#Its a bit wonky but I hope its good enough :D

[familyfriendlyweed]

makeup sessions (karl jacobs x fem reader)

a/n : hi! this is my first tumblr post. i have written stuff on wattpad in the past, but it’s still quite new to me, so please be nice :]] i accept positive critism and advice, as that most definitely will help me grow as a writer!

 Y/n let out something between a squeal and a scream at the same time when she saw Karl's tweet. her face was beat red and her lips couldn't help but curl into the stupidest grin ever.

the tweet read :

hey @) y/nhasursocks wanna do my makeup at my stream today :]]

 it was the simplest tweet, yet it meant so much to the girl. Karl and Y/n were always really good friends, they often streamed minecraft together, but never in a million years did he yet ask her to be in his stream in real life.

 Y/n picked up the phone with trembling hands, already seeing a bunch of likes, comments and retweets to Karl's tweet. before answering, she got curious to know what the people say. cautiously opening the comments section, the girl scanned it through with her eyes. a bunch of "awwwwws" and hearts could be seen, which worsened her already red cheeks.

With her heart thumping hard against her ribs, she started writing her reply :

sounds great! <3

 for a moment Y/n hesitated to press the "reply" button with the "<3" emoticon in the comment, but then she figured she and Karl sent lovey dovey emojis/emoticons in the past to each other anyways, so, she pressed the "reply" button at last.

 in an instant, her reply started gaining more and more likes, comments and retweets. Y/n was never really popular, having her clout was only because of Karl being her friend, so seeing this much attention was weird to her. but she didn't care about that right now. all that Y/n cared about at the moment was the fact that Karl appreciated her enough to actually invite her over.

 a little bit later in the day, Y/n received a private message from Karl, which said :

hey Y/n! I'm really glad you're up to stream together <3 i planned on starting the stream at 4 pm, but you can change the time if you're busy :] here is my address (don't tell anyone! :D) - (random address lol)

 Y/n answered :

