#i mostly did this to practice layouts and coloring styles

[timey-fandom-stuff]

"Not every window is a door, but most doors have windows." "Don't tap on the glass. You might not like what happens next."

this is Kris the Kriptid, an AU Kris Dreemurr that may or may not be trying to inspire their own creepypasta. they think they're the scariest glitch entity to ever appear on a player's screen-- but they also think that accidentally setting off the smoke detector by burning toast when they were 10 qualifies them as an arsonist, so take that with a grain of salt. don't be fooled; they are still Kris under all that edge.

here they're singing the refrain from Cabinet Man by Lemon Demon for some funky composition practice; it just felt right for this menace and may or may not hint a LITTLE at what sort of wacky game-breaking nonsense I've got up my sleeve with Jailbroken, shhh

[rockygee]

Pitch Deck Reflective Writing Draft

For this task, the types of research I did were mostly from finding images from Google and Pinterest that had a clean, flat style to it. I was inspired by styles such as Swiss design and designers like Neville Brody which manage to capture a bold and simplistic feel in the aesthetic. Next time, I could improve my research by pulling from more physical sources such as my environment or books and exploring more design styles out of my comfort zone.  

For my design process, I tinkered with different layouts in Illustrator and kept making small random variations until I was satisfied with the outcome. This tinkering style of my process helped me develop the posters into a more cohesive design. My strength in my design process is my ability to create designs quickly and fix them later, while my weakness would likely be my neglect of physical media and doing only digital, which has its pros and cons.  

My decisions were straightforward when it came to the brief. I would have an idea and fully commit to it from start to finish. I found starting the design to be the hardest part as there was not much to build off from even with my additional research, but after that it would snowball and be easier to create and develop. The easiest part would be the actual process of making the design once the idea I had in mind was concrete. 

I have learned that I need more practice in InDesign and Photoshop. I have also learned to stick better to the brief next time. As for a breakthrough, the color scheme was the defining part of my design which helped me create the posters quicker with a clear color palette in mind. As stated before, I need to improve my workflow in Photoshop and InDesign. 

[survey--s]

661.

How old were you when you rode a bike with no training wheels? I think I was about 5-6 years old.

If you could eat one food for a month, what would it be? I would get so sick of just eating one food lol.

Do you do your homework? Do you study? I did used to do my homework but I never really did much outside of that, to be quite honest. I was a lazy student.

Are you usually a nice person? Hmm, I think so.

What are you doing besides this? I'm kind of watching the Simpsons and the dog is curled up by my feet which is nice as it's bloody freezing outside lol.

Favorite snack? It depends on my mood, to be be honest. I like savoury more than sweet as as general rule, though.

What color is your house? Like a creamy colour at the front with brown window sills etc. but at the back it's a hideous burnt orange lol. We have the paint to re-do but just haven't actually done it yet. We're going to paint it white with black wood bits.

If you had $500,000 what would you buy? A new house that didn't need loads of work doing to it lol.

Do you watch more than 5 hours of tv a week? I watch more than five hours in a day lol. But mostly it's background noise - I very, very rarely sit and just watch a TV show.

When was the last time you high-fived someone? I high-fived one of the dogs I walk earlier, does that count?

Are you worried? No.

Do you carry a purse everyday where ever you go? No, I don't even own one.

Have you ever played Marco Polo? Yeah, as a little kid in the pool. We often played it as an end of term treat time thing.

Do you drink coffee every morning? Yeah, I have a cup of coffee everyday before work. On weekends I normally have two a day.

What time did you wake up today? 7am but I didn't get out of bed until half past as I was waiting for the heating to kick in.

Would you ever become an alcoholic or tobacco addict? I mean, nobody chooses for that to happen. Addiction is way, way more complicated than "choice".

What site did you get your layout from? It's just one of the generic Tumblr ones.

Describe your style: I don't really have one. I dress for practicality/comfort mostly.

If the people who invite you to a party do drugs would you go to the party? I don't go to parties lol.

What’s your favorite juice? Apple or cranberry.

Do you judge people easily? Yeah, everyone judges people. I don't necessarily act on those judgements though.

Last book you read? I don't remember.

How often do you cry? I don't know. I think I've cried maybe three times this year?

Do you usually get surveys from people or sites? I get them all from other people's Tumblrs.

Do you know the Pledge of Allegiance? No. I'm not American so it's irrelevant to me.

If you had to choose, would you be a writer or an artist? Writer.

A stranger smiles at you, do you smile back? Of course. Everyone smiles or talks to everyone around here.

Are you going anywhere today? I've been to work but I have no plans to go anywhere else. Which is good as it's bloody freezing and wet outside.

Are you preppy? No.

If you could change one thing about your body, what would it be? My hair type.

What’s scarier; spiders or worms? Spiders.

Water or Milk? Milk.

Do you know anyone who is a vegetarian? Sure, loads of people. It's a pretty common thing these days.

Would you rather have one real best friend or a lot of friends? One real best friend.

Monkeys or Donkeys? Monkeys. Donkeys are cute too though.

Are you going to college one day? I graduated university over a decade ago.

Do you have more than 6 pairs of socks? Yeah, I have loads of socks.

What is 3.14? Pi.

Who was last mean to you? I have no idea.

Do you play poker for real money? No. I don't even know how to play Poker.

What was the last video game you played? Gems of War.

How do you dry your hair? Mostly it's air-dried but sometimes I blow-dry it.

Are you on a laptop? Yes.

Where are you? Under a blanket in the living room with the dog curled up with me. Simba is asleep next to us too.

[amirahunit04]

EVALUATION

Counter Cultures:

In this project I had to create a brand based using one of the four disciplines such as digital, print, moving image and fashion and lifestyle. For my project I chose print. I created a venn diagrams with three things that inspires me or the things that I’m fascinated with and things that have an impact on me. Culture is the shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that characterise a group or society. Culture values refer to the core beliefs and principles that guide a culture's attitudes, behaviors, and practices. So, I created a magazine based on the things that change my perspective on life such as controversy. Controversy can have a significant impact on someone's point of view on life, as it can challenge their existing beliefs and perspectives, and encourage them to re-evaluate their values and attitudes. Which is what I intended to do with my magazine. I decided to name my magazine Doomscroll. Doom scrolling is when you digital scroll on your phone and keep seeing bad news reports and articles. The layouts of the magazine was very important to me because the layout of a text can have a significant impact on the reader's point of view and understanding of the content. The layout can be used to emphasis certain elements of the text, such as headings, subheadings, images, and important points. This can guide the reader's attention and shape their understanding of the content. That’s why I included a good amount of information to go with the images. For the logo I wanted it to convey the hip-hop but simple aesthetic. I did this because using stylised or unique fonts that reflect the hip hop culture can add a strong visual impact to a logo. A logo with a hip hop aesthetic should incorporate elements that are bold, colorful, and reflect the energy and attitude of the hip hop culture. The logo should be easily recognisable, memorable, and convey the essence of hip hop in a visually impactful way. Depending on the subject of the magazine I will change the ‘scroll’ font style in doomscroll.The research that I did was mostly based around Kanye West and the controversy surrounding him. I looked at mostly articles and newspapers that document every controversial moment in Kanyes life and how his mental health was mostly effected by what the tabloids say. When I was printing off my cover to test it on G F Smiths sample papers the printer started to glitch. So, I edited the print settings and printed the cover again.

Overall, I liked the outcome of my magazine. However, the paper for the magazine didn’t come early which meant I had to print it off late. Also I think my time management for this project was really bad. To prevent fall back on work in the future I will create a day plan for every week documenting what I’m supposed to be doing that day.

[essence-thee-typedesigner]

What I consumed today 9/26/22

Today I'm back to consuming my personal practice. Though as my name on this app implies I am usually all hands in with lettering it's what 90% of my practice is but I also love illustration and so it's always wonderful to step away from that and explore my skills in other places.

Today I focused mostly on illustration. When I'm not consumed in my lettering styles and practices I am deep within illustration and especially stippling work. I love the repetitive and high level of detail you have to do while doing stippling, it's always a hoot and a holler to just sit down and concentrate on putting tiny dots on the page. It's hard work but a consumption I find relaxing and forces me to slow down which sometimes I need within my practice. I consumed that stippling project for about 3 hours or so, just taking my time with layout and dotting away.

The second illustration I did is a more gothic style you see within my work. My consumption for this personal project was spent more on finding inspiration, references, and colors than it was on the drawing. It was about 2 hours of consuming that and then the actual drawing took about an hour and 15 minutes of my time. It's just a base sketch to lay down my ideas, it's always exciting to be at this stage. You make mistakes, you get messy, and allow for errors, ist all about the beauty of the process.

I also do some photography, it's like the third baby of my artistic consumption. It's recent that I've fallen in love with it but it's become a large staple of my life and I love incorporating it into my work. As you see in the middle image, it's a way of me combing my practices together at times.

and of course, I can't go without my favorite consumption in the background which is music. I love music as I've stated before and particularly today I consumed a lot of music by the girl RnB group named flo. It's always hard to know how long I'm listening to music since it's all day, but its the bulk of my day every day.

[benevolentbirdgal]

“Thirteen” Tips on Writing Jewish Characters / Some  Jewish Identity Stuff Explained

So you want to write a Jewish character, but don’t want to write a caricature? Or are worried they won’t register as Jewish to readers, or something will be off or wrong? Well I, friendly (virtual) neighborhood Jewish professional, am here to help! 

Note: The Jewish community is made up of roughly 14 million people worldwide with all sorts of backgrounds, practices, life circumstances, and beliefs. I’m just one American Jew, but I’ve had exposure to Jewishness in many forms after living in 3.5 states (at several different population densities/layouts), attending Jewish day school and youth groups, doing Jewish college stuff, and landing a job at a Jewish non-profit. I’m speaking specifically in an American or Americanish context, though some of this will apply elsewhere as well. 

Let’s start with the word “Jew.” It’s not inherently a slur, but can absolutely be used as one. I am a Jew. You can call me a Jew, just not a Jew. Like most minority groups, there are slurs against us, but Jew is the proper demonym. It can be used disrespectfully as a noun, but isn’t inherently disrespectful. Think “Chava is a Jew” versus “You’re being such a Jew.” 1a. Any use of Jew as a verb by gentiles (non-Jews) is not okay. Your Jewish characters should be horrified by someone telling them they “Jewed down the price.” 1b. Any use of Jewess by gentiles is not okay and your Jewish character should not be cool with it.  1c. Many Jews would actively prefer to be called such because that’s what we are and “Jewish person” is stepping away from our Jewishness. But I get that not everybody is going to be comfortable calling us Jews. That’s okay, and “Jewish person/people” or “X is Jewish” is TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE.  1d. With that said, Jewish people refers to ourselves as Jews. If Sarah is Jewish but is squicked about referring to herself as a Jew, your Jewish readers will immediately know she’s written by a gentile.  1e. Actual slurs against Jews is a post for another time (did you know K*ke literally means circle?). 

