#and I had to redo it and make it simpler so I did it about hamsters instead because fuck you

[pequenaotaku]

With nothing else to do, I ended up editing Colette's late brother. Why? Just felt like it. Plus, as I delve deeper into her story, her brother will be mentioned more often. For emotional reasons, I thought it would be nice to start introducing him.

Later on, I also plan to introduce other secondary characters that I planned offline for New Gen even before the game was released. To summarize, they are family and friends of my three girls. Creating OCs is delightful and everyone loves it.

Without further ado...

This was Dante Lebarde, Colette's older brother, the reason she is passionate about astronomy and hot chocolate. Besides enjoying the vastness of space and all its mysteries, he was a very calm guy, the famous mediator, who tries to make everyone's life lighter and simpler. He had a degree in gastronomy and worked as a sous-chef* in a 3-star restaurant.

Going back to the past, shortly after little Colette was born, their parents had a colossal fight and not only did they divorce, but they also didn't want to know about their two children anymore, so they left them to be raised by their paternal grandfather, Charles Lebarde (yes, the professor of Ancient and Medieval Art at Anteros Academy). Feeling obviously abandoned, he didn't want his little sister to have to deal with the same heavy emotional burden that he had to deal with as she grew up, so, with a little help from their grandfather, he always made sure to be around and take care of Colette. They grew up very close.

Dante died at the age of 27, being hit by a bullet in a robbery that took place at the restaurant where he worked. One of the customers that day had a baby and went into a complete panic when the robbers entered, threatening everyone. Dante tried to help her calm down so as not to attract trouble, but it was too late, he ended up being shot in her place.

Additional information (that I was too incompetent to fit into the text):

Dante was 8 years older than Colette.

He was engaged and was going to get married at the end of that same year to his girlfriend who had been with him since high school. (She still hasn't recovered from the whole thing and ended up getting closer to Colette during the mourning period. The two still treat each other as sisters-in-law. I plan to make a post introducing this girl in the future too, I'm just not sure whether to redo her design, update it to match New Candy's base, or keep it as it is.)

He was pansexual.

As already mentioned, he had a special passion for astronomy, and this hobby was passed on to him by his mother. He was very sad that they had lost contact but believed in catharsis. He hoped that one day the stars would align and they could at least become close again. Unfortunately, it didn't happen.

His favorite type of food was seafood.

Although he was a very skilled chef, he was terrible with artistic notions in terms of the harmony of a well-presented dish. Interior decoration as well, consequently, but that's another story. So, when he created a new dish, he focused more on the taste; it was the chef's job to make it look good, ironically. Colette didn't care about this; she found it very fun to cook with her brother and joke about who decorated the cupcake the worst.

He loved listening to the sounds his sister produced. It was he who gave her the nudge to take it seriously as a profession.

For some reason, he was obsessed with reptiles. He liked them more than furry animals. In fact, he had two pet snakes, a Ball Python* named Nova and a Boa Constrictor Imperator* named Nebula.

The base and most of Dante's clothes I got from this VK group. As for the hair and facial details, I found them in the Castiel base Drive that @candysweetposts made.

Glossary:

Sous-chef*: Of French origin, sous-chef literally means under-chef. He is the second in command of a professional kitchen and, therefore, answers only to the chef. Thus, this figure also represents an authority to the other team members.

Ball Python*: Also known as a royal python, it is a popular species due to its relatively small size and docile temperament.

Boa Constrictor Imperator*: A subspecies of the boa constrictor, generally bred in captivity and appreciated for its relatively docile nature.

[pandorafallz]

Ashes in her wake | C15

Ultimately, Alma spent two more days at her current campsite processing the raw materials and turning the marinating meat into smoke-dried goods she could wrap into some leaf wraps and basket them along with her newly dried out bones and the hide was also just about done drying for their travel.

Leyapay didn’t run at the sight of the saddle and behaved for her in fixing it on though the little extra wait, which she wasn’t fond of but it was a too-bad sort of situation by the time the camp was cleared, fire extinguished and anything she didn’t keep, she buried to ‘return to Eywa’ as Okul said.

It felt good to have the supplies and felt even better to be on her away. The bush pod that had been her home for nearly five days disappeared into the horizon behind her.

For two days, they travelled in relatively good weather and in peace; not coming across anyone else in her travels either but on the early morning the third day before she could get into the Heart of the Plains was met with an utter downpour.

Thunder and lightning.

So staying inside the cave she had taken refuge in was a must.

Leyapay was uneasy, resting beside her as she coaxed her small fire back into life to roast her new arrow dear sausages on for a snack. The sound of rain echoed loudly and the flash of light was more startling but she kept herself bonded to keep Leyapay calm through the sounds of thunder far louder out here than the clouded forest. Less…protected without the trees or fog. Exposed. She could feel Leyapay’s heart was fast and nervous but the connection was enough to keep her from trotting about anxiously.

Humming softly to keep her grounded away from the outside, Alma’s knife worked wonders into a thin piece of bone she had crafted into a comb. The bristles were; thick and strong, so would work through her hair well. She had plans for details along the top but she would do that another day.

“<Done… more or less.>” She showed it to the Direhorse, met with a huff then a lick to her her stitch-free leg. “<Ew.>” She gave her a look but she could feel Leyapay’s interest in her tune, so she rolled her eyes and restarted her humming, going for a slow variation of Pan’s Lullaby. An old song now, but a tune that she distantly remembered. Soft and comforting, so it was hardly a burden to keep going if it helped ease her mount in this weather.

With her comb done, Alma took the time to redo her hair, the comb doing its job and soon her fingers ran smoothly through her hair again and carefully pulled it all up to sit neatly in a bun above her kuru. Something that would hold for a few days.

By the time she was done, her food was cooking well so she picked at it slowly and watched the rain outside.

“<No.>” Alma gave her Pa’li a look, sensing her curiosity in her meal, their bond offering the Direhorse a link to how she could taste it “<This is meat. You don’t eat meat. You literally do not have the jaws for it.>” She reminded sternly. “<Just because I enjoy it, doesn’t mean it’s something you can try. Even if you did, I suspect you’ll be shitting yourself for days. No, thank you.>”

Leyapay huffed.

Once she ate, she cleaned up her pot to get rid of the smell of meat and tossed some of the resin from her supplies into the fire to further dissuade any wildlife from investigating and set them away.

“<I think if this storm carries on, I’ll have to camp here tonight. Not a lot of fuel for the fire to last all night either>” Alma remarked, “<Still, light enough, is should probably make a start on the gloves before I encounter the Zeswa camps.>” She had the hide to use; to throw together something simple and quick.

Not all the hide she had was a single piece; a good portion of it was but the hide taken from the Arrow deer’s sail membranes was separate for ease of butchering. So it was simpler to dig that out of her supplies.

Her first two toes would be the covered ones as would be the last two of her fingers so she knew what she had to work with for a design.

The hide from the membrane had lost its bright purple colour and rested at a more saturated purple hue but that was expected so she cared little about that; it made it stand out less and it could done very quickly. But leatherworking was not her strong suit and so, she could show off her lack of skills if she didn’t work the hide well. She could put her yarn and thread to use and make something with it; she was far better at weaving. Hide could be used as a complimentary material.

Alma mulled on her artistic choices for a long moment, staring at her baskets of supplies before reaching out and tugging it close and routed through until she pulled out some spare grey fabric and some wooden decorative pieces from The Hollows. Too little for anything like proper clothing but enough, she realised would be enough for gloves and feet guards.

She plucked the wooden pieces out first; opting to use that as a main central piece over the top of her foot and wrap underneath and around the heel of her foot; securing at her ankle like a leg-guard most Pa’li riders had.

For her handpieces, she decided to use some of the dried bone as her decorative support; settling along the metacarpal bones and decided to design the shape like blunt needles. She planned the material to cover the fingers as one, and to trail off at her wrist but also could secure across her palm to so it wouldn’t just catch and pull away from her fingers. A few beads too to add to the wrist ties and… she wanted to put some new beads into her hair.

So Alma occupied herself as the hours drew on, pausing every so often for a break, to pace around the shallow plains cave, harvest some mushrooms she found and fed them to Leyapay to enjoy; the mushrooms being an old favourite of hers that she missed—Alma made note of that—and then returned back to work.

By the time the rain had stopped, it was dusk. Unsuitable to travel in.

Alma allowed her half-finished work to lay out for her return and taking her spear as a precaution, she ventured out mostly to the distant tree alone. Like the wind-bowed tree ahead. The soil underfoot was still slippery and wet but walkable.

She eyed the tree, running a hand down the damp trunk before she began to climb it slowly to get to the higher branches. Trees often had bark ‘galls’ that the Na’vi often harvested for their projects, the bark galls formed by the tree’s natural defences against invasive insects or even scoring. She could use some to help her gloves and strengthen them.

The tree though… she felt was a poor choice, even as she climbed.

It was soft wood and it was clearly soft before the rain and she could feel its texture under her fingers. Very similar to Wind bent trees of the upper plains but.. not close enough. Alma paused and jabbed the trunk with the end of the spear but the sap that came out was near fluid.

Watery sap.

Sticky and smelt a lot like pine but… unsuitable for even collecting the bark; the galls were probably empty; the resin and sap no doubt not holding. There had to be something fruitful up here, right?

Alma slung the spear to her back again, climbing up carefully before she reached the branches, very aware of the dip her weight gave to the pliant wood but her stomach was relieved to see a nest of some sort tucked in out of the direct path of the wind; a cluster of eggs within a residue to keep the eggs clustered together and to the nest.

She could have scrambled eggs for dinner.

Motivated, Alma carefully slunk down and secured her leg around the branch. She reached forward and grasped the damp pile and tugged softly, rotated a little to the right to properly lift the stack up slowly to tear the collection from the residue and nest before it became free. It wasn’t the Na’vi way to take all of them, and she knew Okul taught her better to take it all now. Typically, where there were dozens of nests, the Na’vi would often take one. But she couldn’t see another nest about to do that. She counted a dozen light blue eggs. So with her knife, she cut four away and slipped those into her hip pouch of smoke bomb and returned carefully the eight back into the nest. She plucked off three sulphur pods growing as well when she spotted them on the trunk and made her way down and back to her cave.

