#im like. u used to have to pay an artist to do that. and instead of putting technicology to good use

[ducktollers]

who up feeling their spirit get crushed into dust by this ai shit 😂😂😂

[umbrvx]

i like ur art. its great and interesting!! i really like your artstyle and i really like the way u draw hsy, yjh, and kdj. you captured them so well in terms of vibes/character. also i was wondering do u have any advice to improve on drawing anatomy/poses/faces?

wahh thank you so much...!! i feel like im still trying to figure them out in a lot of ways but i do really like ironing out my visual interpretations of them so im really happy to hear if people like what im coming up with

also anon you super activated the part of my brain that cant help but yap about art theory... i spent some time writing as many tips as i could think of. unfortunately i dont think i have the time currently to do a fully illustrated guide, but ill still try to include some visual examples:

[incoming wall of text lol]

ANATOMY:

to preface i think that like 100% of the time you should reference a real life photo for anatomy rather than other artwork or drawn references. the best way to learn the body is by… well, actually looking at the body! but also artwork is informed by a person's own artistic ability/stylization choices/sense of idealism, so while looking at art can help give you an idea on how to break down forms, i think you would be best served observing real life references. i labor on this point because i do think that having over relied on drawn reference material and avoiding photographic references on the basis of not being interested on realism hindered me as a largely self-taught artist as a kid, so i want to encourage live or photographic reference since anatomy is one of the foundations from which everything else is built on. that being the case, all of my doodles i'm doing for this are going to be for the sake of example rather than to strictly say how you should or should not be drawing something

-> when you are doing a study of a photo, just try copying it as best as you can. pay close attention to the natural lines and shapes of the body -- the S-curve shape of the leg, the triangular shape of the forearm, the trapezoid shape of hips/thighs when they sit, and so on. note where the body folds or squishes or pulls; how mass will shift to accommodate a certain position. if a form is hard to visualize, focus on the negative space and carve that out, rather than strictly drawing the positive space.

don't expect to get it perfect the first time. in fact, iterate on it multiple times to build understanding. try doing it to a timer of 15, then 10, then 5 minutes. doing this will force you to have to prioritize the most important shapes. you can help reinforce this by using a thicker brush or a brush with no pen pressure (no joke ms paint works great for this) to force you to be loose and not become preoccupied with details.

-> pinterest is a great resource for finding and compiling photo reference material

-> organic shapes are curved, so embracing/emphasizing that (particularly for the extremities) can help make your drawings look more natural or fluid

POSES: -> it all begins & ends with contrapposto… you've probably heard of the line of action, which is related. if you're offsetting the shoulders & hips, it: makes poses more natural, more dynamic, and helps the pose sort of "draw itself" -- the legs will follow the direction of the hips, and you can use the arms to reinforce the angles

-> context is key. don't ask: what pose should i draw? instead ask: what do i want this character to convey? what does happiness, anger, sadness, and so forth look on this particular character? how do they express that? consider these drawings: these are both ostensibly the same pose, but look at how changing just the shape of the spine recontextualizes it.

for more on pose design i recommend watching Tracer & Pose Design 101 - The Animation of Overwatch by New Frame Plus (i promise this is a genuinely super informative video).

to expand on this, in general, all of the components of a piece (background, composition, pose, etc.) are best considered in conjunction rather than separately. it is difficult to choose a pose and then choose a background because they are missing the context that would make a piece cohesive. when you are planning a drawing, try to begin with your general concept/idea/prompt and then do several thumbnails -- small and quick doodles that should take no longer than 5 minutes each -- developing it: you may find that the pose and bg will naturally fall into place.

-> silhouette: the degree to which you need to push this varies by style but generally speaking the pose needs to be readable; i.e. instantly recognizable. try to keep important elements of the gesture outside of the silhouette. for example, if the character is pointing, keep that arm out of the interior of the body. the same pose can be more or less readable or dynamic depending on where the character is pointed in relation to the viewer

-> exaggeration!! goes along with the previous point. push the pose as much as you can (and what makes sense for your style) to communicate your pose as clearly and as intensely as possible.

FACES: -> i highly recommend the app Handy Art Reference Tool by Belief Engine for all things related to drawing hands/heads/feet. its on both android and ios. it isn't free -- it costs around $3 -- but that is seriously such a small price to pay for the amount of utility you get out of it: the hands models are fully poseable (there's also pose presets), you can rotate the head models however you want, and there is 3-point customizable lighting. it is really helpful for getting those super tricky and hyperspecific head angles that you just can't find a real life reference for. that being said given that there's only a few different head model variants, bear in mind how differences in features can affect what exactly a face will look like in those angles.

-> i still recommend doing studies of real people. as with anything else, learning generalized proportions is important, even if you are going to later on bend or break this depending on style

-> as for my own approach... it kind of depends on the style i'm doing at that particular time. for my paintings (what id consider my main style) i approach a character with a few real-world features in mind and then apply them to the best of my ability. it usually will take a few iterations to land on an interpretation i really like as i try out different things. a lot of the face also gets developed during rendering rather than through my initial sketch too, as i adjust for lighting and correct proportions on the fly

(look how much this image changes between sketch and render lol)

if i were to recommend anything, i think it would be to nail down your most distinct features first -- the ones that will make your character's face recognizable, and could apply regardless of art style. in my case with kim dokja, i knew when i first started drawing him that i wanted to give him a longer face and down-turned eyes. when i decided to do the disco elysium inspired set, in which i was breaking out of my comfort zone by letting go of any idealizations focusing on conveying characterization/making them feel "real", i landed on some more specific traits (defined lower lids/perpetually tired eyes/eyebags(?) the crease there idk how to describe it) which i continue to try to evoke even if im drawing something much more cartoony

(pictured are my first kdj -> disco elysium style -> my post de-style kdj)

as a side note, this very same process changed yjh much more dramatically

(^ that first guy is mad someone else)

those handful of key features will be the thing that you can then take into a simpler style and simplify or exaggerate to whatever degree suits you. you can also play with shape theory (square = sturdy/solid, circle = natural/smooth/welcoming, triangle = energetic/dangerous). shape theory doesn't necessarily need to be so rigid -- you can combine shapes as you please to convey whatever vibe you're going for -- so please think of it as a tool that may help rather than a rigid law you must abide by.

-> expressions: exaggerate them. thats kind of it!! make it big!!! you wanna be able to really feel those emotions. the principles of squash & stretch help here: think of how the muscles move when you, say, open the eyes or mouth really big. as one side of the face stretches open, the other side squashes to accommodate it

even without changing the position of the jaw here, moving the nose and scrunching the eyes will sell the expression

you can also play with squash/stretch to break proportions to sell a feeling more

since expressions are just, well, poses for the face, everything else for poses applies here (and facial expressions & pose should also be considered in tandem). while the term contrapposto itself just refers to the offset of the shoulders & hips, the similar principle of asymmetry also carries here as that will help make the expression a bit more dynamic.

and i think... that's it!! all i can think of at least. i hope it helps anon!!!

[cartoonemotion]

hiii. after watching class of 3000 what character interactions do u think would be most fun to explore. I almost typed explode

YAAAAY this is such a good question !!!!!! honestly as an ensemble cast i feel like class of 3000 overall balances itself and its cast interactions out pretty well (lil d, eddie, and philly phil maybe get some more extra centric episodes in my opinion though. granted it makes sense for lil d since there was an interview where andre said that the character was supposed to in some way kind of be based off him as a kid/his experiences in school)

ALL THAT TO BE SAID !!

pretty much tamika and anybody else. being fully transparent, this is bias cuz tamika is arguably one of my faves of the show and while she does actually get moments to shine i feel like shes just a liiiittle underutilized. when they start using her to set up gags about eddie being clearly infatuated with her instead of that being more of a consistent background detail it starts really negatively effecting the writing of both characters imo. she and madison have some charming bits and that episode where theyre paired up together but i would have also loved to see more of a dynamic between her and kim !! kim's very artistic and expressive and wants to be something of a trendsetter but is obviously (for very reasonable 12 year old reasons, i think) invested in still being apart of the "in" crowd and other people's perception of her, and i think that mirror's tamika's whole thing of being cool and tough but being afraid that that image might be compromised if she lets more of her softer side come through (her collecting dolls, baking cookies with her goofball dad, and actually really enjoying very mushy displays of affection for example) rather nicely ! plus their instruments (turn tables, misc percussive instruments and the harp) would go nicely together imo

I ALSO THINK tamkia and lil d would be fun to explore !!!!!! they kind of start off strong in the beginning of the first season but theres less of it as the show goes on which is a shame ! its funny to watch them squabble almost like siblings but its very clear that they still like and care about each other-- i mean in one episode where tamika goes to hang out with some other girls lil d laments that he misses her threatening him and when she shoves him he exclaims "we missed you tamika !!!" very earnestly !!! it would be nice to explore tamika's side of that yknow !!!

maybe the writers thought philly phil and madison were too similar since theyre both kind of eccentric goofballs to have them paired up more often but i think they could play off each other really nicely ! after all madison is supposed to be more of a ditzy but friendly hippie type and philly phil's mostly just socially inept and kind of clumsy, i think you could find a lot of comedy potential balancing that

i also think philly phil and kam could have gotten more screen time as a duo, seeing as they have the whole geek and nerd dichotomy going on. kam is more of a skeptic whereas philly phil seems to be more willing to believe in things like aliens and santa claus and unicorns even though hes a "man of science", i think it was a real missed opportunity to not have him and kam maybe get into friendly arguments about it or something, or maybe realize they have converging interests (like kam's belief/enthusiasm for bigfoot)

i like lil d and eddie's friendship ! it read to me like eddie was the closest to lil d out of everyone in the group, and i say that even without taking "eddie's money" into consideration (even though thats a great showcase i feel like as to what im talking about !) like everytime lil d needs to pay for something and hes just like "its whatever eddie's got it" eddie just does with very little to no complaint, idk !!! i just like em. plus i think they illustrate again some of the stuff andre was talking about in his goal of exploring the culture of atlanta and his own experiences there since lil d and eddie come from bankhead and buckhead respectively, and him (andre 3000 i mean) mentioning that he went to school on the other side of town with a whole bunch of ppl including the mayor's kids lol

i just love sunny's little individual mentor moments with the kids in general !!!!!! obviously he and lil d are big one and kind of the show's highlight for obvious reasons, but i also really love the one on one moments he gets with kim, which happen way more often than i initially expected !!! i would have loved to see him sort of guide and mentor again tamika a bit more too again to possibly help her reconcile both elements of her identity as both a no-nonsense butt-kicker and somebody with more "childish" or "girly" interests. and also him and philly phil, just because i think. it would be zany. and good for hijinks.

[old-stoneface]

saw ur tags, what was growing up in a spiritual school like?

hmmm... it was like a hybrid of things. i describe it as "spiritual" bc its maybe the easiest shorthand for what it was like. so, i went to a private waldorf school on the east coast from preschool through fourth grade, and thats a school heavily focused on enriching children's lives thru art and music and religious teachings, but not really...any religious teachings in particular. i learned christian stories, norse and greek mythology, and there was a heavy focus on learning folktales/fairytales in early grades. we would celebrate springtime with maypole dances, and every september we would have a michaelmas festival with a play by several of the classes (there was one class per grade) showing how st michael tamed the dragon that attacked the village. in the winter months we would do a lantern walk and see a small reenactment of st martin giving his cloak to a vagrant. so my younger formative years were surrounded by depictions of various religions. as u can imagine, that sort of environment was populated by a certain type of person, which is the type of person my mother turned into. there was a lot of support for crystal healing, a lot of eurythmy classes (a form of interpretive dance is the best description, i think), every class did a play every year and we all memorized poems about the rocks and leaves and sun and sky and how they were all alive and caring for us...we drew form drawings. instead of regular classes we would study one subject for a month at a time for several hours in the morning, drawing full color illustrations and writing stories on nice pieces of paper and binding them into books at the end of each block of studies. i grew up with a huge respect for nature and a great tonal and cultural disconnect from public school. waldorf instilled in me my love of art and music and theater. my biggest special interest is STILL mythology, and i reguarly think about/reference the teachings from my elementary school years even now. however, for as much as i loved it, i also feel very...um. isolated from mainstream society. i didnt watch any tv at all, i wasnt allowed on the internet or any computer for years, i only played with other kids at waldorf, and so now i have very little cultural connection with many other people my age. its weird! but waldorf very much helped me become the kind of person i am now, and while im disillusioned from most of those teachings about pseudosciences, i still believe in stuff like the instrinsic beauty of nature and the healing properties of the arts. the worst part of private arts and spiritual-type schools is always going to be the fact that you have to pay a whole lot of fucking money to go there.

tldr; the spiritual school i went to from the ages of 4 to 11 turned me into an artist who loves mythology and nature and poetry, but it also isolated me from mainstream society and caused a lot of pain and confusion when i began going to public school. 7/10

[warrior-u-preservation]

Interview with The Path Podcast (Full written responses)

(Note: The interview itself will be different, since mod myne represented both mods on the podcast. However, this includes our full feelings on the questions that were provided to us.)

