#and i'm fine with that lol. die white boy

[eastgaysian]

Hey, I wasn't sure if I should say so or not in case it would be upsetting to you, but since you brought up the idea of a survey I thought I'd say that I have lost a parent & like you the current season of Succession has had a cathartic effect on me. I've also seen one person on twt say that's the case for them too, so I'm willing to bet a lot of ppl who've lost a parent feels similarly and like... Regardless of if it's a "good" season or not, I think media that helps me process my grief is a positive thing, it has value, or what have you. Obv it's fine for ppl to dislike the season, & ofc I don't wish others could exp that kind of loss, but like 🤷🏻‍♀️ sometimes things don't resonate with you until you've experienced smth, & sometimes that happens when you're 0-10, sometimes when you're 50-60

yeah, i started noticing a gap in reactions after connor's wedding between people saying 'that felt far too much like my own experience with a parent/family member dying' and people who acknowledged the skillful execution of the episode but didn't seem to personally connect to it (which generated a couple takes on logan's death and the perceived indignity of it that rubbed me the wrong way, lol). on the one hand my continued posting about the Discourse is because it's aggravating to me, like why is the hot topic of fan discussion 'is the show we're all watching even good?' ??? but on the other, it's genuinely just confusing to me and i'm trying to understand what i'm missing. the minor criticisms that people have cited as the root cause of their dissatisfaction don't add up to me. they feel much more like things that are only noticeable/irritating if you already have some fundamental issue or disconnect with the season.

and i think it really is that this is a season about grief and only about grief, there's no space for anything else. the emotional arcs in other seasons were usually related but distinct - you could focus in on what you liked in particular, whether that was kendall's mental breakdown, roman's freudian mess, shiv's struggle to be taken seriously as a woman, shiv and tom's failmarriage, tom and greg's weirdness, and there'd be enough material for you to chew on and have a good time without worrying all that much about everything else (although i do think being able to understand how all of these connect improves your experience of the show immensely, but i digress).

s4 is about grief. everyone is reacting to logan's death in different ways, but it all comes back to grief. if you're interested in talking about grief, there's so much to explore. if you don't find that engaging, then you're out of luck. it's fine to not find that engaging because you wanted something else out of the season/show, but that doesn't make the season objectively bad or subject to flaws that weren't already present throughout the rest of the show. and yeah, based on my reaction and the reactions of other people i've seen who have that personal experience with death, i think it's a really spectacular depiction of loss and grief that handles all the complex emotions involved with more thought and care than i've seen in other media. it would not be as accurate or impactful a depiction of grief if time and space was spent on something completely unrelated.

i don't think you need to have lost a close family member to connect to the storyline, but i also don't think you can understand what it's like until it happens in your own life. it fucked me up badly when my aunt died in middle school because she had been a major part of my childhood, but the degree to which my dad dying fundamentally altered my life is just incomparable to anything else. you really cannot experience grief as a concept or thought experiment, a person's death is real and permanent in a way nothing else really is. which sounds obvious but it's just true

[andypantsx3]

LOADS OF FUN : TODOROKI x READER

SUMMARY: After moving into your first apartment together, Shouto seems more amorous than ever. You're not sure why—but when he comes home to you doing a load of laundry, more than your clothes are about to get tumbled. TAGS/WARNINGS: nsft (18+ only, minors please dni!), pro hero au, gn + afab reader, established relationship, fluff, emotional sex, table sex, cunnilingus, the shouto domesticity kink agenda goes absolutely crazy in this one lol (2.8k) NOTES: This piece is part of my pretty boy summer Shouto x Reader collab! Please go check out the other incredible fics people have written over the course of the summer; you will absolutely die over how good they are. This fic was also made possible through donations to the Fics for Gaza project. I cannot thank everyone who donated to one of the charities enough, as well as those who organized, reblogged, discussed, and got the word out. Lastly, I am so grateful for your immeasurable patience with me as I take time between fics to manage my workload, I hope I'm not too out of practice here lol. In summary: thank you, thank you, a million times thank you.

The sound of the door opening was hidden in the thump and glug of the washing machine starting its spin cycle.

Halfway across the house, you were oblivious—you had the clean laundry spread out on the kitchen table, hunting through the pile trying to match one of Shouto’s socks to another that seemed to have vanished into that mysterious void which opens somewhere between the laundry basket and the dryer. One of his shirts was half-folded over your shoulder, abandoned in favor of the sock search.

The rest of your things were still mostly tangled together on the table, warm and fresh and cottony, the few shirts you’d already folded sagging off the kitchen chairs.

It still gave you a little thrill—even several weeks after you’d moved in together—to see Shouto’s things twined up with yours—his enormous socks dwarfing yours, your sweaters clinging to the occasional piece of his hero suit that hadn’t seen enough action to need his agency’s industrial cleaners.

It all added to your sense of satisfaction with your afternoon—a frosty weekend day you’d spent cozy indoors, moving slowly and leisurely through some chores. A pot of soup simmered on the stove, and your favorite playlist worked itself through in lazy loops. Shouto was due off his rotation soon, and you hummed contentedly to yourself, entertaining pleased little fantasies of curling up with him for the rest of the weekend.

Which of course is when something moved in the corner of your eye. Your hum sawed up into a strangled screech, and you whipped around, flailing. Shouto’s sock launched itself full force at the intruder before you even registered you’d thrown it. In your shock, your leg caught against the table and you went stumbling—

—right into a pair of warm hands that caught you about the waist.

Your hands were on the man’s shoulders to push him off before you realized you recognized the touch—and that you’d caught sight of a distinct mop of scarlet and white hair as you’d whipped around.

“Shouto! Again?” you scolded reflexively, even as your heartbeat stuttered out of its wild kick into high gear. You tipped your head back to stare your boyfriend in the face, shoulders slumping in relief, letting him take some of your weight.

Shouto peered down at you, that tiny scrunch between his brows that indicated concern. “Are you alright, love?”

Your heartbeat pounded thunderously in your chest. “I’m—fine. But my god we need to get you a bell. I almost peed.”

Shouto’s mouth shifted minutely into something that might not have registered in anyone else’s face but was most definitely a regretful downturn on his. He looked even more unfairly beautiful than when he’d left you this morning—a little flushed and windswept from the unseasonable cold, that full mouth pink and pretty.

Your mind flicked momentarily off and back on like a circuit breaker, the way it always did when you had to process Shouto.

You’d understood he was once-in-a-generation levels of beautiful before you’d even met him, his face staring up at you from the glossy pages of various tabloids over the years. But in person, even after years of knowing him and several more dating him, Shouto’s appearance still managed to cross all the wires in a person’s brain. His features were an incomprehensible blend of aloof and elegant, sensual and warm—like a cold masterpiece of a marble sculpture had suddenly found himself with a consciousness and human desires and miles of warm skin.

“I did not mean to startle you,” he said, his voice low and warm. He sounded sincerely regretful.

You knew he hadn’t meant to—you’d long suspected his silent tread was habitually ingrained in him from years of hero work. And, in your most private and ungenerous thoughts, you suspected from years of making himself unobtrusive in his father’s home. The thought sat sour in your mouth, like a slice of pickled lemon.

You resisted making an equally sour face, shoving the thought away to make space for the reflexive flush of pleasure seeing Shouto always brought you.

“Welcome home, Sho,” you said instead, smiling up at him. Shouto’s hands moved on your waist, sliding gently beneath the hem of your tee-shirt to rest on the skin there.

He was still in his hero uniform, and as usual you felt a little goofy in comparison, in nothing but a tee and a well-loved pair of fraying sweatpants, which were this afternoon decorated with little flecks of soup from a brush with the pot.

But Shouto’s eyes were warm where they rested on you, and that perfect mouth crept back into a contented set. His long fingers smoothed over your skin as he watched you, thumb brushing your hip. He did not look like he found you at all goofy.

In fact, as his eyes dropped down to your ankles, slowly dragging back up to your face, you rather thought he looked a little appreciative. He even took a rather ungentlemanly step back, still holding you, to better take in the whole picture. His eyes wandered over the swell of your hip, the lines of the shirt against your chest, before darting to his own shirt, still folded over your shoulder.

His fingers flexed tellingly on your waist, and those heterochromatic eyes were both a little bit darker as they flicked back to yours.

His obvious regard made you feel warm. You shifted on your feet, shuffling.

“I was just—doing laundry,” you said for something to say, your mouth feeling kind of dry. Something about him always made you feel sort of shy and light-headed, even after all this time together. “And I made soup. I was thinking we could eat on the couch and watch one of those horrendous old All Might films?”

Shouto’s eyes darted to the stove, then beside you to the pile of your laundry, lingering for a long minute. His long lashes dipped, almost fluttering as his gaze traced over the tangle of your things together. His eyes flicked back to you. He was still for just a moment, watching you assessingly.

And then all of a sudden the world spun in front of your eyes. The hands at your waist lifted you clean off your feet, and you let out a startled “oof!” as you found yourself laid out in the pile of laundry on the table, sheets and sweaters bunching beneath you.

Shouto moved over you, stepping between your spread thighs, right at the edge of the table.

“You have no idea,” he intoned in a deep, delicious tone that went right down your spine, “what it is to come home to you like this.”

You wondered at that, feeling a strange combination of confusion and flattery, when Shouto’s mouth descended onto yours. His mouth was soft and sweet and insistent and absolutely perfect. The table groaned as he laid some of his weight out over you, pinning you into the laundry as he kissed you.

Your fingers clutched at him immediately, curling in his silky-soft hair, cupping his face to yours. One of Shouto’s own hands shifted to your thigh, holding you against him as he pressed himself harder into you.

You heard yourself making little gasps of appreciation as Shouto’s mouth moved down to your neck, laving hot kisses down your throat. You reveled in the feeling of him over you, broad and strong, his shoulders blocking the glow of the overhead light, casting shadows over you.

He’d been a lot like this lately, ever since you’d moved in together. He’d been adequately amorous before, of course, and blessed with a pro hero’s strength and unflagging stamina. But a few weeks after you’d moved in together you’d actually decided you needed to reactivate your gym membership given the amount of incredibly athletic sex you were suddenly having over almost every surface in the house.

One of the only spots yet to be touched was the table though, which Shouto seemed determined to rectify at this very moment.

He pulled back from you, his mouth flush from your kisses, looking a little entranced as he stepped out from between your thighs. You made a little noise at the loss of weight and heat over you, but Shouto caught the fabric of your sweatpants, gently but determinedly tugging them off of you. Your underwear was tossed right over one broad shoulder as Shouto went to his knees, and then his mouth was right back on you.

A wave of wild heat licked up your stomach at the noise of appreciation he made before sealing his mouth over you, strong fingers clutching your thighs to keep them apart.

“Oh my god!” you said, pleasure zinging right up your spine with the first lave of his tongue over you. “Shouto!”

Shouto let out a deep, pleased hum, two long fingers sinking into you embarrassingly easily as he worked your clit with his mouth. Your back arched and you could feel your clothing shift with you, Shouto’s shirt balling up under your shoulder blade, still half-draped over your shoulder.

“Oh, oh!” you heard yourself saying as your fingers twisted in the clothing, shuddering with every lick and suck of Shouto’s perfect, amazing, talented mouth.

He worked you with the expertise of long, dedicated practice—everything about him calculated to drive you insane. One moment he was excruciatingly soft, mouth slack and the touch of his tongue as fleeting and light as the brush of a butterfly’s wing. Then the next he was sucking relentlessly, teasing firmly with the tip of his tongue as his fingers played with you.

Your first climax hit you mortifyingly quickly, and Shouto seemed to know it before you did. His grip tightened on you, holding you down as you bucked against his mouth. Shouto looked more than a little smug as he got to his feet again, unbelting himself and laying back out over you.

He kissed you some more, the taste of yourself always a sort of shock to your system. But Shouto never seemed to mind, and if anything only seemed hungrier for you, mouth pulling at yours like he meant to devour you.

