#I actually forgot how nice procreate is to work with

[cupiddstarrie]

I still can’t draw lighting but it still looks nice 🤯

[sanctus-ingenium]

Just wanted to ask, please forgive me if you've already answred this, what program do you use? Your art fucks HARD and like. I was looking at your art of the two moths over the city they die in and I was hit with the wave of "oh that looks really fucking fun actually." Like i know my art program can't do some of those effects and like, I'd love to try fucking about with them.

hi there, thank you! all my art is done in procreate and paint tool sai

because you mentioned that drawing in particular i thought it would be fun to break it down and show ppl what exactly went into each part of it so check this out

sketch & lineart - the brushes come from georgbrush.club and the urban sketcher is my most commonly used lineart brush, it has a nice irregular shape. the square brush is nice for big blocky sketches.

the cityscape was REALLY hard but basically I got a photo of the skyline of florence, traced some basic building shapes, then bullshitted the rest using the vertical symmetry/mirror tool to cut down on the amount of work (so i only had to sketch one half of the city). then for lineart I turned off vertical symmetry, turned on the two-point perspective tool, and got this:

the rose windows were made using the radial symmetry tool.

I didn't like it being so flat, so I used the liquify tool to make a kind of fish-eye effect (limited success tbh). I liked how it looked but the buildings in front needed something to cover them up to make the liquification less obvious...

first pass colours. I felt they were very washed out, aside from the sun which i loved. I use the spectra brush (default procreate) for skyscapes a lot, I love the texture. Although the clouds were filled in using the lasso selection tool, I softened the edges using the square pencil again and added texture using true grit sampler grainy brushes. The translucency effect comes from my setting the brush as an eraser. The sun rays come from the radial symmetry tool.

Blocking in the moths' colours was done with the urban sketcher again.

Something people may not have noticed is the labyrinth hidden in the sky! yeah I had a bunch of versions where it was more obvious but I found that it clashed a bit and was too busy, so I made it subtle. But yes. I searched for "royalty free labyrinth" and picked one.

The toner grit brush is one you've seen before if you've looked at any art on tumblr lately (this is such a popular brush) and it's from the true grit fast grit set. The pointillism brush is from the true grit free sampler pack, like my grain brushes.

I added shadows to the moths, increased saturation overall, and changed the clouds to a translucent blue (you can even see in the sun where I forgot to block in the sun itself because the clouds over it used to be opaque lol). Moon rays were drawn using the radial symmetry tool but this time with rotational symmetry off. I also moved the moon down closer to the moths because I felt that it was a bit far away, and this served to visually divide the drawing into three equal parts, so I chose to lean into that and divide the sky colours too, to show passing time, or an endless moment - morning, evening, night, etc.

And then the oroborous, I tried a few different effects on it because I wanted it to be very clearly separate from the main scene - I settled on a dot matrix newsprint texture, using procreate's onboard tool, and some heavy chromatic aberration. This is because the oroborous isn't real, it's purely symbolic and the moths' demise started when they became photographers so I liked the print media aspect there as well. The story itself is about grief without closure, cyclical violence, and sunk cost fallacy, while everyone explores an endless labyrinth, so an oroborous fits I think

what makes art fun to me is thinking up ways I can tell a story using just a single image. and sure a lot of it will be lost to an audience who isn't familiar with the characters or backstory but i want to leave enough in there that even complete strangers to my work will be able to construct a narrative about what's happening here, rather than it just being a cool image. that's my goal.

Finally I exported it to sai on my pc to give it a once-over. this is really important because the retina display on an ipad is oversaturated on purpose, to make everything look amazing and vibrant. but what this means is that on other screens, your work might look washed out. it's especially bad at displaying yellows! so i look at it in sai on my pc and i make minor adjustments, in this case I actually added another multiply layer on the moths and an overlay on their non-shadowed parts to increase the contrast there.

finally if you've read this far, I played a little trick with the caption of the drawing. yeah, THEY die... but only one of those moths is a theythem pronoun haver... the other has to survive. he isn't given a choice in the matter.

[goldendoodlerlockerlove]

All right, because @babsvibes asked me how I picked colors for my latest Thanksgiving art piece yesterday, I’ve decided to make an official walkthrough of how I do coloring/shading and lighting for my pieces!! This isn’t technically a tutorial, but maybe you can count it as one?? Take everything I say with a grain of salt, though, as I’m just a self-taught artist who still has a lot to learn!!

Usually, the way I start coloring is by taking a screenshot from the show and take the colors directly from there. Having a screenshot is also handy so I can use it as a reference! Is it cheating to take colors directly from the show?? Maybe, but I like doing it so so know the colors are exactly correct.

Using my latest piece of Bob and Gene eating Thanksgiving dinner together, I used this screenshot as both a reference and to take the colors:

Then, to do my shading, I take a shading brush in Procreate and paint in everywhere where there would be a shadow. I’ve trained my eye to look for places where I know light wouldn’t really touch, such as below an arm or neck or directly under a character’s hairline. Then, when I’m done, I just lower the opacity and pick a layer setting that looks the nicest to me. This is what my latest piece’s shadow layer ended up looking like (with the opacity turned up a bit):

Then, once I’m done with shading, I go on to lighting. I use a new technique now where I just paint in everywhere else (AKA everywhere I didn’t put in a shadow). I used to not even do lighting, because I found it complicated, but I feel it adds a nice touch to my pieces now. The way I do it is kind of tedious, but it’s what I’ve found I can help me understand lighting the easiest. Sometimes I also duplicate my lighting layer, use a Gaussian Blur, then turn the layer to “Add” to create a glowy effect. This glowy effect is usually reserved more for things like torches and flashlights, but I feel as if it gives my lighting an extra “oomph”. Here’s what my lighting layers looked like:

And to make my colors pop even more, I use my phone’s edit feature to go through the process of putting on a nice-looking filter and going insane with all of the features! I’ve found it has a really nice effect.

If I want to go even crazier (yes, I actually do this), I might go into this photo editing app I have on my computer and do even more messing around with filters and colors and the like.

It’s called Polarr Pro Photo Editor for anyone who’s curious!! I also put on my signature in here if I forgot to do it in Procreate.

But that is how I do my coloring and shading/lighting!! I’m still learning and I’m sure I’ll continue to improve. I definitely still have a lot to learn when it comes to shading and lighting!! There are honestly so many ways you can tackle this, so my method absolutely isn’t the end all be all!!

I even have a different technique for when I’m doing a simpler piece or just want some shading that has a lot more texture. I duplicate my color layer, lower the saturation, make a mask, and “paint in” the light really quickly with a super textured brush.

Here’s what it looks like before:

And here’s what it looks like after!

I actually find this technique a bit difficult because my brain works in shadows and finding where shadows would hit, so painting in the light is a challenge. But it can be fun too!!

If anyone has any techniques of their own, feel free to share them!!

[choilacanth]

can i ask how you do close up shots without the image becoming blurry? i'm still new at digital art and i adore the way you include close ups along with the finished drawing but i cant figure out how to do it myself. thank you and i hope you're having a lovely whatever time of day it is where you are!

Thank you for your nice message :] I'm glad the closeups add to the work!!

I’m assuming your question is asking how to work with the image in the software? I work really big, like my requirement is that after the sketch stage I have to be able to see the head and shoulders of the main subject when at 100% zoom (actual size) on my PC monitor. For a full body piece that's about 4000 px wide but i often work smaller because it can lag. On the iPad it's got a higher resolution so you can be less strict about that. Usually what you're seeing is the image downsized to 30-50% and the closeup at 70-80%. Easy to export to JPEG in CSP. For Procreate... there's one of the reasons I went back to CSP, I had to do it manually .

Good luck!

edited to add: i’m a silly goose, i forgot to say somewhere “crop the image then export that to a jpg. don’t overwrite the main work file while doing so.”

[aculka-the-shark]

Kinda sorta of a guide on how I do shading/line/colour

I actually took these screenshots a month ago or something, but kinda forgot about them 😅

I use some custom brushes, but I believe that there are similar default brushes in procreate/other programs. The pencil brush is a default procreate pencil.

1) my custom brushes. The set is called “Abel essentials 2.0″. Brush marker reminds me of watercolour brushes, I use it for soft shading.

The liquid ink brush is just a nice line brush)))

2) procreate pencil my beloved ❤️ Used to use it for all of my shading, but now I just use it to put outlines over my soft shading (I just like how hard outline looks, I guess) and details.

3) close-up of soft shading

4) after the outline is added + details 

5) sometimes I also like to colour my linework, mainly on the face/hands. Dark hues of orange work the best in my opinion, but I also tried greyish blue and it looks good too.

[megnutk]

Hey! I find your art very pleasing to the eyes! Kinda like eye candy! WONDERFUL colour pallets and nicely placed line art, i was wondering if you have any videos of you doing coloring or even drawing! What program do you use and what brush? Or better yet, How do you have such pleasant shading and coloring? ☺️

Your art is very inspiring, but you don't have to answer me if you like! 💜

First of all: Sorry for taking so long to answer this 😭 I wanted to make sure I could get to everything...and then I promptly forgot to actually post this. Anyway, thank you so much!!! I do most of my art nowadays in procreate on my ipad :) I don't have a ton of videos but luckily I have posted a few of my time lapses (if you don't know Procreate can automatically create time-lapse videos for you). Here's one of them that I posted on twitter a while back: ✨link✨

I really like a lot of Procreate's default brushes and I usually just use them slightly tweaked to fit my process (my favorite right now is the "chalk" brush, which is what I use for most of my linework). As for my process, I often work directly from my thumbnails and usually in B/W to figure out values before moving on to adding color underneath that. You can see that in this video! After that I do a little bit of tweaking in other layers but that's definitely the main meat and bones of my work. I also tend to almost exclusively use brushes that bring out a lot of texture in my work since that just feels right for me. Hope this was at least a little helpful!! I'm always up for questions like this 💗

[mangofdoom]

wait ive never shared this on here—

this is the first animatic Ive ever posted (and im still quite proud of it? weird). The way I made it tho… is uh… probably unconventional (click the read more thing to learn how ;3)

OK SO I firstbtried using flipaclip. but after the sketches and figuring out timing I realized that exporting the video caused the audio to be offset and that bugged the shit outta me so I changed plans i screen recorded the preview in flipaclip, imported the recording to procreate, and COUNTED THE FRAMES. INDIVIDUALLY. Finally i could match the number of frames to the actual nice ones I made in procreate. sweet! i had a video! i think! then i realized: “wait how do i add audio” PANIC

then I remembered the iMovie app my brother and i used to make home movies with. That could work! (i have no computer so no actual nice software, and less features in imovie) (sad) so i put the video into imovie and added the audio it… it was off. like very off. i tried editing it but it was so bad i got tired and gave up. i forgot about it completely.

like a month later i found it again, and being less sick of looking at it, I was like: yea sure i could upload this. I asked my brother, who had a computer, to add subtitles. But the program he used made incredibly crusty subtitles and i couldn’t match them completely with the frames. oh well. i uploaded without the subtitles and carried on my day.

until a few days later I realized I could make it BETTER I went back to the timed frames and added subtitles individually to each, according to the original music video, so us english speakers could know what the lyrics are (which i wanted because the korean lyrics are mostly the reason this song resonated so strongly with my story) so I tried to edit the timing in the frames better, but in imovie it again sucked ass. so, i finally gave up, and slapped the “timed” frames in so I could split the video in imovie and cut out extra time and get the timing PERFECT! it took like 3 hours cus i didn’t know what i was doing but I did it! i sure did

anyway ask me if u wanna know any lore stuff :) ill try not to give away too much

(also apologies if this is hard to read) (probs gonna edit it for clarity later)

[franeridart]

Anon said: Okay so scrolling through ur jjk makes me even sadder actually. Amazing art tho dont get me wrong ive been here since u were into haikyuu but god this is just adding salt to the wounds. At least its pretty salt with emotional value and stuff

HAH it’s okay I get where you’re coming from lmao personally I find it healing for me specifically to spend a few straight hours in a universe where they’re all happy and okay, but I can see why for some people looking at the could-have-been’s might make it more obvious of how bad things are in canon actually rip

Anon said:Hey bestie its me. I did catch up to the manga. Wtf im in so much pain. But when i recover i apologise for the spam reblogging. Anyways damn. Damn. Just. The manga really hit me

So glad to hear it got to you too 🙏 sorry for the pain, but, I mean, it’s good pain isn’t it! at least there’s that haha

Anon said:your drawings of gojo being clingy to suguru is so cute! ahhh now im thinking about how infinity must makes gojo touch starved so everytime after mission when he knows he's not in danger anymore he always clings to suguru and never let go like an overgrown koala😭❤

Anon the thought of Satoru keeping his infinity off for Suguru and Shoko exclusively and of Suguru being still an exception even after everything till the very end keeps me up at night it’s my favorite headcanon I !!!! love just how deliberate on Satoru’s part every received touch is, it makes the fact that he’s willing to be touched by them so much more significant  😭😭

Anon said: What are your thoughts on Wakunan, if you still in Haikyuu? My favorite member is Matsushima.

I AM in fact still into haikyuu, but anon I’m so sorry I straight up had to google who these guys are I totally forgot they even existed ??? I feel so bad oh my god 😂 I’d say it’s fair to guess my thoughts on them are non-existent m( ,_, )m sorr

Anon said: Wanted to come by and say I love how you do faces and expressions and mapping in your comics. U are super talented and I love your art style, I hope the universe brings you something nice bc your work always brightens my day when it comes across my dash

ANONNNNNNNN the nice thing the universe brought me was your ask!!!! this kind of stuff is so rewarding to hear thank you so much!!!!! <3<3

Anon said: hiii have you added any jjk prints to your redbubble yet?

Not yet! Still trying to figure out if there’s anything worthy of being uploaded on there, since 99% of it was made on procreate and I’m still figuring it out... I’ll see what I can do! Thank you for being interested!!!!

Anon said: It’s been a while since you’ve drawn BNHA! I kinda miss it tbh... but I bow down to your godlike art n( ._.)n Also s5 is out tomorrow and I’m so hyped!!!

Anon said: hi! no pressure, i love your jjk art its so incredible, but do you have any bnha art in the works or have you mostly left it for jujutsu kaisen? either way theyre amazing shows, just asking!

Anon said: Do you still do BNHA fanarts or has your focus shifted over to jjk totally?

It has been a while, hasn’t it! I don’t currently have anything in the work but there’s a couple things I’ve been keeping on the backburner of my brain as a reminder that I want to draw them as soon as the mood strikes - it won’t be krbk tho! Just putting it out there. I can’t say whether I’ll ever draw that again as of now, ngl, I’d need hori to backtrack on what he did with them a lot to feel inspired for them again, sadly 🙏

Anon said: as someone who doesnt read the jjk manga and only watches the anime i am very confused by everything on this blog but were gonna ignore that cuz art pretty

Oh my god it’s just a ton of spoilers for you isn’t it 😂 I’m glad you still stick around despite all of it being meaningless to you, tho!! Thank you so much!!! <3<3

Anon said: I love your drawing so much, it's inspired me to draw more and refine my own art style!! I've got a request tho... how bout kiribaku childhood friends au?? Ik you've already drawn some but they would be so cuuute as children

SUPER GLAD to hear my stuff could make you feel like drawing more!!! That’s always a wonderful, amazing thing to hear!!!! But as I said for now I don’t have any plans of drawing krbk for a while, so sorry! ;; hope you’ll understand  🙏

Anon said: Bruh your reincarnation au, for a good while my brain didnt comprehend that satoru had his glasses hanging of his hoodie but instead interpreted it as one of those school girl tie things. Bruh i thought he was wearing a schoolgirl uniform my mind was goin wild with it

I need you to know that I’ve been thinking about this ask since I got it. It’s been stuck in my brain. It’s just been constantly there. He’d rock it, btw

[moldy-mold]

Diary Post: My Thoughts and Processes on Making “Silent Strength” It’s lengthy, taking place over long period of time. Mainly written for my future-self to remember what I went through, but also for anyone who is curious. Now that the project is over, I can post without reservations. There are certain things I need to keep secret though, so if I’m vague I do so intentionally!

Basically, a lot of number-crunching, physical labor, and psychological labor.

It started off as kind of a joke tweet I made. I had enough content to make a Tales Of art book and people were receptive to it. So… I thought maybe I could go somewhere with this. A few weeks later, I suddenly had a lot of Kratos art. Like. 80% of all my Tales art was Kratos. It didn’t make sense to make a broad Tales Of book when really most of it was Kratos.

I hadn’t made a book since I was in college despite it being one of my favorite things to do. They were never art books, just some editorial design projects that totally didn’t count. This book… would be my first-ever art book.

Several times, I came close to having enough art to print a book - the last time was my large collection of Yusuke Kitagawa, but the quality wasn’t where I wanted.  At that time, I was still experimenting with my iPad Pro and figuring out Procreate, so that was what I used him for.

