#oh and I’m probably throwing in some old art to make this interesting ^.^

[lilysmiles11223345]

Also to reiterate in my tired state; I laugh and am silly about vengeance Freya being silly about murder and all but I feel like I do not get to

So here’s a “Lily did not take her meds” fueled hyperfixation rant :D

Basically clover and Freya are both young impressionable children, both had to try and grow up quickly but they still are young.

Freya is especially impressionable, she was born with essentially a disability (her curse) that she doesn’t understand or know enough about. Nobody in her life ever taught her how to deal with what she was going through correctly, most not even wanting to understand.

In every route- she learns to deal with the curse in different ways; some healthier than others.

In the vengeance route(at least the main version of mine), she learns through clover’s actions that dealing with the curse in an unhealthily way is okay. Which bloomed throughout the route

This is not to say it’s all clovers fault she’s like this at all— I jest about that from the lil ask I sent but no Nono, clover is a child themselves— they are just trying to do what’s right, they were trying to be helpful, even if what they did was extremely wrong and the worst way to go about it. But through that, he accidentally and indirectly encourages Freya into unhealthy behaviour without realizing or even meaning to do so.

What I am saying though is that both of them are multidimensional and depending on the route have different perspectives that show another version of their personalities, and how I want to convey vengeance!Freya is that she’s a young child who is trying to do what’s right by her only friend while also dealing with a curse that makes it difficult for her to do that in a healthy way, what she did wasn’t right either by any means— they both messed up in that route, but they also are kids. It doesn’t make either necessarily evil—

I explain this both because I love these two sm and I have too much fun just,, thinking of they in situations— but also to explain better since I know I can explain things poorly about these two due to being excited about all of the pieces I have together and making jokes with that context despite the fact I haven’t revealed any of the pieces that I know to any of you lol -v-

Oh and also what happened to rose quartz and Mabel pines in their respective fandoms and pretty much chara too in this one makes me worry I must explain even if I never would have a fandom like that pfff

[ncity-agere]

P1harmony as littles please

A/N: i absolutely LOVE piwon asks!! of course!!

Keeho: Oh boy. So… so Keeho is an interesting one because… yeah. He likes very stereotypically boyish things (dinosaurs, playing in the mud, playing with toy cars) when he’s tiny and regresses to around 5 years old. He probably found regression during some sort of Twitter discourse, let’s be honest here -and though it was worth a shot.

This kiddo sometimes gets an attitude, but he doesn’t mean anything by it. Little Keeho is slowly getting used to the feeling of being little again, this time without having to share everything with siblings. He’ll also throw things if he gets upset but feels really bad about it after being scolded. Says sorry and gives lots of hugs afterwards, please reassure him that it’s okay and everyone makes mistakes or he’ll obsess over it all day :(

Theo: Soft-spoken and tiny, Taeyang is the sweetest baby ever. He regresses to anywhere between 2 and 7. He’s agreeable and listens well, doesn’t fuss too much, and likes a fair amount of affection. He, however, hates to be smothered!

He’s really a sweetheart but sometimes he has angry outbursts, so do with that what you will.

Jiung: To be honest, Jiung’s sort of hard for me to place (which is so strange considering he’s my special little guy, I adore him so). I think Jiung regresses the most often out of the group and probably regresses somewhere between 0-4 years old. He’s a lil’ awkward and isn’t very good at interacting with others while regressed, even people he knows. He’s got such a sweet, kind heart though and often finds or makes gifts for his friends and likes interacting with animals.

Please feed him or he will forget to eat or remind you that he’s hungry. He just gets so into whatever he’s doing that he forgets to take care of himself.

Also!! Stimmy baby!! If he’s excited or frustrated he does, in fact, flap his hands. It helps a lot, he can’t help it. Personal opinion, I think he might be neurodivergent y’all.

It’s Jiung. I mean, look at him.

Intak: He’s such a curious kid, probably regresses between 5-6. He likes to play games outdoors and asks lots and lots of questions. This kiddo is very friendly with others and is very affectionate. I’m talking, he likes to cling to others and not let go. Hugs are an absolute must for little Intak.

Intak’s a simple soul. Feed him small cuts of grilled meat or dino nuggies and sit him in front of a movie and he’s pretty much content.

Soul: Shota is almost completely nonverbal in little space and often age dreams, not regresses. He has his adult state of mind but lets himself loose and lets his babie side out in his behaviors. Shota climbs on things, raids the cabinet underneath the sink for chemicals, and takes lots of daily naps, just normal baby things. He also likes gnawing on things, it’s calming for him. And by things, I mean clothing, other people, stuffies, and potentially dangerous objects.

I think he floats somewhere around babyspace but can’t fully regress into it. And that’s okay, we love and cherish him lots and lots <3

Jongseob: Smiley baby! Jongseob loves being called cute nicknames, likes drawing and doing art projects, and loves yapping and talking to anyone who will listen. He’s cheerful and likes to do parkour off of furniture and stairs, which leads to many, many knee scrapes and boo-boos. Oh no!

I think he only regresses when he’s comfortable with the people around him. Probably hangs out around the age of 5, like Keeho does.

Also, slightly brainrotted. He will repeat anything and everything -especially stupid meme audios he’s heard lately. The attention span of a goldfish. Someone save him.

[snicker-dooodless]

excuse me sir but im gonna need you to ramble about sun wukong >:3

Okay- okay okay, so I’ve been holding back from answering this for a whiiilllee because I found it difficult to ramble about Wukong because my selfship with him is…complicated…[Rambling below!]

I love Wukong, I really do! And I really wanted to selfship with him when I first started to realize I had a crush on him. But- unlike allll of my other self ships, I couldn’t for the life of me think of lore for him and my sona. And I KNOW that’s not a big of a deal, selfshipping is supposed to be fun and free, but that little annoying bit in my brain keeps on telling me I have to have something planned out before selfshipping with him fully, like- before making a sona or drawing any art. And that’s okay! If it’s really bothering that small part of my brain so much, I’ll listen to it and put that selfship on the back burner and let me think about it.

But….in the mean time…there’s a certain other monkey that I’ve been eyeing uppp….

Macaque is so stupid. He is so edgy and thinks he’s so much cooler than he actually is. He’s exactly my type of guy. I can’t NOT fuck him.

For some reason, lore for him and my sona came SOO much easier than the lore or Wukong and my sona.

My sona, who, I’m just calling Sam for now cause I want to give her a Chinese themed name, but I wanna make sure I don’t accidentally fuck it up, so I’m putting that on the back burner for now as well! But annyyyway, she’s a sort of goddess. I don’t want to say exactly a goddess because I’d feel obligated to research Chinese legends so I don’t accidentally insult anyone but research scares me so I’m not committed to anything yet.

But, she’s technically a sky goddess. More specifically, a thunder/lightning goddess. She thinks so insanely high of herself and she is not afraid to let you know that. I’m sure all the praise she gets from her followers and stuff doesn’t help her ego but whatever.

Right now she’s trying to blend more into modern times, I don’t know whyyyy she’s doing this, she’s not afraid to just i go nto goddess mode randomly in the streets if there’s any danger, I think she’s just trying be ‘hip with the kids’ since she’s technically like thousands of years old. Idk.

She’d probably be introduced to the main group during when Lady Bone Demon freezes over the city and she joins the group to help. In the first few seasons/episodes she wouldn’t take up to much spotlight, she’d just be like Nezha at first before getting more dedicated episodes.

I don’t think I’ve described her that well so if you’re interested feel free to check out the Pinterest section I have for her (I also have one for her and Macaque)

Speaking of her and Macaque, I haven’t quite figured out their dynamic yet, only bits and pieces, but I like to think that at first they had a bit of a friendly rivalry. At first their egos would definitely clash causing them to get in petty arguments which would then lead to a small physical fight to let off steam.

It would start like Sam getting mad or petty at Macaque, throwing a lightning bolt in his direction, and when he ducks and turns around to stare at the lightning bolt now wedged into the wall, before smirking at her and being like. “Oh, ho ho ho, so you wanna go?”

And despite them having a sort of rivalry at first, it went by so quick I wouldn’t call their dynamic enemies to lovers, idk what I would call them tbh, but def not enemies to lovers lol.

They would often start physical fights, mostly by Sam being eager to show off and just fight and Macaque just humoring her. They would often do it to train, or just when both of them have won’t up energy, but when their relationship turns more romantic there would be something about how they fight that would make the group leave the room due to being grossed out.

ALSO! I kind of headcanon that in this universe, where my selfship exists, ShadowPeach did happen. And Macaque was dedicated, he was ready to give that relationship his all. And Wukong (who I headcanon to have commitment issues) was scared shitless at that fact.

But my sona is nothing if not committed. She’ll brag about her relationship with macaque, 24-7. If anyone insults him? Uhm??? Excuse you??? How dare you insult the partner of the sky goddess???

And Macaque is not used to that, at all!! He’s used to being the one who’s dedicated, not the other way around.

Anyway, ShadowStorm core blast!!!

[innepttia]

@spookyvalentine has FOUR sets of “50 questions about Shepard” list and this is the third!!

Maeve Shepard

First 50 Questions | Second 50 Questions

TW: mentions of alcohol abuse & canon typical death

(Art by tumblr: @/milton-chamberlain)

1. How often does Shepard use the omni-blade?

Omni-blade, not a lot but it’s her favorite weapon to use (ok I know this is contradictory but just go with me). Omni-tool – ALL THE TIME.

2. What does the Virmire Survivor think of Shepard?

Ashley! I think she wishes they were closer, because they really would get along if they both gave it a shot. If Shepard didn’t die, they’d probably have become besties at some point and perhaps Shepard could have still soothed over some of that xenophobic nature of Ashley’s.

3. Top three comfort movies:

Howl’s Moving Castle

Princess Bride

Shallow Grave

4. How many languages can they speak (without the translator)?

Oh, I love that Spooky has asked this in the Mass Effect discord we’re in because I already know the answer now!!

English, ASL (which doesn’t really count for translator-use), and – in my own HC – spacers have a language similar to The Expanse’s Belter Creole.

5. Does Shepard keep a log/journal?

No. Which is a boring answer, but no.

6. What kind of driver is Shepard?

I like to HC that she actually would rather have others drive so she can tinker with something. So, instead of driver, she’s a passenger princess.

7. Shepard witnesses a petty crime. What is their response?

She ignores it! Maeve really cultivates an air of: “If this doesn’t affect me, then I don’t care.”

8. Revenge, or the high road?

REVENGE, BABEEYYYYY – but only in her head because she’s a busy lady and doesn’t have time to really properly act out her revenge.

9. What will always distract them?

Thane, Thane, Thane, Thane, alcohol, Thane, Thane, Joker, Thane, Thane, Thane, etc.

10. Does Shepard ascribe to any sort of faith?

No, but she becomes interested in Thanes.

11. Fondest childhood memory?

By ME2, she isn’t sure her childhood memories are really hers, so she tries to forget them.

