Mostly Sunny

• Shane playing with the curls at the nape of Ilya's neck when he lays his strong arm around Ilya. Also Shane absentmindedly brushing hair out of Ilya's face

• laying in the bed at night, facing each other, telling each other stories before they fall asleep and often they giggle just like at sleepover parties they never really had

• discovering a new TV show they love and watch it religiously together and share the euphoria of hyping each other up and exchanging wild theories (my vote is on them watching Money Heist)

• they are firmly team wired headphone, so they can share a pair when they sit next to each other in am airplane and listen to a playlist they curate together

• Ilya lightly scratching Shane's thigh in easy circles, enjoying the sensation of strong muscles under soft hair, and more than often Ilya draws the letters of Я тебя люблю on Shane's skin

• Shane taking Ilya's hand and leading him through a crowd

• Ilya adjusting Shane's cap (a backward cap obviously)

• Shane tying a scarf around Ilya's neck in the cold canadian winter

• Ilya sweeping a crumb or a blotch away from Shane's lips (and licking his thumb clean afterwards)

• Ilya resting his hand on the small of Shane's tuxedo clothed back during galas or other formal events that stress Shane out

• Ilya picking out clothes for Shane to wear the next morning (he says it's because he has better style but actually he picks the normal athletic  things Shane feels most comfortable in)

• Shane bringing home the most random little things that remind him of Ilya, from flowers to a new type of hot sauce

• bitching about golf and other boring sports together  <3 they love being haters together and noone gets them like they get each other

Wanting something requires dopamine signaling, but liking something doesn’t.

If you have a mental illness/disorder that affects dopamine, you might feel that you don’t want to do the things that you like. You do still like them. You will appreciate having done them.

Let your likes guide you.

(If you want to read more, here’s one experimental paper about it. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5171207/ This theory called the incentive-sensitization theory was originally created to explain behaviors in addiction but can be applied elsewhere as well)

like okay, there's the guy we saw above. still wearing the same shoes, mind you!

this is the darkest Dylan ever gets but he also straightens his hair. or MAYBE those are meant to be braids, there might be some texture there but it's very hard to discern in this screenshot

and then there's uuuh extra ambiguous Dylan

and then he's just a third brunette white boy

and this, too, is Dylan

I distinctly remember a point when I thought to myself, ‘Oh I’ll never cosplay Gale’s camp outfit, with all that embroidery….’ 😅

Anyway, I saw a post talking about how GenAI has become a plague in the embroidery world, with so many fake projects and patterns, and it made me angry. I’ve come to love embroidery because it’s such a slow, detail-oriented craft, and for this project especially, it was an expression of dedication and how much Gale means to me as a character. And I’m sure there are countless others who feel similarly about their embroidery projects.