#what about prisma...

[daincrediblegg]

So hear me out... Rick Grimes, post-kill, the bottom half of his face and his whole chest just drenched in blood.

He's in a partial dissociative state as you help him clean up and then he slowly looks over at you.

He doesn't say anything, just stares at you, before he suddeny tugs you against his lips. Its a kiss that just gets more and more rough until you're both just fucking, covered in some dead guy's blood.

[raydianbluesandhues]

YAYY and also speaking of anything abut dr. von blot? hes becoming one of my fav inkys so

lil scientist guy? i have a few Hcs about him --

I never played the DS version but I DID watch a 4 hour 100% walkthrough of it. i am mentally ill

anyways.

So I originally thought that the scientist Inky that talks to Blob before the mutant Inky boss fight was just a random one that was interested in studying Blob. rightfully so because I would want to research him too if I was on the losing side of the war. like tell me your secrets magic man

But they're the same person

Mutated Ink was Von's lil project that he was working on for,, quite a bit of time really. he wanted to impress Comrade, his superior, with something that could change the war forever

Of course, this meant holing himself up in his lab as he worked, making him miss the entirety of the first war and therefore missing his chance to show Comrade the fruits of his labor. he had no knowledge of anything that was happening until Blob fucking jumpscared him by falling into his lab Undertale style

like SIR GET OUT OF MY HOUSE

I think surviving that rocket is a miracle in and of itself, I would imagine that the mutated ink that caused him to turn into de Blot probably came off in the explosion and he turned back to normal

something something the explosion had color energy in it and with him already being in a weakened state the mutated ink came off

the one difference between him and Comrade is the fact that Von lost due to his temper, and Comrade lost due to his arrogance. Von started this wanting to impress someone who was off doing something else entirely and had no knowledge of anything happening in Chroma

speaking of what was happening in Prisma I think Von went over there asap after hearing about what was going on

he was so caught up with his research and being "de Blot" that he had no knowledge of Comrade's shenanigans in Prisma

he was involved in the creation of the Spikeys and the updated versions of the Elites, and I think that would've gotten him a bit more attention from Comrade, which is WHAT HE WANTED IN THE FIRST PLACE

like, imagine being noticed by your idol after like. what. 5 years?

i think he'd try again with the mutated ink because it was successful in its own right and he, again, thought that it would help them out in the war

with it being so close to the end of the war though, and with the Raydians starting to revolt, I would like to think he gave up on it again and discarded it

HOWEVER.

i like to think that the mutant Inky was a product of this. with him discarding the batch of mutated ink he was working on perhaps some inkies thought that it was a misplaced shipment of ink that needed to be put in the factory

and then boom! confused ink monster fucking up everything

now obviously Blob and co. dont recognize Von because he's not a blob anymore (outside of Pinky)

but von CLEARLY remembers them and of course, hates their fucking guts

SOMETHING ELSE I THOUGHT OF. very quickly before i end the post

he def had something to do with the Blancs. if I remember correctly regular ink will kill anything it touches, including Raydians (no so fun fact: if you roll over a raydian while you are inked, the raydian dies), but in the DS game the mayor gets hit with a glob of what I'm guessing is mutated ink, and he was just annoyed

mutated ink is still ink, but i guess it's not as corrosive as regular ink is? after all, it is mutated ink, it explains why the Blancs look the way they do. they've mutated into something.. unholy

i think comrade would've told him about his plans. his plans to take over Prisma and the world, and bring the raydians to their knees. Von would just look at him and be like "yeah you know how that ended for you last time. it's not like they're gonna listen to you. unless you brainwash them of course"

an idea was born that day

[savanir]

“-So that’s why I got these three soul contracts,” Danny holds up three mystical shimmering orbs of light before promptly smushing them together into one “One soul contract now”

Damian raises an eyebrow, which is impressive to see considering he’s at that moment wearing his mask, “you wanted the drunkard magician to owe you one”

“Clock hinted I should sort it out now for future reasons, I have learned not to argue too much about these things with him, it’s literally and figuratively a waste of time.”

“And that’s why you now have soul sight, he gave you that ability for all this”

“Yeah well funny thing, demons will try to scam you in any way they can, it’s very annoying.” but it was also really great to just go ‘I can see the actual soul stuff I want hidden behind your back…’ whenever they thought they were being clever.

“so- what the heck” Danny startles as Batman enters the batcave.

“Danny?”

“Dami… why does father’s soul look like that” Danny keeps squinting with his eyes, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing

And Damian can feel himself get tense, ready for whatever, “... like what”

“it looks… whole… but it’s like it’s made out of millions of tiny fragments, like a cracked prisma. how does that even work?”

Damian thinks really hard, “but it doesn’t look wrong right?”

“No, it's just the world's most elaborate jigsaw puzzle soul. Please explain?”

“Well… the only thing I can think of is that time where father died after we exorcized the demon Nezha from his body and afterwards brought him back to life cause I asked everyone in Gotham to share a tiny bit of their soul with him”

What “Dami what”

“it was that or dead father, Zatanna told me that my life wasn’t sufficient enough for full resurrection, in fact my life and that of the others wouldn’t have worked, so-”

“millions of Gothamites”

“yes”

“our dad is basically Gotham”

Damian shrugs, “father is father”

“Ancients”

[ckret2]

Chapter 84 of human Bill Cipher getting a day pass out of being the Mystery Shack's prisoner: so it turns out Bill and Pacifica have a lot in common! And it's not weird at all! It's—it's very normal. Their childhoods were so normal.

(Since this entire chapter is from the point of view of a character who doesn't know the person she's talking to is Bill, a PSA for those of y'all who missed it. Thanks.)

####

"Okay, that's as much as I can do to help your hair without deep conditioning it," Pacifica said. "Now let's talk about styling it."

They were back in Pacifica's office, with Goldie seated in his folding chair and Mabel sitting in Pacifica's desk chair (slowly spinning it back and forth) as Pacifica lectured them. Pacifica had given Goldie a spare t-shirt to dry his hair with (you could never have too much spare clothing on hand when you were dealing with farm animals), but he'd just loosely wrapped it around his hair and promptly ignored it.

Pacifica said, "You've got this issue where the weight of your curls pulls the top of your hair down and makes it flatten out near your scalp—but your hair's all the same length, so it really flares out near your shoulders. It's called triangle hair and it is not a cute look."

Goldie and Mabel bit their lips and exchanged a look, and Pacifica got the distinct impression that she'd accidentally reminded them about some inside joke she wasn't part of.

Trying to ignore the feeling that she was being left out of something, Pacifica cleared her throat and went on. "So, uh—you can fix it with like, layering your haircut and stuff? But. I don't actually... know how to do that." All her knowledge of curly hair and its care—much less fashionable haircuts—came from fashion and beauty magazines, which covered things like shampoo and flattering styles but assumed you'd leave the actual hair-cutting to the professionals. "So. I can get your curls presentable, and I guess we can figure out a way to pin it that looks nice? But that's the best I can do without an emergency salon trip."

"You sure we can't leave the triangle hair?" Goldie asked innocently. "I think it's cute. It really feels like me." Mabel clapped a hand over her mouth and snorted.

Pacifica raised her brows. "Do you want to feel like you, or do you want to get the guy?"

"Right, of course," Goldie said. "I almost forgot what's really important!"

Pacifica passed Goldie her phone. "Here—I wasn't sure what kind of look you were going for so I saved a few pictures of curly hair styles, let me know if you like any of these." She searched through the collection of makeup on her desk for the bobby pins and hair ties she'd picked up earlier. "The trend this year is for slicked-back styles, braids, and buns—but your curls are so pretty, I'd hate to hide them." 

Mabel leaned halfway across the desk to try to see the pictures too; Goldie's held out the phone to meet her halfway as as he scrolled—and scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled. He said, "Good job narrowing down the list to a modest two hundred pictures."

Pacifica said, "Excuse me for wanting you to have options."

Mabel pointed. "Awww, look at that one with all the little butterfly hair clips!"

"It's like butterflies are eating her brain."

"And they look adorable doing it."

"Too juvenile for me. It looks like something Prisma the fairy would wear," Goldie said. "You should wear it."

Mabel's eyes lit up. "You've got to help me make fifty butterfly hair clips."

"You got it." He closed out of Pacifica's pictures, opened up the browser, and awkwardly typed in a search. "Hey, Alpaca, look at this one."

That was the second time he'd called her that. "Do you actually know my name?"

