#also never drew Sally before now and I REALLY NEED TO DRAW HER MORE

[sketchy-tour]

Using whiteboard as a stress relief doodle place for a bit and now I have indeed drawn them...in the Grease Musical

[hunnitastic]

🌸~Kisses and Confessions~🌸

||art by @/partycoffin ||

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Wally Darling x GN!Reader

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||Work is also available on my ao3 account ||

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

Third person p.o.v

It was a lovely day in the neighborhood. You were sitting outside playing julies complicated hop scotch game while frank stood by reading a hook. Right now you were shockingly winning even though you couldn't understand a lick of the rules she came up with. "Gosh darn it! How am I losing to you so quickly?" Julie complained as she stomped her foot in anger. Frank looked over and scoffed. "Julie if (y/n) is so confused by your rules and yet still manage to win at this game then don't you think maybe you ought to change the rules and make it more playable?" He spoke keeping his eyes peeled to his book. With you hands placed proudly on your hips you let out a victory laugh. "Hahaha! Well, looks I win Julie! You owe me that cake now!" You beamed in joy.

Julie threw her hands up in defeat. "Arg! Alright fine you win!" She cried out loud and playfully slapped your arm. You let out a chuckle and patted her back. "Hey frank how long did it take for us to finish the game?" You asked looking over at the other who was very well invested in his book. "Approximately 1 hour and 35 minutes." You blinked in awe. "Wow it felt way longer then that!" Julie nodded in agreement.

As the 2 of you cleaned up the sidewalk and proceeded to doodle with colored chalk you looked up and saw wally strolling down the sidewalk, hands rested behind his pockets. "Hi wally! Wanna join me and Julie for some chalk art?" You asked as you waved your arm. Wally stopped looking down at your little drawings. He held back a chuckle seeing a doodle of frank looking like an angry monster. "Those look really good. I particularly like this one of frank looking mad." Wally hummed as he pointed at the drawing. "EXCUSE ME?!?" Frank yelled as he scrambled to look at the drawing. "I do not look like that! Julie!" Frank yelled some more. "How did you know I was the one who drew it?!" "Because (y/n) doesn't draw me like that!" Frank and Julie argued as you and wally watched them bicker back and forth.

"So you up for some drawing?" You asked holding up some chalk. "It seems fun but I'm afraid I might have to pass." You cocked your head to the side. "I'm on my way to howdys shop to grab a few things." "Oh! Sorry to keep you waiting then! Go on and head to the shop, oh and tell howdy I need some more glitter glue please? Julie used up all of mine for Sally's last play" you spoke with a pout.

Wally softly chuckled and nodded his head. "I'll be sure to let him know." He hummed getting ready to head off. "I'll see you later then (y/n)." Before you could wave goodbye you watched with wide eyes as wally lifted his hand, pressed it against his lips and sweetly blowing you a kiss with a wink. Your face flushed a bright red and your heart skipped a beat as you watched your neighbor walk away.

Since...when did he know how to blow a kiss? You don't ever recall barnaby ever teaching wally how to blow a kiss. And barnaby usually teaches wally a whole bunch of things. Perhaps you'd have to ask barnaby yourself.

"Me? Teaching wally how to blow kisses? Nope sorry little bud but I never taught him how to do that." Barnaby hummed looking down at uou as you walked beside him. Holding a hotdogs in his hand. "Really? So...you mean he learned how to blow kisses all by himself?" You asked slightly surprised by this fact. "I guess it is kind of shocking isn't it? Little wally learning how to do something without my help this time! My buddys growing up" Barnaby spoke as he faked a sob causing you to chuckle. "Might as well start getting used to it. Once wally learns something new he'll be doing that non-stop for days." You blinked slightly confused. Who would blow kisses every single day?

That sounds absolutely ridiculous!

.

.

.

Oh wow barnaby was actually right. As each day passed wally would continue to blow kisses to every neighbor he ran into. He'd blow a kiss at Eddie as he passed by delivering his mail, He'd blow a kiss to howdy after leaving the store and even blowing a kiss to frank while he was out catching butterflies. But for you, it was completely different. Wally wouldn't just blow kisses in your direction. Whenever he greeted you he would grab your hand a place a soft kiss on your skin. Whenever he'd pull away he would never let go of your hand. He'd firmly grasp it between his fingers. His thumb rubbing in slow circles over the top of your hand in a soothing notion. You didn't mind of course. It was rather nice to be greeted with a kiss on the hand. Especially when it's someone you fancy over.

Day by day you'd gotten very used to the casual greeting of the platonic hand kisses. But today was much more different than it was before.

You were at poppy barn helping her make sugar cookies for julies little tea party and sleepover that was going start in the afternoon. As you were busy mixing the dough poppy plopped down on a chair next to you. Dusting the flour off her apron with her feathers. "Thank you once again for helping me dear." You shook your head with a smile. "Aw it's no problem poppy! I always enjoy baking with you. It's much more fun than staying at home." You hummed as you begun to roll out the dough. "I'm looking forward to what the others will bring to the tea party!" Poppy nodded in agreement. "I believe frank told me he was going to bring lemon custard." Your mouth watered-down you heard the word 'lemon.' Frank had always told you how rich custard was and it seems today you'll finally be able to try it!

"Wow that sounds yummy. I hope this time Julie has actual tea instead of fruit punch. Last time she added too much sugar! I didn't get a wink of sleep that night either!" You huffed while cutting out cookie pieces. Poppy let out a chuckle, flinching when she heard the oven ding. "Oh! The first batch is done!" She got up and grabbed her mits and pulled out the pan of freshly baked cookies. "Now we need to wait for them to cool and then we can decorate them!" Poppy sung, her feathers ruffling in excitement. You smiled as you proceeded to place the next batch of cookies onto another tray. You hummed a sweet tune looking forward to the party and sleepover later tonight.

As the hours pass, and after you helped poppy stack the cookies on a bigger tray, you rushed home to get your sleeping bags and dress in another more casual outfit. Once you made sure you were neatly dressed and had everything you needed you quickly ran back to poppys barn. The two of you happily walked towards julies hose together. Chatting about you've been up to. You even brought up how wally has been greeting you with hand kisses. Poppys eyes widened. "Oh does he now. I know the dear likes to blow everyone kisses these days but I dont believe I've ever seen him be as gentlemanly with anyone else other than you (y/n) hun!" Poppy chirped. You lightly blushed looking at the ground. "Oh I'm sure he's just trying to be more neighborly. I am still pretty new to home after all!" You stumbled over your words.

Poppy squinted her eyes leaning her head down towards your level. "Perhaps it's something more than just wanting to be more neighborly hmm?" The bird teased. You chuckled and shook your head. "Oh stop! I'm fairly sure wallys just trying to be nice" you softly spoke thinking about what poppy had just said.

Could wally possibly...be doing more then just trying to be friendly towards you?

As the two of you reached julies house you noticed you were the last ones to arrive. Uh, you didn't think baking cookies would have kept you that long. After setting down the tray outside in the back on a neatly decorated table you noticed wally talking with howdy and barnaby. Your face wanted up when you made eye contact with your little crush who begun walking your way. Your heart fluttered once wally was a few inches away from you. "U-uh hi wally! Nice to see you at the tea...party....today-" you paused as you noticed wally leaning forward.

He lifted his hand and cupped your cheek. Tilting your head to the side wally softly pressed his lips against your cheek giving you a gentle loving kiss. Your eyes widened and face flushed a bright red. A few seconds passed before wally pulled away holding both of your hands, intertwining your fingers with his. "Hello (y/n), I'm glad you were able to come today." Wally spoke in his casual monotone voice. You couldn't manage to stare at your neighbor in the eyes. "O-oh wally, I couldn't pass up the chance to spend some time with all my friends!" You stuttered feeling wallys soft grip on your hands. You glanced up looking at the others droopy eyes and sweet cat like smile. "Ahahahaha-" you let out a nervous laugh. Wally tilted his head to the side. "Is there something wrong? You look rather nervous." Wally asked leaning closer to your face. You shook your head. "NO, NO, NO of course not! I'm all good!" You exclaimed out loud.

Good going (y/n), way to make yourself look like a fool!

Throughout the duration of the teaparty wally didn't seem like he wanted to leave your side. At the table while the others mingled over sweets and tea, wally scooted his seat close to your seat, your shoulders brushed up against each other. You listened to julies story about how one time her and frank where chasing butterflies and frank ended up rolling down a hill. You chuckled as Eddie held back frank from tackling julie to the ground for bringing up the story while poppy and howdy panicked at the scene.

As soon as night time fell and everyone cleaned up outside the rest of the gang set up their sleeping bags in the living room. Of course some furniture had to be moved around to make enough space for poppy, barnaby and howdy to all fit in. But once everything was set up, Sally rushed to set up a pillow fort for her special puppet shadow show. She's been working on it for days just for this special occasion and she's been very eager to show off her skills!

Crawling underneath the fort and finding a comfortable position to sit in you waited for the show to start. You chatted with howdy about his day. He told you about his massive shipment he received early in the morning that took him hours to stock up on the shelves. You promised him next time you'd be there to help. A moment later Sally crawled underneath the fort, a big flashlight in hand. "Ok guys! I finally found my flashlight! Now, gather around as I tell you the tale of a princess and her knight who saves her from a big scary dragon!" Sally exclaimed waving her arms up in the air as she plopped down in the ground. 

Just as you were getting comfy in your spot, you felt a pair of arms wrap around your waist. You looked behind you to see wally staring right at you with his usual droopy eyes. "Are you excited for the shadow puppets (y/n)?" He asked pulling you closer resting up against his chest. You were thankful it was ŕatger dim under the fort else wally would gave been able to see you blush like crazy. "U-uh yeah! Sally's been talking about it all week, I've been looking forward to...it..." you slowed your speech when you felt wally lean down rubbing his cheek against yours. "I've been looking forward to it too. I'm glad I get to watch it with you" he softly hummed pressing a kiss against your cheek once more.

You were extremely confused on how wally started to randomly become very touchy with you. You didn't mind it at all! Really, you enjoyed it but you still didn't know if wally saw you as something more then just a neighbor. Which it slightly frustrated you not knowing if he reciprocate his feelings back. Perhaps maybe after the shadow puppets show you'll talk to wally privately to finally ask. 

You adjusted yourself in wallys grasp while the others crawled into the fort, while poppy slightly struggled she currled up behind wally. You looked over and patted your lap motioning for poppy to rest her head on your lap, which she gladly did. You hummed softly patting her head as the phppet shadow show began.

In the middle of the little show wally would sneak kisses in between. One kiss on your cheek, one kiss on the crook of your neck, one kiss at the back of your neck etc. You couldn't help but shiver with every kiss given. It distracted you from focusing on Sally's play that you flinched when she let out a loud "ROAR!!" Startling both you and poppy. Well that definitely woke you up. "And after the prince destroyed the dragon, he took his princess by the hand and rode happily into the sunlight. The end!" Sally finished with a bow.

Everyone clapped while julie hooted and hollered. "WHOOPIE! HOORAY!" she yelled furiously clapping. You let out a chuckle. "That was really good sally! I'm impressed you managed to learn shadow puppets so quickly." Sally proudly grinned. "Why thank you (y/n)! I bothered howdy for days as practice!" Howdy nodded his head letting out a chuckle. "I'll admit it gave me something to do during slow days. You've gotten really good the first time you showed me sal." howdy spoke before yawning.

Julie clasped her hands together, Startling frank who glared at her. "Alright I think its time for all of us to hit the hay!" The others nodded in agreement while yawning in synch. You let out a yawn as well and stretched your arms as wally finally let you go from his grip as you each crawled to your sleeping bags. "Julie why must you insist on sleeping next to me?" You heard frank complain as he settled in his blankets with julie snuggling up beside him. "Because frank! I like sleeping next to you!" Julie sleepily sung while rubbing her tired eyes. "But Julie do you not recall the other times we had a sleepover and you kept repeatedly hitting me in the face while you were sleeping?" Frank grumbled while julie let out a weak laugh. "I pinky promise I won't hit you at all! And if I do then next sleepover I'll sleep next to (y/n)" you snapped your head looking over at the two. "Hey- what!? But I don't want to be slapped in the face by Julie! She hits hard!" Frank smirked as he settled in his sleeping bag. "Trust me, I know." He ended with a snicker. You let out a groan laying your head down on your pillow waiting for the others to fall asleep.

A few hours had passed. You opened your eyes and peeked around the room seeing the others sleeping peacefully while frank was being squished to death by Eddie and julie. You smiled before looking over at wally. You reached out about to tap his shoulder when you paused. You began to grow nervous. You never had to talk about your feelings to anyone before other than poppy at times let alone wally. Would it be a good idea to talk to wally? What if he didn't feel the same way? What if he brutally rejected you? The fast racing of your heart got your nervous shooting up. You shot up out of your sleeping bag and quickly, yet quietly, ran out of the living room to the backyard.

You sat on the swing set outside. Lightly swinging back and forth. Shivering at the cool air that hit your skin. "Agh...what am I thinking? He's just being nice is all..." you looked up at the night sky. Staring at the stars that twinkled brightly. "Wally probably thinks I'm weird..." 

"I think you're very lovely (y/n)."

You flinched hearing the sound of wallys voice coming from behind you. You jumped off the swing stumbling as you turned around seeing wally standing a few feet behind you. His figure luminated by the moonlight. Drowned in a soft light glow.

'He looks so beautiful...' you thought to yourself.