NGL, I was pretty afraid of looking like a clown. After doing all this work, what if no one actually buys it? I was talking to some friends and they said they would buy it. It was enough for me. In the end, I’m creating something that I love. - The first thing I really wanted to work on was the cover. It needed to be epic but also mysterious (lol)… It was a good time to practice lighting and backgrounds. The cover had to be freaking Fantastic. I spent 3 days drawing nonstop. I was on vacation so I could spend full days just drawing. It was really intense. I would stop in the evenings to go for a run or else my legs would never get circulation again.

The hardest part was keeping it secret. I wanted to share it with the world right away bc I was so proud of it. Well, all I could do was show it to my parents and some close friends. They didn’t know who Kratos is, but it was obvious I was crazy about him.

Initially, I was doing some hand-lettering for the zine title instead of using a typeface. Tbh, I was so sure I was naming this zine “Blame Your Fate!” bc that is such an iconic line. But it just didn’t work with my cover, which looked… a little too serene for that. So… Silent Strength or Divine Strength? I asked around and got my answer.

But what size? All of my art has been on letter canvases. I wanted it to be large so you could see the details in the art. I’ll just start with that. - Luckily, I had all my Kratos-related art in one place. I started my InDesign file and threw everything in there just to see what it looked like. Man, I draw a lot of boxes… But I didn’t want them all next to each other. I also wanted to kinda organize it by the people Kratos hangs out with. There’s a Yuan section LOL… and a Lloyd section… and an Anna section. Idk, I tried to get some kind of order in there with a sprinkling of full spreads here and there to keep it fresh and interesting for the eyes.

I hadn’t worked with InDesign on such an intense level since college. I forgot all of the tips and tricks we learned in class. Spent some time reading on how to do things again… like adding page numbers. - I started drafting my pre-order form. It’s my first time making a google form like this. It’s kind of fun? I spent a long time on it, despite how simple it was. This was going to be my “Store” so it had to look and sound good. - My friend introduced me to charm-making. It seemed easy enough, and I wanted to give my zine more oomph. Besides, I’ve always wanted to make a charm.

I remember someone saying they’d buy a book of just the 4 Seraphim if it existed. I like them too and they lack art imo. In the end, I decided to do a polaroid charm. It’s not really that unique but I wanted Kratos to have actual friends to hang out with for once LOL.

She was going to do a group order to try to reduce the costs. I thought maybe 4 weeks would give me enough time. In the end she said I only have 2. I work well under pressure, so needless to say, I did make that deadline. I actually sketched the whole thing on the plane headed home. - After playing the game the second time, watching the OVA again, and reading “Offerings to a Star,” I have gained a real soft spot for Yuan.  My friend once said, “If you weren’t stolen away by Kratos, you would be in love with Yuan.” Lol. I’ve been in a “Kratos and Yuan hanging out” mood lately, so of course I needed something good for the zine. They’re so cute together! Now… what is the bro-est thing I can draw?

I was currently in Florida for my friend’s wedding. I was friends with the groom and his best man since high school, so that makes it 10 years now. Seeing how they’re still friends after all this time, despite living in opposite sides of the country, was really moving to me. Of course, me being me, I could see Kratos and Yuan’s long friendship being similar to this, if they had gone to school together. I just had to draw it. - When I got back from vacation, I did some research on zine sizes. Mine was HUGE compared to others. I just didn’t quite realize it until I held a magazine in my hands. It really is huge…

I settled for a medium size. 7x9. I really liked how it looked. Petite but not too petite. Unfortunately resizing my book had messed up my artwork placement so I spent hours rearranging all the text and resizing my images. I found out afterwards that there’s a way to retain the format while changing the document size. Gee, that would have been helpful 4 hours ago.

Sadly, choosing a custom size booklet makes printing more expensive. But I wanted it badly enough that I’d be willing to pay for it. Letter size is just too large… - I decided to stop dragging my feet and post a promo. I just really needed a deadline for myself to get this all done before July ended. I’m happy it was well-received. A lot of people like Kratos huh…

Anyway, the pre-order is due in a week and I still don’t know what all the costs are yet. I need a physical proof ASAP to weigh at the post office! - Something possessed me one day to do another drawing. I don’t usually do painterly style (mainly because it’s really difficult and takes 10x longer) but I just REALLY wanted to push myself on this Final Piece to the zine. I wanted it to be… radiant. Almost religious. I worked on it obsessively. From breakfast to sundown. The only time I would stop was at 7pm to go running or else my legs would give out on me.

Call me crazy, but I would save my progress on my phone so I could examine it for errors during my warmup. I also spend an hour examining it for errors before going to bed. It’s a miracle I hadn’t dreamt of the painting. - I sent my files in on Sunday in hopes that they start working on it first thing on Monday…. and it HAPPENED! They finished before I even woke up. I think they start work at like 6am…

Of course, I drove over there as soon as I heard so I can get a look. “Please… please let the colors be okay,” I prayed as I was driving. I barely remember driving there, I was so lost in thought. It would be another long ordeal if I had to fix all the colors.

Thank the stars. The press proof looked BEAUTIFUL!! I was screaming to the client coordinator how much I loved it. I mean, I worried for a looooong time that everything would turn out too dark (it usually does) but it was PERFECT. I was especially worried about the cover, which contained a lot of yellow and I def did not want it to come out mustardy… But it was great in the end!

The press operator is a quiet man. He’s got a scary face and never smiles but I think he’s secretly nice. He has done a lot of favors for me in the past without my asking. He was the one to print, bind, and trim the book for me. Obviously he had to have seen what I was drawing. I wonder what he thought of it…? He walked away before I could express how happy and thankful was. He didn’t need to hear it. It was like he already knew. So cool…

I immediately took it to the post office to weigh it. I needed as much info as I could get and plus, I was dying to know for myself. This is the week I was supposed to open pre-orders and there was still a lot I needed to do. Take pictures, create mockups, pricing, etc.

NGL, all of these costs were building up fast. It was so darn expensive to make a zine while also keeping prices down. But I wanted so much more for my baby. Extra glossy cover, perfect binding!! I knew by the end of this, I probably wouldn’t make much money. It hurt a little, but I tried to think that it was for the greater good. Learning experience and all that. And creating something beautiful. Especially something beautiful of Kratos. - Pricing was really the hardest part. I pretty much threw profit out the window. However, I definitely did not want to be losing money. My dad and I had worked together to create a spreadsheet of expenses to make sure my head was above water. I followed it… loosely.

My friend came to talk to me at the right moment. I was sort of panicking at the prices. She made me realize I was thinking way too hard about it and gave me some tips based on her own experience. It really put my mind at ease talking to someone who understands my woes.

The truth of the matter is, the book is wonderfully made and has a lot of pages - countless hours of drawing. There is only so much I can do about pricing. It is what it is… I just needed to come to terms with my own worth. - Boy, what am I going to do once the zine is done? My friend says that I’ll be so over Kratos that I’ll stop drawing him (but the love remains). It’s like… all of the intense planning, working, struggling nonstop will just suddenly… stop. TBH, I’m running out of ideas. I spent it all on the zine. - Photoshoot today. I had to paint my nails purple for this occasion. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the look I wanted in the apartment. It’s just so naked without props. I think I’ll take it to a cafe for some nicer backgrounds. I talked it over with my friend and decided to do a quick flip-through of the zine as a promotional video. I used the most professional video program I had on hand… Snapchat. It actually turned out pretty legit and of course I slapped stickers on there because it’s Snapchat.

I had to tape/hide some of the pages for the video because I wasn’t actually done with the drawings. I had the printers print it anyway so I could examine it for color accuracy.

I’m really stressed about pricing now. It turns out I had a lot more international fans than I anticipated. I wish I took notes on interest earlier in the game to cater to them. I had a list of “possible buyers” and I only just now decided to check where they live? Foolish.

I did another cost analysis on paper to figure out what my goal was to make up for the charms. Right now they’ve cost me a fortune for something that was supposed to be giveaway. Other things that rack up are packaging costs, PayPal fees, and some other supplies I needed for this project.

Maybe I shouldn’t have made it 40 pages. It is an impressive number, but no one is really paying for quantity. I think 25 is a better number lol. If I had done that, I could have had my super-gloss cover like I wanted. :’(

There is hope though. And I’ve placed it in the hands of my followers to come through for me. I think I’ll open pre-orders on Saturday or Sunday, depending on what I finish. - “Losing your cool will only lead to poor decisions.” 
Thanks, Kratos twitter bot. You always know what to say.

I read this post today on what makes people buy zines. Very interesting!
 https://twitter.com/andythelemon_/status/1141469048653398019 - Photoshoot part 2 today. My friend and I went to a cafe nearby that had some nice atmosphere in hopes of finding the right shots. I brought all of my Kratos merch just in case. I’m glad I did though, since the tables were pretty sparse and it was difficult to capture the backgrounds without getting a bunch of random people in it too.

I would have been the photographer, but I definitely wanted my hands in the shots. In a way, it was meaningful - to show that this was made by my own two hands. Plus, I wanted to depict natural interaction with the product. It made it feel real.

The photos were cute! I feared it would look a little amateurish with all the merch in there, but I think fun was what I was really going for, not “professional.” And plus the flip-through was a Snap anyway LOL. As long as the photos have good lighting and tasteful composition, you really can’t go wrong with “fun.”

Now that I’ve finished editing my photos, there really isn’t anything holding me back from opening pre-orders. I’ve pretty much come to terms with my pricing. If I fail to break even, I’ll just have to open commissions to try to make up for it. I was telling my friend on the way home, “I gave this zine EVERYTHING I had to give. So at the very least, I won’t be disappointed in myself.” No stone left unturned, no detail left unchecked. It was perfect according to my standards. I really love my zine okay?!

I thought I was crazy for not only choosing a small fandom, I narrowed it down even further by picking ONE GUY to make this zine about. She replied, “Even if it’s small, those people who love him now must be EXTREMELY LOYAL to still be in love with a character from a 15-year-old game. All of them will want your zine.” - I went to bed that night with the intention of making the pre-order post live in the morning. I was so nervous I couldn’t sleep. I was wide awake until at least 5 or 6 am. Luckily, I was able to doze off for a an hour or two before I would shake myself awake again. It was a mixture of anxiety and excitement. It was the moment of truth - to see if all my effort made a difference. Was it going to sell? - The pre-order post looked really freaking good. I’ll give it that. I even made a YT account just to post that darn preview video on tumblr lol. It was definitely fun seeing everyone’s excitement and we all just freaked out together.

I broke even! That’s what really matters. Honestly at this point, I couldn’t care less if I made profit or not. I now know how much people really like the zine and that alone made me so happy I could die.

I was particularly fascinated at Google Form’s ability to transfer all the data collected into a spreadsheet. That is extremely helpful. I spent hours organizing the data. It was really fun…?! Now I can tell who gets invoiced and who paid and separate them into categories. IT’S FANTASTIC!

Stayed up late researching how much adding tracking could be. I had a slight panic attack thinking “what if my books got lost in transit?” It would really hurt me to have to reprint books and ship them again. And then I realized I will need to fill out customs forms for all international orders. Yikes, I’m gonna be living at the post office lol. You can print them out at home if you fill out the form online but there are still some things I’m uncertain about. I may visit the post office later this week to ask all my questions. - This morning I sent out everyone’s invoices. I gave the international people the option to purchase tracking. It’s expensive… but I need to provide that option just in case.

I received a nice message from someone who offered to advertise for me on Instagram. Of course, I gave them the OK! I’m really so shocked they would do that… They said the liked the zine so much it deserved more exposure. My dude… I love you… T_T

I thought about advertising on insta myself earlier in the week. For some reason I felt it was going to be fruitless since I don’t have an art account on there with a following. So, I gave up on the idea. Hey it worked out in the end.

I’ve never been so organized in my entire life. I want this zine experience to be perfect. The people have placed their trust in me, so I cannot mess up. - Edited some pages in the zine. The typography must be perfect… It made me think back to undergrad days in graphic design school. Man, if only I can present this as a project - photos, videos, matching accessories and all. I’d probably get an A lol. - Orders slow down after the first day. The rest is just about getting new people to see the post and giving other people more time to decide.

I finished my Kratos stationery today. It’s going to be so cute. My friend said people would want to buy it but I don’t have it in me to do more products at this time. Plus, I want it to be a surprise.

Why make stationery? Well my real job (no, I don’t draw Kratos all day for a living) is a stationery designer! It would feel really wrong not to put into practice what etiquette I’ve learned in this business. Plus, I felt that it was necessary to properly thank all those who ordered. And it’s fun?

I started designing the shipping labels for the domestic orders since I don’t need to fill out a customs form for those. I wish I had sticker labels but… it’s okay. It will still look good in the end. - Every so often, I would get nervous at the amount of money I’m responsible for. Perhaps, if I had a store with existing products I wouldn’t feel this way, but the fact that the books haven’t been printed yet made me scared. I know, I need this money to even print the books in the first place, but I’m just baffled at my customers’ trust in almost a total stranger. I felt pressured that I could not let them down and lose that trust. It probably didn’t help that I watched a documentary on Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) that day.

So, I prayed every single day that nothing would go wrong. I’d check my spreadsheet constantly for any mistakes. It was a little obsessive, but I would rather be that than overlook something.

I began collecting cardboard boxes. My plan was to cut them up to protect the books during transit. I would have preferred hard envelopes but they were a bit pricey. If I have to do more work myself, so be it.

I’ve been getting nice DMs from some buyers. I think my invoice due date scared them… I really did not intend to be strict, but I wanted people to pay now if they can rather than forget about it. This happens at work all the time, so the best thing to do is have it due immediately. It would not look good to have to wait on stragglers when I close pre-orders, so I’ll probably reach out when there is one week left. - My Kratos stationery arrived! Aww it is SO CUTE!!! My babies… I have a lot of notes to write so I got started right away. It’s going to be a lot of work trying to come up with creative ways to say “thank you,” but I don’t mind. I said I was going to put my all into the zine experience so I will.

At long last, the charm order has been put in motion. My friend said it could take a while… I hope it won’t be longer than 3 weeks. I really do not want to keep everyone waiting. I may ship out the ones who did not win a charm first. I mean, there is no reason to make those guys wait. I should ask the charm winners if they still want to wait and see if anyone wants to give it up for someone else who is more patient. Hm. - I finally stopped by the post office today to collect customs forms. I have my work cut out for me since I’m filling all of them in by hand. D:

I’m not used to international addresses so I think I’ll ask for help in checking them for spelling errors and typos. Heaven forbid I mess up on the very last part of the zine experience.

In my nervousness, I decided to reach out about invoices early on. If someone wanted to cancel, I would rather find out sooner rather than later. Everyone was really nice about paying and thank goodness they’re still excited.

Feeling kind of overwhelmed by all the things I need to do, but it’s a good thing. If I don’t know what to do, I can either: cut cardboard, write letters, type shipping labels, draw more Kratos for a… possible volume 2? Someone I talked to today already said they’ll pre-order a second book if I make one. Omg I think I’ll die. But we’ll see. It’s just a joke right now haha… - Preorders end today. I had another nightmare last night that the books could not be printed properly and there was nothing I could do. Why do I keep getting nightmares about the zine! I had one a few days before about people canceling their orders when I asked them about the invoices. I’ll take these dreams with a grain of salt. I’m probably just stressed/worried but everything is going to be okay. When I open my eyes, nothing is on fire.

I received my final proof a few days ago. With all of the artwork completed and changes applied. The book looks good, no doubt about it. There was only one thing I was nit-picky about but it can be fixed. The press operator offered to print another book for me to inspect. I’ll go see it on Monday and then submit the rest of the orders. I also asked to to have a meeting with the press operator so we are on the same page. It would be beneficial to have an understanding of how my book is made so that I may be more helpful to him.

I spent the day preparing shipping labels. I hate to admit, I am not too familiar with the format international addresses so I had an address validator open as I was typing them in. For the most part, everyone was helpful in already formatting their addresses in the preorder form! - My parents called me the day after preorders were closed. They wanted to say congratulations on my success. No one thought it would do this well. I couldn’t be offended by that since I was also guilty of it. I’m happy though. It feels like my love spread across the world and was contagious.

I tried to think of what advice I would give to others. Obviously, genuine love for the subject and hard work were a necessity. But it would be good to consider value. If I were selling it at this price, I had to make sure my pieces and presentation looked the part. I ask myself, if someone else sold it, would I buy it?

I sent out messages to all the charm winners in the morning. I wanted to apologize profusely at the ridiculous amount of time it has taken to get them made. But no, I’ve got to stop apologizing. I stated the facts and left it at that. Everyone was really kind and patient⁠—to which I was thankful for. I don’t usually get that when I’m working customer service. - All the books were done printing in one day. Wow! I went to pick it up immediately of course. I can’t believe all of this is coming to an end. I finished preparing the mailers. All that was left was to stuff and seal the domestic orders. They were the easiest to do so I’m going to ship those first. The rest will need customs forms, which I haven’t filled out just yet. It’s going to be a while for those…

The mailers were quite sturdy with the cardboard cutouts I slipped in them. I have nothing to worry about. I’m sure my babies will be okay! - I took a whole box of domestic orders to the post office today. Wasn’t sure what to expect. But my clerk had to input every single address one at a time while I checked for errors. Omg, why are the post office shipping labels SO HUGE. I thought it was going to be half the size. And they’re ruining my designer labels! Slight panic but oh well…

I had a long long line behind me. I’m so sorry, people. Luckily there were two clerks or I would be really sweating. Despite my intimidating box of zines, the clerk and I had Synergy and we managed to ship all of these in about 15 minutes. I received a very long receipt and quite the bill lol. - Shipped the international orders today. I was kind of a mess since I had no idea what to do. I keep wondering if I can help speed up the process in any way but I don’t think I have the option to ship first-class at home.