12. Most embarrassing adult memory?

In ME2, before Thane’s romance was locked in, she got so drunk one day and drunk-messaged Ashley trying to flirt with her. Then when that was completely rejected, she went straight to Zaeed to try and flirt with him, but she became so distracted in the garbage compactor that she missed her one chance with that old merc. Joker was 100% watching the vid feeds and EDI was monitoring her messages to Ashley.

13. What does Shepard choose to do about Gavin Archer?

THIS mothafuckin guy THIS GUY ohhhhh my god. I think canon choice was “your brother is going to Grissom Academy and you can fuck right off” but the unhinged, more correct choice is: iron pressed against his temple and ending it all then and there for Gavin.

14. Is Shepard the type to gossip?

If it’s gossip with Kasumi, yes, because Kasumi has the best tea and tells the best story. Anyone else, probably not.

15. How does Shepard react to Garrus’s Archangel reveal?

I’m just going to go with the canon-neutral reaction.

16. What was the N7 program like for Shepard?

This was when she was A Good Soldier and A Good Person (pre-ME1), so it went pretty well, all things considered. She was focused and driven and wanted to be the best she could be.

17. Go-to karaoke song?

ANOTHER ONE I CAN ANSWER BECAUSE OF DISCORD thank god. This song because it’s mostly shouting instead of singing:

Fire Woman – The Cult

18. What choice does Shepard make on Rannoch?

Okay so, this one might get me a lot of hate BUT I’ve always accidentally (I’m so serious about this) picked the option here Tali throws herself off the cliff. Like, I’m not joking. It doesn’t matter how many years are between play throughs, or if I’m like, OKAY THIS TIME…!!! I always manage to pick that option. In an AU, I’d really like for the Geth and the Quarians to make peace and build the planet together and I’m just inept at making Good Choices.

19. Which kind of reaper do they think is the ugliest?

That stupid Human-Reaper from ME2.

20. Can they dance?

She can sway to music really well.

21. What is Shepard’s relationship with Hackett?

Mostly annoyed at him. In her eyes, Hackett is up there with TIM.

22. What’s their alignment? Paragon, renegade, a mix…

Renegade all the way. Light up her face with scars.

23. Got any allergies? How bad?

No, because I honestly just won’t remember she has them.

24. When’s their birthday, and how old are they?

Canon birthday and canon age!

25. Trash talk or potty mouth

BOTH!

26. What’s their temper like?

Flares hot, but then it dies down pretty quickly because she’s either smothering it with alcohol or she’s already moved on to the next crisis.

27. What does Shepard think of Bakara?

EVEEEE and not my clone named Eve!!!!! She adores her and will do anything for her.

28. A reoccurring nightmare:

Indoctrination. She can’t shake the feeling that, even after everything, she’s indoctrinated.

And Moon’s Haunted fic.

29. Which news correspondent/journalist does Shepard bring on the Normandy? What’s their relationship like?

Diana Allers and it’s a relationship of: Maeve forgets she’s there until Diana reminds her.

30. Who’s got the biggest crush on Shepard?

Ummm ME!!! Hmm definitely Joker in all 3 games, Garrus in 1 and 2, (and finally a HC) the Geth (and OC) she messages all throughout ME3.

31. What kind of relationship do they have with Dr. Chakwas? Which doctor do they bring her on board for 3, and why?

Good! They’re drinking buddies, except Dr. Chakwas is obviously less unhinged about it.

32. Who has Shepard’s grudging respect?

Javik & Zaeed.

33. Reaction to the window over their sr-2 bed

Kill Bill sirens.

34. Does Shepard want children?

Not just no, but hell no.

35. What does Shepard consider their greatest mistake?

Joining the Alliance.

36. Did Shepard enjoy the heists with Kasumi?

Yes, this was her favorite mission. I think I mentioned this in one of the previous 50 questions, but she was excited for the heist. She was excited to dress up and to have even the slightest potential to not kill anyone.

37. Does Shepard ever play matchmaker?

Ngl, I like Liara and Javik together so I’d like to imagine she helped with that somehow.

38. A silly daydream:

While she was on house arrest after ME2 and before ME3, she daydreamed that Joker would come visit her and they’d rekindle whatever they had before.

Or, she’d imagine Thane would come rescue her like a damsel in distress.

(god these aren’t really “silly” are they?!)

39. What kind of media do they consume the most?

Tech news, but she’s pretty off mainstream media content. She prefers to spend time with her crew in person.

40. Favorite ice cream flavor

Cookies and cream.

41. If Shepard has a LI, what would they say are a couple of Shepard’s flaws? And strengths?

I think we all like to imagine our LI’s being over the moon about our Sheps, and my HCs are no different.

Thane sees her as the spitting image of one of his goddesses. She’s strong, relentless, ruthless, and determined, which are all qualities he admires. In private, she’s soft and a puddle of mush most of the time. I like to think he enjoys taking care of her (e.g. blanket over the shoulders, a good cuddle session, sharing food).

Her flaws come through pretty starkly in all these sets of 50 questions: she can make REALLY poor choices, she can get tunnel vision on certain missions, she can be too brash.

42. Are they quick to laugh, or slow to smile?

Okay, I’m probably going to be annoying with this but I’m going to say both to this one too (like the potty mouth or trash talking one). I think she’s quick to laugh, but it isn’t always genuine. She’ll laugh when she feels like there’s a social cue she needs to meet. She’s slow to smile because those would be her true, genuine feelings.

43. What does it take to earn Shepard’s trust?

Most people have her trust from the beginning. She doesn’t feel like she has time to be untrusting, so her initial trust is easy to get. As long as that isn’t broken, then all’s golden. If the initiate trust is broken then it’s near impossible to get it back.

44. Top three people Shepard thinks are hotties:

Samara

Nyreen

Zaeed

+Thane because he’s her Li so that’s a given

45. What’s the easiest way to gross them out?

Throw up. THAT’S ALL hahahaha but fr gross.

46. What are some of their favorite combo moves with team members out on the field?

Oooohh this is embarrassing for her and me. I always forget team members and Shepard can do combo moves together, so I never do it. So lets go with: she’s a lone wolf who likes to do her own tech combos herself.

47. Can they forgive easily, or are they the type to hold a grudge?

Neither! She’d rather just forget.

48. Does Shepard have a good sense of direction?

She relies solely on her HUD that she doesn’t know anymore!

49. Did they enjoy their party on the Citadel?

Yes, it was nice getting everyone together, but she really missed Thane.

50. What is Shepard’s ending?

Maeve, beloved, goes full destroy ending, which includes destroying herself. I’ve talked about this a lot in the server so I’m not going to get too much in the weeds but… she’s very content with this choice.

+1 …got any kinks?

*looks back at question 33* yes – a choking kink whoops

[hannahssimblr]

“Jude,”

A small finger prods my cheek. My Forehead. My chin. “Jude. Jude. Judie.” I groan and pull the duvet over my face to stop the sun from searing my eyeballs. 

My voice is hoarse, “Did you open the blinds?”

“It’s eight. You’re supposed to get up.”

“God, why?”

My sister repeatedly slaps my head through the covers, “There’s no baguette.”

“No baguette?” What is she talking about? “Ivy, stop, stop,” I grab her little wrist and pull it away from me, awake now and not pleased about it. “Why did you come in here, huh? You’re not supposed to come into my room.”

She whips her arm out of my grip, “But it’s eight,” She says, “and there's no baguette left.” 

“Oh, for breakfast,” I rub sleep from my eyes, “Okay yeah, I get it. We’re out of bread.”

“You have to go to the bakery before they all sell out. All the old grannies get there first and they buy up the baguettes,” She throws herself down at the foot of my bed and kicks her feet up in the air. She’s dressed herself already, I see, in scruffy clothes that she’s usually only allowed to wear when she’s staying home. “And I think I feel like a chocolate croissant today.”

“A chocolate one? Since when are you a spoiled little brat?”

She sticks her tongue out, “Uh! You always sneak me a chocolate one when mom and dad are away.”

She’s right, I was just teasing. “Okay, get out of my room and wait for me, I need to get changed.”

She runs obediently out while I drag myself out of bed and into yesterday’s shorts, cursing every other teenage boy who will get to sleep in until midday and beyond today, blissfully free of all responsibility and all little sisters. And Jen too, in the guest room next door, probably sleeping soundly and won’t have to deal with anything like this, and will run free all summer, sleeping under the same roof with different rules to the ones I must adhere to. 

It’s a bright morning. The tide is in and the air is salty and fresh as seagulls circle over the strand. The beach cleaners are always out at this time, in their high visibility jackets and yellow rubber gloves plucking up the debris left over from yesterday's holiday makers. Ivy skips alongside me with her worn out sandals crunching on the sand that’s blown in over the ground, gleefully kicking the fallen palm fronds over into the low stone wall that borders the path. 

“What are you so happy about?” I say accusingly, though her joy is unfortunately contagious. 

“Everything. I’m going to kids club and it’s sunny today and mom and dad are working in Dublin for the whole week and I’m getting a chocolate croissant,” She sings that last word with glee and skips and spins ahead of me, flapping her arms around with free, unfettered delight like she could take off and fly. 

“C’mon, you’re hyper. Save some energy for the club. What are you going to be doing today anyway? Art or sports?”

“Yesterday was sport. We did dodgeball but with those soft, squishy balls.”

“The foam ones?”

“Yeah, and one of the boys took a bite out of one of them, it was disgusting.”

I laugh, “You know I used to take bites out of them too.”

She comes back and gives me a slap in the thigh, “You’re a smelly, disgusting boy too, then.”

“Yeah, I am, but I don’t care. Foam has an interesting texture, huh?”

“No it doesn’t, and it’s filthy and it’s all rolled all over the floor and had dirty old hands all over it.”

I shrug, when I was a child the last thing I cared about was whose dirty hands touched what, nothing like Ivy. I shoved everything I could find in my mouth with abandon, I didn't care. Honestly I still don’t really care, because at this point I’ve put the kinds of filthy, unregulated things into my mouth that make a foam dodgeball seem gourmet. “So if you did sports yesterday, does that mean you’re doing art today?”

“Yep.”

From where we stand in the queue outside the bakery, the smell of fresh bread and buttery pastry floats right toward us and makes my stomach growl, “So what do you think you’ll be doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“What would you like to do?”

“Well… once, in school, we did paper weaving.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

She looks at me incredulously, “You know what paper weaving is.”

“No, I don’t.”

A scoff, “You already know everything about art, so you definitely know about this.”

“Well let's pretend I don’t and you can tell me about it.”

And she does, she goes into incredible detail while we wait, and then I buy a baguette and three chocolate croissants, one for Jen, and I get Ivy some juice for the hell of it and a coffee for me even though I’m not sure if it’s coffee I like or the idea of it. 

I’m happy to let her talk like that. It fills a gap, and I like it, because when she’s talking so much it means that she’s comfortable and not conscious about annoying our parents or saying something that they think is silly. I want her to be silly. It’s what seven year olds are.

Back at the beach house I even put on music while I make some breakfast, Low by Flo Rida, because our mom hates music like this and always turns the radio off when it comes on, which is all the time lately because it’s plagued the charts for months. 