You felt the touch of his hand between your thighs as he lined himself up, then sank into you easily, groaning appreciatively like he’d just sunk into a hot bath. He bit carefully at your neck, one large hand pressing your stomach down to keep you pinned against the edge of the table where he wanted you.

“I always want to come home to you like this,” he intoned into the skin of your neck, his mouth sucking dizzying patterns into your skin. “Always.”

You could barely think past the slide of him inside you, thick and full and blissfully exquisite. He really was the most perfect man on earth, and he always felt like it too.

You barely managed to blink your eyes open to watch him, trying to catch his meaning in his face. Shouto watched you back, those blue and grey pinned on you like he couldn’t bear to look away from you as he moved inside you.

“You—” you panted out, trying to cling to the thoughts threatening to wiggle out of your grip. “What do you—? Of course you’ll always come home to me.”

Shouto bucked into you harder, the slap of his hip against the bottom of your thigh echoing loudly over the burble of soup on the stove. His eyelashes fluttered, mouth softening, and a realization struck you almost dizzy.

Oh, he really liked that.

You suppressed a wave of giddiness, charmed and helplessly pleased that he seemed to like the idea so much. Was that why he’d been so especially ardent this past month? Was it really because you’d moved in together?

Shouto’s arm hooked under one of your legs, drawing it up firmly over his shoulder so he could press even further inside of you. He looked so good like that that you nearly lost the thread of your thoughts, especially when his next thrust felt like that. Your eyes nearly rolled back in your head.

“Ah!” escaped you. “Fuck, Shouto. Like that, please!”

Shouto’s thumb pressed down on your still-sensitive clit and he had to dig the fingers of his other hand into the flesh of your leg to keep you from bucking him right out of you with the way you squirmed. Sweet fucking gods he was unreal.

Shouto fucked you harder, the sound of your skin slapping together obscene in the quiet of the kitchen.

You tried again, struggling to watch his reaction with the way you wanted to throw your head back and babble nonsense instead.

“You’ll always come home to me,” you repeated, gratified when Shouto’s grip on you tightened, a soft sound escaping him. “You want me right here for you?”

“Ah—yes, love,” Shouto panted, staring down at you again. He looked like he knew what you were doing but didn’t care. “Yes,” he hissed.

“Just like this?” you prompted, trying not to slur the edges of your speech when he gave another particularly mind-bending thrust of his hips. His chest rose and fell heavily and he looked a little wild-eyed, gazing down at you.

“Like this, for me,” he said. “In my home, in our home—”

You could hear the table squeal and groan with the force of his next thrust, and then you had to grip the sides of it to steady yourself as he fucked you, looking blissful. Your nails scrabbled at the edges of the table, caught in between a million sensations—the glorious fullness of Shouto inside you, the gentle grind of his thumb against your clit, the way he looked all flushed and beautiful and panting and wanting—

You squeezed your eyes shut, too overcome with the sight of him to look at him anymore, but it was no use. Your entire body trembled as you came, and Shouto let out a low swear at the way you clenched up around him, hunching over you and pressing himself so impossibly hard against you as he came too.

He slumped down against you, weighing you into the soft-smelling cotton of the laundry you were now definitely going to have to rewash. You could feel his chest rise and fall as he panted, his breath tickling the skin under your ear. He left an unbearably soft, sweet kiss just under the lobe, at odds with the near-wild way he’d just been fucking you.

You warmed, petting through his hair with a helpless affection.

“Well now I know what time I should always do our laundry,” you said.

Shouto huffed into your neck, but you could feel a tiny smile curve his mouth.

“It is not just that,” he said, but did not elaborate for some minutes until you elbowed him gently. He peeled himself off of you just enough to look down into your face. “It is the thought of our life together. Our clothes piled together. You in the home we chose and we made…” he said, trailing off.

But you thought you got the sentiment. It was about how easy it was, how uncomplicated. A safe place to come home to, no expectations, just soup and a pile of sweet-smelling laundry and someone happy to see you. It was something far away from what he'd grown up thinking a home was, possibly something he’d thought he’d never have—something you were determined to make him realize now that he always would.

You let your fingers pull through his hair again, smiling up at him. “I am going to have to do our laundry again, though,” you teased. “In case that interests you.”

And despite what he’d just said, Shouto did in fact look a little too interested. You watched his mismatched gaze trail over to the closet that opened onto the washer and dryer. A contemplative look snuck across his handsome face, carefully curling the corner of that plush mouth.

“There is another place we have not yet broken in,” he said slowly, voice dipping low. He looked down at you with an earnest expression completely in contrast to what he was suggesting.

You couldn’t help but laugh, and that was all the permission he needed to pull you up, gathering you up in his arms and layering a fat handful of laundry on top of you. His belt buckle rattled loosely beneath you where he'd barely done it up in his haste, and you laughed harder when he turned off the stove as you passed it.

Though it turned out to be a needed precaution—as neither of you found yourselves free to sit down to dinner for several hours yet.

[yoinkschief]

What’s your general HCs for the fellas ? (Identity, race, sexuality etc)

Whooaagh, that's gonna be a long list, I have a ton of like small headcanons for them that mean like absolutely nothing, but I'll try to keep it to a simple list

Just quickly though:

I HC them all to be generally around 27/28 and in their late 30's/early 40's during WTFuture/in the future,, there was no real way to put that in a good list with them lol

And they're all best friends - just cause they're a group of people doesn't mean they only get to have one bestie yk, they're all super close

Also Ellsworld is canon alongside Eddsworld, they co-exist with each other

Tom - Mixed Race (Black/Irish from his mom, White/American-Hawaiian from his father - Trans Masc-Nonbinary (AMAB) He/They/(sometimes)It (It/Its depends on who it is) - Bisexual (massive masculine lean) (worst taste in men EVER) - Styles his hair to look like his fathers (otherwise his hair is usually textured around the 3's,,, like 3A/3B) - Very pear shaped like his father, and hairy too lol, the alcohol certainly doesn't help with that - Wears reading glasses (later this turns into him genuinely needing a prescription,, another thing he gets from his father - he looks very similar to his mother in terms of facial features and skin tone, but has a lot of his father's aspects) - Fear of eye contact (has gotten a lot better about it now that he's an adult, but still struggles with it with people he does not like/does not know) - Autistic - 5'5" (the shortest of the ensemble) - Works at a diner while part-timing music independently - "Monster" form is man made and extremely painful to turn into (there is no way he could control it,,, in some iterations of my headcanons like in different stories there are ways that he can have like a pact with it,,, like in my Mattsworld AU (WHICH I NEED TO POST ABOUT AUGH) he's "controlled" it a bit by making a deal with it,,, of what I haven't quite figured out yet oof) - Has quite a few tattoos on him,,, (Polynesian shark teeth on his left upper arm, cyan colored harpoon tattoos on his left side, a pinup mermaid girl on his right side, and the Nordic rune for "Wolf" on his right outer thigh) - Also he inherited his anger issues from his father as well, forgot to add that earlier with the list of things he's inherited from his old man lol - Momma's boy (/affectionately, not like he can't do anything without his mom, moreso like he really loves her a lot and obviously they're very close since they both lost Tom's father that day so for a while they were all the other had to remember him by) - Tamara is his cousin from his mother's side of the family - His first friend was Edd - His mother died when he was in highschool - father when he was in elementary, it really hit him hard (it was just before his senior year and had he not done so well the years prior he would've failed HS because of it) - Diesss ???? It's like the whole "OMG they killed Kenny" bit more than anything - like if I had to describe it, he has the Loony Toons death curse, where he dies on screen but in the next panel he's fine cause no one can actually die on a kid's show, yk ? - Tons of piercings,, mostly on his face but also in other places on his body too, though it's more like two other places other than his face area - Loves Ska music obviously, but also punk and rock, thinks artists like Destroy Boys, GRLWood,

Edd - British,,, and probably has some Italian in him somewhere, y'know like family rumors/talk of like "well I'm 1/4 Italian" or "your some odd greats grandma was Italian" that kinda thing,,, not quite sure, not curious enough to care to get some DNA test kit - Homophobic (/j) Gay, man kisser, masculine hug enjoyer, he holds hands with other boysss - On the AroAce spectrum, not really a hard no on either, just more of something he doesn't think about on a day to day basis nor really care about unless the thought is put in his head - Moles scattered across his body (not many, just one or two here and there - and none that are particularly bad or harmful) - Wears reading glasses (more specifically blue light glasses cause he's looking at a screen all day every day) - The only one of the gang that doesn't have any genuine mental disorder,,, he's got his problems sure but he's neurotypical through and through - His problems being main character and plot armor - More seriously though he has a raging hero/savior complex that gets him into a lot of trouble at times - 6' even, second tallest of the group - Very apple shaped,,, when I draw him I think very round thoughts if that makes sense - Had a major emo phase in highschool,,, he kinda snapped out of it during Senior year, or rather the summer leading up to it, but man it was wretched LOL - A child of divorce (they still made it work for him - it wasn't like they fought or it was a domestic abuse thing, they just fell out of love with each other and couldn't stand being in the same house anymore, but they love Edd so they made it work for him the best they could) - Works as an animator - professionally and freelancing ! Hard fucking order but he LOVES they process of creating art, seeing the end result is so gratifying to him and being able to see all the love and attention he put into it - Has a Youtube channel where sometimes he reviews animated movies/shows/shorts - he doesn't update it a lot, it's like a "if I feel like it" cause he only does Youtube as a hobby and as a place to hold his animation portfolio - His first friend was Matt, they've been friends since like diapers - REALLY really good friends with Tord - doesn't really know why but they are like bound by the hip - He's only got ear gauges - he doesn't try and stretch them a ton like Tom does, he's fine with just normal sized gauges that don't stretch his lobes all that much - Has a VERY BROAD music taste, anything from Lemon Demon to Oingo Boingo, to PinkPantheress, to Joey Valence & Brae, to Weird Al,,, anything under the rainbow of music genres he's probably heard one song from each - PowerEdd is canon still !! Not the superhero, but the powers he and Eduardo now suffer with lol,, but they're not really potent, his body chemistry is just kinda fucky now cause of it,,, bro glows in blacklight and sometimes just in general

Matt - British/French,,, basically he's incredibly white - Pansexual (he used to also be GenderFluid in my headcanons,,, but in the past year or so I've decided against it - he's more of just a guy who likes makeup and to wear dresses more than anything else) - Ginger with freckles, they cover his body in splotches mostly, but he's got a few individual ones here and there on his body as well (they've clustered around his face, hands, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees and like two separate patches on his back) - His hairstyle has changed so much with me over the years and it's my own damn fault lol, I don't draw him enough but that most comes with the "I don't wanna draw him wrong" thing but if I don't ever draw him how will I draw him right ?? It's a cycle is what it is - The only one with prescription glasses since middle school - he just wears contacts instead, he HATES how he looks in glasses - his parents had him get LASIK surgery to correct his vision,,, since then - His personal account where no one (except like the gang) knows it's him is very unhinged, he says some devious shit on there (it's a public Twitter account) - Also Autistic, but in a DRASTICALLY different way than Tom is, they're like opposite sides of the spectrum (Tom doesn't mask often, Matt masks like all day every day, Tom can't make eye contact, Matt makes intense eye contact, that kinda thing yk,,, even despite the fact they both have texture issues they have very different issues with textures - also Tom was very early diagnosed and Matt only got diagnosed after Tom kept pestering him to do so) - He's some kind of narcissist, just haven't been able to really pin point it down yet,, I need to do some more research on it - this could change in the future because of that so this is like a maybe canon - His father left him when he was very young like maybe 5-8 range, and his mother married his step father WAY too soon after, him and Matilda is his step sister (He HATED her at first, she tried to be very kind to him cause they're the same age and everything, and this is the first time she's had a sibling, but every time Matt looked at her all he could see was his father leaving him,,, it took until after college for them to actually grow closer as siblings and friends) -6'1" just an inch above Edd - Edd was his first friend - they've been through thick and thin together, they comforted each other when both their parents divorced, so obviously they've got a bit of a trauma bond through that, and are really the only ones who understand that kind of issue - at least in their eyes - Twink. Through and through. Despite being partially French he's got very back luck with growing hair on his body, and when he does it's thin and very lightly colored - Works as a model and "social media influencer",,, basically he's a walking propaganda poster - Has earrings, mostly wears a lot of gold - Doesn't like listening to music often,,, this hurts me to write as someone who can't NOT listen to music, but he just doesn't have a music taste,, I've mentioned before how he listens to some female rappers and other song artists like Mitski and Girl in Red, but that's only because he's listened to them on like the radio or had someone else recommend them to him, he doesn't actively listen/search for music - Still a vampire,,, er, really just half vampire ?? I'd like to think they lads did a séance of some sort on him and for the most part it worked but like Edd his chemistry is still a little fucked cause of it, y'know ? Like he's still got pointed ears and teeth, can't really do much about that, and a BIG craving for red meat and the like, but he can survive without a constant need for blood, and his skin was already sensitive to the sun anyway so there's nothing really new there

