#they just haven't found them yet

[sibillascribbles08]

Regardless of What Happens

Whaaat it’s 2023 what if I wrote some Bad Future Jasonnie

Gonna just go ahead and give the heads up for implied sexual content and offscreen canon character death. I’m gonna get crunchy with it like I haven’t already with literally every other bad future thing I write.

Even if the conversation ended with another joke from Leo and both of them laughing, dread still hung like a lead weight at the base of Donatello’s chest. It was such a risky plan, a miracle he even convinced Leo to go along with it. Hacking into Kraang tech, even with all his research he knew it could go backwards so fast. He may not be able to over power it.

In less than twenty-four hours he may not be alive anymore.

Dying didn’t entirely scare him. He accepted death a long time ago.

He just hated the idea of what he might leave behind.

He hadn’t discussed the plan with Mikey yet. He’d have to, or Leo would do it for him. He’d already talked about it with April which ended with them screaming at each other. He’d apologize later, but still announce he was going through with it. She may never forgive him. He understood that.

A lot of people might not forgive him if this idea failed. Including Mikey. Including Casey. Including Leo.

Including...

Donatello glanced in the main computer room. Jase sat in there, like he often did, water bottle in hand as he scrolled through recent drone data. The purple dragons had become allies not long after the invasion started, though there was a ton of friction between them for a while. The need to survive eventually came around to friendship, despite how much Donnie would still bicker with them all from time to time. They didn’t do much field work, but their work with the programming and tech was a life saver on many occasions. It kept some of the workload off Donatello and meant they had backups if something happened to him.

And Jase knew Donnie’s tech better than any of them. Not long after becoming friends, Jase quit following at Kendra’s heels and often turned to Donatello instead. Late nights working on tech became so routine that, even on their nights off, they’d often hole up in each others rooms just to talk.

Donatello often denied the feelings that developed from that. After losing Raph, the idea of letting it become anything more terrified him. Because something could happen to Jase, or something could happen to him, and wouldn’t that just make the loss all the more painful.

But then again...

“How long are you just going to stand there staring?”

Donatello straightened up and glanced at Kendra who stood next to the door now. Right, she was also in the computer room. He absolutely hadn’t been paying attention.

“Lost in thought.” He crossed his arms and met her glare before sparing a glance in Jase’s direction. He turned in his chair, eyebrow raised, but then soon got back to work.

Kendra followed his gaze. “Uh huh, one guess to what you’re thinking about.” She flicked him on the nose.

Donatello snapped at her hand. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

She gave him a smirk when she rolled her eyes, then turned her head. “Hey Jeremy, wanna go get a snack?”

Jeremy leaned up from his work. “Huh? But we--”

Kendra must have given him a look because he suddenly straightened up. “Oh, yeah, sure, you want us to bring you something Jase?”

Jase just gave them a non-committal hum and kept scrolling.

Kendra’s smirk remained on her face as she stepped past Donatello and then shoved him through the doorway. He clenched his fists, about to try and insult her when the door closed in his face.

What was the big idea?

She couldn’t possibly know could she?

Donatello chose to ignore it for the time being as he walked up behind Jase’s chair, looking over the screen himself. All activity normal, from the look of things. A nice reprieve from how things were less than a week ago. Still, he didn’t trust it to last. Quiet moments like this often meant the Kraang were poking around for a weak point to strike. They’d learned to grow patient when the war lasted more than one Earth year.

Jase finally got to the bottom and turned away from the screen. “You need something, Donnie?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it, trying to search for the words. It seemed like a bad idea to just start with the whole “hey I might be dying tomorrow” topic.

Jase studied his face for a second before standing. Not like it did much. All these years and Jase barely gained another inch while Donatello sprouted up over a foot and a half. Jase didn’t even reach his shoulders now.

“Donnie?” Jase tilted his head. “Everything okay?”

“I...” He ground his teeth together for a second. “No. Not entirely.”

“What’s wrong? The drones aren’t reporting anything worth noting.”

“It’s not them it’s...” His arms tightened across his chest. He really didn’t know where to begin with this. “I finally got Leo to approve of a desperate plan of mine.”