“How can she have apple bottom jeans and baggy sweatpants?” Ivy wonders as she munches on her buttered baguette. 

“I guess she has four legs,” I say, and she flinches as I try to grab her nose, “you shouldn’t be listening to the words of this song anyway, they’re for adults.” Last week she asked me what ‘promiscuous’ meant after I let her listen to Nelly Furtado and then I had to pretend I couldn’t find it in the dictionary.  

“Why? Because of her big bum?”

“Ivy!”

The boat club is busy that morning with hoards of parents leaving their children at the kids club. Children and parents and me, a sixteen year old brother. I feel self conscious as we wait to sign her in. 

“Good morning Ivy,” the activity leader beams down at her with a toothy grin, “Where’s mammy today?”

“Home in Dublin. She’s working.”

“And daddy?” I want to laugh at the absurd impression this woman has that our dad has done anything meaningful or useful for either of us in his life. 

“He has to work too.”

“They’re very busy,” I explain, “They usually need to be at home during the summer for several weeks on and off so I’m just stepping in for now.”

“Well lucky that they have you to take care of it all.”

Yes. Lucky me. I pass Ivy off to her and wave goodbye, and as I’m making my way back towards the exit I pass the dining room. I stop and peer through the door curiously, just in case, and alas, in the bright sunlight from the windows, the sound of cutlery and glass and the smell of breakfast in the air, she crosses the room, a flash of blonde in tight black clothes.

“Hi, Clóda.” I say. I’ve caught her off guard. 

“Jesus chr- Hello,” She puts the tray she was holding onto an empty table with a clatter and tucks the two front strands of her hair behind her ears. “Where did you come from?”

“I was bringing my sister to the kids club.”

“That’s nice of you.”

I shrug, “I like to give my parents a break from parenting sometimes.” I peer into the chaos behind her, “You busy?”

“Yes, I-” She turns around anxiously, “It’s very busy at breakfast time.”

“Okay well I’ll leave you alone then.”

“No, I-” 

I stop, and she pats her silky hair, twisted into a bun at the top of her head, “Are you hanging out on the beach later?”

“Uh, no.”

“Oh right, well, that’s fine then I was just-”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” I interject quickly, “I’m just looking after my sister all week while my parents are away, I can’t really leave her alone at night or anything so I won’t really be around.”

She blinks, “Your parents left you alone for a week?”

“Yeah they always do that,” I say casually, “It’s fine. Jen is staying with us so sometimes she helps, but actually, no, mostly she doesn’t, which is fair enough.” I move away from the door to let a patron pass by and Clóda comes to lean with me against the wall, “But if you like, and it’s not weird for you you could always come over and babysit with me sometime.”

“How old is your sister?”

“She’s seven.”

“Cute.”

“She’s not cute, she’s a brat, but she goes to bed at half past eight, so,” I shrug, again, attempting to be cool and casual, and it seems to be working because Clóda is blushing now. “If you’re free tonight? We can watch a film, or… something…” I trail off, privately delighted by her pretty smile, evidence that she’s forgiven me for not touching her boob last week. Maybe I’ll remedy that tonight if she gives me another chance. 

There’s a man behind the bar watching us now, “Clóda,” he says sharply, “you have to work faster, get busy please.”

“Oh, um,” She wipes her hands on her trousers and reaches around awkwardly to retrieve her tray. “That’s my dad. He gets annoyed when I chat too much. Especially to… non-customers.”

I grin at the older man and wiggle my fingers at him while he practically snarls, his face jowled like a bulldog. “Nine?” I say to Clóda.

“Yeah, I’ll try.” And she’s gone. 

Beginning // Prev // Next

[catchyhuh]

What sort of hobbies or interests do you imagine the Gang having (outside thievery or arresting said thieves)? And do they influence the way they go about their usual antics, or are they mostly Unrelated to everything else in their lives? :0c

oohhooohoho this is a good one because i have a small handful of actual canonical hobbies/interests that come up occasionally and then i have the ones that solely exist in my mind palace. at least until tms decides to let a random little shrimp from america take the reins on their most longrunning successful franchise anyway,

lupin:

i can’t remember if i mentioned lupin loves puzzles. wait yes i did in the video game list SORRY I’M ALREADY HAVING TROUBLE REMEMBERING WHAT I HAVE AND HAVEN’T GONE OFF ABOUT but yes in canon lupin LOVES puzzles. less like, jigsaw puzzles, more like shapey puzzles. but hell man if you can get him to sit still long enough he might like a jigsaw one just to pass the time

i think he likes cooking. him, jigen and goemon all seem to really Get it. so count this under all of them, they just love yummy food and occasionally the process of making it too

he likes to draw :) somebody has to be behind all the slightly different variants of his little mascot guy. SOMEBODY has to redraw bank floor plans so they can plan out each tiny step of the heist. somebody has to scribble over his own wanted posters to put funny little devil horns on the image CMON now!!

jigen:

only jigen could be in a fucking arcade theater complex and pull out a fucking crossword puzzle. why is this dude honestly trying to speedrun being a grouchy old man before he even turns 40. i mean no hate, no hate to crossword puzzles, they are cool but i’m more of a wordsearch guy. BUT THERE’S OTHER STUFF TO DO JIGEN!! at least he’s not going for sudoku though

very random but i think he might like sewing in a passive sense. with how particular he is about his hat and really ANY clothes on his person, he probably just picked up a needle one day to fix a tear and then was like Huh. this isn't too bad actually. kinda repetitive and calming. and then the others found out and tried to get him to fix all their stuff too SO HALF PLEASANT AND HALF NOT SO PLEASANT

fujiko:

you may think i’m insane but fujiko must genuinely have some sort of fondness for computers and technology. more than she lets on at least, because. how DO you know how to fly every type of aircraft. how DO you know how to crack into almost any computer firewall? how do you know how to isolate a computer virus as it’s ALREADY corrupted HALF OF THE SYSTEM?? this goes beyond job necessity to me she must really have some hidden underlying passion for this stuff

i think it’d be cute if she took up some kinda journaling. i mean god knows she’s not writing about her FEELINGS in that little leather notebook, and she doesn’t really have the time to commit to like, scrapbook shit (even if she had the time, she’s not sentimental like that) but something simple like “this is a list of m&m variants in order of how disgusting to not disgusting they taste to me <3” with little candy stickers and gel pen hearts drawn in. the next page has a bloodstain on it and the only thing written is “dw about that lol”

goemon:

okay i KNOW i’ve pushed the Arts Enjoyer goe agenda before but i recently saw that part 3 production art again of him chilling with the pottery wheel so i must state, once again, goemon LOVES sculpting shit in all forms. chip away at some rock, throw zantetsuken at a block of wood, actually invest in some clay for fucking once, whatever he uses, he’ll make something pretty good. and even if it wasn’t good it’s still a fun hobby for him. keeps his hands loose but precise

oh my god you know what he would love. dominoes. you know when people make those like crazy long domino strings that form a pattern when they’ve all fallen. if anybody here could have the precision and strangely placed patience to do shit like that it’s definitely this guy

zenigata:

going through this list easily and eagerly typing up little funfacts about things i do know they like outside of their. “jobs” and then slowly realizing as i get to zenigata that i... cannot think of anything he. uh. does for fun. damn. he DOES talk about movies a lil bit from time to time, and knowing his mixture of a freakish eye for detail and also missing the most obvious things ever i bet hearing him talk about a movie is twice as fun as actually watching it. i would pay HUNDREDS to hear him try to explain what he thinks of space odyssey to me

it would be-- i have no reasoning for this but it would be so cute and hilarious if he did like. tiny magic tricks. you know? like card appearing out of thin air, coin behind your ear type shit. tiny stuff he figured out on his brief off time. we know lupin can do little stuff like that too but it'd just be hilarious if zenigata, completely unawarely and unintentionally for once, ended up being better than him at some inconsequential shit like making a pair of keys disappear

and i guess in light of recent discoveries they all like golf. apparently. well. no one is perfect

[jenny-dreadful]

actually, for funsies, lemme rattle off as many of otgw’s subtextual death symbols etc. as i can think of off the top of my head

(understanding that the bulk of this is probably well-trod territory if you’ve sought out much discussion on it, and that some of it is inarguably half-baked ideas that i’m interested in bringing up nonetheless)

Beatrice, in the Divine Comedy, is the name of Dante’s lost love. Also, there is a traditional folk belief (having trouble finding its origin) regarding bluebirds as a sign or incarnation of a deceased loved one

“Pottsfield” as a corruption of “potter’s field,” a type of burial place for the unclaimed dead (How nice, then, that all those skeletons seem to get such a joyful welcome!)

(Addendum: I love all those cheeky little lines there, like “Aren’t you a little too…early?” and “Folks don’t tend to leave Pottsfield.” gtfoh)

(DOUBLE ADDENDUM: Reference to this village event as a “harvest” functions at two ends, sort of. Death is commonly compared to a sort of harvest, as with the Grim Reaper; also, the Pottsfield idea of “harvesting” people who are already dead and buried, rather than living people, serves as perhaps the series’s first glimmering hint into the idea that the titular “garden” is a graveyard

The tavern crowd is satisfied to identify Wirt as “the pilgrim;” The Pilgrim’s Progress famously depicts an allegorical journey through death

Endicott—definitely well-trod that his name appears on a headstone in the real world later on, which is more text than subtext. But I wanna mention it anyway bc (while one may conclude that everyone lingering in the Unknown has died) Endicott is the only one it gets so explicit about, and here too is a graveyard-garden synapse crackle: Where can you find him? Well—in the real world, it’s the cemetery, but in the Unknown he’s prospering in his garden

The search for two pennies for ferry fare (presumably, one each for Wirt and Greg, with Fred and Beatrice planning to play dumb and board for free), ending in the sort of left-field thing where Greg sullenly throws them away? cracks me up because I can only imagine the whole episode being written before someone in the room went, “Shit, wait, they can’t actually pay the ferryman— How do we get out of this?”

(Add.: A ferry typically crosses a body of water rather than traveling along it, doesn’t it? Usually, a vessel like the one depicted would be called a “riverboat;” the decision to consistently call it a “ferry” instead is deliberate as hell.)

Beatrice’s initial endeavor is in bringing the boys to “Adelaide of the pasture”—or, in only slightly different terms, putting them “out to pasture”

Some more small ones, but when they encounter the other frogs and realize they’re all clothed, Greg kind of oddly makes a particular point of noting their unclothed frog’s “cold feets;” bare feet are sometimes used in art to suggest death, and separately, going barefoot is a part of proper mourning in some traditions. Also—there’s something to those frogs burying themselves in the mud to sleep, and to our party going on instead of staying with them, isn’t there?

Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for…thee, ultimately, if you get eaten? I’m gonna be tbh with you, I don’t see a strong connection here, but it feels weird to not mention it when there IS a strong (if general) association of bells as announcers of death. Maybe I’m missing something.

Greg sure does visit (and choose to return from) what can only be described as someplace resembling a child’s heaven. Traditionally, only one way to achieve this.

