit and everybody wants him when everyone hates his g u t s

and this boy has been hanging around the shop, livin his life, waiting for his moment to strike

but uh oh he made a mistake bc the first person he attempts to come on to...is you

and hyuck has been there bc he knows this guy has been hanging around and he wants to keep an eye on you his girl

it was a good thing too bc... this boul is going all out

tugging lightly at your skirt when you come to take his order while he uses the same cringy line hyuck used on you that first day

and hyuck knows you’re a big girl who can handle herself which you make very clear by firmly rejecting him with a smile plastered across your face

but...boy does not and will not let up

and you’re getting more and more frustrated and hyuck can tell esp when you keep throwing exasperated looks in his direction w the occasional eye roll

he would laugh but he’s too busy trying not to flip his shit

until boy fuckin just goes to grab your ass and you immediately move back, ready to reprimand him

but all thoughts are brushed aside when a loud crash sounds followed by heavy footsteps

hyucky had stood up so harshly that his chair had fallen over but he hadn’t even bothered to fix it bc he immediately stormed over to you, loosely wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you into his side 

he is m a d like you thought he couldn’t fight before but now he looks like he could rip a guys head off and you lowkey find it hot but that’s not what’s important right now

the guy is like oh woops sorry bro didn’t know she was taken but hyuck is not having it going off about how you shouldn’t treat anyone like that period no matter if they’re in a relationship or not

and yes hyuck and his friends had been the same way a few months before but meeting you changed his way of thinking and his friends as well

bc the idiots had never had any female acquaintances before but now they have you and you’re like a sister to them except for hyuck obvi bc he’s in looove

anyway back to the matter at hand i swear i keep going on tangents soz

you have to calm hyuck down before he actually punches this guy in the nose and the guy throws some money on the table before booking it out of there bc he’s high key scared rn lol puddy

your boss comes out and is like...y’all good? and you’re like uhhh yea mind if i talk to him for a minute? n he’s like ya sure whatever

so you pull hyuck over to a back room and you’re like,,,bro,,,wtf you good now??

but hyuck is on a roll now and just flat out says ‘i’ve liked you for a while now so will you do me the honor of being my gf?’

you ??? for a second before snapping himself out of it and you’re like ??? hell yea boi tf???

so now y’all are dating woo!!!

he makes sure to come to the shop whenever you’re working

at first he even would miss classes but you were not gonna have that oh no education comes first kids >:(((

and he was like ugh ok fine but he always managed to get other dreamies to be there when he couldn’t just so he knows you’re ok :(((

you get really close with the other dreamies tho so now you’re all one happy family

even when hyuck isn’t at your shift he makes sure to pick you up afterwards

waiting outside, leaning against his beat up mustang …leather jacket on…waiting for you to come out…and when you walk up to him he grabs you by the waist…pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead…before opening the door for you…driving off to who knows where…but neither of you care as long as you’re together…

sometimes you go to the drive in and cuddle up in the backseat making out for the duration of the movie hehe

you climb onto his lap and sometimes you can hear the people in the next car wooping and hyuck just gives them the finger before bringing his hand back to settle on the back of your thigh

ahem anyways enough of that

other times you just,,, drive around,,, windows down,,, blasting music and laughing,,, just living your life as two college students should hyuck’s hand resting on your thigh shhhh

you always stop at the same dingy diner that’s hidden away on some side road

(shout out to steph for this next part love you bb uwu)

and hyuck always rummages through his pockets  for change to buy you a drink, even when you say he doesn’t have to and you know he doesn’t always have the most money he says he wants to

trips to the diner are always followed by sunset drives where you have to remind him to watch the road bc  he finds it so much fun to smiles t you and try to kiss you while driving and you scold him that he’s going to die one day, him saying it’s better to live hard, die young