#but i'm going to chalk up the last few times as the lil boy having achy teeth. he lost one recently! he's growing up ;A;

[merrilark]

I!!! Am so happy that it seems me and my kitten have begun to understand how to communicate with each other. It feels so good to finally reach these milestones; I was so nervous that I was doing something wrong and that we’d just keep frustrating each other forever lol but!! It’s getting better.

Owning a cat is such a good lesson in consent, patience, and respect.

[vaguely-concerned]

watched the end of the ruination animated short

and you know what? YOU KNOW WHAT? Graves was there being very handsome, he had maybe the one line of dialogue that was genuinely entertaining in the whole thing (and that could very easily be interpreted as some ~*light homoerotic subtext*~ if one had a mind to, which of course I do), there was absolutely no more weirdness with him and Vayne at all (like a bro Akshan jumped on that shitty grenade, thank you Akshan you're a real one) -- considering how things have been going lately, I'm gonna chalk this one up as a win, my friends hahaha. I'm just going to post some screenshots of him being beautiful, because there's basically nothing else substantive to be gained from this short other than knowing that at least it's over now. Oh boy.

I'm going to assume that cigar is there because TF is not right now in a position to give him a Look about it

A lil angry block of a man and I for one love him very much even though this event has brought little except misery to anyone

Frame by framing my way through this (only the Graves parts tho I'm not crazy) I noticed that Akshan is actually coming over to check if Graves is okay here! (He's resting his hand on the shotgun and leans in to make eye contact, it reads better in motion.) Aw <3 Like I said, Akshan is a bro

"Don't nobody around here own a shirt?"

First of all this was the only line in this whole thing that inspired any kind of genuine emotion in me (it got a whole laugh-snort lol), and secondly Malcolm. Malcolm why is 'there sure are a lot of shirtless men around me right now' your takeaway from this situation (WE KNOW WHY even if depending on the emotional storyline we go with he may not understand why himself quite yet lmao)

Fun little animation/characterization detail: when he notices Akshan is gone, he actually gives a wide-eyed little dismayed look at first, like he's honestly worried that Akshan took it as an insult before he gets more annoyed hahaha

honestly his (teeny tiny) moments in this feel more right characterization-wise than all the visual novel stuff put together (though if that's not damning with faint praise...)

at least this was nice, right?! ;________; man, I hope these two get another chance in some years with much better writing when they decide to do something focused on taking down thresh, they deserve so much better than they got this event

Graves' reaction in the background to them reuniting is SO GODDAMN SWEET tho

He's smiling at them like that because he knows what it's like to get back to the person you love again after such a long time and he's thinking about how he's going to sweep TF's scrawny ass up in a bear hug and kiss him silly once stuff has settled properly and he can get out the blue card to teleport right back to him. Ssssh trust me I am right about this (or at least more right about anything than Riot have been this whole event, as low a bar as that is. Aaah no I will not stop bathing in this salt I have earned every grain)

These last few moments where he seems to react to Gwen talking to him are really cute too. He has such tremendous, like... Big Warm Safe Gay Uncle vibes in this one and it's wonderful, where the fUCK was this at any point during the vn??

And now... to sit back and watch the circus of how Riot will try to salvage any of this, this should be entertaining because my heart is blackened and deadened to whatever bullshit they throw at me now