#lowkey not the biggest fact of the way i formatted this but i’m too lazy to remake it rn so i’ll leave it as is for now and redo it later

[arionawrites]

arionawrites updated writeblr intro

who the hell am i?

my name is ariona! i also go by ari (common nickname), rio (occasional nickname), and whatever the hell else people wanna call me (within reason). fun fact, my childhood nickname was bird because when i started talking i apparently sounded like a parrot (:

i’m in my mid-twenties (23 as of posting this; turning 24 in march!) and i have been writing since i was in the second grade, or about 7-8 years old. i’ve wanted to be a published author since the fourth grade (10 years old). i have yet to achieve that “published” thing, but i’m working towards it every day and am hoping to have something published somewhere by the time i’m 25 (or while i’m 25, i’m not too picky lol)

i’m a chronically ill lesbian who tries to include type one diabetic characters in everything i write and almost exclusively write queer characters.

i currently work in before and after school childcare, though i am in the process of finding a new job that provides me better stability as well as the time to be able to focus on my writing more. my hope is some kind of office job, or, even better, something in a library!

what kind of things do i write?

it honestly depends on the vibes, man. i’m happy to write (almost) every genre so long as i have a story idea that fits it that i want to write. however, i do have some common things that i tend to write more often than the rest, such as:

queer romance (usually the romance part is not the primary focus, though i do have a sapphic romance novel in the works)

modern fantasy

coming of age

found family

complex and complicated family dynamics

i also have a tendency to post weird little ramble-y thought pieces in random points in time (would it count as poetry? i honestly don’t know). if you’re interested to seeing any of it, my writing tag is #ariwrites !! i’ll add the tag to this post as well for convenience sake!

what projects do i currently have?

so, here’s the thing: i struggle with completing things and tend to have a bunch of new ideas and kind of leave old ideas in the dust. because of this, i’ve decided to take almost all of my current projects and scrap them? actually, scrap isn’t the right word - i’m starting from scratch with a majority of them! i think there are some ideas that i can actually combine into one story rather than them being separate, and a lot of it is just a kind of conglomerated mess that i am in the process of detangling in order to move forward in a more coherent and structured way. however, i do have two projects that i am not starting from complete scratch. i am remaking the outlines for these two stories, though, and then rewriting them from the beginning!

here are those two projects:

rotten

a zombie apocalypse scenario that i originally started writing as a nanowrimo project in 2022 that i did not complete. matter of fact, i only got a couple of chapters in before the spark fizzled out. however, i love the characters i have created and the bones of the story i had in mind, which is why i am choosing to restructure the outline and try again. it will likely change quite a bit as i remake the outline and iron out the details in new ways, but the basic breakdown of the story is this: it’s three years into an apocalypse that has left a mere remnant of humanity in its wake. we have a cast of four main characters (maybe six, depending on how you look at it). one is an older brother taking care of his siblings, both of whom have yet to reach double digits in age. one is a grumpy pessimist who thinks it’s pointless building bonds when everyone else she knew before is almost definitely dead and anyone else she meets will end up dead, too. one is a former optimist who has been weighed down by the realism the apocalypse has forced upon him, who hates being alone (being lonely) but has been betrayed by every single person he has come across since the fight to survive began, and he doesn’t really know what to do about that anymore. one was raised privileged and pampered by a paranoid and eccentric millionaire who was also absolutely certain that doomsday was inevitable (hey, turns out he was right!) and therefore raised his daughter teaching her every survival skill he could and preparing her for the worst, so she is, realistically, the best person to have on your side in an apocalypse—and yet she has been alone the entirety of the three years. all of them are queer and all of them will have to learn that they can rely on one another after stumbling into each other’s lives. also, despite only one of them being the older brother of those kids, the other three will eventually come to an agreement that they would burn the rest of what’s left of the world if it meant keeping them warm, so that’s cool, i guess.

hot chocolate

this is the sapphic romance novel i mentioned above! started writing it on a whim with literally zero plan for it last year, made it my camp nano project, and somehow managed to hit 30k words before the lack of preparation caught up with me. the title is a working title and might change upon the rewrite, but i absolutely adore this story so far and am very excited to get an outline busted out so that i can get back to writing it. the breakdown is this: mallory james moves in with her big brother when she’s eighteen. it’s the summer after her graduation and every single plan that she had for her future has been rendered pointless and now she’s trying to find her footing in a life that is completely different from the one she had been living only a few months ago. her brother, eddie, is going to do his best to be there for her and help her heal, but mallory doesn’t want to heal. she doesn’t even want to acknowledge that there’s anything she needs to heal from. unsure of what to do next, she enrolls in the local community college and meets a few people who somehow manage to become her kinda sorta friends — ellie, ash, and bee. featuring sapphic love, healing from loss and family trauma, finding stability and reason in an unexpected place, and a side character who is definitely polyamorous but entirely unaware that that’s a thing he’s able to be.

