#i usually dread colouring my art but i had a lot of fun trying out new brushes this time

[cinammonelles]

[love-fireflysong]

yIt's done. It took me waaaay to long to write this piece out but between June and my computer apparently deciding to kick me in the teeth this month, the fact I made it to 5 full squares completed anyways I will gladly take as a victory! And, just fyi, this WILL be the last piece for this month. I know that there is still another four days left of June, but I am sick and tired of dealing with my keyboard so this is the last fic you're gonna see from me until I get a new laptop hopefully fairly soon. (Unless I decide that I'm desperate enough to try and write things out on my tablet of course...)

Anyways, the First Date trope was specifically requested by @jesus-hotsauce-christmas-cake when I let her know that the one she did guess (road trip) was going to be a second chapter of a twoshot. Which you still might get because I'm very likely going to be sharing the short little summary blurbs I had written down for each trope so people can very easily bully me into writing them anyways if people still wanted to read them. And even though it would be like months and months late, still post them under this bingo board because I can and I had a cool idea for what I was doing with the colours and layout before life decided to say 'NO!' in a very firm voice. (Unless of course the three lovely ladies that came up with this idea in the first place say no obviously)

Rambling over though now I promise. Chocolate Covered Confessions can be read over and AO3 of course, with the full fic also under the readmore as well.

Chocolate Covered Confessions

Trope: First Date Fandom: Until Dawn Characters: Ashley Brown, Chris Hartley Words: 8214 Rating: General (though reader beware there is some almost scandalous hand holding and a couple of scandalously public kisses. You have been warned...) Authors Notes: Oh look, more chrashley fluff. Who da thunk it? Pride month? What pride month? This is just me apparently figuring out how many different ways I can get Chris and Ash to confess their feelings. Because you only read like three of them, I still have another two waiting in the wings. Plus at least three others if you count climbing chrash lol.

Something was...weird. It wasn't something that Ashley could put her finger on just yet, but something was definitely off that was for sure. The problem of course was that she didn't even know where to start looking in the first place, because for the most part her day had been extraordinarily ordinary.

She, Chris, and Josh had planned to go and see a movie Saturday morning a few days back and then hang out the rest of the day. But seeing as they were, you know, best friends that certainly wasn't the issue. Not even close. They always made plans to do stuff like that together. And yeah, okay, so maybe Josh had 'coincidentally' texted them just before the movie started to let them know that something unavoidable had come up and he wasn't going to be able to meet up with them. And when her and Chris had brought up just waiting until a later showing when he was free, he had immediately been quick to affirm that nope, he was going to be busy the whole rest of the day actually. So the two of them could continue with their original plans and they could make it up to him another time.

While certainly suspicious, that wasn't what was wrong though. Josh had been flaking out on their plans more and more, especially when it was plans that took up an entire day. Ashley Brown wasn't stupid. No siree Bob she was not! She knew exactly what Josh was trying to do by leaving her to spend the day with Chris. Alone . And she appreciated it (she really did!), but if Chris was going to make a move then he would have done it ages and ages ago, because she sure as hell wasn't going to do it! Ashley Brown wasn't stupid, but she also wasn't exactly what you would call brave either.

Not that Chris had seemed to notice what Josh was pulling though, he had just sighed and rolled his eyes with a grumbled "fucking typical", and then the two of them had entered the theater to watch the movie. And as per their usual shtick when Josh wasn't there with them, Chris paid for the tickets while she paid for the food and drinks. Or, at least, that was how it normally went. Instead, when she had decided to take a run to the bathroom while he held their spot in the long concession line, she had come back to Chris waiting for her with the pop and popcorn already in hand. After brushing off her flustered apologies, he had explained that shortly after she had left, another cashier had popped on till so the line had gone down in half the time either had expected. And it seemed like a dick move to just wait there until she came back so he had just decided to get the food instead.

She still felt a little guilty about it honestly, even after swearing that she would get both the tickets and food next time.

And, to be completely fair to Josh, he hadn't exactly been missing out on a lot by skipping out on the movie. It wasn't a horror flick (he would never even think of skipping out on that after all) so it wasn't one that he would feel the need to make the two of them watch again with him. Which was more than fine honestly, because if she was to describe the movie in a single word, well, that word would definitely have been 'dreadful'. If she was given a few more words, then she would have easily elaborated and stated that it was 'a boring, plot-hole driven mess, with only extremely over-the-top action scenes and explosions every five minutes to carry any semblance of the extremely loosely written plot'. In other words, she had lost interest in the movie barely half an hour in, and considering that Chris had started scrolling through his phone bored, she wasn't alone in this boat either.

Still, Ashley had resolved herself to sit through this over-budgeted explosion fest if only because movie tickets were horribly expensive. Not to mention the fact that Chris had shelled out money for both the movie and the food. But then he had turned to her, asked if she was as bored to tears as he was, and once he got that confirmation, asked if she wanted to just ditch the movie entirely. And she did—she really, really did—but didn't want Chris to waste the money he had spent more. And then yet another explosion...exploded on screen, and she realized that she was wasting precious hours of her life that could be used to do something more fun and less mind-numbingly boring.

Like watching paint dry. That at least had a semi-cohesive plot.

And so the two of them had walked out, continuing to share the extra buttered popcorn between them (the movie may have been awful, but the popcorn certainly wasn't) as they left the movie theater behind and wandered into the nearby mall. That wasn't the strange thing either. The mall and subsequent window shopping had absolutely been part of their day plans after, even if those had been unexpectedly pushed forward a couple of hours.

Admittedly the art show that the mall was running in one of the empty storefronts was unexpected, but  it had been simply a nice surprise and a great way to kill time. So after paying the $2 entrance fee, the two of them had continued to share the popcorn as they looked at some of the paintings and sculptures that had been on display, giggling childishly at most of them. And okay, so one of the curators had been glaring at them( or rather, at their greasy, butter-covered fingers) the whole time, but that had just been a little rude and insulting. Not strange. And that had stopped almost the moment they had run out of popcorn, Ashley nudging him in the stomach with her elbow as she licked her fingers clean, and the two of them laughing under their breaths at the curator who had looked exceptionally much more at ease once Chris had crumpled the empty bag into a ball.

The rest of their day in the mall had just been spent following the rest of their day's plan, wandering from shop to shop and browsing at all the things that caught their eyes, and then taking a break after a few hours to have a late lunch in the food court. The two of them checked out another couple of stores, these ones to try and get some ideas for Josh's birthday in another month, before moving onto the small arcade on the top floor. As part of their deal and agreement since it had just been Josh and Chris (Ashey not joining the duo until five years later), Chris bought the tokens needed while she scouted out the various games for an empty console and claimed it until he could join her in another couple of minutes.

They spent the next hour in there, trying to beat each other or work together depending on the game in question. They almost never played a game twice before moving onto the next one, in hopes to both try as many games as possible before their self imposed hour ended and to see if they could beat their previous high scores or make it onto the leaderboard in only a single try. But as the hour came to a close, they both made their way over to their final game: one of the racing simulators scattered around the arcade. And as had been done for ten years now, played to determine which of them would be paying for the tokens next time they came.

And once the race ended, with Ashley winning by photo finish for the third time in a row (and celebrating her winning streak by maturely sticking out her tongue and doing an awkward little shimmy dance in the seat while Chris jokingly sulked and pouted), they had finally left the mall altogether and got into Chris's truck. There, he had surprised Ashley with the novel she had been eyeing in the bookstore (or at least, eyeing closer than all the rest she had picked up) and that he had somehow been able to buy without her noticing. And that certainly hadn't been weird, because it had been so exceptionally sweet of him, sweet enough that Ashley had so badly wished that she could thank him properly. But as mentioned before, Ashley Brown was a coward pure and simple, so she had just clutched the book to her chest and beamed at Chris in heartfelt thanks instead.

He may have said something in reply, but Ashley had already settled into the passenger seat and opened to the first page of the book, so she was already long gone. A fact that Chris had anticipated, if the light chuckle he had let out before starting the truck meant anything. And no, Ashley reading a book while Chris drove them to their usual game store across town was not the strange thing either. If Chris hadn't wanted her to read on the drive over and talk to him, then he never would have given her the book now of all times. He would have waited until he had dropped her off home, or not even bought the book in the first place. After over a half a decade of friendship, if anyone knew what would happen after giving Ashley Brown a new book, it was Chris Hartley.

The drive over is done quicker then she had expected, and even then Chris still hadn't let her know that they had arrived until she had finished her chapter. Yes he had certainly teased her about it the entire time, joking about how she would never find someone as understanding of her reading habits then him (he didn't know how right he was, that she didn't want to find anyone else), but the fact that he had just continued to let the music play in the truck and distracted himself on his phone was so unbearably sweet that she decided to let it lie.

The fact that Ashley and Chris hung around in the game shop comparing dice and looking at new books while wincing over the prices for nearly two hours wasn't what was off either. Hell, if anything the fact that they only spent a couple of hours there before leaving was weird! Her, Chris, and Josh could easily spend almost half a day in there flipping through comics and rolling dice to test them out, only leaving because a tired employee was forced to ask them to leave for making too much noise and taking up a table when they weren't playing anything, especially when there was a group that had been waiting for a table for close to an hour now.

Which brought Ashley to where she was right now, sitting at a sticky plastic table under the shade of a cheap umbrella while Chris had run off to get them some ice cream before dropping her off at home. Her new book was open in front of her, the pages crisp white even in the umbrella's shade, but her mind wasn't on the book anymore. A random line had a character mentioning that something had been feeling off all day ever since they woke up ('like everything had been moved three centimeters to the left, so while it all looked normal, nothing felt right anymore'), and Ashley had also realized that hey, wait a second, her day was also feeling just a little wonky too! But no matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was. Today had just been a normal day hanging out with Chris after all. They went to see (and bailed) a movie, spent hours hanging out in the mall and at the game store, and now they were each going back home. Nothing unusual had happened, so why did it feel like something hugely monumental had been going on all day?

"Oi. Earth to Ash, you okay in there?"

A light flick to the center of Ashley's forehead has her blink in surprise, and she finds herself back into the present once again. Chris is standing next to her, carefully balancing the two cones in his right hand and his left ready to flick again if needed, and a bemused smile on his face.

"Oh, uh, sorry Chris. Got a little too into the book I think." She closes the book, not wanting to get melting ice cream all over its crisp white pages (and she really hasn't absorbed a single word for nearly ten minutes now), but Chris doesn't hand her the cone just yet.

"Yeah, I'm not buying that," Chris says as he snorts in disbelief. "I know your 'praise be to books' look, and that was not it. That was your 'head full, too many thoughts' look."

"Excuse me? What? I do not have a reading look! Or a thinking look for that matter!"

"Oh you do. You really, really do. Trust me. You may have been staring at that book but there was no way that you were reading, I would bet my own ice cream here on it." Chris brandishes his double chocolate cone at her, then seems to reconsider and switches to show off her own dipped soft serve that he still has yet to actually let her eat. "Actually, you know what? I would eat your dipped monstrosity if I'm wrong."

Ashley sighs, but she can't keep the smile from her face. "It's not that bad this time, oh my god. It's chocolate ice cream dipped in blueberry syrup. This is actually a normal combination for people who go out of their way to order more exciting cones then two scoops of chocolate." She leans forward and places her elbows on the table to support her head in her hands. "But I wanna see you do it anyway, so tell me exactly why you're so convinced that I wasn't reading."

Chris opens his mouth, but immediately closes it a second later, as though he didn't realize exactly what he had signed himself up for here until now. Ashley of course takes it as a sign of victory. "I knew it. So let's see this Chris, I wanna see you eat something that isn't—"

"When you read you get, like, super attentive." Chris's face is pink, and not looking at her but at the book on the table as he bashfully continues. "You become so drawn in to whatever you're reading that you ignore everything going on around you, because all of your attention is now on that book. Pretty sure a bomb could go off right next to you and you wouldn't even notice sometimes. And it's always so easy to tell what's happening in the book when you're reading too, cause your face is always so expressive. Like your eyes get big when something exciting or surprising happens, and when you're really enjoying whatever it is you're reading, you start giggling like a loon."

Ashley is too stunned and, quite frankly, her heart is beating too fast for her to even think of a proper response to that . She manages to squeak out a quiet little "oh, um" but Chris doesn't notice. Not when he's still babbling and not looking at her at all.

"But when you get deep in thought, you're not like that at all. All of your attention goes inward, and everything around you disappears cause all the important stuff is going on inside your head right now. Your mouth falls open just a little, sort of like you're gaping at all the information in front of you. And-and sometimes you'll mouth out what's going on inside your head as you try to fit the pieces of everything together so it's neat and tidy like a puzzle. And even though you have the, like, blankest stare imaginable, it's not empty at all if that makes any sense. Cause your eyes narrow and your forehead scrunches just the tiniest amount so you have a small little wrinkle form like right here—" with his unoccupied hand Chris points at the bridge of his nose right between his eyes "—and it's weirdly, insanely cute? But when you finally figure out the puzzle in your head, your face lights up like a kid on christmas morning and...and..." He lets his words trail off and stops awkwardly there, as though finally realizing exactly what he's been saying this entire time.

His face is almost beet red now, and Ashley is pretty sure hers is too. "Oh, uh, wow. I-I didn't realize you paid any attention to me when I was like that..."

Somehow his face only gets redder, and though he mumbles the words under his breath, Ashley can still make them out. "I'm always paying attention to you."

But not close enough attention it seems, she thinks sadly. If you did then you would have noticed something way more obvious than that. But she doesn't want to embarrass him anymore than he already is (then she already is), and she isn't sure what else she could possibly say that wouldn't be her blurting out that she likes him, so instead she pretends that she hadn't heard a single thing and wordlessly accepts the ice cream that he hands to her, accepting her defeat as she takes a small bite of the blueberry covered chocolate soft serve.

...The blueberry covered chocolate soft serve that he had bought for her. Or, you know, the ice cream he had paid for himself. Just like he had paid for everything today. Kind of like it was almost a, uh, date. Like he had taken her on a date.

Oh .

"Oh boy, let me guess: I was right and your ice cream really is a crime against taste buds?"

Ashley comes crashing back down to reality to see Chris, his face still a little red but the playful smile back on his face as he teased her. And yet, that only makes it worse as she can't help but feel the usual gymnastics routine the butterflies in her stomach perform at that particular smile, only they're a thousand times worse now that's she's realized exactly why today had felt so strange. And she can't help thinking how much everyone else would classify what was just a day hanging out with her best friend as a date. And how much she really, really wished it was one.

"Nope," she unfortunately squeaks out, and clears her throat so she can continue in a more normal tone of voice. "Nope, sorry to disappoint Chris, but the ice cream tastes fine." She takes another bite for proof (and to her credit she's not lying, it tastes more than fine). "Just, uh, realized something funny that's all." And the moment the words leave her mouth she realizes just how badly she's screwed everything up, because there is no way in any world that Chris Hartley is just going to let that comment lie.

"Funny? Oho, well now I'm interested. You mind sharing your glorious epiphany with the rest of the class Miss Brown?"

Taking another small taste of her ice cream, Ashley averts her gaze as she gives what she is kicking herself for is obviously an extremely forced laugh. "Did I say funny? I meant boring, just super boring actually."

"Well now I just want to hear it more."

"No, you don't. Trust me, you really, really don't."

Chris's brows furrow in concern. "Ash? You okay?"

She isn't, of course she isn't. She's now realized exactly what a date with Chris would be like, and it would be exactly like this. With them going to all the same place and doing the same things but she's allowed to hold his hand and kiss him when he does stupid sweet things like buying her the book she's been eyeing and talking about all day. She's never wanted something to be so true so badly in her life. And it's likely this thought in her mind that causes her to blurt out "A date." before she even realizes what she's said.

That only makes the confusion on Chris's face go deeper, which is appropriate considering she's sinking deeper and deeper into her chair in a futile effort to hide or escape as well. "What? Are you saying that you just remember what date it is today? Or that you had something you were supposed to do today instead? I'm not really following you right now Ash..."

This is perfect. It's the perfect excuse, she could laugh and say that she totally forgot what day it was and that she had an essay due pretty soon, or that she was supposed to babysit for a neighbour tonight. Anything really, the sky was quite literally the limit. And instead she just bit her lip and stared at the ice cream melting in her hand before weakly admitting "No, a, uh, date. As in, the romantic kind. I realized that today probably looks like a date to anyone else. Funny, huh?"

She's not sure how Chris would react to that. Maybe a startled laugh, and hand wave as he brushes her off. A scoff as he assures her that this definitely isn't a date, cause they're just friends and that's all they'll ever be. Whatever the reaction she expected, it was certainly not the fumbling for his ice cream as he nearly drops it in his shock, and how absolutely flustered he sounds as he trips over his own tongue. "W-what? I-I-I, uh—I mean, th-this obviously isn't—Who would even—? Wh-what would even give you the idea that we could um, possibly be on a date?"

Ashley shrugs weakly. "Isn't it obvious Chris?" She ignores his even more flustered babbling that no, he absolutely did not see what was so obvious as she continued on, still too nervous to look him in the eyes. "You've kind of paid for everything today."

"I wha—? I mean, no I haven't!"

"You kind of have, Chris. The theater?"

"You know I always pay for the tickets, and it would have just been really rude to make the line even longer!"

"The art show?"

"It was just a couple of toonies! And you saw the face of the worker there, they would have kicked us right out if they'd had to break a twenty. It was just easier."

"Lunch?"

"They-they'd had a special on for a two-person meal at that stall in the food court, and they wouldn't let each of us pay half..." he neglected to point out that Ashley could have easily paid for their lunch, and probably should have, but before she had been able to offer he'd already been swiping his debit card.

"The arcade?"

"Okay, that was my turn to buy the tokens, you know that. That one doesn't even count."

Ashley lifted her eyes from the ice cream to the book that sat menacingly and innocently all at one at the center of the table, it's pristine cover mocking her. "The book?"

"T-that was just a gift! You seemed really into it at the store and friends buy each other gifts all the time—"

There was no describing how soft and nervous her voice got as she asked the question that would put the final nail in the coffin. "The ice cream?"

"I, uh, it was just—um..." Chris let out a breath in a weak chuckle. "Shit, I guess I kind of did, huh?"

Ashley doesn't say anything, and neither does Chris, as the table goes silent. She's bracing herself  for when Chris inevitably shoots her down and confirms that it doesn't matter. That the two of them will never be anything more then friends and that she never should have hoped for anything more and by revealing this she's ruined their friendship for good—

"Hey, uh, Ash?" He sounds so nervous that it immediately takes Ashley out of her anxiety driven thoughts of doom and gloom, but she can't do anything more than just shakily nod to let him continue. "It's, uh, probably like a really, really, really stupid question but—" he takes a nervous breath "—did you want this to be a date?"

Her head immediately shoots up as she stares at him with wide eyes, her breath caught somewhere in her throat where her heart is currently lodged. She frantically rakes her eyes over Chris's face looking for any hint that he's mocking her, or playing some cruel joke on her and her feelings, but all she sees is just nervousness all over a pale, shaking face with what she thinks ( prays ) is a glimmer of undisguised hope. But it's still too much uncertainty, and she's too scared to risk it all on a mere glimmer that she is likely only imagining because she wants it so badly to be real, so she throws the question back at him instead.

"...would you have been opposed if this was actually a date?"

"Nuh uh, I asked you first."

Ashley realizes that he's just as scared at what the answer might be as she is. She wants to tell him, has wanted to tell him for years and years and years. And maybe this is the chance she's been waiting for her whole life. The two of them sitting at a sticky plastic table under the early evening sun, long forgotten ice cream melting in their hands, and she can finally tell him that she's had such a huge crush on him since she was twelve.

"Yeah." The word is less choked out than it is released. Like it's a breath of fresh air and she feels simultaneously lighter and heavier for it. "I-I think I would have liked that. I would have liked that alot."

Chris snaps his gaze up to meet hers, and the glimmer of hope that she had seen earlier has now nearly taken over his face at the disbelieving smile that's threatening to crack his face in two. "Really? I-I mean, uh, I would have been alright with the idea too. More than alright actually."

