#i wish there was a little more variety available

[sapphireswimming]

Remember the Bayeux Tapestry meme? I got the urge to make some for Gundam 00

[ms-demeanor]

fully understand and agree about reiki and prayer and herbs and the rest of that bullshit, but i'm a little confused as to how chiropractic care got lumped in with those

Chiropractors are quacks, full stop.

There is nothing that a chiropractor can do for you that a physical therapist couldn't do better or that a massage therapist wouldn't be able to assist with.

There are specific conditions that can cause joint subluxation, but unless you have one of them, your joints are probably perfectly fine where they are and if they are not that is something that would be better (and more safely) assessed by someone who is actually qualified to provide some variety of medical care (which chiropractors are not, they are licensed to provide chiropractic care, which is pseudoscience on your spine, which is a bad place to do pseudoscience). And if you do have those conditions you shouldn't let a chiropractor touch you with a ten foot pole because you are at even *more* risk of harm from spinal manipulation than the general population is.

When I was in college and didn't have health insurance and was working at a coffee shop I couldn't afford $150 out of pocket to go see a doctor, but I could afford $45 to see a chiropractor.

What the chiropractor didn't know - because she wasn't a doctor and didn't have the diagnostic tools for this kind of thing - was that I didn't have back pain because my spine was out of place, I had back pain because I had a bone tumor in my spine, and her adjustment fractured one of my lumbar vertebrae.

When I did get insurance I finally figured out what was wrong (after using a cane and dealing with excruciating back pain from my cracked spine I had to quit my job at the coffee shop because I couldn't reliable stand on shift) when I got an MRI. The pain was treated with muscle relaxants, oral steroids, and physical therapy, none of which would have broken my fucking back.

Chiropractic, even when practiced "competently" by an expert with the most modern and most rigorous scientific training available, is still more dangerous and less effective than other interventions. All of which is aside from the fact that there are a shitload of chiropractors out there who will claim to treat asthma and autism, which they can't do and are shitty for claiming to be able to do.

Top to bottom, all through its history, chiropractic is a scam that hurts more people than it helps and because of our fucked up medical care in the US specifically has been largely predatory on people who can't afford real treatment for their illnesses and injuries.

Also, if you are ever going to see a chiropractor - though i wish you wouldn't - never, ever, ever, EVER let them manipulate your neck. Chiropractic spinal manipulation of the neck can lead to severing the arteries in your neck, causing a stroke. This HAS killed people, and as long as chiropractors keep doing it, it will kill more people.

Fuck - and I cannot emphasize this enough - chiropractic.

[gay-dorito-dust]

Okay, so hear me out, with that sweet reader I would love to see her finding out Mizu is a female. But she doesn’t react and doesn’t change how she treats Mizu. When it is talked about after some time she just says, “it doesn’t change that your Mizu. And I am here for you.”

Mizu was washing the grime off of their skin and cleansing their more serious wounds carefully and diligently in prevention of any and all possible infection within the waters of a nearby lake before reaching for the needle and thread.

Meanwhile you were trudging along the small pathway through the woods towards the lake whilst carrying some freshly cleaned and sewn up change of clothes for Mizu, a temporary substitute for them to wear whilst you were had at work with repairing their old clothing; after having learnt rather quickly that they were particular towards their own style of clothing, after trying to show Mizu the variety of clothing made available in the most recent town you visited.

Nothing there seemed to make all that much of a difference to Mizu and soon or later you dropped the topic of clothes all together, and quickly returning to search for the reason why you were in town in the first place. The rest of the town visit was nothing more then a blur of blood and steel, all you remembered of the outcome was Mizu being hurt and their clothes were ripped and torn in a multitude of ways, stained with drying blood.

So when you finally made it to the cleaning that gave way to the lake presented before you and were about to voice your presence to Mizu, your eyes looked up from the clothes in your arms to a sight that easily took away your breath;

There Mizu was sitting at the edge of the lake, their bare body dripping wet, as raven black hair clutching onto their back as the goosebumps upon Mizu’s skin were awoken from the cold breeze that passed now and then. You could see everything that was once well hidden, and all you could think was the same thought you’ve had since first meeting Mizu; ethereal.

‘Apologies for the intrusion Mizu.’ You smiled at them as you continued to make your way towards a tree stump, placing down the clothes upon it neatly before picking up the torn, bloodied clothes Mizu came to bathe in the the lake in, taking them into your arms before looking back at Mizu, who was looking at you with an unreadable expression. ‘I just came to bring you a fresh set of clothes, just for the meantime.’ You gestured to the bundle of clothes in your arms only to receive a stare in response. ‘I’ll be leaving now, enjoy the rest of your bathe Mizu.’ You added before taking your leave back through the small trail through the woods.

Mizu on the other hand was uncertain how to handle to you now knowing, though it was purely accidental but that didn’t matter because you now knew, and yet your lack of reaction -or any that would’ve been clear as crystal upon your face- was Mizu’s main point of intrigue. You didn’t change the way you acted towards them, if anything you continued with your task as though nothing was new, nothing had altered the way you perceived them. It was perplexing experience to say the least for them and Mizu vowed to catch you up about this later on, but until then stiching up their wounds and getting changed was their top priority.

It went before long that everyone expect you had since fell asleep, Mizu chose to take this as a sign to strike up a conversation with you in regard to earlier; not wanting to miss out a single detail they wanted to ask before you go to sleep. So just as you were about to succumb to sleep yourself, you were about to wish Mizu goodnight as you walked past, only to be stopped when you felt their hand grab ahold of your wrist; Stopping you in your tracks completely.

‘Mizu, is everything alright?’ You asked and just like that the words left Mizu’s mouth faster than their brain could’ve processed them. ‘You saw me, down by the lake.’ Mizu started, their hand on your wrist squeezed a little tighter. ‘You saw all of me and yet didn’t bat an eye,’ Mizu now looked you dead in the eyes, ‘why, why didn’t you?’

‘Does my answer affect our relationship going forward?’ You questioned them softly as you sat yourself down next to Mizu, with patience and kindness at the ready, just like you always had.

‘I’ll base my judgment upon your response.’ Mizu replied, making you smile, they never wanted to give away how they felt so soon into the conversation, especially when there was some important and vital information for them to gain from it. ‘What I saw back at the lake, it doesn’t change that you’re Mizu and so I didn’t see it becoming of me to change my attitude towards you because of it.’ You began, looking Mizu into their eyes to prove your seriousness about this. ‘And I want you to also know that I’m still here for you, from now until we’re forced to part ways.’

Mizu didn’t say anything but their grip on your wrist immeditly went slack, giving you free range to move again but you chose not to. Not wanting to leave their side just yet. ‘I don’t know whether that’s the response you were looking for but I hope it was the one you needed to hear. I am here for you Mizu. Always.’ You finished before heading off to sleep.

[vendetta-if]

Hello

Winter break is over... and I'm not handling it well 🥲 (plz wish me luck).

But I was hoping that you could write (if you have time) some fluffy facts about Luka and Jackals relationship to counteract the soul sucking parasite that is school and work.

Thats all, hope you have a wonderful day! Byeeeeeeeee

Hang in there, anon and all the other readers 🥺 Time flies and soon it would hopefully be Summer break. And of course, I’d love to talk more about Luka and Jackal 🤭☺️

Luka was the one who ended up confessing his feelings first. It was not planned whatsoever, and one morning, he was just overwhelmed by his feelings and finally acknowledged it. (You can read the side story about it here [part 1, part 2]), if you haven’t 😉)

Even though Jackal has always been pretty insecure about the glaring scar on his lips, Luka has always been fond of it and tried to make Jackal feel more comfortable with it.

During the early days of them sleeping together, neither of them had ever stayed the night. Most of the time, it was Jackal who came over to Luka’s place instead of the reverse, and one night, Luka just grabbed his arm, stopping him from getting off the bed and leaving. Luka was the first one who asked him to stay and against his better judgement, Jackal relented.

Jackal loves laying his head on Luka’s chest and just listens to his heartbeat. His haemokinesis makes it easier for him to feel and listen to heartbeat and he is sure that he would be able to pick out Luka’s in a crowd of other people.

Jackal enjoys being the small spoon (not that he will ever say it out loud). It makes him feel safe and even though he’s more than capable of defending himself, it just feels nice to finally have someone he trusts so much that he can let his guard down completely.

Luka is on a mission to catch Jackal up on some movies that he likes and the ones that he thinks Jackal will like. Jackal’s not a film buff like Luka, but the thing he enjoys the most out of their movie nights is seeing Luka just talking enthusiastically about the movies. He thinks it’s cute that Luka has a dorky side that only he and some people Luka’s close to are privy of.

Jackal usually enjoys making simple breakfast for both himself and Luka whenever he wakes up earlier than Luka, like tomato and egg stir fry with white rice or steamed egg. Is also the one who first introduced Luka to the joy of eating instant ramen. (Jackal’s okay in cooking, but when he was living by himself, he rarely cooked and mostly just ordered takeouts).

Ever since Jackal spends more and more of his time at Luka’s place, Luka has started to pay more attention to what stuff are in his pantry and fridge. He wants to make sure that whatever food Jackal wants to cook or eat is available. Of course, since Luka’s mostly busy, he has relegated that task mostly to the house butler, Sebastian, who also takes initiative to learn cooking more variety of Asian food, specifically Chinese food.

Not sure whether this is fluffy, but I’m gonna include it here anyway 😂 Jackal likes to give Luka some love nips/nibbles hard enough to draw a little blood before kissing and licking it closed. Luka’s just used to it by now and just considers it Jackal’s version of giving hickies, but without actually leaving marks behind.

[oftenwantedafton]

The Perfect Girl - Dave Miller/William Afton x Female Reader

Chapter 2

Rating - Explicit

No warnings for this chapter

Also available on AO3

You follow Dave Miller forward into the darkness.

The flashlight’s beam seems to be getting more wan the further in you go, as if the shadows are devouring that feeble offering of illumination.

“Dave, wait, please, you’re going too fast.”

It’s uncanny how well the man moves in that dimly lit space. As if he’s intimately familiar with it, the layout imprinted in his mind.

The security guard halts. You finally reach his side again. It’s difficult to make out much of his features now. The light flickers and your breath hitches.

“Don’t worry. I know my way around.”

“You do? How often have you been here?”

“A fair few times.” You know he’s smiling even if you can’t quite see it. That odd smile of his that’s a little too wide, nearly on the verge of being creepy. That’s how everything with him is. He’s almost handsome except there’s something cruel in the line of his brow and the angle of his jaw and the way his mouth sets. Disdain for everything around him. Except when he looks at you. Then the harsh lines soften and his pale eyes darken.

He’s even almost charming at times, except there’s something unsettling buried beneath the polite and kind exterior. You’d initially just meant to pay him back for loaning you money. Somehow it’s become a deeper debt. He’s always around, every time you look up from whatever task you’re performing at work. You swear you hear footsteps following you in the mall parking garage sometimes, but when you turn around you don’t see anyone.

So why are you here with him now? Was it really just boredom? Curiosity? Why did he look at you sometimes as if he wanted to absolutely devour you? Why weren’t you more afraid?

“Maybe we should turn back,” you say uncertainly.

“Turn back? No, I don’t think so. We’ve come this far. It’s just a little ways down this hall, I promise.”

The flashlight finally surrenders and you gasp again, automatically reaching out, and Dave’s hand finds yours. His fingertips are calloused and his skin is very, very warm.

“I’ve got you,” he says.

***

Afton wishes he was lying.

The switch to restore power really is just ahead. He supposes he could take a detour. It’s just so pleasant being there with you in the darkness, in the place that’s always been his real home, better than any house he’s ever dwelled in. How soft your hand was in his. How long had it been since he’d held one. He closes his eyes and inhales deeply. Cherry blossom today. This may be a new favorite fragrance.

“I’ve got you,” he says, and that is very nearly the truth. He almost has you right where he wants you. So close. He thinks he can push you toward it. Just a gentle nudge. And if not, well.

He’d made plans for that as well.

He tugs and it pulls you off balance. Your body collides with his. You’ve never been so close to him before. He’s nearly drunk off the feel of it. And the sounds you make, those little gasps for air…how he savors every one of those. How he wants to make your struggle to breathe even louder, lost in the throes of whatever he’s doing to you with his hands or his mouth or…

Not yet. He’s waited this long. He can wait a little longer.

He moves forward and you keep pace with him. Finally reaches the wall and feels for the switch, shoving his weight upward. There’s a loud clanking sound as it slots into place and a sizzle as the electricity begins flowing throughout the building. The overhead fluorescents flicker on and his companion sighs with relief, releasing his hand. Pity, that.

“There we are. Ready to go have some fun?”

“Okay,” you say softly.

His grin widens.

***

There is a lot to explore.

You find it hard to imagine such a large place was just walled up, concealed for who knows how long and for who knows what reason.

You’ve never seen such a vast arcade. Such a huge variety. So many pinball machines and crane machines and lanes for skee ball. Dave helps you up onto the stage and lets you peek behind the curtain to view the animatronics. You’re not sure how you feel about them yet. They’re kind of neat, but kind of creepy.

Kind of like Dave himself, you think.