 thanks for inviting me bestie!! 4 pm is cool, I'll be there! <33

 she set the phone down, unable to remove the blissful smile from her face. she has never felt this way before - it was really weird, but the constant butterflies in her tummy reminded her that it's a good feeling. taking a few deep breaths, Y/n reminded to herself that all she has to do is to go to Karl's house and have a good time AS FRIENDS - no romantic stuff is needed.

  ~~~~~time skip~~~~~

  Y/n got off from the bus at 15:50, but she still had about 5 minutes to reach Karl's house. in what felt like forever, the girl felt a sting of what was unmistakably fear and guilt - what if she was late? and what if Karl would be annoyed with her for that?

 slowly she broke into a panicky run. passing careless citizens, who all looked at her fear-stricken face curiously, she finally made it to the front door of Karl's home. Y/n pulled out her phone and found the code that she was supposed to enter next the main door. she quickly dialed it, a beep beep beep was heard and she entered.  

 finally making it to Karl's apartment, Y/n stopped to smooth her hair and straighten her clothes so she doesn't look too shabby. her body seemed to be moving on its own - her finger pressed the doorbell automatically.

 Karl opened the door almost in an instant - he wore a warm smile and before Y/n could stutter a "hello", he pulled the girl into a big welcoming hug.

 "hey Y/n! it's so cool you made it!" Karl exclaimed, still holding her close.

Y/n's head was spinning, she needed more time to process what was happening. but nevertheless, she finally lifted her own arms and hugged the guy. burying her face into his sweater, she inhaled Karl's scent deeply - he smelled something like honey and warm days.

"hello, Karl." she mumbled with a grin on her face.

"come on, do you want to eat something before the stream?" Karl asked, letting go of the girl and taking her hand into his instead, leading Y/n into the house.

"oh no, I'm full. let's get straight to business." she answered, the blissful smile and content blush never leaving her face.

"alrighty! you already know, but we'll have an eventful makeup session, and then I thought maybe play some minecraft so the stream isn't too short?" the guy asked, opening his bedroom door.

"sounds great!"

Karl smiled and went to his computer :

"you ready? I'll start the stream now."

the girl quickly fixed her hair again and gave him thumbs up :

"ready."

Karl started the stream with facecam on and as soon as the chat saw Y/n, it went absolutely wild.

"guys, give her a rest, poor girl just came!" he laughed, drawing her a chair. Y/n thanked quietly and sat, waving to the chat timidly. in the corner of her eye, she saw comments like "she's so adorable" and "look at Karl being a gentleman" in the chat and her cheeks grew more red, but this time from satisfaction.

"well, as you guys know, Y/n agreed to be in my stream today, and since some of you don't really know her, she's a really good friend of mine who also streams and does youtube videos - so go support her!"

from that moment Y/n relaxed more and more with each minute. it was fifteen minutes into the stream when she already felt as if at home.

"Karl, you have a hell lot of lipsticks, where did that come from?"

"uhhhh, I only bought them for the stream today!"

"oh really? why are they all used, then?" Y/n asked giggling and showing them to the stream.

"hey- don't expose me like that!"

"chat, clip it, CLIP IT!"

all was going really well, Y/n was having a really good time with Karl AS FRIENDS. it was really nice. but all hell broke loose when the time to put eyeliner came.

"alright, I have no idea why, but you have four eyeliners."

"they're my sister's."

"haha, yeah, yeah, alright. Which one do you want big man?"

"hmmm, the one in your left hand!"

Y/n set the other eyeliners on the table, quickly glancing at the chat. her cheeks grew very very red…

"Y/N DO THE MEME SIT ON HIS LAP" "SIT ON HIS LAP" "THE MEME, DO THE MEME!!!"

  a/n: if anyone is confused, this is an example of the meme i’m talking about :

the girl tried to act as if she hadn't seen the comments, but Karl was already by her side, reading them with her.

"meme… what meme?" he wondered out loud. Y/n got the impression that he was genuinely confused.

'chat, shut the fuck up, please shut the fuck up.' thought Y/n, but of course chat was just being chat.

"SHE SHOULD SIT ON UR LAP" "THERE'S A MEME WHERE A GIRL DOES A GUY'S EYELINER WHILE SITTING ON HIS LAP" "WE'RE NOT FORCING BUT YOU GUYS WOULD LOOK SO CUTE"

Y/n hid her face in her hands, unable to control her blushing. Karl just chuckled sweetly :

"chat, calm down, she's going to die from blushing."

he put on the "please stand by" screen and scooted over Y/n :

"hey, it's fine. we won't do it if you don't want to," Karl then leaned closer and whispered, "I'd be pretty glad if you agreed, though."

Y/n lowered her hands, showing off the big red hue on her cheeks. for a split second Karl's eyes widened -  she looked really adorable.

"I'd also be glad." the girl said, almost not believing her own words.

Karl's adorable smile came back and he leaned back:

"well then, come here."

Y/n stood up shyly and straddled his legs, grabbing the eyeliner in the process.

"do you want me to turn on the facecam?" Karl asked quietly.

the girl nodded :

"I don't mind."

he turned it on and put his hands onto Y/n's hips. even without looking at it, Y/n knew the chat was blowing up at the moment.

"you guys better subscribe, because we're providing very good fanservice." said Karl jokingly and Y/n laughed. turning to him, she opened the eyeliner and put it next to his eye, only to find him staring at her in an awe. the girl blushed as a strong urge to kiss him kicked in. it looked as if Karl wanted the same thing.

at the precise same time, they both leaned in and pressed their lips together, Y/n putting her hands onto Karl's cheeks to hide the view from the chat. the kiss was very short and with no tongue included - but it was the most sweet kiss Y/n has ever shared with someone. she pulled away, an identical grin to Karl's on her face and hugged him very tight - they almost fell off the chair.

laughing, she continued to do Karl's makeup as if nothing happened and everyone watching the stream wasn't fainting and clipping the kiss. this will be talked about for a long time, but as before, Y/n didn't care about that, and nor did Karl.

a/n : anddddd cut! it’s quite wonky, but i believe it’s pretty swell for my first mcyt fanfic :]] let me know what you think of it and if you have any tips or advice on how to make my future stories more enjoyable! thanks for reading and i hope to see you around <3

#mcyt #mcyt x reader #mcyt imagine #karl jacobs #karl jacobs x reader #karl jacobs imagines #mcyt imagines #dream smp #dream smp imagines #dream smp x reader

[gumnut-logic]

Callisto - Part Five - Orientation

Prologue 1. Incident - Bit 1 | Bit 2 2. Fallout - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 3. Voyage - Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 4. Arrival - Bit 1 | Bit 2 5. Orientation

Things actually start happening now :D

As always, many, many thanks to @tsarinatorment​ @scribbles97​ @janetm74​ and @onereyofstarlight​ for all their amazing help. We’re deep into the hard slog now, but I am still enjoying this so that is a good sign :D

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this and cheer me on. The hard slog of the middle of a long fic can be as bad as the hard slog in the middle of a painting, so all cheering is always welcome. But ultimately, I’m hoping you are find this enjoyable and not boring :D Nutty is learning here, so big L plate on my forehead.

Let the antics continue.

-o-o-o-

Virgil stared at his father’s broad back as he walked the length of the gantry toward the elevator. Scott paused a moment and Virgil placed a hand on his back in support. Muscle beneath many micro layers of spacesuit rippled as his brother loosened his shoulders. A glance of fiery blue and Scott followed his father.

As was the way of things.

Virgil followed Scott.

As was the way of things.

The cavern was a large one. It had to be to fit Three beneath its airlock doors. His heads up display confirmed pressurisation of the bay to Earth normal and his mind did the calculations on the infrastructure required to pump that much atmosphere into such a large space so quickly. He couldn’t help but be impressed.

The gantry led to an elevator platform and they crowded onto it. Gordon brushed up against him as if to catch his attention and a worried frown was shot in Virgil’s direction.

As the gantry retracted and the platform lowered, Virgil let a hand brush against Gordon’s side. If he did the same to Alan, well, they were his brothers and he may have needed the connections a little himself.

The ride down gave them a great view of the heavy equipment available in the bay. Virgil had accessed all the information he could get his hands on during the trip out, needing to know how he was going to deploy their own equipment.

He had known this was going to be an underground job and had packed accordingly. The problem with underground was initial deployment - how to get the equipment under the ground.

The backup was always to make their own holes. But that could be unnecessarily messy and a last resort. So Virgil was quite happy to see the set up included all the heavy-duty crane and hover support he could ever want.

TI had equipped this expedition exceedingly well.

Walters met them at the bottom of the bay. The rock had been ground smooth down here, filler shone in places where ice had obviously been removed, making the floor a patchwork of white and dark grey, human ingenuity and raw moon.

The Commander nodded to Scott, but it was their father whose hand he grasped solidly before pulling him into a hug. “Space Jockey, it is so good to see you. Thank you for coming.” Walters stepped back and held Jeff at arms’ length. “You’ve gone grey.”

“And you’re bald. Your point?” But their father was grinning through the plasiglass of his helmet.

“We’re both a little crunchy around the edges.” He turned to Lee. “Hey, Scrappy.”

“Graeme, I may be old, but I can still kick your ass over that.” Despite the threat, Uncle Lee grabbed the man’s hand and shook it with enthusiasm.

“These are my boys.” Dad gestured at them in turn. “Scott, Virgil, Gordon and Alan. John is still aboard the Excel and will be liaising from there.”

Walters nodded at each of them in turn, his white-grey spacesuit wrinkling with the movement. He had his helmet on just like the IR crew did. Best chance to avoid contamination or some random bug the Tracys might had inadvertently brought with them.

Of course, Virgil and John had run the decon protocols before departure and it was obvious Callisto had its own methods, but the risk was there. Helmets on unless they had no choice.

Another thing about space that was annoying - listening to your own breathing in a confined container. Okay for short term, total annoyance long term. Especially if your nose got itchy.

It was a sign that Virgil really needed more sleep when he managed to miss a chunk of what Walters was saying simply because he was designing an in-helmet nose scratcher in his head. Well, it could be multifunctional if he gave it enough reach. Head scratcher, chin scratcher-

Gordon nudged him.

Unfortunately, right in his bruises. “Ow.” He glared at his brother only to find the fish gesturing with his eyes.

Commander Walters was looking at Virgil with a question on his face. Both Scott and Dad were frowning at him. Oh shit. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“The Commander asked if we would like to survey the entrance to the caves first or deploy our equipment.” Dad’s voice was very...patient. “Scott said it was your decision.”

Virgil didn’t hesitate, regardless of the embarrassment. “I’ve scoured your maps, Commander, but I would be happier if you could show us the entrance to the cave network. It’s not far?” maps and diagrams were one thing. Reality was another.

Walters eyed him a little curiously. “Sure. Follow me.” And he led them towards a set of massive doors.

For a moment there, Virgil expected some grinding machinery to split the doors wide like some grand movie entrance complete with cinematic music, but no, Walters led them to a small airlock embedded in the left door and ushered them through.

It was kind of disappointing actually.

“We keep the Garden isolated as a precaution and as a way to monitor the function of the ecosystem.

“Garden?” Alan had obviously not had time to fully read up on the Base like the rest of them.

Walters’ eyes lit up despite everything. “You are in for a treat. The Garden is our horticultural team’s ultimate triumph.”

The doors opened and sunlight flooded into the airlock. And it was sunlight enough for Virgil’s jaw to drop. They stepped out into an environment so familiar, they may as well have stepped out the back door of the villa.

Except it wasn’t. The plants were recognisable, yes, but their growth most definitely was not.

This was not in the briefing notes.

“This looks suspiciously familiar.” It was Gordon who stepped to the front of the group.

Walters frowned. “Excuse me.”

Gordon’s eyes narrowed in on the man. He pointed at a nearby tree. “Pokey trees don’t get that big in five years, Commander. What’s in the water?”

It was Walters’ turn to frown. “Pokey trees?” A blink. “Oh, pohutukawa. No, they do not. However, with some special treatment and the lack of strong gravity, they can.”

Virgil stared up at the giant tree. It was far too thin at the base for the spread of the massive branches and it seem wrong somehow. Everything was too long and looked as if it was going to fall. What was even more odd was the sound of a honeyeater argument in those branches. A scuffle, a ruckus of squawks and a flash of grey and yellow flew out from amongst the leaves and darted over the rocky hill in front of them.

“You have birds?!” Gordon sounded caught between amazement and outrage.

Walters stared at him a moment longer. “We have much more than that.” He turned away and led them away from the tree and up a winding path. Virgil’s boots crunched gravel that glittered as it moved. He frowned at what was probably nothing more than ground up moon. It was pale and sparkling like some set prop out of an early science fiction show John might have watched.

But he was soon distracted by much more fascinating sights.

The path led up a small hill and soon he realised that they were in a massive cavern, bigger than all the hangars beneath Tracy Island combined.

And it was full of life.

Birds of several different kinds flew about the ‘sky’. A sky dominated by a number of extremely bright lights hanging from a ceiling so high it couldn’t be seen for the brilliance. Oddly growing foliage was everywhere. The lone pokey tree by the door was scarlet in blossom, but it was not alone. Flowers sprouted from wonky stems and too tall grass. The little hill they were standing on was the highest point in the cavern, the ground sloping down into the distance. At the far edge, a lake had ducks swimming in it.

“How the hell?” It was Gordon, but Virgil’s questions were not far behind.

Several physical requirements clicked into place. The cavern was obviously heated and pressurised with an Earth level atmosphere just like the hangar, otherwise those birds wouldn’t be able to fly beyond bouncing in the gravity.

While Gordon’s head seemed ready to explode, Virgil managed one word. “How?”

Walters had a quietly confident smirk on his face. “A combination of research, applied science and a whole pile of luck.” A sigh. “This is Ju’s baby.”

Scott shifted where he stood. “Where is the access to the cave network?” Virgil glanced at his brother. There was an intensity in his eyes that spoke of both mission urgency and further questions that would need asking once that mission was complete.

Walters exhaled and nodded. “This way.” He led them down the other side of the hill to what eventually proved to be another set of massive doors. “The caverns were here when we arrived. We knew of them before we left Earth, but what we did not realise was their extent.” Walters stopped in front of the doors. He gestured at the cavern. “To create all this, we only needed to seal the cavern entrance overhead – which the Base did nicely. We installed a series of atmospheric inducers, the heating and the lighting. The rest we grew from seed or egg.” The man was obviously proud of their achievements.

“Sir, the caves?” Scott was getting rightfully impatient.

“Yes. Yes, you’re right.” He swallowed and hurried over to yet another small door within a door.

Virgil took another step forward, intending on seeing how the door was unlocked when his world suddenly doubled. His stomach rolled over with that familiar nausea ever so reminiscent of their trip out here.

He swallowed and closed his eyes a second.