Oh, man, no big surprise with, like, “Come Wayward Souls”’ moody ass, but “Patient Is the Night” is such a cool instance of a particular old-fashioned, folkish flavor, poetically obfuscating the topic of death to present it as welcoming and restful (couldn’t work out a less pretentious or clunky way to say that).

And last, for now: Hey, shit, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t quite add up to anything, it’s just… It’s kinda weird that Greg’s big crime is revealed as the theft of a stone (painted to represent a person) from somebody’s garden, when this poetic interpretation of a graveyard as a “garden” (lined with stones, each carved to represent a person, in a different way) is established pretty thoroughly. Like, I won’t pretend that’s not kinda a reach. But it’s not nothing nothing, right?

[vitaminwaterreviews]

Bibi - Eve: Romance

This was an incredible album. I am a bit disappointed with how much of it consisted of old songs (8 of them!) but two of those old songs I hadn’t heard before, and I really enjoy the others which I already knew. Every song on this album will be on my playlist, and I would quite like to own a physical copy of this one too.

I appreciated how jazzy a lot of the first half of the album was. The bass in particular was often a double bass, and obviously there was some nice saxophone on a couple of tracks. The latter half was mostly older releases, so there was a lot more variety there. The art style is the same as both Derre and Bluebird and arguably Bam Yang Gang, which suggests that Bibi has had this album in mind for at least a year now. The MV for Apocalypse was really enjoyable, I’ll want to rewatch that sometime. Meat, Pygma Girl, and Real Man are my favorites off of the album, but I enjoyed all of it. Average score of 8.5 which is perfect. Really, really great album.

- Apocalypse

Flowers!

This does not feel particularly apocalyptic yet ngl

It’s all cute and fun and bubbly

But of course this is Bibi so something will happen

She took a bite from an apple and now it’s all dark. Hmmm

The song is exactly the same though

Oh look they’re mad at each other

Maybe she shouldn't have bitten that apple

She said “adam” and “apple” and the title of the album is Eve so I mean

I bet the lyrics are way more apocalyptic than the sound

But I assume that’s the point lol

I get choices?

Let’s see

That’s really clever. The “eats the apple” ending repeats the cycle, and throwing the apple away ends the cycle

Let me look at the lyrics

Alright, I think I get it

9/10

Hongdae R&B

I was thinking earlier today about which albums of mine would be good just to put on as background music

I came to the conclusion that very few, if any, of the albums that I own would be good for that

I think this would be an excellent album for that

And I don’t mean that as an insult either. It’s very easy to listen to, at least so far. It’s fun and good and very well-produced

Love the guitar outro

8/10

Meat

The laughter omg I’m dying

I think we’ll probably get an MV for this song

Also wow that bass is so good

Haha the saxophone I’m sobbing

This is a great, great song, I love this

9/10

Pygma Girl

I don’t actually know what “pygma” means

Also this album is so jazz-coded so far

All that comes up when I search “pygma” is AI

But it does kinda sound like “pick me girl”

Welp, this song got me up and dancing

9/10

Scott and Zelda

I really wish I had the lyrics for these songs

The English lines are so interesting. Like “Oh my god those papercuts”, what does that mean

Haha the organ

Not my favorite song on the album, but still quite good

7/10

Sugar Rush

Need I even listen to the ones I already know?

I think I’ll listen to them for a bit to get myself in the mindset, that way I approach the next songs with the right mindset

I love how simple this song is

And obvious her whispers are hot as hell

The line “I don’t need a man for no dessert / I got popsicles in my freezer” is iconic

I just listened to the whole thing lol, I guess I’ll do that for all of them

9/10

Derre

I never really paid attention to the lyrics for this song, what the hell is this song about?

Mkay yeah, it’s a classic “I’m better than you and you want me” song

Very Bibi

8/10

Burn It

Dean in this song lmao

The harmonies are really pretty, it’s good that I’m finally listening to this song on my nice headphones if nothing else

I guess that given the title of the album, it makes sense that most of the songs are about sex

9/10 for those harmonies at the end oml

Real Man

Oh hell yes, thank you for this beat I love this

A bit more saxophone? I’m here for it

What the hell is her voice here

9/10

Midnight Cruise

Lol what the hell

That was such a sudden change of pace

The chorus behind her is genius

I don’t think I get “midnight cruise” from this song

8/10

Bam Yang Gang

I’m just not sure whether this gets a 9 or a 10

It was the first Bibi song I ever heard, so for that reason we’ll go

10/10

Hangang Gongwon

Nice, pretty piano Bibi

Oh my god it’s a slow jam I’m dying

But I do enjoy it

And I think it’s placed very well in the album. Like, yeah, it’s about time for a slow jam, pacing-wise

7/10

Bluebird

I like this song a lot

9/10

Winter (unreleased)

I do wonder what the title means, considering this track has now been released twice

8/10

[crystallizsch]

hmmmmmm twst EVE (from wall-e)?????

pov you encounter this cutie at the flower shop while u and ur squad are in town wyd

OKAY SO ANOTHER VERY ROUGH OC CONCEPT….. (what is the art equivalent of proofreading. whatever the term is i’m not doing it with this doodle—) (the doodle took like 5-10 mins and references took 30ish im NOT spending more time on it)

the design is not fully final final but i AM keeping a version of the goggles, mask, and overalls.

also some brief character thoughts that i’m throwing on the wall and seeing what’ll stick:

i was today years old when i finally looked up what “EVE” means (“it’s Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator”) so then that means i’m making them a plant enthusiast—

but also. they have special interests with space and stars and stuff (probably is into zodiac signs as well) and would infodump when prompted

(^ same goes for plants)

i tend to combine traits from different characters so i want them to have wall-e’s trait of collecting of different trinkets that he finds

their unique magic is to identify any bio life (since they’re still young and the UM is still new, they can only identify plants for now)

Cyborg Legs maybe (that i can’t draw rn) bc of an accident

other than being twst eve i had a post realization that they lowkey also have young ellie vibes from pixar's up

also also as i’m typing this, one thing is leading to another and i’m making this oc tragic by giving them a terminal illness (parallels ellie’s death)

their last wish is probably to personally see space but they know that won’t plausible (and this is where ortho comes in

i like to think that their dynamic with ortho is like: “oh you think you know plants/space better than me?” and then ortho is over here with complete unrestricted access to the internet

ortho tries to impress them so much with knowledge but it just backfires

eventually ortho grows on [twst eve] and they become true friends and [twst eve] opens up to ortho about their illness but ortho already knew from the start

ortho COULD help find a cure, he COULD ask idia for help or something

but something something respect the cycle of life and death—

anyways hard pivot: if they don’t have that terminal illness i’d like to think they’d be a RSA student

i think ortho deserves a cute little partner to fawn over

as a treat.

[mostspecialgirl]

another solo ramble post - relicverse, ocs, flg, and 'succeeding as an artist'

one of the first pieces of digital art i’ve tried to do (not counting back when i was a kid on chickensmoothie) was a '100 OC’s Challenge', which, even at the time, little me thought “what? Just 100? bitch i’ve got this in the BAG” (i did in fact, have it in the bag) and so seeing it again made me want to do a redraw of it. y’know throw in their modern updated designs, maybe try to give them a little more expression, switch the order around and whatnot. but i asked myself “Well in that case, why don’t I just redo the whole thing instead of making it a redraw? Stick in some new series since little me got lazy of drawing from a list at like 75, and it can be something nice to refer to.”

(pictured: old ass disgusting FLG page of the 100 oc’s challenge, as well as the infamous Crusty Backup Of An Old Version of the Ancient FLG Pixel Art Sheet)

then i remembered it’s ONLY 100 slots. by now, i’ve got WAY too much going on and i’ve had another “oh. Well shit. I forgot I’m nuts about this shit” because quite honestly I could probably do 300 without having to think too hard. And maybe that’s a bit of an issue. what is a girl doing with 300+ characters floating around her brain. i’ve got tens of stories where NONE have PROPERLY seen the light of day because i’m scared of comitting to a shitty adaptation that interests no one. or i get too overly ambitious in what’s actually possible and blow out my motivation to wanting it down in consumable form at that time. here i am cooped up in my little shack with the same problem i’ve had my whole life:

i’d love to have one or two eyes on my work who care about it, but i’ve never had any knack for attracting an audience. i spent YEARS on instagram to the tune of Only Making A Single Friend I Fell Out Of Touch With. All of the success I’ve had on twitter over the years is directly tied to “well did Friend 1 or Friend 2 Retweet This?” (With an exception i’ll get to) and only QUITE RECENTLY (in the scope of my artist career) have i made friends who LOOK at my ART and press LIKE. i just feel a little suffered! maybe i’m just scarred from instagram cause’ i was shit at drawing back then. maybe i just have to do fanart with the skills i have now and inevitably i’ll have followers of my own who i don’t see through the lens of “borrowed, not earned”. but i’m scared of failure. i’ve long failed, don’t get me wrong, but i’m afraid of falling deeper, despite how insignificant an Online Existence Like This already is.

(pictured: record of existence)

my one success, being twitter’s “GAYRETARDGF” was the first time in my life i received any attention that made me think “oh shit, maybe i’m actually a little bit funny and not just an insane unfunny person”. i spent years playing Jester for My Personal King that i’ve kind of lost any frame of reference pertaining to how i’m perceived by others. i’ve always been terrible at that. despite getting suspended at another Peak Growth Moment and the fact i’ve failed to reclaim that spark, it’s made me realize “Maybe I can succeed creatively”. after all, GAYRETARDGF’s thing was vulgar quips and drawn out nonsensical scenario posts and WELL. not to name names or kick any other artists under the bus, unlike most Crazy Posters “artist careers”, my art, i find, is every bit as unserious, witty, vulgar, and STUPID as my tweets were. (i think the writing in Puzzling Commission is a testament to that)

even if i failed to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was GAYRETARDGF, knowing people find my stupid bits funny is such a candle in the dark i’ve been in my whole life. i’m always telling my friends “i’m trying to be the new henry darger” and even though i’m joking, I’m afraid that maybe i will be to a few souls who stumble on my work. i’ve found my own 'personal dargers' over the years who i bemuse over, wondering where they are now, and if they still care about art. I don’t want to give up. I want to keep pushing. I’m coming up on the 10th anniversary of FLG and finally at this point in my life i’m seeing the signs that potentially I can make ONE person BECOME A DEDICATED FAN of the relicverse. my art’s almost there, my writing’s there, and all i have to do it wait for the wind to catch these sails. (i will however, have to find the right sails for the job)

i’m far from kidding when i say the relicverse is my life’s work. i think i’d like to make it succeed. i hope in this modern landscape it CAN succeed. so i’m going to bust my fucking ASS OFF drawing fanart on tumblr and see where it goes. I’d honestly be satisfied just being a mildly successful fanartist in a fandom i like.