Who are you and how did you end up walking the path of a "warrior u" writer/comic creator?

Myne: I go by worldismyne for fandom related pursuits.

I'd like to clarify that Aisha Thani is the creator of Warrior U. Just like multiple people have written for Stan Lee's creations, I'm just a writer who's received permission from the creator to distribute and monetize works within her universe.

I've been in the WU fandom since 2014; at that time Aisha made the comic, ran an in character ask blog, a concept art blog and the main blog. I can only imagine how much work that was. A hard drive crash killed about 6 or so pages of Ambrosia, the last story arch she was working on; three weeks worth of updates up and gone. I watched writer’s block take hold and kill my favorite series in real time. Having to go back and redo work she’d already done had given her time to look at it and go ‘I can’t post this, this is awful’, but by then all of us were waiting for the next update for over a month, she couldn’t go back and rewrite the entire arch. It didn’t help that this was the origin story for a fan favorite character, so there was all this pressure to make it perfect. Instead, after about six artists made fan comics to feed the hungry fandom… she announced the end. The website, the blogs, one by one they all ran into issues and got shut down. Hundreds of pieces of art and story concepts just… lost. Once the comics were rereleased on gumroad, that was it, the fandom slowly died. Before this project, the last time the creator posted new content was in 2017. Then in the middle of the pandemic, out of nowhere I get 70+ notifications from Coffee reblogging the pieces of art I had saved from the old blog, including drafts from the unfinished issues. 

Coffee: well, i go by coffee online, im 20 years old and when im not working on my various personal projects i work part-time. i was introduced to warrior u WAYY back in the day (i think i was like 9-ish?) by my brother who found out about it through some unknown and mysterious ways. back then i had very limited internet access (meaning i could only visit sites that could be loaded by the internet app on my nintendo dsi), so i pieced together a bit of a plot from what i could find on google images. i wasnt able to fully read the comic until i was 13 (i had to BEG my mom to pay for the pdfs lol), but it had kinda always existed in the back of my mind ever since i was introduced to it. i decided a little over a year ago to start out the tumblr blog because i had recently read through the comic again and was really sad about just how hard it is (or i guess WAS now) to find a lot of things related to the comic. as the name of the blog suggests, its original purpose was to preserve/archive warrior u stuff so it could be more accessable to your average internet user who might not wanna go digging through internet archives. it was originally for official content EXCLUSIVELY, but myne talked me into also including fan-made content (and im glad he did, its WAY harder to find some fan content than i remember it being just a few years ago). its kinda hard to tell how good of a job it does at BEING that archive, but i like to think it could be useful to someone out there.

i had toyed with the idea of finishing the last official story arc- ambrosia- near the beginning of the blogs lifespan, but i knew that it was too big of a project for me to do myself. i didnt wanna dissapoint people by leaving the ALREADY unfinished arc STILL unfinished. i had written in the "about" section of the blog that the dream was a full fandom revival, but i didnt actually expect that to happen. when myne joined the blog we eventually started playing with the idea of finishing ambro. i forget how exactly we officially decided we would do it, but we did! at some point near the beginning of ambro, we had also decided we were gonna write our own fan-arcs and post those too, and the rest is history!

What was it about warrior u that made you say "this is it. i need to make more content of this."

Coffee: honestly? i think it was just how much i enjoy introducing people to the comic. i already make tons of fan content on my own time, so that wasnt really the crazy part. i had shown a couple of my mutuals the comic after i re-read it, and the feeling of seeing other people actually talk about and even make ART of warrior u was absolutely surreal. i guess thats what happens when you just silently admire a dead fandom for years LMAO! another big part of it was HOW the comic ended. after taking a hiatus, the creator ended the comic mid-arc because creating it just wasnt enjoyable anymore, and thats obviously completely fair. however, the arc it ENDED on was elaborating on the backstory of one of (if not THE) most popular characters at the time (and my personal favorite), so i had always wished that the issue could have been finished. its kinda hard to put into words, but finishing ambrosia was like a love letter to the comic and its creator to me. as flawed as the plot of that arc may be (and as unsatisfied with it as the creator was, at least back then) i still felt like it deserved to be finished. it was like fixing an old toy from your childhood, i felt like we were taking care of the comic in a way, giving it the love it deserves. maybe thats just my tendency to personify objects and get overly attached to them coming through, but hey thats how it is sometimes LMAO

Myne: When the comic was still on hiatus after the harddrive crash, some people had asked Aisha if she wanted to hand the series over to other artists to help her. She said she wouldn’t even know where to begin that process or if she’d wanted to do it. I would have offered then, but my skills as an artist and a writer weren’t nearly as strong. I held onto the drafts thinking, one day I’d do it. 

Myne: After Coffee and I started talking I realized, I can do it now. I know what kind of style of pens were used, and I whipped up a page, just the line art and sent to Coffee as a thank you. I thought, it isn’t much, and it’ll take me forever to color everything, but if there’s one person willing to read it, I’ll try. When I explained how difficult it’d be for me to color, he offered to do it for me. Suddenly a page that would take a month for just me to do on my own took 3 days.

Myne: Something, that seemed like a monumental task became a realistic goal. We were able to find, restore, and edit 45 pages within a few months. I’m still amazed we were able to do weekly updates without missing a day. Coffee asked if I’d ever be willing to write fan issues while we were working, not realizing I was the author of the longest fics in the series. Of course I said yes. Seeing Warrior U get finished, even through fan creation, was something I’d wanted to see for years.

You're from Az right, how is the webcomic weeb culture over there as opposed to california?

Myne: Idk about much about Cali, I've noticed the cons are more... professional? Where as Arizona cons have more of a fanclub vibe. Most panels are hosted by your fellow nerds rather than sony or production companies. I will say, that it's become more common and widespread in the last ten years, with multiple anime specific events year round. Back when I was a kid, I'd get made fun of for drawing 'japanese' people all the time.... it was pokemon fanart... Where as nowadays, I feel the average kid recognizes most big name titles thanks to hulu and such. 

What are your favorite anime/manga/webcomics and do any inspire your work?

Coffee: not really an anime, manga, or webcomic, but ive always been super inspired by the "scott pilgrim" series. when i was in middle school i was SUPER into it, reading all the behind the scenes stuff i could find. it even made me look into "comic illustrator" as a career option, but i also did the same thing with "game designer" and "animator" so yknow. as for webcomics, the only one i ever really got into was homestuck. side note- the overlap of oldschool homestuck fans and warrior u fans is FASCINATING to me. my current theory is that all these tumblr kids were looking for other webcomics to read while homestuck was on one of its MANY hiatuses(?) and so a bunch of them flocked to warrior u! theres tons of homestuck crossover content and references in fan art on our blog (some of the art styles also look homestuck-ajacent) so its at least clear that a lot of fans back then were also really into homestuck. ANYWAYS other than that i havent really read many other webcomics tbh? weird considering i MAKE one now but what can i say, im more of a Gamer than anything lol. as for anime, my favorite is easily keroro gunso (or sgt. frog if youre using the dub name)! its another thing i discovered when i was young (this time i was like 8) and have just never gotten over. theres a lot of Questionable stuff in it (prime example is an adult alien being madly in love with a 14 year old girl) but if i dont look at canon its not real so i love it anyways <3.i honestly dont know how many people really know about it since the western fanbase is so small, but its like HUGE in japan (or at least it was at one point, the titular keroro has a cameo in lucky star as a keychian) and the manga is still running to this day iirc. it was created by mine yoshizaki and the basic premise is that a platoon of frog-like aliens come to earth to take it over but they really suck at it. they begin living with humans and from there its kind of a mix between a slice-of-life and monster-of-the-week anime. i cant really say anything in depth about the manga because ive only read the first 5 issues of it, which are basically the same as the anime (fake fan smh), but ive heard that it gets more mature and serious than the anime does (which i guess is bound to happen when it goes on for so long). also the manga has some ecchi moments and blood used for slapstick purposes so if anyone wants to check it out just keep that in mind lol.

Myne: Obviously Warrior U. I'm a bit of a visual novel fiend, so Danganronpa is a series I've found a lot of inspiration from over the years. More recently  Though for the comic, I draw mostly from late 80s / early 90s high fantasy. Things like Labyrinth and Robinhood: Men in Tights. Honestly anytime I get stuck trying to come up with a gag, I look to Mel Brooks. 

So in continuing someone else's work, do you feel a sense of pressure to be just as good as the original?

Coffee: i definitely felt that way when it came to ambrosia, but i feel a lot less pressure when it comes to our upcoming issues. i wrote and made thumbnails for a few small scenes in ambro and i was SO SCARED of those scenes being noticably worse than the rest of the issue. i know the original creator has seen our version of ambro and those scenes by extention, but i dont know her exact thoughts on them. im satisfied with them but theres probably always gonna be that kinda star-struck stage feeling at the thought of the creator reading the scenes i wrote. its like getting stage fright. for our upcoming issues i dont feel as much pressure because theyre fully fan-written. our comics arent official in any sense of the word and theyre basically just fanfiction with extra steps, so its not nearly as stressful as trying to tie together an "official" story. there definitely WOULD be that pressure if we were ever given the rights to warrior u or something (which i dont want to happen) because then it WOULD be official yknow? also if the creator decides to keep up with what we post ill feel a bit more pressure, but i get the feeling that she wants to distance herself from warrior u a bit so im not sure how likely that would be.

Myne:  I do. Partially because, the fan content we’re making is completely free while the original series is purchasable on gumroad. So there’s a chance that some people may start with what we’re working on, then go backwards to the original.  I'm hyper aware of the tonal shift that's about to happen, no matter how much I try, I can't perfectly emulate someone else's writing style. The best I can do is capture the spirit of it. I just keep repeating "it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be". It's a little harder taking that advice now that it's my scripts we're turning into issues. There is some freedom in knowing the series was never meant to be perfect though.

What drove you to writing the longest fanfiction for the series and how did it feel to be recognized and promoted by the original creator?

Myne: When I was younger, I would write fanfic instead of paying attention in class, and I really wanted a full story about the leads getting together. Knowing that the creator was reading every fanfic at the time added more fuel to the fire. I had a guaranteed audience, the audience. I was so grateful that she recommended it to other fans. That fic was 25k, I've written about 100 K in the last year to help maintain interest in addition to new pages to the comic. To that I blame hyperfixation and hiatus brain. You have to be the biggest fan of the thing you're making.

So i see the that most of your work including the webcomic Warrior U is on tumblr why did u choose to promote om tumblr as opposed to other webcomic outlets like webtoons, mangadex etc?

Coffee: the answer to this one is actually pretty simple; i already had a warrior u blog and tumblr is the social media/blogging site that im most familiar with! we have recently started using comicfury and tapas, but that was entirely mynes idea. im personally pretty content with just hanging out in my little corner of the internet so any attempts to expand or get the word out is mostly (if not entirely) mynes doing LOL!