“Virg? You okay?” Gordon was whispering on a closed channel.

Virgil cranked his eyes open, lack of sleep suddenly piling on top of him. His fish brother was frowning at him. Scott, their father and Uncle Lee were walking towards Walters and the door.

The sudden vertigo had him fearing an incident inside his helmet.

But then as he took a step towards Gordon, the nausea faded away, a single last cramp dissipating as his little brother approached and put a hand on his arm.

“Virg?”

“I’m okay. Just felt dizzy for a second there.”

“T-drive?”

“Probably.”

“Meds wearing off?”

“Didn’t think I would need them.”

Now Alan had stopped following Scott and was looking back. Any minute now and he would have not only Scott on his ass, but Dad as well. He straightened his spine. “I’m good.” But whatever it was had triggered the beginnings of a headache.

Damn.

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d completed a rescue with a headache. He’d throw back some paracetamol when they went back to Three to source their equipment.

“You sure?”

“I said so, didn’t I?”

Gordon held up his hands. “Just checking, bro. Don’t get your pants in a twist. Hard to unknot them out here.”

But Gordon was still frowning at him.

Alan was turning back...

Move or get smothered.

He flexed his shoulders and strode off to join the rest of this family.

-o-o-o-

Gordon stared after his heavy lifting brother.

Damn that T-drive. His own stomach hadn’t fully recovered either and Virgil was obviously still feeling it.

Gordon pondered whether Virg could knock him out for the voyage home. Maybe knock both of them out.

Alan was frowning and gesturing for him to hurry up. Scott and Dad had already entered what turned out to be yet another airlock.

Space was hard work.

He kicked at the gravel as he trotted after his brother and darted into the huge airlock with his brothers.

Walters was talking again as he sealed the door behind them. “The cavern appears to have been a terminus for this branch of the cave network.” Walters should seek a job as a tour guide. “As I said earlier, we knew about some of the caves before we arrived, but it became increasingly clear that our sensors weren’t telling the full story when we discovered exactly how many tunnels are under the surface here.”

Gordon felt the room depressurise and his HUD declared the atmosphere had become almost nothing. He frowned. It was still something though and he remembered that Callisto was one of those odd places that had the bare minimum of a bunch of gases clinging to it.

He was pretty sure that if he pinged Johnny, he could give him an essay on it, Jupiter luny fan he was.

Walters opened the other side of the airlock and led them through.

Oh, wow.

They were once again in a cavern, a smaller one to the one they had just left and it was obviously more in its natural state. The big doors were sealed into one wall and a lighting system had been deployed running off into the distance.

And there was a lot of distance. The cavern was definitely a tunnel, a good twenty metres wide and high. But that wasn’t all that had his jaw dropping.

The walls were sparkling in the light.

Walters must have seen his reaction or the reaction of his family. “Pretty amazing, huh? The walls are full of a mix of ice and rock. The ice catches the light, but there is also an unusual amount of mineralised crystal as well. We’ve found several types of quartz along with precious metals.”

Gordon was only half listening to him. He wandered over to the nearest wall and examined it. Ice. Water. But in a way it was rarely seen on Earth. Kinda interesting. He ran a hand over the wall and frowned. “You say this is natural?”

“Other than stringing up the lights and installing the doors, from here on, it is pure Callisto.”

“This was made by running water.” Even Gordon knew how impossible that was in the current environment. He looked up to find everyone staring at him. “Hey, I know my element when I see it. This wall has been eroded by running water.”

Walters slumped just a little. “Thank you. Ju has been saying that since we got here. Unfortunately, we can’t work out how that can possibly be a thing, but yeah, all the tunnels, if we were on Earth? Water made. Like limestone caves apparently.” A snort. “Ju has been very adamant about it.”

“Have you reported this?” Dad’s voice startled Gordon a little.

“Reported? Sure. But all her peers are less than accepting. All signs point to Callisto as having had no crustal movement since it formed, minor atmosphere, and certainly no running water at these pressures.”

“But this is a fact.” Gordon frowned again. “What about the reports of an ocean on Callisto under the crust.” Yes, he had checked that out. This wasn’t his first Jovian moon after all. It was why he had brought Four with him.

“Too far down. We can’t reach it. And besides, it is impossible for water to exist as a liquid on the surface, there is not enough atmospheric pressure. We’re barely five hundred metres down here. We haven’t been able to explain it, and until we do, it is considered only one possible and likely doubtful explanation.”

Gordon turned back to the wall. It glittered at him as if daring him to discover its mysteries. “Virg?”

“Hmm?” His brother’s voice was distracted enough to distract Gordon. He flicked over to a private comm. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, Gordon. What did you want?”

Gordon grunted. “You got something to test the rocks?”

“If needs be. We have a rescue to complete first.” Virgil killed the private line and turned to Walters. “I’m satisfied. Scott, we need some recon. I recommend we get two dragonflies down here.”

Scott nodded. “Okay, we are go. Alan, you’re with me. Gordon, you’re Virgil’s wingman.”

As it should be.

Besides, Gordon wanted to keep an eye on their resident lumberjack. He was acting weird.

“Dad, you and Uncle Lee are our liaisons with Base.”

Gordon bit his lip.

“Scott-“

The Commander of International Rescue held up his hand, fire in his eyes. “No, arguments.”

Dad’s eyes latched onto Scott and flared, but Uncle Lee grabbed his arm. “Space Jockey...”

Grey eyes flickered to his best friend and got a dose of determined Lee Taylor for the effort.

Their father’s lips thinned as nobody moved for a whole moment, Scott emanating commander vibes all over the cavern. If Dad didn’t obey, all hell was going to let loose.

“Thunderbird Five to Callisto.” John’s voice echoed over multiple comms, a faint and unfamiliar hiss and crackle in the background.

The moment snapped and Scott tapped his comms. “We read you, Thunderbird Five.”

“There is considerable interference on comms, you should be aware. I cannot guarantee service at all times. Source is unknown.”

“Noted.”

Damn, that was going to make this even more difficult. They could get lost down here themselves.

But then this wouldn’t be the first time Gordon had worked without contact with his brothers.

First time in space, though.

“Scott, we have located two life signs.”

“What?!” Walters took a step forward and looked ready to climb into Scott’s commset to get further information.

The commander ignored him. “Details, Thunderbird Five.”

“Eos and I were able to work around the majority of the interference and we have two faint lifesigns registering to the north of Callisto Base, almost directly under Burr crater.”

“Only Two? We have five missing persons, Thunderbird Five.”

“I know, Scott.” John’s voice was calm but sad. “Eos is still working on that interference, but at this point I don’t expect to find more. We’ve been able to map the caverns and tunnels within a thousand-kilometre radius. Sending the data to your comms now. Other than those two, I’m reading nothing. I do not have enough resolution to locate anything more specific.”

Like dead bodies.

All of them shifted where they stood, caught between the positive of a location and the negative of three missing rescuees.

“Keep looking, Thunderbird Five.” Scott’s voice was empty of emotion.

They had a mission and now they had a target.

“FAB.”

The line cut out.

Virgil had already pulled up the map John supplied on his wrist ‘projector, his eyes combing the holographic maze of tunnels. Even from here Gordon could see they were massive. If these had been eroded by water, the rivers had been big.

But their history would have to wait. There were lives at stake and Scott was already moving back to the airlock, Virgil and the rest of the group hurrying to follow.

Gordon hesitated just a second, lured by the thought of water flowing through the rock in such a low-pressure environment that the liquid should be ice.

The walls sparkled at him.

But the mission...

He took a step forward and his foot kicked something tiny that bounced ahead of him. Frowning, he bent to pick it up.

The crystal was no bigger than his fingernail and sparkled pink in the lighting.

“Gordon!” Scott was glaring at him from inside the airlock.

The aquanaut shoved the stone into his kit and hurried to catch up.

Perhaps space was a little more interesting than he thought.

-o-o-o-

Next

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds #Virgil Tracy #Gordon Tracy #Scott Tracy #Jeff Tracy #alan tracy #John Tracy #lee taylor #callisto

[ask-iamnotanalicorn]

Previous: The Tirek Timeline

The Discorded Timeline

The new Element bearers had not appeared. With nothing to fall back on, Celestia went to face the return of her sister armed only with her determination and desperation. With the knowledge that anything other than subduing her sister would result in Luna’s death or her ponies’ enslavement, Celestia fought with all her heart. 

A thousand years hadn’t tempered Nightmare Moon’s madness, but it had grown Celestia’s magical skill. The clash of the last remaining alicorns filled the sky with light and darkness that could be seen across the entire country... including from the gardens of the castle in Canterlot, where a long-dormant statue waited.

If Celestia had known the danger... if she had known that the Tree of Harmony had grown weaker over a thousand years... if she had known that the Element magic used to imprison Discord was weakened with it, and he only needed one significant bit of discord to break the last lock on his prison... she might have preferred allowing Nightmare Moon to take the throne. 

Because two alicorn sisters displaying their ground-shattering discord across the skies was more than enough. 

Discord caught them mid-battle...and was honestly kinda irritated to find them more focused on fighting each other than challenging him. He couldn’t even set up a good game for them to lose at before he took over! He’d just have to fix that with a bit of chaos magic. A quick boop to the heads, and... well, things didn’t turn out quite like he expected. Celestia became haughty, snide, and violent, but Luna changed out of her (decidedly tacky, but what could you expect from pony fashion) goth look and turned all nice and weirdly remorseful. Luna tried to appeal to her sister, Celestia (who now had an interesting tinge of fire in her mane) unleashed some demeaning verbal attacks, and pretty soon it looked like they were gearing up for another fight, and...

Well, this was stupid. They were so focused on each other, they weren’t even paying attention to him! He’d fix that with another boop on Celestia’s noggin - really annoying, having to un-chaos someone, but at least it put the two ponies on the same side so they could get their priorities straight and focus on...

Ah, yes, there it was! Just what he’d waited for these past thousand years: two alicorn sisters, both staring at him with horror and worry and that oh-so-precious pony determination. Too bad they had already worn themselves out with their fight over who-knew-what. They were almost pathetically easy to overpower, especially with not an Element in sight.

The princesses were his playthings. Equestria would be shifted and reformed under his chaotic whim. And none stood able to challenge him.

The Reign of Discord had begun.

----

Meanwhile, Salespitch was visiting Canterlot at just the wrong time, and... 

Well, what do you think happens when a lord of chaos notices a pony standing in the middle of the road, trying its hardest to not show how petrified it is, and it has a horn and wings but clearly no alicorn magic? And then said lord of chaos investigates said pony out of curiosity, mocks him about playing princess, and is amazed when said pony actually gets annoyed enough to scold Discord that no, he is NOT an alicorn, he’s never WANTED to be an alicorn, and he would really prefer it if people didn’t mistake him for royalty when he’s just a stallion with a genetic mutation trying to live a normal life!!!

Discord thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. 

Long story short, instead of Discording Sales’ personality, Discord just... made his biggest annoyance a reality. Obviously he didn’t give Sales FULL alicorn powers, and what powers he did give him are pretty wonky - the ability to turn random objects into suitcases, and fly upside down, and speak in a dramatic Royal Canterlot Voice at random and totally inconvenient times, etc. The royal regalia was a stroke of genius inspired by one of this new era’s “cartoon characters,” a perky little alicorn called Prince Smiley. (The fact that Sales had once dressed as said character for Nightmare Night was sheer coincidence, although Discord would have found that even more perfect.) 

Obviously Sales was horrified, which is really the wrong reaction, because it just made the whole thing funnier to Discord and thus made the draconequus that much less likely to forget about Sales and go pester other ponies. Anonymity is your friend in Discord’s kingdom.

Now, Discord being Discord, he gets bored of things easily - including mocking and tormenting the powerless alicorn princesses. There’s a whole nation to twist and remodel into a true chaotic kingdom! Plenty of other ponies to give him some variety. Turning them to stone would be so gauche and ruin his single moral high ground over the ponies, so when Discord tires of his princess fun, he turns the alicorn sisters into fillies and leaves them with his newly-appointed Prince of Babysitting. After all, shouldn’t an "alicorn” be in charge of baby alicorns? Discord even made him a lovely glass castle with stone windows - more of a cage, really, since Sales can’t leave it, but he has a throne and everything! Discord doesn’t even have to worry about manipulating somecreatures into worshipping the new “prince”; Sales has already got his own cult that fawns over him outside the see-through castle like a fanclub, to Sales’ eternal embarrassment. Yes, this is clearly the best setup Discord could have come up with all around, takes-hand-off-and-pats-self-on-the-back.

Time passes with no end in sight for the madness that has turned Equestria into a kaleidoscope’d chaos playground. Sales kind of falls into a perpetually annoyed resignation. He tries to be grateful - at least he still possesses full control of his mind, unlike so many ponies outside his weird castle. He has the honor of safeguarding the princesses - although he feels guilty that he can’t actually protect them from Discord’s whims. But he can keep them happy, and the few times he gets to talk with them before or after they’ve been in their baby states, Celestia manages to give him a word of encouragement or gratitude. (Plus, well, they ARE pretty adorable as fillies... even if he is NOT the world’s best babysitter and has to figure things out on the fly. He really wishes his mom were here.)

There is one actual advantage to all this. Ironically, Sales has a closer connection with Discord than most; since Discord made Sales the caretaker of the princesses, he actually talks to Sales sometimes. Granted, he mostly treats Sales as a captive audience to whine at when Discord starts getting bored of whatever recent chaotic plan he’s enacted. After all, when EVERYTHING is chaos... well, chaos almost becomes normal, so Discord keeps having to up himself. Sales actually manages to have conversations with him sometimes, and he’s gotten a glimpse of the truth even Discord can’t or won’t recognize: that he’s lonely, dissatisfied, and lacks a real sense of purpose or fulfillment.

Sales has to treat carefully, since annoying or upsetting Discord too much results in chaotic ‘punishments’ that are usually more disorienting and frustrating than actually harmful. But Sales has started picking his ear a little bit with hints that maybe Discord is bored because most creatures subject to his chaos don’t enjoy it like he does? Maybe sharing fun WITH people is better than just having fun for yourself at others’ expense? I mean, look at you, Discord, the only pony you really talk to is a nobody you made into an alicorn just to embarrass him.  That’s a pretty lonely way to live, isn’t it?