"Rapunzel." He held up a picture of some seventies movie star with thick, feathery hair that fluffed out around her face like the wings of a panicked swan trying to take off. "Think you can pull this one off?"

Pacifica grimaced. "You'd look like my mom." Except even worse and more old fashioned. (She kept that part to herself.)

Flatly, he said, "Oh no, how will I ever convince a male that I'm a prize worth winning if I literally look like a trophy wife."

That would be just about the only part of Goldie that looked like a trophy wife. (She kept that part to herself too.) "And we'd have to give you bangs."

As she suspected, Goldie grimaced and flipped to another image. At least he knew bang weren't for him. "How 'bout this one?"

It looked like a solid helmet of hair, with the ends uniformly curled outward like the embarrassing forced-whimsical hairstyle of the minions of an insane chocolatier. "Ew. That's about the only thing that could make you look even worse than you already do."

"Pacifica," Mabel said sharply. "Be nice!"

"Sorry!" She'd kept so many parts to herself that she didn't have any spare room to keep that part. "I can't do it, anyway. It would need a flat iron and a curling iron, and I don't have either."

"Can't we get some?" Goldie asked. "Any drug store should have 'em, it's a fifteen minute walk to—"

"I don't use them," Pacifica said sharply.

Goldie's stare was like a heat lamp—or maybe that was just self-consciousness heating up Pacifica's face as he scrutinized her. But after several long seconds, Goldie's gaze turned off her face. She quietly sighed in relief.

"Okay," he said. "Then this one." He showed her another picture. It had curly shoulder-length bangs, which wasn't really in style but fine, but behind them was a bouffant shaped like a deflating basketball with a wilting palm tree sprouting out of it.

Pacifica cringed. It was, unfortunately, doable. A note of pleading in her voice, she asked, "Are you really into this look? Really?"

("I think it's pretty," Mabel muttered.)

"Oh, no way!" Goldie said. "Look at that mess! That's way too much effort for a 'do that looks like she did it drunk in the dark in under two minutes."

(Mabel looked at Goldie like he'd personally betrayed her.)

"But," he went on, "it's what our guy is into, and that's what matters here. Right?"

Pacifica studied the picture dubiously. "You're sure?"

"He went through puberty in the 70s! When his libido opened its eyes for the first time, this is what it imprinted on."

Pacifica bit her lip. Well. At least Goldie didn't think it looked good, but. "Can I at least improve it a little?"

"Oh, please!"

She picked up the comb again and grabbed a couple of bobby pins. "No promises, but I'll do what I can."

Pacifica talked a big game, but in truth, she knew a lot more about the theory of hairstyles than she did about actually styling hair. You don't have to film a blockbuster to be a film critic. So at that point, all she could do was experiment with Goldie's hair as she attempted to approximate the picture he'd shown her. She circled around him as she worked—putting in pins, taking them out, occasionally asking him his opinion.

But although Goldie had previously been a non-stop chatterer, the moment she'd started working on his hair, he'd fallen silent.

He only glanced in the hand mirror she'd given him when she prompted him, and then only to give one-word answers—usually "fine." His shoulders were as tense and his mouth as tight as Pacifica's had been the first time she had to wash alpaca poop off the bottom of a boot. And Pacifica had nearly vommed, so, that was pretty serious.

Why? It couldn't be pain. Pacifica had gotten all the knots out of his hair earlier—and even when she wasn't using the comb, it was like she couldn't even move a lock of his hair without him wincing. She kept wanting to apologize even though she was just doing what he wanted her to.

There was something going on here. It wasn't just how uncomfortable he was with being touched. There was also the way he did an awful job of washing his hair even though he knew how to perfectly well. And how he'd rather let Mabel brush his hair into a frizzy mess than comb it out himself. And beyond all that, the first thing Pacifica had ever learned about him was that he'd gotten his hair melted off and needed emergency help to grow it back. "You... really don't like your hair, do you?"

"I like it fine. It's gorgeous." He was speaking through gritted teeth, and he had his legs crossed with his feet under his thighs, palms up in lap, eyes fixed on the blanket Mabel had made, as though having a staring contest with the triangle creep would help him endure the torture without flinching. "I just—don't like messing with it."

"Which is fine," Mabel cut in. "Because I like brushing it!" She quickly amended herself: "Combing it. We've got like a symbiotic relationship going on."

"Yeah! Star girl's my personal stylist! She does my hair and makeup. I wouldn't deprive her of that honor!"

Pacifica nodded slowly. Right—all that, and he was defensive about not taking care of it.

Not embarrassed because he didn't take care of it, it dawned on her; embarrassed because he couldn't take care of it. She had a sense for those sorts of things—a middle school queen bee had to develop that sense—because that was what you targeted if you really wanted to humiliate someone: something that they couldn't help. That was it, wasn't it? He'd said he was apathetic about his body; he didn't care that his hair was messy. Because if he did care that it was messy, he would have done something about it. Unless he couldn't. Like, a mental block.

As she tried for the eighth time to gather the bulk of his hair into an updo that looked sorta fun and casual without looking stupid, she turned over everything she knew about him—about his hair, his apathy, his shame... the things he'd said to her the moment they met, before they even got started.

It wasn't a logical deduction so much as it was an instinct, and just looking at Goldie it seemed impossible; but still she said, hesitantly, "Your mom made you do pageants as a kid, didn't she?"

Mabel sat up a little straighter, confused; but Goldie turned around to stare at her, dumbfounded. "How— What—makes you think that?"

Oh please. He wasn't fooling anyone, it was all over his face. "You're so weird about your hair. It's obviously trauma from your mom."

Beneath his sunburn, Goldie's burned cheeks somehow managed to flush even darker. He gaped at her, wide-eyed and terrified, like she was a psychic who had just told him how his own parents had died. He croaked, "What?"

Pacifica burst out laughing. "Oh my gosh, you should see your face! Listen, you're clearly familiar with pageant life. And I saw so many curly girls getting their hair mauled by their moms half an hour before going on stage. I don't blame you for being weird about touching it! I had it easy—" she flipped her naturally straight hair, "—but even at that, I can't stand using a flat iron to this day."

Goldie relaxed, apparently reassured that Pacifica hadn't read his mind. He settled back in his seat. "Oh, I dunno, I find the smell of burning hair comforting! It reminds me of home!"

"Ha! Okay, yeah, you do get used to it after a while." She started attempt number nine to gather up his curls. "I wouldn't have guessed when you came in. You don't look like a... I mean... you know. No offense."

"Well, duh, you can't tell now." He gestured at himself, "I lost my good looks. What I wouldn't give to have my old body back..." He sighed wistfully.

Pacifica held back a snort. Oh yeah. More than anything else he'd said so far, that convinced her he really was a former pageant kid. In her experience, every single pageant mom trying to relive her own beauty queen glory days through her daughter said things exactly like that.

Mabel said, "Aww..." She stretched a hand out toward Goldie, couldn't reach him across Pacifica's enormous desk, and with a grunt heaved herself up to lay across the top—knocking over a couple of the cosmetic supplies Pacifica had set up in the process—so she could pat his shoulder. "There, there."

"Thanks."

She slid back into her seat. "Did you really do pageants? You didn't tell me that." A note of betrayal crept into her voice.

"I didn't tell her either—" he jabbed a thumb at Pacifica, "—but here we are!" (Pacifica shrugged unapologetically.) "I've got a lotta backstory you're still catching up on."

"Well, yeah, but—you said you just did..." She grasped for the right words, and settled on, "build-y stuff with pageants."

"I didn't say that," he said breezily. Mabel scowled at him; but shot a look at Pacifica, and just sat back without saying anything, arms crossed, her feet audibly kicking at the inside of the desk. 

He didn't seem as stressed about his hair while he was talking, Pacifica noticed. (Maybe that was why hairdressers were so chatty? Or maybe just because it was kind of weird to stick your hands in someone's hair for an hour in total silence.) She asked, "Which pageant systems did you compete in?"

"None you'd have heard about," Goldie said. "They weren't on this continent and it was like a trillion years ago." Before Pacifica could pry about which continent, he added, "Hey, fun fact! Didja know that the first beauty contest in Oregon was established here in Gravity Falls?"

"Pff, duh, of course I know that," Pacifica said. "It was established by the town founder, my great-great grandpa."

"Close, but no," he said gleefully. "It was established by the real town founder."

Pacifica grimaced. "Him? The crazy undead guy without pants? Ugh, no wonder we're the only pageant with a mandatory bird calls category."

"The first three competitions were actually won by birds! They only added a fashion category to balance out the birds' unfair advantage at birdsong. Quentin resigned from the judges' panel in protest."