Tord - Just a Norwegian fool - Trans Masculine (AFAB) He/Him - Bisexual (with a MASSIVE fem lean,,, he IS the bad taste in men) - His hair ? Yeah that's natural - he's got some WICKED cowlicks,,, when he was younger his mom would try to brush them back to make him look more normal, but even when his hair was longer it didn't really do much for him - ADHD haver, VERY late diagnosis and still doesn't really believe it, but that's a whole lot to do with misinformation of negative dumb jargon shoved down his throat - Narcissistic Personality TRAITS, not the disorder, but TRAITS of the disorder (as in he doesn't actively have the mind set and intentions of people with NPD, but he does have the mannerisms and habits of one,, but that's because of how he was raised by two Narcissists - it's a damn miracle he doesn't have the disorder, but either way he's gotta go to therapy about it,,, and he will,,,,,, eventually,,,,,,,,, after you drag him there by his hair but I mean he'll be there) - Tattoos on him as well (Left shoulder to a half sleeve of a snake, tramp stamp of Ouroboros, and between his shoulder blades beneath the back of his neck is Jason Voorhees' mask) - Can not regulate or understand his emotions,,, the only way he really knows how to deal with intense emotions of any kind is through very physical and aggressive means,, it's why him and Tom get into so many spats, but mostly cause Tom doesn't put up with his bullshit as someone who is very good at reading and understanding his own and others' emotions - Bro's got a very broad chest,, he's like incredibly male passing, even before having gone on Testosterone - Redditor. Sorry I don't make the rules except I do and he's a Redditor. - Also has an Instagram account and it's all thirst traps,,, and I'm torn between how much interaction he'd get on them,,, like I wanna say he gets none because he's a damn loser weebcell dorklord, but I've also seen how EW fandom craves him and that makes me think that this would be no different, ykwim ?,, sigh,, realistically speaking he would get a lot of interaction with his posts and I hate that for him I hope something bad happens to him - Technically Tom was his first friend (??) in the sense that Tom was the first person he met in highschool and was the one he talked to the most during then,, at least when Tom's life was stable, it gets kinda iffy after Tom's mom died and that's where the first part of their rift really started - But him and Edd and SUPER close, despite Tom being his first friend, Edd and him just click REALLY well - Has a similar death thing like Tom, except his is more of like the anime death curse - if he dies off screen, no the fuck he did not, he is coming back as the villain - LOVES Twenty One Pilots, favorite band of all time, usually he's not a die hard for a lot of things, but TOP is one of them, he also likes poprock/poppunk, things like that, think like Imagine Dragons and Mindless Self Indulgence (YES THEY'RE TERRIBLE I KNOW, LOOK AT WHO'S LISTENING TO THEM AND GET BACK TO ME ABOUT IT) but he also listens to hyperpop like S3RL and Machine Girl, but that's just cause of all the base it usually has - that's like background music for him to work to

That's pretty much all I can think of off the top of my head of just general thoughts for them,,, I'm sure I could think of more specific ones but then we'd be here all day

[wishing-stones]

hey there! first time asking and i am.. pretty nervous :') not sure how nightmare's body works for your au, but how would the boys™ react if nightmare was somehow weakened enough to have his passive body revealed under all the corruption and not die? (or yes die, if that's what you're about lol) thanks!

Awww don't be nervous! I don't bite.

Nightmare's body is largely permanently colored by the corruption, but it can weaken, and he's still a (mostly) complete, white-boned skeleton under it.

Without active corruption, Nightmare is around 5'6" (or your height) and has some damage around his right eye socket. The light still forms, but his vision isn't so great. (Still a far cry better than 'normal,' where he can't see at all). His eyelight in that socket is purple, and the one in his left is cyan, no matter what form he's in. Sometimes it'll be half-and-half, if he's especially weak or in his feelings, but he's usually got the full heterochromia thing going on.

Fortunately, it just kind of retreats into the inner void of his body/skull if it's too weak to fully encase him, so it's all or nothing with the curse/corruption. It won't kill him, but he is much more vulnerable when he's passive.

The guys would be surprised, to say the least, but they'd also make the (correct) assumption that he's not as sturdy as he usually is and should be guarded. Nightmare definitely tried to hide this, but with a bunch of intuitive, smart underlings, it's hard to maintain the illusion that 'everything's fine, I'm just going to stay in bed for a while.'

Still, no one's going to lose respect for him, or make fun of him (in any seriousness-- we all know Killer is Required By Law to give him some guff) in any real capacity. He'd get a little babied, actually, until he told them all to knock it off, and then it's only Axe who babies him. (He can't get Axe to stop.)

Everyone is sworn to secrecy, because he especially does not need Dream finding out about this. He'd never stop crying, and Nightmare doesn't want to deal with that, thank you very much.

This does happen every great so often, especially after things get reconciled with his brother. Without active malice and hatred to feed on, the corruption kind of ebbs away and 'rests' to regain strength, and then it comes back strong as ever. He's actually quite strong when it comes back because it's refreshed, and he usually feels his oats a bit when it comes back.

It's the only aspect of the curse/corruption that he can't really control. Since he doesn't have a ton of enemies anymore, or at least ones who would be able to take advantage of such a situation, it's just a mild inconvenience rather than a cause for alarm.

More little facts about this:

He sounds different while passive. If he tries really hard, he can get into his normal, deeper register, but it takes a bit. He sounds a lot younger (still an adult, but younger and higher) and gets a little bit sensitive about it, actually.

He's also sensitive about his height. He loses 8 inches or better, and he doesn't like it. Yes, he wears platforms to make himself at least taller than the others (save Axe) if he's up and about, and not sulking in his room.

He views it as an inconvenience, but he hates feeling vulnerable. He's worn the corruption so long, to not have it makes him feel naked, and it's not something he handles terribly well.

He's also more sensitive to: temperature, touch, elements, and Intent. He gets cold easily, so he's usually close to some heat source. This sometimes includes the boys, and they have cuddle-puddled to make him feel safer.

He will break out his crown and wear it. It's a newer one-- his old crown won't fit because it didn't grow with him. he wears a silver crown with a more elegant crescent moon fixture (not entirely unlike this, but solid and without decoration) with a three-quarter moon taking up the void of the crescent, leaving a small gap between the two. He also wears much less gold and much more silver, although he does wear gold with purple, since it's very regal looking.

Hand-in-hand with the above, he breaks out good fancy clothing, too, since he's not in danger of staining it, and it feels nice on not-corrupted bones. Silk, satin, velvet... very fine clothing.

He also wears a weighted cape. While he doesn't always have his tentacles out, he will over-correct for their weight when they aren't present, and he's fallen over before when turning because of it. (After Killer was done laughing, he helped devise the cape.) It's a lovely little capelet that hangs over one shoulder, but drapes otherwise evenly across the back to the small of his back.

He's usually passive for 1-2 weeks, and then it won't happen again for a couple years, if he's lucky, or 10-12 months if he's not. This only started happening once Dream broke out of the statue, so while it's a fairly new development, it's one that he's learned to deal with and has procedures for.

I mentioned it before with Dream in R&R, but his bones have kind of a pearlescent sheen to them. Dream's is warmer (like a cream pearl), but Nightmare's is cooler (like a silver pearl). They're both Demi-gods, after all.

Interestingly enough, I've been working with this idea recently.

[anachronismstellar]

NHS post canon

Here we go folks! All the requests for NHS on the Wip Wednesday community!

If you wanna see more of this, don't hesitate to send me an ask! :D Make me write!

@aparticularbandit

He ought to let go of his dark thoughts for now. It wouldn't be a good idea to let his mask slip, even if no one called him “Headshaker" no more, not every one knew the monster that lurked behind it.

The innkeeper brought his bottle, leaving right after with a quick bow, rushing to tend to other tables, the place too busy for him to keep all his attention on Huaisang.

@post-and-out

He had chosen to wear more discreet robes today, but still, there weren’t many cultivators that kept a saber instead of a sword, and even fewer ones that carried a fan like he did. With these two things combined, it wasn’t hard to identify him if one knew what to look for. And people knew what to look for.

@wizisbored

That's precisely the reason why he sat on the far back of the room, not to hide himself, he knew it was useless to try to do so, but to have an ounce of privacy while he waited. If one thing he learned from his revenge was that the Cultivation world was worse than old ladies with gossip; no Sect Leader could sneeze without it being the hot topic for the week. At some point, he had started to fan himself again, slowly sipping his wine, watching the room emptying as time passed by.

@1attheedge

He wasn’t hunting ghosts but hunting nonetheless and would do him no good to expose himself early in the game.

Finally, when he had almost lost hope and left the inn, the room dove into silence, followed by a flood of talking. Whispers of “Lan-gongzi” spread like fire, even so he kept his eyes away from the striking figure dressed in white and blue, pretending not to see him walking straight towards Nie Huaisang's table.

@scifikimmi (Ikr?? I love him too, fav dark gray moral blorbo ♡)

Hn. Maybe finishing a second bottle hasn't been the best idea, he thought as he tried to ignore the tingle in his fingers, the heat burning his stomach. He knew better than to drink so much, especially Emperor's Smile, it left him in a bad mood, resentment dripping from him like a summer rain, but he could only stand so much of Caiyi Town without alcohol to cope.

@whimsicalmeerkat

“Nie-zongzhu.”

Ah. Here we go, then.

Nie Huaisang took a moment to look at the Lan disciple in front of him, keeping his movements sluggish, an aloof smile on his lips. He didn't get up, but he tilted his body deeply forward as a sign of respect.

@disastardly

“Lan-gongzi,” he answered back, gesturing for the other to sit down. “What an honorable surprise. Would you like some tea? This inn has a lovely blend, I believe it is Zewu-jun's favorite.”

@gnomer-denois

The flinch was so honest that Nie Huaisang almost felt bad for the boy. Well, not actually a boy anymore. The kid had grown up to be a fine man, and probably he would be a very good Sect Leader, some day from what Huaisang had heard.

@agent-p-94

“Nie-zongzhu, with all due respect, I only came here to understand the meaning of this,” then he threw a sheet of paper on the table, the good quality and weight making it land on the wood with a soft thump. Huaisang stared as his own handwriting, not bothering to read the content but searching for any clues of it being altered somehow. Not that he believed that any person from the Lan Clan would do anything to it. It would certainly break at least ten rules if they did so. But. Well.

@lizhly

(no regrets no mercy >:) but who knows, this talk might help him with all the resentment! lol)

Old habits die hard, don't they, San-ge? “I'm glad to help, Lan-gongzi. Which part didn't you understand?” “EVERYTHING!” he shouted in the most un-Lan manner Nie Huaisang had ever seen.

And that's all for NHS pos Canon! Where am I going with this? No idea! Was I planning to add poor Lan Jingyi to NHS mess? Nope! But I love him and I wanna try my hand at a more mature LJY.

BTW, MDZS has a lot of honorifics and cultural aspects that I only know from watching the live action and the animation. I did a lot of research, but this is my first time writing for the fandom. If I need to change anything or if there's any Mandarin/cultural mistakes, please let me know!