Your Jewish-American character likely does not speak Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, or any other Judeo-Language (languages that are a mix of Hebrew and at least one other language, typically written in the Hebrew abjad). Three notes on this, however: 2a. If your character is an immigrant or the child of an immigrant, they might speak the Judeo-language of the old country. The most common will be Israeli-Americans speaking Hebrew, but families still speaking Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and other families do still exist. The children of Jewish immigrants might also speak another language that isn’t a Jewish one, like Russian or Spanish.  2b. If they are in a VERY religious Ashkenazi community, they might speak Yiddish at home and in the community.  2c. Odds are decent, however, that your American Jew can read but not understand Hebrew. If your character went to Jewish Day School or Yeshiva, they definitely read Hebrew, and will have some understanding of it (but likely not fluency). 

Despite what I just said above, your Jewish-American character likely drops a lot of Yiddish words and phrases into their day-to-day speech. Which words/phrases in probably a list for another time, but the most common will be foods, family names (i.e. “Zayde” instead of Grandpa), and sassy expressions. They may incorporate some Hebrew to a lesser extent. 

There’s not just one version of kosher. There’s kosher, kosher-style, Halav Yisrael, glatt kosher, etc. Depending on your character’s level of kosher, they’ve need a hecksher (kosher mark) on any given item or only eat at kosher restaurants, although not all Jews keep kosher and many keep “kosher-style” (i.e. only eat theoretically kosher things).

Your Jewish character should be a whole character, both in general and in relation to their Jewishness. This means, among other things, that they aren’t obsessed with Israel and I/P discourse one way or the other and that while writing you remember that not all Israelis are Jews and not all Jews are Israelis. Your Jewish character is not constantly agonizing over the I/P situation, has a life outside of their Jewishness, and shouldn’t be a cardboard stand-in for your desire to discuss the middle east. 

The Jewish experience varies dramatically with geography. Jews living in Omaha, Richmond, Philly, Kansas City, Boca Raton, and New York City are all American Jews. They will have drastically different Jewish experiences. I strongly recommend doing research on the Jews in the specific place your story takes places, but generally:  6a. The closer you are to the northeast coast and NYC (except south Florida) the better and more varied your Jewish resources.  6b. NYC has the highest Jewish population of any city on the planet. Big cities like Boston, Chicago, and L.A., as well as just outside of NYC in NJ and NYS, and suburban/exburb south Florida will have lots of Jewish resources: day schools (Jewish + secular education mix), maybe Yeshivas (Jewish focus), multiple synagogues, a Jewish Community Center, Jewish dating services, social stuff, Jewish charities, and youth activities. Your character will have other Jewish friends and their gentile friends will likely know other Jews. Antisemitism is still a problem and usually takes the form of excluding Jews from activism, thinly-veiled stereotyping or excusing antisemitism from people from other oppressed groups, but it’s usually not as overt as elsewhere. Almost always safe to disclose Jewishness.  6c. Small and mid-size cities Denver, Virginia Beach, Charleston, and Harrisburg will have a JCC or Jewish federation, multiple synagogues, and maybe a Jewish day school. Your character is not the only Jew their gentile peers have met, but the bagels are meh. They will have other Jews to bond and commiserate with. Antisemitism here is mostly like that in big cities with occasional burst of overt incidents and attacks. It is generally physically safe for them to disclose Jewishness.  6d. Big towns and small cities in the south or mid-west will have maybe one synagogue - probably reform or Chabad. Your character will have to seek out Jewish spaces, but they will be easy to find. They will not be everybody’s First Jew, but it will be unusual. Antisemitism here is mostly overt - most of the antisemites your character deals with will be very obvious and many will be violent. Jews in such situations will not hide their Jewishness per se, but will be more selective in choosing to disclose it.  6e. Rural areas and small-small towns will not have a synagogue. Your character and their family may be the only Jews or there might be a small group that meets on occasion or carpools to the nearest synagogue. They will have to actively seek out the others Jews and they will be difficult to find. Disclosing their Jewishness is a serious consideration and not always safe. Odds are they are many people’s First Jew, which gets really weird real fast. Beyond the harmless ignorant-but-trying-to-learn-from-their-first-Jew types your character will interact with, there’s also violent and overt antisemitism here.  6f. If your character is in college, they will likely have a Chabad and/or a Hillel on campus if they are at a large school or a school with a significant Jewish population. 

Related: when Jews meet each other for the first time, a game of “Jewish geography” ensues as they try and trace people they know in the other person’s state/city/community. 

Jews come in all shapes, colors, sizes, genders, sexualities, politics, and religious beliefs. There are all sorts of Jewish people with tons of different intersecting identities. Don’t box yourself in to writing one kind of Jew. Just research a ton on the particular subsection of the Jewish community your character is a part of - a Mizrachi-Jewish Persian-American bisexual woman is going to have a different experience than a straight Ethiopian-American Jewish man who is going to have different experience from a queer Ashkenazi-Jewish-American girl with non-Jewish family.  8a. Jews with Ashkenazi (eastern/northern European) ancestry and customs are the biggest group in the U.S., but by no means the only group or representative of every Jew. Sephardi (Spanish/southern European/north Africa), and Mizrachi (north Africa and the middle east) are the next biggest groups. It would not be unusual for your character to have Polish-Jewish, Iraqi-Jewish, Moroccan-Jewish, or Russian Jewish ancestry or a mix.  8b. Each of these groups have their own customs, Judeo-languages, local holidays, and local historic tragedies. Generally, historic Sephardi communities were linked between themselves, historic Ashkenazi communities were linked between themselves, and historic Mizarchi communities were linked between themselves. The three had some, but limited contact. Additionally, all three major groups have subdivisions within them.  8c. There are also smaller groups that don’t fall within the three traditional categories, like the Ethiopian Jews, the Cochin Jews (India), Chinese Jews, Gruzim (Georgian), and more. Most of these smaller groups were not in contact with the wider Jewish world.  8d. All Jewish groups start from the same base texts (the written Torah), and the majority include the oral Torah as well. Local interpretations and traditions develop, these are referred to as minhag(im) (customs). For example, the biblical commandment is to not boil a baby goat in its mother’s milk. Some communities extend this to mean no chicken and milk, others reason that chickens don’t produce milk so the mixture is acceptable. Both are equally valid interpretations rooted in tradition, but they are different.  8e. Marrying between Jewish subgroups in the U.S. is super common and outside of extreme or really intense groups is not frowned upon. Traditionally, the father’s minhagim are followed, i.e. a Syrian-Jewish father and a Spanish-Jewish mother would follow the Syrian-Jewish minhagim with their children. Many modern couples choose the mother’s traditions or mix them up, but that’s the traditional route. 

Unless they are VERY religious, your character’s family is unlikely to be particularly wound up about them being LGBTQ the way a comparably Christian family might, at least not because they’re Jewish. Samuel’s Jewish mother is likely unconcerned he likes boys and is much more empathetic than he must marry a Jewish boy and raise any kids Jewish. 

There are so many Jewish holidays, and they are not all celebrated the same or with the same intensity. Probably enough material for its own post, but the ones most likely celebrated by your character: 10a. Shabbat and/or Havdalah. Shabbat starts Friday nights with candles, wine/grape juice and challah bread, Havdalah ends Shabbat with a braided candle, wine, and aromatic spices. Shabbat dinner is usually a meat meal and it is common to invite guests or eat with friends and family (in normal times).  10b. The “High Holidays” - Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. Jewish students often skip school for these. Yom Kippur is a 25 hour fast with services all day, Rosh HaShanah has services in the evening and morning.  10c. Passover - arguably the most important holiday. Celebrated with two sometimes agonizingly long Seders (ritual meals), family gatherings, and abstaining from leavened bread for 7/8 days.  10d. Hanukkah - Not actually that spiritually important, but culturally important for American Jews. Typically celebrated with candle lighting, presents, visits to family members, and greasy food. 

There’s a lot of wine involved in Jewish ritual, so it’s unlikely your character’s Jewish family are teetotalers. 

Jewish families tend to be very intense, loud, opinioned, caring, and involved, compared to many other assimilated American families. Shabbat dinner is not quiet. Dissent is a Jewish value - differing opinions are allowed (and expected in many circles), as is the ability to argue/defend competently. 

Jewishness can mean ethnic identity, cultural identity, and/or religion. There are several major denominations religiously, although that needs to be its own post in detail. The noteworthy movements at this point are Orthodox (further subdivided into Ultraorthodox and Modern Orthodox), Conservative (middle of the road, no relation to conservative politics), Reform, and Reconstructionist (both very “choose your own/your community’s adventure).

Probably will write more parts in the future, but this is heinously long already! Hope this is helpful!

[guccybangtan]

Stray Kids as Quarantine Activities

this is my original idea (as far as I know) so pls credit me if you make something similar! these were kind of hard to come up with!

Chan: Learning how to play an instrument:

If you and Chan were stuck together during quarantine we all know it would be filled with activities.

(let's be honest number one should be sleeping but we know chris don’t roll like that)

He would be working on stuff for Stray Kids

Producing, writing, whatever he felt needed to be done at the moment

You?

Probably sleeping or eating

The days where you would accompany him to the studio (without anyone else of course bc social distancing) you would watch him work his magic

Eventually, you’d ask him if he could teach you how to play the piano

Of course he would agree bc bubba would be so in love that he’d do anything for u

After you ask him he brings home one of the keyboards so he can teach you

He’d def be the type to do the whole romantic hand over hand on the key thing

Your hands would rest on his while he played a bit so you could get used to the feel of it

Would reward you with kisses when you got things right

Aaanndd even when you got them wrong

Chris is so dedicated that there’s no way you’d fail

By the time quarantine was over you were the next Beethoven

Someone please get me a chris i love him sm

the rest under the cut

Minho: having a picnic inside

Minho is very much a do what he wants when he wants to kind of person

So when you told him he couldn’t go have a picnic outside he was like  ���(ಠ_ಠ)ノ

You offered to help him have one inside where it was safe (social distancing folks!!)

It turned into a mini date

You were cutting up fruit and making mini sandwiches

You even went as far as to make some fresh lemonade

Minho was of course making a super extra picnic set up.