"OH-UM...wally I thought you were sleeping hehe" you nervously laughed fidgeting with your fingers. "I couldn't really sleep. What's got you up at this time of night neighbor?" He asked walking forward standing much closer infront of you. Your face scrunched up as you looked down at the ground. "Well...I uh-...the same with me. I couldn't really sleep either" you lied while rocking back and forth on the balls of your feet. Wally tilted his head to the side. You could feel his eyes piercing right through your lie. "Hmmm is that right?" He asked resting his chin in the palm of his hand while his arm rested underneath. You slowly nodded your head, refusing to make any sort of eye contact with your crush. "You seemed rather tired during Sally's shadow puppet play. I saw you yawn many times."

You hitched your breath.

"You seemed to sleep peacefully a few hours ago before you woke up so suddenly. Are you sure it's because you couldn't sleep and its not something else?"

Your face flushed red as the embarrassment grew. He watched you sleep so he most certainly knew that not being able to sleep wasn't an excuse. You looked up finally feeling defeated when you gazed right into his eyes. You let out a sigh and shook your head. "No...it's not because I couldn't sleep." You turned around wrapping your arms around yourself. "What seems to be bothering you friend?" Wally asked. You cringed at the word 'friend'. "Well...I just...wally I-" you struggled to find the right words to say. Wally patiently waited for you to speak. You let out a shakey breath before you finally found the courage to confess.

"Well..you see..these past few days you've been...er...doing certian things that make my heart flutter. At first you only blew kisses, not just to me but to the others as well. Hehe I was rather impressed you learned how to do that without barnaby teaching you. But, later you've been giving just me all kinds of kiss. Fist it was in the hand and then it was on the cheek, my neck and- ARG" you slapped your hands over your face feeling more embarrassed than ever. "Wally... I'm just confused if you...see me as just your neighbor or as- something more. I can never understand what you do or say." You mumbled into your hands.

Wally walked up behind you, placing his hands on your shoulders and carefully turned you back around facing him. He reached up and slowly removed your hands from your face before cupping your softly. His eyes staring right into yours. "Silly (y/n). You're so sweet and kind," he begun, his thumb softly stroking your cheek. "I love all my friends the same but, you're much more different then they are." His smile widened when he saw your eyes light up. "I only begun to notice it a while after you moved to home. But I very much adore everything about you." Wally could feel your face heat up between his hands. "I don't think there's anything about you I could ever dislike. To me, you're the most wonderful person I've ever met." He finished as he went and leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on your forehead.

A smiled painted its way onto your lips as you reached up and softly grasped his hands with yours. Your heart skipping a beat as you leaned into the kiss. All of your nerves suddenly disappeared. You pulled wally into a hug. His body going limp yet he didn't seem to mind it at all as you squeezed him tightly.

"I love you wally..."

.

.

.

"I love you more (y/n)."

While the two of you were outside having your moment the others had woken up and watched the entire thing go down behind a window. Julie happily stimming from excitement while slapping frank on the back. "I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT, I KNEW IT!" Frank let out a grumbled grabbing julies hands and placing them down by her sides. "It was very much obvious that these two had a thing going on. However I think wally may have been a bit TOO obvious." The others nodded in agreement.

As you pulled away from the hug you glanced over and noticed the other peeping from the window. "HEY!" you yelled causing them to scrambled and fall. Poppys feathers flying in the air as she squawked. You shook your head and let out a chuckle. "We sure do have some crazy neighbors don't we?" You asked as the both of you began walking back inside. Wally nodded in agreement. "But I enjoy their company very much." He leans down to give you another sweet kiss on the cheek.

"But I enjoy your company most of all~."

||THE END||

[[OUAGH I hope I did a good job here. I tried to add as much fluff as possible so it ended up being pretty long. My apologies. But with this story finally out of the way ill be able to work on requests in about a week or so! Thank you all for the support! It means alot to me♡]]

[thecomposerofstories]

Information on Amy.

(Be warned it's a ~little bit~ long, any other pieces of information you want to know I'll gladly answer if you ask.)

~General Information~

Fandom: Toy Story.

Name: Amy the Ragdoll.

Nickname, if any: Amy, Ames, and Doll-Face(usually by more villainous characters or used in a joking manner).

Gender: Female.

Sexuality: ??? (I mean I know the gender of who she has a crush on, but I'm unsure on what her actual sexuality should be tbh)

Age: Mentally, mid-twenties in the first story second movie, thirties to forties in the third and fourth. Physically, she doesn’t have an age, but in regards to when she was made (the 1950’s) makes her fifty to sixty.

City they currently live in: San Francisco, apparently that’s where Toy Story takes place.

Any pets: Would Rex count? He just follows her around like a nervous puppy.

Current occupation: I mean she’s practically a therapist, but she’s a toy and she only treats Rex so it probably doesn’t count lol

~Physical Appearance~

Height: 10 inches.

Body type: Stocky, but a bit gangly too, similar to Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Eye colour: Black.

Skin tone: Light.

Clothing style: Pale green/turquoise shirt with short puffed sleeves, with a denim dungaree dress with a daisy print in the centre over it. She wears yellow rain boots.

Hairstyle: No style, it’s just there. It’s messy and gets in her face easily and is made out of dark brown thin string.

~Speech/Language/Communication~

Amy speaks quietly and politely, rambles a bit if left without a reply or under pressure, very nervous in front of intimidating characters.

First language: English.

Learned languages: A bit of Spanish (Ya’ll remember Toy Story 3!)

Accent: American.

Pitch of voice: High, but soft, not quite annoying, unless she’s stressed, then it gets very pitchy and shrill.

~Behaviour/Habits~

Amy tends to just stand there when she can’t find anything to do, and will immediately try to find Rex, Hamm, Buzz or Jessie if surrounded by strangers (Though she’s not sure if it’s for their comfort or her own) Amy is very polite.

Spending habits: She doesn’t like to be made a fuss of at all, the very fact of someone giving something to her is unnerving (even if the thing never costed anything at all) and she feels compelled to give the giver something in return.

Morning routine: She gets up same time as the others, but wishes she could stay in bed a bit longer though. Before she came to Andy’s room, her sleep pattern was all over the place.

Bedtime routine: Similar to above, now she goes to bed the same time as the others, but before she just slept and got up willy-nilly.

Nervous habits: Amy will try to find Rex if she’s nervous, and she’ll pretend it’s because she’s worried for him, which is quite true, but she also just feels most safe with him. Speaking of, Amy will let Rex hold her hand and squish it whenever he or Amy is nervous, it’s calming to the both of them.

Bad habits: Not a very good exerciser, but then again, she’s spend basically half her life in a small attic, so I’ll give her a break.

Skills/talents: She’ very logical, mind-over-matter, (mostly, very good at calming others down and/or convincing them. She’s very good at spelling and knows quite a lot of words, some of which others haven’t even heard of.

Hobbies: Reading, talking (especially with Rex, Jessie or Hamm), and generally just lazing about or walking around somewhere, on her own or with a friend.

~The Past~

Amy’s first owner was a little girl called Alice. Alice loved nothing more than to read Amy stories (Mostly fairy tales), but of course, Alice grew up like all kids do, and she left Amy in the attic for someone else to have her.

Amy waited for many years, and all that time she’d never given up that someone would find her.

She thought she’s hit the jackpot when Andy and his family move into Alice’s old house, but they don’t go up into the attic to collect her. Some weeks later, though, Andy’s mother brings a set of boxes filled with junk into the attic and leaves. Woody, Buzz, Slinky, and Rex were trapped in one of the boxes (Call me a cheater but this part was actually inspired by a Toy Story comic, where those four toys get stuck in the attic that way and have to escape. It struck me odd that they never met at least one new friend there, so I made one. It was also my first story, I needed some inspiration!)

Amy, in a fit of panic, goes and hides.

But then she’s found by Rex as he and the others try to find a way out.

They then decide to let the strange, dust-covered ragdoll come back to Andy’s rom with them. (well, Rex did, anyway.)

Home town: Would Alice’s old room count? But it’s now Andy’s Room, so it won’t count will it?

Happy or sad childhood: Pretty normal to be honest, as normal a life as a toy could have anyway. And as for sadness, having spent all that time on her own for all those years, having missed out on so much, is a little sad. But Amy made sure she never became bitter over it or used it as an excuse for anything.

Earliest memory: Waking up in her toy store, with a friend of hers for company (a ragdoll Prospector, a much as she remembers) and as she gets bought by Alice’s Auntie, she says she hopes he gets picked up by a kid. (Unbeknownst to her, she would meet him again in a while to find out he never got to experience it)

Saddest memory: One, being left by Alice, yet being so happy for her and how much she’s grown up, if she could cry tears of joy for her owner, she would. Two, some (or most) of the days she spent waiting for a new owner to arrive. And three, watching Rex have a mental breakdown of anxiety.

Happiest memory: One, the time she and Alice went to the park, (Amy absolutely adores nature) Two after sliding down a drainpipe to get to Andy’s room, and three, having known she’d helped her friend out.

Significant events: Being bought, being left in an attic, being rescued from the attic, while gaining some new friends.

~Family~

The entirety of Andy’s room, whether they like it or not, they’re all in this together and are some kind of mish-mash, found family in a sense.

Siblings: I’ve been thinking of giving Amy a brother (since I based her on Raggedy Ann, a matching bootleg Raggedy Andy seems reasonable) bur I’m unsure about it, since I’ve already mapped out Amy’s entire series of stories (Around six or seven all together, so far I’m currently writing only the third) and I can only fit him in the fifth or sixth if I can.

~Relationships~

Romantically? I’d like to say she has a crush on Rex, I don’t know why I thought of it, I was contemplating it one day as I sketched a rough (and terrible) sketch of her, and I drew Rex too because he’s just so fun to draw and I wanted to make a scale for Amy’s size, and one of my friends (who had been watching me) immediately said “I ship it!” and well, the rest is history, I made the decision to ship it too.

Friends: Jessie, Hamm, Buzz, and Rex are her closet friends, but she’d like to say that all the Gang are her friends. Later on she becomes good friends with Mr. Prickle Pants, Buttercup, Trixie and Totoro, and she absolutely loves the peas and Forky.

Best friend(s): Hamm, Mr. Prickle Pants, Jessie, and Rex.

What do people like about them? Amy’s pretty easy to talk to, she’s polite and attentive and will sit in companionable silence with someone if they need it. But she won’t hesitate to give hard truths and advice if it’s needed.

What do people dislike about them? Amy is quite a doormat, if someone is rude to her or breaches anything she just lets it happen, and sometimes she’s too indecisive about her own stuff, unsure whether she’s going to offend others or not over the smallest things, which annoys others quite a bit.

~Mentality/Personal Beliefs~

Amy is a toy of logic, and though she believes others can do it if they set their minds to it, she doesn’t quite believe in herself. She believes she must follow the rules of being a toy at all times, no matter what.

Phobias: Dust. She hates it. It took a good five weeks to brush all the dust out her hair and clothes, and even so there’s still some in her pockets and places she can’t reach. And being alone, too. Now she can’t be alone for more than an hour before she starts to get antsy and nervous. And for a short time books gave her a strange tiredness, after reading them for so long and for so many years she couldn’t even stand the sight of them.

But of course, not for long, since Amy found out Andy had a copy of Red’s Dream by a Mr. William Reeves.

Optimist or pessimist: Depends on the situation really, if her mind can’t come up with a solution, then there’s no point in trying anymore. Unless someone else can think of something, that is.

Personal philosophies: “You are here to make good things happen. No person here is made for one reason only, or even only one. There’s no point in pretending to be someone you’re not just for the attention of others, no matter how cool they are. We should find are own meaning, as we’re the only ones who have control of it.

It’ll take a while, but I swear, it’ll be worth it.”

Biggest dream/wish: Amy wants nothing more than to find meaning for herself, but finds it rather hard to do so. Of course, that doesn’t mean she’ll settle for someone else’s meaning. As cheesy as it sounds, she just wants an adventure. She doesn’t necessarily want to be the hero, though, she’s just happy to go along with the ride so long as it gets her out the house for a few hours. She also, above all else, wants Rex to find meaning too, even if she never does, it would be nice to know that he had.

Greatest strength(s): Persuasion, story-telling, logic, and good grammar.

Biggest flaw: Despite being a ragdoll, Amy can’t sew because of her fingerless hands, which are just soft mittens in shape. Amy is also quite a doormat, as I said before, so if her calm persuasion and reasoning doesn’t work, she’s left to be walked all over.

Regrets: Staying in that dratted attic too long, the window was open, she could’ve just climbed out, but no, she had to stay there for some mind-rotting decades. But if she had just escaped, she would never have met her new friends. Amy just wishes she had met them a lot sooner.

Achievements: Escaped the attic, slid down a drainpipe, leapt onto the windowsill (though nearly knocking Woody and Buzz over in the process) stopped her friend from having a panic attack, and managed to remember the entire Dictionary and is able to recite it down from A to Z, and even Z to A.

Secrets: Not much, just strange feelings for one of her friends, but it’s not much of a secret, Bo knows, and Mr. Potato Head and Hamm could see it from a mile away, and the others have their suspicions.

Goals: Read the entirety of Andy’s (and later Bonnie’s) bookshelves, become more confident in herself, have her own book-worthy adventure, and figure out what those strange feelings for her friend is.

~Likes/Favourites~

Favourite colour: Even before meeting Rex, Amy’s favourite colour was always green. Every time Alice had taken her to the park, Amy adored watching the sunlight pour through the leaves with a golden-green glow.