"He should've taken the dumb birdsong requirement with him," Pacifica muttered. "They make the kids pageant do it too. I had to get a private tutor to learn how to whistle."

"That sounds fun, though," Mabel said. "I can do bird song! Grunkle Ford taught me some. Listen to this!" She let out an admittedly impressive moo.

"Not a bad cowl call," Goldie said. "You woulda killed it at the accompanying bird costume requirement."

Mabel gasped. "I can make feather wings. Hey, do you think I could compete?"

"Not unless you move to Oregon."

"Aww."

"We can still make wings, though," Goldie said.

Pacifica had never had to deal with the dumb bird costume requirement, thank goodness. That only started in the teen brackets. Which made her wonder—"How old were you when you quit? Pretty young, right? Like, no offense, but if you need teenagers to do your makeup..." If Goldie was living as a guy now, it'd make sense if he didn't wear makeup day-to-day; but if he'd stuck with pageants past like age ten, he would have at least learned how to do his own makeup.

"Ha! You're right. I started when I was young enough that my mom could dust glitter on my butt without getting weird looks! I quit around... equivalent to third or fourth grade in the States? She wanted me to keep going—so I said, 'You want me to perform? Fine then—I'll put on the best performance you've ever seen.' And that's exactly what I did!" Thoughtfully, he added, "But for some reason I didn't win the talent portion. I guess the judges weren't impressed that I could play the piano and set it on fire at the same time."

Pacifica cracked up. "Okay wow—I retired during the talent portion too, but how you did it is way more exciting. The year I was aging out of the 9-11 bracket, I kinda had a meltdown on stage over losing to some girl with a hula hoop? Yeah, I did not win supreme that year."

"You shoulda won talent just for that scream! You hit some impressively high notes." At Pacifica's odd look, Goldie said, "Saw it online."

Figured. That was probably coming back to haunt her in ten years. "It's weird. There's like... two ways pageant girls go—er, girls or guys or... whatever."

"Whatever," Goldie agreed.

"Yeah. Either they make it part of their identity? And keep up the makeup and fashion and everything, sometimes stick with pageants as teens or start modeling professionally? Which is what I did. Or they totally burn out, don't want anythingto do with the beauty industry, and just, like, wear sweats forever."

With a faint air of wounded pride, Goldie said, "It's the bedsheet sarong, isn't it."

"No offense! I'm just saying."

"I'll have you know it's laundry day and Jesús stole my clean clothes instead of my dirty laundry." (Pacifica decided to forgive him for the weird fish smell.) "You're looking at me at a low point, kid. I was actually a pretty snappy dresser up until... lllast summer."

Hearing Goldie call her kid gave Pacifica a little jolt of surprise. For a moment, she'd forgotten she was talking to somebody with an age; she'd started to feel like she was being visited by the immortal Spirit of Washed-Up Former Pageant Children. As if he'd died and stopped aging the same time he retired. "What happened last summer?"

Goldie looked at Mabel. "Yeah, what did happen last summer?"

"Um." Mabel froze. "He... lost it all in a... um... overseas parrot circus venture! Yeah—all the trained parrots escaped before the opening night of the circus and he lost all his money."

Goldie let out a shrill cackle. "I like that, I'm keeping that."

Okay, got it, it wasn't any of Pacifica's business. "I think... this is the best I can do with your hair." She stepped back. "Unless you want to pick a style that doesn't suck."

He gave himself a cursory glance in the hand mirror, immediately lowered it, and said, "Sucky style's fine!"

"Don't say that, you look so beautiful," Mabel said. "You look like a babysitter!"

"Well, it doesn't get much better than that." He dropped the mirror on the desk. "What's next?"

####

Next—finally—was the part they'd actually come here for: the makeup.

"Okay, I tried to get around the eyepatch while I was doing your hair, but you've got to take it off for this part," Pacifica said.

He groaned, but muttered, "Fine, I've put up with this tyranny so far," removed it, and looked at her with his previously-covered eye squinted against the light—which was the point at which Pacifica realized that he had eyepatch tan lines... around his other eye. How???

There was no fixing that before tomorrow. She bit her lips, shut her eyes, pressed her hands together, and took in a deep breath. Okay. She could handle this.

"Why do you even wear this?" She tossed the eyepatch to Mabel—it was one of those cheap costume pirate-y looking patches. "Is this one of the Mystery Shack's gimmicky touristy things? Both your eyes work! And wearing an eyepatch when you obviously don't need it is just tacky."

"I've got a neurological condition! Seeing through two eyes messes up my depth perception," Goldie said. "I get migraines if I don't keep one covered! Which is admittedly the most fun thing you can do to your brain without involving narcotics, but it makes it hard to keep down lunch!"

"Oh," Pacifica mumbled. Maybe she should just get to work before she shoved her foot any deeper in her mouth.

She started by slapping aloe vera on as much sunburned skin as she could reach, handed over the jar with strict instructions to apply more in the morning, and gave him an emphatic lecture on sunburns and sunscreen and skin damage that petered out when he cheerfully started telling her about skin cancer statistics. She changed the topic when he started listing his favorite kinds of skin cancer.

She stripped off the nail polish that Goldie had apparently gotten during one of Mabel's sleepovers, and repainted it with, at Pacifica's insistence, something more "mature." (She vetoed Mabel's suggestion to paint little hearts. She vetoed Goldie's request for gold. She gave him the choice between white French tips, pale pink, or solid red. He chose red.)

She hadn't anticipated that her customer would be in such dire straits that she'd need to shave him, so she didn't have any supplies for that; but she also ordered him to get his legs as smooth as the surface of a balloon as soon as he got home—"And do you think there's any chance this guy you're after will see your pits?" "He already has!" "Hm. Okay. Yeah, uh, get those anyway."—and informed him that she would report him to the police for vandalism if he "shaved" using whatever depilatory cream he'd previously used on his hair.

As she finished plucking his brows, she said, "Okay, I think you're finally in decent enough condition for actual makeup." She stepped back, took in his face, and said, "Barely." She grimaced. "I wish I'd bought a concealer with better coverage. I didn't know the situation was so bad."

To his credit, Goldie had taken her criticism (and occasional looks of horror) like a champ. He simply drawled, amused, "The body rituals of the Nacirema are as elaborate as they are bizarre."

She picked up a couple of the foundations she'd bought and held them up next to the eye that had been protected by the eyepatch tan line, trying to determine which one was a closer match for whatever his skin tone was when he wasn't burned. "Who're the Nacirema? One of the tribes that used to live around here?"

"They're still in the area. Look 'em up."

Pacifica thought the darker foundation was closer; she tested it on his inner arm to be sure. "So, how much makeup do you already know how to apply? Any?"

"I can do mascara, eyeliner, and mascara."

"Riiight. Okay, both of you pay attention to what I'm doing." She evicted Mabel from her desk chair and dragged it around in front of Goldie's folding chair. "Because I will not be coming over to do this tomorrow, so the two of you will have to repeat this yourself. Here." She handed Goldie a mirror so he could watch her work.

Mabel hopped up to sit on the desk next to Goldie. "You have one hundred percent of my attention!" She immediately looked away from Pacifica at the makeup brushes laid out on the desk, picked up a fan brush curiously, and started dragging it up and down her arm. "Ooh. Tickly." 

"Emphasize my eyes," Goldie said. "They're my best feature. You can forget about everything else, but my eyes have to look good."

Pacifica looked at his eyes. Pacifica really looked at his eyes.

There was something wrong with his eyes.

She decided to stop looking at his eyes. "Okaaay, great great great, you've got suuuper long lashes, that's fantastic. We can totally draw attention there. You don't even need fake lashes. And you've got nice big prominent eyes. Kinda bulgy, but that should be easy to hide with eyeshadow. I'm thinking maybe a smokey eye?"

"What about metallics? Like gold?" Goldie asked innocently. "Kind of a retro 'secret agent villainess' look, don't you think! It'd bring out the yellow in my eyes!"

Pacifica said, "You do not want to bring out your jaundice."

"Don't tell me what I want."

"No gold eyeshadow," Pacifica said. "Period. If you want to experiment with color, we can try a smoky eye in burgundy. Burgundy is hot this year."

Goldie muttered something about welcoming a bottle of burgundy right now, then said, "Fine! Burgundy."

(As Pacifica looked through her makeup palettes for the burgundy, Bill leaned over to Mabel and whispered, "Do we have any leftover gold eyeshadow?" Mabel nodded and winked. Bill winked back.)