He laid a few blankets on the floor to make it squishy

Then he made walls and a roof out of a sheet

You brought the tray of cutesy foods into the small fort

After grabbing his laptop Minho settled in with you

Cue some cheesy romcom while you eat and have quarantine cuddles

10/10 would probably end up sleeping in the fort and waking up with everything fallen on top of you two

It would be a very fun/ chaotic event

t miiiggggghhhhhtttt get a bit pg-13 but that's a story for another time

Changbin: dalgona coffee

Changbin is whipped™ ( no pun intended)

Since all the two of you had been able to do recently was scroll through social media it was safe to say you were bored

Changbin was content with cuddling you but you had other plans

Social media gave you lots of ideas on things to do but let’s be honest

Y’all are lazy af

You had seen the new whipped coffee craze like a million times

It looked easy so you decided to do it

Boy were you wrong

You weren't even mixing for two minutes and changbin was already whining

He stopped mixing and began to pester you

You told him if he could finish it you’d give him kisses.

Man did bribery work well with him

Once it was whipped enough you got the milk and ice out

Ngl changbin would probably spill the milk and cry about it

He’s baby

Yours would be *chefs kiss* exquisit

Changbins…

Not so much

Baby would beg you to share yours with him

Of course you would be binnie baby is too cute

Hyunjin: cooking

Cooking with hyunjin was always a mess

He liked to be in charge but forgot the simple things like washing the veggies

It started out nice

The meat was cooking away in the pan

You were making some chocolate covered strawberries for dessert

Hyunjin was supposed to be chopping the veggies but homeboy got distracted

By what you may ask?

You.

“You’re so cute when you’re focused!”

Featuring his cute squealing

Then things would go south

The veggies aren't cut

The meat is burning

Its complete anarchy

You decided it would be better to just order take out as opposed to burning down the dorm kitchen

Hyunjin would still beg for strawberries even though he couldn’t complete his task

(you gave him some anyway)

Jisung: Dying your hair

This would be total chaos from the start

Mixing the dye would be fine

But as soon as you were ready to apply it Jisung was flinging it everywhere

He insisted on using his fingers

(does not work)

When you make him use the brush he gets it practically everywhere but your hair

You were trying to do a split style but Jisung would get so much everywhere

You’d just go one color

He’d be really supportive

Is honestly trying his hardest

Baby just gets so bored

Has too much energy the whole time

It would be an experience but the end result would probably be good

Next time though?

Probably get Chan who is good at everything he does

Felix: making tiktoks

Felix swore the best way to spend quarantine was to make tiktoks with him

it would be fun

You two would be super cute doing the dances

He’d make fun of you when you couldn’t learn renegade

He’d also be a good teacher though

Would def wanna do the POVs

It would be soooo cheesy

But honestly actor felix in the building

Someone get this man an Oscar!

You’d mostly sit and watch him do it

Tiktok is kind of overrated so

But if felix loved it you’d support him

Would last all of five minutes before yall decided to do something else

Seungmin: Doing his makeup

It took 12 years for you to get seungmin to agree to let you do his makeup

When he finally agreed it was at the cost of a tickle war

(Which you lost)

((it was quite the price to pay))

You’d try super hard

Eyeshadow would be bomb af

I'm talking glittery with some sharp eyeliner

Gems over his eyebrows

Maybe a lil eyeliner heart underneath

Jk jk

Unless ;)

He’d be a bad bitch

You’d probably put waayyyy too much blush tho

Seungmin would rock it

10/10 the next miss universe

Jeongin: Animal Crossing

Immediate hyperfixation on Tom Nook

Would want to bring every villager to the island and get mad when they dont all fit

Would 100% fight that fuckin bunny from easter

“Tom Nook wants too much money’’

Makes cute lil gardens everywhere

Constantly changing the layout of the island even though it costs 2395497 bells

Best friends with Isabelle

Never fast forwards through island announcements

He’d probably make felix get it so he could raid his island

Jeongin would have the cutest clothes dont @ me

He’d always play sooo intently

Can never get his attention when he plays

You’d play together at night while you cuddled

Tries to find tarantula island and gets scared when he finds it

would not time travel

fin.

Hope you guys liked this! I thought it was really cute :)

[thesunnyshow]

Name: Nikki

Writing Blog URL(s): @moonttaeil​ (my previous blog was taeils)

What fandom(s) do you write for? NCT

Age: 21

Star Sign: Pisces!

Favorite color: Violet

Favorite food: Everything vegan!

Favorite ice cream flavor: Very basic vanilla 

Favorite animal: Kitties!

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering? Both! I drink two coffees a day because it helps me keep focus (and also because I have low blood pressure), and on the other side, I drink tea after every meal! 

Dream job (whether you have a job or not): I think I have many dream jobs, some of them are: writer, screenplay writer, theatre actress and judge! 

Go-to karaoke song: No scrub - TLC.

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose? 

Probably read people’s minds. I think that would help me a lot more than flying and such haha. 

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose? 

The renaissance era in Italy! I’m madly, deeply, hopelessly in love with all of the art that was created in that period.  

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you? 

No, I believe all of my actions have taken me where I am now, and have also taught me who I am. I don’t know if restarting my life would be a good idea, I'm very proud of what I've achieved until now!

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken?

I’m dying either way so let it be one horse-sized chicken, maybe it’ll be over faster lmao. 

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been? 

Well, probably the “recruit teenagers with attitude to form an assemble and save the day” trope

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures? 

Do ghosts count?

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know? 

When I was three I was into a car accident with my parents. I was sleeping in the backseat, the car crashed, it did a few flips but I did not wake up. Like, my ass kept sleeping even after that as if nothing had happened, i think that explains my chill levels nowadays. 

When did you post your first piece? 

I think during the quarantine? April? 

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why? 

I mostly write ANGST! The reason behind it is because I find myself over analyzing my characters and giving them all kinds of problems and obstacles before they reach their goal in the story. I’ve been told several times by my readers that they’ve cried while reading, which is probably the best feedback I’ve ever gotten. 

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc? 

Member x reader, but I have a few hidden fics that have an OC! Maybe I’ll post them someday!

Why did you decide to write for Tumblr? 

Tumblr is very very different from all the other social media platforms out there. I tried writing for AO3 but i did not like the layout, and the fact that you couldn’t actually talk with your readers. The same happened with Wattpad, it seemed like there wasn’t any direct connection with your readers. On the other hand, i can use tumblr to post my writing, but also to get to know my readers! I get to know what they like to read, what they mostly look for in the site as fic readers and they also find it easier to give feedback to someone who've spoken to them before. It feels closer. 

What inspires you to write? 

This is a tricky question for me, because nothing and everything inspires me. It could be a simple quote told by my friends, it could be a story I randomly remember at 3 AM. It could be little kids playing in the park. I cannot tell that something specific inspires me to write. 

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most? 

Lately I’ve written mostly college au’s, but I hope to enter more into the drama/thriller world for my next work!

What do you hope your readers take away from your work? 

As someone who loves leaving hidden messages into my stories, I hope my readers take a lesson from them. I truly believe that every story, if it’s well written, has a deep secret message that only those who need to hear it, will hear it. So, if you’re one of my readers, and you’ve felt as if I’ve opened your eyes on some matter with one of my stories, then that’s enough for me to be content!

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively? 

I just let it be. I do not force myself to write. Like, months ago, I remember I pressured myself to write because I felt like people would stop supporting me and my work if I didn't update like weekly or so. But with time I found out that, if your readers really love your work will wait for you to be able to write again, it doesn't matter if it's weeks or months. 

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful? 

My favourite for now is the frat house series, and it’s also my most successful work. Every story on the series has a meaning for me, it’s not just a college au where the member and the oc/reader fall in love and then live happily ever after. I believe the stories don’t focus so much on the romantic relationship between the characters, but mostly on the plot and message on the story. “The shadow” talks about someone who feels like they have lost all kinds of creativity and suddenly feels lost in life. “The legend” is a story about lies just to reach the top, and the consequent regrets of it. “The jerk” tells the story of someone’s mistakes, and how those mistakes come back to you in life, following you until they punish you for everything you’ve done wrong. “The heartbreaker” narrates the story of someone who has been so hurt in life, that the feeling of love feels forbidden for them, that’s why they keep hurting other people unintentionally. “The trust fund baby�� just shows you how life looks from two whole different perspectives and how they grow up as persons who have learned from their mistakes. “The bro” just gives you a peek inside of two childhood friends who clearly cannot understand what love is, and why they feel it. And the last one I’ve written for now, “the Einstein” is a story about someone who would give anything just to be successful in life, even if that means sacrificing someone’s pure love.

Who is your favorite person to write about?

I think it’s easy for me to write about any person since the characteristics of the fic will be completely made up by me. I only take their image and name, after all.

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose? 

I think the only difference you can find is that one of your characters already has a face in your mind. But, if I were to change all the names of my stories, I believe there wouldn't be any big difference from a novel. 

What do you think makes a good story? 

The plot twists! If there aren't any plot twists, I believe the story turns out a bit boring. 

What is your writing process like? 

I start by giving the oc/reader a goal for the story, or the member some kind of goal. They clearly don’t know how to achieve it, so while I write I take my time into making them suffer through the whole story until they find a way to achieve what they want to do. The characters are the ones that lead the story, I just write down what they want to do, and then give them obstacles! The only thing I struggle is with the ending, I believe I have the worst endings,

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story? 

Yes I would.

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you? 

It means absolutely everything! When you put so much effort and time into writing a 20k story, having people tell you what they think is the only thing you have in your mind the day you post it. 

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)? 

Maybe coming up with a great plot?

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged? 

Yes I do. 

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself? 

I’ve felt that way, and I have only one thing to say here: if you ever feel like that, stop writing. It won't come out good. You will probably end up hating the story and it won’t be successful. Write to satisfy what you need to be satisfied, write to take out all of your emotions with words. 

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times? 

Not really, which makes me happy!

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr? 

Nope.

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers? 

Please don’t stop supporting tumblr writers! We do this with all of our love for writing, and we do this thinking that you guys will give us some kind of feedback. I appreciate my followers with all of my heart, since they’re the ones who make me believe I'm actually good at what I do. 

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there? 

Just write! Every writer out there has started with something shitty, I promise you. I feel ashamed of my first works, they are inconsistent and boring and just plain. Like, it’s just terrible. And you’ll be there too, but don’t be scared!! Practice makes perfect, you’ll feel how you slowly start changing your style until you finally find a way that's comfortable for you and lets you write what you really have in your mind. Also, don’t compare yourself to other writers! Everyone has a totally different style and technique, someone's success with a style of writing doesn't mean you’ll be just as good as them! Be original! 