Favourite book(s): Because it’s sentimental to her, being her owner’s favourites, she loves Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and The Wizard of Oz. They all hold similar plots (a little girl in a blue dress goes to a fantasy land, has a few adventures, and then leaves said fantasy land to go home to her family and responsibilities) but it reminds Amy of her old owner Alice (who was actually named after Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) and their playtimes together.

Favourite Book Quotation(s):

“Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.”

“There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is facing danger when you are afraid.”

Favourite movie: Amy does much prefer books, since they allow her to imagine the setting and characters in her own way, but doesn’t mind movies, and isn’t picky on what they watch, though she does quite like horror films.

Favourite song: Amy likes any kind of music, new or old.

Favourite game: Amy never really cared for games, the competitiveness always bothered her and stressed her out. But she’s more than happy to watch Rex play his video games and cheer him on.

~Relationships with other characters~

~Rex~

- Hit it off pretty quickly.

- Amy helps him with his anxiety, and helps him find confidence in himself, she acts as a certain therapist to him.

- Both become very stressed without the other around.

- Rex will hold and knead at Amy’s hands sometimes; it calms him down.

- Rex will let Amy ride on his back if she’s tired or needs to see something (Because she’s so short).

- One of them can basically be talking about the most boring-est things ever, yet still the other will hang on to their every word.

~Jessie~

- Became friends pretty quickly.

- Will drag Amy along anywhere.

- Get along fairly well.

- Jessie does the talking and Amy does the planning.

- Jessie always pranks the other toys and makes Amy tag along (along with Hamm).

- Introvert/Extrovert dynamic for sure.

- Both were left in alone for years so like to find solace in each other.

~Hamm~

- Hamm begrudgingly warmed up to the timorous ragdoll.

- Surprisingly good pals.

- Have full conversations without saying anything.

- Like to sit and look out of the window together.

- Hamm makes Amy laugh when she really shouldn’t (mainly when he makes fun of the other toys, mainly Woody).

- Hamm makes fun of Amy having a crush on Rex every once in a while, though he doesn’t mean any harm.

~The Potato Heads~

- Mr. doesn’t really interact with Amy much, but finds her surprisingly tolerable, if a bit high-strung and annoying.

- Like Hamm, Mr. makes Amy laugh at the most wrong moments.

- She and Mrs. Are quite good friends, and she sometimes lets Amy take care of the aliens if she and her husband are busy.

~Woody~

- Are aquianteces.

- Don’t exactly interact much, even though the whole room practically revolves around him, in Amy’s opinion, though she would never say it to his face.

~Buzz~

- Amy thinks he’s super cool (then again, he is Buzz Lightyear, he practically invented coolness)

- Both are just as clueless as one another when it comes to social cues and interactions.

- Amy helps him with vocabulary and spelling every once in a while.

~Mr. Prickle Pants~

- Are absolute BFF’s.

- Go back and forth with book quotes to the point of driving the other toys insane.

~Bo Peep~

- Amy's not exactly sure if Bo has befriended her or not.

- (She has)

- They later become good friends.

- Amy misses their talks, Bo was one of the only toys she could talk to that could keep a secret.

[stringing-words-onto-a-chain]

Vampire!Ash AU (NOT SEXUAL)

I found a few different fan arts of vampire Ash recently, and I decided to write some. Yes, I fell into the “uncontrollable thirst” trap, but I’m a sucker for angst where the perpetrator can’t be blamed. Also there are like a bazillion different ways to tag this ship, so I just wrote   A L L   O F   T H E M.

Sal POV:

As Sal ate, his eyes wandered over to Ash, and he frowned, setting down his food and lowering his mask. She was shifting in her seat, licking her lips, and her emerald eyes were darting all over the street. While he watched, the whites of her eyes flickered briefly to a soul-piercing coal black, and back again. His movement drew her gaze for a split second, and she tensed as her eyes fell on his wrist, pausing momentarily before she shook herself.

“Hey, Ash?”

She finally met his eyes, still turning her head towards the slightest sounds around them.

“Yeah?”

“Is… something wrong?”

Ash tried for her signature smirk, but her fang caught the top of her lip in a way that reminded Sal of Larry’s nervous habit. 

“No, no, I’m alright.”

He raised an eyebrow behind his mask.

“Don’t lie to me, Ash. I may not have super senses or anything, but I can tell when something’s bothering my best friends. So get talking.”

“I -” she began, then sighed deeply, dropping her head. When she looked up again, her eyes were black once more, the green smouldering like an ethereal flame. “Sal, can you possibly do me a huge favour?”

His eyes narrowed in concern, and he swung round to face her, straddling the bench.

“Of course, you can ask me anything.”

Ash glanced round the room. Her unsettledness was beginning to unnerve him; it wasn’t like her at all.

“Okay, so usually I don’t drink from people. You know that. But it is better than most other blood - more fulfilling.”

“I’m not sure I like where this is going…”

She laughed, but there was something off about it. Sal couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but his hand crept to the cross Ash had insisted all of them carry in case of an “accident”.

“Sorry, Sally. But anyway, I didn’t have time to drink bottled animal blood this morning, and I… wait, I never told you what happens if I don’t drink enough, did I?”

“I don’t think I wanna know.”

“No, you definitely don’t. Point is, I don’t drink, your friend Ash disappears, and something much more aggressive comes out instead.”

His fingers curled around the cross behind his back, slowly drawing it from his pocket. Ash’s eyes fell on his hand knowingly, and she smiled sadly.

“Don’t worry, it’s not desperate yet. I’m still me - for now.” He slipped the cross back in his pocket with an exaggerated sigh of relief, but he kept on alert, his hand still on it, just in case. “Now, I could, theoretically, go hunt some animals in bat form, but that will drain me quicker, and considering we’re in a relatively clean and busy town, if I can’t find anything…”

Sal laid his other hand consolingly on her shoulder, and almost immediately regretted his decision as Ash’s eyes fell hungrily on his wrist again. He settled for leaning forward and speaking softly, gently removing his hand.

“What can I do to help?”

“Well, as I see it, I have two options.” Ash’s eyes bored into him, not having changed back. “I can go bat-form and pray to… I don’t know, Satan or something, that I can find something in time, or…” She looked at him meaningfully, and he understood exactly what she meant.

“Or you can drink from me.”

“I swear I won’t take enough to kill you, or turn you, or even knock you out, and I will only do it if you let me. I’d never hurt you if you didn't tell me it was okay.”

Sal considered, weighing up how much she needed it with how much he trusted her.

“Alright.”

Her unnatural eyes widened.

“Really?”

“Yeah. You’re clearly struggling to not… go psycho, or whatever it is that happens. I’m here, and you won’t actually damage me at all, so why not? Heck, I’ve probably gone through more painful operations.”

She threw her arms around him tightly.

“Holy crap, Sally Face, you’re the best!”

A slow smile spread across his face, and he returned the hug, letting his already unbuckled mask fall into his lap. She pulled back for a second, looking pleased at the visibility of his face, and running a hand through her hair.

“There’s one more thing I can do to make it easier for you.”

“Which is?”

Her eyes shifted sideways, and she smirked bashfully.

“One of my weird-ass powers is… sort of like hypnotism. I can’t control you or anything, but I can put you in a trance. If I do that, you won’t feel a thing while I drink. Otherwise, it’s gonna hurt. But again, I won’t do it unless you let me.”

“That’s probably a good idea. Thanks, I guess.”

“No, thank you. You didn’t have to do this.” She stopped, tilting her head to examine him. “Seriously, you don’t have to do this. I’m not sure what you think it’s gonna be like, but Hollywood lied to you. This would normally hurt like hell, and it’s blood, so it’s sticky, and messy, and gross, and… yeah. Just generally not fun.”

“I know.” Sal leaned forward again, knowing exactly how dangerous it was, but this time not caring. “I trust you. I don’t think you’ll hurt me.”

“I won’t. I mean, I will, I’m literally about to, but I won’t do any major damage, and I’ll do my best to minimize the pain. Ready?”

He tugged down the front of his jumper quickly, brushing his hair out of his eyes, and shifting to face Ash.

“Yeah. See you in a minute?”

“Maybe a few.”

Ash POV:

“Maybe a few.”

She closed her eyes, focusing hard on the tiny pinprick of power inside her. It wasn’t much, vampires were an extremely diluted type of magic, but it was enough for this. She let her eyes slide open again, throbbing with her will, and met Sal’s eyes. She could feel him instinctively resisting the pull, trying to keep his head clear.

“Don’t fight it, Sally, you agreed to this. Remember?”

He smiled. Honestly surprising he could hold out this long.

“Is this the part where you tell me to stare into your eyes and just relax?”

She snorted.

“Pretty much. Kinda shocked you’re still lucid enough to make that joke.”

“Yeah, it’s not going to last. You do know how to wake me up, right?”

She just smirked, leaving herself the last laugh as Sal’s joking eyes widened in nervousness for a split second before they glazed over, and his expression became completely neutral. The smile faded off her face, and she looked over her statue-still friend remorsefully. She stuck a hand in front of his face and waved, but there was no acknowledgement. He was utterly bewitched.

“Sorry, Sal.”

She made to grab his wrist, then stopped. She looked up at his blank, scarred face, then gently rose up on one knee, kissing his forehead tenderly.

“You really are incredible”, she told him, but she knew he didn’t hear.

Sal POV:

“Sally?”

A voice cut through the haze surrounding him, and for a split second of clarity, he realized his mind had been completely shut down, not registering anything at all.

“Sal.”

Such a beautiful voice. Silvery, flowing, and gorgeous, like ribbon.

“Come on, Sally Face, you’re stronger than this.”

Familiar? 

“Goddamn it, Sal, snap out of it.”

The voice was almost pitying, but there was a soft edge to it, and it sounded like it was holding back laughter. 

No, not it. Her. 

Green eyes settled into focus in front of his own listless pair. The rest of her face spiralled into his vision as well, and the pieces of her slowly connected, becoming more and more familiar. Like an old friend.

Ash.

  All at once, everything sharpened, and Sal’s hand flew up to his head, an abrupt awareness of his rebooting mind. As he did, he registered a dull pain somewhere on his body, where she must have bitten him, but he wasn’t quite conscious enough to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. The memory of what he’d just thought about her voice sprung up on him, and, realizing the mask was no longer in place to hide his blush, he decided to dismiss it as a result of the enchantment.

“Hey, sleeping beauty. You in there?” asked Ash teasingly, but there was something heavier behind her words, something a little too sober to be good. 

“I… I think so. Your weird power thingy really did a number on me, but I’m just a little groggy.” He let his hand fall back in his lap, bumping against his discarded mask as he did, and gave her a tired smile. Now he was actually himself again, he noticed a roll of gauze and a clinical looking spray on the table next to them, and he glanced up at Ash. Her eyes were back to their normal human-passing appearance, and there was a subtle smudge of red at the corner of her mouth.

“I figured it was best to keep you under while I cleaned up the bite. Antiseptic spray is a little bitch.”

He smiled at that, but it dropped off his face at the thought of what she’d had to do. Absently, he put a hand up to his neck, feeling for the bite mark, and frowned.

“Where’s the -”

“The whole thing about vampires and necks is mostly a myth,” Ash replied, the weight behind her words still prominent. “Check your other pulse points.”

A vague dread began to settle over him, and hesitantly he looked down at his hands. Gauze was poking out from his sleeve, and upon seeing it, he instantly knew exactly what was wrong. He pulled his jumper back to reveal two twin holes bound under the fabric bandages, where she’d drank, then pulled the thick cotton back further. The neat gashes lined up across his arm were bound as well. A quick tap on his other arm told him the marks there were treated too. Shame washed over him, and trying to meet Ash’s eyes was like fighting a brick wall with his non-existent powers of telekinesis. Her hand slid under his chin, cold from the wind like one of the undead bloodsuckers he’d seen in movies, and brought his face up level to hers.

“Sally…”

“What can I say to pass this off as not a big deal?”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Ash curled back her lips, revealing her gleaming fangs, and her brow furrowed, her eyes earnest in their utter horror, before she dropped her head, letting out a long, slow breath.

“Listen, Sal, I don’t know why you’re doing this to yourself. I don’t know what could have driven someone like you to pick up a blade and… I just don’t. But I also know I can’t stop you. It’s an addictive habit, I know, and you’ll find a way to do it if you’ve made up your mind that’s what you’re gonna do.” He finally turned towards her, needing to see her expression clearly. It was pointless, though, as she’d looked away, hiding her face. “Knowing how deep your self-hatred goes, I don’t think I can convince you to stop. And vampire hypno powers only go so far. But please, I am begging you, stay relatively safe while you do it. I can’t lose you.” She met his gaze, desperation lining her body as she leaned towards him, cupping his face. “At least get yourself some fucking bandages.”

“I’m sorry.” The hoarseness of Sal’s voice caught him by just as much surprise as the hot tears that spilled over his lids out of nowhere. Ash’s face softened, and she leaned still further forward, her hands bunching up the back of the jumper as she pulled him in for a hug. He squeezed his eyes shut, the tears forcing themselves out, and tucked his head against her shoulder. 

“You should be apologizing to yourself, but I’m not delusional enough to think that’s gonna happen.” She stroked his hair understandingly, the feeling registering through the despairing numbness. “I know I literally just had you under a spell, which I did to give me an opportunity to take some of your blood, but… I genuinely don’t want you getting hurt.” Her grip tightened, and she rested her chin on his head. “I love you, Sally Face. You know that. And if you won’t take self-preservation as a reason to stop, maybe you’ll take the three of us needing you as one. We need you, Sal.”