You admire the fading crayon drawings previous visitors have left behind, affixed to the checkerboard patterned walls. You wonder yet again why this place was abandoned. Was it simply not a marketable franchise anymore? Were people no longer impressed with the animatronic technology, seeking entertainment in digital and virtual forms instead, the advancing game technology making these pixel offerings obsolete? You think it’s somewhat tragic.

You wander back to the arcade area, Dave trailing behind, and decide on a game called Princess Quest. You thumb a quarter into the slot, disappointed when nothing happens.

“You can’t use regular money. You need one of these,” Miller says, handing you a Faz Token. The bronze colored disc has a picture of Freddy Fazbear waving and bears the slogan Are you ready for Freddy?

“Oh. Thanks.” You fit the coin into the slot and the title screen appears. “It’s working!”

“Told you so.” He moves beside you to watch you play. You haven’t done any retro gaming in a while but you think you do a decent job progressing until the Game Over message appears. “Not bad. Try again and I’ll help you.”

He takes your hand and presses another token into it, then moves behind you. You push the coin into the slot and position your right hand fingers over the buttons, the left on the joystick. You feel his hands slide over yours.

“I…I don’t think I can play like this…” you stammer nervously.

“Of course you can.” His head is bent, his lips by your ear. You can’t help but shiver at the feeling of his warm breath there, his mouth so close. “You’re too tense. You’re working against yourself.” His fingers move against yours, guiding you. You’d never noticed how long his fingers were before, how large his hands are. They dwarf yours, nearly swallowing them up. “That’s it. Better. Just relax. Let me do all the work.”

“Dave, I…” You don’t even know what to say. Your heart is pounding. He’s no longer pushing you into the controls. He weaves his fingers between yours. The Game Over screen reappears.

“Well it seems I’m a little out of practice,” he murmurs. You don’t think he’s looked at the screen even once this entire time. You hear him inhale deeply. “You must forgive me for saying this, but your scent is intoxicating. I can’t get enough of it.” He releases one of your hands and uses it to tuck a swathe of hair behind your ear, his face pressing against the side of your neck.

You’re too startled to even react. You’ve never had anyone touch you like this. You’ve had boyfriends, sure, but it had never been this…deliberately slow and sensual. Intimate. He’s so, so close. As if he wants to press himself into your skin.

Now he’s turning your face to his, fingers gentle but firm along your jaw. You allow it. You allow him to drag his thumb beneath your bottom lip, to press his mouth to yours.

It feels good.

This sensation is new for you, too. This isn’t the way a teenager kisses. This is a grown man old enough to be your father parting your lips and touching his tongue against yours. Your stomach somersaults and you feel a warmth spread lower.

Dave draws back, a little breathless, the eyes that look at you heavy lidded. He does indeed look intoxicated. And ravenous. You’ve never seen his eyes this black.

“Do you like it? Freddy’s, I mean,” he adds.

You nod, even though you don’t think that’s what he means at all.

***

You will never know the amount of restraint it takes to leave things there for now.

How much William wants to shove you against the machine and tear your clothing off and have his way with you right then and there.

But he wants to take his time with you. Savor you. So he forces himself to shut the power off again and lead you from the abandoned pizzeria. For now, you’ll be safe. You’ll see the sunlight outdoors and return home to your bedroom that still likely bears much of your childhood delights in it, your thoughts anything but. He’d kissed you and you’d enjoyed it; of that he has no doubt. He’s started you down the path of your desecration, leading you by the hand.

Returning to his house that evening is disappointing. He can’t wait until he finally leaves here and brings you with him. He’s already begun planning the living space he’ll create for you inside his beloved, actual home. Sound proof, with all the necessities and creatures comforts you could want for. Some precautions, in case things did not quite go to plan, if you were perhaps a bit reluctant at first. He knows when the time is right he will take you and he will keep you, not in the stasis the dead children occupy, but alive and warm, his little secret hidden in the heart of the establishment, all for him, for as long as he desires. It will take some time to get things ready, of course, but that’s not a problem.

William Afton is a very patient man.

[ladygreenwithenvy]

Taste-Testing for the Merchant of the Depths

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆝 ‧̍̊˙· 𓆝.° ｡˚𓆛˚｡ °.𓆞 ·˙‧̍̊ ‧̍̊˙· 𓆝.° ｡｡˚°.𓆞 ·˙‧̍̊⋆.˚｡ 𓇼

Category: General, Slight Fluff

Characters included: Azul Ashengrotto, Prefect (Gender Neutral)

Oneshot Prompt: Azul wins a game and has the Prefect taste a variety of new drinks for the Mostro Lounge’s new menu for this upcoming fall season. No drink tastes like the next, but at least you get to spend some time with a certain merman…

In honor of: @quartzztwst

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆝 ‧̍̊˙· 𓆝.° ｡˚𓆛˚｡ °.𓆞 ·˙‧̍̊ ‧̍̊˙· 𓆝.° ｡｡˚°.𓆞 ·˙‧̍̊⋆.˚｡ 𓇼

“Now, now Prefect” Tutted Azul, his gloved hand gently pushing that suspiciously beautiful glass of a drink with a color you didn’t think was possible you could find in liquid form.

“It’s simply a taste test, we had our fun back in the Board Game Club, and last I recalled, I won our little bet; lest you wish for me to remind you the purpose of this evening’s rendezvous?”

You shook your head in a surrendered manner, knowing full well why you were sitting at an empty table within the walls of Mostro Lounge.

During a Board Game Club, you and Azul played a simple strategy game with an added stake for some won, where the winner has to do a simple favor for the other. Unsurprisingly, Azul won. It was probably not your smartest move to suggest a strategy game, you regret not suggesting a game revolved around luck, especially when you know how much this particular Housewarden detested them.

“You don’t need to remind me just…. Why does it look so….. Neon Green?” You’re half convinced that Azul just had Floyd mix up every green chemical available in the academy’s Laboratory.

“We’re making new drinks for the halloween season. I proposed that this year’s limited time drinks should be based on different common potions in popular fiction and monsters. This notable one is based on a potion ingredient” Azul replies, his tone audibly relaxed

“Oh, you’re having me drink Frog’s Breath. Stellar, man.” You hum. "The last time I saw a guy drink that, he didn't wake up, but sure. Let's repeat that particular cycle."

“I’m sorry, Frog’s Breath?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not a reference from your world…”

“Fucking bitter. Throw it out.”

“How honest” Remarks Azul gently, however his body language exhibited the complete opposite. He was surprised by the Prefect’s truthfulness. He was well aware of the sharp tongue you had, but to see you be so blunt had even shocked him. Not that he minded, of course. There’s a reason he confided in you for it.

“It’s like all you did was blend limes and every sour candy ever. Chill it out a bit, damn” The Prefect grumbles.

“Is it truly that sour? Goodness, I had created this one with Floyd and was hoping for a more bittersweet aftertaste. I was under the impression that we had balanced it well enough.” Azul looked down at his notebook and took quick notes, pushing the end of his quill. Truthfully, he had tasted it beforehand when trying to fix the bitterness. He just wanted to see your reaction to the taste. Afterall, there's a group that panders to these types of drinks- but they're not worth making and selling if they only pander to the minority.

“Is the sweetness in bittersweet in the room with us right now?” Asks the Prefect sarcastically, to which Azul only rolled his eyes. That of course following a scoff. “This might have given Riddle’s famous oyster tart a run for its money for uniqueness.”

Azul knew for a fact that your last line was by no means a compliment, but then again, none of what you said fell under praise. “Alright, alright. You’ve made your point. Next drink”

You were handed water to wash the first one down. You leaned back against the smooth leather seating of the cafe, allowing the cool atmosphere to relax before you heard the sound of a plate pressed against the marble table. You opened your eyes, and watched as Jade set down your second mystery drink and bowed- leaving to return to the kitchen.

It was so cute and pink. And the frosting was white and frothy. Upon closer inspection, it looks like there’s strawberries too. They’re even cut up to look like hearts. It’s positively adorable. You guessed in your head that it was most likely based on a love potion.

You didn’t think twice before sipping it. Enticement was on the playing field and Azul took instant note of that.

He also took notice of your reaction, trying to ascertain your final statement to the beverage before you could say it. You swallowed it swiftly and smacked your lips. Once again the drink left you nothing short but surprised.

“Cocaine might be easier to consume than this, but fuck was it delightful”

“Goodness,” Azul smiled from disbelief. At this point, he found your colorful honesty to be nothing short of entertaining. He found himself more eager to hear your reactions than to your critiques. Uhm- not that he was avoiding them, of course.

“Too sweet?” He asks, though it was obviously in a rhetoric sense.

“Far too sweet, but there’s a charm to it” You’re saying this genuine. You loved sweet drinks, and this was no exception. As cloying as it was, you couldn’t seem to stop yourself from taking more and more sips. You smiled. Delighted by it.

“Sort of tastes like these super sweet bobas back at home, they had lots of caramel and whipped cream.. But this one is just as good…”

Azul’s eyes would perk up at that little detail. You did not speak much of your home, and the merman knew better than to pry anyone’s past like that. Surely, even he had some limits when it came to prying into your business (Not like it would be easy anyway). But there was this care in your voice as you reminisce about something so small. To him, it was actually quite sweet.

Maybe even sweeter than that drink you were being so giddy about.

“... Let’s head on to the next drink, okay?”

It was the last drink, the fifth one you noted.

Thank goodness it was too. After that pink drink, you really only took necessary sips. They were pretty good after that, but you were getting full just by looking at them.

But this last one was… something.

It was nothing like the others. It stood out, but not for the most positive of reasons.. It was so plain looking that your first instinct was to question if the Octa-Trio was pulling your leg here.

It was dark green, but that was it. No gummies in the drink to make it look a bit more presentable. No . The liquid looked thick enough to perhaps be a simple smoothie. Not that you would complain if it was just a smoothie, of course. But it was curious. What an anticlimactic end.

“This is a separate one from the menu. Jade insisted that we make these healthy shakes directed for the student body, on account of how hard working they’re being during the making of their stations for this year’s Halloween. We’re also making fruit smoothies” Explains the second year with a relaxed hum, fixing his silver frames before glancing back at you

You were aware that Azul was part of the Halloween Committee this year, along with Jade. That explains this suspiciously red flaggy token of benevolence.

Not wanting to waste time, you once more picked up the glass

You lifted up the glass, and took a very light sip from the straw.

You perked up.

“Oh!” You took another sip.

“Okay, wait, this isn’t so bad” You comment, your expression relaxed. “Spinach with banana, those are the main ingredients with this one… and other fruits too? It’s better than I thought it’d be” You hum, taking another.

“Though, I’m curious, there’s this one thing that- Ah?!” You yelped, and quickly pushed the drink away from you.

Concerned, Azul stops taking notes immediately. He had his own serving of the same drinks you were having this whole time, and while he quietly jotted down his own opinions, he had been listening to yours. When he drank from this one, he found nothing wrong in particular.

He took another sip from his own to try and discern it. “Spinach, oats, banana, milk, apples…. Wait a minute, something’s in here that’s not in the- Hm?!”

It was then that he understood why Yuu yelped in such a way and struggled to speak. His tongue was paralyzed. Azul didn’t even need to put two and two together.

This was the work of a mushroom. And there's only one audacious eel in this dorm to have enough gall to mess with any of Azul's recipes for the sake of "Bringing his findings in the limelight."

In less than a minute, he found himself pushing that glass of water to you as a way to motion to wash it down. Right after that he stood from his seat-

"JAAAAAADE!!"

Note to self, never do taste testing for the Octa-trio, even if your life depends on it.

At least the pink drink was good.

Author's Note

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆝 ‧̍̊˙· 𓆝.° ｡˚𓆛˚｡ °.𓆞 ·˙‧̍̊ ‧̍̊˙· 𓆝.° ｡｡˚°.𓆞 ·˙‧̍̊⋆.˚｡ 𓇼

Hope you liked my first actual oneshot thingy here.

This was a present for Miss @quartzztwst , I hope you liked it! I wanted to make something simple, but lighthearted as an easy read ^-^

I hope to improve better and faster as I learn how to write here on Tumblr. I'm quite new when it comes to uploading this sort of stuff like this... Still, there will be longer and more fluffier fics.

Thank you! Buenas noches 💜

[lichenes]

Hey, thanks for answering my last ask. I was wondering if you could do somewhat of a meet-cute for the reader and Swann Arluad's character in Romantics anonymous, i just can't get the idea of enjoying good chocolate with the attractive chocolatier. Thanks again, much love 💕💕💕

I wish he had played a bigger role in the movie cuz he looks so cute in that outfit<33 I couldn't quite grasp the personality of Antoine but hopefully I didn't mischaracterise him too much ;A; Enjoy!! CW: mint chocolate mentions... for anyone who doesn't like it SFW wc: 477

_____✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ … ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ … ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ … ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿_____

At first Antoine worked in "The Chocolate Mill" as a way to make a quick buck. He would've never imagined this would just be his life. It wasn't a dead end job by all means and Mr. Benoît paid him quite well so he wasn't complaining.

Lovely as working there was, his... other needs weren't met that often. Tired from the day he would lay down in bed and even after showers, smell the chocolate on his hands, clothes and bedding. It was driving him mad. He loved chocolate, he appreciated the floral, citrusy and tangy hints the variety of chocolates provided.

