#I'm still very sleepy

[aqueluna]

Prompt 29 - Fuse

CW: Child neglect

“What a wretched moon it had been…” the abandoned guttersnipe ruminated, squeaking out a sneeze, followed by a snot-nosed sniffle, “And an awful night too.” She had never been squeamish, she was “Stinky” after all. Of all the talents she could possess, rendering herself so intolerably rancid that her presence served to sabotage her patrons rivals and cheating clients was her one trick, her only trick. Without Papa, what other future did she have? It was better than starving.

Still… the sickly Raen never liked it - quite loathed it in fact and crawling her way ilm by laborious ilm against the water streaming from the streets above was similarly miserable. She was mucky, cold and hungry and her body ached, but she’d done it - she’d managed to heave herself off the street up into an elevated, open-faced shop-stall. Inevitably the urchin would catch an earful from its owner come the morning, but what other choice did she have? Her employers were meant to send someone to bring her to safety and they hadn’t.

“First Papa, now those lot…” the shivering mudlark couldn’t help but let out a mirthlessly bitter laugh, exasperated. She’d sworn… a lot of things, very dramatic things, things she meant - but what good was what one day could be if she froze to death? Stinky stifled a sneeze, then another - peeking around in the open room behind the counter. Anything of value was gone, of course - but perhaps… there!

Snatching a still-dry, spare piece of striped cloth tucked under the counter, the sickly guttersnipe unfurled it with muddy, damp hands, drying them off on it - a spare awning for when the other needed drying she supposed. It’d do, it wasn’t as soft or cosy as a blanket, but there was enough cloth to layer up to nestle beneath and sleep the night away. Limply snatching at its corners, Stinky lifted the awning-cloth upwards in preparation to pull it over herself, only for her eyes to catch a glimpse of a silhouette staring down over the counter.

“Good evening,” the stranger spoke softly, feminine voice replete with the sordid affectations of Hingashi’s aristocracy.

“Weren’t doing nothing,” the urchin blurted moreso by instinct than any conscious determination, flinching away, lowering her arms. “Besides it ain’t evening…” Stinky grumbled. Of all the cursed luck - just -who- thought it worth bothering her? The Sekiseigumi? Had the stall’s owner returned prematurely? Had a “kindly” stranger taken it upon herself to chase away the loitering mudlark lest her presence permanently lower the locale’s value? Perhaps her employers -had- sent someone to come get her? Stinky sat up, squinting at the figure.

“I can see all the nothing you’re doing, yes,” the strange woman offered lightly, conceding soon, “And I suppose you’re right enough, though “good night” has such an ominous ring to it, wouldn’t you agree?”

Stinky shrugged her scrawny shoulders, glancing up, meeting the woman… no, a girl, older than she by quite a few years but her features were too youthful to be those of a woman grown. The pale scales cresting her visage and fin-like horns emerging from the tidy, tumbling midnight veil of tresses in truth, catching the younger girl by surprise. It wasn’t that Raen were in truth, especially uncommon in Kugane, but many belonged to its upper echelons and few to its bottom rungs, fewer still that’d fraternise with her.

“Huh? You’re…” Stinky tried, ruby gaze glancing over the intruding stranger’s features uncertainly. She’d never met her before, at least that she could remember - but she was… familiar? The older girl looked it at least, enough so that the mudlark wracked her brain to try and scratch that particular itch. Only for it to strike her hard enough to recoil with gravitas at the notion. She looked like her. 

Reaching a mucky hand up to feel at her own countenance by comparison inquisitively, true enough - there were similarities. A similar nose, face shape, eye shape - they shared the same rubicund hue for good measure, but there were differences too. The other girl’s complexion was healthier, less pallid than her own, and devoid of the gauntness and  pock-marks that so plagued her own. Pretty, while people found her own self painful to behold on the rare occasions they’d even deign to do so. 

“That remains to be seen,” the other Raen drawled, taking the opportunity the consideration had bought her to reach across the counter and plant a hand on Stinky’s head before she could recoil, even instinctively, talons almost seeming to dig into her mind, wending their way through even as the shock of the magic is enough to drive her ebbing, exhausted consciousness to the rest she needed so terribly, even in the wake of an inadvertent meeting that’d fuse her destiny and the other girl’s together, entwined for the rest of their lives.

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[i-exist-because-reasons]

my alarm is still activated

the sound of my phone is on

but I slept through it and woke up an hour and a half later

two theories :

1. It rang but I was so out of it that I turned it off, fell back asleep and I have no memory of it

2. The demon under my bed was in a silly goofy mood

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for an incredible 500 days of love and support. I offer you: answers to questions that no one has asked.

(As always, more can be found in the tags <3)

[temeyes]

sobbing I LOVE YOUR STYLE One moment it's all serious then we just have it to sweet litol big-eyed babies 😭

I shall ask if i can feast on your art 🥺

oh yes you may feast- doODLEBOB GHOST PUT THE PEWPEW DOWN!!!

[sciderman]

will peter ever find out he died during civil war?

oy... i was hit by an unfortunate productivity wave this morning that meant that i've started writing a whole heap of new scripts... and they, regrettably, do involve peter finding out. but not through wade.