“Thank you…” he mumbled, clutching at his mask. Ash seemed to understand; she gently pulled back, watching him buckle on the mask sadly. He paused, feeling her gaze still on him, and looked up. “I mean it, Ash. I love you too, and that… really helped.”

[cloudofash]

The Future of the Destiny Islands Trio - Part 1

There is so much to discuss in regards to all of the information we’ve received in Kingdom Hearts Re:Mind and I have so many theories conjuring up in my head that I want to share with you all. For today, I would like to discuss the status of our main trio, the Destiny Islands trio. 

Nomura himself stated that Kingdom Hearts 3 depicts how each character feels about each other “in this new storyline”. Which means that their relationships going forward into the next arc have been defined. Therefore, we can analyze Kingdom Hearts 3 and get a good idea of where each character stands as of now and theorize where their relationships will be headed. However, I’ll be focusing on just the Destiny Islands Trio since I feel every other Trio has received their happy ending and their relationships are clearly defined. The Destiny Islands’ Trio future remains hazy. With that being said…

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Sora and Kairi : Now

Let’s begin with analysis on Kairi and Sora since their relationship took center stage this time around. First, let’s look at some moments the two had together that were cute: they fed each other separate paopu fruits, they hug, Sora has a strong devotion to save Kairi’s heart, and they had a team attack “One Heart” where they shared angel wings. It is clear that in KH3 Sora and Kairi’s relationship is stronger. So where do they both stand? 

I would say that Kairi does have romantic feelings for Sora. We established in KH1 she returned Sora’s crush when she drew her hand feeding him a paopu fruit. She initiates the paopu fruit scene and directly states she wants to be in Sora’s life, the fruit itself implying that she means forever. She says she wants to protect him now, which shows she wants to change the dynamic of she and Sora’s relationship where she is always being saved and protected by him. She wants to reciprocate the desire to protect him, this shows a clear attempt at advancement. She’s ready to be Sora’s equal in their relationship. At the very end in the Limit Cut episode, she chooses to sleep for a year believing traces of Sora exists in her heart which shows she believes the connection between their hearts is very strong. Kairi is taking the initiative to advance their relationship, and this leads me to believe there are romantic motives behind her actions. Of course Nomura is Nomura and there’s a chance that Kairi’s motives are completely platonic but considering Kairi’s known crush on Sora and her insistence that they remain a part of each others lives, I would mark her actions down as romantic.

But where does Sora stand? 

Well…. 

Sora states early in the game that he has a lot to learn about love. He seems to be very clueless and is walking the line between liking and loving, friendships and romance and it shows throughout the game. His feelings are not as clear as Kairi’s so we will have to analyze all of the moments the two share to see if he either reciprocates Kairi’s feelings or initiates/participates in a moment that can unquestionably be interpreted as romantic. 

As Kairi initiates the paopu fruit scene, Sora looks baffled and confused which is a reaction completely opposite of what’s expected of him considering this is the same island boy who dreamed of sharing a paopu fruit with Kairi a year earlier. She says she wants to be a part of his life and he never responds directly to the idea he only says “Kairi, I’ll keep you safe.” Protecting Kairi and saving her from trouble is something he’s been doing since the start of the series and doesn’t really demonstrate an advancement in their relationship, and doesn’t imply romance since Sora has shown that he’s extremely dedicated to keeping everyone safe. You can interpret his statement as romantic but since it can also be interpreted as platonic I wouldn’t count it as a purely romantic moment. For this scene to be truly romantic Sora should have returned Kairi’s desire to be together forever, not just with eating separate paopu fruits because there is a high level issue with their exchange that I will cover in a bit. When Kairi loses her heart, Sora tells Chirithy that he is alright with losing the power of waking and even vanishing from the world, which shows that he is incredibly devoted to saving her. He demonstrates this devotion throughout all of Re:Mind, doing all that he can to find her heart’s pieces. However, he does this for all of the Guardians and saves them all from death by abusing the Power of Waking. Sora is, again devoted to saving all of his friends and he has shown this across all games, especially with Riku in KH2 where he nearly accepted that he and Riku could possibly be lost to the Realm of Darkness forever. Therefore I wouldn’t count Sora’s devotion as romantic, else we’d have to consider Sora’s devotion to Riku (and everyone else) as romantic. If Sora was devoted to Kairi alone then I would consider it romantic devotion but for now his devotion is universal (which is why I consider Riku’s devotion romantic because he has shown that he puts Sora above all others).

Now we get to where Sora saves Kairi and gives her a big, warm tender hug. This is something you could definitely consider romantic, it’s a great improvement to the incredibly awkward hug Kairi received from him in KH2. Unfortunately it can also be considered platonic because Sora also gives Riku a big, warm yet excited hug in DDD. He also fell down on his knees, held Riku’s hands and cried that he looked everywhere for him in KH2. The hugging and touching speaks to Sora’s character rather than romance. Sora is very passionate about his friends and gets very touchy when he misses them or when he’s relieved when he reunites with them, it seems he feels he needs to touch them in some way to make sure they’re really standing in front of him. If we call this hug romantic because its tender then we can call his tender moments with Riku romantic as well….which I have nooo problem with! Jokes aside, since most consider Riku and Sora’s DDD hug as well as their entire moment in KH2 as platonic I will go ahead and mark this one down as platonic too. We can’t say one is romantic while the other isn’t when Sora clearly exudes the same energy (being relieved that he has reunited with someone dear) in both cases. 

So then we have the team attack, One Heart. Well that certainly has to be romantic, it literally says they share one heart and they share angel wings. This has got to mean something right? I absolutely agree, the attack was super cute and I would definitely give a point to the romance team! Except….if you pay close attention to the feathers of the angel wings you can actually see memories on them. The memories aren’t just of Sora and Kairi, they’re of all of the Guardians. This means that One Heart isn’t just a Sora and Kairi attack, it’s a unified Guardians attack where they draw power from all of their friends. See some of the confirmed memories that appear on their angel wings below:

I give YoSora rights on Twitter full credit for noting this discovery!

There is also the fact that Sora and Riku their own unified team attack with the Combined Keyblade, commonly called “The Gayblade” because it is literally rainbow colored, where each half of the boys’ Keyblades create a unified winged heart which holds Sora’s crown at the top and has a paopu fruit attached to the keychain. They share a single heart with a single paopu fruit. Every piece of “romantic” symbolism is there and yet Sora and Riku are still referred to as friends or brothers. Unlike Sora and Kairi’s attack which includes the other Guardians, their combined keyblade is strictly theirs alone. If the Combined Keyblade is not romantic, then One Heart certainly isn’t.

With each new shared moment Sora has with Kairi, there is a near-identical moment Sora shared with Riku. From the energy Sora himself exudes down to the symbolism. Sora’s demeanor doesn’t change between Riku and Kairi, so we can not say “He is friendly with Riku but lovey-dovey with Kairi”. If there was a clear difference in Sora’s behavior towards them trust me I could admit to it, but there isn’t. The nail in the coffin is when Sora and Kairi get to the Final World and he directly states that he and Kairi looking around the Final World was a moment with a friend.

The bottom line is that Sora still views Kairi as a friend despite having a crush on her. He hasn’t reciprocated her feelings of wanting to be together forever, he’s made no advancement in their relationship. I honestly believe there was more advancement in KH2 where he imagined himself dancing with Kairi after watching Jack and Sally, that was an unquestionably romantic moment. The only other moment in KH3 would be when he held Kairi’s hand on the way out of the tunnel and imagined Rapunzel and Flynn together who are definitely a romantic couple, however he immediately thought of Elsa and Anna afterwards which is an example of sisterly love, not romantic. Sora was thinking of love as a whole, platonic and familial love included not just romantic love. 

Sora and Kairi : Future

So where does Sora and Kairi’s relationship go from here? As of now Sora is lost in the void somewhere between the Final World and an alternate universe with Yozora, and Kairi is in a self-induced coma with no sign of coming out of it yet. It will probably be a long while before the see each other in person again. I must also note that Kairi believed that her heart would lead them all to clues on Sora’s whereabouts but after a year of searching her heart nothing came up. This is concerning, since we’re at a point where we’re being led to believe that their hearts’ bond is growing stronger, they share all these moments together and now we’re being told Kairi’s heart has no traces or clues of Sora found for an entire year, yet Riku has a recurring dream and Fairy Godmother suspects his dream will lead everyone to Sora. Does this mean that Kairi’s bond with Sora is weaker than Riku’s? Or is her connection to Sora weakening overall? How can that be when the two shared a paopu fruit, their connection should be stronger than ever right? 

This is where Sora and Kairi’s relationship may take a turn for the worst. The paopu fruit scene has been widely considered the moment that Sora and Kairi’s relationship became canon and means they’re dating (some even said married??) but as I said earlier there is an immense issue with it. They did not actually share a single paopu fruit like the legend described, instead they ate two separate fruits and fed them to each other crossing their arms in the process. As many have theorized, most notably the Sleeping Realm Theorists, this may have doomed Sora and Kairi to be star-crossed lovers, where all the forces of nature will actively work to tear them apart. There is evidence behind this theory because Sora makes several statements where he shows that he is okay with not always being with those he cares about, most likely in reference to Kairi.

Sora and Kairi may end up having a relationship where they accept that they can never be together. Or perhaps, Sora and Kairi won’t accept that and will always fight to stay at each other’s sides. Only time will tell, but I believe the overall theme of Kingdom Hearts 3 is learning to accept that you’re not always going to be with those you care about, and to enjoy the time you do get to spend together.

I’m sure this analysis may have annoyed some but I ask that you please hear me out. Sora viewing Kairi as a friend is not bad, it means there is room for change. For growth. Sora may view her as a friend now, this doesn’t mean he will in future titles. Or maybe he will. We’re at the end of the Dark Seeker Saga and Sora is just now learning about love, I’m sure Sora will learn what love means to him in later titles.  He’ll fall in love eventually….When he gets swept away by Riku’s heroism and learns that he’s the light, bwahaha! >:)

Sorry, had to be a tad biased. Naturally I want Soriku to win.  ;-P

I am going to stop here because this is getting waaaaay longer than I initially anticipated (like usual) and I want to make sure I have enough space for the other two relationships: Kairi and Riku and Sora and Riku. Thank you all once again so so much for reading!

Please see Part 2 here.

[sapphicscholar]

Happy birthday, @argyle-s! Hope ya enjoy the tooth-rotting fluff as I sneak in right under the deadline!

Chapter Text

“73 down: apparel company whose first letter stands for a three-letter word in this clue. Four letters. F-blank-B-blank.”

Maggie let her head drop back against the headrest, her gaze flitting along with the countryside flying past the train window. “I don’t know. You know it’s hard when I can’t see the grid.”

Alex turned, angling her whole body towards Maggie. “But I’m reading you everything you need!”

“Yes, and some things I don’t need,” Maggie muttered, biting back a smile at the furrow in Alex’s brow.

“What don’t you need?”

“Alex, sweetie, the love of my life, I have told you 9,000 times that I do not need to know what number across or down it is. I can’t see the grid. It doesn’t matter.”

“Right.” She tapped the tip of the pen along the side of the newspaper, finally pushing it towards Maggie. “Fine, I guess you can take a turn reading the clues.”

“Thank you.” She pressed a soft kiss to Alex’s lips as she took the pen and paper before Alex could change her mind. “Alright, let’s see…” She scanned the list of clues. “Ooh, four letters: injure, as a bear might.” A moment’s hesitation. “Maul!”

Alex smiled and tried to peer over at the paper.

“Ooh, another good one. Apt rhyme of ‘sliced.’” She grinned up at Alex as she announced: “Diced!”

“Maggie,” Alex whined. “You’re not giving me all the information. Like…how many letters was it? And which letters did we have? Also none of the letters in diced are in maul.”

“Well, no…”

“So then one is wrong. Maybe maul could be maim. Where does it intersect?”

“They don’t.”

Alex blinked over at Maggie. “You don’t go in order?”

“Do the ones you know first. Then you’ve got a bunch of spots already filled in.”

“But—but—” Alex stammered, her mouth opening and closing as she fought the urge to reach over and snatch the pen back.

“Oh boy. Maybe we take a break from the crossword before your brain breaks.”

“It’s just…if you go in order you’re literally building a structurally sound foundation.”

Deciding the next several hours of their trip would go a lot more smoothly if they didn’t bicker through them, Maggie changed tactics, putting down the newspaper and twining her fingers with Alex’s. “Hey, let’s play a new game.”

“Like what? We already did 20 questions and I Spy and the alphabet game and all the things Kara used to make us play on long car rides.”

“Hmm…fuck marry kill with the cast of The L Word?”

Alex glared, and Maggie couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped. “So many hours of my life I’m never getting back.”

“Okay, but might I offer in response: pretty ladies kissing other pretty ladies on your screen?”

“Not enough to make it worth my while,” Alex grumbled.

“I told you from the start that it had its issues.”

“Maggie Sawyer, you did not once tell me that I would go from being like oh, maybe I was a little bit like Jenny to oh, I’d like to push Jenny out a window.”

With a loud gasp, Maggie spun around in her seat, locking her hands around Alex’s wrists like makeshift handcuffs. “Oh my god, you’re the one that killed Jenny Schecter!”

“Oh shut up. Also, that was some bullshit bringing in Lucy Lawless for a single episode. I’d rather watch an entire series of her interrogating them than the last season of the actual show.”