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr? 

When I get hate asks, maybe.

Pick a quote to end your interview with: 

As long as there is someone to write for, I’ll keep writing. 

BONUS ROUND: K-POP CONFIDENTIAL

[lonelyandlovelorn]

Sorry, I’m Awkward - Part 3

A/N: I tried to make the dress as vague as possible while still giving some description so that it could be whatever style you think fits you best. Not a ton happening in this chapter, but it’s set up for next chapter, the last(?) chapter. I don’t have time to proofread this again before posting it, so sorry for any errors. 

Genre: fluff 

Warning: swearing

Word count: 1900

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem reader

Summary: On a mission with the Winter Soldier himself, you learn he’s not actually an ass and that you’re more embarrassing than you thought. 

Masterlist

Sorry, I’m Awkward Masterlist

If you could have slept in, you would have. Unfortunately, a life spent training and on missions had your body basically incapable of sleeping past dawn. This was usually a good thing, but that morning you were simply dying to stay in bed a little longer. As you came to, you realized you were once again much warmer than usual. You didn’t need to move or even think that hard to realize that the weight around your middle was Bucky’s arm and the heat was coming from his body pressed against your back. For a moment, you began to plan out how to sneak out of his hold like you did yesterday. After a second, you paused to realize that you could stay. You could go back to sleep, or at least pretend to, and he would never have to know. Slowly, you relaxed your muscles that had been gearing up to get out of the bed and melted into his hold. You deepened your breaths and simply basked in the comfort of being held by another person with no urgent reason to get up. 

You stayed like that for at least another hour, dozing off and on but mostly awake. At the end of that hour, you heard Bucky take a deep breath as he woke up. Your heartbeat sped up but you closed your eyes and kept you breathing even as you felt him begin to move. Before he fully gained consciousness, you would swear he nuzzled into the crook of your neck. A few seconds later, he seemed to jolt into awareness, as if he suddenly realized that he didn’t normally sleep with his face tucked into someone. In an action mimicking yours yesterday morning, Bucky slowly sat up, releasing you and moving so as not to disturb you. 

You wanted to get up with him, as you couldn’t see much point in staying in bed without your personal space heater, but you didn’t want him to know you had been awake for all of it. You stayed in place, focusing on the rise and fall of your chest. You were a trained spy, of course you knew how to pretend to be asleep. The problem was, you didn’t usually have to practice in front of super soldiers you had just been spooned by.

You could hear him moving around the room, and you would swear you felt his eyes on you before you heard the bathroom door close and the shower turn on. You figured the coast was clear and peaked around the room through a cracked eyelid, happy to see that he wasn’t lingering. You were pretty proud of yourself for fooling him as you sat up and stretched. 

It was still pretty early in the morning, but you decided to go ahead and get to work planning out tonight as much as you could. You had let Tony know about the gala and he had promised a delivery of appropriate clothes by noon today. You were a little nervous about letting someone else choose a dress for you, but you figured it would be Natasha or Pepper, and they both had great taste. 

You had already brewed shitty motel coffee and held a mug of it as you perched on a chair with your laptop in front of you when Bucky left the bathroom. Luckily or unluckily, he had remembered a shirt this time and came out fully clothed, his hair in wet tangles dripping onto his shoulders. You sent him a smile before turning back to your work you had set out before you. 

You were both in professional mode as you plotted out the evening, mentioning neither the kisses of yesterday nor the cuddling of this morning. You knew how important this mission was and you were both determined to put away someone responsible for such terrible things. You would have to pretend to be a couple again tonight, but this time you were meant to be rich and sophisticated, though maybe still a little crazy in love. You had pointed out how well that allowed for a cover-up, should you get caught somewhere you shouldn’t be. Young lovers fooling around was an easy story that you could sell if you had to. He agreed. 

You were both going over the layout of the building the gala was being held in when there was a knock on your door and an alert on your phone. You checked the message as Bucky looked through the peephole. You smiled at the text from Tony that simply said “Ta-da!” 

Bucky didn’t open the door and looked back to you. “There’s no one outside.” 

“It’s the clothes for tonight, Tony just messaged me.” You watched the tension in his shoulders ease as he opened the door to find a box outside. He grabbed it and closed the door, latching it again. You were excited to open it and see what they had sent you. You didn’t get to dress up very often and you were really looking forward to it. Plus, if Tony bought it, you knew it was high quality. 

Bucky pulled it open to reveal his tux first. The box was pretty big and it had been very neatly folded to avoid too much wrinkling. He grabbed it and hung it in the closet and you realized as he held it that a portion of your excitement for tonight also came from seeing him all dressed up. You looked into the box and pulled out two shoe boxes, one containing dress shoes and another with a pair of simple silver heels. You were grateful they hadn’t tried to give you anything too crazy in case it came to a fight. You set both of the boxes in the closet as Bucky reached into the box again. You could see his confusion as he pulled out a small duffle bag. He opened it to pull out a curling iron, a make up bag, and some other styling products. 

“Of course they thought of everything,” you laughed to yourself as you grabbed it. 

Finally, you got a look in the box and couldn’t contain your excitement. You pulled the dress out and couldn’t help the gasp that escaped you. It was gorgeous. Deep green, with a low neckline and a slit up the side. It was a fit that Pepper knew complimented you. You were grateful that it was nearly tailored perfectly to cover up any unsightly scars, but still allowed you to show some skin. Plus, the leg slit might really come in handy. 

“That’ll look great on you,” Bucky said as you were busy fawning over the dress. You beamed at him as you hung it in the closet, suddenly renewed with energy and bounding with excitement. Unfortunately, you still had at least three hours before you could start getting ready. 

“I’m sure you look handsome in your tuxedo too, Buck.” You weren’t sure when you had decided to shorten his name, but he didn’t seem to mind. The bashful smile he sent you had butterflies dancing in your stomach. 

After a moment of staring at your gown once more, you both sat down and returned to work.

--

It was finally three o’clock. The gala didn’t start until six, but it was an hour away and you wanted plenty of time to get ready. Besides, you felt like you and Bucky both had the plan figured out. You quickly showered before beginning. 

You were practically bouncing with excitement as you walked towards the bed where the small duffle had been set. You went about setting everything up in the bathroom so you could beautify yourself. You turned on the curling iron and began going through the makeup that had been sent to you. You began applying your make up, a little intense to match the dress, but not so intense that you would stand out. While you wanted to look good and the dress was stunning, neither was meant to draw the eye to you. You put the finishing touches on your makeup and added curls to your hair, tousling it to loosen them. After a little over an hour staring at yourself in the mirror, you gave your face a once-over before nodding in satisfaction. You put everything back in the bag and turned off the curling iron. 

You exited the bathroom to allow Bucky a chance to get dressed before you put on your dress. Did his eyes linger on you? You couldn’t be sure.All you knew for sure was that you must have been nearly drooling at the sight of him in his tuxedo, he looked so good. Figuring a little shameless flirting would be okay, you began to fan yourself. “Well damn, Why have I never seen you in a tux before?” You were sure this time that his cheeks took on a rosy color, which made him even more attractive. The tuxedo really fit him like a glove, pristine black and white with a black bowtie. The jacket accentuated how fit he was and you were completely incapable of stopping your eyes from raking over his form. After ogling him for a minute, you heard him clear his throat and looked up to meet his eyes. It was endearing how flustered he looked.

Getting it together, you stood up to grab your dress and get changed. Bucky hadn’t seen it, but Nat or Pepper had also apparently snuck in lingerie to go under the dress. You put it on and looked in the mirror, feeling good about yourself. You shimmied into the gown, pulling up the zipper with a little effort and smoothing it down before looking in the mirror. You couldn’t remember the last time you had truly felt beautiful, but this gown boosted your confidence tenfold. 

After another minute of looking at your own reflection, you turned to exit the bathroom and made sure your eyes were on Bucky to see his reaction. You were silently overjoyed to see the ways his eyes widened and traveled the length of your body before meeting your gaze. You gave him your best coy smile and gave him a small twirl. “What do you think?”

“You look- wow,” he answered, seemingly lost for words. Seeing a man like him speechless over you had you feeling on top of the world. He was standing near the table where your shoebox was set next to a small clutch, silver to match your shoes. In it was a pair of earrings and a necklace to top off the outfit. You added your accessories before finally putting on your shoes while leaning on Bucky’s shoulder for stability. You were positive that he had sucked in a breath of air when you touched him. You were practically glowing with how good you felt about the dress and your effect on the soldier. 

Standing in front of him, you filled your clutch with the essentials - you know, your phone, lipstick, and a knife or three - before turning to face him. “You ready?” you asked with a grin. 

He let out a breath before returning your smile. “As I’ll ever be.” 

Tag(s): @emotionallysalty @ficrecsandreviews @fandomsfallnomore @aquaastrid @mariah-vg 

[blissfulalchemist]

all odd #s for cat from the fc5 questionnaire (feel free to sub in chance where it's more applicable/if you've answered it 💋)?

Thank you dear Stella for asking! Most of these did end up being for Cat!

1. What’s their name? 

Catlina Mariangel Rojas

3. What’s their style like? (Clothing style, hats, gloves, masks, etc.) 

Comfy sweaters, jeans, Boho flowy style, nerdy shirts, heeled brown boots, and converse. When standing with John in public floral print light blue and pastel colored dresses, soft and warm appearance. 

5. What’s their outfit (transportation) like? 

Cat’s Transportation is mostly cult vehicles that she doesn’t drive most of the time. She hates trucks though so mostly sedan type cars. For the outfit she changes a lot, depends on where she’s at and what’s expected of her. 

Chance though has a pretty consistent outfit with some band shirt, dark jeans and black boots.

7. What are their thoughts on the cult? 

Not a good thing. They have caused so much pain to others and manipulation, even to her personally. Though she also can’t deny the fact that there are people that have been helped by Eden’s Gate. She doesn’t have a full understanding of faith but they provided that to many so it’s hard to hate the religious aspect of Eden’s Gate. 

9. How do they feel about the preppers? 

She hasn’t really met too many in her life, but she kind of thought they were always extremists. People that you only really saw on reality tv. But hey to each their own but its still a bit weird to prepare for something that she doesn’t believe will come to pass.

11. First thoughts on the Seed family? 

Fear, unease. Individually Joseph scared her the most and still does. John she had no idea where to place him cause he was both too nice and too cold and too well everything. Faith was someone she empathized with and was more curious how someone so young got involved. Jacob was the only one she really trusted in a way, he was straight forward and honest with her, never beat around the bush.