"What about the rest of your face?"

"Skip it."

"I'm not letting you go bare-faced aside from your eyes," Pacifica said. "But we can do a natural makeup look."

"That's so boring," Mabel said. She was dragging the fan brush over her lips now. "If it looks natural why's he wearing any makeup at all?"

Goldie said, "Because humans are insane about the most uninteresting things."

As Pacifica worked her way through the foundation, concealer—she decided his sunburned skin had enough of a sun-kissed glow that she could skip bronzer—and contouring, she said, "You are... really good at holding still when you try." He'd gone completely still, like a statue. A statue that was making direct eye contact with her soul. She felt a bead of sweat slide down her neck. She wasn't sure he was breathing.

"He's super good," Mabel agreed. "It's kinda creepy."

"Thanks!" And just like that, he was smiling and alive again. "I do a lot of meditating! Gimme a focal point to watch and I can go like two billion years!"

"You didn't learn from...?"

"Pageants? Ha! No way, I was the wiggliest little demon you've ever seen. It drove my mom nuts when she was trying to do my lashes. She used to say 'If you love me, hold still' to keep me in place—but you know how contrary kids are when they're mad! Eventually I got fed up and said, 'Well then, maybe I don't love you!' And she didn't speak to me for three days." Goldie laughed. "Ahh, I had the most dramatic mom."

"Wow, my mom would kill me if I ever tried something like that—especially if it was in public where people could see us," Pacifica said. "She hired makeup artists so I'd struggle against them instead of her. Your mom did your makeup? Did she ever hire anyone?"

"Nooo way. We ran our operation on a razor-thin budget to maximize the profits from my winnings. The name of the game was efficiency!"

"My mom's sure wasn't," Pacifica said. "(Shut your right eye, I've got to get your eyeshadow.) We went through like, fifty makeup artists or something. Sometimes more than one while prepping for the same pageant." She lowered her voice a tad, "A couple times when the makeup artist was a creep, I messed up my own makeup just so Mom would fire them."

"Ha! Suckers. Yeah, that's probably how it woulda gone if my mom had handed me off to a makeup artist. I was not afraid to sic her on adults! We didn't have any hired help when I was that age, but the principal was terrified of her. And if another kid at a competition was getting on my nerves, I'd go crying to her that they pushed me and oh, man, she'd come down on their parents like the asteroid on Chicxulub."

"Me too! There was this girl in third grade who was so... I don't know, just—" she pulled a face, "eugh, you know? I complained to mom about her and got her family blacklisted by the whole town. They had to move out of the state just to get a job."

Goldie laughed loudly. "Now that is impressive!"

Pacifica's gut shifted uncomfortably. Was it? "Other eye now." She didn't speak for a moment as she tried to get both eyes matching. "Actually... it was... kinda scary?"

She'd asked her mom if she could puh-lease get this girl out of Pacifica's class. She'd just expected the girl to be switched to another teacher.

Instead, over the next few weeks, she heard about the girl's mother losing her job, then her father. Her older brother got kicked out of the local Future Lumberjacks of America chapter. One day the girl came to school in tears after being cut from the softball team. A couple months later, the girl's friends—the two that hadn't drifted away from her as her family became pariahs—threw her a tearful goodbye party during lunch with a mall-bought cookie cake; and the next day, she was gone forever.

After that first time Pacifica had complained about her classmate, her mom had never once mentioned the girl or her family. She never asked if Pacifica had any more trouble with her. Not even when they left town. It was as though, after her mom ground them under her heel, they were beneath her notice. Just four crushed ants.

But Goldie was staring at her, frowning in confusion, like she didn't make any sense. "What—scary for the other kid?" he asked. "Sure. It's supposed to be, isn't it?"

Pacifica didn't reply for a second. I'm afraid of how good she was at doing exactly what I asked her to do without realizing I was asking for it—that sounded stupid. Finally, she said, "Don't wrinkle your face like that, I haven't set your foundation yet. It'll make it cake up."

"Your moms sound insane," Mabel said. While they'd been swapping stories about their childhoods, she'd been staring at them, chin in one hand, chewing on the fan brush's bristles. "Were you guys tortured growing up?"

"Pfff, what? No, of course not!" Pacifica said. "My parents would never. You've only seen my mom's worst side, she's not really that bad. I mean—not to me. She's horrible to poor people, but that's different."

Goldie said, "Yeah, my mom was my biggest defender! If anyone tried to hold me back, she'd rip them a new one."

"But—forcing you to do pageants until you have a breakdown?" Mabel said, glancing between Goldie and Pacifica, mouth twisting up like the words tasted sour. "Guilting you into wearing makeup and attacking other parents and stuff? That's nuts."

"It's not like that," Pacifica said automatically, then tried to figure out what it was like.

"Now we're calling a kid's temper tantrum a breakdown? You've got a future career in propaganda, star girl," Goldie said wryly. "It's a mom's job to bring out a kid's potential, right? Sure, it drove me nuts at the time—but kids don't want their potential brought out, kids are lazy!" He shrugged, "Yeah, my parents weren't perfect—they didn't really 'get' me, they held me back from reaching my full potential because they couldn't see what it was—but I'd never have gotten on the road to unlocking my potential myself if they hadn't put me on the right path as a kid."

Pacifica nodded. "Totally! That's just normal mom stuff! My parents are exactly the same—they don't get my alpaca business at all—but there's no way I'd be running a business at thirteen if my mom hadn't pushed me to be the best I can be. Or supporting my alpacas through modeling if I hadn't learned how to present myself in the pageant system. Even mini-golf was just a hobby until my parents got me a coach and started taking me to competitions."

"And I wouldn't be the huge success I am today without those early lessons in public speaking!"

Mabel shot Goldie a meaningful look. He pointed at her. "Don't say a word. I've had a bad year, you can't judge me by that. Anyone could've lost their parrots in a freak accident."

"And some kids had it way worse," Pacifica said. "Some parents would hit their kids or scream at them for messing up their routines or getting distracted? Those girls never lasted long, you can tell if a contestant's just going through the motions because she's scared. I was never treated like that. My pageant coach taught my parents to use a 'warning bell,' when they rang it that was my warning to stop goofing off and focus on practicing or listen to them or whatever. They'd pay me in chocolate if I got back in line."

"Ha!" Goldie smacked the desk, "Oh wow, that's hilarious! Pageant coach Pavlov. My parents would have loved that when I was in the toddler competitions."

"Right?!" Pacifica laughed. "Now I'm like, wow, I used to be bribable with a piece of chocolate? Kids are sooo easy to manipulate."

"But hey, it's a good life lesson: the occasional reward and the fear of punishment is a lot more effective at keeping people in line than actual punishments."

Pacifica nodded thoughtfully. "Wow. That's so insightful."

"See?" Goldie beamed at Mabel. "Pageants teach kids all kinds of useful things! Ambition, poise, charisma, self-confidence, social skills..."

She grimaced. "Yeah, but... all the restrictions and pressure and trauma and stuff? That really sounds bad."

"I think you're just bitter that you can't enter the birdsong contest."

She kicked his arm. "I'm serious!"

He pushed back her shoe and waved her off dismissively. "It only sounds bad to you because you were never in the pageant world! It's got its own rituals and expectations, of course it looks weird to outsiders."

"And everyone judges pageants so much more harshly than other competitive sports—which is what pageants basically are," Pacifica said. "Like, pageants and competitive mini-golf took just as much practice, just as much coaching, just as much time and money—but in real life, knowing how to make myself look presentable and talk to adults has helped me way more often than knowing how to knock a ball into a hole. Mini-golf only saved my life once."

"Charisma will get you everywhere," Goldie agreed. "It's the most effective form of mind-control you can do without psychically rewiring someone's neurons."

"Basically! But getting a medal at the Sportlympics has everyone talk about how skilled and hard-working and dedicated you are, and getting a tiara in a national pageant gets people who have never even watched a pageant calling you a bimbo. Like, what?"

"Blatant double standards!" To Mabel, Goldie said, "Both your parents work in Silicon Valley. Their priority is intelligence and grades instead of looks and charisma, so that's why you and your brother get pushed in school—but it's all the same! Parents push their kids to be successful whatever way they know how."

Mabel stared into space. "Huh." She fell silent, gnawing on the fan brush's handle—pondering whether her parents worrying about her so-so grades was comparable to the pageant moms desperate for their daughters' straight hair to be straighter and curly hair to be curlier.

Smugly, Goldie went on, "If anything, the pageant circuit was more useful than school. I—"

"(Stop moving around, I've got to do your other eye.)"