Jase’s eyes went wide, only to narrow a second later. “What kind of desperate plan?”

He ground his teeth again, unable to meet his gaze. “I’m going to try and hack into Kraang tech.”

“What?” Jase snapped, trying to stand on his toes just to get closer. “Donnie, I know you’re joking. We talked about that dozens of times before. Even if it’s possible the risk is--”

“I know what the risk is.” Donatello snapped. “But look at us, Jase. Ever since Casey--Cassandra dropped our numbers keep dwindling. All our plans are coming up empty. People who were once our allies keep getting turned on us. If I can make this work it could change everything.”

“And if it doesn’t work?” Jase’s voice cracked and he finally grabbed Donatello’s coat in order to pull him down. “What happens to you then? You also just become one of their pawns? They could--”

“I’m aware.” Donatello took in a shaky breath. “That’s why Leo’s going to be there. So if I fail he can--”

“Are you serious!?”

“Jase--”

“No. No.” Jase shoved him back. “I’m not letting you do this.”

God damn it, this was going about as well as his talk with April did. “Jase, we’re running out of options.”

“That doesn’t mean we should jump straight to something like this. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me the statistics of you getting out of this alive.”

Donatello tried to turn his gaze, but he couldn’t hold it. Rather than focusing on Jase’s eyes--so dark brown they were almost black--it kept moving to his messy hair, or the scar on his ear, or the thin line of stubble that made it clear he hadn’t bothered shaving in a few days.

“Donnie.” Jase insisted.

Donatello took a deep breath and forced his eyes to focus. “About seventeen percent.”

“That’s nothing. You can’t be serious. I’m not letting you do this until you can at least get that number higher.”

“We don’t have time for that.”

“You’re just giving up, aren’t you?” Jase’s voice crack again. “That’s what this is.”

Air got caught in Donatello’s throat before he could deny that.

“I’m not stupid, Donnie. I’ve picked out the things you’ve said over all those late night conversations. You’ve thought this war was pointless for years. That if--”

“If it lasted more than a year, we had no chance of winning. I know.” Donatello snapped back. “But I kept going, didn’t I? If I wanted to give up I would have years ago but I didn’t because...”

Because Raph. Because Mikey. Because Leo. Because April. Because Cassandra and now Casey. Because...

Gods, he knew why they were all so upset with this idea. He knew why they kept trying to convince him otherwise. How could he possibly explain to them that he wasn’t scared of dying if it gave them all the chance to turn this whole thing around. The only thing he was scared of was...

He reached out and held Jase’s faced in his hands, so suddenly that his friend’s sharp anger gave way to shock.

“Jase, I’m so sorry.” His breaths felt so unsteady, like he’d forgotten how to do it, like there just wasn’t enough oxygen in the air.

“For what?” Jase bit his lip to keep his voice from stuttering. “For being an idiot?”

“Yes.” The word barely left his lips when he exhaled. Then he pulled Jase into a kiss.

His friend went rigid under his grip, and he thought, briefly, that maybe this had been a very stupid idea.

Then arms were being thrown around his neck and Jase kissed him back, hard. The sudden tug almost had Donatello stumbling forward, so he responded by moving his hands and lifting Jase off the ground.

The motion forced them apart, but only for the length of a breath. Now looking down at him, Jase kissed him again, somehow even harder than the first time. Teeth and lips pinched together. Jase’s hands couldn’t seem to find a place to settle as they ran over Donatello’s cheeks to the back of his head, constantly bumping into his goggles. He was about to toss the damn things to the side. Not close enough. Somehow they weren’t close enough.

He tugged that thought back. A sliver of logic managed to slip through the haze that rapidly took over his brain. He pulled away from this kiss, and Jase started to follow him before he must have also regained his senses.

His cheeks, already bright red, somehow got darker as the color spread to the tips of his ears.

“Oh my god.” Jase’s hands moved to Donatello’s shoulders. “What am I doing?”

Donatello couldn’t help but smirk. “I thought that was obvious.”

Jase managed a glare as he lightly smacked the side of his goggles. “Don’t be such a smart ass, Von Ryan. What are you doing? What are we doing?”