She can feel her own smile start to nervously match his, and then the first giggle breaks out. His own ecstatic laughter quickly follows her own until the two of them are both giddily laughing at the table, but too embarrassed and bashful to even look at each other now. The giggling abruptly cuts off when Chris lets out a yelp of surprise when he realizes how much of his ice cream has melted onto his hand and Ashley joins him in trying to finish off their ice cream before it's melted entirely. But there's definitely a change in the atmosphere around them now. The contentness and laid back ease that always formed between them whenever they hung out was still there, but there is a charge that hadn't been there before either. An excited anticipation that only surges higher and higher whenever Ashley shyly glances in Chris's direction to find he's looking at her with the same disbelieving smile beaming on his face.

They never say anything more about it as they both finish off the ice cream, but Ashley knows. With that little agreement, the entire day had changed. This wasn't just them hanging out as friends anymore, this was an actual, factual date now, pure and simple. So when Chris hands her a couple of extra napkins to clean herself off, she may have let her fingers brush against his for just a moment. The resulting blush and dumbstruck smile on his face when he cautiously took his hand back so he could clean up the rest of the mess on the table was oh so worth it. And when he returned from his trip to the garbage can and held out his hand as an offer to help her up from the chair, she accepted it readily.

Once she's back on her feet, the two of them drop their eyes to stare at their still clasped hands, realizing that they could easily hold hands the entire short walk back to Chris's truck if they wanted. And she does want that—horribly in fact—but it seems it's still a little too early for either of them to make that teeny tiny but monumental jump to hand holding so they let go awkwardly and slowly, letting their fingers linger against the others before letting go completely. As though giving themselves a taste of what may yet actually come to pass in the (hopefully) very near future.

The short walk back to the truck is filled with both anticipation and dread alike, but unusually silent. Ashley knows it's because she's now a buzzing ball of nervous energy, terrified that saying anything at all will shatter this dream that's apparently coming true before her eyes, but Chris is different. He looks more like he's trying to work up the courage to say or ask something, and is spending all his energy on that alone. So when he reaches out to open up the passenger side door for her, Ashley can feel her heart pick up speed when he stops with his hand on the door handle and looks at her nervously. His mouth opens and shuts a couple of times as he tries to work up the courage to say whatever it is he wants to say, and all she can do is stare at him expectantly as she struggles to hold back an excited smile.

"Hey, Ash, ca—nevermind. It's, it's stupid. Don't worry about it." A second later, he has the door opened for her and the moment she can't see his face, she lets her smile fall crestfallen. But only for a second before a polite one replaces it as thanks when he closes the door for her and continues to his side of the truck. It's fine, she supposes as she buckles herself in, while the two of them have been hanging out all day, it's only been an actual date now for barely ten minutes. And once he drops her off home in just another few short minutes it's going to be over. The fact that she even managed to get this far is franky mind blowing, so expecting anything more from her dreams would just be extremely selfish. She can't have everything she wants all at once, no matter how long she's been waiting for it.

The drive back to her place is also quiet, filled with only the droning of the radio playing in the background. Ashley's returned back to her book, but she knows that Chris knows that she's not absorbing a single word, hasn't turned a single page even. She keeps glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as he nervously taps at the steering wheel, and then tightening his grasp when it looks like he's going to say something, only to return to the nervous tapping when he inevitably backs out at the last second and returns to the frantic pep talk he's likely giving himself. The air that fills the vehicle is heavy and thick with anticipation and it's taking almost everything in Ashley to not start shaking the question out of Chris at every red light they stop at.

But, eventually, they pull up in front of her place and Chris stops the truck. There's a moment where the two of them just sit there, not wanting to leave because leaving means the end, and Ashley schools her face into a cheery smile in an effort to hide as much of the disappointment as she can when she turns to face him and bid him farewell, only to have it fall to confusion when he starts fumbling at his own seatbelt.

"Chris? What are you doing?"

He struggles further at it, frustrated that the buckle's apparently decided that now is the perfect time for it to stick once again. "Trying to get this fucking thing off."

"Yeah, I figured that much. But why are you trying to take it off, you're just gonna leave right away again anyway."

He slows his fumbling as cheeks start darkening in embarrassment. "I, uh, I just thought that was something you were supposed to do after a date, walk them to their door to stay goodnight. I mean, at least I think this is a date now? And, and only if you're okay with it! I can stay in here instead if you don't want me to. I was just hoping..."

The once forced cheery smile on her face is certainly not being forced any longer, if anything she's trying not to show how much the idea of Chris walking her to her door thrills her. "N-no!" Well, so much for trying not to show how desperately she wants that. The startled look he gives her at the unexpected outburst had her trying to control her voice into something less desperate, but considering she doesn't think she's ever going tame the frantic butterflies that have been flapping around non-stop in her stomach ever since the ice cream realization, she's probably doing a terrible job of it. "I-I mean if you want to, it's completely up to you after all..."

"Cool. Cool cool cool. Just, just give me a second." He continues to struggle with his seatbelt buckle, letting out more and more agitated curses escape the longer the thing continues to stick, and Ashley is getting the feeling that if he was able, Chris would have ripped the entire thing straight out of the seat by now. Broken safety laws and ensuing repair costs be damned. The moment he finally manages to unstick the traitorous buckle it's with a cry of victory and relief so exuberant that Ashley finds herself laughing in disbelief and awe that he had wanted to walk her the short ten or so feet to her front door that badly. Thankfully, for both of them, her seatbelt unclicks easily and much more quickly in comparison, only taking another couple of seconds to grab her bag from the footwell and joining him.

The far too short walk up to her door is over before either of them realize it. One second the two of them had been standing awkwardly and nervously by the truck as she fought the urge to reach out and grab his hand, and the next they're standing just as awkwardly and nervously (if not moreso) in front of the front door. Both of them waiting for the other to say or do something to break the tension, but cleanly aware that doing so would signal the very final end of the day, and the date. In fact, just knowing that Chris doesn't want this to end just as badly as her, is what gives her the courage to look at him with a surprisingly heartfelt and soft smile.

"Today was fun."

Chris lifts his eyes from where they had been staring at the dried leaves on the doorstep to match her smile. "Yeah. It was."

"And thanks. For the movie, and everything else." Ashley raises her hand to give the new and still shiny paperback a small wave. "And, you know, the book too. Of course."

"Yeah, it was no problem. Anytime." There's something with how he says the last bit—not really emphasizing it but making it clear all the same that he means 'anytime'—that causes her face to flush giddily as she pulls her lower lip in between her teeth in a weak effort to fight back against the ecstatic smile that forms anyway. And when she sees his eyes lower just a smidge to follow the motion and the way his shoulders stiffen in reaction, Ashley very quickly also finds she's trying (much more successfully) to hold herself  back from just saying 'to hell with it' and throwing her arms around Chris so she can finally kiss him silly and until they're both breathless. But considering that she's too much of a coward to initiate something as innocent as hand holding apparently, there is absolutely no way that something as...as scandalous as kissing him on her doorstep is ever going to happen. Clearly.

And yet, she gives Chris another few seconds to try and work past that blockade in his throat, but when he still can't muster a single word, she decides to just put the both of them out of their misery. Or further into it. It's probably just the same thing really. "I guess I'll see you next time. I'll talk to you later, okay?" She turns away and puts her hand on the doorknob, and tucks the book under her arm so she can dig into her bag for keys, but is stopped when Chris's hand abruptly snakes out and wraps itself firmly around her wrist before she can reach into the bag. And it works—boy does it ever —turning back to him and the hand wrapped around her wrist as excitement just starts to bubble up inside of her.

A second later though, his brain has apparently caught up with the movement he clearly hadn't intended to make, because his face goes beet-red and he's dropped her hand so he can shove both into the pockets of his jeans. He averts his eyes so he's back to staring at the loose gravel and dried leaves under their feet.

"Oh, uh, sorry about that. I didn't mean to..."

"It's fine, Chris." Ashley tries to smile softly at him in reassurance, but it's considering she's gripping the doorknob in an almost vice-like grip in anticipation, it's likely far more eager than she would like. "What is it?"

Somehow, his face goes even redder and he blurts out the question so fast that it may as well have been one word. "CanIkissyou?!"

Immediately, Ashley's gaping at him wide-eyed and her mouth open in shock as her heart's beating so fast that she's pretty sure it's ready to burst out of her chest at any moment. "Wha—"

"I-I mean goodnight. Can I kiss you goodnight? That's what people are supposed to do on dates, right? A-a-a-and I think we agreed that this is a date now, or at least I really, really hope we did. Cause I've wanted to go on a date with you for the longest time and-and-and I didn't want Saundra or-or-or any of your neighbours to see cause I know that would just really embarrass you and me but I've been trying to ask you for the past thirty minutes now cause I've wanted to kiss you since forever but I was scared about how you would react cause I really, really, really like you Ash and I just wanna to kiss you so fucking bad right now you have no idea and—"

Ashley would like to believe that she's brave enough to throw her arms around Chris and drag him down into that searing kiss she's been dreaming about forever and ever, but she doesn't. Even with a confession that is everything she's ever wanted to hear and more. That's not to say that she doesn't want to do it—god does she want to do it—but she's so frozen in place from shock that she physically can't. So instead she just continues to gape at him as he (adorably) rambles on and on, and giggles out an elated little "okay".

His nervous rambling stops dead in its tracks, and he finally looks back up at her, nervous relief evident all over his face. "Really? I mean, are you sure? I'd understand if you didn't want to—"

" Chris ."

That immediately shifts the relief to a different kind of nervousness entirely, one of excited disbelief, but even then neither move to actually initiate this promised kiss for several seconds. Instead just staring at each other waiting for the other to be the first to move, Chris with his hands still in his jeans pockets and Ashley glued to the doorknob with her other hand frozen as it hovers over her bag. Finally, Chris is the first to slowly bend down to meet her awkwardly half turned body, and she unsteadily tries to rock herself onto the tips of her toes without losing her balance completely and falling over. And still, they both pause about an inch away from each other's faces, though whether to give the other an out if needed or just to work through the logistics of how to do this exactly without their foreheads or noses smashing into each other or Chris's glasses getting in the way is anyone's guess.

But finally, mainly due to the fact that Ashley can't lean forward anymore without falling completely on her face, Chris closes that final bit of distance and kisses her. It's a nervous brush of the lips really—a quick peck at best —but they jolt back from each other so quickly that the single action may as well have activated some hidden magnetic repel function that neither had been aware of until this moment. Both of them are staring at each other wide-eyed and breathless as the magnitude of what they had both finally managed to accomplish hit them. The kinda-sort confession and the almost hand holding meant absolutely nothing in comparison to this. Those she could have (and would most likely have) brushed off as her reading too much into innocent statements and gestures when she thought over everything that had happened today in the safety of her room later tonight. But this? This was physical proof .

Looking back, Ashley's not sure which of them moved first. One second they had been staring at each other in disbelief, stuck in the same awkward bent and leaning stature from before, and the next it's as if the magnetic attraction between them reverses its flow entirely. Chris is cupping her cheek with one hand as he kisses her in the way she always dreamed he would, his other hand slowly skating across the back of her neck so he can pull her up closer to him. The book that had once been clutched protectively under her arm was completely forgotten about—fallen to the ground with a sharp crunch as it crushed the dried leaves beneath their feet—as her arms wrapped possessively around his shoulders as she props herself as high as the tips her toes will allow her. She can still taste a hint of the chocolate from earlier on his lips, and the small part of her that isn't being blown away by all of this is wondering if he can taste the blueberry and chocolate on hers as well.

She's not sure how long the two of them stood there on her doorstep, kissing for all the world to see, but she does know that they still separate much, much too soon for her liking. Not that they fully separate of course. She may be back on the soles of her feet, but neither of them have removed themselves from the embrace itself. And with the way that Chris is lightly brushing his thumb over her cheekbone as he just stares at her with the same stupidly giddy grin she's got, Ashley would be perfectly fine if they could just stay standing like this forever.

"So..." she starts, and stops to take a moment to giggle when Chris bumps his nose into hers. "I think that was a perfectly acceptable first date if you ask me."

Chris doesn't let go of her when he leans back to consider her, the comically raised eyebrows in shock doing nothing to take away from the absolutely thrilled beam of his smile. " First date? Why Miss Brown, are you perhaps asking me out for a second one already?"

"I mean, if it's not too presumptuous of me, I suppose I am. I-if you're not opposed to it of course." She can't help the way her nervousness starts to bleed through with that last sentence, already panicking that she's somehow completely misread everything that's just happened and that maybe that kiss didn't mean as much to him as it did to her after all.

His next words completely derail those fears entirely. "Of course I'm not, I would love nothing more than to go on a second date with you. Followed by a third and fourth and even a fifth if you have the time for it."

"I mean, I'm a pretty busy girl but I think I can open up as many days in my schedule as it takes if I need to."

Before she knows it, the two of them are leaning in for another kiss when the sound of pot being dropped in the nearby kitchen through the open window jarringly brings them back to reality and the two of them let go of each other red faced and embarrassed. Oh no, how much of this had her mother heard? Or worse, saw? She wants to leave the doorstep (which is rapidly becoming her favourite place in the whole entire world) even less now, but the longer she takes the worse the excited interrogation from Saundra will be so she starts digging back into her bag to try and find her keys once again.

"I'll text you later, okay? And, maybe, we can talk some more about that second date...?"

The reply from Chris is flustered but eager. "Yeah, totally. I-I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Cool. And um, the next one's one me. The date that is. It's only fair after all."

"Yeah, right. Only fair. Totally. And, uh, your book..."

She finally finds her keys from where they had sunk to the bottom of her bag, and looks up at him and the paperback book that had fallen during their, uh, intimate embrace. "Oh! Uh, right. Thanks." She could easily leave it at that, but the last few minutes have made her bold so when she reaches out to take the book back from him, Ashley curls her fingers over his and bounces onto the balls of her feet so she can give him one last kiss on his cheek—almost the corner of his mouth really—before finally stepping back with the book and keys in her hand. "I mean it. Thanks . For everything."

"Yeah. No problem. It was my pleasure."

She lets herself have one last glimpse of the stupefied grin on his face just as he turns to walk just a little unsteadily down the path back to his truck. The only sounds being the leaves crushing underfoot and the jangle of metal as she sticks her keys into the door to finally unlock it. A sound that it quickly interrupted by not only the click of the door unlocking, but a muffled shout.

Alarmed, she turns quickly expecting to see Chris having accidentally shut his coat into the door as he is sometimes known to do when the weather gets colder, but instead watches in elated shock as he continues to keep energetically flapping his arms and fist pumping into the air and screaming what she can vaguely make out as 'yesyesyesyesYESYESYES' over and over again.

Suddenly it hits her. Despite the shy confession over ice cream, and then the much more rushed and rambled one only minutes ago, and followed by the kiss(es) that are still sending her heart into rapid fire, Ashley still hadn't believed what all the evidence had been saying. Chris liked her. He really, really liked her. Possibly as much as she liked him even! This wasn't just a one-off event that would now make things awkward between them for the rest of their lives. This was happening. They'd just had a first(!!!!) date and after Chris had kissed her goodbye, she had asked him out for a second one.

And he had accepted .

Ashley fumbled with the door and the moment she was in the house, slammed the door behind her, not even bothering to lock it. She let her bag fall from her shoulder to the floor with a soft thump and slowly slid down the door until she was sitting against it with her eyes wide and breathless. She ignored the surprised clatter coming from the kitchen as Saundra immediately dropped whatever it was she had been doing in and held up the book so she could stare at the once innocuous cover in amazement.

He had bought her this book and the ice cream because he liked her and he had gladly and excitedly accepted to go out on another date with her. And even more if he had been serious about that third date and beyond line.

And not that either would ever know it, Ashley mirrored Chris at that exact moment by placing her head into her hands and screaming as the built up joy and bliss finally exploded out of her.

[purplesurveys]

1269

Last thing you bought online? Did you like it? OMG OMG so I got Angela an Army Bomb!!!!!! for her birthday!!!! It was HELLLL looking for sealed ones that were already onhand, but fortunately I was able to find one from this really nice seller a few days ago and the shipping was quick as well. I’m just a little worried because the outbox has a little dent on it :( but it was the best onhand offer I could find so I got it before anybody could call dibs. I still hope she likes it! I got her batteries too so that she can try lighting it up as soon as she has it. :D

Could you date someone who didn’t drive (and didn’t show an interest in ever getting their license, either)?  I feel like this is such a petty thing to make a big deal about...if they knew how to commute or any other way to get to their destination, I don’t think this should be a problem. It would only be an issue to me if they refused to get a license in a very I-generally-lack-ambition kind of way.

How would you react if your artwork became famous?  I don’t have any to show off to begin with. I love appreciating art, but creating it was never a forte of mine.

Would you get your nipples pierced?  No, I don’t plan on getting any piercings. How many people know your birthday?  Outside of my family, my best friends. I think everyone else relies on Facebook to be reminded, which is fine with me.

Has anyone ever tried to ruin a relationship you were in?  No. Quite the contrary, really...I was sometimes informed about red flags taking place, which of course my stubborn ass ignored.

Have you ever watched a whole hour long infomercial?  Probably, as a kid. The channel from which I used to watch WWE aired these really long infomercials so I would watch those while waiting for like Raw or whatever show was going on after.

What is your current MySpace song?  I never hung out on Myspace. I had an account, but I was too young for it so it wasn’t long before I got bored.

What is your favorite kind of meat to put on your sandwich?  Pulled pork or fried chicken.

Which one of your exes do you feel like you have the most chemistry with?  I only have one ex.

How do you feel about people who make Facebook profiles for their pets? I find it really cute. But I personally wouldn’t put in as much effort lol.

Have you ever personally known a pair of conjoined twins?  Hmmmmmmmm I don’t think so.

What was the most disturbing thing you have ever heard your mother say? She threatened suicide in front of me and my dad in a very calm way when I was around 11, I think? Maybe 12, idk. I haven’t actually thought about that moment in an extremely long time until this question. I’ll move on now and shove the memory at the very very back of my head before I get sad.

Is there something in particular you like to look at photos of? What is it?  Aside from members of BTS (lol), interior design inspirations.

Chewy chocolate-chip cookies: like or dislike?  Ooh, love. When I bite into a cookie it hassssss to ooze chocolate, otherwise I would be underwhelmed.

If your boyfriend/girlfriend wanted to dress only in the opposite sex’s clothing, would you support that? If not, would you leave them?  Support.

Do you think your grandmother is/was beautiful?  They both are.

Which of your fields of interest are you a total expert on?  Anything that has to do with writing (except poems), I guess? I like being able to give people advice and tips when it comes to that.

When was the last time you got all dolled up?  Last July when we had a big PR media launch thingy and I couldn’t afford to look like shit on Zoom.

Do you ever name objects? (i.e. mp3 players, guitars, cars, etc.)  Never.

Do you have a criminal record?  Not criminal but it’s possibleeeee that I have some kind of record on my license from the time I got stopped by an officer in Alabang, lmao. It was a minor offense from a tiny part of the town so I don’t actually know if they filed it, but it’s possible.

Last person you took a nap with?  I don’t really nap with other people. I hate falling asleep in front of others to begin with.

Does seeing your mother cry automatically make you feel sad as well?  No.

Do you think someone likes the same person you like?  I don’t like anybody.

Do you want your life to stay the way it is right now forever?  No, I do not want to stay in a pandemic and not get to maximize my life the way it’s supposed to be enjoyed forever.

Have you ever been to craigslist.com?  I’ve never checked it out; idk if we have that here?

What about eBay?  I also dunno if they operate here so no, I’ve never bothered.

Have you ever used Nair?  Not Nair, but I’ve used Veet before.

Are you medicated?  Nope.

Do you shape/fill in your eyebrows?  I never do stuff to my eyebrows except shave them.