alright, i think that’s all i want to put here! i’ll definitely edit this with updates as information changes and as old projects become new again and things like that, but it’s a new year (the fact that i’m posting this in february is absolutely not important at all) and i’m trying to make ‘24 something worthwhile. if you’ve read this far, thank you so much and i hope everyone is having an incredible day/night !!

[free-pool-trash]

Cuddling with the Free! boys:

Haru:

- Bath cuddles. (Obviously while wearing swim suits god guys)

- He isn’t the biggest fan of cuddling so consider yourself blessed

- Will 100% be holding your hand the entire time

- Hand holding is his favorite form of physical affection so you can bet he’s going to incorporate that into the cuddles

- Likes if you play with his hair

- Like a lot

- Cuddles with Haru will usually lead to really deep talks

- Imagine it’s 2am, your heads on Haru’s chest, staring up into his eyes, you’ve got one hand in his while the other plays with his hair, his free(!) arm wrapped around your waist tightly to keep you close, all is quiet, until…

- “Do you think we’ll love each other as much when we’re 80?”

- Anything along those lines is common with Haru

- People usually get the wrong idea when you tell them you didn’t get much sleep that night

- The cuddles are surprisingly warm and tight, they happen as often as possible because as much as Haru hates to admit it, he needs you close more than you know

- He’s not apposed to being the little spoon every once in a while

- If his days been hard you’ll get a very needy text from him telling you to meet him at his place, if you’ve had a hard day the same applies 

- Makes you feel special type of cuddler

Makoto:

- BIG SPOON

- He’s a literal heater, by far the warmest person in the world to snuggle into save me

- Wraps his arms around your entire body because the height difference between you is ridiculous, you’re the height equivalent to Nagisa compared to him

- But that means that you fit together like pieces of a puzzle, an amazing warm cuddly puzzle… 

- Imagine your back tucked against his chest, his long arms wrapped securely around you while you both talk softly about what you’ll do with your futures

- Ren and Ran 1000% get involved at least 4 times a week, it’s no question that they absolutely adore you and you them, like sometimes when you go to visit Makoto you just end up playing with those two little rascals 

- Makoto thinks the cutest thing ever is seeing you and his siblings asleep all cuddled up together basically using him as a bed.

- The formation is: Mako’s arm around your shoulder as you lay beside him with your head in the crook of his neck and one of your hands in his hair (you were playing with it before you fell asleep). Ran in the same position as you on the other side of Makoto only she was laying on his chest then finally Ren squeezed between you and Makoto, his head nestled into your stomach and your arm wrapped tightly around his waist while he hugs you like a teddy bear

- You end up in this position every time without fail

- Makoto definitely has taken a billion pictures of this, it’s without a doubt his phones wallpaper

- You have a thing about leaving butterfly kisses on his neck while you cuddle because it makes him giggle and that giggle lemme tell you– damn

- He loves it, he’ll never admit it, but he loves it. Y’know what? Love isn’t even a strong enough word.

- Makes you feel protected type of cuddler

Nagisa:

- Oh mY G0D,,,,,,, This B0Y,,,,,,,, this,,,,,,, boi

- Hugs you as if you were a literal teddy bear, his hold on you is so tight but in the most comfortable way imaginable 

- You two don’t spoon, you hold onto each other in a bear hug but it’s not your typical bear hug, you both refer to these types of hugs as ‘extra special Nagi-(Y/n) snuggles’

- Alright so,,, imagine you’ve both had a really tiring day at school (everyday with this ball of sunshine to be honest) Nagisa invites you over to his house to ‘study’ which is usually true for about 5 minutes before Nagi starts nuzzling his head into your shoulder complaining about how boring studying is.