“Well, I was kissing you.” Donatello dropped his grip just a bit so the pair of them were at eye level. “Because, I confess, I’ve wanted to for a few years now even if I tried to pretend I didn’t.”

Jase breathed out a laugh. “Huh, I guess we really are doing the same thing.” He leaned close, peppering kisses from the corner of Donatello’s mouth up his cheek. “I just always figured I wasn’t... That you were so far out of my league...”

Donatello snorted and turned his head to meet his lips. “So smart but so stupid sometimes. Out of your league? Really?”

“Shut up and just look at yourself.” Jase kept kissing him. “The most brilliant mind of our time, strong, tall, gorgeous--”

“Oh?” Donatello raised an eyebrow. “You think so?” 

“Don’t sound so smug.” Jase shot him a glare before his hand ran up Donatello’s neck and then rested on his cheek. His thumb pressed against the corner of the turtle’s mouth before tugging his lip down. “But yes.”

Oh. Oh. That finally made a lot more sense. “Wait, is that why you kept staring at my mouth whenever I grinned at you?”

“What can I say? I like ‘em sharp.”

“You’re such a freak.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Donatello tried to lean in for another kiss, but Jase’s hand held him back.

“But jokes and flirting aside,” his tone shifted. “This better not be some stupid confession made because you know you aren’t making it out of this stupid scheme of yours.” 

“Um... not entirely?” He tried to smile. “I just... I denied it for so long because after losing Raph it felt like... Like if I let myself have this I’d just be asking for it to get ripped away from me.”

“So you decided to do that to me instead.”

The impact of those words hit him so hard he almost dropped Jase on the floor. The lead weight in his chest dropped to his stomach. “I...”

“You’re such a bastard.” Jase mumbled as he kissed Donatello again. “Such a bastard and I love you. I don’t want to lose you.” His voice cracked again. A sob briefly escaped before he took a deep breath to tug all of it back in. “And I also hate myself for not saying anything sooner. I hate myself for not even being friends sooner. I hate that it took the world ending for us to become friends. I hate...” Another shaky breath. “I hate thinking that if this never happened, if the world was peaceful, would we still hate each other? Would we still be enemies? I don’t... I don’t know what world I’d prefer to live in if that’s the case.”

Donatello studied Jase’s face, once again his mind screaming that they weren’t close enough.

“I want us both to survive this.” Jase pressed their foreheads and their noses together. “I want us to win and try to get back to some kind of normal life again. I want the two of us to... I want...”

Another firm kiss, and this time when Donatello returned it, Jase moaned. Nails lightly scrapped against the back of Donatello’s neck, making him shiver. Jase parted his lips and Donatello followed suit.

Not close enough. Not close enough.

Jase barely moved away when he stopped, breath brushing past Donatello’s cheek when he spoke. “Your room or mine?”

The haze in his brain returned ten fold, but that sliver of logic fought to stay on the surface. “Are you sure about that? We--”

Jase’s hands practically slapped against his cheeks before he smooshed Donatello’s face. “I know I’m not going to stop you from doing this stupid, idiotic, reckless idea of yours. And if this really is some stupid, last minute, desperate confession then let me have this. Your room or mine.”

He said that last sentence so forcefully that the sliver of logic finally vanished in the haze. Donatello barely kept himself from pinning Jase to the nearby desk. “Yours.”

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

Donatello must have dozed off. Not too surprising, considering the past few sleepless nights due to the stress and well... what just happened.

Jase lay curled up under his arm, pressed against his chest, not quite asleep but definitely not all awake either.

Donatello didn’t want to move. He really didn’t want to move. He at least allowed himself another few quiet seconds, pressing his nose to Jase’s forehead.

But then he rolled over, looking for wherever he placed his gauntlet on the nearby desk to check the time.

Yeesh, it’d almost been two hours since he and Jase first started talking back in the main computer room. He couldn’t waste too much time laying around. He had to prep some things before tomorrow. He had to talk to Mikey, and April, and--

Jase shifted behind him. Then two arms wrapped around his stomach as his friend--boyfriend--pressed up against his shell.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” Jase mumbled.

“Not yet.” Donatello left the gauntlet next to the pillow as his hand rested on Jase’s wrist. “But I can’t stay here all afternoon.”