13. From the GFH/FGH which one they get along with the most? 

She would get along great with Nick and Adelaide I’m sure. Along with Boomer. Though unsure about wild animals though willing to try. 

15. From Fall’s End which person they get along with? 

The one she has had the most interactions with is Jerome. The two have an understanding on where they stand and their end goals. 

17. From the White Tail militia which one they get along with? 

Well Lance you could make the argument that he’s apart of them from afar. In game characters though...None of them are too trusting of her so she doesn’t really know.  

19. How do they feel about Faith? 

She cares very deeply for her once getting to know her a bit more. This starts mostly because she’s the same age as her younger sister but.

 21. From the Police department which one they DON’T get along? 

I answered for Chance that he doesn’t really get along with Pratt, but it’s mostly superficial stuff and contrasting personalities.

Cat though I don’t think she would get along with Pratt either if I had to pick. 

23. From The Cougars which person they DON’T get along with? 

While she’s never met her, Cat doesn’t particularity like Tracey. This leads back to her relationship with Faith. 

25. Which two of the GFH make up their dream team? 

Chance’s dream team would be one of either Hurk Jr. or Sharky and then Boomer. 

27. How do they feel about all those bunkers laying around? 

To Cat it’s weird. There seems to be no need for them to be there to her. She also sometimes finds their layout and use of rooms is not how it should be. Given the undetermined amount of time one would be in the bunkers there needs to be a lot more practical items and facilities. 

29. How do they feel at the end of all the game events? 

So her canon does not involve any bombs falling. However if they did and can we live in a world where all the Seeds survive, she would be far from happy. She’d have lost so much by that point and honestly I think it would change her permanently. If she was to make it to New Dawn canon she would still try to be good and fair but she would be much colder and more prone to angry outbursts. 

[ddaengyoonmin]

Chapter one

Pairing: Jungkook x reader, eventual Ot7 x reader in later chapters

Genre: Angst, fluff, uhh maybe smut eventually??

Theme: Based kinda on sword art online a lot of similar ideas and themes kinda combining the idea of them trapped in the game, but the world is closer to ALFheim online

Word count: 2.1k+

Warnings: Swearing?..I swear a lot it can’t be contained. Giant Bees?? Not too much to warn about for this chapter but future chapters might get crazy

*check my master list for the prologue, I suggest reading it first*

Next -> Chapter 2

-------------------------------------------------------

A bright light shone in from a missing blind.  One of your bothersome, but too cute to be mad at cats must’ve broken it, you made a mental note to fix that later. It woke you up earlier than usual for a Friday, probably not a bad thing, you had a big day ahead of you.  Working from home had its advantages such as being able to create your own schedule.

You had set the day aside to mentally prepare for and then try out your dreaded birthday gift you had received just the day before.

The clock read 8:00 am. You sighed as you pulled yourself out of bed, startling the young calico cat who had been sleeping on your stomach throughout the night. “Sorry velvet” you mumble sleepily.  Though she should be used to the rude awakenings by now, given that you on the other hand had not gotten used to having a cuddly cat and always seemed to accidentally throw her off your lap in the mornings.   Your other cat Tiger always kept to herself and usually slept on the top of her cat tree or on a top shelf in one of your closets.

Last year when you bought your new apartment you had marveled at the spaciousness of the classy two bedroom layout.  You debated on turning that second bedroom into a room for Tiger to have all to herself, but decided that would only feed into your family’s idea you were becoming a crazy cat lady hermit. Instead it became your office, and today it was the room you decided you would try out the full dive gaming experience headset in.  You had a comfortable black leather office chair that you usually spent most of your days in while you worked on your designs.  You figured that would be fine to recline in while you went into the game.

After getting yourself a filling breakfast you fed Velvet and Tiger a little extra, not knowing how long you’d be in the game.  Part of you hoped that your mom would be satisfied if you just tried it for 30 minutes or so, then you could get back to the practical reality you preferred to live in. But you still wanted to be prepared in case the impossible happened and you actually enjoyed yourself.

You picked up the sleek looking packaging that held the headset and the game you had been given. You let out a sigh and looked over to your pets, “lets give this a shot huh?” you said, looking at them as if they could understand you.

When you arrived to your office you plopped down into your comfy chair and finally opened the packaging.  The headset was shiny and heavy, looking similar to a motorcycle helmet.  In the back by the base of the neck there was a long wire the same shade of silver as the rest of the headset.  You pulled out the instructions from the box and skimmed it over.  

“Internal battery, internal memory to store data, in game items, and achievements”

“Pre-programmed with Faerie Realm installed, no updates or installation required”

“To enter the game is simple, put on the headset and click the large button on the side of the headset and say the command ‘LINK START’”

You felt skeptical of this whole thing, but you reasoned that they wouldn’t sell it to the public if it was unsafe.

With one last see ya later to Tiger and Velvet you plugged in the headset and carefully placed it over your head.  It was a snug fit and there were straps to secure it underneath your chin.

A small wave of nervousness ran over you, you took a few deep breaths and put your pointer finger to the side of the headset and held the button. Loud and enunciated so as not to mess this up somehow, you said the command…

“LINK START”

Almost instantly, like falling asleep suddenly, everything went dark.  It only lasted a few seconds until you were standing in a bright, white, empty room with no doors or windows.  You looked to your left and right in a slight panic, you felt like you could hear some music start to play.

Then, catching you off guard a giant holographic screen projected onto the wall in front of you.

“Welcome new player!” A chipper voice rang out from the direction of the screen “It’s time to chose your fairy race, and dive into the world of Faerie Realm! Point your hand straight out fingers spread out to the screen and swipe to the right to scroll through the choices, make a fist for 10 seconds at the screen on the page of the Fairy race you choose and you will move on to the next step!”

On the screen an example character popped and you giggled at it.  It was an image of you, but not totally you.  Your hair was longer than in real life and it was dyed a turquoise shade of blue, you were wearing a tight royal blue and white dress that was much shorter than anything you’d ever worn before.

 You had to admit from a designers point of view, that it was pretty interesting how they’d managed to do that.  The thing that really caught your eye was that coming from behind your back was a pair of beautiful shimmering turquoise wings matching the hair, they were slightly transparent and had a light blue glow coming off of them. The title under this character “Water Fairy”

You scrolled over the other choices shortly, five options of fairy races each with different styles, perks and nerdy sounding stats you didn’t even bother to read. You were mostly focused on the look, and none stood out as much as the first you had seen and you settle on the Water Fairy, holding out a fist to the screen as it instructed.  

The next step you were prompted to complete was to choose a username.  You decide on “Velvet Tiger” in honor of your bestfriends at home. Once you held out your fist again to declare that you were sure of your name, the room turned dark again.  Next you felt like you were falling, falling falling, and the perky voice echoed around you “Have fun in Faerie Realm!!”

With a loud thud you felt yourself hit grass, strangely you felt no sort of pain from your fall, odd.

You picked yourself up from the ground and brushed the dirt off of what you now realized was the same blue dress from the screen.  You pull your now extremely long hair in front of your face to see it was indeed also the hair you had seen on yourself in the preview.  “Color me impressed” You chuckled aloud.

You started to look around to get a bearing on your surroundings.  “Umm...what exactly am I supposed to do?” You spoke aloud again, not sure if you were hoping someone would answer or that some sort of screen would pop up at your question.  But nothing happened.  

You were alone in the middle of the most perfect flowering field you’d ever seen in your life, it was beautiful, cream colored daisies scattered all around you.  It was sunny and bright and the temperature was perfect. You could feel a light breeze press on your cheek, you brought your hand up to your face.  “Woah…” you muttered.  It was crazy to think none of this was real.  

A noise suddenly snapped you out of your state of awe.  You cocked your head to the side slightly.  It was a humming noise getting louder and louder by the second.  

To your surprise and horror the objects in question made themselves visible.  “What the fuck!!!” You scream, and immediately start to book it in the opposite direction.

BEES? But not just regular bees, a swarm of GIANT bees about the size of your cats were headed straight towards you.  You found yourself screaming out a series of fucks and holy shits as you tried to outrun the swarm, they were catching up faster than you could run.  ‘Thanks mom, this is real fun’, you thought.  

You were about to get to a treeline that was up ahead when you tripped and fell flat on your face, you winced, not because it hurt, (you realized this game must not let you feel pain, which is nice), but because you were just embracing the fact that giant bees were about to be your ‘game over’ only 5 minutes into the game.

A loud POW sounded out right behind you and you covered your ears and buried your head into the ground.  A crackling noise like fireworks followed. And then...a beautiful sound.

“You okay miss?” A silvery voice spoke from above you.

You uncovered your ears and lifted your head up from your embarrassing position you had assumed when you thought your demise in this game was upon you.

What you saw when your eyes met the figure standing over you took your breath away.  You had to try and keep a straight face and contain your awe so as not to further embarrass yourself.  

The man standing over you looked like an angel covered in black.  He had on a tight fitting black shirt with a gray jacket that was styled fitting to the theme of this game draped over top, and tight black skinny jeans to go with.  From behind his back you could see a pair of shimmering translucent wings similar in design to yours but the color was a charcoal black.  

He extended a strong looking hand towards you, but you were still frozen in a combination of awe and embarrassment.  He retracted his hand, chuckled, and ran his fingers through his pitch black hair. You scurried to get up on your own  snapping out of your daze and standing eye to eye with the man you asume must’ve just saved your ass from the killer bees.

“Um, thank you” You nervously mumbled his way.  His eyes were kind as he met your gaze with a smile.  You had to force yourself to keep your eyes on his as they seemed compelled to trail over all of his body.  “You’re welcome” His smile grew bigger than it previously was.  “You’re lucky I got here when I did! They were gearing up for some power stings that definitely would’ve sent you to a black screen at your level”

“At….my level?” You said with confusion.  “Yeah, I can see your level right there” he pointed just to the left of your face.  You for the first time notice a small screen was there that had your username, level, health and an option for ‘menu’ listed.  “Oh..” you managed an awkward smile.  You realized you could see his too, ‘Kookie, level 10, full health’ listed on the screen hovering next to him.  

“I’ve been here since 12am when it opened” he said sheepishly running his hand through his hair again.  “Games are kinda my thing and when I heard this was coming out I wanted to get ahead right away...did you just get here or something?” He questioned.