He wished that the love he had for chocolate would one day be translated into a love for a person. Many clients would rotate in and out of the shop but he never had the (dis)pleasure of taking on a challenge which was customer service.

Since Angelique turned out to be a chocolatier far more experienced than Antoine or Ludo one of them would be appointed the cashier role, rotating every week. This week it was Antoine's turn.

"Oh this is lovely!" Said someone whilst Antoine was chatting with Magda in the back. "Give me a minute." He said putting on his hat. "How can I help you toda-" He stood there, unable to move as if struck by lightning. Quickly he regained his composure and went into his usual spiel about the different kinds of chocolate available in the store.

"If you're a fan of mint you'll love this one." He said breaking off a piece of the bar. You ate it. "Ooh, this one is great, I'll take this one, definitely." You looked at him curiously. "Can I get another piece?" He nodded and broke off one more. You took it in your hand and boldly told him to... open his mouth.

His face got beet red at the request but he obeyed. "That's... that's lovely..." You weren't sure which part of the interaction he was talking about but, you had your suspicions.

"And do you have a loyalty card?" He asked, begging whatever was listening for the answer to be negative. "No but I'd love to get one!" You said cheerfully, bearing a huge smile on your face, no doubt from the about to be purchased chocolate. It melted Antoine's heart just like chocolate left for too long in the sun.

"Great! Can get your number?" You giggled. "Sure but you'll have to take me out to dinner later." He steadied his breathing and answered. "I wouldn't mind doing that..." Your face got a little hot and you gave him your number. He explained the perks that came with the card and you thanked him.

"It was lovely to meet you ange..." He said, emboldened by your reciprocation. "Call me." You gestured with a smile. Maybe his lonely chocolate days were truly over?

_____✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ … ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ … ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ … ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿_____ masterlist

[sweetlikehoneystingslikeabee]

Can we get Riddler's reaction to SO coming home with an injured animal, maybe with a side of 'no, we are not keeping it' but they end up keeping it anyway?

"We are not keeping the damn thing-" Riddler Party x S/O

Oh this is something I'm very familiar with LMAO. I tried to include a variety of animals here.

Not to be lame or a square or w/e but as a general reminder, if you ever find injured wildlife, please contact your local shelters or animal control. These are fantasy scenarios and in most cases- wildlife is either better left alone, you will need strict temporary guidance or they need to be taken care of by professionals. In many places, you need a license to care and keep undomesticated animals.

TW: animal harm and abuse, mentions of dog fighting, medical procedures

Gotham

It all happens so quickly one day when the pair are driving in Gotham. His S/O notices what looks like a small brown bundle in the middle of the road and panics for Edward to stop. Before he can really get an explanation, they're shouting over their shoulder about a turtle, taking off their jacket. Then he's the one panicking as he watches them stop traffic to scoop up the animal.

The painted turtle has a huge crack in it's shell and a hurt leg. Not knowing what to do, they take it to a vet to see if anything can be done. Surgery, a fiberglass covering... A free sexing to determine the turtle is otherwise a healthy girl. Edward is already devouring the informational packet given to him in the waiting room. A lot he already knew but, well, it pays to learn more!

He's probably one of the few riddlers that doesn't actually say "no we can't keep it." There might be a brief moment where he questions his S/O if they even want a turtle- for the most part it's kind of... fascinating? They keep visiting the turtle in the hospital before she's released and he asks so very many questions about care and what they've been doing for her-

Before it's even been officially decided she's coming home and not being released back out, he's getting a tank ready. Heat lamps, a UVA/UVB light, pond, a dock for basking. A very strange amount of decorations related to questions marks and his special interests that you might not expect decor for.

This turtle won the lottery. She gets a very fancy omnivore diet with vitamin and mineral supplements. He even ends up cultivating species appropriate plants in the tank for her to enjoy and snack on occasionally. She's never bothered much other than the routine tank cleanings. Edward just likes watching her and watching his S/O gush over how pretty she is.

If anyone asks to pick her up, he will give a speech on how actually, human contact stresses them out so if you could never ask again, he'd appreciate it. He intends on her making it many more decades despite not having any clue how old she is now.

Penguin is going to hear so many fun facts about turtles now. Oswald might consider trying to murder him... again.

60s

A baby bird that fell from it's nest. He watched as his S/O tried and failed to reintroduce the bird back to it's mother. He even helped them weave a fake nest and put it up in the tree to see if their parents would take the babe back. To no avail. He was prepared to comfort his love if the little thing passed on.

Yet he watched his S/O roll up their sleeves and start making a nest of their own. A heat lamp that was originally used for one of Edward's plots, now for the chick. He insisted they could probably find someone to take care of it. He's certain he could light a cigarette in a public place and get Batman's attention if they wanted a more heroic figure for the job. With a sidekick named Robin, surely he has a thing for lost little birds.

Birds aren't really his thing, you see. Not part of the gimmick. He has nothing against them, love, but... perhaps Penguin? Still no, huh? The determination of his S/O is rather inspiring, even if it goes against his own wishes. Feedings every few hours, changing papers and blankets. Checking the crop. He noticed the collection of bird care books from Gotham Library.

He starts feeling more affection for the thing once it grows fluff. As his S/O gently holds his hand out to teach the bird to step up. There's something endearing about all of it. How passionate they are. How could he truly say no? It's when the feathers appear and the soft cries begin that they confirm they have a little mourning dove.

In devotion to his partner and their new animal child, he sets up a bird cage and perches himself. Reads the same care books, albeit in half the time. Once the time is right, he even builds an outdoor cage to allow the bird fresh air and stimulation that is safe from predators.

While he doesn't appreciate the mess the bird leaves, he doesn't mind the shoulder buddy. It does, however, make him slightly less intimidating towards Batman, as if he needed anything to help with that.

Zero Year

His S/O had a habit of bringing home animals. They had some... special certification, he wasn't paying terribly much attention to what- What it meant was that after they moved in together, there would occasionally be a small furred or feathered creature in the spare room off his workshop that needed to be bottle fed. He wasn't sure how he felt about the habit. It was something he almost admired. Wanting to care for something small and weak. Yet it was a vulnerability he could see being taken advantage of.

Good thing he's such a pleasant and non-needy personality that doesn't need all his S/O's attention! He lived with it. Perhaps he was better for it. Personal growth... even if at moments he felt jealous and despised it. He supposed they needed a hobby of their own considering how his "hobby" was so all-consuming.

Then they brought home the red fox. A fur-farm rescue. Nowhere else to go, they said. Edward tried to put his foot down. How would they even care for it? A fox... Ridiculous! He also knows it can't be tossed back out into the wild. It would die. His stubbornness holds even as he watches his partner cut their hands open on wire fencing to make an enclosure.

It isn't until they ask him, truly ask him, if he hates that they save animals. Seeing the pain in their eyes and sensing the possibility that they might even leave- he makes a decision. No amount of avoiding annoyances is worth losing the one person he truly trusts in this life. He builds an outdoor enclosure with catch doors and even sits down with the thing.

Winning him over was as simple as the vixen stealing his screwdriver and laughing at him as she played keep away. He was irritated with her, at first, yet as he caught her and all she wanted was pets and affection... He supposed it was also cute the way she would hoard boiled eggs out of his hand. Alright, maybe, just maybe- Maybe she could stay. Only out of his good will.

He gets to a point where she'll sit in his lap while he trims her nails and brushes her fur. His S/O can do the yucky medical stuff she hates, this is his time.

BTAS

It was a kitten that set his life upside down. His partner, his darling beloved, found it abandoned and hypothermic in a box after a storm. No indication of mother or another human coming to find it. His eyes weren't even open. A little tuxedo that mewled for any kind of nourishment and warmth. Edward was ready to call Selina to come pick it up- until he remembered she was currently incarcerated by Batman for a diamond heist.

It wasn't his bathroom being overtaken as a quarantine zone that made him upset. It wasn't even the alarm that went off every two hours for feedings, even in the middle of the night. No, it was how exhausted and emotionally tired his S/O looked after two days of taking care of him. When he said they were not, could not keep the cat, his partner insisted on doing everything themselves.

He was regretting it, to say the least. At 3am, while he was working, he could hear the alarm going... and his S/O snoring through it. With a sigh, he turned it off and began to prepare the formula. He went through the steps in his mind as he had seen his partner do for the past week and a half. Feed, burp, stimulate for the bathroom, make sure he's warm. Then he got in there and found a creature shouting and demanding to be fed and loved now.

Putting the kitten on his chest, watching his ears wiggle and feeling the tiniest muffins being made on his chest... that was the moment he fell in love. In that instant, he understood. This little sootball that looked like lint that exploded in the dryer- he was worth the hardship.

After that, Edward took on the nightshift for his partner. A few more weeks and their schedules could get back to normal. Ish. And their fancy well dressed man could be released into the rest of the house to cause chaos galore. Kitten energy is a bit too much for Edward, but he adjusts.

Telltale

When his S/O had stumbled into his workplace, bloodied and holding a blanket close to their chest, he feared the worst. He was prepared to dismember whoever had done this to his partner- and then they mentioned it wasn't their blood. Irritating, yet relief flooded his system.

He cleared a nearby table and watched as his S/O unraveled a bleeding, wounded dog. Struggling to breathe. Whining. A prong collar embedded into its neck. In the haze of panic, he extrapolates that his partner found it thrown away like trash in an alley. Even in this state he could make out the bite marks of other dogs on her body. Dog fighting.

Yet the mottled colored mutt seemed disinterested in attacking, even in this vulnerable state. Had she already given up? He was prepared to euthanize her himself until his partner looked at him with wet eyes asking if there was anything he could do. A tired sigh.

He knew some people with the proper equipment. Yet even as he contacted them, he insisted the two of them were not keeping the dog. He would help take care of the dog. Then they would figure out where she could go.

This lasted until one night in the lab as he sat at his desk, he felt a heavy head lay on his leg. As he looked down, there she was, staring up at him- tail wagging. Even after everything they'd put her through... she was putting all her trust and affection in a human. He would never admit it, but it reminded him of himself in some small way towards his S/O. Finding that love after pain atop of pain.

He stopped mentioning getting rid of the dog. Insists no one else will want a former fighting dog, so she might as well stay. It has nothing to do with how she cuddles between her "parents" on the couch. That she'll fetch things for her master with a dopey pleased look. And of course not because she gets accustomed to waking Eddie when he's experiencing night terrors associated with his past. Lowkey she's his emotional support dog and he's her emotional support human and his S/O gets to watch that relationship bloom.

Arkham

Despite Edward's lack of care towards the many strays in Gotham, his S/O seemed rather enamored with them. He comments that they should leave feeding the mangy things to Selina. Yet, he doesn't stop them. Then there was one cat in the neighborhood that wouldn't escape either of their notice. A mean feral that wouldn't let anyone near it. He'd wait for everyone else to eat food before picking off scraps.

He thought it was sort of charming how his S/O asked him for a trap to catch the beast. He asked them why they'd bother. It would appear the creature had gotten an eye injury, likely from fighting. He'd never expected them to actually catch the beast, no matter how genius his craftsmanship on the trap. And yet...

One eye enucleation and spay surgery later, his next question was when they were going to release the cat back out. Or call catwoman to deal with it. As his S/O told him neither would be happening, he began to try to put his foot down. No, never. You will not be keeping him. If they'd really wanted a pet, he could make one! Not this... possible mixed breed of a wild cat with a domestic one.

Fortunately they had a small spare room they could clear out for a kennel to allow the cat some comfort while he healed. Edward would listen as his partner going into the room and cooing. Followed by hissing and "no... No, c'mon-" and more bargaining. He shook his head. What were they expecting? You can't just bring a creature like that back with that kind of hate.

It isn't until one night when he's working that he hears... a meowing. It's strained and croaking. He goes to inspect the room and seen the one eyed cat staring up at him. A soft meow. Then a head bonk on the cage bars. Yet as he knelt down, the cat reared back and hissed.

Over the next week, he would visit the cat with his S/O. He noticed this scraggly, scarred cat looking up at them. Hissing less and less. Hesitantly approaching until his S/O was able to touch his head. Then they heard it for the first time: his purr. It was then Edward knew he was not going to be able to get rid of this ugly as sin cat.

The cat absolutely chose his S/O as his person, but that doesn't leave out Edward. The cat likes sleeping on some of his machinery when it's warm. Jumping on his shoulders when he falls asleep at his desk. Edward finds himself petting deep into his now-soft fur when he's stressed.

Selina will give him so much shit about this cat. Forever.

Batman 2022/Nashton

His S/O found the little creature after a dog had gotten hold it. A possum joey without a mother anywhere in sight. A few calls later, a wildlife shelter visit and lots of stress and worrying, they were told the possum was going to live... But not in the wild. There was enough damage to its body that even after healing, he might not be able to defend himself properly.

Edward tried to reason why it should stay with someone else. They'd have better care. They'd become an education ambassador, maybe! He... It's so tiny and fragile, and that makes him so nervous.

Edward is projecting a lot of feelings onto this little thing that mostly wants to hiss and cling to his sweatshirt. He'll just fuck it up, you know. The problem that arises is too many rehabbers in the area are full up. There might not be any space for the little guy- Faced with the possibility of euthanasia, Edward's S/O looks at him with dewy eyes.

How can he say no to that face? And the face of, he supposes, their newest companion. After faking some paperwork and certifications, they are bringing home a small possum.