Sometimes Discord listens while making snarky comments. Other times Discord gets irritated and turns Sales into a tiny alicorn who has to ride around on baby Celestia’s back and try not to get stepped on (or something of that nature). But Sales keeps trying and hoping and praying he’ll get through, because if they ever hope to stop Discord’s reign of chaos... well, it might just take teaching the Lord of Chaos what friendship is.

Even if the only pony currently able to make the effort finds him super annoying.

-----

Fun Facts About The Discorded Timeline:

- Yes, Luna’s popsicle is her cutie mark. I suppose once she digests it it will reappear back on her flank. XD

- Cadence hasn’t become an alicorn yet in this timeline. The chaos events do lead to her meeting Shining Armor, though, because TRUE LOVE and such :D

- Sales’ cult ABSOLUTELY LOVES THIS SITUATION. I mean, a lot of them hope/expect that Sales will eventually break free and defeat Discord now that he is showing his true alicorn might. Sales yells at them through the walls sometimes, but they have a hard time hearing him, so naturally they make up all sorts of “godly” nonsense he’s supposedly sharing.

- Discord did in fact accidentally cure Luna of the bad magic that was fueling and feeding off her old rage and paranoia. She and Celestia have pretty well made up through these weird events. And as Discord grows bored of their initial humiliation, his torments get less frightening and more, well, just weird, so life is KINDA bearable. Plus they really like Sales now (they don’t remember their adult selves while they are babies, but Discord makes sure they can remember every embarrassing toddler thing they did when they get aged back to normal.)

- Sales doesn’t know what’s going on with his family, they were back home when this happened. He’s hopeful they didn’t get affected too badly. In fact, Featherhorn (his hometown) got turned into a cardboard village and a few ponies had their heads swapped around, but Discord hasn’t made any connection between them and Sales, so he doesn’t think anything special of the place. Mostly just chocolate rain, flying rhinobunnies, and corncob trees. Everypony agrees it could be worse (but not out loud, that’s just ASKING for trouble!) Also Per talks backwards now, but everyone can still understand her (somehow) so it evens out.

- Black DOES run into Discord at one point while trying to sneak into Sales’s castle. Discord thinks he’s just another of Sales’ fanclub, so he turned him blue and forgot about him. Black finds this super annoying, especially when he can’t change his color no matter what magical disguise he makes.

- Don’t even worry about Sombra, he’s not touching a Discorded Equestria with a ten foot pole. Honestly Discord probably went after him as soon as he showed up, adding the Crystal Empire to his chaos kingdom. 

- The Changelings are staying the HECK away in their nice little magic-negating castle, the only safe haven from Discord. Pony refugees actually try and go there, although it is tricky to get around the thick forest of living candy Discord erected all the way around their territory. Those who do get in exchange servitude and donations of love for safety. It keeps the changelings fed and the ponies feel safer working for bug-ponies in a place of order than out in the madness of Discord’s land.

- So as you might imagine, Sales can’t break through the glass of his glass castle. If he were to try and smash through the stone windows, though... let’s just say he feels really smart AND really dumb while making his escape attempt. It doesn’t go over well with Discord, especially when he manages to successfully pawn the baby princesses off to some of his cult members (one of whom is Black, don’t worry), who hide them away. This leads to a rather heated conversation when Discord catches up with him... and perhaps a moment of truth where Discord might realize he actually does maybe kinda sorta consider this silly brown pony a friend who he possibly doesn’t want to severely punish as a warning to other ponies who might defy him. Maybe.

- Art note: I didn’t draw a background for this one initially, and then I got around to coloring them and knew it needed SOMETHING. Came up with the glass castle with stone windows because that seems Discord-like. Also baby bottle trees. The idea for breaking the stone windows was literally last minute as I wrote this, so bonus!

Next Week: Industrial Devolution (Flim Flim Universe)

#mlp art #mlp comics #mlp ask blog #IANAA #discord #mlp discord #salespitch

[piracytheorist]

1/4 the thing about Donna is that it was after Claudia died that she was probably vulnerable enough to fall for the 'I adopt you as my child so now you have a family and i'll give you a 'gift'' shtick of Miranda's. Claudia died in 1996 aged 9 and was either her sister or her child. The Gardener says 'Mistress Donna' and 'Miss Claudia' so she was already head/last heir of the Beneviento estate.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Claudia's death must have been the final hit for Donna. Losing her parents was one thing, but it's something all of us will have to deal with in our lives at some point (hopefully a late one). Losing a younger sibling/child when they're 9 is undoubtedly tragic. Considering Claudia's age I immediately assumed she was Donna's younger sister; I saw Donna as quite young herself, unless she was super young when she had Claudia, if Claudia is her child. But in any case, her death must have caused her even more distress, so it was the perfect situation for Miranda to swoop in and claim herself as Donna's "mother". Especially considering that Miranda's "gift" allowed Donna to create the perfect friend; Angie, the doll that was gifted to her by her father, and whose personality she could shape exactly the way she wanted.

2/4 as for nonaging+alcina, i raise you: her daughters. 3 young women were experimented on w cadou and as a result they were 3 amnesiac carnivorous swarms of flies that went back to looking pre-experiment. Then got adopted. And stayed looking like that for years up to the game's events. As for Heisenberg, he says 'decades of being forced to serve her' so shouldn't he have said 'my whole life' (he's dramatic/showman enough that he would have) or reference to lifelong slavery or 'MM raised us'?

Good point about the daughters! I hadn't even thought of them! But yeah iirc one of the diary notes you find in the game is dated at around 1958 or something, and it mentions Daniela, so all three of them were definitely there at least since then, non-aging and all. And I think though Alcina ended up adopting them, Miranda also oversaw the experimentation on them, so it's a good point towards proving that symbiosis with the Cadou pauses one's aging completely.

And yeah, Heisenberg would definitely be as dramatic as to say something like that, especially considering how oversharing he was about everything. It was like he was seeing Ethan run around his factory, being the only intelligent creature around that wasn't on Miranda's side, and he just unloaded all his burden because Ethan was the very first to be able to comprehend it and not rat him out to Miranda (who, ironically enough, already knew all about Heisenberg's wish to rebel against her). And Ethan was just like "Dude I honestly don't give a shit" XD

But yeah the way he says "She took me. Took us. To be her children." He sounds disgusted and like, he's rightfully so but the kind of disgust fits a bit more the idea of Miranda kidnapping a grown-ass man, experimenting on him with the hope of reviving her daughter through him, and when that failed she just claimed him as her "son". It sounds more like that and less like a rebellious son who, after growing up, realized what a fucked-up caretaker he had as a child.

3/4 MM had established herself/met Spencer/forbade people from going+getting anything from outside the village by the late 50s/early 60's that's why there are trucks and tvs and radios; and the Duke being the one to sell newspapers to villagers + being Karl's informant about bsaa+the stuff that happened in america (this is from the game director Sato who said heisenberg isn't a nazi and the fanservice of 'boulder punching asshole' here polygon . c o m / interviews / 22453564)

4/4 and now that i think more on it, MM just grabbed the last descendants of the most historically powerful houses, literally the founding ones (except alcina) to have even more influence within the village huh. timeline is wonky for sure. but then again all re canon is a bit wonky. Tumblr pls don't eat this one.

I honestly fucking love the design in the village because it's so well made to showcase that Miranda had cut off any connection from outside and inside the village. People on the outside didn't know it existed (aside from whoever it was in BSAA who made sure the mold man and his mold daughter would be relocated in driving distance to it and its leader with an obsession over a certain megamycete), and people on the inside were stuck with technology of mid-20th century and zero contact with the outside world. Even the Duke seems to adapt to it style-wise even though he obviously can contact the outside world.

And yeah, from the very little we see of the villagers, they seem to have felt very obedient to the Lords and Miranda, even though people like Elena were terrified of Castle Dimitrescu (with good reason!). And that probably was because Miranda made sure to have control over the right influences in the village.

Also, I love the phrase "the fanservice of "boulder-punching asshole'". Out of context it just sounds even more hilarious.

Thank goodness that I've taken to saving every ask in a txt bc my memory is bad. Next time I'll send shorter stuff like the friendly reminder+oppy+ethan and the hammer thing tho. You shouldn't have given me permission to ramble, now your inbox is mine, nyehehehe /joking

Honestly, I love getting your messages! I have a quick scroll through my activity every morning before work and I smiled every time I saw the notifications of your messages! Feel free to make yourself at home in my inbox :D

#Resident Evil #Resident Evil 8 #re meta #anonymous #ask and ye shall receive

[crafty-business4130]

Ive notice a rise in contend for Badtimewithscar recently which is just amazing to see but our other barley touched upon hermit duplicate, Truesymmetry, still is lacking in awesome stuff so im here today to rectify that

Here's my take on Truesymmetry, I got the idea  and based it off of the season 2 tour episode False did back in season 5. which can be found here

Truesymmetry in my books, is a copy of false. They split when False went through the portal to go onto season 3. False went to the portal just fine and wound up in season 3 but a version of her did not 

 That false (aka Truse) fell into the nether instead and became stuck in season 2 of hermitcraft.      

alone

 For.  Three.  Years

She spends the next month hoping they would notice that she's gone and come back for her but realizes pretty soon that they're not

And then goes into finding a way out

She goes through the admins bases hoping to find something to help her get a potral working

she learns how to read galactic

Gets familiar with how commands work and function using left over notes

But It not enough to get her out, So she has to fill in the holes

And she start to learn how to break the game, how to bend it, how to change the code without admin privileges

She basically becomes a hacker

For the first year she still held a hope for the Hermits to come back for her and she works half on her builds and busy work and the other half on going through everyone's bases

year two Truse has come to face that they truly are not coming back for her and she buckles down on learning Galactic and how the game works on a fundamental level

Some point in year three she get a potral working

But

It's not perfect in fact it's a little wonky, she knows that going in may not end well but she beyond desperate at this point

She goes through And wines up in season 5 of hermitcraft, in the middle of False's base in fact! not that she realizes this yet

everything seems fine for the first three seconds but then Truse realizes her vision is twisted up

You know how sometimes YouTubers will flip the image when recording to avoid copyright

What should be right is now left And she's walking into things not there 

It's messing with her head and it becomes to much

So Truse trys to get her bearings and ends up a little bit down the road in False's base and just curls up in a corner and just cries but guess who finds her and helps her through her hard time?

Badtimewithscar!

He happens to be in the area and helps her clam down. Then they get to talking and BT mentions that they are at falsesymmetry's base and Truse just, Breaks down again because if there's been a false here the whole time then of course no one knew she was gone.

She was replaced and left behind .

She's angry, shes upset, but mostly she feels betrayed

So back to False she finds the potral Truse came through and goes in. She gets herself suck in season 2. She decides hey this is a good time to take a tour of my old stuff! :D

 so she goes around but it becomes apparent really quickly that “hey this looks like something I built but I have zero memory of making this.” She get down to her lab and finds all of the notes and mad scribbling Truse wrote down. Along with a Journal, which was first started in an effort to keep sane and keep track of time. It goes into detail of how the years went for Truse and false feels so bad for her. 

 False At first had been suspicious of everything but the journal and the state of the lab convinced her

Though now False is stuck but thankfully not for long, the Hermits notice she's missing and find the potral in her base. Xisuma gets involved and everyone gets to revisit season 2. not everyone was aware that false was suck, just that someone found a way to visit season 2. Xisuma makes a portal thats safe to go in and out for everyone

Woo

Everyone comes back after going through a trip down memory lane along with false. False tracks drown Truse and they talk. Truse desided that she's going to stick with BT. He's been really nice to her and she honestly can't even look at the Hermits she called friends without tearing up in anger. Which is just doubly enforced after False and her talk it out.  The fact they went back for false when they didn't for her hurts just so, so much but she holds it together long enough for false to leave.

On the bright side Badtime now has a friend. Up till then he's just been vibing by himself, trying to keep himself from literally falling apart. He picks up photography as a Hobby and goes around to everyone's builds to take pictures every now and then. This is how he had came across Truse. Now the two of the travel together. its a bit rocky at first but they get along well as time pases

Truse starts going by the name well Truse and makes a set of goggles that flip her version the right way around. BT acts as a second pair of eyes while Truse is making them. it takes a few weeks to a month to get them working. 

#long post #truesymmetry #falsesymmetry #badtimeswithscar #bt #truse #hermitcraft #it should be mentioned #that truse was unaware of the fact she wasnt the og false up till she got to season 5 #hermit duplicate au

[theglguidetowebcomics]

Full review: Girly

What’s Pink, insane, NSFW, hilarious, and somehow heartwarming at points? This comic is a ride and a half, and I’m genuinely surprised more people haven’t heard of this one… I’ve been wanting to talk about this one for a WHILE. 

So let’s talk about the elephant in this room… Because I think it just ate someone’s couch. 

Slightly NSFW review with spoilers below.

Girly, by Jackie Lesnick was a webcomic that ran between 2003 and 2010, (and really has some of those early webcomic hallmarks). Its monochromatic pink, vertical, with a poppy early cartoon feel. It’s also listed as a romantic comedy, which is… correct, but cuts a whole lot of what makes this comic good, short. 

This review was always going to be one of the 4 I really struggled with. And not just because I lost it the first time without a back up in a code glitch, got distracted by a pandemic, then procrastinated my way to finally making a second version in my new backup folder… No, well also yes but no. This was a comic I read when I was younger (and should NOT have read  when I was younger), and have always had a soft spot for. I’ll admit as much as this comic has its flaws or weird moments or just weirdness in general, its one of the few comics I’ve found myself rereading in its entirety more than once. And no matter how much I know it's coming, find myself sobbing, uncontrollably, at the final panel. There’s surprisingly a lot of heart in this comic, and a whole lot of honesty in just the direction the author took this weird little thing. But, first let me take of those rose tinted glasses as much as I can… (actually that might not work too well with a pink comic seriously whats with all these early 2000s lesbian comics being PINK?). And give this old comic a look and a bit of a dust. but , first...

