#yes i can finally do gradient text

[hansooyung]

hansooyung's coloring tutorial & ctiys: alma time! 🍒

hello everyone! though i've been meaning to for a while, i've finally gotten around to making my first manga coloring tutorial! i'll be going over cleaning panels and screentones, choosing base colors, and finally shading and lighting.

this will also be a color this in your style challenge, so if you're willing, feel free to post your colored panel and tag me in it!! i'd love to see all the results :)

find details under the cut! 🦋

DISCLAIMERS:

this is just how i personally color! i know for a fact that some of my other friends follow other methods and have such beautiful colorings <33

for colors specifically, i play around a LOT. if you don't like your color scheme for the time being, mess around with it! i don't use psds since i like to mess around by hand with color palettes, but maybe i'll look into it for the future.

i explain a lot just bear with me gang 🙏

TECHNICAL STUFF:

software: ibis paint x (on iphone). i use ibis since it is FREE for all phones and it worked on my chromebook as well.

while this tutorial is made for ibis paint x, everything works on other softwares except the brushes, which i've provided alternatives for below.

brushes: i will be using dip pen (hard) which is automatically included with ibis, and two other brushes i made myself which you can find here and here. for more brushes, @/bkdkdh was incredibly helpful and posted her awesome set here!

for other softwares, you can use similar brushes. dip pen (hard) can just be the default brush, while wet edges is just the default brush on lowered opacity (and more of a rectangle/marker shape?). watercolor pencil is a watercolor brush in the rectangle/marker shape as well. if you can't get the shape, you can always smudge your lines into shape as well, so don't fret too much! a bunch of people only use one brush for coloring everything (which is insane to me, personally, they are so talented!)

fun fact: the first brush listed that i made was originally called "aki tao watercolor smooth" 👍

ok here we go guys!!

STEP ONE: CLEANING THE PANEL

i think of this part as setting up the panel for coloring! usually it's pretty exhausting cuz it's all b&w but it's all worth it i swear. the panel i'll be coloring is this beautiful one of alma from chapter 2:

imgur link here (x)

a lot of people redraw their lines to avoid screentones, which is extremely helpful. however, i work on a phone and my fingers are not steady even with the stabilizer turned all the way up T~T. i do it this way, but a different (possibly easier) way may work for you!!!

your first step will be to remove all the white, giving us a transparent background to work with. THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE REASON WHY I USE IBIS PAINT X.

when you upload the image to ibis, a popup comes asking if you would like to "extract line drawing". this creates a lineart of your image. click yes, and your work is like 90% done.

if you're not on ibis, you can redraw your panel, put lineart layer on screen, etc. or you can just extract line drawing from ibis and upload to software of your choice

for those of you not on ibis, i've included the line drawing here (x) if it looks black, don't worry and set your background to white.

omg i was not kidding when i said i explained a lot. ok now onto the three main steps of cleaning the panel:

cleaning background

removing screentones

repainting black lines

for cleaning the background, we're going to clear off all the extraneous stuff. this includes the text in the speech bubble, the gradient screentones behind alma, and the panel line on the left side. just use your eraser tool and go crazy! (i forgot to save the panel at this point of the coloring OTL)

for removing screentones, we're going to remove all those "dots" that mangakas use for shading. these are used to show value for b&w art, but since we're coloring we don't need them—a lot of people have really cool ways of incorporating screentones in their colorings though, and it looks amazing! i used it on nana's hand in my bnha coloring.

remove the screentones from alma's hair and jacket with your eraser tool. this will take time, but it's worth it in the end!

for portions with a bunch of lines, you can create A NEW LAYER and redraw some of the lines. that way, you can erase indiscriminately from the original layer but the lines you drew are still there. again, like i said, my hand is really shaky so i don't do it a lot, but it's extremely helpful for smaller parts where i have control! i used this on alma's jacket, and here's a screenshot of the process:

(i made his jacket purple so i could distinguish between layers easily).

it should look like this when you're done:

for the final step of cleaning, i like to erase all the things colored black (the collar and strings of the jacket, along with the back part of his hair). that way, i can color them in with dark colors and it adds to the whole look of the coloring.

i've circled the parts i'm going to erase below:

and it should look like this when you're done!

ok everyone cheer we're ready to color now!!!!

STEP TWO: BASE COLORS

CROWD CHEERS ok lets go!

this part is the most important to me, because it sets the tone for the whole coloring. i like to use three-four main colors in my colorings, and it's usually background, skintone, hair, and the secret fourth color. the secret fourth color is usually whatever color fits the character's vibe, or if the character's color is the bg, it'll be an accent color.

for example, with my nagi coloring, i used white for the hair, i had my skintone, i had blue as the main coloring vibe (as nagi's color), and black as the accent color.

for alma, i chose his main color to be red! it's the color of his hair and his jacket, so i wanted it to be vibrant and stand out. since blue contrasts red, i went for a greyish-blue shade for the background. (i went for grey rather than solely blue because then it would clash rather than complement).

disclaimer please please please take your device off night mode warm mode f.lux whatever you have. this has screwed me over more times than you may think :(

i like to make my vibrant colors closer to the right end of the color square. for alma's hair, i chose this color:

i dragged it down from the corner a bit but kept the saturation since his hair is kind of dark. we can use vibrant colors to shade it though, so don't worry!

here's his hair and the background together:

now from here, play around with skintones until you find one that matches the hair!

i usually drag around the wheel to the orange-red intersection, and have it on the lighter, more saturated side. here's the color i chose for alma's skintone.

i thought his original skintone looked a bit too orange, so i pulled the saturation back a little bit (moved closer to the left side of the square).

after that, color in his jacket with a bit darker red than hair, choose a gold color for the accents on his jacket, and color in the black parts with a grey-ish color (we will change that later).

here's the base colors!

if it looks a bit bright, don't worry! we can change that with shading. or you might just have to. accept the light.

STEP THREE: SHADING AND LIGHTING

wooo we made it!!!!!!! ok now i lied, we have a bit more of base colors to go. on a layer above the skin, color in your teeth and tongue. for pieces that have a more red feel (like this one), i like to make the teeth and the shading a more vibrant blue color. (for blue pieces, i make it a purple!).

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALL SHADING AND ALL COLORS SHOULD BE DONE ON NEW, CLIPPED LAYER.

i'll then go in and do some light shading with my wet edges brush. i'll use a darker color for hard shadows and then a lighter, more vibrant color to accentuate it.

next up we have blush! a lot of people do this in very different ways but i like to do it directly under the eyes, in a vibrant red shade. make a new layer above the skin and clip it on. color pick alma's hair and drag it to the most saturated shade (red corner). then using the watercolor pencil brush, lower the opacity of the brush and drag a line under the eyes on both sides.

make sure to erase the portion of blush that goes above the eyeline. i also added some lips for alma as you can see, and then added a red line under the eyes! this was back to the regular dip pen (hard) brush on 100% opacity. it may take a few tries to get your blush to the way you want it, so don't worry too much.

now we can start our actual shading!

i break this part up into three steps: skin shading, blue shading, and light shading (highlights?)

for all of them, think about where the light is falling and how it will look on alma.

quick interlude about brushes: i use the watercolor pencil brush for softer, bouncy looks (like blush and noses) and i use the wet edges brush for more hard lines in shading.

again, make a new layer above the skin and clip it on. (i like to have it below the blush, so it doesn't cover it). for skin shading, i take the vibrant red and lower the opacity of the wet edges brush by a significant amount (specifics don't really matter, as long as you're happy with it). i'll trace his neck, from the shadow of his face, shadows of his hair falling on his face, ears, and nose. (for the nose i used the watercolor pencil brush for a softer look).

this is what i have once i'm done!

next we have skin shading part two, where we basically make a new layer on top of our first shading, lower the opacity further, and trace outside whatever we just did to blend it in more.

i used the watercolor pencil brush since it's more softer shading meant for blending! i also added it around the eyebrows for depth.

next up we have our blue shading! this is a technique that i learned from @/bkdkdh's colorings, but adding blue as a shadow really adds to the whole coloring. using the watercolor pencil brush, select a light-ish blue shade (a bit more saturated than background color) and use it to shadow a few more areas than your skin shading. i always make sure to hit the underside of the nose, cuz i think it adds depth!

finally, to wrap up our skin shading we have our lights. i use an orange-ish yellow color, which i set pretty light to not blend into the skin. using the watercolor pencil brush, i'll basically highlight any areas opposite to where the blue was, and highlight different parts. i always highlight one side of the nose as well.

i erased the line around the nose since we now have shading there, and added a darker shade to the teeth since i felt it wasn't shaded enough.

now onto the hair!!! (guys we're almost done bear with me, skin and hair are the two main things and then you can half-ass the clothes)

color pick alma's hair color, then drag the red a bit further down to get a darker yet still saturated color. here's mine:

then, using the wet edges brush, draw lines of shadow wherever clumps of his hair fall or overlap with each other. you can have the opacity set to whatever level you want, i just went with around 90. just try to follow the natural lines and patterns of the original line drawing, and everything should work out fine.

here's how mine looks! then, just like we did for skin shading, place a layer on top and lower the opacity to around 50%. place some more shading to blend it in. you can also shade more parts with this shade for some softer shading. i actually forgot to take a screenshot of this step but you'll see it in the next one!

for our (almost) last part of hair shading, take a layer and place it below both of your shading layers. this is going to be our highlight layer! you can see it below, labeled 49%.

remember how we set alma's hair a bit darker from the corner color? now select that corner color and draw highlights in the center of each hair clump.

lightly visible but it's there!

now here i skipped around a bit bc i was having fun and forgot i was doing a tutorial, but repeat the shading (not highlighting) steps with darker colors for alma's jacket. you should have your base layer, a dark shading, and a softer shading for blending.

we're almost there guys!!!

for the pretty much final step of shading, select a light blue color and do some blue shading with the watercolor pencil brush opposite to wherever your darker shading falls (just like we did on the face). make sure to do it to both your hair and your jacket! here's mine:

now for the black portions, we're going to color the whole thing in a dark blue color. just alpha lock your layer and make a big stroke of dark blue, almost black. for our black shading, we're actually going to go lighter.

select a lighter (but still dark) color and place highlights on the base layer, then take an even more vibrant, lighter blue and place it on the very outside for highlights. a better example of this would be nagi's legs in his blue lock uniform here. then, choose a shade to apply shading to the gold accents on alma's jacket and we're done!

CROWD CHEERS!!!!!

STEP FOUR: FINISHING TOUCHES

we made it guys!!!! for finishing touches, i'll usually do background effects or text or that kind of stuff.

step one is coloring your lines. you can add a new layer and clip it to your lineart, or simply alpha lock your lineart and color directly on top. for hair i like to add vibrant blue/purple lines, along with a few red ones. for skin lines i try to do dark brownish purples, but leaving some black is good too bc it adds flavor!

i colored in the text boxes and added shadows using the wet edge feature, then added some text. for the glitch effect, i duplicated the lineart, dragged the layer below all of my colors (including speech bubbles) and then used the glitch effect with height full from ibis. if you don't have ibis, you can look into features on your software, or you can also just drag your lineart layer a bit to either side and color it in. i also applied just the tiniest bit of noise on top of everything

and there we go!!!!! we made it to the end :)

if you've read all the way til here, thank you so much! if you decide to color this panel of alma (or any other panels!) don't be afraid to post them and tag me for a color this in your style type of thing! (you can also put it in my tracked tag, #user.roy) i'd love to see everyone's works :)

here's the full timelapse: (it stalls for a bit at some times but hey we can't have everything)

[hannahssimblr]

can you put on your creative director / marketing hat and talk about the cover art for lucky boy (and/or both) 🎤

!!! I've actually never been asked about visuals before this is so fun!!

Okay! So here's the cover in question

Honestly I love this and I was really proud of how it turned out.

The raw & more detail is below the cut

Alright! so the idea for this was that it's simply an image of Jude: finally free!

Here he is backpacking in Thailand which he hasn't done yet as of the date of this post, but Lucky Girl readers will know that he eventually Does Do That.

You can tell by his hair here too that he's older. He has this haircut when he reunites with Evie briefly in 2012, so I imagine this trip took place sometime around summer-autumn 2011.

To be honest the whole purpose of Lucky Boy was as sort of an extension of the original story for Lucky Girl readers who wanted more in-depth detail about Jude's life, more than what he ever had the time to tell Evie during her portion of the story, so for that reason the story is filled with little hints of what we know will happen, as well as nods to specific things about him that some have already learned - Like, how the story opens with him getting both ears pierced. The fact that he was a boy with two (and eventually 3) piercings was something that Evie found particularly cute and unique about him, and it's something he references in jest from time to time. ("haven't you seen my cute little earrings?")

Anyway, Thailand is where he gets that rather meaningless forearm tattoo, but it's also a place where he spends a lot of time alone. He does travel with a friend, but said friend is holed up with food poisoning for a significant chunk of the trip, which makes me quite certain that Jude spent a lot of time doing a lot of thinking. I'll explore this more in the actual story when I get there, but it's worth pointing out that when Evie meets him after this trip she notices a certain calmness in him, and like he's lost a lot of the boyish energy ("I realise I am looking at a man"). I feel like this trip is somewhat responsible for that.

He's also, clearly, facing away from the camera, which is probably self explanatory. In the chapter with Jen's birthday, as they take the train to the aquarium in Bray he waxes lyrical (as usual, yawn!) about his preference to sit facing the engine, never looking back. It's the same in this image. He is always moving forward.

YET - that is his school bag. (It is the wrong colour, yes, i didn't have the recoloured version when i made this poster lmao) so there's a sense that he's still in some way tied to childhood, to the things that are unresolved. Lucky Girl readers already know what (and who) those things are but I'll develop all that further from my controllers seat here inside Jude's brain.

"It seems like we wanted the same thing (...) Not to grow up too quickly, like, to be allowed to just be a kid.”

Also - the toy attached to it represents Ivy. It's never explicitly stated in the story, but I think it's probably not in his character to have something like that on his bag unless it was gifted from someone important. So, he's carrying her with him too on his travels.

Now, for the artistic stuff (eek!)

I chose this pinky purple as the base colour by messing around with some hard light blending and the colour balance adj. because it creates that kinda fantasy feeling, like wonder and/or enlightenment is ahead, which hopefully for our dumb boy, it is. Purple is also often used in graphic design to indicate creativity, which is apt, seeing as he's an artist and all that.

I slapped in some sun in the corner ala 3 year old child's drawing, and added the text in yellow for no reason other than it's a complementary colour, and it picks up some of the yellows in the image.

Then added a text gradient to blend it in better and a little drop shadow effect

And finally some grain, paper texture and rounded corners because I wanted it to feel tangible, that sweet, nostalgic 35mm camera effect, or like a postcard.

and that's it!!

This was so fun, you know I love 2 yap and you gave me a platform to do so.

Thanks so much for your question!

[bcdrawsandwrites]

[ID: The first image Psychonauts fanfic banner on a black-to-gray gradient background. On the left in white text it says “Prompt #6: Organ Theft” On the right is a bright green animated figment of a brain in a glass case. The top of the glass case is labeled "PREZ" and the base is labeled "NO TOUCH." The figment is based on one of the images from the Milla's Adventures! memory vault.