She collected up some of the wet wood by the armful and once she was in the cave, she set them close by the small fire to dry to be useful so she’d not sleep next to a burnt-out fire.

Leyapay, no longer bound by fear of the storm ventured out on her return so Alma watched her go as she set her cooking bowl back over to heat up and set the eggs to soak into some water to be easier to prep; they’d make a pretty paint too so better to more of the cleaning before she broke the shell.

She’d need to make more canteens if she was going to make paint… best if she simply just kept them wrapped up in pieces first until she was in a good place to ground them; she needed a binder for the paint anyway so she’d need to ask the Zeswa campers for that.

Alma used two of the eggs for her dinner, scrambling them and with a cut of meat, she enjoyed the savoury dish. She peeled the membrane out of the shell and let it burn, leaning the inside and set the broken eggshells into a leaf wrap to be a later’s concern and let it fall from her mind as she settled her hammock between two large rocks; hoping it wouldn’t fail her in the night.

She fed the fire again, tossing in some resin for a peaceful night though her eyes followed Leyapay’s distant figure, trotting to pitcher plants but she could now distantly make out the silhouettes of other Direhorses now; their patterns a darker red in contrast to Leyapay’s. She smiled softly as she clearly went towards them.

She’d be back tomorrow.

Hopefully.

-

Alma flexed her fingers again on the reins, the new gloves still taking some getting used to but they were done now. Still, it was weird to wear them. But she was on the move again. The morning sun was still low in the sky and she was making good time into the Heartlands.

In the first camp, she ideally only wanted to be there briefly. A few hours at most depending on if they’d accept her request for making a bow and more lessons but… she had no idea how to estimate the time needed for that.

Around her, she was soon greeted with the foliage-covered formations that seemed to tell tale that she entered the Heart of the Plains the territory seemed to rest mostly within a large open valley. The grass was still green bright, but now were growing patches of bright pink and purple feathery bushes.

She recognised the Feather Blade plant easily, walking close as expectably, and was showered with the pink pollen. Leyapay startled a little, her pace quickening but Alma led her towards the second Feather blade. Leyapay tried giving it a wider birth but Alma didn’t allow that, allowing the plant to release its pollen too but wiped her hands down its windbreaker trunk when she was close to pollinating it.

There was soft movement, as beside its main trunk, the leaves opened up to reveal its large feather blade seeds. She didn’t get off Leyapay as she retrieved four of the large seeds and tossed them into her basket for now.

“<You can have some later.>” Alma promised, patting her sail.

They kept close to the river, the pollen disappearing off them after a few minutes and she followed along the River of the Lost until she spotted the river’s three mall islands. Was that the left she had to take?

Leyapay poked her tongue into a pitcher plant, happily huffing at the rewarding nectar it had; far nicer than the ones on their travel. Plenty of Direhourses stood in herbs, feeding and running about in the distance.

Alma’s eyes ran across the lands with uncertainty, her heart beating anxiously; there was a camp ahead, that much she did know if she followed the River. Archer’s Point, in Kìpe’s words. But that wasn’t her destination.

After a moment, she decided and turned a sharp left west into a steady trot; she could always come back.

-

It didn’t take long, perhaps twenty minutes before she caught sight through the grasslands of beauty to see the kites above the familiar shape of tents. Bigger than the ones the travellers had for obvious reasons, but she could tell that it was much quieter by the lack of boisterous voices echoing so far. Zeswa were notorious for being loud.

Still, she didn’t let that stop her and ventured over the uneven grass towards it. A river flowed behind it so it was in a good spot. It settled a good ease to see it; she had gone the right way.  The closer she got, she heard the voices now and when she was noticed, a Na’vi stood watching her approach.

“<Hello, Traveller.>” They greeted, gesturing from their head. “<You have come far from the Clouded Forest.>”

Alma mirrored their action politely though chuckled softly. “<Indeed, but I don’t intend to impose for too long. Vayhìp mentioned this home to me when we passed each other.>” She said.

The Na’vi’s head tilted and their eyes lit in recognition. “<Are you in need of shelter?>”

“<No, but I am in need to learn how to craft a bow. I do not have one I was not taught how before I left.>” Alma said, not yet jumping down from Leyapay. “<Is that something you can teach me? Or should I simply move on?>”

The Na’vi eyed her for a moment, their eyes dropping to her mount as Leyapay sniffed toward him curiously before he reached up and allowed her to sniff at his knuckle. Her tongue slithered out and licked his hand.

“<Is that all?>”

“<A few foundational lessons in it. I can fire but my lessons were brief before. I… can trade some of my supplies if you are willing.>” Alma offered.

“<What is your name, Traveller?>”

“<Ulma te Kortez Anita’ite.>” Alma said, internally wincing as she realised her mistake. She had…gotten used to the travellers calling her Ul’ma and while she hadn’t corrected them, she had fully intended to revert back to her proper name with new people. She had slipped up a half-correct name without thought. Her last name, she had to pronouns differently. The Na’vi language didn’t have the letter C and they’d naturally use the next-best sounding letter, which was K. Anita was not too foreign of a name for the Na’vi and it was her mother’s. Not a name she had spoken or thought of for years but one she should use for her introductions now, it seemed.

Her mother had passed a long time ago. Her father died years before her. Her brother was probably still alive. Was her nephew still about as well? Alma wanted to ponder but forced those thoughts aside to now.

The Na’vi nodded. “<I am Nasak te Srekxa Txofla'ite. Please, unmount and follow.>”

Alma did so with a nod, and they followed them into the encampment.

There were only two others, both busy; one thankfully looked to be in the middle of whittle wood so hopefully, that meant a bow was being made. The second looked to be preparing some sort of fruit into paints.

“<Yap’na, Katru.>” Nasak said, pulling the two’s attention. Both sets of yellow eyes raised from their work to them and then to her.

“<A Kame’tire?>” The first one spoke then snorted, “<Why is a Kame’tire here?>”

“<Lessons, Yap’na. Be kind, we do not know her story.>”

“<I am on my way to the Spires>” Alma spoke up, coming to a halt.“<It is a long journey and I have no bow. I need to hunt>” She gave the man a look. “<Vayhìp allowed me to use one of theirs.>”

Katru, a woman with a very stern appearance looked up from her whistling. “<Do you know how to use a bow? You do not look like a hunter.>”

“<I have some training>,” Alma said, not specifying how much because… she’d rather not mention it too deeply. “<But I cannot rely on my spear, I need a bow.>”

Katru eyed her for a moment, her gaze turning to the sky for a moment before she decided and got to her feet and nodded her along. “<Come pick a dry branch>”

Alma left Leyapay, who lay down although Nasak relieved her of the saddlebag and basket and set them aside.

Katru led her to a small pile of about seven stripped branches of various lengths. “<Pick one>”

Alma nodded once, bending down to the pile and looking through them; they were of relatively good quality; she could feel they were flexible but not too pliable to be useless. But she knew relative the bows were on average near the wielder’s height.

So Alma quickly stood them up to get an idea of the optimal ones, knocking five of the seven out for being too short. One was a head taller than her so she went for the shorter one and held it out.

Katru nodded once. “<You recognise the requirements. Good.>”

“<I’m observant.>”

“<What tools do you have?>”

“<A knife and mostly weaving tools. There is not much in the way of wood shaping.>”

“<Your clan is renowned for woodshaping.>”

“<It was not my skill set. I gather better than shaped wood.>” Alma stated. The woman was a little short with her and she had the distinct feeling that all they were willing to give was the lessons; they wanted her gone.

Clearly, they disliked the Kame’tire still… but of course, the news of the innocence hadn’t reached them to be kind for more than that.

“<For a bow, you cannot carve it from a wet branch. Once it is picked, you must strip it then it must be dried all the way through. You can strip it once dried but it’s easier to do so when it’s still fresh.>” Katru started. “<Do you have a bowstring?>”

“<I do.>”

That pleased her. “<The string is harder to make, another can give you that lesson.>”

So for five hours, taking a break once to eat lunch which helped rest her aching and sweating hands, Alma was soon holding a complete bow. Not the best, but passable after she was shown how to tiller the bow for the string and soon enough, she held the complete bow in her hands.

The first drawback without an arrow, Alma was worried she’d snap the bow yet it yielded. Her body felt the strain in the pull, her side particularly.

“<Elbow higher,>” Katru pushed her arm up as she did this. “<Belly in and bowing arm straight.>” The woman was sharp in her correction. “<Loosen up and try again.>”

Alma relaxed the string and dropped her arm, flexing her fingers before she pulled back again, trying to follow the corrections.

“<Your form is terrible. You’ve barely got any muscle for this weapon.>” Katru remarked. “<You know how to make arrows, yes?>”

“<I do>” Thankfully. They were simpler to make and archet’s thicket seemed to grow plenty here. She’d use the animal bones for the arrowheads. So’lek had shown her once when he had first joined them; he had seen her watch him work the bone into an arrowhead. He said little but it was fascinating to see how it worked. How he smoothed the shaft and fletched.

“<My work is done.>” Katru nodded once. “<Nasak can show you proper form.>” She pretty much excused herself, clearly done and left her to it.

Alma watched her go for a moment, trying not to let the woman’s attitude sting and… in honesty, it wasn’t too deep anyway; the new bow in her hands felt too good and she had a promising start.

Nasak was watching her in her approach, unsurprised though seemed pleased with her work. “<May I?>” They asked.

Alma handed it over without a word.

Nasak examined it carefully, then held it up professionally and pulled the string back before they let it go. “<Good, a working longbow. The string isn’t too loose and it has good form. You can decorate it to look prettier but be weary of the weight it may add.>” They added.

“<Can you show me the forms I need to practise before I go?>”

Nasak’s eyes rose, handing the bow back. “<I can but if you’re leaving soon, there is only so much I can teach you.>”

“<I know. I’m aware my presence brings some… animosity with some of you which is why I must leave within the next few hours. I need to learn how to draw and fire independently without learning bad habits without an instructor.>” Alma pointed out.

Nasak eyed her bow for a moment. “<I do find it odd that you left without this knowledge. Learning a bow is often for all children, regardless of the clan.>”

“<Do you have any experience with the Kame’tire to know if they follow that?>” Alma gave him a look. “<Zeswa and Aranahe might, but the Kame’tire have been withdrawn for decades.>”

She got them with that. They looked a little sour but it was clear to see why had no answer to truly know the likes of the Kame’tire and what they teach their children. Alma didn’t either but she wasn’t telling them that and out herself as a Dreamwalker. They might just shoo her away.