Goldie obediently leaned forward and shut his other eye. "I went from pageants straight into public speaking. I had an entire career before I was out of school. Everyone loved me! I was a natural in the spotlight!"

"Really?" Pacifica said dubiously. She could buy that he might have been a competitor as a kid, but honestly, he seemed pretty creepy to her. Enough confidence could carry you pretty far, but...

He rolled his open eye. "Don't take that tone with me. It was before you were born! And like I said—I've lost my looks. I used to be..."

He trailed off, staring down at his nail polished hands like he didn't recognize them.

He muttered, "I used to be so much better than this."

Mabel reached out and rubbed his upper arm comfortingly.

Sometimes Pacifica caught her mom staring in a mirror, studying her face with an expression somewhere between nervous and depressed, gently touching her fingertips to the thin lines beginning to appear around her eyes and mouth as though she were examining gruesome wounds. Her mother had always said that looks are everything; and even though she didn't talk about her feelings directly, from the way she sometimes snapped at Pacifica to keep up her skincare—moisturizer, sunscreen, hydration, don't frown too hard—Pacifica thought maybe she wasn't worried about Pacifica's face so much as her own.

Goldie only had the faintest traces of the start of wrinkles, unnoticeable if Pacifica hadn't just spent the past few minutes plastering foundation on his face. She wondered how old he was. She wondered whether he had the same fear her mother did: that his body was letting him down, slowly dying all around him.

You don't go through the child pageant world without learning two things: everyone wants you to look and act older than you are; and the older you get, the less anyone wants you.

"I've got to do your lips," Pacifica said, picking out a couple of options: a red so bright it was nearly orange (totally in this year), a nice glossy nude that ought to be a close match to Goldie's natural lip color. "Did you want to stick with the natural look, or...?"

He glanced up from his hands at the offered lipsticks. "What the heck," he sighed. "Let's make it red."

Pacifica nodded. "Pooch your lips out for me, like this." And that was the last they spoke for a while.

####

(Here's your regular TBOB report: no actual plot was changed due to TBOB. I added in a few lines referencing it: the imagery of Priscilla grinding normal people beneath her heel is meant to be reminiscent of Pacifica's giant nightmare on TINAWDC; the "meditating" for specifically two billion years is a direct reference to the barber pole, although I'd already headcanoned that Bill can meditate/dissociate for absolutely vast quantities of time; I already had dialogue where he goes on the importance of charisma and how much everyone adored him as a kid, but I tossed in another sentence or two about charisma just because of how strongly he emphasizes it in TBOB; and originally I had dialogue where Bill went on about what big supporters his parents were, even though he privately feels like they didn't get him—all I changed was deciding to make him admit to some of those feelings out loud, since it's something he says outright in TBOB. I've imagined that he tends to swing between "they were the best/they were the worst" based on how he's feeling at the time with no neutral ground in between—whiiich lines up pretty well with what TBOB gave us.

And unrelated but I spent way too long researching makeup & hair trends in the 70s and in 2013. I had no idea orange lipstick was hot for a while. My idea of doing makeup is painting my nails once every six years.

Hope y'all enjoyed, and I'm looking forward to hearing y'all's thoughts! I've been eager to dive into this aspect of Bill's backstory and Pacifica's POV for a while.)

[ofoceansandtombsanew]

How the Straw Hats Love (As Told By Tarot) Pt I

cw. gn!reader, headcanons, tarot pairing. luffy x reader, zoro x reader, sanji x reader, usopp x reader notes. i've been meaning to this for the straw hats but considering the... amount of crewmates there are lol, i thought why not start with 4 of the bois. next i definitely want to do robin, nami, franky and... hmm maybe jinbei? but to start, our east blue boys! deck. prisma vision tarot, true black tarot

monkey d. luffy

seven of swords, ten of chalices, page of chalices

he isn't just your partner, luffy is your best friend. he knows loneliness and loss too well for comfort and he doesn't want you to ever feel the same way. in a lot of ways, it feels like luffy knows you better than yourself. you never have to question how luffy feels, he's honest and wears his heart on his sleeves. he loves you and he shows it freely through his actions. he doesn't lie to himself and he doesn't want you lying to yourself whether it be how you feel about him or any other aspect of your life. so much love flows from monkey d. luffy and his person for any and everyone, but you're someone special above the rest. you're a treasure among treasures. you're someone who makes him happy and he strives to make you happy. your dreams are just as important to him as his own. what makes you happy might not make always align with his own but he's sure to approach those things with with enthusiasm.

roronoa zoro

three of wands, the emperor, two of wands, six of cups

zoro's dream is to become the world's strongest swordsman. there's not really much else he took into account otherwise as far as what may happen on the path there. he couldn't have predicted luffy, the crew and her certainly never predicted you. in spite of that, zoro hones in on you much like a traveler following a guiding light. his goals allow for much leeway on the path there, there's nothing holding back his devotion and loyalty to you. your relationship is a promise and nothing this man does makes you doubt this promise. there's a tenderness in how he touches you and approaches you but he doesn't doubt your own strength. he trusts in it as much as you trust in his. zoro's is a love that feels like it approaches a part of your lost youth. the things neither of you might have had the chance the done when you were younger but can now indulge in fully by each other's side. enjoy the ride.

black leg sanji

the lovers, seven of pentacles, the fool, the anant

much to no one's surprise, the man's a hopeless romantic. sanji heartily believes in soulmates and fated persons and can only hope he's someone lucky enough to have one of his own. despite being a flirt, sanji isn't one who loves casually. when sanji has his person, he's as loyal and dedicated as they come; investing as much you give him. any love you give him, he appreciates a hundred times fold. if given another chance at life, he truly means it when he says there isn't a thing in his life he'd change if he knows that is the path that will lead him right back to you. there's a darkness to sanji, however. one that doesn't allow him to truly see the value of his person. he stumbles much like a blindfolded child in his yearning in spite of this. he wants so much to make you happy that he needs to be reminded in the importance of his own happiness as well.

god usopp

page of chalices, the tower, judgement, three of wands

usopp's no stranger to unexpected and, at time's disastrous situations. being part of a crew such as his own, he's learned to be prepared for it. there's no rainbow without the rain and if you have no umbrella, usopp is right there to craft one with his ingenuity and the resources at hand. the days of his pessimism and cowardice aren't entirely gone, but when it comes to someone having your back you can count on usopp completely and so too can you trust his affections for you. he might not be the strongest person and he's not the bravest, but his love for you is only ten times stronger. he encourages your creativity and he's tactful when gauging your wellbeing. usopp's desire for strength only stems from his desire to protect those he holds most dear. a brave warrior of the sea won't strive for anything less. out of all the things he imagines for his future, your image is the clearest.

[staring-at-a-blank-pagee]

Just posting again that my Kirby OC MAP is still open and in need of a few more participants!! Parts 3 and 23 are all available as of my posting this! Check out the song/part division here:

The MAP is unscripted and gives a lot of creative freedom. You CAN: Use traditional or digital art, include canon characters alongside your OC, claim multiple parts (as long as you finish what you signed up for), and join with any level of animation/art experience! You don't need to be super talented or anything. It's just a fun way to show off your OC and those of the community! The deadline isn't anytime soon, so there's no need to worry about time.

If you decide to sign up, please join the discord here and tell me which part is yours when you join, just so that I can have everything in one place for organizational purposes!

(↓ tagging moots with kirby ocs under the cut! no pressure at all to join though. only if you're interested, i don't want to force you into anything!)

@thehollyraven @tazmilygray @zprite-x @a-stardusted-sky @george228732 @littengamer909 @quanblovk @the-chaos-axolotl @sacrificecage @prisma-luna @quinn-pop

[prismatica-the-strange]

Thinking about after Cori gets turned again.

She and Blaine are starting to fall back into a somewhat romantic rhythm. Going on dates , spending more time together again.

And she finally invited him back to her new place. He's been there a couple times to pick her up, drop her off, always waiting in the hallway, never getting invited in.

That's a boundary she set. No waltzing in uninvited. They're not there yet.

So when she finally invites him in to watch a movie, maybe stay the night, it's special.

He walks in and it's just like when she was in college. The same green lip hooks by the door, big soft couch that looks too comfortable for it's own good, three different consoles hooked to the TV, and sooo many framed posters on the pale yellow walls.

She still has the same Revenge of the Sith Anikan throw blanket he bought her. The same mess of road trip magnets on the fridge. Bookshelf in the corner full of box sets and video games.