The second image is a Bad Things Happen Bingo card. Various prompts are marked with a half-brain (prompt requested but not filled) or full-brain (prompt requested and finished) symbol, while the “Organ Theft” prompt specifically is marked with a full brain symbol. /end ID]

FINALLY WE'RE BACK!! This one took me WAY too long, but here's the next fic in my @badthingshappenbingo challenge!

I am currently NO LONGER OPEN FOR REQUESTS. I have enough to work on to get a bingo! I MAY decide to reopen prompts later if I want to keep going after finishing these fics, but for now, requests are closed!

This request is for @of-science-and-stars! Sorry this took so long, and hope you enjoy! Thanks to @jaywings and @pinkygrocket for beta-reading!

Prompt: Organ Theft Characters: Sasha Nein, Milla Vodello, Ford Cruller Warnings: None

---~~~---

The doors leading into Sasha's lab slid open, and he trudged through them, making his way to his office, then all but collapsed down onto his couch. Automatically, he TK'd a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with pyrokinesis, and he tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. He took a slow drag, sighing through his nose and watching the smoke spiral toward the ceiling.

He truly enjoyed his work. But there were some days that made him wish he had a different job—one that didn’t leave mental and emotional burdens weighing heavily on his shoulders.

Soon the first cigarette was smoked down to the filter. Into the ashtray it went, and it was swiftly replaced with another.

It was days like this that made him wish that he had never taken Ford up on his offer to join the Psychonauts when he had run into him so long ago. Of course, deep down he knew it was the best decision he'd ever made, and that mental exhaustion was causing his emotions to behave irrationally, but right now, that knowledge did nothing to change how he felt. As the events of the past several hours played out again in his mind, he sank lower into his couch. Truly this was one of the worst days of his career.

It could not possibly get worse.

If Hollis would no longer allow him to wear what he chose, then—

Shoehorn, Dustpan, this is Grease Jar.

Sasha jolted upright, scrambling to TK-grab his dropped cigarette before it burned the couch.

Got an important mission that's slipped through the cracks. U.S. government's deemed it too unimportant, but the entirety of Country's future is on the line if we don't do something.

Rubbing his forehead, Sasha wondered if Ford had misspoke. Before he could comment, Milla chimed in:

Of course, Grease Jar. Shoehorn and I would be happy to help. What's the trouble?

President's been captured.

What? That had to be wrong—how could that have slipped through the cracks? Are you sure?

Do I ever contact you when I'm not? You gonna help or what?

Well, he couldn't argue with that. ...Yes, he replied. We're ready.

Great. I'm getting things set up on my end. Paperwork will be handled as usual. Gimme a minute and I'll get you ready for transport.

Very well. Just... warn us this time, please. You recall how last time went.

You were fine, son. I know how to use the heimlich, and I can do it again if I need to.

He could feel Milla's gentle laugh, and he couldn't be too upset.

For a few moments he sat in his office, putting out his cigarette and straightening his jacket. Ford didn't like to waste time, so he'd likely be here any minute. Sighing, he stood up to stretch—

—and just as he realized one critical error he'd made, someone abruptly appeared next to him, grabbed his shoulder, and with a yank, he was out of his office.

—-

Sasha stumbled in the sudden dim light. The beeps and chirps from the nearby consoles weren't unfamiliar to him, but the use of teleportation was always jarring.

With a rush of green psychic energy, Ford and Milla appeared next to him. Nodding in satisfaction, Ford clapped both of them on the back. "Good to see you two out here to visit an old coot again."

"You know you're much more than that to us, Agent Cruller," Milla said with a smile.

"Pshaw." Ford waved a hand. "I didn't bring you here to get all sappy on me, anyway." He glanced over at Sasha, then blinked, one of his bushy brows raising. "Didn't take you out here for a vacation, either."

Milla followed his gaze, then covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. Meanwhile, Sasha looked away, shuffling his feet in his very comfortable pair of socks and sandals.

Shaking his head, Ford strode over to a console and tapped in a few keys, bringing up holographic images around the platform they stood upon. The first depicted a map of the globe, which zoomed in on a teeny tiny island. "So this here is Country."

"Which country?" Sasha asked, frowning at the image.

"It's not a country, it's a territory," Ford snapped, eyeing Sasha over his shoulder.

Milla exchanged a glance with Sasha before raising a finger. "You did just say it was a country—"

"No, I said it was Country. Keep up!" Frowning, Ford brought up a second map, which was zoomed a bit further out. "Country is a small island territory off the coast of Nation."

Sasha could feel regret creeping up his spine the second he opened his mouth. "Which nation—"

"The nation of—” He broke off into a sputter. “It's not a nation, it's a republic! Didn't you young'ns ever go to school?!"

Clasping her hands, Milla nodded. "Of course, Agent Cruller. What's going on there?"

Ford relaxed a little before bringing up another image—this one appearing to be a short, squat man with mint-green skin. "President's been found in danger."

"...The President?" Sasha asked, wilting.

"Yea—I mean, no!" Ford snapped, his body trembling in agitation. "His name's President—goes by Prez—and he's the Prime Minister of Country. He's been captured by terrorists and is being held captive in the Company Building."

Once again Sasha nearly opened his mouth, but Milla shook her head, and he held himself back. "So we'll head to this office building and—"

"It's not an office—it's a—a—" Ford broke off into sputtering once again, but this time shot a glare at the holograms around him. "Who names these things?!"

Milla laughed, and Ford rolled his eyes. "Laugh all you want, but I'd like to see you keep this stuff straight!"

Sighing, he brought up the layout of the fortress on the holograms. "Prez is being held somewhere in these walls. Now you'd think it'd be at the top of this tower here—" he pointed at a tower on the leftmost side of the building "—like some princess in a fairy tale, but the intelligence I've gathered shows he's most likely located somewhere around here." He indicated a number of smaller rooms in the middle of the building, then paused, indicating the tower again. "Or, if we're unlucky, he might be held there, where they apparently keep the gators."

The ridge of one of Sasha's lenses raised as he exchanged a glance with Milla. "Alligators?"

Ford scratched the back of his scalp as he glanced off to the side. "Or maybe it was crocodiles? Same difference. Anyway." Shaking his head, he pulled up another image that showed an aerial view of the building and its surrounding grounds. "Now, the authorities are camped out outside, and they’ve been notified that you’re coming. Hostage situations are delicate and all that, but if you can get Prez outside, they can take it from there."

"I assume these terrorists have a psychic on their side?" Sasha asked, examining the map. "Otherwise we would not have been called upon."

"Now that we're not sure," Ford admitted. "But one thing we do know is that they may have access to sneezing powder, which is going to complicate things. They may have some brains switched up."

"Ach, of course."

"We can handle it, Agent Cruller," Milla said, giving Sasha a nod.

"Good," Ford replied. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple photos as well as printed sheets of paper, which he handed to Sasha and Milla.

"Here's some pictures of our target, and some questions you'll need to ask him to verify his identity, in case they tried a switcheroo. Study 'em and burn 'em. I got the coordinates logged in the Pelican, as well as your disguises for the mission. I'll stay down here for now so you can reach me, and I'll give you more mission details along the way. Now git!"

With that, he waved his hands toward them in a shoo-ing motion.

"Tchau!" Milla said with a short wave.

"We'll be in contact," Sasha added, and the two of them headed for the tree stump exit. From there, the transport system brought them to the hangar. To his dismay, he found a bird's nest had been built atop one of the wings of the Pelican. "Ach... How do they keep getting in here?"

While Milla gently TK'd the nest off to the side, Sasha glanced around. While well-disguised on the outside, the hangar was above-ground, which led to... problems like this. At least the bears and cougars couldn't get in.

Milla gave him a playful psi-poke, and he shook his head. Right, they had bigger things to worry about right now. Arguably.

Once they had both levitated into the Pelican, a psychic message from Ford reached them: Once you're onboard, you should find your outfits on the front seats.

Nodding to each other, they approached their respective seats to find Milla's had one of her custom Psychonauts outfits folded neatly there, complete with the rarely-used hood. It also had a set of large, circular earrings on top, each of them transparent while giving off opalescent reflections. Sasha, meanwhile, found a fancy blue suit with a pin on the breast reading "Logan Smith - AquaSpark Amusement Parks.” Accompanying the outfit was a small briefcase with the fake company’s logo: a blue lightning bolt with a splash of water directly beneath it.

There were, however, no matching shoes for the outfit.

Sasha curled up inside himself.

So, Dustpan, you'll be handling the sneaky stuff. Those earrings there are one of Egg Carton's inventions—supposed to give you more invisibility time.

Milla smiled, turning over the earrings in her hand. Oh, that's wonderful! So stylish, too.

Yeah, yeah, he's all about style. Now, Shoehorn, you'll be the distraction. You'll be Logan Smith, CEO of AquaSpark Water Parks. For some reason these terrorists are just nuts about water parks, so they'll be happy to see you there.

Wonderful, Sasha thought, looking over the outfit. They sound reasonable.

"I'm sure you'll do great, darling!" Milla said with a smile.

Sasha almost raised a hand to protest, only to stop himself, and placed a hand on his temple to speak to Ford. Ford, there seems to be something missing from my outfit.

Eh?

The shoes.

Didn't give Milla shoes either. Figured you'd both come dressed for work.

He almost argued that he was dressed for work, but bit back the comment; a man's life was in danger, and there was no time to worry about shoes. Tapping the button to open the hangar door and flipping a number of switches, he sent a message to both Milla and Ford. Very well. Starting up the jet.

Good, Ford replied. Course is already set, so you should be there in about two hours.

We will notify you upon arrival.

As the jet took off, they braced themselves, and waited until the plane leveled before relaxing. Sasha turned to Milla. "We may as well familiarize ourselves with our target while we wait."

“Good idea!” Milla replied, TKing out the papers Ford had given her.

Sasha, meanwhile, TK'd out the photo he was given of Prez. Looking it over, he found himself staring into the face of a man who looked well-meaning, if somewhat baffled. Recalling the glimpse he'd gotten of the picture Ford had shown earlier, he wondered if that was the man's perpetual expression. Or perhaps he was just not photogenic.

After studying it for a while, he switched to the document. Said document detailed basic facts about the man—his birth date, his partner's name, the date of their anniversary, the names of all seven of his Samoyeds, and various other factoids that could be useful to know, ranging from basic to obscure. Fortunately, Sasha was used to memorizing this sort of thing—it was standard procedure for when a brain swap was suspected.

After he studied the notes for some time, another copy of the document entered his vision, and he didn't have to look to know that Milla was TKing it to him. Without a word he TK'd it off to his other side, gave her a moment to look away, and lit it on fire with pyrokinesis, doing the same with his own paper shortly afterward. "Aside from the odd names, this should be a fairly standard mission."

Milla nodded. "It will be over soon enough, and then we can throw a party!" She gave him a grin. "Perhaps that would cheer you up?"

Sasha stiffened. "Ah... I had hoped that wasn't obvious."

"It's all right, darling." She reached over to pat him on the shoulder gently. "Now let's get ready. It looks like we'll be arriving soon!"

Milla retreated into the bathroom, and stepped out in her Psychonaut outfit, without the hood—understandable, as it would not be comfortable to wear for an extended period. As his partner settled herself in her seat again, Sasha took a moment to step back to change into his own outfit. The suit tugged at his shoulders, but otherwise he found himself able to move around in it well enough. He kept his Psychonauts badge, however, slipping it into his pocket in case he needed to identify himself. But as he stepped back out, he frowned down at his feet.

"Oh, are you worried about your footwear?" Milla asked. He gave a start to find her looking back at him with an amused smile. "I'm sure you'll find a way to roll with it, darling."

"Hopefully," Sasha remarked, taking a moment to straighten his tie.

By this point, the jet was slowing down as it approached the Island of Country. Milla carefully tied her hair back into a bun and pulled her hood over her head. Her earrings poked out from the hood, looking obvious against the dark outfit, but half a second later she turned herself invisible.

"So far, so good," Sasha remarked, nodding approvingly in the direction where Milla had been standing. However, he felt her presence just behind him, and turned to see her smiling at him beneath her hood.

"I'm glad you think so," she said, a teasing glint in her eyes.

He gave a huff of amusement. "Even if Otto's new accessories don't work as advertised—which I'm sure they will—your stealth is unmatched."

"Naturally." Milla gave a soft laugh.

Looking down at the briefcase he’d been given, Sasha picked it up with his hand, and frowned. Well, this wouldn’t be enjoyable.

When the jet landed, the two drew their attention to a holographic screen near the cockpit. It displayed a map of the island, indicating where the jet had landed and where their target was.

"All right, listen up, cuz this recording's about to delete itself once it's done," Ford's voice crackled out of the speaker. "You've landed here, west of the target." The blip on the map indicating the jet flashed. "The authorities are gathered outside the building, and they've been made aware of your arrival. Dustpan, you're gonna sneak in through the side entrance here." The map zoomed in on the building, highlighting something on the western side. "The code to enter is 5002. Meanwhile, Shoehorn, you're gonna enter through the front, and make a show of pushing yourself through the cops. That'll get these guys' attention, and I'll leave you to figure out where to take it from there."

Sasha nodded grimly. Playing things by ear was not his favorite way to do things, but he could handle it when he had to.

"Remember, the fate of Country is on your shoulders, so don't screw this up. Grease Jar, out!" The screen switched off, and a dull bleep indicated that the message had been deleted.

Exchanging glances, Sasha and Milla gave each other a nod before exiting the Pelican, levitating onto the ground outside. With a wave of his hand, Sasha activated the jet's cloaking mechanism to hide it from view, and took note of his surroundings to remember where it was. They'd landed in a clearing in the middle of a forest, where enormous trees surrounded them. The air was thick and humid and alive with the buzzing of mosquitoes, and the sky was overcast. There was nothing really noteworthy here, but luckily, the building was a straight shot east of where they'd landed.

Also a straight shot east was a puddle of muck that Sasha had just stepped into.

His skin began to crawl, and he was certain about half a dozen regrets had spawned in his mental world.

"Watch your step, darling," Milla said, hovering gracefully over the ground.

Grimacing, Sasha levitated a few inches upward, telekinetically keeping hold of his sandal so it didn't slip off his foot and get devoured by the mud. He joined Milla in floating over the ground, but rather than the natural-looking hover Milla performed, he moved parallel to the ground as though standing upon an invisible moving walkway. As they traversed over the mud, he realized that this was more than just a patch of soggy ground—this was an outright swamp. He wished Ford had mentioned this.

Granted, it wasn't relevant to the mission, but it was relevant to his outfit.

Fortunately it wasn't long before they caught sight of a massive structure just beyond the swamp. It was a centuries-old fortress featuring a number of towers, giving the brief illusion that they had somehow stepped back in time. The illusion was shattered by the sight of modern police cars sitting outside, with various officers milling about idly.

Turning to Milla, Sasha gave a nod, and she faded from sight.

Let me know what's happening once you're inside, Milla said. I'll start scouting.

I'll try to draw their attention, Sasha replied, though he couldn't help but wish their roles were reversed.

Approaching the police, he TK'd his Psychonaut badge out of his pocket and flashed it at the police chief. It took a moment for the man to notice, but when he did, he did a double-take. "Hey, you're not supposed to be here," he spoke in a deliberate, dull tone.

As Sasha TK'd the badge away, the other cops looked at the chief, then at Sasha, before continuing the charade with little to no conviction. "Hey, get out of here. This is a police investigation!"

Sasha winced, but made his way toward the fortress nonetheless. "No," he said, also with volume, but hopefully more convincing than the police. "Let me through! I must speak with the men here!"