“<I will show you, but you will ache after.>”

That sounded like a promise.

Perhaps she’d need to camp off and lay in a pool to soothe her muscles. The best case situation but the pain would be necessary for her body to develop those muscles. It had to be worth it, right?

Masterlist

[uwps002]

i'd like to order 3 fruits and 3 mun Qs to avoid overlap pls heehee

𝐅𝐑𝐔𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐒   ♡   𝐒𝐘𝐌𝐁𝐎𝐋 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄 @hollowfaith

🍍  :    how comfortable is my muse in their body?  how do they feel about their height,  weight,  strength,  and body type?  how important is being attractive to them?  

Céline is comfortable in her own body pretty much all the time, and being attractive is something she's always coveted. Not for her ego's sake, though she does like to be complimented, but because she was a sex worker for a long time and being attractive definitely helped her out.

She has, however, struggled with gender dysphoria in the past, and that led to her current genderfluidity. At times she identifies more as a man, and she'll usually redo her entire wardrobe for a time. But she will never, ever cut her hair.

🍊  :    does my muse desire romance?  is it something they would actively seek out,  or prefer to happen more  ‘  naturally?  ’  what is their love life like?  do they have any exes or past flings,  or crushes?  

She's never actually been in a romantic relationship before because it was a little difficult to do when you were in hiding constantly, though she's had a number of physical ones over the past six years. It's something she desires, but she's very awkward about the idea of romance and worries if she got close to someone that they would either leave because her history or because of her true form. She connects better romantically with other women more than men in the end.

🥭  :    how important to my muse is their hometown,  or where they’re from?  are they proud of it,  or considered a hometown hero?  did they move away,  or do they wish to?

The twins never really had a "hometown" to speak of. They've always been on the move, and any semblance of one she's had she tried not to think about because of associated painful memories. Spirale is becoming the closest thing to one for her oddly, because she's spent more time here than anywhere else.

——————–QUESTIONS FOR MUN

10. Do you like stylized icons and formatted text or do you prefer to keep things simple?

It really depends on a few factors for icons. If I'm iconing a manga I try to keep them simpler because I think they look better. But I also have a habit of just making a PSD and not using another one for like years, so! I don't like things too fancy because they become too busy and hard to tell what's going on. In that sense, I feel similarly about formatting and just like to do smalltext + a unicode symbol at the start of my posts!

12. Have you roleplayed anywhere other than tumblr?

Quite a few places! I've used forums, GaiaOnline, and even tried Dreamwidth at one point. But I never really stray much from Tumblr these days, it's my preferred medium that hits that sweet spot between "not too much effort" and "basically no effort" that makes it feel satisfying without being too overwhelming.

16. Do you like to queue your replies or just post them when you finish?

I like to post them as I write them. Unless my girlfriend bullies me into queueing hers.

[wowpindrop]

Unavoidable | Doctor!James Acaster (& others)

For: anon

Request:

Basically for this first request, gonna be a little strange but I had a dream that James Acaster was Doctor Who and his companions were Josh Widdecombe and Ed Gamble and I was the Doctors child and was wondering if you could write something including fluff based on it? But instead of me it’s the Teen!reader obviously, I’m 18 and Gender-Fluid and use all pronouns, any and all pronouns would be great in regarding the reader.

Notes:

Hi anon! I'm so srry this has taken me so long to do, but I lost the first draft so I had to redo it :[. But it's finished now! I literally love the idea sm, James as the doctor would be so hectic I cannot. I've decided to keep Ed and Josh's names the same so it isn't confusing but James is obvs referred to as the doctor. I hope it's alright. Also if you wanna be tagged in future fics that i post, dm me n ill add u to the list. Happy reading!

Tags:

@frankieray

Summary:

The doctor makes a foolish mistake leading to you getting injured on an adventure, he is quick to make sure you're alright and to assure you it won't happen again.

TW: SLIGHT BLOOD AND INJURY (BUT ITS ALL FLUFFY AT THE END)

It was unexpected when you heard the bullet go off behind you. Yes, you knew the aliens you were currently facing weren't cowards- it wasn't as if they were too scared to shoot.

It was just surprising that they shot you.

You weren't in their direct line of fire, it would've been simpler to maybe shoot Josh, or even the Doctor, but yet here you were.

The Doctor. Your doctor.

He had found you on one of his adventures, complete coincidence. It just happened that he was your biological father, not that you has any idea.

The gangly man had a very different personality to your more serious, stoic nature. You wouldn't have guessed, not by looking at you both anyway.

His, happy, bubbly nature. Constantly bouncing around the TARDIS, occasionally bumping into the control panel, and swearing under his breath, much to the enjoyment of Ed and Josh, the two men who the Doctor had decided to travel with as companions.

That's why it was so surprising that the aliens didn't shoot the Doctor, the amount of attention he was bringing to himself on the deck of the spaceship anyway.

The ringing in your ears began to subside.

You looked down.

Your raised a shaking hand to eye level, to see it coated in a dark shade of your blood.

Your breathing quickened as you realised.

Then your legs gave way.

The last thing you saw before the darkness was the Doctor swearing loudly before yelling orders at Ed and Josh, flailing his limbs frantically.

You could feel the blood slowly oozing out of your wound as your eyes began to close. The Doctor rushed to your side, kneeling. His hand finding the side of your face.

"Stay with me. Fucking hell please stay with me."

Your eyes fluttered open to bright white lights. They made you squint as you began to sit up, wincing at the pain in you side. You leant on your elbows as you looked around the infirmary of the TARDIS, somewhere you had gotten acquainted with after dangerous adventures with your father.

None had been as severe as this.

They were usually minor things: cuts, grazes that sort of thing.

Ever still, the Doctor would stress, worrying about every tiny injury you had. Long slender fingers plastering up even the slightest paper cut.

You turned to your left, to see the Doctor asleep in a chair. Messy auburn hair covering his eyes as he snored, out of place. The outfit he wore was dirty with dust and grime.

He was snoring lightly, his mop of hair shaking slightly with each inhale. Just another one of his many quirks.

You attempted to stand, throwing your legs over the side of the hospital-esc bed. As you did the Doctor stirred, waking.

He saw you trying to get up and started to panic a bit.

"No, you have to lie down, you took a heavy blow out there man."

You huffed and lay back down, looking up to see his blue eyes laced with concern and worry.

"Dad I'm fine. Its only minor."

"Minor? You were bleeding out, you were lucky you didn't end up with any more damage that was already done."

You rolled your eyes in defeat as the Doctor began to check the gauze that covered the wound.

"I don't know what I would've done if you didn't make it back kid." He said after a while, slender fingers pulling back down your shirt, which now had a fairly large red rimmed hole in it.

"Well I'm fine aren't I." You responded with a slight smile.

"It should've been me, I wasn't paying attention, I put you in danger I'm so sorry-" he began to reel off apologies until you grabbed his hand to make him look at you.

"Dad! I'm ok. It wasn't your fault. None of us could've guessed that would've happened. Don't blame yourself."

A little while later, Ed and Josh entered, worry plastered on their faces. They were relieved to see you awake.

"Bloody hell y/n." Ed chuckled darkly "you got pretty banged up."

"Yeah well, I'm good as new now." You responded, chuckling.

"And im so glad you are." The Doctor whispered, squeezing your hand.

[libra-stellium]

Finally done with this transit!! omfgggg tired is an understatement! I'm already sad for 59yr old me who's gonna have to live through this again lmao but anyway let's see how it was from December to January!

Notes from Saturn in Transit - Erin Sullivan

Saturn over the ascendant can be experienced as an extremely dramatic shift from "who you used to be" to "who you will be" but with a rather traumatic period of uncertainty while the no longer useful persona is sloughed off

The uncertainty is insane right now! Personally and professionally lmao like I actually have no idea if my job is going to affected yet by the new admin and no one knows anything at work so we're just waiting??? and personally I feel like I've been feeling more and more different from the people around me and it's sad! And at the same time I feel like I've been more open about things lol

The thresholding that is experienced during this time can be a shock to someone who has strongly identified with or has been identified with a particular and definite image

Real af lol I feel like i'm just trying out new personalities low key because sometimes I feel like I'm being fake and I have to retreat by myself and be like oh okay I wasn't it's all good lol

Understanding this necessary loss of personal identification greatly reduces stress and allows a more conscious transition into the new self image. The struggle is all about coming to terms with unconscious material in the conscious mind and vice versa

I started being able to remember my dreams again and actually being able to write them down! Even my prophetic dreams are starting to come back so it'll be interesting to see how more unconscious things manifest.

Symbolic of a descent into oneself

Descent into madness for SURE!! I also journaled in my physical journal once in the last two months lol it felt like anything I could write about was just too much to get into when I finally got some time to myself lol

Notes from Planets in Transit - Robert Hand

You will try to eliminate everything in your life that is not necessary to fulfilling responsibilities

This was way more a struggle this time around! I feel like the things won against me and my responsibilities lol I haven't done laundry since Dec! Well I've just been doing underwear and a few things I want to wear asap instead of everything which is 3 hampers....

You will become more complex and simpler at the same time

I feel like I have done a lot more that was just me following my excitement but to others doesn't really make sense bc they're not connected lol but to me they're all the same!

You are finishing up tasks going into a 5-8 year period of relatively quiet preparation for a new beginning

Low key been feeling like everything is ending but I have no idea what's next for me!

You may have less freedom of movement than usual because of the pressure of circumstances and the need to get things done

This omfg I had to go into the office so much more than usual to do assistant work bc the people that do that work were out or had whatever wrong so I was next in line I guess?

You may have to exert more effort at work in order to get the job done

Fr! I was literally redoing other people's work that they did wrong and I wanted to rip my hair out! This intern that's currently in law school was helping me make witness binders and he couldn't even hole punch...I'm not even exaggerating the holes were half circles and the paper was ripped.

Your superiors may give you even more responsibility than you would choose to have

On Jan 10 the last day this transit was exact I had to basically walk the document manager through printing while I was at home... then i had to show her how to print a shipping label like it was too much and then she still didn't finish on time and missed the fedex pickup like it was so crazy I had to talk to the managing attorney the following Monday and he thought I was gonna quit lol

Do not start out on a completely new project because in a few years you may find that you do not have the material or psychological resources to complete it

Haven't started any projects like that lol or at least none that would be relevant in a few years!