SURPRISE! THIS POST ISN’T DONE YET!

for the second part here, feel free to stop reading, i want to talk a little more about FLG. FLG is the series younger me put my whole SOUL into. even 'sarah' which i’m going by now (due to a strange set of circumstances which i might talk about in a future ramblepost about Gender and Stuff), is taken from 'sa’ara pyrophyte byblis' who at the time was my favourite character. To repeat what i said earlier with a little more information, FLG is in fact coming up on it’s tenth anniversary and that’s HORRIFYING. i’ve been working on this shit since before UNDERTALE. BEFORE UNDERTALE!!!!!!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT SHIT?????

flg’s been sent to the backburner while i recontextualize a ton of lore, but in a lot of ways, it’s the reason the relicverse even exists. sure, these days, DEVIL’S MANNER opens up the gate, but the first series i wrote to acknowledge the planes and the presence of a shared greater universe is from FLG. hell, FLG’s story can be read as a parallel to Demiurge’s story (intentional) though… now that i say that, it’s not like anyone would know what i mean by that.

despite not DIRECTLY touching FLG in any significant way in these recent times, i think it’s only become more important to the greater universe. the kailash clan finds their origins in FLG, and by extension, the outer gods. hastur himself is a direct descendant of the outer gods, and despite being seen as an 'imperfect halfling' by the ancients during FLG, at the end of the story and before the events of sundown, hastur gains his proper respects as 'their greatest child', being half ancient and half elder god, essentially the image of purity they’ve been chasing. an ancient whose blood bears the love of their creators. oh. right. i guess now’s a good time to mention Hastur and by extension Ithaqua are both Kailash, though the two aren’t keen on identifying as such after everything Cass did to their friends family and home.

in the current scape of the relicverse, the Kailash are by far the only clan who has political relevance, both the berezaiti and sinai clans divided and mostly irrelevant in terms of modern planeswalker culture. The Kailash are like, kind of really important.

but, technically, the berezaiti are also from FLG. Ounon Thanast, chief of one of the Tindalosian Clans that find their homeworld in FLG’s Earth, is the parent of Yima Berezaiti, who, if for some reason you know my lore, is the whole reason the Berezaiti clan is a CLAN.

FLG’s earth, GENESIS EARTH, is pretty significantly important to the RELICVERSE. It’s one of the planes lying upon 'The Rim', with the control for influence over it contested by both The Planeswalker Association and the Hundred Nights Guild. Due to the presence of Azathoth’s Canvas Energy Offgassing, within GENESIS EARTH, everyone’s line of fate is rewritten to have them destined to awaken a Power (as in 'Powers' of 'The Five Elements') by lingering around in this plane for long enough, anyone can gain another unique ability JUST by doing fuck all!!!! which OF COURSE has led to the eternal struggle of planeswalkers upon their world.

Even the Trinity and RELIC EARTH aren’t safe, with Angelo Rust of INSIDERS being a Genesis Earth native and brother of the Sinai Clan’s Patriarch Einrich, Gervase Sinai, was condemned to the plane by the King of the Watchers, Samyaza, who is also one of RELIC EARTH’s Outer Gods. AND, SPOILER ALERT, GERVASE IS THE FATHER OF VIRGIL, THE PROTAGONIST OF FLG: SUNDOWN!!!

gaaaasp

There’s so many more little connections like that and yet somehow i never seemed to consider genesis earth as more than a footnote, until now, of course. but i’m not sure what i want to do with flg. the obvious answer is a COMIC, seeing as it’s about SUPERHEROES, but i can’t help but wonder if there’s another path also worth pursuing. Superhero media is everywhere these days, and with the success of works like Invincible’s adaptation, The Boys’s adaptation, and like, the crazy marvel movie explosion that happened with infinity war and endgame, Superhero stuff is back in the public consciousness. There’s a lot of avenues. That’s getting too far ahead though seeing as I’ve had a Big Inevitable Rewrite for it on the schedule… gruygh,,, there’s too much to ramble about today… what was it i was even trying to talk about…

oh. Yeah. Right. I’d love for FLG to find its success somehow, some way, someday, with beautiful 5 active readers, and 20 Asks in my Tumblr Askbox, but i’m a little fearful i might never have the time or power to get to it. I guess I’ll see. I’ll just keep plugging along.

Now shoo!!! Shoo!!!

[dustofthedailylife]

The Art Of Desire

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Pairing: Alhaitham x (gn!) Reader

Summary: You are in need of a model for your anatomy class assignment. However, the last thing you expected was that your crush would volunteer to help you and that he would end up standing in front of you without a shirt.

Tags: Fluff, Suggestive (but still completely SFW)!, shy reader, partial nud*ty I guess? (Alhaitham is shirtless at some point), flirting, kissing

A/N: *throws fic into the room and leaves*

Being an artist while also being a scholar in Sumeru had always been somewhat difficult for you. The arts had never been something most people in Sumeru City appreciated or even actively looked down upon. It was a city of scholars after all, and the arts were too abstract to properly grasp for most of them.

Things had begun to become better after the old Grand Sage had been replaced and the new Archon had been freed but a lot of scholars still didn’t show much interest in the arts.

But due to that an assignment for one of your classes proved difficult. Anatomy.

You had no idea how learning human anatomy would help you as an architect later, but you did what you had to do. And it would surely help you with your personal art projects later on as well.

The only thing you had to find now was someone who could pose for you. Surely Kaveh would be able to help you right? He was your best friend and was once in the same situation.

You sought him out where he hung around the most - the Tavern.

As you walked through the Tavern door, warm air that smelled like wine and spices wafted your way and filled all your senses. You loved how homely it always felt here.

You scanned the tables to find Kaveh. Unfortunately for you though, he wasn’t alone. As you feared, Alhaitham was with him. You already considered turning around to leave again but Kaveh had already spotted you and was enthusiastically waving for you to come over to their table. 

And that was precisely the reason you rarely ever came here nowadays. Kaveh often met up with Alhaitham here for lunch. And your crush on the latter had slowly but surely turned you into a nonsense-blabbering mess during conversations with him. At this point, he probably thought you were stupid.

You hesitantly tiptoed over to their table and greeted them while your heart pounded heavily inside your chest. You sat down on the bench next to Kaveh who was already a bit tipsy. It wasn’t much of a surprise, since he was such a lightweight and practically got drunk as soon as he looked at wine the wrong way.

“Kaveh, I need your help!” You pleaded, trying to avoid eye contact with Alhaitham as much as possible once again.

“And that would be, my dear friend?” Kaveh replied in a singsong voice.

“Alright so… I need someone to pose for me. I need to draw a couple of detailed torso drawings for the anatomy course I’ve been taking, and since you also took that once I thought you could help me. I mean, you could also give me some tips. Right?” 

“Oh.” His smile faltered for a brief moment and his facial expression told you everything you needed to know. There was apparently a reason he couldn’t help but he didn’t outright want to turn you down. You knew how he is, he simply couldn’t say no and would inconvenience himself any time for his friends. And you definitely didn’t want him to do that for you. You’d be able to find someone else somehow.

“It’s okay if you can’t do it. Just say no.” You reassured him.

“I have an appointment in the desert with a client, but I’m sure I could make some ti–”

“I’ll help you.” Alhaitham cut Kaveh off.

Both of you snapped your heads in his direction in disbelief.

“Are you sick?! Why would you volunteer to help anyone but yourself?” Kaveh gasped and looked at the Scribe as if he’d lost his mind.

“It’s not much work, is it? They could just come to my office and draw me while I just sit there doing my work. Isn’t that correct?” Alhaitham inquired, boring his turquoise eyes into you. You simply nodded in reply and could feel your breath hitch in your throat. You were sure that if you would be standing right now your knees would’ve probably given in by now since they felt like jello. On top of that, your nervousness skyrocketed so badly that you were able to feel your heartbeat in your throat. 

The thought of being alone with Alhaitham for a prolonged period of time while ogling him as closely as you never dared before, made your heart flutter. You probably wouldn’t be able to concentrate on drawing properly but if he was already offering it, you couldn’t possibly refuse. Especially since he usually didn’t do anyone any favors to begin with.

“Besides,” Alhaitham continued. “It gives me an excuse to decline every other meeting for the rest of the day.”

“Tch, typical. Of course, there’d be an egoistic reason for your volunteering.” Kaveh scoffed.

“I don’t see any issue with that. I help them with their assignment while also helping myself. It’s a beneficial endeavor for both of us.” Alhaitham reasoned, twirling his own wine cup between his fingers before turning to you again. "Wouldn't you agree, too?"

You slowly nodded before quickly averting your eyes again since you couldn't bear to look at Alhaitham for longer than a few seconds without getting flustered. You had no idea how you were supposed to look at him for a prolonged period of time to draw him if you were already reduced to a flustered mess by talking to him. The thought alone made your heart almost jump out of your chest.

Kaveh shook his head in annoyance and turned to you once more. “Just say the word and I’ll take a day off to help you. Rest assured, it would be no problem for me.”

“No, Kaveh. I couldn’t possibly ask you to neglect your own responsibilities for my projects. Just keep your focus on yourself. If Alhaitham is so kind to offer his help I’ll take him up on that.” You reassured him while trying to hide how nervous you actually were about the situation.

“Well, shall we get going then? My lunch break is almost over.” Alhaitham interrupts, immediately getting up from the table.

You somewhat hesitantly got up as well since you didn’t expect he meant you could draw him right now. You had no time to mentally prepare for it so this would be interesting.

“Oh, so now you suddenly care about getting back to work on time after your lunch break,” was the last thing you heard Kaveh yell before the door of the Tavern fell shut behind both of you.

As you quietly tailed behind Alhaitham back to his office the realization that you’d actually be drawing him now suddenly began to dawn on you.

Oh, just what did you agree to here? And how in the world should you avoid making this awkward now?

Once you arrived at his officeAlhaitham unlocked the door and motioned you inside.

“You can sit down at the table over there. Do you need anything?”

“No. I should be fine.” You replied with a shy smile.

You were in fact everything but that.

While you were trying not to have a meltdown as you unpacked your stuff, Alhaitham was brewing some coffee and handed you a cup as well.

“Do you need me to do anything?” He asked.

“Hm?”

“In terms of posing.”

“Oh. Uh– no actually not. Just sit on your chair and read or whatever?”

“Nothing easier than that.” He replied with a faint smile, grabbing a book from the bookshelf beside you and walking back to his desk.

You busied yourself by scanning the books on the shelves that littered his office while sipping on your coffee before you turned around again and had to stop yourself from immediately spitting your coffee out again. Although as soon as you did you wished you had never done so.

Alhaitham had unclasped his cape and had loosely thrown it over his desk and was just about to pull his shirt over his head. You were trying to process what was happening before your eyes but your mind was racing so fast that you failed to fully grasp the scene before you.

“W-what are you doing?!” You stammered.

“Didn’t you say this was for your anatomy assignment?” He inquired, seeming entirely unbothered before ultimately removing his shirt completely.

Well, yeah you did. And for that bare skin was sort of a requirement. You knew that full well, too. It just sort of slipped your mind that taking Alhaitham up on his offer would actually entail seeing him without a shirt as well.

“Y-yes.” You replied, moving your eyes over his now exposed abdominal muscles. His usual shirt already left little to the imagination, but actually seeing his trained body without the thin piece of fabric covering it was a sight for sore eyes.