When shipping international, keep the post office copy of the customs forms together with the package since they use that to type the address info into the system. Also, we get free tracking, which I did not know about. The other clerk told me that we did not get tracking for international first-class but I guess he was misinformed. It’s good to know for next time. - The charms finally arrived!! And THEY’RE HOLOGRAPHIC?! It was pretty awesome, but it makes picture-taking kind of difficult!! Anyway, I was a tiny bit disgruntled that they got my order incorrect, and I even asked for a reprint. But they said no, so I left it at that. Besides, it seems the holographic effect was well-received.

I like this size that I made. It’s really cute! Larger than your normal charm but not too huge. It’s almost like an Instax photo! - There was one customer who I found lives near me! I asked her if she wanted me to hand-deliver it to her in a public setting and she agreed (to my amazement). We finally met a few days ago and talked for hours and hours lol! I’m glad to have finally made a new friend here in this town but of course she’s moving away in two weeks. <:’3

We’re going to meet again to make the most of her time left. - I shipped the rest of the orders on the following Monday. I HAD to get these out. The poor guys have been waiting over a month! I think I picked a bad time to go because I had a huge line behind me and only one guy working. People in line were getting antsy or mad. The clerk at the other post office was super fast but not this guy…

For some reason shipping to the UK and Japan nearly doubled in price since the last time I checked. RIP. T_T - Omg I finally made a mistake. I wrote a letter to the wrong person. And the contents of that letter are too personalized!!! I am dying of embarrassment!!!!! Screams!! Had to apologize to both customers too!!! Luckily they were good sports about it but I’m seriously kicking myself AAAAAAAA!!!! - The most rewarding part after sending all my babies away is seeing the commentary on my project. It is so so nice to receive positive feedback. People are happy! Happy with something I created out of thin air. Everything was worth it 1000 times over. I can die happy!

I’m especially thankful to those who show understanding for how much effort went into it. It definitely wasn’t easy and I poured way too many hours into it… not that I regret that.

I don’t want to jump the gun but I would really love to make a volume 2. Because I know I can do better than last time. New and improved art and comics! But we’ll see if I make enough pieces for another book. I was against printing 40 pages before but now I kind of like it. It feels more worth it than a 25-page zine. If i’m going though so much effort, might as well bring in the entire package.

I’ll be printing more of this volume for Aselia Con 2020. Now I know people will appreciate it.

[butididnottried]

“The Rise od Skywalker” spoilers.

So, i saw it. I was on a whole night marathon and saw all three movies one after another. I actually like “The Last Jedi”. Like, i really like it. I know all issues and problems that people have with this one, i understand it, and it’s still Very Good to me and there will be some comparisons. Also, i’m not sure if this is important, but SW is not a part of my childhood and i have no nostalgic feelings toward those movies. Hi there, i’m an average fan?

So.

Tbh i expected a pile of thrash on fire after what i read about this movie, because people are only complaining, without really recalling anything good (but i also avoided big and long and detailed reviews to avoid as much information as i can xD). And there are good thing in it, and i had surprisingly a whole amount of fun while watching it. But still, at the end, overall this whole movie can be summarize into CONFUSED WHAT.

Good stuff:

- J. J. Abrams know how to invoke a fell and spirit of grand adventure. At the beginning this move has a crazy amount of it, until Rey split from Finn and Poe. They just need to go after this mcguffin dagger to find another mcguffin, they need to go to this palce to find that or someone, they need to go somewhere else and there are problems but there’s a solution, but they need to go to third place to again find someone. I would be kinda annoying if we wouldn’t have all three of them together - Rey, Finn and Poe. Finally! I really like them all being together, being friends, bantering, being dumbasses and smartasses and me gusta very much those dorks.

- They do not conform that, but let’s face it - Finn and Poe are married. There’s no heterosexual explanation for their relationship in this movie. I’m aware that in script they weren’t particularly wrote like that, and maybe it’s because actors were playing their character in this way, but there’s another explanation. A few months ago in review of “X-Men: The Dark Phoenix” i read that Hollywood just don’t know how to wrote real male friendship, full of emotions, and they end up using romance tropes and cliches. And Finn and Poe are perfect example to uphold that theory. Like, really, look at them, they’re bantering like an old couple.

- I really like Reys path in this movie. Seeing all three movies together shows how much she grow with every next installment. In TFA she is nice and joyful character, but kinda basic; in TLJ she learn more about how world works, about herself and choose her own path. And now in TROS she is very conflicted, torn apart and sacred of her own powers, while trying to stay herself. And Daisy Ridley really hit the spot with her performance.

- Leia had an lightsaber? And was training with Luke? And now she was teaching Rey? Like... FUCK YEAH?! And also Finn? Force sensitive? YEAH BABY!

- Rey and Kylo fight on ruins of Death Star surrounded with raging ocean and those exquisitely animated giant and heavy waves. So good? SO GOOD.

- Palpatine went full Thor and every cell in my body was hollering with laughter. As soon as it’s possible someone need to edit this “unlimited power!” yell to this scene. Please.

- ahahahahaha, Hux, you magnificent, pathetic, petty asshole, ahahahahaha.

- this is not about movies, but there was a fake fanboy at my screening. Between TLJ and TROS this dude behind me was explaining sequels to his friend and i was typing a message to my friend, so the only thing that i heard was “the first movie did Abrams, you know, the one that made LOTR, and the second one did Johnson , and he is ooold.” I have no idea what to do and think about this.

- new ways of using force. Hell yeah. Force the shit out of this. Stronger force skype? Totally. Teleportation things on purpose through force? Absolutely. Being almost in two places at once through force. I’m totally here for that. Rey being probably the most competent person in force? Kick their asses baby, i’m holding yo flower!

- MERRY!!!???

??? stuff:

- apparently reylo is incest, because Rey and Kylo are related. Really? How? Is there in any movie any, even smallest, hint that Skywalkers and Palpatines are blood related? I have no idea.

- The way how droid are treated in those movies is troubling. Are they alive? Are they self-conscious? Or they’re an artificial intelligence so developed that they can with no problems fake that?

- sooo... Kylo. I love this problematic asshole. Well, in case of genocidal murdered word “problematic” is very mild, but whatever. What i read about this movie, people were raging because woman (Rey) exist only to heal a man (Kylo) that was abusing her, but i don’t see that this way. Like, not at all. And how i see how Rey and Kylo plot is developing makes it hysterical, especially after TLJ where Kylo was established as main villain. Because in this movie with every scene Kylo exist more and more as support to Rey story, he’s an walking exposition for Rey and motivation for her to doing things. He was less and less his own character, and was more and more existed for Rey. Like, he totally could be put in the fridge. xD When Rey stabbed him i thought “oh, so they’re killing him now? When were not even close to the end? Well, ok, i do not see a more purpose for him in this plot, so yeah, kill him” but then Rey saved him and i was like ??? because what more you want him to do? And then he disappears for a big chunk of time and show again at the end and he even wasn’t needed here and don’t do that much? Just... lol. Ok, he did That, because it’s “Star Wars” and SW just Works. Like. That. or it’s not Real and True “Star Wars” boo-frikin-hoo. But on that later.

- as a example for Kylo being a lesser character and more of a tool for the sake of the plot is fact, that in TROS Darth Tantrum is weirdly collected and put his shit together. At the beginning when he finds Palpatines lair and learns that this dude was behind all of this, behind forming First Order and all voices in his head, Kylo should lost his marbles and just murdered Palpatine. But even if somehow not, at the news that Rey is emperor granddaughter he absolutely should throw the biggest tantrum in all history of tantrums and not only obliterated Palpatine but also this whole place. But no, he made A Plan and decide to once again to “propose” to Rey. Like she didn’t rejected him definitely in previous movie and like they both not decided that when they meet next time, only one of them are going to survive. But hey, let’s go with this “i want you by my side to rule the galaxy” plot again. :/

- and there they go with that helmet again. In TLJ scene where Kylo destroys his helmet it’s a very powerful moment. Not only for him, but for direction with which the story would go. Because he is not Darth Vader. Because we do not need another Darth Vader. Buuut, on the other side i can let this a pass, because since he agreed to join Palpatine and once again is going to lead The Knights, he needed to wear this helmet again to prove this loyalty and make them trust him. So, hard pass on that. And tbh, that ugly mask looks a lot better with those bright red cracks.

- And also Leia, that was also there only for her son, because as a mother she can’t be anyone else. Aaand... idk about that. Leia force connected to Kylo so he could turn back to the light? She sacrificed herself for him? Eeeeh... it was weird scene. And there’s no clear explanation why? Only Kaz Manata said that this will use Leias all life force that she has? Did i missed something? Did movie forgot about something? For me it looked like Leia was distracting Kylo, because it look like Rey was going to loose this fight, she was more and more angry, and in this moment she would fully go on the dark side. So Leia saved Rey, she felt Reys struggle. At least i it’s how i interpreted this scene, because it’s one of the most baffling one. Just ???

- there’s whole sith culture. Just. There is. But if there’s only two of them at most at a time, they probably exist for far longer to develop all of this, and to build all of this, and to be cooperative with each other? Which is not their strongest trait? And all these people in emperor throne room were past siths force ghosts or real people?

- apparently being a sith and making lightning came out of your palms is genetic? At least i understand that like this. Because the reason why Rey shot lightning while trying to rescue Chewie was not because she was angry and mad and doubting, but because shes Palpatine? What?

- this is a very minor thing, but when Rey enters Death Stars ruins there’s stormtroopers armors lying almost everywhere, but there’s not even a one bone?

- oh wow, a planet get blow up with even more miniaturized death star ray. And they have hundreds of these. And hundreds of destroyers. And no one notices there was whole space army built. How? I can understand that they ignored the space nazis rising again because, well, just look what is happening in real life, but using money and resources at this scale is however something else, very expensive and i can’t believe no one noticed this.  

Bad stuff:

- Rey is Palpatine. What. I mean... what? It’s just... uuugh... Why are you making me thinking about Emperor having sex? I only hope that was some crazy nazi fangirl that totally wanted to fuck him. Or maybe it was artificial insemination? Well, doesn't matter, it’s BIG EEEW in every option. And i don’t want to think about other way. :/ At least it makes sense why Emperor procreate? In other stories al these evil dudes that want to live forever and rule everything are having children just... because they have children. For drama or something, because story needs someone to betray this evil dude, or some other eye-rolling stereotypical reason. Like, having offspring especially to posses their bodies and live forever in this way is not very original, but it’s something.

- TLJ was like “you can be from nowhere, you can be from the bottom of society, you cen be the poor and miserable, without family or amazing heritage, and you can still do amazing things, you can climb up and make a difference, you can be better and better, you can make your own story despite your awful background” and TROS be like “fuck that, viva la royalty, you need a powerful heritage, you need a powerful and important bloodline or you’re nothing”. Oh, how nice is that. :/

- that opening crawl. It’s bad. Just bad. Even worse than “The Phanom Menace” babbling about economy.

- PALPATINE IS NO FUN AT ALL!!! HOW DARE YOU NOT MAKING IAN MCDIARMIND NOT ENJOYABLE AT ALL???!!! SHAME ON YOU ABRAMS!!! SHAME ON ALL OF DISNEY!!! ...well, ok, this was this one small thing, BUT STILL!!! AUGHR!!! I’m so mad about this. I was expecting not a very good movie, but at least i was hopeful that emperor would be such a treat.

- pulling emperor out of nowhere was an mistake. They should stay with what TLJ established and made Kylo main villain. No redemption, no bullshit like “there’s still light in him”, no Ben Solo, no forgiveness, no nothing. Just Rey beating the shit out of him and killing him. End of story. But no, “Star Wars” can’t be like that, it’s not how this world works, THIS IS NOT REAL “STAR WARS” WAAH WAAAH WAAAH. You’re a genocidal murdered? A space nazi? You’re ruling a regime that is weltered in blood of the innocence? Doesn't matter, there’s always hope. Just do one small, good thing and you will be at peace. Fuck off with that. At the end of TLJ when Kylo entered that mine, and rebel survivors entered deck of Falcon, and Rey and him were still force connected, and she cutted off him because she understands that there are things that can’t be forgave, and there are people that do not want help and just don’t want to be better and fuck “Steven Universe Future” did that a lot better on eleven minutes, and SW series is struggling with this since beginning. Because there’s white and black, good and evil, and there’s nothing in between, and when someone comes from one side to another they become a completely different person because yes that how it works. And people are totally here for this because it’s for kids and it needs to be simple and we can’t let this story grow beyond that stupid absolute duality. I know that there are people that were on far right but they changed and become better and good for them, but if you want to do that in your story, show the struggle of this difficult path and let this scum survive and face the consequences. Take at least a minimum of responsibility of what you’re showing to kids. :/ But nooo, he was stabbed, his mom died, his dad showed up and said... something, and now Kylo is dead, and Ben alive again. Sarcastic yay. Also, if you’re repeating dialogue from first movie, in almost this same situation, but in a different context, EARN IT. Second also, that kiss. Eeeeh... If you really need to be Like That and made some weird understanding between them, maybe just make they touch their foreheads? And oooh, yes, i almost forgot. At my screening when Kylo flopped at the ground, died and vanished, the whole audience laughed. But it wasn’t a loud, merry laugh, but a nervous and awkward, like “did i just saw this cringy shit?”. Amazing.

- they remembered about Knight of Ren. And did nothing with them. They just were showing up here and there through the whole movie without any purpose. But that’s Johnson fault, that he did not include them in TLJ. No wonder that they did not have time for them in TROS. Just waste.

- the amount of fanservice is killing me. I have nothing against it, if it’s just a nice treat for fans here and there, but when a whole movie is dedicated to it it’s just not very bearable. And plot suffer from it, because instead of write a good story they’re focusing at how to connected these thing from original trilogy.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

Primez!

hell yeah thankyou!!! [2, 5, 17 been answered]

(3) maple - is there a hobby / skill that you’ve always wanted to try but never did?

i’m that theatre gay who’s never Really been in any theatre production. and there was an archery place like 10 min from where i grew up and i was like “ooh archery how cool” b/c i’m a gay but never tried it

(7) amber - share an unpopular opinion that you may have.

hardly unheard of but i Don’t Like the approach to astrology that ppl have been getting in the past few yrs like. the Joke someone on twitter had that we’re like, on the verge of some astrological discrimination lawsuit……..and idk ppl get like pseudo-christian-style Smug about it like, don’t apply this to everyone??? and it’s just strange to like. tell people what they’re like. or explain their characteristics via this really strange westernized vague concept of astrology rather than like, tell me about the life experiences that affect the way that you are. like it’s almost condescending and ppl are being way too serious about it sometimes in (see: the on the verge of the lawsuit thing lol)…..anyways and i guess some of my Killjoy tendencies make me like, haha i’m the Hater b/c idk i’m real opinionated. but a lot of the times it’s not Really b/c i hate other’s joy or some shit, it’s just crap along the lines of like, “these ideas abt love which are meant to be Very Romantic actually strike me as being the Less ideal interpretation of love between people and the potential therein? and colder? and unhealthier / more unpleasant / not as nice / etc etc etc as my ideas on romance which i guess seem like i’m wanting to just shoot down some Lovely Concepts but i’m like. that doesn’t seem lovely. i’m on the very of launching into another essay abt Isolation Isn’t Romantic and Romance As Very Human And Ordinary And Even Mundane Seems A Lot Better Than The More ~Magical~ Approach and did i mention romance should be the Opposite of isolating and yet it’s so taken for granted sometimes that you’ll know it’s True Love when you [bass boosted DIE FOR EACH OTHER] and stop giving a shit about anyone but this one other person and etccccccccc [me screaming for hours]”

and a lot of times things that i guess are would-be Cute / Charming / Wholesome / Positive / Etc start to grate on me if i have to see it too much and i’ll probably end up hating or resenting it but like, not because i hate happy stuff, but b/c it just like. is like, i like things to be Genuine, and it will just feel like this is Performing genuine…ness………..which i don’t like. b/c it’s being Not genuine to try to appeal on the grounds that it’s genuine? yknow. which also extends into the realm of “i hate this Cute music over this cute animal video. don’t tell me how to feel about it” and when something tries to be Surprising in the realm of like, pseudo-dissonant like. oh this is a cute harmless white girl on the ukulele but she just said “fuck” and “std’s” or some crap!!! whaaaaaat!!!!! like, i hate this actually? can i die

i could give a ted talk just showing vines that make it into plenty of people’s compilations and being like “this is why this vine is Not Funny (Enough)” 

(also i do sometimes hate Having Fun. doge speak was so awful. of Course gop congress adopted it briefly in its original heyday. even now i hate the derivatives. i’m not about to rb something that contains the word birb. can i die)

also i think star wars is boring. i think cargo pants are fun and fine. 