"Stay back. We have weapons." Several of the officers lifted batons (with a couple more enthusiastically raising guns).

Mentally Sasha prepared a psi-shield should the officers decide to attempt to be too convincing of the act they were putting on of keeping him out. "No!" he cried, raising his voice more with a rapid glance at the entrance to the fortress. "It is of dire importance that I speak to these people!"

To his relief, their plan seemed to be working—a few men wearing ski-masks were now staring at them from the other side of the iron gate that blocked the entrance. They looked at each other, then at him, and seemed to take notice of the logo on his briefcase. They gave a jump and their movements seemed to be growing more excited.

Unbelievable, Sasha thought. Shaking his head, he realized the officers were starting to close in on him (but not too much of course), and he redoubled his efforts to reach the fortress. "Let me through!"

There was a rusty screeching noise as the iron gate that blocked the entrance was raised. While a few officers turned to look at the gate, they looked away again, remembering the plan. With the police pretending to be preoccupied with Sasha, they “failed” to notice one of the men sneaking in their direction. Sasha continued to push his way toward the gate when the man suddenly rushed forward, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him into the fortress. The officers gave a half-hearted shout, a few of them pursuing before stopping at the closing gate.

"Bout time one of you guys heard about us!" the masked man said as he hauled Sasha through the courtyard. "Now we can finally be makin' some progress here!"

"I-indeed," Sasha stammered, wishing that this man would let go. His sandals were slapping noisily against the stone path and mud was flaking off of his pant leg. He noticed that the courtyard was filled with, of all things, inflatable water slides (many of which were deflated), but before he could comment on these, the man led him into the main building.

More people, these ones not wearing masks, hurried up to them, their brows furrowed in consternation. "Who's this bozo?" one woman demanded.

The man at Sasha's side yanked off his mask, and his expression was that of a child right before a birthday party. "He's with a water park!" he exclaimed, gesturing dramatically at Sasha.

Straightening his back and rolling his shoulder, Sasha nodded. "That's right. Logan Smith, Aqua Spark Amusement Parks."

The others' faces lit up. "Finally!" the woman cried.

"May I speak to...?" Sasha balked, realizing he'd never been given the name of their leader.

"Oh, yeah! Sure! Georg is this way." With a bounce to their steps, the people led Sasha further down the hall. Said hall seemed to be littered with trash, but on closer inspection, the mess consisted of small pool toys.

Something struck him, and he sent a telepathic message to Milla. I've entered the fortress. It was strangely easy.

To his shock, Milla's mental voice was slightly heightened in distress. That's great, darling, but I'm busy at the moment!

Sasha's heart jumped. Are you all right?

I can handle this. Try to find President!

Understood. Sasha frowned—in spite of Milla's insistence, he couldn't help but worry that they'd fallen for a trap. This group couldn't be that simple, could they?

As though reading his mind—can they? Sasha wondered in alarm—one of the men turned to Sasha with a raised eyebrow. "I've never heard of Aqua Spark."

Thinking quickly, Sasha replied, "We're a startup company looking for a place to build our first park. We believe that Country here is an untapped market."

To his relief, the man looked at his fellows with a wide grin. "That's what I've been saying!"

They continued to lead him further down the hall until they reached a doorway guarded by two women. They seemed cautious at first, but Sasha's companions hurried up to them to explain the situation, and they eagerly stepped away, ushering them into the room.

Stepping inside, Sasha found himself in a wide room that was probably once used for war meetings, which now had a banged-up desk shoved in one corner, misaligned with the wall, and a large aquarium in another corner, bearing a few cracks that were patched with duct tape. Said aquarium was devoid of fish, but a woman in a dark suit was bent over it, tossing in diving sticks with mild interest. One sank to the floor of the tank with a shower of bubbles and turned on its side, and the woman gave a cry of disgust, yanking it out of the tank and turning it over until she spotted a number of punctures in it. Hissing a curse, she turned to hurl the stick across the room, and Sasha had to stop himself from reflexively grabbing it with TK to avoid being hit.

Spotting Sasha, the woman paused. "Who are you?"

The first man who'd spoken to Sasha stepped forward. "This man is Logan Smith! He's with a water park!"

Rather than being ecstatic like her henchman, however, the woman frowned, looking Sasha up and down, studying him. Her gaze stopped at his feet, and Sasha stiffened, sweat trickling down the back of his neck. This was bad, this was going to end very badly, he should have told Ford to give him a moment to change his shoes before—

"Well, Mr. Smith..." she began, looking up into his glasses, as he gazed frantically around the windowless room for some sort of escape route. "It seems you share our enthusiasm for water parks! You've even brought your flip-flops!"

The tension in his shoulders eased slightly. "I—yes, of course." He gave a tight nod. "Hearing of your enthusiasm, we knew this would be the perfect place to launch our first theme park."

"That's great news!" the woman cried, throwing an arm around his shoulders. "We were hoping someone like you might show up!"

Please do not.

Realizing her forwardness, she backed off. "But where are my manners—my name is Georgette, but everyone here just calls me Georg." She held out her hand, and Sasha shook it uneasily. "It's great to have you here, Mr. Smith. Have a seat."

Before he could ask where she expected him to sit, one of the henchmen used a pump to inflate a chair, which was then propped up in front of the table. He stared at the chair for a long moment, almost debating remaining standing, before remembering he had a disguise to maintain. He lowered himself into the seat, which squeaked noisily against him. Likewise, Georg took a seat on the other side of the table, sitting on an equally squeaky inflatable chair.

"So!" she began, leaning forward. "Let's hear about your company. I'm all ears."

It took half a moment for Sasha to spin a quick story. "Right. Aqua Spark is a startup water park company in America. We're employing people who have experience building for other parks—Eight Flags, Oak Fair, Queen's Island..."

Georg nodded, her eyes and grin growing wide.

"Of course, there's a great deal of parks there, so we wanted to... make a splash—" Sasha repressed a shudder "—by building our first park here." He jabbed his finger just over the desk for emphasis. "We believe Country is an untapped market, and the perfect spot for a water park."

"Excellent!" Georg cried, clapping her hands together. "We've thought the same thing and have been campaigning for this for years now, but the government won't budge! But with our bargaining chip and with the backing of an amusement park company, there's no way they can turn us down again!"

One of the phrases made Sasha's ears perk. "Bargaining chip?"

"Oh yes, of course." She leaned forward, tilting her head. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, I assume."

"I believe so." Sasha mulled this over in his mind. "Though, I will say, it would look poorly on the company if we worked with you, and it turned out he were harmed."

"Oh! Goodness, no, we wouldn't do that!" Her smile went a bit too wide, her teeth biting down on her lower lip. "He's perfectly safe!" As she spoke, she gave a pointed glance at one of her lackeys, who hurried out the door. She rose to her feet. "But we'll get to that later! First, I wanted to show you some of our own ideas for the park we wanted—"

"Ah, yes," Sasha said, standing and taking a quick glance at the door. "First I'd like to make a quick trip to the restroom."

Georg sighed. "All right. Geoff, please show him the way, and then we can get right back to it."

"Sure thing! This way." The lackey, Geoff, waved him over to the door and began to lead him down the hall. As they walked, Geoff started to ramble. "So what kind of stuff are you planning?"

Sasha was only partially paying attention, scanning to look for the lackey who had left earlier. "We have a number of attraction concepts we're considering," he mumbled. He could definitely hear footsteps up ahead, and he hoped it was the woman who had been sent out. She must have gone to check on President.

"Like what? Oh, I really hope there's gonna be water slides—"

"Yes, of course. We’re planning a... ah... looping slide."

Geoff whirled on him. Sasha froze up, nearly expecting the man to attack, but instead he bore a huge grin.

"Like the one in Adventure Park?!"

Sasha relaxed. "Yes, but, uh... improved."

"Ooooooh man!" The lackey turned around again, continuing to lead him down the hall before stopping at one of the doors. "Here you are, Mr. Smith!"

"Thank you." Hastily, Sasha stepped inside, balking when he realized that the bathroom consisted only of a few reeking outhouses that had been dragged into the room. Steeling himself, he stepped into one, holding his breath, but did not quite close the door. Instead, he put a hand to his temple. Dustpan, this is Shoehorn. I have a lead on where President is.

Milla's mental voice sounded exhausted. That's great, darling.

Are you all right?

For now. Let me know when you find him, and I'll meet with you.

Understood.

Nodding, Sasha activated his invisibility and exited the outhouse, quietly shutting the door behind him. Relieved to be out of that germ-infested place, he crept out of the room, but froze when he realized his sandals were slapping against the stone floor. He was almost certain he had been caught, but he glanced at Geoff, who leaned against the wall. "Oh man..." the lackey was still muttering as Sasha shook his head.

He hated what he was about to do, but he could not levitate while invisible, nor could he risk compromising the mission any further. Reaching down, he slipped his sandals off his feet and held them in his free hand so his socks were now touching the ground, and continued creeping down the hall.

Sure enough, he spotted the woman who had been sent out of the room earlier. She was looking into each room frantically, as though she wasn't sure which room the captive would be in, which struck Sasha as odd. Frowning, he kept a short distance behind her, and at one point she opened one door only to close it with a yelp and lock it, hurrying ahead even more urgently. Sasha made a mental note to check that out later, if he had time—they would notice his absence eventually.

Finally, she turned a corner before reaching the last room in the hall. She opened the door with a key, and looked relieved. Sasha hurried behind her to find a man matching President's description blindfolded, gagged, and bound to a chair in a very, very cluttered room, full of old pool toys and several unlabeled tubs.

Noticing that the woman was about to shut the door, Sasha quickly CV'd into the man, only to bounce back immediately. His face went pale.

Dustpan, he said, exhaustion dragging at his mind, we've got an egg missing from the carton.

Oh dear.

That was putting it mildly. Still, Sasha steeled himself and made a mental map of where he was, projecting it to Milla. Dealing with a debrained target would be difficult, and he'd need all the help he could get.

For a moment he considered following the lackey who had locked the door so he could grab her keys, but his invisibility was already starting to wear off. Instead, he waited for her to turn the corner and psi-blasted the lock, catching it with TK before it could hit the floor. Now that he didn't have to hide it, he transferred his suitcase and sandals to TK as well.

Carefully opening the door, Sasha poked his head in. "President?" he whispered.

"TV...?" came the dreaded, muffled reply.

Sighing, Sasha squeezed into the cramped room and shut the door behind him. Though he knew he wouldn't be understood, he went on, "My name is Sasha Nein. I'm here to help you." With a few quick tugs of telekinesis, he undid the ropes that bound the man to the chair. Another few tugs and the blindfold and gag fell to the floor.

President stared at him seriously. "Puppy."

"Yes, we'll return you to your spouse and dogs as soon as we've found your brain." Sasha regarded the man for a moment—he was somehow more serious-looking than when he had a brain. Otto would have had a field day. "But where to find your brain?"

President continued to stare at him, then pointed a finger in his face. "Prime Minister."

"No, that's you," Sasha said, TKing the man's hand away. "Now, where—"

The doorknob rattled.

Sasha went invisible, ducking behind President's chair. If they'd been caught, then hopefully whoever opened the door to find this scene would assume that the ropes had fallen off of President on their own. Regardless, Sasha prepared for things to go south, placing a hand to his temple.

The door opened slowly, and Sasha tensed.

And then it shut, and before Sasha could wonder what happened, Milla came into view.

"Thank goodness," he breathed, ridding himself of his invisibility again. "It's good to see you again." But when he studied her closer, he frowned; Milla's outfit was roughed up, a few tears visible on the legs. It was rare to see her in such a state. "Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine, darling," Milla said, pulling down her hood partway. "I finally managed to get past those terrible alligators."

"Alligators?" he asked, eyebrows raised, then he shuddered when he remembered what Ford had said earlier. "It seems that bit of intelligence was accurate."

"Yes, they're everywhere." Milla moved some strands of hair out of her face, tucking them behind her ears. "But that's not important right now. Poor President!"

President looked her in the eye. "Dog treats."

"Yes, and we have little time to waste. They'll discover my absence soon."

"But how are we to find his brain? Where could they have put it?" Milla looking out over the mess of tubs of toys. "They don't seem very organized, and they let those awful alligators chew on everything!"

A thought struck Sasha as he recalled the information Ford had given them. "...The tower."

Milla nodded grimly. "Where they keep the alligators... Though it seems now they let those brutes roam everywhere."

Something’s not quite adding up… Sasha shook his head. "Regardless, we've no time to waste. Let's take him with us and get to the tower as soon as possible." He looked down at President and helped him up from the chair. "Time to leave, sir."

"TV. Puppies. Kibble!" the man said with increasing enthusiasm. "Dog treats!" And with no further warning he grabbed one of Sasha's sandals, which he had still been TKing off to the side, and began chewing on it.

Sasha winced back. "Aaaaach...!"

Milla placed a hand on his shoulder. "It will keep him quiet. Now let's go!" Putting up her hood again, she turned to open the door. "Hopefully we haven't been caught y—"

And the hiss of an alligator greeted them, the reptile opening its jaws wide as it sat in front of the door.

"Too late," Sasha grunted. He placed a hand to his temple and fired a psi-blast at the monster, knocking it back into the wall. "Come on!"

"Puppy!" President mumbled around the sandal in his mouth, reaching out toward the incapacitated alligator as Sasha plucked him up with TK.

Milla activated her invisibility, and Sasha led her down the hall, mentally mapping out the place. The tower they were headed for was on the western side of the building opposite of where they were, so they would have to be fast. Since their cover had already been blown, Sasha went into full-blown levitation, blasting down the hall.

As they passed one door—the door the lackey had checked and locked earlier—it began to rattle before bursting open off its hinges, and several more alligators scrambled out after them. "Doggies!" President mumbled in delight, while Sasha moved even faster.

Turning a corner, he spotted Geoff, still standing outside the bathroom. The lackey looked up at him in surprise. "Woah! Mr. Smith? What's going on? Isn't that Prez?"

Is he not aware? Regardless, Sasha did not answer, blasting past him. Before Geoff had time to question him again, the alligators turned the corner, and he let out a scream, bolting away.

They're afraid of their own guard dogs? Milla asked.

It seems so, but now's not the time to question it.

They continued through the building, any lackeys they discovered fleeing the second they saw the alligators giving chase, with some of the gators even pursuing them. Sasha was nearly relieved until another alligator burst out of a door ahead of him, its snout bearing a scorch mark, much like the one he'd psi-blasted earlier.

"What—how?!" Sasha cried.

As if on cue, several more gators suddenly appeared just ahead—literally, spawning out of mid-air.

That was it—they were teleporting. Perhaps that was why the people here didn't seem to be in control of them—the gators were as much of a problem to the criminals as they were to them.

Looking over the swarm of hissing alligators, Sasha frowned. We cannot teleport, but we can levitate! Get ready.

Ready when you are, darling!

The alligators continued to hiss before one of them charged, the others following suit.

NOW!

Sasha and the still-invisible Milla leaped into the air, levitating over the alligators. A few raised their heads and snapped at them, but they managed to clear the swarm, landing on the other side and resuming their charge through the fortress. Several of the gators hissed, giving chase, but a few more were distracted by the lackeys that stepped out of their rooms to panic.