Jase tightened his grip. “Will I see you again tonight?”

Donatello wiggled himself loose, just enough to roll back over. “Most likely.”

“Good.” Jase kissed him on the collar, then the throat. “I’m not done with you yet.”

Donatello smirked. “Hm, dare I ask what that means.”

“Use your imagination.” Jase trailed a few more kisses, but slowed to a stop. “You are going to try, right? To stay alive, I mean.”

“Of course I am. But you know me. I have to be realistic. No matter how hard I try it may not...”

He didn’t finish the thought, couldn’t. Instead he reached up to hold Jase’s face, making sure his boyfriend was looking at him. “Regardless of what happens, I love you. No matter where I end up, I love you. One way or another, I’ll see you again. And one way or another, I’ll be sure to leave you a part of me you can carry with you.” He sealed that promise with a quick kiss.

Jase looked at him, almost star struck, before it fell back to his usual smirk. “Wow, where did you find that sappy piece of dialogue?”

“Oh shush.” Donatello smiled back at him as he tugged the pillow down over Jase’s head. Not a very comfy one, full of old clothes they’d scavenged for, but better than rocks.

A beep from his gauntlet had to ruin the moment. He rolled over to check it again, knew it was an incoming call from the noise. Leo.

Donatello forced himself to sit up and snapped the gauntlet back on his wrist before answering it. “Yes, Leo?”

“Donnie, where are you? I’ve been looking all over the base for you. Main computer room says you’re still in here.”

“I am.” He wiped his eyes. “I’m in Jason’s quarters.”

His brother’s silence made him realize what he just said. His palm slapped against his forehead.

“Wait. Is that why Kendra is insisting I owe her ten dollars?”

“Huh?” Donatello shouted into the gauntlet and saw Jase trying to hide himself under the covers. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh my god, oh my god, no. I swore up and down you two would never--”

“You had a bet?”

“Dude, half the family does. I should get your own recordings and show you just how you two constantly stare at each other. Like, fifty times I swore I was going to vomit.”

“Okay, where are you?” Donatello tossed the covers off his legs and started to scramble for his clothes. “I’m coming to kick your ass right now.”

“Hang on, I have to give Kendra ten dollars before you do.”

“Nardo!”

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

Jason didn’t know what he expected.

It was late a night when he saw Donnie again. He looked lost, then frustrated, then lost all over again. Evidently talking about the plan with the others didn’t go over too well. Part of Jason hoped that would discourage Donnie from trying it.

It didn’t.

So Jason clung to him like it was the last night on Earth, like if his lips left his, he would suffocate. Words were whispered back and forth, so quietly, but he remembered every one of them.

“I’m so sorry for doing this to you.” Donnie mumbled at one point. “I’m still not sure what’s worse. Telling you now at the risk of leaving, or you never knowing at all.”

At the time, he didn’t have an answer to that.

He didn’t think too hard afterwards, drifting off to sleep, because he assumed he’d see Donnie one more time in the morning.

But when he woke up, his arm reached out to find nothing. He groaned and sat up, opening his eyes to still find nothing. Just crumpled sheets and something round and grey sitting next to the pillow.

Jason fumbled for his glasses and put them on. Damn lenses that would never be clean again. They couldn’t spend the resources making fancy new ones.

He could see the object more clearly now. A simple speaker with one button on it. Donnie often used them to leave messages when bases had to be abandoned, leaving coded messages for other resistance members to follow.

But why was it here?

Jason swallowed before giving into his curiosity and hitting play.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.” The words from yesterday afternoon played back to him. “No matter where I end up, I love you. One way or another, I’ll see you again. And one way or another, I’ll be sure to leave you a part of me you can carry with you.”

Jason stared at the speaker in his hand.

Is this what he meant when he said that?

Suddenly an uneasy feeling twisted in his stomach.

He scrambled out of bed and put on his uniform. With everything ready he sprinted out of his quarters and towards the main computer room. No one else was inside yet, too early perhaps? He hadn’t even looked at the time. He wouldn’t. Vitals. He needed to check vitals. His palm swiped across the screen until it showed the correct list.