(11) orchard - share one thing that you’d like to happen this autumn.

we get confirmation that any Winston Footage is filmed for billions s5. soph i know that like, fitting in almost 3 hrs of subway travel / going into nj and back / probably having to do all this on a weekend / having like a 5 second window maybe makes it difficult but we all agree it’d make another epic gamer moment if you got to see lihn

(13) bonfire - describe your dream house.

lol being in my teenz in 2008 i haven’t thought about it much tbh. i think i’d like a pretty cozy (smallish) bedroom and just a lot of physical Niches yknow. i like to frequent very specific spots which are not too out in the open. and really everything would be kinda Cozy Smallish but not the kitchen. get some space there, and like, raised counters like for julia child being 6′2″ b/c Standard Height is not comfortable for me either at my tender 5′11″ or 6″ness. and i always think that those sitty spaces that are like, Depressed into the floor are fun. i know there’s a word for that, but whatever. there’s a bunch of very disparate color schemes i’d think i’d like, so like, idk if i’d just go for totally different Aesthetic Approaches from room to room to try to cover all of them lol

(19) pumpkin - do you think that humans are inherently good or bad?

i mean i think it’s more important to recognize that anyone is entirely capable of Doing good or bad, and arguing about what they Truly Are In Their Hearts is beside the point. but i also think the idea that like oooh if Polite Society crumbles enough we’ll all just be roving in bloodthirsty packs, looking to kill each other and loot / probably eat the corpses, etc etc ~dark gritty bold~ apocalyptic material that’s like wow yeah that’s really confronting the Uncomfortable True Nature of society. like, capitalism is already a brutal and inhumane situation to exist in, but it’s not some emergent expression of Human Nature like, oh, life is just like this, empty and alienating and unfulfilling unless you [physical violence b/c it is Genuine], or that people would turn on each other if we were in survival mode, like…..no. survival mode always entails helping others to survive like. yeah not for necessarily Every individual? but that’s just more of anyone’s capacity to Do good or bad. but humans as a species are not solitary, we’re social b/c that’s how we all exist in relation to each other, society is innate to us and not some Luxury that distances us from our True Natures. we communicate with each other and want to work together even beyond helping each other survive and want to connect to each other and total / imposed isolation is Bad for anyone. and i think that love and altruism are Human Nature too. like, it’s weird when it’s treated like some evolutionary mystery why humans (or individuals of other species) would exercise altruism and/or self-destruction (or the risk of it) for the sake of others? like “but it doesn’t make sense b/c for us survival means Passing On Genes, we protect ourselves and our ability to exist and procreate, and we protect those most genetically similar to us, down the line to favoring your most distant cousin over a random stranger,” etc etc What A Mystery Why We Are Altruistic!!! but it’s not?? like? we don’t just see ourselves as individuals and we recognize the self in the other, and that we are all just Arbitrarily the self that we happen to be, and are all The Other to everyone else’s Myself…..and why would humanity not Preserve itself beyond just individuals looking out for just their individual existence? we just like. don’t only prioritize the preservation of our own genetic code. why should it be a less Survivally Successful approach for any individual to look out for any other individual? of Course we give a shit about other randos who don’t have any familial or even any other personal connection to us at all b/c we just care about the survival of other humans. 

anyways! no yeah so i think that Love and Altruism are intrinsic human nature. like creativity and communication. we aren’t like, always doomed to destroy each other b/c That’s Humans For You. denying the humanity in others inherently requires actually just reducing one’s own humanity, yknow??? re: human nature anyways. i know we’re all still technically human regardless of how we act. and that the self-destructive destruction of others is a feature of humanity, but i don’t think it’s one which is Inherent or Inevitable. i.e. the Self-Destruction thing. capitalism is out here threatening everyone’s existence and just so happens to require placing the Wealthy Few above the worth of the lives of all the rest, who are the cheap labor force rather than Just As Human as the richest. anyways. mostly Good! but the point is still that anyone can do Bad regardless so like, who cares if you have some good in your heart, bitch we all do.

(23) ghost - is there someone that you miss having in your life?

still a bit effed up on missing the theoretical concept of an in-person group of people who are consistent in genuinely enjoying / being enthusiastic about time spent with you. one reason it’s theoretical is that i’ve never Really had a whole in-person friend group exaactly. and it’s theoretical b/c idk, it’s not easy for me to feel comfortable Being Myself around others and like, i like being in groups as a rando amongst strangers really easily, but if it’s like, we’re all in a group and talking and stuff, i can just go into [stifled mode] real easily, idk, it’s hard to say whether the times i’ve been Uncomfortable in groups like that is just like, it not being the right people, or that i just will always like smaller groups or just one-on-one or smthing i dunnooooo. either way i get depressed about Wouldn’t It Be Nice though so idk? i guess i would still ideally seek it out. but i also can’t feel like i can actually expect this to happen. on a related note i forgot to mention Briony Atkins as this minor character who is very like me in being someone who is outwardly v withdrawn and quiet and comes across as not speaking b/c she has nothing to say but in reality she’s a passionate and boisterous person who just rarely shows / expresses it around others. i’m out here never talking (and getting the chance to talk aloud and it’s like a mile a minute all at once trying to compensate) and being pretty quiet and people get surprised when i have An Opinion even though i’m super opinionated lol and i just find it really hard to be myself around others unless i’m operating completely on my own and beholden to no one, but even then. anxious

[proxylynn]