Myne: It's interesting you bring up those two actually. Webtoons recently come under fire for being pretty crummy to it's indie comics, particularly if you write in any genre other than romance. Mangadex is a pirating website, so most of the comics there are fan translations rather than uploads from the creators : they had a pretty bad data breach a few years back too. At first we only had permission from the creator to upload on tumblr. Once we got permission to move forward with the fanmade run, we branched out to tapas and comicfury. They seemed like the best options for the genre and style we write in. Even still, we see about double the growth in readership on tumblr as opposed to the other outlets, and I think that's mostly because the blog updates daily, even though we only publish one page a week.

Do you have any plans on creating your own webcomic/manga?

Coffee: yes and no. i sometimes draw small fan comics and id like to make more polished and "finished" ones in the future, but nothing with any kind of overarching plot, at least not in the near future. i have a very hard time making original content for whatever reason. i DO have one (1) personal project that is completely original, but i plan on making a game with that. then again i have NO idea what im doing with that project anymore so who knows, maybe one day i WILL decide to turn it into a comic! only time will tell…

Myne: I have a visual novel I'm working on. It's about teen super villains that have to go to reform school. Think teen titans meets gifted kid burnout. The game's been in development hell since our first alpha build and writing about apocalyptic civil unrest wasn't as fun as it was pre 2020. We're about 200k into the draft for the full game and we're having to switch engines, which means cutting a bunch of features, but we're slowly getting there. If that fails, I'll try adapting the story into a comic.

To those people who will see this and decide to strut down the path of comic creation what is some advice you can give them?

Coffee: i think the most HELPFUL advice i could give would be this: you dont have to do everything by yourself. i personally have taken tons of inspiration from indie artists/game designers/etc. some prime examples of this are daisuke amaya aka pixel (who created cave story) and toby fox (who created undertale and deltarune), who both made incredible pieces of art that were defining to me as a person when i discovered them either entirely alone or almost entirely alone. you hear stories all the time of these great pieces of art being made by one or two people, and ive always wanted to be like that. as a result ive alwasy had a hard time reaching out for help when it comes to my art, feeling like if i cant do it all alone that itll never be as good as it could be. as a result though, all this mindset does is keep things from actually getting done and needlessly stress you out. NONE of the warrior u comics would exist if i had never gotten help from myne, and the blog would have probably gone inactive a LONG time ago too. i think thats the biggest lesson ive learned from this whole thing personally. theres absolutely no shame in working with a team of people if thats what needs to happen to see a project be realized.

Myne:  One, try not to put more than 8 panels on a page, that's helped me a bunch with page layout. And two, find someone you can show your work to. That can be a friend, a mutual online, a family member; as long as you have that one person asking "what happens next" you can keep writing. The stories/comics I have that are the longest are because of that. 

What inspires your art and what would u say you consider your style to be?

Myne: Invader Zim, Danganronpa, and Pacthesis have heavily influenced my art style. (pacthesis made a series of free dating sims on deviant art). I've always considered my art style to be pretty shoujo manga, but lately some of my pieces have been labeled too western for weeb spaces.

What advise can you give the next person who wants to draw art and share it with the world?

Coffee: i give the same advice to everyone i meet that says theyre thinking of making art in any form, and i mean it from the bottom of my heart: DO IT! im so in love with art of all kinds and the process of creating it, and i think that getting into any creative hobby is nothing but a good thing and i deeply believe that everyone should do it. whether you wanna draw, write, make music, develop games, sculpt, knit, etc, do it! quality doesnt matter at all, you can make the most technically awful thing in the world but as long as you enjoyed the process of creating it then it still has value. dont be nervous about your art being good enough. if you dont want to share it then you arent obligated to! i dont share like 90% of the stuff that i make but i still create art almost every single day! recently my qpp (queerplatonic partner) has gotten into drawing and im SO happy for them. they primarily use mspaint and a mouse to draw and their art is SO adorable and i love it so much, and im not just saying that because i love them. it doesnt matter what skill level you start at or what tools you have, you can always start making art. and dont compare the art that you make to others art, which i know from experience is a VERY easy trap to fall into. i dont have as much to say about that point because im not as passionate about it but uhhh yeah :3

Myne: Social media algorithms are not going to make you happy; no matter how well you play the game and low engagement does not mean you're a bad artist. If you keep posting and talking to other artists, you'll find your audience.

So at wonder con where we met ylu were cosplaying power from chainsaw man with a group of girls who were cosplaying other chainsaw characters. Do you girls normally group up and cosplay and if so how did you get into it?

Myne:  I was born into cosplay. My parents were gamers and cosplayers, and I started picking my own characters to cosplay when I was 14. I started getting more into it in college when I could find other people to cosplay with, it wasn't until this year I started aiming for photoshoots. I tend to be in at least one large group cosplay a con, and bring a different costume every day.

What was your favorite cosplay you've done?

Myne: It's a toss up between Persona 5 Joker and Alluring Secret Rin. Those were the ones I put the most work in that still hold up. Though I'm currently working on Eris from the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and that may overtake them.

Have you ever thought to cosplay someone from Warrior U?

Myne:  I do actually! I've cosplayed as the main character Finn a few times. I really like taking simplified designs from comics/cartoons and turning them into heavily detailed looks. '

Where do you see warrior u being in 5 years from now?

Coffee: man, honestly if were STILL working on this project 5 years from now that would be CRAZY. this is already the longest ive worked on a single project before, along with being the most ive ever gotten DONE for a project, so thinking about what it could be like in 5 years is like. WOW. by that point we would have archived most (if not ALL) of the older stuff we could find, so our blog would probably just be new pages and fan interaction if were still going! the dream is still for a full fandom revival, and weve already got a small active fanbase (of like 5 people but still) so who knows, maybe that dream will be a reality?

Myne: We have at least 3 years worth of story drafted and lined up, and even more outlined. So ideally still updating. By then, we'll have some physical releases of the finished arcs that we've written available for purchase online and at select events. The creator has said she has no interest in making physical releases of the original run. I'd love for that to change, but I respect her decision and I won't press the matter. I'm just grateful we have permission to sell anything we make using her characters. 

If you could go back in time 5 years, what advice would you give yourself?

Coffee: 15 and 16 were ROUGH ages for me tbh. i wont get into it because its super personal, but i was struggling with a lot and just generally not having a very good time. i think the best advice i could give to myself would just be that like. things will eventually get better. no matter how dark or hopeless things may be, theres always a silver lining and a light at the end of the tunnel. now if 15 year old me would have taken that to heart is a whole DIFFERENT question, but thats what i would say. 16 was like right before i (finally) started getting treatment for my mental health, so i think considering everything thats what i would say.

Myne: So many bad things happened during those five years, but… I wish I knew what burnout felt like, so I could recognize it. I have this tendency to put my self worth into “how much have you done today”, so once I started working full time and my father passed,  I couldn’t recognize that I was physically and emotionally exhausted some days and needed rest, so I’d just punish myself mentally for not being more motivated. You shouldn’t need permission to rest, and I felt like I had to. It’s healthy to ‘nothing’ sometimes, especially if you’re dealing with things you have no control over.

Coffee: thank you for interviewing myne and i for your podcast :D!! its absolutely wild to think that ive done anything interview-worthy and yet here we are! for anyone thats interested in the comic because of this, i also emplore you to go check out the creators current comic "si3lah" (pronounced like si-ayn-lah i think? the 3 is a stand-in for an arabic letter) on gumroad! it deserves way more attention than it currently has and you should 100% go support the original creator if you like the stuff we do (wink wink).

[space-girl-and-droids-art]

I truly cannot do this anymore .

Im writting this here cause I know my loved ones won’t see this here . And because this way what I write Can go unnoticed and just a bump that I’ll probably delete later in an spam account dedicated to Star Wars (one of the most fun spaces in my life ! )

I am in a career I don’t want to be in . And I pursued that instead of what I wanted to do , illustration and music , because I was promised a future that was more financially stable . I could always just use that money to invest in my craft right ?

Wrong . I just got a job that pays a lot more by the hour than my field usually is paying for these days and it ain’t enough to buy stock of my art to go to fairs and markets .

Im also neurodivergent and have paranoid personality disorder so I probably will have to take into account having and paying somebody that I know to be at the fair for me because I cannot go .

And also it wouldn’t be a safe choice either . It would be like throwing my money down the drain . Because my art is failing . Nobody is buying it anymore . And it’s not like I’m starting out , I’ve been at this for like a decade and I did good at one time . It’s just not anymore .

And I feel like I’ve been scammed out of the get go because the life I wanted was never a thing I could’ve thought of reaching . And the secure career is not giving me enough to be happy doing what I truly wanna do .

And I don’t know what to do anymore , I just need help . Any help . Learning resources , community support (I am by myself most of the time because I work from home and I can’t go see my friends at university because I got harassed heavily and I’m scared to go back, and I live two hours away by car from the nearest friend ) (I don’t have a car and I don’t know how to drive ) , craft business advice , what do I do with this . Just anything u have to offer , if somebody is reading this , is more than welcome .

Everything is just so overwhelming . And I was just so attached to my dreams that realizing something inside my brain and the choices I made in the past career wise will hold me back forever is so haunting and devastating .

Im a scientist that doesn’t get paid enough to do something other than research and sleep . I am an artist who cannot go to an art fair or sell her art online or succeed at any project. I am a musician who cannot be near or on a stage . I am worthless .

It sounds stupid and it sounds awful and boring and there are a lot of things happening in the world right now that are way more important than a third world country girl realizing the dreams I wanted were not meant to be achieved by me . But it makes me sad and I’m afraid of talking about this to my loved ones because I know they don’t get it . And I feel even more alone that I am right now .

On a slightly joke-ish note , I feel like that movie where the character played by Paul Dano wanted to fly airplanes and then he learns he cannot because he is colorblind . Only I’m not colorblind , I just can’t be in crowded places without having a panic attack and my social presence is shitty even in the online world .

(Before someone thinks I’m an antisocial and maybe I should touch grass , I have friends and a boyfriend and a caring family , it’s not my choice to not be able to see them . And it’s not like they don’t wanna be with me either it’s just life always gets in the way of me seeing them . )

(So life itself not only takes from me all the dreams I once had , but also heavily isolates myself against my will. And it feels unfair I just want to be happy but it seems like I’m asking for too much )

[ihavenothingtodo10220]

100% agree and i do like reading others opinions sometimes as well other times i might browse websites and be like who cares?

fr its just out of hand nowadays ik idol groups rely on their fans for a lot of their success so its basically supply and demand is it not? they supply brief distraction from the problems among the world but fans have to unfortunately pay a fortune to merely interact with them. i mean if u go back to other eras the 50s for exampke elvis concerts used to only cost $1.50 and nowadays if you had to pay a fortune to witness a music group interact with fans via fan call its not worth it for older fans. its such a rip off. id lowkey wouldve preferred the 50s pay even tho it wasnt perfect by no means bc of what was going on at the time. but the way prices are is just obscene. its almost too much in large quantities like the industries are just pushing whatever out people are buying it over and over again. wheres the logic and common sense in any of it? im sure the idols are also going to eventually get fed up with all their extra work that they have to do to secure a loyal fan base but im finding even if i like one grouo its mainly briefly cause im not putting money into their career if that makes sense? i dont feel like i owe them a penny just to be entertained but at the same time theres still pressure to spend on groups and artists bc everyone has to belong to some type of clique to fit in. its like we cant just simply like a song or a group and we cant dislike a song or a group without some type of backlash either.

even hobbies are becoming an overconsumption too in the sense that instead of people doing them for fun theyre doing it for views clicks subscribes and comments.

