#I would like so much to do the swirlies.... and learning how to do something mildy lineless

[sanjisblackasswife]

DON'T tell me you too hc Shanks as the shameless pervert??!! Like the type that's very comfortable with sex and very experienced DILF lmao 😭

Corruption kink?? I thought it was obvious 🙄

That guy could talk about the nastiest kink the same way he talks about the groceries 😩 "...and then she nearly passed out! Haha, I think it's cuz she had all her holes-" "SHANKS-!! OMG- YOU CAN'T JUST SAY THAT-!!" but you low-key love it when he does

😭😭😩😩

A/N: YKW…. if you don’t mind imma use your amazing response to blast Shanks kinks because why not Ahahah

Shanks Kinks/What Turns Him On (NSFW)

Black Fem Reader in Mind

CW: KINKS, It’s Pretty Short General List, I Believe He Has More, But These Scream “Shanks”💀

Kinks:

Corruption Kink: He will swear up and down that he doesn’t have one of you tell him, corruption? Absolutely not he loves women he would never—

Shanks loves seeing a pretty innocent thing like yourself not having a clue in the world how to please a man. He can get off on the thought alone of how embarrassed you’d be learning about taking his cock and not knowing how to handle it and so after one night of partying and charming he starts you off by having you face the mirror in his room, air making your nipples erect and naked on his clothed lap. “There you go…ah ah keep looking in the mirror for me.” He guides your hand to rub your clit teaching you how to touch yourself, “It’s okay you can cum…” You whine and grind your hips on his and your own hand. It won’t be long until he shows you how to properly use your mouth. Knowing he took something so important and sacred is a form of ownership that he gets riled up of feeling.

Exhibitionism: Shanks has little to any care about the consequences of ignorant decisions. He could care less.

He totally doesn’t mind a show as long as said person doesn’t get too close. There are plenty of times Shanks didn’t have time to take a woman back to the ship or the hotel and just did a quickie in a bar hallway or an alleyway. Ironically he still haven’t been caught.

Dirty Talk: If he is feeling sweet he will describe what he is going to do to you, but if he is feeling like a little brat he won’t be above making you describe to him what you want him to do—

“Yeah? And then what?” You’ve been on the edge for what seems hours with his fingers and tongue switching places in your aching cunt. Your legs were embarrassingly spread open because he tied them up at the end of the bed posts. He constantly swirlied the tip of his wet muscle on your clit, driving you mad, you could have just grabbed his head to shove his entire mouth inside you, but you knew better than to disobey Shanks. “Then….I—ah! Want you…” “Want me to what, darling? Hold you? Feed you?—“ “Fuck me, Shanks! I want you to fuck me with you cock please!!”

Breeding: I mean is this even—-hello..he’s a certified dilf.

Ironically he does try to practice safe sex when he used to screw random women on the grand line, but Shanks has no problem with fucking the woman he loves raw. When he is close your body is pulled in even closer, he’ll be damned if any of his seed is wasted. His arm pushes your pelvis higher into his, this is usually when he starts to make more noise grunts and cursing in your ear. He wants you to cum with him because the feeling of how you clench still sucking him and his cum in makes his mind go numb. Sometimes if any does drip out he’ll scoop it and finger it back in you regardless of the painful overstimulation. Because he hates to waste.

What Turns Him On:

Walking around naked: I mean it’s pretty obvious pretty much any man loves to see their woman naked, but when he is greeted with you in nothing, but your ass as you bend over the bed to grab something, he won’t think twice to fuck you right there with his cock out of his pants, too eager to get completely nude.

Teasing Him: He is the master at making you flustered. Even though it’s damn near impossible to make him blush even when he’s drunk, It’s just something about when you feel bold enough to say something back at him or even whisper in his ear how badly you need him that really perks up an honest smile and an honest hard on.

The Way You Moan His Name: He cannot get enough of it. It’s so soft, and breathless sometimes while he is in missionary with you he will groan in your ear “Say my name.” Repeatedly Sometimes you can use it to tease him in public to rile him up. Fair warning though, if he is in a slightly annoyed mood you’ll pay for it later.

#shanks x y/n #shanks x you #shanks headcanons #shanks imagine #shanks smut #Shanks x Black reader #Shanks x female reader #shanks one piece #one piece shanks

[saprophilous]

just letting you know that that ask you rb'd about glaze being a scam seems to be false/dubious. I think they're just misinterpreting "not as useful as we had hoped" and interpreted it maliciously, based on the replies?

not positive but yeah!

Ah yeah, I see people fairly expressing that being “debunked” as in, not a scam; I wasn’t personally particularly aligned to whether or not its “dubious origins” are true or not… so sorry about that.

From what I’ve read, I was more focused upon the consensus that it doesn’t work, and therefore isn’t worth the effort. So having a positive takeaway on glaze outside of its “scam or not status”, as potentially saving us from ai learning doesn’t seem useful to pass around.

Correct me if there’s better information out there but this from an old Reddit post a year back is why I didn’t continue looking into it as it made sense to my layman’s brain:

“lets briefly go over the idea behind GLAZE

computer vision doesn't work the same way as in the brain. They way we do this in computer vision is that we hook a bunch of matrix multiplications together to transform the input into some kind of output (very simplified). One of the consequences of this approach is that small changes over the entire input image can lead to large changes to the output.

It's this effect that GLAZE aims to use as an attack vector / defense mechanism. More specifically, GLAZE sets some kind of budget on how much it is allowed to change the input, and within that budget it then tries to find a change such that the embeddings created by the VAE that sits in front of the diffusion model look like embeddings of an image that come from a different style.

Okay, but how do we know what to change to make it look like a different style? for that they take the original image and use the img2img capabilities of SD itself to transform that image into something of another style. then we can compare the embeddings of both versions and try and alter the original image such that it's embeddings start looking like that of the style transferred version.

So what's wrong with it?

In order for GLAZE to be successful the perturbation it finds (the funny looking swirly pattern) has to be reasonably resistant against transformations. What the authors of GLAZE have tested against is jpeg compression, and adding Gaussian noise, and they found that jpeg compression was largely ineffective and adding Gaussian noise would degrade the artwork quicker than it would degrade the transfer effect of GLAZE. But that's a very limited set of attacks you can test against. It is not scale invariant, something that people making lora's usually do. e.g. they don't train on the 4K version of the image, at most on something that's around 720x720 or something. As per authors admission it might also not be crop invariant. There also seem to be denoising approaches that sufficiently destroy the pattern (the 16 lines of code).

As you've already noticed, GLAZING something can results in rather noticeable swirly patterns. This pattern becomes especially visible when you look at works that consist of a lot of flat shading or smooth gradients. This is not just a problem for the artist/viewer, this is also a fundamental problem for glaze. How the original image is supposed to look like is rather obvious in these cases, so you can fairly aggressively denoise without much loss of quality (might even end up looking better without all the patterns).

Some additional problems that GLAZE might run into: it very specifically targets the original VAE that comes with SD. The authors claim that their approach transfers well enough between some of the different VAEs you can find out in the wild, and that at least they were unsuccessful in training a good VAE that could resist their attack. But their reporting on these findings isn't very rigorous and lacks quite a bit of detail.

will it get better with updates?

Some artists belief that this is essentially a cat and mouse game and that GLAZE will simply need updates to make it better. This is a very optimistic and uninformed opinion made by people that lack the knowledge to make such claims. Some of the shortcomings outlined above aren't due to implementation details, but are much more intimately related with the techniques/math used to achieve these results. Even if this indeed was a cat and mouse game, you'll run into the issue that the artist is always the one that has to make the first move, and the adversary can save past attempt of the artists now broken work.

GLAZE is an interesting academic paper, but it's not going to be a part of the solution artists are looking for.”

[source]

#artist asks

[ganondoodle]

you know what i just saw some more of that weird ass reward for getting all shrines in totk, and tbh im still so

what is that?? there are no dog like sentient species in this version of hyrule?? the most is the sonau themselves but they got no tails??? i dont think anything in this hyrule has a tail like that? and sonau legs are pretty normalish human too areant they? they dont even have proper claws, just veguely longer fingernails- i guess there are the statues in the underground that kinda look like it (they dont got tails either tho do they??) but like ,,, theres nothing you can learn about them right? its never mentioned or even hinted at despite there being so goddamm much of the sonau still just up and functioning- their lil "material deposits" in the depths arent even withered beyond some plants growing on them, all their 'tech' (isnt it just .. magic tho? where the mechanism actually? its usually just some stone animated by green swirlies ... but ill mention that in another post) just runs perfectly like it was made yesterday

where does that thing come from?? and its supposed to the the HERO FROM THE TAPESTRY???? huh????? and its decked out in sonau clothing head to toe with clear gerudo refs too?? that so weird bc youd feel like there would have been some mention of this, especially considering that that thing is on the tapestry and impa(was it her? or purah?) RECOGNIZES ITS THE HERO FROM THE TAPESTRY???? like, CASUALLY even?? like a well known fact ?? did i miss some big lore part somewhere that talked about that dog gerudo sonau thing?? and if its on the tapestry that means it wasnt that long ago really (i mean ... all the sonau shit is still pretty much fully intact so arguing that they came and went in the time between totks past and botws past isnt that plausible either imo ..??) o how come you never see anything from that and yet its somehow completely known for them, and you cannot tell me she saw the abstract version of the hero and then looked at that armor and went thats the same bc two colors veguely matched or what?!! also given that its fully clothed in sonau stuff .. like the arms are literally raurus bracelets .. thingies, but then the sonau where supposedly a complete and unknown mystery until it suddendly came all raining from the sky and revealing its been there and EVERYWHERE the whole time apparently? with the most we knew was some flimsyly made stereotypical barbaric armor set in faron in botw? which i guess is also fully undone by totk since it shares absolutely zero in desing to the 'actual' sonau stuff we got in totk

and if it where some sort of descendant from the mix of kids rauru and sonai kinda .. must have had (unless they did away with zeldas bloodline stuff too .. which .. why even call it zelda anymore at this point lol) then again, where did those features come from (like the tail and red hair, the strange googly eyes? is there a mix of goron in there too??) and how was it then not documented or seen anywhere else?? youd imagine the mutant kids of the first tragically dead king and queen of this hyrule would be known in some way .. that is assuming it was that, but given the weird features no other species has still is ... it just doesnt add up

(i had the awful thoguht for a second that it might supposed to mean the gerudo came from that but .. the gerudo are already there LITERALLY the 1:1 same as in the present, just like all the other species ... which is also disappointing as hell, like seriously? not even different feather colors for the rito? literally the same clothing for the gerudo as in botw but white with golden stuff instead?? some vaguely different zora features? idk ? anything? also the hero would never be gerudo, we know only evil comes from that *explodes*)

if its supposed to be a mystery then they absolutely failed in making it any interesting or intriguing but still something that feels like its part of the world, like botw was very good at giving you mysteries you wanted to talk and theorize about that still felt organic, harmonic with the world, but in totk its all either boring answers or just ... completely out of nowhere and just kinda stumps you (in a bad way)

*sighs* yet antoher ramble rant, this game could have had it all, it was right there on the plate in front of them all they needed to do is grasp at it, why wouldnt you ..

totk will never not frustrate me huh ಠ_ಠ

#ganondoodles talks #zelda #totk #ganondoodles rants #i dont like it #its so????? #why even touch on that #you did all that to botws legacy and then cant even leave the tapestry alone?? #its not even a focus #like #what #you act like botw never happened but then insert this into the whole tapestry thing #its also just kinda boring #like look theres sth people wondered about QUICK make it sonau somehow and also raising more questions (in a bad way) #like theres good kinds of confusion but theres also bad ones and totk imo does it only bad #no thank you id rather forget that thing was ever mentioned in connection to the tapestry

[azure-firecracker]

ATLA Live Action Stream of Consciousness (Episode 5, Part 1):

This one’s gonna be 3 parts because I have many thoughts.