Over time, he ends up relating a lot to the possum considering their reputation. They're just scavengers! They can't even get rabies! Yet everyone just seems to hate them for being born. He knows what that's like...

He does so much research on dietary needs since possums require such a variety of care. Protein, proper phosphorous levels, fruits and veggies. He really likes feeding him cooked chicken hearts out of his hand. Since they walk so much in the night, he makes an exercise wheel for the little guy to use. Builds climbing walls and poles for him to hang from if he wants. His S/O gets to help hammer nails in!

Sometimes Edward's S/O is looking for the possum and asks Edward... only to see a little black and white head poke out from his hoodie. The two of them know they won't have the possum for long (in the wild, they only live around three years!), but he's kind of used to shorter lifespans with his rats.

He's going to make sure the years they have, though, are going to be enriching and full of happiness.

[kydrogendragon]

Dec 16 - Snowed In

(Ao3 Link) (Masterpost Link)

“It doesn’t look like it’s letting up anytime soon,” Hob says, holding his half-drank mocha as he stares out the window. They’d rented a place up in the Highlands, taking some time for themselves after the busy holiday season. Morpheus had mentioned wanting to go somewhere quiet and with good views. He claimed he’d heard such environments were beneficial to “spurring the imagination in one’s mind.” So Hob found a cabin for rent on short notice, packed their bags and Morpheus’s laptop, and they headed out.

They got in late last night and the snow was coming down hard. The forecast had mentioned a small storm was going to be rolling in, but after listening to the news this morning, it looked like that small storm wasn’t so small after all. By the time they had gotten settled down for the night, there was easily 15 cm of snow on the ground and climbing. When they’d woken up in the morning, there was at least 25 cm, maybe more. And the snow still came down.

It looks like their stay might be longer than anticipated.

“What shall we do?” Morpheus asks from his spot on the couch near the fireplace. Hob had gotten a fire started - thankfully, there was a lot of pre-cut wood both inside and out in the log shed. At least they wouldn’t need to worry about not having enough heat. The cabin they had rented was well stocked (Hob thinks he remembers something about extreme sudden weather and ensuring there was enough supplies in cases like this listed on the website) and they didn’t have anything they needed to get back into town for, so if they stayed longer, it didn’t matter all that much.

“Guess we’re stuck here for a bit. At least until the snow stops coming down long enough that we can dig ourselves out. Or until the owners of the place come by with a snowplow to clear out the road.” Hob shrugs. “Guess until then, we just enjoy our time here like we planned.”

Morpheus nods and settles back into the plush cushions. His laptop - Hob had gotten him his very own for Christmas - was set on his lap. The coffee table was pulled closer, almost touching the couch, so Morpheus’s array of mugs were within reach. Hob discovered, soon after Morpheus had moved in, he was a fan of always having a variety of drinks available. His current array consisted of hot chocolate (with mini marshmallows, of course), green tea with honey, a water bottle that Hob had insisted he always have, and a half-drank can of cola. You know, the essentials.

Hob steps back over to his side of the couch and plops down, pulling Morpheus’s feet into his lap. The TV above the fireplace was muted (the sound distracted Morpheus) but was currently playing through the movie Elf that had been in the DVD player when they arrived. Hob had put the subtitles on since he knew the movie well enough to follow along without sound. He worked his fingers against the muscles in Morpheus’s feet and followed along to the film, enjoying the gentle clacking of laptop keys and crackling of wood in the fireplace.

They sat there, each content in their own little worlds and by the time the movie had finally ended, Morpheus, Hob realized as he turned to face his lover, was staring at him from over the top of his laptop. Hob arched a brow in question.

“I was simply… studying.” Morpheus replies, a light blush on the crests of his cheeks.

“Oh? That so?” Hob asks, smirking. “Something for your work?”

Morpheus nods and looks back down at his screen. His lips are pursed. “I… I wished to describe the flames upon this character’s face better. Yours made for an excellent reference.”

Hob had gotten used to this, over the past few days. Whatever story Morpheus was writing at the time, he always seemed to find a reason to “study” Hob. For his writing, of course. Definitely not as a not-so-subtle reason to oogle him. The last time he had caught Morpheus’s staring, when he’d looked over at the screen of his laptop, there hadn’t even been a word document or anything open. It was just the desktop screen. Not that Hob doubted he was telling the truth, occasionally, but he was certain that it made Morpheus more comfortable with looking at him casually. It always made Hob’s heart soar. He just wished Morpheus didn’t feel like he needed an excuse to do so. He’d gladly take Morpheus’s eyes on him anytime, after all.

“Well, if that’s the case, stare away then!” He says, patting Morpheus’s feet before setting them to his side. Hob stands, stretching his limbs out with a groan. “I am gonna grab a bite first, though. Want anything?”

Morpheus considers him, tilting his head in thought. It was adorable when he did that. It reminded him a bit of Matthew’s mannerisms. He’d said that once, in fact. Morpheus had just scowled at him, but it just made him all the cuter. Hob’s pretty sure he would have gotten a death glare if he’d said that thought aloud.

“A sandwich, perhaps. If it is no trouble.” He says, turning back to his computer.

“No trouble at all, love,” Hob says, leaning down and kissing the top of his love’s mess of inky black bed-head. He hears Morpheus huff fondly as he walks towards the kitchen. You know , he thinks as he pulls out the bread and spreads and fillings. A few more days of this bliss wouldn’t be too bad, after all. Perhaps getting snowed in was its own Christmas miracle, in a way.

[the-golden-comet]

🌈✨Hello, lovelies~✨🌈

I’m The Golden Comet, or goldencomet69 as some of you may know me as. 💫

If you’ve followed me before, and wondering why I’m at this account now, you can check out the PSA blog @goldencometpsa .

I am a positive-posting, LGBTQIA+ friendly, 18+ blog , queer writing GOBLIN with many different hobbies and special interests. These include, but not limited to…

🌈✨Writing LGBTQIA+ Romantasy Novels✨🌈

I have an Archive Of Our Own account, where all of my novels will be published for free. However, I am also a self published author on Amazon Kindle eBooks, if you wish to support me further (no pressure, though!)

Peter Hart— Available on Amazon Kindle eBooks and Archive Of Our Own

✨🎨Digital Art🎨✨

I love to illustrate for my novels. You’ve probably seen my works before, but I’ll post a few examples here:

Peter and Benjamin, the dynamic duo protagonists of my novel Peter Hart:

The College-Life Graduate students Ali and Noah from my WIP Your Wish is My Command:

And, from my fanfiction The Wingman on AO3, Ganon and Link from The Legend of Zelda:

I also draw NSFW, but I keep those pictures strictly to my 🌶️ Twitter (X) Account 🌶️

🎶 Composition🎶

I write music, especially for my novels. I have a soundtrack for Peter Hart available on AO3. However, I’ll share two compositions here:

“Into the Ashes”

“Hart’s Lament”

I’ve always been a “Jack of All Trades” type, and I love sharing my creativity and culture with the world and making our lives a little more bright ✨

🎮 Video Games🎮

Yes, I am a gamer. My current obsessions are Legend of Zelda (BOTW/TOTK), Stardew Valley, Spyro the Dragon, Sly Cooper, and Genshin Impact.

I also know about a variety of other video games from my husband, including but not limited to: Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, Ghosts of Tsushima, Remnant (I and II), Armored Core 6, EDF, Helldivers (I and II), and all the ones I mentioned previously as well 💍 ✨

📖 Philosophy📖

My philosophy is as such: It doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to be kind. That means, you may see me positive-posting a lot. The world needs a little more light, and a lot more motivated minds✨

If you are ever troubled, want a friend to chat with, share ideas and stories, and are 18 or older, my ask box and DMs are always open. Just know it may take a little longer to get back to you due to the aforementioned things I’m doing. 🫠

Oh, my kingdom for a cup of joe ☕️

If you made it this far, thank you for reading! Feel free to reblog, share my profile, art and stories….as long as you give me credit for them 💫

[mediocre-shark-tales]

Fated by the Stars (3)

Straykids ot8 x Reader

Warnings - Mentions of Abuse, Traumatic Past

Summary - You really enjoy picking out everything for your room, especially when you find some stuff perfect for any future nesting. However you have a terrible run in with someone from your past, but the boys made a promise they were gonna stick to.

Masterlist

Walking around the store I was lost into all the color variety and options for flooring. I wanted my room to represent the same sunset/sunrise style. I wanted to feel the same comfort and relaxation the sunrise and sunset bring to me. I looked between all the colors, some of the pack had gone off to look around themselves and give me space to make my own decisions. However I could smell Eucalyptus and Dampened Cypress wood grow in intensity. Looking to my left I saw Felix coming over to me. "How's it going doll?" I shook my head. "I'm trying to figure out how to bring my idea to life with the flooring and walls. Other items are easier to think of but this is the most difficult." Felix smiled and grabbed me around the shoulders. "Well tell me about your theme, maybe I can offer some help?" I nodded. "Well there was also one thing that made my days a little better. My mother and I used to watch the sunset and sunrise together, It was one of the few good things we could do with how we lived. So I want my room to represent a sunset or sunrise, or both I guess." Felix gave me a small peck on my cheek. "Thank you for telling more about your life doll, I will make sure you find even more things to enjoy in life." I smiled at him while he continued. "I think you could do a sunset theme gradient on your walls. Like the blue to purple to pink to orange gradient that you can see in the sky." I nodded "But what about the flooring?" He looked at the options for a moment before speaking again. "Maybe a darker color of wood so your walls stand out more, or even a darker shag rug or carpet? that way you still have some comfort."

I gasped. "That's the perfect idea! Let's do that with the walls, and then make the flooring this wood." I pointed to the wood flooring that reminded me of a rich darker chocolate. "Under my bed we can put a dark grey shag rug that gives me about 2 maybe 3 feet of rug before the hard wood?" Felix nodded and called over an employee. He relayed to the worker how much of each thing I would need and what colors of paint I wanted. The other boys had now traversed back over to me and I saw them all smile at me. They all seemed proud of me and the decision I made.

Next we walked out of the store and I began to look around for a bit before I saw a sign saying 'Omega's Heaven' this interested me. Quickly I ran over to see the inside and what they sold. The room was larger than it looked, I bet it took up most of the mall. I could see so many different objects and items, all of which brought a smile to my face. I could feel the omega inside preening at the sight of such glorious things. I quickly went over to the first aisle, seeing pretty things in all colors available. Behind me the boys followed close with two carts. They told me that they knew I needed a lot of things. putting emphasis on the fact that I would be living with them for the rest of my life. Soon I found the decor aisle, I grabbed a few packs of hangable clouds, perfect for my sunset theme. Then I saw the most perfect item I could ever need. it was this little lamp that glowed at just the right hues and brightness level to create a sunset glow in your room. Knowing my room I made sure to grab about 4 before moving on to the blankets aisle. My brain instantly thought about nesting and I hesitated. I know the boys wanted me to get whatever I wanted but would they really be okay with me nesting however I wished. Even if they did want that, did I even know how.

I felt a gentle hand grab my waist as Chan came around to look me in the eyes. Now holding both of my sides, he gave a soft comforting smile. "What wrong little one?" I sighed and spoke softly, but just enough that if you paid attention you could hear me. "I really want a nest but I don't know how to nest really. We were never given a choice when it came to nesting items, some were even shared among the omega's. I don't know what to do with some many options." Chan nodded and kissed my forehead. "You are with us now, we can help you make choices. Some of us grew up with omega's in the family, so we know what kind of things an omega may want. All you have to do then is say yes or no, trust yourself. You are an omega and you know what makes you happy and comfortable." I agreed to his idea and he grabbed my hand leading me down the aisle. "So most omega's like to have their mate's scent in their nest. I know my cousin had 4 mates, so she had a blanket for each one of her mates to cover in their scents. Then they were ready for whenever she went into heat or just needed to nest to relax." I glance at all the different soft fabrics and colors. "I like that idea, I think I know what to do a bit better now. Thanks Channie." He nodded and allowed me to let go of his hand as I walked over to the wall full of the softest furs and plush blankets. I grabbed the an orange blanket with a citrus design all over it. Just by picking the first blanket, I felt my omega grow stronger in my mind. My omega was nearly in control, but I still held enough resolve to complete the task at hand. I grabbed a mixture of blankets and Furs all in the colors that matched my room theme. However each one had a difference of some sort, and each one was specifically chosen with a specific mate in mind.

Soon we had picked out any and all clothes I could need, including body washes and shampoos made specially for the differences in Omega Biology. Seeing the price I had almost passed away, I quickly tried to tell my pack that I didn't need so much. However I was quickly scooped up by Jeongin, who carried me out of the store. "We told you not to worry about the price princess, Nothing is too much for our little omega. Besides if it helps, wee all make more than enough money to sustain any lifestyle you may wish for. We have been waiting for this day, when we met our last mate and finally get to spoil them. We are just so happy our last mate was an omega as cute as yourself. You know princess, your sub gender is a bit rare amongst wolves. That why you are so treasured. Unlike your old pack, most packs take care of their omegas and treat them like royalty. So don't deny us the chance to treat you as such." I nodded. "This is just so different from what I am used to, I have never been treated so nicely by anyone who wasn't an omega." I saw Jeongin's face sour for a moment before he held me closer, pushing my face into his neck near his scent gland. I calmed when his citrus and oak moss scent filled my nose.