I agree that you shouldn't have to pay a fortune to interact but at the same time, it's understandable. There are millions of fans for one group worldwide, and they need to be more selective since everyone's trying to meet their idols. It's more competitive than anything. And idols are rarely seen in public if at all nowadays, so it's even harder. And the fifties were also generally cheaper in everything, that's certain, but at the exact same time, it's cheaper because of their current economic and cultural significance. Twenty-five cents was worth more than because of their economy back then, and the pay was smaller because of it. And I generally think the idols and their company aren't to blame because, at the end of the day, it's their job that they're trying to live off of and sustain themselves and the company. I really blame the toxic 'fans' paying thousands and buying hundreds of items to win a fan call, and therefore making it so it's near impossible for others to do so without matching that. Toxic 'fans' who come for people just because they don't like a particular song or group. Hell, some toxic 'fans' come for group members or groups who interact with their faves. Really, it's more of a fanbase thing than an idol problem. And with the extra events, idols knew what they were getting themselves into. It's like any other job, essentially. They get paid and get to meet and talk to fans, who're paying to see them. They get paid to dance and perform and be on their game for a concert, as well as put on a show for their fans and make sure it's a nice environment. It's a give-and-take, basically. Just like how actors and models get paid a lot for what they do, artists do the same things in a sense. I think nowadays concert tickets are more expensive because nowadays people are doing more in those concerts. The venues are larger, they're flying farther, they're dancing and singing all at once, while also doing fan events everywhere they go, it's bound to be draining for the artists. We're paying for an experience, labor, travel, and the staffing for the event as well as the time and thought put into it, and the time of the makeup artists and stylists and people of that nature.

Though, I agree with you. It's not affordable for the average person to go to a concert. Though...It's kind of like going to an amusement park in a sense. You save, and plan, and pay. You're paying for the experience, the entertainment, etc. I feel like at the end of the day it depends on the person. Like you're not catching me at Disney World because that's not my cup of tea, but other people see those crazy ass prices as worth it, and those are the people it's catered towards.

But again, it's still really really expensive.

[rrxnjun]

OH MAN THATS JUST... but the fact that taking the the bus is slower AND u had to pay for it just smh i hope at least the company was good!!:o

U ARE JUST TOO NICE FOR SAYING THAT;-;💕💞wahhh i hope u get used to again!!!!!!💕💖

I WILL POSSIBLY LEAVE A REVIEW TOMORROW CUZ I HOPE I WILL FINALLY HAVE TIME TO READ IT!! SO EXCITED FOR IT!!! ahhh their songs are amazing so i'm not surprised u are inspired from them (and also like amazing songs inspiring amazing fics is just🤌🤌) THE YANGYANG BAND FIC WAS I THINK WHAT I READ FROM U AFTER FINDING LIEBESTRAUM AND WHEN I TELL U U BROUGHT BACK MY PARAMORE OBSESSION JUST CUZ OF THE TITLE!! ALSO VERY MUCH LOVED THAT FIC!! LIKE I STILL THINK OF IT A LOT AND I READ IT LIKE TWICE ALREADY🫣

and idk if u mean like genres or artists but other than k-pop i tend to listen to what's popular tbh💀(more so indie pop and hyper pop! but i'm just not very picky with the music i listen to tbh😟) and if u meant artist, rn i listen to a lot of lovejoy (WHICH I KNOW U LISTEN TO! UR KNEE DEEP AT ATP FIC WAS🤌🤌🤌and i was so surprised u know them tbh and also knowing wilbur soot in general i never expected seeing them in like "k-pop grounds" xd) beabadoobee, gracie abrams, aespa, the boyz, ericdoa and some hungarian artists!!! and i also feel like this is the time to mention the just saying fic as well cuz 5sos is🤌🤌🤌🤌🤌 like ur music taste just slaps tbh it's just sooooo good!!! and if u have any artist recommendations i would gladly accept them🫡(liebestraum anon💕)

THATS THE THING THE COMPANY WASNT EVEN GOOD BC MY CLASSMATES SUCK AT KEEPING UP W CONVERSATIONS EVEN MORE THAN ME IT WAS LEGIT A COMPLETELY SILENT JOURNEY TO UNI. I COULDVE WALKED AND LISTENED TO MY MUSIC INSTEAD THAT WOULDVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE

AAA definitely do leave a review even tho theres no pressure !!!! hope u like the fic 🤭💕💕

i love getting inspired by songs!!! thats why i usually have a playlist for each fic i write hhh its a part of my creative process at all times 🥰 AAA THE YANGYANG FIC IS ONE OF MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITES BECAUSE OF THE SONGS THAT INSPIRED IT. i fucking loooove paramore i grew up to their music 💕 but the fact that the whole fic was inspired by awsten and the fact that he used to be a guitar teacher is so funny to me sometimes i cant 😭

NO WAY U LIKE LOVEJOY WHAT ((the second to last scene in the yy fic was literally inspired by perfume and the "its 3:45 the taxi's not arrived i dont think that he's coming" line 😭😭) MY BIO IS LITERALLY A PERFUME LYRIC i love that song sm i dont think im ever changing it. tbf i was never into mc youtube and i just found a random wilbur edit on tiktok one day which led me to watching some of his and tommy's vlogs which led me to lovejoy AHAHA.

i do love aespa too🤭 i think nct and aespa are the only kpop artists i actively stan rn HAHA but i always wanted to check out beabadobee so maybe this is my sign 👀

U LIKE 5SOS TOO IM IN LOVE W YOU 😻 ive been a 5sos stan for like 8 years now and i wanted to write a fic inspired by just saying since like 2015 so im glad i finally got to it last year 😭😭 thank u for complimenting my music taste i take big pride in it actually😭😭😭😭 i dont really have many recs since u like most of my fav artists,, but i also really enjoy wallows, chase atlantic and the driver era too! i am also currently fighting with hyuck for the position of baekhyun's biggest fan but im severely losing 😔

also hungarian artists hm....ive never listened to any hungarian songs,, do u have any recs? 👀 also does that by any chance mean u are from hungary...?(its ok if u dont wanna tell me!! its just that if u are we might be neighbors LMAO)

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I recently saw a video by youtuber grady smith and looking at the channel, looks like he talks a lot about country music. do u think you'd be interested in something like that? i watched a few videos and i like what hes saying about the songs

Part 2: i watched grady smiths video on how hardy cracked the bro country code and i agree i dont listen to a ton of country but i really enjoy hardys music and its makin me want to listen to more, i particularly love all she left was me, i think grady said instrumental is a bit too much for him but im def listenin for the lyrics not the instrumental haha, could i hear some thoughts from u on hardy/country music in general

(Based on this post, for anyone who wants context, but it just said I used to read a lot of country music blogs.)

Looking up Grady briefly, he seems like an interesting guy. To be honest I haven't kept up with the country music blogs since around 2015, I'd sort of found a lot of the artists I really liked, and could follow as they put out new music so didn't feel as much need to find more online. But I probably should look at it again, because I'm sure I'm missing lots of good new artists.

I have to admit I have an instinctive, unfair dislike of the whole "YouTuber" thing, of social media generally (which I am hypocritically writing on social media, but I like that Tumblr is not the sort of social media where anyone tells you to "like and subscribe", you know?), and from trying a few minutes of his videos just now I had to repeatedly remind myself to not immediately be a judgmental dick about that. There are probably lots of good reasons why it's bad to dislike that stuff, because it's letting anyone put themselves out there instead of having media be the sole property of people who've been deemed good enough by television networks or other publishers, and that's an improvement generally. That's my view on the political and sociological issue, but then I look at someone talking into a camera about their sponsor and my judgmental brain immediately kicks in and objects. Also hypocritically, this does not happen when audio-only podcasts talk about their sponsors, even though that's the same thing.

Anyway though, this guy seems cool. I may see if I can get over my inherently judgmental nature and watch some of his videos, because I probably am missing out on music that I'd like just due to not following that stuff anymore.

I don't know the singer Hardy, I just listened to the All She Left Was Me song and I must admit it's not really my thing, but it's not bad. As in, I think it's not quite to my taste but I don't think it's terrible music. I definitely see what you mean about it being bro country, but a type of bro country that doesn't immediately make me want to punch everyone involved in making it, so that's impressive.

To be honest I'm sure I'm betraying my ignorance here, in that I was sort of on top of whatever was big in the alternative country/Americana blogs from 2006-ish to 2015-ish, and have a decent-ish knowledge of Highwaymen-era country (that I didn't need music blogs for, that came from my parents when I was young) but can't claim to be all that informed about the genre, especially currently. I know good country music makes me feel like my heart is breaking in every part of my body and in all the best ways, and in 2012 I used to get really really mad when people applied that term to pop music sung by empty cowboy hats. These days I'm less mad, but that's probably only because I pay less attention and am almost never in a place where I have to hear songs from a radio anymore.

Here, these are some of my favourite songs by artists that I discovered from country music blogs years ago:

And here's a song by my favourite country singer, Kris Kristofferson, whom I was into before I found the blogs, but this song does summarize the general attitude expressed in those blogs quite well:

...So those are some of my thoughts. I was a lot more annoying about them in 2012. If anyone reading this finds me annoying now, just know I used to be far worse.

Thanks for the message! I always appreciate people sending me things out of nowhere telling me they want to know about my music taste, though I unfortunately don't know much about the specific stuff you brought up.

[mokutone]

Do you have any links that helped you learn how to draw anatomy? I tried youtube, pinterest, and tiktok, and i still can’t find a helpful video. May you tell me how you draw yours or something idk.

ahhh this is a difficult one to answer...I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help!

I've been really lucky in my life to have a lot of opportunities to draw from live models, with critique sessions during and after the drawings so that we could take that criticism and improve our artwork. The "getting critique" part of that, where somebody looks over your shoulder and tells you what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong, is the most painful part of the process, but it's also extremely helpful in getting better fast

So like, if you ever have an opportunity to take a figure drawing class from a local art program or college, I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Honestly? Even if you aren't able to do that right now, if you have any friends who you trust to look at your art and give you honest answers when you ask "does this look right?" that alone is immensely helpful.

if none of your friends are into art—maybe joining an art focused discord server, or even an art-critique specific discord server might be useful?

Other than that...I find that videos don't really help me much with anatomy for whatever reason. I think that the pausing and slowing down and starting again really frustrates me, and grates at my neurodivergencies a little bit. I really can't focus on them, and I cant figure out how to apply what I should be learning from them to my own art :^(

what I have found really helpful, is books specific to anatomy for artists. My favorites have been:

Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist by Stephen Rogers Peck

The Figure by Walt Reed.

Force by Michael D. Mattesi (this one is kind of about weight and movement, very useful esp for cartoonists)

the Morpho series by Michel Lauricella. This one is especially helpful, and has a variety of books focused on different body types, including Muscled Bodies, Fat and Folds, Simplified Forms, and a general Anatomy for Artists, as well as one specific to Hands and Feet.

[adorable-deku]

was talking to @fanfiction-artist-prototype abt a horrible dfo au and anyway here it is.

so, afo is a pretty shitty person in regular life, i think we can all agree. and although ppl can be very different in different relationships and settings, if a person has a constant pattern of behavior in the way they do most things, chances are that would also show up in a relationship. so what im saying is that afo would be extremely manipulative and controlling in a relationship. he may not be physically abusive, but he definitely is an abusive piece of garbage

inko was in a relationship with him. he was charming at first, but after a month or so, things went downhill fast. denigration, isolation, etc. im not gonna describe anything in detail bc i dont want to, but u get the idea. all the shit u would have to do to convince someone that ur the only person that loves them and that they only have u to depend on.

it didnt work super well on inko tho. she mostly faked it which fucked her up in one way and also had to try to fend off all of his gaslighting and verbal abuse and whatnot.

she escapes from him or he gets bored and leaves or something. the why doesnt matter, only that they are not together.

izuku is born and, to inkos horror, takes after his father in looks much more than her. (this is her opinion though, he actually looks a lot like her as well, its just that his fathers features are far more apparent to her than her own).

she loves her son, but it can be...... difficult.... when he looks so much like his father. shes not cruel to him but... she shows him less affection than she otherwise would, hesitates to touch him, flinched back sometimes when he touches her. she knows she needs therapy but doesnt have the money to get it

things go ok until he turns four and gets a quirk thats a lot like his fathers. its not the exact same but its close enough to scare inko. he can copy quirks as long as hes a few feet away but the copies only last for 24 hours and he can have three at the same time. there is terror in watching her son use someone elses quirk. just like his father.

she can barely look at her son. shes more scared of him than anything else. she cant tough him either. not because she doesnt want to she just Cant. she feels horribly guilty every time she avoids his touch, everytime she thinks about giving him a hug, looks at his face and walks away instead. she can see the disappointment because hes only 5 years old how could you do this inko.

she still provides him everything he needs, physically. pays for his school and food and everything. cooks for him, etc. makes sure he has everything he needs except for her love. she wishes more than anything in the world that she could say she loves him. she cant.

then his hobbies. the way he picks apart peoples quirks and their personalities

just like his father

the way he smiled at her while reaching out to ask her about her quirk

just like his father

that was how he had started his first conversation with her, asking about her quirk

inko has never hated herself more than when she slaps her six year old son's hand away. his tears welled up. he asked why.

she couldnt answer his questions. instead she ran away and by the time she was far enough away to breathe, she called mitsuki, asked if she could take care of izuku for a while. inko couldnt trust herself

mitsuki agreed but by the time she got to the house

izuku was already gone

inko retraced her steps again and again in case izuku had followed her when she ran out but she couldnt find him at all

midoriya izuku vanished of the face of the earth

or at least off the face of Musutafu

because if theyd just looked a little farther, they would have found him in an old worn down bar with another child who had mysteriously gone missing six years ago.

after all, who would be a better heir for afo than his own son, especially one who so lacked trust in the world and love from the people around them?

