#i think its because of a lack of communication skills that its hard for me to find connection/make friends that i rlly like and etc

[wakanai]

.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

I know it would probably bring a lot of hate comments but I am begging you to roast the hazbin character designs because I'd love to have someone properly articulate why they don't work so I could send it to people who won't believe me when I tell them. 🫠 Understandable if you don't want to get into it though.

I don't think there's that much there to roast, honestly?

Those designs are clearly an extremely specific stylistic choice, and because that style is consistent throughout the show, it ultimately feels coherent with itself.

There are trade-offs being made. Because Hazbin's design style is SO stylized and so heavy on decoration and detailing, because it puts a lot of emphasis on costuming, it isn't as good at communicating specific character storytelling as a more grounded style could be (it's kind of the same tradeoff that stuff like Genshin Impact makes).

Like, why does Sir Pentious' hat have an eye and a mouth on it that makes its own expressions? Apparently not for very much reason at all, except that Pentious has a bit of an eyes-motif going on in his design and it was one more place to put an extra eye. And that's a valid criticism of his design, but also the entire show is designed like that, so frankly it would be weirder and more out of place if his design alone didn't have that kind of overelaborate decoration going on.

It does create a situation where I have a hard time "reading" the character designs sometimes. For example, Vox, Alastor and Pentious all wear a similar style of suit with upwards-turned shoulders, butterflies and pinstripes. Now, am I meant to read that as Vox imitating Alastor due to his crippling need to replace and outdo him, and Pentious imitating the style of powerful Overlords because he thinks that possessing their level of power will finally give him relief from his paranoia and self-loathing?

Or is it just a design fixation of the creator who keeps putting their characters in suits because that's just what they like? I can't really be sure, because sometimes design elements are used to intentionally tell stories about how characters relate to themselves, their world and one another, but plenty of other times designs look the way they do Because Of Vibes.

But again, that lack of clarity is clearly an intentional trade-off - and the benefit of that trade-off is a design style that is extremely varied, wild, expressive and memorable. Hazbin Hotel seems like a very easy show to draw fanart of, and a very fun show to draw fanart of. Those designs (especially the hyper-expressive faces) are begging to be the subjects of traumatic headcanons, unbearably cotton-candy soft fluff fantasies and weird, taboo, homoerotic power dynamics. Slaps roof of character design, this bad boy can express so much vicarious emotional intensity.

It's very exuberant, very excited about itself and very self-indulgent, it's a style that prioritizes visual impact and visual interest over readability (something which the animators of the show navigate with real skill, props to them) and individual aesthetics over worldbuilding.

And I don't blame anyone for being turned off by that (I certainly was the first time I started seeing those designs going around), but I would struggle to call the show's designs "bad" when they are clearly achieving exactly what they want to achieve.

I have some criticisms, especially re: how the show treats skinny bodies as an unquestioned, desirable default, and employs fatness as a means of alienating and abjecting the audience. That sucks very badly, and is a serious disappointment, and one of the few places where the show feels like it is being cowardly in its design philosophy. But I don't have it in me to do some kind of Hazbin Hotel Sucks And Here's Why takedown, its problems are not unique or extreme enough to warrant it, at least not as I currently understand them.

[wszczebrzyszynie]

sorry for the train ride… I hope the destination is at least interesting. I would LOVE to hear more about Przemek… he’s one of my absolute faves and I would honestly love to hear anything about him… maybe what inspired you to make him? or how he feels about his sexuality? or maybe his ethnicity (which I remember you saying you didn’t really have an answer for, but maybe you could talk about possible ideas you’ve had for it or how it affects his personality/how people treat him)

Nothing to be sorry for. i love trains. But it is a long trip with nothing but my phone and one book. Well not anymore im in Gdańsk now

Any way this is fun Przemek is one of my favourites as well. I created him because i wanted Ryba to have more friends, so he was very much a side/background character that i learned to love very much very quickly. Im not even sure why. Design wise there were plenty of inspirations... mainly the unbread twins from omori (which i think is where Lena came from as well and it shows), Artur from parties are for losers and Norton IDV (hence the scar... in the first draft Przemek was also a miner so it was very much my Norton at home). He used to be the straight man to Rybas whole... being at that time. They used to be childhood friends but Przemek was the smarter and more of a loner of the two. Tried looking for some old art of him but couldnt find much

Sexuality wise hes mostly in denial. He doesnt like thinking of himself as queer and doesnt want to be considered a part of the community, which affects the way he treats others (initial embarrasement to be seen with Ryba or Mikita, who are either visibly queer or just simply stand out; he grows out of it as the story progresses) and later on shapes his relationship with Ryba (mostly his struggles with being vunreable and opening up mixed with a very crushing need to be normal; he tends to force himself to do things he doesnt really want but thinks will be either for the ultimate greater good or just to be able to lie to himself more, either harming himself or Ryba in the process. Communication is a skill they both are learning as they go but it is a hard one)

And exact ethnicity wise I Dont Know. Well i mean he is polish ethnically and culturally but he does have darker skin from back where the story was set in a fictional dystopian world and i never figured out how to make it work with the background he has in current more historically grounded DNS. Most probably will never know until it just dawns on me one day. In the original DNS story hes simply "from here" (as is the case with most of the characters) and it doesnt really shape his experience as much as his class and upbringing does; hes catholic, he speaks polish, his family are peasants and hes a working man. In modern au its a different case that i dont know how to resolve and he does have a different experience with it; i dont like being cruel to my characters, especially with things i dont have personal experiences with, but i do know my country pretty well, so i can imagine some of the hardships he has to go through. It definitely can be a stress factor; hes a shy, slightly anxious person (which he doesnt even realize that he is? Second nature), so "standing out" and possible conftontations that can come with looking different in a relatively middle sized nowhere town is something he had to learn how to ignore throughout his life. I will finish this by saying i think it would be funny if it turned out some of his ancestors are from the old yugoslavia but not to explain anything just because i think at some point he used to be half balkan (and also many other slavic identites) . No clue from where exactly and it wouldnt affect him at all. Normal thing in lower silesia but he is from the other side of the country. Sadly. Bit of a lacking response hope you can forgive me for that

[dfortrafalgar]

Looooooved ILY! Kudos! It was chair-gripping, tear drenching, rot your teeth fluffy and a bunch of other things in between! Brava! 🥰

If you're still accepting requests (I don't know if you have already been flooded by messages or not) I would like a story about being part of the Kid Pirates but reader is in a really sour mood because it's the anniversary of readers's parents death (you can make up a story if you'd like) and reader disobeys a direct order from him and, to top it off, reader talks back at him in front of the crew, earning the reader a severe punishment (up to you). Eventually Kid finds out why reader's mood is so sour and tries to talk it out except Kid can't be soft and that just makes things more awkward. Could be SFW, could be NSFW, I'm leaving all this up to you. And the ending as well because I only got that far. I hope you like the idea and get excited.

I love your work! ❤️🥰 Thank you for sharing your talent.

HI ANON!!! thank you so much for your request and your super kind words over IMLY, that means so much to me!!!! i know i keep saying this but yall make me smile every single day when i log onto tumblr and see your messages <3

I also really loved writing this request! i really love Kid, but i also wanna kick his ass on the playground if that makes sense, and i think that sentiment came through in my writing ;w; I hope you like it!!! and thank you again!!! (Also, i kept the reason for your parents' death ambiguous, because i know some people (myself included) read fics with their ocs in mind, so you're free to fill in the vagueness with your own personal ideas if you want!)

Feeling Overhaul

Eustass Kid x Fem Reader

The anniversary of your parents' death always leaves you feeling shallow, but your boyfriend's lack of social and situational awareness crops up to make your day even worse.

Warnings: SFW, hurt/comfort, reader being understandably upset, descriptions of an argument with some veeeeery slight verbal abuse, once again hurt/comfort, hurt/comfort. communication is key loves

Your sour mood had been steadily building over the last few days, but your sorrow reached its peak on the last day of the week, according to the barely legible crew calendar that was based off of when the messenger coos arrived with the weekly paper.  It was a day you despised thinking about, the memories associated with the day leaving your throat tight, an uncomfortable malaise in the pit of your stomach.

All things considered, you thought you were doing a decent job at keeping your emotions in check while performing your usual duties on the Victoria Punk.  The bow of the deck needed a thorough scrubbing, a few spots in the walls of the crow’s nest needed repairs from a recent run in with a smaller, weaker pirate crew, and a few secondary sails needed their holes patched up.  It was a perfect day to distract yourself from your woes.  Drowning your discontent in your work had become quite a valuable skill.

Until you slipped on the soap that lathered the hard wood of the bow and fell flat on your ass.  When trying to stand, your hands gave out under you and you hit the deck once more, one of your crew mates tossing you anxious glances as you struggled to regain your bearings.  Climbing up to the crow’s nest, you were plagued with a sudden wash of grief over the day, so much so that you lost your grip and slipped down the Jacobs ladder, your foot catching on one of the wooden rungs beneath you.  Wire was directly under you, climbing as well to assist with the crow’s nest repairs, and his method of helping you after your slip involved gripping your arm so hard it left a bruise.  You bit back your tears at the pain of your crewmate’s hand around your limb and the humiliation of almost falling 12 feet onto the hard wooden hull, but you once again bit back your shame and finished your arduous climb up.

By the afternoon, word had gotten around the Victoria Punk that your work was lacking, that you were clearly struggling with something, that perhaps you weren’t feeling well.  When it finally got around to Captain Eustass Kid, who doubled as your beloved partner, he was less than pleased.

The last thing he wanted to do was deal with your emotions, and the last thing you wanted to do was deal with his abrasive, apathetic attitude.

“Care to explain why the hell the entire crew has caught you slacking off today?” he demanded, thundering toward you in one of the upper corridors of the ship’s hull.  You were still returning some of the tools you had used to patch up the ship’s sails when he accosted you in the hallway.  It was almost dinner hour, and many of the crew were bustling through the same corridors finishing their afternoon tasks before meal time.

“What?” you snapped back, caught off guard by his threatening question.

“Don’t ‘What’ me.  Why have you been tripping and falling everywhere?  What kind of joke are you trying to play?”  His face was angry, livid even, not granting you even one second to explain your plight.

Your eyebrows furrowed.  “I’m not trying to bumble around the boat like an idiot.  I’m just not feeling well and haven’t been able to focus.”

Kid scoffed.  “Then get over it.”

Perhaps you were being irrational, but at the same time, you had officially had enough of the entire day.  You dropped your supplies on the floor around your feet, heat radiating off of your body in waves.  “What did you just say to me?”

Your captain bent down to be at your level, which was insulting to your current state.  “Get.  Over.  It.”

Anger boiled in your lungs, lighting your heart on fire, blinding the corners of your vision with a fuzzy white light.  You tried to turn your back to him and escape down the corridor, but yelped when Kid grabbed your wrist and pulled you back toward him.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong with you?” he asked.  He really couldn’t control the sound of his voice, regardless of his current emotion, and the volume of his shouts filling the space made your body tense up in fear.  Eyes watching the scene unfold around you widened.

Around the corner behind Kid’s back, Killer darted forward, alerted to the sounds emanating from the narrow passage.  “Kid, chill out!”