Best episode title so far!

Katara’s done some powering up we love to see it! (I know people think it’s too fast but I think with how much we’ve seen her struggle it’s okay).

Okay this is the Winter Solstice two parter. Not one of my favorites from the OG actually so hopefully they do something new and interesting.

Aang being a little angsty. I think that’s good to show that he has layers but they shouldn’t overdo it (Netflix your track record sucks).

See this scene with Aang and Katara is one where I don’t mind her being quieter. I don’t even necessarily mind her being a little quieter in general as long as they make her…a character with agency. And let her be more than “sweet demure girl.”

Sokka being good with kids is cute and endearing.

When did Aang learn all about spirit stuff?

Snarky Zuko! Love to see it! And I’m glad they’re not making him too nice. Based on what I saw on Tumblr I thought he might be.

AZULA SCENE YAY YAY YAY!

She’s nailing the voice and the facial expressions.

LIZZY’S FACE WHEN OZAI GIVES HER THE SLIGHTEST PRAISE I CAN’T!!

AND NOW SHE’S GOING TO CRY!

This is an interesting take on how Ozai shaped Azula into the “perfect child” so to speak. It didn’t occur to me that he would use Zuko as a comparison or a threat, or that he would be putting her down like that. I always pictured it more as her being on this pedestal and knowing that everything would be lost if she fell off. That being said, this version is good too. I think it’s something that conceivably could have happened, presuming some stuff changes before she ends up where she is at the beginning of book 2. I like that they show her reaction so plainly. It makes sense that she’s more emotional here, because this is her learning to bury and hide those emotions since they’re so obviously her weakness. It’s clear that they want to make her a real character, and I’m glad for it. It’s also super clear that Ozai is using her, and I’m glad for that too.

Much less deep but the throne room set is gorgeous. I love that EVERYTHING is red.

Poor Aang really has the weight of the world on his shoulders. I think they were good to show this more than they could in the cartoon, but I feel like he hasn’t had a moment of levity in so long.

Oh they’re ALL in the spirit world that’s an interesting change.

I like the ethereal feel of the spirit world but the bright swirly lights are not good for my sensory sensitive self.

I love a good pub scene. This music they’re playing sounds like a sevdalinka which I also love!

Eyyy callbacks to side quests they had to cut!

Poor Zuko you’re so miserable.

JUNE HAS ME FLOORED SHE’S SO HOT WTF?!

Okay she is everything.

WHY IS WAN SHI TONG HERE?!

I’ve seen people ask what they’re gonna do in season 2 if they get one since they’ve used so many plotlines and here I’m inclined to agree. They can’t cut the Library episode.

This “truth showing” business reminds me of the swamp but I am okay with this. We REALLY need some character exploration.

#atla #natla #netflix atla #avatar the last airbender #atla stream of consciousness #katara #aang #sokka #zuko #azula #ozai #june atla #atla live action

[marshymoop]

Finally figured out the hairstyle I wanted to go for ! AAAA IT ONLY TOOK THE LAST WRINKLE OF MY BRAIN TO SACRIFICE ITSELF FOR THE CAUSE.

Also decided to pull the colors from an old portrait I drew of myself a long time ago to have something to work with. She’ll usually wear her pava, but I also made a version with her hat off and a close up on her face. She’s always had swirly eyes, so I wanted to put that into her human design.

Also fun fact, all of my sonas usually have a beauty mark or two with freckles. That’s how you can tell how obvious I am. Boom.

Anyway, a bit about the started farm gorl

Mechi is pretty laid back, or rather tries to be laid back as much as possible. She’s got quite a temper on her, but when provoked, she combats the urge to use her fists with just…being a little shit.

Mechi is not very smart education wise, but because of how hands on she is, she became pretty good with working with her hands and even developing a green thumb and self defense skills. Whatever she doesn’t know how to do, she’ll learn quickly, and it’s her own way of adapting comfortably enough.

She has difficulty keeping conversation for too long, but she is definitely one to get passionate about what she likes or even knows about. Having a bit of a rough personal life herself, she tries to put her shoes in others if she hasn’t shared a similar experience already, and it usually makes it easy for people to talk to her. She can be a good listener, even for people she doesn’t like very much.

Final thing for now, being despite being 5’3, Mechi has an inhumane level of brute Latina strength. How else would she be able to clear up a small section of her farm by herself within a day?

She’s still in the works, but I’m glad I got her general look down at least

#stardew oc #stardew valley #clip studio paint #digital art #doodle #sketch #ipadpro

[dark-angel-of-muses]

Totally Nailed It

Legend didn’t remember it was his birthday until he came downstairs. Ravio had once again moved all the furniture against the walls without his permission, although he couldn’t find it in himself to be mad considering the displays of gifts and cake that replaced them. He could see all the gifts the Chain left. They were going to celebrate tomorrow. The day of his birthday, Ravio shooed them all out of the house so Legend didn’t have to worry about hosting. 

“Oh, you’re awake Link! Perfect, I was just about done. Are you ready for a Ravio patented Birthday Luxury Retreat?” The merchant wiggled his eyebrows, 

“How much of a retreat is it when we’re not leaving the house?” Legend jabbed.

Ravio waved him away, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “The verbage doesn’t matter, just sit down! I wanna start on your first present! Wild taught me this, so I hope I can do it right!” Legend was wary as he sat down. Wild taught him? Wild had a variety of skills, and he really hoped Ravio wasn’t about to burst into some Goron dance performance Wild had taken up from Death Mountain.

“Wild said Gerudo ladies pride themselves on body artistry, and the most delicate of all is..” Ravio left room for a dramatic pause, and his hands popped up with little glass jars of varying colors. “Nail art! Wild taught me a lot of cool designs I can do. I learned how to draw the symbols of your golden three, and Wild actually had a stencil for the Hyrule crest! I can try freehanding something else if that’s what you want, or we can do solid colors. It’s your day, so your wish is my command!” Ravio’s eyes sparkled in excitement. 

A manicure? That certainly wasn’t what he was expecting. But if Ravi was going to offer to pamper him, who was he to say no?

“Can you alternate red, green, and blue, with Din, Farore, and Nayru on each color respectively?” It was a complicated request, but Ravio was already nodding in agreement and grinning ear to ear as he set out the colors and took Legend’s hands in his own.

Ravio was adorable as he focused, tongue poking out from his lips as he squinted at Legend’s nails. He wasn’t even anywhere close to the hard part yet, starting with a base coat to prime all the nails.

“Wild said if you go straight for a color coat, it's more likely to chip! He’s fine with that for flat colors because it's easy enough to add another coat, but all the designs should be protected to preserve the effort that went into them!”

Legend already knew proper nail procedure from his time in Hytopia, but it was a special kind of blessing to watch Ravio gush about something excitedly. The merchant would smile wide, showing off the hint of buck teeth as he bounced in place, hands gesticulating wildly as he talked.

As he pulled the brushes from the colored ink bottles, Legend took stock of the products. Based on the fact the glass was completely filled, and the brushes were completely black the first time Ravio dipped them in, these must be all new polishes. From the intricate designs and swirly Gerudo script on the bottles, he can only assume these were luxury products from the heart of Gerudo Town. A gift from Wild, then along with whatever he had left on the table in a blue package. He was going to have to thank the Champion when all this was said and done.

“Is there a reason you picked those goddesses?” Ravio started small talk as he was drawing the symbols in white paint with the smallest brush.

“Oh, there’s a saying about them. Din to give me the strength to challenge the day, Nayru to give me the wisdom to learn from my struggles, and Farore to give me the courage to step forward. Legend wasn’t particularly irreverent of the divine, but the saying wasn’t literally about asking for help. Fable had taught it to him after his first adventure, saying she liked to use it as a phrase of comfort when starting her day. He had just picked up the habit from her. It was a nice routine, something positive to latch onto. He figured it would be nice to have the saying on his nails, as a little reminder.

“Oh, that’s interesting.” Ravio paused between one nail and the next, humming in contemplation. “When our triforce was destroyed, so were the records of the goddesses that made it. Even when you and Zelda wished it back into existence, none of the history or religious practices magically could come back.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you taking some of ours,” Legend offered. “Who knows, maybe the same ones made your triforce originally.”

“Hmm, maybe I will. Lolia knows I could use your Goddess of Courage’s help.” Ravio laughed in self-deprecation, but it was light-hearted enough that Legend knew not to make a big deal out of it. He’d already told Ravio he was courageous enough on his own, and the merchant said he’d do his best to believe it. Legend trusted that to still be true.

“Done!” Ravio finished with a flourish.

“No  you aren’t, you haven’t done a top coat!” Legend couldn’t help himself, looking at the full bottle of glossy finish sitting right next to them.

“Well yeah, ok, but,” Ravio huffed, cheeks puffing up, “I finished all the art. C’mon, take a look!”

Legend rolled his eyes, but did as asked. Ravio’s handiwork was impressive. The symbols were intricate, and difficult enough to draw on a flat surface with a lot of room. Ravio had done an excellent job making the shapes recognizable and clean. They were clearly hand-drawn, each repeat symbol a little different from the previous, but that added to their charm. It was clearly a work of love.