One of them was flatlined.

One of them was--

He hit the play button.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

He hit it again.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

Jason swallowed back the lump in his throat and forced his gaze to move over to the name next to the unwavering thread of life.

Again.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

“Regardless of what happens--”

What happened?

Jason took off again. Leonardo. He had to find Leonardo if he was in the base. He’d know exactly what happened, right?

Did Jason even want an answer to that?

Most of the cave tunnels remained empty. Sometimes he passed by some rooms where people lingered, but none of them called after him.

He kept moving. Heading for the med bay. That’d be a logical place to look, right? He saw the doorway to it, saw April standing inside with her back turned. He opened his mouth to call out to her when his chest struck something metal. He would have fallen back if the culprit hadn’t caught him.

His hands rested on Leonardo’s prosthetic before he glanced at the turtle. His eyes were red, cheeks damp, but his expression was firm.

“Leo.” Jason tried to catch his breath. “What-- What happened? Where is he?”

Leonardo flinched, but his gaze only faltered for a second. “Jase trust me you don’t...” He swallowed. “You don’t want to go in there right now.”

“What happened?” He demanded as he pulled free. “What--” Only now with this distance did he get a good look at Leo’s sword. The red mask on the hilt was now perfectly complimented by the deep red stains that still lined the blade.

He felt so numb. Static formed in his palm where the recording pressed against it and slowly traveled up to his shoulder. This couldn’t be real. Maybe he was just having a nightmare. Any minute now he’d wake up in the real world and Donnie would still be right next to him, whispering a proper goodbye before he headed out on this doomed mission.

“Did he even try?” Jason choked the words out.

Leonardo grit his teeth, clearly struggling to speak for a second. “He gave it everything he had. It just wasn’t... enough.”

And what could he even say to that? The devastation was plain on Leo’s face. It’d probably be plain on April’s as well, and Mikey’s and even young Casey. Jase knew he wasn’t the only one being crushed by this, he never was when other reports of lost members came flooding in after a mission. He never was when he and his team watched those flat lines crop up one by one. In some ways this one should hardly be any different but the pins and needles in his arm hurt.

“Jase?” Leonardo took a step toward him. “Jase, I’m sorry--”

Why was he apologizing? This wasn’t his fault. It was Donatello’s stupid, stupid plan.

“Look, you should--”

As soon as the turtle reached out, Jason flinched backwards. His hand tensed around the device, causing him to hit the play button once more.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

Leonardo’s eyes went wide.

“No matter where I end up, I love you.”

“Jase... where did you--”

“One way or another, I’ll see you again.”

Leo’s shoulders went tense before his left hand covered his face, clearly trying to hide his tears.

“And one way or another.”

Jason took off in the opposite direction. He couldn’t be doing this to Leo, shouldn’t be. The recording already wrenched his own heart in two, just what was it doing to Donatello’s twin?

“I’ll be sure to leave you a part of me you can carry with you.”

Jason kept going, all the way back to his quarters where he slammed to the door shut before sliding down onto the floor.

He hit the button again.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

He double tapped this time, rewind.

“I love you.”

Again.

“I love you.”

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Jason failed to hold back his sob this time, loud enough that it drowned out the rest of the recording as it played from his hand. 

“I’m still not sure what’s worse. Telling you now at the risk of leaving, or you never knowing at all.”

Jason still didn’t have an answer to that. Was one truly worse than the other?

Or did they just hurt in different ways.

Again.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 6

[Pt. 1] [Pt. 2] [Pt. 3] [Pt. 4] [Pt. 5]

[territorial-utopia]

Huzzah! It's birthday time! I'm slowly accumulating more and more things I like (latest additions this vest I made and a travel typewriter! Still need to fix the latter one though)

Sure has been a year.