Have you ever stolen/borrowed clothes from an ex?  Several articles of clothing were left behind here, yeah. I never had the chance to give them back because I stupidly thought we were going to get back together eventually. By the time I moved on the timing was already off, so the clothes stayed with me untillll...just a few days ago, actually – when I finally cleaned up my room and got rid of a bunch of knickknacks that accumulated here over the years, including all her shirts and sweaters and stuff.

Could you make a statement about anything political?  The 2022 presidential election landscape looks like complete shit and I’m nearly at that point where I want to stop giving a fuck about this country’s future.

Do you think you’ve already met your soulmate?  No.

Do you get the feeling something good will happen in your life soon?  I think I’m already living in it, haha.

Do you enjoy romantic movies, even when they’re cliche?  Sure, but cliché is also hit and miss for me. I love Titanic and Love Actually, but I cannot stand movies like Me Before You and The Notebook. I guess it depends on certain executions, like the acting, screenplay, casting, etc.

Have you been to McDonald’s in the past month?  No, not inside. We did drive-thru within the last month, though.

Have you ever slept over at your best friend’s house?  Not at Andi’s, but I have at Angela’s.

How often do you go bowling?  Extremely rarely. I can’t tell you the last time I went bowling.

Last time you were in an apartment?  Like 2007 when I visited my aunt back when she still lived in one. None of my friends have their own apartments.

Have you ever seen a live seahorse?  I don’t think so.

Would you like to have your own yacht? I mean I wouldn't say no if you offered it to me for free, but I'm not exactly interested in one. < Same.

Winnie the Pooh or Tigger?  Tigger always made me laugh as a kid.

What’s the unhealthiest thing you’ve eaten today?  Luncheon meat, I think? I didn’t go overboard with the junk food today.

Has a stranger ever offered to buy you a drink?  Hm, not that I can recall.

What is something you’d be happy to receive as a gift, that doesn’t cost a lot?  A bag of the salted egg chips that I really like costs like 30 bucks, or roughly 60 US cents.

What kind of music does your significant other/crush like to listen to?  I don’t have any irl crushes, can I use a celebrity crush instead? HAHA he’s heavily into jazz and whenever he gets asked for music recos he always gives jazz artists from like the 50s and 60s.

Who did you have your first kiss with? Do you remember what colour his/her eyes were?  Gab. Dark brown.

Are there any themes from TV shows that you like to sing along to? The Big Bang Theory and Friends; and then I also liked humming to the themes of Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, and BoJack Horseman. The Phineas & Ferb theme was also a lot of fun to sing along to.

Do you eat dessert after dinner? No, I never do that. I’m usually already full after dinner, and we don’t always have sweets at home anyway.

Have you ever had too much to drink and felt embarrassed about your behavior the next day?  Sure.

When you go out drinking, what do you prefer to drink?  Cocktails. I very rarely go for hard drinks/shots, especially if I brought my own car.

What was the last animal that you saw?  Dog.

What was the last thing that you said to one of your siblings?  I just told my sister I was done using her laptop so she can have it back. My Memories of 2020 DVD turned out to be region-locked so I have to use her laptop every time I want to watch it :(

What is the most expensive thing that you’ve purchased that you paid for:  My Map of the Soul photobook cost me around 5k in total.

What is your favorite messaging program?  Messenger.

Do you eat fast food more than 5 times a week?  Wow no. Aside from being extremely unhealthy, that’s also a LOT of spending??

Have you ever almost drowned?  Yes.

Have you ever learned something shocking about someone through Facebook?  I mean I’ve had to learn about more than one family death through my Facebook feed, which sucks but is nothing I have control over. Otherwise the most shocking thing I’ve seen is probably classmates from high school having their own kids, but at this point I’m used to it already.

What’s the scariest living animal that you’ve petted?  I’m not really afraid of carrying/petting animals especially if there’s a guide or expert nearby, but the most daring one was probably the crocodile I volunteered to hold in Palawan.

Do you remember the first conversation you ever had with the person you currently have feelings for?  Not at all.

Do you dread certain days of the week? If yes, what day/s and why?  I hate Mondays for obvious reasons lol. I don’t know anyone who is actively cheery about reporting back to work.

If you eat oatmeal, do you have it plain or do you have certain toppings that you like to add to it?  I never eat oatmeal. I had that every single day for breakfast from like kindergarten to 4th grade and I vowed never to take a spoonful of it again.

What is the funniest or strangest thing you’ve ever heard somebody say in their sleep?  I dunno. I used to keep a log of the things my ex used to say in her sleep and a great deal of them were hilarious, but obviously I deleted that note a long time ago.

Choose one - Butterfinger, Milky Way, Snickers:  Butterfinger.

Do you use Mozilla Firefox? Nopes.

Who is your favorite person to hug? Angela and Laurice.

Have you ever had to have a mug shot?  Nope.

What was the last thing you carried to your room?  Kimi.

When was the last time you had a late night phone call?  WELL over a year ago.

[star-anise]

i was hoping my last ask would get me a free rant without having to make a dreaded choice uhhhhhhh do maybe washcloths or fake smile?

Hahaha no you have to specify what white person thing you want a rant about, or else I’m paralyzed by too many choices. And nb. by “white” I generally mean white Anglo-Saxon Protestant; WASPs have traditionally been held up as the cultural standard everyone else n North America or other British colonies should follow, and the “whiteness” of different European ethnicities in those colonies is generally judged by how assimilated they are to the WASP ideal. So my observations will not apply very well to, for example, other European ethnicities, or people from areas colonized by those other European groups.

WASHCLOTHS. Related to another trap, Guest Towels Guests Must Never Use. Which are usually distinguished by their elaborateness and a thin layer of dust. As a certified White Person (Anglo Canadian) I can say: This is a real actual literal thing my family does. If I stay at an aunt’s house, I don’t use her guest towels; I walk past the guest towels on the towel rack and ask my hostess, “What towel do you want me to use?” and she fetches me a new, less nice, towel out of the linen closet. 

The actual washcloth meant to be used is hung somewhere separate. When I was about 13, I rebelled against sharing a washcloth with my brothers, bought my own washcloth from a department store, embroidered my name on it, and zealously defended it against all comers. These days, my older brother has four children. When we go to his house to eat dinner, his children all wash their hands before they eat… and then wipe them dry on a single towel hung in the downstairs bathroom, which his guests also use. So we all wash our hands and then share germs. I… think? There might be a bar on the opposite wall with guest towels hanging on it?  But my eyes have been trained to skate right over guest towels. They’re decor, not things we actually use.

Why White People Do This:

1. Washing and cleanliness… have not traditionally held a central place in European life the way, say, wudu does in Islam. Although priests ritually wash their hands before performing the consecration of Mass, nobody else in the congregation has to. This is partly because in Christian Scripture, Jesus says that if something is ritually pure but spiritually suspect, it should be treated as impure, which Christians kind of took to mean “ritual purity and cleanliness rituals are things non-Christians do.” 

So in the 19th century, a German doctor discovered that you could reduce the rate of infection dramatically when doctors washed their hands and instruments between dissecting dead bodies and attending in childbirth. Doctors were OFFENDED and APPALLED by this–partly because the guy pointing it out was an asshole, yes, but partly because there was a feeling that “a gentleman’s hands are always clean”, so it was offensive to say their hands were dirty because it impugned their class and education.

Cleanliness is hugely related to class and status–I could go on a LOT more here about how in the 19th century, British and American attempts to “educate” and “civilize” poor white people and people of colour included imposing standards of hygiene on them that felt cruel and punitive–scrubbing skin raw, using caustic soap, delousing with kerosene–partly because white people didn’t have a very advanced idea of what chemicals made good cosmetics, and there wasn’t much awareness of the need for oils or moisturizers. (For a long time very few sources of natural oil, like canola, olives, or sunflowers, or even petroleum products, were available in Britain, so until somewhat recently they only really had pine tar and animal fat, which they used for everything from making soap to lighting lamps to greasing cart axels.) And the 19th century cleanliness movement did not have a good opinion of traditional bathing methods like the sauna, banya, or steam room, where sweat was scraped off the skin. So people who HAD hygiene rituals that worked for them, when they emigrated to western Europe or North America, got shamed and discouraged from using them. It was just expected that part of “civilizing” a child who hadn’t been “well brought up” was forcefully ducking them in a bath and scrubbing them while they screamed and fought you.

So for white people from everything but the highest classes, if you go a few generations back, there’s this feeling that cleanliness is something unnatural and unpleasant, something imposed by a punitive authoritarian force, and not something intrinsically desirable. Old men used to talk about “taking a bath once a year, whether I need it or not,” and fear of losing their “protective coating of dirt.” Which makes sense when you realize how awful old cosmetics used to feel.

I mean, as I type this, I’m applying Vaseline to the hangnails on my fingers, because when I use soap in the bath or do the dishes or wash my hands after going to the bathroom, the soap strips oil from my skin and dries it out, leading it to crack and bleed. This is a really common problem but the current solution seems to be “women carry tiny bottles of moisturizer everywhere in their purses, and men… suffer if they want to seem manly, and then post memes to facebook about how rough and terrible their hands look to emphasize their heterosexual masculinity.”

This also relates to why white people say racist things about people of colour being “dirty” when they use natural methods of keeping their hair or skin clean. The white conception of cleanliness is honestly really fucked up.

2. Cloth holds an especially weird place in white society. I mean, lots of cultures everywhere like their cloth to look nice! But in Europe and American colonies in the 1600s there was an extra special movement to restrict women economically and bar them from business and public life–so while a rich woman could run a business outside the home and buy and sell in 1400, that freedom was disappearing in 1600. Only women of the ~lower classes~ did real actual work. And the religious sentiment at the time really emphasized Purity, Hard Work, Productiveness, and No Fun. So women were supposed to stay inside all the time and not participate in industry! But they were always supposed to be busy. The saying was literally “Idle hands are the devil’s tools”. 

That turned embroidery from an aesthetic, decorative art into a moral act. You didn’t embroider to make something pretty; you embroidered for the good of your soul. Fancy embroidered pieces displayed in a home were meant to demonstrate a) that the house was rich enough to have idle women, and b) the moral purity and obedience to gender norms of the women of the house. (This also extends to things like quilts, lace doilies, hooked rugs, etc.)

So towels used to be made of linen, a plain flat cloth, and then embroidered and otherwise embellished. My mom, in the 1960s, learned how to do embroidery where you painstakingly pull a few threads out of a piece of linen, and then embellish the place where the threads have been taken out.

Linen, incidentally, is a strange and amazing fabric. When new, freshly starched and ironed, it is flat and crisp. But pressure and moisture can change it really easily. When I sew with linen, I just have to lick my fingers and fold it over, and it stays like that–something most fabrics don’t do. So if you actually use a linen towel to dry your hands, you will crumple it in a way that is very hard to reverse.

Therefore: Fancy linens were displayed prominently in the home as a status symbol, but a guest who wanted to stay on his hostess’s good side did not use them. There are a lot of ettiquettes around using linens when you absolutely have to, like just gently wiping your fingers on a towel, that diminished the damage the fabric would take.

So, I mean, actually rich people used their good towels, because if they ruin them, they can just get new ones. Fancy linens were intended for high-class guests who knew how to keep from damaging them. So using someone’s guest towels sent the message, “I am so high-status that I’m WORTH potentially ruining something that took a ton of work to make and maintain.” Or, if you obviously weren’t that high status, “I don’t know about the work that goes into making nice things, or don’t value the work you did and don’t care how much effort you’ll have to go to because I wanted to wipe my face.”

But that was in the days of linen. Guest towels are going out of fashion, partly because modern terrycloth towels are almost impossible to crease or ruin, so it doesn’t really matter if guests use them. But even with terrycloth towels, homeowners sometimes like to create really elaborate towel displays. I don’t know how those people feel when guests use them, but as a white girl I feel really uncomfortable taking a towel display in somebody else’s house apart, and try to wipe my hands while causing the least disturbance possible.

Oh, I guess I should mention that invisible tests no one will ever mention if you fail are absolutely a white person thing. Like, if you watch costumed period drama movies, there’s often a scene where someone is really unbearable and rude, and everyone is super polite and awkward and just sits there and says nothing. That’s not consciously an exclusive practice; from the perspective of white people it’s just an ingrained reflex, “Freeze and smile when something awkward happens and then later cut them out of your life.” 

That reflex comes because the Industrial Revolution and colonization (1600s-1800s) led to a lot of class mobility. Ordinary men could get involved in business and become wealthier than the hereditary landowners! Which the hereditary landowners felt super threatened by, so they went out of their way to cultivate manners and standards that were very unlike those used by the common people. Upperclass accents became more marked and exaggerated; dictionaries decided to make English spelling and grammar especially hard to learn; manners got super weird and unintuitive. They wanted to make it as hard as possible for common people to fit into high society.

Therefore, to enable that system, the rule became: Never tell someone when they’re fucking up. If they know what they’re doing wrong, they’ll FIX it, and then they’ll fit in better! And that would lead to the absolute downfall of Western civilization! Which would of course be a bad thing! And that got codified as The Right And Desirable Way To Do Things. A low-class person might say “Hey, you just insulted me, I’m upset,” but someone with aspirations of rising higher in life learned to freeze and say nothing. That was how you defined “polite”.

So like I said, if I, as a white person, point out to other liberal white people that the freeze-and-smile-awkwardly response is really exclusionary to people from different backgrounds, they go, “Oh my gosh, you’re right!” and we can talk about changing it. It’s why white people invented assertiveness training. It’s a thing white people have to unpack and decolonize. But it’s not commonly a conscious attempt to exclude someone by not letting them know they’re breaking the rules.

ANYWAY. Towels.

So IF someone has guest towels taking up their towel rack in their bathroom, there’s very little room left for the actual towels. (Unless they’re like my aunt, whose bathroom literally has a second towel rack to accommodate her guest towel arrangement) Therefore: The entire fucking family sharing a single washcloth because that’s all they have room for, and it doesn’t feel that important not to share.

WHITE CULTURE IS WEIRD AS HELL.

And if you come to my house? You’re allowed to use my guest towels. It’s what they’re there for.

[edorazzi]

Well, here we are again! Twitter said yes to a review post for a Miraculous magazine that suddenly showed up in my local area. ‘Tis the season after all, and by that I mean someone bought it for me as a joke birthday gift and I was way too happy about that.

I’ve done previous reviews of the Miraculous Christmas calendar, Easter egg set, superhero fashion dolls and action figures, so let’s dive into the unknown world of merchandising yet again!

(As always, if you enjoy my posts, please consider checking out my Twitter page or supporting me on Patreon for lots of bonus content!)

4 FREE GIFTS! PACKED WITH ACTIVITIES! MEET THE KWAMIS! PRANKS & LOLS! CUT-OUT MEMES! FANGIRL ALERT! NAIL ART! 100% OFFICIAL! I’m overwhelmed! It feels like I’m having a seizure just from the packaging!!! 

I should preface this by saying I haven’t bought a magazine like this in years. Possibly ever. I read things like the Beano, Animals & You and the odd Disney Princess zine when I was a kid but I have no idea what to expect from a free-gift-packed kiddie magazine in 2019. If the outside is anything to go by we’re in for a wild ride.

I’m noticing that it says “Miraculous #20″ on the back. Does this mean I’ve missed 19 previous issues? I’m genuinely a little upset by that. My local area is a complete dry zone for Miraculous so I haven’t had the chance to pick these up.

First step: let’s separate everything out and get a look at these freeeee giftssss. Except they aren’t free, because this magazine was like £3.99. This does seem to be the current trend - it’s kinda rare to see any kids’ zines without the excess packaging crammed with ‘free’ stuff. Is it really too expensive to just produce the magazine? Probably, in this economy.

Chat Noir is revealed on the cover! He was on the back of the plastic jacket, but it’s still nice to see the kids as a front-cover duo. Apparently we’re going to learn to draw Pollen, too, which sounds fun. I’m actually liking the look of the gifts as well, but we’ll get into those in a minute.

This hairbrush............. is adorable. Oh my god. It’s pretty cheap and flimsy but it functions the way it’s supposed to, and the Ladybug design has been taken into account in a better way than “it’s red/black, that counts” (lest we forget the UTTER BULLSHIT of the Christmas calendar, and YES I’m still mad about that). I don’t know how well I expect the outer sticker to last, but if it can take a bit of wear and tear this would be an adorable little travel brush. Nicely done, lads!

These nail stickers? Also adorable. They remind me of the kiddie makeup sets I had when I was little, back in the early 00s when plastic stick-on nails and decals were all the rage. Are they still a thing? That’s nice to know.

There are 13 designs (that I can count) - a Queen Bee mask, Chat Noir pawprint cake, macaron, cupcake, heart-print cookie, Ladybug stud, flower, lightning bolt, love heart, Marinette heart, bee, fox tail and star. The majority are directly related to the show and that makes them feel special. No Carapace though? :(

I’ve put a little Marinette heart on my furthest finger. At the time of typing this up (about a day later) it’s still firmly in place. I haven’t really knocked it around, granted, but it’s not flimsy enough to fall off after five minutes either. It’s also really cute to look at. Guess I’m still a decal-loving 2004 girl at heart......

These stickers though!!! Wow! They’re those holographic and slightly-puffy kind and they feel like pretty good quality, and the designs are so cute! I can’t fault these, they’re absolutely adorable. I immediately want to stick them everywhere.

So I’ve stuck them everywhere. I’m especially proud of the light switch pun. My room looks GREAT.

I saved these “mystery stickers” for last because I’m weak for the thrill of mystery bags, and there wasn’t anything on the packaging to indicate what kind of designs to expect. And OH!!!! OH, IT’S MY BOY!!!! Look at him!!!! 

I made jokes with the Christmas calendar about all the Chat Noir items being stolen ahead of time, but that’s definitely NOT the case with this magazine. I have been SPOILED with the presence of my cat son.

These stickers are similar to the sticker sheet (and the Chillin’ Out design is reprinted), but they’re puffier and non-holographic. I’m deeply allured by the “decorate your phone or tablet” suggestion on the packet, but I’m going to see how the previous stickers withstand the wear-and-tear of my laptop lid before adding any more. If I damage these beautiful Adrien stickers I’ll be devastated.

Those are our free gifts! They’re actually very fun and cute, I’m really happy with them! I guess now it’s time to get into the magazine itself...........

I genuinely almost forgot the magazine was the main part of this package. I figured I was done, but we’ve barely even started! Here’s a splash page of the kwami. Kwami with a capital K? Kwamis? I still feel like it should be singular-lower-case-k-kwami. I’ve never been happy about this “miraculouses” business either.

But is that--

It IS!!!! It’s Nino!!! 

I guess this is the new flavour of Miraculous tie-ins. Now they’ve broadened out to a full team we’re seeing a lot more of Adrien alongside the girls, and Nino is the elusive hero who shows up once in a blue moon. At least this time his name isn’t in the title of the gotdam show.......

Anyway, I can see I’m supposed to draw my “fave Kwami”. Better get to it.

Felix just wants a break. Just one break. But not in this magazine.

Speaking of seeing more of Adrien (and, tragically, less of Nino), this is the kind of splash page I want to see! Both kids are here! The banner themed with Marinette’s signature flowers is a nice touch too; that’s associated with her arts ‘n’ crafts in the show already and it makes sense to apply it to the creative portion of this magazine too.

I LOVE the promotion of Chat Noir nails as something the little girls buying this magazine will definitely want to try. I’d expect them to do Marinette vs Ladybug nails, but instead we get a boyish option! Hell yeah!

I’m a little confused by the Queen Bee masks apparently going on the Chat Noir nails though. I guess they’re friends? Is this secret AdriChlo confirmation? Watch out, Marinette, Kagami’s not the one to be worried about.

SURE WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE SOME TURTLE STICKERS FOR AN ALL-BOYS THEME BUT I GUESS NOT HUH

Next up is a short merch catalogue (why would you put the big bold arrow pointing right to the underoos.....). Would those Chat Noir socks come in my size? Asking for me.

Then there’s......... this page. FANGIRL ALERT. God. It’s like the Ladyblog, if only the Ladyblog ever gave a heck about reporting what Chat Noir’s up to.

