#thank you my dear friend!!!

[lumiereandcogsworth]

How do Belle and Adam cheer each other up when one is dragging?

i’ve answered a very similar question, how do they Comfort each other, so i’ll link that here - but this is a bit different!! how do they Cheer Each Other Up!!

one of the first things belle fell in love with about adam is his humor. she thinks he’s SO funny oh my gosh. have you seen those two interact? like belle i dare you to not laugh at everything he says. she is SMITTEN. but anyway, my point is, adam knows exactly how to make her laugh. so i think when she’s having a low sort of day, he’ll do his best to make some subtle sarcastic remarks, often at his own expense or at something he knows she’d find funny, and 9 times outta 10 it will indeed brighten her mood.

adam also knows that above all else, belle is a doer. so if she’s fallen into a slump, what she needs most is to get pulled out of it and launched into some activity or project. so often times, he suggests they go for a walk or horseback ride - or he asks how her projects in the workshop are going, which usually either leads to her infodumping or just taking him to show him what she’s been working on.

when adam is feeling down, belle usually has to try a few different things. adam is very prone to isolating (hashtag lonely childhood!!) so she usually has to figure out a way to get him to open up in the most gentle way possible. (she learned from very early in their marriage that you cannot just simply Ask him what’s wrong. he’ll close up instantly and argue instead and it leads nowhere.) (which still happens sometimes throughout their marriage of course.)

adam often forgets to eat (a combo of depression & autism, in my headcanon world) and he also doesn’t generally get a lot of sleep because he’s a night owl + gets nightmares + still wakes up early to work/be a parent. so she usually tries the routes of saying she’s hungry and she’s going to get some food for them. not really giving him a chance to refute it, just simply bringing a tray of food for the both of them. he’ll usually start snacking on it with her and he may start opening up about his troubles. OR if he’s tired, it’s a similar strategy where she says she needs to lie down and asks if he’ll lay with her. (or later when they have kiddos, she often suggests he join them in their naps (and the kiddos get real excited when they get to nap with papa in the big bed, so he can hardly refuse it)) that one usually just recharges him and makes him less grumpy than he was (he of course denied being grumpy in the first place though.)

what adam usually needs is time. sometimes he does need to be alone, so belle gives him that. sometimes he just needs her in the room so he feels less alone. sometimes he just needs to take a break and sit with her and read together for a little while, or get some fresh air on a walk or ride. his emotions and needs are a lot more sporadic and difficult to identify, because he was so closed off for so long, (and because he’s autistic), but belle is his person, so however it ends up happening, he’ll usually get cheered up by her by the end of the day.

in extreme cases, a weekend in paris is usually their go-to for cheering up when they’ve fallen into a slump. run away to paris, see a show, dine-out, dance in a ballroom - ah the life of royalty.

#thank you my dear friend!!! #adelle #batb headcanons #batb 2017

[mollymarymarie]

I was just thinking about DYH ( again!! ) and it never ceases to amaze me how well you write intimacy. Like I read your fics and the way you portray them and write the scenes really give out the feeling that “ god look at them they can’t stay away from each other” especially physically!! They reach for each other in scenes and you’re so talented that you can actually feel their lust and want to be near each other constantly and yea, I think it’s brilliant! ( just me fangirling over your writing once again)

Have a good day friend!!❤️

Hello friend!! Thank you, thank you! I'd like to attribute it to the fact that I've been married for fourteen years lol but you are very sweet for saying such lovely things about my fic!! ❤️❤️❤️

#I got an ask! #Thank you my dear friend!!! #You are wonderful!!

[birbs-in-space]

curious about what's in store for you for 2024? :D

Let AO3 decide!

(Updated from 2023: Up-to-date tag bank, opt-in tag categories, optional dark mode! As always: proceed with informed consent.)

#new post #clearing out my original tags since they're not 100% accurate but as always this has been a labor of love and also (new!) collaboration #do you know how hard it is to go thru 13k tags and categorize them? so thank you to my dear friend for proofing these #this update has been in the works since june or july (though i worked on it very intermittently) #and i am SO happy to be done with it for the time being #because i very much have other responsibilities LMAO

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Do you like sci-fi and indie animation? Check out Monkey Wrench!

#monkey wrench #digital art #This series is very delightful and also in need of more attention! #Usually I would ramble about why love it - however I am going to go a little off the rails and talk about something else. #Namely that this is a gift for a very dear friend who loves this series a lot! One of my favourite people of all time! #Thank you for so many things. For keeping me going when times are dark. For sticking by in the hard times. #Thank you for the incredible soup and the fun moments! For the great recommendations on series. #I sometimes feel like I should thank the universe for letting our paths cross when they did. #It feels cheesy to say all this but I really am such a better person because of you. #Thank you for reading all my silly comics even though you have *no* idea what is going on in them. It means a lot. #My gift of a silly doodle and hopefully getting a few people to check out this show is not adequate to express my gratitude. #But hey - we've got the rest of our lives to keep saying thank you. #Love you lots mate. Can't say it enough B'*)

[willowser]

you don't know how much comfort your dragon king bkg drabble has given me ever since you posted it!! i keep reading it i love it sm 🥹

as it turns out, the man bakugou is — a bit harder to handle.

he sleeps like a heathen; you once thought the dragon bakugou to be a bit lazy, with how often he tended to curl up in the fields of grass, warm under the sun, but now — it would seem his little human form needs significantly less rest.

almost up all hours of the day, and when he does finally lay down, he's everywhere. a mess of limbs: one thrown carelessly out to the side and the other bent at an angle you can't believe doesn't hurt his joints. his head stays tucked into you somehow, either buried in your neck or pressed against your ribs — or you'll wake to find him nose-to-nose with you. he still snores like a dragon, however.

you're also beginning to wonder if there is a bottom to the pit of his stomach. he ate much before, whole fields of things, but you expected that appetite to dwindle, at least a little, now that his stomach has decreased considerably in size. and in number ? you're not even sure how many stomachs a dragon has; that's not something that was mentioned in the fairytales.

it burns through him quickly, gives him more energy than he needs, and it doesn't ever seem to affect his weight much. already, he's huge and thick with muscle and eating as much as he does never dulls the severity of his cut abdomen. not that you're looking all that much.