Good relationships will not suffer but bad ones will break up completely

Didn't have any bad relationship things happening.

You are withdrawing from everything in your life that is in the way of your development during the next few years

Been saying no way more!!

Avoid building a wall between yourself and others because they are important to you now that you are excluding those who do not belong

Been making it a point to be more open!

This is a productive time

Very! I finally finished my 3000 piece puzzle I started Jan 2024 lol

Follow through on the tasks that need to be done and get your life in shape for the next phase of preparation

..... Fine! I'll do my laundry tomorrow lol it's the only thing I've been slacking on!

Saturn conjunct Ascendant

As a 14 degree Pisces rising this was March 12, 2024 to May 8, 2024.

"Bitch wtf is going on????" - me the entire 57 days and it's coming back around in early 2025

Notes from Saturn in Transit - Erin Sullivan

Saturn over the ascendant can be experienced as an extremely dramatic shift from "who you used to be" to "who you will be" but with a rather traumatic period of uncertainty while the no longer useful persona is sloughed off

It’s been a weird timeeeeeee like there’s some things i'm like so excited about that are a “new me” and then there’s some other stuff I’m like 💀💀💀 about and I’m gonna pretend like nothing is happening for a while longer bc this feels like too much change at once 🥲 maybe in 2025 lol my mind has been going nonstop!

The thresholding that is experienced during this time can be a shock to someone who has strongly identified with or has been identified with a particular and definite image

lol I literally introduced myself as an astrologer to someone the other day bc they mentioned astro and me being an attorney never came up and it honestly felt nice 😩 yeah my entire schooling revolved around becoming an attorney but like it doesn’t "feel" like I succeeded at it lmfao and I’m honestly not putting a lot of effort into making it feel like success either so 🙃

Understanding this necessary loss of personal identification greatly reduces stress and allows a more conscious transition into the new self image. The struggle is all about coming to terms with unconscious material in the conscious mind and vice versa

I think so much is happening in my unconscious mind bc I usually remember most of my dreams in complete detail and the last two weeks at least I know I’ve had very longgg detailed dreams but when I wake up I can’t remember it in the part of my brain that can say it into words lol I feel like I’m missing out on messages!

Saturn brings to the ascendant all the manifest experiences and control issues that have dominated the last 14 year extraverted cycle during which the individual learned how to be present and accountable in the conscious world or accomplishments, deeds, and collective goals

"I'm giving myself goals because I don't know what to do with myself if I'm not accomplishing anything." - Me in 2021 a year after getting my law degree lol I feel like it encompasses this whole thing! During this transit I wrote a list of personal goals and they're not outward things like graduation they're more like be consistent with skin care lol the other day I told my aunt I just relaxed and I didn't do anything and she was like if you're so boring why don't you go on a walk and i was like??? I didn't say that?? lol made me not want to say anything else!!

Symbolic of a descent into oneself

When I first read this I was like oooh seems zen 🧘🏾‍♀️ IT WAS NOT ZEN IVE BEEN IN THE TRENCHES!! It feels like too much pressure to know and be like "this is who I am" i just want to be a pisces rising whose personality changes whenever

Notes from Planets in Transit - Robert Hand

You will try to eliminate everything in your life that is not necessary to fulfilling responsibilities

I didn’t do many things just for fun during this time everything had a purpose. I did finish reading two books unfinished from last year and it was in an attempt to spend less time watching videos which worked!

You will become more complex and simpler at the same time

Idkkkk I’m not sure I understand what this even means

You are finishing up tasks going into a 5-8 year period of relatively quiet preparation for a new beginning

I feel like I’ll see this more in 2025 bc right now I don’t really have anything started that needed to be finished lol

You may have less freedom of movement than usual because of the pressure of circumstances and the need to get things done

A week into this I made happy hour plans and I was going to leave work extra early bc I had nothing to do and I got an assignment literally 2 hours before I was going to go! I did finish in 2 hours and went to HH but it was stressful lol

You may have to exert more effort at work in order to get the job done

For real the last month I actually had so much more work at work than usual I was working a full 8 hour day sometimes 😭 usually I have like maybe 8 hours of work a week!

Your superiors may give you even more responsibility than you would choose to have

Facts! The last few days I’ve been essentially training this girl at work and the last day of this transit I finished lol seemed fitting

Do not start out on a completely new project because in a few years you may find that you do not have the material or psychological resources to complete it

This makes me feel like it should be about something big 😂 I have not started any projects lol I did apply to a few jobs but none of them even responded to reject me so that was also unintentionally not started

Good relationships will not suffer but bad ones will break up completely

I feel like Saturn in aqua in my 12H took care of most of the bad relationships already lol so this was fine

You are withdrawing from everything in your life that is in the way of your development during the next few years

Yeah I’ve been more annoyed than usual at people around me who are making the choice to struggle just bc they don’t want to try something new 😩 it’s been making me feel like I can’t be as close to them like it’s contagious 😂

Avoid building a wall between yourself and others because they are important to you now that you are excluding those who do not belong

Yes I’ve been making it a point to actually say yes to events lol but it's hard to keep in contact with people for some reason! I forget to or think that less time has passed and then I check messages and it's been weeks!

This is a productive time

I did get a lot done! I cooked a lot of meals, I washed all my bedding that’s been sitting there since end of last year, I cleaned my fish tank, I cleaned the mildew off my bathroom walls, I put a lot of my clothes away, my recycling pile is way down, I built a storage shelf thing for under my desk, I sewed a skirt, I read and wrote a lot

Follow through on the tasks that need to be done and get your life in shape for the next phase of preparation

I’ve been intentional about this! I made a list of things I want to get out of my saturn return in my 1H and one of those things is clear skin so I’ve been consistent with the routine like actually tracking it on the calendar! Losing weight was another on that list and the last two months I was just focusing on food like getting back into cooking and the last almost 3 weeks I’ve been tracking all my food and even using a food scale. On the last day of this transit I signed up for the gym!

Overall I would give this transit 6/10 😂 the mental anguish was toooo much Omggg I hope it’s easier in 2025 and after that I’m glad I don’t have to deal with this for another 30 years

[goosewriting]

How about a romantic Donnie x Reader, with purple 1 said by the reader? I was thinking maybe the reader has been trying for quite a while to impress Donnie, doing all kinds of things that often only lead to trouble and to a seemingly annoyed Donnie. What reader doesn't know tho is that he's in love with them too, and just really sucked at showing it?

I see you (rottmnt Donnie x reader)

prompt 1: “All I’ve ever wanted is for you to see me.”

summary: reader wants to impress Donnie, which leads to a confession. 

relationship: Rise!Donnie x GN reader

warnings: i don’t think this counts as angsty right? fluffy ending!

word count: ~660

A/N: not the avatar sounding title lmao sorry if this one is kinda bland,, i couldn’t come up with anything better sdfdsf hope it’s still to your liking :’)

(english is not my first language. constructive criticism and grammar corrections are very appreciated!)

– – – 

Ever since coming to terms with the fact that you were crushing on your best friend, the purple clad turtle, you had set your mind to sweep him off his feet. You tried so hard to impress him, even  going as far as taking online courses on programming and reading several chapters of the book “Engineering for Dummies”. You just really wanted him to notice you and figured that the best way to do that would be to impress him with your newly acquired skills.

Since you would hang out a lot in his lab, you started offering to help on his projects. You had done so before, but suddenly you were able to somewhat follow his explanations and contribute your thoughts on the topic, which was met with a raised eyebrow on Donnie’s part. You couldn’t tell if he was intrigued or felt like you were overstepping a line of sorts.

The very few times he had agreed in the past to have you help out was to mainly pass him tools. But now you were suddenly welding one of the simpler circuits on his project. Donnie stopped working for a second and you could feel his gaze on you, still unable to read him, which got you self-conscious and you ended up burning a wire, making the whole thing unusable. You gasped in shock, and were about to apologise and tell him you’d redo it, but he was quicker.

“What are you doing?!” Donnie asked in a rather harsh tone, swatting away your confidence and eagerness to work with him in one blow. He came around the table to stand next to you and basically yanked the tools out of your hands.

By now you were holding back your tears, cursing at yourself in your mind, thinking how stupid of an idea this had been. One choked sob escaped you, and you brought your hands up to cover your face, turning away from him.

“All I’ve ever wanted was for you to see me” you said over your shoulder. “I like you, Donnie. Sorry for being a bother.” 

You were already taking a step to walk out of the lab, but a hand around your arm held you in place. You turned back around to face the turtle, and you could tell his mind was running at a thousand miles an hour. He was looking at the ground with furrowed brows. It took him a moment to figure out what to say. It was a rather uncomfortable silence but you waited for him. 

Donnie was at a real loss for words. First of all, his comment earlier had been way harsher than intended; he just didn’t want you to get hurt. Which was the main reason he was so reluctant to let you help out in the lab in the first place. And second, he liked you too, he just didn’t know how to tell you.

When his gaze finally found its way back to yours, you gave him a questioning look. Before you realised what was happening he pulled you in for a hug. You were so stunned at his gesture that it took you a second to process it and hug him back. When you finally did, you gave him a reassuring squeeze.

“I do see you” Donnie said and nuzzled his face into the crook of your neck, mainly to hide his face for what he was about to say next. “Thank you for telling me how you feel. It’s the same for me, you know.”

If your heart wasn’t racing before, it surely was now. You two stayed like that for a moment until you separated, a huge smile and tinted cheeks on your face. 