[bluewinnerangel]

Let’s talk about Bridge Over Troubled Water

In the context of Larry. What else is new. 

(and no I don’t mean the dude playing the piano in the song)

So I’m slowly working on a reading of Harry’s top 10 favorite songs of all time, the Another Man Mixtape:

and as I was paying a little closer attention to the lyrics of Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water all my One Direction brain could see was Through the Dark. Naturally, obviously, instead of just being “k cool” and moving on, this thing started eating my brain and I got sidetracked... 

Me innocently going over Harry’s favorite songs, trying not to larrie, end up sweating chicken wrapped in parmaham stuffed with mozzarella with a side of homemade mash again

Some of the parallels (most are generic, some less, I’ll get into it):

Putting the rest under the cut:

Again like all my posts I have to emphasize when pointing out song parallels I’m not trying to claim one definitely inspired the other. I don’t know that. I have no clue what’s going on in these guys’ brains. Of course this whole thing is a reach. But it’s fun, it’s fun to entertain the thought, especially when it keeps checking out. Especially when there are 2 or more parallels that follow the same pattern/keywords/etc there might have been some inspiration going on. I do think Louis/other 1D songwriters write like this sometimes, that they use this trick of certain keywords or similar wording to link back to or capture the essence of other songs as there are quite some examples out there like that. Perhaps it’s how loads of artists write, I wouldn’t know. Still that doesn’t mean it’s the case with the songs I’m about to compare. Felt like that needed to be said, moving on.

The main theme/message in both songs is identical. “You’re feeling all these negative feelings but I’m here for you” basically. And that’s hella generic (I LOVE these songs, I’m just saying common words common theme), but then there are two sets of parallels that are a little less generic, are quite 

because Through the Dark (I’m just gonna abbreviate this to TTD, tiredtireddark) uses the same analogy for “I’ll help you through your troubles” as Bridge over Troubled Water (BOTW) twice: 

BOTW: “I will lay me down like a bridge over troubled water” TTD: “I will carry you over (fire and) water” Boink dumbdumb version: “I will [help you] over water”

And then again:

BOTW: “when evening falls so hard I will comfort you, I’ll take your part when darkness comes” TTD: “when the night is coming down on you we will find a way through the dark” Boink waddlewaddledumbdumb: “when [late] [down] [i help] [dark]”

There���s also “I wish that I could take you to the stars” vs “It’s your time to shine / see how [your dreams] shine”. The rest of the parallels are just “u sad i help” but what’s interesting is how the buildup of the verses/chorus kinda follows the same pattern as well. I wasn’t sure how to show this, somehow ended up with another dumbdumb comparison of the lyrics, and I think it helps to show you what I’m seeing. This is just the lyrics as it is, no lines removed in either, just a gap in the BOTW one to line up with TTD on the left:

Hope that... makes sense? also can you imagine a song going 

you sad you cry I know i know you sad hehe im ur bridge scary night but i help scary dark hehe im ur bridge

Ok but moving on, then there’s also the line 

BOTW: “when you’re down-and-out” 

that got my attention because, and this is the part where the wild larrying enters the chat:

In this other post I already made a case that Perfect Now could be seen as the mature version of Through the Dark, and that it also links to Falling. And! There’s a not so common lyrical trickery in both Perfect Now and Falling playing with the term “down-and-out”:

PN: “On friday night when we’re all out, I turn to you and you’re looking down” F: “What if I’m down? What if I’m out?”

(explained in this post)

So to find down-and-out back in a song that possibly inspired Through The Dark, that seems to be part of this weaving web of songs ...

Also, Liam&Louis took part in a cover of Bridge Over Troubled Water for charity (this is not part of the he-got-the-dagger-unhinged-larrying, I’m absolutely not about to make singing a song for charity into a theory, please don’t mistake me adding this for that, it’s just for the fact that hearing Louis sing “I will lay me down” exists, because holy shit I’m in heaven) 

Just Liam and Louis’ bit (I can’t stop listening to it AAHH):

Whole video:

Back to Harry. There are quite the parallels with his more recent work. Things with shining bright lights of the golden sunny sunshine are everywhere in H’s work, and pretty much everything is wet, so I’m not about to claim these things are related, but still some relatively closer parallels:

BOTW: Sail on silver girl, sail on by She: He takes a boat out, imagines just sailing away

BOTW: All your dreams are on their way She: She lives in daydreams with me

BOTW: Your time has come to shine See how [your dreams] shine Lights Up: Shine, step into the light / Shine, I’m not ever going back

BOTW If you need a friend (I’m sailing right behind) She: And not telling his mates, he wouldn’t know what to say

I think many interpretations of that can be very beautiful ;)

Last but not least: 

BOTW: Oh, if you need a friend, I’m sailing right behind is 

if that isn’t exactly what the peculiar boy is doing

The full reading of Harry’s another man mixtape here

[kaissauce]

okay, phucker, do it

ok let's do this @rolli-zolli @ninikins

Horrortale: technically an alternate timeline instead of au. after a neutral run where undyne's queen the core malfunctions and food becomes scarce and people resort to eating humans because sans suggested it. Aliza is the protag. latest thing that happened in the ongoing comic was Aliza agreeing to go with Papyrus to solve his last puzzle. as for the appearance of sans he has a HUGE hole on his head and a red eye. he got the hole from undyne when she got his magic eye which was going to be used to power the core. sans didnt die tho and killed the guards holding him down and just took whatever eye was on the ground and used it as a replacement for his magic eye that's powering the core. i quote first words he said after putting the eye in his socket "who the fuck took my phone?". then the magic eye went apeshit and broke the core again. oh and also he made alphys braindead by quite literally scrambling her brain. yeah this au is rough sans hasn't really eaten anything since the core was destroyed since he decided not to eat any humans.

Dusttale: i think this was originally a korean au? basic rundown: too many genocide runs sans goes apeshit and tries to get his Lv up by killing monsters himself man went fuckin insane kills his brother blah blah blah edgy angsty au the ghost of papyrus haunts him n stuff. sans literally just looks the same except he has his hood on and sometimes artists draw him with papyrus's scarf. the cool artists draw him with his hood on and has the hood completely cover his face so u can only see his glowing pupils. although people call him dust sans he's actually named murder sans

Killer: so frickin similar to dusttale except sans goes apeshit because of the human being like "join me lmao". three different outcomes come from this. i think it was 1 sans joins human 2 sans joins human kills human later on 3 kills human or something. friends with color sans who is basically his impulse control. pretty sure his soul's fucked up and Color sans tries to make his soul un-fucked but Nightmare comes in and fucks up the progress. he has white shorts, his eye sockets are constantly pitch black and leaking tar or something also has a weird target thingy on his chest. OH YEAH ALSO HE HAS BEEF WITH UNDERSWAP SANS ALMOST FORGOT. basically swap sans tried to make killer good and then they had a fight, swap sans lost and was on the verge of dying thankfully swap papyrus was able to save him in time i think

Dreamtale: Dream isn't in the drawing but his brother, Nightmare is. Sooo he used to not look all goooy and have tentacles n stuff but then he ate a couple hundred apples and yeah. he's six years old apparently. Nightmare and Dream are supposed to be guardians of a tree that has 500 golden apples and 500 black n goopy apples. the golden aples are positive and the goop ones are negative. you're not supposed to eat either of them cus bad shit happens. Dream and Nightmare live in a village and for whatever reason they're all dicks to Nightmare because ooughh he's the guardian of negativity that's not baller. he also goes apeshit (do u see a pattern here) and eats a goopy apple n then becomes the goop man he is today. he fuckin eats 999 apples jesus christ. and the last one is eaten by Dream because if u eat all 1000 apples u become unstoppable and immortal. so that would be a bad thing if nightmare got the last one. wop wop wop these dude aren't sanses they only have the body of one if that makes sanse.

Error: manlet. he's literally an error and that's why he's like that. also he's technically not a sans now, the redesign for him was so that he could be in the creator's webcomic named Lucidia. Error sans, aka the destroyer of aus, finds aus to be mistakes so he tries to get rid of them. his process of doing this is simple: get the human soul to the void so that they can't reset, destroy the au. he primarily attacks using his strings which can wrap around one's soul and control them. he like some aus like outertale because of how open and empty it is. he likes to be alone and has haphephobia. if u touch him he'll glitch out and possibly crash. he crashes whenever gets overwhelmed. said crashing causes him to shut down and reboot and he's powerless while doing so. he's actually pretty easy to beat if you know how to push his buttons the right way. in the og ask error blog made by his creator Loverofpiggies he kidnaps Swap sans who tries to help Error become a better person. this ends horribly as error leaves Swap sans in the void who then becomes an error aswell due to being alone in the void too long. Error actually regrets doing that to swap sans

Aftertale: OK FUN FACT THE SANS OF THIS AU, WHO'S NICKNAMED "Geno" IS ERROR. aftertale is a comic made by LoverofPiggies it's been SOOOO long since i last read it so i cant really give a good summary. but anyways Geno is trapped in the loading screen with the human and will die if he leaves the loading screen. eventually from being in the loading screen for too long after the events of aftertale he becomes Error.

OOF WOWIE THERE'S SO MUCH TO GO

Underfresh: he's not even a sans either. "Fresh" is a parasite inhabiting a skeleton. his birthday is on 4/20 which is ironic cus he doesn't like drugs. he censors swears. he speaks 90's lingo and dresses like a neon sign. for some reason he has eyebrows and a gold tooth. the glasses he has can change text but normally defaults to "YOLO". he can't feel anything since he has no soul of his own and just latches onto the host's. instead he learns how to act from the people around him. not being able to feel actually bothers him a LOT

Echotale: Aka Gaster sans. uhhh this one was also a comic if i remember correctly. basically Frisk and G!Sans are the only ones in the au and they're trying to find the core to fix the fucked up timeline that they're in but the core keeps changing positions so that sucks.

Swapfell: originally made by Khhoppang who left social media. Started out as an Alphys x Undyne au so only those two were designed but Kh was planning to design more of the characters. before they could people had a field day with the idea of mashing two aus together and SO many people came up with their own designs for sans and papyrus. Khhoppang left social media because they got overwhelmed with all the art reposters and stuff, pretty sad. the appearance of the sans in that au is the purple one with a scythe (i dont think he has a scythe in the og design).