— not that you have a choice not to, as he seems to have little-to-no understanding of —

the door to the bathhouse kicks open, with enough force that you already know who it is without ever turning to look. you try not to shriek when you see him, because he seems to like that in some evil, impish way.

you've been alone to wash so far, thankfully, as the inn you'd managed to find was small and far enough out from the nearest kingdom that the occupancy was low — enough for you and your little brute.

the man bakugou comes to stand in front of the bath, blinking and huffing against the steam. finding clothes for him was — nearly impossible, and so the trousers you'd found hanging on someone's line outside fit above his ankles, a bit too tight around his waist. instead of a shirt, you've wrapped him in a scratchy linen, swaddled him up like a baby to cover the small smattering of scales that decorate his body, almost like freckles from the sun, though they gleam just as bright and red as they ever have. no matter his form.

a horn has started to sprout, on the right side of his forehead, and you've done your best to cover that, too.

you have no idea how long this man thing will last. if it's permanent or if he even has control over it. the last thing you need is for him to switch back, somehow, while you're in the middle of feeding him, absolutely demolishing whatever tavern you're in and calling all of king todoroki's guards to attention.

bakugou grunts, almost sleepy, and tosses a fat, weighty sack onto the edge of the bath. it jingles a certain jingle that makes your heart stop.

"oh, allfather—" you move for the edge, awkwardly keeping one arm against your chest despite the fact that he's seen it all by now. when you peek inside and confirm your fears, you lob it back to him furiously, as if it were a steaming potato. "where do you keep getting this stuff?"

things have started to turn up, miraculously. shiny things — like coins and rings and gems. things he could not have simply found rolling around in the dirt.

"go put it back!" you hiss at him, and the tone of your voice makes his frown deepen. you never realized how pouty he was, when he was still a dragon.

you think he understands you, and you're pretty certain he just chooses not to listen; instead of doing what you've told him in the slightest, he simply dumps the coin-purse to the floor, and then lets his linen and stolen trousers cover it as he unceremoniously undresses.

the biggest issue that you would say the man bakugou poses is — his complete lack of understanding of personal space.

"bakugou!" your voice wavers, shocked again by his nakedness. as if you haven't seen it all by now. "no, you — get out!"

but he does the exact opposite, which is hop into the steaming water, ignoring the arm you hold out to keep him away as he saddles up beside you. skin against scales, pressing a nose into your hair to huff out his annoyance, to make it something you can feel.

if anyone were to walk in right now, they would — probably think the lie you'd told the innkeeper was true. that you are a simple traveler and this is your mute, over-sized husband.

regardless, you think this behavior isn't polite. especially in a public bathhouse.

"bakugou," you try again, turning your face away as you speak to the wood-paneled wall. "i'm taking a bath, you have to wait your turn."

all you receive in response is another huff against your ear and a low rumble of disagreement from his chest.

he has yet to speak back, and has only used inhuman sounds as his points of conversation. the only word you've ever heard him utter is oi, which he does when he really thinks he needs your attention. you're starting to wonder if he's named you that in his head. oi.

curiously, you turn back to him and the movement has him pulling his face from your hair, just enough that he can look down at you, too. watch you, with the red-rippled sea in his eyes.

they're — amazing, you will admit. just as bright and detailed as they always have been. fit for a fairytale told by the fire, veiled by the soft-ash of his lashes. he watches you through them, half-lidded, and you wonder if it's something other than fatigue that has them so heavy.

"do you know what i'm saying?" you ask quietly, voice lacking the firm heat you want it to. instead it's heavy, too, weighted by something soft and unfamiliar and frightening. "can you even understand me?"

bakugou doesn't respond, not with a huff or a rumble or ever a purr, like the one he let out on the night he lay over you by the lake. you've only heard it sparingly since then, oftentimes in his sleep when his face is pressed into you.

you try not to frown at his silence, try not to let it disappoint you because it shouldn't; he's a dragon afterall, and you're not sure what it matters. the little horn protruding from his forehead catches your eye and you reach up to touch it gently, watching him blink away the water that drips from your wrist — and then he's turning into you again, too close.

beneath the water, you feel his hands skate up your bare thighs, wrap around your waist until your chest is pulled flush against his. you feel his huff, again, against the damp skin of your neck but it's slower, lighter. not laced with his frustration. some unknown thing you feel guilty for liking.

you drop your hand to his hair, rushing full force into all the damned things you've thought about doing but have been too afraid to. he's soft between your fingers, and you trace your nails lightly against his scalp until he groans quietly; a new noise, one you don't know how to translate.

your fingers stop when they brush upon little spines that have grown at the base of his skull, that have started to trail down the center of his back.

suddenly, tangled up in the bath with him, you wonder how much time you have left.

bakugou huffs again into your skin, a little fiercer this time, and it's because of his light jostling that you realize how rigid you've gone. you try to relax so that he will, too, though you must not do a convincing job, because a sharp nip comes to your earlobe.

"ow!" you squeal, but he doesn't let you go far, not even as you try to jerk away from him. in fact, the harder you try the more his teeth show: into your cheek and the point of your jaw and then dangerously low on your neck.

it's not until you finally freeze that he stops, huffing again, with a warmth that burns more than the steaming water.

and then, very quietly, he grumbles, "shitty wife," into your collarbone, just before biting you again.

#anon dear friend i am so happy you have enjoyed it !!! and that it has comforted you in some way !! #i am wrapping you up in a big hug and so is our bratty lil dragon🥹 #this message was just so cute and i wanted to write more for you !!! #this is all for you my peach my plum 😌 thank you for being here and reading my silly things !! giving me a reason to share them !!! #how fuuuuunnnn i am enjoying him way too much LOL #he's a brat !! a biter !!! he does what he wants !!! #god this is going to become a thing on here isn't it LOL might as well start a tag because i have much more to say !! #the lil world-building i have done for this in my mind...you have no i dea LOL #thank you again dearest !! #he he he he said THIS IS MINE 😊 #and by this he means YOU 👀 #๑ remember me love: bakugou ๑ #✿ willow writes #✿ ask willow #✿ thoughts: bakugou

[hitwiththetmnt]

moot @beannary! some au comp support from the sidelines

->Based on this post<-

#good luck in the competition-I give you paper towels for support #Alis has good intentions but bad execution:} #may I trouble you with some help dear friend? that stab wound looks like it could use some paper towels #tmnt au propaganda #my art #tmnt spitfire #tmnt separated au #thank you tumblr for breaking and making my blog/likes/followers wig out BUT WE PUSHED THROUGH FOR THE HOMIES #art 4 others

[erraticpulse]

is this anything

the drawing separately is under read more!