“Are you going to care about me any more if I tell you?” you demanded back, trying to pull your wrist away from his grip.  His flesh hand held firm, however, almost burning your skin.  He shrugged Killer’s own hand off of his shoulder forcefully, completely ignoring his friend’s plea to calm himself somewhat.

Kid rolled his eyes.  “It better be damn important if it’s got you almost falling off of the Jacobs ladder.”

You steeled yourself, sucking in an uneasy breath and facing your stubborn partner head on.  “Today’s the anniversary of my parents’ death.  I’ve never been able to feel alright when I think about them.”

There was a brief, uncomfortable silence that floated between the two of you, the air in the hallway thrumming with a suffocating tension.  Kid’s grip finally relaxed on your wrist, allowing you to yank it away and rub your sore skin.  His red-painted lips finally parted, and all he graced your ear drums with was, “That’s it?”

Your heart dropped.  “What do you mean ‘that’s it’?”

“Parents die all the time.  What makes today so different?”  His narrow eyes were back to their scathing glare.

At this point, however, you had had enough.  You were practically shaking with a barely contained rage of your own as you stepped closer to your captain and spat in his face, causing him to stagger backward, giving you enough space to let your emotions bubble outward.  “I don’t have to tell you shit if you’re going to talk to me like that!  In front of the entire crew?!  Just because you’re my captain doesn’t mean you get the excuse to accost me in the hallway and berate me for slipping a few times.”  You frantically dug through your brain for words to add to your outburst, perhaps asking how he had the sheer gall to have such an attitude toward you despite dropping his walls and being so kind toward you on an average day, but all you could muster in response was, “Fuck you, Kid.”

You stepped away from him, narrowly missing another one of his lunges to get you to stay.  His voice was low and intimidating.  “Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Then don’t tell me that my day of grieving is stupid!  Fuck!  You!” you spat back, finally turning on your heels and sprinting out of his reach, down the hallway and into the ladder well into the lower deck, desperate to get as far away from your captain as possible.  You knew he was prone to struggling with empathy, and kindness had never been one of his strong suits, but to be talked to in such a way, have your feelings belittled after you had almost severely injured yourself as a consequence of your lacking mental health, hurt more than a stab to the liver.

Kid’s burning gaze followed you as you fled, harshly turning on his own heels to slink to the galley and drown his frustrations in whatever liquor the crew had acquired from the last island.  He bumped Killer’s shoulder, forcing the blonde to the side.  The crew watched as their captain rounded the corner out of sight.

---

You didn’t arrive for the dinner call, your usual seat left unfilled and the plate uneaten.  A few crew mates who hadn’t witnessed the explosive scene from an hour ago asked around for your whereabouts, but the only one who bothered to stand up and search for you was Quincy who quickly ate her meal and abandoned the table.

Kid was pounding back alcohol like no one’s business, leading to many a concerned glance.

“Kid,” Killer muttered.  He rested his masked head in his hand, desperate for context at what he had previously run in on.  “What happened?”

“Nothing,” the red-head grumbled, throwing back another mug of golden beer, some of it dribbling down the side of his mouth.

The few straggling crew members who remained around the large dining table shared worried looks.

“It’s clearly not nothing,” Killer countered.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” snapped Kid.  Even at the age of 23, he was still no better than a bratty little child when things didn’t go his way.

Killer dropped the subject with a sigh, the sound escaping the holes in his mask with a subdued hiss.

Quincy, on the other hand, carefully opened the door to the women’s bunk room where she found you, curled on your side on the mattress that used to belong to you when you first joined the Kid Pirates, your face buried in a pillow and your shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

“Darling,” she cooed, silently tapping across the floor to sit on the side of the bed, her gentle hand ghosting over your arm.  “What happened?  Why didn’t you come to dinner?”

The sound of her voice unraveled you from your coil, your tear-stained face and puffy red eyes meeting her concerned stare.  “Kid and I had a fight,” was all you said.

“About?”

You rolled onto your back, clutching the pillow that was thoroughly drenched in your salty tears to your abdomen.  “Today’s the anniversary of my parents’ death, and when Kid asked me what was wrong, he told me, ‘What makes today so different, parents die all the time.’  Like…?” your voice wavered, “Who says that?  And to his girlfriend nonetheless!”

Quincy made a disappointed tsk sound with her tongue, sympathetically rubbing your arm through the sleeve of your shirt.  “Honey, he’s stupid.  But still, he was wrong to speak to you like that.”

You sniffled, wiping some snot from your face with the arm that wasn’t being caressed by your close friend.  “I know… but it still hurts.  I wish he could just… I don’t know… be nicer to me?”

For what it was worth, both of you knew that Kid wasn’t truly ‘stupid.’  He was strong, strategic, and resilient, but when it came to matters of the heart, his brain dwarfed to the size of a peanut.  It was only a matter of getting the headstrong captain to realize how he had truly hurt you.

“Honey, sleep in here for a few nights to get a proper rest, away from him,” Quincy offered, standing up from her seat on your mattress to approach one of the wardrobes, pulling out a comfortable shirt and baggy pants to relax in.  “Let this blow over for a little while, and then you can try to talk it out with him.  We can help if you need it.”

You sat up yourself, gratefully taking the clothing from her arms, a small smile on your lips.  “Thanks, Quin.”

The curly-haired woman left the bunkhouse to let you change, passing by Killer trudging through the hallway, a towel draped over his scarred arm.  “Hey, have you talked to Kid?”

“He’s drunk off his ass right now,” Killer grumbled, dragging his free hand down his mask in a display of exasperation.  “I couldn’t get him to tell me what happened, but he’s gonna be out of it for the rest of the evening.”

Quincy bit the inside of her cheek as she assessed the first mate’s message.  “I’ll tell you.”

---

It had been about three days since the argument Kid had blasted you with in front of your crew mates, your humiliation and anger toward your captain burning a hole into your lungs.  You couldn’t contain your tears for at least six hours after your initial outburst, the grief of losing your parents in the way you had all those years ago now partnered with the anguish of screaming at Kid… and spitting on his face.  The act was so beneath you, and yet.  Dive and Hip, who had seen the argument first-hand, had helped to assure you that you weren’t in the wrong for what you had said, reassuring your stance that Kid was far too intimidating when all he wanted was a simple answer for your strange behavior.

Heat had come to you with a covered plate containing the dinner you had missed, informing you that Kid still had a very poor system of managing his emotions.  While you understood this first hand, being his partner for the better part of a year, you still didn’t believe that was a proper excuse to diminish your emotions in the way he had.

After those three days of your absence, strategically avoiding him at all hours of the day, Kid was fed up.  He needed to talk.  His bed was too empty without you.

Killer told him it would be a bad idea to call you to his quarters, but he did it anyway.  And when your anxious knocking reverberated through the thick wooden door of his cabin, he was quick to call your name and grant you entry.

You stepped in, shutting the door softly behind you, keeping your head low.  Kid stood from his mattress, clearing the floor in broad steps and trying his best to lay on the charm, wrapping his large arm around you and cooing his best, casual greeting, “Hey, babe, I’ve missed you.”

You shrugged yourself away from him, your eyes downcast.  You looked… hollow.  “Did you want something from me, captain?”

Kid felt a foreign pang deep in his chest.  You hadn’t been referring to him as your boyfriend or partner.  Right now, he was strictly ‘captain,’ and that notion left him feeling far too empty and vulnerable for his liking.

Fuck, he wasn’t good at this in any way.

Your gaze bore scorching holes into his own eyes, silently demanding the apology that you knew you deserved to hear from him.  With a deep sigh, Kid turned around and stomped back to his mattress, dropping his head into his hands.

“I didn’t know your parents died,” he blurted.

You stayed quiet.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”  His voice was a low grumble.

You suppressed a scoff.  “How about, ‘Sorry for yelling at you in front of the crew?’  Or, ‘I’m sorry for saying that your feelings don’t matter.’  Something like that, maybe.”  Your voice, in comparison, was eerily level, your time to be physically upset with the situation having expired two days ago.  Now all you were left with was an uncomfortable feeling of unease, a hole in your heart where Kid usually sat now being emptied and replaced with a barren cavern that desperately wished to be occupied by the man you loved once more.

Because you really did love him.  You knew his lifestyle, his behaviors, his tendencies toward cruelty.  And yet, he remained kind toward you.  He allowed you to open up to him and did the same in turn, and he nestled himself perfectly, albeit clumsily, into your life.  You didn’t want to lose that.

Watching as Kid clearly struggled forming those two little words on his tongue was like watching someone perform self-surgery.  His pride had impeded his sense of empathy for so long that the simple notion of apologizing was such an estranged concept for him.

How stunted.

But you held firm, remaining in front of his closed door as he kept his head in his hand, his thick fingers teasing through his slightly greasy red hair.  After what felt like an eternity, he finally picked his head up.  “I’m sorry.”

There it was.

He continued, sucking in a shaky breath.  “I really didn’t know it was the anniversary of your family’s death.  I wish I asked you about it sooner instead of… that.”

You stayed quiet.

“... Instead of yelling at you like that.  And attacking you for something that was out of your control.”  He kept his voice low, as if he was carefully picking out his words from a small bucket inside his thick skull.

After a few uncomfortable moments of silence, you released the tension in your shoulders with a sigh.  “And I’m sorry for spitting on you.  And for cursing you out.”

“No, you shouldn’t apologize,” Kid stated, finally picking up his head and gazing at you, his eyebrows furrowed.  “I deserved it, really.”  His fingers anxiously rubbed the rough fabric of his pants.  “Killer sat me down and gave me a bit of a beat down.  Physically and verbally.  Because I know I’m not good at this.  I’m not a good person.  And I really fucked up with you.”

You remained firm with your feelings, but you finally approached his bed and sat next to him, leaving a comfortable gap between your bodies that your captain, your partner, didn’t try to close.  He kept his distance from you, silently ensuring that you were allowed, and encouraged, to open up to him when you were the most comfortable.

“I just want to make sure that you actually mean it,” you whispered.  “And that you’re not just saying that without believing it.”

“I mean it,” Kid confirmed, his voice unwavering.  “I really do.”

You gazed at him apprehensively.  “... Promise?”

Silently, Kid held out his pinky toward you.

You looked at his finger, confusion glossing your features.  “What are you doing?”

“Have you never made a pinky promise before?” he asked.

Your mouth threatened to curl into a small smile.  “Can’t say that I have.”

Kid released his hand only so he could take yours, folding your fingers down so only your own pinky stuck out from your fist.  He repeated the motion with his own hand, curling his smallest digit around your own.  “It’s a promise that I mean what I said.  Killer and I used to do this all the time as kids.”

Your composure finally broke as you snorted, your own finger curling around his.  “That’s sweet…”

“The point is that, if I break the promise, you get to break my finger,” he explained.

“Suddenly everything makes sense,” you uttered, your lips finally curling into a grin.  “Don’t give me an excuse to break your finger.”

In response to your lighthearted plea, Kid raised his hand with yours still attached and pulled back down in a handshake gesture.  “Never.”

Your finger stayed curled around his as you gazed at your hand.  “I’m still kind of upset with you.”