Swapfell Red: so basically this is the swapfell made by people that isn't Khhoppang. community made per se. Sans's appearance changes constantly because as said before many people made many different designs. typically he just looks like Swap sans but with red high heel boots and his color scheme fits underfell

Fellswap (gold): Au made by blackggggum. so swapfell is underswap turned fell, fell swap is underfell swapped it takes a bit to understand that. his appearance is somewhat similar to Swapfell red. He's kind to his friends but if ur his enemy he'll fucking deck you. he's blind in his left eye, the leader of the royal guard, and secretly into dressmaking. fun fact in this au Papyrus has autism

Xtale: uuuuhhhh so Cross is a complicated one. he's part of the royal guard along with papyrus. has beef with xgaster. responsible for the downfall of his au and then Underverse happens and Ink is all "oh cool someone to mess with" and they became friends for a bit then shit hit the fan

Underfell: OOOOO YES UNIRONICALLY ONE OF MY FAVORITES. So Underfell sans is actually a very powerful mf and constantly has his magic eye activated because he has so much magic. This au is also technically an alternate timeline where monsters "lost their humanity" as the creator put it. so basically trust in the underground is scarce. Sans and papyrus, contrary to many interpretations i fucking hate, are actually on good terms (and no sans doesn't call papyrus "boss" the creator said if he does he'd do it ironically and papyrus would hate it). Fun facts he pays Grillby in socks (grillby accepts the socks as payment and wears them), if u make grillby laugh he gives u a jacket that looks like his and it's heavily implied that sans made him laugh because their jackets are similar

Underswap: ah yes another classic that i love as well. originally made by PopcornPr1nce who fled social media because they hated how the majority fandom treated Underswap (Blueberry and Carrot were popular names for the fanon swap papyrus and sans). Swap sans is constantly infantilized by the community which sucks and i hate it so i draw my own very super cool version of him whom i kin because i am also very super cool.

Outertale: mainly an aesthetic au pretty sure there's no comic of it. basically, instead of underground they in space. outer sans dies in underverse after like minutes of screentime lmao

Epictale: a comic made by Yugogeer. the og comic was retconned and the creator loathes the original version and made a reboot that's much better. Sans actually dies very early in it because Yugo hates how Sans is almost always focused on in aus. also the creator hates how meme-y their sans has become (like him saying bruh every single sentence, using a rubber chicken as a weapon, cookies, etc.) he's friends with Cross but not in canon. He has a purple magic eye that makes him immortal and i think only epic gaster could remove it which is how sans was able to be killed when he fought gaster.

Temmietale: it's undertale but everyone is temmie, don't question it

Trainertale: it's undertale but it's Pokemon, don't question it

Dancetale: it's undertale but you dance instead of fight, don't

Mobtale/Mafiatale: im unsure if mobtale and mafiatale are separate or not but they are very similar. basically undertale but mafia it's self explanatory

Undertale: no clue which au is this one, nope not at all/j

Bittytale or whatever idk: so take sans, make him small. boom. never understood this au

THAT BASTARD INK: HOOO BOY SAVED THE WORST FOR LAST. FUCK THIS GUY/j. THIS DUDE. IS THE REASON IM STILL INTO UNDERTALE AUS. I LOVE EM SO MUCH. also technically not a sans. He comes from an unfinished au and ripped his own soul to escape said au and became an outcode. for so long he was just a soulless husk until someone drew him and he got splashed with paint which let him feel. soon he learned to keep the paint in vials so that he can be able to feel 24/7. And then he learned how to create things with a paintbrush and the paint and spent time alone drawing up his own world until a portal appeared and took him to the multiverse. now he encourages artists to keep creating aus. he's the protector of aus in the sense that he keeps other outcodes from disrupting the script of the au, so if it's pacifist and an outcode tries to kill people he'd stop them, if it's genocide and an outcode tried to help them he'd stop them. no matter what he wants the au to stay on script. fun fact the creator of ink and the creator of error never had them interact with each other in canon, that was all the fandom's doing. Contrary to popular belief he's not really considered "good" his alignment is officially "Chaotic neutral". I personally interpret him a lot more chaotic than in canon because it's fun but he's a pretty chill guy actually. he can just be a bit of an ass sometimes. According to the creator of Ink (who is Comyet) his interpretation in Underverse is not canon compliant. one of the biggest canon things that underverse contradicts is Ink deliberately not taking his vials. if he were to do that in canon he'd become a husk again which is the equivalent of him "dying". he was described as a walking corpse by Comyet, without the vials he can't function anymore. Like Error he's pretty easy to beat if you know his weaknesses. also he has fears of empty spaces and being alone

off topic kinda but i very much love how Error and Ink are opposites yet parallel even though they were completely written without the other in mind. Error believes getting rid of aus is getting rid of anomalies. Ink believes people interfering with aus are anomalies. Error loves emptiness, Ink hates emptiness. list goes on it's funky fresh.

also uhhh sanses missing from that drawing that i can name from the top of my head

Seraphim sans, Insans, Dusttrust, He who shall not be named because he's from an 18+ au, Swapswap (yes. that exists), Storyshift, Inverted Fate (very good au i suggest checking it out), Negatale, Oceantale, Template, Pale, Mafiafell, Farmtale

my phone is at 9% y'all are spared from me going on

[wizkiddx]

i saw that you at least used to write for harry could u do another? like maybe im just a basic bitch but 'only one bed' trope or sm

Summary: honestly just me shitty attempt at the only one bed thing ahah with Harry Holland x reader

no warnings I don’t think apart from my ramabling :)

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

God you were groggy. It had been a long 16 hour flight and you were well and truly completely over this day. Once you’d had some proper sleep, no doubt you will be beyond excited to explore the forest and beaches of this remote island in Indonesia. You were certain it was beautiful, even if you’d arrived in the dead of night so you couldn’t see any of the majesty yet. It was one of the joys of being Tom’s makeup artist - travelling the world and being paid for it? A literal dream. 

Except maybe the previous 24 hours. The Holland name carried a lot of weight in the world, but not enough to control typhoons across the tropics - there were some limitations to his power. And yes first class lounges were nice but none had beds to crash on during the 6 hour weather delay. The four of you (Tom, Harry, Andrew and yourself)  ended up camping out in a out-the-way corner. Tom got the long sofa; Andrew in one of those weird egg line chairs; you and Harry splayed on the floor. Why you’d had to get up at 4 am to catch a flight that was now not departing till 12 hours later actually hurt to think about - especially because you’d all gone out for a meal the night before that had inevitable went a lot later than planned. 

Two connecting flights with a very angry baby later, the four of you were checking in to the only hotel on the island - which was now almost exclusively filled with the production team for Tom’s newest movie. It wasn’t especially big-budget with massive million pound overheads, instead a smaller scale indie film (that you privately thought might earn Tom a number of accolades). But yeh, shooting on an island that received almost no tourism meant everything was different to the usual. None more so than for Tom and his team (including you) who he normally would look after very well, with the nicest hotel rooms or rental homes. 

The hotel was basic, you’d known that before you arrived but seeing is believing is it not? Most entertaining though, was seeing Tom’s face. Andrew was a well travelled older guy, he had stayed in some shitholes in his life. Equally you and Harry had both travelled when you were younger (you through inter railing and him in australia), so had stayed in hostels before. But for Hollywood star Tom Holland? The way he tilted his head to the side as if to say ‘really this place?’ did lift your spirits momentarily. 

Andrew had got his key first, bidding you all good night with a grunt, then Tom - who still seemed confused as to the whole arrangements. It left you and Harry at the small dingy reception, the warm glow of an old lantern-esque light fixing illuminating the place. The guy behind the desk was a smiley local and greeted you warmly, if incorrectly.

“Ah and finally the couple I see!” He spoke with a thick accent but still very clear English which had you questioning if this was just a translational error. Harry looked at you instantly, his eyes wide which made you scoff - him joining in, shaking his unruly curly mop emphatically.

“No no we um… we aren’t together.” All the while Harry pointed between the two of you, communicating through actions rather than just the language, given that you were both the very typical Brits abroad who hadn’t learnt the language of the place they were visiting. 

“Still under Holland name?” The guy asked in a perplexed manner, flicking through a book filled with cursive scribbles and scanning to see if he’d made a mistake. He checked one, then looked up nervously before checking the same page once again- you saw where this was going. ”We, we only have couples room down for you though? 3 double rooms is the booking for Holland.” 

It was late, you both stunk of a combination of plane and BO, you both just wanted your individual and respective beds. 

“Well can we get another room then?” Harry didn’t quite snap but there was still an impatientcy to his voice, which came out whenever he was a little agitated. Seeing the slightly worried look the mans eyes, you leaned onto the desk with a genuine smile. 

“Sorry we know its last minute and its not your fault, we’ve just had a really long flight.”

“I am terribly sorry miss but we are only small hotel and Hollywood has filled us up. I have no other rooms. I am truly sorry sir, ma’am.” The guy went from looking worried to terrified as Harrys jaw tensed up, you naturally squeezed his arm to try and ground him, instantly deciding that you’d just work it out. 

“No no it’s not your fault, don’t worry we’ll figure it out. Can I just get the key?”

Harry stepped back and let youtakeover proceedings, signing all the insurance documents etc and asking the man about the breakfast arrangements and such, though you saw him furiously typing on his phone and by the buzzing in your pocket- presumed he was messaging the group of you Tom, Andrew and himself. 

Once finished the guy pointed you on your way, up two flights of stairs and down a hall. The whole time Harry was muttering about how useless the other two were for not replying and also for making the wrong booking in the first place. If only you hadn’t been the last two to checkin, then it would’ve been someone else’s problem.

He felt especially guilty just because you were the only girl-  he didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable, hence why he was trying to locate his brother so they could share tonight till they got it figured out. The tension, combined with sleep deprivation, was palpable as you both walked in silence toward the room - Harry was trying to formulate a plan in his head as they did so. And honestly? You just couldn’t be bothered to deal with it. So, once you reached the door 57 holding the physical key (old school, rather than a key card) you just decided to address it. 

“Will you chill please?” 

“Well if my idiot broth-“

“Oh leave him be for god sake. If you’re okay with it I really don’t mind sharing with you tonight?” Not bothering to laugh at his slightly shocked expression with mouth hanging a little open, you fiddled with the key until the lock clicked open. From the entrance you had a pretty clear view of the whole room and… well, lets just say dated would be a fair expression - when compared to what you were used to? The floor was tiled and the bed was a small double, with some funky and slightly washed out prints of blue and red on the cover. The pillows looked a little limp, more like glorified pieces of cardboard than anything fluffy and comfortable. The walls were that yellowy magnolia shade that everyone in the UK had gone insane for in the 80s and there was an old school wooden wardrobe in the corner. 

Home for 5 weeks. 

With a shrug of your shoulders you entered, dumping your personal and work suitcases by the far wall carelessly - the higher priority action being to collapse on the bed. Doing so with an overdramatic huff, you let your eyes close but payed special attention to the delayed footsteps of Harry as he entered, then the slight creaking noise as he perched on the other side of the bed - no doubt looking at you, at least slightly fearfully. 

The relationship between you and Harry was complex to say the least. Well no… it should be, not on the face of it. You had met through work and made friends. And you wished it was that simple but alas, nothing ever really is. When you’d first worked with Tom you were in the tail end of a relationship you had long since forgotten about - literally meaningless, not worth the time and effort you’d put into it. From the start you’d had a feeling Harry was more interested in you than the average co-worker (even if your job and therefore co-workers were anything but normal and average) but you were in a relationship so nothing ever came. 

Then almost as if synchronised, just as you got out your relationship, Harry threw himself in the deep end with a girl he’d met through his family friends. Then the roles were somewhat reversed, you now spent a good chunk of your day just entertaining yourself with thoughts of the curly headed, slightly awkward, very-passionate-about-tea-making Holland. The cliche is so real - your always want what you cannot have. 

However, a couple months ago his relationship had fizzled and faded away leaving both of you in a sort of no mans land. The sort of not wanting to ruin the friendship situation. The subject was never broached by either you - except you assumed he was being tormented in a similar way to how you were by his big brother and Andrew. Never publicly, yet whenever you found yourself alone in a room with one of them (being Tom’s makeup artist that happened often enough) there would always be a sly dig. The chemistry was  so ‘obvious even a blind man could see it’. Somehow though, weeks of this and your were still stuck. Stuck in the middle. 

“You sure you’re alright with this?” His voice was gruffer and hoarser from the long journey but you could hear the self-consciousness and naivety in his tone, without having to peel your eyes open and look at his face. 

“I know your not a murder and plus, we shared the airport floor this morning… this is pretty much the same.” He hummed in acknowledgement so you carried on “and plus your pint sized.” That earned you a playful shove in the side as you sniggered, before pulling yourself up so you we now sitting next to him, legs hanging off the edge of the bed. His brown eyes searched deeply into yours, as if physically checking for any hint of regret or hesitation. “Don’t even dare offering to go on the floor.” 