#darkest dungeon #dd flagellant #ultrakill #gabriel ultrakill #so this thing is made thanks to my dear friend who compared the flagellants affliction to gabriel #nate this one's for you <3 #lidsart

[atdawn]

All I’ve ever wanted is to be your queen. I still want to be your queen. I don't want to see you dead, Guinevere...but I don't want to see you. I cannot look on you every day.

#arthur pendragon #gwen #merlin #bbc merlin #syfysource #tvedit #smallscreensource #ee #gifs #m #arthur #this scene HURT! thank you to my dear darling friend for requesting but also why on earth did you do this to me #i had to condense the scene quite a bit so excuse the way it jumps if you're familiar with it :') #409

[solarcas]

My entry for the @destieldtiyschallenge - my assigned partner was @archervale, and I chose to try my hand at this lovely totally-absolutely-canon Empty rescue scene what do you mean this didn't happen-

I chose this piece because I thought their poses would be fun and challenging to figure out (which I was right about!) and it also ended up giving me a great excuse to bust out my metallic golden paints ✨🖌 I hope you like my version!! <3

[Open for better quality!]

+ Bonus glitter close-ups under the cut:

I might've uhhh. Gone a bit overboard w/ the gold fhdkfhfk <3

#this was so much fun!!!! #thank you @sheepstiel my dear friend sheep for organising this 💕✨️ #destiel dtiys #destiel #dean winchester fanart #castiel fanart #destiel fanart #deancas #dean winchester #dean is bi #castiel supernatural #supernatural #spn #spn fanart #the empty #traditional art #watercolour #metallic paint #ballpoint pen #solar draws #emeraldcas #chapeldean #spxcekya

[peonycats]

Can you draw the historical character Majapahit Empire?

bruh i waited so long to answer this ask indonesia became canon

This is less of an attempt to depict Indonesia as he actually was during the Majapahit Era and more like a modern historical reenactment, thus explaining the historically inaccurate short hair lmao

BONUS:

#historically inaccurate hair is historically inaccurate #historical fashion #hws indonesia #historical hetalia #hetalia #ask #anonymous #hws philippines #mamma mia thats a huge file size #indophil #anyways thank you to my dear friend who helped me with the research for the clothes #and also that javanese bride jasmine headdress at the end!! theyre so pretty!!! #aph indonesia #aph philippines

[misakarose]

"Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am the honored one."            ↳ Gojo Satoru ✧ dedicated to Kay~ (@kyaa-a)

#jujutsu kaisen #jjkedit #jjkdaily #hyeahjujutsu #dailyanime #fyanimegifs #anisource #gojo satoru #stupid beautiful sorcerer man #*mine #*jjk #*gifs #*graphics #KAAAAYYYYYYY DARLING #I'm sorry I'm so late with this but HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY MY DEAR!!!!! #I hope you had a wonderful beautiful day celebrating!!! #you're such a sweet and kind person and I love getting to talk to you and interact with you~ #your gifs are always sooo pretty I seriously love your colors so much!!! #thank you for being my mutual and friend~ ♥ ♥ #I hope you like this gift I made for you!! #even though... it's a bit late... >.< #sorry again ajkdrhg;aoeghr #I HOPE LIFE IS TREATING YOU WELL!!!!

[sirguyofdykesborn]

sinners for @dirtsnifffer

#limbus company #ishmael #rodion raskolnikov #thank you for being my number one client and a dear friend. i love you #also this rodya is old i just haven't posted her

[familyofpaladins]

#submission #I have polls now but this is the poll I came up with when my dear friend rey tried to gift me a poll #(Which I couldnt edit until now lol) #So I am using their gifted poll :3 #Polls #Tumblr poll #Oreo cookies #How do you an oreo cookie #Genuinely curious as to how people eat their cookies #THANK YOU REY FOR THE POLL

[luck-of-the-drawings]

HOW DO YA LIKE THAT DARK DOG??

BEEN REAL ENAMORED BY THE 'SORRY' BOYS AND THEIR ODD ESCAPADES LATELY. I THINK THEY COULD DO A LOT OF GOOD THINGS WITH THREE GALLONS OF 'FAKE' BLOOD.

#sorry boys #sorry fanart #cw gore #cw body horror #DEAR GGODODDD I HOPE I TAGGED SORRY THE RIGHT WAY #PLEASE SORRY FANS IM HHEERE IM HERE AND IM CRAAZYYY GODDD PLEASE FIND MEEE FIND MEEEEEEEEE #GONNA BE HONEST IVE BEEN FLOPPIN BACK N FORTH ON THIS REAAAALL HARD LIKE. IM NOT SURE IF I LIKE IT #BUT EVERYONE WHO SEES IT SAYS ITS COOL! SO IMM GONNA TRUST IN THE WORD OF MY FRIENDS!!!!! THANK YOU FRIENDS!!!! #i tried to fit in as many things in the video as i could into his vile chest cavity. im rly proud of how jumbled n messy n fun it looks! #SOME THINGS TO NOTE! i painted over the bg of a specific shot from the video. painted over a portion of that LIGHT FIXTURE #BUT I Had to improvise the rest and im PRROUD LOOK AT THAT!!! WITH A MOUSE TOO BTW #DREW THIS WHOLE THING WITH A MOUSE. took some time but i think im gettin the hang of it #ANOTHER DETAIL: ranboos lil wires behind his mask. teeehehhehee i rly liked gen loss #i like this weird combo i do of cartoony and photo realistic. not sure where my balance is yet with that but im havin fun!! #ughghgh what else can i say abt this piece... other than it kicked my aASSSSSSS!!! #adding highlights in blood is always SSUCH A FIGHT for me guhhh it takes so much wrestling to make it look right.... #ggbbhhbbgbh thats all thats in my brain for now. enjoy my art and enjoy my notes about my own art. enjoy ur day aswell if u can

[ctrl-alt-cel]

when i was 13 i wrote an essay explaining the rationale of puppyshipping to some guy in a skype chatroom. found the essay again. wanted to rewrite it. without further ado:

HERE’S HOW PUPPYSHIPPING CAN STILL WIN: THE SEQUEL: 2 PUPPY 2 SHIPPING (4.3k words)

⠀

kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship stands at an awkwardly undefinable place in canon: they're not on good terms, but they're not enemies either. they know each other too well to be called passing acquaintances, but kaiba hardly acknowledges jounouchi as a duelist, let alone a potential rival. at best? they're mutual nuisances.

or, that's how jounouchi and kaiba choose to define it. both of them would love if their dynamic were that simple, nothing more than a back-and-forth of petty insults—but that’s not the truth. and they'll dance around the truth for five whole seasons, purposefully downplaying why they’re so obsessed with provoking each other whenever they’re in the same place.

they're foils.