You ended up leaving the lab together to go for a supply run, spending the rest of the afternoon shopping for materials. When you came back, Donnie let you do the circuit again, but this time he helped you, guiding you through the steps.

~~~~~

🐥 taglist: [more info in my pinned post!] @hearteyedracoon, @maribatshipper, @whygz, @lovelylovelydreams, @o0-starboy-0o

[throwing-roses-into-the-abyss]

I kind of suddenly realized this during therapy last week and I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week, but: 

I don’t really know how to challenge myself to do difficult things. I tend to just...drop something when it gets too hard and I have to put actual effort in. And I really hate how I can only think of one or two teachers in my entire life who not only saw I could do better, but who actively made me do better. I never really learned to have the patience to slowly build my skills - if I don’t improve very rapidly very easily, I just won’t continue. 

And because of that, I might have surface level knowledge of a lot of things, but nothing that actually goes deeper, because that requires effort and it’s easier to just move to a new topic and learn the basics of that, repeat ad infinitum. 

Part of it is also just genuinely having a lot of interests and an almost annoying amount of curiosity. It’s hard for me to stick to one topic because there are so many interesting things in the world, I just want to learn it all. 

I think some part of it is also fear. My whole life I’ve been called ‘smart’, ‘intelligent’, ‘intimidating’, ‘I bet you’re good at this new thing immediately’, ‘you’re so smart, why don’t you understand this’, so now if I’m not immediately and effortlessly good (or, preferably, amazingly perfect & a natural talent) at something I just don’t bother with it. 

But I’m really starting to feel like I’m missing out on something. Like I could do better at a lot of things, be better at a lot of things, if only I’d actually struggle through the difficult parts and put some proper effort in it, but at this point I don’t even know how to do that? And it sounds so exhausting too, like I just don’t have the energy for it. 

Anyway there’s not really a point to this post other than that I’m just kinda :( about a lot of stuff.

[comicaurora]

If this is rude to ask please please ignore, this is from the perspective of someone in pre-planning stages of my own comic:

How long did it take you to shrink from the 30(?) page buffer I think you said you started with to 10 pages? I assume starting with that big buffer meant that this is less impactful to the comic and thus less stressful, but do you have breaks planned for yourself so you can re-up that backlog or do you intend to try to do it in-time with the comic? You're a powerhouse who I only ascribe to half the output of, but I'd love to know a little more about your backlog ethos. (When you have time of course!)

Heh, oh boy. The biggest bite got taken out of the buffer during Falst's intro arc. I had boarded something like a dozen pages when I decided I didn't like the direction they'd taken and I scrapped them back to blanks. I don't do this as a rule, but I could tell this one was a problem - I can't even remember why now, but there was something there that just wasn't working. I thus had a time-loss redoing those pages that made up the better part of a chapter, and my storyboard buffer shrank pretty significantly, though it's since recovered in a big way.

More of the buffer got worn down during the back half of the Zuurith arc and the Tynan fight, since every page was so complicated. Alongside the environmental fog and rain effects and the eight different kinds of glow, it was also a lot of characters on every page, and that increased the lineart and coloring time significantly. If I recall correctly, the buffer shrank to the low single digits a few times during that arc.

At some point I might take a break, but I kind of don't want to. I've kept up a solid pace this long and I don't wanna break my streak. I've been able to build the buffer back up to 20 pages before, but the problem is I tend to then take the following week or two off on the comic progress front because in my head I've made a good chunk of progress and thus should take a break. I'm getting better at incremental scene-by-scene progress, and I think chapter 20 is going to be good for rebuilding the buffer, because - spoiler alert - a lot of these scenes are one or two characters only, and most of them have fairly dark featureless backgrounds. I suspect I'll be able to get a healthy headstart just working through this chapter. This was my reward to myself for constantly making the Tynan fight increasingly complicated and ridiculous, and it's honestly a breath of fresh air to make these pages so much simpler.

My rule for comic-making is set a pace you can keep up. If you need to take a break, that's fine - my own unwillingness to do so is a me thing I'm working through. not a policy to emulate. I've been able to keep this up for three years with minimal buffer-loss, and as the story progresses my own art gets better and faster, making it easier for me to maintain this pace. That's why I made sure to start with such a hefty buffer - to give myself time to pick up speed and get better, time to have the occasional crash-and-burn week or even month where nothing gets done, and time to rewrite things that were being problems. Basically, the buffer is 100% working as intended so far, because all of those things have happened at least once.

The math is pretty favorable. With a three-page-a-week upload schedule, if I can finish three pages in under a week I'm guaranteed to keep the buffer going. At peak performance I can do five or six pages in one day, though that's dependent on complexity and that pace isn't sustainable for long - but of course it doesn't have to be, because that buys me two weeks to recover and do all the other stuff I couldn't do during the hellride. The block of pages I'm going to color tonight is five pages, which will buy me nearly two weeks. I lined and shaded those five pages on Friday, and I'd blocked out the backgrounds for this whole scene and the following one in one afternoon the previous week. It's not hellride-pace because it doesn't have to be, but if I needed to push it I could buy myself a week in under a day. Because of this, rebuilding the buffer back up to 20+ is a lower priority than keeping a steady pace that won't hurt my drawing hand or my writing brain.

But if I take too big of a hit I'll announce a two-week break or something. I have things arranged so hopefully I never have to, but ya never know, and it's important to be okay with taking the occasional unexpected hit!

[kedreeva]

So, as I was invited to another reptile expo this weekend with my vendor friend, and it looks like this may become a regular thing, I decided to invest in a little sign to set bedside the mouse bin, some temporary business cards, and an attempt at brochures.

The sign went off flawlessly. It's beautiful. The cards are really nice as well, but I will be redoing them to be simpler I think.

The brochures would look amazing if I was a little smarter, and if Staples was also a little smarter. I did not predict the way the brochure would fold correctly (I swapped the front and back) which you would think would not be that big of a deal, except that the surfaces are actually not equal in width. The front (right side) is actually slightly bigger than the back (left side). It gives no indication which section is the front fold. If I was slightly smarter I would have realized I had it backwards. Which isn't a huge deal, but it did mean their folding machine wouldn't fold them correctly, but they didn't know why. So they gave me a few extras to make up for it and then I had to fold them all by hand, and cut some stuff by hand as well. So that took a while tonight, but it's done!

I'll be taking ambassador mice with me that aren't for sale (I have nothing for sale currently, the last expo cleaned me out entirely), but now at least I'll be able to send home info for later. Kind of excited about that!

[shipsgaysfordays]

Uncertainty Meeting

So, this is chapter 2 of my fic but in Sirius’ POV, honestly I hadn’t remembered some of the batshit crazy things I had written until I was copying them into this chapter and like damn it’s insane

Does include the uncertainty prompt from @wolfstarmicrofic

CW: graphic depiction of violence

Links to other chapters here

Reminder that Remus’ pronouns for this fic are they/them, Sirius’ are ze/zis/zer/zhe/zeir/zey

Also fuck JKR and the rhetoric that she spouts that’s transphobic, homophobic, racist, antisemetic, and if I’m forgetting anything else then I’m deeply sorry

“We need to meet. I need to tell you something, the time is finally right. Meet at our old hang out spot , the one you always hated, I’m sorry but it’s the only one I could trust going to. I’ll wait as long as you need.”

Sirius left the note on the sidewalk, hoping that somehow Remus would find it, they always seem to be on the lookout so they probably would…right? 

Happy that soon zey would finally see zis love again, but still terrified for what would come next, zey trekked back to where it all started. Trains, buses, hikes, all the way to that grungy shack that felt more like home to Sirius than Grimmauld ever did. 

Despite how much simpler things would be to meet up at Mary’s apartment, there was still a fear about how Remus would feel finding out about all of this in Mary’s home, especially with them finding out about Mary and Sirius communicating. They already had trust issues, this would probably destroy any trust left if it isn’t handled correctly. 

And so Sirius waited, going through the plan over and over again with James and Lily. Redoing the silencing spell every once in a while just in case.

“I go down there first and speak with Moony, then once they seem to have calmed down some–you guys come down. Don’t, and I repeat: do NOT come down these stairs unless the man seems at least partially calm. This is an insane situation and I’d rather not terrify Moony.” 

“Yes, yes, we heard you the first 10 times,” James nodded. 

“Where did that impulsive little annoying loud kid go?” Lily questioned. 

“You married him,” Sirius quipped. 

“I think my wife is referring to you, Sirius.”

Zer eyes glazed over for a moment, thinking about where they did go, cold metal bars, shrieking from all around the tower, never being quite aware when zey were the one yelling. This is about Remus, they remembered. 

“I-I just want to do it right for Remus…”

“Yes, we know, give the man some space and some time to come to terms with the truth before bombarding them with it,” James said, the plan was somehow so simple to him by this point. 

They spent some time laying around and waiting. 

“We should have brought cards.”

“Are we even sure they’re coming?”

“Maybe we could finally talk about the other situation–” James started.

All thoughts and conversation was stopped by the sound of the door creaking and stomping shoes on the wood floorboards. The couple turned to face Sirius. 

“Well…I’ve got to….”

“Good luck Sirius,” Lily patted zem on the shoulder. 

James’ arms wrapped tightly around Sirius, “We’ll finally have our Moony back.”

Sirius shook, stepping down, trying not to go too fast or too slow, trying not to fall down the steps. Until making it to the bottom floor. Remus was examining the wood, their back turned on the other side of the room, staring at the spot where years ago Padfoot had watched them transform for the first time. 

“Remus…” Sirius started to say. 

They spun around to face Sirius, swiftly pulling out a knife and pointing it at the other man. 

What. The. Fuck. Unsure of what else to do, Sirius shot zeir hands empty hands into the air, hoping that might make a difference in whatever might happen next. 

“I don’t mean to cause trouble,” ze spat out, trying to sound calm as the love of zeir life is threatening to kill them with a knife because of the deaths of two people who are entirely alive and upstairs. 

“Of course you don’t, you never do, you lying bastard,”as Remus spoke memories of past mistakes filled zer mind, of the prank, of thinking Remus was the spy, of all the thoughts zis head tried to believe and tried to swat away like an annoying fly while in Azkaban, all the you killed them, it’s your fault you’re hear, it’s your fault Remus is alone, all of it swirled like the worst brewed potion made by an idiot or possibly evil first year at Hogwarts. 