“Mm, so say we all.”

“That’s just because you had the world’s biggest crush on Xena.”

“Duh.” Maggie dropped her head to Alex’s shoulder as she released her hands. “I still say you should go as her for Halloween next year.”

“You gonna be my Gabrielle?”

Maggie’s fingers trailed along Alex’s thigh, inching a bit higher than was appropriate for being in public. “You just want me to spend the whole night in a crop top.”

“Your abs are a gift to the world, but I think I’m gonna be selfish and say no one else gets to enjoy them.” Alex’s fingers itched to reach out, to run up and down Maggie’s sides, curling under that soft henley and finding the even softer skin beneath it. After a week of too many crises at the DEO and a week before that of overtime at the NCPD for Maggie, it felt like ages since she’d gotten to spend time with her girlfriend that wasn’t out in the field. And of course Maggie had to go and be responsible the night before, insisting they do laundry and pack and all the things that, Alex begrudgingly admitted, did make their morning trek to the train station rather easy. Still. Now they were left with hours upon hours of limited touching as their train trundled out of California and meandered towards the next stop.

“You’d deprive the world of that joy?”

“Oh hush, maybe I only suggested you go as Gabrielle because you’re short enough.”

“Yeah, yeah, make all the jokes you want, but we both know who the little spoon is at the end of the day.”

“You love it.”

Maggie shrugged. “Easy access to your butt? Yeah, I’m not complaining.”

For a while, they fell into a comfortable silence, watching as the train passed through rolling hills and sprawling acres of the countryside. Even though Alex had been uncertain about the idea of a multi-day train trip across the country when airplanes that could get them to Metropolis in a matter of hours existed, even she had to admit that there was something sort of romantic about the protracted journey.

“Hey,” Alex whispered after what felt like nearly half an hour, wondering if Maggie was really asleep or just closing her eyes. “Sawyer.” She poked her shoulder, deciding she didn’t really care either way.

“What?”

Asleep then, if the raspy quality to Maggie’s voice or the slight scowl Alex was getting meant anything.

“I’m bored.”

“Seriously? You have a phone.”

“The wifi’s shit out here.”

“I packed books.”

“I don’t wanna read.”

“Oh my god, Danvers. Seriously?”

“C’mon.” Alex nudged Maggie’s shoulder with her own. “I’ve missed you.” There it was—the softening of Maggie’s features, the way her whole body seemed to melt further into Alex’s.

“I don’t suppose I can coax you into a nap with me?”

“Too much coffee.”

“Fine, fine.” Yawning loudly, Maggie drew the curious gazes of a few of the passengers who shared the compartment with them. She toed at Alex’s foot, then leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Old dude, front of the car. See him?”

“A threat?” Alex’s hand flew to her sidearm, but Maggie was already there, anticipating Alex’s reaction.

“Not that kind.” She cast a meaningful look at Alex as she pulled her hand away. “But maybe he’s another kind of threat…tell me what you know? What’s he doing on this train anyway?”

“Oh!” Alex’s lips curled up into a smile. Maggie had first taught her to play the stranger game during a terribly boring week-long stakeout that had yielded absolutely nothing of use. Apparently it was the best way to pass the time in a small town, although, Maggie conceded, eventually it was also a pretty good way for rumors to get started. She still carried a bit of guilt around for making people think that Sally Wilkins’ parents had tried to send her to a convent. “Well…he’s taking the train because he can walk to the station from his house, so his neighbors won’t see that his car is gone and tell his wife…who’s traveling for work all week.”

“Yeah? Why can’t they know?”

“Oh, well, the guy across the street is a total busybody ever since he retired. He keeps tabs on all his neighbors.”

“And obviously this guy doesn’t want anyone to know where he’s off to. But why’s that? Affair? Secret family? Totally paranoid?”

Alex tapped on her lower lip as she surveyed the man in question, watching as he spilled a bit of the tepid train coffee on the back of his hand. Shaking it off, he grumbled to himself and went back to his seat. “Hmm…I think it’s a secret job. Corporate espionage or something like that. But he’s not really good at keeping secrets. Makes him queasy 24/7. So he’s gotten really paranoid.”

“Ah yes, the guilty criminal. Really, they’re the best kind. So easy to pluck out of a crowd.”

“I give him…three weeks before he turns himself in or gets caught.”

“Sounds about right. Though, ya know, if we were on the case, I think his odds would be more like three minutes.”

“Yeah, well,” Alex shrugged her shoulders, an easy grin spreading across her face, “we make a pretty unbeatable team.”

Maggie’s voice dropped into a lower register as she leaned in, breath hot against the shell of Alex’s ear. “And how would we celebrate our hundredth team victory?”

“Only a hundred?”

“This year.”

“That’s more like it.”

Throwing her arm around Alex’s shoulders, Maggie pulled her in close. “Have I mentioned lately how much I love you?”

“Mm, you know, I think it’s been several hours.”

“Well that simply won’t do. I need to know that anyone else on this train playing the stranger game is absolutely positive that we are together.”

“Let’s make it really obvious,” Alex whispered as she leaned in, her breath ghosting across Maggie’s lips before she claimed them in a searing kiss that left Maggie dizzy with want.

“If we really wanted to make it obvious…” Maggie’s fingers skirted along the waistband of Alex’s jeans, her short nails dragging along the skin and making Alex shiver.

“You could literally be inside of me,” Alex managed, though her breath hitched on the last word, “and I bet at least one person on this train would ask if we were sisters.”

Maggie groaned, drawing her hands back as she buried her face in her palms. “Ugh, the Straights are fun.”

“So fun.”

“I bet you…20 bucks we get asked if we want two twin beds tonight.”

“I’ll see your 20 and raise you another 20 for not even being asked before we get those twin beds.”

“So that’s 40 on us having sex dorm-room style?”

“Shh!” Alex put a finger to her lips, but she couldn’t quite help the snort of laughter at the scandalized looks they were getting from the woman sitting directly behind them.

---

As it turned out, they received very sincere apologies from the hotel staff—“We’re so sorry! For some reason we had the reservation listed as needing a king-sized bed, and all of our double rooms are booked.”

Before Alex could roll her eyes and correct them, Maggie graciously accepted their offers for free room service, insisting that they could “make do.” She’d mouthed “free dinner” to Alex the moment they turned around.

When they arrived, Maggie gasped dramatically and turned to Alex, announcing: “Oh no! There’s only one bed!”

“What?”

“Oh god, sometimes I forget that you’re still kinda new to the being gay thing, and then you say stuff like that.”

“Can you just tell me?” Alex huffed, resisting the urge to cross her arms and stamp her foot. “It can’t be worse than when I told you that no, I’ve never seen Imagine Me and You.”

“It’s just a trope in fan fiction. You have two characters who are secretly pining after one another, only neither of them thinks the other one could ever like them back, but then they have to go somewhere—maybe undercover as a couple or something, or else it’s just for work or a trip or really any excuse to be not at home, ya know?—and they show up, only to find out that the second room was given away, and there’s only one room left that only has one bed.”

“One person could always sleep on the couch.”

“Oh, Danvers.” Maggie let out a sigh as she shook her head. “Danvers, Danvers, Danvers. What will we do with you?”

“What? It’s a reasonable question.”

“Reasonable, maybe. But where’s the fun in that?”

“Let me guess, the fun is in having them both fall into bed together?”

“More like awkwardly crawl in while the other one is in the bathroom, spend hours not really sleeping, and wake up tangled together because secretly they’re both cuddlers.”

“Ah, I see. I suppose these are a bit more PG than I imagined.”

“Yeah, get your head out of the gutter, Danvers.” A beat. “Sex happens the next night.”

After the laughter subsided, Alex nudged Maggie. “Well…I’m not really up for waiting a whole night, but what do you say? Should I go claim my side of the bed and pretend to be awkward while waiting for you?”

“Pretend?”

“Oh fuck off.”

Maggie grinned. “Ooh, would you rather reenact an old fashioned enemies to lovers?”

“Maggie,” Alex groaned.

“Fine, fine. I’ll stop.”

“Good. Because I think”—Alex unzipped her jacket, letting it fall to the floor—“there’s really only one scenario”—Maggie’s jacket followed her own as they inched closer and closer to the bed—“I have any desire to act out.”

“Oh yeah?” Maggie’s voice had taken on that throaty quality that never failed to make Alex’s heart skip a beat.

“Mhmm,” Alex hummed, as she carefully guided Maggie down to the mattress, settling one knee on either side of Maggie’s thighs.

“Which one is that?”

“Two girlfriends”—a kiss—“who are very much in love”—a longer kiss that time—“who have gone far, far too long without a night to themselves.”

Maggie’s fingers moved slowly down the front of Alex’s shirt, undoing buttons one after another. “You know…I think I could make that work.”

[melodicwhisper8079]

Sneak Peak of a chapter from my Sally Face Fic featuring my OC!

Just a quick note before starting, this is my first time writing and publishing anything to the public, so bear with me please 😅 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

....The black ooze took over Alex's form, causing it to waver a bit before her body steadied. Her figure had transformed majorly within a few moments, changing her caramel-colored skin to a stark inky black from head to toe. And now she was at least a good two-and-a-half feet taller than the others, towering over everything in the room. The way Alex looked now was horrifying to say the very least.

Sal called out to Alex cautiously as she stood there, wondering if it was even still her.

Her head snapped up, eyes glowing a distinct scarlet. Right then, Sally new immediately;

This was not Alex.

Sal reached for his gear boy laying on Alex's bed without hesitation before the entity's voice made him stop dead in his tracks.

"I would be ever so grateful if you refrained from harming me, Sally." The being stated in a rather polite way. Sal took a second to process what had just happened. The creature had just spoken to him. And on top of that, it knew his name. It didn't seem the least bit interested in hurting them either, despite it looking scarily similar to the Red-Eyed Demon, but Sally was still uncertain about it. This uncertainty left Sal faced with a decision: leave the GearBoy where it was and risk being unprepared if the entity decided to attack them, or pick the GearBoy up against the being's wishes and risk angering it. He chose the former against his best judgement, deciding that if worse came to worst, he was close enough to grab the device.

Sally then drew his attention back to the fact that the creature had known his name and called him by it. Sally shook his head in an attempt to clear it and began speaking to the creature, ignoring the cold streak of fear running through his body.

"Who are you and how do you know my name?" He asked, maintaining his usual calm demeanor.

The figure smiled, revealing fangs that were in stark contrast to her onyx skin. Sal felt a heavy sense of uneasiness at her sudden amusement.

"Oh Sal, can't you tell? I am the feeling that rises within you when you want what you cannot have. I am what you feel when you want so badly to indulge in the object of your affection. I am that which you cannot possess despite your longing for it. I am craving. I am desire. I am lust personified. I am Edenra."

Even though that statement should have cleared up who she was and what her purpose was, they still didn't know why she was here or what she was doing possessing Alex's body. If anything, she had managed to make the situation more confusing with her explanation.

Sally managed to ask why she was there, his gaze never leaving her obsidian-shaded face.

"It's quite simple, really" Edenra spoke with audible amusement in her voice. She then proceeded to pick up Sally's Gear Boy, examining it before booting it up. She took a while to play around on the gaming device before she looked up, a smirk spread across her face. "The girl is not as she seems." She said with a rather passive tone, although her body language conveyed the exact opposite.

What? What was she talking about? Alex was one of the goofiest, kindest people Sally knew, so there was no way she could be involved with demons, Especially not one that was as important as Edenra claimed she was, right?

He couldn't have been more wrong.

Edenra continued playing with the GearBoy, finding the object quite amusing. She played with the device a few more moments before she looked up at him and Larry, stating with audible mirth In her voice "And quite frankly, neither are you two". She looked at Sal and Larry, the smile on her face growing. "There is a lot for all of you to learn and much for us to discuss, and I have little time to get through it all, so pay attention." She said, setting the game down and shifting her stance a bit.

"You see, Alex is much more powerful than you or her could fathom. In all honesty, she may even be more powerful than I am, although she does not yet know it. Her odd mannerisms, her even odder demonic outburst a little while ago, can all be explained. To put it simply, Alex is a demon. And one unlike anything anyone has ever seen at that. She has the potential power to single handedly stop the Devourers and do much more. But she is also unstable. She has the capacity to be a bigger problem than the Devourers, but she also holds the capability of being the Savior of Humanity. She will learn the truth and have to make her decision someday, but she absolutely cannot do all of it at once, for putting such a heavy load of knowledge and power on her at one time could corrupt her mind and destroy us all."

That's impossible. She couldn't have been talking about their Alex. The Alex that was just crying over hamster butts and eating ice cream with pickles last Wednesday. She must have made a mistake somewhere.

"Are you sure you mean our Alex?" Sal asked, raising an eyebrow behind his prosthetic.

"Of course I mean your Luna. I have done as much as I could to be as sure as possible that I had the right girl." She said with a slightly exasperated sigh.

Wait, Luna? Who is Luna? Edenra had to have the wrong girl for sure.

"You mean Alex, right?" Sally said in an attempt to correct her.

"Ah, that silly name the humans have doned her with?" She rolled her eyes. "'Alex'" she said mockingly, a smirk fixing itself on her face. "Alex's true name is Luna. It's the name she was given at birth. This 'Alex' nonsense is just a name given to her by whomever she spent time with during her youth". Edenra spoke with a certain disinterest and matter-of-factness about her, which upset Sal. And now with that revelation out in the open, Sal felt as if he hadn't even known Alex at all.