- And since this boy has made you soft you give in in about 0.2 seconds

- He’s taller than you so when you guys cuddle he wraps his legs around your waist and arms around your neck, like a koala, a blonde, happy, adorable, sunshine filled koala

- ESKIMO KISSES OH MY GOD PLEASE SAVE ME

- As a couple eskimo kisses are like,, your thing. Some couples hug or give kisses on the cheek, you two? You do it all + an eskimo kiss because you’re extra

- His hugs could end wars if we’re being honest here, if you’re having a hard day Nagisa is there and he will give you the warmest cuddliest hug in the universe

- He’s just so pure and soft and joyful keep him safe the world does not deserve him

- His older sisters take pictures of you both cuddling and post them online 

- ‘Baby bro and his girlfriend are the cutest awww!

- Makes you feel like nothing else matters type of cuddler

Rei:

-  Rei is a whole different story alright hold on tight kids

- He is absolutely ridiculous when it comes to cuddling 

- “(Y/n) I can’t I’m studying.” 

- “(y/N) i CaN’T i’M STuDYiNG.”

- This gets on his nerves so you do it until he agrees to give you the snuggles that you deserve for being the most patient girlfriend ever

- One time you got sad because sometimes he stresses himself out with studying and school work that he barely spares you a glance and your mind straight away jumped to ‘Okay he hates me. Great going (Y/n)’… sad bean.

- Rei’s super smart but oh my god he’s so blind, this boy loves you, he loves you so much and that day when he saw the look on your face he was destroyed, he was so worried when he asked what was wrong and you told him he hugged you so tightly

- That was the start of hug tolerant Rei. He discovered he loved your cuddles. He now wants them all the time. You’ve created a monster.

- He’s an old soul and it’s the cutest, when you hang out he wraps one arm around your shoulder and keeps you close then in the other hand he hold up a book and reads to you

- He lives for sleepy (Y/n) trying to stay awake while he reads to you, he loves the face you make to show how interested you are in what he’s reading but at the same time he’s been waiting to snuggle up to you and sleep since he opened the book because lets face it this happens all the time

- You guys cuddle weirdly, he lays on his side, arms around your torso facing you while you wrap your legs under his knees and your arms circle around his neck with your forehead against his chest

- It’s insanely comfortable don’t even question it

- When you guys lie like that he’s constantly kissing the top of your head and it is the bestest thing in the world

- When he falls asleep he nuzzles his nose into your hair but he doesn’t believe you when you tell him because “nuzzling is illogical” but you know he loves it

- Makes you feel complete type of cuddler

Rin:

- Did someone say cuddle monster?

- He is lowkey the softest boy oh my god he makes me weak send help, he loves cuddles, he’ll deny it to the guys but when you’re alone there is 0 shame

- Buries his face in the crook of your neck, he thinks the smell of your hair is so comforting- he’ll notice if you change shampoos

- protective bby boy

- He holds you a certain way that I don’t think words can describe correctly because it makes me way too emotional, 

 (HE’S THE CUTEST OH MY FUCKING GOD, I’M SORRY)

So basically he lays like this and your head is rested on the arm he has behind his head, his other arm is around your shoulders while his hand plays with your hair

- He loves just staring into your eyes, it makes him less stressed about being the captain and helps him forget his responsibilities for a little while

- Gou thinks it’s the cutest thing ever seeing her big brother all mushy with you, oh god he gets the goofiest smile on his face just looking at a sleeping you in his arms it’s too much I’m dead

- You let him cry on your shoulder and give him your undivided attention because god knows he’s got a lot bottled up

- When he’s upset like this you end up just cradling him against your chest while his arms are holding onto you for dear life

-  So before a big race you lie in your usual position (The one I mentioned^^) and if you fall asleep he’ll kiss your forehead and whisper to you

- “I’m gonna win this one for ya, babe”

- And he does

- You can get him to do anything if you promise him cuddles

- a n y t h i n g

- Makes you feel at home type of cuddler

Sousuke:

- He has a playlist specifically for cuddling 

- It’s full of cute duets and slow songs, A+ for this boy because he makes sure to add in your favourite artists

- Alright down to business

- He hugs with his entire heart, it’s not his favorite thing to do but he doesn’t not like it either

- You lie your head on his chest and one of his arms is around your waist and the others under his head

- He shares an earphone with you, awwwwww

- He plays with your hair constantly, it’s actually his favorite part of cuddling, another is the fact that he can sleep without getting called lazy by Rin

“I came into the dorm today and you were asleep.”

“And?”

“It was like 2 in the afternoon, what the hell man?”

“Yeah my girlfriend wanted to cuddle, I was just being the amazing boyfriend I am.”

“Whatever.”