Careful not to move his hand too much for fear of the paint running, Legend looked over the patterns. Farore appeared four times, on the pinkie and index finger of both his hands. While that was just a reality from having three goddesses and ten fingers, it felt right. If he hadn’t had Courage, he never would have met all the people he did. Never would have welcomed Ravio into his home, or met the Chain on their whirlwind tour across time and space. 

“Happy Birthday, Link.” 

Legend smiled, sending a silent prayer of thanks.

#lu legend #lu ravio #ravio x link #linked universe #muse writes #muse's ravioli week #raviolink #ravio #ravioli #loz ravio #fanfic #albw ravio #ravio zelda

[loveofbots]

Could I request a romantic MTMTE Skids or First Aid x Human! Female! Reader that is trying to teach them how to line dance?

Dawg that was QUICK, my asks were opened 2 minutes ago as of writing this. But I asked ya to be chaotic so good job!

Anyways I had to look up what line dancing was and this was a great idea

Warnings: busting it down skids style, Goated with a little bit of swagger

Skids:

He’s interested when you say you wanna teach him something. Dancing isn’t to common nowadays on cybertron so he’s hyped to learn!

Watches you do a routine once and immediately has it down thanks to his outlier ability

He really loves the pace and rhythm to it! You can find him doing it if he ends up having to stand in one place for too long.

Wont be the one to start a flash mob in Swerve’s but definitely participated in it. He loves doing his dances with his favourite human. He actually asked for a cowboy hat to match yours.

He is quite scared of hurting you accidentally, so will ask to stick to dances that don’t involve you being so close to him. Instead he’s like your big mech shadow as you take centre stage

While he��s amazing at line dancing, his true wish is to hold you during a slow song and tell you how amazing you are

First Aid:

When you say you would like to teach him how to dance, he’s hesitant at first. He’s never really done anything like that before and he’s not good at it either.

Be patient with him, he’s nervous about hurting you on accident. Unlike Skids though, he’s much smaller so it makes dancing together easier.

Footwork is difficult for him, but give him time to practice and suddenly he’s cotton-eye-joe-ing to the med bay.

First Aid isn’t good at coming up with things on the spot, he would much rather have a routine and song to follow.

Surprises you by taking you to Swerve’s for a date, his paint job all decked out with those swirly patterns he saw on your boots. The two of you get the bar cheering with your routines and have a great night together!

Rewind recorded it and sent it back to you two for the memories!

#transformers #mtmte #tf #idw #maccadam #swerve’s #mtmte skids #mtmte first aid #first aid #skids #x reader #headcanons #asks

[miltheperson]

OH RIGHT-

Puppet reader, meeting everyone for the first time but. The reader looks like the certain character, via same color palette, same body features, or honestly look so much a like they could be siblings

And for sally if you can do sally, what if reader looked like the moon? And was more chill-

Bye bye mil

Hello again, Mel! I love those requests, great ideas!

I hope I’ll execute them well! Here’s the first part of your request!

Welcome Home headcanons!

There’s a new puppet in town! And that puppet is you, you look almost exactly like the neighbors! How curious!

Wally Darling

“Welcome to the neighborhood… Me…?”

Oh, he’d be quite confused and especially so curious! You had his yellow tone, his blue swirly hair, and your clothing colors matched his! Just who were you?

“How odd… Do you know me?”

Wally would be so fascinated! He’d think that you must have seen him before somehow, or maybe you were just another Wally!

“You look quite nice, other me….”

He would think you look the absolute most! Wally would absolutely adore you, seeing as you are- well… Him!

Barnaby Beagle

“Well, isn’t this just the most silliest thing I’ve ever seen!”

Barnaby would think it is an absolute riot! Especially if you’re the kind to make all kinds of jokes! He wouldn’t be able to help himself and burst out laughing, he’d find it quite funny!

“This outfit’s missing just one more thing!”

Out of seemingly nowhere, he pulls out a smaller version of his hat. Barnaby would place it very carefully atop your head in juuuust the right way.

Now you really looked like a Barnaby!

“Hilarious! I gotta show this to the entire neighborhood!”

This would be the start of a very lovely friendship! He’d be so happy to introduce you to the rest of the neighborhood, he’ll even joke around about the two of you being long lost siblings!

Eddie Dear

“Whoa there!”

Eddie would flip his hat off! Staring at you with such curiosity and wonder, he wouldn’t know what to even say!

“Say, uh- you come from the same family?”

With how alike you were, he’d believe you were family, maybe distant cousins? Even if you weren’t a Dear, he’d still find it absolutely fascinating! The new neighbor looking like him?? Now that’s something that’s never happened before!

“Ya gotta meet Frank! He’s in for a ride when he sees you, neighbor!”

Of course, Eddie would want to introduce you to Frank right away after getting the introductions all over with. He’d definitely treat you just like family, he’d see you as his sibling and he is not afraid to show it!

Frank Frankly

“What in the…”

For a moment, they were absolutely dumbfounded. They just didn’t know what to think of it!

You had their gray color, the floppy black hair, and even the same patterns they had on their vest!

How uncanny!

“Where in the world did you come from?”

They’d feel quite curious, studying you from head to toe. Frank would be startled by your existence, wondering just how this came to be. The similarities were just so on point! You might as well have come from the same family they did… But they’ve never even heard of you!

“What a curious, curious creature you are…”

They couldn’t help but feel so strange about you! They wanted to learn all about you and Frank would absolutely love to get closer to you!

Julie Joyful

“Oh, my me!”

Julie would be so very excited! Your hair, your clothes, your eyes! Oh, all those traits just reminded her of.. her!

She’d be over the moon and so excited to get to know you! It’s not every day you get to meet someone so identical to you!

“You look amazing! OhH! I love it!”

Julie would love to play dress up with you, wanting to try and wear the same outfits with you! She’d call the both of you twins and would feel an almost familial kind of connection with you!

“Let’s both play business partners! Come on, come on! Let’s get Frank out to play!”

She’s absolutely happy to introduce you to her best friend Frank and even more happy to be playing one of her most favorite games! Such a lovely start to an especially lovely friendship!

Howdy Pillar

“Howdy there!… Huh?”

It was quite the shock for the bodega owner! You looked like some other kind of version of him- you even had the same four pairs of limbs!

He’d be scratching his head, trying to figure out if you were one of his siblings or not… He’s just never seen you before!

“Well! How’s it like having those extra pair of limbs, neighbor?”

Howdy would be quite humorous! He’d think it was nice to have someone he could relate to and he’d be ever so curious as to how you could look so alike with him! Admittedly, he’d feel a little guilty at first since he’d think maybe he’s forgotten about one of his siblings but would very quickly cheer up when realizing you just happened to look like him!

“Us four arms better stick together, eh?”

He’d think you’re an absolute joy! And he would really love your company, Howdy would definitely treat you as if you were one of his siblings!

Sally Starlet

“Wow! Did you come from the sky, too??”

Sally would think you had come from the same patch of stars, but if you didn’t then she’d get all the more curious! She would want to know all about you and she’d love to have you join her plays!

“Would you like to sing with me? You have such a nice voice!”

The two of you would click so well! She could talk and talk and talk and you’d listen! Sally would be ever so excited to become closer to you, she just couldn’t help but feel so familiar with you!

“We make such a good team!”

Sally would be even more joyful if you were to accept her proposal with joining one of her plays! She’d absolutely love to share the spotlight with you, seeing as both of you are stars!

Poppy Partridge

“Oh, my!”

Poppy would be wonderstruck.

Such lovely colors you have! Especially if you has a few feathers on you!

She would be absolutely enamored by you and she would love to get to know more about you!

“You look so delightful, neighbor. Absolutely lovely.”

Poppy would definitely invite you for a baking session! She wants to share her hobbies with you and would love to talk on and on with you about this and that and those!

“How about crochet? Would you perhaps like to do that?”

You’d definitely become one of Poppy’s most closest and dearest friends! She’d love to try your hobbies too! Oh, she would just love to know everything about you! She is just so fascinated!

#welcome home #welcome home headcanons #this was so sweet! #such a silly coincidence #everyone is sure shocked!

[bam-stroker]

Rusalka Cover Art Process

Now that my little cover has been released to the world, I wanted to share the process with y'all!

It'll be under the cut here, because I'm not looking to do a "Do you like the color of the sky?" on y'all haha

First part of the process was finding inspo and making some sketches. I knew from the start 1) I wanted this to feel like an old school romance book cover {monster fucker edition} and 2) that I wanted to have Art Nouveau incorporated! I love the dreamy swirly quality of that style of art.

So I had the first 3 idea drafts here:

I wanted to evoke a dreamy and mysterious atmosphere. So I made a gamble and decided to have fog in the art (this will come back to haunt me later...)

After some feedback and some thinking, I picked from the things that worked from those drafts to make one for what would be the base for the actual cover:

(wow get a load of that funky green blob)

Then I cleaned up the linework for that!

Now this is where that fog comes back to haunt me. I was playing around with possible borders, but found they were a bit distracting. Instead I tried out putting a border around the moon and ADORED it. The thing is.... that fog was not fitting the vibes and was hiding way too much

So I spent many hours looking at Art Nouveau pictures and decided I'd give a go at trying ~stylized~ fog instead

Loved that, but was starting to not vibe with the U of the moon and the pink of the flower border... {RIP pink flowers}

From there it was cleanup land, but something still felt very missing

AND THAT'S WHERE I HAD THE IDEA TO TEST OUT STARS IN THE FLOWER BORDER AND I WAS DELIGHTED!

Honestly I'm really proud of how it turned out, and I learned a lot from the process. I think the covers I make in the future will be much quicker because of what I learned with this one.

Also here are some inspo pics of historical embroidery/clothes that I pulled from for Sasha's outfit:

#my art #cover art process #rusalka

[sophieswundergarten]

MBS Characters as Neat Words I Like

So. Listen. Some of these words are going to have fitting definitions. And some of them are just based on how they feel/look to me. Do with this what you will, and I hope you at least learn some fun new words :)

Mr. Benedict - Esoteric: requiring or exhibiting knowledge that is restricted to a small group / of special, rare, or unusual interest

It's very green and a bit orangey to me, like the scenes in S1 where he's sitting in the cabin, or a very nice rock. Maybe something with a fossil in it. But it's a good, slightly rough but ultimately quite pleasant texture. It's got the layers of an old book with age-stained pages and uneven edges because of how often it's been read. It's a really comforting word, and it's warm and inviting, like the feeling of walking into Mr. Benedict's house and seeing all the light come through the glass and the smell of books and the very clear evidence that it is lived in and full of love. If it had a physical form, I would keep this word on my shelf and look at it every day because it makes me smile.