[cleromancy]

HI I WOULD LOVE TO SEE SNIPPETS OF THE EX CHILD STAR AU

thank you anon 🥰 sry it took me a few days to post this lol

cws: references to mental health problems and a previous suicide attempt, and lasting trauma from exploitation. uh, and past drug use.

*

If you had asked Dick twenty-four hours ago about his apartment, he would have said it was fine. Not too modest, not too ostentatious, not so public he has to worry about creeps but not as isolated as the villa. He's so glad they sold the villa. Nicest place he's ever lived, and if he'd stayed there one more day he'd have been peeling off the wallpaper muttering about ex-child stars trapped inside, creeping. Where he lives now is within walking distance from a friendly little corner store where he picks up cereal and almond milk and anything else he doesn't want to wait to get delivered, which is convenient, and a somewhat-longer-but-still-doable hike away from Dick's favorite store in L.A, a tiny little candy shop that only stays afloat out of sheer spite. The owner, a cantankerous old man that Dick loved immediately upon meeting, roasts Dick mercilessly every time Dick comes in, but he also keeps Dick's standing order of the tragically discontinued Triple Xtreme Face Pucker Nuclear Warheads in stock just for him, so Dick wouldn't buy them anywhere else even if he could.

And as long as you have that and a laundry room, you're golden. If Dick had to leave his apartment to wash his socks he'd just lie down and die, or else wear a lot of dirty clothes.

So normally if asked, Dick would conclude that the apartment is, actually, better than fine, maybe even pretty good, and then he would change the subject.

It's just hitting Dick now that he's lived here for seven years now and he doesn't think he's ever actually looked around. They hired somebody to move his stuff into storage while Dick was still in inpatient and somebody else to decorate the apartment so it would be livable right when he got out, before he got around to picking up his stuff (he keeps meaning to do that). Moving in, all Dick cared about was getting a burrito the size of his face and sleeping on sheets that didn't smell faintly of industrial bleach masked poorly by something artificial, vaguely floral, and marketed as *Mountain Breeze.* In the grey haze it hadn't occurred to him to wonder if maybe the decor was itself a little too grey.

"Or whatever color they call this," Dick says to himself, staring down an oversized decorative vase with a few sticks poking out that you'd think would be silk flowers or something, but instead have these fuzzy little puffballs attached for some reason. "Gray-beige? Taupe? Greige? Why do I even have you." He tilts it to one side. It's shockingly heavy. "Why do I have *six of you.*"

Looking down the hallway it's obvious that the interior design team had a vision, and that vision was "innoffensive, featureless neutrality." There are just enough wall hangings to qualify as "minimalist" over "austere," black and white photographs of bland still lifes in featureless frames. Some kind of hanging tapestry except it's solid white with hanging tassels. Grey-toned floor, lighter grey-toned floor runner. The end result sails right past "boring" into "escaped psych ward patient" territory. Which Dick resents. He did his time, thank you very much, and waited until his official discharge like a good boy. That's probably why he didn't notice until now, psych ward home away from psych ward home.

Yeah. Let's blame that. The fact that he spent his first year out of the hospital doing nothing but trying to beat his Tetris high score in his underwear and scouring the internet trying to find the tragically discontinued Triple Xtreme Face Pucker Nuclear Warheads had nothing to do with it.

"He's going to think I'm a serial killer," Dick realizes.

He's most of the way through Tetrising the unwieldy, surpringly heavy vases into the tiny cubicle the guest bathroom calls a shower—and he'd like to know whose idea *that* was when anyone with a lick of sense would have just made it a half-bath—when the buzzer for the lobby goes off.

"Crap," Dick mutters, taking half a step away from the tower, which wobbles ominously. He lunges to steady it. "Crap!"

He casts around for a surface and sets the last two vases on the toilet lid and the sink respectively, the stupid little Q-tip stick things rattling mockingly inside, then dashes out to tell the doorman that no, Roy's not a stalker, yes really, yes Dick wants you to let him up please, yes he is serious, yes he is sure. He has enough time to sprint back to the bathroom and make sure his hair is okay and confirm that at least he doesn't *look* as sweaty and disheveled as he *feels,* but thankfully not enough time to start worrying if he might be due early for another round of fillers or if his hairline might be receding or if the skin under his jaw might be sagging. He looks fine. Everything's fine.

When the doorbell rings, Dick has to pretend he doesn't know who's on the other side to get himself to finally open the door. His breath still catches when he sees him.

Roy, casual as ever, pushing a pair of Ray-Bans he told Dick he shoplifted as a teenager up his forehead. His crow's feet, because he stopped getting fillers at twenty-five, except *his* are laugh lines, not stress wrinkles, less those *Where Are They Now?* specials they used to do on VH1, more Paul Newman aging like fine wine. His crooked smile, and he doesn't whiten his teeth anymore either, teased Dick when he drove him for his root canal that he was destroying his enamel and then held his hand when they put him under. His scuffed bomber jacket, older than either of them, which sparked half a dozen anecdotes about an Uncle Hal when Dick brushed his fingers against a faded patch on the sleeve. His henley with three buttons undone, straining over the curve of his chest. His jeans tight around the thighs, a little threadbare in places after over a decade of wear. The whole of him, broad and easy in the doorway, unapologetically imperfect, smiling.

Dick just wants this to go well so *badly.* "Hi."

"Hi yourself," Roy says, shifting a little. "Can I come in?"

"Please."

Roy closes the door behind him, bending to unlace his boots. Dick's eyes catch for a second on the strain of his thighs against denim, and the nervous inane smalltalk on its way out of Dick's mouth dies on his lips.

Roy kicks the second boot off and straightens up, dusting his palms off on his thighs, which probably shouldn't make Dick's mouth fill with saliva the way it does. He's looking around the entryway, curious. "Nice place."

*Don't mention the vases.* "You think so? I keep meaning to update a little."

"Yeah, man, it's nice," Roy says easily, and he's lying but Dick can barely tell, which is kind of him. "You want to show me around?"

No, Dick does not want to show him around. No, he does not want to discover alongside Roy what other modern minimalist nightmares the interior design team saw fit to install in case Dick got too overstimulated by non-neutral colors and tried to kill himself again.

"I want to show you the media room," Dick says, which at least has the benefit of actually being true.

*

The "whoa" Roy lets out when they enter the media room is gratifying. It's most people's reaction when they see it. It's always gratifying.

"Is that a pinball machine?" Roy asks.

Dick grins. "You wanna play?"

"Hell yeah, just. Later. You have so much cool shit here, show me all of it—"

Maybe the other reason Dick barely knows what the rest of his apartment looks like is because this is where he spends most of his time. Freshly discharged from the hospital, Dick had scarfed down his face-sized burrito, faceplanted on the bed, slept like a log for about two days straight and woken up not entirely sure what year it was or why. He looked around the room, remembered it was his, flicked on the lamp on his bedside table and didn't like it any better in the light. It was the smooth plasticine decor that Dick's belatedly come to realize populated the entire apartment, featureless, meaningless, trying desperately to be mature by being entirely devoid of interest. *My bedroom pays taxes,* Dick remembers thinking. *My bedroom has a 401k.* He grabbed his meds from his bedside table and stuffed them in his sweatpants pocket before wrapping himself in the big gray down comforter and dragging it to what he supposed was the den, flopping on the couch and sleeping for another six hours, eventually waking with the cap of PRAZOSIN - 10MG - GRAYSON, RICHARD J digging into his hip.

Time was sort of soupy a lot of the time back before he got his ADHD diagnosis, because of the brain fog. For the longest time his psychiatrists kept adjusting his Wellbutrin dose pretending they thought that had a chance in hell of working while Dick sat listlessly in their offices, missing meth. It wasn't until later when Jason Todd of all people dragged him to a specialist (because "if I have it, you definitely have it" successfully nettled Dick into going just to prove him wrong, except of course it turned out the bastard was right) and Dick found a new psychiatrist who was halfway competent and put him on Adderall that he really felt at all present again. The psychiatrist he has now, who is from hell and who doesn't let him get away with lying and who is incredibly good at her job, was the one who told him how much meth and ADHD stimulants have in common chemically.

Dick sat very still. Then he pointed to the throw cushion on the couch. "Can I borrow that for just a sec?"

"Take as long as you need."

Dick grabbed the pillow, buried his face in it, and screamed at the top of his lungs.

But for a while, yeah. Time was soup Dick was mostly afloat in. He spent it floating here.

Now that Dick is looking for it, he notices the gray in the floor and the walls, the aggressive featurelessness of even the window frames, but he likes the rest of the room enough not to mind. At one point he'd been irrationally angry at the pile of mail he'd put off opening for over a month, and he'd been going through a minor fixation with auction websites at the time, and there was an old, probably busted Ms Pac Man arcade machine up for sale and for some reason Dick latched onto it. For some reason winning the auction of the stupid Ms Pac Man machine was very briefly the most important thing in the world. And he did win the auction, because nobody else wanted the janky old thing, and to Dick's shock and delight it actually *worked*, and suddenly he had a project.

At first he bought and fixed up old arcade fixtures, classic games and pinball machines mostly but he dabbled in anything; he'd even gotten his hands on an air hockey table once. Then he'd get bored or run out of space, sell a bunch of things or even give them away if he was too sick of looking at them, and before terribly long he drifted away from arcades specifically. That part he credits to a film projector he ran into at a flea market and fell in love with, which prompted him to spend possibly obscene amounts of money on the sound system and improving the acoustics. He fell in love with a lot of objects, those days, maybe because he wasn't talking to *people* much. Not people who knew him well, anyway. He was on first name terms with his favorite antique dealers, one of whom inexplicably set aside an old Gibson electric guitar he found, a gorgeous machine in a charmingly 60s shade of Robin's egg blue, because he said it reminded him of Dick. Either because he somehow knew Dick would love it, or else because he knew Dick was a sucker with way too much money.

It didn't matter. Dick *did* love it, and he *is* a sucker with way too much money, and he *did* go straight home to almost give himself tinnitus playing every three-chord classic he knew at a truly unwise volume.

(Dick even replaced the original couch in this room because he kept falling asleep on it and his physical therapist threatened to quit over the havoc he was wreaking on his back. He's still not thrilled that he doesn't really sleep in bed ever, but the new couch isn't threatening to do permanent damage to his spine. Win/win in Dick's book.)

So. Not a home arcade, not a home theater, not a home studio. Scavenged bits and salvaged pieces, nostalgia probably in excess, anchors in time. Whatever magic they put in the air at antique stores and estate sales and really good museum exhibits, Dick managed to bottle a breath of it and take it home with him. When he finally started letting people into his life again, the unabashed delight often on their faces, walking into this room full of outdated obsolete frivolous things, sharing it with them… it's good. It feels good.

"Does that ancient popcorn machine actually work?" Roy asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet, grinning.

Dick matches it. "Yeah, and it's gonna knock your socks off."

*

So Dick gets the popcorn going and shows Roy around and silently laments that there was no way he could get his hands on film reels of The Muppet Show. Roy was almost as much of a geek about some of these machines as Dick was, and Dick had made it his whole personality for a while.

"It's just that there are some antique collectors that really don't mess around," Dick explained to Donna the week before, twisting and untwisting his napkin in his hands. "And I'm a competitive guy but some of the markets are totally cutthroat, and film people and puppet people are both intense. So this was better."

"Yeah, *and* it'd be insane to drop that kind of money on a first date," said Jason through a mouthful of bacon cheeseburger, Mister *we're not brothers we just played them on TV.* Dick had invited Donna to lunch, Jason had loudly said he was too busy to come, Dick said he wasn't invited, and Jason's schedule suddenly cleared up, *viola,* miracles do happen.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Dick told him.

"Die," Jason suggested pleasantly.

'Just played it on TV.' Sure.

"And it's not a date," Dick added belatedly, stomach swooping.

Jason had opened his mouth to probably say something horrible, as is his way, and instead let out a hilarious squeak, turning to Donna next to him in the booth with massive betrayed Bambi eyes.

