Something that I've noticed ever since the Smiling Critters were introduced is that they can so easily be paired off into complementary duos, ones that are specifically designed to teach children fundamental lessons about life and self-care from two different angles. It's really interesting to me.
Like obviously you have Dogday and Catnap, with their sun/moon, dog/cat dichotomy, that stress how important it is to have fun and get things done during the day, but also that it's important to wind down, relax, and get a good night's sleep.
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Bubba Bubbaphant and Craftycorn were introduced as a duo in the Smiling Critter show's intro, and their dichotomy is quite obvious. They are basically the right and left sides of the brain personified. Bubba is the left side of the brain, logical, analytical, focused on math and science. Craftycorn is the right side of the brain, creative and imaginative, focused on the arts and self-expression. They represent learning and academia in all its forms, the different ways people engage with and understand the world.
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Hoppy Hopscotch and Kickin' Chicken form the sportsmanship duo. They are both portrayed as enjoying sports and the outdoors, but in different ways that highlight the different ways sports can be played and enjoyed and also what it entails to be successful at them. Hoppy Hopscotch may be loud and impatient, but she is also a team player, shown in her willingness to slow down her fast pace to make sure none of her friends are left behind. Kickin' Chicken, on the other hand, is laid-back, relaxed, and chill, the described "cool kid" of the group, but he's also described as having a ton of perseverance, more of a "slow and steady wins the race" type of person.
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This leaves Bobby Bearhug and Picky Piggy as the last pair. Fittingly, these two are all about how to meet the fundamental needs of yourself and others. Bobby teaches children how to nourish themselves emotionally through showing and receiving care from others, while Picky teaches them how good food is important to nourish the body and soul. Depriving oneself of either of these things only makes oneself and therefore everyone around one miserable, because those fundamental needs are no longer being met.
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Like fr, this is some pretty genius marketing right here. You have enough characters that every kid will have their favorite, but not so many that any would get lost in the shuffle, because the lessons each one of them would teach would be integral to the group as a whole. It really makes me that much sadder we saw basically nothing of the Smiling Critters during the game itself, because Mob Games struck gold with this concept, only to ultimately do nothing with it. :/
But I guess that's what fandom is for, eh?
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Your phone sits in your hand. Through his half-opened eyes, Yoichi could see your fingers moving occasionally. He wonders if you are playing something or reading.
His hand reaches for the blanket on your side, still covering your legs even though you are sitting already. Have you already taken a step off the bed today? If you haven’t, Yoichi maybe should remind you to. Whatever it is in your phone could wait after a drink or a proper toilet trip, no matter how demanding it is. Unfortunately, his mouth is still sticky with sleep. Unable to open it, Yoichi trusts the tug of his hand to call out for your attention.
He pulls at the blanket lightly. In a motion that seems to be out of your own awareness, you spare a hand to pet his hair gently. It is as if you are ushering him back to sleep—Yoichi notes. You could have succeeded. Yoichi doesn’t remember what day or hour it is, but with nothing rushing him from the back of his mind, he lets himself take in your touches a bit longer.
Your clothes and hair are rumpled. You probably haven’t been awake for long, considering the way lethargy still paints your face. Rationally, objectively, you don’t look really good (yet, something that sounds like an annoying boyfriend in his head insists).
But, really—with the way the soft morning light hits your face, Yoichi finds himself feeling like a violent mush that might or might not want to cry out of many, many feelings.
Perhaps, this is what it feels to be a man in love—Yoichi tries to reason. It only makes him want to bury himself on your side of the bed, warped in blankets with you until the two of you find the will to get out of the bed.
“Ah,” Yoichi whispers—hoarsely, urgently, most ardently, “I really do love you.”
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ghost’s family being alive but having no idea about his work persona because he wants to avoid any further incident that involves putting their lives in peril.
then ghost proceeding to get severely embarrassed when he brings soap home and soap exposes him because ghost never gave him the rundown on his family not knowing about the whole work thing.