“Okay okay okay!” Holding his hands up in surrender, you both laughed, breaking the peace of the late night of the remote Indonesian island. Once an impressive yawn interrupted you though, Harry proclaimed it was time for bed and shooed you into the bathroom to get changed and sorted. 

Honestly you were too tired and lazy to dig out your cleanser and skin stuff, instead opting to just splash a bit of water on your face before swapping into your pj shorts and an old tattered oversized tee. Once done you and Harry swapped, him coming out a couple minutes later in basketball shorts and a black loose fitting tee. 

It wasn’t awkward so to speak, more a sort of excited-tense atmosphere, which there was no doubt Harry was mainly responsible. The boy was jittery and on edge, which to put simply, you didn’t have the energy to reciprocate. 

With a quiet wish of goodnight to each other, Harry flicked off the bedside lamp and you both rolled to your respective edges of the bed, a large space of no mans land between you. In the middle. You know the first time you share a room with someone and you overthink everything? When you don’t want to move about or fidget too much in case it disturbs the other? When your listening intently to their breathing, in the hope it’ll even out and only then will you feel able to fall asleep yourself? 

Well it doesn’t work when both of you are doing it. When both of you are professional over thinkers. 

God knows how long it took till you gave up, favouring sleep over your worries and concerns. So you flipped over, no doubt rocking the whole bed, turning to face his back that was still huddled almost teetering off the edge of the bed. The only light within the whole room was that coming under the actually scarily large gap between the floor and the door to the hallway. It was just enough to see the back of Harry’s curls and you must’ve fallen asleep trying to trace all the torturous and windy routes of the strands.

///////////

In the morning the process of waking up didn’t come easy to you as normal for many reasons; the long day prior; the jet lag; the weird surroundings. So you stayed in this sort of blissful haze for probably longer than you should. Half aware but not really; half asleep but not quite. In the middle  of sleep and alertness. Therefore it took you longer than it should have to notice the extra weight on the dip of your waist. Not anything alarming, just a presence you were absolutely not used to. It was only when you shifted a bit to lie further on your back, that enough of a stimulus from the added pressure made you actually open your eyes blearily. And sure enough, a limp hand looked to have casually and unconsciously been thrown over your side. 

As if in slow motion, you traced the arm backwards - first with your eyes, but then having to twist your neck too. Only then could you fully see the browny ginger haired boy who was lowkey spooning you? It was certainly a way to fully wake you up, breath halted to a stand still in your lungs, in fear of disturbing him and having to confront what would almost certainly be an awkward situation. 

There was still a safe hands width distance between the two of you except for the rogue arm. Harry’s head was placed to the edge of his pillow, mouth slightly parted as his breathing slightly tickled the wispy hairs on the back of your neck. He looked so peaceful and calm - a difference to the normal Harry who, even on a good day, took great pleasure in meticulously picking things apart and being a bit cynical. It was part of his ‘charm’; but seeing him like this was a type of vulnerability he rarely chose to show. 

To be fair he was asleep, he dint realise he was exposing himself in this way.

Finding yourself a little transfixed (a bit creepy but hey) on the natural curves and definition of his face, you ever so carefully rolled over in the bed to face him. It stopped you from craning your neck and gave the sleepy boy a slight nudge, making him tense his arm a little more tightly round you. 

He settled quickly though, giving you ample opportunity to just observe what was going on . Both right in front of you… and what the hell was going on in your head. Because to be honest it was an overwhelming amount of emotion thoughts for the early morning. 

Somehow you must’ve eventually drifted off once again because the next thing you were aware of was a shuffling from immediately next to you. This time though, you were instantly aware of exactly the situation you found yourself in and chose to keep up the pretence of sleep - a little interested in how Harry would play it. 

You heard a small gasp, having to suppress a chuckle at what you imagined Harry’s sleepy and panicked face looked like. That lasted a couple of moments, before you felt him painstakingly slowly peel his hand from your waist and if you were being 100% honest… you heart sort of sank. 

What you had been expecting?- you don’t know and really there was really no reason to be disappointed. Yet, you still felt this deflated and disappointed feeling, hit your chest especially hard. Perhaps it was because of your focus on that emptyness that you forgot you were supposed to be pretending to be asleep./.

Because when he had delicately brushed the side of your face to tuck a rogue bit of hair behind your ear - your eyes flickered open.  Like a rabbit caught in headlights, Harry froze, his hand still hovering over your jaw. Equally, you didn’t know what to do. Because really… do friends tuck hair behind the others ears? And do friends look at each other with this matched expression of confusion and fear? 

It took a painfully long time (though in reality was probably only a matter of seconds) before the boy retracted his hand, suddenly sitting up from his reclined position down at you. Mirroring his actions, you both ended up sitting, facing the opposite wall, bodies closer than they needed to be in the double bed. Both still very much in the middle. 

“I er-“

“-No no don’t… was nice of you” He had been about to apologise which you didn’t want to hear. You didn’t want to hear ‘ I didn’t mean it’ - you wanted him to mean it. In response Harry nodded jerkily, and from your peripheries, noticed he was searching your face for any sign of emotion.

“Still can’t believe this all happened… I-I didn’t disturb you too much did I?” He sounded really nervous. You were never like this with each other. So static and forced. 

“No no… I slept really good actually.” Your register was quieter, waiting till you’d finished speaking before looking over at him with a self conscious smile. 

“Ah I’m glad… I um-I did too.” The silence returned and the atmosphere just felt sharp. It felt like you were quite literally walking either side of a knife edge. It made you chew on your bottom lip, playing with the slightly frayed edges of the vintage quilt. 

“Y/n- I look…” He’d bolted upright and voice was more raised than normal for the morning. “This is gonna sound so fucking weird, especially cos we’re literally in the same bed but... but I was thinking we could maybe go on a hike or something together?” What he seemed to be suggesting didn’t match the level of panic that was conveyed in his body language which confused you. And what the bed had to do with it… was yet to make sense in your head. 

“I think Andrew said we’re getting some tour of island this afternoon so-“

“ I kinda meant just you and me.” 

The penny dropped and it had you focusing all energy on processing what was happening - understandably causing Harry to only worry more with the lack of response. “I’m sorry if I’ve ruined ever-“

“No I-I….I’d really like that too.”

“Oh er… well… really?” The sheer shock made you giggle, feeling the two of you sliding back into the normal dynamic.

“Normally a boy has to buy me a drink before he gets in my bed but….” A mischevious smirk that spread across your lips gave Harry the final confirmation that just maybe you were interested too, making him scoff and quietly chuckle.

It was odd; mainly because this was the two of you being incredibly vulnerable and honest with each other - something that you hadn’t allowed yourself to be for fear of messing things up. And then one lazy morning, both with morning breath and slightly puffy eyes, it changed. For the first time when you looked at him, he really saw - and vice versa. You were still in the middle of something, yet it was completely different. 

This time you were in the middle together figuratively as well as literally. In the middle of the bed, closer than you needed to be, but not wanting to retreat - while you both just looked shyly and bashfully at each… Eventually you lips hesitantly met in the middle. 

[cursestothemoon]

Hi!! I just saw your hd of Fred dating and actress and it was SO GOOD!! 👏😍 could you do one but instead of an actress a famous singer??

OoOoOoOo

y e s. 

alrighty

buckle in

this is gonna be gewd

so we are gonna start with the two ways of how you guys would meet 

number one 

you are a witch and also a famous singer 

ginny is going through her rebellious phase 

you know how it is

and homegirl is bLASTING your songs in her room

and Gred and Forge just happen to be visiting 

Fred would just

pause for a moment because 

wow

that’s the most beautiful voice hes ever heard and the lyrics are really speaking to him

our mizunderstood king

so naturally he busts into Ginny’s room and is like who is t h a t

and ginny would have a poster of you up

aH

and obviously it’s a magical one so you are dancing and singing 

and she’d just point to the poster and be like 

that’s Y/n, she toured with Weird Sisters 

From that moment on

fred was in love

he wouldn't shut up about you

George would get him merch

he’d try to go to concerts 

then the day came

T H E  D A Y

him and george got a phone call asking if they could use the shop in a photoshoot for some celebrity

the pay was pretty hefty so they agreed

what fred didn’t expect was for you to walk in 

makeup done, hair done 

my man lost his marbles

“gEORGE DID YOU SEE WHO IT IS?”

“....y/n-”

“iTS Y/N L/N.”

apparently your new album has to do with fireworks, sweets? 

idk you choose

wait now i can't get the music video for fergalicious out of my head

either way you are there 

and there is a photoshoot happening 

and i think fred would be rather shy at first 

hes a grown 21 year old and he has a newspaper clipping of you in his bedroom

its a bit intimidating 

but then he thinks about it 

and hes like??? she’s in mY shop

yeah she’s Y/n L/n, she's insanely talented and has played at sold out arenas but only I know where the bathroom is

if you caught that nudge we should be friends :)

so anyway

yeah he was like this is my time to shiNE 

would be the biggest flirt 

and you think hes honestly quite charming 

and stUPIDLY GOOD LOOKING 

you’d score yourself a date

and fred was beyond excited 

not only for the date

but for ginny’s reaction

aLRIGHT NOW WE HAVE THE SECOND WAY

you are a muggle

and he has no idea you exist

until one year for Hermione’s 19th 

a sort of ode to the last year of being a teenager 

she wants everyone to go to a concert 

your concert 

Harry and Ron would be the only ones who have heard of you

Harry because he went through a phase 

and Ron just hears Hermione talking about you

but yeah a group of them would go

fred and george included 

it’s a party everyone's coming out

so they are all waiting for it to start 

fred’s just hanging out

throwing back a beer 

what not 

then it starts

lights

fog machine

idk

but his attention has been grabbed 

then you come out and he is just ❤️👄❤️

ok let’s say you are a lana del rey type of artist 

fred would, once again, lose his marbles

and he’d just be so captivated by you

and the words

dADDY ISSUES???

gets a bit hot and bothered

will also tease Hermione for listening to such suggestive songs

or let’s say you are more pop punk

maybe grunge

oOOOO

GRUNGE 

im thinking of Hole

courtney love

strictly speaking of her music and not her as a person

still very hot and bothered

maybe more so

he is a head banger

will either create or join the mosh pit 

will buy a t-shirt on the way out

ok afterwards they would go to a club or bar nearby 

super popular one 

kind of a big deal

guess who walks in

g u e s s

you do 

with a few friends

a few roadies 

you know the homies and what not 

and i think you’d be the first to see him because lets be honest

you noticed him in the crowd 

hes tall and cute 

also for the sake of this lets say they had really good seats

and fred would notice that you were there when you ‘coincidentally’ took a seat next to him at the bar

there is a good chance he would be taking a sip of his drink when he noticed and would choke 

hA what a dork

but yeah you guys would definitely hit it off

Hermione would also lose her shit

ah you would party with them

it would be so much fun oh my god

ok now that you guys are together

which ever origin story you prefer

we need to get into the relationship

you would sing 

constantly 

throughout the house 

and when he caught you singing he’d just stand there, a bit hidden, and just listen 

wHEN YOU HAD TO LEAVE FOR TOUR HE’D BE SO SAD OH MY GOD THEN AFTER YOU LEFT HED BE INCREDIBLY GRUMPY

george will write to you telling you to immediately come back because he is done with fred’s shit

obviously you can't

but fred would take any opportunity he could get to come see you

iF YOU WROTE A SONG FOR HIM AND SANG IT ON STAGE HE WOULD TEAR UP

or lets say you guys got in a huge fight 

talks of breaking up

but he’s still watching your live shows 

and you start singing the song that you had wrote about him

but now it’s so much sadder and you are trying not to cry and Fred would just diE

would immediately see you as soon as possible to resolve the issue, talk it out, and stay together because you canNOT LEAVE HIM

if he’s having a bad day he will try to subtly ask you to sing him to sleep

but that's only in the beginning

“I don’t know work was stressful today, i think im going to go to bed.”