Sex.

Getting to the point - page 3 of “Girly”

Girly is a NSFW comic. It’s not shy about it either. It hits the audience (and the main character) over the head with it literally in the first pages. It has sex positive characters, a sex positive world, some characters with… sex powers almost, and Dildos, a whole lot of dildos. Some even with smiley faces on them. It’s a pretty unavoidable part of the comic that makes up a large core of it’s humour and is baked into its wacky world. So if that’s not your thing, and it’s not really skippable in this case, you won’t like this comic.

But, if you’re alright with that part of it this might just be a hidden gem. Moving on.

Art

Artwork is always interesting in webcomics. They’re usually one man shows, have a weird niche / strong influences, and or usually go on massive journeys as the art improves. Girly is no different here. 

Girly starts out rough. Some poses are wonky and its a bit scratchy. Technically speaking it has a few issues, which is fine. Its a free webcomic, from the 2000s that didn't copy and paste faces. (Won’t name names, you know who you are). You can’t be too harsh on a free comic, though.

However, what the art style does, even early on is set the style and feel of the comic. Anime inspired faces, bold outlines, and blocky silhouettes that were really popular with 90’s and 2000s cartoons. It has a newspaper, manga comedy strip vertical style, too. It fits the style of story well as a poppy wacky story. It's the perfect art style it could take.

Its rough in the beginning, but moves on from its scratchy days, to loose pen brush, to finally a polished free hand poppy style. It gets more technically advanced as it goes along, but it keeps its core style throughout. It’s fun, a little unhinged, and just pares perfectly.

The one issue I have with the art is it comes off as a bit cramped. It certainly matches the energy of the story, but it also feels like it doesn't let the characters have any breathing room in the frame. It comes off as squashed, and can make some character poses hard to read. That’s the only complaint I can find though. The issue even fixes itself later in the story, but just very very close to the end. It looks great there, but the majority of the comic is a little cramped. Still that’s just a small complaint.

Nitpicking here but some panels need a lil more room

This a humour comic foremost. It's the biggest part of what makes Girly specifically Girly.

Humour

The humour is mostly wacky nonsense, playing off its insane characters, physics defying world, everything being dialed up to 11. It also works a lot like satire, poking at what influences it, and playing with cinematic expectations. The first page has Otra shooting someone into space on a rocket because they annoyed them, the first “adventure” the character’s go on is stealing everyone’s pants because they couldn’t find anything else to do. Then there’s the kidnapping adventures, knight trials, and slice of life shenanigans that happen. All of it as wacky as the last. I haven’t really found any other lesbian comics like it. Its not everyone’s tastes, but it is certainly unique.

If you’re into a willy wonka tunnel of over the top characters and plots, you’ll like Girly.

Characters

Girl is a LONG comic, it ran for 7 years. The art evolved, the story writing, jokes, and themes along with it. It was originally meant to run for only 50 strips... and it ended up with 764. 

so, there’s a lot to unpack.

Firstly, the premise of the story is somewhat simple. It focuses on Otra. The kinda straight man to the entire universe. She starts out almost depressed, out of place, and bored of the wacky inhabitants of her world. Until one of those wacky residents smacks her over the head with a giant dildo and won’t leave her alone for the next 7 years of run time. 

What follows is the sullen Otra being pulled around by the always cheery and zany nonsensical Winter as the sidekick for bizarre adventures. Otra’s depressive grounded view keeps the bizarreness funny, while Winter cuts through her negative attitude and causes a lot of the over the top plot. Leaving Otra to warm up to the world, and Winter to get less reckless as they balance eachother out. It’s a fun dynamic, and works as an emotional core of the story. No matter how weird the plot and rules of the world are, their relationship keeps the story somewhat focused and rewarding to see develop.

An example of bold wacky character designs from even early on

The comic isn’t just about them, though. As an ensemble comic there's plenty of side characters that go through arcs and beats as well. From el chubacabre, the man that woman find so irresistible that they sleep with him as soon as they see him; detective Clapjaw the street wise detective who is very bad at his job; Officer Hipbone and police guy from the cute P D; captain fist the ever popular bad at his job superhero who gets all the credit; the news reporter obsessed with captain fist; the woman with babies; Steak;  the elephants that just… appear and eat buildings; among many many others. A lot of whom also have nicely written character arcs and depth in later chapters. Many of the character however are simple and remain simple, which isn’t a bad thing. For such a large cast, having a diverse range of strange characters with strong identities and looks even if a bit simple stops it from getting bogged down. It strikes a good balance. Plus there’s plenty enough of characters with more depth later on. 

 All the character’s are insane, and over the top in a way that really sets up the world they live in and how it works... as dysfunctional as it is. There’s something very Cartoon Network about all the characters, but with some wider influences. something about  dumb characters, with very specific goals and quirks that work on their own physics to feed into the high energy insanity of the world. Its entertaining to read, and leads to a weirdly charming feel of the comic. 

Story and plot

For the bit people actually want to know about. What is it about?

Just a little bit of influences...

For the style itself the comic comes off as a mix between early 2000s slice of life-y anime, 2000s cartoon Network, and a dose of 2000s webcomic sarcastic action/adventure flare. It definitely has one of the most pronounced styles that I’ve seen, and even if it's very much a webcomic of it’s time it also goes a bit beyond that into something that feels personal to the author and honest. Its a batshit comic. But, it wears its influences on it’s sleeve and really plays with tropes and ideas the author found engaging at the time. It somehow comes off as refreshing in just how willing it is to go weird or niche for no other reason but because it wants to. It's what I appreciate most about the comic. It’s honest.

The overarching story of the comic is without a doubt about Otra and winter growing together as people. But with a comic that’s run for 7 years a little bit more happens in the journey, at least you hope it would. Girly runs on chapters, 15 in total (with 15 having sub chapters due to being the story’s climax), and each one of those chapters follows a different plot or adventure with Otra’s and Winter’s developing relationship gluing them together. 

The plots themselves are wild and vary a bit in quality. But for a long comic that’s understandable and expected. They go from solving elephant problems, super villains, body swapping, fantasy parodies, and all sorts of strange things. Sometimes a few plots drag and a few character arcs feel a bit bland. It still manages to be entertaining all the way through though. The plots themselves work to get the character’s to play off each other and explore the strange world it takes place in. Exploring evil teddy bears, or an entire town devoted to cheap gags. No matter what, all the plots work in fleshing out the world and pushing character’s out of their comfort zone or forcing them to change. There are some that are less fun than others, but none of them manage to be boring or useless. Which for a long comic such as this, is quite an achievement.

Conclusion

Girly is a hidden gem, Its an insane sex positive comic. A loose style and even looser physics. It’s bold and unabashedly itself. But, at its core it's about the love story of Winter, the wacky insane woman needing to slow down and open up, and Otra, a sullen woman who’s deemed herself only worthy of being on the outskirts of society. It’s two people growing together in a world that’s up to its ears in care bears, sentient dildos, earth shattering cloning, and jabs at 2000’s paste it comics. And somehow it all sticks together.

The characters resonated, at least with me, which may be the nostalgia talking. But by the end of the comic I can’t help but  think back on how long it took them to get there. The bits that made me laugh (a lot of them), the stupid parts, and the character’s arcs, as over the top they could be at times.  It may not everyone’s cup of tea. But it has a lot of heart at its core. (If you get past all the dildos). 

For all it’s flaws and weird bits. I still find myself going back to Girly. 

Maybe now, some more people will too.

#girly #webcomics #review #comic #lgbt webcomics #queer #lesbian

[luckyvirgo]

many reasons; dazai osamu

DAZAI OSAMU X READER

In hindsight, you should have realised that running after Dazai was not a good decision on your part...

WORD COUNT: 1.8K words

WARNINGS: mentions of suicide, abuse (not reader's), angst (if you squint), fluffy ending. MILD SPOILERS FOR BUNGO STRAY DOGS SEASON 3

(e/c) - eye color

A/N: sorry if the formatting is a bit wonky!! i'm posting this on mobile because tumblr doesn't work on my stupid, old laptop.

this fic is really super, self-indulgent because dazai is my favorite in bsd and i love when situations like the one in this one shot happen in anime, so i combined the two things and wrote this. this was actually going be a scene in a dazai fic i'm thinking of posting on my wattpad, but i decided to scrap it and write it as a oneshot. i hope you all enjoy reading this!!

Also shoutout to @neonghxst who wanted me to finish this one shot hehe. thanks to her, i got the inspiration to actually write this and finish it.

"Are you sure we should have left him like that?"

You fiddled with the ends of your coat sleeves. Upon hearing about Atsushi's new case and the end result, you immediately wanted to give the boy a hug and never let him go. He had been through so much these past few weeks and hearing about the death of that abusive headmaster of his old orphanage must have been incredibly painful.

But Dazai had promptly pulled you away, after saying exactly what needed to be said. (He always knew what to say in any kind of situation and that made you feel jealous a lot of times)

"Things like that are meant to be dealt with alone. Atsushi-kun will manage," Dazai answered with a cool tone. "You worry too much, (Y/N)-chan."

He tried to ruffle your hair but you slapped his hand away with a huff.

"I have every right to worry, you know," You crossed your arms, angrily staring at the ground. You and Dazai had already left the port area and now were back in the city, walking next to each other. "He and Kyouka just...I just wanna give them both a hug and adopt them as family."

This time, Dazai successfully managed to ruffle your hair."You are very funny, (Y/N)-chan."

"I'm not being funny! I'll actually adopt them, just you wait and see."

"As amusing as that would be, I'm gonna stop you there."

"Why?"

"Well, it's nighttime now. And we are almost near the river. The moon's pretty bright today. Which means one thing and one thing only."

"What, Dazai?"

"It's the perfect time for a double suicide!" 

Dazai suddenly grabbed you by the waist and spun you around. You felt your face grow warmer as he kept his hands on your waist, meanwhile going on about the benefits of a double suicide.

"D-dazai! Let go!" You physically tried to struggle out of his grip, knowing that your Ability was useless in this situation. "Just let go, dumbass!"

"Nope, not gonna." 

Dazai let go of your waist, but then immediately grabbed your hand. But you managed to pull it away. He stuck his tongue out at you. "You are no fun, (Y/N)-chan."

You glared at him. "How many times do I have to tell you no, you bandage squandering idiot?!"

"Ahh!! You sound so much like Kunikida-kun! Why didn't you tell me you were so great at impersonating others?"

"Huh?! What's that supposed to mean?" You went to shove his shoulder but he dodged it,  jumping aside with his annoying (endearing) laugh. You tried to hit him again, but he dodged this time too and started running.

"Oi, Dazai! Come back here, you idiot!"

You ran too, trying to catch up to him so that you could, at least, flick his forehead before slapping him. Why was he so annoying, you always wondered. 

'Isn't this why you like him?' Your heart whispered to you.

'Shut up,' You told it.

You kept on running. Even as you did, the sun had almost set, taking its red and orange hues and replacing it with the dark, navy blue of the night sky. The running brought you to the river bank, a spot where both you and Kunikida had to drag Dazai out of. For some reason, he declared this spot and drowning as his top favorite for a double suicide.

It was incredibly annoying, but at the same time, also incredibly saddening and you wished you knew more about why he was like this.

Finally, you caught up with him. 

In hindsight, you should have realised that running after Dazai was not a good decision on your part. 

Both of you stumbled down the river bank, holding onto each other because there was nothing else to grab onto. The slant river bank ended and they were on flat ground again.

But...but, both of you were in a rather compromising position. 

Usually, you were a pretty confident and self-assured person. But when it came to situations like these (or any romantic situations)…well, you were still pretty inexperienced. So inexperienced actually that you hadn't kissed anyone in a long while, almost two years to be exact. Relationships had always seemed like a waste of time to you, but being in such close proximity of the man you currently yearned for was doing wonders for your heart. (In a good way and a bad away)

Dazai's arms were on your shoulders, pinning you to the ground. He loomed over you, his brown eyes staring right into your (e/c) ones. 

You swore you could detect something there before it was hidden behind his mask again. 

No longer were you able to keep the warmth away from your face. You knew you probably resembled a tomato right now. You wanted to get out of this position quickly, but deep down, your mind and your heart both resisted. And you felt like agreeing with them this time. You wouldn't get a chance like this ever again.

So you decided to speak.

And immediately regret it.

"Your eyes are pretty," The combined forces of your heart and mind make you say something stupidly embarrassing and you immediately want to cover your face. But you can't. So you continue.

Even the darkness of night couldn't keep the redness of your cheeks hidden. 

"I mean, they're not just an ugly brown color. They have this amber-like quality to them. And everytime light hits them, they almost shine and it makes them more beautiful than I ever thought. Like seriously, you have really beautiful eyes. Personally, your eyes are your best feature and they're one of the many reasons I fell for you."

(You wanna crush your own stupid heart for that last bit.)

"Oh?" That was all Dazai said, that stupidly endearing smirk on his face. "Many reasons? What are they again?"

"Um, uh," You hesitated, turning your head to the side. This was more embarrassing than any other situation you had ever been in. There was nowhere else to go and while you could have kicked Dazai away with ease, truth be told you really didn't want to do that. How many chances like this would you ever get? "I don't even know when I started liking you. And maybe it's a stupid thing because nothing is ever going to come out of it, but yeah. I have feelings for you, Dazai Osamu. Truth be told, I can sort of understand why you ask women to commit a double suicide with you. You want someone to be by your side, right? You don't want to be lonely when you die. I guess I can understand that, though I wish I could show you the joy in living. But I don't think I'll ever be able to change your mind."

You laughed nervously, looking anywhere but at Dazai's face, where his smirk had been replaced by a more serious look. "I went on a totally different tangent there, didn't I? You can forget that last bit but to sum up everything, I have feelings for you. I don't expect you to return them anyways so...yeah."

Now, you looked at Dazai. His expression was unreadable. You couldn't understand what emotions were written on his face. You didn't even know what he would do next. Would he reciprocate your feelings? Would he reject them? What would he do? You wanted answers and you weren't getting them.