She ignored him, continuing to pour Sweet-N-Low packets into her half-empty coffee as if she didn't just stomp on his foot under the table. She didn't really like coffee until it got to the consistency of artificially sweetened sludge. When they were young Donna was always on top of what was *in*, considering it part of her full-time job to appear effortlessly sophisticated; she skipped the teen-preteen fashion beat and shot straight to the big leagues by fifteen. They were putting the equivalent of a *sophomore in high school* on best dressed lists alongside grown-ass women. It should never have happened. No one should have *let* it happen. One time even before all that, Dick and Jason stole a box of Krispy Kreme donuts from catering and absconded to her trailer to share and she had a panic attack. Years later she described her youth as being in a room full of invisible mirrors at all times. Those days she wouldn't be caught dead with anything less chic than an espresso from whatever new *it* cafe just opened. And there she was, two decades later, blithely desecrating two-dollar-fifty diner coffee with enough aspartame to kill a cart horse in front of god and everyone. She was probably Dick's favorite person in the entire world, and he went into a little trance for a moment, watching her graceful hands with horrified fascination.

Finally satisfied, she took a sip of her monstrosity and hummed, satisfied with that which she hath wrought. "Wait and see," she suggested. "If it goes well, it can be a date."

"And everyone says *I'm* the crazy one," Jason griped, rubbing the prison stick-n-poke tattoo on one thumb with the other.

"Well, if everyone says it, it must be true," Donna said warmly, knocking her shoulder against Jason's.

[iantimony]

BIG tuesday

i skipped last tuesday because i was working on a take-home exam and simply did not have the time nor the inclination, so: beefy tuesdaypost today!

listening: my brother recommended 'dead magic' by anna von hausswolff and boy what an album. gothic, punchy, very vibey. the kind of album you let wash over you like an ocean wave.

pulled 'mostly kosher' from my to-listen list. fun, funky, very jewish, good vibes. ikh hob dikh tsufil lib

i've continued to mainline borodin symphonies 1 & 2. idk they're just hitting right.

and the new pieces for the orchestra i'm in - very french this time round: debussy's fêtes: kinda spooky and ominous and also fluid in a fun way! lots of buildup that seems to resolve into nothingness. horn parts for this are pretty good, not too difficult but are definitely Heard. chabrier's españa: really bumpin horn parts. fun bouncy motifs. what's not to like.

pocasting-wise, i'm up to partizan 38. 10 episodes left!!! the home stretch!!!!! it's so good but things are definitely amping up in the end-of-fatt-season way.

i've also listened to my friend b's gotham tv show podcast 'jim gordon must die'. very good and funny. i laughed out loud at some of the episode 3 descriptions.

reading: i was stuck in Bad Airport Times this past saturday (flight delayed 3 hours, then sat for an hour on the tarmac, arrived at 10pm when i was originally supposed to arrive at like 630) so i blasted through all ~150k words of 'freefall' by Kunoichi21 and xoTsundoku. bog-standard mafia au, but with a fun little circus arts twist; fun background fengqing; i do not like that they made beefleaf wholesome. give me my toxic beefleaf god damn it. but otherwise it was a fun read, sappy romcom-style. the fic itself isn't quite done but it's in endgame. the author notes have peak fanfic culture energy of "hey guys! sorry i didn't update, i started nursing school and my dad died" bro .... ;___; goddamn. please take care of urselves

watching: we are almost done with kill la kill! last two eps!!! so tonight we're doing that and also watching last week's dunmeshi together.

friend and i finished comrade detective. incredible. no notes. so funny. we started 'endeavour' which is a detective morse prequel thing and goddd the british-isms, and also started serial experiments lain. i don't know what i was expecting but god it was not this. i literally thought this was a cute fun hacker mystery show in the energy of cowboy bebop. it is Not That. not even close. it's good though i'm enjoying it. currently staggering through life going uhhhhh like lain does in the first few eps.

playing: fallow. i am re-installing disco elysium on my computer though. ive been wondering if i should try to keep going on the save file from last year or if i should just start over because i barely got in there at all.

making: many things. pottery!! some good some not as good.

so this design came out SO nice but the underglaze is so gd streaky! i hate it !!! i don't think it's really fixable either, i tried the hairspray trick to put new solid glaze over top the inside so at least that would look less like shit but i could not get it to work. maybe sanding it down? idk. it's ugly. it was supposed to be a bright teal but the woman who runs the studio mixed the batch up wrong so it's like. a really drab gray and not in a fun or intentional way. idk.

some new bisque:

teacups came out! still mismatched but cute nonetheless! gonna do them in a sort of celadon-type color with white flowers to match the teapot that my SO has :)

i don't feel like adding more photos for these lol they're very boring. the pot for my mom came out fine i think. gonna go in with normal white glaze over top to paint in some trees or other botanical designs. i sponged the underglaze on so hopefully the final result won't be streaky. sponged red on my seder plate to hopefully accomplish the same thing. mugs came through the bisque with no issues but i didn't do anything fun with underglaze on one of them so no new pics of that, but the other i did this tree thing again:

i KNOW it'll be streaky as hell. i just know. so i'm considering how i want to do it. perhaps putting some slightly transparent green over the top of it all to meld it together? unsure.

some new stuff: made a citrus juicer, this was attempt number 2 and just barely got it to work, attempt 1 was a total disaster. also made another mug type object, hopefully it'll still be wet enough this weekend to slap a handle on.

two mugs with red clay, i really loved the lascaux mugs that jessica bartram put up for sale last year but i didnt snag one in time so i was like. fuck it. i will make my own. gonna let them dry to leather hard before going in with black underglaze.

i've been trying to draw again but. idk. i just feel very uninspired. i start drawing and it's like :| :| :|

eating: i was on my own food-wise for much of the last week because my roommate was babysitting for the rabbi, so i did not eat nearly as extravagantly as i normally do, LOL. i made a lo mein recipe that was kinda just a stir fry. this could have been my fault because i added a bunch of extra shit like bok choy and mushrooms. i also didn't use the correct type of noodle, and i didnt have oyster sauce so i used worcestershire, etc. many substitutions so it's probably not fair for me to say it was Just Fine. will have to try again at some later date actually following the recipe. herb and radish salad with feta and walnuts: delicious. 10/10. i tossed in some extra arugula and that was also good. and i made the tofu brussel sprouts tahini/hoisin sauce thing again because it's easy and tasty.

misc: visiting my grandma right now ...... entrenched in the ennui .............. spring break ........................

[fallloverfic]

TGCF donghua Season 2, Episode 12 thoughts

The end episode for the season had some lovely stuff :3 Spoilers for the book and donghua below. CW: blood.

I do love the cute little back and forth between Xie Lian and Hua Cheng a lot. ...I kind of wish it wasn't repeated here so we could focus on new stuff, but okay.

Xie Lian chuckling with Shi Qingxuan about what happened to Feng Xin lol He loves Feng Xin but also it's funny. No snow-white lotus here. They're so cute T-T Their friendshippppp T-T

But also he apologizes for it. Feng Xin's little smile/soft sad look(?) as he looks at Dianxia T-T I CRYYYY And then they awkwardly look away from each other (after Feng Xin talks about superior skill) and I cry more T-T

Mu Qing still approves of Feng Xin covered in blood. His little chuckle. As someone pointed out, this is how this part is phrased in the English translation:

“Only Mu Qing held [Feng Xin's] gaze. He not only didn’t care to avoid him, but he purposely stared, his intent more than obvious.” (Volume 2, Chapter 24).

Smirky boi.

Jun Wu's character model is pretty but also growing on me. He has some nice shots this episode.

Terrible man. Horrible. Pretty.

Xie Lian sadly running while having all his terrible memories T-T Pretty shots, tho.

The tomb is so pretty! I love how it looks like a sky!

Xie Lian thinking about what Qi Rong might have gone through... I know part of it is just worry about all the terrible things Qi Rong has done, only some of which Xie Lian knows of, but he has some sadness about what horrible things happened to him, too. Like I'll never get over that seemingly neither Xie Lian nor his parents know how Qi Rong died. Even Xie Lian didn't actually die (because he was a god when he got mortally injured T-T). But Qi Rong did. They just sort of lose track of him around when Xianle falls. And that's really sad.

So it looks like they mostly kept Qi Rong's new body the same, and just added his green make-up to indicate possession, which makes sense. He looks similar enough like this it's fine. Poor Guzi T-T He's having a bad lotta days.

I'm gonna be honest, I'm not a fan of the massive use of reused footage this episode. I get that they're going into another arc for season 3, so there has to be a cut-off somewhere, and this is a good place to cut off. But it... well. At least there's lots of gay pining on Xie Lian's part. A nice note to end the season on, I suppose, particularly because it parallels season 1 and they are the central relationship.

I can't recall any sub issues this episode, other than the continued use of "Green Immor", and I did a double-take when they directly translated the name for Mount Tonglu. Hoping they go back and fix all the issues in previous episodes.

All in all, this was a really wonderful season, with only a few minor issues overall, mostly in terms of the subs and that one very weird art decision in one episode. The art was beautiful, the voice actors did a great job, the music was lovely as always, the new intro and endings were wonderful, the additions were wonderful (yee Xiao Mengyou/Xiao Shiwei :3), and it's so fun to see all this in animation at last! Lots of wonderful Hualian, YIN YU FOR FIVE SECONDS MY BELOVED!!!!, lots of wonderful Shi Qingxuan & Xie Lian, lots of wonderful Xianle trio drama, some lovely Beefleaf tidbits, lots of wonderful Qi Rong being The Worst (I love him so), and lots of wonderful Lang Qianqiu. Lots of wonderful everyone!

Here's to season 3! May we see it soon!

Other episode thoughts for season 2 (didn't start till episode 3):

S02E03

S02E04

S02E05

S02E06

S02E07

S02E08

S02E09

S02E10

S02E11

S02E12 (you are here)

[saltygilmores]

THOUGHTS WHILE WATCHING GILMORE GIRLS-SEASON 3, EPISODE 1: LAZY HAZY CRAZY DAYS (PART 2)

Anyone seen Jess lately? Eh, we already know what (who) he's been into this summer. But yeah that was definitely Jess. Winter, spring, summer, fall. even with a broken foot, Taylor Doose does not cease, yield, desist, nor take a break from his quest to line his pockets with the money of the citizens of Stars Hollow, under the guise of some sort of charity event. Fun! Let me guess, the Bridge again?

Sounds like a good excuse for Jess Mariano to wear short sleeves and engage in some tonsil hockey underneath a tree.

Mmm, Window Doritos. Luke and Lorelai still haven't made up. She's been avoiding him and the diner the entire freaking summer? There's no way. Without Luke providing her daily supply of supermarket Folger's, she would wither away and die.

Scenes that take place outside of The Hollow are usually the most fun but I predict this is going to be lame. They got some early 2000's politicans to make cameos in this one, people I'm sure the 16 year olds watching this show when it aired (or ever) cared about.

Who's this putz? *squints at nametag* Nice to meet you...James. He looks like a nice normal generically handsome dude, maybe for once Rory could stand to go on a date with a handsome dullard who won't kick up any leaves, kinda like that time Richard and Emily tried to hook Lorelai up with this guy's father.

Paris Geller for President, Rory Gilmore as her first lady.

You don't have a prayer with either of them Jamesy. Ohhhhh. James is JAMIE. Of course. I remember this generically cute, mass-manufactured piece of untoasted WonderBread now. The one who...takes Paris' virginity. Welp I guess I have to take back the whole "You don't have a prayer" thing then.

Paris agrees to dinner plans with UTWB (Untoasted White Bread), not realizing she agreed to a date, and Rory has to tell her what happened, and when Rory is more knowledgable about dating and relationships than you are, you know you have work to do. So what we have here is a fine blend: one part Paris being unable to relate to people, one part confusion about her sexuality, a subject that this show will refuse to ever touch on, and one part realizing she agreed to a date with a boy who is a bottle of human Nyquil, throw this all in a blender and you've got a recipe for a Paris Geller nuclear anxiety attack.