Kid’s shoulders stiffened.  “I get why.”  After you stayed silent for a few extra moments, he finally asked, “What can I do to make it up to you?”

Your eyes bore into his once more, his gaze remaining steady as well.  “You can start by not jumping to conclusions… or being accusatory without any context.”  You sighed.  “I’m not telling you to change your entire personality, Kid, because I know who you are.  And I fell in love with the normal, regular You.  But I just ask for a little bit of kindness.”

Kid released your pinky in order to lace his entire hand with yours.  “I’ll give you more than a little.”

“Or I can break your pinky?” you asked once more, another small smile breaking out on your face.

Your partner grinned.  “I’ll throw myself overboard if you ask.”

You finally closed the gap between your bodies, tentatively laying your head on his shoulder.  “No… I wouldn’t want to lose you like that.”

[persephone11110]

rain is a good thing

Jake‘Hangman’ Seresin x Reader

PROLOGUE

warnings: breaking up, asshole jake seresin, pre-tpg.m, past child abuse, hurt people hurt people—NOT DEFENDING HIM, lack of communication skills, both oc and jake have self esteem issues, hurt no comfort, bradley is mentioned , mentions of alcohol->drinking and being slightly drunk, set in 2018-2019

author note: prologue and unfortunately please expect spelling errors, I want to make sure everyone knows that the prologue m is set atleast 2yrs before top gun maverick and the actual of chapters are before and after the uranium mission . Also i might tweak the ending a lil bit i cant tell If i I like it Thank you for reading— enjoy :)

WC: 900

Next

Series Masterlist

–

“I’d never a break promise darlin, especially not to my girl”.

You sheded more tears than any human ever has, you sat at the table watching the clock on the stove hit 11pm. The candle you once had lit was now out along with the patience you had for Jake this was the third time he’s broken his promise, he assured you he’d be home three hours ago for the nice meal you made.

The two of you would finally have the chance to just be girlfriend and boyfriend. The worry about work and stress would be put aside for once, Jake even promised you he wouldn’t bring up Bradshaw and how much he hated him.“Fucking hate him”.

You tried to not doubt your boyfriend word, you knew how much Jake worked and you knew he deserved the biggest break. Yet you couldn’t help but realize how much time he’s been spendin at the hard deck instead of the apartment you both shared.

Was this Jake way of telling you that he didn’t love you anymore, you tried to think of a time were theres been so much distance between you and him, and you couldn’t think of one.

Maybe your mom was right, maybe you weren’t destined for the love.

Why didn’t Jake Seresin love you anymore?

You were to busy wiping at your face to hear the door slam or him slurring your name. “Y/n I’m home!”.

You were ripping clothes off the hanger throwing them into a bag you found on the floor. You really thought he loved you—you should’ve know better a man like Jacob Seresin doesn’t love, he just takes and takes until the shadow of what used to be you is left lingering.

“Baby you okay?” he startles you out of a bubble of self-pity. “Y/n we can eat now…I’m home”. He goes to wrap his arm around your waist and you move from him.

His eyes widened at the bag of clothes on the bed.“What are you doing baby, are we going somewhere?”.

He’s looking down at you and your staring at those piercing green eyes that made you falling in love him in the first place. The green eyes he used to get himself out of trouble with.

“I’m going somewhere not you”. Already turned around you miss the way his mouth replicated a fish blowing bubbles.

“C’mon baby just let me heat the up food and it’ll be fine”. He trys to touch you again on but on your shoulder, and again you jerked away from him.

Drunk or not Jake realized you weren’t happy with him again. “I’m really sorry Y/n my phone died while I was there”. He throws a lame excuse at you hoping you take it like you did the last two times.

You pressed your tongue into side of your cheek. Not wanting to cry again, you shrugged him off instead. “Its okay Jake Its just I can’t keep doing this with you.”

He nose wrinkled in confusion,“Y/n what are you talking about you can’t keep doing this?”.

You let the shirt fall out of your hand before turning back around to him. “All I asked for was a dinner with the man I loved, I didn’t ask for a luxurious gift— I didn’t ask for a expensive vacation— I just wanted to be with the man I loved”.

The color drained out of his face.

“Y/n you can’t walk away from me just because it got hard”. His voice laced with anger,“Look I’m sorry I’ve been stressing over being a possible candidate for top gun”.

You frowned instantly,“I’m not walking away because it got hard, I’m walking away because you already walked away first from the relationship Seresin”.

“Y/n please….”. You already made it up your mind that Jake didn’t deserve a chance to explain more.

“I thought you be different— you promised me you different from the men that hurt us”. tears filled your eyes,“You just broke my heart in a way I didn’t think was possible”. You watched the sadness appear on Jakes face.

“Y/n please let me make it up to you I know the last two times I’ve broken my promise but give me tonight and you can watch me choose you”.

You stared at him as he put your bag at the edge of the bed. You allowed him to drag into the bed you both shared, “I love you Y/n please forgive me”. He whispered in the dark.

You were up before him, staring at him as he slept.

Jake how no idea what he was expecting when he woke up the next morning. Reaching our for you he felt a crinkly paper -he also noticed your bag wasn’t were he put it last night. “I’m sorry Jake looks like we both broke a promise”.

The rain hitting the windows lulled him back to sleep as Jake cried, he just lost the girl he loved and he couldn’t blame anyone but himself.

You laid on your ole crappy couch with Jakes Texas sweatshirt in your arms. The smell of him lingered around in your apartment, the sheets and the comforter, and now the sweatshirt you accidentally stole from him.

Watch me lose you.

[surpriseraisin]

Demon!Stan Au - Eye Under Stan

During one of his summoning for Bill, Stanford's mind kept straying towards Stan. The frustration at the lack of his progress and helplessness turning to anger at the situation brings a familiar burn in his chest and stiffness as he clenches his teeth. As it often does, his mind wanders to what he believes is the root of his troubles, Stanley Pines.

What Standford doesn't know is that in one of the many many meetings that Stanley will having during his bid to make a lot of money to finally come home, Stanley met a being who finds him charming and amusing enough to give him a little gift as a tip. A gift given without much thought and doesn't keep in mind that the recipient of this gift is a mortal human, only that it is a tip given in good faith to a witty serendipity.

__

"For a conman who makes lies into reality, or at least convince reality to play along long enough to capture belief into profit, what better gift than to ascend that skill into a real wonder. For you Stanley Pines, I gift you More. You're meant for the stars, let me lift you there. Get you a real taste of Magic. Anyway, I haven't done this in a while but hey what does A while mean to eternity anyway. Okay stand still, this might pinch a bit."

__

Stanley basically becomes a demon, contract making deal abilities and more. I imagine him to have infomercial like domain, in comparison to bills mindscape thing. Where if Stanley is talking in his demonic form, Tv static fuzz appears around and Old timey infomercial vibes with the saturated but also muted colorscheme. He can also be experience through a phonecall, where like a scam call he gets you with a specific tidbit about you and then proceeds to try and sell you on something. But he's charismatic enough that even people who don't believe him give him the time to finish his schtick. Often these people spread the word as a funny story, and through this Stanley's 'audience' spreads.

__

Anyway back to the summoning, while Standford originally wanted to summon bill to answer his questions, due to his wandering mind the circle latched on to who he was thinking of that can Also be summoned by a summoning circle.

Anyway he got a phone call while his temper started rising because "oh great another not working out for me, what is wrong with today". He picked it up eventually when it wouldn't stop ringing "What could you possibly want, Hello?"

"Hey pointdexter, doing something stupid? Guess without me there to fluff up the cast you had to take on All the roles huh? AHAHA Anyway, before you hang up the phone, i see that finger. Not that hard considering you have 6 of them AHAHA Back to the point, you got something you want? You need an answer i got what you need, all for the low low price of stay on the line."

--

Every once in a while Television and phones are used to communicate with each other, at least now the Stans have an outside source for their needs. And no matter how frayed their relationship is... 'Its you and me' rings true. Little deals and exchanges, more often than not leaving them both frustrated and cutting it short despite the consequences. Stanford lost the ability to lie to Stanley, and Stanley lost the ability to override Stanford hanging up or changing the channel.

The reunion still happens where Stanford ask for Stanley pines' help with the books. Due to the 'safety measures' he made in his house to keep bill out though, it made Stanley feel unwell and not able to flex his full powers. His emotions was also more unstable as in his the deal was he comes to meet his brother to help, and in exchange they'll spend time together as brothers again but Stanford told him to leave.

The sigil gets burned into his back, and makes him even more unwell and lashes out as he feels the sigil burn into his form. His powers snap out, 'punishing' Stanford for 'breaking' his part of the deal and granting him what he asked for, being away from Stanley. He regrets this insanely and throws a last minute deal in "SIXER, STANDFORD I'LL GET YOU BACK. I'LL FIND YOU AND GET YOU BACK I PROMISE."

__

This deal offers Stanford some protection from bill, acting as a sort of jammer against Bills scrying. Sometimes when Stanley has enough juice to do it he messes with what bill sees and 'changes the channel' so to speak.

[sunnys-aesthetic]

I have had this certain itch to say this. I'm surprised you never got mad or despised Naff for being more well-known about a dca detective au and people stealing your designs to make fanart for her

I had to think over how to respond to this ask because by all means I didn't want to give a quick answer and dip without leaving things properly, genuinely answered or explained. I'd like to minimize any misinterpretations or misunderstandings :<

I think the best way for me to properly address this is to section it into 2 parts? One part for how I feel about Naff and the second part for how I feel about some of my designs being used without credit! Also sorry for any messy typing as admittedly I'm nervous typing all of this out after so much time has passed and I haven't really thought about this in eons FHSKJDHFSDGJKHJF

Long body of text warning So I'll place down a 'keep reading' down here! v

I want to answer this ask truthfully on my experiences and how I overcame this, what my mindset was then, and what it is now.

So! First part- Naffeclipse! Right off the bat I want to say that, no, I don't hate or despise Naff. Yes, I used to feel hurt by how they used my work, but I don't feel that way anymore. I think you're the first ever person to have asked me anything regarding this in almost two years. If I'm honest, no one online has ever made a comment regarding this so I was a little surprised! I began the DCA Detectives and dubbed it "Sleuth Jesters" in my original post back in mid-June 2022. And from there the concept's popularity kinda exploded.

I'm proud of Naff for the wide range of followers, love and support that they've cultivated using my au, and I don't want to take away from the fact that yes, the story, the world, the character interpretations they created was all their own work! That's something i want to make known first and foremost. That is all 100% their own hard work and skill as a writer. And I never want to take credit for that.

Now, I know this may look really unfair and believe me, within the first few months of Sleuth Jesters taking off from not my own platform but from another persons, I thought it was too. I was possibly going through one of my roughest periods, as all of this was very new for me and I had a lot of IRL personal stuff going on at the time. The main reason I hadn't made any remark or mention aside from one post asking for credit the same day I had talked to Naff about it privately in DMS is because I inadvertently developed imposter syndrome with the whole situation, and I privately decided to not work on that au of my own volition and lack of want to continue it on my own terms!

Why did you have imposter syndrome? Well! Because for me personally it was a feeling of 'hey! I know you racked up tons of followers and created a big platform, and you personally put the work into it, but can I please be credited for your hard work? Because they're my initial idea and designs?' was essentially my mindset for months back then, it was a sticky tricky situation! ^^; and it was not very healthy for me.