Her shoes are in a messy pile by the door, six different scarves hanging off the coat hanger, and at least two jackets tossed on the arm of the couch.

Just enough hectic mess to look lived in.

Partway through the movie the food comes and he excuses himself to the bathroom.

The sink is stained with the same hair dye peeking out of her open cupboard. Her razor sits on the shower shelf next to her various shampoos and body washes.

When he comes back out, she's gotten the food out and it's on the same blue painted plates she's carted around since she was 18, two places on the coffee table.

Later, he has her backed against the bedroom door, tongue down her throat as she fumbles with the doorknob.

She giggles when he lays her back on the plush, forest green duvet, hand reaching out to click on the lamp.

He tries not to laugh when he sees the room. Pastel purple walls littered with butterfly fairy lights and Polaroids. Polaroids of him, Don E, Chief, her college roommate, the MEs office gang, and he's sure if he dug through her bedside table there's some less pg ones of the two of them.

Sweater sleeves hang out of her dresser, and hang neatly in her closet with hoodies and dresses.

She doesn't change. She's never changed.

She's so soft against her pretty pink pillows and Pokémon plushies, little gifts he'd bring around whenever he showed back up. They always made her smile and she would wrap him in the biggest hugs.

Different from how she's wrapped around him now, clinging to him, his name on her lips, kissing him lovingly.

Soft, warm, loving, home. God, she's home to him.

[williamests]

I feel like whatever I'm gonna say about the Daniele and Andrea scene in episode 8 is not gonna summarise the way I'm feral over them.

When the need to watch, touch, listen, feel, breathe, speak arise at the same time and you're left with an overwhelming sensation and your mind does not co-operate and you do not know what to do with yourself... so you let go and the best you can do is just be in the moment.

Oh Prisma! You'll always be the peak of cinema for me.

[inaris-mage-of-storms]

The meeting room at House Blossom was a beautiful place, with flowers dripping from the walls and the door propped open to let in the spring breeze and wandering sheep. Jimmy returned Katherine's encouraging smile as he entered, glad for the mask that covered all but his mouth and thus kept his nervousness hidden too.

"Hi Jimmy! I'm so glad you could make it." Katherine didn't stand to greet him, busy stroking a lamb that had wandered in to lay its head in her lap, but she gestured to a seat. "Not a lot of us today, but maybe that's better for your first meeting."

Right, she had told him the last time they spoke that alliance meetings weren't mandatory, but rather took place monthly and were open invitation to anyone with free time in their schedule. There were only two others seated at the table today: an elf with snowy white wings and blue hair, and a man who looked almost human but for a sleek tail with a tufted tip.

"This is Pixlriffs, king of Pixandria," said Katherine, and the brown-haired man nodded once in greeting, "and Prince Scott of Rivendell, brother to King Xornoth."

"Er, hi," said Jimmy as he sat, trying not to stare too hard at the elf's beauty. "I'm Jimmy. I've just been assigned to govern the Codlands on behalf of the Codfather. It's, um, part of the Ocean Empire, bordering Myth - "

"Yes, we know where it is," said Scott. "Our empires' memories aren't nearly so short as the human ones." He sipped at his tea. "I believe it was in my grandfather's time that Mythland relinquished that region to the Ocean Empire."

"I don't know if 'relinquished' quite describes it," said Pixlriffs. "Mythland's own history books would say that the Ocean Queen took it by force, after flooding the land as divine retribution for some unrecorded slight."

They both looked at Jimmy as if expecting him to clarify, but he just cleared his throat awkwardly. "Um...right. Anyway, Katherine heard of my appointment, and invited me to join the alliance, so - here I am. Oh, and I'm authorized to speak on behalf of the Ocean Queen, too, for most matters anyway. For now. She's unable to attend meetings in person as often as she'd like, because of...matters."

Scott raised an eyebrow at his vagueness, and he flushed under the haughty gaze. This was turning out to be more difficult than he thought.

He kept quiet for the rest of the brief meeting, deciding it was too early to judge if Rivendell or Pixandria could be potential allies in the codfolk's war against the salmon. Lizzie's network of spies reported that several of the mainland empires had fallen for salmon propaganda, believing the cod to be the aggressors in a war that had been ebbing and flowing since before some of their kingdoms had even existed.

That was why he had left the comfort of the Prisma Palace to live in the swamp, why he hid more than his face behind his carved mask. Enemy armies that had been successfully pushed back were suddenly growing, aided by supplies and weapons that should have been well beyond their means. He needed to find out who was helping them, and figure out a way to put a stop to it. Maybe he could even befriend them and convince them to change sides.

Once official business was concluded, Scott moved closer to Katherine to coo over a second lamb who had wandered in to see what its flockmate was up to and was chewing affectionately on Katherine's dress. Just as Jimmy was trying to decide the least awkward way to excuse himself, Pixlriffs caught his eye from across the table.

Jimmy gave him an awkward half-smile from under the mask, watching warily as Pix approached. He perched himself on the edge of the table right next to Jimmy, eyes gleaming with curiosity.

"Hello," said Jimmy nervously, and Pix's grin widened.

"The more of me you take away, the larger I grow. What am I?"

Shit. Katherine warned him about this, when she was giving him pointers on how to make a good impression on each emperor. Jimmy had never thought himself particularly clever, but as advised, he showed Pix respect by at least considering the question and giving a genuine attempt at an answer instead of brushing it off.

"Er - um...Oh! Hope. It's gotta be hope, hasn't it?"

Pix stared at him, long enough that Jimmy began to wonder if Katherine was wrong about the part where she said the sphinx never actually punished anyone for getting his riddles wrong. Then he grinned with delight, and for a moment Jimmy felt like he was being dazzled by the desert sun itself.

"That's right," he said, and chuckled when Jimmy punched the air with a triumphant yes!

Jimmy stood to make his goodbyes, muttering something about having to make a report of how the first meeting went, and Scott came to stand by Pix's side as they watched him leave. He glanced over at his friend, a knowing smirk playing on the corner of his mouth.

"I thought the answer to that one was 'hole'."

Jimmy was no longer in sight, but Pix continued to stare down the path anyway. "Yes. Well." He smiled at Scott, and there was an eagerness and wonder in his gaze he usually reserved for ancient texts. "He wasn't wrong, though, was he? I do think getting to know him better will be quite an adventure.

The Codfather's Court AU

[villowstar]

Hello!! You have beautiful art!! Just curious, what supplies do you use for your traditional work?

thank you for the ask!! most of my art supplies are 5-10+ years old so about half are dry/running out, so this is giving me an excuse to reorganize and throw away my empty supplies, so thank you :D

common supplies / my go-to's

what you see in most of my art is a red Ticonderoga erasable checking pencil, this is the best sketching pencil of all time i swear by it. ohuhu markers, prisma and crayola colored pencils, various colored ball point pens, papermate flair felt tip (i love these), staedtler fine liners (pink one is the best for blush), a lot of different highlighters, zebra midliners, zebra gel pens, sharpies, crayola markers.

other supplies

posca pens, dry erase markers (good for quick black color fills), microns (they have run out tho), straedtler 2mm mechanical pencil, neon pencils (don't know what brand), various mechanical pencils. gellyroll and signo white gel pens but those often aren't working so i use generic white paint for highlights sometimes. winsor & newton watercolor but it's very aged and doesn't work as well anymore

...and that's most of it! i have such a hard time throwing away empty or broken supplies, but i was able to get rid of at least 10% of everything in the photo and organize a bit better, so thank you for the ask!!

[ckret2]

Hey gang, time for Crowdsourced Brainstorming Time

for reasons, I've got to write Mabel and Bill watching (at least large chunks of) a full Color Critters episode, which means I need something more in-depth than the quick snips & summaries I've done for previous episodes, and I feel like brainstorming a kids' cartoon plot is the kind of thing where twenty brains are better than one.

The goal: episode plotlines that sounds like something you'd find in an 80s Care Bears or Rainbow Brite episode. We're going for "run-of-the-mill episode," not a plot you'd expect in a pilot or a finale or an exciting two-parter special event

the premise of the show: anthropomorphic animals are defending colors, which are magically tied to different concepts. Example: the color green and friendship: when friends are fighting it kills nearby green things and if green things are destroyed it negatively impacts nearby friendships. it's for kindergarteners and teaches simple life lessons that people in the 80s thought were a good idea.

And if you haven't lost interest in this post yet, I'm sticking the available characters under the read more

Good guys, the colors they're in charge of, and what that gives them power over:

Prisma the Rainbow Fairy - rainbows, white, light - she's basically just Rainbow Brite. Everyone else's boss. Unofficially the main character.