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

♡ handwriting analysis: alex turner and miles kane ♡

as promised, here is the analysis my wonderful friend (who used to work as a professional handwriting analyst) did of miles and alex's handwriting! a couple of important points to read before you dive in:

my friend analysed these blind - to avoid bias, she always makes a point of never knowing whose handwriting it is she's looking at, so she had no idea that these samples were from alex and miles while analysing them (not that it'd have made much difference if she had, she can't even name one am song lol)

she stressed that her analysis should NOT be taken as fact - it's just one person's interpretation of the material, and handwriting analysis is ultimately always subjective

the two analyses below are based on notes i took while she was talking and is pretty much verbatim - none of the wording is my own and i have changed as little as possible in typing it up

she noted that it was harder to provide a full and accurate analysis just working with photos of handwriting, as you can't see things like pressure on the page etc. she also stressed that context is significant when it comes to interpreting someone's writing, and it's important to bear in mind that how someone writes in one context, e.g. signing autographs or writing something for the general public could show quite different characteristics to how someone writes in another context, e.g. personal letters to someone they're close to. in an ideal world she'd have access to samples from a different range of contexts to provide the most detailed and accurate analysis. in other words, this analysis is quite rough

alex's handwriting:

(samples taken from roughly 2011 - 2018)

block capitals suggest this is someone who don't want to show themselves, makes it hard for people to reach them

someone interested in thoughts and ideas, would engage with these in a way that's intelligent and very original

a lot of emotional and social inconsistency, suggests someone pulled in different directions. they might show very different sides of themselves with different people and probably have complex and/or conflicted feelings about identity

very creative, someone who'd make interesting and unusual connections about the world around them

highly intuitive but also lacking harmony from an emotional perspective. lots of internal emotional conflict and changeability

someone who fluctuates a lot socially as well as emotionally - might go from being quite sociable to withdrawing completely. ultimately struggles to reach out socially and holds back a lot, but there might be certain situations or people they feel particularly at ease with where this is different

really hard to read, don't give much of themselves away

thoughtful and enquiring, interested in ideas

someone who feels things very strongly

signature:

implies someone hiding themselves or presenting as someone they're not. they want to look confident and exciting, but they're actually much less confident that they'd like to appear. lets their creative and artistic tendencies hide them and take centre stage.

miles's handwriting:

(samples taken from roughly 2022 - 2023)

a little sharp, could suggest humorous wit and/or being critical (either of self or of others)

ambitious and incisive, intelligent and enquiring mind

fearful or wary about opening up and reaching out to people, emotional inconsistency. potentially quite restrained - looks like someone used to hiding a lot of hiding of emotions

has an enquiring mind but isn't particularly interested in abstract thought, more grounded in reality and social/emotional things

someone with strong feelings, they get held in and confused. could be warm and open on a surface level, but looks like they'd be reserved about their innermost feelings

could be sharp tongued to avoid dealing with their own feelings

lower zone suggests someone who might not be completely comfortable in their own body and/or sexuality, or have a complex relationship with these things

someone with a tendency towards strong feelings and devotion/worship (could be religious, or could just be to do with the way they relate to people or ideas)

signature:

someone who wants to look more confident they feel. sense of changeability and flashes of insecurity, but ultimately suggests strength of character, not someone who's a pushover. they know what they want and what matters to them.

interesting extra notes:

the wonderful @ballad-of-what-could-have-been managed to find this sample of alex's handwriting not in capitals from when he was much younger (from what i can see, it looks like it was early fwn era):

so i showed this to my friend too (after her analysis of alex's usual writing) and noted that it was probably done when he was a lot younger. she said that all her points from the original analysis still stood, and that despite the fact this writing isn't capitalised it was actually still very hard to read and definitely someone not comfortable with showing themselves. she also said that it was more emotionally conflicted and uncertain than the later sample of their handwriting. the phrase "emotionally all over the place" was used, and she noted a greater sense of inconsistency with identity. overall though she said the earlier sample confirms that this is someone with a high level of intuition and originality, and she said they're someone she'd be fascinated to have a conversation with!

thank you for reading! if you have any questions, please feel free to comment/drop me an ask and i can always pick my friend's brain again the next time i see her!

[beebfreeb]

Hiya! I'd like to ask how do you do your ms paint art? Do you first make the outlines and then colours, or perhaps vice versa? I really adore your ms paint art and would love to know the process (for practice purposes:))

Depends! My two strategies, featuring Cactus Gunman of Gregory Horror Show fame:

I often just color right on top of my sketches when I'm being silly + designing characters + just trying to figure out what something looks like (and tend to use this to fiddle with details and colors) It's usually quicker for me to end up with something that I'm happy with.