Number Two - Librocubicularist: someone who reads in bed

Definitely a yellow word. It's got some nice light blues, like sunlight on a clear day streaming through a window, and a couple hints of green in there, but this word feels very warm and a bit like running your hand along the hard carved edge of a bookshelf. It's very square and cube-y, like a stack of little building blocks or one of those geometric M. C. Escher kind of designs. (Also I can see her just sitting on her bed and reading when people would want her to sleep when she was a kid)

Milligan - Hugger-mugger / Gallimaufry: Respectively, "secrecy" and "hodgepodge"

The first one is an automatic choice, because it basically sounds like a warped version of the words "hug" and "Milligan". It's a very warm, soft word that's a dusky orange-and-pink, like an old jacket or scarf that's being used to muffle a sound. The second word is chosen more for its meaning, as Milligan himself is a bit of a jumbley hodgepodge when we first meet him. It's coloured like moss covered stones along a riverbed, like the colours of that screenshot in Episode 1 where Milligan emerges from the secret tunnel in the yard. The tumbling of the word also mimics the curved brim of his hat.

Rhonda - Sophronise / Kismet: Respectively, "to imbue with moral principles or self-control" and "a hypothetical force or personified power that determines the course of the future events, fate, destiny"

"Sophronise" is because of how wise and quick-witted she is. She's a role model for the younger kids, and it was a really nice sunset- night-sky kind of ombre, a hint of deep magenta (Like that jacket she wore outside the cabin in S1) and the barest touch of yellow-orange, quickly moving into royal and midnight blue, and a whisper of silver that can almost be stars. "Kismet" is similarly multicoloured and beautiful, but more swirly like a wind-chime or suncatcher made of many different pieces hung just so, in such a way to catch the light and reveal glimpses of what's hidden deeper. It's a mostly wine-magenta and blue kind of colours; jewel tones.

Kate - Rawgabbit: somebody who speaks covertly about a subject of which they know nothing

This one's silly, because it just came to me because of its look. The definition doesn't really fit her at all. It's a helter-skelter word that is racing, fast moving and fidgety. It's a full kaleidoscope of colours, red and fierce and yellowy lemon gold and green like sun through new leaves and blue like daubs of fingerpaint all swirled and tumbling over each other, much like Kate's jacket.

Miss Perumal - Pluviophile: one who finds joy and peace of mind during rainy days

This is a very soft word, and it is a soft, watercolour kind of pastel. It's lavender and cherry blossom pink and a light sky blue, and it feels exactly like one of her nice sweaters or jackets. The lapel of a good, strong, felted jacket kind of feeling, like something you'd find at a thrift store and know that it was well loved, but taken care of so respectfully that you'll be able to wear it for years too. A pragmatic word. It is also very round and swooping, in much the same way her cadence of speech is.

Sticky - Uhtceare / Kenning: Respectively, "lying awake before dawn and worrying" and "a metaphorical compound word or phrase (such as swan-road for ocean) used especially in Old English and Old Norse poetry"

The first word is more because of the meaning, but it does have some hints of his shades of blues. The "uhtc" part is like glass as a lens, and the last part is like little round bits of blue sea glass, all tumbled and smoothed. It's a very pensive and reflective word, and it catches light in many different facets, something to be studied from many different angles in the solitary silence away from other people."Kenning" I chose because of its neat, rhythmic sound, like very even stitches through a piece of stormy blue cloth. It is a deceptively simple sounding word, but it has such a deep history, and I think that's something Sticky would really enjoy learning and knowing.

Constance - Fudgel: pretending to work when in reality one is not doing anything

Come on. This word is perfect for her. It has that hint of sweetness with "fudge", and yet it sounds stubborn and obstinate. It's a "fighting word", so to speak. Stout and short and compact, like a dense piece of wood that someone can heft and throw. And while I would not originally say that it has any of Constance's colours, there are parts of it that can be malleable, and there's definitely a hint of pink in the middle, a reflection and glimmer that comes from it being placed next to her name.

Reynie - Wergild: the value set in Anglo-Saxon and Germanic law upon human life in accordance with rank and paid as compensation to the kindred or lord of a slain person

This word came to me immediately. It isn't coloured so much like Reynie (Being mostly kind of deep purple and shaded forest green with the barest hint of gold, like brambles that have grown and woven themselves into an intricate shape), but for some reason it fits him. Maybe it's the complex depth that's hinted at in the heart of it. It's a wild word, but also very warm and trusting in that it expects the other person to honour their promises. Its etymology is basically "man" + "payment", and the idea of it being the value of a person when in relation to Reynie, who values every person as incredibly important is intriguing. Also, the first time I read it was in a fictional context as part of a spell or binding magic that connected people to one another, which is a much more vague and subjective reason, but it's a little more positive than "murder debt"

SQ - Welkin / Wanderlust: Respectively, "the vault of the sky / the upper atmosphere" and "strong longing for or impulse toward wandering"

Now. These words both start with "w" because "w" and "q" are coloured somewhat similarly to me, especially since there's an "s" involved. "Welkin" is a complex word, like running your hand over a particularly detailed and well-crafted mosaic. It's a very light baby blue fading into purple, a very mystical and soft word, like if you could tough fog. It speaks of walking softly down a grassy hill at dusk, looking up at the stars as they wake up and being able to trust that you won't trip. It's also got these kind of two curves, like the top of the "S" right next to the "Q". "Wanderlust" is dreamy and full of stardust. It's got that bluey-purple touch, but it sparks at the end, gold and shimmering and falling out of sight like a shooting star, just beyond the horizon, where you know you can follow it.

Curtain - Sanguine: marked by eager hopefulness, confidently optimistic / bloodred / consisting of or relating to blood

It's not quite the correct colour for Curtain, but the feel for it is right. It has a bit of dark blue, but it's also slimly and squelchy the "gui" bit makes it kind of greasy and hard to keep a hold of. It also fits him because of the different meanings; originally, "sanguine" meant "cheerful" because of the medieval concept of the four humours governing the human body, and it came from the Latin "sanguineus" which means bloody. The seemingly jarring differences between "happy" and "bloody" are a good representation of Curtain's duality.

Garrison - Gerrymandering: the practice of dividing or arranging a territorial unit into election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage in elections

This word also came to me really quickly. I kind of "see" spelling in my head, so even though the "g" in gerrymandering is pronounced like a "j" instead of how it is in "Garrison", it works. The word is coloured very much like her: light, dappled green and a little pink and some specks of orangey-red. It's also a strong word, a tiny bit mischievous but with hard lines that won't be crossed, no matter how much trickery and metaphorical dancing around delicate topics is involved to attain a goal.

#I'm sorry if these don't make any sense #I decided to let myself go all out with the descriptions #Or as much as I was comfortable with #Since it's just supposed to be silly #I nearly gave Curtain “pedantic” because it's kind of like the bitter and serious brother of “esoteric” #But the feeling wasn't quite right #Either way #I enjoyed getting to put all this down #It's been in my drafts for weeks because I was so nervous about rambling and sounding insane #But I'm putting it out there! #And now I shall shut up and stop stalling in the tags #the mysterious benedict society #mbs #mr. benedict #nicholas benedict #number two #milligan wetherall #rhonda kazembe #kate wetherall #miss perumal #sticky washington #constance contraire #reynie muldoon #sq pedalian #ld curtain #nathaniel benedict #dr. garrison #ALSO #SOME OF THESE ARE OLD ENGLISH #SO THEY AREN'T REALLY COMMONLY USED/DOCUMENTED

[cebwrites]

hey! i'm a gnc trans gay dude who uses she/her and recently ive been feeling kinda insecure about it like im faking or something 💔 also im tired of pretending fem she/her reader is about me. can i get hcs/scenarios of law, zoro, yamato, and one other character of your choice bragging about their gnc pronoun nonconforming boyfriend? only if you're comfortable ofc

dw pronoun anon we champion gnc transmasc solidarity in this house, fuck yeah expression doesn’t equal gender 🤝🤝 admittedly i've never used neos or interacted with anyone who does before so here's my preemptive apologies if i mess up ;0;

oh also i changed the limit of characters from 4 to 3 a while ago, just updating for anyone who isn't aware! :] love this all trans lineup tho 🤭

bragging about their boyfriend who doesn't use he/him pronouns (Law, Zoro, Yamato)

he/they law, trans zoro  reader’s pronouns: they/them, she/her, it/it's, ey/em/eir, ve/vis word count: 0.6k

Law

Being a he/they bitch himself, there’s no way in hell that Law would ever question your pronoun usage and anyone who does is getting their head swapped with their ass

He’s hardly the braggy type though, mostly leaving that to the chorus of his crew to pick on if you ever needed some extra support - of course, not a single one of them would bat an eye at it, either

They do, however, make a concerted effort to use your chosen pronouns more when Law gets a hint that you’re feeling out of it

“Tell ey to bring these to my office later,”

“It’s their turn on dish duty today, don’t let them out of it,”

“This is eirs, right? Toss it in the wash,”

All just slightly within earshot and casual conversation - once the captain starts, the rest of the crew is sure to follow, too

They don’t mean to be obvious, but the moment the Heart Boys (genderless) are tipped off that you aren’t feeling too hot, you’ll also be accosted here and there throughout your slump to conveniently do all the things you loved or at least enjoyed in their company 

Even your partner themself is a little bit more cuddly in private during that crummy self-doubt day or week, not that he’d ever mention it, but that’s neither here nor there

Zoro

Zoro’s a bit (a lot) confused as far as neo pronouns go, but he’s got the spirit 

He’s as transmasc as the next feral swordsman you’d find on the Grand Line, but pronouns have never really been a thing that he’s had to put too much thought into (in Zoro’s mossy brain: he/him is typically used for guys, so he’ll use he/him because he’s a guy, easy)

Zoro knows that’s not the case for you, though, so he’ll make adjustments to his vernacular accordingly

He slips up every now and again grammar-wise, using the wrong subject and possessive forms here and there, but it’s nothing that a quick correction can’t fix - he’s always at least a little guiltily pouty too, so you can’t really stay mad at him, honestly

Bragging, though, is an artform that Zoro is clearly familiar with

“In your dreams, Swirly, I’m clearly going to win because ve has my back!” (”Oh? So it’s not your own power then, Mossy?” //insert loud queer squabbling)

“Hmph, its MY boyfriend and it could kick your asses any day!”