- THIS POOR BABIES SHOULDER HE DOESN’T DESERVE THIS TO BE HAPPENING TO HIM OH MY GOD 

- You always always always give him little shoulder massages, he sits in between your legs while you do this

- He also secretly lives for when you leave little kisses on his injured shoulder 

- “Feels better already”

- He’ll always lean down and peck you on the lips before you fall asleep because it always makes you smile and you end up falling asleep with a little smile on your face

- Rin can lie to himself all he wants but when he comes back to the dorm and sees you two all cuddled up and asleep his hard-ass facade fualters a little bit

- Sousuke will sometimes sing along to whatever song is playing and that is enough to melt your heart

- Makes you feel like you belong type of cuddler

Nitori:

- Littlest of spoons

- Hold him tight please

- We all know this baby boy wants to be the best swimmer he can be but sometimes that means he overworks himself and spends longer in the pool than is good for him

- Hence, as his girlfriend it is your duty to drag him away from the pool, get him warm and fed then haul his ass to bed and show him through warm secure hugs that you care about and love him very very much

- He’s so amazing and it hurts you so much how insecure he can be sometimes like I’m sorry bby I love you so much

-When this happens you get all sad and just kind of wrap yourself around him as if you were a koala on a tree and rest your chin on his shoulder until he accepts the fact that you’re in love with him and most likely always will be

- Once he realizes that you aren’t going anywhere he kisses your cheek and thanks you for being so amazing

- You’re a little bit taller than him so when you cuddle his heads in the crook of your neck while his arms are circled around your waist, one of your arms in under his head usually playing with his hair while the other’s thrown over his waist

- He is the most gentle human being and he has softened your heart by 100000000000%

- He deserves the world and to him that’s you

- You kiss his beauty mark and he gets all blushy and smiley

- He gIGgLeS, it is the actual most cutest thing

- He’ll always take charge of the cuddles if you’re upset. He is hands down one of the best comforters ever.

- It’ll be the same way you both normally cuddle only the roles are reversed and he just strokes your hair so gently it’ll make you instantly calmer

- Makes you feel like you’re important type cuddler

Momo:

- Energetic to the max

- Okay he has a lot of energy but that won’t stop him from being the sweetheart he is, you wanna cuddle? Okay let’s cuddle.

- Cuddling usually starts off with a tickle fight followed by some rolling around trying to find a comfortable position

- Never one designated position 

- You could be spooning, one of your heads on the others lap, sometimes Momo just flops down on his stomach and you just kinda lie down on his back and neither of you will move for like 3 hours

- He’ll talk to you about his beetles, you don’t really care but it makes him happy so you listen intently watching the dorky little smile on his face

- “OH OH AND THEY’RE NOCTURNAL SO THEY ONLY COME OUT AT NIGHT SO THEY’RE REALLY TOUGH TO CATCH, NOT FOR ME THOUGH- GEEZ HOW LUCKY ARE YOU YOUR BOYFRIEND IS THE KING OF STAG BEETLE HUNTING!”  

- You being half asleep by this point

- “Mhm, that’s great babe… really really great, I love you.”

- He just laughs at you but then starts to gush about how cute you are

- After he’s sure you’re asleep he gets really sentimental and he talks to you 

- “Maybe I’m the lucky one, ending up with someone as great as you, huh?” Then he’ll brush the hair from in front of your eyes away behind your ear and kiss you ever so softly on the tip of your nose before he finishes “Yeah, I’m definitely the lucky one.” 

- I’m not dying inside

- He’ll probably drool on you once he falls asleep.

- Makes you feel loved type of cuddler

Wow this took me so long so I’m putting it up, yeah I know nobody asked for this but I want these boys to cuddle me, writing this killed me inside a lot, anyway hope you like it!

[yujachachacha]

Love Live height differences - a cautionary tale

I went on a LL seiyuu video binge session recently, and came across a Korean-subbed video of a clip from Shikaco’s radio show. I’m too lazy to try subbing it, but I liked the contents enough that I want to at least share it as a text post.

On Ep130 of Shikaco’s radio (air date: September 27, 2016), Shikaco received a fan letter asking if there were anything that she particular liked or disliked about being tall for a girl. Shikaco quips that she’s definitely on the tall side, but she’s not super-duper tall when it comes down to it.

(For those of you too lazy to Google it, Shikaco is 163cm tall, which is just under 5′4″. So yeah, tall for a Japanese female, but not that tall.)