He claimed to only be a feeble scholar but that notion couldn’t be any further from the truth.

“Then there you have the answer to your question.” He stated matter-of-factly before sitting down and opening his book to read. His face still looked as unbothered as it did before and he immediately lost himself in his book.

In the meantime, you tried your hardest to get yourself together again. Not only did you need to keep your eyes from wandering but also your mind. 

You traced every well-toned muscle of his upper body. How light and shadow formed their contours and how his pectorals moved whenever he flipped another page. You took note of every detail and etched it into your memory while suppressing the urge to brush over his defined muscles.

You sat down at the table and held onto your pen for dear life as you continued to analyze every little detail of his body. The embedded gem between his collarbones and hot it beautifully shimmered in the light of his office. The sharp V-Line that started right above his hips. The symmetric curve of his collarbones leading up to his shoulders. And his turquoise eyes that were boring into yours once again.

"Is anything the matter?" He inquired, lifting an eyebrow.

"N-no. I'm just trying to find a starting point." You stammered your poor attempt at an excuse.

After all 'Sorry, I was too distracted by staring at your body' wasn't something you could just say either.

“T-tell me if you’re getting too cold and we can take a break.”

“It’s 40 degrees outside, I’ll be fine.” He chuckled seemingly amused about your concern.

“Ri-right. Yeah. Okay.” You awkwardly bit your lip. For Archon's sake, why couldn’t you just behave normally around him?

After overcoming the first awkwardness you eventually started sketching. But the more the shapes on your paper resembled the beautiful man in front of you, the more flustered you became again and the more aware you became of the fact of how closely you were actually looking at him. Your attention to detail for this sketch was even more on point than it had ever been before. Upon realizing that it was because you were enjoying what you were seeing your cheeks started to burn in embarrassment.

You spent about an hour immersed in sketching, carefully studying every contour of his upper body. It felt so intimate that you couldn't help but wonder if anyone had ever looked at him this way before. And even though you kept telling yourself that this was just a regular art study session to avoid getting flustered further, the endeavor proved completely unsuccessful. 

Eventually, you finished your piece and dropped your pen on the table. You lifted your sketchbook up to evaluate the page and the final result.

The once-blank page was now filled with an intricate pencil sketch of the handsome man with a dreamlike physique. You had to admit, he truly was the perfect subject for anatomy studies. And while you wouldn’t mind seeing him shirtless more often you doubt your heart could handle it another time. Because despite sitting the entire time you felt like you had just run a marathon.

“Your talent is quite impressive.” Alhaitham’s voice rang right next to your ear and made you flinch. You didn’t notice how he had approached you. And what made things worse is that he was still shirtless while standing next to you so closely you could feel the heat that emanated from his skin and smell his after-shave.

You gulped and got up from your chair avoiding looking into his eyes as much as possible because you feared that if you did your heart would burst out of your chest. 

“Thank you. That means a lot. I-I mean… it was quite easy to see the muscle definition on you.”

Facepalm. Why did you say that? You internally cringed at your choice of words and continued to avoid looking at him while you hastily started packing your bag again.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” He remarked with a smirk and lifted your chin up with your sketchbook, forcing you to look into his eyes.

You opened your mouth in order to say something but everything you could’ve said died in your throat. So instead, you simply continue to stare at him while your heart felt like it was about to combust and you wanted nothing more than to sink into the ground in shame.

He huffed in amusement at your evident flustered state and closed the gap between your bodies, placing his arm next to your head on the wall, towering over you.

“Do you have any idea how obvious you are?” He asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I see the way you look at me, or rather how you always avoid doing so now. And Kaveh happened to slip up and revealed your secret when he got drunk. And that’s why I can tell you that I feel the exact same way about you. And I’ve longed for a moment to tell you. You didn’t make it easy since you kept avoiding me lately.”

You didn’t know whether what was happening was wishful imagination or a fever dream because it felt surreal. 

He put your sketchbook back on the table and lifted your chin with his free hand now. He took hold of one of your hands and placed it on his abs.

“This is what you wanted to do the entire time, am I right?” He whispered while the bud of his thumb brushed past your lower lip. You slowly nodded as your traced along his toned stomach with a featherlight touch, feeling how the muscles moved below your fingertips.

“May I kiss you?” He whispered in a low tone when you looked up into his eyes.

He had barely even finished asking when you leaned into him more and took the initiative to place your lips on his for a shy kiss. But it was so fleeting it had you longing for more and it seems that the feeling was mutual.

He quickly snaked his arms around your waist and pressed you against him with fervor while he hungrily crashed his lips into yours once more. You slung your arms around his neck and entangled your fingers in his soft gray locks while pushing his face even closer to yours than it already was.

You could feel him smiling into the kiss, as you did so. His lips continued to gently caress yours like a tender whisper of affection shared only between you two. It made you feel lightheaded while also leaving you longing for more. It was an intoxicating feeling like no other. One you certainly could get addicted to - and maybe you already were. 

At some point, you had no idea for how long you had been standing there kissing but it felt like an eternity yet not long enough at the same time.

You were sure of one thing though – You needed more of it.

Do not repost, copy, translate or edit - © dustofthedailylife || reblogs, comments, and asks about Genshin or my fics are always greatly appreciated and motivate me! Maple dividers are mine - do not copy.

[bigtittiecomitte]

I’ve been on the Twitter side of the fandom most before starting this account and I can give the speedrun on what pretty much went down

Toxic envy shippers would go into Nuzi posts and say shit like Envy solos or this is a proship or even the pedo claim

I would say it was in the Episode 3 or 4 era where a Nuzi shipper leaked photos of a group chat that was making fun of them, their art and Nuzi which lead them to leave the fandom (they’re currently back but more skeptical on things)

Nuzi shippers would also get sent death threats on dms especially artists and most actually left because of the amount of hate they got

Nuzi shippers weren’t even doing anything, the entire time they were just fighting for their lives lmao like I met a lot of Nuzi shippers that had to prove that Nuzi was not a proship and wish for the best (the main proof was the missing posters in ep 3, still is)

Before Episode 6 some wd x dd shippers got doxxed and their addresses were posted on Twitter for everyone to see which lead to a fandom strike where artists didn’t post any MD art for a week (this was happening during Nuzi week too)

Speaking of Nuzi week, a week later, an Envy halloween (even tho it was august lmao) based week was made which didn’t sit quite well to some Nuzi shippers bc they pretty much didn’t get a week bc of the fandom strike so idk but I do remember seeing some Nuzi shippers being pissed abt that, from what I know some envy shippers just told them to get over it

Quite literally before Episode 6 came out (seriously, this was days before) some toxic envy shippers posted that if there was Nuzi scenes then they would *insert bad thing*

Then Episode 6 came out and Nuzi was implied to be canon so uh rest in piss to those bozos lmao

But in all seriousness, a lot of Envy shippers did not take Episode 6 well

I remember seeing a post saying that if Nuzi was canon then Envy shippers would face a lot of harassment from Nuzi shippers. Nah it was the opposite lol

Random envy shipper posted a video on them crying bc Nuzi was canon that was really bizarre, never seen someone do that bc of a ship before and I’ve been in way too many fandoms

So yeah Nuzi shippers still got harassed and people were still throwing around that Nuzi was a proship which was just a lost cause atp

Oh yeah and idk if this happened on Twitter bc it mostly happened on Tiktok but I swore that I did see some on Twitter. So basically this 13 year old decided that they really hated Glitch so they posted a picture of a crossed out Glitch Productions logo with the word kys on it and that spread (I mean at least you got to know who was the toxic envy shipper but still fucked)

Some envy shippers have come out and say that they didn’t really mind Nuzi and in fact ships it as well, which is great, we love that

And so that’s where the most goofiest, silliest, probably gonna be remembered in fandom history rant was made (by the envy shipper that cried over Nuzi as well, they really don’t like Nuzi lmao)

This would be in the second-last or the middle tier in a iceberg video

Currently someone posted Nuzi hate on a freaking Make up an ace account and got blasted for that, now all the account does is post MD ship discourse (justice for the MUAA acc)

So yeah that’s Twitter, don’t know what goes down in Reddit so I’m interested to know what it’s like over there

I like how because of the new teaser, the MD fandom overnight became the Nuzi fandom. Like, it's so wild to see when just months prior you would've been burned at the stake for liking this ship.

[c-is-for-circinate]

For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

.

Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

[shirecorn]

how about 17 and 24? what inspires you and how do you deal with art block?

Long post warning.

Art block...

I don't actually get art block, which is probably a combination of neurodivergence and drawing every day for the last 3 years

I wrote an entire tutorial about how to do that, but didn't feel like illustrating it. Would people want to read it even without visuals?

Maybe... I'll just start rambling.

There's a couple different types of art block, and it's really just a philosophy puzzle to get past them. I'm going to assume that the things I think of slow days, or art mud, is a milder form of art block and work through that.

Art block is a symptom, not a disease. You probably have something deep inside that you don't want to face, or don't know how. Sometimes you need to discover the cause, sometimes just power through.

Method 1: Rest

Let yourself just Exist. The act of consuming art is part of the process. Watching shows and playing games, taking a break and going gardening or focus on school. This is what you need for burnout-induced art block.

Method 2: Action

I always choose action, sometimes it means a tiny 2 min sketch per day. Ugly or super simplified. As long as I don't stop moving.

Toss everything. Start every piece thinking you will throw it away.

The act of drawing moves you forward; pinning it to the fridge does not. Don't work things until they are perfect. Work them until they are there.

Art block causes and solutions:

- No Inspiration

Not sure what to draw, nothing seems appealing. Art won't come out like it used to.

Do studies from life or photos. Sketch, paint, digital, traditional, doesn't matter. Rocks, fruit, figure drawing, landscapes, buildings, anything.

Study and copy professional's work. Old masters are best, like rubens, michalangelo (only his men tho) etc because they will teach you anatomy while you work. If you copy someone with a lot of flaws, you will repeat those flaws.

Trace to learn, not to earn. Trace photography and art from anyone you want. Don't post it unless you have the artist's permission or they are dead, whichever comes first. This is strictly work for yourself, on yourself. It's not about the finished drawing.

Find an artist with a fun style and try converting stuff into their style. Don't make that your new style though and especially don't start selling it. Your style is a chimera of everyone you love, not a clone of one person.

Take blurry photos. You don't need a fancy camera or good skills or beautiful subjects. Doing studies from your own photos can spark life into your workflow.

Make challenges for yourself. Randomly generate things to combine. Try fusing characters! Don't try to make it look good, just be fun.

Doodle patterns, swirls, lines, random stuff. Try looking up art warmups and doing some of those.

- Everything Sucks

You finally see how bad you are. Or somehow you got worse. Every piece is a fight and you spend hours trying to get something right only for it to be stiff and disgusting and STILL wrong.

Why are you trying to draw good? It's enough just to draw.

Accept that your art is bad. Every artist can see flaws in their work. Your problem is that those flaws outweigh anything remotely worthwhile and hurt to look at.

So what? You're in a period of growth, not a period of production. Keep that wonky second eye. Let them have hot dog fingers.