“Doesn’t matter, this is vis and cause we’re dating I get half a dibs, ve’s a lot cooler than you all anyway,” (”That’s really not how that works, Zoro”)

A lot of these brags have to do with your power, forgive him, Zoro’s a very simple man-

There’s a very minor learning curve that some of the other Strawhats have to adapt to, too, but again it’s no real issue after the first week or so

Yamato

Yams is your BIGGEST cheerleader, he’ll bulldoze ignorant assholes out of the way for you and howl about how great you are and how much he loves you from the highest rooftop without even asking

He’s 100% supportive of your decisions and won’t stand for anyone who doesn’t (if you don’t want to cause a scene you may have a little trouble holding him back or have to discuss it with him beforehand because Yamato absolutely will call someone out on their bullshit when he sees it)

Sometimes you even get a little flustered or overwhelmed with the intensity and vigor that he supports you (very much the ’guns blazing’ type) but it’s all with an endearing air and the knowledge that Yamato only wants your best interest at heart

“Have you met her? She’s my boyfriend!”

“My boyfriend’s so handsome today, isn’t she handsome everyone?? <3″

“I love my she/her boyfriend!!! She’s so fucking HOT!!” [yelled from the tallest building in the Flower Capital]

Yamato is so embarrassing and openly affectionate the Akazaya are sick and tired of him, someone PLEASE leash this puppy and take him home, preferably away from them

#cebwrites #one piece #one piece imagine #trafalgar law #one piece law #op law #trafalgar d law x reader #trafalgar law headcanons #trafalgar one piece #trafalgar d water law #he/they trafalgar law #law x you #law x reader #law x y/n #law x male reader #law x masc reader #zoro roronoa x reader #roronoa zoro #zoro x reader #zoro x y/n #zoro x you #zoro x masc reader #yamato #yamato one piece #yamato x reader #yamato x y/n #yamato x you #yamato x masc reader #op yamato

[starkettes]

you have inspired me . and i am indeed a child with figurines that i will absolutely show off to you even if you just nod and give a thumbs up at the end <33 my love language is pulling up a blackboard and sitting whoever im talking to down for The Talk and this will happen. you cannot refuse it <33333

(for real tho it took me months to also learn how to discern the links from each other AJSJSJAJ so yes to make it as simple as i can i will only deal with the canon 3D games . im listing them by order of their game release, but definitely not in the correct order of their place in the timeline(s). ily so so so much and im sorry in advance for the long infodump of an ask)

Ocarina of Time + Majora's Mask

the original 3d little man <33 hes like . the only 3d (adult) without chainmail bc he lived in a forest full of immortal children for his entire childhood (we dont talk about his age in majoras mask bc its complicated but just trust me hes a literal manchild) so AJSJAJAJ i differentiate him by that and his pants being distinctly white. the entire franchise and lore did him SO dirty but thats not the point of this (frothing at the mouth to rant about it but at another time)

Wind Waker

littlest of little men <33 hes the easiest link to distinguish from the others mainly bc of the art style, to the point that the fandom also calls him toon link. you can also tell ww link by the little swirly belt buckle thingy he has. also ALSO his tunic having a combo of dark + light green. literally forced the gods to choose him as his era's hero (he never held the hero's spirit in the first place) all bc his sister got kidnapped. absolute force to be reckoned with but still has voice cracks and Will Not Swear in front of his grandma in my hcs. all links are gremlins but this one literally sails with pirates so he has the background AHSHSHAHH

Twilight Princess

I WANNA BE A COWBOY BABY

fr tho hes so <333 AUGH. can literally turn into the goodest of good boys (wolf link). hes the disney princess of links bc animals Cannot And Will Not Hate Him. differentiated by the chainmail and his pinchable cheeks in game <333333 (also one of the only links imo that is absolutely not compatible with their zelda bc midna is rIGHT THERE. once again not the ask for this but i have. thoughts and things about tp zelink and tp link in general)

Skyward Sword

HES SO SOFT AUGH IM CRYING I WANT A PLUSHIE FRFR AJSJSJAJA but fr . absolute himbo and dumbass but vv much in love with his zelda <33 he has such a similar design with tp and its hard to be sure its him bc both tp and sksw link wear chainmail, but the art style of the game makes it so that the one who has the brighter and more pastel green is sksw link. his hair is also kinda diff and more soft looking, and hes also right handed <33

Breath of the Wild

do i need to explain. im so sos sos ssoss s9 r9rbf mentally ill over this reincarnation specifically <33 i really hope that i ruined this character for you now with my ability to not shut up about him for more than one (1) week. distinguished by blue and gender and hair and literally just everything bc im crying nintendo really hit peak character design with him and if somebody were to ask me to give a ted talk on him i wouldnt even know where to start bc hes just so PERFECT and augh look ok his character is so complicated starting wi-

okay it’s currently 3:30 am i will read this when i wake up

okay good morning im putting on my glasses cracking my knuckles and reading this like a grandma reading the news

the first two and twilight princess is crazy who the hell needs a hat that long i wouldnt be able to resist i would yank that thing off his head and run away jack sparrow style

wind waker link is so damn small he using a needle or something for a sword like he's desperaux 😭 😭 also didnt know he had a sister always assumed he was only child bc..well idk he just seemed like it to me

i was aware of wolf link (bc of how much u like him :3) but i didnt actually know anything so again i went to the fandom wiki and read it he's so cute (and midna rides on his back they look so cute 😭 <33) i am putting him in a puppy carrier and taking him with me

yeah breath of the wild is the main link i know of like that is the representative of the links to me thats the guy i know ALSO HE'S 4'11 I AM JUST BARELY TALLER THAN THIS GUY well a win is a win when ur short

this was great to learn actually and just know that if i ever get around to writing my head (1968) essay i’m gonna do this to you too <3

#thx u for this rei <33 #u are always more than welcome to dump about the blorbos around here #loz #soul-of-rei #mailbox

[papermachedragons]

Au where Steve and Eddie meet and become sort of friends (and a little something else), before Will went missing in '83. Inspired by the song Outdoor Pool by Maisie Peters because it is a totally a Steddie song.

Okay okay the song is from 2021 so it doesn't fit with Steddie and the stranger things '80s setting But! I can't stop thinking about it, whenever I hear the song, so I'm making it everyone's problem

Here's the chorus:

We went swimming in an outdoor pool

And you wouldn't tell a soul at school

I'm just fifteen, I just want you, so that's cool

It's almost Skins if my eyes stay shut

But I don't swim and you're not in love

And you only kissed me after midnight

In an outdoor pool

 

So imagine Steve in his King Steve era. His sophomore or junior year, it doesn't matter, just that he is well established as King Steve. Eddie with his Freak moniker as a mirror image to him, just in the opposite direction. A king and a fool. Who is a king without a fool to mock him and who is a freak without a king to mock? (I have many thoughts about Steve and Eddie being parallel opposites but this is not that essay)

 So Steve is King Steve, but outside of school hallways, he's just Steve. Steve in his lonely, cold, empty house. Half the time his parents are gone. When they're away, he wants them home, when they're home, he wants them gone. Steve has them to thank for his high school title. They didn't give it to him, but they taught him the tools that made it so easy for him to become King. It was many years ago, when Steve learned from his parents empty, cold hands, to pick himself apart for the parts that made them pat his shoulder or smile at him with pride and pack away the ones that made them frown. He was young, too young, when he learned to wrap himself up, like a neat little package, to seek his father's approval and his mother's gentle smile. Too young, when he learned just what parts of himself brought forth his father's disappointed voice and his mother's cold eyes and sharp nails - from when she laid a hand on his shoulder and turned him around to push him out of the room with a suggestion to study or practice more that never truly sounded like a suggestion - only to make sure those parts would never see the light of day again.

So Steve learned from home, how to pick himself apart and present the parts of himself that would make people happy; that would make them satisfied. It was easy, to slip into the role of King. Easier than it had ever been at home.

But it doesn't do much to stave off the burning cold that has made a home inside Steve's chest. Steve is lonely. He has his posse at High school and a court full of people who admire him, want to be him or hate him. He can't go anywhere at school without someone leaning close to him. But he can tell it's not him they want to get close to. It's King Steve and Steve is not King Steve, but what he is, is lonely. Heavy with this persona he puts on, which he only ever created in a desperate bid to not be alone, but now he's almost more alone than ever. How can he be alone in a room full of people, who always look to him? He doesn't know. But he is. He goes to parties and walks around with a cigarette behind his ear and a beer in his hand, with a self-satisfied smirk on his face and a confidence to his steps as if he owns the place, no matter if the party is at his house or not. At school, he acts indifferent to the longing stares he gets on the basketball court and in the pool, as if he is above it all, while he laps up the attention as if the light in the girls eyes could replace the warmth of a mother's hug. (It can't. But Steve is a master at pretending, even if he never got into theatre. Maybe, if he pretends long enough, he can trick himself too). In the hallways, he sneers at people and laughs when Tommy trips someone up, or rips up some nervous, stammering nerd's homework. He doesn't go into the toilets where people get baptised with swirlies; he doesn't like that. It makes his hands shake and his stomach tight with pain. So he rolls his eyes at Tommy, when he talks about doing it to some poor kid and smoothly changes the subject without anyone noticing. He doesn't do that shit. But he doesn't stop it either. He turns his back on the door, when mean spirited laughter sounds from behind it. 

And then there's Eddie. Eddie whose parents touch was too sharp and painful, who reached for him with angry hands until he got burned. Who ended up without a mother and with a dad in prison and who finally got pulled out and sent to live with his uncle; Wayne Munson, who scraped a raw, desperate kid off his doorstep, took him in and kept him as his own; Wayne, who cried the day he got custody. Eddie who finally had a home and a family, no matter how small and poor and "dirty" it was. He didn't care. He could take the sneers about being trailer park dirt and being his father's son any day, every day. He had his uncle. But that doesn't mean it isn't hard. How many times can you be pushed around and be called awful names, some that start with F and some that don't, before you start to believe them? Before you start to crumble? So Eddie quickly learns, if he can't take it, he can redirect it. If he can't hit back, without being given thousands of detentions and warnings from teachers and principal, as if he had been the one that started it, then he can build a shield out of all the parts the bullies hate. If they want a freak, they will get a freak. Eddie builds himself out of parts that are already there. He was already dramatic and a nerd and "too much", he was already in the Top 5 of a PSA mom's worst nightmare. He simply just,,, highlights it. He takes these parts of himself and builds a Freak from them. If he can freak people out and make them go a wide berth around him, then they won't be able to get close enough to try and beat the gay and the trailer park dirt out of him.