Kirk our neurodivergent king.

You do not, don't lie to him like that. Lorelai did invent a vanishing cream though. She slathers it on every time she leaves work in the middle of the day. Lorelai: Don't cows eat hay? Kirk: Yes, but "Grass There" is a bad name. LOL, that got a good laugh out of me. We love you Kirk. Keep being you. Lorelai and Emily have a pointless debate on the phone about what date Rory was supposed to be arriving home, Lorelai says she's coming home on Saturday whereas Emily insists she was misled to believe she would be home in time for FND tomorrow. Jesus Christ, Emily. Can't you let that poor girl decompress and have some time to herself after being away from home all summer? Can you let her skip one FND? Rotten. Emily wants to know where Crusty is and Lorelai says Satan is "Away on business". "Away on Business"=In the firey shrieking depths of hell (Boston?) Emily wants her beloved Crusty to join FND tomorrow. I swear to god if I have to fast forward past yet another Crusty FND I'm gonna scream.

No no no no. NO. Where is Alex? Bring me Alex! #SaltyIsAnAlexStan #PossiblyTheOnlyAlexStan

JarPad has a real talent for making every thing Dean says sound so ominous and serial-killer like. Rory: That gives me three hours to look presentable. Should I go blond?

He should want her to go blond because it'll be easier to conceal her identity when he kidnaps her and takes her on the run. Not only does Emily want to wrench Rory off her flight in mid air to force her into FND but she's agreed to meet Dean immediately after his plane touches down only 3 hours after her own?! Not only that, it's September 3rd, which means a new school year is starting next week, she's trying to talk Paris down from a nuclear anxiety attack and get her ready for her first date, I'd say that I don't know how Rory is acting so calm under all this pressure but we know she's bottling it up inside like a powder keg ready to explode and it's just a matter of time. Is this his home or a hotel room? It looks like a serial kiler's motel room on the side of abandoned highway. That chair is made of human skin. That's totally a serial killer's old tv, one where he holes up watching America's Most Wanted and grainy news reports about his own escape from justice. "My plane is arrving at 6" he says, unaware that the police tapped his phone lines. That shirt looks like something he took off of one of his victim's or bought from a dying K-Mart in some small town, where there's a cashier named Phyllis who's been working there for 30 years, he paid cash, tried to avoid looking directly into the store's security cameras, Phyllis just smacks her gum as she rings up his serial killer polo shirt, gallon of bleach, tarps and rubber gloves. To be fair, Jess threatens to murder Dean and dump his body in a ditch not long after he's already murdered Shane and fed her to the swans in this season. All the more reason Dean and Jess should call a truce, realize they have more in common than they think, and leave Rory alone.

Whew. There's so much to unpack in just these two sentences. Just like all the dead bodies Dean Forester has to unpack from his trunk.

That's what his victims say before he leads them to their demise. Rory has to hang up on Dean Wayne Gacy because Paris is melting down as her date with Nyquil approaches. Dean has to hang up because the SWAT team is about to bust down his door.

Rory's reaction to Dean saying "I Love You". She doesn't say it back. Stay tuned for part 3.

[satancopilotsmytardis]

I am fully addicted to your fics and go feral whenever a new one is posted. Because of your writing I’ve firmly become a Shiggy/Hawks shipper. Headcannons for Shigadabihawks.

☾,∇, ൠ, ✿

Buddy, I'm so glad you like my work, but I feel immeasurable guilt over turning you into a shigahawks shipper when I never make content for them anymore 😔

☾ - sleep headcanon

As a group: Hawks is on one side with his wings wrapped around the other two, Dabi is in the middle, usually holding onto Hawks, Shigaraki is on the other side holding onto Dabi until he's sure that they're both asleep and then he gets up to do something else unless it's a rare night he's not suffering from insomnia.

Dabi: Has nightmares a lot, and is always tired, can fall asleep anywhere and even standing up if he feels safe enough

Hawks: Sleepy boy, when he has a day off he is washing his sheets, fluffing his pillows, and making sure his softest blanket is fresh from the dryer so that he can indulge in the Peak sleep experience

Shigaraki: What the fuck is sleep? No real reason, no nightmares even after remembering his past, he just doesn't sleep very much.

✿ - Sex headcanon

As a group: Dabi and Shigaraki like to work Hawks over together best, there's just a lot more they both can be doing with the addition of his wings, and Hawks will never admit it, but he loves being a pillow princess for them.

Dabi: Lost his virginity last of the three of them (the skin falling off and coma were contributing factors). Down for whatever, but does generally prefers AMAB anatomy because he has an oral fixation and loves getting his throat fucked (straps are fine but it's not as good)

Hawks: Thinks he has a low sex drive, but it's really mostly his baggage. He's been a sex symbol in Japan since he was 19 and he's been working as a spy doing honeytraps for a lot longer. He's so unimpressed with sex he's almost uninterested until he finds people that he actually clicks with and genuinely wants.

Shigaraki: Sex is a game and he is winning. Lol no, but he does engage with sex/kink as a form of entertainment. It's something fun to do that feels good, and it's one of the only times he gets to touch someone and they actually want that which helps settle something in his brain.

∇ - old age/aging headcanon

As a group: Hawks an Shigaraki mock Dabi for being an old man, Hawks calls Shigaraki whippersnapper, they are the same as they've always been, but their joints ache now and it looks like Hawks is going to have white hair too soon.

Dabi: did not think he was gonna make it this far and for a long time he's got even more self-destructive tendencies. Takes him deciding that he wants to stick around to see his nieces and nephews grow up before he decides to be a more mature adult. (If he's no longer a villain, he starts a program that can help teach quirk regulation to people like him who have unstable ones.)

Hawks: Also assumed he would die young. Retires from being a hero and focuses on making himself a little life of his own. Has a bakery he goes to for pastries, becomes the old man who feeds the birds, leaves his wings at home when he does those things so he can just be Keigo and not 'retired number two hero: Hawks'

Shigaraki: As he gets older he tries to find kids like him who need someone to take them in. Makes a home for them like AFO did for him (ideally without the ulterior motives). Just eventually the anger and the disgust fade and he is more interested in making sure no kids get abandoned because they're hard to deal with.

ൠ - random headcanon

As a group: One of the best days they've ever had together was the three of them just spending time together on a nice afternoon. They were just a tangle on the couch, Hawks napping, Dabi reading, and Shig playing one of his games. It was incredibly chill and lowkey and none of them will admit it, but for that afternoon they all wished they weren't heroes/villains because if they weren't then this could have just been their life together.

Dabi: Hates that he's always so hot because fluffy sweaters and stuff look so comfy, but he literally can't wear them without overheating.

Hawks: Every time he sees a birdfeeder he wonders. He's not a bird. But. But what would that taste like to him? This haunts him.

Shigaraki: He is the most ride or die person you will ever meet. Once he has imprinted on a person then he is going to make sure they're taken care of and happy. (This is a threat (: )

[fareehaandspaniards]

Hi Fareeha! I was wondering, about your bloodborne ships what was your first impressions of them?

What intrigued you and what happen that made you like them that much now? Or did it just came naturally? ;)

I am sorry it took so long! It's 1 PM right now, I managed to GOT up somehow lol... Don't even remember how fell asleep yesterday. Also was occupied with fanfic, trying my best, etc... But to the topic:

Since my first ship was gehrmaria, I’ll start with it.

Romance, sadness, age difference... An old hunter grieving for his beloved who has passed away. All this reminded me of old european ballads that I was reading in my 16... A very beautiful story, unexpectedly romantic for Bloodborne (although it can be interpreted in different ways, not only romantically, but still it is fascinating). Let me add that they both look aesthetically stunning! They are classical, they are tragical, they are... perfection.

First impression for all other ships was: "How do you guys know anything about them?? There is nothing in game about them!!! How can you ship Caryll, mf is not even NPC?? Where do you get an information?? Who tf is Edgar? Oh, I killed him?..."

I swear I was shocked, when learned that fandom has CRAZY amount of ships. First Playtrough I barely got who is Laurence lmao, what IS Healing Church and so on... I can say sincerely - I started to Really understand, why is Valtr insane, why Laurence is VICAR, not bishop, why Annalise's hair are white and not brown, who tf can be siblings in a damned Research Hall and etc ONLY because of @katyahina timeline. My brain can't contain SO MANY info I swear, but I am trying, getting Insight every time I read this (in a good way ofc, I want to see Amygdalas in my sweet Yharnam-like city!)

So. Ships with Micolash. At first I brought him together with my hunter, Guillermo, and was pleased with myself - my story for them sounded convincing, thoughtful and hot xdd Guillermo - a madly in love hunter who, for seeing a drop of light in Micolash (in his past) and hearing Kos's whispers, is ready to die a hundred times, endure literally everything... Poor man! xD And Micolash who is insane enough to feel neverending cycle of NewGames, I mean, that he may even remember that he died already from hunter's hand, that hunter killed him 4 different ways, and I think Micolash would be frightened and lost? He genuinely thought that Nightmare is a perfect realm, HIS realm, but it turns out that someone else is good as Micolash himself to eat cords and ascend but succesfully. Oooof. I like that, Love and Despair, Love/Hate and etc. Oc x canon is really fine, when there are FEELINGS and TENSION between your char and canonical char.

After some time I got to know that silly guy with glasses on from a bridge is somehow really interesting deep character! xD And he's a cutie himself! (I mean look at him. My sweet accountant, my beloved nerd, and it's not a sarcasm!! He looks exquisite) I really like Edgar x Micolash for my beloved love/hate theme, slight toxicity and Edgar’s unspoken dependence on his enemy (Micolash is often made too “submissive” in their pairing. He may be and even must be bottom, but he is too much dominant as a person to be so naive and crying because Edgar-senpai is ignoring him). Edgar is a choir boy, soft, afraid of Micolash, is angry with him, but inside he cannot live without his attention. And Micolash - I think he liked Edgar as something unusual, fresh in his life (or death), something absolutely different from everything he had seen. Moreover, a spy. Moreover, he is so confident in the Church. But can change his opinion and most likely will. A perfect object of entertainment and moral debate. You can break him and win him over to your side. Nice pairing. I'm still in love.

Laurence x Micolash - kjdsflak;sdjfwernmfklaaaawoooooo!!!11!1! This ship is driving me crazy, I can't!! xD They look great together, they are similar, they are two brilliant minds seeking for knowledge, two scientists, two rivals, two assholes. But it seems to me that they would definitely have separated, because such similar people are unlikely to be together for a long time. I mean, they both need primacy too much. And it would destroy them. I also don't like Laurence, I can't help it. Maybe because I still don't fully understand his character?.. Maybe.

Damian x Micolash - amazing! I am now captivated by this pairing and am writing a story based on it. They are beautiful combination of an adult, serious Damian and an energetic, hot-tempered Micolash, as a couple they are divine. Damian... still waters run deep and all that. He is strong, thoughtful, cold, he can knock out any threat to his loved one. As a former Tomb Prospector and a Mensis Scholar, a byrgerkinght student, he must be really educated and smart, but also well-built and powerful, graceful and deadly. Micolash is his master and also a little boy. I headcanon that Damian is like 15 years older than him? And that's great. Wonderful, soft ship with a deep conflict of Damian's humanity and Micolash's curiosity and confidence.

Am I shipping anything else? With such passion - no. But in general, I like Laurence/Ludwig, Caryll/Rom, recently one nice person helped me realize the potential of Micolash/Adeline and I am kinda hmmmmm interested? XD I need more time to think of it. I met this pairing earlier but was like "pppft they couldn't even met!", don't blame me :'D

I respect all pairings, if they have something like plot in them. It’s especially nice to see when an artist or writer is truly devoted to his favorite couple and describes it with soul, it just makes you look at the couple from a different angle and start scrutiny.

[apathysack]

Life Update: New Pet Rat

Life update cause I do have one outside of drawing cats lol.

At the beginning of last month, one of my two pet rats died, leaving me with only one rat. I work full time so I didn't want to leave my poor remaining baby all by herself so I had to hunt for another girl rat right away, which is not easy, because the pet shop only had boys and there are no rescues anywhere nearby.