This all seemed a bit much for Sal to handle. Alex seemed like a stranger to him now. Sal couldn't tell what was true about Alex and what wasn't at this point, and that bothered him. It wasn't like any of it was her fault. She hadn't lied to him, because she didn't even know about any of this herself, so he definitely wouldn't be holding any of it against her. But Sal still couldn't help but to feel a little betrayed.

But besides the way he felt, all of this explained so much that previously made no sense to him. Alex's odd birthmark, her mysterious past, and especially what happened just a few days before. But even with this information explaining a lot of unexplainable things, Sal still wasn't sure if they could trust what Edenra was saying.

Almost as if Larry had been reading Sal's mind, he asked the question.

"How do we know that you aren't lying to us? How can we tell that you aren't just feeding us crap so you can screw us over later?" Larry spoke up, suddenly finding his voice.

"Well," Edenra started. "You may not have reason to trust me, but in this circumstance, you and I have no choice but to trust each other. For all I know, you all could be planning to kill me at this very moment, but I trust that you won't because we share a common goal. One that, if not reached, means certain death and the destruction of all."

She was right. There was much that they needed to know and do in order to defeat Red-Eyes and the Devourers, and if this entity was being truthful, then they would definitely need to join forces. But they still needed proof that she was here to help and not harm.

Edenra began speaking again despite the wary atmosphere of the room, her tone changing into one filled with optimism.

"You, Mr. Fisher." She said, pure hope and excitement lacing her voice. "You are one of the most vital components in our fight to stop the cult."

Sal was shocked. How was he one of the most important parts of their effort? She was strong enough to do it herself, right? So why did she need a group of teenagers to help her?

Almost as if she was reading his mind, she spoke again.

"You have the gift! You will be our saving grace, shall all else fail. You have the other sight, the Blessing of the Witch" She said, her excitement becoming very audible. She stepped forward, getting a lot closer to Sally.

"Other sight? Is that what my glitching is called?" He asked, a bit uncomfortable with how close she was to him now.

"Yes, yes! You see other dimensions. The beings from those dimensions speak with you, you sometimes even see into the future, do you not?" She asked, getting even closer. Sal was becoming worried about how obsessive her demeanor had turned.

Sal began to take a step back from Edenra before she gently grabbed hold of his wrist. "You have been blessed because your past was cursed. Your ability holds much promise for our success. But you have hindrances that come with it. I don't have much time left to inhabit Luna's body, so I must be quick about this." She said, pushing Sally's sleeve up. He began to panic and squirm, but to no avail. She had him in a vice-tight grip with no effort, so he was stuck there.

"You need this-" she said before drawing a symbol onto Sally's arm. "It will protect you as well as strengthen your Other Sight." She said before biting down into her arm. Sal watched, frozen in fear as a midnight colored liquid ran down her arm and dripped onto the symbol on his arm. The symbol then proceeded to glow, burning itself into Sally's flesh. He winced in pain as it set in, knowing that there was no turning back now. "You should be able to control your gift much better now." She said, sealing the mark with a touch. "And with this mark, you will also be imbued with the power to kill me should it turn out I was untruthful." She said calmly. Well, if Sal needed proof that she wasn't there to do them harm, this mark was it tenfold.

Edenra let Sal go as her figure began shrinking, the inky temporary flesh fading. "Although I wish I could stay, my time is up. Please, you must assist me in stopping the Devourers. If we join forces, we may actually succeed in saving humanity." And with that, she was gone, leaving Alex standing there, wobbling a bit before falling to the ground...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you SO much for reading to the end! I am EXTREMELY open to constructive criticism and I completely encourage you to point anything out. Sorry for any misspellings or typos, because I typed this entire thing on my phone (Y'know, like the idiot I am). If you enjoyed this snippet of my upcoming fic, want to request anything, or even just want to talk, inbox me or send an ask!😊

[larynx-lover]

The Making of Wonder Woman

Okay so we’re gonna take a quick break from medical content so I can talk to y’all about what I’ve been busy with for the past few weeks outside of applying to residency.

My halloween costume. 

I’ve known since last halloween that I would be Wonder Woman this halloween. And then the movie came out and everyone told me I looked like her again and so the deal was sealed. Unfortunately, all of the store bought Wonder Woman costumes are.... pretty inaccurate looking. When I do Halloween, I do it big. And when it comes to my favorite super hero... well, let’s just say I wasn’t going to settle for something crammed into a bag. After scanning the internet, it was clear that I couldn’t shell $500-$1000 dollars on a professionally made WW costume... so to save some money and get the costume I wanted, I decided to do it myself. Here was the result:

NOT BAD, RIGHT?? I had never done anything like this before, so I’m pretty proud of myself. (also sorry the picture quality is meh. I’m getting the iPhone X this week and then DEFINITELY re-take pics. Honestly, I might do a photoshoot. I don’t know)

People have been asking like crazy, so I’m going to breakdown how I made the costume a little bit here to cover the basics. For the most part, all of this can be found on youtube, but I’m going to post my pics here just to take y’all through my process.

First: Making the mold. You’re gonna need help. Wrap yourself in Saran Wrap and get someone to put duct tape all over you to get a pattern the shape of your body. I had my brother help. 

Draw markings where you want to cut the tape off and to help you line up the edges, then take those pieces, make notches in them so they will lay flat, and trace the patterns onto EVA floor mat foam. Then, cut out the foam, heat it with a heat gun and hold it against your body to make it curve correctly, then use liquid cement to glue everything together.

So once that was done, it was time to make the pattern on the armor like Wonder Woman’s armor. For this, I used a soldering tool that’s shaped like a pen. First I freehanded the pattern from her armor onto the foam with a pen. There has to be a better way to do this, but I don’t know what it is. When I started, it was kinda rough because I didn’t let it heat up all the way before I started carving and that made my lines kinda scraggly at the start. Luckily, I got the hang of it. 

Now for the REALLY hard part... making the gold top of the armor. Holy cow. This part took me a day and a half. So I drew it on heavy poster board paper and cut it out, taped it to the armor, redid it again... and again... and again...

Once the paper was perfect, I cut the foam out and again glued it all together and taped it to the rest of the armor to make sure it looked right.

This was on the Tuesday before Halloweekend. I only had about 4 days to finish the whole rest of the costume... At this point I pretty much had all the supplies I needed, I just needed to really start putting everything together. 

Next came the belt. Which sits flush with the bottom of the armor. To accomplish this, I took thin paper and drew the shape of the belt I needed on top and then transferred that onto the foam. I cut the belt out of the EVA foam I used for the armor and dremeled down the back of the belt and the bottom of the armor in the shape of the belt so that they fit together. Then... it was painting time.

First I covered all the foam in black plastidip, which is a rubber spray coating. It seals the foam for painting.

The gold metallic spray paint was very easy to find. Any Walmart is gonna have it. The red metallic spray paint.... not as easy. Hobby Lobby, Walmart, Michaels... they all failed me. What didn’t fail me? O’Reilly Auto Parts. Grabbed a can of metallic car paint and HOLY COW. Man that stuff works wonders. I only needed one small can, which was good since it was the only can they had in stock. It’s great stuff. 

I’ll be honest... I had to be convinced to weather my costume. I wanted it to look all brand new and shiny and like Diana had just stepped off the island... I’m glad my friend told me to not do that. I cut notches into the armor with a razor blade and held my heat gun over it, causing the foam to open up. Then I went over it with black paint and wiped it away so it stayed mostly in the cut. And get this- that little pink tube? Old mascara. The brush gave me the perfect worn metal texture I needed. On the bodice of the armor I also filled in the grooves with black paint to give them more dimension, and I did a little shading work, which I didn’t photograph. I’m sorry. But here’s what the bodice looked like after I finished painting.

HUGE difference, right? I actually went and weathered the top even more after this picture was taken. I attached the belt with velcro (honestly, don’t do this. Just use super glue. Use all the super glue) and the top with liquid cement.

So what was left at this point? Skirt, gauntlets, arm band, lasso? For the record, I bought the boots and the tiara. I’ll link them at the bottom.

For the skirt, I bought some kids XL volleyball shorts from Academy, brown leather from Hobby Lobby that was some kind of furniture fabric, a gold paint pen, and blue spray paint. I bought high gloss. I should have bought matte. Hindsight. I had to wait to do the skirt until the belt was done, because that’s how I based my measurement of how wide the front flaps needed to be. The middle one is just wider than the bottom of the W. I patterned the pieces looking at a reference picture of Wonder Woman, and I tried to staple them onto the shorts, which did not work because staples are not stretchy and the shorts are. I ended up whip stitching some pieces and glueing others literally while the shorts were on my body. I wish I had pictures of this process, but I’ll post the youtube video I used for guidance down at the bottom. Anyway, then spray paint, then gold paint pen to do the gold details on the bottom of the skirt.

Ugh. Gauntlets. So hard. Went back to the 3mm craft foam. wrapped it around my wrists to get the size they needed to be. Again, while looking at reference pics, I drew them by hand. 

I should have plastidipped these, but then I’d lose my markings. I ended up just painting straight onto the foam. Probably should have mod podged them first, but whatever. Gold and black paint pens are your best friend for this.

Arm band. I looked up a reference image, enlarged it on my computer screen, turned up the brightness, and traced it onto paper and then transferred it to the foam. Sprayed the foam with metallic spray paint, then weathered pretty much as before. With black paint and mascara. 

The gauntlets and arm band were held together with velcro. I just made them overlap at the back. I took the easy way out. I admit that. I used a shortcut. TAKE THAT ORTA PHONE INTERVIEW. YES I BELIEVE IN SHORTCUTS. Still turned out great.

For the lasso of truth, I just bought rope and spray painted it gold, and bought 2XL brown belts from Walmart and super glued them together to get the rope holster.

To get the armor on, I cut it down the back and laced it up with more gold rope. make sure you put the holes far enough apart that the foam won’t tear.

And then I just... put it all together! Skirt went on first, then a tube top under the armor, then the boots, then the armor (because you basically can’t bend over in the armor to put on the boots), then all the arm stuff and the tiara.

I’m blonde right now, so to get dark hair I used a black rinse from Sally’s beauty supply to darken my base, and then that black powder hair spray from Party City. Please do this BEFORE you do your makeup and maybe do it outside so the black powder doesn’t get all over your bathroom. and cover your shoulders and arms and face because it gets EVERYWHERE. Or buy a wig. Up to you. I also tried to contour my face to look more like Gal Gadot. Whether or not that was successful.... who knows?

(taken from a friend’s snap story)

So that’s that. That’s how I did the thing. Below are all the links I promised.

Breastplate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlmLchJcT7A

Skirt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2GFmSqg7V0&t=229s

Gauntlets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c25sKA2LpLc

Click for Tiara Click for Boots Click for Plastidip Click for Red paint

[vateacancameos]

Here We Are As In Olden Days, Part 20

Day 20 of @missdaviswrites  December Sherlock ficlet challenge.

20 December, Stocking Stuffers

Sherlock | Sally POV | Developing/Pre-slash Johnlock| Ficlet | ao3 link

Sally hated shopping. Annoying enough when it was just the weekly trip to the supermarket, practically rage-inducing when searching for gifts for Christmas. Mum had been surprisingly easy, a post-modern painting seen at an antique store during a case had been snatched up and wrapped weeks ago. Dad preferred consumables, so he was getting a meat and cheese basket. Her sister and brother were getting gift cards, because she couldn’t think of anything they’d like. Mum had got onto her last year for that, but Sally really didn’t have the time to figure out the inner workings of two people she didn’t particularly get on with.

Now all that was left was a gift for the person she’d drawn for the holiday gift exchange at work… Sherlock Holmes. Sally had several issues with this year’s exchange. First of all, instead of gag or white elephant gifts that got picked and unwrapped at random, they had to draw a name and get that person something they’d actually not hate. Second, Watson had forced Holmes to participate. She wished she’d been a fly on the wall to listen to that row, but otherwise did not find Holmes’s participation to be a good thing, especially after she’d drawn his name.

So there Sally was, fighting mad holiday shoppers and trying to figure out something Holmes would actually appreciate—besides a dead body.

She was past her hatred and disgust of the man. He was a genius—possibly autistic, as she’d never actually bought the high-functioning sociopath routine—and he did save lives, so Sally could appreciate his help. But there was the fact that she was a part—a small one, but a part nonetheless—of the reason he’d leaped to his supposed death two years before, and that had haunted her nights for far too long. Strange man though he might be, he had not deserved to be forced away from everything he knew and loved for years.

Sally wished she could say she had come around on her own, but she’d needed a large push from Watson and Lestrade. The latter had practically forced her to attend Holmes’s funeral—and damn if he wasn’t an insightful bastard from time to time. Sally needed to be confronted by her better angels.

Seeing Watson completely devastated and barely functioning at the funeral had stopped her in her tracks. Yeah, over the years, she’d teased him about his “crush” on the mad detective, and there had been that pool at the office on when the pair would start shagging, but she’d never actually believed they were together. But a nearly catatonic John Watson—a man unflappable in dire situations, able to put up with Holmes like no one else—had made Sally see how wrong she’d been. That was a man grieving a loved one. It didn’t even matter if they were shagging or not. It was the mere thought that someone in this world loved Sherlock Holmes. In that moment, he became human to Sally.

Then he’d come back, and it seemed his time away let him see that he was human as well. He still got impatient that no one could keep up with him, but he was a bit less biting than before, more willing to listen, especially when it was Watson speaking.