Underfell: File Name not Edgy Enough #16

Chapter 16: Surge WARNING: I WANT NO RESPONSIBILITY OVER SPOILING THINGS FOR OTHERS. THAT BEING SAID, THIS IS HOW FILE NAME NOT FOUND WOULD FUNCTION IN THE AU OF UNDERFELL. BEFORE YOU READ THIS, UNLIKE THE NICE TIME OF UNDERTALE, THIS WORLD IS KILL OR BE KILLED. THIS STORY WILL BE GRAPHIC, GORY, USE SWEARS LIKE NOBODY'S BUSINESS, AND DEAL WITH SENSITIVE SUBJECT MATTERS. FOR EXAMPLE, THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE READ THE FILE NAME RELOCATED SPOOF WILL KNOW HOW I PICTURE THIS VERSION OF LYNSIE COMING TO THE UNDERGROUND. IT IS NOT AN ACCIDENT. IT IS NOT BECAUSE OF SOMETHING DUMB. IT IS BECAUSE SHE CHOOSES TO END HER LIFE. SO TAKE THIS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. I MADE IT BECAUSE I NEEDED TO LET SOME OF THIS EDGINESS OUT OF MYSELF. WHICH I GUESS MAKES UNDERFELL LYNSIE EVEN MORE TRUE TO WHO I REALLY AM. ANYWAY, ENJOY. ^_^ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another day, another start to a hopefully non-resetting timeline. At least, that's what Sans mumbled to himself as he woke up uncharacteristically early in the middle of the night. No nightmare this time, just randomly woke up and now finding it annoyingly difficult to zonk out again. He tossed and turned, moving all over the mattress to find that sweet sleeping spot, but nothing was working. Damn random insomnia. Can't a guy get a decent night's rest? Maybe he could kill time till passed out from boredom. He could try the books again, but at the risk of learning things that would make him want to drink bleach, he gave that idea a hard pass. What time even is it? Looking at his phone showed it was too late to go out but too early to start getting ready for work. Argh...Well...There is always the backup idea. It had been so long since he last tried it. What if he made too much noise? Papyrus almost barged in because he thought Sans was hurt or under a surprise attack. Fuck it. It's his room. He can have some "personal alone" time if he wants. Using a bit of magic to lock the door and seal it with a couple bones should allow for some decent privacy. Now to make himself cozy...Won't be needing his clothes for this bit fun. Besides, they'd only get dirty if they stay on and the last thing he wants is Papyrus asking what the weird stains are from. So after stripping down to bare bones and covering up in his messed up bed sheet, Sans stared up that the nothingness of his darkened room's ceiling only to realize something. "what do i even fantasize about?" It had been so long and nothing really got his soul glowing like that in forever. Hard to really find the time to get turned on when a human kid runs around cutting off heads and shit. But he's a normal monster man, he can get creative if he really tried, he's just need something to start at. Think...What makes him feel good? Jokes are a thing. Who can he think about that tells him jokes and likes his? Toriel is an option. Not like it's not too weird. Sure, she's married and royalty, but she gave that stuff so it's not like he's jerking off to a hardcore committed woman. Though he does have one issue...He's never actually seen Toriel. At his best guess, she looks like a female Asgore. The idea made him shudder. But again, it's just a starting point till something better forms in his skull. So with that in mind, he shut his eyes and let his hands begin to roam over his bones. "mmmm...damn it's been so long i forgot how good this could feel...mmmm...maybe...maybe now is good enough..." So, with the power of imagination and removing the maleness from his picture of the King, this version of Toriel pops into his head. She slowly approaches him on the bed, one hand softly rests on his ribcage as the other holds his jaw and rubs small circles with her thumb. "*coos* oh yeah...mmmmmm...this will work just fine..." She leans down and whispers to him. Why did the skeleton play with himself? His cheekbones began to color. "oooh...tell me why...please...?" Because he had no body. A soft moan turned into a small chuckle. "come on...you can do better than that. give me something raunchy." Have you ever known me for telling, as you put it, raunchy puns? "uh...not really." Then how am I to do so? "um...because i want it. aren't ya supposed to just do what i want because i'm making you up?" Fine, be that way. Force me to just be your little fantasy. You are no different from that fool, Asgore. "whoa, where the fuck is that coming from?" You tell me. After all, am I not your dream fantasy? "hell no." Then what is it that you do want, Sans? "for starters, you can go away." With a huff, the mental image of Toriel blows away. "sheesh...crazy bitch. what i want is someone that can make me laugh and isn't shy about how they do it. someone that knows a thing or two about how to treat a guy right. someone..." Need some help, Sansy-boy? That made his sockets widen and his spine shiver. "nope! nope! not happening. not going to think about her. nope. big fucking nope." Wow, not even gonna give me a chance? You gave Nanny a shot and she's married, to the King no less. He covers his earholes with his hands. "la la la, i can't hear you, la la la, i'm not listening, la la la..." Sans... Maybe it was just his imagination acting out, maybe it was just the way the sheets settled after he moved, but for whatever the reason, he felt something touch his leg and he swore the human was there. At least let me try. It's the least I can do after you helped me. Eerily he could honestly picture that being something she'd say. "no funny stuff?" Depends. What is your scope of 'funny stuff'? "just don't wig out on me like the first attempt did." Dude, it's me. You know me. When I wanna help, I do it. "i guess you're not wrong there." Plus I'm in your head, so whatever you want goes. That made him sit up. "wait...then why did she go all nuts if you're the same thing?" Simple, because she is like that. Remember when Paps told her he hurt me? She was gonna bring hellfire to us all had we not calmed her down. It's not her fault really. She's been in the Ruins for so long all by herself. She's just lonely and the lack of people make her social skills kind of suck. You can forgive her, can't you? His imagination had her kneeling beside him and again he could feel her hand timidly on him. As much as he hated it, so far, she wasn't not doing it for him. Maybe he could use this and switch her out later. "*sigh* fine." He plots back down on the pillow and points into the darkness. "but the second you fuck this up, real you is going to pay for it." She snickers and moves a bit closer. I figured as much. So...What would you like me to do first? He gave it some thought as his sockets closed again. "touch me." Where? "anywhere. i don't fucking care." Chill, man. I've never done this before. I don't want to piss you off or hurt you. "ugh...just...feel around. i'll let ya know how you're doing." At least this one was pretty damn accurate with how she was in real life. Once more he let his hands skim along his bones and after a bit, it didn't really feel like it was him doing it. "mmmm...okay, doing good..." Mind if I try something? She moves and now he pictures her kneeling behind him with his skull resting on her lap. How's that? Cozy? "not bad. mmmm...tell me a joke..." A naughty one? "heh...yeah. give me a really good one." Very well...What's the hardest bone a skeleton has? "mmmm...i dunno, what?" I'll tell you after we bone~. He both moaned and cringed at the joke. You're uncomfortable, aren't you? "just...not really wanting to do this with you. no offense." None taken. Can't say I blame you. I mean, I did try to kill you. "come on, that wasn't you. that damn black soul was the one that wanted me dead. at most, you want to hug me. and...sometimes...it's okay to do so." Really? "don't get hung up on it." Yes, sorry. Heh...Thank you though. But...um...I think I know how to fix it so it's less weird. "how?" You remember the image you saw in that anatomy book, right? Of the human skeleton? A heavy shudder leaves him and slowly the human starts phasing out from exactly looking human to more of an eye-pleasing sight. At least to him anyway. Gone was her skin, hair, and anything fleshy. Leaving just her form in bone. Is this better for you, Sans? It still had her voice, but that wasn't the part he was currently mentally staring at like a horny teenager. "oooooh...so much better. mmmm...tell me another joke..." What instrument do skeletons play during sex? "*moan* shit...mmmm...tell me...tell me it slow..." A tromboner. That time it was getting to him. The fantasy playing out of her as a skeleton, telling him dirty puns and feeling on his bones was starting to make his magic flair in power. And the longer he delved deeper into this enjoyable scene, the more his soul began to emerge from his chest. For non-typical anatomical monsters like Sans, the soul is more than just the core of their life, it also is a handy reproductive tool. Monsters like him, that don't really have natural reproductive organs, still need to procreate to keep their line going. So that's where the soul comes in. When such a monster seeks to make a child their soul will link with that of their partner and the mingling will act as normal coitus would. One partner acts as the giver of the genetics while the other is the receiver and will be the one to conceive the offspring. That's not to say, much like normal genitalia, the soul can't be played with for one's own benefit. Even the more normal monsters will use their soul in a similar manner. However, in this world, finding someone you can trust in intimacy with your quite literal life is not an easy thing to do. Coupling is rare, family units even rarer, and children the rarest of all. So a little self-indulgence isn't all that unheard of in the Underground. Doing this involves, well, rubbing the soul rather intimately. Sans...You really are one hunk of bone. Dare I say...You're a bony builder that can lift a skele-ton. "*groan* don't get all corny on me now...mmmmmm...i'm getting so close..." Sorry. Just thought I'd be a little sweet on you is all. But if you really want me to keep going... "ffffuck...*moan* keep going...please, keep going..." Heh, I didn't take you for the begging type. "*groan* don't tease me, kitten..." Oh, this is purrfect. Just pawsome. Your moans are meowsic to my ears. The things I plan to do to you...Sans...You'll whisker that I never stop~. "aaaah...yes...yes...mmmm~. touch my soul...oooooooh...fuck, please..." Those ghostly hands of hers were driving him mad. One danced its fingers along the length of his spine while the other tickled his ribs and would teasingly touch his soul ever so softly. If only this was real. If she was really here and treating him like this he'd have himself a great fucking time. In fact...He quickly turns over and moves the pillow to be under him, in his fantasy however it's her skeleton. Sans? "no more teasing, kitten. it's time to make you purr." In a motion akin to normal pelvic thrusting in traditional sex only reversed, Sans embraces the pillow tightly so that it presses against his soul and he rocks his chest in a steady yet heated rhythm. The pillow being a soft and slightly warm presence is a very convincing substitute for his mind to let his needs enjoy as he grinds into it. And as such, the fantasy goes with it. Oooh...Sans~. "yeah...*grunt* say my name, kitten...moan for me..." Aaah...Sans...Oh, Sans~. "good girl...*moan* gonna...gonna give it to ya good for that..." Is that a promise~? "you're damn right it is...*hard grunt* fuuuuck...this feels so gooooood..." The more she responded, the closer he came. It wasn't till after some pretty sultry dirty talk and several minutes of rapid thrusting did his soul begin to surge with the sense of release coming soon. Physically, the soul will also alert its owner of such pleasure by brightly glowing and secreting concentrated magic that has the consistency of slime. This soul goo acts as a lubricant and sensation enhancer. The stronger the feeling during such intimacy, the more goo is made, hence why things can get rather messy. "oohh fuck...ooh ooh...sooo close...i-i'm...hhnng...hnnhanh...ahh...ah hhnnn...i-i'm gonna..." Aahnn...ahhhnn...Sans...oooooh...Fuck...yes...yes...Sans~! "uauhn ahhh...it's happening...hahn aaahhnn...i'm...ahhhh...!" With not much else of a warning, his soul throbs out its climax in a release that he's certain will stain completely through his pillow, but so worth it to have that surge of euphoria throughout his body. "ooohh...ooohhhh y-yeeaahhh...ahhhhnn...mmmmmm...i so needed that. *coos* you were amazing~." No voice replied back, the fantasy was over, and in that split second of realizing it, Sans felt sick. "holy shit...i just did that to her...*gag*" With his magic drained, things he did with it before faded away like the bones at his door, and he felt tired. But now wasn't the time. Donning his shorts, he made a quick rush the bathroom to hurl. As pleasing as it all was, the fact still remained he just masturbated his soul to a fantasy of the human. He felt disgusted, dirty, and gross overall. Hopefully, a long hot shower could wash this feeling off and drown out those nasty thoughts from his skull. He stood in the streams for a long time, watching as his magical essence slid down his form and swirled into the drain. "ugh...how did this happen? when did i become such a sick fuck? she's human for fuck's sake! pretending she's a skeleton doesn't stop her from being human! *heavy sigh* life...why do ya hate me?" The water is turned off moments later and, after drying off, he returns to his room now clean but still feeling like scum. The wet and dingy pillow is cast to the floor where he feels himself to belong, yet, fuck the floor if you have a bed. At least he was tired now. Maybe some sleep will do him some good. At least get thoughts of her out of his head. Besides...It's not like he or she has any feelings for each other. After that thing with Grillby, and that kiss, it's kind of obvious how those two are. Wait... "*weak* Sorry about that...I know you trusted me with your first kiss...but I don't think I can take care of it anymore..." Was that the thing that happened in the bar the other day? What the hell?! No one told him shit! Then that moment when he came to the bar and Grillby was acting funny... "Sans...Can you watch the bar for a moment?" The pieces began clicking together and the internal screaming started loudly. Grillby has the hots for the human! [Hours pass] Papyrus woke up to a rather odd morning. He could smell something cooking but he wasn't the one doing it. It couldn't have been the human, after her initial break-in, he secured the window and bolted the door. So this smell was cause for slight alarm. Only slightly because the maker was about to pay for breaking into his home. But what to use? The bone club? The bone saber? The bone and arrow? So many choices. Maybe the bone mace? It hasn't seen action in ages and it would be a shame to not let this poor soul known what true pain was like. Leaving his room with the weapon in hand like a ninja, Papyrus silently crept downstairs and noted the intruder was dumb enough to turn on the lights. This joke of an invader was as good as dead, given that the top of their shadow could be seen and gave away his exact location. Closer now...Just a bit closer and it will only take one blow to end this. *clang* "fuck! god, damn butter fingers..." The seer levels of confusing shock almost made Papyrus drop the weapon. Sans in the kitchen is nothing new. But cooking? Hell must have frozen over. He walked into the entryway. "SANS?" His voice spooked his brother who, apart from being just in his shorts, juggles to hold onto the pan he just collected from the ground. "papyrus! h-hey...i didn't wake ya, did i?" Not the smartest thing to do, waking a sleeping Papyrus. But now wasn't the case. "NO. I AWOKE BECAUSE OF THIS SICKENINGLY SWEET SMELL INVADED MY ROOM." "oh...uh...what's with the mace?" He glances at it a moment before putting it down. "I THOUGHT SOMEONE BROKE IN AND WAS DUMB ENOUGH TO STEAL OUR FOOD." "huh...sounds reasonable." Sans put the pan on the stove and Papyrus looks around. There are plastic bags on the floor and items he knows they didn't have earlier. "I SEE YOU DID SOME LATE NIGHT PILFERING OF YOUR OWN. WILL I BE GETTING AN ANNOYING CALL FROM THE RABBITS LATER?" "i put some gold on the counter. she can't bitch about it if most is paid for." "MOST?" "i'm not paying 300G for eggs! that's bullshit!" Papyrus merely nodded. "AGREED. WELL DONE, BROTHER." Sans starts stirring something in a large bowel and it made Papyrus curious. "DARE I ASK WHAT IT IS YOU ARE DOING AT THIS HOUR? ASIDE FROM SHOPLIFTING." "what does it look like? i'm making pancakes." "...WHY?" Sans huffs a few times through his nasal hole, clearly pissed off but trying to stay calm. "because...i woke up super early and can't sleep. i get hungry when i don't get enough sleep." That is true. "WHY NOT HAVE THE HUMAN MAKE YOU SOMETHING? IT'S ONE OF THE FEW THINGS SHE'S ACTUALLY DECENT AT." Sans's stirring gets a bit harsher and sloppy. "i don't need her help. i'm fine. i can do this." A not entirely false statement. Sans wasn't incompetent when it came to cooking, so long as he was hungry enough his laziness wouldn't have him half-ass things. But his laziness was king, so him passing on a chance to have someone else do the work for him was a sign that something wasn't right. "ARE YOU FEELING ALRIGHT?" "i'm fine." "YOUR BEHAVIOR SAYS OTHERWISE." "i said i'm fine!" "OKAY, FIRST OFF...DON'T YOU FUCKING YELL AT ME!" This is the part where Sans would shirk and apologize. But that's not the case. He stands his ground and glares back at his commanding younger brother. "AND SECOND, IF SOMETHING IS BOTHERING YOU, JUST SAY SO. DON'T TRY TO ACT LIKE NOTHING IS WRONG WHEN CLEARLY SOMETHING IS." "i'm fucking fine. just leave me alone." Papyrus growls with a stern face. "FINE. BE THAT WAY. IT'S NO SKIN OFF MY BONES." Checking the clock, Papyrus collected his weapon and headed for the front door. "where are you going?" Papyrus said nothing. "paps!" The door slamming was the reply he gave. If Sans wants to be a dick, then he can be a dick. He'll just give him the silent treatment. But now that he was fully awake, he might as well get the day started before work time. And that includes fetching the human so that she will make him something to eat. No way he was eating anything a grumpy Sans was bothering with. So he enters the shed and turns on the light, but it bursts almost instantly. Must remember to fix that later. Passing through the bars, he uses his eyes natural glow to find her body curled into a ball on the pet bed. He pokes her with the mace. "WAKE UP, HUMAN. YOU ARE REQUIRED TO MAKE SUITABLE SUBSTANCE FOR ME." She didn't move or make a sound. This didn't please him. "I SAID...WAKE UP!" He yelled, shaking the snow off the roof of the shed. But she remained still as stone. This only ticked him off further than he already was and he kicked side her. Yet again, after several hard kicks, she didn't move. Not even Sans could sleep this deeply. Kneeling down, he put a hand on her neck. He didn't know much about humans but he knows that they breathe. He checked for the feeling of her doing this. He couldn't feel it. That's not right. So he uncurls her body with a bit of difficulty as she was rather stiff in the cold. Strange marks, almost like hand prints, appeared on her wrists and forearms. He was close to checking for more but made still at the thumping soft colorful glow emanating just under her shirt. "HUMAN?" She wasn't dead, at least not yet. Her soul would be fully out if that were the case. As much as it would be benefiting to let her parish, this was not the allowed way he would take her soul. Time to do his one random good deed for the year. He scoops her body up over his shoulder and carries the girl back to the house, perhaps the warmth will do her some good. Once inside, he plops her body down on the couch and checks her breathing again. "pap...can you let me apologize without leaving again?" Papyrus didn't speak as he then entered the kitchen to find something. This now had Sans's attention. "bro?" "DID YOU HAPPEN TO GRAB ANY ELIXIR WHILE YOU WERE OUT?" "uh...no? why?" "SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT WITH THE HUMAN. SHE'S NOT BREATHING." "...what?" Sans stopped his pancake making to see for himself. Papyrus finds an old medical kit in a cabinet. "what did you do?" Mixing a few random things in a small medical kit will have to do for now. "I FOUND HER LIKE THAT." He returns to the living room while shaking a vial of colored liquid to see Sans staring intently at the glow of her soul. Scoffing to make Sans move away, he props the human's head up and opens her mouth, pouring the vial's contents down her throat. Some slight rubbing on the sides of her neck induced swallowing and he let her be when done. "H-Hey...?" Great. Now the flower is awake. "What's going on?" Not wanting to double down on being generously nice, he ignores the flower and returns to the kitchen. Seems he'll have to cook for himself after all. But first, to clean up the shitty mess Sans made. Sans on his end wasn't sure what to make of things. Especially after his 'personal time' moment. Part of him was concerned for obvious reasons. While another part of him was trying to stab that worried side to death and hang it off a cliff. "Sans...?" He flinched at his name being said that softly. "Is she okay?" It's just the flower. Calm down. No one knows about what you did. "dunno..." Hesitantly, he put a hand on her forehead. She's bone cold. "damn. she's like ice." "Oh no, not again..." Sans looked at the flower funny. "again? this happened before?" Flowey nods. "This sometimes happens when she has the 'really bad' dreams." Judging by the talk he had with her that can mean anything. "care to be a bit more specific?" Flowey shakes his head. "She doesn't tell me about them She only tells me that the dreams weren't good ones." "*sigh* typical." She tells her brother nothing about it. God, she acted like him. Woman get out of his head! Ignoring the crap in his skull, he gives her a little looking over and that's when he sees them. The marks. Those same marks she showed him before. She was with Gaster now. This got him curious about her soul, knowing how Gaster was with his fascination with the damn things. "Hey, leave her alone." Putting out everything else from his mind except her soul, Sans pulls down her shirt's collar to get a better look. "W-What are you doing, Smiley Trashbag?! Stop being a pervert!" He couldn't hear Flowey at this point. The soul had his attention. Part of it just breached the surface of her chest and the colors...there were so many and the way they swirled...mesmerizing. But that spell couldn't take full effect, not with that show of black among the bright colors and those large hand marks surrounding it like a cage. "*mutters* the hell are ya doing, g?" "SANS! GET YOUR ASS IN HERE!" That he heard. "keep an eye on her, weed." It was an order. One that didn't have to be said twice as he went to his brother in the kitchen. "yeah?" "*SIGH* I'M ONLY GOING TO ASK THIS ONE MORE TIME...WHAT WAS WRONG WITH YOU EARLIER?" Maybe if he words this right it won't be so awkward. "okay...let's say i have this friend, right?" "THAT NARROWS IT DOWN A LOT." "dick." "JUST TELL ME ALREADY." "again...i have this friend. and this friend, who shall remain nameless, i think has gotten himself into something i think is wrong." Now Papyrus was interested. "SUCH AS?" Sans rubs the back of his skull nervously. "i...i think he has feelings for someone. someone that no one would approve of." "AND WHY DO YOU THINK THAT? IS THIS PERSON A COMPLETE SACK OF SHIT AND NOT WORTHY OF THIS 'FRIEND'?" Now the hard part of wording this. "no...it's, uh...quite the opposite actually. they get along really well." "THEN WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?" "um...ya know how cats and dogs don't get along? like, they're natural enemies and junk." "YEAH?" "well...this friend and the person they like are technically enemies. but they seem to like each other anyway even though i'm certain all the underground would preform mob justice on them if they came out as a thing." "REALLY? THAT BAD?" "oh yeah." "AND THIS BUGS YOU WHY?" "because!" Sans rubs his face to calm down. "*huff* because...i don't want my friend to get hurt." Papyrus cocks his brow. "BUT THIS ISSUE DOESN'T REALLY EFFECTS YOU TECHNICALLY. JUST, FOR SOME REASON, EMOTIONALLY IS CAUSING YOU DISTRESS." "uh...i guess?" "THEN THE ANSWER IS CLEAR." "r-really?" "YES. YOU HAVE TWO OPTIONS. YOU CAN EITHER IGNORE THIS ISSUE AND ALLOW YOUR 'FRIEND' TO PURSUE THEIR 'OTHER PERSON'..." "yeah...not gonna let that happen." "OR...YOU DO WHAT YOU MUST TO BREAK THEM UP SO THAT ALL HOPE OF THEM GETTING TOGETHER CRASHES AND BURNS MORE POWERFULLY THAN A TSUNDERPLANE THAT LOST ITS SENPAI." That's really bad. "that would make me a humongous asshole if i did that." "THEN FOREVER SUFFER IN INDECISIVE SILENCE." "...that's not helpful at all." "SO SAYS YOU." Papyrus returns to his cooking and Sans groans with irritating annoyance. "*gasps and coughing*" The sudden sound had them peeking out into the living room where the human was found on the floor now and convulsing violently as the flower pathetically tries to restrain her movements with vines. Papyrus is the one that puts an end to this display with a bit of the old blue magic and holds her in the air by her soul till her flailing ceases. "CALM YOURSELF, HUMAN." The look on her face was one most recognize. Pain. It was etched into her eyes. As if something awful happened during the night. Her hands kept flexing in these claw type motions that had a stiff recoil. It's sort of like she was thawing out from being frozen. Odder still was her constant stare forward. "*shaky* I...I'm okay..." "ya sure?" She nods and Papyrus turns his magic off, letting her drop to her feet. Now under her own control, she crosses her arms over her chest like the folded wings of a gargoyle and shivers harshly. "*shaky* Can I trouble you for something warm please?" Her eyes kept forward, not looking at the brothers as she made the request. Papyrus, whether or not he was going to do this, returns to his cooking. Sans, on the other hand, approached her with caution. "kiddo?" "*shaky* H-Howdy..." "do ya need a moment?" She nods and he tries not to imagine if anything in his fantasy would've also given her such a reaction. "*shaky* Sans..." He both wished she would look at him and yet keep not doing so at the same time. "yeah?" Her eyes made a slight glance his way but looked at the floor. "*shaky* I...I need to talk to you later." Maybe this could work in his advantage. Talking with Grillby about this would be super awkward. "sure. i kinda got to talk to you later too." She shivers a bit more. "*shaky* Fuck...I hate the cold..." "probably be a smart move to take a hot bath. pap isn't likely to..." Papyrus walks past his brother with a steaming mug that he shoves at her. "DRINK." She looks at the mug in surprise. "DO NOT BE THIS SLOW, I'M NOT IN THE MOOD." She takes the mug with a hiss, burning her hands till she