Sirius’ eyes were the size of two moons, not a great comparison since that’s also something that brings Remus blinding hot rage. They were closer than the minute before, as Sirius’ mind came back to right here and now, they were moving forward. 

“I just…I-I need to tell you something, but I don’t know how.”

“What, you’re gonna tell me you love me, beg for me to come back to you like we’re 16 again, like things are that simple again,” Remus backed zem into the wall, holding the knife to their neck, why is this hot, why the hell is this hot, this should not be making me blush, this man is ABOUT TO TRY TO MURDER ME…I’m such a dog, but then it started to hit zem, is Remus really going to....

 “James and Lily are dead, and you’re barely even you anymore. Padfoot is gone and dead, Lord Black just needs to join them.” As Remus spoke tears began to appear in Sirius’ eyes, this is what they really think of me? Ze questioned, but no, Mary’s told Sirius well enough that Remus isn’t okay, this isn’t the man who loves me…right? They wouldn’t call me…they wouldn’t call me Lord Black, not as anything other than a stupid joke.

Are they really about to–Sirius stared, the blade next to zis neck…is this it? I should have had my wand, I should have explained better, I should–

Sirius glanced up for a moment, and then stared, right behind Remus there he was: James Potter in all his savior complex glory, pointing his shaking wand out. Lily next to him, trembling. Sirius’ eyes met James as zey felt liquid begin to sprinkle down zeir neck, like small rain before a storm. Despite the fear, still meeting James’ eye, zey almost screamed, “no–”

“Yes,” Remus said in response, moving even closer than before. 

At the same time, James spoke, “Accio knife.”

Small droplets of blood began to trickle down his neck, Remus’ fingers brushing it. Sirius’ heart raced, Remus’ eyes never leaving zem. Staring for an eternity. 

“I–I don’t know what to do…don’t leave,” Remus begged as they started holding onto Sirius, Sirius didn’t know what to do other than hug them back. How did it get to this? How did we get here? Zhe thought as ze stared at James, trying to hold back zeir tears.

“Please, let me explain.”

It took a while for them to respond, until finally there was a quiet, “okay.”

I didn’t think this far…why couldn’t Mary be here? She could say it so much better. 

Sirius took a breath before saying, “I was falsely imprisoned, for a crime I didn’t commit.”

“Why should I believe you?” Because it’s me, because it’s me and you, the stars and moon, Sirius and Remus, the galaxy. Because I love you…and somewhere you have to love me again too, please.

But Sirius knew zey shouldn’t and couldn’t plead to Remus’ emotions, not now, not after, “Just, let me continue…I didn’t commit the crime, no one did.”

“You expect me to believe the Potter’s killed themselves and their child.”

Sirius was about to respond, ze really was, zeir mouth opened and ready to say they didn’t really die, but they saw a few feet away, Lily. No no no, no Lily, they’re NOT READY!

“No, because we never died,” Lily’s voice rang, Merlin Lily……WHY, I guess I couldn’t have said it better.

Remus broke apart from Sirius and turned to stare at the Potters, until their eyes darted back to Sirius, “What are you doing to my brain?” It’s too soon for them, it’s too much. 

“What do you mean, Moony?” Lily spoke softly.

“None of this is real, IT CAN’T BE REAL, I–” they breathed heavily, “this isn’t real, I’m alone surrounded by ghosts by thoughts by everything fucked up in MY MIND.” Remus’ hands ran manically through their hair. Sirius wanted to reach out, to ground them, to help them realize this was real, but then there was the part of zem that was still in shock. The part of them that had blood running down their neck. The part of zem that was honestly terrified of the person next to zem. 

 “Moony, we’re back, please,” James touched their arm. Immediately Remus backed away, quickly into the corner of the room. 

 “No…no, no no no,” Remus shook their head, “no, it can’t be real. I’m alone. I’m alone , I’m sorry I couldn’t fix this before and make things right but you don’t need to….my mind doesn’t need to lie to me.” They fell to the floor, their eyes wide as they trembled. 

“Remus, look at me,” Lily spoke softly, starting to crouch next to them. “Look at me,” she spoke sternly this time.

James moved next to Sirius, both the men hoping that if they couldn’t help Remus then Lily would be able to. Sirius struggled trying to rip a piece of cloth from zis shirt, ze couldn’t focus on it, couldn’t bring zis eyes away from Remus. 

“Look at me,” James whispered, “Just look at me, I know it’s hard, I know it's scary and you want to stare at Moony because you always do, but just look at me for a second.”

Sirius nodded as James helped rip the clothes and apply pressure to the wound. “Hey, we’ve done this before, we’re okay, everything will be alright,” James spoke again. 

Sirius heard Lily speaking to Remus from across the room, “I need you to take a deep breath for me, I know it’s a lot, but it’s real.” 

“Lily I–” James turned to face his wife, so of course Sirius let zer eyes wander back to Remus, breathing like a madman, pulling away from their best mate in a far less friendly game of tug of war, Lily had always had a strong grip so the “game” went on for eternity. 

“GET AWAY FROM ME,” Remus screamed, breaking their hands free and pushing Lily away. 

Moony looked back to Sirius, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry,” they wailed as they ran out the door, into the night.

Can I forgive them? That was the only thought in zeir head as ze stared at the door, holding a bloodstained cloth, an uncertainty with how the hell to move forward.

[derekscorner]

Fiery Opinions: Elyos Sillyos

Four Dragonstones but only two Dragon units

I finally crawled my way through the dlc after waiting for what felt like ages for the rest of it to release. It’s been so long in fact that I had to reread my initial ramble of the base game to put some thoughts together.

I had a couple restarts but only two full (currently on third) playthroughs of this game and I’ve found myself with more mixed thoughts than positive ones. In a weird way at that because the dlc isn’t bad per say but there’s subjective issues I had with how it works.

The first thing I’ll get out of the way is that I find it a bit frustrating due to lack of New Game +.

You see, I didn’t like the dlc for 3 Houses either but a plus of that dlc is that I only had to play it once. It’s story was (apparently) non-canon and okay at best but once you deal with that frustrating final chapter you dont have to worry about it anymore.

Any time you begin a new game plus on 3 houses you can march into the Abyss and recruit any dlc character you like. You can also use the Abyss’ facilities and even level it up, it’s fully open to you.

FE: Engage does not have this perk. It’s lack of new game plus means that you have to replay the DLC every time you do a file if you wish to make use of it’s five addition units.

I personally find that annoying because it defeats the point to a degree. I found the added paralogues more annoying than fun and, sure, you can joke that it’s a skill issue. The point is that I do not find it fun and I do not wish to redo it.

This becomes a problem because I rather liked the parallel Zephia (Zelestia) as well as the addition of actual dragon units.

It’s already ridiculous that the two dragon units in the base game can’t turn into an actual dragon without Tiki’s bracelet but now I have to play through something I find frustrating just to get two additional dragons.

Dragons that come with two stones each yet, even then, Alear can’t use those stones. As of writing this I have yet to check of Veyle can make use of those stones. I am hoping at least she can due to sharing the Fell Child/Dragon class with Nil and Rafal but I am skeptical.

As I’ve come to play through Fire Emblem I can understand the frustration of being handed a dragon lord only to be denied being a f*cking dragon. I actually made my run of Fates harder than necessary because I refused to be anything other than a dragon when playing Corrin since they’re the only lord that has had the option.

As for the twin dragon units that I do get I do like them. I really like their dragon designs but I do not see myself ever using them after this playthrough because I don’t find the Fell Xenologue worth the annoyance.

I may be more annoyed than I’d normally be about this but I can’t help but rant when my only method of turning three of my five dragon units into actual dragons is via dlc. (3 of the 5 units coming from said dlc)

As for the two additional classes added I have yet to use them much. Just one of those seals costs a hilarious 28k in the shop even with the Silver Card. I’m not even sure I’ll bother testing them out between that cost and the hours of dlc I have to play through just to unlock them.

But enough of that rant let’s talk story.

More simplicity but that pleases me

It’s a simpler story than I expected but I appreciate that. I enjoyed the base game greatly for it’s simple & flawed story and this continued that. I was even convinced that Nil may be the bad twin for a moment...I mean I expected one of them to be bad but they did at least fool me as to which one it would be.

Alear is summoned to another Elyos but one that’s in it’s final moments. It seems like a simple reverse world (to the point that even the world map is flipped) but things are more different than it seems.

The first obvious change is the alternative Alear. They noticeably have full blue hair and given Nil’s infatuation for that alternative Alear I would go as far as to suspect that this Alear was a true divine dragon. A real child of Lumera.

I only have context clues at best for this theory but it’s what I’m choosing to go with because the alternative would be Nil wanting to f*ck her own sibling. I made that ‘greek gods incest’ joke when I did the Fates post but that’s still a step too far for me....despite the series’ tendency to add questionable love options.

Other stark changes I noticed was that alternative Sombron’s children are always born in twin pairs. He makes it so that one twin always kills the other as per his comically evil archetype but it’s something key to the story.

The Veyle of this world seemingly died in the war as well among many others such as Lumera. There’s some more typical stuff you’d also expect like the cast having flipped personalities but you see so little of them that it is of little note to me personally.

I do think this was intentional though. The dlc is short anyway so rather than focus on a “evil” cast they focused more on the new twin dragons Nil & Nel and reversed Hounds.

Oddly the Mauvier of this world is the same as the other but what stood out to me was the other three Hounds. They get enough attention that you’ll actually come to like them. Personally I liked Zelestia the most to the point I replayed it just to get those supports.

It wasn’t much but it was still a pleasant surprise to see a focus on more than just the two new shiny dragons. I honestly left the dlc indifferent to the dragon twins. They’re fun units to use because they can change into an actual dragon but I dont have strong feelings beyond that.

Daddy Issues

That’s not to say they didn’t get enough story themselves. These twins are at the root of the dlc and I was momentarily fooled by which one was bad. I just can’t really express thoughts deeper than this since I left the dlc more frustrated than happy.

I will say that Rafal left more of an impression on me than his sister solely because of one tangent he goes on. It’s made clear that Sombron cursed the dragonstone to some extent but rather than take that easy way out Rafal refuses to admit it was solely his fathers fault.

He accepted that he did the evil things and that he sought to be the Fell Heir. This stood out to me due to how easily things were forgiven or ignored in the base story just so a unit could be recruited to your army.

I do think that it’s brushed aside too quickly once he’s recruited in the main story but that Rafal is 1000yrs older and I’ve yet to see all his supports so I’ll leave it at that.

I’m sure some one who sees the previous post would expect more on the personality reversed main cast but I sadly can’t come to care for them. All of the story goes to the Four Winds and the twins.