"I'm so sorry your last pack was so incompetent and educationless to have treated you in such a way that you don't understand what it means to truly be loved. But we will make sure to teach you everything you need and shower you with tons of love." I smiled and just continued to bask in his scent and warmth.

However that happiness was cut short as I heard a voice I could never forget. Her laugh echoed in my ears like a vipers hiss. I instantly began to try and escape from Jeongin's arms. He in return began to voice his concerns and worries for me, not understanding why I was trying to get out of his arms. That's until her voice broke into our personal space. "Is that little Y/n? did I just find our little escaped pathetic Omega? My brother will be so happy to learn I found his prey..." I could hear the smirk in her voice, small laughs escaping her everyone and then. I felt my body stiffen as tears began to well up in my eyes. I stared Jeongin straight in the eyes, as my fear grew so did his anger.

"Turning and looking at me you pathetic useless girl." Instinctively I turned to see the female alpha and her bright red locks staring back at me. I felt myself begin to shake in fear as those dark eyes brought back painful memories from the past. She and her brother shared a similar pair of dark eyes. As the Pack Alpha's sister she was given more privileges than most other alpha's.

Suddenly I heard the deepest most reverberated growl of my existence. "Who are you to talk to our omega like that, you filthy excuse for an alpha?" Soon infront of me stood Chan, who had begun a stare down with Sang-Hee. She gave him a disgusted look in return and with a scoff she replied "That omega is the property of my brother and his pack. She was born to bare his children and serve him for life, so I suggest you hand her over. You don't want to mess with the blood moon pack." Chan gave a short chuckle. "I don't think you realize who we are, your bloodmoon pack is nothing but a grain of sand next to us. I believe your brother has actually been trying to set a deal with us recently..." I saw her face slowly begin to hint at realization and nearly fear. "That's right you incompetent woman, I am chan Pack Alpha of the Levanter Pack. Now if you could please get the fuck away from us, then maybe I won't show you just how quickly we can destroy your pack from the inside out..." I saw her look at me one more time. Earning 8 growls in return before she finally left.

"Are you okay sweet girl?" I turned around to look at hyunjin who had asked. Once he saw the tears cascading down my face, he instantly ran over and picked me up. Holding onto me tightly, I finally gained enough control over myself to whisper out. "Can we please go back home now?" I felt him nodded quickly before responding with, "Yes we will, we are going home now sweetness, whatever you need we will do for you." I heard quickly rustling and talking before we were quickly walking back out the door. I heard the sounds of the crazy obsessed wolves outside the door, and bright flashing lights. However Hyunjin pushed my face into his neck to hide me more as they all continued to speed walk to the van. Once we got there, Hyunjin handed me over to Minho in the front passenger seat. Everyone all climbing back into their original seats and buckling up. Soon we were driving back home, I could feel Minho rubbing my back as I continued to silently cry into his neck.

It didn't take long before I passed out under the heavy amounts of stress I had taken on the in the last few hours, especially with what had gone down in the last few minutes. I knew that Sang-Jun would soon find out where I was. Knowing him, he was not going to stop at getting me back under his grasp. I could only fear what kind of things the future held for me, I just hope this pack was as strong as they claimed. I just want to survive and be happy, please don't less this all be for not.

Masterlist

[augustheart]

DC Pride 2023 Tribute to Rachel Pollack

This is a transcription of the text that appears at the end of DC Pride, written by a variety of authors in memory of trailblazing writer Rachel Pollack. I've done my best to copy everything exactly as it was written, and I apologize for any errors. It's over 3,000 words, so I'm going to put it under a cut outside of the foreword. The rest of the tributes are in plain text and not italicized except in places where they were by the original authors.

(If you would like a PDF of the following transcription, one is available here.)

“On April 7, 2023, the legendary writer and Tarot expert Rachel Pollack passed at age 77. Her work for DC's Vertigo imprint—including the celebrated Vertigo Tarot deck and a long run on Doom Patrol that was a deep influence on the property's recent HBO Max series—was profoundly meaningful for generations of comics fans. She was a trailblazing trans woman in comics and sci-fi communities that were frequently male-dominated, and her lifelong love of both superheroes in particular and the comics medium in general allowed her to confidently turn their storytelling tropes inside out, truly queering her comics in every sense of the word.

In the months before her passing, the editors of DC Pride were speaking to Rachel about writing a new story for this very issue, and her enthusiasm for the project was boundless, as she planned to return to her themes of the superhero and the secret identity, of the "kink" of costumes, and of the revelatory freedom that she found in these characters. Unfortunately, just as work was set to begin on the script, completing it became impossible for her. In the absence of that last great work, but with gratitude for the incredible stories she did give us, we've opted to turn the pages we reserved for Rachel's story over to her friends, and to the fans whose lives she changed, to share their memories of her.”

—Unspecified Author or Editor

“I met Rachel Pollack in 1985, at a convention, where I was interviewing her about Salvador Dali’s Tarot, and then I met her again a couple of days later at the Milford Science Fiction Writers’ Conference, and we became friends fast. She was smart and funny, she was a brilliant writer, and she was the first person I’d met who knew more than I did about obscure Jewish mythology.

She told me off for writing a line of dialogue. ‘But that’s the only thing in the whole story that’s actually true,’ I told her, and she explained that art truth and reality truth were two very different things. And I knew she was right.

I don’t know how much I learned about writing, but listening to Rachel and Gwyneth Jones and John Clute and Lisa Tuttle and the rest of them, I learned so much about reading, and what I learned would change me as a writer.

Rachel was my friend. I had never met a person who had transitioned before and I had so many questions and, patiently, she answered all of them. She decided I needed to know Roz Kaveney, and Roz and I have been friends for decades now.

In 1988 I was writing Books of Magic and knew I needed a Tarot reading in the comic. Rachel was in London, and I asked her what the reading should be. She took me out to buy a Tarot deck that spoke to me, and I saw what happened when Rachel Pollack walked into a Tarot shop. It was a little like what happened when The Beatles went on Ed Sullivan. And then she gave me a beautiful reading of four cards, which encapsulated the whole of the story I was trying to tell.

She won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1989 for Unquenchable Fire, and I read it and suspected Rachel was creating her own school of fiction, her own brand of magical realism.

We argued, gently, about Wanda’s fate in A Game of You, and Rachel did what I wish everyone who had an argument about art would do, which is she took what she wanted to say and put it into a comic. Tom Peyer had asked her to write Doom Patrol after Grant Morrison left, and she did a remarkable job. I loved the delirious joy of her comics, the magic and the sense of fun, in Doom Patrol and in the comics that followed Doom Patrol.

I was thrilled to see Rachel when I moved to Upstate New York, and then I didn’t see her for years. I did that thing where you think you’re in touch with your friend, but really you’re just on social media at the same times. I was stuck out of the country during COVID, and Rachel had cancer. I was thrilled when I returned to hear that she had beaten the cancer, and then I was going to see her and she hadn’t beaten the cancer. A whole new cancer had turned up on the day she had beaten the first one.

I got to see Rachel more in the past few months than I had in the previous few years. She was as funny as ever, as sharp and as wise. I got to know her wife, Zoe, and to appreciate their love. I got to tell her bad Jewish jokes that, I suspect, I’d probably first heard from her. ‘Everywhere I went, people said ‘Look at the schmuck on the camel!’’ Some people die well—not necessarily bravely, necessarily, but gently and wisely and kind. Rachel was going to be one of those. She asked me to come to her funeral, and I said that I would.

Her funeral, several months later, was in the sunshine. It was filled with friends of hers from comics, from fiction, from Tarot, from writing, from teaching, from family, from the world, and Rachel lay above the grave on a wooden plank, wrapped in white winding sheet. We said true things about her, and we were funny and honest and there was so much love, and then we shoveled the earth on her, and cried, and said our goodbyes.

I’ve never met anyone like her. I’m glad she was my friend.”

—Neil Gaiman

“Rachel Pollack and I had the same favorite comic book—why, Doom Patrol, of course—and for a while she was its writer and I was its editor. She followed Grant Morrison, whose name was big and growing even then, and for years it seemed like Grant’s era might totally eclipse hers in memory. But DC released her Doom Patrol omnibus in 2022, and in the process unwrapped the radiation-proof bandages from her work, exposing the piercing and radiant appreciation that so many fans felt for it. On top of that, this year Dennis Culver and Chris Burnham, the creators of the excellent Unstoppable Doom Patrol, paid a moving in-story tribute to Rachel’s cast of broken-but-healing heroes.

I’m glad she got to see the omnibus, and I’m grateful for the chance it gave us to relive her perceptive, ironic, unsettling, and revelatory run. It was known for being strange and surreal, but there was so much more going on. Doom Patrol had been weird before, and funny, but never quite as wise or kindly meant.

A story that I always think of when I think of Rachel featured yours truly. At the end of my time as an editor—I had decided I wanted to write full-time—I called the creators I worked with to let them know I was leaving. Most of them, quite understandably, reacted with some implied variation of ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ It made me start to think I was being horrible and selfish. But when I called Rachel and nervously told her what I had decided, there was a silence, and then she said, ‘Quitting is good for the soul.’”

—Tom Peyer

“I met Rachel Pollack in the late ‘90s at WisCon, the feminist science fiction convention where we were both guests. It was the first day of the con, and they were introducing all the guests. I had read Rachel’s Doom Patrol comics and at least one of her books, Unquenchable Fire, and was excited about meeting her. She must have felt the same about me, because when the introductions were over, we headed straight toward each other as though we’d been magnetized, and we became friends immediately.

We lived on opposite sides of the continent, so we didn’t get to see each other that often, but thank the Goddess for email. I visited Rachel’s house once and she visited mine once. Her house was nicer. She took me to visit Hyde Park, Franklin Roosevelt’s old home, now a historic site—we were both FDR fans—and I taught her a Yiddish World War II song. We were both into our Jewishness, but from different angles. Rachel was interested in the mystic side, and I was into Yiddishkeit. Rachel had a bat mitzvah, and I studied Yiddish.

Rachel and I discovered we had the same birthday—August 17, which we shared with Mae West and Davy Crockett. So we sent each other birthday cards that also included happy birthday wishes to Mae and Davy.

I knew Rachel had written many books on the Tarot, so when one day I found a complete set of Tarot cards lying in the street, I decided the Goddess wanted her to have them, and I sent them to her on our birthday. After that, the Goddess would put out Tarot cards for me to find almost every year, often just in time for Rachel’s birthday presents. In return, she sent two Tarot cards that she had drawn for me when I was being treated for cancer. (I’m cancer free now!) I saved them and put them away safely—somewhere.

Last year a neighbor who was a collector of stuff died and left his collections to us, his neighbors, to take for free. Among all the stuff in his stuff-filled rooms was an unopened set of Tarot cards. Shortly after I found the cards, my Romani neighbors who lived around the corner put a book on Tarot out on the street, so I took that for Rachel. I mailed the book and cards to Rachel for our birthday.

For the first time, I got no answering card. I didn’t know that Rachel’s lymphoma had come back.

And somehow, it all got away from me.

Periodically, I would think, ‘Phone her—must phone Rachel,’ but something would come up and I’d forget to phone, or it would be too late to phone because of the time difference between New York and California. Damn it!

I miss you, Rachel. In our next lives, I’ll try to be a better friend.”

—Trina Robbins

“I first met Rachel Pollack when I was the assistant editor on The Sandman and she was the new Doom Patrol monthly writer. I shared an office with Tom Peyer, who was Rachel’s editor, and when Rachel swept in like a redheaded bohemian priestess, I always wound up putting aside my own work so I could chat a bit with Rachel as well. She had the rare gift of wielding her considerable expertise about comics and mythology in a way that made the person talking to her feel smarter.

After I left DC Comics to write full-time, I moved to Rhinebeck and discovered that Rachel lived there, too. We formed a small writing group that met once a week, usually in my kitchen. Always as kind as she was insightful, Rachel spent more time celebrating what worked than critiquing what didn’t. She did a lot of celebrating, of others’ writing and of her own, delighting in the words and worlds that moved through her.

She was, pre-pandemic, a frequent guest at my Passover Seder, the only person besides myself and my mother who knew all the Hebrew and all the traditional melodies. Her vast knowledge of midrash and Kabbalah made her comments more delicious than the charoset she made, and let me tell you, that was pretty damn good. 

In October, when she started to get really sick and I started to visit more frequently, often with Neil Gaiman, Rachel defied any expectation of how a dying person ought to act. She cracked Borscht Belt jokes and talked about writing and writers, and then I went with her wife, Zoe, to pick out a grave. We discussed the Tarot, which I had belatedly begun to study along with her seminal book on the subject, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom. I asked, ‘What does it mean when you get an auspicious card in a place that means it’s negative?’ ‘It means that’s what you’re struggling with,’ she replied.

I am struggling with this turn of the cards. I cannot fully fathom that she will not be sitting at our favorite local café, writing, but ready to put down her antique fountain when she sees me. Yet when I turn back to her writing, I feel her still with me: Doom Patrol Rachel, Writing Partner Rachel, Rachel of the Passover Seder, Rachel Poet, Rachel Priestess, Rachel Friend.”