Finally, Sasha came upon what he was looking for—a stairwell. With a motion to Milla, he hovered into it, ascending the narrow, spiraling stairs while the gators scrambled up after them. Milla and Sasha had the advantage here, and managed to reach the top before the gators could.

The room shouldn't be far from here, Sasha said, glancing to his side. He was somewhat surprised to find Milla visible again, but even with the equipment she had, it wasn't easy to stay invisible for an extended period, especially not when using other powers. Meanwhile, the alligators were nearing the top of the stairs, the one at the lead opening its mouth wide. With a well-aimed psi-blast, it was sent tumbling backward, knocking into the other reptiles and sending them all crashing down the spiral stairs.

That may or may not buy us some time, depending on if they decide to teleport again. Now to find...

This way! Milla cried, charging forward with a burst of levitation. Sasha followed, and they soon found themselves approaching another door, this one sealed with a giant padlock. One psi-blast later, the lock was smoldering on the ground, and they opened the door.

They found themselves in a circular room with a large circular grate raised up in the center. Sasha and Milla exchanged glances before grabbing it with telekinesis and heaving it up and off to the side.

As Sasha finally set President down, he leaned over the hole and opened his mouth. "Teeeveeeee!" he called, his voice echoing as the sandal he'd been holding in his mouth dropped down, down, down.

"No—!" Sasha cried, but before he could react, there was a splash, followed by the snapping of alligator jaws. He heaved a long, deep sigh, looking down. "More alligators."

There were two alligators swimming in the water far below, and in the midst of them was a small pedestal, upon which sat a glass covering. The pedestal had a large "NO TOUCH" sign attached, while the covering was labeled "PREZ."

And sitting within the glass was a human brain.

"There it is," Sasha and Milla found themselves saying together, and Sasha looked up. "I'll get it."

"No, you watch President," Milla said with a wink. "Leave this to the levitation expert."

"Fair enough."

With that, Milla raised herself up off the floor and down into the shaft, nearly upside-down as she reached out toward the glass jar. The alligators hissed up at her, swimming in circles beneath her like aquatic vultures, but she paid them no mind.

"Squeaky toy," President said, frowning down at his own brain as Milla TK'd the glass away.

"Stay put..." Sasha said, holding a hand in front of President as he watched Milla. She was raising the brain upward, drawing it closer to her hands.

At once there was a flash of psychic energy, and one of the alligators from below was up in the air in the middle of the shaft, snapping at Milla as it fell down toward her. She let out a startled cry, backing up against the wall of the shaft as the alligator teleported again, this time falling closer.

"Milla!" Sasha cried. His fear and fury took the form of raw psychic energy, blasting forward into the alligator. It slammed against the wall, skidding back down into the water. Before either of them had time to celebrate, the second alligator teleported higher up in the shaft, jaws focused on President's brain.

In a sudden stab of frustration, Sasha took his remaining sandal that he'd been TKing off to his side, and chucked it into the alligator's mouth. The reptile's jaws snapped shut, and it began to wheeze and choke as it plummeted back down into the water. Eventually, it spat up the mangled sandal and swam down into the water with an indignant flip of its tail, its slightly-scorched companion following suit.

With a sigh of relief, Milla levitated the rest of the way up the shaft, landing next to Sasha. "Thank you, darling."

"Thank me later," Sasha said, already opening up his briefcase and pulling out a funnel. He turned to face President. "Stay still, sir."

President was still frowning at his own brain. "Chew toy," he said with a look of disgust.

Sighing, Sasha took the brain from Milla and TK'd the funnel over to President's ear. "Hold him still, please."

Milla held the President with TK as Sasha forced the brain into the wider end of the funnel, shoving it inward until it slipped into the Prime Minister's empty head.

President staggered back as Sasha removed the funnel, the man's eyes rolling and blinking several times before coming into focus. "Wh... where am I?" he stammered, looking at Sasha and Milla in bewilderment. "Where are my dogs?!" He looked all around the room, his movements becoming more and more frantic. "Spot? Daisy? LEONARD?!"

Sasha grit his teeth, looking out the door to make sure they weren't going to get jumped on, while Milla bent down, shushing the man. "It's all right, Prime Minister President. You've been kidnapped and debrained, and we've just recovered your brain."

"Is... is that true?" Prez asked, rubbing his head. "That would explain my headache... Also, just Prez is fine."

"There's no time for questions. We're bound to be discovered at any moment, and we need to get out of here." Looking up and down the hallway, Sasha noted that any windows he could see were barred. "Milla, where was the entrance you came in from?"

"Not that way," she said. "It was crawling with alligators!"

Prez chuckled, and Sasha frowned. "Noted. We'll have to go back through the main entrance. Hurry!"

With that, the three charged back toward the stairs they'd ascended. The stairwell was empty, but to save time, Sasha grabbed Prez with TK once again as he and Milla levitated down the stairs.

"Woah!" Prez cried, eyes wide. "You're some a' them psychics!"

"Indeed, and it seems the alligators here are, too," Sasha replied, and Prez's brows knit in confusion. Once Sasha touched down on the floor, he took off in a burst of levitation down the hall, which was deserted. "We're nearly there. We just need to make it outside!"

The courtyard was in sight. Sasha and Milla both put on a burst of speed, feeling a great relief that their mission was nearing its end.

And with several puffs of green psychic energy, a dozen hissing alligators filled the courtyard, surrounding them.

"Not this again!" the three of them said simultaneously, and Sasha and Milla briefly gave Prez a look of confusion.

"I'll need all concentration on my psychic powers," Sasha said, dropping in his levitation to the ground in a psychic attack pose and setting Prez down. "Stay between me and Milla!"

As the alligators pressed in closer, Sasha and Milla both fired blue and pink psi-blasts respectively at the reptiles. While he could hear one be struck by Milla's attack, the one he'd fired at disappeared again. Whipping his head around, he searched for the missing gator, only to realize a shadow was falling over him. With a cry, he staggered out of the way, only for his feet to slip against the slick grass and send him crashing down on his back. The alligator landed in front of him, hissing, and more were closing in behind him and to the sides.

Before he could do anything else, however, there was a deafening chorus of barking from somewhere behind him. All the alligators looked up, and began to scramble away as a pack of enormous white dogs came charging into the courtyard. They howled and snarled as they chased the reptiles away from Sasha and the others, until the gators gave up, disappearing as quickly as they'd appeared.

"Daisy!" Prez cried, holding out his arms. "Spot! Leonard! Barkley!"

Any other names he called were drowned out by the sound of elated barking and whining as he was surrounded by the pack of dogs, who all jumped over each other at the chance to lick his face.

Milla pulled her hood back, wiping at her brow. "That was a close one..." With an invisible psychic hand, she helped Sasha to his feet. He dusted himself off, for all the good it would do.

"Indeed," he said, looking back toward the entrance. "I presume these aren't K-9 units..."

"Nah, those are probably on gator duty," Prez said, squeezing his way out from the swarm of samoyeds. "C'mon, let's get out of here!"

With that, the group stepped out of the fortress, the dogs cheerfully surrounding them. Milla couldn't resist the urge to pet one of them, and it leaned into her touch, tongue lolling.

Outside, the police seemed preoccupied with handcuffing a number of criminals, including Georg and Geoff. The former looked furious, while Geoff looked out toward Sasha with his lower lip wobbling. "N... no looping water slide?" he whimpered, eyes shining with tears.

"I'm afraid not," Sasha said, replacing his name tag with his Psychonaut badge. "This place seems ill-suited for water parks regardless."

"How did you capture them all?" Milla asked, looking toward the chief officer. "How could you have known we'd already rescued the Prime Minister and his brain?"

"We didn't," the officer said with a shrug. "These guys came runnin' out 'cause of the gators."

Prez let out a hearty laugh. "That's a real shocker!"

"Prez!" Another person came bolting through the crowd—someone Sasha identified as the man's spouse. They threw their arms around him in a tight hug. "I'm so glad you're all right! We were so worried about you, and I couldn't leave the dogs..."

"I'm fine! Thanks to the dogs, actually. And these guys too, of course." He waved a hand at Sasha and Milla.

Something had been nagging at the back of Sasha's head, and he hovered over to Prez, frowning. "Please excuse me for interrupting this moment, but I must ask." He waited for Prez to step away from his spouse and face him before continuing: "You seem to have a very serious problem with psychic alligators here. Why have you not called upon the Psychonauts for help with this?"

Prez, his spouse, and several of the police officers turned to give him bewildered looks. "Yeaaah, you mentioned that before," the Prime Minister said, crossing his arms. "How do you know they're psychic, though?"

Sasha balked. Had Prez been blind to what had just happened moments ago? "They can teleport, sir."

The man's face broke into a smile. "Yeah, and fish can swim! What's your point?"

Sasha glanced back at Milla, who was laughing. "Alligators don't normally have that ability."

Prez began laughing again, but stopped when Sasha did not join in. "Wait, you're serious?"

"Indeed," Sasha replied, suddenly feeling even more tired than he had before. "We can arrange to send a zoolepathy expert here to begin work on this issue, if you like."

"Uh. Yeah!" Prez blinked. "Yeah, that'd be great! Honestly, they're sorta the reason we couldn't build a water park here in the first place."

"WHAT?!" Georg cried some distance away, as a police carted her off with the rest of her lackeys.

Meanwhile, the police chief nodded. "If that's true, we'll send for one of you again."

As Sasha rubbed his temples, Milla stepped forward. "As for us, it looks like our work here is done."

"Right!" Prez rushed up to Milla and shook her hand before repeating the gesture with Sasha. "Thanks for your help!"

"And with that, we must be on our way." Finally, Sasha began hovering away from the crowd, back toward where they'd parked and cloaked the jet. Milla followed suit, waving to Prez and the others as they went their separate ways.

Once out of view of the crowd, they both dipped slightly in their respective hovers. Milla gave Sasha a tired smile, and he returned it.

"This has been quite the day," he admitted.

"Yes, but at least it's over now, darling."

Soon they were back onboard the Pelican and en-route back to Whispering Rock. While Milla stepped back toward the restroom, Sasha tapped a few buttons on the console and leaned back in his chair.

"This is Grease Jar," Ford's voice crackled over the radio. "What's the word?"

"The criminal group has been apprehended and Prez's brain and body rescued."

"Excellent work!"

"That said, it seems the Psychonauts are not yet done aiding Country. They seem to have an infestation of psychic—"

"ALLIGATOR!" Milla cried from the back.

"Pretty sure there's supposed to be an 's' at the end for the plural..." Ford grumbled, but Sasha was barely listening, rushing to the back to find Milla backing away from the bathroom in horror.

An enormous alligator stood over the toilet, where a large clutch of rubbery eggs sat within.

It was going to be a very, very long flight.

[plinktastic]

I can post text only posts on tumblr therefore I can post my bugbo x dhmis fanfic, so, may I present to you...

Dont Hug Me I'm Bugbo

(gerbo, joe, and bugbo all walking in the rain)

"dont worry, im sure we will find shelter eventually" bugbo says, hand shielding his face from the rain. "and if not, the rain *will* stop at some point" he said, turning to gradient joe who was absolutely sopping wet, and unable to talk because his papers would be to soaked to read.

"oh grub i hope s- ..wait, bugbo look!" gerbo says, pointing to a large pink house with a dark blue door, "we should ask them if we can stay until the rain stops!"

"well, we dont have a choice do we" bugbo responds, quickly walking up to the door before knocking a few times, his friends trailing close behind.

...

silence fills the house, a sense of dread overcoming the 3 friends sitting around the table.

"...is someone at the door?" yellow guy finally asks, hesitating for a moment.

after another second of silence red guy gets up and walks towards the door, slowly placing his hand on the door handle.

*creeaaak*

the sound of the pouring rain fills the house, followed by the strange bugs voice. "ah, hello, my soon-to-be-friend, my name is bugbo. mind if we stay for a bit?" he asks, gesturing slightly to his friends.

"uhh.. come in" red guy responds, clearly not knowing what to say, but allowing the odd group into the house.

despite all the things they have seen, this "bugbo" creature and his friends seem to be the strangest, but nonetheless they were glad to see someone other then one of the self proclaimed "teachers".

as gerbo stepped into the house, he shoke the water off slightly like a dog. "hello! my name is gerbo!"

"and what are you? some sort of germ?" duck responded, glaring at gerbo.

"ah, easy mistake to make, my dear friend gerbo here is a spider." bugbo corrected, making uncomfortable eye-contact with duck.

"well, uh, do you need a towel or.. something?" red guy asked, after only barely talking to the same 2 people for as long as he could remember his social kills were clearly lacking.

gradient joe glanced towards bugbo, still unable to communicate, bugbo picking up on what he wanted as it was very obvious as he was still drenched.

"Oh, yes, do you happen to have a spare notebook as well? Joe here cant talk and his is soaked beyond repair" bugbo asked, causing them to somehow go even more awkwardly silent as before.

"is everything o-" Gerbo responded after a moment, before being quickly interrupted by a voice coming from the room next to them. They couldn't quite make out what it was saying because of the distance.

"oh, thats just one of those guys, ignore it" duck said, speaking louder then normal in an attempt at covering the voice, clearly annoyed.

"ill.. go get you a towel then. or. a few towels i guess." red guy added, walking off further into the house. as red guy walked away yellow guy looked up from what he was doing.

"oh, hello" he said, slightly off-put from seeing unfamiliar people.. or, bugs, i guess.

"hello!" gerbo, not picking up on his uneasiness, walked over to him "what are you doing? can i watch?"

"oh, im doing a crossword" yellow guy responded, pointing to a section on the newspaper.

"i bet bugbo would be good at one of those! he knows so many words" gerbo smiled, sometimes bugbo would use a word he'd never heard before but he could usually figure it out through context.

"I suppose i would be, may i see the paper?" bugbo said, walking up to the table aswell. yellow guy handed over the newspaper, flipping it over to face bugbo who looked at it for a moment before shaking his head.

"hm. not for me i guess" he said before turning over to joe."why dont you give it a try?"

joe stopped shivering and walked over to the table beside bugbo, pulling out his red crayon. bugbo slide the paper towards him as he pulled up his sleeves as to not get the paper wet.

after just a minute he had solved the crossword, amazing almost everyone in the room.

"You really are the cleverest person i know" bugbo said.

"woah!! that was so fast!" gerbo quickly added.

the excitement in the room washed over duck, whos attention was focused on the fact that bugbo and his friends were just like better versions of him and his friends.

Bugbo and red guy were both tall, and almost the same color, but bugbo was more outgoing.

Gerbo and yellow guy were both a little dumb, and a similar color yet again, but gerbo seemed to be having tons fun despite everything.

and lastly, joe and duck, they didnt have to many similarities but instead were more like opposites. joe was quiet and went along with anything, while duck was loud and rebelled at any chance possible.

its almost like they took their biggest flaws and flipped them into strengths.

the worst part is how good of friends they were.

duck was sure they were planted there to teach them something, like the many teachers before them. just as he was about to say something, red guy returned with a handful of towels.

"ah, i almost forgot" bugbo said, taking the towels and handing them to gerbo and joe, both of them quickly starting to dry themselves as they were not used to being wet, it doesn't rain much in bugland.

"one more thing, do you have a heater? its quite cold in here" bugbo asked, while clearly being unbothered by the frigid temperature.

the group expectantly turned to the thermostat, who followed along by coming to life. "te-!"

"no"

just as it came to life, the thermostat turned back to normal, just from the single word. it was then turned up, slowly warming the house back up to a normal heat.