can get a proper hold. "*shaky* Thank you...um...What is it?" "WATER. NOW DRINK." "you boiled water?" "OF COURSE NOT. THAT WOULD BE TOO SLOW. I USED THE MICROWAVE." Sans shakes his head as the human moves to the couch, sits down, blows into the mug, and drinks. "*soft sigh* Much better...And here I thought you wanted me dead." Papyrus sneers. "DO NOT TAKE THIS AS A SHOW OF GOOD FAITH. I AM MERELY MAKING SURE MY PET DOESN'T MEET A STUPID END. I'D BE A POOR MASTER IF I LET SOMETHING AS STUPID AS THE COLD KILL YOU." This is the part where she'd retort with something witty, mocking, condescending, or just a biting comment. But no. All she does is smile and continue drinking. That earned her a few odd looks. "What? Is something wrong?" "ARE YOU NOT GOING TO FIGHT BACK?" "To what?" "I'M DEMEANING YOU, PET." She shrugs. "Eh, go ahead. If it makes you happy, then I'm okay with it." The odd looks only get stronger and Papyrus pulls Sans into the kitchen with him. "SANS, SOMETHING IS INCREDIBLY WRONG HERE. THAT IS NOT THE SAME HUMAN." "i don't know. looks like it's her." "CUT THE CRAP, SANS. CLEARLY, SHE'S DEPLOYING SOME SORT OF TACTIC. TRYING TO LULL US INTO A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY BY BEING AGREEABLE AND PLEASANT." "for what reason would she have to do that for? if she was really that wicked, don't ya think she'd have tried to kill us ages ago?" "IT'S CALLED PICKING YOUR BATTLES. SHE'S JUST WAITING FOR THE RIGHT TIME TO STRIKE." "so sparing the dogs and not raising her LV is all part of the sinister plan?" "CLEARLY. JUST LOOK AT HER..." Papyrus sneaks a look into the living room. The human smiles in peace, finishing the water and going over to the flower to show it affection. "GENIUS...I'VE UNDERESTIMATED THE CUNNING OF THIS GIRL." Sans rolls his eyes. "or, and this might sound crazy...she might actually be an okay person." "THAT'S JUST WHAT SHE WANTS YOU TO THINK. CLEVER BITCH. MUST BE A TRAIT ALL FEMALES HAVE. MONSTER AND HUMAN." "speaking of monster bitches, we need to start getting ready for work. unless ya actually like hearing undyne screech for four hours." Papyrus glared at the thought. "DAMN WOMEN. WHY MUST SOMEONE AS GREAT AS MYSELF BE BOTHERED BY SUCH LOWLY SOULS?" Sans shrugged and teleported to his room, leaving Papyrus to walk upstairs to his chambers but first... "HUMAN..." "Yes, Papyrus?" "GO TO THE KITCHEN AND FINISH COOKING WHAT I STARTED." She salutes and does as told, making him glare. He doesn't buy this act for a second. No one pulls the wool over the eyes of the great and terrible Papyrus! [About half an hour later at Grillby's] "Grillby!" I'm willing to admit my lack of subtlety in being happy to see the fire bartender is childish as hell as long as no one judges me on my super non-normal greeting of pulling the guy over the bar and hugging his chest like I've not seen him in years. Not that he complains. He's a bit more confused if anything. "Heh...Nice to see you too, pussycat." Grillby pats my head as Papyrus snarls and I shyly release the poor guy to return to standing by Sans. "Gentlemen." "sup, grillz." "GRILLBY." Grillby smirks and fixes his glasses. "So, Papyrus...Did you think about my offer?" Papyrus folds his arms. "I MAY HAVE GIVEN IT THE FAINTEST OF THOUGHT." "And?" Papyrus looks at me and I try to be my regular self, but I'm too fucking happy because Grillby's alive! "I WILL AGREE TO THIS RIDICULOUS IDEA ONLY AFTER A WEEK'S TRAIL. IF SHE FAILS TO PREFORM TO MY LIKING, THEN NO DEAL." Grillby cocks his head. "Oh? And how would you judge this?" "SANS WILL REPORT ON HER." "what?!" Sans is not thrilled about doing more work. "Sounds fair to me. He is here often enough to see her progress." "don't i get a say in this?" "NO." "this is bullcrap!" I give a small tug on Sans's sleeve to get his snarling attention. "what?" I lean close to his skull and for a second I thought he trembled. "*whisper* No worries, dude. I got you." "the hell does that mean?" "*whisper* Half of whatever I make goes to paying off your tab." I pull back to see the shocked look come to his face. "for real? you'd really do that?" "It's what good buddies do. You help me and I help you. Sound good?" I offer my hand for him to shake and he gives me this look of uncomfortable uncertainty. "You okay there?" He eyes me before looking away and ignores my gesture. "whatever." Maybe he's just in a bad mood or staying in character of being a dick to me. I know I hide how I feel a lot. But I'm disappointed that this buddy thing we have is always a push and shove deal. "WHEN WILL THIS TRAIL PERIOD START? I HATE HAVING MY TIME WASTED." "She can start now if you want. Though the uniform will take a little longer." My ears perk at that. "Uniform?" Grillby smirks. "I'm going to need your measurements, pussycat. Unless, of course, you want me to do that for you~." I get flustered at his tease. "she'll get them for ya later. don't be weird about it." Grillby and I both look at Sans's defensiveness oddly, but you know, say nothing about it. "COME, SANS. AND YOU..." Papyrus eyes me. "I'M ON TO YOU." I tilt my head in confusion as the brothers leave. "They seemed to be in a good mood." Grillby comments and I shrug. "I have no clue what any of that was about." "So...about those measurements...?" I sigh. "What did I say about being creepy?" He puts his hands up in a playfully defensive way. "I know, and I'm trying to be 'that guy'. I'm asking as your boss, not your friend. You can size yourself in the back if needed." I wave dismissively at the suggestion. "Whatever it is, I wear large to extra large. I'm not big, but I like the free space. Makes me feel comfy." "How cute..." "What?" "Well, for one, you don't know how to fit yourself. And two, you think I'm giving you a choice." I'm suddenly getting flashbacks to when I first met Grillby. The man has charm, no doubt there, but he is intimating and forceful if needed. "Now, be a good girl and go through that door. I'll be with you shortly." "Yes, sir." Wow...That felt weird to say after being all chummy with the guy. I walk around the bar, past the poker table, and make it to the only door that won't have me going out into the snow. Above it is a small sign that reads "FIRE EXIT". I feel that's a joke. "Go on. It's not locked." I look back at Grillby and there's this almost impatient gleam in his glasses. It makes me shiver as I enter this door. Though the feeling chilling down my spine both stays and goes once I'm on the other side...It's his house. I'm in his house. The door behind me is the only exit and I'm in his fucking house! "Shhhit..." Quick! Brain! Think of something! What do I do to not piss off the man who's got me in his house?! But I got nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch. My head draws a blank. All I really do is just move a little bit further inside so that he doesn't collide with me when he enters. From this small entryway, I can see his home is the reverse of the skeleton home. His upstairs living space isn't that large, the living room with its comfy looking sofa and kitchen are nearly joined, separated by an island counter with bar stools in front of it. A stairwell leading down must be where his more private rooms are. Make sense in a way, even if snow is covering the ground, under the ground can have temperatures that are far more enjoyable. I bet it's really warm down there. Kind of is warm right now. Really warm. The hell is...? "Boo!" I yelp, flying a good five feet onto the floor and gripping my chest in panic. All the while Grillby smugly grins at me. "My, aren't you jumpy. You act as though you expect something bad to happen." I blink a few times and hold my breath to calm my heart down. He approaches and offers his hand. "No hard feelings, right pussycat?" My hand trembles to take his. "No cool, Grillby. Very not cool." He pouts and pulls me up onto my feet. "Are you frightened of me?" I shake my head a bit too quickly. "It's not nice to lie." I play with my hands a little. "I don't mean to be." He sighs and puts a hand on my head. "I don't mean to scare you. I just take my work very seriously. You are now part of that and therefore..." "I understand...sir." "Don't call me that." His tone is calm yet has this harsh crackle that makes me flinch. He notices and lets that hand slide down to rest around my shoulders. "Lynsie? Are you alright?" "I don't know anymore." He rubs my shoulder and I try to think straight. "Do you want to talk?" "Maybe." "Okay...Go into the living. I'll come back with what I need and you can tell me what's troubling you while we do this. How does that sound?" I sniffle a little. "Sounds fine." He taps my shoulder and I walk away into the living room as he himself goes downstairs. When I know he can't see me I wipe my eyes. Something is wrong. I can feel all these nerves going off inside and my emotions are fluctuating. What's wrong with me? Is this what PMS is? Oh shit, when was my last period? What the hell is happening to me?! This is your fault, stupid soul. If it's not the black one trying to kill people than it's the pink one making me all hormonal and shit. I can hear his steps coming up the stairs and I try to settle down before he sees the mental train wreck showing on my face. When he's back on my level, he has a notepad with a pen in one hand and the measuring tape of a tailor in the other. "Are you ready?" It's okay. He's being professional. Just calm down. Calm the fuck down! "Y-Yeah." "Nervous?" I crack a weak smile. "Just a little." "I promise, I won't cross any lines." Am I capable of making a joke with a straight face right now? Here's hoping so. "So no fondling the side-boob this time?" He blushes for a moment, snickering lightly before smirking. "Not unless you want me to." Okay, this is at least normal. It's what we do. We make flirty jokes. Everything is fine. I am fine. "In your dreams, hot stuff." "At least you seem better. Now stand straight for me, pussycat." I do as requested and he begins to render me into numbers. Starting with the neck, he wraps the tape around my neck and has it resting on my shoulders, putting one finger between the tape to allow for some extra room. "So...Anything you want to talk about, dear?" "Well...I kind of want to say some things and yet...not." "Personal matters?" "Mostly." Next up is the chest, the measurement is taken as a circumference measurement around my chest at the widest point. Something that he enjoys as I blush. "I won't make you talk if you don't want to. But you may feel better if you got some of it off your chest." I groan loudly. "Oh my god, Sans has tainted you." "Heh...I saw an opportunity and I went with it." "By the way...Who's watching the bar while you do this?" "Big Mouth is in exchange for free food for an hour." "The clock is ticking while you do this, right?" "You know it." "Heheh...Clever boy." Now we have the waist, this measurement is taken as a circumference measurement around my waist just above the belly button. "Can I ask what this uniform will look like?" "And spoil the surprise? I think not. Although...I know it will be something no one will be able to take their eyes off of." "That both sounds awesome and foreboding at the same time." "Trust me, it'll have you rolling in gold." "Now it's really ominous." Another part that has me blushing is my seat, aka the ass. The seat measurement is taken as a circumference measurement around my butt at the widest part and I try not to squirm at the feel of his hands. "You okay, pussycat?" "You're doing that on propose." "Doing what?" "One, overusing that pet name that you know bugs me. And two..." I give him a playful wink. "Not asking for permission before you touch me." He bites his tongue and exhales slowly. "Close. You almost had me there. No point for you." "Dang. Thought I had an easy one there." He chuckles to himself. "What's so funny?" "Nothing really. Just thinking that you enjoy teasing me just as much as I do to you." He's not entirely wrong. "I can't lie, you are a fun playmate." "Same to you...Pussycat." The shirt length measurement is taken from the top of the shoulder, close to the mid-side of my neck, following my body down to the point where he wants the top to end. "This...This feels nice." "What does?" "Just talking with you. I always feel so comfortable around you. Well...until I don't." "Like earlier?" "Yeah." "Again, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." "I know. It's just..." I struggle to speak. There's so much I want to say to him. "Take your time, dear. There's no rush on what you want to say." When it comes to shoulder width think of a line going from the armpit straight upwards to the shoulder. He measures between those two points and holds the tape measure straight. "Grillby..." "Yeah?" "Have I...Whenever I was, you know, drunk...Did I...*flustered* Did I ever...kiss you?" He flinches in his writing on the notepad and his flames flash for a moment in his blush. "*nervous* Um...W-W-Why would you think that?" I can still hear his confession in my mind. "*weak* Sorry about that...I know you trusted me with your first kiss...but I don't think I can take care of it anymore..." And his nervousness is also a big ass clue. "I...I heard it from someone in the bar." His face starts to heat up and he looks away. "It...It might have happened...once. B-But nothing else happened, I swear!" Wow...I gave him my first kiss and I don't even remember it. That's...really sad. He's all messed up now and I keep quiet so he can regain his composure. He next measures my arm length, the sleeve length measurement is taken from the point of the shoulder and following my bent arm down to where he wants the sleeve to end. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make this awkward." He doesn't say anything and I feel awful as he continues to work. The wrist measurement is taken as a circumference measurement around the wrist. The biceps measurement is taken as a circumference measurement around the biceps. The last one he does is my hip, doing the hip measurement is taken as a circumference measurement around the hips at the widest part. Though unlike with the other past measurements, he lingers close to me and I'm hesitant to say or do anything about it. "...Are you upset with me?" Okay, remember how to talk. He needs to know everything is fine. "Why would I be upset?" "Because...I didn't have the nerve to tell you myself." In another timeline, my friend, you did just that. "I don't care." He looks at me funny. "You don't?" "No. The part I care about is how far things went. And with it just being a kiss...It proves to me that you're someone I can trust fully. For a lesser soul would've taken advantage of that situation." His eyes soften and he leans his forehead on my own. "You can't be real." "I assure you..." I take his hands in mine, letting him drop the notepad and tape. "I am very real. And...I...I feel bad that I don't remember it." I can feel his heat getting stronger. "You do?" My face gets really red and I find it hard to keep looking him in the eyes. "Unless it was bad, then, I am super sorry about my shitty kissing skills." "N-No! No...I mean...It was nice." "It was?" Now he's the one trying to be sweet. "Well...Yeah. For an unexpected kiss, it wasn't bad. Not too long or too short, with just the right amount of care." Realizing what is coming out of his mouth has his face blushing big time. But now I'm curious. "Really? What did it feel like?" The words leave me before my brain can filter them. His eyes widen as his flames burn brighter. Though his normal cool self comes through with that playful smirk of his. "R-Really? I mean...If you're really curious about it, I wouldn't say no to doing a quick demonstration." If that dead timeline taught me anything, it's that he isn't joking and will do it if I say yes. I remember his kiss as he said his peace before death. It was so sad. I want to know how he feels when he isn't on his deathbed and has no tomorrow. So I take a deep breath and let his hands go to put them on his chest. "I'm okay with that." His hair of fire grows larger in excitement. "Are...Are you serious? No joke?" I nod. "I'm being very serious, Grillby." "And you have no issue with me being a monster?" Now I understand dream Grillby's frustration at the constant doubt when the intent is painfully clear. "If you have to ask then I don't want to know anymore." My hands begin to slip off him but they don't get to leave their perch on his chest. His hands clasp me by the shoulders and pull me into his smoldering kiss. The impact was rather abrupt, but the kiss itself is gentle and slightly timid feeling. My wide surprised eyes meet his burning ember orbs and the look they hold has mine slowly close. Most of that dream of him seems to be real. His face is as solid as his body looks and just from the feel of his mouth alone I know it must be very hot in there. He pulls back only a little bit, our faces still close enough that my nose still brushes against his fire. It kind of tickles. "So...How was it, Lynsie?" There is so much I want to say, yet can't find the words. "*coos* Whoa..." That will have to do. I mean, I did have a fire pun at the ready, but it's not really the right moment for it. My reaction has him getting the cutest look on his delighted face. "Glad you liked it." I can't help the smile on my face. "I like you, Grillby..." I give him a quick peck where is nose would be. "The kiss is just a bonus." His face is blank for a moment before he grins. "I think this is the start of an interesting work relationship." "Yeah...About that..." I can't get out of his grip, not that I'm trying, but I back up a bit so we're less likely to smooch again. "There's still a bit more 'personal' stuff I have to tell you about that I really don't want to affect our current situation." He titles his head. "How so?" I rub my cheeks trying to delude the red burning them. "Okay...Promise me that this never leaves this room. And I mean, all of this, is never spoken about." "Pussycat, give me some credit. As if I'd ever share the things you tell me." "I mean it." "Is it that one of them hurt you?" That had me for a moment before his words register in my head. "What?" "You're ignoring them, but that doesn't make them invisible to anyone else." He grabs one of my arms and holds it up, showing the bruises. "Did they do this? Papyrus I can believe, but I have doubts on Sans. But if they did this to you..." "They didn't. This is a whole different issue." "Don't defend your abuser." "I'm not defending shit. It's my problem, I can deal with it. Don't make this a big deal." "It is a big deal!" His grip harshens, burning my skin. "*wince* You're hurting me." He releases my arm with immediate regret. I hold my arm and rub the red mark. "Like I said...That's a different issue that I will deal with. Not you. Are we clear?" "Y-Yes." "The thing I want to tell you...I don't want it to bleed into this thing we got and influence anything. If something happens, fine, but not while this whole 'job' thing is going on." "How bad can it be for you to be so serious?" "Trust me, it's something big that even now I'm having trouble getting ready to say." "You're over thinking it. If you just relax..." "My soul surged because I dreamed of you!" It came blurting out rather fast, but after a moment or two, Grillby's eyes widen as his fire strengthens. "Wha...W-What?" I'm not about to repeat that. I let the flustered blush on my face speak for me. "So that...That thing the other day...?" I look away and nod, not noticing him biting his lower jaw. "And it was because...*deep crackling shudder* You dreamed of me?" That sound has my soul threatening to jump out so my head has me spew out words in distraction. "It just happened so randomly. Maybe what that guy said influenced my thoughts and you've been so good to me...Oh my god, this is so embarrassing. Why am I even telling you this like it won't affect things? Of course, it's going to affect things! I'm a freaking moron to think otherwise. I...I..." I get distracted by a sudden glow coming from Grillby that isn't part of his flames. This soft dull gray is on his chest, almost blending in with his clothing. Grillby sees my eyes staring curiously and when he follows this vision trail his reaction reminds me of when I had the surge the other day. He pulls away from me very sharply, covering his chest with this look of humiliation and fear, turning away from me. "Don't look at it!" I turn away feeling super uncomfortable. "I saw nothing!" I can hear him huffing and puffing, faint smoke plumes on the ceiling like a chimney burning logs. "Um...Do you...Do you want me to leave?" There's this steamy hiss that draws out of him. "*raspy* Give me...Give me a minute..." Don't say anything stupid, don't say anything stupid, don't say anything stupid, don't say anything stupid, don't say anything stupid, don't say anything stupid! "Did...Did I make you surge?" What did I just fucking say, you stupid git?! I regret so much once I asked that. Because suddenly he's breathing in my ear and his fire is intense. "*heated* It wouldn't be the first time...Lynsie..." So much internal screaming! I literally can't move. The only thing that I do, is let out this weak pitiful yelp because my body can not fathom what the fuck it is to do in this situation. I'm fairly certain a scan of my head would show a bunch of little people running around and screaming in panic. But then...he starts chuckling. "*lowly* Got you, pussycat..." It takes a bit for my messed up brain to put the pieces together, but when they do... "Did you...Did you just tease me?" "*huff* My point. So far...I'm winning for today." His breathing is still smoky. He may have teased me but he's still messed up. Let it go. Leave him be. "Heh...I'll try harder next time." I give a tiny glace over my shoulder to see his very heated colored face. The way the dark to light blue really highlights his purple fire. Wow, that's cute. "I'm gonna go make sure we still have a bar to work in. Will you be okay without me to tease for a bit?" He nods. "*puff* Use the time to get familiar with being behind the bar. I'll be there shortly. I...I need to make a phone call." "Will do. See you soon...boss." I snicker to myself as I take leave of his home for the attached bar, all the while feeling his eyes on me. "Hey look! The girl is still in one piece and not a pile of ash. Miracles do happen." Punk Hamster is starting early. Super. "Don't make me cut you off and force you to be sober for more than whatever time it takes for you to pass out at home. Because I'll come over there, little man." He grips his glass possessively. "You don't have the balls, woman." "No, but I do have tits. And I'm willing to bet my pair is larger than your nuts." I glare harshly and he tries to match it but can't. "*scoff* You're not worth it." "That's what I thought." One asshole took down a peg. Not bad for just starting this shift. "Yo, Big Mouth, you're relieved of duty. I got this." The big toothy plant monster turns my way. "What about my food?" "You'll get it. Grillby's coming back. He's just making a phone call." It moves to its usual spot as I go behind the bar. There's so much back here. How the hell am I to remember all this and what to do with it on top of mixing recipes? Damn it, Papyrus, I make one drink and you think I can handle all this? This is not the same as working the register at that pizza chain. There's beer, wine, liquor, cocktails, among other beverages such as mineral water and soft drinks. Some snack foods such as potato chips, mixed nuts, and peanuts. That's just the basic stuff without glossing over the kitchen's main food menu and the little add-ons that go with it all. Fuck my life now. "It looks scarier than it is..." Grillby returns from settling down and joins me. "But once you get a groove going and learn a few cheats, it gets really easy." "Dude, just warning you now, I am going to try my damnedest but there is no way I'm picking this up in a day." "Come now, pussycat, nothing is ever learned so quickly. Just be my shadow and learn from watching me. You can do that much, right?" "Ha ha, I get it. I shall become the sponge and hope to soak up some of your great skills." He pats my head. "Start with something simple to get a feel of things. Cut up those lemons and limes for me." "Alright. How many?" "Do about six of each, cut four into wedges and two into thin slices. I don't use them all that much. Only on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays." "Why those days?" "Those first two are when I do ladies night. And Friday is happy hour." "I've heard of those, but never understood what they were." I get to work as Grillby started to look stern again. And grumpy Grillby is not one I want to mess with. "Well...Ladies' night is a promotional event where female patrons pay less than male patrons for the cover charge or drinks. Happy hour is a marketing term for a period of time in which a venue offers discounts on alcoholic drinks, such as beer, wine, and cocktails. Free hors-d'oeuvres, appetizers, and discounted menu items are often served during happy hour." "Huh...The more you know. And after I cut these?" "There's not much to do that I haven't already got ready for. That and I've only been open for a little bit, so things are slow. But when you're done with that I'll go over a couple of the regular drinks that 90% of the time they'll order." "I think I already can handle one customer's usual with no problem." "Oh? And who would that be?" "Sans." I point to a line of mustard bottles near the icebox and he chuckles. "Yep. And knowing that, I think you'll do well here." I smile and focus on my cutting. "Grillby..." "Yes?" I don't look away from my knife work. "That stuff we talked about..." "I know. Workplace fun is for after hours. Our little game is on pause." Not exactly what I was going for, but that's okay I guess. But I can give him some leeway, I mean, I do want this fun we have to continue. And if something happens, like emotionally, that's fine too. I like Grillby. I can guess he likes me too by the few clues I've got from him. Who knows. It might be nice. "Sure. Glad we understand. After hours and break times." I glance at him and he looks at me flatly before smirking. "It's a deal, pussycat." "Oooooh~..." Punk Hamster is really testing my nerves. "Sounds like someone's getting lucky tonight~." "What did I tell you? I will take that glass and cram it up your..." Grillby's hand on my shoulder makes me pause. "Now now, pussycat, that's not how to treat a customer." Punk Hamster laughs mockingly until Grillby's gaze falls on him. "Let me show you how to properly deal with someone that isn't respecting establishment authority." Grillby approaches Punk Hamster, who looks like he's about to shit a brick, and slams his head onto the bar. He holds him down and leans to his ear, whispering something I can't hear. Though the look on Punk Hamster's face screams fear to me. When done, Grillby lifts him back up and pats his head a tad roughly like an old pal would do before turning back to me with that charming nonchalant grin of his. "So...Ready to learn some mixology, pussycat?" I'm a little unnerved but I need to learn that messing with fire can get you burned. Here goes nothing. "Uh...Sure. Teach away, oh master of the flame."