—Alisa Kwitney

“Rachel Pollack loved comics.

When we first talked about comics, it was about her own. Eight years ago I asked Martha Thomases if the Doom Patrol run after Grant’s was worth checking out, as I hadn’t heard much talk of it. She said ‘Yes. Read it.’ I adored the run and reached out to Rachel via email to let her know. To my surprise, I heard back from her within 20 minutes.

Over time we talked about the comics and creators that she loved. Carl Barks and the Duck comics, particularly the characters of Huey, Dewey, and Louie, meant a great deal to her. Little Lulu was high on her list. And The Fox and the Crow inspired a whole arc of her Doom Patrol run. The works of Jack Kirby (particularly on Fantastic Four and the Fourth World saga), Steve Ditko, and Gene Colan were brought up often, as were series including Xambi and Promethea, which she revisited often. She had even reached out to Marvel back in the early ‘70s inquiring about writing opportunities, two decades before writing at DC. 

Rachel saw the inherent queerness in superhero comics back in the Silver Age. One example she would reference was “The Town That Hated Superboy!” from 1967’s Superboy #139. In it, the citizens of Smallville turn against Superboy for nearly two pages. What stood out to Rachel was how Ma and Pa Kent pretended to hate Superboy out of fear that if they didn’t, those around them might suspect that Superboy was really their adoptive son, Clark. Though taking this sequence and relating it to an idea as heavy as the violent consequences of inadvertently outing someone by simply treating them with kindness was unlikely Otto Binder’s intention, the subtext was picked up on by many queer comics readers at the time in addition to Rachel.

Through the years I got to have a greater understanding of Rachel’s unbelievable kindness as well. She saw the world as a positive place and held out hope for just about everyone. Rachel discussed how attitudes with London’s Gay Liberation Front turned against the trans community in the ‘70s, but she would also talk about how some of the same people came back around and were vocal advocates for trans rights by the ‘90s. Whereas most, understandably, would allow themselves to be bitter and resentful, Rachel’s capacity for love and compassion was too strong for that.

I was devastated knowing just how many projects Rachel had in the works and how many stories she still had to tell. But after taking time to think on it, I know that no matter how long she stayed here with us, her work would never be done. Her stories will continue through those who love her and those who haven’t found her yet but will love her just the same. 

I love talking about Rachel’s work and her kindness. I plan on doing so for the rest of my life.”

—Joe Corallo

“‘It’s so cool that you created the first trans superhero,’ a very nice person told me recently. Writing feels like stuffing a message in a bottle and lobbing it out into the open sea, so to meet someone who had caught one of my bottles and read what was inside was extremely exciting. Unfortunately, I am a nerd first and a lover of accolades second, so I had to correct them. 

Galaxy, the character I created, is not the first out trans superhero in the DC Universe. Kate Godwin, created by Rachel Pollack 30 years ago, is. Kate is important, but more than that, she’s important to me. 

I was a teenager 30 years ago. That’s also important.

There’s a lot of talk of firsts in superhero comics, most of it meaningless. Dick Grayson absolutely deserves the ‘Sensational Character Find of 1940’ label trumpeted on the cover of his first appearance, Detective Comics #38, but you don’t need to read it, even as a die-hard Robin fan.

You can’t say that about Doom Patrol #70, the first appearance of Kate Godwin. That issue changes everything. That issue changes lives. Because Kate, a kind and funny woman, with an amusing power set and questionable taste in superhero outfits, who is beautifully, unapologetically trans—Kate is the viewpoint character.

Imagine the power of that. Holding up a trans woman—a lesbian trans woman, at that!—and saying ‘This, this is who you, the reader, should identify with.’ To have a trans woman be smart and pretty and likable, and not an object of scorn or pity, or a side character. She was the hero! I can tell you from experience, that is a tough sell now.

Reading that comic in the 1990s felt like a lightning bolt from heaven.

It was too powerful for my teenage self to handle. It was radioactive, and yet I would read my copy ragged to bask in its glow. I can call up its panels from memory. When I finally began my transition, many years later, I wore a lot of black tank tops and jeans, unconsciously aping Kate’s unofficial uniform. I didn’t put it together until recently, rereading those 30-year-old stories that I had imprinted upon like a baby bird. Early on, I wasn’t sure of the kind of woman I was, but clearly I knew the kind of woman I wanted people to see. Someone like Kate Godwin.

I never got the chance to meet Rachel Pollack and tell her how I had received her message in a bottle. How I had held it close to my heart until I finally found the strength to absorb its message. How she showed me I wasn’t alone, and I could be a hero, even if that just meant saving myself.

But I hear people say those words to me, having read about Galaxy. Which will have to do.

Thank you for being first, Rachel.”

—Jadzia Axelrod

[mitochondriaandbunnies]

You Should Watch Wiseguy:

The show that changed the face of television while no one was paying attention

If you've ever watched and enjoyed anything that gets tossed around as “prestige television—”  you know what I’m talking about— long form narratives, high stakes, actors with something to prove— shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire, etc.— you have Wiseguy to thank. While largely forgotten by mainstream audiences (for a variety of reasons, including sheer lack of availability), Wiseguy was one of the first non-soap-opera shows with a fully serialized story— one that expected you to see every episode, in order. When it began airing in September of 1987, really the only other thing on TV like it was Michael Mann’s Crime Story (also worth a watch), and Crime Story would be canceled before Wiseguy even hit its second season.

Writers, actors, and industry types of all kinds cite Wiseguy as a major influence— Vince Gilligan and Tom Schnauz credit watching Wiseguy in the 80’s as why they cast Jonathan Banks as Mike— Chris Carter hired writers from Wiseguy when he started the X-Files— actors like Stanley Tucci made their names on the show— and hell, David Chase wrote an angry letter to the New York Times claiming he was absolutely under no circumstances at all influenced by Wiseguy ever, which feels like the kind of thing you don’t need to write a letter about if it’s true. 

Of course, just because something is influential doesn’t mean it’s good. 

Wiseguy is really damn good.

Much like Miami Vice (and some of the later shows that took influence from Wiseguy), Wiseguy takes the position that there’s very little difference between criminals and the police, and that the justice system is wildly ill-equipped to create justice. Mafia movie blood, with all its inherent moral ambiguity, runs through Wiseguy’s veins, and then after episode nine, it asks you to think about how that blood would pump in a different milieu— corporate espionage and the destabilization of the global south by American capitalists, insular rural politics and the easy rise of small-time dictators, congressional politics and Twelve-Angry-Men-worthy courtroom drama, the music industry and the cutthroat disposal of talented young people. Money and power structures are always suspect, and good-hearted tough guy lead Vinnie is constantly torn between doing his job, doing the right thing, and doing the thing that makes sense to him emotionally.

The show is heartfelt, tense, funny, and above all else, incredibly human. The characters behave irrationally— they self-sabotage, they struggle with moral decisions, they lash out at people they care about— because they’re people, not plot devices. Little things will come back to haunt them, often many episodes later, in believable and sometimes gutting—but rarely shocking— ways. Despite this realism, and a deep sense of cynicism about our institutions, Wiseguy never falls into the trap of wallowing in grim bleakness. The writers and the actors clearly believe in people— it’s a show that says— ‘yeah, the world sucks. So how do we keep going, together?’ The characters are lovable not because they’re all good, but because you feel like you could know them, with realistic flaws and foibles and senses of humor. Sometimes it’s a little silly, and sometimes it’s a little melodramatic— but it works, because sometimes that’s how real life is, too.

Wiseguy is four (well. three and a half) seasons [cross out— and a terrible TV movie that disregards canon], and is notably divided into 4-11 episode arcs within those seasons, and occasional “breather” episodes between arcs. It’s actually a brilliant bit of plotting that I wish more shows would do today— it allows for overarching narratives and real stakes without running into DBZ-like “the next threat has to be BIGGER and MORE DANGEROUS” power level bullshittery that’s common to a lot of long running serialized shows. One of my favorite aspects of this design is that the cast partially rotates every few episodes, but the show still expects you to remember what was going on with the characters from the previous arcs— because they often return later in unexpected and narratively satisfying ways.

The three characters that remain more-or-less consistent throughout the show are Vinnie Terranova, an undercover agent for the Organized Crime Bureau, Frank McPike, his handler, and Dan “Lifeguard” Burroughs, the OCB call-center operator who gives Vinnie field instructions. 

Vinnie Terranova is just on the border of thirty when the series begins, a gregarious kid-from-the-neighborhood, just out of a cover-establishing 18-month stint in prison. He is a bundle of contradictions— quick to fall but slow to trust, a practicing Catholic who chose a job in the field of lying and murder, a 50’s hood irritated by bigotry. Vinnie is both far smarter and more sensitive than anyone gives him credit for, which is both his greatest strength and his fatal flaw— empathetic undercover agents burn out fast. He spends a surprising amount of the series trying and failing to quit his job. He has a marshmallow center, a steel-trap mind, and the general affect of your cousin who dropped out of college to marry his pregnant high school sweetheart. He also has no idea that his type is “angry asshole” and keeps being surprised when he falls for them. 

Frank McPike is a curmudgeon's curmudgeon, a career fed with a chip on his shoulder, a fathoms-deep sense of cynicism, and a collapsing marriage. He and Vinnie begin the series at odds, and as you watch the first few episodes, you're going to seriously struggle to believe me when I say that the affection between Frank and Vinnie becomes the absolute thematic and emotional heart of the series. Frank is also a genuine oddball failing to pose as a tough guy; he makes noises, he lurks in strange costumes, and the words he chooses when he’s irritated beggar normal human understanding.

We don’t get to know Dan as quickly or as deeply as we get to know Vinnie and Frank (in fact, he’s introduced as “Mike”), but he’s the man behind the curtain, a guiding moral and emotional star for Vinnie, a talented musician, and a cheerful face with a lot of anger bubbling just below the surface. He offers life advice even as his own home life is in constant meltdown, and loves both Vinnie and Frank with a fierce, sarcastic weariness. Dan is also an amputee, and his disability is portrayed with respect and without pity— a rarity for television even now, but especially in 1988. 

You’ll absolutely fall in love with these three, but one of the things that makes Wiseguy so special is its fantastic supporting cast. The world is fleshed out and lived in, and you get the distinct sense that all the recurring characters have their own lives we don’t get to see off screen. There’s Carlotta— Vinnie’s mother, as contradictory and sharp as her son, Pete— Vinnie’s brother, a progressive basketball-playing priest, Roger Lococco— a killer-for-hire who refers to every person on the planet as Buckwheat, Rudy Aiuppo— an elderly don with the heart of a trickster spirit, and a whole host of others who enter and exit the narrative throughout the arcs of the show. There are also a whole host of wonderful arc-based characters played by incredible actors, journeymen and and famous alike— including turns from Tim Curry, Debbie Harry, Jerry Lewis, Stanley Tucci, Patti D’Arbanville, Stephen Bauer, and Billy Dee Williams. You can tell everyone involved in the show had a fantastic time working on it, and nearly every actor who comes aboard really puts their whole Wisegussy into it gives it their all.

You notice that as I’ve been speaking, the lights have dimmed slightly, and the strains of an organetto have started to play quietly in the background. A man in a rumpled suit is smoking nearby, though you are fairly certain smoking indoors hasn’t been legal in a number of years. I pass you a plate of espresso and biscotti. 

Let’s talk arcs.

The first arc of the show, known as the Steelgrave arc, is a lot of fans’ favorite arc of the show, and for good reason. Vinnie infiltrates a New Jersey mob organization, and gets very, very close* to this man:

Sonny Steelgrave, human Knife Cat, is a complicated man, and Vinnie has complicated feelings about him. He’s very nearly a co-protagonist to Vinnie in this arc, and the show artfully toes the line between condemning him and making it clear that he’s not always entirely wrong. Vinnie’s goal is to get Sonny into prison and take down the entire family— how and whether he achieves this goal is best left unspoiled. Sonny may not have been the first complicated, likable villain on television, but his arc is intense, heart-wrenching, and splendidly morally grey. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that the Steelgrave arc is the best nine hour mob movie ever aired on television.  

*I’m really not kidding about the closeness. There’s an episode where Sonny announces he’s getting married and literally all the other mobsters are like ‘oh, now I understand why Vinnie has been in a bad mood all day.’ They are as close to canonically in love as a federal agent and a mobster have ever been portrayed on screen.

Lest you get Kevin-Spacey-jumpscared, the following arc unfortunately has Kevin Spacey in it. Thankfully he plays a slimy sister-kissing coked-up hypercapitalist, so it’s fairly easy to just hate his character in the same way you hate the actor and move on with your life. 

This arc, the Profitt arc— in which Vinnie is tasked with taking down a wealthy business mogul who is suspected of drug-and-gun-running— is, for many fans, a close second to the Steelgrave arc. It’s an interesting change of tone and locale, and introduces Roger Lococco, who is a really stellar supporting character. Personally, I rank a bunch of other arcs above Profitt, because no matter how much I like Roger, Mel and Susan are bananas, and they wear out their welcome before they exit the narrative. Regardless, it’s a stylish arc— one that rather  kicks truth, justice, and the American way in the teeth— and Mel’s machinations have serious reverberations later in the show. The Roger subplot is also genuinely excellent, and good old Corey Matthews’ Dad plays him with aplomb.