"h- how did you.." red guy started, before trailing off.

"we dont have time for that" bugbo responded, clearly unnerving them again, and only confirming ducks theory.

their gaze slowly traveled up to the clock on the wall, but it stayed put, as a normal clock should.

"are you guys.. okay?" gerbo asked, finally noticing the ever so cuttable tension in the room. "we can leave if you want!"

"no, gerbo, you dont want to get soaked again, do you?" bugbo said, "and plus, i think we might be able to help"

"we dont want your help!" duck responded, "i dont want to get roped into another stupid lesson again! im tired of this!"

"well, thats not a very kind thing to say" bugbo said, somehow keeping his calm demeaner. "but if thats how you want it to be, we will be out of your hair as soon as the rain clears up"

"wait" yellow guy spoke up.

maybe these guys where different then the other teachers? plus, they didnt immediately overwhelm them with facts that didnt make any sense, so maybe it was a chance that needed to be taken.

"can you show me how to do this crossword too?"

or... not.

Joe helped with the crossword as the rain slowly cleared up, and they were on their way as promised, leaving the towels nicely folded on the table.

this is a photo of me reading the fanfic outloud to you, hope you enjoyed!

[screampied]

Hi fren! Totally fine if u don’t wanna answer this but I was wonderin how u do the multi-colored titles on ur fics? They look super cool I love the effect so much 🩷 also I love your writing so much ur inspiring me to want to start to write 😊

hey bae!! ofc sure i gots u! i actually answered this months back but i lost the ask so i dont mind re-explaining it for yew !! also thank u sm :( ur so sweet im honoreddd 🥹

tut underneath.

okay so by multicolored titles you mean gradients, yes? so—you have two methods. you can do this on mobile or on tumblr desktop.

the method i’ll show is on the phone / personally it takes longer to do on desktop.

so !!! the app i use to change coloring is stuffbydavid -> after that, you would have to copy the code and insert it, i’ll walk u thru step by step bc it is kinda complicated eheh.

step one — once u open the app, it lays out all the steps. pretty simple! so you wanna start by referring to the first step, typing in your desired title for your fic. i’m using that as an example.

step two — now you can color your words! as u can see, it’s alr automatically set to horizontal gradient. there’s other options u can choose, but personally for my titles i always use the middle gradient for the more multi colored effect :3

( refer to here for the choices! three colored gradient and middle gradient are the best choices for a multi colored effect in my opinion / horizontal gradient is just good for two colors )

step three — after u choose ur desired option, now is time to copy && paste !! do not click the BBcode, u want to copy / paste the second option, otherwise it will not work. and make sure u copy the entire code. top to bottom

step four — now, u wanna log into tumblr via the mobile website on ur phone ( not the app ) u have to do it this way for a reason to paste the code . .

make a new draft then follow these steps.

open ur draft then press the settings icon near the top right

scroll a bit to where it reads Text Editor, click on the button near the right -> now switch it to where it says HTML.

now !!! this is where u paste the code. once u do that, save the draft -> or u can press preview to see how it looks.

this should be the final result !! hopes this helps 💟💟💟

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you, a drabble

Summary: you and Benny have been dating for a little over three months when you finally agree to go hiking with him.

Pairing: Ben Miller x French fem!Reader.

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: @nicolethered, this is a very humble gift for you, my dearest, dearest friend. I know smut is not my strong suit (unfortunately), and I wish I could present you with a much better gift, because you deserve the absolute fucking best, but I did do my very very best to give you the Benny I think you might like. You've given me and this fandom so much. Happy birthday season, ily ♥

I'm tagging every one, I hope no one will mind, because I managed to sneak in a little bit of plot, and, of course, subliminal mentions of Frankie 😜 (I can't help myself)

Count: 2.8k

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A drabble: Proud Mary

You’ve got to give it to this country, it really knows how to do autumn. And autumn is the one thing you love but could never fully enjoy in Paris. A city with a dense urban fabric, there’s not enough space for nature to perform its flamboyant swan song in crimson and golden gradient, the parks and public gardens too tidy, too tamed to your taste. 

In your late 20s, you would rent a car and spend the last week of October by the Normand or Picard shores, on your own, and revel in the colours you’d find along the road. Until you met Éric and, a couple of years into your relationship, he started demanding you stay by his side and accompany him as he attended the many parties and diners of the rentrée littéraire, the most important time of year for French publishers. 

That memory belongs to another life, however. Almost to another girl, it seems. 

Comfortably sitting on the leather seat on the passenger’s side of Will’s truck, your forehead pressed against the window, you take in all the shapes and shades of trees and bushes you can’t name in any of the languages you know. Your new boyfriend’s solid presence next to you, driving under the fiery canopy of an undergrowth country road. A little too fast for your liking, but that’s just how he does everything and, to be honest, you don’t mind, really.

Benny likes the outdoor. He thrives amidst nature. As soon as you two started dating, back in July, he began asking you to come with him on hiking trips upstate, exploring national parks the size of your hometown. You can spend entire afternoons picking pebbles and shells underneath the chalk cliffs of Picardie’s coast, silently observing the rising tides of the Channel, but you’ve never gone hiking, so to speak. You didn’t even own a good pair of walking shoes until you had to gear up for this trip.

This time you said yes, your heart wrapped in an unknown, warm embrace at his enthusiastic and spontaneous reaction. A wolfish howl and a little jump, before he grabbed his phone to text his brother that he needed to borrow his truck, the Mustang far too precious to drive on graveled and dusty country roads. 

What convinced you to come is precisely this: the undeterred fondness with which he steadily reacts, every time you try and push back. The space and time he never fails to give you to be you and do your things. 

And, of course, the prospect of a real North-American autumn. You don’t care what everybody says, you just like autumn. It is, hands down, your favourite season. You’ve debated it over countless times with Rosie, who, of course, only loves summer, laughing at her perennial final and closing argument, “you can’t prefer fall because it’s basic, and you’re not.” 

She says fall, you say autumn. Inches and centimetres, flat and apartment… 

Besides, autumn has Halloween. And that’s the one holiday your gothic heart not only tolerates, but love. The hypothesis -the hope- of being visited by the dead, once a year. You were never good with closure, goodbyes or mourning. The concept of the departed lingering about you keeps you going. 

In an essay about death and its perceptions throughout history, you once read that the idea exists, in one form or another, in many different cultures throughout the world. That it’s about the living convoking the dead to help them prepare as they enter winter. 

Winter sure is bleak. Christmas’s supposed to be fun, you suppose, if you have a functioning family. Which you seldom ever had. No, winter is not your thing.

No light, no hope. 

You wonder what this winter is going to be like. Probably the best you’ve had in a long, long while. 

You’ve got pure sunshine sitting next to you in the truck.

A khaki cap worn backward over his overgrown blond strands, his last haircut a distant memory, he’s wearing his usual worn-out dirty blue jeans that have you questioning whether he owns a second pair, and a faded blue shirt over a camouflage t-shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbow, his strong forearms on display. His massive frame dwarfs the spacious cab of the truck. 

He hooked up his phone to the car’s stereo and Johnny Cash’s Live at Folsom is blasting through the old speakers, his own baritone resounding in the cab and sinking into your chest as he sings along to The Long Black Veil. It’s one of your favourite songs from this album, and you can’t get over how fond of this man’s voice you’ve become in only three months. It’s warm and comfortable and when you try to describe his laughter, the only word you can come up with is “luminous”. 

He sings more and more often when you’re around, and you wonder if you can consider it a tangible proof of your fast-growing intimacy. Or perhaps he’s always singing, and the only reason why you get to hear it more often is because of the increasing amount of time you two spend together. It doesn’t cross your mind you might be the reason why he constantly sings. 

Forgetting about the landscape for a moment, you set your gaze on your boyfriend, his tall figure and his soft face. His brow furrowed over his dark eyes, mirroring the lyrics’ somber melancholy as he joins in the chorus. 

She walks these hills in a long black veil 

She visits my grave when the night winds wail

You found a common ground in music with blues, folk, old country and vintage rock. Old habits die hard and at first, you feared he would impose on you the music plastered in loud album covers on his band t-shirts, Kiss, Metallica, Iron Maiden. You’d been agreeably proven wrong. For that’s not Benny. Benny makes everything easy. Benny adjusts. 

You reach out for his thigh and give it a little squeeze, affection expanding your chest. His expression shifts immediately as he takes his eyes off the road to look your way, flashing you a flirty wink and a toothy grin. Oh, he’s a performer, alright.

You can’t help but laugh and skate your hand a little higher along his leg. 

Hank William’s Alone and Forsaken is next in queue on his playlist, but Benny’s mind is not on the music anymore. 

Every so often, his eyes leave the open road as he throws sideways glances at your thighs with about as much subtlety as a kid trying to nick candy from the kitchen cupboard, and you observe this little choreography with a bemused smile. 

“You know I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing leggings in the city,” you say halfway through the song.

“That’s a shame because your legs look damn good in it. And your ass–” he trails off, narrowing his eyes with an explicit humming sound. 

“But what’s the difference with my black jeans, for instance, the skinny ones?” you ask casually, as if he just didn’t light up a small fire in your core. 

“I don’t know. It’s just— it’s not the same,” his voice drags and dips lower on the last words.

It sounds like he’s still singing even when he talks. You start to blush like a bashful teenager, so you immediately counter, opening your legs wider and propping your left knee on the bench. 

His eyes return to the road, with a shake of his head and a chuckle that says you’re not playing fair.

Ike and Tina’s Proud Mary come up on the stereo and momentarily interrupt the game. 

“Oh I love this song!” you exclaim as you lean forward to turn up the volume, “sorry, but I’m gonna sing.”

“Why you’re sorry? You got a nice voice.”

“How would you know that?” you whip your head towards him with an accusatory look. 

“Heard you sing under the shower. I love the smell of your shampoo,” he provides with an apologetic, endearing smile.

“Well I’m singing to this, anyway,” you reply, now downright flustered. 

The song still at its spoken preamble, your voice is a little shaky as you tune in to the first Nice and easy. 

You flick your eyes up to Benny’s and find him already staring you down with a hungry look.

But there's just one thing…

Pulling on the safety belt to give it some slack, you slide on the bench to get closer to him, his eyes flicking rapidly between the road and your lips.

You see we never do nothing nice and easy… 

You rest your right hand on his inner thigh and bite down a victorious smile when he sharply inhales, straining his gaze straight ahead.

We always do it nice and rough…

Your voice turns husky on the last word, a smile lifting the corner of your lips. Head tilted upward, you softly speak into his neck, letting your breath fan the thin blond hair on his nape, and rear back just enough to see them stand up. 

So we're gonna take the beginning of this song…

You scoot closer still, pointedly pressing your breast against his side, his hands gripping the steering wheel, a growing bulge straining against the fabric of his jeans. 

And do it easy…

You poke out your tongue, tracing the shell of his ear, nipping at his earlobe, as he draws in a sharp breath with a hissing sound, his grip on the wheel turning his knuckles white.

But then we're gonna do the finish rough… 

The last word comes out of your throat in a rumble, your hand quickly sliding over to his throbbing erection as you cup him through his pants, pressing down with the flat of your palm.

This is the way we do–

“Ok, that’s it!” he barks, and your laughter tinkles.

—

The truck is parked on a light slope where Benny steered it precipitously, on the side of the road, coming to a halt in the middle of nowhere, barely deep enough into the woods to hide it from view. You slide on the leather bench when you move your leg to straddle him where he came to meet you on the passenger’s side. Your leggings lie on the car floor in a rumpled heap next to your new hiking shoes, and you grasp the headrest to regain your balance. 

“You’re a fucking menace,” he pants, unbuckling his belt before raising his hips to slide down jeans and briefs in one hurried motion. He’s fully erect now and his smooth cock bobs against his clothed belly.

“I was only singing,” you object, giving the blond curls at his base an innocent little scratch before taking him in your hand.

He feels heavy and warm between your fingers, and you want to play with it a little, but he already ripped open the condom’s wrapping in his haste. You take it from him, with a breathless whisper of “lemmedoit”, and you push him against the seat back, pinning him under your gaze to make sure he looks at you when you lick a broad stripe into the flat of your palm, and give him a couple of hard, long strokes. 

“Fuck, woman, just let me inside you, already,” he exhales, his head lolling backward against the headrest. “When you gonna let me fuck you without a rubber, baby?”

You’ve only ever let one man do that, and it’s not something you want to be thinking about right now, so you shut him up, plunging forward and moulding your lips onto his, fisting him harder. He deepens the kiss immediately, licking inside you like a starved man, fucking your mouth with his tongue as he sits up straight and grips your ass, kneading your soft flesh. 

He pulls out to ask, “You wet for me, baby?”

“Huh huh,” you answer, nodding, chasing his lips, but he’s not done talking. Benny likes to talk. 

“Good girl,” he says through another cocky smile, “gonna fuck you fast and good.”

You’d have slapped Éric for calling you a “good girl”, instead you feel another rush of slick pooling down your core, trickling down your spread thighs, as he slides you back on his lap by the flesh of your bottom.

“Been wanting to rip them leggings off your ass since I picked you up this morning, you won’t be able to walk when I’m finished with you.”

You want to shoot back that it defeats the purpose, but he doesn’t let you, skating through your folds and sliding his rough fingers over your entrance, rewarding you for what he finds there with a broad smile. You jump lightly at the exquisite breach when he slides two digits inside you, a hand still loosely wrapped around his length, the one holding the condom lying limply on the car bench. 

“Fuck, listen to that,” he says at the squelching sounds of your wet pussy, as he roughly thrusts his fingers in and out, thinning your clit, his eyes darted down onto where he’s opening you for him. All you can manage is a lewd moan and a hooded look.

“Come on, baby, wrap me up and put me in,” he orders in his musical voice.

He’s still fucking you on his fingers, and you chase his hand a little longer, rocking shamelessly into it, before you finally comply and unroll the condom down on his length.

“Don’t tell my brother what we did in his truck.”

“Jesus fucking– what exactly do you think we talk about when we–”

You can’t finish your sentence, for he just knocked the air out of your lungs, shoving his cock inside your warmth all the way down, after swiftly withdrawing his fingers from your cunt, seizing your waist with one hand and lining himself up with the other. Benny moves surprisingly fast for a man of his size and his strength. Must be all that training for the fights.  

Your forehead drops against his, your head heavy and weak with the sudden spearing sensation. There’s been no nice, straight to rough, his feet are planted firmly on the car floor and he fucks up into you at a dizzying pace, holding you down on his cock with both hands around your waist, a nearly bruising grip, and for a moment there’s nothing you can do but take it. Thinking about how much you like that he’s always in such a hurry to give it to you. 

“Shit, that sweet pussy of yours,” he groans into your mouth, before kissing you again, and he makes it messy, bestial, licking into your mouth with unbridled hunger, it’s absolutely delicious, the way he devours you, always. Somehow your brain resurfaces and you brace a hand on his chest, tugging his hair harshly with the other. You know he likes it, when you pull, and scratch, and bite, and he groans with delight at the sting.

Fisting the fabric of his t-shirt, you shuffle your knees closer to him and start meeting him, rolling your hips in rhythm, fucking him right back, earning yourself a low and strained “fuck yeah” that reverberates in your stomach, the friction of the leather burning your skin.

His right hand skates around your curves to the cleft of your ass, and he tentatively presses there, but you shake your head no, and his voice is like sandpaper on wood when he asks, 

“When you gonna let me fuck that gorgeous ass, baby?”