Then again, it was partly your fault also. You suddenly sprung these feelings on him. You shouldn't expect him to answer quickly. 

(Secretly, you also thought that Dazai wasn't the type of person who'd ever truly  love someone. It was just your stupid luck he was the person you fell for.)

Unexpectedly, Dazai suddenly moved off you, giving you the opportunity to finally sit up and contemplate your next moves.

'Should I just run away?' You thought, thinking about the pain of rejection. You'd deal with it. Somehow. 'It's the coward's way out. But what more can I do?'

"If you're thinking of running away, don't," Dazai suddenly said, meeting your eyes with a stare so intense that you swore he could read every single thought in your mind. 

"That was not what I was thinking," You clearly lied, crossing your arms. 

"You know, I can tell that you're lying, my Belladonna," Dazai put his hand on your cheek, his slender fingers brushing away the stray strands of hair on your face. "You are not a very good liar."

"D — wh-what?" You froze up completely. Because as much as you would like to deny, even an action like this left you wanting more. His hands were inexplicably warm and strangely soft. You couldn't even think about running away now. Dazai put his other hand behind your back, pulling you close to him. Close enough that your noses were almost touching and you could see the little flecks of amber in his pretty brown eyes. 

"D-do you also h-have feelings f-for me?"

What the hell was wrong with your voice? You wanted to ask your question again, but your words died in your throat. 

Instead, your heart chose to speak. You tilted your head slightly, barely brushing your lips against his. Even this small action sent volts of electricity coursing through your body. But then, your courage fizzled out and you tried to move back. 

Key word; tried. 

Dazai put his hand at the back of your head and pulled you closer, finally,  freaking finally, kissing you. 

You wished you could describe what you were feeling, but you really couldn't. Your mind was completely shut down and all you could really think was, that you were floating. And since it was your one of the few kisses you had in your life, you didn't know what to do. So you kept on pressing your mouth against Dazai's, trying to have more; trying to feel more of him. 

It was strange, it felt so strange. But kissing Dazai felt incredibly…amazing. Yeah, amazing. Just him and you and nothing else. You felt like you could touch the stars now and you didn't want it to end. You wanted to keep on doing this forever, or as long as both of you could. 

But then, Dazai suddenly ended the kiss, pulling back with a lazy grin.

You stared at him, breathing heavily. And then, you let your head fall onto his shoulder, grabbing onto to the front of his cream-colored trench coat. 

"Does that answer your question, (Y/N)-chan?" He asked with a sing-song voice, suddenly hugging you. 

"So you do like me?" Your voice was muffled by his coat, but you knew he heard you clearly. 

His lips were pressed onto your neck, moving with his answer. You understood it immediately. Releasing his coat from your hands, you hugged him back.  

You knew this moment wouldn't last very long, but you would revel in it for now. 

It was going to be the only thing on your mind for a very long time.

a/n: i hope this was a fun read! with this quarantine, i've been thinking of attempting to write more character x readers because they are good practice for writing a multi-chapter fic. so you might see more bsd, haikyuu and bnha content on here. I might also post about DC so let's see.

My wattpad

#dazai osamu #dazai osamu x reader #bsd #bungo stray dogs #osamu dazai #osamu dazai x reader #bsd oneshot #fluff #bungou stray dogs oneshots #bsd imagines #dazai #x reader #character x reader

[spookyold-saintjm]

4 AND 18 FOR DARK X READER MY DEAR!

4: Excuse me—where is my Christmas kiss?

18: Merry Christmas, motherfuckers!

From this prompt list.

Me? Finally finishing up some requests? More likely than you’d think. Thanks @avenged-nightmare and sorry it took ten years.

This seemed like potential for absolute ego shit-show content so sign me UP. Also, something about Dark saying “motherfuckers” just doesn’t compute in my brain as believable but GUESS WHAT.

Warnings: Cursing, alcohol consumption.

Darkiplier x reader

The night had finally come, and it was all the chaos you’d expected it to be, and then some.

Getting all the egos together outside of a meeting wasn’t always an easy task, but somehow you, with your best friend Wilford at your side as your co-conspirator, had made it happen just in time for the holidays. A Christmas party to end all Christmas parties, Wilford had exclaimed in excitement once the plans had been finalized. 

You’d basically had to pry his gun from his flailing hands, and the party was still weeks away at the time.

Now it was here, and in full swing. The music, the drinks, the Christmas cookies and other treats, decorating the massive tree in the lobby, party games and catching up with each other’s lives…there was a lot going on, all the more fun to be had around every corner of the house.

Well, almost. 

Dark had yet to show, to your disappointment. Not that you were really, truly expecting him to make an appearance…but deep down, you’d hoped just maybe he’d come out of his damned study for the night, at least for you. But there was no indication of his appearance any time soon.

The thought occurred to you halfway through a card game with Wilford, Illinois, and Bing. Your head foggy from champagne and whatever else you’d been drinking throughout the night, you suddenly stood up from your spot on the couch and glanced over to the staircase leading up to the long hallway where Dark’s study was located.

“Hey, I’m gonna go talk to Dark,” you stated, finally pushing your hair away from your face.

“That miiiight not be the best idea…”  Bing started, but you ignored him, completely abandoning the game and making your way up the stairs, both hands grasping the railing so that you wouldn’t lose balance as you climbed to the top.

Dark’s study was silent, however the thudding of music and shouts and laughter from below were creeping in through the floorboards, to Dark’s dismay. 

He was reading from a stack of papers on his desk when he heard your sporadic, somewhat aggressive knocking on the door. He let out a long sigh, but didn’t bother to look up until you had decided to just let yourself into the room. 

Normally, someone coming into his space uninvited would result in serious consequences, but he made exceptions for you. Only you.

He could have gone, however, without seeing you in your current state. You stumbled in wearing a god-awful red and green fuzzy sweater and reindeer antlers haphazardly stuck onto your head, while still carrying the glass that had only briefly contained some sort of strong alcoholic beverage.

“y/n…” Dark started, but you held up a hand to silence him. Which, oddly enough, he did not protest.

“Excuse me, mister—” you slurred, stepping toward his desk. You sat down on the edge, plopping down the glass in your hand and leaning forward to meet his eyes, your face only inches from his. “Where is my Christmas kiss? And why won’t you come downstairs?”

Dark pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes with a sigh. “y/n, how much have you had to drink tonight?”

“Well, you’d know if you would have been spending the evening with me instead of—“ a hiccup and a dismissive wave of your hand, “whatever you’re doing up here.”

Dark swiped the champagne glass away from your arm’s reach when you almost knocked off his desk, and held it between his fingers. You tried to meet his stare again, but you couldn’t figure out which set of eyes you were seeing were the real ones at first. He was silent, unmoving. 

“You’re such a fucking grinch,” you finally muttered, easing yourself back up off the desk and into a standing position, although you kept your hands on the desk.

“I don’t know what that means,” Dark replied, his face falling flat, “But I’m assuming you’re insulting me.”

“Whatever, Dark, have fun by yourself.” You turned and made your way toward the door. Just before your hand touched the doorknob, you looked back at him.

 “You know, I gave up a lot to stay here with you. You could at least try to respect the things I miss.”

Dark made no effort to respond as you slammed the door shut. You stumbled your way back down the stairs, and found Wilford waiting for you at the bottom.

“Didn’t go well, huh?” he asked, noticing you suddenly rushing to wipe away the fogginess that had formed in your eyes as you reached the bottom steps. He laid a hand on your shoulder to steady the both of you once you landed from the final step. You knew it was just…Dark could just be that way, but the fuzziness in your brain was making your emotions all wonky.

“No, not exactly,” you replied quickly with a shake of your head, suddenly more agitated than sad. “Screw him anyway. Wanna get back to our game?”

Wilford grinned nervously, looking toward the next room over. “Well, we COULD, but…"

His voice was quickly drowned out by the sound of the music in the house getting significantly louder, and a very distinguishable  singing voice rising over all the others. When the first “youse” sounded through to the foot of the stairs, you rolled your head back and groaned.

“You gotta be kidding me…”

“We held it off for as long as we could…” Wilford sighed, but you both soon burst into fits of laughter. Yancy was at it again.

“Dammit, let’s just go see what kind of disaster it turns into this time,” you resigned, walking into the next room alongside Wilford, who was yanked away from you by one of the other egos before you could blink. You shrugged and weaved your way through to the kitchen to find the nearest bottle of something, anything. You sighed shortly as you popped off the lid of an unopened beer on one of the long countertops and took a long sip of whatever happened to be inside. You stopped briefly to talk to Eric, who had decided he was perfectly okay with not leaving the kitchen at all and just making sure everyone got some Christmas cookies, and maybe some water every now and then…? D-don’t you think that’s a good idea, y/n?

You hung around Eric a bit longer, his demeanor a pleasant contrast to whatever the hell was going on in the main room. So much dancing, so much sound, so much excitement…and suddenly you weren’t feeling up to any of it any more. 

You were leaned against the kitchen island, arms crossed, smiling as you listened to Eric tell you a story about a past Christmas with his brothers, when suddenly he fell silent, his eyes locked on something, or someone, over your shoulder.

“H-hey, ahh, hi, Mr. Dark!” 

You spun around to find Dark standing in the doorway to the kitchen, the air growing colder around you at his presence. He was no longer wearing his jacket and tie, but stood as straight, stiff, and as regal as he ever did in your eyes.

“What.” You spat your demand. Eric suddenly found something very important to do in the dining room and scuttled away, wanting nothing to do with whatever was going to happen between the two of you.

Dark’s eyes were like magnets, pulling you in with no choice but to stare back at him, as much as you didn’t even want to look in his direction in that moment. His arms folded over his chest and he let out a short sigh. 

“You really like this sort of thing?” he asked, his voice low.

You shrugged, taking a sip of your drink. “I enjoy being with my friends, with people I care about. They all…make me feel like I have a family again. Like I can forget about reality for a while and just…be happy.”

Dark’s eyes dimmed, his head lowering although he didn’t break eye contact. “I don’t make you happy.”

“I didn’t say that,” your voice rose slightly, revealing your desperation. Dammit. You quickly huffed and rolled your eyes. “I mean, you’re not exactly winning any brownie points tonight, that’s for damn sure.”

You knew it wasn’t fair, wasn’t fair to treat him like this, it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t feel things the way he should anymore. That he had to re-learn so much from a life he had long before, a past that he could never get back. So much had been taken from him, too.

“Don’t you remember what it’s like to just…have fun?” you finally asked. A dangerous question, asking him about remembering.

He was silent a moment longer, studying you, considering. Your heart had picked up its pace. You immediately wanting to take it back, but your mouth wouldn’t form the words. You started to shake your head, taking a step towards him, silently pleading he’d just forget it and go back upstairs, you could talk about it in the morning— 

Dark hummed lowly, uncrossing his arms and dusting himself off before you could reach him. You stopped the second he moved, now only a couple feet away from him, your bones like ice.

He slowly reached for you, his hand gently cupping your cheek. His thumb glided along your skin like a whisper. He closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. A low, deep, rumbling sound came from him, something so unusual you almost jumped from his touch. Was that…was he…laughing? Maybe more of a chuckle, but…oh, he was.

“You are poisonous, y/n…in all the ways that I think I need sometimes.” His hand dropped to gently rest on the back of your neck, urging you closer. In a haze you followed the pull, closing the gap between you and allowing his lips to press softly against yours. Short, simple, but spreading warmth through your entire body.

“If you can convince me in three minutes that this isn’t an abhorrent waste of my time, I will stay with you until the night is over,” he offered, that devilish half-grin of his creeping up along his face.

Your own beaming smile outmatched his easily, and you were pulling him by his arm into the next room faster than he could blink. “Challenge accepted.”

Wilford immediately noticed Dark’s presence in the room and pushed through the crowd to meet you, his pink hair splayed wildly atop his head. 

“Darky boy!! You came out of your cave for us?!” 

Dark rolled his eyes, but the grin remained. “Hello, Wilford.”

“Wilford, did you just say Dark?!”

 “HEY THERE BUDDY!“

“Well, well, well, look who it is!” 

A small group of the egos had suddenly formed around you, welcoming Dark amidst the noise and chaos, patting him on the back, offering him drinks and holiday candy or a spot in the next round of a game. His body initially curled inward, his presence cooling around you as if he were ready to fling himself straight into the void. He glared at you, unresponsive to any of their efforts to speak to him, and at first you were worried this really wasn’t going to end well.He pulled himself away from Wilford’s sudden embrace, and you stiffened as you saw his hand clench into a fist at his side. Oh, no.

But then, he glanced at you once more from the corner of his eye, and you saw the faintest of light glinting behind his eyes.

“Alright, alright. Yes, I’m here. Merry Christmas, motherfuckers. Give me that.” He yanked a full glass of liquid from Bim that matched the one you’d been carrying earlier, studying the contents only briefly before pressing it to his lips and taking a long sip.

You wondered if you were ever going to be able to pick your jaw up from the floor. This was going to be quite the night, after all.

#darkiplier x reader #oh this is a wreck lol #darkiplier x y/n #darkiplier imagine #darkiplier scenario #darkiplier drabble #requests #writing prompts #holiday #christmas #avenged-nightmare #spookyold-answers

[asphodelroot]

Hi Emmy. I’m your Secret Santa and I hope that this year’s Christmas are the best (or that this Saturday is if you don’t celebrate). I’m afraid that I can’t draw or make amazing edits so here’s the only thing I kinda sorta can do :D I hope you’ll enjoy this little drabble~! (and I’m sorry if the last part is a bit wonky, I was a bit tipsy when finishing this story). ENJOY

———————————————-

The first time she heard those words, it made her feel proud, excited even. Granted there wasn’t much understanding on her part, not that beyond the most basic, organic one, but what she could decipher from Severus’ sentence, she’s found to be simple.

  ‘You are very powerful for a Muggleborn.' 

  They’ve known each other for about a week at that point. And what a magical week that has been, no pun intended, filled with wonderfully intricate stories of spells and hexes, of shapeshifting abilities and wizarding schools that held secrets beyond imagination. Every morning, Lily woke up with a smile, rushing to get ready for another warm, spring day full of classes that had recently lost their appeal in lieu of the new life that she now knew was awaiting her. How could Maths or English or French even live up to the promise of wands and incantations? They couldn’t… So Lily rushed back to the playground near Spinner’s End every day after classes and met up with the most fascinating boy she could ever wish to meet in the dreary town of Cokeworth. 