However, the reptile store had feeders, so I took my chances, and it's been... ugh.

On one hand, as a friend of mine put it, it was like Jelly (my passed baby) had died so two little ones could live and not become snake food... On the other, I have a bone to pick with this reptile store.

The reptile store gave me the creeps. I'm not scared of snakes, but the cages were TINY, and the people there were just... creepy? I had to wait in line while listening to some girl go on and on about how she'd accidentally killed her last lizards because she didn't realize that she had to - get this - TURN THE HEAT LAMP OFF AT NIGHT.

I got two weaned baby girls who were very underfed and thin. (one was tan, and the other albino) I quarantined them, which is good because I discovered they had lice.

My vet said she felt bad for whatever snake had to eat the rodents there if they're that skinny, unhealthy, and vermin infested.

I know snakes have to eat, but this store just does not seem to value any of the lives of the animals in their care. Feeders or not, there's no reason for them to be in the state they were in. It's just fucking cruel.

The vet gave them their first louse treatment, and then a few days later, the tan baby, who I had still been struggling to come up with a name for, suddenly started breathing hard, only to end the night by lying on her side and gasping until she passed away.

Needless to say, I was DEVASTATED, as I've never lost a baby before. In all my years of having pet rats, I've only had them die as adults, and it felt like I'd failed her. I'd had this idea that I had rescued them to live a long, happy life with the love they deserved, only for them to really just die at my home as though it was inevitable and their fate had been sealed from the start.

Thankfully, the white baby, whose name is Marshmallow (mello for short), is doing great and has not only gained weight and lost most of the lice (some nits are still being stubborn), but she's super into me and gives me kisses on my fingers and on my face, so I think she's going to be fine. I called her Mello because she seemed super chill, but turns out she was quiet and subdued because she felt like crap. Now she's feeling good she'd a rambunctious little menace who wants to go go GO.

I just feel bad that she's stuck in a small cage by herself until these stupid lice clear up, and I feel equally bad for Jam (my remaining old lady) that she still has to be by herself all day. But this is temporary and I hope they'll get to be with each other soon.

[facade]

danganronpa licker fappy havoc, fapper danganronpa 2 and. ndrv3

THH was definitely a great game all on it's own and i really enjoyed it as a kid. i'd probably replay it again to see if nostalgia wiped the quality clean for me. however, i never stuck around for the characters and i could only joke about how pretty byakuya was for so long lol, i think i just enjoyed the game, rather than being attached to the characters. fukawa and syo were funny asf. byakuya was a bitch. ishimaru and owada were also amusing, and naegi was. ok lol just a boy... i liked celeste a lot, but overall i really kind of appreciated the cast for the most part. i was fine with anything.

my playthrough of sdr2 will probably remain unfinished for a while. i liked the cast a little more, although i was less neutral and some parts of the cast were a little more irrelevant to me than the others. i didn't care about souda or ibuki orr mahiru much even if they were cute to the eye. and i really didn't care much for peko and fuyuhiko either, but to be fair they've been soured by some weird fuck a few years back. i don't think they're my thing anyways, so i can't expect i'll ever be convinced.

but i did like mikan (her horny gimmicks tickled me. i'm predictable and i liked her outcome) and i did like saionji and the two's miserable banter. i love a miserable girl and a cruel girl, etc, etc, whatever. twogami was also fun, albeit shortlived. and i very much liked sonia for being a white girl. i dont feel anything for komaeda, not positive or negative. i thought his crazed girl sprites were funny. umm, but i did stop playing around mechamaru's chapter and never found the culprit. i'll probably... ah, get back to the sdr2 playthrough. it's iconic to me through scene danganronpa. Scene hajime. thanks.yeah, may that artist rest in pieces.

ultra despair girls, i looked into it, tried a few playthroughs even to see if i could buy it but unfortunately i don't think it really interests me right now lol, mmaaaybeee my favorite would be monaca or fukawa... not sure, but it's probably not even on the backburner. i think the way i'll only ever play it is an impulse at 3 am if i ever somehow manage to get my hands on it for free. otherwise i don't really think it's too worth it

unfortunately nothing from the other games will probably get to me as some of the characters in v3 did, as i feel like while danganronpa 1, in my original 2013 playthrough, was iconic, fresh, and overall an adventure - it feels like V3 is essentially it's own little game. well, it Issss. i think it's kodaka's biggest troll but i kind of enjoyed the whole thing and never stopped. um, well, i kind of hoped momota would die a slow painful death from the start but other than that i genuinely enjoyed the majority of the cast and got attached to almost everyone's story. i latched hard onto akamatsu, yumeno, shinguuji, and shirogane especially. the localization is the worst thing about the game IN MY OPINION OOPS ddddon't really give a fuck for people who think it was the worst i liked it so much. prologue, chapter 1 chapter 3 and chapter 4 and the ending were my faaaavorite parts. himiko's meltdown was like one of my favorite scenes. i maxed out all of shinguuji's hangout sessions and fell in wuv, etc. himiko, tsumugi and kokichi were all wonderful funny too. i liked all the gimmicks, the extras, literally everything. the ending wasn't so much of an issue but that may be because i wasn't too attached for the original 'danganronpa' with the special character exceptions being junko and mukuro, lol.

I kind of am considering playing kodaka's new project even if i expect it might be a little ridiculous.. i had fun with his prankgame

[daemon-in-my-head]

Eh fuck it. Oc lore cuz I wanna (I'm sorry).

Sooo, my lil gremlin Elli has a bunch of names. Obv, Elli being one of them and the one I too use most frequently, but alas, it's just an alias.

His actual given name is Fionnlagh, nickname used to be Fine. Me being me tho, those names all have a distinct meaning, and those meanings tell that story of what's going on with him.

Fionnlagh means white warrior, pure knight, that sorta shit. It's the name that was mainly used when he was still a kid, pre-Bhaal and everything. Yk, that time when he trained to join a Paladin order cuz he wanted the ability to protect his family properly.

After daddy dearest intervened however, he discarded that name and he didn't pick up his new alias immediately. My guy was kinda trapped in the shadow fell for a while, and the Shadarkai who adopted him there gave him the name Ellifain. It's inspired by another elf that was hellbent on getting revenge on someone (who was their saviour unbeknownst to them) and died in the name of said revenge. The nickname Elli developed thx to a certain tyrant's intervention, and as such, he's also the only one who uses it. The name Elli in and of itself means torch, the light you're searching for, blinding light, that kinda shit. After all he is the solution Gortash was looking for.

Now as for his final name, Fine, that was a nickname his family had used. Gortash knows his full name but buddy didn't even bother remembering so eh. Anyway. Fine means end in Italian. In music it refers to the point where movement ceases. My boy is the kid of a bard so that's how that ties together, and well, he died to reclaim that name so it fits. It's also the primary name he uses post-epilogue. And since I adore tragedies, the people who would eventually die at his hands calling him the end is the cosmic irony I so enjoy.

The last name, Starym, is the name of an old and pretty much ruined noble elven house that, at the point where BG3 takes place, has been pretty much forgotten. The noteworthy part about that family, however is that they owned an enchanted sword, which had the tiny downside that anyone who wielded it and wasn't of chaotic good alignment would go mad. The house hadn't found a wielder for the sword for a while before its ruin and everyone who tried went mad which ended up sealing the houses fate. And apparently even the adopted descendants share a similar fate but I won't get to spoilery bout that. Yet. Give me another 2 weeks lol.

Oh also the cult, Sarevok and Orin never once refer to him by any of his names. Pre Tadpole the name he used for any sort of business dealings and the one that was known to the Patriars he definitely didn't blackmail frequently was Ellifain, after all it is a common elven name so nobody batted an eye. He avoided revealing any sort of last name, instead insisting everyone used the first name and to appear more 'open' and giving ppl a sense of a close relationship. Alas, to bad all of them were simply funds to him.

Feel free to ask shit about him cuz I definitely don't have the most elaborate backstory you've ever seen for him and love talking about the bitch, nah I'd never. He's not my beloved brain child.

[houseofpurplestars]

lol doing my rewatch out of order but thats okay

The way Max is in full trauma survivor mode in Vault 4. He's suspicious of people being nice to them. Suspicious of people smiling. He straight up tries to tell Lucy, "when people are nice..." and I just know this was going to be something like, "they're probably trying to hurt/trick you" and Max, baby, I feel you

Coop's response to Charlie when he says "fiduciary responsibility" really highlights his privilege here. He's more or less like no I'm too pretty for big words. Between this and the hot tub scene it really gets driven home how Coop is pretty clueless and Barb probably takes care of like EVERYTHING... and I mean, that tracks. He's a white man, to him his greatest worries are his creature comforts. She's a Black woman trying to survive in racist capitalism so...yeah she's more involved with everything than he is. The stakes are so much fucking higher for her.

In the hot tub scene I just see her STRUGGLING like she WANTS to just tell him the truth, but instead she says "vault-tec exists with or without me," which basically means, "bad shit is gonna happen no matter what and I'm trying to put us on the winning side of it" but Coop is too invested in his naivete to hear the truth. She really knows he's not going to hear it when he keeps harranging her about leaving vault-tec. I also think Barb saying they'll "get Janey a job in payroll when she's 15" can be an indicator that Janey is still in the vault tec system somewhere.

The way this no dogs in the vault convo goes omfg. When Coop like some good ol boy says "I want to know about my freedom" you can see the kill bill sirens on Barb. On the word freedom she has this look like "this white man did not just say that to me." When he starts talking about "I didn't go to war blah blah blah" she is about to murder him GET HIM BARB (like cmon he didn't go to war for freedom he went to war for the american colony like everyone else)

She says, "you don't get it. That is the best we can hope for" (getting into the management vault.) He does NOT get it. He does NOT know that existential fear like a Black woman does, he does NOT know how to settle for less or make hard decisions. That's not the life he wants. I'm sure Coop would be happy for them all to die on their little ranch in Bakersfield (which Barb has a VERY interesting reaction when he mentions) but that's not enough for Barb. She's doing all this work. She just needs him to trust her and get with the program so she can handle this.

This scene is really heartbreaking because you can see how they are on different planets. To Barb, this shit is urgent. She knows what vault tec is doing. To Coop, he's still in that place of like, I think, kind of reminds me a little how people are about the pandemic like, "I don't want to think about that," or "that won't happen" or "whatever it will be fine" and that is NOT GOOD ENOUGH for Barb. She needs to be in control of SOMETHING that can help her save her family. She knows too goddamn much.

I really am so like confused at the way fandom is confused about Barb. I see so many people saying they just don't understand where she's coming from but I'm just like UH HELLO?

[ghostjelliess]

Cinderella's sassy ass

I'm reading this German version of Aschenputtel and first of all, it's her mom's money. Her dad comes back with a new wife and she doesn't mind cus that's normal, but then they're all just spending all the money and she's getting more stressed as they're dismissing servants. Like, this family has a pidgin coop big enough for a whole person to hide in (it's Cinderella who hides there lol). Anyway, daddy dearest is going to the festival with the boys and asks what they want. Playing into his fantasy charade, the first step sister says jewels and pearls, the second says pretty dresses, and he turns to Cinderella, who has become their maid out of necessity and irritation, refusing to spend her dead mother's money outside the first year of mourning, says the equivalent of "oh, father remembers me? Oh father, a stick, bring me a stick and I shall be happy, the first stick you see, that will be enough for me (...to beat myself to death with because y'all are stupid and we're gonna starve)."