However I don't want to dive into too many details on my emotional & mental wellbeing during 2023! I was a new artist, and I was absolutely scared I would be the one who would make or initiate the first large discourse within the DCA community if I spoke up about it, possibly receive unwarranted hate or backlash, and I felt the pressure was really on me to keep the peace because as far as I had known, the DCA community hadn't had any 'big drama' since its making during that time.

But! At the same time all of this was happening I moreso delved into making my oc cloud drop + being with friends and having fun, and I simply personally didn't want to continue the AU anymore. It was not entirely due to Naff's usage but also because I simply just didn't have the time or energy for it! That's all there was to it. I struggled yes, sure! but,

What matters to me is not how or what i think or say, but how I choose to act or deal with situations that can be stressful or uncomfortable in the general sense. and despite any negative feelings I may have had, I think kindness can live a lot longer than any hatred ever could. I don't physically have it in me to hate someone or hold a grudge for too long, even in the heat of the moment, and I hope this mentality can be applied to anyone who reads this as well ^.^ Communication is key to me in any relationship, even if i know you or don't know you! And if you are not willing to make that effort in talking or speaking up it will negatively affect you in the long run. And I made that mistake by waiting for too long! sorry that was cheesy haha but its a personal mindset i live with.

So to answer the first part of the question, yes I used to be upset, but I'm not anymore.

What about the people who used your design(s) to make fanart for her?

wwweell, ill admit this was actually one of the bigger things that hurt me the most at the time, Nowadays I am being more properly credited, even if there's a few people who forget to credit me I wont take it personally. It's a much better improvement compared to when I hadn't spoken at all about it.

It's already gotten to a point where its thousands of people who associate the fanart to their fiction, and even if it wasn't with my permission at the time, it is now! We can't really force or change what happened in the past but at the v least I hope those who will make fanart are a little more aware of who to give their credits to! I still enjoy seeing everyone's art! ^^

tl;dr, i was really sad and hurt by it at the TIME, and yes it messed me up but not once did I despise Naff as person at all. Everything's all good now and I'm doing much better and all I can ask for now is the continued credit for at least my au and my designs ♡

And i very VERY VERY much urge you all TO NOT give any animosity towards naffeclipse as I already know they did not mean any of this in any ill will at all since the beginning, and we both already talked about it mid last year c:>

[just-some-sorta-person]

Reo's Impact on Nagi

Episode Nagi opens with the statement that a prodigy like Nagi "can never come into being on its own. the one who discovers them first traces their outline". So, how does Reo trace Nagi's outline as a soccer prodigy? I'll focus on the Light Novel first, because it gives us an idea of what Nagi was like before he met Reo.

Until We Met

In the Light novel, there are 2 aspects of sports addressed in terms of why Nagi is currently unable to realize his potential. There's the internal drive to win, and then there's the emotions that spur on that internal drive

It’s happy to win, but it's frustrating to lose. Nagi's overwhelming potential kept him away from these feelings, which is natural for people who play sports.

Nagi's talent prevents him from experiencing the frustration necessary to enjoy accomplishment, because everything is too easy. This is addressed once he plays team Z in Blue Lock, where he first loses after giving his all. It's clear then, why he currently lacks this aspect. What about the internal drive that gets you to give your all in the first place then?

(What are they trying so hard for?)...What’s the point of competing with someone else? Trying to fight, looking up to others, wanting your own value. Human beings are strange. Just being alive is fine. They want to compete with each other, one-up each other, and think that “I'm a special chosen one.”…… But he thinks that wanting to be "special" and working hard proves that you are not "special" at all. That's because you have no talent from the beginning...…… “Fuwah……” (*yawn*) He’s not interested in competition. Because no one would be interested in him like that…… Why is he even thinking about this? Well, He’s fine as long as he can live comfortably. What a pain.

Nagi connects effort and competition with "wanting your own value", and thinks that wanting to be valuable/"special" is evidence that you aren't - ie, that value is inherent and instantly recognizable.

Here we can remember that Nagi doesn't recognize his own potential. He doesn't value himself much either, or life in general, calling it a pain, not eating properly and wanting to do as little as possible. He seems to have given up, claiming to be fine when he's tired of living, and buying a cactus under the pretense of maintaining communication skills when he's really just lonely.

And since Nagi doesn't recognize his value, he must think that he can't possibly have it.

Nagi then expresses a lack of interest in competition, ie, wanting to be valuable, because "no one would be interested in him like that". That last sentence is interesting because there's a line or two of logic missing. What does other people's interest have to do with wanting to be valuable? Does it stem from a secret hope that if he did make an effort to prove his value, he could no longer be so lonely? That maybe one person could like him?

After the volleyball game where Nagi helped his team win, we can see Nagi express his loneliness before resolving to try even less than before

"Ah…… I'm tired…… Somebody give me a piggyback ride……" The tiny monologue fades away without being heard by anyone. (It took longer to win than expected…… Next year, I'll just stand still for real……)

You can probably tell where I'm going with this, because someone comes into Nagi's life that doesn't just think he's valuable, but calls him his "treasure"

Meeting Reo

Even if people don't interest him, if they've gone this far, even someone like Nagi will look at Reo. Something's making him so happy that his eyes are sparkling. Something's making him fired up... is it me?

When Reo looks to Nagi with "sparkling" eyes, the first thing Nagi does is wonder, "Is it me?". In other words, "Am I valuable to this person?" . He's in disbelief (think: his surprise when Reo says he likes hanging out with him) because this completely contradicts how he'd been thinking and living his life up till now. If this person sees value in Nagi, then value isn't instantly recognizable. Even if Nagi himself doesn't see it, there might be value in him to uncover.

All his life, others have never been interested in him, but he's also never been interested in others. Even his cactus, Choki, doesn't talk to him either. "Let's play soccer!" Nope, don't wanna. It's a pain. Nagi Seishiro, his dream for the future is to live a lazy life. That day that he would be fired up will never come. Not until he met Mikage Reo.

Even so, a glimpse of sparkling eyes isn't enough to fix years of solitude and hopelessness. Nagi reminds himself that no one has ever been interested in him. He doesn't want to make an effort, its a pain. But as we know, he ends up agreeing because it was the first time someone had ever..

And so, the possibility that "maybe I do have value..." is planted, as well as the possibility of someone being interested in him- the two things he mentioned when he said he had no interest in competition.

We see Nagi similarly being inspired at other times when Reo believes in him - his eyes sparkle when Reo asks Nagi to grant Reo his talent, and when Reo claims that Nagi is the best there is. And we know ultimately that this culminates in making an effort once their dream is threatened.

There's also this interaction from the voice guide

Baya's Words

This makes Baya's words seem less ominous. A lot of people interpret them as foreshadowing Reo stifling Nagi, but I'm not so sure. After all, it's only because Reo treasured Nagi -gave him so much love, if you follow Baya's words in the official translation - that Nagi encountered the possibility that he had potential and gathered the motivation to make an effort in the first place. That effort being met with resistance led to experiencing frustration for the first time, which started the path toward uncovering that potential.

At least that's how Nagi seems to think about it...

Nagi in the voice guide... no shame. truly...

Some stifling will probably happen after Manshine though, but I don't feel that it would be permanent or inherent to their partnership.

I did a post on this recently, but Reo is more of a motivating factor for Nagi than a person he depends on to play together with (Nagi did have to learn to play without a passer like Isagi, but he didnt have the psychological burden of a habit of looking for/expecting someone like Bachira up until the 4v4 or Rin in his light novel). ie, being together isn't about playing together

Nagi is also supposed to exist as a hidden route, and there are hints that the difference between him and Isagi is his partnership with Reo. him being paired with players in volume covers contrasted with the single player covers of the main manga, the focus Episode Nagi puts on Nagi's relationship with Reo, and the difference between Nagi and Isagi in these 2 spreads:

At Ego's speech, in the visualization, Isagi's eyes burn at the goal, but Nagi's eyes burn at Reo

In both Episode Nagi and Blue Lock, Isagi's run toward the entrance looks the same as Nagi's run when he saw Reo's face.

There's also the reddit skull theory

Taking these things into account, I think their partnership is meant to succeed in some way, and the reason why its unique is because it exists independently of playing soccer together.

A counterpoint to this is the large emphasis Reo puts on playing together, and Nagi needing him, but this emphasis seems mostly to be out of insecurity in his importance to Nagi than an aspect of their partnership or the affection Baya alludes to.

When he talks about being upset about Nagi leaving, he starts out with how he wanted Nagi to be "his" treasure. Reo worries that if he isn't the one that Nagi needs, that he can no longer stand by his side.

Reo worries about Nagi never coming back to him, forgetting about their dream, and leaving Reo lonely. He's scared that Nagi changing means Nagi leaving him. The reason why Reo is upset has nothing to do with soccer and everything to do with Nagi. Reo seems to want the dependent soccer that Blue Lock warns against, but only because that's the only way he can imagine justifying remaining by Nagi's side.

The thing is, being together is not necessarily about playing together for Reo either, but Reo assumes it's one-sided...

So, maybe if Nagi and Reo were to communicate, and Nagi got Reo to understand how much he means to Nagi, Reo would be able to abandon the concept of Nagi needing him in soccer, allowing them to chase their dream as partners and grow without depending on playing together. That's why I don't think dependent soccer, even if we see it after Manshine, would be permanent or inherent to their partnership

[gemsofgreece]

Hello! Firstly, I wanted to thank you for the work you do on this blog. My mother's side is Greek and came to the US around WW2, and as I've gotten older and tried to learn about Greek culture, I've found that it's hard to find sources that aren't inundated with American pop-history. It's been really lovely being able to learn more from your blog for the past couple weeks.

Second is my question -- re: the pop history issue, I've noticed that people in the American queer community have a knack for "reclaiming" figures in history and mythology without always having an abundance of evidence for their claims. And like, I'm trans. Obviously the idea of some of things being true is cool, but it also feels disingenuous sometimes. Do you know of any good resources or books written by actual queer Greeks about either their contemporary experiences, or the history of queer people in Greece that isn't just conjecture?

Thank you again! Have a great day :)

Hello! It makes me so happy that you found my blog suitable to inform yourself on this part of your ethnic / cultural background. I hope the blog will keep being a useful source of information.

Because I am not going to lie, the way Greek history and culture, more like a snippet of it, has been almost forced into American pop culture is indeed through a disingenuous conjecture. Honestly, it's not so much a matter of accuracy per se. It's more that a niche piece of the culture has been taken and presented as almost the entirety of this culture, which eventually leads to tremendously false impressions, no matter how earnestly this niche part is explored. There is also the tendency to shape ambiguous evidence into unquestionable conviction.