—but the term "foils" is so dulled within fandom lexicon now that it can mean literally anything from two guys who just disagree with each other sometimes, so i'll sharpen this further. jounouchi and kaiba see their counterpart less as an individual person but more a representation of who they could have become if they had respectively, in their eyes, never learned the lessons they needed to. they project their own ideals onto the other and come away thinking they already know how the other operates, and the fun thing is, even when working from conjecture, their assumptions of one another happen to hit far closer to home than they have any right to.

so really, they can't leave each other alone because they can't stop seeing their failures reflected back at them. the other is a defective version of themselves that they need to correct because they can't stand constantly acknowledging who they used to be, so they try to bend the other to be more like their own image—an "i can fix him (by dragging him down to my level)".

⠀

jounouchi and kaiba’s parallels run down to their origins, both set up against abysmal family situations they have no choice but to make the best of. seto and mokuba are orphaned at a young age until seto gets them adopted, while katsuya is separated from his sister and stuck with a deadbeat father who can't carry his own weight. trapped in an environment where nobody expects anything worthwhile from him, katsuya joins a gang and lives out a self-admittedly miserable existence before befriending yugi, while seto is in a battlefield of his own, faced with protecting mokuba while enduring against the nightmare that is gozaburo kaiba’s parenting.

what they do to survive those conditions determines the outlooks they carry for the rest of their lives: jounouchi learns that losing is inescapable and the best you can do is learn how to cope with it, whereas kaiba learns that losing is something you must protect yourself from because there's only so much you can afford to lose.

jounouchi is positioned as the underdog, fighting tooth-and-nail for every victory he can manage, while kaiba has power in excess and holds to the belief that it’s all he really needs. one would argue that they have the perspective the other lacks—they argue that they have the perspective the other lacks. but in my opinion? it doesn't actually matter. what interests me is how they treat each other as a result.

⠀

side: seto kaiba

kaiba degrades jounouchi a lot. like, to an uncomfortable extent. you know that one post that’s like “why does bullying exist? why are you mad that i’m ugly?” why is kaiba so mad over the fact that jounouchi loses so much?

it’s projection. he’s just holding jounouchi to the same standard he holds himself to. you need to be powerful if you want to play the same games as kaiba, and seeing jounouchi so openly lean on his friends, ask for help, and have the audacity to lose sets kaiba off because he’s not playing the way he’s supposed to. kaiba rubs jounouchi's losses in his face because he believes that's what loss is supposed to look like, and that it’s jounouchi’s fault for not understanding that yet. kaiba is trying to teach him. to kaiba, this degradation might as well be an act of generosity.

while kaiba stayed true to his own ambitions, seizing kaibacorp from gozaburo and turning it into a children's entertainment company, he beat gozaburo at his own game not by inventing new rules but by playing it better than his adoptive father ever could. and as impressive as that is, it’s not sustainable. gozaburo kills himself when faced with his own defeat, and kaiba internalizes this lesson: that all losses are final, and it’s better to die than adapt to the consequences of a defeat. gozaburo’s death was a suicide, but in the context of their game, kaiba might as well have killed him regardless.

he mirrors this when he threatens to kill himself in duelist kingdom, his heightened emotions catastrophizing losing the duel to immediately equal failing mokuba and coming to the conclusion that if he loses mokuba he’d rather be dead. being someone so fervently self-reliant, any alternate solution, a possibility that he can lose here and still find a different way to rescue mokuba never crosses his mind. and, look, this isn’t his fault. this is the only way of living he’s ever been taught. he’s never learned how to cope in the event of failure because he’s never had the luxury to fail to begin with.

he's burned and rebuilt himself over and over again to survive in the world he operates in, and that’s why jounouchi pisses kaiba off so personally. jounouchi loses so much and so messily, and kaiba tries to show him that if he doesn’t start reinventing himself from the broken pieces of his defeats until all that’s left of him are jagged edges the same way he has, he’s never going to win. but jounouchi…does win. and keeps winning. and even when he does lose, it’s as if he creates new victories for himself, like there’s still value to playing a game with someone when you don’t win it—power of friendship bullshit and whatever. jounouchi is still here, a competitor that kaiba can no longer write off as much as he desperately wants to. (and, yeah, it is pretty ironic how jounouchi will jump through a million hoops to get kaiba to look at him, but he doesn't realize that he doesn't need to do anything to keep kaiba’s attention, only continue being himself.)

jounouchi refuses to compromise who he is and still manages to get far when in kaiba’s mind, that shouldn’t be possible; he’s supposed to be punished the way kaiba was. jounouchi is proof that you can take a devastating blow and move on from it, that even when you do fuck up spectacularly, there’s still something worthwhile in starting again tomorrow.

so kaiba constantly needs to prove that he’s better than jounouchi, that jounouchi isn’t even worth his time in order to justify his worldview. because if kaiba isn’t right, then he'll have no choice but to confront the fact that the war is over. that his circumstances aren’t instant life or death anymore and that even though he’s freed himself from gozaburo’s influence, there’s still further growth as a person he could stand to undergo, now divorced from the harsh conditions of his upbringing. jounouchi is a testament to how it’s possible to make peace and move on from the past without constantly bleeding for closure, that maybe, kaiba’s headlong quest to get the last word on his rivalry with yami yugi may not actually be as fulfilling as he thinks.

but admitting that you might need to change the way you live feels like a defeat in and of itself—it’s infuriating to hear that after everything you’ve had to learn, the way you live now isn’t good enough. that surviving insurmountable trauma doesn’t inherently make you better or more worthy than other people—it just traumatizes you, and is something you must heal from. so, instead of reflecting on these revelations, it’s so much easier for kaiba to tell himself that jounouchi is only ever graceful when he’s dead.