They are parallel opposites. Eddie builds a shield of the things people hate the most; Steve builds one of the things they want the most. One does it to not come home bruised and aching. The other does it to not be alone. The Hair and the Freak. Fool and King.

So. We have Steve 'The Hair' Harrington. The darling of Hawkins. King of Hawkins High. He is, of course, familiar with Eddie 'the freak' Munson. How could he not be? Eddie is loud and fills up an entire room, even if that room is as wide and open as the cafeteria. He walks on tables and acts out, but not in the way Steve is used to on the top of High school royalty hierarchy. No. He just. Acts out. Like he's an actor in a big, massive spotlight on stage in theatre. He's weird and a lot and attracts slurs and mean monikers and bullies like moths to a flame, but most of the times, those names are thrown at him from across a room or as jocks swerwe a wide berth around him in the hallway, spitting at the floor, as if that hides the way they avoid him and the challenging gleam in his eyes. And when bullies do corner him, he fights back. He takes hits but he's not afraid to return them, whether that's fists or rapidfire words, that come quick and sharp like vipers and that sometimes makes Steve scrunch his face up in confusion, whenever he is around to hear them, because Eddie's sharp and quick, but he's also smart and sometimes his comebacks make his bullies trip over themselves twice; once because the poor bully who cornered him needs a few seconds to even parse out the meaning behind Eddie's words and the second time, because Eddie's comebacks cut sharper than the hit that targeted him in the first place.

So Steve and Eddie know each other. They have been put on opposite ends of the school hierarchy. A king and a fool. Obviously, they know who they are, even a year apart. Even if Steve is careful to avoid directly interacting with Eddie, because Eddie is one of the few things that truly terrify him (from before he learns what true fear looks like; which is rapidly blinking lights and a monster without a face and a maw full of teeth), but only some of those reasons are because Eddie strikes back and Steve isn't entirely ready to look any closer at the other reasons why Eddie makes him so afraid. (It's the same reason why Steve looks dead ahead when he's in the shower after P.E and swim practice with his heart caught in his throat and his pulse pounding away, like his heart is trying to carve it's way out of his chest. The same reason, why he's so scared of getting caught staring in the showers or when his team mates pull themselves out of the pool; skin smooth and glistening with water and muscles rippling. It's the same reason why his body freezes up and gets stuck with all his muscles locked up tight and tense, like a prey caught under the gaze of a predator, whenever his father is home and sneers and spits at the TV whenever there's a piece done on AIDS.) 

Something brings Steve and Eddie into contact with each other, into each other's orbits outside of their school personalities. And they meet alone, face to face for the first time. It's on a day where Steve is already dead tired. Before he went to school that morning, his dad pulled his latest report card or his latest test with a big fat C- on it forth and laid it on the breakfast bar table, like the way he does business deals, but instead of the satisfied aura that hangs around him after a well done deal, it was disdain and disappointment that clung to him like mud. Dripping from his heavy brows and heavy frown. His father barely said a word. He never does, as he criticises Steve. Not anymore. When he was a kid, he couldn't run out of stuff to say, where Steve fell short, Steve's mother especially took her duties to make sure Steve was polished to perfection to heart. But nowadays, the disappointed look and disapproving frown is almost all he gets. His father might tell him to do better or that he can't except to have everything handed to him, just because he's a Harrington. But that's most of it. The echoes of his past reprimands and the heavy disappointment that follows him around, whenever he looks at Steve, does all the work for him. It is enough to make Steve cower from just the look in his eyes. Even if he is careful to never show it. This time his father had told Steve, in a very measured and careful voice, to be better. Do better. And that was all that was needed to make Steve hang his head and curl his hands up into a fist (below the table, out of sight from his parents). "Am I clear, Steven?" his father had said, when Steve hadn't reacted, so he'd spoken a quiet affirmative and hightailed it out the door with his bag barely packed with everything he needed and without a bite of breakfast.

So Steve's day is already bad and it makes everything is so much worse. He's tired of his King persona, of the way people look to him but never at him. The way they orbit him but don't get close enough to get to Steve beneath the King. And he's tired of people taking pieces off of him, and using him. Using him for his empty house and parties. For his endless supply of free alcohol. For the girls who want to kiss him, because he's King Steve and the rumours about him being a great kisser and a good time. For the girls who want to date King Steve, but leave when they've gotten what they want. For feeling alone in a room full of people. He's tired of Tommy H and Carol looking at him and yet never seeing past the King, even though they claim to be his friends. He's just tired and cold and lonely.

And then there is Eddie, who is quick to sneer back and snap at the so called royalty of Hawkins High, but whose heart is soft and eyes gentler. Who will be the first to renounce school hierarchies and cliques and conformity and especially those who mindlessly follow them, but who will see a person in need, before he sees their title and reputation. And they meet, truly meet, for the first time. Alone. Maybe they're both still at school, when it's quiet and empty. Eddie had to stay for detention and Steve stayed in the library to at least try and get some studying done and couldn't bear to return home to a house that was suffocating under his father's disapproval and his mother's sharp gaze. They cross paths outside. Eddie's lingering against a wall, smoking (he snuck out of detention) and Steve walks by him unable to stay in the school library and stare at letters that won't sit still long enough for him to try and understand them for a minute longer. Eddie snarks at him. Tries to goad him into,, well, something. He doesn't really know, if he was asking to get hit or asking for a fight, but he saw Steve all alone without his groupies and something in him couldn't resist poking that sleeping bear. Especially because Steve have always seemed so above it all. And Eddie is weak, when it comes to resisting bad ideas. So he couldn't help but call out to him, in a mocking, sneering voice. But Steve barely even responds. He replies with a few half-hearted words, that aren't even an attempt at a rebuttal, just a few dismissive words to try and walk away. Which is when Eddie sees just how tired and almost empty Steve is. He drops the sneer and the mockery and tries talking with him. "Hey, you okay, man?" And Steve stops walking. Words said in such a gentle voice. Actual kind words spoken to him, just hooks onto him and shuts his current, desperate getawaygetawaygetaway down. He sees the cigarette in Eddie's hand and he left his bag at his table in the library, but yeah, actually, not doing great, you've got a cigarette to spare? So he ends up standing opposite Eddie, smoking a cigarette and avoiding those eyes that are trying to look him over in a way that is far gentler than he is used to.

And maybe they get to talking here. Maybe they cross paths a few more times alone and fall into conversation. Without anyone around to watch Steve's every move, he's almost kind, almost warm. Still a little lifeless and lost, but he's something. And Eddie is something Steve has never had before. A breath of freedom. A small window in which he gets to just be, without expectations or anyone looking at him. So they get to know each other a little bit. Steve joins Eddie in smoking more than just this once. Always when everyone else has left or is busy. Under the bleachers. Behind the school building. Sat on the ground below the window where they both snuck out of, because this time they'd both been given detention for being a smartass (in two separate classes). He gets to slip a cigarette from Eddie's packet or give him one from his own and stand shoulder to shoulder with him, talking, as if they don't come from two separate worlds.

Eddie offers him discount on some weed as a joke, but Steve still takes him up on the offer of a baggie of weed and they meet up, but instead of just taking the weed and leaving, Steve lights up his joint on the hood of his car and Eddie, after a minute and an invite from Steve joins him and they pass the joint back and forth, talking with each other without the weight of school on their backs.

And even though they're sort of maybe friends?? Are they? Neither Steve or Eddie knows what to call each other. Steve doesn't acknowledge Eddie in school. He doesn't seek him out. Doesn't pick on him or bully him, but that's nothing new, he didn't do that before either. Sometimes, when Eddie's being called names or, on that rare occasion someone braves getting close enough to, slammed into lockers, their eyes will catch and Steve's jaw tightens and flexes, but he does nothing. Just averts his eyes with shame burning in his stomach and maybe Eddie wrenches himself away from the bully with anger burning in his eyes and snaps back with more vitriol than usual. But that's all.

They keep meeting in private, and it isn't intentional at first, until it is.

 And Eddie despises that this is where he's ended up. Looking forward to the small moments, where the world around him cracks in two and time stops, and he gets to share cigarette smoke and quiet, gentle words with Steve in the vandalised and grafitied toilets in the middle of class, when Eddie should be in English and Steve should be in history; for the moments under the bleachers, where Steve looks so small without his crown, but so much more human and touchable; for the moments where Steve smiles at him and he can forget that outside these small corners where they meet in, Steve will not look at him.

It comes to a head one night.

This one time, they meet up by school in the middle of the night and maybe they drink a little, have a beer or two, or they share half a joint in the parking lot and Steve is a co-captain to the swim team and he knows all the tricks, so he slips them into school, (with Eddie an expert lock-pick, being able to get them inside the doors Steve can't) so they end up in the pool and jump in in just their underwear. (Which is so much more exciting when they're breaking and entering rather than the pool at Steve's own house, besides, Steve would rather risk the cops than his own father).

They tread waters in quiet conversation and end up playfighting and splashing each other, trying to dunk the other underwater. And they're having fun. But fun turns into something more and suddenly they're treading water really close to each other. Chests nearly touching, warmth emanating from Eddie's body towards Steve, their legs clashing and hitting each other under water. Eyes shining and glinting, reflecting the gentle glow of the water. And it's dark, but Eddie's silhouette is lit up with a low blue glow, water glistening from his shoulders and Steve can make out a tattoo or two, despite the low light and his heart is pounding, but he feels grounded in himself in a way he hasn't in years. He's drawn towards him. Almost pulled like there's a magnetic force around him, drawing him nearer and nearer and then they're kissing. Steve ends up crowding Eddie up against the wall of the pool, arms on either side of him, braced against the edge, keeping Eddie from sinking into the water as Eddie has one hand buried in his hair and another wrapped around his shoulder and back. And it's hot and slick with wet skin, and its hard to keep kissing while treading water and trying not to drown, surrounded by thick, cloying pool water that keeps threatening to wash into their mouths, but it's somehow the best kiss Steve has ever gotten. He forgets his fear and gets swept up in the moment and just lets himself have this. And Eddie lets himself believe this will finally make Steve see that he doesn't need to be King to be loved.