Back home, after trying to quit his job and failing, Vinnie has to deal with a threat with much smaller, but far more personal stakes. A white supremacy group has moved into his neighborhood and is attempting to recruit working-class Italians to their cause, pitting an older immigrant group against a newer one, pitting Catholics against Jews, and pitting a previously “ethnic” group’s newly acquired “whiteness” against people of color. I have mixed feelings about the Pilgrims of Promise/White Supremacy arc, because it’s truly quite good, and it pulls no punches about the kind of people fascists are and prey on, but it’s also exceptionally fucking upsetting that nothing has changed at all since 1988. Literally you could remake this arc word for word today and a) it would be exactly as believable, and b) your show would be immediately boycotted and canceled for being too “woke.” Great writing, great stakes, great character motivation; so, so uncomfortable to watch.

And then Ken Wahl breaks his leg in real life, and they have to replace him for a few weeks. 

The Garment Trade arc starts off pretty promising— Vinnie meets with the son of a clothing manufacturer, they have great (borderline meet-cute) chemistry, it’s a wonderfully New-York-in-the-80’s kind of storyline, Jerry Lewis is there, and I think it’s the only time I’ve ever seen Sukkot represented on TV— and then Vinnie has to leave for the next four episodes because of Wahl’s broken leg. They rewrote the arc on the fly, and considering that, it’s pretty good. Jerry Lewis is still there, and he gives the serious, dramatic performance of a lifetime, and Stanley Tucci chews scenery as The World’s Slimiest Businessman. We meet Vinnie’s childhood bestie, “Mooch,” whose actor, delightfully, starred beside Ken Wahl in 1979’s The Wanderers. My beautiful and talented wife Joan Chen even shows up for an episode. However, all of this is undercut by the lack of Vinnie; his replacement, a semi-retired agent named Raglin, is… a bit milquetoast. He’s okay, and he’s given some interesting backstory in his final episode, but he’s no Vinnie.

Once again sporting a functional leg, Vinnie returns, and my favorite arc other than Steelgrave follows. 

In the Dead Dog arc, Vinnie has to pose as a music producer, because the OCB traded an airplane for a music label. It’s the dumbest, most fantastic plot device of all time, and brings me incalculable joy. I literally made Dead Dog t-shirts because I love this stupid fake music label owned by a fictional government agency so much. 

The Dead Dog arc sees Vinnie at his happiest (the poor man really, really just wants to quit undercover work and stop being involved with Murder Organizations), and the crime he’s investigating is… wait for it… bootleg CDs. You would think this would be a ridiculously boring premise for an investigation, but the Dead Dog arc has Tim Curry, Debbie Harry, Glenn Frey, and Patty D’Arbanville playing a cadre of unhinged music industry moguls all attempting to stab each other in the back, and it is exactly as chaotic as you would expect based on that cast. This arc also had a bunch of original music produced for it, which is extremely fucking cool, except that then the studio lost the rights to the music it created and this arc became inaccessible and unwatchable except through circulating the tapes, so to speak, of early 90’s TV rips. (The irony is not lost on me that the arc about the Evils of Piracy is the arc that one must pirate.) Miraculously, in the last year, Wiseguy’s rights have been renegotiated, and the newest sets of the show have Dead Dog restored. Accessibility via streaming is still a bit of a mixed bag— the episodes were streaming on Tubi and Youtube briefly, but now appear to have been taken down again.

After his turn as a surprisingly successful music producer, Vinnie returns to his roots: the mob. In the Mob Wars/Trash Wars arc, Vinnie unintentionally becomes the temporary leader of the local mafia commission (I will not spoil how.) The OCB wants to use this as an opportunity to take down the entire organization from the inside out, and Vinnie must deal with mafia backstabbing, pressure from Frank and the OCB, and surprisingly personal stakes. It’s an unspectacular but solid arc that regrounds the series, and the interpersonal aspects of the story— and its examination of fathers and sons and generational inheritance of social rules and expectations— are excellent. The Mafia Wars storyline won’t blow your pants off, but it’s thoughtful and well-executed and reminds us of who Vinnie is and where he came from.

What follows is another of my favorite arcs, referred to as the DC or Counterfeit Yen arc, but perhaps better described as the Mr. Terranova Goes to Washington arc. Vinnie is summoned by the federal government to investigate counterfeiting, and thus unfolds a multinational conspiracy that ties back to the Profitt arc. Much like the White Supremacy arc, this arc is distressingly current— Vinnie is a patsy for a group of corrupt republican senators who want to destabilize the currency of a perceived East Asian economic rival. It’s Yen here, but all you’d need to do to bring this arc into 2023 is swap out references to Japan for China, because the American government has changed very little from the 80’s and has to be awful about some country somewhere or, I don’t know, a bunch of horrible old racist politicians will shit themselves. Vinnie enters talking like Jimmy Stewart, and leaves with one more thing to be crushed and disillusioned about. We get some riveting and stomach-churning courtroom drama, the bad guy turns out to be capitalism all along, and Frank threatens to shoot a Howard Hughes stand-in on a ski lift.

And then somehow we end up in Twin Peaks. The Lynchboro arc predates Twin Peaks by a whopping two months, indicating a total coincidence of premise similarities, but it does take place in a corrupt rural Pacific Northwest town unduly influenced by one large family/company, wherein an outsider has to investigate a tangled conspiracy and deal with strange townsfolk and some spooky happenings. There’s no way either show could’ve plagiarized the other— they were assuredly written and in production at the same time— but it is deeply bizarre. In the Lynchboro arc, Vinnie goes undercover as a local beat cop, and finds himself faced with both a serial killer and a land-rights and building-contracts espionage plot. He also has to deal with Mark Volchek, the ostensible “owner” of the town, and his eccentricity and decreasing grip on reality. Roger returns, and Vinnie must finally confront the enormity of his trauma. One major character is literally brought back from the edge of death by another character’s crushing love for them, expressed via church bells. It doesn’t exactly end on a cliffhanger, but it doesn’t not, either.

And then Ken Wahl quit.

Season Four begins with a deeply depressed, heavily bearded Frank struggling to find the will to live after Vinnie has disappeared. (I don’t think I’m really at risk of spoiling anything serious by saying that we are “supposed” to think Vinnie is permanently gone, but that there are a huge number of blatantly spotlighted contradictions in that story. Wahl left on decent terms, and I firmly believe the Wiseguy staff was expecting to eventually win him back to the show and have his absence turn out to be a ruse. Unfortunately, Wiseguy got cancelled before this could happen.) Frank spends the first (and only complete) arc of this season investigating his partner’s disappearance, eventually working with the supposedly-corrupt DA who helped establish Vinnie’s cover back before Season One. 

It’s not an uncommon opinion to say, ‘hey, just skip S4’— and honestly, if you chose to watch S1-3, you’d have consumed a wonderful story with a reasonably coherent ending. But I don’t actually hate Season Four. The “new Vinnie—” Michael Santana, played by pretty-boy Scarface alum Stephen Bauer— is exceptionally likeable, and he brings with him a new set of characters who are also quite compelling. Furthermore, if you’re a Frank fan, he really gets the spotlight in this season, and if you’re a Frank/Vinnie fan, Vinnie may not be around, but Frank’s despair is really fucking something else. It’s almost worth it just to see him lie to the FBI and tell them he “never crossed the line” of professionalism with Vinnie.

Unfortunately, the next arc sets up something really compelling and unique, but it’s only 3 (unaired on TV) episodes, and ends on a complete cliffhanger, because the show was unceremoniously cancelled. After his niece is shot in the midst of teenage gang violence, Michael teams up with Billy Dee Lando Calrissian Fucking Williams to investigate red-lining and racist underfunding of schools. Oliver Stone shows up in the last like, ten minutes of the last episode?? I would be all over this storyline if it wasn’t just dropped like a moldy tomato, but I guess that’s what fanfiction is for. It’s not how Wiseguy deserved to go out, but hey, it was really aiming for the stars even as the plug got pulled.

Oh, and if anyone tells you there’s a 1996 TV movie, no, there isn’t.* 

(*The movie is so deeply mediocre that it’s worse than any of the controversy surrounding Season Four. It essentially retcons all of S4 and, frankly, really the last few episodes of S3, and presents a bland, uninspired “getting the gang back together” story that retreads thematic materials from the show without saying anything new. Vinnie has apparently been doing wiretapping for 6 years, which is completely at odds with everything we know about his character, and he and Frank are treated as “dinosaurs” that the OCB doesn’t know what to do with, and yet they are also simultaneously the only ones who can take care of a nearly-kidnapped child. It’s rushed, it’s emotionally hollow, the actors are phoning it in, and it ignores all of the character development from the series in a way that renders its plot nearly nonsensical. Furthermore, Ken Wahl had been in a seriously disabling motorcycle accident a few years before, so his apparent discomfort and stiffness throughout the film is because he’s genuinely in significant pain. Don’t watch the movie. You can always write fix-it fic for how Vinnie manages to come back after Season Four. It’s much harder to write fix-it fic for boring character assassination written by the 'due-process-is-for-pussies-and-torture-works' 24 guy.)

One of the other delightful things about Wiseguy is that Vinnie is both a big softie and yet is also saddled with a bizarre sort of erotic smolder, and therefore he has ridiculous chemistry with basically half the cast of the show. Vinnie very much seems a guy like you could say some blandly nice things to and buy him dinner, and you’d wake up, exhausted and satisfied, the next morning to him cooking breakfast. You’d think, wow, this guy is so thoughtful, he must be the one— and then you’d turn your head and he’d have immediately been seduced by the next schmuck down the line. He’s a good boy, but his “acceptable romantic target” sensors are so wildly mistuned as to render him, affectionately, a tragic slut. Will he end up with a mobster? One of a number of widows? His boss? No one knows but god.

Vinnie is also heavily bi-coded— his relationship with Sonny is almost explicitly romantic, he calls out Roger for homophobia (in 1989), one of his old friend asks if the reason he’s not married is because he ‘likes boys,’ and he doesn’t say no, and he has a borderline I-love-you moment with Frank. The boy just wants someone to love him, goddammit. 

I’m also really not kidding about Vinnie and Frank developing into the emotional core of the series. They live together for a period of time. They both imply they can’t live without the other. They go shopping for Dan’s birthday together. They pick up Frank’s ailing father from the nursing home together. Frank picks out Vinnie’s tie.

You pick at the plate of spaghetti that appeared in front of you, unsure of either its provenance or why it came after dessert. It’s the best spaghetti you’ve ever had, and that frightens you, somehow. 

I lean in close to whisper to you about crime. You note that at some point I changed into a pinstriped suit. You don’t remember me changing, or even getting up— you console yourself with the notion that maybe I’d been wearing it from the start, even though you know that isn’t true.

So, the thing about Wiseguy is— well— it’s more available than it used to be. The whole series was recently released on blu-ray, and both that set and the most recent DVD sets actually have every episode, a change from the previous releases. As of August 2023, all of the series except Dead Dog is available, legally, on Youtube. This is a vast improvement from even two or three years ago, when multiple episodes weren’t available through any means but blurry, VHS-tracking-laden downloads of TV rips. 

Unfortunately, the most recent renegotiation of the series home video and streaming rights still failed on the music rights front. Dead Dog has been spared the hammer, but there are still places where the series has gaps. Notably, there’s an episode (Stairway to Heaven) where Frank murders a jukebox, and looks completely fucking insane, because the original (thematically meaningful) music the jukebox was playing was replaced with generic elevator music. Worse, the final episode of the Steelgrave arc (No One Gets Out of Here Alive) is missing two musical cues: in one instance, Sonny himself is singing, in a fit of mania, and the footage has straight up been cut from the episode because they couldn’t get the rights to The Young Rascals’ Good Lovin’.  Equally egregious, The Moody Blues’ Nights in White Satin, which originally played over nearly a minute of sustained, silent eye contact between Sonny and Vinnie— has been replaced with the Wiseguy opening theme. It renders a scene which should be quite clearly devastating and unsubtly romantic instead utterly awkward and bizarre. It’s hard to demonstrate just how jarring the change is unless you’ve seen the scene, but suffice to say that everyone I know who has seen both versions— in either order— has expressed horror and bafflement at the substitution. 

Which is to say: there’s a couple of episodes of Wiseguy you’re probably going to want to locate those shitty old TV rips of. It’s worth it, even if it seems like it wouldn’t be.

I place my hand over yours. You jump a little. I have a number of large, dark-stoned signet rings, and my hand is strangely cold. 

I make you an offer you can’t refuse.

You’re going to watch Wiseguy. 

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #82

Today is a day of resting. For a variety of reasons, I decided to stay home and watch M explore the second portion of your story.

I must say, I feel privileged and honored to be able to learn so much more about your planet than was possible previously. The first time your story was told, we were given so few details But now…

We can see the foods the people of your world eat. We can see the clothing they wear. The instruments they make music with. The art they create. The architecture they use to build their homes and structures. We even know now that your planet has sign language, just like mine! In the course of witnessing this part of your story, I've been trying to drink in as much of the culture of your world as I can.