⠀

side: katsuya jounouchi

jounouchi is very stuck on this idea that he needs to be useful. his dad is an alcoholic with a gambling addiction and he believes it's not only his duty to pay his father's debts, but to be the household's sole source of income. his sister needs eye surgery and he believes it's his responsibility as an older brother not only to pay for it, but to act as her primary emotional support to get the surgery and throughout her recovery process. haga throws yugi's exodia into the ocean and jounouchi blames himself for not stopping it. jounouchi gets mind-controlled by malik and blames himself for causing his friends anguish from it. mai literally gets jounounchi’s soul stolen and he apologizes to her for messing up and making her sad. it's habitual, jounouchi doesn't know how to stop taking on the burdens of other people.

if you live with the mentality that you’re inevitably going to fail for long enough, you’ll come away with the belief that caring about your own wellbeing isn’t worth the effort. it depends on how pessimistic you want to read it, if it’s just his love language or jounouchi compensating for the damning act of being himself, but jounouchi quantifies his worth by how much he provides for other people. he’s always jumping in the line of fire for the sake of others because if you constantly undervalue your own wellbeing, you always have less to lose. as the underdog, he may not be as overtly powerful as kaiba or yugi, but he can still give himself away, and he’s convinced himself that it’s what he’s supposed to do. jounouchi is still new to this whole friendship thing. after a lifetime of supporting himself by himself, he doesn't know when he's allowed to ask for help yet—he’s supposed to be the help, dammit.

a key distinction between jounouchi and kaiba’s upbringings is that while kaiba’s biological parents died in an accident, jounouchi’s parents are still alive and they choose not to be responsible for him. jounouchi is conditioned to fend for himself by himself because having a parental figure actually present in his life isn’t a luxury he gets to have. to jounouchi, there has to be a reason why his mother only takes shizuka and never goes back for him in the six years he’s left with his father, and he rationalizes this with his notions of masculinity: he’s a strong man who can handle it. jounouchi is not delicate, he can endure it. men are responsible for their own circumstances. kaiba is hyperindependent out of a mixture of spite, paranoia, and self-defense. jounouchi is hyperindependent because he believes he deserves it. it’s the reason why he believes he’ll finally have a good relationship with his father if he just wins enough money to pay off his gambling debts—jounouchi can fix everything if only he were man enough to, and he can get people to stay if he demonstrates himself useful enough.

so death doesn’t carry nearly as much weight to jounouchi as it does to kaiba. in kaiba’s eyes, death is the punishment for failure, but to jounouchi, death is just the natural consequence for the kind of life he leads. he can't stop himself from fighting for the people he loves until he’s spent everything and forced to stop (read: dies), so during the several times jounouchi is confronted with his own death, he meets it with a solemn acceptance. like, yeah, it sucks, but he doesn’t regret the actions he took to end up here—he’d do it all over again, frankly. it’s better to die than not give everything he can, and at least he was able to give his life in service to someone else. it’s not necessarily good to die, but it doesn’t matter as much if he does.

so where kaiba is afraid of losing, jounouchi is afraid of outliving his usefulness (and being abandoned as a result), and kaiba disrupts jounouchi’s worldview specifically because he puts his ideology on the defensive. to jounouchi, kaiba’s presence never demands a question of “what can you do for me?” (nothing, kaiba doesn’t want jounouchi to do anything for him, and frankly, he’d be insulted if jounouchi even tried) but “what makes you worthy of standing on the same level as me?”, and jounouchi can’t sacrificial lamb get set on fire die a billion times into getting kaiba into seeing it his way (rather, that would only prove him right: kaiba would love nothing more than for jounouchi to lose the ability to fight and finally align with his preconceived notions of how the world works), and he can’t argue that his value is in how much he provides for others because that’s a non-answer. kaiba doesn’t care.

kaiba’s presence forces jounouchi into a position of self-reflection: jounouchi works so hard to preserve the friendships he’s created, but who is he—what does he value about himself in the absence of it? jounouchi needs to acknowledge something inherently valuable about himself if he wants to counter kaiba in any meaningful way, and it’s not like he doesn’t have valuable qualities either: he’s tenacious, he’s resourceful, he’s a quick learner—it takes intelligence to rank as high as he does in tournaments, but he undervalues all of it. these traits are all to be expected, they don’t actually count as extraordinary when it’s him. they’re only remarkable when they’re being applied to something greater. jounouchi believes he has the potential to become strong (and valuable by extension), only with the stipulation that he’s never actually there yet. he focuses too much on his inadequacies, constantly pontificating on how he needs to become a “true duelist”, but by the way he speaks about the title, the only way to be a true duelist is be named yugi muto, i guess.

so it’s very jounouchi-esque for him to miss this point with near deliberate precision and try to make himself useful to kaiba anyway. while kaiba is bent on seeing jounouchi fail to prove that his cynicism is superior to jounouchi’s altruism, the inverse is that jounouchi sees his old self in kaiba and he’s dying to teach kaiba a lesson. during battle for bronze, jounouchi states that they used to be the same, people who only relied on themselves and thought they’d be fine living like that. the argument jounouchi makes is that living that way is fucking miserable. he calls kaiba out: you’re supposed to be having fun. why are you playing duel monsters if you’re not having fun? he’s trying to show kaiba that he can be useful and teach kaiba things if kaiba would just let him, but for reasons mentioned in both of their sections, kaiba isn’t interested in being taught anything.

while less malicious in display, it's important to note that jounouchi’s method of trying to teach kaiba doesn't make him the better person here. jounouchi isn’t coming from a place of understanding when he lectures kaiba, he’s coming from a place of misdirected self-flagellation. and from kaiba's perspective, jounouchi is just dispensing unwarranted advice for the sake of his own ego. the most egregious example is when jounouchi picks a fight with kaiba in duelist kingdom, demanding they duel when kaiba is clearly not in the mood, busy with more pressing matters like, i don’t know, trying to rescue his abducted brother? so, okay, maybe a little bit inconsiderate on jounouchi’s part.

they're two ideological extremes: kaiba lashes out at the world while jounouchi gives himself to it, and jounouchi will keep barging in on kaiba with his life lessons because it’s the only way he wants to engage with kaiba’s arguments otherwise. jounouchi interprets kaiba’s rejection of his ideals as the equivalent of the stubbornness jounouchi had before befriending yugi, and he uses it as a reason to keep pushing, not understanding that while he may have found the most honorable path for himself, you can imagine how constantly burning yourself for others isn’t very…appealing. or sustainable. and that maybe it’s something you need to work on, actually.