Most of the time when I bother to do separate, cleaner line art, it's because I'm making a graphic for my website. LOL. I think it feels a little more cartoonish-silly, which is usually what I'm going for when I decide to do this. It's also a bit harder to make large changes to whatever I'm drawing, so I'm usually working off of a messier thing I've already made.

(Technically, I no longer use MS Paint and instead use Aseprite due to becoming a Linux user, but nothing has really changed about the way I draw + all of this can be done in MS Paint just fine.)

[hydrodragons]

genshin impact gif challenge ✦

[2/?] dendro characters → nahida

“to me, ‘fate’ is the ultimate knowledge. that's also why i love observing humans and all the things that happen to them; it all brings me great satisfaction. and now, at long last, i'm not just an observer anymore. i will personally experience my own fate, with you by my side. hehe, isn't this such a wonderfully exciting thing?”

[mintytealfox]

put some of ur favorite NortonxAlice artists!!

And art as well (ur most favorite).

(I'm still new to this fandom)..👉👈 thank you.

OKAY 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 SURE THING~~ HERE YA GO!!

and if this works right, clicking just under the screenshot should take you to the original post 👀I think I grabbed the most recent art posts from everyone here 💞💞💞💞💞

@quoththeowl31 :

@nightwonder7 :

@eclairris :

@emby-m :

@teddy-pickr :

@to-spend-time :

@itsxeo3 :

@violetaerie :

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[sciderman]

(Idk if someone asked this already) since we’re on the topic of gender

sci what is gender to you and how do you see it in you and how you express it in your art?? (Just a young queer artist who wants some light shined upon them 🥺)

i 'unno ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[kirisclangen]

Zelda

She/her, 65 moons, cis molly

[uncanny-tranny]

There's something so insane to me about being able to create and recreate vintage or even ancient music, clothes, fabrics, building architecture, anything, really.

I watched this video about a lady who knit a WWII-era vest, and it was really unique, because the cable work would eat up yarn, when there were shortages of fibers. This pattern would have likely been used by people to send overseas to soldiers, and now it's being created in a time where this war has been over for generations. What were the people making this pattern thinking of? What about the people making the vest? Could they fathom a world where world wars didn't happen back to back? Could they imagine what peace felt like, or did it fade like a distant memory, a faint friend? All we have now are the remnants of their efforts, a "simple" vest that would warm the bodies of countless people the knitter would never have imagined were here on earth with them.

We're reaching across time to learn about other people - we're reaching our hands out just to grasp anything tangible. And when we've take hold of something, all we can do is say I love you I love you I love you

[invinciblerodent]

side note, it makes me feel kind of unreasonably giddy that my four "main" games of bg3, i'm playing:

a man loving a man

a woman loving a man

a man loving a woman (and a man)

and a woman loving a woman

and literally all of the characters involved are bi/pansexual.

diversity win, i'm queer and so is everything and everyone I do and make

[felassanis]

I'm sorry how can u not ship Courier x Ulysses when the base game and EVERY FUCKING DLC is constantly pushing the idea that they're fated to meet and destined to be each others salvation.

[thottybrucewayne]

No, real question. How you a transmed and nonbinary?

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

Alright know what here's a little Guild Wars 2 reblog game for everybody; what mounts (if any) do your characters have in their canon, do they have names? Personalities? How'd they meet??

Spill it all below, tell me about all your creatures!!

[pearl-kite]

Want to see some neat things about how irises grow?

Remember when I dug up and divided ALL of my irises at my parents' place a few years back? And how I ended up with 50 rhizomes, and I had bought 9 more just a bit before that?

Well, my mom wants to try to amend the soil because it's not great. Most of the irises have just been surviving, but not well enough to bloom, and everything else planted in the area struggles similarly. In order to amend the soil, though, I needed to dig them all up.

Again.

I dug up 44 rhizomes this time, which is honestly a bit better than I expected. I knew that not all of the ones I put in were going to survive, but I was still surprised by how many I just dug up today.