I will attempt to explain why this can be a problem. Let's take the axiom - because it has reached the lengths of being treated as an axiom - "Ancient Greece was gay or Greece is gay or Greek culture was gay culture or Greece is / was a gay haven". If we really study Greek history and culture in its entirety, in a span of 3,500 years or more if we also take into acount the pre-Greek civilizations which eventually helped produce the Greek, while the existence of gay people (i.e Sappho), non-straight sexual practices (i.e erotic amphoras), ambiguous literary relationships (i.e Achilles & Patroclus?) and varied expressions of sexual desire observed especially in male deities are 100% well attested and recorded, they still comprise overall a very tiny part of the Greek civilization. Whereas it is often portrayed in western pop culture as the very essence of Greek civilization, exploration and studies of sexuality and gender identity throughout its history could amount to maybe a 1-5% of all documented knowledge associated to the Greek ethnos, its history and its legacy. Think of it this way; Greece happened to be in the epicenter of many formative achievements of humanity; spreading, contributing or improving on science, arts, extant religions and linguistics. It has been an area extremely ravaged by war because it has a very strategic position on the map. It has been in the core of three of the world's largest empires and it has been positively or negatively influential to all three (and the generator of one of them). There are so many things, struggles and achievements, to study and explore and draw from as part of your identity, that a constant foreign obsession and trivilization and sensualization of the sexual practices of people long gone eventually will start sounding disingenuous or lacking or even demeaning. Just like every individual aspires to be acknowledged and respected for more than just their sexual or gender identity (i.e skills, feelings, talents, achievements, personality), it is the exact same with culture and heritage. People want their culture to be appreciated in its entirety and not for a super niche area that is also exaggerated, if not exploited to serve foreign agendas, trends and marketing (because let's be real, not all have noble representation motives).

Okay, now I have to ask: do you know Greek? Because I can recommend you some sources, however Americans do not translate Greek works unless they are from 750 BC :)

Here's a quick heads-up:

The Greek society is a pseudopuritan society - one where people act like puritans when it comes to judging others but not at all when it comes to themselves. The gay male community has by far the biggest visibility nowadays. Lesbians come second. Other sexual orientations follow i.e bi, poly, pan. Gender (trans, non-binary, fluid etc) identities have less visibility. Asexuals also have near non-existent visibility. Most non-het non-cis people face problems in their families rather than in their studies or in urban environments. Non-cis people, especially AMAB people, might also face hardship in the workplace (like not getting easily hired).

Because the society is pseudopuritan, it tolerated and embraced and worshipped several LGBT people, except if they attempted to communicate their experience. Great composers and authors were openly gay and Greeks knew it and loved them, because they didn't explicitly involve their sexual identity in their work or because they didn't expose the pathogenies of the Greek society. If they had done that, the reception could have been different. Because of all these reasons, most of my sources will be from the perspective of gay cis men (the most visible LGBT+ community) and it will be mostly the great work and legacy they left behind, rather than their explicit documentation of the experience of living as LGBT+ in Greece.

LGBT poets and authors:

Constantine Cavafy (1863 - 1933), one of our best poets. This can be useful to you because his works are actually translated in English.

Napoleon Lapathiotis (1888 - 1944), openly gay in such times, he wrote a lot of erotic poetry.

Augoustos Korto (1979 - ), a married gay man, successful writer and activist, he has written extensively on the topics of death, depression, motherhood and love, often drawing from personal experience.

Kostas Tachtsis (1927 - 1988), poet, distinguished author and activist for gay rights during the Colonel dictatorship in the '70s. He suffered in his life and in his death as well. His murder has not been solved yet. He has written an autobiography and numerous novels with autobiographical elements. He was gay, either cross-dressing cis or maybe trans or non-cis (we don't know that back in time how exactly he identified) and had also been a sex worker for some time.

Napoleon Lapathiotis

Music:

Music won't give you direct information however it could be a way to bond with people you could connect with over similar experience.

Manos Hadjidakis (1925 - 1994), one of our two greatest composers and a rare genius, was openly yet "discreetly" gay, not out of shame but because privacy on all aspects of the human experience was absolutely essential and sacred to him. He was also an Oscar winner, although he would hate me for saying this (he threw his Oscar in the trashcan). Besides listening to his music, I would recommend watching interviews or listening to excerpts from his radio shows, because of the ease with which he could challenge anyone's intellectual capacity.

Sotiria Bellou (1921 - 1997), a lesbian or perhaps bisexual woman, she is worshipped for her unique voice, which became the ultimate symbol of the heavy-duty (underground at the time + now part of UNESCO's cultural heritage) rembetiko music genre.

TV Shows with representation:

Maestro in Blue on Netflix, a big part of the story is the romance of a gay couple suffering in oppressive families in the province

Milky Way, one of the main characters is pansexual and non-binary, and the actor is gay IRL. There is also a brief lesbian romance or a side narrative of supressed female homo- or bi- sexuality. This show will soon get in some international platform but I don't remember which one (not netflix), so keep it in mind.

Milky Way

YouTube:

There are a lot of LGBT+ people in Greek YouTube but my faves are:

ΚΡΙΜΑ by ZoePreTV: Zoe is a lesbian or bi herself (not sure but I know she's openly in a relationship with a woman) and she makes lengthy very informative quality podcasts with celebrities or everyday people, often belonging to marginalized groups, and they talk about their experiences. If you can understand Greek, this might be the best source for what you ask. I watched a fantastic episode with a trans woman and sex worker talking about her life. It is one of the greatest podcast episodes I have ever watched, hands down.

Eponimos. Zoe's best friend, who is an openly gay man, although he approaches matters of sexuality very delicately as he values his privacy a lot. He doesn't talk often about such matters (recently he did) but his channel is awesome for his lighthearted humour and the maturity of his positions. I love watching his content.

The podcast I mentioned.

LGBT+ Magazine: ANTIVIRUS. ANTIVIRUS also has this list with recent queer literature, featuring both Greek and foreign writers. Here is the link. It's in Greek though, like everything above...

Art: Yannis Tsarouhis (1910 - 1989), one of the most influential and successful Greek artists. He painted a variety of themes, he was inspired and developed Greek folk and Byzantine art, however he was also particularly notable for his love for the masculine physique and he established the classic image of the "Greek sailor" in art, theater and cinema internationally.

A great photo of Tsarouhis in his atelier.

I wouldn't consider myself well-versed in the topic, so I invite anyone who knows sources that could also ideally be easily accessible to the Anon, to give some recs in the comments. From my side, Anon, hopefully I was of any help.

[miutonium]

Saw @mango-mya 's si/oc inspo post (lmk if you want to be untagged its ok!!) and decided to make a seperate post instead since I'm going to ramble about Chloe and I dont want to clog the main post with my infos (anyway the post is here if anyone wants to reblog with their char's oc inspo :3)

Here's some inspo for my s/i oc Chloe! I don't really have a lot of inspo as oppose to others but I do have a bit detail about it and ahshskaja I think it's fun for me to pick on so the rambles undercut! (Like, im not kidding all my points are everywhere hsksksk)

When I was making an early concept for Chloe, I used Ima (Sedusa) as my early reference for her design. There's a lot of unique body figure of woman in PPG but I am mostly attracted to Sedusa's frame and I cannot stress enough that I love love LOVE her design! Her design is the exact opposite of Utonium (curvy and circle as opposing to Utonium's rectangular and sharp edges) so like I wanted her design to be the opposite of him. I love the idea of opposite attracts and I refered to this idea a lot when I build her character. More on that in just a bit.

When I created her, I was working as a service crew/waitress and I wished it theres something that could swoop me from my boring job so I thinkered with the idea that she found love at the dinky diner she worked at. So one day, I discovered Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner and I loved this song! What's so interesting to me about this song is that it's an acapella so like I'm able to focus on the lyrics and it basically captured the essence of what I want Utonium and Chloe to be except Chloe would be the one greeting him every morning and give him hello kissies and hhh thats basically the catalyst for their story.

For most of her inspo, mainly personality and clothes, I refer a lot to The Nanny's Fran Fine. I grew up watching The Nanny and I always love how her character is someone that's street smart, extroverted, cares about others and charismatic at times so I based Chloe's personality off this. I also refer to Fran's outfits a lot whenever I draw Chloe in other clothing so if you take a hard look at any of my previous art you may recognize some of her clothes that I used as reference.

For Chloe's hair, I want a distinctive short hair for her and P3's Yukari Takeba was my first choice for a cute short hair cut. I love how her bangs just swoops to her sides and the end of her hair just curls outwards its just so cute to me. I added the heart curl design on her bangs because I really want her hair to be the main focus for her design so that when she wears any other clothes, her hair will remain the same and recognizeable. The heart curls that sticks out of her hair was added veryvmuch later during design process and it almost didn't make it. I'm so glad I keep it, I think people mostly recognize her heart cowlick the most.

While I did say Fran Fine is my main inspo, I did have Bojack's Pickles as another of my personality inspo. She's bubbly, energetic and sometimes ditzy and I never mentioned this but Chloe's a bit ditzy and has a valley girl accent. I have not think of a voice claim yet but the voice that I think that would fit Chloe rn is ATSV's Lyla. There's a significant age gap between Utonium and Chloe and I really want to show how both of them came from different generation (Utonium's a boomer while Chloe's more of Gen X so I want to play around their understanding of trends and how they act with their age accodingly hhh)

Overall, what I want to achieve for Chloe's personality and appearance is someone that would compliment Utonium's personality and appearance in the opposite way because like I said, I love the idea of opposite attracts. Where she lacks education, she makes them up for her communication skills. Where Utonium is big on being a book smart person, she is street smart, she knows how to handle things by her way.

I have no intention to make Chloe have a cool career like Utonium because I still want her to be normal. I always make elaborated backgrounds and jobs for my other s/i ocs so for Chloe, I want to relax, I want her to be normal, have a normal job, nothing interesting. I don't want to rely heavily on those points but instead focus more on building her personality.

When I think about it now, I think its good thag I make Chloe normal. She is really the normality that Prof and the girls needed in their family. She doesn't have any special skills, any benefits directly to them nor any interesting history that makes her unique, she's just some woman that just walks into their life yet unintentionally becomes someone significant to the family's life.

[spacecatbowtie]

I know why - path 1: Dom Din

Interactive story (Path 1 of 3)

Base story | Path 1: Dom Din | Path 2: Dark Din | Path 3: Sweet Din

After the base story, this is one of the endings. Dominant Din.

Warnings: Explicit MDNI 18+

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Chapter word count: 4k

AO3

Tags: #Angst #Smut #Porn With Plot #Mando needs to work on his communications skills #unprotected p in v #Fingering #First POV #no mention of oc name #No use of y/n #I hate y/n #OC wants to be taken care of #OC wants to be independent #kinda forced proximity #Exhibitionism #Interactive #Daddy Dom Din Djarin #sweet din #switch Din

┈ ┈ ┈ ⋞ 〈 ⏣ 〉 ⋟ ┈ ┈ ┈

I jerk my hand out of his grasp. "Don't pretend to have empathy all of a sudden.. bounty hunter."