THE SPELL WAS BROKEN AND THE FANDOM IMPLODED WITH JOY.

I really have to wonder what age range this is meant for. Do kids know what a “fandom” is? Do little girls consider themselves “fangirls”? I guess most kids have enough internet access to figure it out these days (all the hashtags and LOLs and memes speak volumes), but I can’t imagine being young enough to fit the target range of this magazine while also knowing these terms. I dunno.

(Also, the definition of ‘implosion’ is ‘an instance of something collapsing violently inwards’, so I’m not sure that’s the word they’re looking for. Unless the return to the status quo in Dark Cupid and the continuing stagnation of the love square was enough to make people quit in frustration? Probably.)

I’m filling it in, of course. Because I must.

I gave up on the pre-approved ratings system pretty much right away, but I think this is an accurate rating of my LadyNoir opinions. 

I might be kinda cynical about it here, but I am actually pretty fond of how this magazine sells Ladybug and Chat Noir as a couple. The show’s portraying it as very onesided lately, with Chat pining over Ladybug who has absolutely no interest in him (Glaciator was a TERRIBLE episode and I’m still hurting from it), but reading this zine I’d guess they were already dating. It’s cheesy, but in a nice way.

I have to laugh at “the most amazing thing about this super duo is that they always look out for and protect each other” though. Chat’s usually pretty focused on LB, sure, but there are endless instances of LB using Chat as cannon fodder and just generally abandoning him to get mauled by akuma while she carries out her personal private plan to save the day. Maybe we’re just focusing on the better-written episodes, huh?

Moving ahead. I’ve been dreading this page since reading “Plaggs Pranks & LOLs” on the back of the packaging. I feel hatred in my very bones just looking at it.

I like that there’s ONE instance of the term “ladybird” in the joke column. This is a UK-based magazine and that IS the word we tend to use over here - “ladybug” is an Americanism - but it’s like they’re worried kids could have got to the middle of this magazine about a superhero named Ladybug and then not understand the bug jokes. Maybe whoever was writing this page slipped up?

OH NOOOOO. MARINETTE, NOOOOOOOOOO.

THIS IS WHY FELIX GOT RID OF YOU, PLAGG. THESE ARE ADRIEN’S PROBLEMS NOW.

(mmm whatcha saaaaay)

I mean........... YEAH, I guess, but we absolutely did see Plagg destroy Felix with an entire shelf of heavy books. I guess he’s nicer with Adrien. It’s all fun and games until someone has a nervous breakdown in the library.

I do love the concept of Tikki getting glitter-bombed by Plagg through the mail. She just curiously opens up the little letter which got slipped into Marinette’s purse, and-- WOOSH. One entire wall of Mari’s room is glittery except for a little Tikki-shaped silhouette. 

Next up is a two-page comic which is absolutely adorable! Look at those little chibis! The warm and soft colour palette! This is nicer than most of the official Miraculous comic book art I’ve seen, I hope they keep giving this artist work.

Nino’s here too (and he looks great!), and I like the touch of Marinette and Adrien playing as each other’s superhero characters. Adrien even wins the match, though I guess there’s something to be said about Ladybug beating Chat Noir (again)...... 

It does raise the question yet again of where this tie-in merchandise is coming from! They’ve had action figures, a movie, music video features, now an arcade game... Who’s getting the royalties here? Who’s profiting? Is this how Fu can afford to buy all those rare ingredients for the magic potions?

Over the page we have an activity to Design your Secret Lair! Right away I love the Marinette theme of the page, the soft pink and flowers, and the drawing space looking like a page in a binder with marker tabs and everything.

I have to design my secret lair, of course: 

What do you think? I’m very creative. I’ll need an adult to send in the drawing of my hideout but I think I’ve really got a shot at those unicorn headphones.

Now we’re on to puzzles and character pages. I don’t know what ol’ Gabe is doing trying to meet a 13 year old girl in the dead of night without telling anyone, you’d think if he’s got that much free time on his hands he could be spending it with his son.

I don’t know how those points in Ladybug’s power profile are awarded or what they mean, but you can tell this is a fan magazine. Official sources would have put her at a 10.

Standard House of Villains page! Most of these were good episodes but I’m deeply offended Riposte isn’t on here. Maybe her motives weren’t dramatic and cartoonish enough to be up in the ranks with Glaciator and Gorizilla?

“Cat Noir’s dad is also the evil Hawk Moth”, huh? I mean that’s not WRONG, but is it really something to put in his power profile when Adrien doesn’t even know yet??? Feels like we’re kinda jumping the gun on the poor boy. What if he picks up this magazine?

Apparently he’s one point weaker than Ladybug (seriously???), two points faster, equally as agile, one point less skilled and two points less cool. Despite all those lesses he still comes out at an equal 9, which is a relief! These kids are a team, putting either of them below the other would have been a big no.

I did the colouring page too, naturally. Je suis un artiste.

Now we’ve got a page fresh from the Ladyblog, a Miraculous quiz! Not a lot of excitement, but it’s nice to see Alya getting her own section.

I like that the qualifications of “you could be Ladybug herself!” are knowing what city Marinette lives in and what school she goes to. Well done, Mari! You’re doing your best!!!

TEACHER I AM SO HUNGRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

I gotta say, I’m not so sure about decorating donuts with fondant. I’ve never tried it so I could be wrong, but it feels like rolled icing instead of frosting(?) would be too heavy for an entire donut. The texture is totally different.

I mean I guess if you’re going to load your kids up on sugar you might as well go all the way. They’re going to look like they’ve eaten something horrible with all that black fondant, but they’ll have fun. Adrien would love these.

WHERE’S NINO. THIS IS JUST UNFAIR. You’ll have four out of five heroes, then a double of Marinette and Tikki? Maybe this just goes to show how little memorable dialogue Carapace has.

Though if “Spots On!” is Marinette’s dialogue and not Ladybug’s, why are the other transformation phrases attributed to Rena Rouge and Queen Bee instead of Alya and Chloé? Surely they could have picked something better for Marinette to justify having her on this list twice instead of Nino.

The next page brings us one of those flowchart quizzes! And ouch, yet again the absence of the other heroes is obvious. I can understand not including Chloé here since she’s technically not a “friendly” character yet, but no Nino? Alya and Marinette are close friends, but Adrien doesn’t really hang out with them without Nino around. Having the three of them together just seems strange.

I do like the little fashion page! They’re all cute and affordable and easy to find on the high street here. I’d love to see how other issues of this magazine are structured; is there a different fashion spot every time? Styles to channel each individual hero would be adorable.

Moving on to a tutorial for a Ladybug notebook! I would have made this, but I didn’t have the time nor a notebook to stick it to.

Between this and the donuts, it seems weird that these designs are based on, like... an actual beetle, eyes and antennae and all. Shouldn’t it be Ladybug’s symbol? These come across more like “fun animals” arts ‘n’ crafts instead of themed after Miraculous specifically. I think if I made this (or decorated the donuts) I’d miss out the head and match the spot pattern to Ladybug’s symbol. 

The hidden message design is adorable though. I can see this being a craft kids are super proud of.

Another activity page! I didn’t have a go at these but they’re pretty standard. It’s cute that the coded message designs are the same as the stickers and nail decals!

Also, apparently Ladybug’s ‘secret’ is “LB mask + heart + CN mask”, which was (somehow) stolen by Volpina. Is that the secret Hawk Moth was talking about earlier in the magazine? Is he blackmailing Ladybug with revealing she has a crush on Chat Noir? How did Volpina ‘steal’ this secret? Is LadyNoir finally reciprocated???? THIS IS A WHOLE EPISODE IN ITSELF, I NEED ANSWERS--

Next page we have an ad for another girly magazine (Quizzes! LOLs! Celebs! Cringes! Puzzles!). I think I’ll pass, no matter how appealing that giant microphone pen is. 

And a “Miraculous Identity” quiz! Tikki’s apparently super fickle with her wielders, three seasons of relentlessly praising Marinette and now she’s telling us we’re the Chosen Ones. You can’t fool me with those big ol’ eyes.

My inner superhero is Marvellous Fox, by the way. Though yet again I’m noticing we don’t have turtle options...................

And on the back cover... the memes. Oh, sweet lord, the memes. They’re hashtag-SoRelatable! And I can cut them out to keep! Oh boy!!!

Is this what kids do when they have limited internet access? Cut fresh memes out of magazines and carry them around? I need to know.

That’s a very sinister Ladybug at the bottom of the page though. What’s-- What’s she going to do to me if I don’t cut out and keep these memes. Ladybug what are you going to do if I d--

Well that brings us to the end of the magazine! And yet again I’m surprised by how much time it takes to just put a bunch of photos together and write about them.

This is a neat little magazine all in all! The ‘free gifts’ are pretty nice, there’s a fair amount of content and the whole thing is pretty cute for young fans of the show. I could see myself buying this again - if it ever shows up on shelves, Miraculous is so scarce around here that I fully expect it to disappear again after this one issue - just for the free junk, but it would be interesting to see how they’d structure different issues too!

I notice we never did get that promised tutorial on how to draw Pollen; the one advertised on the cover. Was the “draw your favourite Kwami” activity supposed to cover that? I’m not sure that really counts.

If you got this far, thanks for joining me on this Miraculous journey! We’ll meet again whenever I get another piece of weird ML merch to cover. Bien joué!

[badwolfwrites-sometimes]

Chapter 7

I liked that one Chibitalia scene too much.

By the lunch time, Feliciano was fairly certain of two things: this was by far his favourite book. And he finally understood why all that talk of it.

This book turned from a fluffy romantic story into the love of Feliciano's life.

'Otto walked impatiently to the servant rooms. Alice was currently working, cleaning some old storage rooms. He had a new job for her.

"Alice! I need to ask you a favour." He yelled, reaching the hall and waiting.

Soon enough, he spotted a redhaired girl in one of the blue dresses he bought her. "What is it, My Prince?" She asked, bouncing on her way to Otto.

Otto, as always, was as red as the halls whenever she used that nickname on him. "You're from Venice. I heard it's known for it's art. Do you think you could teach me how to paint?" He asked.

"Of course! Let me just finish my work and I'll meet you in the garden." She said and run off to quickly complete her work. She would be lying if she said she wasn't excited for this. Painting was her number one love after all. Right behind Otto.

He waited for her in the garden. The view of the flowers growing peacefully on the early spring morning made him feel a bit lonely. Otto wished for a certain someone to enjoy them with him. When will she finish her work?

He sat there sighing, unaware of anything but the flowers in front of him. Then he felt a pair of cold hands on his shoulders causing him to jump up in the air a bit. He turned around to see a giggling Alice. His Alice.

"Did I frighten you?" She asked, her giggling made her voice sound a bit more pitched than it normally was.

Otto blushed, still shocked from the scare attack. "Yes. Don't do that again, please. You almost sent me flying to the sun." He said.

Alice continued giggling. "I'm sorry. You wanted to learn how to paint, right?" She asked.

"Yes. I've set up some equipment nearby. Shall we go?" Otto asked, offering his hand.

"Yes!" Alice squeeled in excitement. This time she didn't accept Otto's hand offering and instead hurried off to wherever she guessed Otto could have set the equipment up.

"Um, Alice?" He said and she turned. "Not there." He said and pointed to the opposite direction. Whoops.

Alice walked back to his side and took his hand, embarrassed but smiling widely. Otto's hand offerings were always extremely cute.

They made their way to a small hill just above the garden. It seemed like the perfect place to paint. Flowers were in bloom and the grass beneath their feet shone slightly thanks to the sun shining the few drops of water remaining on it from the early morning rain. Early spring truly was in the air. All of it made Alice wish they could stay here forever.

Two wooden canvas boards grabbed her attention from the grass and flowers. From the looks of it, they appeared to be largely decorated, probably worth quite a sum of money. She would have to give Otto a lecture on that later again. Upon drawing closer, she spotted some brand new paintbrushes. And in a good quality as not a single hair was sticking out of the order. Two chairs were also there, ready for when the young couple needed some rest from their activity. Alice decided resting time was now and took a seat.

"So, what shall we be drawing?" She asked.

Otto blushed, already picturing a perfect painting in his head, but he did not dare say it out loud. Instead he blurted out. "I was thinking maybe some animals and flowers and, you know, spring stuff."

Alice smiled softly. "That sounds lovely. It's been quite a while since I've last painted anything so I might not make a great tutor, but you've chosen an excellent start."

Otto blushed at the compliment. "I believe you would be a great tutor. You can go ahead and remind yourself a bit if you want. We have all day at our hands." He smiled.

Alice nodded, taking one of the thicker brushes into her hand. She run her thumb across the hair on the brush. "Soft." She mumbled, opening a can of green paint, smelling it. It wasn't expired, that was certain.'

"Me." Feliciano laughed.

'Behind them stood two buckets. One with clean water and one empty. Alice assumed the empty one was for the dirty water. She looked around for the cups. "My Prince?" She asked.

Otto, who had previously just been standing and staring at every movement Alice was making, drowning in her delicateness with art, snapped back to reality. "Yes?" He asked, a bit too squeeky than his usual voice.

"Where are the cups?" She asked.

"Cups?" Otto stared in disbelief, there were obviously right-

Oh.

He forgot the cups.'

At this point Feliciano was dying from laughter. He related to everything in this chapter. Almost as if this Ludwig was writing about him.

'Blushing, Otto rushed off back to the castle, leaving Alice to her giggling fit. She must have made the very same mistake multiple times, but watching someone else make it was extremely hilarious to her. Soon, however, she calmed down and was swooning in the adorableness of the young prince right up to the moment he showed up, carrying two cups. His blood red face caused a reaction from her own, a light blush sweeping over it. Alice tried her best to mask it with her hands. Hopefully Otto can't see right through her.

"I-" Otto started, "got the cups."

"Thank you for your work, My Prince." Alice smiled, taking one cup, brushing her hand with Otto's slightly, enough for the dreaded colour red's return to their faces.

Otto accidentally dropped his cup and fell on his knees trying to pick it up, which resulted in another giggling fit from Alice. She offered her hand to him. The tables have turned.

Otto accepted her hand, squeezing it just a bit more harder, enough for him to absorb Alice's kind energy from that small hand of hers. And some of her warmth as well. Even when they were standing and facing each other, Otto still a bit taller than Alice, they didn't let go. These were the small moments they couldn't afford to enjoy while inside the palace walls. The dangers of Queen always lurking in the back of their minds. Right now they were free from it.

"I believe we should start, otherwise we'll miss the daylight." Alice was the first to break their small staring contest, walking towards the water filled bucket and filling her cup before returning to her seat.

Otto stood for a moment longer, blinking the moment they had away, cursing at the day for being too short. "If you say so." He said, before following Alice's suit and filling his cup, seating himself afterwards.

Alice dipped her paintbrush just a tiny bit before dipping it into the paint, her eyes focused on the grass before her as she took every small detail of it in her head. Seemingly without noticing, her hand moved towards the white canvas and, before you knew it, there was a green line going across it on the bottom half.

She smiled to herself, glad that she hasn't forgotten any of the wonderful feelings that were art. Alice repeated the process several times, making a rough sketch of how it was supposed to look before turning to face Otto.

Otto had been absorbing her movements up until the moment she stopped and faced him. Luckily for him, this time he wasn't blushing.

"Do you want to start?" She asked.

Otto nodded. Alice moved closer to him, taking his right hand which was holding the paintbrush. Adjusting it the way she saw fit, she continued holding Otto's hand from behind, guiding him towards the white canvas. If he hadn't known better, he would say he was growing a bit feverish, as everything around him started to spin.

Alice showed Otto a couple of movements to make for beginning, before letting go of his hand. "Try it." She said.

Otto dipped his brush into some water, careful not to take too much before dipping it in paint. He breathed in and out, closing his eyes and running the brush across the canvas. When he opened them, he was met with a slightly wobbly green line on the white background and a soft smile from Alice to encourage him to continue.

After a couple of more strokes, Alice deemed him ready enough to continue on his own and returned to her own painting. Otto still had a few troubles with little details, such as painting the rabbits foot, and Alice gladly helped him out. They were having fun in their own world, away from statuses and works, just two children painting outside. But soon, the sun begun setting. The day coming to an end.

Otto was working on some final details, the sun enough above horizon not to ruin his painting. He turned to Alice, needing her final judgement.

Snore.

Otto blinked at her. When had she fallen asleep? Sure, it's been a long day, but he didn't expect it to be that long. Still, the thought of waking her up was something he couldn't bring himself to do. It didn't even cross his mind. Instead, he got a better idea. The timing just perfect.

He turned his board to face Alice and pulled out a new canvas. The only reason he asked Alice to teach him how to paint was so he could paint her. Alice falling asleep was a perfect time to do it. And how lovely she would look with the sun shining those rosy cheeks and that lovely red hair. She truly looked like a princess to him. If he could, he would have married her on the spot.

He somehow managed to finish it before the sun set down completely, satisfied with results. Now he needed to wake his princess up. But before that, he had to hide the painting somewhere she won't look before he could gather some courage to show her. Otto sprinted towards the castle, hiding the painting behind the clothes in the closet. Hopefully Alice won't be needing anything from it. Or cleaning it anytime soon.

Making sure it was well hidden, Otto rushed back to Alice, glad to find her still asleep on her chair. She looked very comfortable sleeping there, it pained Otto a lot to wake her. But he had no other choice. He had to do it. However, one waking up kiss never hurt anyone.

Brushing away any hair that fell on her face, Otto slowly moved his head closer to hers. His lips met with Alice's forehead, slightly frightened of being seen and judged by anyone. Pulling back, he looked at her once again. What kind of a miracle did it take for this angel to walk on the same earth as him? What did he do that earned him just a glimpse of this sweetheart?

He closed his eyes again, allowing their foreheads to touch even just briefly. That was the moment Alice chose to wake up, accidentally bumping her forehead against Otto's.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow!" Otto grabbed his forehead. Who knew Alice had such strong head?

"Ow! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Alice panicked, seemingly quick to recover from the little accident as she was already checking on Otto.

"It's alright. I'm alright. Are you?" He asked, holding his forehead with one hand and Alice's cheek with other, attempting to calm her down.

Alice nodded. "I'm sorry." She said one more time. Otto shook his head that it was just an accident.

"It's already dark, I think we should head to the castle. You must be tired from sleeping in that chair." Otto smiled, pulling Alice up.

"I had a really nice dream so I do not mind. I'll clean up." She said, already grabbing the brushes and buckets.

"No, leave it to me. I brought it here, I should clean it up. Go get some proper sleep. Maybe tell me about the dream one day." Otto said, taking everything Alice grabbed into his hands. Alice nodded, knowing it was useless to argue against Otto once he had something set in his mind.

"If you say so, My Prince. Good night then." She bowed and run off.

"Good night, Liebe." Otto whispered, knowing full well Alice couldn't hear him. He got ready to work right away.'

"Aww! Those two are so cute! When am I gonna get such a nice relationship?" Feliciano giggled like a little girl. He knew the answer was when he got out of the house, but that was too much work. And besides, most people just weren't his type.

He made his way to the living room, deciding to get some snacks before continuing. There was no one to scare him this time luckily.

Lovino was on the couch, watching some Spanish telenovelas. He would never admit of doing this to anyone though, being famous for resenting any language that wasn't Italian. Luckily, Felicaino and Romeo were just his brothers. If they spoke a word of it, he knew when and how to kill them.

Romeo was still in college, the good little student he was. Or wasn't if he was hanging out with the ladies behind the college building. Either way, he wasn't home.

"They are still fighting?" Feliciano asked Lovino, but the latter was way into the series to answer the question. Or his phone, which he left on the little wall separating the dining room amd kitchen from the living room, as it was buzzing constantly. Probably Antonio.

Ignored by his brother, Feliciano set on doing what he originally wanted to do, get a snack. Rummaging through the fridge, he found some chocolate. Perfect. He was just about to head upstairs when Lovino's phone buzzed once again, the title of the annoying texter catching Feliciano's eyes.

Toni Amore.

With heart and tomato emojis.