⠀

conclusion: how i WIN

what’s fun about jounouchi and kaiba is how wrong they are. they genuinely can't live the way the other demands them to, their respective environments won’t allow it. if jounouchi chased victory with the same cutthroat relentlessness as kaiba, he probably never would have left his gang. or, at least, he’d lose the selfless devotion and consideration he has for others, traits that helped him build his support system, and he never would have found the friendships he values in his life—his willingness to change and start again was how he was able to befriend yugi to begin with. (and if you wanted to get really extreme with hypotheticals, his self-destructive tendencies could have grown so severe in the absence of a support system that he probably would wind up getting himself killed somewhere. lol.) inversely, if kaiba granted himself the freedom to worry less about the outcome as long as he enjoyed himself, he’d put mokuba’s safety at constant risk. kaiba’s guarded nature isn’t without reason, there are powerful corporate executives who would love to see him fail, and there are very real consequences if kaiba slips up for even a second and gives his opposition any leeway. the way they live works for them because it’s theirs. it’s not so much that either of their lifestyles are in dire need of correction, but that the other represents the possibility that they could be living better.

and this is fantastic because it means that, despite what they think, neither of them are in the “wrong” and must learn to change their idiot ways or that the solution is to strong-arm each other into some kind of compromise. it’s a battle of perceived weakness. they need to, naturally and individually, accept that the traits they’ve always deemed immature and beneath them can be just as vital for survival, even when it’s not necessarily their own.

jounouchi and kaiba are essentially the most extreme example of two people who want what’s best for each other (gone wrong!) and puppyshipping is appealing because them getting together requires that they stop punishing themselves for who they used to be. they expect too much out of themselves and then inflict those demands onto each other, but if they’re not wrong for the ways they’ve overcome the circumstances they were left in, then it’s equally true that the ideals they abandoned to survive weren’t inherently naïve just because they weren’t given the space to utilize them. sometimes life will push you to your limits in the hope that you fail, and there’s no deeper meaning to it. it’s not life’s way of teaching you a necessary lesson to make you stronger or a test to see if you deserve to live, or that it’s your fault when it breaks you. sometimes there’s no great meaning to suffering. things happen, and you will adjust to it in order to live. when kaiba and jounouchi believe they know each other as much as they know themselves, pairing them is the hope that they’ll respect themselves enough to respect each other, that they’ll one day be able to embrace the parts of themselves they’re the most ashamed of.

(or, you know, for the alternative crowd, they most definitely can make each other worse.)

for two men who claim to be so self-assured in their own lifestyles, jounouchi and kaiba are fascinating because there’s so many layers of denial at play: the denial that they see anything in each other, denial that there may be aspects of the other that they’ve come to envy, denial that they even care, and it's so tempting to imagine if all of it was forced open. jounouchi and kaiba choose to maintain this delicate equilibrium where they never actually confront anything because the idea of admitting vulnerability viscerally disgusts them, and it begs what would happen if the balance irrevocably tipped for once. watching them is like watching a pencil teetering on the edge of a desk, always this close to some kind of breakthrough. i won’t even lie to you puppyshipping pisses me off half the time because i just want to shake them around until something metaphorically breaks.

kaiba and jounouchi never let each other become complacent in their pasts: whenever their personal tragedies and childhoods are brought up in the context of one another, it’s never because they are being vindicated for continuing to dwell in them, but because they are being contested on how much the mindsets they’ve carried over from their pasts should be allowed to determine their futures.

returning to canon, kaijou operates through the language of competition. jounouchi tries to prove himself as a competitor so remarkable that kaiba can no longer deny him, while kaiba already knows he’s remarkable, and that is precisely why acknowledging it pisses him off so much. so they’ll play their game: jounouchi will provoke kaiba into fighting him because he enjoys going up against challenging opponents in the hopes of becoming stronger, whereas kaiba keeps trying to set up situations where jounouchi will lose to the point of letting him die because he wants so badly to believe that losing does equal death and jounouchi’s existence is the most inconvenient counterargument of all. and obviously, jounouchi keeps not dying. and it's endlessly infuriating—almost slapstick at this point, that much to kaiba's frustration, no matter what he does, he can never make jounouchi submit for very long.

jounouchi and kaiba spur each other on to a ridiculous extent: kaiba enjoys pushing jounouchi past the breaking point, whereas jounouchi enjoys getting pushed to his limits to test his own capabilities. whether that’s necessarily a good thing though is…well…hmm. anyways. 

their dynamic is the type of messiness only two prideful high schoolers can get up to. maybe it’s just kaiba's repression and jounouchi's recklessness, but there is a fascination with each other that they’re incapable of leaving alone. there’s intimacy in knowing someone so well and fearing that fact, but kaiba and jounouchi never respond to this fear by avoiding it—they’re engaging with it time and time again. they infuriate each other with a passion that never sits still. kaiba and jounouchi seek a validation from their counterpart while simultaneously denying each other from it, and it’s mean, but invigoratingly so.

at some point, it’s not even about wanting validation anymore, but point-blank wanting its keeper by any capacity: wanting a visible reaction to their effort as proof of reciprocation, proof that says “i’ve finally affected you just as much as you affect me.” because kaiba and jounouchi want to leave a mark on each other, they want their counterpart to fully understand how much they’ve affected them, and they want to witness that reaction themselves. it’s no longer this big, nebulous ideological debate with a reflection: the pull between them is made both physical and personal. so, like, not to go the trite route of arguing that two men who can’t stand each other were ~secretly attracted to each other this whole time~, but how else are you supposed to word this?

in some hypothetical universe where they do come together, even the ways they love manage to compliment each other in its own clumsy way. seto kaiba never does anything in moderation: if he hates something he will destroy it, if he loves something he will possess it, and if he is obsessed with something, he will single-mindedly pursue it at the expense of everything else. his repression manifests itself in a passion so pressurized it’s all-consuming against everything it comes to contact with. inversely, katsuya jounouchi loves freely and transparently: showing affection comes as naturally as breathing to him. he embodies the belief that love is not only about the grand gestures, but the day-to-day acts of warmth and casual acknowledgments that it's there. a man who wants to be wanted by someone so badly it aches paired with someone who makes no reservations as to what he's committed to, capable of a love so overwhelmingly insatiable that it is neither fickle nor delicate, and a man who finds the act of trusting others with his affection so unthinkably humiliating that he’s convinced himself it’s something beneath him paired with someone who makes it look infuriatingly easy. they are going to invent a new language to love each other with. i believe in them. i would not write two separate essays titled “here’s how puppyshipping can still win” if i did not believe in them. 

ultimately, it feels cheap to build kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship off what life lessons they could "teach" each other reformation-style when they already have a legitimate dynamic in play. they can be good for each other, or they can tear into each other in ways they’d never expect to be capable of. there’s something exhilarating in knowing there’s someone who has that kind of power and wanting to keep them within your reach, a buzzing excitement in knowing someone who can not only withstand you at your worst, but fight back at you with twice as much vigor. sure, there’s potential for growth here, but that’s because there’s potential for literally anything.

kaiba and jounouchi inspire reinvention and self-determination from each other at the best of times and enable each other’s most self-destructive tendencies at their worst. so i think. puppyshipping is the most fun. when you ship them the same way you leave a fork in the microwave to watch it explode. the end.