But then there's a noise. Flashing red and blue lights from outside. A police siren. So Eddie and Steve scramble away from each other and up from the pool. They grab their clothes in an armful and run out the door and someone's yelling at them from behind, but Eddie and Steve are giggling and running with adrenaline pumping through them. And they hide in the same place, up against each other. But out of the water, away from the tension and the magnetism that pulled him close, Steve can't quite get himself to look at Eddie and he keeps his gaze firmly averted and his jaw locked. He's quiet and still. Fear. Terrible horrible fear rips its way through him and he doesn't know what to do, can hardly breathe, much less get himself to reach back to Eddie who is looking at him with fear, apprehension and at last, resigned acceptance the longer Steve stays quiet and still. They stay hiding until the cop is gone and its quiet again. The joy and fun of the night has died and the air between then is heavy and dead. They separate with hardly another word and maybe Eddie locks his jaw more with anger than fear, when Steve still won't look at him or respond.

They end the night in their separate cars, driving home. One stewing in fear, another in small, burning anger and disappointment (both towards Steve and himself), and they don't speak again. Steve pulls away and makes sure not to be alone with Eddie again. He turns his eyes away, when Eddie is bullied in hallways and if Eddie's sharp comebacks towards his bullies seem more directed towards Steve, with his eyes burning holes into him, well, no one but them can ever really tell.

This all happens shortly before Steve becomes interested in Nancy and Eddie's the reason he sort of latches onto her at first. At first, Nancy lets him forget Eddie but then, after a few dates, he does become interested in her and crushes on her, and ends up knee deep in Upside Down and Hawkins lab shit, just because he went to apologise to Jonathan. So if he wanted to forget Eddie, he certainly succeeded in that, even though he got a lot more than just a girlfriend out of it. 

He falls in love with Nancy, gets his heart broken by her and ends up fighting the Upside Down and its monsters no less than three times, so no. He doesn't really think about Eddie since that night they went swimming and kissed. Only really thinks about it for a split second, when he sees him in school, but after he graduates that's done. And he can shove all of his unwanted desires and sideways glances at men in a box and lock it up and never take it out again, like everything else his parents taught him to hide out of sight. (Except, that's not what happens. Because then there's Robin and a dirty floor of one of Starcourt Mall's toilets and she's saying "Steve," in such a broken, scared voice and oh, and he's singing 'Total Ecplise of the Heart' in a Muppet voice in imitation of Tammy Thompsen and Robin is doing it too and they're laughing and Robin slides into place in his heart, maybe not the way he thought she might but in a way that's so much better and maybe, he remembers curly brown hair and dark eyes and fingers wrapped in silver rings, but there's not really any time for that, but maybe, he'll be able to share this with Robin one day. A day that isn't red with blood and melted flesh and desperate fireworks, that is) 

Then Dustin, his pseudo brother, walks into High school his freshman year and within a week comes out with Eddie's name constantly falling from his rapid fire mouth. And suddenly it's "eddie this" and "eddie that" and Steve tries not to show how it makes his heart skip a beat (And he still doesn't know whether that's from fear or something else) but now there's also jealousy and who is he even jealous of?? But it's all fine. It doesn't matter. Steve has his best friend and platonic soulmate in Robin and he doesn't ever have to face Eddie or any of the things that happened between them until whoops the Upside Down is back and this time, it chased Eddie Munson to a boathouse and who would go to find him there, but Steve Harrington?

So yep. Outdoor Pool is a Steddie song and I can't listen to it without thinking about them.

I mean, just look at the second verse: (imagine it's Eddie's perspective)

I smile through form all Monday

Hoping you feel the same

Then I heard by the science lockers

Kate caught you kissing the French exchange

Is she gonna be your girlfriend?

Guess I misunderstood

It's the worst day of my life but it's all good

You can't tell me that that's not Eddie after he and Steve kissed and suddenly Steve's not talking to him and everyone's talking about him and Nancy Wheeler.

The last chorus is the same:

When we went swimming in an outdoor pool

And you didn't tell a soul at school

I was fifteen, now I'm fifteen and a fool

It's almost Skins if my eyes stay shut

But I don't swim and you're not in love

And you only kissed me, once

Nothing changed at all

When you kissed me after midnight

In an outdoor pool

In an outdoor pool

I realise this is all very niche and I will have lost most of you from the very first sentence. But I had to get this out, so that's that.

#stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #eddie x steve #steddie #ficlet #stranger things fic #steddie ficlet #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #stranger things 4 #stranger things prequel #stranger things ficlet #stancy #my post #dragons talk

[frizzle-tales]

Was asking for a pen too much? Jiyeon wasn’t quite sure what to make out of Taehyung’s tone. Was he mocking her because he didn’t think she’d deserve something at all, or was he touched by her wanting such a souvenir?

“Yes…?” Jiyeon responded to his question, looking at him wide eyed as she tried to read his mood, before she looked down at her feet, slowly growing embarrassed at her request. But then, to her surprise, Taehyung actually told her to go ahead and pick whichever one she’d like, and with a smile and now without any anxious thoughts, Jiyeon stepped forward.

There was a mix of different styles; a few masculine ones with a neutral colorpalette of grays and blacks, and another one in a few tints of green. Jiyeon’s eyes glanced to the shades that caught her attention, and luckily, there was just one left in the basket.

Jiyeon took the pink pen from the batch; the flower illustration along with the precious colors and swirly handwriting was too pretty to pass on. The girl decides to hold onto the pen, making sure not to lose it.

Sohee was watching them closely as Jiyeon offered to prepare Taehyung’s bath and even dinner. No, no, surely they were not that close, were they? Surely Taehyung wasn’t really that into Jiyeon if he didn’t even bothered to give her a ring … he was definitely not that serious with her.

Perhaps Taehyung only kept her around. Of course he’d get bored of Jiyeon fast enough— and realize that he would want a real woman instead.

And until that day… she would wait.

The couple left the office behind and headed back home, and soon their conversation circled back to one of his employees, Sohee.

Of course she would be a good employee. It was obvious that she’d listened to his every word like a puppy wagging its tail. Jiyeon wasn’t sure how Taehyung’s words made her feel; part of her wanted to tell him that Sohee seemed to dislike her, but she didn’t know where to start with the embarrassing lack of proof to back up her claim, so she didn’t, and instead stared out of the window. “I suppose it makes sense that you’d get along more with women your age…” Jiyeon commented, leaving it at that.

—

Shit.

Of course, the bath. Truthfully… Jiyeon was so caught up in getting a reaction out of Sohee that she didn’t realize that she actually had to do what she offered, learning an important lesson on making promises and keeping them.

“Oh! No, no, I didn’t forgot…I will get the bath ready.” Jiyeon replied - knowing it was best to not tell him the truth - as she hung his coat before tidying her shoes and own coat.

She headed upstairs, hearing Taehyung following right after her, grimacing at how he never seemed to let her breathe it seemed.

Jiyeon prepped the bath, leaving the water running as she went to grab a towel and his robe for Taehyung, placing it on the towel rack before she went to check on the water’s temperature. “It’s almost ready…” Jiyeon mentioned, while her thoughts already strayed to dinner. That was it. The mundane routine would start again.

“Your bath is ready…” No, he did mention that they were on first name basis, right? Would that also go for at home? Jiyeon didn’t dare to ask. “…I will get to cooking then.” She figured that now atleast, Taehyung wouldn’t be looming over her and watching her every move as she prepared dinner for them. She took a few steps towards bathroom door but paused, glancing over at Taehyung.

“I forgot to mention… thank you for today. I had fun, seeing your office, and having lunch… It was nice.” Jiyeon smiled lightly— their ‘trip’ outside of the home was surprisingly nice, it was a great distraction for everything going on.

— 🎙️

Right before following the young woman upstairs, Taehyung paused at the wooden stand near the doorway, another small — yet astonishingly genuine — smile tugging on his lips.

He lifted the pen Jiyeon was graciously allowed, admiring the one she decided to choose. Out of all the options, this one was the one she wanted the most. It was kinda.. cute.

She wanted something of his. Something that would remind her of him every time she simply looked at it.

But he soon brushed the thoughts off, beginning to trail behind the girl before too much distance became between them.

As Jiyeon prepped the bath, Taehyung watched while leaning against the doorframe, his eyes gliding over every inch of her body. “Is it now?” He responded to her update, his head cocking to the side. Though, he still pushed himself up, heading into the bathroom whilst undressing his shirt.

She was behaving so well. Taking so much time and care into the small details that made up his bath.

As if she was really his fiancé.

Although, he couldn’t help but to wonder: was this all just an act? A ploy to lower his guard? While he was up here, soaking in her seemingly innocent suggestion, she would be searching for an escape downstairs. An unlocked window. A working landline. Something to leave him.

Ha, did she really think he was that stupid? That he would ever willingly allow that to happen?

Jiyeon’s voice snapped him from his thoughts. His eyes followed her slow footsteps towards the door, through the mirror’s reflection. For a change, he didn’t say anything. Not a single word as he walked in her direction, stepping past her for only a moment to close and lock the bathroom door.

“Aren’t you being so sweet today..” Taehyung stopped in front of her, reaching out to tuck some hair behind her ear. “You’re very welcome, sweetheart. Don’t you see now? Only good girls get rewards.” Both his hands then moved to rest on her waist before slowly dragging down to her hips. “Dinner can wait until later.” He suddenly switched the topic, leaning in closer towards her. “I want you to join me.”

It was the easiest way to keep his eye on her. Make certain she was behaving herself. And why couldn’t he enjoy himself a little while he did so?

His fingers found the hem of her shirt, using it as leverage to pull it off over her head. “There, now you can do the rest.” Taehyung stepped back, nudging the girl further into the bathroom incase she decided to get any sudden bright ideas. “Unless, of course, you’d love me to help you.”

The killer finished getting himself and undressed, and when the young woman did too, he got into the bath, pulling her in with him. He settled with his back against the tub, his behaving hostage between his legs, her back resting against his chest, one arm around her waist. Steam fogged the bathroom mirrors, covered the room in a warm, humid haze.

As the couple relaxed in the warm water, Taehyung’s fingers trailed across her body. Tracing the soft curve of the young woman’s waist down to her thigh. All while his thoughts began to wander; going to places it very well shouldn’t be. No, couldn’t be.

Fuck.

It felt as if his self control was slipping through the cracks the longer time ticked on. The touch of her skin was so addicting, he was on the edge of almost doing anything to feel more. She fit so well between his legs too, back perfectly flush against his chest. The closer she was, the easier he could be consumed by her sweet, vanilla-like scent.

Abruptly, the man cleared his throat, nudging Jiyeon away from him. “Enough, get out.” His voice came out harsher than he truthfully meant to, ice cold as he snapped at her. Frustration was simmering in his veins, threatening to turn into a rolling boil. “Get yourself dressed and go start on dinner. You’ve had a long enough break.”