Oh no. Was all that run through Feliciano's mind.

Breathe in.

He unlocked Lovino's phone, grateful to his brother for not setting it to make a sound once unlocked. He decided to read some of the messages. Just to make sure.

Breathe out.

There was no doubt. No doubt at all. It was the same Toni. Their family friend.

Breathe in.

No! No! No!

Breathe out.

That would mean only one thing. His brother was-

"What do you think you're doing, Feliciano?"

Oh no...

[dailyyooniex2]

YOON SI YOON – ARENA HOMME+ JULY 2016 INTERVIEW

After a long wait, Yoon Si-yoon’s interview for ARENA is out, at last! Too bad the magazine only shared small-sized images for the pictorial online, and I bet that there are lots of B-cuts they did not release :3 I guess we should be thankful that even with Mirror of the Witch coming to an end last week, we still get to see him every Sunday on 2 Days 1 Night. Enjoy the interview!

Yoon Si-yoon, No Matter What They Say

31-year old Yoon Si-yoon’s dream is, as always, an icon of hope.

The time gap between your discharge from army and your comeback was very short.

I really wanted to work. I was impatient. It was through working nonstop from my debut that I found myself and my own worth. It was like losing myself when I couldn’t work while I was doing my service in the military.

It must have been an unfamiliar time for you.

Yes, that’s right. I am a person who will feel comfortable planning things in advance; someone who will think and ask questions, putting effort instead of lazing around. Army service seemed to have suppressed that side of me.

Still, it feels that the person Yoon Si-yoon is even more apparent than before: someone who is intensely doing his own soul-searching.

That’s what I feel too. I’ve become clearer, in the sense that I try to thoroughly eliminate the parts that are not like myself and show the real me. It is easier to abandon and adopt them compared to before.

We would not ask what were the things you abandoned. What were the things you have adopted?

In the past, I would try to cover my flaws. But then, after getting into the professional world, I come to realize that it’s more important to turn those flaws into merits. Covering our flaws will actually make them even more glaring. Hence, my thoughts have changed. I adopted and fully embraced my flaws. I’d rather show different sides of me, including those I have never shown before.

2 Days 1 Night is a program with being tricky and stretched fun as its core. Now, you have created a rhythm that is totally different compared to the first time Yoon Si-yoon appeared on the show. The members even commented that you are a strange kid.

Haha. Am I really strange? Those unique people are actually saying that I am the strange one..

If we are to talk about Yoon Si-yoon’s attitude in variety program, it is kind of strange. Your usual kind of fun is different and rough, plus your funny parts do not feel ordinary. It has been a while since the last time we saw a healthy and positive character who throws in a few laughs on a variety program. I don’t really know if I’m really a healthy and positive person. I think that the word that describes me the best is ‘analog’. I’m simple like an old machine. My objective is simple and I really can’t be excessive. It’s also like that when it comes to romantic relationship and dating. I’m someone who can’t do sophisticated pickup lines.

You always say that you are not a refined person. You even mentioned in one interview that you are not someone who is fit to act out a refined character.

I certainly want to become an actor who can act well one day. But now, I think that saying I want to act well is an arrogant statement for myself. The best thing I can do at the moment is to show an acting without any lies. Only through that, people should get to know me, and I should try to find myself by brushing up the ‘me’ inside myself. That’s why, after brushing up myself, I find out what kind of person I really am. I’m still far from being a refined person.

Suddenly, words from High Kick Through the Roof‘s PD Kim Byung-wook come to our mind, “Yoon Si-yoon carried the gaze of a 1980s boy who falls in a one-sided love”.

Yes. If I am to fall in love again now, I will fall into that kind of feeling. Heo Joon’s character I portrayed in the drama Mirror of the Witch was exactly like that. He went back and forth even when he liked someone, and he didn’t really know what he should really do to make that person he liked happy.

Heo Joon became a wild playboy for a short moment in Mirror of the Witch. Is that image far from your real image?

Wah, no. Why did you think like that? Do you think I only play Korean shuttlecock game (jegichagi) to pass time?

Well, you do seem like you will pass time healthily.

To tell you the truth, that’s exactly what I do; each time I’m stressed out, I will go to comic store to read lots of comic books, watch movies, or visit art galleries to release my stress. That’s why I enjoyed acting out the wild Heo Joon. He was surrounded by and even buried under the ladies…haha!

Heo Joon is this kind of person who will throw himself out to be sacrificed for the sake of the person he loved. Is this close to your real self?

It’s close. I mean the point of loving someone wholeheartedly. But then, someone who loves like this is, in the end, longing to receive that kind of love from the person he loves. I’m neither a very selfless nor pure man; I’m just a lacking man. I wanted to convey Heo Joon’s shortcomings and his way of loving someone with sincerity. Giving his all, wishing that the person he loved would never leave his side; that kind of love.

Isn’t that the most basic form of love?

You’re right. That’s the form of love that I do. Hence, I wanted to express that image through Mirror of the Witch.

Your drama comeback through Mirror of the Witch as Heo Joon is like having you stand up and declare that you are acting as your own self.

I didn’t view Mirror of the Witch as a historical drama. To me, it was just a fantasy drama. Fantasy is a fiction with the freedom to tell any kind of story. There is no restriction on how the story will go on. It is a good place for an actor to find answers by himself and having faith in the story as he goes on. 

Although it was a fantasy drama, the viewers acquired a sense of reality from the drama through the characters portrayed by Yoon Si-yoon and Kim Sae-ron. 

Both (Kim) Sae-ron and I are gifted with brightness to our image. Conversely, no matter how heavy and dark it was; no matter how hard it was to save the characters in the story…either way, we both carried unique colours thanks to that brightness. Mirror of the Witch‘s story line was sad and dark. Even when the characters were driven deep into the darkness, our brightness and the light through our characters’ relationship in the drama made the drama more vivid. That seemed to be the roles entrusted to me and Sae-ron in the drama. The director said that he fully entrusted the role to me, believing that I would be able to express my real feelings through the drama. ‘Do it just like what you’re thinking. Your words are right.’ That was what he said. Those words gave me great strength.

Do you still think that a project that is warm in people’s eyes suit you the best? Could it be that the reason for it was because of the image public associates you with?

I want to live as someone who is seen as and associated with warmth. Hence, I’m putting more effort to become a warm person. The inclination to do projects seen as warm is actually the dream of human Yoon Si-yoon as an actor. Human is the most interesting thing in the world to me, and human is the warmest thing in the whole world.

That is something we have not heard for a long while. No, I think it is the first time we heard something like that – human is the warmest thing.

Human can be the seeds of conflict too. But then, I believe that the answer and solution to the conflict is within the human too.

In the past, there was this dream which you had as an actor. You wanted to become the keyword for hope. We want to ask: do you think that having such a positive and healthy outlook will enable you to conquer the world? Do you truly believe that?

Hope is, in my opinion, when we have our respective roles in our own lives but we still live with beautiful minds. Even when life doesn’t go well, I wish that with significant thoughts, it will be a source of hope to conquer the world. Have you seen the movie Inside Out? Isn’t it the most beautiful thing to see different emotions – happiness, anger, sadness – all mixed up in one’s life? I wish I could express it again and again that all lives matter and equally beautiful, especially through dramas.

Since when you changed into this firm person you are today?

Only my words are firm; I am still very green, full of anxiety, terror, sadness, fear, and dread. I worry for my next project and then worry about saying wrong things. Nowadays, I’ve come to realize some things, little by little. At one point, when you start to act according to what you’re aware of, isn’t that the moment you will become a real adult?

Where do you think you are at this point in the whole life as Yoon Si-yoon?

Right now..just like I’m done with warming up? At the moment of yelling out ‘Okay, good. Now, let’s go!’ I’m at the point where I have stretched my body to find out exactly what I can and cannot do. For instance, these days, I have decided to show properly the countrified side of me. I’m really a countrified person. I’m unnecessarily serious and I would be serious like that even when I’m meeting women. I wish I can be smooth at making jokes.

(Source~)

💜💜💜💜💜

[comicteaparty]

April 4th-April 10th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble  chat that occurred from April 4th, 2020 to April 10th, 2020.  The chat focused on the following question:

What is something you’ve improved with in regards to writing or comic creation thanks to working on your story?

carcarchu

Oh this one i can answer definitively. it's 100% lineart. forcing myself to have to do lineart for hours everyday is definitely a way to force yourself to get better at it while i still don't like it it's something that i can do now without being scared about it

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

Colouring. I had to get really creative in expressing emotion and hinting plot devices with colour. Also got much better with drawing gesture drawings due to looking at a lot of references!

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Either writing dialogue or drawing/painting backgrounds... I used to be particularly awful at writing dialogue. It was too stiff and formal, and sounded a lot like old prose. Now, because of writing a comic and going through several scripts, the dialogue is a lot more natural, and the pacing is more realistic to actual conversations. And the other: backgrounds. I really used to not even draw them at all, and doing a comic forced me to have to think about environments in scenes. So I went from drawing floating characters to having to consider where they are and how it affects the story/mood.(edited)

Feather J. Fern

Paneling! That was my main focus to figure out how to do good paneling to have clearer pages

Deo101 [Millennium]

Honestly? Everything. It's all gotten better and I've learned so much. I would say my biggest improvement is probably in my time management, and art wise is probably composition and layouts. But it's hard to pick because I've grown so much in every aspect!

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Biggest thing I learned was to keep the story small and focused - and that the smaller, more human struggles are much better in creating tension than the whole default "the world's gonna end!" thing. Mind you, I still love a good "world's ending" story, but you gotta make people CARE about the people in that world first!

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

ohohohoooo I have done more drawing in photoshop in this short time I have worked on Wayfinders, than the rest of my life! That has given me some skills for sure! Coloring is another one, and generally just efficiency and flow in a comic

Nutty (Court of Roses)

For me it's been my use of color, and getting more confident in experimenting with it to really drive home a scene's mood!

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

The clearest improvement I always notice is my layouts - I’ve gotten more adventurous with panel shapes and placement as time has gone on, experimenting with more interesting designs for the whole page. Some of those experiments haven’t been totally successful but it always feels like a worthwhile try. I’ve gotten some really, REALLY cool layouts out of these experiments, and I love seeing how dynamic the panels have become compared to my first chapter. Also speed. I’m so much faster now. Thank gooooooodness (edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@LadyLazuli (Phantomarine) I've definitely noticed the experimental panel layouts! They're really cool.

AntiBunny

Planning. Book 2 is when I started using sketchbook thumbnails to plan ahead. The luxury of that first draft meant I could rethink panel layouts and how to best express the events happening if I first had an idea of what was happening laid out.

Also digital art by necessity since I switched to digital during the current arc. I was decent at lineart already, but other aspects have really challenged me to grow as an artist. I had to totally rethink the way I create backgrounds for instance. During this time the background quality actually declined a little while I got used to a new method, but experience has improved my skills greatly as I force myself into new methods.

DanitheCarutor

Hmmm maybe paneling, speechbubbles and backgrounds? My current project is my second real attempt at doing a comic, but I have learned a lot of stuff from the community and general art and story tutorials. Backgrounds and bubbles were the worst for me when first starting out, I only read manga before starting so the speechbubble shapes did not fit with how English is written. Plus I've only drawn wooded fantasy settings before making my comic, so using a ruler, figuring out perspective points and drawing buildings was very new to me. I still hate drawing cities and such, but I've gotten a lot better at it and it is easier to do now. Since I mostly stuck with B&W before my current project, coloring also kind of improved? Depending on who's looking at it. Lmao If I were to think about story/characters/dialogue, I have no idea if I've improved. Honestly, I don't pay much attention to the quality. Also my brain kinda says it's all bad regardless of what I make.(edited)

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

For my Improvements: I'm getting better at my comic panels, as I adjust to the vertical style. Before I've always drawn the standard format. It's more than just boxes, I try to keep a variety of sizes. I'm picking up roughly how much 'gutter space' I need per 2-3 panels.etc I'm also improving on choosing colors that fits my love of detailed linework.(edited)

OH! I'm also learning about Clip studio shortcuts, how to use the assets they provide which makes the process, abit easier on me. Things I need to change, is I want to get a good speedy coloring style, without referring to my usual coloring.(edited)

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

the more I worked on the comic, the more I feel ambitious in making different angles and perspective. So it's really hitting me out of my comfort zone which is good! lol Though I'm trying to keep in mind of my speed, what I feel like I've improved a bit is trying to keep in mind of paneling and dialogue.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

Process! Space and i have definitely figured out the most productive way to produce content at the rate and quality that also provides us with time for our own projects. Comics are a useful tool that helps you discover ways to better organize your creative workflow for sure!

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I think probably scenery. I used to dread drawing inanimate objects but now I feel more confident in filling in a scene & even look forward to it sometimes. Maybe also page composition and paneling but I still have a lot to learn there

eli [a winged tale]

One of the reasons I embarked on the webcomic journey is to push myself to improve not only storytelling but also utilizing art to create a reader experience that would be difficult to replicate with just words. I’d like to think that 9 months into making A Winged Tale, I’ve improved on deciding when is a good opportunity to invest more into backgrounds vs character dynamics and when should be focused more on sequences of panels and composition. While the comic is written in a four panel format, more and more I’m finding areas where the story could be told by breaking those rules (attached pic). It’s a balance and I hope going forward I will improve more in pushing the limits of panels and find ways to express the story in fun and interesting ways.(edited)

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

Wow that's a very good description @eli [a winged tale] I look forward to reading more of your story journey

eli [a winged tale]

Thanks so much Joichi! I’m eager to keep learning~

Capitania do Azar

I'm gonna go with planning and actually getting it done. I'm so much faster because now the process is much more streamlined to me

kayotics

My whole comic was started s an exercise to just get better at comics generally so I’d probably say every part I’ve improved at? The biggest things are probably colors and the upfront planning process

Phin (Heirs of the Veil)

Ooof hard question. I think my main improvement lies with page and speechballoon layouts and writing natural feeling dialouge. I'd say maybe also character acting?

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I'm slowly learning how to create more engaging comic narrative. I read and research in the polished prem webcomics to see what makes them engaging? Like I'm going to challenge myself by creating a series of short stories with a reoccurring set of characters. Every new comic series I create is an experience, trial and error. Sometimes I skip the writeup and just go in blind, trust my own instincts. I'm glad to reach out and talk about it than in my own head. I hope by this year, I'll have at least 2 chapters of Hybrid Dolls out.(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I've definitely gotten better at planning/ outlining multiple chapters ahead of time. I did not even do this when I was doing the first 10 something chapters. (I did attempt an outline before I began the comic, but the story changed significantly from the outline by the time I started the comic, and I did not try to do it again for a long while.) I can't remember when I started, but I do recall having a lot of trouble the first time I tried to do it. It's gotten a little easier each time, though. In fact, I just spent the past few days outlining the next few very important chapters, de-tangling some big tangles. I'm really glad my outlining (and overall writing) skills had leveled up, because HOO boy, I don't think my 2014-2015 self could have done this!

I also became friends with enviros. I had already become somewhat comfortable drawing perspective when HoK started, but I had a sort of mechanical approach to it, like "oh I need some enviro for these establishing shots, guess I'll draw them." But now I LOVE drawing enviros! (some types anyway...) It's my comfort activity, something I treat myself to after a long day! In the thumbnails for my next few pages, there's a few enviro-heavy panels that I have to remove, because I drew too many of them (and the pacing got too slow as a result). I have to stop myself from drawing too many of these.

My biggest improvement is probably I've come to understand my characters and my themes much better, but that's more of a "I got better at making HoK" than a "I got better at making comics." There's definitely a difference between the two.

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

@keii’ii (Heart of Keol) ah I totally understand I tried the outline method before I start but my story changed alot after I drew it. So it start to feel like a waste of time for me, but I'll still write an outline to make sure to plan where my story heads(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah! I needed to draw those first few chapters to understand the direction of my own story.

The drawing part is an essential part of self-reflection, to try to understand what it is that I want out of the story. The answer has always been there in my heart, but I'm not able to see it clearly from the get-go.

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I end up breaking scenes and put them in for future episodes, since I want to get a certain flow in the story.

It could be tricky to see what it is you want out of the story until you are in at least 3 chapters in?

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I needed way more than 3 chapters -- though granted, my chapters are short, so that could be a part of it

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I see the early first script as testing the water. like a test to figure out the characters personalities. Unless you are bringing in old characters which you knew before?(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Even if the characters have been with you for a while, unless I have made a comic with them, there is a big chance that the characters will completely change, too.

DanitheCarutor

You know, I was thinking about about this, mostly about how I wouldn't have been happy if I was able to finish my comic the day I started. Then I realized I'm happy that I didn't. The first chapter wasn't the best, I was just learning how to coloring a comic, still fleshing out my characters and was still brainstorming small kinks in the story. I also still didn't have as much of an understanding of perspective, or panel and bubble layout. Even though I still have a lot I need to work on, I've gotten a lot better in all those aspects. Even though my use of color is weird, I've definitely gotten much more confident in it, enough so that I experiment and take a lot more risks with style. Even though my panelling can be boring, I have a much better understanding of how I want a page to look. I've improved a lot with my planning as well, like even though my thumbnailing/storyboarding only takes maybe 30, I've learned to step away for a bit if I don't like a layout, or analyzing why I don't like it and brainstorming ways to make it better. If I had magically finished the comic all at once, it would look really bad and may have been less readable.

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

That is inspiring to hear about your improvement @DanitheCarutor

Natsu-no-Hikari

Chiming in! Just this week, Miko (my co-creator) and I were discussing how far we've come from when we started our first comic (https://liarsgotoparadise.com/) vs. where we are now. I think there have been a lot of learn experiences, such as art, dialogue, general editing - but especially with pacing and character interaction. We regret that we didn't stop to focus more on that interaction, as we wanted to move ahead in the story...and now we can't change that, except to start now and not allow ourselves to grow impatient. Take our time and enjoy the journey - that's our new motto. There's a time to rush ahead in perilous moments, but there's also definitely a time to catch our breaths and let the characters mingle and speak. It's an improvement that will become more noticeable going forward in Liars and our second comic as well.

[tarithenurse]

On my mind, in my Soul - 3

Prompt: Three items to intergrate: Purple, Art Installation, and Crazy by Gnarles Barkley (passages shown as blockquotes). Pairing: Loki x Burglar!reader. Content: Angst x a lot, references to violence, criminal activities, dislike of modern art, abduction, swearing...maybe other stuff too... A/N: It’s the Loki we know, but he’s made himself a home on Earth, curating an impressive collection of valuables from across the universe – all for himself and the fame he finds despite the New York incident.

Crazy

The next day, you’d been sore. Cold into the bones in a way that no hot showers or mugs of tea could purge because it wasn’t just physical. The “visit” and events at Loki’s manor had been bad enough. You hadn’t needed him showing up in your room, your home, only for you to want him so shamelessly as you had to the point where you’d begged for him without a care of what might happen. But in the harsh light of day, it scared you shitless how easily you’d given in.

I remember, I remember when I lost my mind There was something so pleasant about that place

That’s when you made the decision.

Taking the pendant, you’d placed it in a box with a note telling him you didn’t want to play his games. It had smarted when you slid the lid on, hiding the gleaming eye from view to be wrapped up in brown paper, tape, and a hastily scribbled address. The same day you sent it, you sold the little apartment and took refuge in the safehouse where you hopefully could plot your next steps in safety.

Hopefully.

It was tempting to keep running until you’d reached the other side of the earth where no one would know you and you could start over, pretending to be someone else. But each time you considered the idea, the chill would stir in your bones, reminding you just how quickly he’d found you. No. It wouldn’t help to run, because how could you hide from a magic-wielding extra-terrestrial? Even across the ocean, it’d just be a matter of time before he’d find you if that’s what he wanted…and you’d have no way to stand your ground. Whenever you got to this point in your internal ramblings, you’d hear his voice seething with anger at the idea that he might take you against your will. Oddly…you believed that, at least. Maybe it was the memory of the blow sending you skidding across the gleaming floor in his home?