 Calling him by the name of his profession, seems to kick him into his feral mode again. Because as soon as the attempt of degrading insult left my lips, it is followed by a pathetic squeal, as his hand shoots up to grab my neck and draw me closer. "Damned girl" He grunts "I don't want you hurt, that is why I didn't allow you to go with me on hunts."   With big eyes I look at him, no sensible thought is able to form in my head.   "Another reason I do not let you come, is because you distract me."   A nervous laugh that sounds more like a wheeze, due to the tight grasp on my neck is the first thing out of my mouth. He does not budge when I push against his chest. "Are.. am.. How.. In what way do I distract you?" The struggle with those words is not just because of the obstruction around my neck.   The grip of his hands on my body tighten slightly for a second, as if he is trying to feel those parts in detail. "In what ways don't you…" His voice is horse and soft.   "What are you implying?" He can not mean what I think he means.   No response. The arm that is not currently holding my neck hostage clumsily moves to my hip. His thumb starts to rub his in little circles there. He is teasing me. I know it. He is probably laughing at me underneath his stupid helmet. He has known all this time.

"Stop torturing me, stop using my feelings for you against me!"   This does get a reaction out of him. Immediately after I spoke the words he draws back a little and he seems to look in to my eyes. "You have feelings for me?"   "Yea duh!" I almost burst out in laughter, and can just about stop myself from mocking him with an bad imitated voice. "Don't pretend you don't know. I know what you are doing." How stupid does he think I am? "with your 'sweet girl'" I use my low voice impression of him here anyway.   He does not appear to appreciate my imitation of him. The setting sun reflects its orange glow on his armour when he turns us both. He is facing the wall now, and I stand with my back against it. "You assume too much about me."   "What does that mean?" I shove his chest plate again.

  No reaction.

  Okay, I am done.   When pushing against his chest does not work, I try to claw his hands from my throat. What in the hell does he mean? why is he always so infuriating and confusing. He seriously needs to work on his communication skills.  "Be clear for once in your life, and tell me what you mean!"   I don't know where this build-up rage suddenly comes from. Maybe because he caught me running from him, or it's from pushing down my feelings all this time, maybe it is his reaction that of lack thereof that angers me. Whatever it is, the only thing I can do is fight him. My hands thug at his arm and wrist, so hard my fingers start hurting. My feet and legs kick at him, trying to escape his firm uncomfortable hold on me.

Perhaps I fight against the physical, just the same as the mental hold he has on me. Him being himself draws me in, his voice, his posture. Hell, even the way he walks makes me want to consume him with everything I have. It makes me want to worship him, and it scares me. During my tantrum he has been incredibly still. His grip does not falter, he does not even seem to breathe.   "I swear if you don't let me go and tell me what is going on I will literally kill you!"   Finally, he speaks. But from everything he could have said, I did not expect this.   "Maker, I really want to have sex with you right now."   My body freezes.   "Excuse me?" I must have misheard that.   "You know what I said."   The hand on my hip moves to my stomach. "Can I touch you?"   Time seems to freeze. I am aware of everything, the cold wall against my back, the setting sun encasing the man before me. The man that now wants to give me what I've imagined during so many day dreams. All I can do in response is nod. The voice that was full of fury just before, is lost now.   "Okay, I will take care of you." His hand slides slowly over the boning of my corset, leaving a hot boiling feeling there. "Breathe, girl"

Sure enough, I had forgotten to do that. Steadily I blow out a deep breath.

His fingers continue downwards, past the rim of my pants. It is quite a tight fit with his big hand there. He takes a step closer, so as not to put his arm in an uncomfortable angle. His chest touches my face, draining me in his overwhelming smell. I think I am even more sensitive to everything about him right now.

Clamping my fingers behind the edges of his chest plate, to pull him even closer. His breathing sounds heavy above me. He is no longer taking hold of my neck anymore, the hand is now supporting himself against the wall above my head. Perhaps he is handling the tension of this situation worse than me.

The leather of his glove finally touches my skin. It is as if the reality of the situation is just now kicking in. Other than tense, I feel apprehensive and self-conscious now. Why is he acting this way now, it is too big of a change. I always thought he hated me. And now He stands here before me, with his hand down my pants.

His armour is hard and cool when I let my head lean against it. Closing my eyes, I try to stop myself from shaking.

Breathe.

Why is he doing this? Does he like me too in that way? Or is he doing this to apologize for acting angry with me?   He must notice my sudden shyness, because he pulls his hand back.   Blinking I force myself back in the present. "No, you dont have to stop. Unless you want to, but I-"   His finger touches my lips, to hush me. "I know." He proceeds to pull of his gloves. "I need you to be relaxed for me." 

The view of his naked hands in front of me, makes my brain do anything but being relaxed. I have never seen any part of his skin before, let alone his full hands. I wasn't even sure he was human or just humanoid. But hell is he human! His hands are big. I knew that, I could see that with his gloves on. What I could not see before, is how long and thick his fingers are. And how the muscles shift when he moves his hand. The hand that moves even closer, and finally touches me. His warm skin caresses my cheeks.   "I will take care of you." He tells me again.

I nod my head and rest it back against the wall. "Yes, okay."

Not knowing what to do with my hands, i rest them on his biceps, feeling his hard arms, capable of handling me in any way he wants. Slowly he moves his bare hand down my stomach, dipping underneath the waistband again.

Breathe.

The tips of his fingers reach the wet spot between my legs, only now I can feel how excited I am for him. I close my eyes and hide my face by dipping it down. But my head falls back as he digs the rest of his fingers between my lips.

"Oh fuking stars." I breathe and I step a little wider, so he has better access.

A low sound rumbles in his chest as wetness coats his hand. He explores me slowly, caressing softly back and forth, but every time he only skims over my entrance. Finally he dips one of his fingers a little more in, but then abandons it, making me let out a pathetic whine. He chuckles darkly as he teases me more, without touching my clit or my entrance in the way I need.

Clinging to his arms, I look up at him. "I thought you were going to take care of me." I grit my teeth. "All you do is put me on edge, but you never d-"

His fingers are inside me. I think it's two but I can't be sure. Even though I am all wet and slippery, the stretch makes me gasp.

"Oh, yes, Maker."

He pulls out again, and then slowly inserts them again, hooking his fingers as he pulls them back out. "It's not the Maker that is making you feel this way, girl."

"Mando, please." This man is making me beg. I never beg, maybe sometimes to get what I want as I look up at him with puppy eyes, but I never truly beg and mean it. For weeks, for months I have been watching him, with a growing feeling of butterflies in my belly when he is close, when he addresses me, when he grunts as he lifts something heavy. Now, this man has me pressed up against the wall with his hand down my pants, making me feel all kinds of wild.

"Is this what you wanted? For me to make you feel good?" His voice is rough, breathing heavily. He inserts another finger carefully and painfully slow.

I respond with an affirming mewl.

"For how long have you wanted this?" 

Am I going to tell him the truth? Am I going to admit that I have been wanting him badly for two and a half months, if not more, and that I basically fantasized about him since the day I laid eyes on him? His fingers dig deeper inside me, the palm of his hand angled so it rubs my clit. I grind my hips against him, searching for the release I crave.

"Tell me, girl. For how long have you wanted me to touch you?"  

It's hard to think with his hand making me feel all sorts of new things. But i try my best to answer him. "Since you told me to get some sleep." 

His movements slow as he listens to my soft voice.

 I continue. "After you cleared out a room for me." 

He draws his hand back, and I stiffen, afraid to have said something wrong. Did I come across as too desperate? pathetic? 

His fingers glisten in the twilight, as he looks down at his hand. My face reddens and I half wish I could disappear into the darkening night as my arousal drips from his hand.

Rubbing his fingers together, he bring them closer to his face, inspecting it. "That was the first day." 

Only after a few seconds I nod. There is no use denying.

"You liked me telling you to get some sleep?"

Again I nod, not daring to look at where his eyes are behind the visor. I look at his chest, then at the ground, and then back again.

"You like my voice?" It was more of a statement than a question.

I don't want to nod again, so I speak. "It just sounds nice, but I am sure you have heard that many times before."

"A few times." 

With his thumb he slowly swipes over my bottom lip, coating it with my own slick. "You have made quite a mess out of me." Then he pushes two fingers inside my mouth. "Be a good girl, and clean it up for me." 

Understanding where he is getting at, I suck on them and lick his thick digits clean. He hums in approval, making sure I have every last bit. For a few seconds he just looks at me, at least that is what he looks like to be doing. His fingers slip from my mouth.

I shrink underneath his gaze as I look up at him. Is he having second thoughts? He can't back off now, I want him, I need him. I slide my hands from his arms down over his chest, and even lower. Still I search for any reaction from him, any way his body language betrays what he wants, what he is feeling. But he remains stoic apart from the low breaths that move his chest and sound through his modulator.

His head tilts as my finger slides over the closing of his pants, as if he is inspecting me, waiting and watching for what I will do next. It takes a little struggle to open the fly and I have to look down to see what I'm doing. I don't dare to look up as I slowly grab a hold of him with a slightly trembling hand. A gasp escapes me as my fingers make contact with his warm skin. I'm not a virgin, I have played around a bit in the past. Some long term, some just for one night. But touching him finally feels new and different, as if I am the shy girl I was on my first time.

He is hard, the tip completely exposed. A low sound rumbles in his chest as I wrap my fingers around his grit and pull him out of his pants. He still has not moved as I look up. Experimentally, I move my hand slowly, swiping my thumb over the smooth head.

For the first time in a while he speaks, his voice rough and soft. "Make it wet first." It does not sound gentle, it sounds like he is refraining himself, holding himself back from doing what he wants to do.

I almost apologize at his request. How could I forget, I knew it could be uncomfortable for men to move against the sensitive skin without lubing it up first. Trying to remain controlled I lower myself steadily to the ground, settling on my knees. His helmet tilts further down, following me as I kneel before him. Giving a small lick on the head, I test the waters. A grunt from him challenges me to continue. I open my mouth further and take him between my lips, my tongue teasing the underside of his length.

He throws his head back with a delicious sound. One of his hands shoots to my head, tangling in my hair whilst he uses the other to steady himself against the wall. Looking down at me again, he guides my head, pushing me deeper on to him until he hits the back of my throat. The pressure makes me gag, but his reaction causes a burning heat to consume my lower stomach. 

With a growl he pulls me to my feet and turns me around, so my back is pressed to his hard chest. He keeps me against him as he takes a step back. "Hands on the wall." He says.

The wall is far more than arms-length away, so I try to take a step forward, but he keeps his hands tightly on my hips, preventing me from doing so. I look back at him in confusion. "What?"

"Hands on the wall." He speaks slower now.

After hesitating for a moment, I lean forward. Bending my hips at almost a ninety degree angle, I reach out to lean against the rough surface with my palms.

"Can you keep them there, sweet girl?" Mando's fingers dig in my waist before traveling up my torso.

I give him a nod, not trusting my voice right now. 

"Good." His fingers hook underneath the waistband of my pants and yanks them down. They end up half way down my legs.

I gasp and want to stand up straight again, feeling too exposed being bend over like this. A hand pressing between my shoulder blades prevents me from doing so. "Don't. Move."

Looking around frantically I search for possible onlookers. "What if someone walks in on us?"

"Then they will have something perfect to look at." Fingers slide over my pussy once more, until his hand cups me. "You are perfect." The hand is removed, only for it to be replaced with the tip of his length. It teases painfully slow from my clit and back up, spreading around my wetness and his pre-cum. This thought makes me shiver. It feels so filthy and naughty. After all those day dreams, this was finally really happening. 

"I need to know how you feel inside me." I push back against him, searching for more friction.