“Yeah, literally just a few minutes ago” you laughed “That was about to be a real short run” you winced at the not too distant memory. “I...uh..games aren’t really my thing”

He smirked at your comment “You don’t say?” he teased.  You stuck your tongue out at him, then immediately felt embarrassed.  Not totally sure what came over you to do that to a total stranger, but hey, it is just a game and he started it right? So you shook off the awkward feeling and decided to just go with it.  He laughed a full belly laugh at your action and shook his head “Ok, I like your style ma’m, so I’m gonna take pity on your and show you the ropes here” He spoke cockily.

“Oh? And what makes you think I need your help?” You tried to come back with, only eliciting further laughter from him. “You’re right,” he put his hands up in fake defeat “those bees were completely defenseless to your ‘duck and cover in the middle of a field’ fighting methods”

You pouted slightly at the mention of that embarrassing part of the incident that had just occurred you are hoping to just pretend didn’t happen.

“Fiiine” you sighed “I really don’t know what I’m doing here, but don't take me for some damsel in distress that's going to worship you as her hero now or anything like that”  His eyebrows raised high taken aback by your bluntness.  “Of course. I have no doubt you take care of yourself well in the real world, on first impressions you seem to be a strong, independent woman…I admire that in a lady” he assured in an honest and serious tone, but then He stopped and took a few steps closer to you standing so close it sent a shiver up your spine.  

He leaned in to your ear, tone changing from his previous statement into a more smooth and sultry whisper  “But this isn’t the real world...you’ve stepped into my world now.” He pulled away, a smirk on his face.

Your eyes widened.  What have you gotten yourself into…

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[codematurgy]

you could definitely say that what follows next is a quarentine diary of sorts, but i’m writing it up here because it relates to theme making in some ways; additionally, i just want to write something positive in the middle of this!

stay safe, of course - if your finantial conditions, likely because of the government of your country and/or your employer being criminals, aren’t good enough for you to stop working, i can’t say i’m exactly praying for you because i don’t have that practice, but i do hope you’ll be fine. this moment shows us how capitalists are willing to treat the working class. mandatory class struggle aside:

for starters shout out to tumblr because i love the new dashboard ok. i’m using the cybernetic palette and i really wish it was available on the app too. of course, my love of it isn’t related to the colors alone - i always thought the dashboard looked a bit messy in structure, so building it again from zero was a fantastic decision. love that i can see the words for image or avatar while the images are loading as well; they really took care of accessibility here, which was already an ongoing process with stuff like page order or focus, etc.

i just wanted to write that shoutout because i’ve seen a lot of people complain about it - mostly because xkit stopped working - while ignoring that the folks at xkit did explain how they’re helping the tumblr developers directly, and in turn their work at rewriting xkit would be even smoother. i don’t think people actually give tumblr developers credit where is due, and i’ve been fascinated with their work ever since i found out about official blogs such as @javascript or @engineering. it also clarified a few problems i’ve had when dealing with the mechanics of reblogs, even if some bits of it still drive me nuts! in a sense, thinking about theme making for tumblr has become more gratifying when you get to understand just what you’re doing. anyway, moving on.

i haven’t really done a lot of “theme making” for the past weeks - i did do a bunch of bug fixes to the npf photosets plugin, but nothing related to designing or creating and so on. it doesn’t mean that creating was completely lost to me, though i did channel it to something entirely different: movie reviews.

yeah. that sounds pretentious, i know.

i’m not a big fan of cash grab movies(read: pretty much most of recent disney work, and anything that feels similarly souless), but i never found the strength to watch the ones that are new and more popular around here; namely, stuff from a24. which is not to say those are bad! i’ve watched my share and they are really good - i’m absolutely enamored with the vvitch, for example. however, i’ve realized that i want to discover new worlds, and not all of them too serious neither constantly bombarding my tumblr dashboard or twitter timeline. people have been doing movies for such a long time and i keep wondering, how many incredible gems i’m missing on solely because i can’t be bothered to look back?

thanks to that, i’m watching movies i never thought i would watch. and more importantly, i’m writing about them - about the things that make them this single, incredible work. much like being in a show’s fandom, i guess, and writing such long metas on it, except i get to write shorter essays because i’m not getting an entire season, ahaha. i had never watched an art film up until now, i think, and although it wasn’t my favorite format from this first experience, it was nice and i’m actually willing to try it again.

one great takeaway from this experience, besides how awesome film-making is, relates to my creations here. a fascinating thing about movies is when their envisioners work to have this coherent, complete piece of work filled with all it needs to be solid, instead of letting these loose threads. this is not in a plot sense strictly, but for so many aspects like choosing to add something to costume, set, or prop design; the choice of a weird but so incredibly telling original score; a photography that goes beyond having a pretty centralized shot and adds weight to every shot... wow, that stuff is unreal, and it is so full of purpose!

this feeling of completeness is one i think i have been working on gradually, but still could do better. i have this terrible process in which i barely have a full sketch for a theme - i just think that i want this one thing and build the whole theme around that detail live on the code instead of actually planning it. i believe that, likely because of this, it feels like my themes are just this tiny design in the middle of a blank website. Chamamento, SETE and Ágora feel like outliers in that sense, even though the process was still chaotic, solely because at one point i actually sat myself down and i said “i want this”.

hopefully, i can take this knowledge with me on the next themes coming around! i don’t know when they will come, but i do have an idea for post styling and another one for a “complete” layout - i’ll try not to merge those in my weird process so it’s not too much information, though. there’s one theme in the works for a while too, which is based on the one i mentioned working on as i first mentioned Temporal, but it’s been reworked into an entirely different beast which i’m quite happy with; mostly because there is no pixel based post size! in fact, i’m considering not having typical post sizes for all next themes, choosing a more typical blog approach. it sounds weird but so far it looks really cool, although probably not as much if you’re doing graphics with set sizes... well, graphic makers were never my demographic to begin with.

and well, on an entirely different note: i keep forgetting that when you have a theme uploaded to tumblr, you can check active installs. actually seeing people using your themes, when before the only way you could see it was by hoping whoever reblogged or liked it had in fact installed it, is so exciting!!! it actually confirms that the people using my themes, or at least using Temporal, are often just your average blogger sharing memes, fanart and talking about the latest podcast - you know the one. it’s a pleasure to be making themes for y’all!

[themechaneer]

Joel’s Shelter || Headcanon

Casey Forger was an architect. The man either built or probably had a hand in helping design and build most of the bunkers strewn across what’s left of continental America. He knew what he was doing when he made his own. That being said for any interested this headcanon will hopefully detail the Forger family bunker’s design, and breakdown what actually made it a home.

Yeah because I am the laziest being on the planet I did just go find  an actual bunker design that fit what I had in mind. After seeing the first headcanon I had for this my friend was kind enough to custom make a layout of the shelter for me!! The bunker itself has been through some changes through the years which I’ll detail below along with the visual and I’ll also detail a bit about what the inside looks like.

The Layout

At the end of the stairs leading downto the bunker there is a landing and foyer area before the front door. Likely meant to add some homey charm but put to more practical use on the occasion Joel comes home filthy from whatever work or misadventures that occured that day. He has on occasion stripped down right there in attempts to avoid tracking in anymore then he can’t help.

The first room on the left. That room while she was alive was his mum’s office. It’s where she did her work, her reasearch, met and defended her clinets. As adults Kai & Joel packed it up and slowly turned it into a lighted library/study where Joel keeps his monitor as well as the family’s physical book collection… Well most of them.

There is a secondary entrance to the bunker through a door in the back of the storage room. The door leads to another set of stairs that lead up behind the bunker and into Joel’s workshop where he does most of the work on his personal projects. This was added with help from Kai in Joel’s late teens - early twenties once he really got into tinkering on his own.

On the outside there are two seperate structures besides the bunker entrance itself. Namely Joel’s workshop for his personal projects or anything he’s taken home with him from his garage to do detail work on by hand. The second being the parking area where Joel keeps his vehicles out of timefall and occasionally stores the vehicles of occasional visitors. Both like his shelter require acess permission or codes from Joel before entry and can be temporary or permanent.

The Home

Casey may have built the place but most of the interior decor was decided mostly by Remy with input from Casey and then added to over the years by them and their boys.

The color scheme for the majority was meant to be seaside meets comfy chic so its a lot of soft shag rugs, dark wood & glass in the flooring & furniture, shelves. Lots of greys, dark turquoise, tan, white, pops of sienna. The bedrooms and study all sport their own color palletes of course all of them tasteful.

Another running theme would probably be fake/fairy trees/plants/leaf walls in some parts of the house. Mostly because Remy loved them and as it turns out when people don’t get to interact with live things too often, like plants, just the visuals can help lift moods even if they aren’t actually real.

All of the wall art be it hung paintings or stenciled designs on the actual walls of the home were all done by Remy, or Joel. However in the study, was once her office you can find a floor to ceiling wall of nothing but both Joel’s and Kai’s art from watercolors, to fingerpainting, to 4 year old’s abstract designs, as well as family and me style crayon drawings.

Nearly all the photo frames and furniture in the home was built by hand by Casey himself or with help from his sons (some of which having been made from driftwood from the beach). Anything that wasn’t was at least modified in some way by the family be it changing the color, or adding detail to it.

One of the walls in the home is definitely dedicated to a growth chart the brothers’ parents started when they were tots. If one looks closely at it they can see exactly where Casey & Remy’s handwriting stops and Kai’s and Joel’s takes over… The recordings stopped at age 18 for both.

The living room/family area has a set of two completely wraparound shelves dedicated to the family’s movie & music collection that Casey put up. He and his sons have added more to it over the years as they’ve added to it.

Above the bunker entrance is a hanging lantern light that is a nod to Casey’s nautical years. Joel’s modified it since then to have the light change color depending on circumstances. Blue - Welcome & Joel is home Green - Welcome & Joel is out Red - Terrorists are active in area Orange - MULES are active in the area

The higher the connection level with Joel one has the more welcome holograms are added to the bunker, the first however is a rather glitchy/grainy hologram of the happy family of 4 from when the brothers were 4 & 6 respectively, each holding their parents’ hand while the other waves in greeting to their guest.

There’s a noteboard just aside the entryway door. The last message scrawled on it was from Kai. “Off to go reconnect what’s left of the world. Be back soon. I love you ya little shit.” Before they passed their parents had left one for them as well though Kai erased it half a year later, the action starting one of the first serious fights the brother’s ever had. Just like back then Joel’s not been able to bring himself to erase the final words one of his closest loved ones left him even though it’s been quite some time since then. Even knowing Kai would roll his eyes and scold him if he could see to cover concern.