That hadn’t been his magic. Watching yourself in the mirror, the decision made itself for you, and over the next days you snuck out to pick up the equipment you needed, making sure to stay away from your usual haunts.

You spend months staying indoors as much as possible, the time used on online studies and all the training you could accomplish within the safety of the walls of your home. And why not? The last few jobs had lined the coffers plenty and you had no interest in drawing attention to yourself or your hiding hole.

So the instructional videos kept rolling as you mimicked the movements and stances, soon discarding the padding on the dummies and the gloves because you knew none of the pretence would steel you for the real deal. Hands and wrists bruised after the thousands of impacts with the hard material, your ankles had twisted on more than one occasion, adding a limp to your normally cat-like movements.

…

A person can only stay cooped up due to external influences for so long before they begin to feel a prisoner in their own home. Pacing the concrete floors, there’s no joy to find in the sheltered place because you need to breathe freely again, need to navigate the bustle of the city and be a part of it rather than simply watching from the outside. And you need a challenge. Money’s not run out yet, but it’s getting closer which tempts you to pick your old contacts for a connection. A job that entails more than just making a plan based on information other people have provided that they too will be the ones to pull off. And of course the perfect temptation’s waiting for you…there’s just one hiccup…

And I hope that you are having the time of your life But think twice That’s my only advice

…

Gliding through the crowd like liquid purple, it takes little effort to make it to the place in the gallery where the object’s hanging. Art, fart. The artist is more than famous throughout the world, but most of his works contain less meaning than the concrete of the building…although you find the huge legume-seed childishly entertaining with the warped reflections. These installations? Huge discs with various colours, sculptures any Freudian psychologists would celebrate, and splashes of bloodred on shredded and pulled canvasses that makes you think of hospitals and pain. You can’t help the scoff that escapes you.

“Not to your liking?” The smooth voice curls around you like a snake.

There’s no reason to look for the speaker because only one person is capable of scaring and arousing you with a simple sentence. Not this time. Without an answer, you leave Loki standing before the black void of a concave, the rustle of the silk dress soothing your nerves only slightly.

You’ve seen what you need to formulate a plan, shocked at the lax in security at the private gallery where works regularly are auctioned off to the rich crowd, the ones who always are eager to seem like they live the perfect life when in reality theirs suck just as badly as anyone else’s…it’s just nicer to cry in an Aston Martin. With a notoriety like that, it isn’t a surprise that Loki’s around even though you’d hoped to be lucky because modern art isn’t anywhere to be seen in his collection.

He corners you at the wardrobe, of course. Why had you decided to check in your coat? Right, you weren’t allowed to carry it with you…maybe they thought people would sneak out a one and-a-half meter in diameter art installation under the trench coat. Either way, you just have time to consider leaving the piece of clothing behind when the cool of his presence envelops you, sweetly familiar yet frighteningly so.

“[Y/N]…”

There’s a pained edge to his voice that makes the air stick in your throat and your hands shake when you accept the coat from the attendant who’s blissfully unaware of the severity of the situation. Just a few words, a plea for help, and you’d be safe from the Asgardian. For a while. The admission carries dread, drenching you in silent resignation from its wake. Not giving in, though, and you pull the coat on before turning, striding past the tall man who’s dressed in his signature black and green.

Cold air fills your lungs and shimmies up your bare legs. Already, a cab’s waiting by the curb hoping for a fare and maybe a fat tip considering the visitors to the gallery behind you. Voicelessly, you slip in, collecting the purple fabric before closing the door. Only then do you urge him to drive, the destiny’s a fancy hotel.

As the engine rumbles, propelling the car onto the road and through the checkered pattern of the city while you see absolutely nothing of the scenery, too engulfed in your thoughts. You’re supposed to be plotting now, conjuring up the elegant plans ensuring you not just access to, but also an exit route with, the prize that will land you a fat paycheck…still, the task is jarring as every thought is disrupted by the echo of Loki’s voice and the haunting glimpse you’d seen of his face.

Not my bloody problem! Groaning silently, your head lolls onto the headrest beside yours. So what, if the man’s looking haggard? An obsession burning in his eyes that’s nearly drowned out by a pain you don’t want to recognize because if you do, you’ll know how badly off you are too. Fuck. Everything would’ve been simpler if you’d never decided to rob the God of Mischief, but here you are and it was only your logic telling you to run.

Here we are.

Here we are?

Sitting up straight, you study the world outside the cab with big eyes, hands clenched into white-knuckled fists in your lap. You aren’t on the way to the hotel, you’re not even anywhere near the neighbourhood you’d planned for but rather in an area with rich brick houses spread wide enough to hide on lawns surrounded by bushes and trees, the only official access points being the gated driveways. Just as you reach for the door handle, the car bumps over the softened curb and pushes a puff of stale air past your trembling lips, but the door’s locked and the driver ignores your frantic pleas when you urge him to let you out, to let you go. Anything but bringing you to Loki’s manor looming ahead in the dark.

Your struggle continues when the car door finally opens to allow a couple of burly private guards to reach for you. Fuck, are you happy you’ve spent all that time training martial arts and self defense…but in the end, there’s nothing you can do against these bundles of muscle and you’re dragged through the house up to the top floor where you’re deposited in a bedroom.

Ever since I was little it looked like fun And it's no coincidence I've come And I can die when I'm done

Dishevelled and afraid, you scream yourself hoarse while pounding at the door, only interrupted when you try to unlock windows with the few tools you’d snug along in the purse, but nothing helps, and you sink onto the blackness on the giant bed. No tears. Fighting back the desperation, you take in the surroundings, noting the wall-to-wall wardrobe covered in mirrors which makes the room seem grander than it is. Not that it needs extra square meters added to the endless moss-green carpet that’s the resting place for furniture of honeyed wood and leather. Pillows of the signature green silk are tastefully tossed onto a low, soft bench by the window and next to you on the bed, echoing the shade across the floor. There’s another door, nearly invisibly carved into the wall, which brings a shimmer of hope back into your heart only to be smothered when all it turns out to be is a private bathroom.

…

You’ve gone through every nook and cranny the two rooms in search of a way to get out. After that, you’ve spent some time simply nosing about to learn more about the god before eventually taking care of your appearance. The way you see it, you might as well appear on top on the situation if you’re going to have to talk yourself out of this mess…if Loki can be reasoned with, that is.

Regardless, your heart lodges itself in your throat at the sound of a key in the lock. Refusing to turn, there’s only the warped reflection in the window to prove that it really is him, your captor, that enters and relocks the door, adding a golden shimmer to the mechanism with a wave of his hand. Not a word’s uttered as he discards the suit jacket and then the tie onto a chair by the wardrobe.

The heavy sigh rattles you to your core. “I’m sorry for this, [Y/N].” Glancing briefly, you see how he runs a hand over his face, rubbing the tired eyes momentarily. “I can only imagine what you must think of me, truly…but I need you to hear me out, alright?”

It’s not like you have a choice, really, and this conversation has started nothing like you’d expected. “Then talk.”

[tessmontyart]

2018 Year In Review

Another year, another review 💕(I actually typed most of this up before 2019 and then got distracted, whoops)

To put things short, 2018 has been AWESOME :D Exhausting and fast, but awesome.

I started it off pretty uncertain how things were going to go, dreading it would be a repeat of 2017′s boring TAFE courses and endless job rejections. But the miracle happened - a 2D animation studio opened up near me, I applied, did an animation test and got the job!

The job was a contract from 1st of April - 21st of December, so I spent the majority of my year going to work to animate characters for a really crazy but hilarious new kids show called Spongo Fuzz and Jalapena, due to air mid 2019 :) 

It was honestly the most fun job I have ever had and I can’t wait for the next project! 🎉 I have never been this exhausted in my life, though. 😅I had already booked a whole bunch of conventions before I got the job, and didn’t want to cancel them so I was working nonstop - Animation during the day and intensive convention prep every night. 

I also had the bright idea of creating a full colour 26 page comic -with a tight deadline - so I was madly working to the point I didn’t even have time for dinner half the time :’) I am sort of happy with the comic, but also kind of wish I never had the idea in the first place. 😅

I tabled at a ton of conventions; Melbourne Supanova, Central Coast ComiCon, Other Worlds Zine Fair, Sydney Supanova, SMASH and Canberra Gamma Con. If next year doesn’t go so well on the job side of things I’m hoping to add a few more conventions to that list - Brisbane Supanova, Oz Comic Con and Animaga to name a few. I’ve already booked Sydney Madman Anime Festival!

2018 was the year my partner and I celebrated our 4th year together, and he never fails to amaze me with his continuous love and support. I was too sick to attend the first day of SMASH, so he set up and ran the whole stall for me while I stayed at home. Same with Sydney Supanova, I was too bogged down in animation work and couldn’t afford to take the Friday off, so he set up and ran the stall for me on Friday, then we ran the stall together on the weekend. He also tended to my every need when I broke my toe, cooked all my meals when I was busy with work and even packaged + posted all my Etsy orders every day because I was always working during post office hours. He listened to all the problems I was having with my stall setup and helped make shelves and decorations to make it look and function better. I was getting stressed because my desk space was too small, BAM he bought me a brand new desk with plenty of storage. I was getting stressed that I had so much on my convention to-do-list and couldn’t keep track of all my project ideas, BAM, he sets up a whiteboard and helps me brainstorm everything so I can keep track of all my thoughts and ideas and what to prioritise for future conventions. I didn’t even ask him to do any of this, he just loves to help me and make me happy and I am forever blissed and happy to be able to spend my life with such a wonderful human! 

(Home made High Tea I made for him on Valentines Day) 

Arsty Highlilghts / accomplishments:

🌸I designed 9 cute Houseki no Kuni acrylic charms which have been doing really well at conventions!

🌸I also drew a cute series of ‘Sleepy Gem’ Houseki no Kuni / Steven Universe holographic prints, which I’m quite proud of 😊

🌸I created my 2nd enamel pin design, which already needed 2 reorders because they were so popular! ;w; I never knew I could make something that so many people love *sob* I’ve already planned to make these into a series! (already designed some deer ones, and thinking of doing foxes next ^_^ )

🌸I also tried getting gold foil prints done for the first time, which was pretty cool! I got the american sizes mixed up though so I might try for the bigger size next time :) (grainy photo cause its a screenshot from a video)

🌸I’ve been taking steps to make my stall look more ‘professional’, and got a really neat wooden sign made for me by my friend as_sweet_as_jasmine!

🌸I’ve started revamping my favourite series of posters - the Eevee Gijinka girls :) I plan to have them all done and ready for 2019s conventions! 

🌸This was the year I got an iPad, so I could do digital art on-the-go. Honestly its helped me so much, and I can’t wait to be able to use it more (sorta didn’t get a chance to touch it while i was working!)

🌸I got Copic Markers for my birthday so I had a whole new medium to play with! These mixed with using a brush pen for inking really make my inktobers pop and I’m eager to draw more with them  :) 

🌸Speaking of Inktober, it was a huge accomplishment for me to put effort into a decent artwork every day this year! Usually theres a few dud ones when I lacked inspiration, but I somehow managed to make it work ;w; So when it came time to printing the books, theres 31 illustrations rather than 25 like the others :) Also the whole rainbow theme idea came from how cool I think it would look flipping through a rainbow book - so I managed to make that happen and couldn’t be happier!

🌸I passed 1000 sales on Etsy!! 😱As well as 1000 followers on instagram! Crazy right??

General 2018 highlights

🌸2018 was the year one of my best friends got married! I made cute little clay wedding cake toppers for her :)

🌸The year Owl City’s 7th album Cinematic came out!! All the tracks are so GOOD and exactly the sound all us hootowls were longing for. Also Be Brave is a tearjerker, in a good way. What an amazing human Abbey is to Adam <3 

🌸The year Spyro Reignited Trilogy came out!! It’s absolutely amazing, and I love every second of it. Every time I play it I just can’t help but stand there looking around at every detail because everything is just so gorgeous *_* And the nostalgia is so real.

🌸Not exactly a highlight but the year Tumblr went NSFW free, and lost hundreds of thousands of users 😂I’m still here though. Got a dumb tradition to keep up ya know.

🌸The year my work had a hilarious Christmas party where we had to dress up as a character from Spongo Fuzz and Jalapena. It was the first time I actually put effort into a cosplay by myself 😂(possibly the last) (wont put a photo up for embarrassing reasons)

🌸the year I broke my toe for the first time xD;; definitely not a highlight but a first! I couldn’t walk for weeks! it sucked!!! T__T

🌸The year my friend successfully funded his kickstarter for his own cartoon ‘Nurry Brothers Adventure World’ :D So proud of him. I’m gonna help him animate!

🌸The year Lano and Woodley reunited with their amazing show ‘Fly’!! I loved it so much I saw it twice :D 

🌸The year I tried doing Halloween for the first time - I bought a bunch of lollies and chocolates and decorations on my letterbox/door to let people know I was participating. I got 2 different groups of people at the door, 5 people all up 😂More than I expected tbh!

🌸I tried Ruby chocolate for the first time! It was ok .. just kinda tasted like berry yoghurt flavoured white chocolate though ;w; 

SO! What’s coming for 2019?

I’m not really sure at the moment, but I have high hopes for Cheeky Little Studios (the animation company I worked for) - so I guess I’ll just have to wait and see if any of their next projects get concrete start dates :) I’m not as terrified of the year as I usually am when its just one big question mark. I know I can make decent money through conventions and commissions in the meant time so I’ll just continue doing what I love! 

LAST YEAR I SAID:

“I am crossing my fingers for an animation job I applied for a while ago” - I GOT IT! :D

“I plan to do even more conventions. Hopefully I can get into Oz Comic Con!" - didn’t end up applying because I was busy with the job, but keen to try for 2019 :)

"I’m keen to apply for like Animaga in Melbourne, as well as Madman Anime Fest in Brisbane and Melbourne.” - didn’t end up doing so for the same reason above, but that might change this year :)

“I also want to make a lot more non-fandom things for market stalls, as well as a comic and zines!” - I made the comic, as well as 3 inktober zines and a cute ‘if I fits I sits’ cat zine! As well as a bunch of cute original enamel pin ideas and my whole inktober was original art :D 

“Hopefully I’ll hit 1k followers on fb/ig? :D that will make me feel important lol” - I hit 1k on instagram!! I felt very important xD

“I’m also hoping to go on a holiday this year." - I didn’t, for job reasons ... buuut I’m booked in for a cruise in Italy / Greece this September that I’m extremely excited for!

“PLEASE BE KIND 2018, I’M BEGGING YOU 😱” - You were very very kind to me, 2018. 2019, please follow suit! 

(man this is the 7th year of review I’ve done. Can’t believe I’ve been on tumblr this long 😅)

[2017] [2016] [2015] [2014] [2013] [2012]

[teaandgames]

A Word on Paper Mario

I’ve been revisiting the Papier Mache Plumber again. See, this is a series I’ve dabbled in over the years and had mixed feelings about. The original, which I’m going to base this article off, was fantastic. The sequel, Thousand Year Door, was just as great but that’s where the series began to run aground for me. Super Paper Mario got a lot of decent press but for a number of reasons, it didn’t really click for me - despite a generally stronger storyline. As for Sticker Star, well. I’ve got a lot to say about Sticker Star.

This whole thing is going to be revolving around the first entry in the series because the biggest experience I’ve had with Paper Mario is the first one. As I said, I’ve dabbled with the others. But I’ll never forget my first. Even if it was played on an N64 emulator on a terrible old laptop I used to have. There’s a lot to like in the series, so now I’m going to pick a few bits of it apart. It’s an odd series; so much has changed over the years. Let’s start by finding some constants.

The first big one is the art style. This is ‘Paper’ Mario, changing that would be an insult to the series. Mario is 2D in a very special way. A way that means he could slide under doors just by lying down. It’s an odd choice of style to be sure but it makes the world and characters look lively. It looks like a colouring book; all filled in with bright colours. That has lasted across all of the series that I’ve played and it never stops being charming. In fact, Sticker Star, for all its many faults, pushed that even further by playing with the environment a lot more with its use of special stickers. Probably one of the few things it did right.

Perhaps one downside of this continued art style is that a lot of the sprites didn’t get updated as time went on. Paper Mario himself looks pretty much identical now to how he did in 2000. God, this series is nearly twenty years old. Existential dread aside, it would be nice to give the old cutouts a bit of a spruce up. Still, the reliance on the paper aesthetics did allow Super Paper Mario to have some fun with its gameplay, reshaping and resizing Mario at will. It gives a bit more freedom than our usual old jumpman.

Something else that should have been a constant is the humour. Paper Mario, the first one that is, had some great moments in it. It was usually fairly silly and good natured humour, and I loved it. Like hearing a group of friendly boos complimenting each other on how well they scare the nearby toads. Or, my personal favourite, encountering a murder-mystery writer named Herringway. He’s a penguin. It’s terrible and I love it a lot. Thousand Year Door kept the humour up, as did Super Paper Mario - though that was a game that wasn’t afraid to get dark. While I’ve not actually completed Super Paper Mario, apparently something happens to my main man Luigi towards the end that I’m not okay with.

Speaking of the superior plumbing brother, he’s the perfect example of great writing in Paper Mario - specifically in Thousand Year Door. While Mario goes out and completes his awesome adventures, Luigi is left in the first town you encounter. When you go back and speak to him, he regales you with a ton of embellished lies about all these adventures he’s gone on. It’s hilarious and exactly the kind of thing that’s been deliberately cut from Paper Mario games of late. There’s very little banter these days. Usually just a single side character who just makes up for Mario’s muteness.

Speaking of which, who decided to axe the side characters? Whoever did probably deserves a different kind of axe. They were one of the most charming things about the first two, being mostly simple characters that nevertheless had enough personality to add a breath of fresh air to the plumber’s adventures. Hell, it even has a strong transgender character in Thousand Year Door, Vivian. An awesome ghost who initially suffers from an inferiority complex before learning to respect herself. An odd choice to remove these side characters from Super Paper Mario onwards. Leaving us with weird fairy things? Though we do get Peach on our team, which is nice.

It also has a necessary effect on the combat system. The first two games have a turn based combat system, that has a little emphasis on timing. If you hit a button at the right moment, you’ll do more or take less damage. It spices things up a bit. I like turn based fighting of this nature a lot (it was done to perfection in the Mario and Luigi series, mind) and Thousand Year Door improved it with an audience mechanic. I will admit, the standard fights do get dull after a while but Paper Mario works tirelessly to throw the entire Mario roster at you. Every tedious fight is quickly switched up in the new area - and there’s zero grinding required. After Thousand Year Door this combat was axed too. Super Paper Mario resorted back to usual Mario rules. Jump on ‘em. Some of the magic was lost there for me. It was trying to be a normal Mario game but didn’t have the smooth controls to cope with it.

But Sticker Star is way worse. If Super Paper Mario axed the turn based combat, Sticker Star shoved some sticks up the rear end of the corpse and used it as a grotesque puppet. By which I mean, it reduced everything from basic attacks upwards to limited stickers. They then took away the experience system. As you can imagine, this reduces basic fights to simple nuisances. All you get is a few wasted stickers - and those things became precious. As a large chunk of Paper Mario games is fighting, you’ve just made about sixty percent of your game pointless. Well done.

Looking back over this, I can’t really remember why I didn’t click with Super Paper Mario. Perhaps it is the removal of companions but it felt a little fragmented to me. The actual story and characters were great but the levels felt like knock-offs of regular Mario and that isn’t what Paper Mario is supposed to be for me. The first game feels like a giant road trip across a weird and wonderful land, with recurring, funny characters and some basic gameplay to stick it all together. Yet the series seems to have lost that.

In fact, Sticker Star made such a bad impression on me that I don’t think I’ll ever get round to playing Colour Splash. I hear it has similar problems and that hurts me. For a series that, along with Mario & Luigi, prided itself on its writing and characters, to tone down that aspect feels counter-intuitive. We’ve got enough Mario games that focus on Mario himself. Let the side characters breath. Thank the Lord the Mario & Luigi games have not yet suffered the same fate. If you cut Luigi out and replace him with a sparkly fairy, Nintendo, then I’m borrowing Mario’s hammer.