Sally wondered if it would’ve been easier to buy Holmes a gift before she’d realized he was human. In fact, she knew it would be. She could’ve grabbed anything off the shelf and called it a day. But now… now she actually cared. He was far from her best mate, but Sally had the job she did because of her ability to care.

So she was stuck actually putting thought into her £20 gift to a man who was a mystery to everyone. Except to Watson. There was an idea. Maybe he could tell her what to get the detective. It would be smarter and faster than wandering the aisles of shop after shop, trying to come up with something herself.

“Watson,” the doctor answered, when she rang him.

“Sorry to bother you this evening, Doctor,” Sally began. “I’ve got a bit of an emergency.”

“Oh. Hey, Donovan. I’m afraid Sherlock’s in Birmingham on a case. Not coming back ‘til the 22nd, from the sound of it.”

“Not that kind of emergency. Personal one,” she explained, vaguely watching a dancing elf on the shelf in front of her. The things people came up with for the holidays.

“Oh? And you need my help? Everything okay? Someone hurt?”

“No. No. Just…” Sally bit her lip. She hated asking for help. “I drew Holmes for the gift exchange, and I have no clue what to get him.”

Watson chuckled. “I was wondering who the unlucky bastard was who got Sherlock. I am sorry.”

Sally shrugged, unseen by Watson. “It’s fine. No harder than if I’d drawn most of the others participating. So, any ideas?”

He hmmed. “Plenty of us will be taking the easy route, like scarves or gift certificates. Wine.”

“And be mocked mercilessly by His Nibs? I’ll pass. Come on, Watson. You know him better than anyone else. Give me some insight.”

He laughed, maybe a little sadly. “I wish I had insight into his brain right now.” He paused for a moment. “I guess you could just go to a charity shop and grab the first weird thin– Oh!” Watson cut himself off. “I didn’t see the price, but it’s worth at least looking into. More work than a bottle of wine, though, and I could give you a few labels I know he doesn’t hate, if you’d rather go the easy route.”

“Just spit it out, Watson.

“There was a framed drawing that caught his eye. If you don’t get it, I actually might go back for it. I could tell he liked it.”

Watson then proceeded to describe the drawing and its location in the shop, then named the shop and where it was located. Not too far from where she currently was. Sally sighed in relief. Well, mostly relief. There was a chance the piece of art would be gone by the time she got to the shop.

Apparently luck was on her side that night, for the drawing was still tucked in the corner of the shop. It only took a glance for Sally to understand why it had caught Holmes’s eye, and as she paid for it, she made a mental note to put her money on the next few days for the office pool.

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@ithinkthereforeiamaswell

[vieuxnoyesrp]

Sally. We were afraid it’d be a while before there were any takers for our teenage rebel, Jeremy Gilbert. But after reading your application, we were of the unanimous opinion that it was well worth the wait!  Your passion absolutely shines through this application, and we love how deeply you dive into a character’s story and head-space; a fact we are fortunate enough to know given your astounding portrayal of Malia Tate. But even if we hadn’t had that exposure we would’ve come to the same conclusion a few answers into your app. You bring a magnifying lens to the subtle points in Jeremy’s personality, leaving no stone unturned. Also, you ask all the right questions that arise from the snapshot of him that we gave in the bio, which tells us that you’re ready to explore his character in all the creative directions that we’d hope to see - and that we can’t wait to read on the dash!

Sally, thank you very much for applying. As for Jeremy…

               ⚜ ~ WELCOME TO VIEUX NOYÉS!!! ~ ⚜

Wondering what to do next? Click here and let the good times roll!

⚜ Roleplayer:

⤜ Name/alias: Sally ⤜ Pronouns: She/Her ⤜ Age: 24 ⤜ Timezone: CST ⤜ Activity:  I’ve been pretty consistent with Malia so far, I’d say maybe a 7?!?! I have a lot of school work to do because it’s my last semester so I really shouldn’t be thinking about another character to be perfectly honest. But Jeremy’s bio s p e a k s to me and I think that I could keep up a good and balanced activity level with him along with Malia. I’ve wanted a second character for a while it’s just been a matter of finding the right fit and getting Malia to a place where I felt comfortable picking up a new character. Because as you guys know I’m obsessed with her and I didn’t want to take any mental time away from her. But now I think that I am ready, also again, I can’t ignore Jeremy’s bio and how much interest I’ve garnered in playing him. ⤜ Best form of contact: Through my Malia account works fabulously. I would make Jeremy a secondary account on my Malia account if that’s alright with you guys/if I get accepted. ⤜ Any Triggers? No triggers. ⤜ How did you find Vieux Noyés?  Originally I found it through a recommendation by Kelly! ⤜ What drew you to the RP? Lolz, could gush forever. But you guys run such an amazing place. The intricacy of the the bios though, coupled with your leadership skills and all the fun exciting events we get to do. It’s just fantastic. I love it ⤜ What is one subplot/element from the Plot page that you are particularly looking forward to seeing in this roleplay? I can’t wait to see what happens with the harvest coming down the hatch. Also just generally all the changes and developments that each character will get a chance to grapple with.

⚜ Desired Character: Jeremy Gilbert

⤜ Why do you want this character? 

I want this character because I apparently love characters who are children with dead parents. JUST KIDDING. I thought it was funny that both characters that caught my attention had that in common. But no, I really want this character for a multitude of reasons. For one, I love the connections that Jeremy has. I love that he has his drug friends. I love that he has the Salvatore brothers breathing down his neck in the facet of, oh you’re Elena’s little brother so I must protect you, but oh also Jeremy knows that you two are vampires now who follow my big sister around and who I blame for killing Vicki Donovan (as if Jeremy needs a reason to dislike people). But that’s just a few the dynamics I love. I also love that he’s into drugs and substance abuse. I think that that is going to be a bit difficult to write, but I’m interested in the challenge that writing a drugged up or drunk character can present. I love the tiny details in this bio and just SING to me. For example, his blacklist? Like where does he keep this blacklist in his room and like how does he know when to add to it? Also what does he mean to do with it? LOVE IT. Also, I love that he draws, but shhh not anymore bc no, can’t give any of the people who want to ‘help’ him in his life something to hang there hat on. But lastly, I love the person that he is. I love this sad boy nature he has that is so stubbornly engrained in him. I feel like, if he doesn’t cling to this anger and sadness, then he’ll feel that he’s doing wrong by his parents passing. Especially since the beginning of his bio has this push and pull about how life moved so fast beyond their passing and how the people of Mystic Falls could so easily move past their memory. I think that driving force in him is SO powerful and one that he has yet to talk about with anyone because he is locked that part of himself away. There’s so many things I love you guys. This bio amaze balls. ALSO NOT TO MENTION THAT HE’S RECENTLY FOUND OUT ABOUT VAMPIRES. THAT’S HUGE. LOVE IT.   

⤜ What are your future plans for this character?

As far as where I see Jeremy going within this rp, just because of the fact that he is so stubborn and angry at the world, I think that gives him a huge amount of potential for growth. I think Jeremy is going to have to find something in this NOLA world that means something to him. Obviously you’ve got the doppleganger, Elena, Klaus situation happening that he doesn’t know about yet. You’ve also got him interested in weapons. I think that the weapons aspect of it is going to become a real serious thing for him as he starts uncovering the veil of the super natural despite the fact that he doesn’t want to. Jeremy finding access to these weapons and also maybe finding mentors to help him use them, will give him a way to feel like he is doing his part in avenging deaths of innocent people. Vicki Donovan being one of them obviously, in regards specifically to vampires. I think that will be a way for Jeremy to channel his sadness and guilt over his parents passing into a more healthy and productive manner. He’ll be able to satiate his anger in a way. While I think its harder to pull from him just yet, Jeremy does /really/ care about Jenna and Elena. So I think that their being in danger at any point will present moments for him where he will have to release real emotion. I think the rp generally will push him to feel that sense of responsibility in very real ways, which will inevitably develop his connections and understanding of the world. You’ve also got his connection to Sabine and her drugs causing him hallucinations, along with his realization of the super natural world. Obviously learning about the super natural world is going to force him to grow in new ways and despite the fact that he is staunchly against learning about it or knowing about it, it’ll become a reality for him either which way.   

⤜ Put yourself in your character’s shoes. Give us a few lines to describe a day in the life of your character... Where do they live? Where and how do they spend their time? 

I see a day in the life of Jeremy Gilbert as him sleeping in till about ten, maybe noon on a good day. I would imagine that Jenna would try to get him to go to school. It’s possible that she gets him out of bed but if that is the case then he blows right past her out of the house and gets into his car. On a general basis Jenna probably won’t see him until he shows back up in the house, in which case he’s likely to go back up to his room and lock the door so as to avoid fielding any kind of annoying conversations about his whereabouts and such. When he is out of the house, I think he’s looking into archaic weaponry. Jeremy likes to remain in this facade of not caring about anything or anyone. But I think he does have intellectual interests that are currently being geared towards how to protect him and the people he loves from super naturals as a human. But if he was pursuing that interest, it would be a particularly good day for him. Because other than that I think he’s trolling the Quarter for a good laugh or a good party. Of course, before he does any of that he’ll get himself a good little high off a perfectly rolled joint of which he took great pride in creating. If anyone questions him or looks at him funny, depending on his mood, he may be inclined to start a fight, especially if your name is Tyler Lockwood. On the more rare occasions that Jeremy does make it to school, he is likely under the influence there as well as it’s the only thing that would get him through that. Though Jeremy’s tolerance would be high enough at this point that he’s able to handle himself well enough. Of course, he wouldn’t use the hallucinogenic drugs that Sabine provides him with on these particular days. At school, unless provoked I think he just rides under the radar with a few unnamed stoner buddies he gets along with. If he does get provoked for any reason, Jeremy will be inclined to start a fight and not back down. He has a lot of aggression to get out and has no problem doing it to someone who decides to step in his way. Although, I don’t think Jeremy would hit a girl. I don’t think that Jeremy has ever experienced any consequences that have been too intense, or at least more intense than Vicki’s death or his parents. So I think because of that it’s become easy for him to rationalize such rash behavior. I think that because Jeremy is able to shirk so much responsibility, he’s also able to go out on any night he pleases, which he does please to do. Going out and partying allows him to will his entire world away with such ease. Often times I think he finds himself rolling (no pun intended) with Josh and Sabine. Though he’s just starting to question this motley crew due to the fact that Josh is less affected by substances and Sabine’s substances take him to a whole other level. But because I think in the back of his head he knows the answers will lead him to places he doesn’t want to go, he’s also subduing some of that curiosity in a way. Finally, somehow someway, most nights, he makes it back to his own bed when he passes out and repeats till the next day. The boy rarely goes to sleep without toking up first, and never wakes up without a good baking.

⤜ Give us three headcanons regarding your character of choice. (If your character is from one of the tv shows, please come up with a headcanon that is not explicitly stated on the show, but is rather based on your own imagination.)

So this list! So I think Jeremy first made this list immediately after what happened with Vicki Donovan. I think he was not sobered, but obviously very 'sobered up’ by what he’d witnessed. The images were just flashing through his head, all the horrors that he learned about seeming to come to life before his literal eyes. And he knew it wasn’t Sabine’s drugs in this case too. But the second he was all alone, his mind would’ve just been racing with such anger and fear. I think he pulled out a piece of paper and pen and began to write out this list of people, Damon at the top, then Stefan, then Tyler. I think this list made him feel slightly better, like he had /some/ control over the shit that goes on in his life, or could have control over it. And I think this list works in conjunction with his new found affinity for weaponry. Again, him needing to find a teeny bit of control.

 I don’t think Jeremy has completely given up on drawing. I imagine that he doodles to his hearts content in class, hood up, arms covering up the work. It’s very personal to him and something he wants to keep a secret. Think it would be cool to have someone accidentally discover his doodle notebook one day. 

Jeremy loves coffee. He is coffee connoisseur and enjoys trying all the different drinks the town has to offer in regards to it. I think he runs on coffee and drugs every day, sometimes staying up into all hours of the night. If he gets really inspired he might’ve even go on a drawing spree, though you can be sure the drawings will be kept well hidden away from Elena and Jenna. 

⤜ What are some plots you'd like to explore with your characater?

Plots that I’d like to explore with this character–so many. His new found affinity for weapons and how that might connect with the Argents. Already Allison has noticed his interest in weapons, so building off of that will be super interesting.His connection with Bonnie and how that will allow him to grow and develop since she has a specific little hold on him that he can’t seem to shake in regards to being just a tad bit more open. I want to see where Matt and Jeremy go. I think that the two of them have the potential to develop in similar ways. Which could allow them to befriend one another in this mission I see him having of wanting to protect those who can’t protect themselves.I’d love for someone to find his doodle notebook. I’d love to see what happens when people try to discipline him, or tell him that he is immature and childish (which he obvi is).I’d love to see how his and Sabine’s friendship progresses and how that pushes him to break more into the super natural worldI think Jeremy also has an affinity for beautiful women, of which there are an abundance of in NOLA. I could see him developing a flirtation with any number of women, at least those who find his immaturity tolerable. 

⤜ Para sample: 

(Retained for privacy.)

⤜ Would you like to be considered for another character if not accepted as your primary choice? Nope, I’d love to play Jeremy though. And If you guys need more from me, I would love love love to know about it so I can get on a page with you guys about how you see Jeremy. If I differ from your ideas or haven’t built enough on certain aspects of him, I’d love to do more work in that regard because I already LOVE THE INSIDE OF HIS HEAD.   