Anyway, the learning bit!

So irises aren't bulbs, they're rhizomes. Each year they put up leaves at one end, and over time they kind of end up migrating in that direction. If they do really well at gathering and storing energy, instead of just continuing forward, they'll fork, putting up leaves on two sides and a stalk with blooms in the center. The following year, the pattern continues, going forward from each side of that fork. If a rhizome does REALLY well, you'll end up with a bunch of forks spreading out.

The one on the left has survived, but not gone very far, and the white at the end shows that I accidentally broke some of the old rhizome off when I was digging it back up. It also happens to be a dwarf variety, so the rhizome is smaller to begin with; all my other photos are of intermediate and tall bearded irises with much larger rhizomes.

The one on the right has done well enough to grow forward for a few years, with the oldest of the rhizome at the bottom (still healthy and full of stored energy!) and the newest year's growth at the top. Looking at the rhizome itself, I'd guess that one is about 4 years (which makes sense, 'cause I think I did the splitting back in 2020).

The one on the left bloomed this year; you can see the flower stalk dried out in the center, and the new fork in the rhizome to the sides. Next year, they'll continue in those two directions, and it won't go forward from the stalk any longer.

The one on the right bloomed a few years back, and though it kept growing forward from there, it hasn't bloomed since. The other side of the fork also died off, and it's now only growing in one direction again.

Last but most certainly not least we have THIS beast. This one has bloomed the last two or three years in a row. I honestly can't tell if the guy at the bottom right is part of the same rhizome or another one I planted too close that got subsumed by this monster, because it took ten minutes to get most of the clay off and there was still more. I'll need to actually rinse it off with the hose to really see if it's all one plant or two.

But I'm 95% sure that this guy is going to bloom again next year because of those nubs down along the bottom. They were below the soil, and they're too thick to be new roots, so I'm guessing that's what future growth looks like. Honestly, this guy should probably be divided, but I also don't want to ruin the chance of it blooming next year, so I'm going to put him back in the dirt as is and maybe divide next year after blooming season.

Anyway, irises are my favorite, and I think it's intriguing how they work. I'm hoping that we can get the soil a bit more balanced and that they'll do better after replanting them, because even though I just dug up 44, we only had 4 or 5 bloom this year. They aren't thriving in the soil as-is, because for as long as they've been established we should have had more blooming than that. It was still the best year since dividing them, though.

I've brought a bunch of them over to my apartment and I'm going to try them out in containers, mostly the dwarf varieties I had. ONE of the dwarfs bloomed this year and it was gorgeous, but I'm hoping the rest will do better in new soil with some extra attention.

[chaos-has-theories]

#would like to hear about your Egypian theory#does it relate to ba and ka and how the physicality of the cavalier's soul seems to survive the consumption and integration @mayasaura

It does a little! There was a theory a while back about the Eightfold Word being the cavalier's name, which did absolutely make my egypt senses tingle. You can read through a list of the Ancient Egyptian conception of the soul and find such bangers as "A person's name was an essential aspect of individuality and central to one's survival after death" or "The kꜣ (ka) 𓂓 was the Egyptian concept of vital essence, which distinguishes the difference between a living and a dead person, with death occurring when the kꜣ left the body" or "In the Egyptian religion, the heart was the key to the afterlife" and then you can cry a little about Kiriona -

But admittedly that's the kind of stuff that can be found in plenty of philosophies.

I'm more focused on the fact that every single lyctor can be mapped onto a major Egyptian deity, and every plot line so far onto a major Egyptian myth.

John and the OG Lyctors are the Great Ennead, with the Resurrection as the Heliopolitan Creation Myth. The Mithraeum follows the Journey of Ra through the underworld.

Harrowhark is Horus, and her fight with Cytherea mirrors the conflict between Horus and Set.

Alecto is Sakhmet, Nona is Hathor, both of them the Eye of Ra; Nona the Ninth is the 'Myth of the Distant Goddess' to a point where I'm embarrassed that I didn't realize so before the book came out.

Ianthe is Thoth.

(If you want to read my full 4000 word essay on it here you go, but that's the gist of it. Even more random ramblings under my tag #the egypt agenda.)