[lsgingasblog]

Of Sunshine and Woes

Once again late entry. In this I tried combining day 3 laughter with day 4 spoiling akko.

To read in AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15380559/chapters/35693691

Goodness. I finally finished having a conference call with representatives of the noble families.

Ever since our last summit with the UN the agreements reached were less than satisfactory and as a result the heads of each house were rather put-off to say the least.

In a sense I do understand where they are coming from but with the anti-magic terrorist and the magic superiority one at odds it’s only reasonable that tension is high between the magic and non-magic community. It’s been like this for years already.

And that’s discounting all the alien invaders, which luckily enough is the reason why the magic and non-magic community isn’t at war yet, the mutual enemy of sorts gives them a reason for cooperation.

Space patrol is also present but they are seen with even more animosity than anyone else. Also it doesn’t help that they don’t stick around.

Luluco has of course, but after one particularly disastrous press-conference she and the rest of the galactic force opted to help in private if we ever do need it.

The organization Ursula had roped me in that summer after our first year, Star Nobles has a fairly good cooperation with Space Patrol forces and they have gotten us and the world out of some pretty fatal binds.

One in particular I was sure Akko and I were goners.

We luckily survived, but we would come to find out a consequence of that event.

2 yeas ago when we started to try for a family. We tried everything from various potions, spells and even in-vitro and nothing would work out with either of us.

We found out both of us got irreversible damage in our system concerning procreation.

This left both Akko and I rather crestfallen.

However things between Akko hardly turn out predictable.

I stare at my wife. The television is on and she’s sound asleep. No surprise there.

The amazing charion kids show is on, followed by the Constella friends, the show based on the children constellation book Akko co-wrote with Ursula.

I notice the blanket falling down and I go grab it to cover Akko and her protruding belly.

It would seem miracles never do stop occurring when we are in proximity of each other.

Good thing Luluco suggested a space trip to make us get away from all the tension and sadness a few months back.

We did consider adoption of course, but we needed time to come to terms with how things were.

It was like a honeymoon again and we’ve been to space previously already a few times.

Despite it all being away from our respective jobs did wonders and about 2 months after our 2 week trip in space I noticed akko having puking spells, dizziness and other symptoms.

Having known our particular conditions I could never imagine what it actually was, even having done a quick check-up for akko, it left me baffled and we went to the doctors and even they couldn’t explain it, but there it was with no amount of uncertainty. We were going to be parents.

I look at my wife’s lovely features as I softly move away a stray hair. We had the day off today and we had gone for a short walk and to a nice restaurant to eat. The rest of the day was spent relaxing at home, until I got called and practically demanded to be in the conference call. Akko wasn’t too happy to have her pampering cut short.

She’s too adorable and I still feel dazed at times thinking this is our reality. That we found each other again at Luna Nova, found love and support in each other, married and now we are embarking on another adventure together.

“Mhmmm….Dia…?” she reaches out for me. Her eyes are still shut, I smile and proceed to grab her hand and slowly sit down next to her.  “I’m here love”

Akko squints her eyes open and starts pouting. “You’re late” she petulantly announces while having moved away from me a bit.

“Hmmm…the conference call ran late, you know how it gets with them….”

“Yeah those old windbags don’t know when to stop nagging” Akko dramatically throws her head back but starts peering sideways back to me.

“Might I remind you I’m am technically one of the noble families love? Am I to assume you are calling me an old windbag as well? And what about Croix and Ricardo?”  

“Yup all of you’s” she announces boomingly despite only being us two in the room. My wife is as incorrigible as she is adorable.  I can’t even stay mad and my smile slips through trying to feign offended.

Akko notices and smiles my way. She leans again to my side on the coach.

Our lives are still hectic and all the new nine witches have been fairly busy these last 10+ years after luna nova.

Various breakups, marriages, adoptions, deaths, births and wonderful new experiences as well as perilous and life threatening ones.

Despite all of this, through all the ups and downs I always find myself gravitating and finding solace, peace and happiness in the woman now wrapped in my arms.

The blanket while not immensely big is just about enough to cover us both.  We finally open our eyes, reveling in each other’s presence and the sheer luck and miracle to not only be having a child, but to even be able to have this special and dare I say idyllic moment.

We focus back on the tv. It looks like re-reruns of Amazing Charion and Constella Friends are over. It would appear Andrew is on. Well a re-run of yesterday’s press conference anyway.

‘Our nation’s and planet's progress is important, but so is communication, cooperation and communication.’

Goodness, a mere 15 years back if anyone had told her Andrew would be a liaison for the magic and non-magic world I would laugh at them, but people change. I am one such example as well. While I am always grateful of the people I go to help as a medical practitioner, it is amazing the amount of people Akko manages to positively affect and bring joy to just by existing in their life.

“We made that happen” Akko points at the screen. I am brought back to present. Andrew has brought his little 3 year old boy up the podium. Andrew’s dad no doubt coaxed him into using child for the campaign for minister of state. Andrew prefers his privacy after all, but the pride on his face while holding his son couldn’t be more genuine.

Akko has a huge smile on her face so I curl my lips into a teasing smile.

“Don’t think we played a part in little Michael’s conception Akko”

She pouts but then smiles towards me with a mischievous glint in her eyes

“Well technically we did though! If we hadn’t set up-“

“If you didn’t setup Andrew and Blair up you mean” I quipped back

“Don’t try to be coy with me Dia!” she flares up her nose and has a determined look on her face.

To be fair it was a team effort. Although it was Akko that started seducing me on the idea.

“I can assure you both are the guilty parties”

“Andrew!” we both said in unison.

“Auwntie Diana, auwntie Akko!” the little 3 year old comes running clumsily towards us, but stops from jumping on us, remembering the caution Andrew told him about Akko and the baby.

So he gingerly climbs on the couch right in the middle of both of us. We both proceed to give him a kiss on either check and he adorably goes into a giggling fit. This being so infectious we had a laughing spell as well in the process.

He is a precocious little boy, light brown hair and sea green eyes like his dad, his lighter hair color no doubt from his witch mother.

As much as I adore little Michael there is something to be said about someone just barging in

“I take it you forgot how a doorbell works Andrew?”

Akko doesn’t even bat an eye at us anymore and is too engrossed in playing patty cakes with Michael.

Although to be fair since Akko and Andrew ended up working so many years together in the liaison department they both had keys to each other’s house and long distance relationship for both Andrew and Akko with Blair and I bonded them more together.

Can’t say I’m not jealous by the time I couldn’t be there to keep Akko company, but we each have our own dreams and goals to work on, of course while supporting each other as well.

Also luckily we haven’t stayed apart ever since 1 year ago, hence why we decided to start a family.

“My apologies Diana. I did ring a few times, but since I got no answer I decided I would leave these fresh soursop and coconut water for Akko anyway since I though you guys might be asleep. Also Michael was being rather insistent on wanting to see both of you”

Akko looks up while continuing the patty cakes motion with Michael. She shoots Andrew a huge smile of gratitude and he nods in return.

She has been craving those particular food these past 3 weeks. Figures it would take something like pregnancy to make Akko have healthy and balanced eating habits.

I mean sure she instilled some nice eating habits into Akko and so did Andrew, Lotte and Ursula, bless them.

“Thank you this is very much appreciated” I direct towards Andrew with an amicable smile. All things considered Andrew and I have come a long way, in large part due to the lovely person I can amazingly enough call my wife.

“Think nothing of it. Blair also had a peculiar craving for exotic fruits so I frequented this particular fruit vendor. I had exchanged contact information back then, in case of any late night cravings or anything of that sort”

I offered Andrew to sit down on one of the other couches but he declined saying it’s already a bit passed Michael’s curfew and Blair will have his head.

So he proceeds to scoop Michael up while the boy protested, but you can see him starting to rub his eyes, trying to get the sleepiness out just so he can stay up a bit longer.

He gives us a wet cheek kiss each and a hug goodbye. Luckily Andrew doesn’t live far away from us so Blair shouldn’t be too angry.

Just as Andrew was about to leave the front door he turned around, Michael already dozing off in his arms.

“You know as much I was initially annoyed at both of you for the whole setting up scheme, I do have to say thank you for making this happen”

We smile, but Akko had a cheeky smile on. Goodness.

“No need to be so descriptive Andrew, that’s all you and Sarah. Also the kids’ right there, have some decency” Akko deadpans.

Andrew rolls his eyes. “Goodnight Atsuko, Diana” smirks as he closes the door behind him.

“It’s Akko. We’ve known each other for almost 15 years. You did that on purpose Hanbridge” Akko mutters, although I’m sure she would’ve said in high volume if a slumbering Michael wasn’t present.

“Let’s go to bed” I pass a soothing arm on her back. Akko leans into my touch.

“Mhmm…kay....Di…I love you”

I swear those words coming from her never gets old, if anything my heart swells even more every time I hear it now as impossible as that might seem.

“Love you too Akko”

So we head up to bed. Having Michael over I’m sure has made us looking even more forward to have a giggling child of our own. We already have laughter, crying and playing around here, with Akko its hard not to after all, but adding another member to our family sure feels lovely.

[working-on-becoming-a-better-me]

Day 253—Mar. 23, 2021

Okay, so the numbers for my previous consecutive posts were off by a day (like a day ahead) and February 7′s math was way off, but I googled this! so from here on out, we will be accurate! let’s go bois!

BIG UPDATE BOIS! Essentially? I’VE GOTTEN BETTER! Mental health is better, habits are better, outlook on life is better, productivity... isn’t as high as it was when I first started the blog, but it’s doing MUCH better than November and even January.

coping with minecraft:

So, I’m still addicted to the dream smp minecraft fandom. my friend got me a dream hoodie, bucket hat, and a georgenotfound hoodie for my birthday. but! I’m coping better. I’m behind on streams, and am now catching up during Spring Break. For a while, I was pushing back school work to watch and catch up on streams. I promised myself that during free periods I would work since I was catching up on streams at home, and then... yeah. ANYWAY! I’ve gotten a lot better at that recently by noticing that even fanart accounts (accounts dedicated to mcyt-ers) were talking about how they didn’t watch a phasmaphobia stream because they weren’t interested in it, or talking about how they were behind on streams... it really helped me accept the fact that I can be a real fan and not watch every single stream.

cultural convention:

My international school does events with other international schools but because of covid, we can’t travel. I act and made varsity drama (we call it a different name, but yeah!) and we had virtual conferences. I was incredibly friendly and loud and there were tons of zoom calls. Our schools kinda known for being... uh, stuck up? and kinda elitist. Not like I was being fake, but I was making an effort to talk during calls and be active on group chats made. I joke-flirt a lot and focused my attention on one person. A whole thing ensued, but some of the other actors in my school (there were only 11 of us) were joking abut sending me to “horny jail” and one girl kept apologizing for me. During “lounge sessions” I would interject with what I thought were funny comments and she’d say “again, I’d like to apologize for her behavior” and... uh... I cried at school. Cuz I’ve heard way too many times from too many different people about how I’m embarrassing... BUT.

What really helped was the fact that there were late night zoom calls and I was one of only three kids from my school the first night on a call with around 25 people. Other people said I helped give them a really good first impression of our school, especially considering all the things they’d heard previously. The guy I joke-flirted with (I previously dmed him asking if he was okay with it and he said he was) said on a call that I was one of the funniest people he’d met in a while. It was a huge confidence booster in knowing that the efforts I was making were paying off :)

confidence:

Since starting this blog, I’ve been trying to be nicer to myself. I’ve been practicing more positive self speak and have recently realized the difference between the way I speak about and to myself and how some other people do. Being nicer to myself out loud has helped a lot in feeling better and more comfortable.

I wanted to try wearing black masks, but my mom bought the wrong kind. They had patterns and I was really nervous because I didn’t really want to stand out. I used to not care, but... I dunno. Teenagehood and whatnot. We wear uniforms too, so the only differences are in accessories, hair, etc. I’m not sure why, but I was really nervous to wear the new mask patterns to school. But I told myself it was an experiment, to force me to be more confident. I actually forgot I was wearing it until I saw myself. And since I’d posted on my private story saying I was doing this to try and be more comfortable, some of my friends came up to me and told me it was actually cute. Shows that I really had nothing to stress for. Not that it was really self-expression, but for me, and anyone else who needs to hear this, no one cares. Maybe they even wish they had the courage to wear different things as well.

mcyt mantra:

I have a mantra now! adapted from something drunk Wilbur Soot said during Quackity’s livestream, I think. I repeat it when I’m happy and when I’m nervous or scared and I guess... I dunno, I’m like classically conditioning myself? Except not really since I’m doing it out of order. But yeah! get yourself a mantra!!!

character day:

more with confidence! spirit week is just an excuse for kids to not wear their uniforms, but I put a lot of effort into an Ace Ventura outfit I put together. I only saw around two or three other people actually dressed up as characters, but I had so much fun and thought I looked amazing. I was proud that I wasn’t a normie ;]

Also... it’s so humid in this country and the rubber bottoms of my boots actually stuck to the pavement and fell off. I spent the day without the bottoms of my shoes and it was so funny. Even my mom laughed after (she laughed for so long, it was adorable) and she said only I could pull it off and that the friend I walk to school with everyday is lucky to have me as a friend. My mom was telling me about how she never had a friend like me growing up, just so weird and goofy. And it made me happy to think that I can bring so much... zaniness to people’s lives

ao3:

been writing a lot more recently! haven’t been posting on my writing blog since it’s all fanfiction, but it’s helping me write! I update one of my stories every two weeks. When I feel like I’m not doing enough, it’s a nice reminder that I actually can be consistent. I may be getting better... who knows :)

nehs:

been editing lots of papers even though I don’t need to anymore since I made vp of my school’s nehs chapter. but it’s helping me learn too! I’m very instinctual when writing, but obviously when I’m editing I can’t just ask them to change something because “it doesn’t sound right”. So I google explanations and then tell the people who’s papers I’m editing. It helps both them and me!

ipad/drawing:

got a new ipad for my birthday. been messing around with procreate. been doodling in class (only dream team characters so far lol). might be getting better... hopefully I am!

also have a sticky notes app on my ipad and been creating to-do lists! yay!

teaching:

been teaching students in cambodia! last year I had a teaching partner who guided lessons mostly. this year I’m the leading teacher. It’s helping with my fear of leadership and responsibility.

social:

still not the most social, but more active on snapchat now with keeping in contact with some of the cultural convention kids. covids made it harder to keep in contact, and I’ve been trying to reach out more to my closest friend who I’ve not hung out with in a while. not that we don’t see each other at lunch every other day, but I walk to school with, share a class and after school study hall with another friend. so comparably, I’ve spent less time with my closest friend.

recently had a spa day with my small neighborhood gang! my friend painted my other guy friend’s nails! yes! we used face masks as well :)

general update:

- went to the pool the other day and now I’m hecka burnt

- yesterday I wrote letters for honor society points, caught up on math hw, wrote a reflection and plan for a class, reviewed chinese with my mom, met up with my “mentor” for a class

- have been helping a lot of people! am currently a part of two people’s pieces for their theater class and I have a rehearsal later today!