[kenkamishiro]

re:quest [tension] - chapter 5

This is the last chapter of “tension”. It’s been lots of fun translating it, and though it’s been difficult, I’ve learned a lot from it. The next short story I’m planning on translating is “quinquies”, the short story featuring Saiko and the Qs. It’ll be a while before that story will be out though because of my schedule. Anyways, thank you for your support, and I hope you enjoyed “tension” as much as I did!

For those who haven’t read “tension”, the short story about the CCG art festival, you can read chapter 1 here. Enjoy!

(Thank you @tokyo-ghoul-out-of-context for proofreading.)

Today was the day of the art festival. The convention centre located in the same ward as the CCG main office was showing a turnout unseen in previous years. All sorts of paintings, sculptures, pottery and the like were on display, with the outstanding art that had won awards organized based on the colour of their attached ribbons.

In the midst of it all, Urie was gazing at the red ribbon for the highest honour that was attached to his own painting.

“...(Of course it would go to me.)”

Urie, who had been an Academy scholarship student and had graduated top of his class, was continuing to pile on achievements. The people around him had been praising him for being outstanding even in his hobbies. Though he had been furious as to why all the Qs had won some sort of award, but he was the only one who had been able to win the highest honour that so few could achieve.

“...Urie.”

“...(So you’re here.)”

Everything that Urie had done was to show the overwhelming difference between him and this man. He turned around and faced Takeomi.

“Congrats on getting the highest honour.”

“It’s not really a big deal. (Take that!)”

“No, what you said was absolutely true. Art isn’t something you can just make in a day,” Takeomi said to Urie as he observed his painting.

Usually Urie would get irritated whenever Takeomi complimented him, but today was different. Takeomi was a human who couldn’t appreciate anything related to art. He just couldn’t compare to Urie, and that made Urie feel good.

“So, how did you do? (Do you even get an award for participating?)” Urie asked nastily.

“I got an honourable mention,” Takeomi said.

“...honourable mention?”

A sense of dread filled his chest for a moment from his unexpected words.

Honourable mention? You of all people? How?

It’s just an honourable mention, Urie told himself. There was no reason for him to care about it. But his heart continued to race.

“It was all because of your advice. Thanks.”

“There’s no need to thank me. (I don’t remember giving him advice. What the hell is he talking about? Did he just try to copy me and paint something?)”

He felt a sense of discomfort crawling along his body like a bug. Takeomi, with no knowledge of how Urie was feeling, said, “I’ll see you later then,” and prepared to leave.

“Bujin, I just saw your art! It’s so cool!” a lively voice jumped in. Itou Kuramoto, whose eyes always appeared to be closed, ran in, followed by Michibata Shinji, whose notable features were his sideburns and lower eyelashes. Those two men were in the same squad as Takeomi as his seniors, and it looked like they had just seen Takeomi’s artwork.

“How’d you transport that thing up here!? But first I wanna hear about how you got the materials for it!”

“...(How you transported it? Materials?)”

It seemed that Takeomi had made something quite unique.

“I took my father’s car and went up to the mountains.”

“...!? (Mountains!?)”

Why did he have to go the mountains?

“When Kuramocchan looked up at the thing you made, he was just starin’ at it with his mouth gapin’ wide open!”

“...(Looked up at!?)”

“Ignore him! It reminded Micchi of sports festivals, and he was so excited that he wanted to climb the thing!”

“(Sports festival!? Climb!?)” Urie thought as he watched Takeomi being complimented by his two seniors.

“(No, this doesn’t mean anything, they’re in the same squad...it’s like getting compliments from your family…!)”

Thinking about it, Urie didn’t think he could stand being there any longer. He began walking quickly away from Takeomi and his squadmates toward another area of the hall.

“(What the hell did you make, Kuroiwa Takeomi? You don’t have an inkling of what art is supposed to be. There’s no need for me to worry about this. Yeah, I’m just going to look at your crappy artwork so I can laugh at it…)”

And then Urie heard voices saying, “Did you see what Kuroiwa made?” The voices didn’t belong to Itou and Michibata, but to investigators that Takeomi didn’t interact with. Urie chased after what those investigators were looking at.

“...!?”

Despite the crowd of people surrounding the artwork, Urie could clearly see it.

“A totem pole…(a totem pole)”

It was around three metres tall. From the rough carvings it was obvious that it was made by an amateur, but it still left a huge impact on everyone. Realizing that his jaw had dropped, flabbergasted at what he was seeing, Urie closed his lips in a fluster.

He thought about why Takeomi would have made something like this, and then he finally remembered.

...instead of using a delicate tool like a paintbrush, why don’t you make something out of wood instead?

Despite Urie having said that sarcastically, Takeomi had taken his comment to heart.

“Just like I expected from Kuroiwa.”

“He really is different from everyone.”

Appreciation for Takeomi was entering Urie’s ears, which was what he hated hearing the most.

“(This is why I hate that bastard!)”

Urie gritted his teeth and left the hall.

After Urie had left, two women were standing in front of the totem pole.

“Madam!”

Recognizing one of the women, Gori Misato, a tall investigator with a beauty mark on the middle of her forehead, rushed over to her. Misato had worked under Special Class Investigator Kuroiwa Iwao and had participated in the 11th ward Special Countermeasures Unit created to deal with Aogiri, and the Owl Suppression Operation in the 20th ward.

“Hello, Misato-san.”

The woman who gave Misato a smile was Iwao’s wife and Takeomi’s mother. She had married at a young age, so she didn’t look like someone who would have a twenty-year-old son. Her appearance was a contrast to Iwao’s, whose bulk and stability made him look much older.

“It’s been a while, madam.”

“Thank you for always helping my husband.”

“Don’t mention it! Your son’s efforts are quite remarkable.” Misato looked up at the towering totem pole.

“I’ve also heard about your great efforts from my husband.”

“Oh dear...I don’t really have much though.” Misato was happy that her boss that she respected so much said that about her, but she decided to act humbly.

“Did you come here to see what Special Class Kuroiwa and your son made? Special Class Kuroiwa’s platter was quite splendid.”

Iwao had lost his left arm, but he was still working as an investigator. She couldn’t imagine how he had made the platter with just his right hand.

“No,” Kuroiwa’s wife said, shaking her head. “I came here today to meet Shinohara-san’s wife.”

Misato saw the woman standing next to Kuroiwa’s wife. The wife of Shinohara Yukinori, who was also known as the “Indomitable Shinohara”, showed a smile strong to the core.

“You are...Special Class Shinohara’s wife?” Misato bowed her head.

“I heard that Juuzou’s art was being exhibited, so I came here to see it.”

Shinohara had collapsed, and it had been a long time since he had regained consciousness, but to this day his wife and Juuzou continued to interact.

“I believe Suzuya Juuzou’s art is at the centre of the hall. It’s next to Mikage Miyuki’s crop circle made of origami cranes.”

Shinohara’s wife contemplated Misato’s directions. “I was trying to find it, to be honest. Thank you,” she said gratefully. And after a few more words, Misato split off from the two women.

“...”

As Misato stared at the retreating backs of the women who continued to support their investigator husbands, she let out a breath, having remembered Amon Koutarou, the man she had long yearned for.

Amon had a strong sense of justice, was outstanding in his work and had a promising future. However, he was said to have died in the 20th ward Owl Operation, though his body hadn’t been found. Misato still didn’t think that he was dead.

“Misato.”

She had been thinking about Amon so intensely, that she jumped when someone called her name.

“What’s with you standing there and spacing out?”

Mado Akira was the one who called out to Misato. Akira was younger and had graduated later than Misato, but she always spoke to Misato in an informal manner. This hadn’t changed even after Mado surpassed Misato in rank.

“...I was talking to Special Class Kuroiwa and Shinohara’s wives just now.”

“They’ve come here? I should greet them.”

Some things hadn’t changed, but there were some things that had, such as Akira’s concern for her surroundings. Misato didn’t know if it was because she was in a position where she had to lead her subordinates, or if it was because Sasaki and the Qs that were assigned to her had made her like this.

“I’ll be off then.”

“Yeah…”

Akira turned her back on her. It was a delicate back carrying heavy responsibilities.

“...Mado Akira.”

“Yeah?”

Without realizing it Misato had called out to Akira.

Akira was an excellent investigator with a deep knowledge of quinques who always kept calm. From now there would be more future female investigators who would look up to her. But Misato knew that underneath her calm exterior was a torrent of emotions. She knew because Akira had cried for Amon Koutarou and her classmate Takizawa Seidou.

“...”

Previously at the Auction Cleanup Operation, a mysterious ghoul had suddenly appeared and wreaked havoc on the investigators. No one in Misato’s vicinity talked about that unexpected incident, but it left behind an ominous feeling.

“...Misato?”

Akira had been stopped, and she watched as Misato was unable to get her words out. “What do you need?” she asked, tilting her head. She scoffed, putting her hand on her lips as she watched Misato.

“You don’t have anything to say, yet if you have the time to stop people, lead me to where the Special Classes’ wives are. I’ll show you a delicious curry shop as my thanks.”

In a convoluted way, Akira had invited Misato for lunch.

“How does that sound?”

Akira smiled. Misato blew air from her nose, and stood next to Akira.

“Follow me.”

“My pleasure.”

People were cheerfully looking at the exhibits, walking and laughing with their colleagues. These people, who fought as investigators, had looks of enjoyment on their faces.

Hairu was weaving through these people, slowly, walking alone.

Highest honour, high honour, honourable mention. The artwork that had won these awards had ribbons attached to them. She stood in front of her drawing that she had carefully coloured with her coloured pencils. She stared at the blue ribbon next to her name. A ribbon for high honour.

“And I thought I was gonna get praised a lot for it too.”

Hairu hadn’t gotten the Special Adjudicator award, the only award that was chosen by Arima. She entwined her hands behind her back, and blew a raspberry. Even though she had received the high honour award, it was meaningless to Hairu.

“Figured it’s better to take down ghouls. Tons of them.”

That was the easiest way, she thought while staring at her art. However, something caught her attention, and she turned toward it. The people in her surroundings began to stir.

With his silent gaze behind his glasses, just the sight of the man walking left goosebumps in everyone.

“Arima-san, I wanted to win the Arima award,” Hairu called out in contrast to her noisy surroundings. Arima stopped next to Hairu.

“Do you mean the Special Adjudicator award?”

“It’s called the Arima award, ‘cause you’re the one giving it out,” Hairu declared. Arima closed his mouth.

“And I spent so much time and effort on it.” Hairu pointed to her own drawing of a teenager and a young girl standing within the beautiful flowers.

“...it was disqualified from the award,” Arima said bluntly.

“Huh?” Hairu’s cheeks swelled. Arima kept staring at Hairu’s drawing.

“Because that scene is nostalgic and brings me back.”

He had memories of that place.

Whether human or ghoul, there a was a rule that forced them to never talk about this secret, of this moral contradiction and the place where they had been brought up - the Sunlit Garden.

That was where she had met him.

Hairu giggled. They shared this memory, and she couldn’t help but feel giddy because of it.

“Shao is going to join us starting next year.”

“Shao! I want her to clean my ears again! It felt so good!”

“Yes, please treat her well,” Arima said, and then he left. It seemed that he had to go somewhere. Most likely it was related to Haise.

“Hairu!”

Hairu, who had been gazing at her drawing alone, now had someone else standing next to her.

“...Koori-senpai.”

“So you got the high honour award. That’s amazing,” Ui said while looking at Hairu’s art.

“Koori-senpai, but you got the highest honour award.” Hairu began walking away from her drawing, Ui following close behind. Ui, who would always lecture her not to walk behind each other during work, didn’t say anything about it this time.

“The Special Adjudicator award is a joke. Though it really is like Arima-san to pick that kind of drawing.”

In the end, Arima had chosen Yonebayashi Saiko’s work titled, “My vision of the strongest investigator”. It was a drawing of a very muscular investigator holding a quinque that looked like a gold club that ogres would carry around. It appeared to be modelled after her squadmate Urie Kuki.

“Apparently he chose it because it was the first time he’d even seen something like that. Even though there were tons of others he could’ve picked from.”

Ui was known to complain a lot whenever Arima did something weird.

“Sasaki-kun’s gingerbread castle is really popular, plus that painting full of circles is just plain disturbing. The Qs are such a strange bunch…”

“Koori-senpai,” Hairu said, interrupting his tirade.

“What?”

“Let’s get to work.”

It didn’t matter who had won what award.

“...but I’m on break.”

“So am I. But we’re here together now, aren’t we?” she said to Ui’s unamused face, continuing to smile.

“Isn’t this great? We have tons of things to do. It really does fit us better to be holding quinques instead of pencils and scissors, don’t you think? But if you don’t wanna, I’ll just go by myself,” Hairu said and headed toward the venue’s exit.

I have to hurry.

So she could be praised by Arima.

Because we don’t live long.

Whatever reason they had been created for, why they had such a fate imposed on them, none of it mattered. As long as she could get that hand to gently stroke her head again, just like when she was little.

Ui let out a loud sigh behind Hairu, but he quickly raised his head and passed by her.

“We’re going,” he turned around and instructed.

“‘Kay!” Hairu answered.

Previous chapter | | End!

[artificialqueens]

Dress Up in You: Chapter Nine (Trixya) - Eve

A/N: Guys. GUYS. This is so horrifically late and I’m sorry. Back on the wagon with a shorter chapter to ease myself back in. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for every message I received about this fic in my absence. It’s a lesbian cis girl AU and you can find all previous chapters at my author tumblr here or on AO3.

Dress Up In You - Chapter Nine

Trixie’s serving fish, by which she means doing a fantastic impression of a koi karp, mouth wide in puzzled surprise at Violet’s greeting. The little surge of shock/surprise/residual rejected pain stings in her chest like an open wound being prodded by her colleague’s long, acrylic-tipped fingers. Eyes down, Trixie quirks half of her mouth into an unconvincing little smile of acknowledgement and quietly asks “Friend of yours, is she?”.

She wishes she could say she didn’t care about the answer.

Violet nods, and then elaborates “Yeah! She rents a studio in the same building as me, I share a little space there to work on costumes and shit for my burlesque…” and of course Violet is into that, it’s the least surprising thing she’s ever heard. Trixie can totally see her in a vintage corset wiggling seductively by like, gaslight or whatever.

“Oh, that…makes sense. I guess. How d'you know we went on a date?” Trixie asks, cautious, wondering whether Katya’s been venting about the clingy one-night stand from hell, and dreading the response. To her surprise, Violet looks a little sympathetic as she says “I saw her last night, working late. She seemed pretty torn up when we were outside smoking so we just got talking about her weekend. She feels pretty shitty, man”.

Trixie, having spent the last twenty-four hours going over and over their fight in her head, is a little surprised. She’s pretty much come to the conclusion that neither of them were really in the right or the wrong – crossed wires, unrealistic expectations and bad communication maybe, but actual bad behaviour, not so much. “She feels shitty? I mean, she shouldn’t. It’s totally her right to want whatever she wants, you know?” she asks, hating the little wobble in her voice and the blush of embarrassment that springs to her full cheeks.

“Hmm. She’s a tricky one, Katya,” Violet answers, looking thoughtful, “and she’s convinced she’s like, Satan herself. I’m not gonna get into it too much but she’s got a lot going on. Are you gonna see her again?”. Trixie’s taken aback a little by the line of questioning, answering “Um, I don’t really think that’s an option, Vi. I want to actually date someone, and she…doesn’t really want anything, I guess. I’m sure she’d rather forget about it and move on, too”. Violet sort of squints at Trixie, pursing her lips a little in thought. She seems to sense Trixie’s discomfort, how little she wants to get into this, and she just says “I really wouldn’t be too sure about what Katya wants, Trix. I don’t think she knows, like, at all”, before abruptly changing the course of conversation, clapping her delicate hands together decisively and brightly declaring “Now I am ready to take a look at these new matte lips, aren’t you?”.

Trixie is grateful for the distraction, and muses as she and Violet sit swatching products that she seems to have found herself with an unexpected but surprisingly thoughtful new friend. Her actual work that day is pretty fun – she and Violet take a few pictures for the work Instagram account and experiment with the new shades in stock, promoting them to their walk-in customers and trying on a few themselves. By the time her shift is over, Trixie’s feeling pretty upbeat, and she decides to treat herself to one of the new hot pink lip stains that she tried earlier. She’s totally not above admitting that a little retail therapy (especially at a hefty discount!) is always a cheer-up, and she applies the heavily pigmented shade in the staff room before she leaves.

Maybe it’s the positive vibes from her good day, or the little buzz of confidence she feels knowing that her bold new lip colour looks amazing on her, but she doesn’t walk to a different stop tonight, secretly hoping to bump into Katya. Some kind of masochistic, curious bit of her brain wants to see how the other woman would react to her – what she’d say or do, whether she’d be friendly or cold. Violet’s words have given Trixie a lot to think about, and she doesn’t really know what to think. Vi didn’t seem convinced that Katya was as off-limits as she claimed to be herself, and the stuff she said about Katya feeling so down about the weekend was intriguing, to say the least. When Katya isn’t at the stop, Trixie feels oddly disappointed, realising just how much she’d been psyching herself up to see the other woman. She thinks hard about her all the way home, wondering exactly what Violet means about Katya being unsure, and whether it would be crazy or pathetic to have hope.

It’s this state of mind that finds Trixie laying on her stomach like a teenager on her little sofa, her stocking feet sticking up behind her. She types ‘Katya Zamoldchikova’ into Google on her phone, unsure of how to spell the surname but sure she’s at least in the right ballpark. Apparently this name isn’t too usual in Russia, and Trixie’s search returns a lot of obviously-not-Katya results. She narrows her search down by adding the word 'art’, and bingo. She’s rewarded with an Instagram account that seems to be pretty active – the most recent post is a close-up of inky black liquid with tones of blues and greens floating on the surface. The caption reads “The seas are troubled tonight, Brenda. Or do I just not clean my brushes enough?”. Trixie smiles to herself, almost able to hear Katya’s voice saying that out loud. She scrolls down the page, checking out Katya’s art – it’s all great, but the photos she tends to pause on are the ones that show small scraps of the artist herself.

One image shows Katya’s shadowy face reflected in the glass of a framed painting, barely there and ghostly. Trixie has to squint to see it, but when she does, the art melts away and leaves her searching for something she can’t name in the phantom image of Katya’s downturned eyes, her wide, pursed lips. Who are you, really? Trixie thinks, struggling to reconcile the mysterious, quiet-seeming woman in the photograph and the larger-than-life, wisecracking extrovert she knows Katya to be. How much of you did I not get to see?

Trixie knows this is super unhealthy, but on she scrolls, more intrigued with every glance she gets into Katya’s quiet, private life. Small artefacts of her emerge from the images – a bony knob of ankle peeping behind a canvas resting in her lap, a slender wrist in a photo modelling a watchlike jewellery piece she worked on with a sculptor a year ago. Trixie thinks about Katya alone, wonders what she was like when these were taken – dwells for a long time on a looping video of her long, elegant fingers smearing thick paint on a blank surface, teasing the shades that lie in layered blobs out in long, even swirls. The concentration and effortless intensity behind those digits is something Trixie can approximately imagine – after all, it’s not that long ago that it was all focussed on her writhing body. She’d love to be the focus of that calm determined motion, no frantic need or poorly considered lust this time, just slow, deliberate care, as if Trixie was something Katya had thought deeply about and considered worth doing. She sighs at her own dumb thoughts – she sounds like she needs to take a train back to LiveJournal in 2006 or something.

Trixie really does have nothing to lose, Katya-wise, she reasons with herself, and so she allows herself to 'like’ one of Katya’s more recent images – it’s an indirect sliver of contact, okay, but it’s an olive branch nonetheless. She taps the Insta post twice, a little red heart lighting up to confirm that she, Trixie Mattel, likes this. She just has to hope it’s a little better received than the last heart she sent Katya’s way.