TL;DR: me x the guy who keeps breaking my worldview and forces me to reevaluate myself every time i see him which i hate so much that i just want him to DIE

#puppyshipping #violetshipping #seto kaiba #joey wheeler #ship analysis #character study #not intended to convince anyone of anything this was a silly project to do on the side for MEEE #also i genuinely dont think any of the points i make are new #in my quest to be as holistic as possible and read every puppyshipping-adjacent meta analysis i could get my hands on #defense essays. criticism. livejournal blogposts #ive found several times that every point i make has already been made before in some kaijou 200k longfic posted in like 2011 #so if this essay is for ANYONE who isnt me. #its for the kaijou fic authors who have put in the work. god's strongest soldiers etc etc #actually. might reblog with an actual afterword citing my favorite ygo analysis i read in prep for this lol #i allude to a few of them in certain sections but i think youd have to be REALLY chronically online to notice #(coughing) #anyways special thanks to the friends who kindly beta read a document titled 'YAOI THESIS FINAL.docx' #fer + voski + cherry + sully + eric + cleo + gabby + chris + clover + vio #dear god i have inflicted this essay onto so many people #i love you. #you have enabled me and now we're all paying the price #yugioh

[zombiequeenblog]

Cardinal and Mouse — 9: A kiss in public.

However that looks for them... ❤️

Here's a little bit of Cardinal and Mouse (and Terzo) running errands down in the village on a gloomy day:

ao3 link here or continue reading below...

The wind played about our ankles as we walked together, the Cardinal in his black robes, me looking rather like a catholic school student, as usual. My clothes muted; black alice band in my hair. I tried to match his grim but sharp silhouette when we were out in town like this. A rare but necessary occurrence at times; there were errands to run, and though we didn’t go preaching on street corners, we were also not an order of anchorites. Sister Imperator wanted the abbey’s residents to be seen about from time to time, so we weren’t completely forgotten way back in the woods. I wanted to remain respectable but demure so as not to attract unwanted attention.

Our shoes clipped along the sidewalk, damp with remnants of an earlier rain, and I quietly reached out to hold his gloved hand for security. I wasn’t ashamed to be with him, but our satanic faith was rare, and though many came from far and wide to join the abbey, the local village could be unwelcoming, still, as the grey clouds above were. We shouldn’t have left our coats in the car.

Copia squeezed my hand as I skipped around a puddle. “Why don’t you sit in the back with me on our return, dolce?”

Smoothing my skirt down, I thought I heard the ghost of a complaint in his tone, and I smiled slyly to myself as I answered him. “Oh, I couldn’t, Your Eminence,” I said, casually, “Papa would never allow it.” Insisting on me riding shotgun, Terzo had driven the three of us into town earlier; I think he liked to show off his driving skills, to my amusement and the Cardinal’s irritation.

“Wouldn’t allow… Quell’idiota! I forbid you from listening to anything that deficiente says!” Copia yanked me closer by the hand as we walked, his grip like a vice.

I only stifled a giggle, saying nothing. I could spot Terzo up ahead, exiting the local Christian bookstore as he slicked his hair back with a flourish and a frown. He looked jarring to me without his full face paint on, and he certainly didn’t blend in here, wearing his fancy and rather old-fashioned suit and gloves. He strode towards us, and we met by the steps of a little café. “Sorellina! Cardinal.”

“Did you find what you needed, Papa?” I teased. I knew perfectly well that Terzo liked to browse the religious shelves, attracting the shy attentions of the pretty shop girl in there. Perhaps attracting a future convert.

Perhaps not. “I need a coffee,” Papa pouted, and he went up the steps into the charming building, holding the door open for us as we followed, tiny bell chiming above our heads.

The little café was quaint and cute inside, warm, and thankfully not too crowded. Still though, I noticed the idle chatter around us quieting as we made our way over to the counter. Papa ordered three cappuccinos in a courteous tone, which were made quicker when I pulled out the impressively matte abbey credit card to pay.

“Thank you,” I told the woman behind the counter when she put our drinks up. She looked at me with concern, and flicked her eyes in suspicion at my companions, resting her narrowing gaze on Copia’s shiny grucifix for a second. He slipped his hand around my waist as we left the counter, looking both amused and annoyed. Terzo picked an empty table in a shadowed corner.

The Cardinal pulled out a chair for me and I sat, removing the lid from my cup with cold fingertips to let the steaming foam cool. “It’s nice to have something fancy now and then,” I remarked, looking down at my drink, the top mottled with cinnamon.

“We should get one of those espresso machines,” said Copia, dourly, as he sat down beside me, removing his biretta.

“I’ll ask Sister,” I said, leaning forward to blow lightly on the foam.

Terzo gave me a withering look from across the table. “If this sludge in a paper cup is fancy to you, piccolina, I don’t even know where to begin pitying your previous life.” He looked around at the dimly lit furnishings. “Father in hell, how long did you suffer wilting in this village? I should have baptized you earlier.”

I grinned contentedly as I took my first sip, not bothering to answer.

Copia and Terzo tried their drinks as well, and they were both oddly silent for a while, warming their gloves on their own cups. In spite of our cozy surroundings and the soft music playing, the air in here was beginning to feel further unsettled, just as it had when we had entered. Strange eyes glancing over at us, conversations halted. I almost expected an inevitable signing of the cross.

The three of us shared a sombre mood, and I sighed a little; though we were sheltered in here, this was nothing like our beloved abbey. Wrapping my hands around my cappuccino, I slid it closer, shivering slightly.