“alright, you want to be alone or you want me to come with you”

“can you come...and... you know I haven't heard the new song yet...could you sing it for me?”

aH hes so cute

also i am a firm believer that when he is in a bad mood he is the biggest baby

but anyway

he’ll get more comfortable with asking you and eventually just ask you to sing for him when you guys are cuddling

oK HE’D ALSO BE THE COCKIEST LITTLE SHIT 

hes such a tease

its a bout to get just a little nsfw 

“come on, love, let’s hear your beautiful voice.”

take that how you will

aH he has a before show ritual

right before you get on stage 

if he is in town and with you

he will give you one kiss for each song on your setlist 

and as you go to walk onto stage he will smack your butt

a gentle tap

he says it’s for good luck 

[maggotmouth]

          hillo sexthy legends !!   i’m nora and i’ll be writing margo colby n probs sm1 else bcos lets be real, i lack self-control. u can find her pinterest here n some info abt her sexy self below the cut. plot with me on discord ( hot girl midsommar#8664 ) or in my ims !!  x o x

     * CAMILA MORRONE, CIS WOMAN + SHE / HER  | you know MARGO COLBY, right? they’re TWENTY-THREE, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, ELEVEN YEARS? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to SCRAWNY BY WALLOWS  like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole BLEACH WHITE SNEAKERS POUNDING ON A GYMNASIUM FLOOR, USING THE SAME BLUNT SCISSORS TO HACK THE SLEEVES OFF AN EXES T-SHIRT THAT YOU USE TO CUT YOUR 3AM FRINGE, A WALNUT-SHAPED ACHE IN THE PIT OF YOUR STOMACH FOR THE PERSON YOU COULD HAVE BEEN thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is AUGUST 8TH, so they’re a LEO, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( nora, 25, gmt, she/her )

CLICK ANYWHERE ON THIS SENTENCE FOR SEXII GOOGLE DOC!!

bullet point summary of margo.

—   born margaret but NOBODY calls her that. its colby, coach or margo, and go to the privileged few. margo grew up in the creek commune n then dropped out of school cos of a teenage pregnancy so she was a bit of a cautionary tale back in’t’day (said tht in my yorkshire accent). she now works for summer camps coaching pee wee soccer and pee wee cheer, as well as helping out her beekeeper dad on his honey farm, which is jst north of abernathy creek, and working at scuba on the off seasons.

—  its just her and her dad, and has been for as long as she can recall !! everything she knows about her mum could fit on the back of the weathered passport photo she keeps in her wallet of a stranger who shares her face - her name’s melody, or at least tht was name she used when working as a dancer, she’s from argentina and dropped mag’s dad as soon as someone w more money came along.

—  margo’s father is a beekeeper with his own organic honey company. margo and her dad moved to irving in the early 00s, the summer between grade school and middle school, because her dad had heard about the communal living in abernathy creek and wanted to lend his skills there and live off the fatta the land in a very lenny from of mice and men kinda way.

—  for a few years of middle school margo was bullied for living with the ‘freaks from the creek’, but when they realised how chill her dad was with underage drinking, margo ‘keg-bringer’ colby soon gained popularity among the more renegade students. every so often, the high school parties would happen at her end of town, occasionally with members of the commune even offering the high schoolers a spiritual experience they’d never forget (often in the form of mushrooms) which meant people tried to stay on her good side. to get an invite to a margo colby party handed you a free pass to make up the most ridiculous shit about the commune you liked and nobody else could say anything, because they’d never been to the creek.

—  at school, margo had a lot of ‘behvioural issues’ bcos of undiagnosed adhd, she found it difficult to sit still for hours n write down huge chunks of information n her restlessness was seen as laziness. she was encouraged to do sports, as were most of the kids who weren’t that academically inclined, but she turned out to be pretty hot shit at sprinting, because she grew up surrounded by bee houses and he who runs slowest gets stung, baybeyy!! so yea, in school sports became her LIFE. she was gonna get a sports scholarship to college but ended up dropping out of school in senior year n becoming one of those kids who could have had it all but lost it.

—  she had sex with sutter at a house party when she wasnt really ready because it felt like the right thing to do at the time and everybody else was doing it. she’d attended health class, she’d seen the corny videos. she knew about all the statistics, but she also knew that it had never happened to anyone she knew and the pull out method was basically safer than the morning after pill and way less expensive.

—  a teenage pregnancy knocked her out of the runnings for prom queen and meant she had to leave school early. she didn’t go to college when her friends did, instead she spent the time interviewing potential foster candidates and eating her weight in lindt chocolate while marathoning love island in her room.  

—  she had a son, who she passed off to someone else a couple of towns away.  it was a closed adoption which seemed like the best idea at the time, but she now wishes she had access to his life.

—  after peaking in high school and jumping between jobs for a few years, she got a more permanent role at scuba which she loves with all of her heart and soul, but unfortunately a bar job doesn’t pay the rent.  

—  she works at summer camps coaching  junior soccer and netball on the side. she’s extremely competitive and takes it very personally if her team lose. the kids all call her, coach colby n write her longwinded letters about how they’ll never forget this summer camp before they go back to their suburban picket fence houses n she keeps all the letters in a drawer n takes them out to read when she’s feelin depressed.

—  enjoys surfing and worked for a number of years on resorts like mila kunis’ job in forgetting sarah marshall. she went on to work 18-hour days as a stewardess on luxury yachts which is a part of her backstory i added after watching season one of below deck because i guess i really am that fucking impressionable. met most of her surf friends doing tht but said she’d never in her life do it again bcos it was mostly just picking up after rich white ppl for shit pay. she came back to irving n thats when she started doing the summer camp jobs so she could move out of the creek n get her own apartment. 

—  she never actually finished senior year so she’s currently going to night school at the community college to get through her exams and is trying to save to go to college or open university. she wants to major in criminology. she’s super ambitious but also super adhd so she fluctuates between thinking she can achieve anything to just feeling like a failure n thinkin whats the point

—  used to shoplift to feel joy and as an act of resistance to her hippy commune routes, but now sees herself as a reformed, bin-diving freegan (sims 4 eco living can i get a hell yaaaa). also she thinks it’s totally wrong to steal when you have enough money and clearly don’t need to steal to survive, ppl risk imprisonment for basic necessities, so for her to do it for a brief thrill and some new shades felt a bit derogatory

—  was raised jewish. became a vegetarian as a child because it seemed, at the time, easier than having to explain which foods she was and wasn’t allowed to eat together, so she just cut out meat entirely. still a vegetarian now and dabbles in veganism, although its become less about not eating certain meats in the milk of their mother and more about her global impact / carbon footprint

—  nurses little animals to health in her garden. has a hedgehog name OJ short for orange juice not the other one filthy pig. her and her dad have always been huge animal rights activists and existed on a vegetarian diet. the only one in their house who isn’t vegetarian is their cat, auggie. (short 4 augustus gloop)

—  has a lot of stupid ass stick and poke tattoos. there was a phase during her years as a barmaid where she wanted to train as a tattoo artist n would mostly practice on herself or any friends who would let her

—  she doesn’t form many long lasting friendships cos she tends to be super excited when she makes a new friend and just see them all the time but then it wears off and she can ghost a bit. she’ll always coming pinging back but she’s not the most predictable or loyal friend, sometimes she’ll sleep in your house every night for a week and then you won’t even get a text from her for a month. her best friends are elderly neighbours and houseless people she meets when volunteering at the foodbank. she thinks they’re more authentic than most of the ‘fake posers’ she meets down the vela pier

—  calls herself a butch lesbian but still has sex with men when she wants validation. sexually attracted to some men, especially effeminate men, but only romantically attracted to women. very possessive of the gals in her life.

—  stopped giving a shit about getting older or adhering to anyone elses bullshit standards, realised it was all fake p much as soon as she dropped out of school and one by one her friends just stopped texting her

—  lives in one of the lofts in port apartments. it’s open plan with rugs and lava lamps everywhere. she has a palette bed. its all very ‘sustainable chic’. like, oh wow, a pallet bed that im supposed to think you made from scratch but i KNOW you got it  off ebay because you thought it looked trendy

—  constantly says shes poor but still buys clothes from urban outfitters. sus.

—  frequently found at fannies flirting with the cute bisexual bartender with a choppy black bob.

general vibe / personality

vibrant, vulgar, self-absorbed, tenacious, veers bewteen apathetic and dogmatic, temperamental, flighty, unreliable, magnetic, charismatic, passive aggressive, likes to play devil’s advocate, takes the moral high ground. estp and a leo

likes: 70s music, john wayne movies, black mirror, philosophy, cowboy chic culture, dc comics, the smell of locker rooms,, deep red lipstick, lacrosse sticks, smoking weed from a bong, dogs, karaoke, pet rats, kate moss, late-night strolls, hawaaiian shirts worn open over a bralette, skinned knees, thai food, picking the apples at the very top of the trees, zip-lining, cigarettes, the idea of pegging but not the practical application of it, decorative lamps, LGBTQ+ pin badges, worn-out furniture, twangy electric guitars.

dislikes: girls who call other girls ‘pick me’ girls, woody allen movies, mental mathematics, wealthy children, quentin tarantino, ironing, institutionalised misogyny, the imaginary future, french literature, ‘dump him’ feminism, wes anderson films, spoken word poetry nights, college-educated bar staff who act like they’re better than you,  indie softbois, the general mentality of cheerleading squads.

aesthetics

orange peel, the smell of bleach, skeleton drawings in the margins of a journal, thumb holes poked through the cuffs of your sleeves, bleach white sneakers pounding on a gymnasium floor, setting dumpsters on fire for the hell of it. a hit flask of vodka decorated with hello kitty stickers, split knuckles, alien conspiracy theories and sci-fi paperbacks, doc martens with fraying laces, a child in an oversize bee keepers suit, scabbed knees, not eating your greens, smiling with a mouthful of blood, and piercing your own ears with a safety pin when your dad wouldn’t take you,  a tennis racket you punched through in a fit of temper, feet pounding the earth until your soles bleed crimson, sleeping in a cherry lip balm and scrunchies to keep the wild locks from your eyes.

hoo boy this is getting LONG AS FUCK but here are my wanted plots

wanted plots

ok margo’s been in irving since she was like 10. she’s quite a vivacious person?? she dresses completely instinctively without any sense of cohesion so she stands out. a guy once told her she was wearing the ugliest outfit he’d ever seen and he thought that was so cool and brave of her. but anyway where was i going.. she grew up in the abernathy creek so stuck out like a sore thumb,,,, maybe ppl who were super interested in the creek or maybe poked fun at her bcos of it idk.....

b4 she dropped out, margo used 2 b in with the cool kids at school bcos her dad would buy them booze and rarely ask for the money. maybe a fun plot cld b with some of the ‘it girls’ she used to hang around with b4 she got pregnant n dropped out and they all went off to college n stopped texting her.

frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! some1 she feels like she knew before irving ???

since margo literally can’t differentiate between romantic and platonic love, she’s got off with so many of her mates, so i want awkward friendships where they nearly dated, or exes that have now just turned into weird friendships. fwbs. enemies with benefits. all the angst. all the slow burn mutual pining we hate each other narratives

locals who play sports. margo wld be all over community soccer n take it way too seriously. maybe ppl she plays hockey with. girls who she’s like, weirdly intimate with but its not a thing cos the other girls straight !!! what do u mean !! aha just fun !

she works part time at scuba. i want a mate that just goes and sits in there talking to her until her manager gets angry.

she's also a surf instructor and occasionally works as a lifeguard!! gal has like 7 jobs ik but regular swimmers hmu

ppl she coaches at the gym !! she wants to be a personal trainer

i reckon she might have recently started meditating to try and calm down her mind cos its always bustling with thoughts, n i think she’s p interested in buddhism so if anyone’s a buddhist hmu

someone she’s trying to make a zine with on female empowerment and women in film and art, etc. just a very feminist zine. 

TLDR:  angry sports gay, former high school track prodigy turned drop out, who likes feminist literature, wearing leather jackets over slip dresses, and smudged red lipstick.

this was so long !!! im sorry !! if you’ve read this far have a biscuit, love x