Shikaco does note that she was the tallest in µ’s, though. That leads her to mention that one big downside to her height was that since Hanayo is a short girl, Shikaco often had to crouch down to match Hanayo’s pose for µ’s formations. It wasn’t just a slight bending of the knees either - she’d scrunch down to nearly half of her normal height. Shikaco laughs about how this really screwed with her leg muscles, but then she starts to become more serious.

Around the time of the 4th live, Shikaco had been complaining a lot about her thighs hurting all the time, especially when they’d have to walk down stairs. The way that Shikaco tells this portion of the story makes it seem that her complaints were mostly lighthearted at the time. After a while though, she went, “Wait, what if this is an actual problem?”, and decided to get a check up at a hospital. It turns out that she had developed muscle damage because of the constant abuse to her posture Σ(ﾟДﾟ ). Her word of advice to everyone: it’s not good to crouch down so much!

Some of us might be aware of how the seiyuu go through a lot just to match the hairstyles and hair colors of the characters, such as:

Ucchi enduring a bajillion pins in her hair for Kotori’s hair loop

Soramaru measuring the part in Nico’s bangs at exactly 35º

Nanjolno going through 6+ different wigs for Eli’s “simple” ponytail

Pile and Ucchi and Kussun dyeing their hair for Final Live

Shukashuu cutting her hair short for the first time in her life

Suwawa and Furirin partially dyeing their hair for 1st Live

There’s also the grueling training they have to go through to survive singing and dancing in front of thousands of people for two-day live concerts. But to worry about the character’s height on top of that…these girls work so hard for this franchise, and every story I hear about what they’ve done for the sake of the characters and the fans makes me love them even more. (இ⌓இ )

Bonus - some thoughts I had about Aqours heights while typing up this post:

While I’m on the subject of heights, let’s talk about the “Shikaco” (AKA the tallest in the group) of Aqours - King.

Supposedly, King is also 163cm tall. Based on this number, King is a whopping 11cm taller than Hanamaru - compare that to Shikaco’s 7cm height difference with Hanayo.

Note: I say “supposedly” because Arisha’s official profile says that her height is 164cm, which means that she should be taller than King. However, there’s lots of evidence that proves otherwise, such the fact that AZALEA lines up in height order of Suwawa-Arisha-King for their subunit greeting. If that’s not enough for you, then take a look at the LisAni lineup photo.

Ignoring the fact that Rikyako is in front of Shukashuu despite the two of them supposedly being 152cm and 150.5cm tall respectively (I refuse to believe that Shukashuu is truly taller than Rikyako *shakes fist at photo*), this lineup is a good guide on the height order for the seiyuu of Aqours. At the very least, you can see that King is unmistakably the tallest. King’s agency profile doesn’t list her height, so that 163cm floating around on Google results for “takatsuki kanako height” is probably inaccurate if we assume that Arisha isn’t straight-up lying about her own height, haha.

The only solid evidence we have for heights is during the very first Aqours niconama back in January 2016 (it’s been over a year since then, omg time sure does fly). Suwawa had recounted a story of how shocked she was at the placement of the mic when she was recording for the KimiKoko album - as Furirin had gone before her - and her amazement that someone that small was in the cast, as the seiyuu had not met each other at that point. Furirin then mentions that she and King have the ideal 15cm height difference for couples. Seeing as Furirin outright says that she’s 148cm tall (at about 49:17), this is where we get the 163cm figure for King. Arisha and Ainya then explicitly say that they’re 164cm and 147cm tall respectively when they point out their own lovely height difference and thus the kmny ship was born.

I’m still not convinced that Arisha is supposed to be taller than King. Perhaps the 15cm height difference between Furirin and King is just a ballpark, like how Arisha and Ainya also claimed the title with their 17cm difference, because King would have to be at least 17cm taller than Furirin to be taller than Arisha. Whatever the case may be, for the sake of having a concrete number to discuss, I’m just gonna assume that King is somehow both 163cm tall and the tallest seiyuu in Aqours.

Incidentally, the biggest character-seiyuu height difference is the 16cm gap between Mari and Ainya, standing at 163cm and 147cm respectively - breaking the previous 12cm record held by Eli and Nanjolno, at 162cm and 150cm. Guess Love Live has a thing for short singers voicing tall blondes.

…wow, I got really off-topic with the height talk there.

Anyways, just wanted to say that I’m lowkey praying for King to not pull a Shikaco and screw up her muscles or something from playing the part of a character who’s a lot shorter than she is. IIRC King has said something before about trying to make herself appear more small when voicing Maru. (꒪⌓꒪) Hope she takes care of her health!