Really the only things that Joel has changed significantly since his brother’s passing was converting his and Kai’s bedrooms into guest bedrooms and having made his parent’s bedroom his own if only because it’s closer to the main bathroom. Or that’s what he tells himself. Not at all because resting in their bedroom still manages to bring about some of the comfort it used to when he was a boy

Special thanks to @ruinerofcheese​ / @tish-the-baker​ for the taking the time to make the visual layout of Joel’s shelter for me!!!

[escherenigmart]

Inktober 2019 Retrospective

This is mostly for my own benefit.  Fair warning, I slipped into “self assessment at work” mode, so the language is a bit odd.  A reminder, I have no formal art training, but do have formal engineering training.

So read on if you want my thoughts on my own work.  Or, y’know look away.

Summary

My goal was to “finish” Inktober, posting 31 fully inked drawings over the course of the month.  A secondary goal was to use and practice with the shiny new Copic markers my dearly beloved, @godsdamnednamethieves, gifted me back in September.

I achieved both these objectives, and while there were some rough patches, and many nights where I stayed up far later then I should have, I’d say it went fairly well.  It was helped that I took a week-long “staycation” in the middle of the month.

That said, there is clearly room for improvement in my art, time-management, and process.  It is my next objective, moving forward, to incorporate what I have learned, about my self-discipline, art, and tools, into a stable plan that promotes growth.

Onto specific issues.

Tools

For Inktober 2019, I used three sketchbooks, Pilot’s “color eno” mechanical colored pencils, gummy erasers (I’ve had them so long I don’t know the brand), my Copic Multiliners, and my Copic Sketch markers.

Sketchbooks:

Adhesive pinding, flip-on-short edge.  This was the book I started on, and has been my primary sketchbook this year. The pages were already tearing out infrequently, but once I got started in Inktober this accelerated and many pages tore out.  Would not recommend.

Slightly yellow paper, bound with thread in smaller numbers.  For Inktober I just used this to keep sketch ideas and play with layouts, and did not put any “final” illustrations in it.  It lays flat on the scanner, and no pages have torn out.  I’ve been very happy with this style of book, and plan to continue with this style for my future sketchbooks.

Hard-bound thick paper, thread-bound and glued to the hardback.  About a week into October I ordered a new sketchbook, and ordered this one.  Thick paper, holds the colored ink well, looks nice.  Does not easily lay flat for scanning or drawing, though this was mitigated by leaving more margins.

The colored pencils worked well enough, though I quickly discovered that colored pencils and Copic markers do not play well together.  This led to me refining my technique and relying less on detailed pencil sketches before I began inking.  Need to order more light blue lead, as that is the color I go through fastest by far.

Multiliners are still a hit-and-miss.  My 0.3 multi-liner from the B-2 pack had the nib fall out, and from what I can tell that style of marker/pen/whatever can not have the nib replaced.  My 0.3 Multiliner SP wound up being my work horse pen, though I also used my 0.1 Multiliner for fine detail, and my 0.8 and 1.0 for borders and some lettering.  Oddly, before my 0.3 multliner failed me for the last time, it was reliably giving narrower lines from the 0.3 multiliner SP.  I don’t know if this was just a lead-up to the nib-failure, or if there’s a bigger difference between the SP and the pens from teh B-2 pack.  But even beyond that, the SP feels nicer in my hand, and was more reliable.  When I need new pens, I’ll probably bite the bullet and get more of the SP variety.

Copic Sketch markers.  This was mostly a learning experience, figuring out what works, what doesn’t, how to use them, and so-on.  Overall I’m very happy, but I’m still very bad at choosing colors.  I repeatedly went to my husband to make color choices for me, often to great effect.  So if you like my color choices, give him the credit.  If you think my color choices are awful, give me the blame.  A few things that bothered me were that I noticed some of my drawing picking up little splotches or dots far away from where I was working.  This is particularly notable on the “Warrior of the Beach” picture.  My theory is that either I’m getting ink on my hand, then transferring it to the page when I rest it, or that when I’m putting caps on/pulling caps off, I’m sending little droplets of ink flying.

A few of my markers gave me a little trouble, but I’m not sure if it’s just because I don’t know what I’m doing or because I really did use W1 and C1 that much.  I need to get a small scale so I can see if they’re actually low on ink or if I’m just a noob.

Process

The days where I was most happy with my work was when I had an idea, toyed with layout in my sketchbook, and then redrew the whole thing.  When I was least happy was often when I floundered about with no ideas, and then tried to draw something, anything, around 9 pm.

What this means (to me) is that I’m still relying too much on “inspiration” rather then discipline, which is a long-term problem.

Beyond that,taking the time/luxury of a full sketch (in a different book) to plan layout, workshopping text with the hubby, and splitting up inking from coloring (by hours or days) improved the quality of my work.  Even still, some of the pieces I’m very happy with had little to no planning.

For example, “Ripe” was done with basically no planning.  After deciding to do a dude doing pull-ups, I started on the text on the bottom with a ruler.  About half-way through drawing the dude I decided to make it Dave.  At some point I hit the “clever” idea of making it an immovable rod instead of a mundane pull-up bar.  And then I cursed myself, because I came up with a better text layout, “Immovable Rod, Ripe Bod”, but it was too late to use it.

The Art Itself

The big part.

Some days I was very happy.  Some days I floundered (can you guess which category my “pattern” piece falls into?).  Overall though, I think I showed improvement, both in line-work and color-work, over the month.  That said, “Mindless” and “Bait” still make me very happy.

I also realized that I strangely enjoy text.  Whether it was using little banners, comic-style speech and narration boxes, borders and fancy fonts, it was a lot of fun and helped contextualize the pieces.  Incorporating text is definitely something I want to continue to do.

Playing around with layouts, borders, framing was also unexpectedly fun.  The later pieces where I restricted my “work area” with borders I think turned out much better for the limitation, with the framing devices often helping tell the story.  In comparison, pieces like “Overgrown” or the early “freeze” and “build”, don’t have a firm ending, and felt lacking to me.

Flaws: hands, feet, and legs in general.  And as much as I enjoyed playing with layouts and borders, I can’t use that as an excuse to not draw feet and more complicated leg positions.  I clearly need to spend more time doing simple figure sketches, both whole-body and specific body parts.

Conclusion

Inktober was great, if time permits, I’ll probably do it again next year.  But probably not the “full marathon”, dropping down to “half marathon” so I don’t stay up quite so late.

Also, I need to do a nicer illustration of Xanadeux.  She’s only got that one panel.  She needs more love.

[vivivinya]

It’s the end of the decade, and what a ride it’s been this year alone! I’ve made a lot of artistic progress this year! Finally getting a tablet has really paid off, hehe... Here’s last years’ review!

If you’d like to hear my thoughts for each month, you can read more below!

January

I had just gotten a little tablet for Christmas a month earlier, and so at this point I was trying my best to get a feel for the new tool! It’s here that I definitely laid down the base of what I wanted my art to be - a lot more freeform and doodley than my art in the past years! I think it fits my art mood a lot more in retrospect. This drawing was when I did a little game with my friend Dalblauw where both of us drew Plumber Peach, based on a SupperMarioBroth post we found!

February

Around this time, I was having a major kick with FanCom. The new Discord was in its prime, and ComProject had been resuming with relative success! Boy what I’d do to get the community and project thriving again... Anyways, I was still getting a feel for my tablet, so I practiced a lot on FanCom designs, like redrawing my very first FanPro, 2003!

March

Chilla Month!! At the time, I thought I would be going hard on developing this game, which hasn’t turned out exactly right... however, I still have plans for these characters (when I don’t have to worry about programming for VR)! I mildly redesigned Chilla, Edith, and Merida, and also came up with two new characters! Eugine, the timid sheepish boy, and Jack, the hat person dad who’s trying his best!

April

This one has a bit of a sad story... The musical artist Wowaka was a heavy influence on my younger self, and his music still has a profound influence on me to this day. He passed away that month, and I was so struck that I felt the need to make a tribute of some kind. This was an animated image based on Rolling Girl.

May

The end of the semester of college is always one of the busiest and most stressful times, so not too much came out of me then. Plus I had started to get burned out from how few people were submitting for ComProject... But I gave it my best shot, and some of my best designs still came from this month! I also drew one of my best works at the time - Nyaga striking a little pose! This is notable for being the first time I tried actively shading since getting my tablet!

June

This is when I finally understood what I wanted to do with my art. I wanted to do a little pop-y sort of art with FanPro 0049, and what I ended up doing basically defined my art style from then on. Dynamic posing, backgrounds with popping colors and gradients, stronger shading, and notably the silhouette border. It’s an emphasis on fun looks!

July

Artfight time! I took this time as a means of experimenting even more with what I started last month, and I think this is when I fully grasped the sort of poses I wanted to do. One of my absolute favorites from this time was my drawing of Dalblauw’s character Naomi!

August

Once again ending on Artfight, and another character from Dalblauw again - Sam. However, this particular piece is important to me because it’s the first time I drew a background with any level of complexity, and properly did a pixel animation involving wind. I did a lot of research and planning, and learned a lot as an animator from this!

September

One of my favorite things I did was a little series on FanCom monster girls! It was four different works with the same premise: a halfbody of a design with the crop being stylistically approached based on their unique attributes. It was a lot of fun, and I’m definitely thinking of doing something like it again!

October

The month that changed my life the most, easily. Rivals of Aether revealed Workshop support, and after some thinking, I decided it was time for me to create something I could finally play! I started off small - four buddies based on FanCom designs. Then, I created my first character, Shy Guy! He was a blast to work on, and I learned a lot about animating and coding in the process! People say he’s fun too, which is a great plus!

November

Continuing with the Workshop, I had released two more buddies based on Super Mario Bros. 2, and finally had to challenge myself to create an original stage. What I ended up with was Subcon, a unique stage layout with (mostly) original sprites! It was the first time I’ve done a background of this complexity, and it was surprisingly fun!

December

And finally, this month, I started missing regular art. Spriting and coding and animating is fun, but it’s nice to take a break and put some variety in the mix, so I drew Nyaga again! I think this piece is important because you can directly see how my art changed from half a year earlier! More popping colors, more distinct style, more dynamic poses, I realized that I really had improved!

I think that’s the important takeaway from not just this year, but this decade as a whole. I’ve changed a lot over time, and I have a lot to look forward to! See ya next year with more art and gaming content, because you know I’m not stopping now!

[avengerscompound]

The Unicorn - Chapter 14

The Unicorn:  A Pepperony Fanfic PREVIOUS

Series Masterlist

Buy me a coffee with Ko-fi Word Count:    2075

Pairing:  Tony Stark x F!Reader x Pepper Potts

Warnings:  Sex talk.  Pregnancy

Synopsis:  The three of you go house shopping in New York to see if you can find something you’re all happy with.