His voice sounds like he is as deep in this moment as I am. He sounds as if it hurts him not to give in to his desires right now. "Patience, girl." With his foot he kicks my legs wider apart as far as they will go with my pants down my legs. He is spreading me for him, exposing me even more. I don't care about decency or shame anymore. I need him, now.

"Please," It sounds more pathetic than I wanted it too. Tears of frustration start to form in my eyes. "Please, just fuck me."

Then he is where I need him, and he is pushing in. Slowly. I have never felt this good in my life, I'm sure of it. This moment right here, is what I have needed my whole life. I could die peacefully now. He is not even all the way in yet, he is still moving inside me, penetrating deep, far surpassing the length of his fingers.

"Oh, maker yes, shit, fuck." My voice is even less controlled now, high-pitched and loud.

"Watch your words, darling." His grip on my waist tightens, almost painfully so. Finally he is settled in all the way, his hipbones against my butt. "You feel... Dank Farrik, you feel amazing." Just as slowly as he entered me, he pulls back out again. A finger trails over the place where we connect, feeling how much I am stretched around him.

Is he watching? Is he looking at how my pussy grips him, how well I take him? As he has completely pulled out, he pushes in again, way faster now, but still not hard and fast enough for me. He keeps on this rhythm of fucking me, almost lovingly. 

"I love the sounds you make for me, sweet girl." His voice rasps through his modulator as his hand caresses my thighs and back. My arms almost give out, and would have slumped to the wall if it wasn't for his tight grip on my waist. "I told you to keep your hands there and not to move." Fingers scratch against my scalp as he digs in my hair. "I need you to listen to me." He sounds threatening, the voice he uses on his bounties when they are a hand full.

"Harder.. I need it harder." 

He pulls my head back by my hair and starts fucking me with a knee-buckling pace. A hand on my shoulder is used to shove me back on to him with every thrust. "Is this what you wanted, sweet girl? Have you wanted me to use you like this, and kept it quiet all this time? You have starved me of this tight wet cunt." His breath is fast and he lets out beautiful groans between words. He is truly undone, the normally silent mandalorian has turned in a primal man without restraints he normally lives by. The filthy words continue as he keeps pistoning in to me. With every trust, I feel him spreading me open, hitting every part inside me that makes me drool. This sensation is almost, if not way more delicious than the orgasms I give myself on the thought of him.

"Keep making those pretty noises for me." The already deep voice, is even more low and raspy now, and I decide that I really love this unfiltered version of him. 

"I'm going to fill you up, fill up your tight pussy until it leaks out." The groan he lets out at this thought makes me clench around him. "But first, you are going to cum for me." The hand on my waist disappears, as does the support it provided. "Keep still." He orders when my knees buckle under my own weight. The hand then moves over my lower stomach and further down. My whole body shudders when his fingertips touch my clit. It is sensitive and swollen from the pleasure he is giving me.

"Mando, fuck yes please let me cum. keep fucking me please" I don't have any control over my words anymore. They spill out as he keeps softly caressing my clit with his fingers. Not only does he just rub the bundle of nerves, he too swipes over my lips and the place where he rams inside me. Never has a man done that to me before. Immediately I feel the familiar heat between my legs grow hotter.  Even by myself I have not managed to reach near an orgasm this quick.

Letting go of my hair, his hand seeks the wall for support. I can feel everything of him. His warm stomach and the cold beskar chest plate press against my back. This angle hits another spot inside me that makes my body feel as if it is flying. It does not take long for me to cum all over his hand.

He keeps on fucking me through my aftershocks and I feel he is getting close himself too. His groans become silent and breathing is getting heavy.

"Stars, yes, yes!" I moan as I feel him twitch inside me.

Spurts of cum fill me and he lets out the hottest, toe curling gasps. With a few extra deep and slow thrusts he makes sure to fuck his own cum deep inside me.

"Ner cyar'ika, that was perfect." Slowly he pulls out and straightens up. I attempt to turn around, but he keeps me in place. "You are perfect." He kneels down to put on my panties, probably knowing it will catch his cum as it leaks out of me. The pants are next, he pulls them up from where they have been stuck on my ankles.

He steps back and I turn around, finally facing him again. Nothing has changed, he is still his old self. The indecipherable mask, the broad but slightly static posture. I don't know why this surprise me, of course he hasn't changed. But for some reason it does feel different, he feels different. 

A sudden wave of emotions floods over me. There is fear, of him regretting what we have done. There is hope and love too, but also something that feels like guilt. There is frustration of how he has treated me for the past months, making me think he hated me. And there is relief, both physically as emotionally.

He just stands there, in front of me. Maybe he isn't sure of how to act himself. So I do the first thing that comes to mind in between the chaos of emotions inside of me. I jump at him, cling to him, my arms around his neck. I hug him close and tight, my face buried in the crook of his neck. The rough fabric of his cape rubs against my skin. I smell him, the warm heated scent of him. I have never smelled him so strong before, just whims of it when I walk past him. 

At first he stiffens, probably taken of guard by my hug attack. But then his shoulders relax and he wraps his arms around me. One around my lower waist and one over my shoulder blades, engulfing me, keeping me safe.

"Mando..." It sounds muffled in the fabric.

I feel him resting the helmet on my shoulder. "I've got you." He squeezes me tighter. "I've got you."

I could cry. I could but I don't, I keep that for later when I'm alone in my bunk. Now I just want to be here with him, nothing else.

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Base story | Path 1: Dom Din | Path 2: Dark Din | Path 3: Sweet Din

Let me know what u think! Which of the 3 paths did you like more? <3

[thousandyearphantombunker]

"just give them an aac device!"

"just teach them sign language"

"body language and facial expressions alone are good enough for communicating what you need"

Nonononono f*!k off. Stop acting like nonverbal people have easy solutions to their lack of verbality. Not everyone can use an aac device- some people struggle with spelling or can't spell at all, some people have motor skills issues that makes typing a nightmare that takes a long time, some can't articulate themselves without outside help. Learning sign is hard if you again have motor skills issues or struggle to make facial expressions that convey what your feeling (flat affect applies to more than just a person's voice- some people really struggle to make facial expressions and have stilted or strange body language- you people can understand why autistic people get burnt out from masking all day- you know often having to control their body language and make certain facial expressions etc yet you can't understand why nonverbal autistics can't just learn sign- a language very heavy on facial expressions and expressive body language?) also again spelling and motor skill issues are a pain and also a lot of families with deaf or nonverbal children refuse to learn sign for said children and I'm sorry in day to day life I haven't met many people who speak sign- yeah you can move to a community with a lot of deaf or nonverbal people that use sign but that's not always possible and its very limiting. And do I even have to explain the third one- autistic body language is confusing to neurotypicals and I hate the stereotype that its just so blunt and obvious/better than neurotypical communication- maybe that's what its like for you and your 'smart sheldon cooper/Wednesday Addams' style autism but not every autistic person 'says exactly what they mean' often times autistic people struggle with semantics and articulating sentences that make any sense! and all these misunderstandings surrounding stimming are annoying to!- spinning can be a 'happy' stim but it can also mean your overwhelmed or understimulated, a lot of people with autism have voices that lack inflections, mix that in with being unable to use words and no it does not help communicate their needs- f!*k off with acting like its easy not all autistic people who are nonverbal can spell, not all autistic people w are nonverbal have good motor skills and body language alone is never enough to convey a persons needs. Before anyone comes after me yes Sign is body language but its also actual symbols and can convey full thoughts and ideas and sentences and also body language is hard for a lot of autistic people to convey like stated above.

Not every form autistic communication is being 'logical' and unoffended because 'we're just more logical than those superfluous, shallow neurotypicals that let their feelings control them and are never direct about what they want-we value facts and logic unlike those butthurt neurotypicals' and being overly blunt- no a lot of autistic people find that communication is messy and the ways they can communicate are ineffective and your 'logical, facts dont care about your feelings' style of communication isn't as amazing as you think it is. Stop speaking over nonverbal autistics- their is no real perfect solution to them not being able to speak. And I'm gonna say it- while not all nonverbal people are low functioning or high support needs or whatever the new term is-being nonverbal is a massive disadvantage and having your disability be visible like that is scary in many situations and being unable to communicate your needs can make it impossible to meet your needs-

[volivolition]

Your tags in my notes give me life every time 🙏🙏thank you so much!

I would love to hear your thoughts on what might happen to Esprit post-RCM!! And yeah poor electrochem... I think it was meant for the little daily dopamine highs of life, the good food and new experiences and cute cats, but it's been hijacked by addiction into something best ignored :((

!! YESS omg of course, you make such good art AND writing i have gotta pay my respects!! hgkjh delighted to see your DE fanworks always :3 <33

!! HELL YES I WOULD LOVE TO SHARE, and its so cool to have that echem mention because it's a really good parallel: YES!! Electrochemistry is made to take care of general mesolimbic system reports and for lil everyday happy dopamine moments, little treats and smiles from kim hkjhg but it gets fucked up by addiction because HOLY SHIT life is AWFUL and DEPRESSING and surely drugs and alcohol will save us!! :')

AND SIMILARLY!! i think Esprit De Corps (literally Group Spirit or team spirit) is originally meant to be a skill of Community and Belonging, but gets fucked up by the RCM!! more under cut because this is LONG hgkjh

in my headcanons, Esprit is the youngest skill to form, but it wasn't as late as the RCM. Originally, I think that Esprit was made for the kinship Harry felt for the The Fifteenth Indotribe. Harry and seven other kids, running together as a group of friends causing trouble, this was Harry's first sense of belonging somewhere. Pretty low level and not as psychically linked, just happy to feel connected to people. When the indotribe eventually fell apart, Esprit was left fractured and dormant for a while as Harry drifted from having a sense of community. Esprit for real, at this point in time, Esprit is a ghost of a fury, low level and barely tangible.

(The thing holding them together was their attachment to the other skills, because at least they're still part of a group that way, even if Harry wasn't. Friends with Empathy, a part of the psyches, one of the 24 skills. If Esprit lacked those bonds with the other furies, its likely they would have faded entirely.)

Then Harry became a gym teacher, and Esprit returns as Esprit L'école (School Spirit :3) which helps him communicate with school staff, faculty and students. And Harry cares about this new community dearly. Deeply tender at heart, Harry loves the kids in his classes and finds camaraderie with his coworkers and wants the best for this school. Not just the best gym teacher, he's one of the best teachers in general. He puts his everything into this school, and Esprit L'école thrives in this new environment for several years.

Then they meet Dora, and shit gets fucked!! Dora convinces Harry to join the RCM, and Esprit fractures further. Unlike the Fifteenth Indotribe or the Grand Couron High School, this isn't something he finds community in. I mean, they think they do at first. The RCM is meant to help the community, right? Surely working here will bolster Esprit? But y'know how it goes, RCM culture is harsh and immoral and corrupted at its heart, for the scarce good they can do, there is so, so much bad for the community and god Esprit is hurting.