Glory the Unicorn - pink - no particular domain, just Prisma's second-in-command and bestie. A bit of a worrywart.

Leo Proud - Red - life, exercise, playing (especially active play like sports)

Teddy Tender - orange - health/healing, fun & enjoyable things (less active play like board games)

Sunny Cat - yellow - sunlight, self-confidence, personal strength/power/assertiveness. she and Leo are cousins

Love Bunny - Green - friendship, love, nature

Howell Wolf - Blue - creativity, storytelling, magic (he's a wizard, he's got a wizard hat). he's besties with Leo

Misty the Dolphin - indigo - serenity/harmony, cooperation. She can't travel most places due to being a dolphin and gets used in well-intended but dated episodes about accommodating your friends with disabilities.

some bird I haven't named yet, maybe a peacock - purple - spirit

Bad guys:

Duke of Smog - the Big Bad, floating cloud of purple-gray smog with red angry eyes. He only takes an active role for special occasions like the pilot episode and season finales; otherwise the other characters frequently reference him but he's rarely seen. Wants to destroy color and goodness. No Heart mixed with that one creep in the Rainbow Brite pilot two-parter, what was with that dude anyway, they built him up so much as a villain and then bam he doesn't even survive to be part of the actual show

Serpent Grey - the second-in-command and most frequently seen bad guy. snake that has a mane for some reason. Bosses around the rank-and-file bad guys, cowardly dumbass who thinks he's a courageous genius. Shreeky mixed with G1 Starscream if he wasn't trying to overthrow megatron. If this show actually existed in the real world and I had watched it at age 7 then Serpent would be my favorite character and I'd probably have shipped him with the Duke.

a big fuzzy tarantula I haven't named yet - well-meaning bumbling dumbass who doesn't seem to realize he's one of the bad guys and is just happy to be included. Think Lurky.

a bee I also haven't named yet - the most important thing to know about him is that in season 1 he was a bad guy but then a special interest group angrily wrote the TV station to say that bees are so important to nature and agriculture and it was shameful for a children's cartoon to teach kids that bees are bad guys and so in season 2 he inexplicably joined the good guys and it took half the season for them to air an episode showing he switched sides because the other bad guys were bullying him and the good guys were nice.

"Hey Puff how come you can describe the bad guys in so much more detail than the good guys even though they're much less important?" don't look at me

[lara-prism-light]

Finally the designs for the Never Apart AU are finished!!

And for those who don't know anything about the au yet: In this au Viva, Clay and Floyd are not separated from Poppy and Branch, in fact, Clay takes responsibility for Branch and Floyd after seeing their grandmother being taken away while Viva suffers the loss of his father Peppy during the escape from Bergen Town.

Viva becomes queen and decrees that a wall be built around the troll village to protect them from predators and bergens. Clay becomes her real partner and in the process introduces Branch to Poppy, which ends up making the two of them close and friends.

Poppy, however, wants to see the outside world, she wants to leave the comfort of her home and see what is outside the walls, but Viva is too protective, afraid of losing her. Branch is caught between supporting Viva's decision and supporting Poppy's dream, while Clay is super in favor of keeping everyone safe.

Floyd has become a recluse, always dreaming of seeing Branch smile again and hearing him sing again, something he and Clay feel guilty about.

And Creek? well, he's less of an asshole, I have a lore planned for him but let's just say he doesn't like Branch because he's too negative, seeing negativity as contagious and unacceptable. He has a certain amount of respect for Clay, for keeping them all safe, but Floyd, well, he has conflicting feelings about him….👀

This AU exists in fic format on both Wattpad and AO3 under the name Bluer Skies, this is the title of part 1 of the story of this AU and retells the events of the first film in a different way.

Links to the fic: Wattpad:

AO3:

I'm writing this AU with love and passion! I hope you like it, you can ask more about the au, I'd love to share what I have in mind! ^-^

[nox-in-a-box]

That he did.

Observations about Grimtrix and the Order of the Wand in Sofia the First

I can't believe it didn't hit me until now that Grimtrix likely organized the "first annual" Conjurer's Conference at Hexley Hall in the episode 'Day of the Sorcerers' for the whole purpose of secretly recruiting sorcerers from around the world to join the Order of the Wand!

And I can't believe that Cedric and Sofia didn't think something was fishy about the Conjurer's Conference in the first place, especially because it happened to take place shortly after they stopped Grimtrix from stealing Sofia's amulet in the episode 'Hexley Hall' (Sofia was worried that Grimtrix would be at the Conference, tho Cedric assured her he wouldn't dare try stealing her amulet with so many other wizards around, but it's a shame they didn't actually consider the whole thing might be some plot or trap).

After the s3 episode 'Hexley Hall', which took place two episodes before the s4 opener 'Day of the Sorcerers', why the heck didn't Cedric and Sofia tell anyone that the headmaster of Hexley Hall had become evil and was determined to overthrow the royals of the world??

...Maybe Cedric and Sofia figured it was doubtful he would ever actually succeed without the amulet, which they stopped him from stealing, but still! His treacherous ambitions still made him a very dangerous wizard! Besides, they should have realized Grimtrix might find another way to overthrow all the royals, which he did with the Medusa Stones in 'Day of the Sorcerers'... and obviously, the other way he became even more dangerous was by recruiting other wizards to join his cause to take over the world.

...And there was the huge possibility that Grimtrix could have made Sofia and her amulet a target ever since he tried to steal it (if he hadn't somehow gotten his hands on the Medusa Stones instead)! For all they knew, there was probably nothing stopping him from coming after the amulet sometime in the future! She could have been in danger!!

In fact, Grimtrix might not have gone as far as he did with his plan to overthrow the world's royals in 'Day of the Sorcerers' if Cedric and Sofia had alerted somebody right after the episode 'Hexley Hall'!

@bettathanyou @fantadym @moonypears-blog @majoresca @mushroomsie224 @ushsblog @sweetmariihs2 @cedric-my-beloved

[leggerefiore]

The kids attending Pasio Academy...

Erin has no idea what is happening and is scared. Though, seeing his assorted classmates from Blueberry is confusing him more. Somehow, he is a top trainer on the grounds despite this, and everyone wants to battle him. He just wishes to talk about trains.

Lenie just went because her father encouraged her to continue studying even on their vacation. She is lurking the engineering classes and any available workshops. People fear her.

Inka was forced to go by Emma. She is absolutely apathetic towards everything and mostly lingering out of boredom. At least she makes some friends and proves herself a terrifying foe.

Emma wanted to wear the school uniform and be cute in the area. Her grades are good, but her mind is elsewhere. She is mostly hanging out in the home economics room sewing away. Extremely popular among the students but feared for her intensity.

Prisma is having the time of her life. She is absolutely wearing the school uniform and adding her own flares. She is a sight to behold to everyone. Absolutely is in the various labs available and accidentally giving lectures to the other students. She is also trying to ignore her father lurking around the building gathering data on various trainers about.

Nero was interested due to wanting to further his knowledge on battling even while away on vacation. He is a dutiful student despite everything and absorbing everything he can. For whatever reason, he is wearing the school uniform. Apparently, he quite likes the aesthetics. He also is avoiding his father standing in the courtyard even if he tries to wave him over and calls his name.

Morrigan mostly is attending in order to follow around Nero... And also because her father suggested it might not be that bad of an idea. She is wearing her own clothing. Mostly, she is either being an absolute menace while battling or lingering with her father in the courtyard. She has won a majority of his coin flip challenges.

Ohi'a was suggested to attend by his father and Nero... So, he did. He is not in uniform, naturally. Somehow, he ended up being a hall monitor and asked to do various safety related things. He does them. Occasionally, he battles. Though, he mostly can be found lingering with his father in the courtyard when he has time.

Clover attends due to her general interest. Her father encouraged her curiosity, too. She wears the school uniform and finds it oddly cute. A lot of people are naturally attracted to her, and she finds herself surrounded by friends. Though, she mostly likes seeing what pokemon various students have. She is popular but is unaware of that fact. Her favourite place is maths class. It startles everyone. (She can also be found in the school garden.)

Astrea finds this new world so interesting! So, when Akari and Rei told her about school... She naturally had to attend. Everything is so interesting and fun to her. She absolutely wears the school uniform. Her knowledge of history and various myths makes her a popular girl for learning things outside of class. Also, she is just popular because people assume she is related to Cynthia. Everyone is not surprised when she is a monster of a trainer. (Her excitement when her dad shows up is palpable. Volo gets shown around by his extremely happy daughter.)