You tug on his hair harder, then let go, cupping his chin and sliding two fingers in his mouth to silence him. When he responds with an unexpectedly soft suckle, your cunt clenches around him, and his eyes flutter shut, his head rolling back as he groans.

You bear down on him and grip him again, as tightly as you can, and his hips fall out of their rhythm, his fingers clutching your ass in a twitch. You make a mental note of it, so you can give it to him again, later, before biting his jaw for good measure. 

He puts all his strength into the following thrusts and a loud moan escapes you. You might not be able to walk once he’s done, after all. 

“Make me come, Benjamin, I don’t want anyone to walk on us.”

He gives your fingers a hard suck and releases them with the popping sound you’ve come to associate with him.

“Ok but I’m fucking you again as soon as we get there, from behind. And I’m coming on your ass.”

He slides down over the edge of the seat and place both his large hands back on your hips, grinding you back and forth on his cock, ruthlessly, like you weight nothing, your clit rubbing against his pelvis. He’s stroking deeper, harder, brushing against that spot that makes you lose it, the angle is mind-bending, your vision turns white and you brace your hand on the car’s window, your whining voice desperate when you try to warn him,

“Oh shit Benny, I’m gonna come, shit, gonna be loud, can’t hold it–”

“That’s right, baby, sing for me.”

****

Taglist (thank you 💕): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin

[binart]

Hey, absolutely LOVE your art and I enjoy seeing your comics! Small question, how long does it take for you to make one page? And what is your process?

thank you!!!

THANK U!!!!!!!

it's a decidedly long-ish process and i'M KIND OF WONDERING HOW I MANAGED TO CHURN OUT TWO PER WEEK FOR A WHILE... (it was bad for my mental health i think is how). some artists can do like THREE OR EVEN FOUR PER WEEK!! but i am slow and so it takes me like 4-5 days to make one dfkjhgfdkjg

anyway first step is thumbnailing! that's when you make a tiny comic page and map out where you will have the panels, and what you want in them. also very good to figure out where your text bubbles will be at this stage.

NEXT!! transferring the thumbnail to a regular comic canvas! i like to thumbnail on paper with pencil because i eRASE STUFF A LOT (paneling is hard and i'm still learning), so i take a picture of it and then paste it onto the canvas >w>

NEXT!!! rough sketch phase. the picture quality tends to be jank as hell b/c i'm lazy & refuse to take more than one picture EVEN IF IT'S BLURRY, so i go over everything with a VERY QUICK SKETCH to lay out the same ideas. then I go in with a vector tool to make the panels!!

NEXT!!! Sometimes skipped depending on the page, is any 3D background work if I feel like i need it! which is usually always, because my perspective skills are uh. LACKING. (aND YES IT'LL TAKE LONGER TO LEARN PROPERLY IF I RELY ON 3D TOOLS BUT I DON'T CARE!! I JUST WANT TO TELL STORIES RIGHT NOW!)

this also involves MAKING the 3-d structure which i try to do if i know the scene i want to make is in a moderately complex looking area. it takes.......... so long............................ 3D modelling is hard....

NEXT!! Actual Sketch. This is me figuring out what the characters will look like Proper instead of throwing vague blobs on the page. i have to turn my brain on a higher setting for this part so it's usually a harder step for me. i also like to finish the background lineart by this stage.

NEXT!!! THE DREADED PEOPLE LINEART........ hardest stage. VERY BORING. lack the attention span for this to not be a horrific slog. HAVE TO HAVE SOME FORM OF ENTERTAINING NOISE ON OR ELSE CAN'T COMPLETE.

NEXT!! FLAT COLORS AND SHADOWS! self explanatory! i usually do the background first since it's cooler to watch characters come to life on an already completed BG.

NEXT!!!! Text stuff. Drawing out proper text bubbles, adding in text, changing the colors of the bubbles to match the characters.. this is also where i attempt to add SFX if there are any, and this is extremely difficult for me for whatever reason. STILL LEARNING LMAO.. i also blur stuff if i'm trying to show like... depth at this stage. like making one character blurry so you know they're closer to the "camera" so to speak

NEXT!!!!!!! AND FINALLY!!!! THE BEST PART!!!! Gradients. MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER. FUN TO APPLY. PULLS THE ENTIRE PAGE TOGETHER.

....................hm that's actually quite an involved & difficult process. i am only now realizing that

HM.

[tuiyla]

https://at(.)tumblr(.)com/tuiyla/gleeful-paintbox-project-week-12-what-the-world/jeqd6uxsv0y0

this is such a fun gifset! <333 Could you please explain how you made it? Like where you found these images and textures, how you created this white outline around the characters, which font you used etc. I hope that's okay to ask.

Yes of course it's okay Anon, I love to help with giffing when I can. We're gonna go through the Santana gif but I'll share the layers of Kurt and Rachel too to demonstrate that it's the same principle. And of course if you have any further questions please do ask.

So my comic book-style gif making started with the set before this one, Kitty's Paintbox Comeback set that's more like my most recent Quinntana hallway fight one. I'm pointing that out because I unfortunately, shamefully, didn't link to the tutorial I had used with later ones but did there. @yuutta’s wonderful tutorial is the one I based them all on so check that out for the comic effect itself.

So, Snixx Attack:

First, we just have the first half that’s a pretty straight-forward gif with some adjustments and last-minute colouring:

Now, we need to cut out Santana from the last frame, where we want this pop-up sort of freeze-frame thing to happen. I used the pen tool to do the actual cutting. And actually, I was lying that the first thing we need is the proper gif part because you’ll want to prepare for this freeze-frame step before doing anything else. To make your life as easy as possible, select in advance what your last frame will be and duplicate that layer. Then, when converting to Smart Object, leave it out and just drag with the Smart Object itself. Like so:

On that second one you can see that I move the single frame to the very end so it just stays like that once the clip ends. We can then cut Santana out, or rather cut around her.

Once we cut our character out, we apply the “comic book” filters and play around until it looks good. In Photoshop, the filters look like this on my gif:

I usually just copy these as they are to new comic book gifs I make. The white outline you asked about is just a stroke applied to this cutout and then black and white and other adjustment layers are applied as they would be to other elements of gifs. Layer 4 copy is a duplicate of this (don’t let my lack of naming convention fool you) with a color overlay and nudged to the right.

As this set was inspired by this one, I kinda followed the example and nudged the main cutout a bit as well as making it a bit bigger. Compared to where Santana freezes on the original it looks like this:

And then I put on the color overlay layer as well, put a comic background behind it and do the text and its effects. We’ll get into those in a second, but broken down all these layers that appear at the end of the “normal” gif look like this when separated into three main parts:

For the red background, I just googled “comic book background” until I found the right one. Lots of googling involved when you see stuff like this in my sets. Same goes for the Rachel and Kurt backgrounds. This is the one I used for Santana, slightly adjusted for the gif:

I placed it so Santana was in the middle and the lines felt like they were “coming out of her”. And then it was the text and all its effects, arguably the hardest part.

The first element is a type of comic effect-thing, again found via google:

The devil horns and tail, again, googled, and placed on this new layer + with the bg:

The text itself was a lot of trial and error but it’s ultimately SF Comic Script Condensed with gradient, stroke and drop shadow effects. Or, well, with “just” those and some rise warp text applied it’d look like this:

I was looking into how to turn text into a 3D sort of effect in a simple way in Photoshop and probably struggled more than I should have. It’s been a while so I don’t fully remember, but basically there’s a duplicate layer under Snixx Attack nudged to the right to create that final look. IIRC it was duplicating and slightly moving the layer and then combining all duplicates into one, and applying the following effects:

To get this:

That bottom layer is a few nudge and duplications merged and with the effects above on. On its own, it doesn’t look appealing but with the OG text I’d like to think it achieves what vision I had in my had.

It’s a similar process with Rachel and Kurt, just different scenes of course and different logo/text. The hardest part was figuring everything out with Santana and then recreating the process two more times was quite fun, experimenting with different things. I won’t upload all the files used for those two but you get the idea, googling around and combining images.

With Kurt’s unicorn, again I googled “unicorn” and did some effects on the best png I could find

I know I sped through some things and apologies I’m only answering this now. Please let me know if I need to clarify anything. Ideally this would have been a better tutorial but lack of time and a need to let you know this was more than okay to ask prevailed. I hope it is helpful though and again, happy to answer further questions.

[darlingpwease]

Did u manage to get Jean?? I have her but I haven't played her yet

I've never been a big builder, but a friend of mine is and she's kinda inspired me to start :))

I plan on using Heizou with Bennett, Ayato and maybe Keqing (I might as well lol)

If I don't get scara, I'm hoping I can get al-haithem or dottore maybe :)) BUT– if/when scara baby gets a rerun I will gladly wish to my hearts content again <333

I wanted to make it short

I'm super glad it came out either way. be it short or long, I knew it'd be amazing (and low and behold, I was right!!)

I loved the way you used the colored text as well, I thought it was a lovely touch <33 /gen it came out really well!!!

I loved the gradient with Yuutas name as well, I thought those colors were super pretty :))

you're over-praising

Oh please, I don't think it was enough!! /t Such a lovely lovely Dove with such wonderful amazing talents!! /gen /pos

thank you so much for leaving me such pretty ideas,,,,,

Ahhh u don't gotta thank me :))) I plan on sending some more too after finals this week!! (Speaking of which, I truly hope u do well bubba, I'm cheerin u on!! :DD)

-panna cotta

yes <3 she's very cute and I loved using her e because it's funny enough.

i also like her new design, even if it was caused by censorship — maybe it's some kind of problem with my preferences, but I love well-dressed feminine person, especially when almost their entire body is covered;;; a good character should make you want to either hug them or undress them /hj /pos

ahhhh, when we talked, I wasn't inspired by the idea of building, — but now I've decided to finally take up them and try </3 even if it's these annoying mushrooms

I mean, it would be irrational not to use c2 keqing /t /pos

uhu, good luck with the building, lovely panna cotta!!! <3333

awww, you are ready for a new battle with banners, dear? <3

I'm glad scara came home, because I don't plan to touch them for the next few months; although I agree that they look tempting <3

I think my parental instincts have become stronger than my lusting ones. my tastes are irretrievably spoiled; tall, muscular people no longer interest me if they are not pale as a moth, do not have bags from fatigue under their eyes and do not look as if they are about to die or lose consciousness. I took the worst from Yuuta </3

you're still the same charming talker, dear~

no wonder you write so well, considering how good you are with words <3 but, honestly, it's amazing how such the lovely coquette can hide behind a quiet and introverted person, my my.

some people are really born with this gift of being cute, mm?

good luck to you, dear panna cotta!!! don't push yourself too hard and take care of yourself properly; don't forget about rest and sleep.

everything will end for me only at the beginning of february, so I will not switch to light mode soon, but I hope that they will be easy and good for you, lovely <3

[tryingtimi]

IQRUS INTRODUCTION. GENRE: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, Grimdark. CONTENT: Collegues to Lovers, Science vs Belief, Bittersweet Romance, Brother vs Brother, Cult Activity, Brothers-in-Arms for Life, Otherworldly Terrors, Madness, Underwater Monsters, Bullshit Science. SETTING: A flooded, doomed planet named Aetherius, where thechnology advanced onto a cyberpunk level and people live in the sky. STATUS: Outlining / Zero Drafting SNIPPET MASTERPOST

SYNOPSIS

No-one can remember when did the water devoured the surface entirely. At first, people might have thought it was just a simple tide, a harmless natural phenomenon. Until the expected low tide did not come and the water level rose to heights that human race could no longer control. In order to survive, they began to build towards the sky, while after the first monster attacks, their technological advancements needed to speed up as well. Generations passed by since and humanity has reached its limits once again. Only this time, there’s no chance to stretch farther anyway. In a world like this, the almost middle-aged Adran strives to serve the people as a veteran member of the Deep Corps, whom duty is submerging into the mutagenetic water and searching for still eatable food stocks in long sunken places. His younger brother, Dane, doesn’t want to serve people, however. He wants to save them, by creating a world free of monsters, mutations and tides. This contrast in goals cannot ruin the two brother’s strong relationship so easily, but the terrors they find on their separated journeys might be capable of breaking bonds.

LOCATIONS - IMPORTANT ASPECTS

EVEROCEAN ― A mysteriously started phenomenon that resulted in flooding the entire world. People figured out early, if they touch the liquid, a strange mutation begins to change their body and slowly their mind as well. Soon after the first city had sunken, the severity of the situation increased, when grotesque looking monsters showed up in the water in sizes people have never seen before. Modern theories guesses this may be the reason why the first sufferers named the ever-rising water Everocean. Nowdays, many generations after the beginning of the flooding, both the phenomenon and the monsters are common things in aetherian life. RISING ― The tide that comes slowly and unpredictably. IONERA ― Main location. Many country took place here before the flooding. Now, they all merged together, so they can fit onto the Astin Tower's platforms and remain safe from the Everocean. These platforms serve as separetad sectors, where people live under various circumstances.

DEEP CORPS ―A special organization which was founded by the Astin Corp. when the non-mutagenetic food supplies began to radically decrease. Most of the food is seafood, so they needed to develop a method to make it eatable and clean again. However, this project still hasn't been finished, therefore The Corp. collects volunteers year by year and train them to face what the Everocean has store for them, while they gather supplies from sunken cities. They also tasked to take samples and study what is underwater so every unit has at least one proficent scientist among them. ASTIN CORPORATION AND GOVERNMENT ―The savior of humanity. It's founder, Lero Astin was the first one to act, when the flooding came and with his innovative development in science and technology they could build the Astin Tower to shelter people from the water. He created a new system and helped people to adapt to it. He brought order into chaos. Since then, The Corp. became everything, including the leading facility.

CHARACTERS

ADRAN COHREN. A soldier, a brother, a believer. After their parent's early death, he manages to balance life between raising little Dane alone and finish his training to become the youngest member of the Deep Corps. Many years later, he still doesn't go on a misson without thanking the Almighty for giving him hope and strenght to continue working on a brighter future for the people of Ionera, but most importantly, for his little brother. pinterest | playlist DANE COHREN. A researcher, a soon-to-be delegate, a racionalist. While he is very grateful for his brother, he also dismisses his ideals of blind faith. He grew up to be a man of reason and it helps him achieve his goals; even if the most defining event of his life is something that cannot be reasoned. pinterest | playlist AUVA KNOX. An eccentric personality who will tasked to be Dane's supervisor and teacher, until he learns how the Caelus Sector and the Divum Council works. pinterest | playlist ERAN KODYN. One of Adran's brother-in-arms. A young member of the Deep Corps and a senior of Dane from university. Eran might not be the best fighter considering his much less training in combat, but he doesn't actually need to be, since he is the brain of their unit. He's close to Adran, and he might be the closest friend to Dane too. pinterest | playlist THADDEUS HOLTZ. Adran's another comrade. He is the muscle of the unit, but that doesn't mean he stays behind on an intellectual level. He's a father of two with a simple desire to live another day and make a better future for his kids. When Adran needs advice, Thaddeus is the one he goes to. pinterest | playlist ZEV. A trashmech who makes prosthetics from junk. While this "profession" is a common thing in the Aquor Sector (considering the high mutation rate), not much people are as good as Zev. He has a close relationship with the brothers since childhood, because he helped to make Dane's prosthetic too. pinterest | playlist ICHARO ASTIN. The direct descendant of Lero Astin. He's the current head of the Divum Council and the man that follows a strange aspect of the Astin family: never shows up in person, only in holographic form. He lives at the top of the Tower. pinterest | playlist

AUTHOR'S NOTE | TAGS

This post will be expanded and/or edited as I go because I'm still working on a lot of stuff and I'm big on changing things while writing the first darft heh. Eiher way, here we go finally! Links and tags will be added slowly too! TAGS. snippets | worldbuilding | moodboards | character dynamics | nymar | tunes | Dava ship

Thank you so much for stopping by and checking it out! ♡

TAG LIST: @bloodlessheirbyjacques, @jess-p-edits, @circa-specturgia, @moonscribbler, @blind-the-winds, @odysseywritings, @the-void-writes, @dyrewrites

[wackywheel]

c!connor fic rec masterpost!