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 28 August 2017

Just one comic stood out as a favourite for me this week; Generations: The Archers - Hawkeye & Hawkeye by Kelly Thompson & Stefano Raffaele. Published by Marvel.

Like the previous Generations one-shots, this follows the formula of a modern day hero sent back in time (or wherever) to interact with their predecessor. Also like the previous one-shots, there’s no explanation as to why or how that’s happening, which is a detriment to the overall plot, but here it’s easy to look past.

The main plot of the issue hinges on a straight-forward enough contest of champions to see the “best marksman alive”, with other characters being drawn to a mysterious island...mysteriously. It’s simple, but it allows Kelly Thompson to do what’s best about this issue and that’s character development. It also helps that there’s a good amount of humour throughout the issue that keeps the dialogue zipping along. 

One of the editorial points of the Generations exercise is for modern heroes to learn or be influenced by something from the past (or whenever) heroes and Thompson delivers that in spades with the conversations between Kate and Clint. The mentor/student dynamic is mirrored in the revelation of who’s behind the contest and there’s a nice moment of revelation for Kate.

It’s also really nice to see Stefano Raffaele around again. Especially on a Hawkeye story, since I have fond memories of his art on an earlier Hawkeye series he did with Fabian Nicieza. His work is brighter and cleaner here than then, but it’s no less impressive. There are some very nice panoramas and establishing shots amid strong character work throughout the book, aided by a brighter colour palette from Digikore.

Thompson and Leonardo Romero’s Hawkeye series starring Kate is easily one of my favourite books from Marvel right now, deftly mixing humour, character development, intriguing plotlines, and drop-dead gorgeous artwork and page layouts that remind me of some of the highlights from Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye, while still having its own distinct voice and purpose. This Generations one-shot is a natural extension of that, essentially being Hawkeye #9.1, or maybe #12.1 since this story is supposed to continue (kind of) in #13. This one really feels essential if you’re reading the ongoing Hawkeye series.  

Quick Bits:

Black Magick #7 largely keeps the numerous plates spinning, advancing the various bits in smaller degrees. All of it brought together by some truly gorgeous art by Nicola Scott & Chiara Arena.

| Published by Image

Faith & The Future Force #2 ups the stakes a few times as Timewalker, Ank, Faith, and friends continue to travel through time to try to stop an “evil robot”. It’s still not clear exactly when the present of the series takes place (I’m guessing before Harbinger Renegade #5, but definitely after the end of the Faith ongoing series), especially since other characters are plucked out of different time frames, and we’re still not given any exposition on exactly who this evil robot is and what he’s doing other than messing with time (erasing Adolf Hitler was apparently one of the first things, eliminating the Civil War another), but it’s still entertaining to see them continually throw larger and larger groups at it with reckless abandon. It’s a fun way to “kill the Valiant universe” without actually killing the Valiant universe.

| Published by Valiant

Jean Grey #6 is the first of two X-dips into magic and the supernatural this week, with young Jean turning to Doctor Strange for help in her trip of self-discovery and preparation for the oncoming Phoenix. We also get to see which “spirit” has been dogging Jean since the first issue. Maybe. I say “maybe” because since the first issue Dennis Hopeless has largely been setting up the possibility that things might not be 100% real. And maybe Jean is just crazy. That’s unlikely, but it’s still possible. 

This issue also features some excellent guest art from Paul Davidson. His depictions of the astral plane and trips through the life and times of adult Jean Grey are worth the price of the book alone. It would be nice to see him get some regular work again.

| Published by Marvel

Lady Killer 2 #5 is wow. That’s all I can really say. This is one hell of an explosive end to the series. Joëlle Jones delivers another stunning issue. Do yourself a favour and buy both this series and the first volume. You won’t be disappointed.

| Published by Dark Horse

Optimus Prime #10 gets another of IDW’s Hasbroverse titles up to speed for the First Strike “crossover” that is already underway. That several of the other titles are also still out of sync is a similar problem that Revolution had. The stories are usually very good, but shipping late and out of order ruins momentum and important story beats. Read in a vacuum, though, the individual titles are still excellent and this issue of Optimus Prime is no different.

| Published by IDW

Saban’s Go Go Power Rangers #2, like the first issue, is fun. I was never a fan of the TV shows, but have been greatly enjoying what BOOM! has been doing with the license in comics. Ryan Parrott delivers on a mix of humour, character development, and action, all while Dan Mora continues to show that he should really be one of comics’ breakout talents.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Spawn #277 continues what is shaping up to be one of the most inventive and compelling runs on the title. The team of Darragh Savage and Jason Shawn Alexander have brought an atmosphere of dread and horror to Spawn that I don’t think I’ve seen since the Hellspawn series. I’m really liking this.

| Published by Image

Spider-Gwen #23 is kind of an odd place for a Mary Janes interlude just as the Predators story-arc was hitting a critical point. It’s a decent story by guest creator, Hannah Blumenreich, but it makes me kind of hate MJ. The art is great, though. 

| Published by Marvel

Star Wars: Jedi of the Republic - Mace Windu #1 reminds you that you need more Denys Cowan in your life. His art here is a little more restrained than I’m used to, but it still shines throughout this first issue. There’s also some nice humour peppered throughout the script by Matt Owens that lightens the mood for this otherwise action-packed debut.

| Published by Marvel

Uncanny Avengers #26, excluding the Generations one-shots, is one of the first post-Secret Empire stories without said branding to deal with the fallout. It also gives a first step to an idea as to where Jim Zub may be going with the book as he makes it his own, bringing Scarlet Witch back into the fold for the first time since I think Rick Remender’s run, a kind of redemptive arc, but I had thought that a lot of the animosity between her and Rogue had been stitched up. Apparently not. Like the ruins of Avengers Mansion their still camping out in, it gives a sense of rebuilding for the team.

It’s also nice to see Zub reunited with one of his Thunderbolts compatriots, Sean Izaakse. I liked his art there and thought it was a shame he only did a couple of issues.

| Published by Marvel

Vampirella #6 extends Paul Cornell’s run on the series by the first of a two-issue arc. It also sees Andy Belanger of Southern Cross take over art chores, which in itself should make the comic an instant purchase. It’s an interesting trip through Vampi’s psyche personified through dream with some really, really nice artwork.

| Published by Dynamite

X-Men Blue #10 is the second of the X-dips into magic and the supernatural this week, as Beast hooks up with the Goblin Queen again. It also brings yet another alternate X-Men team to the title, since the original five and dimension-displaced, mind-wiped mutants from the Ultimate universe aren’t enough. To his credit, though, Cullen Bunn is really making this work. I’m not as keen on another rehash of the Jean/Scott romance plot, with an added Wolverine stand-in for a love triangle, for what seems like the millionth time. Bunn is very good with the characterizations, but seriously I think this plot has been done to death.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Animosity #9, Bankshot #3, Black Panther #17, Black Panther & The Crew #6, BPRD: Devil You Know #2, Crosswind #3, Deadly Class #30, Deadpool #35, Doctor Strange & The Sorcerers Supreme #11, Dungeons & Dragons: Frost Giant’s Fury #5, Ghostbusters 101 #6, GI Joe #8, The Normals #4, Paklis #4, Planetoid: Praxis #6, Rapture #4, Ringside #11, Saga #46, Star Wars #35, Thanos #10, There’s Nothing There #4, TMNT: Dimension X #5, Victor LaValle’s Destroyer #4

Recommend Collections:  Archie - Vol. 4, Bullseye: Colombian Connection, Copperhead - Vol.3, Jupiter’s Legacy - Vol. 2, Magdalena: Reformation, Old Guard - Vol. 1: Opening Fire, The Other Side - Special Edition, Providence - Act 3

d. emerson eddy is unsure what he made anyone do and might like to apologize for it, maybe, but he doesn’t know what it was. Was it the slightly charred red peppers?

[hollywayblog]

March Soundtrack

Having lost our beloved Evie on the 9th of this month, I’ve been – in a word – sad. In more words: bereft, devastated, guilt-ridden, lost, heartbroken, depressed, a total fucking mess.

I’ve had just over a week to indulge my grief, but I have deadlines and an empty bank account to worry about, so I have no choice but to look to the future. I don’t think I’ll feel consistently happy or generally okay for a very long time, and I feel the tendrils of my usually-dormant depression caressing the weakest areas of my brain, trying to convince me it would be easier to just fall in a heap. But I know that’s not the answer. I don’t want to be miserable, and so back to work I go, grabbing whatever sunshine happens to break through the melancholia with an iron fist.

My March soundtrack may appear objectively depressing, but it’s really been therapeutic. The last thing you wanna listen to when you’re feeling like shit is people talking about how happy or in love they are or how fun their life is. I have a pretty demanding tendency to go numb, so it’s important for me to have things that bring my true emotions to the forefront. Not necessarily to be ‘dealt with’, but simply to be felt. I think we underestimate how vital it is to feel our feelings.

These songs are like medicine to me right now, and collectively this playlist is nostalgic, existential, emotive, sad and maybe even a little bit hopeful. And that’s March Holly in a nutshell.

I hope this playlist might be healing to someone else, too. Enjoy.

While you listen, here are some words about a few standout tracks…

“Chelsea Hotel No. 2” by Leonard Cohen – This is so much more than a song about an ex. Chelsea Hotel is about the places – both in the world and in your mind – you can’t go without thinking of that one person. The verses are fond remembrances of a youthful affair, while the chorus dwells somewhat bitterly on the subject’s faults. Lyrically this song is just stunning, and the simple arrangement really lets them shine. I discovered Chelsea Hotel through Lana Del Rey’s cover, which is hauntingly beautiful but unfortunately only available on her Vevo channel. Check out that version if you haven’t already!

Favourite Line – And clenching your fist, for the ones like us, who are oppressed by the figures of beauty // You fixed yourself // You said “well, never mind. We are ugly, but we have the music.”

Feels Like – Some things aren’t meant to be.

“Mama You Been on My Mind” by Jeff Buckley – Originally penned by Bob Dylan, this song is thematically incredibly similar to Chelsea Hotel No. 2. Both are a kind of sweet and undemanding nostalgia over lovers long gone, admitting both “you’ve been on my mind” and “I don’t want you back”. These songs are perfect depictions of the way we romanticise the past, even when we know we’re better off having moved on.

Favourite Line – I’m just whispering to myself so I can’t pretend that I don’t know // Mama you’ve been on my mind

Feels Like – Stinking hot day, sparkling water with lemon, deck chair, birds singing, mind wandering.

 “Not a Fighter” by Airling – International Women’s Day on Triple J was just fantastic (apart from all the douchebags on Facebook claiming that ‘bringing girls to the front’ for one fucking day was special treatment. Snore.) Airling’s Not a Fighter was just one of the many great songs by female artists that blessed my ears when I tuned in to support my fellow lasses. I honestly just think this song sounds beautiful and has good lyrics. It’s nice and relaxing. It aint that deep, fam.

Favourite Line – You know I love you but I’m not a fighter

Feels Like – Lazy Sunday morning, slow-dancing and making pancakes.

 “Autumn in New York” by Billie Holiday – I’m crazy about Billie Holiday, and this is probably my favourite song of hers (though with so many to choose from, don’t hold me to that). A change of pace and scenery has seemed mighty appealing lately, and New York and Paris are top of my list, hence: Autumn in New York and April in Paris.

Favourite Line – Autumn in New York is often mingled with pain // Dreamers with empty hands may sigh for exotic lands

Feels Like – A stroll through Central Park; a perfect cliché.

 “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” by Nina Simone – There’s this unique quality to Nina’s voice that I can only describe as honest, and my god it’s beautiful. It’s terrible that she endured so much pain in her life, but it made her voice exquisite; raw and full of anguish. Art, to me, is about connection, and I feel deeply connected to both Nina and myself when I listen to her music. To transform such dreadful heartache into something so beautiful is an invaluable gift.

Favourite Line – Ya know sometimes baby I’m so carefree // With a joy that’s hard to hide // Then sometimes again it seems all I have is worry // And then you’re bound to see my other side

Feels Like – A universal desperation.

 “Mother Earth” by Banks – Oh man was it hard not to cry with this song blasting into my ears 30,000+ feet in the air, nestled among the clouds and the setting sun on the way home from Tasmania, leaving my family and still grieving Evie intensely. I swear to god Mother Earth is a like giant warm cuddle from queen Banks herself, and it’s really taken on a new life for me recently. It’s profoundly comforting, and a reminder to both care for others and allow yourself to be taken care of.

Favourite Line – I know I’m Mother Earth, I see the weather // So I’m not gonna cover up the freckles on my faces // I covered all the bases

Feels Like – Coming home.

 “Golden” by Kingswood – This song is just really bloody nice. You could have a lil bop to it or you could fall asleep to it. It’s calming and soothing and smooth and I’ve been obsessed with it from the first listen. Get around it.

Favourite Line – I can feel you beat // Deep breath // In breath // Out breath // Don’t stop until there’s nothing left

Feels like – A long, late-night drive on a quiet freeway

 “Sam Malone” by City and Colour – I’m at my realest when lying in the dark for hours, blasting the entire City and Colour discography (excluding the 2015 release I wasn’t a fan of). I adore the self-awareness of his lyrics, his beautiful, warm voice – which, I was lucky enough to verify in 2014, is just as amazing live. There’s a lot of City and Colour on this playlist, but Sam Malone in particular always gets me. It’s a pretty simple track, but I have a rather fierce obsession with anonymity and the freedom attached to it. The theme of this song is like a dream to me.

Favourite Line – I know, there is someplace I can go // Where no one knows my name

Feels Like – You’re nothing. You’re anything. You’re everything.

[saranel]

I was planning to ask about it during te summer but I forgot, but better late than never xD So the question is: have you got any headcannons about Kisuke, Yoruichi, Tessai (and maybe also Visored) on the beach? I can see Yoruichi joking about Kisuke's skin colour that burn in the sun (I know from own expirence ;---;), and he just don't look like some one who likes sun, sand and the ocean.

I know from own expirence ;—;

I FEEL YOU, ANON; I, TOO, AM PALE AF.  Not as pale as Kisuke, but it’s still hella annoying to live in a country with an average of 300+ sunny days per year, where everyone gets all nice and bronzed by friggin’ June, while you have to go through the dreaded lobster phase ;-; I blame my mountain-dweller genes.

For actual, written beach shenanigans, I shall direct you here.  But aside from that, yes, I absolutely do have beach headcanons for the shōten crew.  And yes, Kisuke is totally the pasty dork who feels exposure to actual sunlight may fry him alive and only enjoys beach outings from a distance (under the shade, with a drink in hand)

Art by てふ

(cut for more beach headcanons)

Kisuke

Not a huge fan of swimming, but he does know how to swim.

Skinny dipping is an entirely different matter altogether Kidding aside, he does enjoy the sea itself, just not the whole experience with the scorching sun, the sand that gets everywhere, the noise etc, which is why he’s far more amenable to a swim in the afternoon, especially at dusk, when he can just float around in peace and think 

Lobster King; spends the first night after a beach outing having lotion and/or yoghurt plastered all over his back.  Redness eventually transitions into a decent-looking tan, wonder of all wonders

Always brings a book or a sudoku magazine, which he ends up solving in its entirety a few minutes in, then turns into a Literal 5-year-old whining about when they’re leaving.  Can be pacified via bribery (cold drinks and/or a show, i.e. Yoruichi engaged in some sort of beach game)

Gets trolled when he inevitably falls asleep on his beach chair; people write things on his back with sunscreen, leading to fairly embarrassing partial tanning.

Yoruichi

Tanning Queen, comfortable to keep on laying under the hot sun for hours

Loves beach games, especially rackets.  She may or may not have broken a few on Kisuke’s head over the years, and that number may or may not double when she’s playing with Hiyori.  There is also a frisbee incident We Do Not Speak Of. 

Keeper of the Snacks, ends up eating 73% of the lot

Is always the first one to make fun of Lobster King Kisuke, but she’s also the one who rubs lotion on his back when he gets burnt, chuckling the whole way through

Deliberately sends her ball hurtling at Kisuke and Shinji whenever she can, calling them Doddery Old Codgers who won’t get their asses off their beach chairs, sitting under the shade all day, judging everyone else (see below)

Tessai

Loves underwater activities, especially snorkeling

Don’t challenge him into a breath-holding contest, you will lose, and he will look majestic beating you

Always gets spectacle marks around his eyes and temples because he tans so easily.  Salty Lobster King always teases him for this (because he’s jealous), to which Tessai can only reply with a classy, subtle rebuttal that sends Kisuke sulking and wishing he were back in his Science Man Cave.

The Kids

Jinta is usually the one trolling Kisuke by writing insults on his back with sunscreen. Tessai and Shinji occasionally help, Hiyori films for posterity.

Jinta won’t admit it, but he loves building sandcastles and ~*ironically*~ helps Hacchi out when he’s around (see below) 

Ururu is very into beach games as well: she and Yūshirō have an ongoing beach volley competition they resume every year. 

Ururu loves seashells, she started a collection after Tessai fished out a gorgeous conch for her.  Even Jinta fawned over it, then tried to see if he could hear the sound of the sea off the cavity, which was when the conch-dweller made its presence known and freaked him out.  Ururu, completely unfazed, calmly stabbed it dead with her kanzashi hairpin, and hasn’t let Jinta live this down since 

Yūshirō has mad beach hair game.  Perfect beachy, gentle waves.  The girls (save Mashiro) all low-key hate him for this.

Cinnamon Roll Yūshirō, too good for this world, too pure, gets way too fascinated by jellyfish and is tricked into touching one by a totally innocent and well-meaning Ururu third parties (with credit to @mysteriousshopkeeper). After that painful first lesson, it takes some time for him to get into Jellyfish Fights**, but once he does, he dominates

(** Personal note: In Greece, this is totally A Thing during jellyfish season, at least where I’m from.  I’m talking about saucer jellies, those tiny, flat, transparent little harmless blobs that fit into your palm and secrete some sort of saliva that’s not painful at all, just gross xD  We call those mini jellyfish ‘little glasses,’ and back when I was a kid, Jellyfish Fights got brutal: you’d pelt the other kids with them as hard as you could, which felt at best like a gooey slap, and at worst had the jellyfish explode all over you, and you ended up having to clean jellyfish bits off your hair and fish them out of your swimsuit for hours afterward, lol.  Man, kids can be terrible)

The Visored

Shinji has a love/hate relationship with the beach.  He loves getting primped up for the occasion, picking out his best designer shades and swimsuit, but when he gets there, he’s way too concerned with maintaining his impeccable hair.  He often finds himself sitting in the shade with Kisuke, which clearly never ends well for either of them.

Hiyori spends inordinate amounts of energy trying to get Shinji to mess up his hair or spill stuff on his swimsuit.  It’s the highlight of the beach for her and she nearly always succeeds.  There is an unspoken, ongoing competition going on that only gets worse every year: as it stands now, Hiyori spends months planning her strategy, and Shinji has to take precautions of increasingly ridiculous proportions 

Hacchi makes the most beautiful, elaborate sandcastles (may or may not be maintaining structural integrity with Kidō)

Kensei is always up for any beach game, which prompts Mashiro to join in as well and ruin it for him by taunting him the whole way through

Kensei’s beach snack game is off the charts, but he ends up having to hide them every time Yoruichi is around

Love has to shoo Kisuke away when the latter has finished his book/sudoku and pleads Love for some reading material.  Which Love is usually very generous with, but Kisuke ends up ruining all manga for him when he goes into detailed tirades about the ‘unrealistic physics’ involved.  Love still doesn’t know if he does it on purpose or if he just doesn’t realize it, but he suspects it’s the former.

Lisa offers to share her porn erotica to remedy this, which both Kisuke and Love appreciated at first, but had to turn down when Hiyori smacked them both “THERE’S KIDS AROUND” for moral reasons.

Rose spends the whole day in anticipation of the afternoon bonfire, when he’ll get to whip out his guitar, but Mashiro and Kensei nearly always end up ruining it for them all when they get into a fight and they all leave the beach, sulking (but no-one as hard as Rose, dammit, he wrote a new song this time)