I will admit that alternative Celine is hilariously pro war and I do find the state of this world intriguing due to it’s dead nature. Make no mistake, there is no alternative Elyos to save.

It also seems that Elyos as a world needs it’s divine dragons to thrive. I say this because the alternative Alear died when they killed Sombron yet the world wilts to nothing anyway.

And I know that Rafal is the one that turned the royals and many (if not all) citizens and soldiers into corrupted but he alone wouldn’t cause the land itself to wilt away. He doesn’t even have a dragon form nor that level of power until he gets the bracelets in chapter 6.

OH! Wait let’s talk about the Bracelet Emblems a bit.

An explanation I didn’t expect

At first I was a bit disappointed that the bracelet emblems didn’t speak in the Xenologues. They get a few words out but Nel’s goal is to put them to sleep. Our Alear seemingly lacks the power to revive them in Elyos Alter and Nel, as a fell dragon, can only put them to rest.

Nil/Rafal has the power to awaken them but they only appear as fell emblems and thus do not emote. At first this feels like a missed opportunity but I chalked it up to time & money shortage. (gotta pay for those voices)

But it was half way through that I realized something; the bracelets being put to sleep explains their presence in the main story.

In the base story you just randomly find Edelgards bracelet on the Somniel but now it makes sense as to how it got there. The twins and Winds aren’t the only ones who came to your Elyos as these bracelets also found their way there.

There’s no telling for how long they were in our Elyos due to the time difference of the parallel worlds nor do they acknowledge the other world but they will reference the dlc story in supports with someone like Rafal or Nil.

It wasn’t much but it was a neat little thing for me.

Conclusions

I think I’ll end it here since I feel like I’m stretching to even get this far. I ultimately liked the Four Winds and the little world building stuff I noticed but I’m not sure how strongly I’d pitch the dlc as “must buy”.

It’s a pain to replay it every time to get your new units and more than one person has pointed out how the DLC emblems can break the game. They can even break the story if you’re wearing one in moments like Chapter 11 or 22.

Why? Because those are key story moments when the intent can be undercut. You lack emblems in those moments due to story reasons...unless you’re using a bracelet. It wont mean much to some but it will mean more to others.

I will say that I think FE: Engage is perfectly fine if you avoid the DLC so buy at your own discretion. Bye now~

================================

Editors Note: This is a addition to my previous post on Engage. A part 7.5 if you will. For more of my trip through fire emblem you’ll find them here: Fiery Opinions <–(link)

[plow-and-propose]

Sew Your Own Pico!

Now that the Rune Factory Adventure Zine is out (and because I kept some semblance of a cosplay diary this time haha) I thought I’d share the Pico-making process. Hope you enjoy!

(Please excuse the terrible lighting as most of these were taken at 3am)

I originally planned on using a porcelain doll, to really capture that haunted doll aesthetic, but I couldn’t find anything big enough in my price range and besides, I liked the idea of making something from scratch. Using this pattern, I made a rough (extremely rough haha) test version of a cloth doll. I wanted Pico to be as big as possible, like actual child sized, so I increased it by a ½ inch for the real thing. I also adjusted the shape of the head to give it a more anime face.

(side note - I didn’t understand that the ‘face’ part of the pattern was supposed to go over the top of an already sewn and stuffed head, so my first few attempts did not look good lmao)

With my pattern sorted I began from the feet up. I made the shoes out of stiff interfacing, reinforcing the tops with wire rings. The pink is the same colour as the pink on Dolce’s outfit, which I think is a nice touch from the design artist. The legs themselves are black t-shirting with wire inside. In retrospect I shouldn’t have used a stretchy fabric, but they worked out well enough.

With the legs done I made the torso, adding a completely unnecessary but very cute cloth heart. I forgot to take separate pictures of the arms, but they’re attached with button joints (allowing them to pivot) and have wire inside so they can be posed.

Here’s the headless horror:

I also forgot to take pictures of the head (mostly because I was struggling so much haha) but here is the completed base doll (and me, for scale)!

(I was SO HAPPY she could stand up like that but unfortunately the head and especially hat were too heavy in the end ;w;)

I had to take the head off to work on the clothes. It’s funny - I thought this would be easy, because I wouldn’t have to worry about getting the outfit on and off, right? It didn’t even have to be comfortable, I could just sew it on and do whatever, right? Well, that definitely made it simpler, but I was still making a whole cosplay in miniature!

Also I couldn’t work in my room at night because I was boarding a neighbor’s  nocturnal lizard:

(his name is Jordan and he’s a crested gecko)

For Pico’s lil pantaloons I used an old pattern for a pair of shorts as a base. I made two layers, both to give them some definition and to make the ‘petals’ a little neater. I used mesh and wire to support the skirt (a circle skirt with the stripes added on top) but I wish I’d made a proper petticoat, it would’ve held the shape much better.

The torso was pretty straightforward as far as shape went, but the cloth I was using hates to curve and didn’t hem well. I used the decorative borders to secure and cover the edges instead.

(acupuncture……………)

(putting those borders on is the second most fiddly thing I’ve ever done)

Her coattails were just triangles of fabric, lined and bordered, although I cut them too small the first time and had to redo them.

Her shoulder mantle gave me trouble, though. Ideally I would’ve used ready-made felt balls for the bobbles, but it was impossible to find anything that matched the deep purple fabric I’d bought (which was the closest I could find to the in-game colour). Using a coin as a stencil, I cut two layers of cloth, then blanket stitched the curves by hand and stuffed them to get that 3D shape.

(THIS is the most fiddly thing I’ve ever done lmao)

The collar was pretty easy, just basic shapes, and it looks quite thick so I used two layers of fabric. The bats on Pico’s wrists took me a little longer but once I drew one good stencil it was easy. Then the body was practically complete!

(I added the buttons right after taking this lol)

Next was the hair and face. Let’s just check to see if it’s in proportion…

…yeah that looks about right.

The nose and mouth are embroidery thread. The hair is acrylic wool, mounted on stuffed cloth cones. I used both thread and fabric glue to keep the wool in the place, and ‘styled’ Pico’s bangs with fray-stop. This part was relatively easy, but took forever.

(Somewhere around here I began to get really, really into the Transformers cartoons)

With the hair done I started on the hat. Oh boy… the hat. Hats are tricky at the best of times. Fortunately I don’t think Pico’s weird head thingy counts as a hat. Unfortunately this didn’t make things easier.

I cut large disks of pattern paper, using the circle skirt method. Once I found the right size I copied it onto more stiff interfacing, which I then covered in a ‘tube’ of pink fabric. The ‘arms’ and ‘head’ are filled with stuffing (really got my money’s worth there!) although there’s an additional layer of cotton cloth under the pink sections so stop them from stretching out of shape.

I wanted to make the stars 3D but in the end I took the simple option and made them flat, just gold faux leather over pieces of craft foam. The eyes and whiskers are black felt, secured with fabric glue.

(Does this look like the sort of person who would make your life difficult?)

Once I’d finally figured out how the head and face pattern worked, I’d planned on making different, detachable faces for different expressions. In the end I just made different individual features because hook tape sticks very nicely to doll muslin. Finally, all that was left to do were the eyes… and this is where I really hit a wall.

Here she is nearly finished, except…

I couldn’t make her eyes look right :(

I’m still not sure what the problem is. Something to do with the size and shape? Or maybe it’s just impossible to translate anime eyes to 3D lmao. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy with the final photo, but I really wanted the option of a smiling Pico. I was running out of time, however, so I went with the funny pose instead of the cute one - just made some > signs from felt and a mouth from spare cloth.

So here she is! A little crumpled from sitting in my closet, but I still love how she looks ^-^

Maybe one day I’ll figure the eyes out and do a a shoot just for Pico. As it is, I learned so much and I’m SO glad I did this. Not sure if I’ll ever put these doll making skills to use, but you never know with cosplay!

[spotlightstudios]

I love looking back at old art of mine. I tried do hard to make it just right and took an obnoxiously long time for every drawing. However, I'm much happier with my art now, with a simpler style and more opportunity for me to actually enjoy it rather than staring at it for so long that I hate it by the time I'm done. (aka art rant time, since I can do that here!!)

These four drawings are from within a span of at least two years. To explain, the top two are drawings of Catacombtale!Grillby (or Chance). The one on the left was my first version (an entry to a contest to draw Grillbys), the one on the right I redrew later on. The bottom left is something I drew for a crossover contest last year sometime, involving Dream and Nightmare (Jokublog). Lastly, bottom right is another contest drawing for the concept of an X-Tale oc (I used Ec-4o.Nightmare).

The first drawing of Chance is easily a good example of an attempt to make the drawing look fun and inviting. I've got a decently fund pose, the colors are warm, and there's a simple background. However, I did this Lineless. Why? I don't know, but I don't like it. Plain and simple, this is my least favorite of the drawings pictured because I took so long to meticulously shade and color and it still wasn't worth it. Served it's purpose for the time, but that's it.

The second one of Chance is overall better. I used cooler colors, and by now I kinda understood how to put deoth into backgrounds. The style I used for him is fine too. Here, I hate the posing. His composition in comparison to everything else makes him look like he's about to fall off his stool. His second set of arms look stupid too, since I recall I either forgot them or didn't want to draw more hands, so I just folded them unnaturally. Better, but not my favorite.

The Fnaf/UTAU crossover drawing is my favorite in concept. It's not the best drawing style, not the worst. I'd redo the designs slightly if given the chance. However, the composition and background I'd keep almost identical. I really liked how the background came out for this one (minus the doorway) because I started to paint my backgrounds around this time. The character poses, I like Night's more, but Dream's is good enough for it's purpose. The execution of using two characters with brand new designs works well enough here, but as I said, I took too much time with minimal effort for this to be too good. (Also completely skipped shading in favor of darker colored gaussian blur.)

The bottom right, X-Night, is my favorite of these specific four. The body proportions are clearly more rounded and small, the style of lineart and colors are very simple and bold, and most of the real charm cones from the lighting and after affects rather than meticulous shading or complex backgrounds. There were still things I'd change if given the chance, but this is a perfect example of my mindset at the time too. The other three drawings here were fun, but I drew them with other people's expectations in mind. For this piece? I drew what I wanted to, since it was my (relatively speaking) design and my art. I'm not as active or social on the app I drew these for anymore. So, I'm much less inclined to please the overlords that might've gotten it more popular had I drawn it in a more realistic or engaging style.