Chapter 14

Over the next few weeks, things ramped up a lot.  There was another ultrasound to be had at 8 weeks and Tony and Pepper were determined to figure out where you should all live that gave the best options for school and work.

You seemed completely nonplussed on the issue.  You still went to Avengers training in the early morning and you continued going to your lab in the afternoon.  Just now before you left you seemed to struggle with the thought that you might throw up first.

By the time of the eight-week ultrasound, you weren't just thinking about it.  You had to factor in an extra ten minutes for throwing up before you made your way down for the dawn run.  It never stopped you though.  If you could go to training hungover a little bit of morning sickness wasn't going to stop you.

The strange thing was that Pepper seemed to be suffering with it too.  Initially, the three of you had put it on her just not handling vomit very well.  It wasn’t a totally uncommon thing that when someone threw up it might set someone else off.  Pepper had never been the weak stomached type but it was possible worries about the pregnancy was already making her slightly nauseated.

By the time of the ultrasound both Tony and you were teasing her about it being sympathy vomit.

The ultrasound went fine everyone was excited to see the twins again.  They still kind of just looked like a weird blurry picture of packaging peanuts.   Tony did still feel both relieved and excited when he heard the fast squish-squish sound of their heartbeats.

After the ultrasound, the three of you went to the first of the choices for the new home.  New York City.

When Tony had made the move to the compound he’d dissolved all his property.  Avengers Tower had become the Baxter Building.  It was probably the least practical course for them because it would mean reopening a branch of Stark Industry so that Pepper had an office and you had a lab, buying a home, and possibly opening a branch of the Avengers if you were set on remaining on the team after your maternity leave was up.

Tony had booked them the penthouse suite at the Gramercy Park while they looked at options.

“Dalton.  That’s the reason.”  Pepper said.  Her heels clicked loudly on the garish marble floors of the Upper East Side mansion they were inspecting.

The house was hideous.  The ‘American Renaissance’ period of architecture was a travesty.  The whole place, with its marble floors, chandeliers, ceiling murals featuring cherubs and gold scrollwork, looked more like a museum than a home.  It was dated, to say the least.  And dated to a period of opulence with no taste or subtlety.  All Tony could think was apart from the library which he’d keep for Pepper (the murals would have to go), the pool and the cinema, he’d gut the whole thing and start over.

“I don’t know, Pep.  It could have 100 Dalton’s but there’s no yard…”

“There’s a roof garden.”

“You want the twins playing on the roof?”  He said raising an eyebrow.

“Right, of course.”  She said heading into the kitchen.  “This is nice.”

“Yeah.  Very light and spacious.  I still think… I’d have to invest at least a cool billion to have us set up and even then it wouldn’t be right and it doesn’t feel like a home.”  He said running his hand over the floating kitchen island.

“What do you think?”  Pepper asked turning to you.

“I don’t love it.”  You said.  “I mean, doesn’t it scream masked orgy to you?  I bet naked asses have been all over everything.”

“Oh yeah.  I thought it looked familiar.”  Tony teased.

“God, you’re disgusting,”  Pepper said, whacking him.  Tony laughed and rubbed his arm.  “Well, we don’t have to get this one.  There were more options.”

“Yeah, but they’ll all be either Townhouses or Penthouses.  They won’t be where we can teach them to ride their bikes or run around with their dog.  We’ll have to take them to the park every time we want to do something like that.”  Tony said.  “Plus there’s the other investments involved.  S.I. is upstate now.  I’d have to reopen here.”

“The Avengers.”  You added.

“Yeah, I moved that because it was unsafe to have it just - in the middle of the city.”  Tony agreed.

Pepper pursed her lips.  She didn’t like that you wanted to stay with the Avengers the same way she didn’t like that Tony wouldn’t give up being Iron Man back in the day.  “We can consider it though right?  That’s what we’re doing here?  Looking at each option and picking the best?”

“Yeah, you're right.  Being here is better than in the compound.”  Tony conceded.  “I don't know how big the pull to Dalton is compared to just buying land near the compound and building exactly what we want though.”

“There aren't any schools around the compound though.”  Pepper complained.

“Start your own one, Elon Musk style.”  You said.

“We are not starting our own one like Elon.”  Pepper said sternly.

“I don't know… Maybe we should.  Give another incentive for people to stay on if it was more family friendly.”  Tony said with a shrug.

“Tony…”  Pepper sighed.  He knew that tone so he dropped it.

You went out to the balcony and looked out over the park.  Tony came up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist.  “It is a cool city though.”  You said.

“I won't argue that.”  He agreed, kissing your neck.

“Can we get out of this house?  I feel like I'm in a museum and the temptation to just touch everything for no good reason is making my fingers itchy.”  You said.

Tony chuckled and his hands ran over your stomach.  It was still far too early to show.  Even so, he loved that he could touch you and know that his children were in there and it wouldn’t be too long until he got to hold them.  It helped put that nervous impatience he felt in check.  “I’d gut it if we bought it.”

“Oh, yeah?”  You said turning in his arms.  “Not the library.”

“No, but that mural for sure.  I’d make it more shelves.”

“Oh, tell me more.”

“All the ugly ass marble and gold would go.  I’d change the light fittings to something sleeker but still a feature.  I’d keep timber as a feature, but make it less ornate.  Sleek lines but the timber would make it feel more home than office like.  The art would be modern but not surreal.  Maybe some Warhol and Pollack.  Maybe include some impressionists to break it up.  I’d install FRIDAY obviously.  The kitchen would be a similar layout but modern.  White and black.  Granite tops not marble.  I'd make the first floor about entertaining and the top two for us.  Bedrooms.  Living room.  That would be our family space.  It would be warmer colors.  Colors that take mess more.  I'd put a lab for us in the basement.  Probably a garage too but I might keep my of my collection out here.  There would be an office for Pep.  A gym.  I'd keep the cinema and the pool.”

You grinned and pecked his lips.  “Your mind has been racing even though you don't want this place.”

“Well, I mostly just want my girls to be happy.  If buying this eyesore makes you happy, then I’m happy.”  He said.

“That’s sweet.  But it won’t.  I don’t even think Pepper is sold on it.”  You said pulling him back inside.  “God, that bathroom is going to be in my nightmares.  The green marble toilet.”

Tony laughed.  “Yeah, that would be first to go.”

They made their back inside and found Pepper coming down the stairs followed by the real estate agent.  “Okay.  Let's go.  I think I’ve seen enough.”

“Good.  Let’s get something to eat.”  Tony said.  “I’m feeling Gray’s Papaya.”

Pepper scrunched her nose.  “I think the smell would make me throw up.”   She said.  “If you want local let’s go to Katz’s.”

You looked her up and down.  “You’re gonna need to dial in this sympathy sickness thing or see a doctor because I feel like you’re stealing my thunder.”

She scowled.  “I’m not doing it on purpose.”

“So, go see a doctor.”  You pushed.

Tony followed you outside where Happy was waiting with the car.  The three of you slid into the back seat and Pepper huffed.  “I just… it’s only in the mornings or certain smells.  It’s got to just be some weird sympathy thing.”

“Maybe you’re actually pregnant,”  Tony said.  He’d meant it as a joke but as soon as the words were out of his mouth it was like something clicked into place.  Maybe she was pregnant.  He couldn’t remember when she last had her period, and they’d been tracking it regularly right up until they did the first IVF run with you.

“Ha-ha, very funny, Tony.”  Pepper snarked.

“But maybe you are pregnant, Pepper.”  You said.

“You do kind of look like you’re glowing.”  Happy added looking in the rearview mirror.

“No.  How could I be?  We did all that IVF.”  She stopped talking and seemed to try and count something off on her fingers.  “How could I be?”

“Hap, stop at a pharmacy and get some pregnancy tests would you?”  Tony said.

“You got it, boss.”  Happy replied and swerved the car around, double parking it outside a CVS on Lexington.  He jumped out and ran inside as horns sounded behind him and someone cursed them as they went around.

“But… we couldn’t.  It wasn’t working.”  Pepper said.

“I can’t explain it Pepper, but it’s possible, right?  It would explain this.”  Tony said.

“How come you get glowing and I get a breakout on my jaw?”  You snarked.

“The glow is oily skin.”  Pepper said absentmindedly.  “It depends on how dry your skin was to begin with.”

“God damn it.”  You cursed.

“What will we do?”  Pepper said looking at him.  “We already have twins.”

“Triplets?”  Tony said making an exaggerated shrug.  He was pretty far from actually being worried about this.  He was actually pretty excited at the thought of the possibility of a large instant family.

“Does it count as triplets if two different people are carrying them?”  You asked.

“I don’t know.  I mean, they’re genetically me and Pepper and they’ll be due roughly the same time.” He mused.  “What counts?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s housed in the same uterus.”  You said.

“Can we please argue about that when I’m not freaking out”  Pepper groaned.

Happy ran back out and jumped into the car passing the paper bag back to Tony.  “Hotel?”  He asked.

“Yes, please,”  Pepper said.

“And can you swing past Katz’s after.  Get us some Matzo Ball Soup, a garden salad, and a Reuben.”  Tony added.

“And Knish.”  You added.  “Potato ones.”

“Sure thing.”  Happy said pulling back into traffic.

He drove the three of you back to the Gramercy and Tony lead you and Pepper back up to the Penthouse.  Pepper was in full panic mode by the time they got upstairs and rushed straight into the main bathroom and locked the door.

“Are you okay in there, Pepper?”  You called, leaning on the door.

“Yes, leave me alone to pee in peace.”  She called back.

You snorted and moved to Tony.  “Well then,”  You said.  “I bet she is.”

“I’m not taking that bet.”  He said.

“Oh go on.  A billion dollars.  I’ll bet you a billion dollars.”

“What do you need a billion dollars for?”

You shrugged and flopped down on the couch.   The door opened and Pepper slumped out.  “Positive.  There wasn’t even a wait for lines to show.  It was right away.”

Tony rushed to her side and pulled her into a hug.  A second later you had slammed into their sides and hugged them both tightly.

“Oh my god, this is amazing,”  Tony said.

“We’re going to be pregnant at the same time.  How awesome is that?”  You added.

“I don’t - how - how do we do this?”  She said.  “How did this happen?”

Tony really didn’t know the answer to that.  All he knew for sure was he had the resources and he was excited.  He was going to be part of a big family and he’d make sure they didn’t have to worry about anything.

// NEXT