Realistically, he knew there was no reason to treat her so harshly, but he couldn’t shake off the sheer agitation he felt. Jiyeon was his toy, a mere victim he decided to spare for his own curiosity. A plain jane college student, there were hundreds just like her.

And yet, she was the one. The only one ever in his life who drove him so insane.

#🎙anon #serial killer!taehyung #yandere taehyung

[casspurrjoybell-17]

Hart and Hunter - Chapter 20 - Part 2

*Warning Adult Content*

Julian Hart

Next, I head down the street to Craft Essentials, where Danni Spelling welcomes me with a bright smile and a hand sign I used to associate with punks and rock concerts but which I've since learned represents the Horned God and is a used as a greeting between witches. 

"Julian. Blessed be." 

Danni is in their mid-thirties, has pale skin and closely shaved dark hair, is petite and pixie-like and gets mis-gendered so often they rarely bother correcting people even when they wear a shirt declaring their pronouns across the colors of the nonbinary flag. 

"Hi, Danni. How's the, uh... spell-craft business going?"

I glance around at the shelves stocked with tiny bottles of essential oils, colorful handmade soaps, scented candles, dried herbs, crystals, books and various other items and wonder if my question is insensitive.

The few customers I've seen in Danni's shop haven't seemed like big spenders. 

"Great," Danni exclaims.

"Ninety percent of my business is online, actually. The store is just a place to keep it all and make a few extra bucks on the side." 

As I glance around the shop again, it makes sense. Everything is arranged to make it easy to locate and identify and the labels include information like the item's inventory number and color, presumably to reduce the chance Danni would send the wrong one by mistake. 

At the moment, they're sorting small polished gemstones into neat little baskets on a table, arranged by color and size.

"So, what can I do for you?" Danni asks.

"You need a spell-kit or a candle? Something for focus and insight or clearing the mind? You got a big decision ahead of you, I think." 

Taken aback, I fail to hide my surprise and Danni laughs. 

"I'm psychic, like you, remember? I told you, I see auras." 

Danni had told me that, I recall but I hadn't believed them. 

They gesture at me.

"Your aura is all... swirly and agitated. 'Big decision' was just a guess based on what I've seen before. Am I right?" 

"Yeah. I already made it, though," I say, thinking of the land-bond and Danni grins cheekily.

"Maybe that's what you've told yourself but your aura says otherwise. So, not to be nosy but what is it? You finally gonna put a ring on that man of yours and tie him down?" 

I blink.

Whether their ability is real or not, Danni is certainly insightful. 

"Something like that," I say, smiling.

"But I'm actually here for another reason." 

Danni turns back to the table and continues sorting gems.

"Yeah, I figured. The cops were here earlier, asking all kinds of questions about the building, my relationship with Jeff... all that jazz." 

"What happened recently?" 

"I don't know. Like I told that dweeby detective... Halloran or whatever his name is... I hardly saw Jeff in the last few weeks before he died. I went over to talk to him about a new marketing strategy and he acted like he didn't know me. Then I saw him spending an awful lot of time next door with Steph and I figured maybe I didn't know him as well as I'd thought I did, either." 

"Lagrange was hanging out with Stephanie Wong?" 

Danni nods.

"Only recently, though. I honestly thought he didn't like her."

I frown as I infer two things. 

First, that Halloran is still using his glamour to affect how he's perceived and second, that he hasn't been completely forthcoming with the information.

Unless he just hasn't had the chance to pass the intel along.

"You told the cops all that this morning?" I ask. 

"Yeah and when they interviewed me at the station and right after Jeff died. Is it important?" 

"I don't know," I say, which is the truth.

"Hey, I know this is probably the last thing you want to do right now but would you mind telling me what you told the police? As much as you can remember?" 

Danni casts me a sly, sidelong look.

"While you're waiting for me to make you up that spell-kit, you mean?" 

I laugh.

"Sounds like a deal." 

As Danni selects various items from the shelves, wraps them carefully and packs them into a small cloth pouch, they recount their conversations with detectives Vasquez and Halloran while I take careful notes on my phone.

Most of it Dane and I already know but a few choice tidbits are new.

The revelation that Lagrange... or rather the skin-changer that had taken his place... had been friendly with Wong remains the most interesting point, however, and puts Stephanie at the top of my suspect list. 

With their story concluded, Danni puts the finishing touches on the spell-kit. 

"Okay... now a gem for you to concentrate on and ground your energies. Let's see..."

They take a step back and look me up and down.

"Amethyst. That's definitely your stone." 

"Oh, really?" I roll my eyes and laugh.

"Who'd have guessed?" 

"What do you mean?" Danni asks, sounding perplexed.

I point at my eyes.

"Are you color-blind?" 

Danni's expression flickers.

"Actually... yeah, I am. That's why I label everything so carefully." 

Mortified by my thoughtlessness, I roast in the instant broil of embarrassment.

"Shit. I'm so sorry. I didn't even think..." 

Danni laughs.

"Dude, relax. It's okay. People don't know unless I tell them." 

"Still, I shouldn't have assumed..." 

Danni waves dismissively.

"Don't worry about it. Anyway, what's with your eyes? They're not blue?" 

"No.... they're purple... like a bright, obvious purple." 

"Wow," Danni exclaims, leaning closer, their own eyes wide as they peer at mine.

"That's super rare, right? I can't see the red part of purple, so it just looks like blue to me." 

"So," I ask, my curiosity overcoming my mortification at last.

"If you didn't know I had purple eyes, why'd you say amethyst was my stone?" 

"Just something in your aura," Danni says.

"I thought auras were... um... colorful," I say and wince but Danni only smiles.

"So much of our language and communication is vision-based. Most people think if you're psychic, it means you 'see' things. You and I know better, right?" 

"Yeah," I agree.

"I mostly feel stuff... emotions, sensations, that sort of thing." 

Danni nods.

"It's the same for me. I may not 'see' colors but I feel them. When I look at you, I feel purple. 'Purple' is an in-between color. It can mean a perfect blend of things or it can signify the state of being caught between two options... uncertainty, a big decision. That sort of thing. When I look at you, I sense the latter kind of purple." 

They place the stone they'd selected for me and a card with instructions in the bag and tie it shut with a bit of hemp string before handing it over. 

"So, there you go... a spell for insight and clarity."

 Suitably impressed, I take it and fish out my wallet.

"What do I owe you?" 

"Nothing," Danni rests a hand on my arm and smiles.

"It's a gift. Just let me know how it goes." 

I thank them and prepare to leave, when a new thought strikes me and I turn back. 

"Hey, when you went to visit Jeffrey and he acted strange, did his... er... 'aura' look any different to you?" 

Danni nods.

"Yes, actually. Jeff's energy was always steady and settled... like a river in an old course. He knew what worked for him and he stuck to it. The last time I talked to him, he was all..."

Danni scrunches their face and waves a hand.

"I don't know. I'd almost say frightened. He was all over the map." 

"Did you tell the police that?" 

"I mean... I mentioned he seemed different but I didn't get into the psychic angle. You know how cops are." 

"You'd be surprised," I say.

"Some are pretty open-minded. Anyway, this might sound strange but if you notice anyone else whose aura suddenly changes, could you let us know?" 

I hand over a business card and Danni takes it with a nod.

"Sure. I can do that."

Spell-kit in hand, I take my leave and walk back down the street towards to my car, where I see that Stephanie's shop is still closed.

I consider calling Halloran... telling him of my new suspicions and asking for his help... but I decide against it.

If Danni told him everything they told me, then he already knows. 

I sit in my car a while longer, hoping that Stephanie will show but after thirty minutes, I get hungry and bored and then it's time to pick Ingrid up from the college.

At home, I find Dane on the phone.

He's deeply absorbed in something, taking careful notes and after eavesdropping for a few minutes I gather he's talking to his mom about the land-bonding ritual.

I give him some privacy and help Ingrid carry Charlie the Cello over to Chloe and Grace's for her daily practice session. 

Later, over dinner, Dane and Ingrid talk about wolf things and entertain me with stories from their childhoods.

Seeing Dane relaxed and laughing is a nice change and I don't want to bring down the mood, so I don't mention the information I'd gleaned from Danni.

Tomorrow will be soon enough to discuss the case.  

With dinner concluded, Dane and Ingrid head out for a Run and Dane tells me not to wait up.

As part of the lead-up to the ritual, he needs to patrol the borders of the land he intends to claim every night and it will take a while. 

In the meantime, I catch up on some reading, do some adulting I've been putting off and eventually go to bed. 

Sometime later, I feel the bed dip and move over to make room for Dane.

When he crawls right over me, I mumble an objection and try to push him off.

As horny as I can be, I'm not actually always in the mood.

Rather than comply, though, he grabs my wrist in a vise-like grip and pins me to the bed, which is when it finally gets through my sleep-addled brain that the person on top of me is not, in fact, Dane. 

At which point, I awaken and stare up into a pair of bright purple eyes.

[explode-this]

I’m not reblogging what prompted this because I’m not Getting Into It with anyone today, but the difference between AI structures scraping for art and artists “stealing” art (copying style or ideas—NOT straight-up plagiarism) is that the former is indiscriminate and guided by prompts that don’t allow either the machine or the person prompting to learn anything, and the latter is a deliberate attempt to incorporate ideas and techniques into the thing one is making. For example, a painter who wants to emulate the swirly style of Van Gogh has to look at his work and figure out for themselves how to reproduce/replicate/imitate that style. They are choosing to take inspiration from it and deciding what aspects of that work to incorporate into their own. AI scrapes, though guided by an idea (like “night sky like Van Gogh”), ultimately take what it can find that fits the pattern and doesn’t really learn how it works. The person writing the prompts isn’t learning for themselves how to use it to say something, but to incorporate an aesthetic without any depth. To say that “all great artists take from others” is true, and it’s how we learn from each other. But one form of “stealing” takes thought. The other is slapping together what looks about right and claiming that it’s art. Which is not to say that someone emulating a style has really put SO much thought into it, but they have to think about it in order to reproduce it themselves. An artist that likes an idea or an aesthetic enough to build on it is doing so with their own knowledge and limitations in play.

I would rather make something imperfect inspired by another’s work than have that work scraped to put together something I didn’t even bother to try making myself.

#thoughts on ai art #or ‘art’ #you have to add your own context and contribute something for ‘stealing’ art—by way of inspiration or emulation—to become your own art #machines don’t know context #they just know charge phone eat hot chip be bisexual and scrape #anyway