- was doing a lot of work as an officer of thespian honor society—I’m likely going to be on the officer team again next year and, until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t felt like I’d been doing much and was feeling unworthy. but then I was proactive about something and updated our sponser (school’s drama director) on what we as officers decided. felt... prettyyy goooodddd :)

- !!! yesterday I went on a walk and brought money and my student ID, ready to buy bubble tea, but then... I mustered up what little willpower I had and then didn’t buy it. Instead, I bought surprise lilies for my mom (and some groceries she asked me to get)   - been trying to cut out unnecessary sugars and foods. if I’m not hungry, I shouldn’t eat, but also... I listen to my body and if I’m feeling really snacky, I’ll indulge   - recently been craving ice cream, but not the flavors in my fridge so instead I’m just not eating ice cream at all and ate an apple once as a substitute :D

- not sure if I’ve been sleeping more, but it kinda feels like I have been?

- started taking pictures of the world when I think it’s pretty one sunny afternoon when I was laughing lots with a friend... especially right after cul con, I was taking a lot more pictures...

- just been more active (not physically... though occasionally, when bored, I’ll stretch some... but I should try and get more active (I mean... the walk yesterday?))... creatively speaking (ao3, with art), socially online (cul con kids), in person (making plans over spring break!)...

- I just feel like I’ve been putting more effort into life

of course, there are the down bits, like for one project based class where the end product is due in May-ish and it focuses on the “process”... I’m just... not... process-ing. I chose a writing project (why). I’m focusing a lot on my side projects, but not my class writing one :/ as well as that, when assignments pick up, I do too, but when I get down time I feel like I deserve it (which I do!) but I don’t work ahead. I’ve been really busy though. Teaching got cancelled because the school in Cambodia shut down unfortunately due to covid. But before spring break, I was teaching, editing papers, writing my own for lang, doing cul con and then catching up on work I missed because of cul con, studying for tests, attending rehearsals... there’s a lot going on and I need to recognize that I am doing so well, especially compared with a few months prior when I was in a much darker place.

mostly stress has been my plague, but yeah! also in the span of one week, two classes bumped up a grade (or half a grade... we have letters and + system (no -)) so my previously low gpa became slightly less low! It gave me confidence that I can end the semester strong!

procrastination: another plague. I keep delaying setting up college counseling meetings and have delayed this update for a while now... and the project-class...

also have babysitting jobs again so we gon get some monnaayyyyy! (job is not from people we met at the pool, but we did meet people at the pool and their kids liked me so much they asked me mom to get me to babysit them... another boost to confidence! yay :) I’m a likeable person :] )

thanks for sticking around! I’m glad I’m getting this update in because I’m doing... really well :D hope you guys are also doing well or that it gets better!

[mysticdelphox97]

Tagged by Kalosstarters c:

Welp, I got tagged by Tiia ( @kalosstarters ) so I guess I gotta do this lmao.

Rules: once you have been tagged you are supposed to write 92 truths about yourself. At the end, choose however many people you want to tag!

(this was 13 fucking pages long on Word jesus. I’ll add a “Keep Reading” break so it doesn’t take up people’s dashboards)

LAST…

[1] drink: a mocha coffee cooler from Baker’s Dozen ^^

[2] phone call: uhh, mom probably.

[3] text message: From Mom: “Here.” (she was picking me up from classes)

[4] song you listened to: I’ve got Pandora Radio playing while doing this, so I’ve heard Panic at the Disco and Against the Current so far.

[5] time you cried: Sunday night because I completely forgot that I had an art critique due the next day and I completely forgot and it was midnight and I was trying to churn out this pathetic paper for something I left until the last minute and [SCREEAAMMMMINGGG]

Phew. Okay, I think I’m good now.

 HAVE YOU EVER…

[6] dated someone twice: I haven’t even dated someone once.

[7] been cheated on: Considering I’ve never been in a relationship, thankfully I can say no lol.

[8] kissed someone and regretted it: Can’t regret something I’ve never done sooooo xD

[9] lost someone special: Yeah… ;^;

[10] been depressed: Ugh… yes. It’s… pretty awful, honestly. Couple that with anxiety and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

[11] gotten drunk and thrown up: I haven’t gotten drunk before, but I have thrown up after drinking an excessive amount of one of those Starbucks mocha drinks when I was a kid. I can’t even look at one of those things anymore because of that.

 LIST 3 FAVOURITE COLOURS:

[12] Purple, like an orchid. C:

[13] Sky blue is rather pretty~

[14] I know black isn’t technically a color but I sure have a lot of black shirts pfft.

 IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU…

[15] made new friends: Tiia and Beth ( @wingsonghalo)~! :D they might be internet friends but I love talking to them every day <3

[16] fallen out of love: Never really been in love tbh. I’ve had crushes that I’ve grown out, that’s close enough right?

[17] laughed until you cried: That’s pretty much me all the time tbh.

[18] found out someone was talking about you: In high school I think… but they weren’t really bad things.

[19] met someone who changed you: Like, for better/worse? I guess most of the people I’ve met have influenced me in some way or another.

[20] found out who your true friends are: Yep. Kinda happened after I graduated from high school.

[21] kissed someone on your Facebook list: Other than my mom and dad? Nope.

 GENERAL…

[22] how many of your tumblr friends do you know in real life: Other than my friend Kelsie, and a few people from high school. Sadly I do not know Tiia or Beth in real life and that makes me very sad, I wanna meet you guys so bad dang it T^T

[23] do you have any pets: Hah, oh god yeah. Three horses, three sheep (we used to have hundreds when I was a kid), three cats (two are mine and they’re my babies c: ), and two little dogs—a purebred pug and a pug/Pekingese mix. Oh, and my family lives on a farm, in case that needed some clarification.

[24] do you want to change your name: pfft hell no, I love my name. Besides, you’re not gonna meet many people who’s name is Rosaleen (and spelled exactly like that too)

[25] what did you do for your last birthday: I went out to a restaurant with some of my family. It was a school day for my brothers though, and my younger bro had football practice, so it was really just me, my mom, my grandma, and my sister with her baby.

[26] what time did you wake up: a little before 9 AM since I had to go to class.

[27] what were you doing at midnight last night: Pumping out mini profiles for my Pokémon fankids because my priorities are trash. Oh, and playing Candy Crush Jelly.

[28] name something you cannot wait for: MarissonShipping Week! :D I can’t wait to participate in it!!

[29] when was the last time you saw your mother: This morning when I got dropped off at college.

[30] what is one thing you wish you could change about your life: I wish I didn’t have social anxiety so I could actually go out and be productive, and not be so terrified of social interaction with strangers. It’s awful.

[31] what are you listening to right now: Whatever’s playing on Pandora Radio. When I got to this question, “Blood Like Gasoline” by Against the Current was playing.

[32] have you ever talked to a person named tom: Uhh, I knew a Tom in high school… he was kind of a bum though.

[33] something that is getting on your nerves: Whenever my brother doesn’t put away the dishes properly, or doesn’t put them all away. IT’S NOT THAT HARD BRO. HONESTLY.

[35] elementary: Like, elementary school? I guess it was okay… well, except for the boys constantly picking on me. That sucked. And that’s about the time my parents separated. That also sucked. Yeah, elementary school just really sucked.

[36] high school: Oh man I really miss the high school I went to. I flourished so well there and had a great time.

[37] college: Honestly… pretty boring. I’m just taking my general studies and getting them out of the way before I transfer to another college, so I can focus on what I love. The problem is, I really don’t know what I want to do with that. It’s very frustrating.

[38] hair colour: Oh god it always changes because it’s got a bunch of different highlights. It’s like, a reddish-brown with gold highlights, and it gets lighter in the sun. It’s really weird.

[39] long or short hair: Uhh, right now it’s like, a little over shoulder-length. I usually keep it a bit shorter because I never do much with my hair.

[40] do you have a crush on someone: Nope, and when I did get crushes it was always on the wrong kind of person. So I kinda hate crushes on real people since it always disappoints pfft.

[41] what do you like about yourself?: Oh jeez, what DO I like about myself? Well… I guess the fact that I can exceed my own expectations? Like, with driving, I didn’t think I’d do well with it at all—and now that I’ve been driving for over a year now, I’m actually a lot better at it. And on a couple of exams that I took a few weeks ago, I thought I’d get at least a B on them; turns out that I got A’s on both of them. And I like that a lot lol

[42] piercings: I’ve got one in my earlobes, and in high school I used to wear earrings all the time. Now it’s like, kinda sporatic.

[43] blood type: I think it’s a B-. RedCross really wants me to donate again because they keep calling me lmao.

[44] nickname: I go by Mystic on Tumblr and Rose in real life.

[45] relationship status: Single, and tbh that doesn’t bother me too much.

[46] zodiac sign: Virgo c:

[47] pronouns: she/her

[48] fav tv show: Lately I’ve been really into Forensic Files—it’s about older cases and the techniques that were used to solve them. I also love Bones and Criminal Minds. And, of course, there’s the Pokémon Anime.

[49] tattoos: Nope. Though I should get the backs of my hands tattooed so I know which one’s left and which one’s right. It’s a dumb thing to forget but agh I forget way too often.

[50] right or left handed: Right-handed!

 FIRST…

[51] surgery: When I was in first grade I broke my left arm and needed surgery. I also had my tonsils and adenoids removed.

[52] piercing: Ears. I believe I got them in eighth grade.

[53] best friend: My friend Miranda, we’ve been best friends since elementary school c: she’s mostly working now but I usually try to get together with her if her schedule allows.

[55] vacation: I remember going to Washington DC for the first time in fifth grade for a weekend. I don’t remember a whole lot about it though. I guess my first ‘real’ vacation was the class trip I went on in eighth grade, which was also to Washington DC but it was for a whole week. Though I twisted my foot literally the day before I had to leave, so I hobbled about on crutches for the most part, and I had a wheel chair for one of the night tours. A lot of my classmates had fun pushing me around in it lol.

[56] pair of trainers: Is that like, a kind of shoe or sneaker? I’m afraid I have no clue.

 RIGHT NOW…

[57] eating: Nothing. I have a protein bar but I’m kinda stuffed from the breakfast sandwich I had earlier.

[58] drinking: Still working on my mocha coffee cooler.

[59] I’m about to: Eventually post this, preferably before I go to class at 2:00 PM.

[60] listening to: I think I answered this question already earlier… well, now Pandora Radio is playing “Miss Jackson” by Panic at the Disco.

[61] waiting for: uh, nothing in particular. I guess for this day to be over?

[62] want: I can’t really think of anything at the moment.

[63] get married: Ehh, I guess of the person is rich I wouldn’t mind. Though if they want kids I’ll have to drag them to the nearest adoption center, there’s plenty of children there. I don’t necessarily want to procreate when there’s kids that can be adopted into a loving home.

[64] career: Currently a suffering student pfft. I guess I’d like to be an accomplished author or someone who works with animals. Maybe I could even help write movies? Who knows.

 WHICH IS BETTER…

[65] hugs or kisses: I’m a sucker for hugs

[66] lips or eyes: Eyes are nice.

[67] shorter or taller: Meh, I’m not picky.

[68] older or younger: Ehh, not picky here either.

[69] romantic or spontaneous: I like both tbh c:

[70] nice arms or nice stomach: bruh do I gotta choose. Bruh.

[71] sensitive or loud: sensitive

[72] hook up or relationship: Relationship

[73] troublemaker or hesitant: hesitant

 HAVE YOU EVER…

[74] kissed a stranger? Definitely not.

[75] drank hard liquor? I think I tried it (with parent supervision of course). It was nasty lmao.

[76] lost glasses/contact lenses? I don’t believe so. I can’t exactly see without my glasses so they’re usually on my face or on my nightstand.

[77] turned someone down: I think someone asked me out in sixth grade and I turned him down. I kinda felt a little bad because the people I was friends with at the time teased him about it.

[78] sex on first date? Bruh I haven’t even been on a date lmao xD

[79] broken someone’s heart? If I ever did I’m so sorry ;;

[80] had your own heart broken? Yeah…

[81] been arrested? No

[82] cried when someone died? Yes

[83] fallen for a friend? Yeah, it was a crush I had on a guy friend in middle school. We both loved Pokémon and would pretend to have battles during recess. We drifted apart eventually, and he hung out a lot with this other girl. I guess he had a crush on her, but I’m not sure. I kinda miss that.

  DO YOU BELIEVE IN…

[84] yourself? Uhhh, probably not as much as I should...

[85] miracles? It depends

[86] love at first sight? Meh, not really.

[87] Santa Claus? Kinda grew out of that a while ago lol

[88] kiss on the first date? Sure why not?

[89] angels?: I’m kind of indifferent.

 OTHER…

[90] current best friend’s name: Miranda, Kelsie, Beth, and Tiia c:

[91] eye colour: brown

[92] favourite movie: I recently watched Moana and I absolutely loved it, so I’m gonna roll with Moana! :)

 I can’t really think of anyone to tag at the moment, so if anyone wants to do this you’re more than welcome to ^.^

[gd512676]

Travel

Research 

I began by researching different types of layouts in travel magazines and travel guides. I also looked at a few coffee table photography books to get an understanding of what the brief wanted. I knew that I needed to create something that merged the ideas of magazine and coffee table book and needed to understand what made each of these mediums different. Below are a few pages that I stuck together so I could see the flow of the magazine.

I really found that I need to find a balance between whole pages of photography and text.

A lot of coffee table books just have whole pages of photography and very little text, white magazines seem to have a good amount of images and ample amounts of articles.

As with most magazines, there are columns and when I am making up my grid and master pages I must make sure that my columns, gutters and alleys are consistent and tie the whole piece together.

Creating stage

I have found that making sketches when researching really helped me to inform what I wanted to make. I blocked out some of the shapes in procreate and this then led me to thinking about how I wanted the whole thing to flow.

I sketched out a few ideas while looking at my research , I wanted to create a really sleek elegant design that felt professional.

I chose a final design and sketched out everything I needed to make the final design. I chose the bleed, the margins and the fonts. I chose Futura for the main titles and Baskerville as the body text as I felt this was a very legible font that would look elegant.  I chose a black and white motif, as I felt that the colour of the photographs really is the focus here. I thought about adding in maybe a splash of colour but I decided it was sort of distracting.

I then has to learn to make a master page for the page numbers and the bottom notes. I liked the idea of national geographic having the website at the bottom of the page and decided to include that one one side and have the month on the other. I ran into some problems when I accidentally edited something in the master document and it would change the rest of the pages. But I figured it out after a little bit of trial and error.

Here are some notes I made during making the actual document -

1. While experimenting with the things I could do in publisher, I discovered placing lines around the text to create boxes. I used this a few times in the document, mostly when trying to show an area with emphasis.  

2. I also learned how to use the Drop caps feature, having seen it in many layouts, I thought it was something that would elevate the design. It also breaks up the monotony of an all text page.

3. Flowing from one page to another is really important on a spread, try to think about the 2 pages as one big image.

After I decided that everything looked good, I saved them as spreads. They looked pretty nice and I am actually really pleased with them. The more time I work with a grid the easier it is to visualise and design.

Here are the final spread mock ups below-

Final thoughts

I learned so many things during this exercise, and I feel like I am getting stronger as a designer. There are some things on looking back at the exercise that I will go back and change. For example I forgot to include a photo caption next to the images liked I planned. If I get the chance I will add these in when I get the chance.  

I thought the flow of the pages worked really well, I really tried to make all the pages feel like were from the same magazine. Sometimes I feel like I make things that don’t fit together, but I feel like this all slots together.

I am really happy with how the whole thing looks though. Probably my favourite piece of work that I’ve done so far. I feel like I answered the brief and learnt a lot of new skills along the way.