Don't get me wrong, I loved being on that site and drawing so much. I like all of the pieces I posted on too. However, this is a good chance to reflect on what exactly I've been doing all this time in the UT Fandom and how it helped me improve my art over the course of just barely 3 or 4 years.

More looks back on this, a continuation, will be coming soon. This is gonna be a long rant I'll probably revisit often just to catalog ideas for redraws, as well as notes for myself. (Not all of it is degrading, because I plan my next one to be about what things I have enjoyed drawing and why, followed by a completely redraw-cebtric post!

[not-all-dead]

#23 kya to lin “what’s cook’n good look’n” you can’t tell me that something she wouldn’t say

prompt #23 - “What’s cookin good lookin?”

oh Kya would absolutely say this to Lin and greatly enjoy the embarrassment it would bring I firmly believe that fact

also for people wondering, yes, I am still taking requests, I’ve just got a few to get through so it might take a little while before yours is answered :)

“Su, do we really have to go to this thing?” Lin examined her outfit in the mirror.

“This… costume is just,” She huffed and looked at her sister. “Ridiculous.”

“Oh, come one, it’ll be fun! And plus, everyone’s gonna be there, we can’t just not go,” Su took Lin’s place in front of the mirror, adjusting her own costume.

Lin had her hair pulled into a half-bun, a pin stuck through the topknot. Her pants and shirt were matching, light red and puffed out. She wore replicas of the armour worn by the co-founder of the famous Kyoshi Warriors. When they’d been invited to the halloween party, she’d had her reservations about dressing up, but Su had forced her into the Rangi costume anyways.

Su’s costume was much simpler, a tight black dress along with a pair of ears on a headband and a tail tied around her waist. Her sleeves drooped from her arms, meant to emulate the wings of a cat owl along with the ears and tail. She’d used a kohl liner to colour in her nose and draw whiskers on her cheeks, though she kept smudging the whiskers and having to redo them.

“Why couldn’t I just wear a simple costume like yours?” Lin grumbled, crossing her arms.

“That wouldn’t be any fun!” Su winked at her sister and grabbed her small bag.

“Come on, we’ll be late if we don’t leave now,” Lin followed Su out of the apartment and down the stairs to her car.

The party was being hosted by one of the popular rich kids they’d gone to school with, and Su was right. Everybody was there, and yet there was somehow still plenty of room in the massive party room. Su abandoned Lin as soon as they walked in, rushing to meet up with her many friends. Lin stuck to the edge of the room, gradually making her way to the drinks table.

“What’s cookin’ good lookin’,” Lin jumped at the voice, whipping her head around to see who had spoken to her.

Her eye caught on Kya, who was grinning at her from the end of the table. She was in green robes with elaborate armour over them, somewhat similar in style to Lin’s own. She had two fans tucked into her waistband, and a headband on with what almost looked like another fan on it. Her face was painted white with two red stripes over her eyes and black stripes over those, her lips also a brilliant red. Her long hair was draped down her back, a tie holding it together near the end.

Lin cursed under her breath, realizing why Su had been so insistent on her wearing the Rangi costume. She instantly regretted ever mentioning her crush on Kya, but it was too late to do anything about it now.

“Hey Kya. So… Avatar Kyoshi?” She asked, gesturing to Kya’s outfit.

“Correct! And you are, hmm, Rangi, perhaps?” Kya looked Lin up and down smugly.

“Y-yeah,” Lin blushed, grabbing her cup from the table and walking over to the wall.

Kya followed her, snatching a drink of her own from the table as she did. Lin leaned against the smooth white stone, taking a sip of the pink liquid in her cup. She was staring at the floor when Kya reached her, their height difference amplified by the platform shoes Kya was wearing. They made quite the convincing pair, even their colouring resembling Kyoshi and Rangi.

Kya took advantage of Lin’s distraction, placing her hand on the wall above Lin’s shoulder and leaning trapping her. Lin’s eyes widened, finally looking up at Kya, and she blushed deeply again.

“W-what are you…” Lin stumbled, face getting redder by the second.

Kya laughed, amused by how flustered Lin was.

“Wow, people clearly don’t flirt with you enough,” Kya remarked.

“I would’ve expected you of all people to be great at fending off admirers, considering just about every person in this room has had a crush on you at some point,” Lin looked at Kya, confusion on her face.

“What do you mean? People haven’t- they don’t- I’m not- ”

Kya stared at her, smile growing as Lin continued her awkward dialog.

“Lin, you are the most oblivious person I’ve ever met,” Kya shook her head, a laugh bubbling from her throat.

Lin stared at Kya for a brief moment, taking in what she was saying. If she was telling the truth, that would mean...she glanced to either side of them, hyper aware of the people surrounding them, before giving up on caring what others thought.

“Fuck it,” She mumbled before standing on her tip-toes and pressing her lips to Kya’s.

Kya pulled back, surprised at Lin’s boldness, before leaning down to kiss her more passionately. The room faded around them, and for a moment, it was as if they were alone. When they finally broke the kiss, they both gasped for air, and Lin could suddenly feel all the eyes watching her again.

“Ha! I knew it would work!” Su suddenly popped up beside them.

“Oh spirits, would you shut up, Su?” Lin glared at her sister before looking back up at a flushed Kya.

“Can we get out of here? Please?” Kya nodded eagerly at her.

Lin grabbed Kya’s wrist, shoving past Su and pulling them out of the now crowded room. Kya pulled Lin into one last kiss before they headed home as soon they got outside.

list of prompts

[dukeofonions]

it's kind of weird that you think joan leaving will make the show worse?? because most of the things you don't like about sanders sides are things that joan created or had heavy input in. virgil's recent development, remus and janus's characterization-- you go on and on about not liking any of that, and most of it was joan's doing. so i expected you to be happy they were leaving.

Honestly I've got a lot of mixed feelings about Joan leaving. Mostly because out of everyone they seemed to have the clearest vision of where they wanted the series to go, and their enthusiasm and passion for the series was actually pretty inspiring to me not gonna lie. I loved hearing them talk about the characters and ideas they had, especially as a fellow writer.

However, a lot of the problems I have now that you mentioned (the dark sides and Virgil's development) are things that I think could be handled better, but it's it's important to note that Joan wasn't the only writing these episodes after a certain point. Other writers eventually got brought in and part of me thinks this has something to do with how off everything's been to me. When you got a lot of cooks in the kitchen things tend to get messy.

And unfortunately no one really has any idea what goes on behind the scenes so who knows how much input Joan had or when they started withdrawing from the series before making the decision to leave the team. It's all pretty unclear so I'm kinda just left to speculate.

I do think that at some point the team started prioritizing making the show appear more interesting instead of the writing and the characters. The fact that most of the delays are due to making each episode bigger than the last instead of writing the script kinda speaks volumes, to me at least.

I dunno. At one point Sanders Sides started out as a simple show. And ironically that's kinda what kept me from getting into it in the first place. But then the idea of Dark Sides was introduced and there seemed to be an actual plot going on and I was hooked.

Part of the reason for that was Joan. Every time they talked about their plans for the series it made me excited to see what was to come because I trusted that they'd deliver a good story, that something epic was planned. But instead things have been pretty underwhelming and with how complicated these episodes are it all just looks like a big mess to me.

Sure; there's something good to be found here and there, but now I honestly prefer the simpler episodes of season one over season two. They were able to tell a pretty good story with Virgil, and give each of the main Sides their own character moments that were emotional and heartfelt, in a very simplistic way that worked really good.

Now it feels like they're trying to redo season one but make it "bigger and better" when honestly, I don't think Sanders Sides was ever meant to be "bigger."

Of course I love that the Sides have names, and the room concept is really cool. There's so much that Joan did for this series that I still love. The main problem is that over time it just spiraled out of control and honestly I'm not sure what's going on anymore.

There are so many plotlines going on that some feel like they're not being given enough attention or being rushed through way too fast. Asides appeared out of nowhere adding all this new stuff on top of that. And yes the long waits lead to a lot of pacing issues and making it seem like we've had characters like Janus and Remus for much longer than we've actually have within the series.

Now is it possible that Joan leaving will fix a lot of these issues? Maybe. Like I said we don't know just how much influence they had on these videos or how invested they were. I can't really make a solid judgment until I've seen more episodes without their input at all and see how they compare to those that they wrote.

So yeah, I'm not really glad or upset that they're gone because at the moment I'm still waiting to see how things go without them. Am I glad their pursuing something they've been wanting to do for a long time? Absolutely! I think it's great they're doing something they're passionate about and comics is honestly something I could see Joan thriving in. They're very talented and I wish them luck with their new project.

As for Sanders Sides, like I said, I'm kinda just playing the waiting game and in the meantime looking back over old episodes to analyze things story wise and character wise. Sometimes I end up enjoying things I previously looked over and other things I loved end up irking me. That's just kinda how I interact with content.

Hope that cleared up some things but honestly, I've been dwelling on this topic so much that I've literally come up with so many different freaking scenarios about what could have happened that it makes my head spin. But eh, an overthinker is gonna overthink.

[apareciumcresswell]

Sweets Before Dinner

When: Friday, February 13th, 1981 Where: Hogsmeade - Streets With: Open To All!!!

It was nice to see so many people enjoying themselves. Perhaps it was more than a little naive of him to think it, commercialised as it now was, but he liked to believe this celebration showed that even now there was still love in the world, still kindness. He’d just arrived in Hogsmeade, late in the afternoon with a few remaining dregs of students milling about on their way back to school. Dirk chuckled as he past them, the uniforms reminding him of a much simpler time. It was hard to believe that had only been a handful of years ago. 

He did a little shopping, got his parents some chocolates. He’d be visiting them tomorrow to redo the wards he had on their home, doing all he could to keep it hidden and safe from evil eyes; he liked to think they didn’t know he placed wards when he visited, but he suspected they knew something was afoot. But! For the time being, he shouldn’t think about it, he needed to stay positive; alert, but positive. 

He’d dressed in his best emerald green robes for the day, his matching green hair standing out easily as he slipping into Honeydukes, Zonkos and even Gladrags to see everything they had on display. A few bags of shopping later he was thinking of making his way to The Broomsticks for a warming butterbeer and chewing on some of Honeydukes choccies. He spotted someone watching him and chuckled at being caught, “Even at twenty-one I still feel a little guilty if I get caught eating sweets before dinner.”