So he goes to the festival for like, actual days, while Cindy-relly cares for the entire estate alone. Her clothes are scrubs, she cooks and cleans and preserves food and plants the garden and is trying her best not to die within the same year as her forgotten mother, while her father dances through the festival with his fellow Rich BrosTM, refusing to listen to her lectures about fiscal responsibility and basically agreeing with the whole family that she's just such a debbie-downer ughhhh gross. So on his way home with his trunks of dresses and jewels, a branch AT THE GATE OF THE HOUSE hits his hat and he's like "oh shiiiiiiit, I forgot about my little Ash-sweeper, damn. Good thing there's sticks everywhere, phew." He breaks off the branch and calls them all down and presents the ridiculous outfits to his new daughters and wife and literally hands Cinderella the branch like "here... you wanted this. I don't know why but you said..." *shakes entire tree limb at her*

Cinder-soot gapes at them all, but takes her new pet with an awkward "an avocado... thaaaaaaaanks..." and sticks it in a vase while chatting with her BFF birds and watching her house fall apart. There's only so much she can do, and boy howdy she's tired of doing it alone. When the hazelnut branch has roots, she goes to plant it on her mother's grave and it grows super fast. These two white doves take up residence in the tree as her leveled-up bird best friends because they get to eat magical hazelnuts that fed on her mom's rotting corpse, but we're just going to brush over that. They live in the pidgin house and grant her wishes and make cleaning way easier, so it's fine.

So the king throws another festival, or whatever, and all the eligible maidens must come. Cinderella is an eligible maiden, she follows rules, she must go. Step-mom agrees, she should go, but ohhhhhh noooooo, I spilled this dish of ash and lentils, you have to pick it all up before you can go. Cinderalla is an eligible maiden who follows all the rules, she must pick up the ash and sort the lentils before she can go. She starts to panic-sing and the birds come help her get all the bits back into the plate. She skips into the room and present her step-mother (who she is bound by household rules and propriety to follow the orders of), excited that she can go. Step-mother takes the dish, genuinely impressed, somewhat confused, and maybe a little concerned, and right in cindy-boo-boo's face, drops it again, "oh shoot... I'm so clumsy... there's no way you'll be ready in time now."

Cinderella is a one-task-minded kind of person though, and she's really set her heart on following the orders of the king, so she starts panic crying a second time, and again, the birds help just like day-one ghosts of her mom should. This time, she runs out with the plate to find her family getting in the carriage to go and her dad waves with a shrug, frowning "you don't have anything nice to wear anyway, kiddo. You wanted that stick, remember? Besides, you can't dance, you'll embarrass us."

What a saint, what a guy, what a special center-fold feature of Daddy Issues.

So she cries by the grave of her mom, by the special magic tree, because they're right. She can't go, she's breaking the law, she's going to be outcasted before she even enters society, stuck as their maid forever. If she tries to join next season, they'll ask where she was at the King's orders, and they'll know she's a Bad Person who doesn't follow the rules, or she'll be killed!

The tree interrupts her pity party, dropping a whole gold and silver ball gown and shoes and the birds chirp. She gets ready and runs to join the festival in town. Her family sees her and thinks she's a foreign princess; the prince sees her and dances with her, and refuses to dance with anyone else because if he let go of her hand, surely another would take it. Another prince tries to cut in while they're chatting and taking a break and our Prince steps in front of her and says "she is my partner."

Ashy-soot-foot got tired and wanted to go home and the Prince says he'll walk her there, he wants to see where such a pretty lady lives, and she laughs and walks for a while, but when they get too close, she hikes up her skirt and sprints away, jumping into the pidgin house while the prince is turned away. The magic birds take her dress and she jumps out the other entrance of the roost and darts inside.

The Prince is left lingering at the wall of their estate, confused, wondering if she was a ghost, when the family arrive. The Prince asks Daddy Darling who lives there, and broski introduces his family, but the Prince describes his Perfect Woman, and the family laughs and says there is only what's-her-face inside. They're all pretty wasted, so they get a bunch of axes and hatches and Papa and Prince literally chop down the pidgin house until they're sure no one is inside. The family enter to find Cinderella at the fire, reading or whatever not-like-other-Girls do and fall into their beds after making fun of her for being malnourished and super-short. The birds do not like this, they start to attack, but ya'girl has had a long day, calling them off.

The next day the same thing happens, but she doesn't whine to join them. She waits for the fam to leave, then runs to the tree and asks for a dress and gets an even prettier one. Skipping to the festival and looking for her charming stalker Prince like a creep, she is happy to see him pouty and glowering at a line of friends pushing him to dance, refusing to have fun or dance with any of them until he sees her. He asks her to dance and again, throughout the whole night, refuses to let anyone else cut in, claiming each time "that's my partner" until they backed off. Again, she got tired and wanted to go home, but this time, he walks her back and follows very closely, keeping a careful eye. But once again, Cindy-swiftfoot gets away, because it's her house and the birds like her and she knows all the secret spots. They're just strolling down a road together, when suddenly, she jumps the low wall, dodges through the kitchen garden of herbs and bushy vegetables, and scampers up into a pear tree as light as a squirrel and the Prince blinks "wondering what became of her" (which means either he lost her again cus it was dark and they're probs drunk OR, my preferred interpretation, he saw her climb the tree and wondered if she was like... a tree-person, or a fairy, or something, just watching her from the garden gate cus it's rude to trespass even though he's a Prince).

Again, the father came home, and drunk papa and prince cut down the tree until they were certain there was no one trapped in it. C-Daddy explains that Cinderella isn't really social, she's like, ugh, responsible and stuff, she would never go to a festival. One time he offered to get her a dress with her dead-mom's fortune and all she wanted was a stupid stick, what a prude.

Cinderella, meanwhile, had either left her dress in the tree for the birds to carry away and jumped down on the other side, in the dark, no longer glittering, so the Prince didn't see her come down, OR used the tree to climb into her room and that's just not something girls in pretty dresses do, so they cut down the tree and probably ate pears for weeks looking for the girl they thought was hiding there. Dad, step-mom, and sisters pop in, all curious and swaying to, once again, find Ashy-Ash putzing around the fireplace, reading or sewing or darning socks or whatever DIY nonsense of the day kept their house standing.

Finally, on the last day of the festival, 'Drella waits for them to leave, goes to the hazelnut grave, and pulls out a dress of moonlight and wonder (which we are assured does come from the magic birds and the hazelnut tree, she is NOT pilfering the grave goods of her dead princess-mom). She goes to the festival and meets her Prince for her last day, because the house won't last, and the king's orders were only for the festival, but it's nice to feel wanted each time he starts a new dance with her; it's nice to be spoken to as an equal, as someone with thoughts and dreams and goals and not the scourge of Satan ruining all the fun. The night ends and the Prince goes to walk her home, but her plan to escape him on the final day is just to sprint as fast as she can away from him. It works, because she is small but stupid-fast. She rushes past him in a blur, already too far ahead to catch, and the Prince sighs, absolutely smitten.

But he's not dumb. He knew she would run, and he knew the vague direction she would go, since he'd walked her almost-home twice. He had coated the alley stairs in pitch to stop her from running away, and it also works. Cinderella's foot gets stuck in the sticky mess, but, unexpectedly to the royal Prince, but second nature to the rowdy keeper-of-all-things Aschenputtel, she just steps out of the shoe, leaving it behind. This is ridiculous, people don't walk barefoot, they don't leave golden shoes behind! But already she is gone and the stubborn Prince has only a conjured shoe left behind.

The next day he goes to Cinderella's father's house with the shoe. She lives there somewhere, three times she disappeared on their property. He pounds on the door and says he will marry the beautiful woman who lives there and fits the shoe, right now! The vicar is in the car waiting, let's go, bring her out!

Taking the shoe, the step-mother retreats to her daughters' room, holding the shoe out to the eldest as they all giggled about their luck. But the shoe was too small, and even though they were very proud of their beautiful feet (because Cinder-foot did all the walking), the step-mother tells her to cut off her pinky toe so the shoe fits, when she's queen, she'll never have to walk anyway. She does, happily, and the Prince, confused but convinced by the shoe, reluctantly walks her to his horse, ready to ride all the way to the castle.

But those meddling birds, absolutely hating the sisters, start crying and picking at her feet, until the Prince sets chivalry aside enough to look at what all the fuss is about, and finds her foot bleeding all up in his precious shoe, gross! He stomps back to the house, tosses her in, and tells them to try again. The step-mother convinces the second sister to cut off a slice of her heel to fit the shoe, and again, the Prince believes them and walks her to his horse, lifting her up and riding past the grave, until the birds attack her feet before they reach the gate, and he finds his mysterious maiden's golden shoe scarlet and ruined with their blood. He turns the horse around and rides directly up to the door, pushing the sister off, "this is the wrong one. I'll let you try one more time." It is a threat, and the father hears it.

The father stutters forward, confused and hungover and annoyed that all they have to eat are pears, still trying to find whoever cut down his pidgin coop, points to his wife and step-daughters, "these are the only people here. There are no servants. My last wife left a daughter, but she's a runt, it's impossible you met her, she's tiny and ugly, and doesn't know how to have fun. She doesn't go to festivals, and one time I asked her what she wanted, like a dress, or a trinket, or a mirror, and all she wanted was a--"

"A stick, yes, you said." The Prince narrows his eyes down at the father, sighing with a snap of his fingers, "bring her out."

"Oh, no way, she's all dirty. Covered in dirt and ash and gross." The entire family tries to explain at once, "it would be far too embarrassing to present her to you, your royal highness."

The Prince smiles stiffly, glancing at the ruined shoe sitting in a bloody puddle on the stoop, resting his hand on the sword at his hip while even his beloved horse rolls its eyes. But they really don't want to bring her out, so he finally sighs and dismounts, boots creaking, "it's an order."

Cinderella's sisters drag her through the kitchen, doing their best to trip her and cover her in dust and flour as they wrangle her to the door, explaining that it was a prince's orders. Humiliated at her appearance covered in sweat and dirt and dough, dirt under her nails, her hair still greasy from the night before, wooden clogs on from weeding the dewy herb garden, Cinderella digs her heels in, wiping her face on her apron, cleaning herself up as much as she can while the sisters laugh at her. They toss her in front of the Prince, sending her jolting into his chest as she leaps over the stark red shoe, her wooden clogs thudding loudly off her small feet.

Eager not to be tricked a third time, the Prince ignores chivalry and points to the shoe, urging her to try it on without getting excited. She slides her foot in, revealing a perfect fit (OR pulls out her own golden slipper which she'd kept as a keepsake), and the Prince, not quite ready to believe anyone yet, scoops her into a dance, spinning her around the yard and then into a hug, proclaiming that this is the right one, this is his maiden! He knows her despite the rags and dirt, and she could definitely whoop all they asses in a run and if they don't let them go in peace. He will make them race for the title. The two step-sisters, profusely bleeding from their open wounds, stop holding her back and the Prince pulls her onto his horse, probably flipping off the father, as the birds soar above them as they leave the house. As they passed the grave, the hazel bush wilts in a final farewell, the last of the magic used up, her mother finally at peace with Cinderella's freedom.

The day of their wedding arrives and Cinderella sits like a queen in her chariot as she is paraded through the city toward the church, every bit as splendid as her mother once was, back straight and proud, the white birds perched on each shoulder. As her mother's fortune was squandered the minute she left the house, her step-sisters jump at her, desperate to curry favor, for if she only recognized them publicly, they could be the sisters of the Princess. The eldest step-sister limps on her right side, the youngest on her left, but Cinderella does not greet them. They reach for her, enraged, and the birds on her shoulder each pecked at at eye; Aschen-Put-Your-Eye-Out does not call them off. The screaming sisters let go as the procession approaches the church.

After the ceremony, Cin-D-rella emerges with her new husband, and again, her step-sisters lunge forward, demanding the recognition of the Prince and Princess, the crowd surging around them in confusion. The Prince looks at his new wife's stony expression and shrugs beside her "I've never seen these people in my life." The guards move in to drag the sisters away, but before they can, the ghost-birds peck out their other eye in repayment for all the apologies they owed. Cinderella waltzes easily down the cathedral steps beside her Prince, smiling at all the ways they might make their kingdom better economically, the Prince joking that he might not be able to catch her if she runs away again, but his horse could... probably, and the family that took advantage of the only responsible person in their party was left to suffer the rest of their lives in all the ways they'd once mocked Cinderella, stooped short and streaked with dirt.