Show everyone! Show no one! No piece of art can ever be a reflection of the artist. Not their worth, not their skill. The only thing your art says about you is "Held and moved a pen for a bit."

Make bad art. It's ok. Most of the time, the pressure to perform and get things Right is what made them wrong in the first place. Relax.

- No Motivation

The #1 killer of artists everywhere. On some level you think you should draw, on every other level you think you should stay in bed.

You are not lazy. You wouldn't have read this far in a post about art block if you were lazy. You wouldn't CALL it art block if you were lazy. Laziness is wishing you didn't have to do anything. A block is wishing you were doing something. If you think you can namecall Yourself into productivity again, you're wrong and You need to unionize so that you don't treat You like that anymore.

Consider Mental Illness. Losing interest in something that brought you joy can be a symptom of depression. I know it seems obvious, but if you're waiting for a sign that it's "bad enough," it's bad enough. Seek care if you have the means. Forgive yourself if you already know this.

Selfcare. Examine yourself for neglect. Nutrition, exercise, enrichment, social need, and sleep are all part of the art process. Eat three meals and sleep 8 hours. That's your gaymer fuel. You deserve it, I promise. Depriving yourself of your needs will make your blocks worse, not kick you into making them better.

Identify potholes. Sketchbook falling apart? Tablet cord frayed? Half your pencils missing? Chair uncomfortable? Desk hard to reach? There's a lot of things that you tell yourself to work around and get over. Just because you CAN workaround something, doesn't mean you SHOULD. A difficult work environment can cause secret dread deep inside that you don't recognize and just think you're lazy. What you think of as "no motivation" might actually be "I don't want to deal with my tablet disconnecting every time I move it wrong and I have to wiggle it for a few seconds to make it work again." These little things are like potholes in the road. Sure you CAN still drive through them, but eventually you're going to look up and realize you haven't voluntarily left the house in weeks.

Repair potholes and roadblocks. You might feel bad about buying a new pencil, headphones, tablet, car, etc because technically the old one works if you hustle. But if you're running into so many potholes you've ground to a halt, it doesn't Actually work anymore, does it? Invest, save up, request, and require working equipment and suitable conditions. This stuff isn't just cushy privilege, it's an investment in yourself and your art. You are worth the effort it takes to clear the way. If you can't afford reliable (reliable! not perfect or luxurious) equipment, then say it. If cardboard is all you can afford, draw on cardboard. But know that you deserve canvas, and one day you might be able to make the jump. Acknowledge that sometimes, if you don't have it in you to smear burned twigs on wet cardboard, the problem isn't motivation, but opportunity.

- Haven't Drawn in So Long

A unique type of art block that self perpetuates. The thought of starting again is so stressful you can't do it. Or maybe you'll do it tomorrow. Yeah. Tomorrow for sure.

Face your fears. Are you ashamed of your lack of drawing? Are you anthropomorphizing your paper and thinking it's going to judge you, like "oh NOW you come back >:/" I internalize voices I hear and project them onto other people, concepts, locations, and inanimate objects. Your paper, computer, WIPs folder.... none of that is judging you.

Reframe your WIPs. Do you feel shame when you see "unfinished" projects? Why? Who says you MUST bring everything you start to Finish? You don't have to. A sketch is a finished art piece; it's called a sketch! If a sketch is a fully realized creation, pages that are half colored, 75% lined, or partially rendered are all fully realized creations too. Unless paid otherwise, art is done when you're done working on it.

Lower the stakes. Draw a chibi or grab some crayons. Get messy and slowly ease yourself back into the flow over the course of a couple days. It's fine.

Get a buddy! Find an art meme, do an art trade, get a study subject, or just wing it. Drawing art alongside someone can help you get past that block.

Pretend you never stopped. Don't think about the gap, how long it's been, or rustiness. As far as anyone knows, you drew the mona lisa yesterday and didn't break a sweat. Today, you drew a starfish on your hand with a gel pen. Keep up that streak, good job!

Just keep drawing. Make a goal to do one sucky drawing per day on the back of a napkin. Don't make up for missed days, just pretend they didn't happen. Who's going to judge you? The calendar? That's pieces of paper; it doesn't have an opinion. Draw a cat on it. Done. Keeping up the momentum is a great way to prevent art blocks in the future.

TLDR: Draw imperfectly and toss it. Selfcare is king. Draw often and don't judge yourself.

Art is a process, not a product.

[lemonlushff-iy]

Do you want to play a game?

You do? Good.

You know how these games work if you’ve ever seen one of Clearwillow’s...but game rules are HERE since it’s slightly different! I hope this is fun for people...that was my goal! And I hope you catch the “Easter Eggs” in it. I’m curious how many people will find them all. 

I’ll post everything once it’s done on FFN and AO3, and you can catch what I’m doing for @clearwillow‘s game early on my Patreon HERE! (It might be more smut...It might be fluff. WHO KNOWS! It will be OLR related...and it will go up as soon as it’s finished!)

Special thanks to @underwater0phelia​ for kink help and @clearwillow​ for additional edits...and the IYFF BC for brainstorming! Art by @clearwillow​ for @eringobroke​ - used and edited with permission. 

And now without further ado... The first treat (aka, the “freebie”).

Starting Fires

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from the Inuyasha universe.

"Inuyasha, stop," Kagome giggled, trying to wriggle out of his hold as he pressed wet kisses up her neck. "I don't want to burn your bacon…"

"It's just bacon," he reasoned, his hands sliding up under her shirt. Or should he say his shirt? Fuck...there wasn't a better sight in the world than his best friend...his best girl...Kagome...Wearing his shirt in their kitchen in their house. Now that he had her again, he weren't never letting go of her. "I don't mind eating something else for breakfast."

"You will when your stomach is rumbling later," she blushed, grabbing his hands and pulling them down, his fingers grazing over the lace fabric of her panties. "Behave yourself and go grab a cup of coffee."

"I'd rather grab your—"

"—Coffee!"

She reprimanded, flipping the bacon in the pan. He placed a gentle nip to the side of her neck before moving away from her, a disappointed pout on his lips.

"Fine. But let it be known that I'm doing it under protest," he grumbled, moving to his cabinet to pull out a mug.

"Your protest has been duly noted, Sir," she teased, turning away from the stove to pick up her own cup of coffee. She brought it to her lips, sipping from it as she watched Inuyasha pour himself some. Their life together felt so surreal still. It felt strange to wake up in their house and cook them breakfast.

But it was a good kind of surreal.

The kind where she found herself pinching her arm to make sure it wasn't all some crazy dream. This was their life. And...she loved it.

"Mmm," he moaned, taking a sip from his cup. "As good as ever, Kags," he grinned toothily, and she risked entering his personal space to press another kiss to his lips.

"Glad you like it," she replied, running away from him again when he moved to squeeze her ass. She removed their bacon and eggs from the pan as a text message chimed on both of their phones, and Inuyasha raised a brow in curiosity. She watched him slide his thumb across the screen, before muttering out a low "Huh" as he read the text.

"What is it?" she asked, picking up their plates and placing them onto the island.

"See for yourself," he shrugged, placing the phone down next to her plate. "It's from Sango."

That already piqued her curiosity. Kagome picked up the phone, leaning over the countertop as she read it.

"Hey Guys!" She began aloud. "Miroku and I decided to throw a Halloween party this year. We know it's a bit last minute, but we were hoping you guys could come since you aren't heading back out to California like you thought. Let us know if you can make it! Trying to plan in terms of food. Love you!"

"Love you too," he grinned, and she couldn't stop the shy smile even if she wanted to. She didn't think she would ever get tired of hearing that again from him. The words were like a balm to her soul.

"What do you think?" Kagome asked, handing him his phone back as he began digging his fork into his eggs.

"Up to you," he shrugged. He really didn't care either way. He was just glad he didn't have to go out to California with her. Though, to tell the truth, he wouldn't have minded. They could have had a night in...just the two of them...And he was always a fan of nights in with her. But..."We can go. I know you wanna…"

It was true too. He had seen the way her eyes lit up when she was reading that message. The way she was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet. Kagome didn't want to spend the night in. She wanted to spend her first Halloween back in Montana at a party with old friends.

"But...You...Don't?"

He shrugged.

"Don't matter either way. I'm fine going. I'm fine staying home and fucking ya seven ways from Sunday."

"Yash!"

"What! It's tha truth," he replied with a smirk. "And you can't tell me ya don't like the sound of it," he continued, running his tongue over his fangs. The cute little blush he pulled from her was worth it.

"Well...How about a compromise?"

He paused, lifting his brow in curiosity.

"Go on…"

"What if we went to the party...Just for an hour or two...and then afterward we can come home and have sex? Oh! We can even wear couple's costumes again!"

The phrase couples costume made his butt clench so tight he could probably twist off a beer cap with his cheeks.

"I'll agree to go to the party...but not the couple's costume."

"But Yash," she whined, coming around the island to take his hands. "That's part of the fun…"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"I'll wear something slutty?"

"N—" He began, ready to tell her no again when his brain processed her offer. "Keep talking."

"I'll wear something slutty and sexy?"

"...Uh-huh...And what else?"

"...And you get to take it off of me?"

He almost said yes...but he was a greedy fucker. He was probably gonna take it off of her even if she hadn't offered that.

"Do I get to do more than that?"

"You mean other than wear a matching outfit?"

"I do."

"Well," she began, tilting her head to the side and pursing her lips in thought. "I'm assuming that sex is a given…"

"But you can say it anyway, and make it interesting," he shrugged. If he was going to get roped into this...because he was going to say yes, because he loved her...then he wanted to squeeze as much as he could out of this.

"Ok...If you do it, sex is on the table...and I'll also add you picking the place and position," she decided, causing his eyes to light up.

Place and position huh?

"Well...In that case Darling, you've got yourself a deal!"

Her childlike squeal and the way she giddily clapped her hands, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, made him feel like he made the right decision.

"Now let's talk costumes…"

He groaned, shaking his head and digging his fork into the eggs on his plate.

Then again...Maybe not…

He let her prattle on for a while, running different ideas past him...But he knew that it ultimately wouldn't matter. He was going to give in to whatever she wanted. If she wanted him to go as a hot dog, and she was going to be a bottle of mustard? That was what was going to happen. Wasn't sure how she could make it sexy...but sure. Her call. Prince and Princess? No fighting it. Batman and Catwoman…

It had piqued his interest, but she almost instantly changed her mind. The cowl would be uncomfortable for his ears.

So, she decided on a fireman and a dalmatian. He looked over at her phone when she held up a picture of the costume she had found for him and sighed.

"That's what you want?"

It didn't look too bad. And it looked like he could maybe get away with just wearing the pants. He was going to have to be sneaky about it though...He could do just a t-shirt and those pants.

"Please?" she beseeched, batting her long lashes at him. "It will be so cute! And you'll look so good!"

He tilted his head to the side, and she chewed the inside of his lip as she watched him roll her suggestion around in his head. She really liked the fireman outfit. She thought it would be fun! And he would look good in it too...She could already picture him slowly taking off the jacket to reveal his bare torso...the suspenders holding up his pants hanging limply at the sides as he slowly peeled himself out of—

"—What are you thinking about Kagome?"