⤜ Have you read the rules?: I have read the rules!   

⤜ Anything else?  Oh man, so many other things I’d like to say that I haven’t already, but I think I’ll leave it there for now. Again, if there’s anything you’d like to discuss with me beyond what’s here I would love to talk about because eeeee I’d really really love to get a chance to bring him to life on the dash!

[markwatkinsconsumerguide]

Consumer Guide / No.54 / Bristol artist & painter Toni Cogdell with Mark Watkins.

MW : Tell me about your background, how you became a painter, and your artistic viewpoint...

TC : I can't remember a time when art and creativity weren't central in my life; since I was a young child I've been searching for something, needing to always look beneath the surface. Having a creative family I was lucky to be surrounded by art, music and all forms of expression and I was encouraged to live creatively. From an early age I drew daily, and found a connection with making marks and images, telling stories, and I realised art was a necessity as well as my first language.

That's the place from which I work, a belief that art is a necessity, that it can hold a space for us which allows us to pause, to question, to reconnect, and in doing so to expand our own selves, inwards and outwards. Intuitively and emotively led my painting practice aligns with my own belief in the purpose of art: to reweave our threads and connect our dots. To somehow find 'presence' and a state of 'being' amidst the chaos of our minds, histories and exterior-driven lives.

MW : Describe your studio, and how its layout and materials work optimally...

TC : My studio is small in size, especially considering the size of work I like to make, but it is my favourite place in the world and a powerhouse of inspiration. Set in woodland there are always trees, birds and pieces of sky within my periphery and these naturally find their way into my paintings, in a strange, unintentional way - I never sit and draw the view from the studio, it just comes out through memory and feeling, almost surprising me when I see the similarity to my surroundings. I absolutely love that!

The connection between my studio work space and studio garden is important to me and has become a big part of my daily routine and process. To physically be outdoors and in nature as well as actively gardening, hands in the dirt, informs so much of what I'm exploring in my work and helps to sustain the right kind of creative energy; the true, gut feeling kind rather than the over-thinking and planned sort. The calm connection I make while gardening graciously feeds back into my painting process, allowing me to access more of the raw sensitivities I'm seeking, the outer layers having been stripped away.

Painting is my full-time job and career but it's also my way of life and I need it to be fully integrated with living, so having a studio at home and out in nature has made it easier to keep some sort of continuous creative stream running through everything, day to day. That's become very important to me.

I work on a wall near to a window, with my palette to my right but a few steps away. I like to keep moving and fluid to keep the energy in the paint and not get too precious and still over any one part of a painting. On the other side of my studio I have a sofa - too large really but comfy with plenty of room for books and notes. I do a lot of drawing there, and reading, a lot of reading. From the sofa I can sit and look at the painting I'm working on as well as glance toward the ever-changing landscape outside, I get some kind of context and perspective there. So my studio is split quite clearly into the active, 'making' half and the contemplative, ideas-based half. Then the outside which is something of all those things.

MW : Why believe in "studio guardians"?

TC : I feel solitude is essential for making art as there is a need to dig down through your own layers in order to brush up against little mysteries and truths, and this is your own pilgrimage, just yours. But of course at times it can be a very lonely occupation, felt most keenly when your energy dips and you start to think and worry about your place in the world (as you're sat there dreaming onto a canvas while everyone else is out there doing things) so it helps to remind yourself you're not alone, and that right now in this moment and backwards throughout time, people have been in that same place creating, and living a good life on their own terms.

Enter: my studio guardians! Georgia O'Keefe, Tori Amos, Patti Smith, Frida Kahlo, Peter Gabriel, Sally Mann, Karl Weschke, Kiki Smith among others represented in photographs and quotes tacked to the walls of my studio. They're talismans and touchstones, my tribe of art-warriors, and often just one glance at them can reminds me it's possible, that you need to dream the way forward and that only the work of your heart will do, so stray strong, stay true. They all personify that to me.

I also believe that all creatives are connecting to the same channel, entering the same river of creativity, frantically trying to get out of our own way to allow it to flow into us and through us. So somehow making the studio environment a nurturing space with guardians walking the path with you helps to keep you keeping on. More of a 'we're in this together' approach rather than a constant lone wolf hustle.

MW : How do you know when one of your paintings is "finished"?

TC : At times, I wonder if a painting is ever really finished! For me, that feeling comes when the painting has taken on a life of its own and having its own conversation independently from me; there's nothing more I can add to it, it's just doing its thing! I work intuitively, so knowing when a piece is complete is also intuitive.

Sometimes I sense this too soon, and a few days later I return to the painting and see that it really needs to be pushed on. This process can happen a year or two afterwards, but that I think it another process happening, perhaps. I want raw marks and gestures to be seen and exist in their own right on the canvas, but also love the evolution of paint in layers, so to have both of these elements present in a painting is what I'm looking for, life and story. When they start to coexist and talk freely to each other is when a painting is close to being finished.

MW : Tell me about some of your paintings (selected for this feature)...

TC :

‘All Or Nothing’

This was a painting that just knew what it wanted to be from the offset, there was no stopping it. The paint was going onto the canvas before I had a chance to think about it, its shape was forming and taking me by surprise at each turn. This is how I love to paint, and it doesn't happen with every painting. It felt right to give it the title 'All or Nothing' as this was the feeling which sustained it throughout the making, it really was a no holding back, give it everything process. It was made at a time when I needed this reminder in life; to approach the edge and push away from your moorings, to give your dreams everything or it would all be for nothing.

‘Wintering’

There tends to be just one, lone figure in each of my paintings, and the conversation begins between them and the space they occupy through successive layers of paint. Within these layers other visual elements are included, attempting to express a sense of inner life and presence of Being; such as trees, rivers, birds and other symbols of nature we may emotionally connect to. During the process of painting 'Wintering' became quite stripped back and mostly concerned with light and space, only a slight suggestion of trees behind the figure. The more the ground became pushed into textured light the more the figure was also washed over, pushed back then retrieved again, in a cyclic, to and fro process - it felt as if winter was both stripping her back and covering her. Human and tree. It became a very quiet painting, softly spoken in whispers and light, I am very fond of it for these reasons.

‘Stoic’

This painting is based on a sculpture which stands in a churchyard local to my studio. For years that figure has acted as some sort of anchor or navigational point for me; a recurring motif of strength and consistency in an ever-changing world and way of life. Because she had such a strong impact on me in this way, with her talismanic quality, I wanted to include her in a painting, but it took quite some time before this naturally happened. ‘Stoic’ was the painting I had wanted to make for years. The title ‘Stoic’ just seemed to sum up that feeling so concisely – she stands through time so stoically, the weather’s washing off her stone body, she persists.

‘We Are Diamonds Taking Shape’

All about energy and how we carry this through life, shaping and reshaping us, I let the paint drive this painting. Focusing solely on gestural mark making on and around the figure I wanted the movement to flow through this piece in an almost cyclic way, echoing how we are always in motion, through life, through time, towards our will and dreams. The title for this painting comes from the Coldplay song 'Adventure of a Lifetime', which I was listening to a lot during the painting process. "...everything you want's a dream away, under this pressure, under this weight, we are diamonds taking shape."

‘Tempest’

I love there to be some kind of movement and fluidity in my paintings, to represent a sense of the constantly shifting emotion and lived experience we go through; this movement usually happens within the paint around and on the figure who is often still, lost in thought. With_ 'Tempest'_ I wanted a lot of the movement to be coming from the figure itself, I was pulled to this dance-like pose the figure was in. One of the focuses in my work is geared around the clay solidity of form colliding with the fluid, and intangible nature of consciousness, and this was very much the essence of this painting. With the addition of the title 'Tempest' , the space around the figure becomes a storm raging around her. She remains centred and accepting of everything crossing her path; she doesn't withstand the storm, she is the storm.

MW : Tell me all about your sketchbooks...

TC : I have always kept sketchbooks in one form or another but for the past seven years, or so, they have been much more integral to my painting practice and life. I always use the same kind of sketchbook - an A5 hardback moleskine, opened every day and worked in most days whether it's just a quick note or written line, or a few pages of worked into drawings and paintings. They are a landing place for direct thought and a bridge between my internal landscape and the paintings I make. The more I open myself up in my sketchbook the more the paintings begin to open and can encompass more layers of my search.

I don't 'decide' what to paint or paint about, it's more of an ongoing evolution of fragments of ideas, life and emotion being pulled together, colliding intuitively on the canvas; sometimes making immediate sense, and, other times I won't understand the meaning until a long time after making a painting. My sketchbook is a place where all these fragments begin, where the wisp of their tails is first caught and marked on the page as a record. Pages are never intentional. They are made from my need to draw, a need to respond to an image or pose, a sudden eureka moment needing to be written down or a line or quote that has resonated with me that I wish to remember. None of these things have any meaning that can be understood at that moment, or any plan and destination, they are just faithfully noted and captured for their own validation as part of the process itself, which I have become to trust wholeheartedly. They can be measured later, and they are, when I look through my sketchbook again and can experience it from a responsive stance, not an active one. On review, the starting point for a painting can suddenly leap out at me, an area that needs further exploration or something to be tried in a different way, a thread I'd forgotten can be picked up again. From the seemingly disparate fragments of thought, noticing, and feeling I experience in response to everyday life and cycles of emotion comes an unexpected pattern, a strange union, a punctuated statement, something that just feels right.

So my sketchbook isn't about the planning of paintings or straight forward experimentation, it's about connecting to and recording some sense of inner life, direct marks with no editing; the personal, sensory reactions to being a living human in the world. It's about making a start in unpacking the mind, letting clues to decipher the intangible nature of 'being' fall onto the page, however they wish to land, becoming a collection in book form that I can revisit at different times in the studio, with different mood shifts to allow their reordering so they might become the bones for actual paintings. I'd be lost without my sketchbooks and always have my current one close by. Some days in the studio can slip off the rails a little and begin to feel a bit lacklustre; that's when I pick up my whole pile of sketchbooks, curl up on the studio sofa, and go through each one page by page, allowing myself to be receptive to anything that might be speaking to me.

MW: Bristol City or Bristol Rovers?

TC : No comment!

MW : Fair enough ! Give a flavour of the sights and sounds of your city of Bristol...

TC : I am a proud Bristolian! The city of Bristol and its surrounding areas are artistically and culturally vibrant, as well as diverse and inclusive, it's easy to feel 'at home' as well as inspired.

We gave the world Banksy so surely that already puts Bristol on the map! As well as the incredible music scene we cherish, the 'Bristol Sound', exporting artists such as Tricky, Massive Attack and Portishead. There are many artist studio complexes across the city and independent galleries, as well as celebrated and culturally rich institutions such as The Bristol Museum and The Royal West of England Academy (RWA).

Bath is only down the road and equally supportive of the arts - I show work there with Gallery & Barrow, based on Walcot Street which has a beautiful creative buzz about it.

MW : You love books. What’s on your bookshelves, and what's in your reading pile?

TC : Books are friends! I'm as passionate about the written word (and spoken/sung) as I am about visual art; books are sacred objects in my home and studio! The reading of powerful words can instantly revive me and reconnect me to the space I need to be in to paint, so as well as having books stacked in the studio there are always a few dotted across the studio sofa for me to read while having breakfast, or taking a break from painting.

I have some beautiful art books on artists like Kiki Smith, Sally Mann, Karl Weschke, Marlene Dumas, Antony Gormley and Nicola Hicks and books by favourite writers like Terry Tempest Williams, Neil Gaiman, Virginia Woolf, John Berger, Kathleen Jamie, Mary Oliver, Seamus Heaney, Jeanette Winterson and many more. Some of my favourite current reads from my pile are: Devotion by Patti Smith, her latest book which is as divine as everything she has done, Woolgathering being one of my favourite books in existence; Finding Gobi by Dion Leonard, I have just finished this one and if anyone doesn't know who Gobi is they need to learn all about this incredible little dog and her story, she's been such a ray of light over the past year; Lovingly Georgia, the collection of letters between Georgia O'Keeffe and Anita Pollitzer, so wonderful being able to read their actual words to each other, and having read a lot of biographies on Georgia the context is already there so this is just pure go joy.

I have just started reading Daybook: Journal of an Artist by Anne Truitt and I am completely spellbound; one of those books that feels as though it was written just for me, my exact thoughts printed on the page in front of me. It is the best companion when working in the studio. Another book I love to go back to, as well as all of Patti Smith's works, is Hold Still by Sally Mann, an absolute masterpiece, insanely beautiful prose and fascinating art and life. Paulo Coelho and Mark Nepo keep my attitude and soul on track while Salt by Nayyirah Waheed reconnects me to everything within me.

MW : Why a fan of “raw” chocolate?

TC : I drink it more than eat it, starting the day at 6.30am in the studio with a mug of hot chocolate, pure 100% Cacao raw chocolate; a natural lift with no energy spikes and crashes as it's unprocessed and only sweetened with pure ingredients. I have another mug around 3pm when the mind starts to slump and over-think, and use this as a bribe and reward to myself to keep working until my break! It's a big comforter and part of my routine and has become a sort of meditation - stop work, switch gears and slowly make the chocolate, then sip it while reading either inside the studio or outside in the studio garden. After that it's back to it full steam until the evening.

MW : Where can we find out more?

TC : My website is www.toni-art.co.uk

I have an Instagram page which I post to regularly and acts as my studio diary.

https://www.instagram.com/tonicogdell/

I keep my website updated with new works and latest exhibitions and events.

© Mark Watkins / October 2017