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hate to say it, but part of ending the stigma around sexual assault means not assuming every woman blames herself. yes, female socialization encourages it, but that doesn’t make it a given, and the goal of all of these campaigns is to eventually diminish the proportion of women who do blame themselves. it is entirely possible, and increasingly common, for women to experience sexual assault and not feel shame or guilt, which we should be happy about. but instead, there are only so many times you can hear “you know it’s not your fault, right?” before it sounds like “it was your fault”. and there’s only so many times you can hear “don’t blame yourself” before it sounds like “you should blame yourself”. because it feels good to say, doesn’t it? sure, you don’t believe she’s guilty, but you do believe she should feel guilty, so that you can disabuse her of the notion. just something to consider.
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original thief series basso & garrett :)
ngl, it's about quality over quantity for me. an npc can have a total of three minutes of screen time, but if they have a cool name, they can live rent free in my head and I'll spend several hours trying to decipher drawable features from a blurry screenshot of pixels
there is a vague hint of a story here, and that's because every time I try to play thi4f, I get incredibly frustrated with how Not Fun the game play is. like, is the story good? well. but it has a PLAGUE. that should've given it instant 'I'll replay this once a year' status in my heart, but the game play sucks so bad that I've never finished it. I can't believe Not Fun gameplay beat out my obsession with narrative plagues.
anyway, the idea is basically if the original era had a game with a plague centric narrative and some other stuff I liked out of thi4f thrown into a narrative blender, with a heavy dash of horror thrown in because some parts of the thief games were scarier to me than entire dedicated horror genre games.
⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app
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hotwings au where hawks is a vampire, dabi is a human, and they meet through the vampire equivalent of doordash.
dabi shows up at his door, scruffy and woozy (guy who's been doing this as a full time job and is not coping with the blood loss very well)
hawks is (rightfully) concerned and is ready to cancel his order but dabi immediately disagrees because "that'll fuck up my ratings sooo bad dude don't be an asshole"
hawks: "???"
dabi: "i really need this job man"
hawks kinda shrugs and asks if dabi's up to anything for the next few hours and dabi doesn't have anything going on so hawks invites him in and immediately sits this guy down on his couch to feed him and let him rest for at least four hours so he's not indirectly accused of manslaughter
one must imagine the disposition of an alley cat encountering canned food for the first time: internal battle of mistrust versus yummy treats
dabi goes down kicking and screaming
(the day he goes over to hawks' place it's raining so hard you can barely see and all dabi has is a cheap plastic poncho. hawks' place has heating—he very 'reluctantly' curls up on the couch)
hawks is probably the worst cook on earth but when he tells dabi this, he refuses to let hawks order food for him; dabi would literally rather die than subject another minimum wage worker to the storm outside just to come to this rich asshole's home
which ends up with dabi in hawks' kitchen, making himself a meal
(which, he probably wouldn't usually do this, but the blood loss is kind of getting to him. dabi's decision making has slowly trickled down to the average level it is when he gets drunk)
when he's fed and warm and hawks has forced him to watch two animated movies dabi could not give less of a shit about he finally turns to dabi like
"ok i know we're having a great time but also i really need to eat something. like. you. preferably."
dabi shrugs and offers up his arm, getting progressively more sleepy while hawks finishes his meal before falling asleep pressed against hawks' side
wakes up the next morning with a blanket pulled over him, cheek pressed to a throw pillow with a littleee bit of drool staining the fabric under him
sits up and looks around, armed only with blurry memories of the night before
("did i... sleep with this guy...!?!??!?")
finds a note on the table and unfolds it, trying to figure out what the hell is going on
(lovedddd hanging w u yesterday :P off at work feel free 2 make urself breakfast before u go. U should know where everything is. tip on the counter 4 u. xoxo hawks)
dabi, slightly mortified at the implication he rooted around in this guy's kitchen when he was out of it yesterday finds the tip
it's literally, like, $500 dollars
dabi scribbles down his phone number and sticks it on the fridge with a magnet
(half because he really needed that money and is pleasantly surprised that he got rent money a week earlier than he was expecting)
(half because he might not remember yesterday entirely, but he remembers feeling safe and warm and being addicted to that rare sensation)
hawks is very happy when he gets home, even if dabi isn't there, when he finds his little gift on the fridge
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