[silverskye13]

how did you get the confidence to write fanfiction? i always worry that i won't portray the characters properly so any ideas or wants to write fanfics that i have go away or i talk myself out of it :(

Well! First and foremost: Most people don't start writing,,,, anything with confidence. Let alone fanfic, where you know other people are going to be looking at it, with their own ideas of how the characters are supposed to act and feel influencing what they're coming to the story with. My first fanfic I was very insecure, which I feel like was evident, reading through the author's notes now. Apologies whenever something that required a lot of suspension of disbelief happened, a poll so readers could decide the ending so I wouldn't disappoint anybody, only to end in me writing and posting three different endings. Long justifications for why I chose certain things in the author's notes. The fic nowadays reads to me like a very rough apology.

"Hi I'm sorry I tried. Be kind I'm very scared."

But the thing about writing that fic was, it was the writerly equivalent of jumping into the deep end of the pool for the first time. After I bobbed back to the surface and realized a shark hadn't like, taken my legs off while I was down there, jumping in again got easier. And kept getting easier. And now I just write and post things.

There's kind of two schools of thought that I've seen people subscribe to, when it comes to taking the first leap. The one that's really popular around here on Tumblr is: Do it scared. It is simple and straightforward. You are scared. You will be scared. You probably never won't be scared. So do it scared. Write your thing, close your eyes and hit send [either to post it or to share it with one or two friends, or even just hitting the "save" button and not deleting it]. Get scared, do it, close your eyes, finish. When you open your eyes again and nothing terrible has happened, you can breathe a sigh of relief and do it scared again. It's a little nerve-wracking at first, but the idea is giving your mind the association of jumping and not falling. I did it and I didn't fail, therefore it is safe to do it again.

The other school of thought [the one I specifically subscribe to] is: Do it once. What you think or feel about it doesn't matter. What matters is you did it once. Maybe it will be hell, or it'll suck terribly. Maybe you're really excited! And it turns out great! Maybe its a wild ride of ups and downs, and by the end you need a few months to catch your breath and decide if it was worth it. Regardless: you did it once. Now you know, if you want to, you can do it again. Now you can decide if its worth doing again. For me, the euphoria of finishing a project always far outweighs the trouble getting there, so the step forward of "Do it once" is powerful for me. And that can be broken down too. "Write one chapter." "Draw one drawing." "Clean one room in the house." There is no pressure to continue if its really that terrible, but you at least get to decide if one was worth it [and a solid 9 times out of 10, one was worth it enough to do it more.]

Now, all that said, if what you're worried about is writing the characters right and nothing else -- don't worry too much. Most people care less about how true to life the characters are, and care a lot more about consistency in the story. An example from RnS: In canon, Helsknight is a cartoonish villain with one motivation, and that motivation is taking over hermitcraft Doofenschmirtz style. To date, no one has come into my inbox demanding I change him, because he's so OOC he's basically an OC at this point. What people have come into my inbox about though, is "Hey, you established X in this chapter, but he said Y in this chapter. Was there a reason for that?" which is them saying, "Why didn't you keep your character consistent?" If you tell your audience what the expectations are for the story and you stick with them, they will stop caring about OOC moments and characterizations, and will trust you're going somewhere with your writing. Suspension of disbelief, your powerful friend! They put the world on their shoulders and carry and everybody watches and claps.

If you're also worried about consistency, then start out with one shots! There's a lot less room for error, no large, sweeping character arcs to keep track of. And stringing a bunch of one-shots together can give you practice with character consistency and progression without committing to something massive and overarching. If you're truly worried about making the characters exactly like Canon [or the Canon in your head], I recommend making little lists of character traits, or important things you want to keep in mind. At that point you're scared of your own consistency, and you just need a framework to keep yourself consistent enough for yourself, if that makes sense?

Hopefully! This helps! Sorry I'm a little scattered today :'D

[coolnonsenseworld]

Last piece ❤️💙

There are still leftovers of the Calendar as well as some A5 prints with calendar pieces 💞

linktr.ee/Mezzy (or check my Tumblr for links)

[bjorngr]

☠️☠️☠️

[kirby-the-gorb]

[arcadewonder]

 [ ♬ ]

[stabbystiletto]

😈🧥🐈‍⬛😮‍💨🧥🐈‍⬛

Kuro looked so cozy and comfy in that new artwork so I wanted to draw them in matching sweaters lolololol 🤣🤣🤣

also ponytail kuro is 1000/10 please strike just give us ponytail kuro just once in the manga please lol i mean he's had one in a few different arts now so i don't think it's out of the realm of possibility lolololol 🙏🥺🙏🥺🙏

[stupid-elf]

THE FUCK YOU MEAN 6'2"????!!

I am indeed a lanky fellow. When I was getting molded they hung me up to dry too soon, got all stretched out

[galadrail]

[volivolition]

guy who's unaware he's gonna spend the next 3-5 hours reworking the lyrics of dream sweet in sea major: haha maybe i'll write a silly little narrative for my hmself, wouldn't that be fun? :)

[sysig]

Hard to borrow bespoke tailoring (Patreon)