I think one of the things I'm most interested in is making note of the different kinds of food available in your world. Cloud said something about the standard SOLDIER rations being nutritious, but gross. I can't help but wonder, given how much of your life must have been controlled by the corporation that created and enslaved you, how much of your world's cuisine you've been able to try. Though it is known that you enjoy things like pasta, I can't help but wonder what else you've tried, and what sorts of things you like and dislike when it comes to food. Are there flavors you can't stand? Textures that you don't enjoy?

…For some reason, I think you might like things such as macaroni and cheese. Or maybe a burrata. Or maybe you'd like bok choy, pan-fried in a little butter and garlic. Or stuffed mushrooms? Garlic bread? Concord grapes?

There are lots of things in your world that we don't have in mine. We don't have Gongaga mushrooms or Magonga mushrooms or Banora White apples or any of the greens that chocobos like to eat. So I wonder if maybe there are some things in my world that your world doesn't have. If there are… wouldn't it be amazing if I could share some of those things with you? I wonder what you would think.

I see the art in your world. I can't help but wonder if you've ever tried to draw or paint. If you have… what have you created? And if not… what kinds of pictures would you make? I wonder if you'd show us.

I see the musicians in your world. I can't help but wonder if you've ever tried to sing or to play an instrument, or even to whistle a little tune. What melodies do you like? What words do you carry in your heart? I wonder if you'd show us.

I see the performers in your world. I can't help but wonder, with all your amazing physical prowess, if you've ever tried to dance. I wonder what it would look like. I wonder what songs might move you.

I wonder so many things. I wonder which beautiful things life can offer that you have yet to experience. I wish I could pull you away from all the ick you're accustomed to, over to where I live, just for a day (because my planet has problems, too), to show you all of the wonderful things you've yet to try.

Hey, Sephiroth? Once you're all done with doing whatever you gotta do to make sure your planet and everyone on it (including you!!) is safe, will you promise me that you'll try those things? And that you'll share your thoughts and experiences with someone who understands? I'd like to think that I would understand, but… I imagine that you ever reaching me is an impossibility, since… ya know. You're an art form here, and not someone I can actually talk to or reach at all or try to help… as much as all of this pains me in ways that I can't even begin to describe.

But… even if it's impossible, I'm still not going to give up trying to reach you. So please… please make sure you don't give up, either. Don't give up on loving the world and the people around you. Don't give up on learning new things and shattering old conditioning in favor of newer, better, and more loving ways of being. Don't give up on trying to truly live, despite all that has happened to you.

I know you feel out-of-place and alone, but… if nowhere else… you can have a home in my house. Because my house is where lots of misfits go. It's a place where anyone can be safe. So… as impossible as it is, you're still invited. You're invited to be in a space where no one, no matter how different they are, can belong. You can belong. Don't give up. Please. I'll keep calling for you. I'll keep trying to show you as many beautiful things as I can. You're not alone.

I'll write again tomorrow. Please stay safe out there. Please come back to us in one piece.

Your friend, Lumine

[asuraid]

aid’s collection of neat art tricks

aka I wanted to compile all the neat things I’ve learned and picked up over the years across various sources; I wish I knew some of these, but they’re scattered across a variety of social medias and some from conversations.

of course, these are not a must and just have helped me! I just wanted to put them all in one place in hopes that maybe it’ll click something in someone like it has for me. c: I’m not the best at explaining, but I hope it makes sense!

some may use Clip Studio assets but can be replicated through other methods (or done by hand in the case of how I do my lineart colouring), but do keep in mind all of these are written with CSP in mind.

this is pretty heavy in images and gifs, and is quite long.

how to quickly fill your outlines (CSP tool)

this is a CSP specific method, but this tool has been my absolute saviour for making colouring so much easier for me (even if sometimes it still does require me to manually fill in some holes or erase sections). the bulk of how it works is explained in the tool as well, but I’m going to show a gif example for myself!

you have to make sure your lineart is set as the reference layer to ensure this tool does work; with messy outlines (like my own) you may need to manually fill in holes as can be seen in the gif above; with cleaner outlines, you don’t need to worry as much, but you may have some bleeding out of the lines for places that are a bit too close together (as you can see below, those areas would need to be erased). 

the tool can also help to close ‘gaps’ between colours!

I usually tend to have a ‘base’ colour that I just clip a folder of flat colours to, so it doesn’t bleed outside of it, but I’m also a nested folder freak to make sure everything is cleanly separated and doesn’t get ‘destroyed’ while I work on it. this tool just makes it so much easier to get that base down and just jump right into adding flats.

adding a little pop of depth

this one is thanks to a clip studio article itself where I saw it from, and I’ve been using it in practically all my drawings so far; all it is, is a simple blue-ish overlay layer with some muted yellow/red shading to give it a bit of a “3D” effect, for me I enjoy more that it adds a bit more colour variation underneath (usually lowered to 20-50% opacity, depends on the drawing)

the article definitely explains it a bit more nicely, but this is an example of having it at 50% opacity over one of my drawings

making your lineart feel less ... boring?

of course, boring is subjective from person to person, but I’ve always found my lineart to be too boring by itself 

like this is fine, but it’s missing some kind of oomph. there are two tricks I use when it comes to sprucing up my lineart: using the watercolour edge effect in CSP, and a combo of coloured outlines + black outlines

first things first, the watercolour edge option: by default it’s a bit too strong, so I usually find the sweet spot to be at 1 range and with an opacity of ~20

this can be replicated through duplicating your lineart, and if the option is available, using gaussian blur on the duplicated lineart to achieve around a similar effect.

coloured outlines!

when it comes to colouring my lineart, truth be told I do use a wonderful auto action for it which can be found here, and there is this alternative one as well (which i’ll be trying now!!!). 

it is a little different since it uses the flats, vs the one i use which just requires you to have the lineart selected, but as you can see it is a very quick way to colour your lineart ... this isn’t perfect by itself and will require you to have your flats finished.

this is my process: outlines done, autoaction, cleaning up by adding black outlines where they’re required and fixing up sections where the colours don’t quite make sense (like the sleeve area).

as you can see with the last drawing, I also tend to add a black outline around the outside of the piece, I personally found I really enjoy the contrast of the dark outside and coloured interior lines, as you can see in this little sample; it just adds a bit more visual interest for me!

unfortunately, outside of manually doing it, I cannot think of alternatives for this specific action (perhaps duplicating + flattening all your colours and placing it on top of the lineart may be a start)

crunchy textures and pretty colours ...

the texture i use on top of my drawings can be found in this CSP asset pack (though the marker brushes themselves are very lovely, and I’ve used them myself). this can be replicated through adding perlin noise, but I just find this texture to tickle the good spots in my brain, and it’s why I use it on pretty much all my drawings for some additional visual goodies.

yes, i am also a person who uses gradient maps. I usually tend to use them as finishers and more subtle ways to add more colours and variations to keep my shading from looking too flat, but they do have to be handled with care lest they become overwhelming. vampbyte does a wonderful introductory thread on gradient maps, how they function, and how they can be used.

they can be found through layer > new correction layer > gradient map -- or at least that’s how i usually access mine!

i often place mine at 20% opacity on the colour mode, though soft light and overlay also do their own fancy things! really depends on which you like most and works with your piece.

an example of my chibi w/o texture and colour gradients vs the texture + colour gradient ... as you can see it does change the colours quite a bit, so usually it does take me a bit of playing around to find a colour gradient I like (I’m a gremlin who has downloaded a lot of them) and to play with opacity values.

and to top it off, here’s the combination of all of these vs one with them all off.

how i personally shade (multiply layers)

i usually tend to either go for multiply shading over the whole drawing using one colour (and a few lil tricks to add more depth) for smaller pieces, or hard light shading for bigger and more complex pieces since it has more value depth.

my multiply layers are usually just one or two layers using around the same off-purple shade (though i shuffle it around pending on how it looks on the drawing

the second layer is a duplicate of the first, and i usually use an airbrush to either erase or expand areas to give it a softer shade (as you can see in the gif, the second layer is definitely missing chunks), or to add a different colour to the shading that isn’t the off-purple

how i personally shade (hard light mode)

this one’s a bit more of a mouthful, and thanks to a friend who introduced me to it! my second method is hard light shading, which, at its simplest, is greyscale shading and feels like it leans more into ‘painting’ your shades (as it works best with a brush that blends colours).

although I’m obliterating my own art here, it’s to show that most of your work will be in the greyscale/muted colours! it is inherently a non-destructive method of shading, so any changes to the colours underneath will maintain the shading regardless. normally I do have to duplicate the layer a second time since I don’t go too close to black shades, and it gives me a bit more control over how ‘hard’ I want my shading to be.

the middle is your ‘neutral’ shade, aka what you want to fill your entire hard light layer with, then your lighter greys will be your highlights, and darker greys your shading! 

alternatively, you’re looking for this when you want to find your ‘neutral’ shade.

once you got your hard light layer filled with your base/neutral shade, grab your favourite painting/blending brush and go ham!

as a heads up: when it comes to skin or warm colours in general, you may need to get out of the greyscale range otherwise it will look too desaturated and grey, as you can see below. for any other tones, the greys usually work well.

as of the moment, I think that’s all the little tricks I use when doing art, I hope it helps you guys!

(unless I somehow remember something else, but these are usually my default tricks I use for everything)

[lastoreadoras]

Looking for people to interact with

I've been much more outgoing lately, I'm not sure why! Despite this, I am still very bad at picking and choosing people to reach out to and message, so, to save time for everyone involved, I've made this post.

This post is asking for people to message me that also describes what exactly I want from our interactions! You will have to message me, though if you're feeling too shy to reach out in our DMs, sending a non-anonymous ask or directly replying to this post letting me know that you'd like a DM is a good way to get my attention and potentially receive a DM from me. See also: making my notifications blow up with a sequence of chained likes and/or reblogs on my posts.

Reblogging and especially liking this post specifically will not do much for putting you on my radar, because it's very easy to just like or reblog a post and doesn't take much effort, as opposed to messaging me or doing any of the things described above. If you're interested in connecting with me, please read this whole post (or at least look at the TL;DR) before reaching out to me!

Thank you in advance.

I am ace and I love meeting new people

To begin, I do NOT want a relationship in which there is only hypnosis and only kinky things. I am asexual, and while I am romantically attracted to basically every gender, I do not want to be horny 24/7. If you're looking for a committed (or gods forbid temporary) dominant/submissive or hypnotist/subject relationship, specifically only a dedicated sexual/kinky relationship, this post does not include you.

I am very affectionate

I love people! I love people so much and am always looking to make more partners and friends. There is a good chance that I will flirt at least a little, and will generally try to be very positive and overtly friendly in our interactions.

We'll still do hypnosis stuff

This does not mean I will not want hypnosis to be a part of our relationship- hypnosis is a very big part of my life, and is the root of how I've made most of my friends and especially my partners. I will eventually want hypnosis to happen between us (whoever the hypnotist shall be) and at the very least will want to be able to discuss the topic freely without judgement.

Video games good

I won't sugarcoat this next point- I am a gamer, I play on PC, use Steam, and heavily enjoy a wide variety of games. Specifics can be gleaned by questioning me, but I tend to lean toward roguelikes and co-op multiplayer games, be they designed specifically for co-op or simply offer the ability to play cooperatively with your friends. PvP games can be fun, but I definitely lean towards PvE titles.

Inherent bias

I adore women. Trans women particularly have a special place in my heart. This does not mean I will dislike anyone who isn't a woman or trans, but if you are feminine and/or transgender you will automatically gain some of my trust without having to do anything.

To clarify: video games

Over the course of our interactions, I will want to play video games with you, and I will want to hypnotize you or be hypnotized by you. That much is clear. If you don't play video games, that's okay, but as we are unlikely to live near one another, our options for doing things may possibly be limited. I will say, however, I may want to read something with/to you or watch anime/tv shows/movies with you. Simply sharing space and receiving attention can be enough, but I'm not very good at filling empty conversations with words as my social skills are somewhat limited.

Friend Zone

If you're already partnered up or don't wish to get involved romantically, I'm perfectly fine being your friend! I will still want hypnosis to be involved, but hanging out with friends is something I simply don't do enough and would be open to doing much more.

I only have one body

I am not always available 24/7 and am sometimes too busy to reply to messages. This does not mean I don't want to talk to you- I will tell you if our relationship isn't working, and barring extreme circumstances, will attempt to make it work. I have a few friends and partners already and if this post garners enough attention, will likely have even more, which means that I will not be available all the time. If you expect me to be 100% available every moment for you, this is probably not the relationship for you.

Allow me to summarize and recount the major points. (TL;DR)

We will not have being horny or sexual as the focus of our relationship.

I may be an introvert but I am liable to flirt with you and try to pry attention and affection out of you whenever possible.

We will discuss / engage in hypnosis (I know it's antithetical to the first bullet but it's necessary)

We will probably play video games. (on pc) If not, we will want to find an alternative.

I love women/feminine types, though if you're not a woman, that's perfectly acceptable, and I will appreciate your attention all the same.

It's okay if we're just friends! There's no pressure to become one of my partners, even if it is always an option.

We will not be spending every second of every day together, as I have existing friends and multiple partners to divide my attention. I will still try to answer your messages when I'm busy, but there are no guarantees.

Thank you!

Regardless if you read the whole thing or not, I hope you are well informed enough to make the decision of whether or not you want to reach out to me about this. It's worth noting that even if we're already acquainted in some way, this post is still an invitation for you to reach out!

Cheers! <3