She looked up at his face and saw him looking at her, a smirk stretching his lips as he limply held the phone, leaning down across the island.

"N-nothing," she blushed, swiping out to grab the phone from him, but he pulled it away from her at the last second.

"Nu-uh. I can smell it when you're lying…and I can smell it when you're—"

"—NOTHING!"

She insisted, grabbing the phone from him this time, and his grin turned predatory.

"Ain't nothing, or you wouldn't be smelling like that," he countered cheekily before his gaze began to darken. "Ya know...You don't have to keep that bottled up…"

"Inuyasha," she warned as he straightened, running his carefully filed and declawed fingers along the island countertop as he slowly came around to her side.

He was ignoring her, however.

"Kagome," he replied, closing in on her in just a few short strides. "Were you thinking about me in that fireman outfit?"

Sometimes she swore he could read her mind.

"N-no…"

"Liar," he purred, placing his hands onto the granite top on either side of her hips. He had effectively trapped her...and he was looking at her like prey.

It made her swallow because her mouth was suddenly dry. And made her lower abdomen heat. The intensity and desire in his gaze...the slight glint of fang in the morning light…

Fucking hell...She wanted to be his prey. Wanted to be captured and eaten and...eaten…

He inhaled deeply, his eyes rolling to the back of his head as he lowly moaned, "Fuck Kags…"

"W-what," she swallowed, and his smirk widened into a fangy grin before his lips crashed into hers.

AN:

I WILL ONLY DO THIS WALL OF TAGS ONCE! All future treats will be completely hidden under cuts so I don’t spam everyone’s timeline with in your face kink!

@clearwillow, @keichanz, @dangerouspompadour, @nartista, @kaze-ranna, @superpixie42, @sticky-llama-perfection, @pinkpigeonstudio, @mcornilliac, @itzatakahashi, @zelink-inukag, @juliatheanimelover7, @i-dream-of-soup, @smmahamazing, @the-lucky-ones311, @cyncyn981, @animemomma96, @ayari17, @underwater0phelia, @sailorbabydoll92, @l-taisho29, @animelove1313, @littlemissinukag​, @gofoulpuppycollector, @umacaking, @chanin29​,  @willowandfog​, @lebiishoujo​, @theinuyashareader​, @bluejay785​, @irrationalandimpossible​, @cstorm86​, @ruddcatha​, @desiree239​, @littledaisy91​, @liz8080​, @cannibalsforbreakfast​, @horriblehowl​, @arcprz​, @daisy-st-pati3nce​, @senneth-pendra​, @nsr0716​, @eringobroke​, @kagometaishostory​, @thisshipisbananahs​, @sunsetskys​, @ajoy3fanfics​, @sangoslays​, @v0dka-cat​, @cloudsz04​, @lavendertwilight89​, @yurawiththegoodhair​, @saturnsilence​, @lavaffair​, @blairex​, @fawn-eyed-girl​, @fandomobsessions016​, @neutronstarchild​, @preciouslyours​, @kalsies​, @shnuggletea​, @ladyphoenix0711​, @littlestuffstohide​

See you at 500 notes!!

[unhealthyfanobsession]

Can I ask for drunk Nesta flirting with Cassian in front of the ic and him getting all flustered but being secretly pleased about it???

Hell yeah you can! I love this idea! It wasn’t specified so I’m going modern here just because I’m not really sure where this could’ve happened in the canon timeline without a bunch of other factors impeding. Also I’m throwing in a dash of my fav jealous Cassian 😏

It wasn’t that Cassian didn’t want to be there. Well, no, actually that was exactly what it was. Cassian didn’t want to be there. He was exhausted and he hadn’t gotten to the gym that morning and he had a massive deadline that Rhys kept insisting they could push back but Cassian didn’t want to. He just wanted to go home and finish his report and maybe have a glass of whiskey to close off a truly awful week.

But Feyre’s art exhibit opened earlier that week and he hadn’t even gotten to see it yet and so it wasn’t like he could blow off her big party when he already felt like the world’s worst friend.

And he was completely lying to himself and everyone else. He didn’t want to be there because he didn’t want to watch Eris Vanserra’s slimy ass mill about the elegantly decorated, high ceilinged, natural light dripping, beautiful space, with his eyes glued to Nesta’s ass as if it was the art they were meant to be appreciating.

Did Cassian also appreciate every inch of her body like it had been sculpted by Michelangelo? Yeah but that was besides the point. And he had the respect to do it subtly.

“Remind me why he’s invited,” Cassian grumbled into his overpriced merlot. Because apparently only wine was classy enough for these fancy, classy, art events.

“He’s Lucien’s brother.” Azriel also didn’t look impressed by Eris’ uninvited hand on the small of Nesta’s back. Or the way he kept refilling her glass before she asked or was even done. “And he’s richer than Midas and spends a lot of that money on art.”

Cassian rolled his eyes. “We have as much money as he does.”

“Yes but you know Feyre’s rule. No family purchases. She doesn’t want to be a success just because Rhys could buy and sell this entire gallery.” Azriel was stoic as usual. Betraying no opinion on the matter.

It was several hours of carefully constructed comments where Cassian pretended he knew anything about art and pretended his neck wasn’t getting increasingly hot under his collar as Eris kept glued to Nesta’s side.

Cassian had no right to be jealous. He knew that. He and Nesta weren’t anything. Casual flirting. Witty banter. Eternal, pining, unrequited love on his end that she didn’t even seem to notice or care about. So fine. Maybe Eris was her type. It wasn’t his place to interfere.

Except that she really needed a glass of water right now and-

Cassian’s hand darted out on instinct as Nesta walked past him, wobbling a little on her completely impractical shoes.

“Careful sweetheart.”

He braced for the hissed don’t call me that, but When he looked up Nesta was blinking slowly through a hazy wall of the wrong wine.

The wrong wine because Eris had been giving her a Nappa Cab Sauv all night when she preferred old world Syrah. Which was probably why she kept drinking it so quickly, looking for her opportunity to get what she really wanted.

“Cass,” she smiled. It was a little lopsided and definitely off kilter, but even through her wine brain he could see that she was playing at something. Nesta had never called him Cass in his life. “It’s so good to see you!” Her voice went up a full octave and she pressed her entire body against his as she hugged him.

The display turned a few heads in their direction. It was mostly just family at this point, and Eris who couldn’t learn how to take a fucking hint. Technically, he supposed, Eris was family. Nesta’s fucking brother in law. Was that how it worked? Was the brother of the person your sister married also your brother in law? Brother in law once removed?

Not important, moron. Drunk Nesta. Body. Wrapped in a tight sheath dress and clinging to him. Cassian closed his hands around her back and got lost for a minute.

Holding her against him like she was made to fit in his arms. Breathing in her scent like he could capture it in a bottle and spray it on his pillow every night before he went to bed.

Someone cleared their throat. Feminine. High pitched. Mor.

Nesta had already let go and was smirking at him a little. He dropped his hands immediately. “Um, yeah, always a pleasure.”

“Interesting choice of words,” Nesta’s grin was feline. She was definitely up to something. And normally he would make a stupid remark, probably something about how much more pleasurable the evening would be back at his apartment, except that she was drunk and his entire family was staring and Eris was still standing there.

“Can I get you a glass of water?” It seemed like the right thing to say. To offer. Feyre smiled a little, a silent thank you. Azriel was covering a laugh, Mor was watching them both with narrowed eyes like a hawk, and Rhys honestly couldn’t have cared less. Nesta’s eyes narrowed. “Or maybe throw you into a pool,” Cassian joked stupidly.

“You should probably buy me dinner before offering to get me wet.” Someone dropped a glass. Cassian honestly thought it might have been him and he wouldn’t have noticed. Not in that moment. Not with Nesta looking at him through hooded eyes and talking about…

He could do this. His pants were not getting tight. Not at all. Because he wasn’t a damn teenager.

“I- um- do you-”

Nesta burst out laughing. It was a sound he’d never heard from her. She was usually all sultry under her breath snorts or ironic guffaws. Full, deep, angels singing, laughter was not usual for Nesta.

As evidenced by the fact the no one was even pretending not to be watching them anymore.

“I’ve got her.” Eris pushed himself back to Nesta’s side.

“Does he?” Nesta looked straight at Cassian, one eyebrow raised. “Because I’m willing to bet he wouldn’t have made it past glass two if your family wasn’t here.”

Azriel coughed. Amren cackled.

“You… do you want him to have you?” It came out wrong. The words. He meant did she want Eris to take her to get some water. Like he offered. He didn’t mean, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t…

“I want you to have me.” She was drunk. She was so drunk and it shouldn’t have been hot but fuck him it was. It wasn’t some sloppy college night out messed up drunk. It was a woman whose inhibitions had been soaked in wine just enough that every word out of her mouth was low and hot and honest.

“Find somewhere else to be, Vanserra.”

“Hey man what the fuck? We were talking-“

Cassian scoffed, snapping out of whatever flustered mess Nesta had put him in. “Anyone who gave her that much Cab Sauv doesn’t deserve to talk to her. Get lost.”

“I saw you eyeing the bottle,” Nesta laughed a little, swaying on her toes. Cassian moved his hands from a support on her bicep to a full arm around the waist support. Even if she did try to fall he could lift her with one arm easy. “Thought you might say something after…”

After the night they spent in her apartment with a bottle of her favourite Syrah only a week ago. It hadn’t been on purpose. Feyre and Elain and Azriel and Lucien were all supposed to be there. And they all conveniently cancelled only after he’d already showed up.

Which, judging by the barely contained grins on their faces, was even less of a coincidence than he thought. Busybodies.

“I’d offer you a glass of Syrah now, but I think what you need is a coffee.”

“Oh but then I’ll never sleep. And I do think I’m ready for bed.”

Sensing that he’d lost, Eris swore under his breath and stomped off.

“Let me take you home, Nes.” Cassian whispered into her hair.

“Hmm, your place or mine.”

“Yours,” he kissed her temple, pulling her legs out from under her and not even paying his family a backwards glance. “For a nightcap of 2 big glasses of water and a bottle of aspirin that I’m going to leave on your nightstand for the morning.”

“You don’t want to be there in the morning?”

Cassian groaned. “You said it yourself, Sweetheart. Dinner first.”

“You’re never going to let me live this down.” Nesta sighed, head lulling onto his shoulder.

“Actually go for dinner with me next week and I promise to never bring this night up again. And bribe our friends to do the same.”

“Deal,” Nesta said immediately.

An hour later after Cassian had supervised Nesta drinking her water he was about to leave her apartment when she yawned.

“Hey Cass,” she mumbled, half asleep.

“Yes sweetheart?”

“You made a bad bargain. I would’ve gone out with you either way.”

Cassian chuckled, a low rumble. “I’m satisfied with the bargain I made.”

“Cheesy as hell.”

“You love it.”

Nesta laughed, “I am prepared to tolerate it at best.”

“Good enough for me.”