...but this is for Dora, and trying to put a bandage on a dying relationship, so Esprit De Corps forces it. Forces themselves to lean hard into the kinship with cops and to fit into police culture and conform to RCM standards, forces himself to be The Cop Skill. All of the skills at this point are going into overdrive as well, Volition tries to focus on hard work in hopes that it will pay off in the long run, Empathy tries to make himself smaller so he's not in the way, Echem is RUNNING OUT OF DOPAMINE and oh hey, this speed shit makes us a better cop, I'll take it!! dear god, the RCM is fucking over ALL THE SKILLS, everyone is struggling at this point.

And Dora leaves. Harry suffers, and so do the skills, and trying to distract from it, they just launch themselves HARDER into the RCM shit. nothing else to live for, to do, throw all reluctance to the wind, work yourself to the brink of death. 18 total years of service, 216 cases, above 90% of officers in the entire RCM, a Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor. Renowned and accomplished; this is not the community Esprit De Corps loves, but it is the one he's entrenched in, and nothing, not even amnesia, can detach him from this.

Until they quit.

honestly ive seen like! a few fics where harry quits the RCM, and always thought, "oh hey nice acab :] ...HEY WAIT WHAT'S ESPRIT DOING." so i made a fic, because a LOT of my fics are focused on the skills side of things. the humans are no longer my priority, i am a skills lover and my fucking god i gotta make my own food around here [gestures at several in-progress pasta bakes and cake batters and salad ingredients because EVERYTHING IS WIPS]

there was a first concept that was just like "DOES ESPRIT JUST DISAPPEAR???" which would have been TRAGIC and i could've made a whole cool thing about it but im alrEADY WORKING ON SEVERAL MULTI-CHAPTERS HKJHG and that's not how skills work in my canon <3

so my fic is a oneshot called "Who Are You, If Not..." because when you've made your whole life one thing and that thing gets taken away from you, who do you become? and its not very plot heavy, it's just a late-night conversation between the psyche skills.

here's a snippet from while i was working on the coding hkgjh

(since i write a lot of skills, i have this style where i put all skill actions in the [check] color and leave dialogue in white, which is a little restrictive to work with but i like how it turns out <33)

to lose a group you attached yourself to, even if they were bad for you, even if everything about it sucked. but you keep checking in, you keep instinctively going back because at least it was something. ough... i think it's scary for them, yknow? he's losing touch with what he based his existence around, and he knows its for the better, but it's... complicated hkjgh

ANYWAY THOSE ARE MY ESPRIT THOUGHTS HKJHG <33 thank you for reading if you did!! i LOVE the concept of esprit being more than just the cop skill, he's the skill of community to me!! hkjhg yay :]

[paragonrobits]

thinking a lot about the angst and hurt/comfort potential in Finn, as he gets older and starts going into the same depressive spirals he canonically has pretty often (see: the fruit witch incident and him being pretty quick to start sadly musing on whether Jake, Marceline and Bubblegum even ARE his friends or care about him at all in What Was Missing, or his recurring tendency to just shut down all his sad feelings and aggressively put any bad memory into a Vault so he never has to think about anything bad) and following Jake's death, without Jake to serve as a lightening presence in his life, Finn starts to quietly spiral inward in a way that has him...

not DISTANCING himself from Bubblegum and Marceline (canonically his closest friends in the world, and he is arguably the closest person TO them, and the person that can moderate their respective view points when the two of them start having issues Getting each other), but he starts having doubts about himself and their friendship, so he very quietly is smiling and nodding and in the inside screaming about how of COURSE they don't REALLY need him or want him in their lives, why would they

its a quiet kind of spiraling. He doesn't say things out loud, and that's his problem. He doesn't tell them much, and increasingly starts showing up less and less; Jake would have noticed him starting to have one of his moments and curtailed it right away, but PB and Marceline, as much as they love him, need to be in proximity to him to notice when something is amiss, and its hard to do that when he is going out of his way to conceal his feelings.

He starts doubting himself, and with that concludes that either he's not as close to them as he thought he was, or starts wondering if they just used him and are now discarding him like a broken sword that can't do its job anymore, or otherwise goes into a mentality of 'I don't deserve to be around them because I'm a fuckup and a failure'

In this state of mind, he doesn't think about the good he's done. He doesn't think about all the times he stopped the Lich, or how he dragged Ice King back into a mental space where he could form genuine connections. He doesn't think about how his name is a by-word for heroism, or that PB doesn't trust ANYONE and she trusts him with her life and family. He got Marceline to dare to trust in people even though its so much scarier than keeping a deliberate distance, because he wanted to be her friend and didn't care how dangerous or scary she was-

But he can't see this now. All he sees are the failures. He couldn't save Jake. He couldn't save Billy. And he still feels like he could have done more to help Simon with... everything. Maybe if he'd done it better Jake would still be alive, Betty wouldn't have to fuse with Golb, maybe maybe maybe he's just no good at anything.

PB and Marceline care about him; likely more than they care about anyone else. They trust him with their secrets, their lives, and their goals. They believe in him and the sincere uncomplicated good and desire to help people that they admire but can't entirely bear to do for themselves. But the thing is about it that they're busy besides, and not very demonstrative people at the best of times, and he's not good at noticing the small details.

Maybe he thinks he just doesn't belong anywhere, and most especially not with them; not people as accomplished and cool and just plain good as PB and Marceline. And more and more, the more he's around them, he starts interpreting PB's poor communication skills as lack of interest or even contempt, or Marceline's veiled ways of expressing herself as genuine indifference. They care about him, but he can't see it. He thinks, why WOULD they care about me?

Maye he starts thinking he really is just a joke or a knight to them; a tool that's breaking down and long past its utility point, a tired gimmick that isn't fun anymore so they're moving on to more interesting things.

It's not something he's angry about, or lashes out towards them. He thinks they're objectively right, in his little mental assumptions; he can't help but think of himself as ugly. Misshapen, brutish. He feels shameful and awkward around him, and he withdraws away, a bit at a time.

So the question is raised: what happens when PB and Marceline work this out, or have it directly confronted by some kind of situation that highlights it for them? When something happens so that Finn can't do anything but admit how ugly he feels around them, that all he can think about are his personal failures, or that they just don't want him around anymore.

Or perhaps they come to realize that Finn thinks maybe he should just fade away, be forgotten by a world that doesn't need or want something like him anymore.

[dissociacrip]

this is okay to rb i think, especially if you have anything to add or any insight. idk. i'm tagging this the way that i am because i'm seeking community/connection(tm) or something

hypotonia is not like. a rare thing. not really. but i do remember my OT googling what it was.

low muscle tone/hypotonia may technically be a symptom rather than a diagnosis (barring benign congenital hypotonia, which afaik is controversial) but it's the closest thing to a "diagnosis" i've been given for some of this stuff because the potential cause of it hasn't been investigated and i guess it's not exactly urgent since my particular case isn't severe and doesn't seem progressive (hypotonia can be progressive & is involved in some progressive and degenerative conditions.)

but i wish it was talked about more and i wish more was known about it works and how it affects bodily function and i wish what we DO know about it was more accessible to the public when it comes to those who suffer from it. it's also kinda hard whether to KNOW you have it or not since its "signs" have so much overlap with other conditions that aren't related to muscle tone. it ranges a lot in severity too. and there's two different types (central and peripheral.) it's linked to dozens of diagnoses too which is why i say it's not uncommon.

but also i guess due to the complexity of how it affects the body and its lack of distinctiveness with most of its symptoms makes it kinda...hard to talk about? and i imagine w/ some people it's hard to distinguish the effects of hypotonia vs. their other problems. issues with chewing, writing, breathing, speaking, posture, coordination, etc. can be due to so many different things ranging from mental to physical. but it's not always something that can be lumped together w/ those other things because there's "my muscles don't work" in a terms of chronic muscular pain vs. "my muscles don't work" in terms of, like, they lack the ability to adequately support the body and bodily movement. if that makes any sense.

which ranges from someone like me where having to hold myself up sucks + mild motor skill/coordination impairments and mild developmental milestone delays, but others never meet those milestones or need assistance with things like breathing and ingesting food.

it's not a diagnosis but it can affect the body in complex ways like muscle shortening and stiffness due to our bodies having to compensate in weird ways for the lack of adequate tone (esp those of us who grew up with it), tibial torsion and femoral anteversion, flatfoot and knock-knees, reduced cervical lordosis sometimes leading to bruxism and occipital headaches, etc. PT centered around muscle strengthening to correct my "improper" movement and stuff.

and there's other stuff that can come with it that people like to consider """gross""" like drooling, constipation and other gastric, and pelvic floor dysfunction which can result in incontinence/problems with bladder control. muscles are involved in a lot of things. wild.

i'm rambling but i just wish more people talked about it. all i really have is that one interview that surestep did with meagan veracha, who has hypotonic cerebral palsy, about living with hypotonia as an adult.

maybe i wouldn't care all that much if i had a diagnosis that would "explain it" but "i might have gHSD/hEDS" doesn't rly do that for me because ppl in those communities obviously focus a lot on the joint dysfunction aspect (because those 2 conditions center around hypermobile joints so that's just natural, it's not a bad thing per-se, barring other problems that those communities have) but for me my case of symptomatic generalized hypermobility is secondary in how it impacts me vs. my muscles being bad at their job and my hypermobility might even be secondary to my hypotonia anyway.

dyspraxia/DCD (some people with it have hypotonia but not all - i thought i had it before i was told i was identified as having hypotonia when i was a kid...over two decades late) is another guess but again that centers more around coordination than things like "anything other than lying in bed is hard on me because my muscles don't support my body like they're supposed to."

maybe muscle tone is a complex medical concept that shouldn't really enter the public lexicon but i have no other language for it.

[slice-0f-anime]

my thoughts on karasuno vs inarizaki

The game between them was so incredibly hype and I nearly lost my breath at multiple moments. I love both of these teams and honestly its just so hard to choose a winner, but I felt like the actual outcome wasn't the best?

I dunno I generally thought that many of the results (anime only) of the games were pretty realistic for the most part, with karasuno vs shiratorizawa toeing the line but the struggle made sense there.

The issue came with the karasuno vs inarizaki game, which I thought should fairly go to ina? Maybe I'm missing something fundamentally wrong with their team (other than their cheering section and insane lack of communication sometimes) but they were 2nd seeded in the interhigh nationals while karasuno was beat in the semis of their prefectural tourney. It just doesn't make sense to me that karasuno honed their skills that much leading up to the spring nationals, otherwise ina should have been beaten by many other teams no?

Also, after looking closely, ina's team is pretty much an upgraded version of karasuno. Atsumu was known as the "#1 high school setter" and his synergy with Osamu was freaky, Aran was a top 5 spiker, Suna had crazy blocking, Akagi was a mad cool libero, Kita was a defense oriented captain, and their pinch server was an adorably nervous first year.

Sound familiar? They're basically karasuno upgraded (right now... polished karasuno would slay so hard)

Karasuno winning against Inarizaki kinda shocked me because I was sure they were gonna lose and then come back for redemption the next year, but instead the opposite ended up happening. As of right then in the anime, I felt that ina was the better team and probably would have won that match.

Although, I do understand why karasuno had to win, cause they were playing nekoma next, and no one wants to miss the battle at the garbage dump. I'd be upset if we didn't get to the current team with all the third years play against their rivals, so I suppose I could let it pass.

Even so, I do think realistically Inarizaki should have won that match. Thoughts?