Severus Snape was a mystery. He appeared out of nowhere one day, and after witnessing, what he had later called, an accidental burst of magic became a guide of a hidden world that she apparently was a part of. He had shown her moving pictures and newspapers that talked about things and people she’s never heard of, tried explaining to her what it meant to be a witch or a wizard and recalled all the stories of Hogwarts he could remember hearing before. But there was one thing that he couldn’t do. And ironically it was magic. 

He had tried explaining, to the best of his abilities and childish understanding, the reasons behind his inability to perform magic, said that it was almost impossible without a wand. When asked how he knew he was a wizard, he huffed angrily and puffed out his chest as if his honour had been wounded. 'It’s because my mother is a witch. She’s told me about it all. And I had my own outbursts when I was a child.’ To her own childish mind, it was all understandable. She didn’t know that Sqibbs existed, or that there was a stigma to those born outside of the Pureblood lines of the magical world. To her, she thought as she willed another flower to bloom, hoping that Sev would follow her example, being a Muggleborn meant exactly what the word suggested. She was a daughter of Muggles… And she was powerful for a Muggleborn. 

Their friendship continued to grow with time. Somewhere along the way, they had grown attached to the hip while Lily and Petunia’s sisterhood started to fall apart. It was a slow process, sometimes hardly discernible to the minds of kids this young, but nothing could ever be the same after Lily learned of her abilities. After a name could finally be attached to the things she could do with her willpower alone. And maybe at 8 or 9, it wasn’t that much of a deal, but it was going to grow still, and she simply couldn’t imagine the extent of pain that it was going to give her. For as long as Lily was still living in Cokeworth the two remained family, the statuses of Muggle or Muggleborn, not all that often present in their thoughts. However, then came the moment Lily’s been waiting for. She got her letter and a visitation from an intimidating Witch wearing a stereotypical pointy hat, who explained everything that Lily apparently had to know about Hogwarts and how to get to both Diagon Alley and the hidden train platform somewhere in the far off London. Within weeks from that, she was off to a new world located for the very first few years solely in between the gates of her new school with thrilling new friendships looming on the horizon.

What she didn’t know, though she should have suspected after several particularly negative comments from Severus, was that once she had officially started her magical education, her status was going to be much more important to other people. And as it was her wake up call came as soon as the Welcoming Feast ended and the newly appointed Gryffindors followed their prefect up several staircases to a tower that was about to become their home for the next seven years. 

As soon as the Portrait’s frame moved from its original place and the sea of students poured into the common area the chaos erupted. Older kids formed groups around the room, some claiming the most comfortable sitting spots by the fireplace, others still gossiped about their summers as if the train ride hadn’t been long enough to catch up. All in all, it was a beautiful gathering of people under eighteen with no adult supervision enjoying their last moments of summer holidays.

In the middle of the room stood a bunch of first years, some openly staring around at older students playing Gobstones in the corner, others muttering with each other and a few patiently waiting for more directions to come from the prefect who brought them there from the Great Hall. Lily was one of those people. After all, despite coming from an unmagical family, she has already learned so much about the school from Severus. 

A tall, lean girl who stood in front of them and seemed almost as intimidating at professor McGonagall turned to face them and theatrically spread her hands to indicate the room they were all in. ’ Welcome to Gryffindor’s Common Room. It’s a place where you will spend most of your free time for the next couple of days and it’s where we cultivate our House Pride. To your left, you can see a notice board on which any and all information regarding our House will be put. Keep an eye on it.’ After that, she indicated one of the staircases behind her. 'On this side, you will find boys’ dormitories and on the other - girls’. Your trunks are already up there and waiting.’ With that, she was technically finished with all the information that she absolutely had to pass onto the first years, but there were a couple of things she wanted to add from herself. 'You see, us Gryffindors take our House Pride very seriously. Every year we make a great effort to win the House Cup or at least come up second. So try to keep up with us. Preferably by not being late tomorrow for your first classes as many often are.’ She finished with visible distaste and it was clearly their cue to leave the common room in search for their appointed sleeping quarters, but one of the girls suddenly raised her hand. 

'Yes?’ The prefect girl asked with resignation. Usually, one question meant that more were about to come.

'How will we know when to wake up? I mean, are there alarm clocks or something?’

It wasn’t a stupid question per se, but technically it wasn’t a good one either, especially since the girl pretty much answered it herself. But before the prefect could say anything, some too tall, too knobbly at the joints sixth year joined in with a nasty sounding comment. 'Oho! We got ourselves another Muggleborn this year, haven’t we?’ He asked his companion loud enough for the whole room to hear and even though there was little foundation to think that he had meant something vile, Lily could swear that his intentions weren’t pure. She glanced in his direction in curiosity, but soon her attention was brought back to the prefect. 'Yes, there are alarm clocks and there are masses of students waking up at odd hours of the morning to get ready for classes. So don’t worry. Unless you actively try to lose our points by sleeping in you should be fine. Even if you are, in fact, a Muggleborn.’ With that, they were dismissed and even if no one said anything about Muggleborns being somewhat lesser, Lily went to sleep much less excited than before.

It didn’t take long for her to learn that there were, in fact, those few people who did think her kind of people to be unworthy of magic. All it took was a few weeks and one overheard conversation between purebloods to get the whole spectrum. Some people didn’t care, others cared a little bit and some were total arseholes. 

Her first boyfriend was supposedly one of those precious few who didn’t care at all. He was a Ravenclaw and her partner during Herbology in the fourth year. A perfect example of his House’s stereotypes. 

He was studious, even though not the smartest, and knowledgeable about so many subjects that talking with him could never be dull, he was a pureblood but came from a family of very little importance., but most importantly he was as interested in Lily as she was in him. 

They started going out at the beginning of the second semester in all the school meaning of this word - Hogsmeade trips, library study sessions and an occasional stroll around the Great Lake. And it was nice, perfect, as thrilling as any first love ought to be. Sure, there were also awkward moments, natural at this stage of life when one is still learning and searching for what is what. Both had been fortunate to find the other. 

However, things had to start tumbling downhill as all first loves are ought to do. In their case, it was mostly because soon after the summer Lily started to get lost in her new prefect duties. There was too much to learn, too much to perfect that the spare time she’s had wasn’t enough to keep them together. And maybe it was for the best? She’s started to have some doubts during the summer and the disastrous way in which she’s met his parents. Disastrous in her opinion, but disastrous nonetheless. 

Everything happened within a span of some three minutes and yet it was enough to leave Lily uncomfortable with enough food for thought to last her for two whole months. It was the way he introduced her to his parents, something that hasn’t been planned beforehand but happened out of the blue. They should have predicted such a situation, but both were too young and too into each other to think about such details and nothing foretold how his simple, 'mum, dad this is Lily, my Muggleborn girlfriend’ would affect her. But it did. It made her blush, a sudden wave of embarrassment flooding her insides. And it made her angry, but at herself mostly, as at that point, she was already well acquainted with the notion of blood purity and had trained herself to pretend that the whole ideology didn’t affect her. Instead, she smiled through clenched teeth and shook the offered hands hoping that her redness, easily visible due to her light complexion, was being taken for a sure sign of her teenage infatuation. 

Everything changed from that moment. With every received letter from him, she remembered the way he had phrased his introduction, the way his choice of words felt off (who could ever naturally say “she’d my Muggleborn girlfriend”?), the way he felt it necessary to add that bit about her. Was it such an important part of her character? Did it matter all that much to him that she wasn’t a pureblood or even a half-blood? Couldn’t he just say that she was his girlfriend, plain and simple? Did that mean he had another girlfriend, with a different blood status hidden somewhere? In the end, it was all too much for her to take in and the pair had drifted apart. She was left with all those questions, though. And she never got her answers. 

Once the war had started to pose a real threat, her previous worries started to feel insignificant. Suddenly it wasn’t anymore about the way someone might find her not good enough to date her or throw a slightly thoughtless comment her way, suddenly it was starting to become life-threatening and before she knew what was going on, it had become more than serious. 

On her way there were classes, exams, OWLs and NEWTS and then she was out of school, graduated, a real witch with a real wand and an apparition licence. The world was huge and scary and even though she should be caring only about getting a good job and safe place to build a home she has found herself fighting for her basic rights. Instead of going to interviews or maybe learning new things, partying with friends and going on dates with her boyfriend (or two), she was spending her evenings patrolling and going to secret meetings. Instead of taking potions to sooth her sore throat (after a whole night of club going and screaming happily with friends) she poured over books in search of long forgotten potions and spells that they could use to tip the scales in their favour.  And then, just as suddenly, she was pregnant and engaged and then married and a mother and before she knew what was happening she was no more. And it was no longer her duty to make sure their baby never said to their future friend - “you are great…

…for a Muggleborn”.

#visecretsanta #from cleo #Ooooh #I love me some 'let's dig into those casual unthinking microagressions against muggleborns that happen all the time' writing :D #submission

[louiserandom]

old friends and new companions

for: @greeneyedtrickster :3 the formatting for the ask reply got wonky so i’m reposting it like this :D Hope you like it :3

Rating: T

Pairing: Jiraiya/Tsunade

Summary: Jiraiya is reckless and a bit of an idiot.

Orochimaru, too, is reckless but by no means lacks intelligence.

Tsunade is just done. So done.

A/N: alternatively, the latest of the Bizarre Adventures of the Legendary Sannin :D I took so many creative liberties in this lol and I hope it turned out fine. Enjoy!

Read on AO3 or under the cut :3

“Care to explain why you didn’t wait for backup like we told you to?” Tsunade demands, bandaging the worst of Jiraiya’s wounds perhaps a little too harshly.

“He’s an idiot,” Orochimaru replies helpfully from where he’s lounging on the other side of the cave.

“Hey!”

“I know.” Tsunade sighs, iryo chakra pooling out of her hands onto Jiraiya’s other injuries.

“I’d have liked to see you face off against that monster, dumbass!” Jiraiya growls, trying to sit up from his makeshift sickbed, a deathbed not two minutes earlier, but Tsunade forcefully restrains him, hitting him lightly over the head for good measure.

“I will,” Orochimaru says sweetly, “and unlike some people, I’m not going to behave like a suicidal moron.”

Jiraiya huffs but holds back his explosive retort, conceding the fairly good point. Perhaps facing off a giant disgruntled leech with a Noh mask wasn’t the best idea when he was wounded and stranded in the outskirts of Sky Country.

“I knew you’d still be busy with that platoon and I was tired of lying in wait,” he grumbles his admittedly poor excuse, “and that creepy guy controlling that monster was right there! So I thought, why not? Two birds, one kunai.”

“Did you actually attack with just the one kunai?” Orochimaru asks, eyeing the many, many wounds Jiraiya is sporting.

Orochimaru dodges the shuriken his friend flings his way, smirking when Tsunade gives Jiraiya her signature glare, making him wilt. Both of them know too well the pain that befalls those who don’t heed Tsunade’s first warning before she gets annoyed enough to inflict punishment.

“Anyway,” Jiraiya says with a put-upon sigh, “the man’s dead. The beast is wounded but I have no idea how fast it heals. So that’s still half the job done for us.”

“Yes, us,” Tsunade says firmly. “We’ll face whatever that thing is together,” she emphasizes the word with a meaningful look at Orochimaru, “so I don’t have to bring anyone back from the brink of death again. That seriously pisses me off.”

Orochimaru blinks, feigning innocence. “What? Why are you looking at me?”

“Maybe I’m well aware I’m the only one on our team with an actual self-preservation instinct.”

“Questionable. But even if that’s true, I at least have more than a modicum of intelligence… unlike some people.”

And now it’s Orochimaru’s turn to withstand Tsunade’s death threat of a glare. As well as an unnecessarily complicated set of rude gestures from Jiraiya, presumably depicting the physical harm he plans to inflict on Orochimaru once he’s completely healed.  

Orochimaru rolls his eyes and presses his palm to his chest. “Fine. I promise not to go out to kill the monster by myself.”

Tsunade eyes him suspiciously, wondering if she should make him solemnly swear by his experiments. But, she supposes, there’s probably nothing in existence that Orochimaru holds sacred, so she simply nods and sends a quick prayer to the gods for patience, if nothing else.

She returns to the task at hand, touching up and cleaning the last of the injuries, now healed enough to become yet another set of scars adorning Jiraiya’s arms and chest, some of them crawling dangerously close to his heart. She takes a deep breath to calm herself, finally out of the sickening mental loop of fearing yet another loved one’s death. Jiraiya’s usual quips and one-liners help lighten the mood as she works, but just to be contrary, Tsunade doesn’t give him the courtesy of a smile.

“Here.” She cuts off Jiraiya’s ramblings that were just on the verge of straying into the perverted territory, offering him the medicine he so abhors taking. Predictably, his face twists in a grimace and he tries his best to keep himself from pouting, with little success. “Just a couple of hours of sleep, and your chakra will be replenished. Drink up.”

Jiraiya crosses his arms. “It tastes sour.”

“Oh?” Tsunade raises an eyebrow. “You know what else will taste sour? The disgusting, humiliating taste of defeat if you decide to do this the long way and we end up wasting so much time that the monster gets away from us. Again.”

Another fair point, Jiraiya supposes, but that doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it.

“Do I get a kiss from the beautiful lady for my heroism despite the many trials and tribulations?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows. “And what’s my grand prize once we get home victorious?”

Tsunade rolls her eyes. “The prize of one kiss, knucklehead, will be bestowed upon your brow only once you’ve proved you’ve learned your lesson.”

“Oh, come on!” Jiraiya whines, ignoring Orochimaru’s unnecessarily dramatic sigh as he promptly leaves the cavern muttering something about ‘keeping it the fucking bedroom.’

“You knew the consequences.”