[img id.] a row of melon blocks, filtered with a gradient of pale purple, blue, and green so that they look pastel. in the bottom left, text reads, “please read these fics they’re so good.” in the bottom right, a sign reads, “eat pant conar.” [end id.]

i talked about making one of these a while back and finally got around to combing thru the tags to compile fics for it so, yo! if you're a fan of c!connor, are looking to figure out how best to characterize him for your own works, just wanna read about him, or any combination of the former, you're in luck!

while the main criteria for stuff to make it on here is that it characterizes connor accurately, nearly all of these are also just fics that i personally like LOL so while i'll try to be as objective as i can for the sake of my fellow c!connor enjoyers, i must be entirely transparent w y'all that this is mostly just fics that i, personally, really like. ...which is technically the purpose of fic rec posts anyways, but i digress...

fics are below the readmore! ↴

ok the way ive ordered all of these is both in categories of.. sort of pseudo genres ? basically theyre just paired/grouped up according to their premise, as well as loosely chronological according to ao3's recently updated filter!

(also, fics with an *asterisk before them are ones that i personally am biased about bc of who wrote them LOL)

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"connor is a god" fics

basically, these fics primarily focus on the hc of connor being a god/immortal that was very popular back before we saw much of him, beyond his appearances in his two tales episodes! while i'm not a huuuge fan of this hc, nor do i really have much to say individually about each fic, i still wanna give these fics props for setting the bar very high when it comes to treating c!connor with respect, reverence, and most of all agency, especially so early on during the post-nov16th months!

There Are Answers Here by angeloncewas

the constant by diapason

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connor & some/all of benchtrio fics

exactly what it says on the tin, this group of fics focuses on connor's relationships with other characters, but primarily with one, more, or all of benchtrio!

Stray Italian Greyhound by akuli holy shit this fic is an absolute classic when it comes to early c!connor content... connor confronts glatt in a very unique way that, honestly? i've rarely seen depicted when it comes to the two interacting! following that, though, connor and tubbo sit down and talk about schlatt in a wholly honest and cathartic way.

*Here Comes the Sun by BeatrixGtheMaskedDogNoobsomeExagerjunk here it is! the first of many, many, of beatrix's fics i'm gonna rec to y'all! okay to be honest, clingyduo's inclusion in this fic is very very minor if we're gonna dig into semantics, but i otherwise had no idea where else to put this because of how genuinely unique it was for its time! (its time being pre-s2 finale) an indepth study of connor's hypothetical interactions with ghostbur here, flashbacks explaining schlatt's ties to the revive book there, this oneshot absolutely killed it, especially so early on in the lifespan of connor-centric works!

Ask No Guarantees by angeloncewas another connor & tubbo fic! there's an alternate reality where i became a devout c!tubbling i'm absolutely sure of it. to summarize it shortly, the two bond over their dead best friends! wahoo grief! there's also some very interesting discussion of in-universe religion which is always very fun imo!

*advice you’ve given other people that was really about yourself by antfrost ok here we go, first fic from beloved mutual connor timedeo lets go lets go character study of connor using conversations with benchtrio as a vehicle fuck YES sir this fic is great. i am an absolute sucker for character analysis, even when it's just little exchanges and acts of kindness from one hurt person to another (also in all honesty this fic was the one that made me change the section title to benchtrio instead of just tubbo/clingyduo LMAO)

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"connor showed up too late" fics

angst time bitches! despite how much c!connor's backstory is built upon angst, and how much i love the little guy, i'm honestly not a huge fan? anyways i fucking love these fics regardless so i think that must say something either about me or them. you decide

Brutus Is An Honorable Man by 2point5 if stray italian greyhound was a classic, then this fic is literally a loadbearing pillar of the c!connor fanbase. holy SHIT is she one iconic collection of words. the premise is pretty simple, connor shows up too late after getting a letter from schlatt asking him to come. he and quackity talk about schlatt. it does not go well. i cannot stress enough though. read this fic. like this is required reading this is canon its 100% canon cc!connor called me and said it is (lying) (theres just a lot of headcanons i like in it im biased) (not joking about the required reading part though)

People Die Every Day, I Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way by orojiratsu ...and if brutus is an honorable man was required reading, then this fic is extra credit! ...literally! as in it was actually inspired by the last fic! very similar premise, but the author gets much more into detail about the aftermath of nov16th, including tubbo's reaction to connor's past with schlatt, as well as lending connor a bit more agency when it comes to going toe to toe with quackity's reaction to schlatt's death.

Lay here with me until the years go by. by zrkk a very short oneshot, but really impactful all the same! one thing i really commend this oneshot for is that despite its length, the author manages to get connor's verbal reactions to schlatt's death nearly spot on. go give it a read!

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"connor reviving / rescuing schlatt" fics

yessssss we're getting into the good stuff, the struggles that end either happily or bittersweetly all the same. these are fics that i constantly find myself rereading when i'm missing c!connor, and cannot reccomend literally all of them enough!

*The Friends We Refuse to Abandon by BeatrixGtheMaskedDogNoobsomeExagerjunk ok this is what i meant before by many of beatrix's fics lol this fic is like. another one that's literally required reading if u like c!connor bc it has absolutely everything u could ask for. connor reviving and reuniting with his bestie? having agency in the narrative? helping people just for the sake of helping them? you name it, we got it here.

twenty thousand years of this by rosewitchx GOD this fic is so fucking iconic as well. i absolutely consider it required reading as well, bc both this one and the last one fill their niche incredibly well rosewitchx's writing and characterization of connor, as well as basically everyone else they write from what ive seen, is incredibly well researched and true to their characters, so this is definitely not the last fic of theirs im going to be reccing on this post lol similar premise to tfwrta, except connor wasn't the one to revive schlatt. regardless, he's still given the assertiveness and narrative agency when rescuing schlatt that makes this fic super cathartic to reread if you're craving that sort of thing! (also, this specific fic is from a series of the author's that explains certain headcanons much better than if you were to just read the fic in isolation. go give it a read over here!)

I'm Tired by Anonymous another short read, but still a very good one! props to anon! this fic emphasizes the 'bittersweet' point i made in this section's intro. schlatt has been revived, and he and connor have reunited, but at what cost of his own physical health?

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smplive-era connor fics

yessss fuck yes fuck YEESSS you people are NOT immune to me making you remember not only smplive, but that its CANON baybee its 100% CANON TO DSMP LETS GOOOOOOOOOOO

*Far In Time (we've got some catching up to do!) by connor6Silly wait hold on

*What Will Happen Will Happen by connor6Silly wait fuck these are literally all just my fics

bro did all of the good c!connor smplive fics all get purged or something ??? i literally cant find any that i like, let alone think characterized connor well bc they all do him so fucking dirtyyyy y'all its awful 😭 so uhh in lieu of that .. read my fics? pretty please? i have a whole promo post for the first one here if u wanna learn more :)

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syndicate/karl oriented connor fics

ok so if y'all know me, you know im a sucker for literally all of connor's relationships on the server that we never see actually explored canonically (s&c im talking about s&c) so to balance that out, here's his friendships that are like. actually fucking real! and tangible!

*THIS IS A PROTEST FOR YOUR HEART! by antfrost yessss another one of connor timedeo's fics this is sorrrt?? of?? an au? one where everything went a-okay on nov28th, and everyone in the syndicate is happy and alive and glad to be able to spend time together. connor especially! bc he has lots of people that are there to care for him now! very short, sweet, and fluffy!

*The Planet With a Thousand Sunsets by BeatrixGtheMaskedDogNoobsomeExagerjunk another beatrix fic!!! and GOD this one is a lot of fun, as well as a companion fic to tfwrta! this fic goes all in on connor and karls friendship, framing it as if it were an actual tales episode with a cast list and everything! as of me making this post (5/22/22) the fic is not complete, so if y'all want to read more of it, i'd really suggest commenting and sharing what you liked about it! (but Do Not pester beatrix about if/when shes going to complete it bc if i hear that shits happening y'all will have hell to pay >:(((( )

*all the broken can find hope (in the most unexpected places) by BeatrixGtheMaskedDogNoobsomeExagerjunk last fic of beatrix's, as well as another syndicate fic! yipee! now, technically this fic might be better suited to go into the final section of this post, but connor's inclusion is not only accurate enough, but also the setting is very much relevant enough for it to slide into here by means of relating to the syndicate. connor's role in this fic is mostly by means of an exploration of his friendship with schlatt, juxtaposing it with emeraldduo's own close bond. two bad bitches (close friendships that came long before the dsmp ever did) kicking ass together instead of fighting one another for relevancy you love to see it <3

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connor-centric au fics

so technically most of these fics could technically be classified as aus, but thats sort of just the state we're in when it comes to actual canonical content of c!connor. Anyways! here's some straight up 100% aus that very much are either in entire other settings, or diverge early on enough in the timeline that the result is completely unrecognizable from what actually happened in canon

god of arepo (series) by rosewitchx this next rosewitchx fic... isn't technically a fic, but a series! the god of arepo series is very much a product of its time (post-exile, pre-doomsday) but it's still 100% a classic in my eyes basically, this au shows the product of the world being entirely claimed by the egg, and how connor, with ghost sweaterduo in tow, deals with the aftermath. again, very much a product of its time, but i think that makes its state as a sort of fandom-time-capsule all the more appealing <3 break the cycle in half by rosewitchx holy shit this au is an absolute trip in the best way possible??? i've never consumed any of the madoka magica franchise, but you don't really even need to do that to understand the fic tbh after losing all of their loved ones to an unavoidable, inevitable disaster, connor and karl both become magical boys in order to go back in time and save those they lost or die trying

*and the universe said i love you by antfrost if i had a nickel for every c!connor centric meguca au there was on ao3, i would have exactly 2. which isn't a lot, but it's really funny that it's happened twice now! beloved mutual connor timedeo's take on the au is similar, yet still entirely unique on its own! after schlatt gets got during a mission, connor makes his wish to be a magical boy in order to save him. he does not know what he's getting into, to say the least </3

panacea by rosewitchx YESSSSSSS I GET TO TALK ABOUT THIS FIC again, technically it could be classified in the next section of this post, but i feel like the amount of canon divergence it features definitely earns it its place here! while the fic's actual author's notes give a better description of its context, i'll give y'all this quick synopsis- quackity figures out how to revive schlatt right after nov16th, but he comes back... a little different than he left the first time. thus, hijinks ensue.

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fics that aren't fully connor-centric, but still characterize him accurately enough that i'm reccing them

again, exactly what it says on the tin; these fics really don't focus too much on c!connor, so i won't go into much depth about them, but his cameos still pass with flying colors imo, so i'd absolutely reccomend em!

the definition of a dwarf planet by WreakingHavok a short and sweet pre-nov16th sweaterduo fic that recontextualizes a lot of their interactions with smplive as a focal point

when i’d make you oh-so afraid by rosewitchx charlie and connor, but the former especially, both grapple with schlatt’s death and how they feel about it.

I never, never want to go home by rosewitchx a look back at l’manberg, set a year since the 16th.

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aaaand there you have it, folks! a collection of the best of the best when it comes to c!connor! if y’all have other fics you really enjoy centering on mr eatspants, please feel free to send them to me in an ask! i’m sure there’s still just a little bit of gold hiding out in the swathes of badly mistagged fics that are flooding connor’s main tag atm -_-

but yes! i’ll probably update this within the next few months if any new, notable c!connor fics pop up, so keep an eye out!

[anya-chalotra]

idk how to explain, but how do you make gradient text but in reverse colors with exclusion effect?

You explained it fine! I’m going off the assumption that you mean something like these:

I actually go for Difference instead of Exclusion. They do very, very similar things, so much so that I’d go so far as to say they’re near-identical, but if you play around with blending modes enough and compare those two in particular, you’ll find that Exclusion produces a lower contrast than Difference. But we’ll be working with white base text here—they’re actually-identical where white is concerned—so you’re welcome to pick whichever.

Once you have your font/s picked out and know where you want to place your text, set it to Difference (or Exclusion) so that it looks something like this:

From there, it’s pretty much verbatim what I talked about in my original gradient text tutorial. We’re still going to double click on our text layer, then click on the Gradient Overlay tab of the Layer Style window that pops up, keeping in mind that we should pick colors that complement the gif and/or the overall set.

The only difference here is that we’ll also be playing around with the blending mode of the Gradient Overlay. The blending modes I tend to stick with are Linear Burn, Color Burn, Multiply, and Hard Light, but I’ve used Vivid Light and Linear Light as well.

This was my final product after setting my gradient to Multiply:

What blending mode you use is up to you, yes, but it ultimately depends on the background behind your text. Because of how both Difference and Exclusion work, some areas of your text can be harder to read, gradient or no. I recommend having your Layer Style window just a little to the side of your gif so that you can see for yourself what the different options (and colors, too!) look like as you scroll through them.

As an example: I didn’t like how light the middle of my text looked here, so I ended up deciding on a darker green for my gradient.

[chinzhilla-main]

Can I pretty pls ask you the name of the font you used in the Nick x Charlie “I wonder if he got the g or the b” gifset and how you do the colorful effect inside the font?

hi, yes of course!! the font is called Glamour Brush which you can get here

as for the second question, i am the WORST about saving psds (apparently i saved all the colorings for this set but not the typography 🤦) so i can't tell you with 100% certainty exactly how i did it, but i can tell you how i think i did it based on how i normally get this kind of effect and what i ended up with in trying to recreate it

the rest is under the cut! (the gifset in question)

fyi: i'm using photoshop cc 2019 on windows. also i apologize in advance for my tendency to over-explain

so the basics of what i'm about to explain are an easy way to make pretty much any text look nice. i start by typing out the text in white and setting the blending mode to difference. now if you click on the fx symbol at the bottom of your layer tab group, you'll pull up the style options. what we're interested in here is gradient overlay

the style menu looks like this:

you can see i already have my gradient loaded up there, but if you click on the gradient you can play around with the colors until you settle on something you like. the main thing here is the blending mode. if you leave it on normal it's just going to replace your white text with the gradient, which can look nice but it's not what we're going for. i normally use hard light, linear light, or sometimes color. just play around with it till you find one you like. again, i can't be positive, but i'm like 95% sure i used linear light for this one, so it looks something like this at this stage:

then i also add a drop shadow to make the text pop more (this is done in the same menu we used to apply the gradient, you can see it at the end of the list on the left of that screenshot). you also want to do any distortion/rotation/resizing at this stage cause we'll be using the text to create layer masks in a second.

so this is what i have now:

and i could just leave it here but i don't like how dark the dark parts are, so i'm gonna try and fix that. there's no set way to do this so, as always, just play around with it till you land on something you like.

anyways, first i hold down the ctrl key and click on the T icon on my text layer, which will select the text pixels:

now any adjustment layer i create will be masked to the text (just make sure you drag it under the text layer). i ended up using both brightness/contrast and curves to get a look i was happy with:

remember that since the text blending mode is difference, in order to make it lighter we actually need to make the image underneath it darker, hence these settings ^

and that's basically it! for the final touch i duplicated the text layer, set the fill level to 0 (this is like opacity but does not affect the layer style), and added an outer glow. then i nudged that layer down and to the right a few pixels so it was slightly offset.

and here's the finished product that i made for this tutorial along with the original! not an exact match but i think i got pretty close:

ps: because the lighting on all the gifs in that set is really different, i definitely didn't use the same blending mode for the gradient overlay or the same adjustment layers for each one. just something to keep in mind!

and as always let me know if i need to clarify anything or if anyone has any more questions!!