Copia moved my hair aside to put his hand on the back of my neck. “Are you cold, dolcezza?”

“No, I’m fine, Your Eminence,” I reassured him. I shuffled closer to rest my head on his shoulder for a minute.

Terzo was idly sipping his coffee. “Lucifero, I am bored…”

“We’re almost done here,” I sighed, sitting back and digging the list out of my little bag, “Let me see…” Copia’s fingertips idly stroked along my shoulders as he sipped his own cappuccino beside me.

“Oh si, the list… We must consult the list,” teased Terzo, rolling his eyes a little before he took another sip.

Copia glared at him and I grinned softly. “We just need to pick up her parcel at the post, and then…” I scanned the little folded note in my hand. “Something sweet and fresh, Sister said, from the bakery… and then Papa Nihil’s prescription... That’s all.”

“Tedioso,” said Terzo, odd eyes glazing, “Never did I think I would rise such in my satanic station to be out in the sleepiest of hamlets running errands like a peasant…”

“I’m sorry I’m not better company,” I pouted, and Terzo startled, looking a bit guilty.

“Sorellina! I didn’t mean—”

“Why don’t you just shut up,” Copia told him, and I smiled down into my cup. “Gasbag,” I heard the Cardinal mutter into his own drink. We all drank deeply for a moment, and I felt a little merrier.

“Mmm, that is nice,” I murmured, “but not as nice as a real Italian coffee, I’m guessing?”

Both Copia and Terzo perked up a little bit, telling me in impatient turns how nothing here could compare to the caffé of their youth, the richness, the quality. The strict attention to detail. Dreamily, I listened, warmed by my own coffee and their impassioned tones. Though Copia feigned to be less caught in the trappings of luxury that Terzo delighted in, I knew he was nevertheless attracted to excellence. His wine, literature, and the fabrics of life that he surrounded himself in reflected that. Sometimes I still wondered what he found worthy in me; I came from nothing.

“One day I will bring you to the Riviera ligure, dolce, and you can see for yourself how you are deprived here,” said the Cardinal, low into my ear. I thought of sunny coastlines, and tangled sheets, and smiled, my gloom lifting a bit.

Terzo drained his cup and relaxed back in his chair for a moment. “I need to go christen this place,” he stated, pulling his gloves off and standing up to go and head towards the washroom, “another unholy errand…”

“Sacred duties call,” said the Cardinal, and I grinned as I finished my own coffee. He took a final sip of his own, and I reached up to swipe some foam away from his moustache with my thumb. Copia leaned into my hand, and our faces came close.

I could feel hostile eyes upon us, like a sprinkling of holy water. Leaning back over the table, I looked down at the remnants of foam in my cup, shy and quiet. Copia sighed a little beside me, and when I glanced back up at him he moved to catch my chin gently. Lifting my eyes up to his pooling ones, I barely shook my head, and he watched me bite my lip. He looked weary, but slightly amused. If he had kissed me anyway, I would have melted into his warmth, but instead, he brushed his thumb underneath my pout, sighed again, and let me go, tilting his head to watch me squirm.

“I can’t wait to go home,” I whispered to him, out of the corner of my mouth.

“Straight upstairs, I am thinking…” he whispered back with a sly smile, “or downstairs, perhaps. My paperwork can wait.”

I thought of the sweet torture that awaited me, after the agony of deprivation I was currently surrounded in, and blushed. My knee nudged the Cardinal’s underneath the table, and I couldn’t even look at him. I felt my heartbeat rising.

Finally Terzo came back to the table, and we left, feeling like the café had spit us out onto the pavement. Blinking in the light out here, I looked about us to see where we should head to next.

“Let’s split up,” yawned Terzo, “I’ll take the bakery, you two do the post.”

“Si, si, vai ad attaccati al tuo cazzo,” said Copia, impatient. Grabbing me by the hand again, he began to march us away from Papa down the sidewalk.

Terzo turned away as well, but I heard him call over his shoulder, “Oh, and by Satan’s asshole, I am NOT picking up the old fart’s meds! Not again.”

I just laughed out loud so Papa knew I heard him, struggling to keep up with the Cardinal’s stride. “Oh, oh, Copia… wait for me!”

Slowing down, he let me catch my breath, wrapping his arm around me for a moment. Grateful for his warmth, and for the comforting whiff of his cologne, I snaked my own arm around the back of his waist, and leant my head against him again. I could see we were approaching the local Catholic chapel up ahead.

As sleepy as this village was, there was yet some bustling going on here. Parishioners milled about the grounds as they exited the little church; it must have been the end of the daily mass or the weekly adoration, I couldn’t tell.

Copia watched me looking over. “Do you miss it, dolce?”

I shook my head a little. “The only things I would have missed would have been the ceremony of it all. The ritual; the devotion.” I stopped walking and turned to run my fingertips along his cape. “And I’m not deprived of any of that, Your Eminence.” Just thinking about my situation spread a shy but sincere smile across my face. “I am utterly devoted to you, Copia.” He brought one hand up to caress my cheek lovingly, to brush my windswept hair away.

It would have been sweeter if we were alone, but we weren’t, and I couldn’t help but notice some people staring. We were standing close, in a very romantic fashion beside the church lot, and I’m sure some were wondering at the apparent Father holding a member of his congregation so intimately.

Some seemed taken aback, until they recognized the Cardinal’s satanic persuasion, in which case they either turned away or continued to look upon us in distaste. Past caring now, I raised my face up to Copia’s in a little defiance.

We were just as free as they were in our chosen devotion, and Copia was tired of holding back in his revelling of it. Pulling me in even closer to him, he bent his dark head and kissed me full on the mouth, and I freely kissed him back, sighing in pleasure against his lips as I heard some faint gasps of disapproval beyond.

Our tongues had only begun to meet when the Cardinal broke away, heated and breathless. “Let’s go to the car.”

“Absolutely not,” I told him, pulling out my skewed hairband. Our surroundings might be forgotten to me, but not our purpose. “The list, Your Eminence.”

“Si, si, the cursed list…” He rolled his eyes at me now, in frustration and amusement, and, turning to walk me away very close on his arm, we continued in our now less leisurely strolling, to I knew not exactly where.

Some tasks were more urgent than others.

#fic prompts #kissing prompts #ask box #thank you my dear friend #sadglo #sadglo sidequest lol