Araceli is confused why she is in school on vacation. And why her headmaster is there. Clavell has to encourage her... as usual. She wonders if Naranja academy just moved to Pasio or something. Nonetheless, she continues as she always does – wandering vacantly. She wears the school uniform, though she requests one with pants since she flies a lot on her pokemon. Terrifying trainer in the form of a flighty girl. Usually found cloudgazing in the courtyard.

Laureano is just... going along with it. He decides questioning why his headmaster is still doing his job on vacation is not worth the hassle. Jacq being there as a teacher is not something he decides to question either. Or those four students who always seem to have strange things happening around them. He attends his classes and opts into a baseball team the school shockingly has. It almost feels like he is back home... except the giant statue of the island's owner staring him down. Ends up on the student council and is usually found in that room.

Cordelia is so enchanted by it that she begs her father to attend... Though, he is quite hesitant. Her health condition, alongside his own hangups about school, makes him wonder whether she should go. He eventually relents, and she is so excited. Wears the school uniform far too excitedly. She is wandering around the school (with a guard) and happily chatting her fellow students up. She is naturally a popular girl, but the guard thing scares a lot of people away. Usually found with Clover due to this.

Regan attends. His father does protest a little, but not nearly as much as he did with his sister. Regan wears the uniform and hopes that he blends in well enough. He avoids the giant statue of his dad to the best of his ability. No one should know he is a prince... Except it is plainly obvious, and everyone mostly knows him on Pasio. He becomes student council president and is busy with many administrative duties. Though, when he can... He quite enjoys a battle. Mostly, he can be found with Nero or Cordelia when he is free.

[crim50n-r8er]

Ay everyone! Been a while since I’ve last posted. Apologies for that. I’ve been trying to design another one of my Sonic fankids for my fankid AU. I do wish to share one of my older works, however, while you all wait for that.

Info about this artwork below

Anyway, here we have an ascended form of Sonic the Werehog I call “Dark Gaia Werehog.” What inspired me to make this design was a What If scenario where Sonic kept the Werehog form because of Eggman being Eggman and try to control a power beyond his control. In part 5 of this What If, the second half of the Sonic Generations adaptation, Sonic is trapped in White Space in a between state of himself and Werehog. To see if he could find an escape, he started running. He was fast, but not as fast as his normal self. After what felt like days for the blue blur, he starts feeling lonely but soon after finds solace in having Dark Gaia with him as company in the form of its essence in his being.

This. This was the moment that inspired me because it made me think. What if Sonic and Dark Gaia had a “Naruto and Kurama”-esque relationship with one another where Dark Gaia would lend its cosmic power to Sonic the Werehog which lets him access this form.

With design notes, I took inspiration from some concept art of Sonic the Werehog like the fiery forearms with elbow-protruding fur. I obviously took inspiration from Dark Gaia, but I also took inspiration from stuff like the mooks you fight in night stages of Unleashed, the Dark Gaia Spawn. Not only that but taking inspiration from Prisma Sonic from Sonic Prime, I had the quills have a gradient from a deep navy blue to a vibrant hot pink. I personally LOVE how the eyes came out with that radial gradient of green for the sclara, the pink gradient on the iris, and the pure white pupils with them having a gradient as well. It’s just a great design if I say so, myself.

(Now I would credit the content creator for the What If, but with a recent drama that sprouted up about them a couple months ago, I don’t think they deserve the credit. Apologies for those who wanna check out their content.)

Anyways. I hope you all enjoy this amazing design I made, and if you ever want to make fanart of this design, I do not mind whatsoever.

[iamsoconfusedallofthetime]

Eternally grateful that I grew up WITHOUT ai so that I could, y'know, actually learn how to do shit.

Like- drawing?

Middle school me was on those Naruto art tutorials like no other. I used my good thin tip Prisma markers that my brother stole for me up on shitty Deidara and Urushihara drawings on the back of my English assignments, and pissed off my teachers cause I never paid attention. And now I can draw pretty fucking decently, both in an anime style and a somewhat realistic one.

Writing? Wattpad fanfiction both traumatized me (Citrus Scale will always stay in the back of my mind no matter how much I try to lock it up) and showed me- not exactly how to write but what kind of writing I enjoyed reading and what styles to copy until I formed my own. Like how to break up scenes and how to write dialogue and how to keep a character in character. I couldn't always do that last one well the first time but I learned to recognize when the characters i was writing would never fucking do that.

And now, other than my lack of self discipline, I'm pretty good at writing. At least I know where I struggle. I still need to remember that I don't always have to perfect the first draft and that sometimes first drafts can just be first drafts, but I'm doing well.

So damn grateful that I can write my own fucking essays and draw my own art and use my damn braincells to actually come up with something on my own instead of relying on a fuckass robot to predict pixels based on probability and smash stolen artwork together.

"Not everyone is privileged-" Art was never something being gatekept from you. The tutorials I used in middle school and a million other new ones are perfectly available to you. Poor artists have always found a way. Disabled artists have always found a way. Busy artists have always found a way. Don't type a prompt into a machine and call it "art" like you put an ounce of effort into it.

My cringe ass middle school sketchbooks and half written fanfiction has more value than something you didn't even bother to make yourself.

"I'm not that creative. I can't come up with a story or characters" dawg I was using fucking GACHA LIFE to make character designs! The first one was basic as shit! It was just a ginger fox woman with a black hoodie and ripped jeans on cause that's what I thought was cool! And that was ok, that was just where I was starting! You will grow! You will learn! Just put in some fucking effort and have some damn patience!

"my fandom is small and I want more fic/art to consume" MAKE IT THEN. No one wants something made by a machine. Most people have writing requests! Wait for them to open and request something! Or learn to write it yourself.

There are writing prompts that you can use to practice. No one is expecting you to become Mary Shelly overnight. Use them.

There are hundreds of "Let's make an OC" videos you can use. No one is expecting you to recreate the Mona Lisa next week. Use them.

Actually - here a quick tutorial on fleshing out ideas:

Throw out any fear if being cringe. Today's cringe is tomorrows skill

Start with something or someone small. Let's take, idk, a jacket?

What does the jacket look like? What does it do. In this step it usually helps if you decide on a genre. Is it fantasy? Sci-fi? Let's go with fantasy.

Fantasy jacket. Cool. Does this jacket do anything? Or does it belong to someone? Let's say the jacket itself does something.

The jacket can be cursed or blessed or have some type of spell on it. Maybe whoever wears it can't be hurt.

If whoever wears the jacket can't be hurt, then what happens when you take it off? Does it just remove protection or does all the damage you were supposed to have obtained while wearing it manifest all at once? AKS YOURSELF QUESTIONS!

Think about how it was made. Who made the jacket? Was it always cursed? What kind of world does it belong to that made it's existence necessary in the first place? Was it made as a gift for a prince or by an old mad wizard? Think.

Make a story. Maybe the jacket was intended as a gift and has been passed down a bloodline as a double edged sword; something that let this family win wars and topple nations, but seals their fates if they take it off. Maybe it was something shared among orphans in a slump and protects them. Maybe your story follows the current wearer of the jacket and the consequences it brings. Maybe your story is from the perspective of the jacket itself.

The world is your oyster. Think about something. Expand on it. Then write it. Draw it. Make a comic and post it or keep it tucked away in your notes app.

Don't give up after your first attempts turn out like shit. You're not gonna learn in a day, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Just create something! Go make a friend to bounce ideas off of if you have to!

Here's some art tutorials I like that you can use:

How to draw poses: https://youtu.be/4SHnOJGRmJw?si=cvjNGVt8Xs-YCSsd

How to draw character interaction

https://youtu.be/_XxjaH2dXR4?si=v17DjAeEKNBGxE_i

Drawing perspective:

https://youtu.be/g9ge4XBNRwA?si=QsC4rDfmARVYNVfx

Urban object sketches:

https://youtu.be/SDQEaJY291A?si=ID6jA_NCSMmkhIJe

Urban sketching (buildings more so)

https://youtu.be/yocInfqlYqw?si=krSQyWU8vLonwYL9

Drawing clothes and folds:

https://youtu.be/a1O1OQglA7w?si=oaqUusLMQPauI6ro

Find your art style:

https://youtu.be/hM_Mme3yvss?si=Tpt-ReJ4HMLFHfdH

Colors theory:

https://youtu.be/pAK0cvVQr_4?si=BI_zjp8RwgfIQhsP

There are hundreds of tutorials online. Find them and use them.