[thesnowflake18]

⭐Commission Info!⭐

Current status: OPEN!

Art portfolio here

Carrd version here

More important info down below!!

✅Will Do✅

Ships

OCs

AUs (most of them)

Other fandoms

Crossovers (w/some exceptions)

🚫Will NOT Do🚫

Gore

Inc*st/P*dophilia

Mecha

NSFW/Suggestive content

Ridiculously complicated designs

⭐ I can refuse to draw anything I find uncomfortable or too complicated.

⭐ PLEASE have all commission details ready, like color palettes, any text, pose/OC references, clothing/hair details, etc

⭐ Payment with Amazon or MasterCard eGift cards (USD Currency)! Links below!

⭐ Se habla español! Contactame para más información!

💸Prices!💰

⭐ All prices are with USD currency in mind!

1 X 1 Icon

Flat Color: $10

Full Color: $12

1200 X 1200px // Head, bust, or waist up // Simple or lightly decorated background (1 color, gradient, shape/patterns)

Sketch

Bust: $10

Waist up: $12

Full body: $15

Up to 1800px X 1800px // Semi-rough line art // Can be black & white or grey scale // Simple/lightly decorated background

Flat Color

Bust: $15

Waist up: $20

Full Body: $25

Up to 1800px X 1800px // Clean line // Simple/lightly decorated background

Full Color

Bust: $30

Waist up: $35

Full body: $40

Up to 1800px X 1800px // Clean line // Full shading and lighting // Simple/lightly decorated background

✨Bonuses✨

Visual effects (glitch, blur, noise, etc)-$3

Bigger canvas-$3

Extra character- 20% of base price, up to 4

Highly detailed background- $5

→Disclaimer: Buildings are a hit or miss but I can find fixes often. 👍

🌟Extra Info🌟

Can I ask for updates?

Yes, as many as you'd like, at any appropriate time if my day! (10am-10pm Central Time) I'll also give important updates myself :)

Where can I contact you?

Tumblr DMs

Discord: ☆*.° Snow°.*☆#4988

Twitter DMs: @ TheSnowflake_18

Email: thesnowflake18@gmail.com

When can I expect my commission?

The wait time per piece should be no longer than two weeks. If I have an emergency, I'll let you know so you can remove your request.

How will I receive the commission?

I'd like to send the file through email or Google Drive to ensure the quality! If you prefer it being sent another way please let me know!

And the final thing...

💰Payment Process!💰

I'll be taking Amazon eGift Card and/or a mastercard! Links to both are below, you choose the gift card you'd like!

I'll send a version of the finished piece with watermarks, and will expect a full payment before sending the original! (Testing this out!)

💕Thank You!💕

Thank you for your generosity ❤🙏

Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this entire post!! If you do decide to commission me, I will gladly appreciate it as it will help me afford some things I've been needing. You can DM me for any other questions.

[clouddd-hannn]

Fauna and Byrn Part 2

COUPLE: Park Seonghwa x M!Reader

GENRE: Fluff, Angst

SUMMARY: You were playing a game. A 5V5 MOBA where you play as a mage. You were a great mage and your hero was a female mage named Fauna who was engaged to a marksman named Byrn.

------

[Cutieeplay]

:i want to tell you something but i want to tell you in person

[Dragonmars]

:Wait, what? You're agreeing to meet me?

:Cutiee, no. If you feel uncomfortable, I'm fine with not meeting up.

:You don't have to do anything. Just sit there, play, and look pretty.

[Cutieeplayy]

:please? just meet me this afternoon at miraculous café

[Dragonmars]

:Oh? Alright but I still haven't seen you yet

:How willI know?

[Cutieeplayy]

:text my number

:[random number]

:tell me when you are there already and tell me what you're wearing

:bye

-----

Dragonmars, whose true name was Seonghwa, was more than happy that he can now finally see the girl behind the great skills of who plays his baby Fauna. That afternoon, Seonghwa arrived at Bistro Café

-----

Me

:I've arrived already

:You here?

baby❤️

:yep

:what do you expect of me?

Me

:A pretty cute girl with long black hair, I guess? Usually, players pick their characters based on their appearance so I based you on Fauna

baby❤️

:so, i'm guessing you look like byrn?

Me

:Maybe

:Maybe not

baby❤️

:what you wearing?

Me

:A blue to dark blue gradient hoodie

and faded blue jeans

baby❤️

:alright.

:i'll order for you. go wait at a table and don't look at the counter

Me

:There's a lot of people here and I barely even know you

:I don't mind having a caramel frappucino

baby❤️

:you'll see

-----

Later, when you were finished ordering at the counter, you  scanned the whole place to look for Dragonmars and there he was, sitting alone on a table with his back turned. You huffed out a breathe before you walked as slowly as you could towards the person. You knocked on the table and the boy looked up with a surprised expression. You smiled and looked down at the male.

"Is someone with you?" You asked with a playful grin.

Seonghwa just looked at your figure then shook his head. But before he could finally realize what he answered, you already sat down in front of him. "I'm sorry but I'm waiting for someone."

"Hm? Really? Is it a girl?" You asked with an excited smile. Jeez, you'll be hurting yourself if he says 'yes'.

"Yes," Seonghwa answered and could see your doe-like (E/C) eyes droop down before smiling again. He wanted to ask you  what was wrong but he decided not to.

"Is that so? Not a boy?" You asked as you raised your eyebrows up and down suggestively at Seonghwa who just scoffed and smirked at you as a reply which in turn made you slightly frown.

"No. I'm not..gay..." Seonghwa answered in a whisper, albeit hesitant.

You choked on your saliva so you just asked Seonghwa what first came to mind. "What's your name? I'm M/N," you introduced yourself as you offered a hand towards the cold male. Was he usually this cold? Or is it because I'm a male? This was a stupid idea.

Seonghwa ignored you, making you smile in anger as you retracted your hand from him. He looked at his phone then secretly looked at the counter, seeing one boy and three girls in the line. She must be one of those girls. Seonghwa thought to himself with a smile before looking back at you with a judging frown. Jeez, really? You thought as you smiled back. Can't he be at least subtle? How he's annoyed at me shows easily.

"I'm Seonghwa. If you're planning to ask me out, I don't swing that way," Seonghwa answered blatantly as he squinted his eyes on you before going back to ignoring you.

You smiled sadly then nodded. "I guess so."

"An order from M/N?" The girl by the counter said, making you look at the counter. You smiled and got up from the seat you were sitting at, hearing Seonghwa sigh in satisfaction. Oh no, what should I do now? He's not gay. Abort. Abort. Abort. Should I still give him the drink? I mean, it was a waste of my money. Shit! I don't know!

You grabbed both drinks and made your way back to Seonghwa who had his back turned against you. You took a deep breath before hurriedly placing the Caramel Frappuccino in front of Seonghwa who just looked at it. "Enjoy."

The said male looked up and saw your retreating figure. Seonghwa just raised a brow as he took the frappuccino and opted to throw it away, until he remembered. He texted Cutieeplayy his order, which means you were Cutieeplayy?

Seonghwa widened his eyes in shock and exited the café, the frappuccino, still in hand. He looked for you, but you were already nowhere to be found.

That same day, during night time, you buried your face in your pillws and groaned on your pillows loudly. "Ugh. I'm such an egghead," you shouted as you got up and punched your lifeless yet innocent pillows. "Stupid, stupid. Just when I thought it was finally time for me."

To fight off the stress, you decided to play the game, forgetting about the whole Dragonmars situation.

So, when you entered the game, you saw a chat popup.

-----

[Dragonmars]

:You're M/N, aren't you?

-----

Oh fuck. No

-----

[Cutieeplayy]

:who's that?

[Dragonmars]

:Oh really? That wasn't you?

:I'm glad.

-----

You felt your heart break into pieces at that reply.

-----

[Dragonmars]

:I kind of wore my favorite hoodie since it was my fave color

[Cutieeplayy]

:oh

:is blue your favorite color?

[Dragonmars]

:SEEE

:I KNEW IT

[Cutieeplayy]

:anyone, could've seen you, you dimwit

[Dragonmars]

:But you're the only one who knows about certain things

[Cutieeplayy]

:so what? hate me all you want

:i don't care

-----

The next few days, you had only been playing solo and decided to take a break from playing that game, not wanting to be somehow in contact with Seonghwa.

A certain day, you just finished doing your reports so you went downstairs to get yourself a glass of water. "I should probably buy pizza for dinner. I'm hungry," you muttered to yourself as you dialed your favorite pizza parlor, ordering your usual pizza.

After you were done, you were suddenly notified that someone had texted you. What? That fast? You thought as you picked up your phone and saw that it wasn't the pizza shop but, Seonghwa. Jeez, did I forget to block his number? Rolling your eyes, you checked the messages.

-----

Dragonmars number

:M/N?

:You there?

:Wanna play a match?

:I miss seeing your Fauna skills

ㄱㄱㄱ

:Yoohoo! Anyone home?

-----

With a sigh, you rolled your eyes and replied.

-----

Me

:leave me alone

-----

You locked your phone before moving to your living room and throwing it on the beanbag, slumping your whole body on the couch as well as you screamed out your frustration. The only reason why you weren't communicating with Seonghwa was because you were embarrassed and that he was straight. You made a fool of yourself.

After how many seconds cringing at yourself, you decided to turn the television on to watch some cartoons while you were waiting for your pizza to arrive. But since none if it were your favorite, you decided to turn it off and play the MOBA game on your phone, doing all means to avoid Seonghwa.

Pressing the 'Match up' button, you checked to see if your battery was still good enough for at least 6 rounds. Luckily, it still was. Minutes later, while you were playing, your doorbell went off. "Who is it?"

"Pizza delivery," the guy said. You cursed at yourself for forgetting about your pizza, so you stood up as you went back to the base(referring to the game) and got your money before placing it on top of your kitchen counter.

Then, you went back to the living room, opened the door for the man while still looking at your phone. "Place the pizza by the kitchen counter top, please. The money's also there so just go there after. Thank you, tip's also there," you said as you smiled, eyes focused on your phone as you went back to your couch, sitting down.

You were just sitting there by yourself, not realizing that the delivery man hadn't actually moved. So, you sat there, playing your game to victory. When you were finally done, you shouted a 'hooray' and did a little celebratory dance, muttering, "Oh yeah, oh yeah! Take that, losers!"

"Is that what you do whenever we win a match together?"

You jumped at the sudden voice and immediately went to attack mode, as if you were a black belter. You looked at the man and saw that familiar blue gradient hoodie, hidden underneath a pizza uniform vest. Even with the hat on, you weren't mistaken. This man is Seonghwa.

"Y-You..what are you doing here?" You asked as you pointed at Seonghwa who raised the pizza and smiled. "You're the delivery guy? You weren't...this doesn't explain anything!"

"Well, my friend was the original delivery guy but he wanted me to cover up for him since his boyfriend was sick," Seonghwa said as he entered the place, making you glare at him. "What? You told me to place it on the kitchen counter."

"Well, that was when I didn't know it was you," you retorted with a blush as you crossed your arms with a small frown.

"Why are you mad at me, M/N?"

"I'm not. I'm just...embarrassed, okay? I was hitting on a person who was straight and you didn't even know I was a guy. It was dumb of me to let you assume I was a girl when I should've told you since day one," you admitted as you rubbed your arm in shame. "Sorry, Seonghwa."

"Don't be. Sorry about what I said earlier. I was just scared that people might hate me and judge me for being gay—" Seonghwa started yet you interrupted him.

"But weren't you the one who said that a person doesn't love you truly if they're embarrassed at you? With just that, deosn't that mean you're scared to be out in the piblic?" You asked as you watched him place the pizza down.

"No, no. I...okay. I was just scared and I got nervous," Seonghwa stated as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Don't pity me—"

"I'm not. Really. I'm sorry if I was rude to you or if I made you very hurt at some point. I know what I did was unforgivable but I'll still apologize for what I said," Seonghwa apologized as he looked into your eyes.

"Well, wouldn't that be much of a hassle when you're finally hanging out with a gay person like me?" You stated, hurt laced in your voice, making Seonghwa panic.

"No! What I meant was that, I didn't want them, well, too...I just wanted to be sure before things happened and then..I..." Seonghwa trailed off as he rubbed his nape.

You just shook your head as you closed the front door and sat down on your couch with a huff. "Sit down. Let's play a match together."

"With me?"

"Duh! Hurry. Don't make me change my mind," you chuckled as he loaded his game. Seonghwa smiled as he sat beside you, messaging his other co-worker that he can't come back. Poor guy. The motorcycle was with Seonghwa. Guess he has to use the delivery car then.

You were getting uncomfortable in your position, which the other noticed, so Seonghwa placed you on top of his lap, hugging you from behind as he placed his chin on top of your shoulder, his hands busy on his own phone. You just stared at him in shock as you blushed. "Careful, M/N. If you keep staring, you'll die."

"As if that'll happen. When I got you."

[screampied]

omg thank youuuuuu so much babes 🥺❤️ and yes please (to the tutorial for phone) I'll be forever grateful 🙇‍♀️ and no worries about responding to this you can get back to me whenever you have time <3333

hellooo i’m back bae i got you 🙆‍♀️💖 okay, so for the mobile method i use this website to change colors !! i’ll show how to do it step by step xo

so it first starts off w three steps !! as u can see at the top, you’re going to want to import wtv text u want. so do that -> then ur gonna choose the color effects u want.

there’s multiple color effects.

horizontal, middle gradient, solid, random, or rainbow

personally, i always use middle gradient for a pretty mixture of colors. solid is just for one specific color, random (random lmao) rainbow, a pretty rainbow of every color — horizontal is sorta like middle gradient so you can choose that or middle gradient if u want !!

ignore step four.

so for this portion, is where u copy ‘n paste it to ur tumblr !!!! make sure u copy from the HTML code and not the BBcode . . also, make sure u copy the entire thing — front to bottom bc it’s a lot of code that has to register in order for it to fully work.

now u wanna open tumblr on the website version on ur safari / google / wtv site u can use to access. ( not the app version bc it won’t work that way )

create a new draft now -> and click to where it arrowed, the tiny lil settings icon thingy

once you’re there, look down to where it says text editor and switch it to HTML

close out of that section, then go to the html setting where it displayed here -> then create a space above the current empty text and that’s where you’ll import your code !!! ( the blue line is an example of where u should put it here

this should be da final result !! hope this helps 🙉