“I didn’t! Tsuna, look, I underestimated the wound I got from the battle up north, yeah, fine—but if not for that, I would have won!”

“And once you see the lack of logic in that statement,” Tsunade says with a derisive look that’s very much uncalled for, “I’ll see about that kiss.”

“And the victory sex?” Jiraiya says, because being a little shit never fails to make Tsunade smile.

He’s not wrong. It’s a beautiful smile, despite the exasperation on her face. Her shoulders have finally relaxed, and her hands have stopped shaking, and that’s all Jiraiya needs for now.

“Stop bringing up sex to annoy Orochimaru,” Tsunade cuts the fun short. “And drink.”

Not masking his displeasure, Jiraiya downs the disgusting potion in one go, and instantly feels the familiar, debilitating drowsiness settling in. He groans. The world dulls, then sinks as he flops onto his back, everything blurring into a mesh of colorful blobs. He can only just make out Tsunade standing up from where she was kneeling in front of him to go somewhere out of sight—which is unacceptable, really.

“Hey,” Jiraiya tries, willing his eyes to stay open, “wait, don’t leave…”

“I’m not leaving, silly.”

Warm arms cradle his head and Jiraiya suddenly finds himself lying on Tsunade’s lap, her presence soft and comfortable, radiating warm, lively, calming energy he’s grown to love so, so much.

“Tell me again,” he whispers, snuggling up to her.

“I’m right here.” Jiraiya isn’t sure whether it’s his imagination or not when he feels the faint press of warm lips against his forehead, his eyelids, his cheeks. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Mm,” he protests, “not what I wanna hear.”

A chuckle. A playful nudge. Jiraiya’s sure he’s grinning like an idiot, what with his eyes closed and his muscles relaxing steadily with each second.

“Maybe I’d like to hear it from you first,” Tsunade says.

“Hm. You know I love you,” Jiraiya says, barely holding on to consciousness as the dreamless chemical-induced sleep fights to drag him under.

“Well.” Another dream-like kiss, to his lips this time. “You know I love you too.”

It’s the last thing Jiraiya hears before he sleeps.

He awakens to the dawn light grazing his eyelids and gasps for breath as the adrenaline from that weird fucking potion rushes through his veins, making his heart beat at twice its normal rate.

Ugh, he thinks, at least my chakra’s back to normal.

Jiraiya sits up, stretching his arms and relaxing the muscles that yearn to hit something, happy to see all his injuries completely healed—thanks to the genius lying beside him.

He smiles as he watches Tsunade, completely relaxed for once, sleeping on her side with her hair undone and a slight smile curling her lips. This despite her own injuries that Jiraiya only now notices she didn’t bother to heal; minor cuts and bruises that she always dismisses because she cares too much about her best friend and lover to notice her own pains. And despite the battle-worn clothes, streaked with blood and grime, and singed in some places because apparently the Sky shinobi she and Orochimaru fought were uncannily skilled in Fire Release—bathed in the burgeoning sunlight, she looks beautiful.

He wishes sorely that he didn’t have to wake her up. But a few minutes is all they should be able to spare at this point.

“Oi, snake boy,” he calls to where Orochimaru is sitting near the entrance.

“Call me that one more time,” Orochimaru says, turning around to glare at him, “and I’ll feed you to one of my summons.”

“Yeah, yeah, same threat, different decade,” Jiraiya says, standing up and looking for the storage scroll with his change of clothes. “You ready to tackle that monster thing? You have that seal for tracking it down, right?”

“One you didn’t need apparently, because of your dumb luck,” Orochimaru says, tone tinged with irritation. “But actually,” he announces, standing up to face Jiraiya, “we’re not going anywhere.”

“Huh?”

Jiraiya tenses once the Shadow Clone before him dissipates and the real Orochimaru (hopefully) shunshins near the entrance.

“You left a clone to keep guard, you dumbass? What if—what if it…” It’s then that Jiraiya notices what—or who, he really is uncertain at this point—Orochimaru is holding in his arms. “Orochimaru, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!”

The scream has Tsunade awake and already forming hand signs before she realizes there’s no intruder.

Well.

Technically.

And Orochimaru, the bastard, acts like there’s nothing out of the ordinary.

“I would very much like both of you to calm—"

“Why the fuck do you have that monster in your arms, you godsdamned idiot?”

“Orochimaru,” Tsunade growls, angry enough that her chakra starts glowing, crackling in the air around her. “What, exactly, did you do that I explicitly asked you not to do?”

“I broke no promises, Tsunade, as I did not go out to try to kill the ‘monster’,” Orochimaru emphasizes the word with a pet of said monster’s head. Because Jiraiya’s pretty fucking sure that’s a miniature version of the slug-snake thing with the Noh mask he’d fought cuddling into Orochimaru’s hold like it wants to be there. “See, we never thought about befriending him. Talking him out of being Sky Country’s glorified weapon and letting him be an honorable asset for our village.”

“Asset?” Tsunade can feel the onset of one hell of a migraine.

“Him?” Jiraiya asks weakly.

“Yes.” Orochimaru smiles. “This is Zero-Tails. He hasn’t chosen a name for himself yet, but since I’ve officially adopted him, we’ll get to that shortly. Isn’t that right?” he all but coos over his new pet.

“Yes, master,” Zero-Tails answers, its mask shifting into an expression of pure innocence.

Its—his—voice is deep and far too evil sounding in Jiraiya’s opinion, and he will not fall for the innocent act, but for all his indignation, all he can manage is,

“Master?” Jiraiya is fairly sure he’s going to lose his mind with a best friend like his. “Orochimaru, why?”

Tsunade snarls and kicks the wall of the cave, making a big chunk of rock fall off and the whole part of the mountain they’re nestled in trembles dangerously.

“I need Grandpa’s fucking moonshine to deal with this,” she seethes, and Jiraiya couldn’t agree more.

Orochimaru simply keeps smiling and says, “Of course! We need to have a house-warming celebration for our new companion after all.”

#jiratsu #jiraiya/tsunade #jiraiya #tsunade #orochimaru #naruto #fanfic #lou writes #camp nano april 2020

[gumnut-logic]

Minerva (Bit 4)

Bit 1 | Bit 2 | Bit 3 | Bit 4

Really just some brotherly fun :D I’ve posted a couple of snippets from this bit, but there is plenty more, a whole 1600 words worth :D

Thanks to @vegetacide​ and @scribbles97​ for the reading and support ::hugs you guys::

I hope you enjoy this fluff :D

-o-o-o-

“Scotty! Bro! How ya doin’?”

Virgil had to smirk at his little brother. Gordon was acting like his hand had been caught in the candy jar.

“Gordon, what are you doing in Minerva?” One lowered just slightly. “Virg? What the hell? Gordon!”

“What?! He needed some fresh air!”

“He has two broken legs!”

“Yeah, but Grandma was cooking up a storm.”

“Oh.”

“Exactly.”

Virgil twisted his lips. “You do know I am a sentient being and can both speak for myself and make decisions on my own.”

“Did you hear something, Scott? There was interference on the line. Sounded like Virgil was claiming he was able to look after himself.”

The snort from the hovering Thunderbird was loud.

“Hey!”

Gordon actually cackled. “Sorry, Virg. Great at looking after everyone else, total shit at looking after yourself.”

The glare he shot his brother should have scalped him.

Gordon only grinned more. “We all have our strengths and weakness, bro.”

“Shut up, Gordon.”

Thunderbird One began lowering as if to come into land.

“Hey, don’t you dare land that tin can on the reef, Scott. Mel will have your hide, right after I kick your butt.”

“Keep your pants on, Fish, I’m well aware how attracted you are to my butt.” Thunderbird One pirouetted midair like the graceful craft she was under his brother’s hands, shifting towards the centre of the lagoon. Her landing struts unfolded from her fuselage.

“He’s not going to...” Virgil’s eyes widened.

But Gordon was grinning. “Oh, yes!”

A crack in the air and pontoons at the end of her landing gear inflated with a snap, One suddenly sprouting what looked like fat ski blades. Her front strut shot out extenders either side for stability and Thunderbird One settled on the calm ocean like the prim and trim bird she was.

“That’s not something you see every day. I thought Scott hated landing on water.”

Gordon snorted. “He does.”

“If Brains asks, it’s practise and equipment testing.” Scott’s voice was smirking on comms. In the distance his brother’s flight chair slid smoothly out of the cockpit to hang above the water. Scott reached beneath the seat and pulled out a package. With a yank of a cord, he inflated his own little lifeboat, chucked it onto the water surface, and lightly stepped onto it. He sat there fiddling for a bit, enough to have Gordon frowning across the water, but then Scott was moving in their direction.

“So, dropping by for a swim? Or just checking up on us?” Gordon’s voice was flippant, but Virgil sensed a touch of concern under it all.

“Does it matter?” As Scott got closer Virgil frowned. The blue of his uniform was smudged with something black.

A flick of the water seat’s controls and Gordon yelped as Virgil flew off the edge of the reef and splashed his younger brother with water as the contraption forced stability in a way it really wasn’t quite designed for. Virgil cursed as the seat hit its maximum speed which was little more than walking pace, a limitation he had put in there himself to stop Gordon from killing himself. But it got him across the water, however slowly, those few moments faster to his eldest brother. As Scott pulled up alongside him, Virgil raked him with his eyes.

His brother was filthy, but there were no obvious injuries. “What the hell happened to you?”

Scott rolled his eyes. “I’m fine. Took a bit of a tumble down a coal mine.”

“A coal mine? Are you okay?” Scott still looked a little off with his pencilled-in eyebrows still growing back. Wasn’t the first time one of them had had to use makeup to hide an injury from the world at large. Scott had more soot on his face than anything else. “Did you wear your helmet?”

His brother’s shoulders slumped with the most put-upon whole-body expression he could manage. “Of course, I did. I’m fine, Virgil. A few bruises and a lot of grime. That’s all.”

Virgil didn’t stop frowning as he grabbed a handle on the inflatable and held himself steady. “Why didn’t you go home and get cleaned up?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Just happened to find a brother with two broken legs sitting on a reef out in the middle of nowhere. What the hell are you doing out here, Virg? You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I am! I’m still sitting on my ass. Andre and Cecil, not to mention, Gords, have me wrapped up in bubblewrap. I’m fine!”

Scott arched a wonky eyebrow at him.

Virgil’s lips twisted and he combed his brother with his eyes for injury one more time before conceding. “Fine. We’re both fine.”

The grin that split Scott’s face was kind of worth it.

It was a sign of how involved they were in each other’s medical condition that they both startled as Gordon suddenly surfaced beside the boat. Their fish brother flicked his wet hair out of his eyes forcibly enough to get both of his brothers with the spray.

In the distance, and still on the reef, both Andre and Cecil were staring at them.

“Hey, bros.” Gordon pretty much hovered in the water like the water seat his movements were so practised. “How goes?” In others words, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ When both brothers just stared at him, his eyes narrowed. “Scott you’ve dragged Two Broken Legs out onto the water by your mere presence. You look like shit, he worries. Go back to A Little Lightning and get cleaned up. Meet you on the reef when you are more respectable.” The Fish’s glare turned to Virgil. “And you. You are giving Andre conniptions. You fall off this seat, there is drowning in your future. I know you know this because you drummed it into my head multiple times.” His brother parroted Virgil’s own words from years ago. “‘Its use must be accompanied by adult supervision at all times’. While I know ‘adult’ in my case can be a grey area, we didn’t hire two suitably respectable nurses for you to fly out of their reach and go drown yourself. Now, get your ass back on that reef before I throw it onto my boat, take you straight back home, and force feed you Grandma’s cooking!”

Virgil stared at Gordon. Okay, perhaps he had acted a little irresponsibly. Of course, Scott took the opportunity for what it was and turned his own glare on Virgil for reinforcement.

Gordon’s glower upped a notch at the lack of movement. “Now!”

“Okay, Gordon. Fine. Whatever.” Virgil somewhat meekly let go of the life raft and turned back towards the reef, the seat humming quietly beneath him. Gordon growled further words at Scott and a moment later the life raft took off for A Little Lightning.

It wasn’t often Gordon put his foot down, but it was usually a good idea to agree with him when he did.

But then it wasn’t like he could fall out of the seat, being strapped in an all.

The whole tone of his own thoughts screamed pout and Virgil was forced to acknowledge that yes, Gordon was right.

The aquanaut swam alongside him, quite capable of keeping up with the seat’s easy pace.

By the time they reached the edge of the reef, Virgil had worked himself up to an apology. “I’m sorry, Gordon.”

His brother had stopped swimming a little way back and was now wading. Looking down and watching where he put his feet, Gordon sighed. “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Virg. Just keep yourself safe and in one piece, and we won’t have any problems.”

Virgil brought the seat to a halt and turned to his brother. “Gords, thank you. For all of this.”

Gordon stopped and stared, a small smile curving his lips. “Anytime, bro.” And of course, he had to take it that step further. He flung his arms wide. “My boat is your boat. Mi Casa, es su casa. Yours, mine, ours. Happy families and all that.”

Virgil stared at his goofball brother a moment. Then a flick at the controls, he darted over, grabbed two armfuls of Gordon and hugged him until he squawked.

“Oh, god, Virg, getorff!” Gordon struggled, but even in the water, he was no match for heavy lifting biceps. If Virgil closed his eyes and just clung for a moment, he wasn’t going to admit it or care. If it wasn’t for the fact that the seat was on the verge of flipping, he would have hung on longer.

It was Gordon stumbling and righting him before he took a swim in the drink that finally broke the clinging.

“God, Virg, don’t you dare get all teary on me or I’m telling John the combination to your personal refrigerator.”

Virgil grinned, if a little sloppily. “He already knows and it is not what you think.”

“What, it’s not Two’s launch date?”

“What?” Oh shit.

Gordon’s grin split his face in half and he cracked up laughing. Virgil was reduced to grabbing at him again in either an attempt to throttle him or give him the biggest noogie since he hit adulthood. That explained the mystery of the damned banana caramel pie from last week. He’d have to change it again.

His brother ducked out of reach basically by throwing himself underwater. Sure, the water seat was designed to follow, but damnit! “You owe me pie! Cecil made that for me, you brat!”

Gordon just kick-splashed his brother and laughed harder.

-o-o-o-

TBC

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Virgil Tracy #Gordon Tracy #Scott Tracy #Kermadec AU #minerva reef #minerva

[dontcallmecarrie]

“if Bucky got wind of what went down in canon, he’d start screaming internally and never stop” ... So! How about a dimensional travel style crossover between By Dawn’s Early Light and either canon or one of your other AUs? ;D

That’d be…messy, because BDEL is, apart from being a fluffy fixit-slash-break-it-differently AU, also a timeline-got-squished-and-things-got-switched-up AU. 

For instance, remember how Tony’s hometown got a visit from SHIELD because of a meteor crash? That was Mjolnir, crashing into Earth way ahead of schedule because the Bifrost got a bit wonky when Odin did his thing. By the time Thor arrives, nearly a decade’s passed on Earth, Natasha is a shiny new agent of SHIELD, Bucky’s been out of the ice again, Bruce is cursing his new green anger management issues and there’s a lot of talk about Y2K going on in the background.

So, we’re talking about taking this Bucky, who escaped HYDRA in the early ‘80s and has since spent that time recovering with the help of his new family. Who’s used to a universe where Tony Stark went MIA and didn’t contribute to technology and progress [because he used that creativity and innovation to hide better, but shh], so tech’s about what you’d expect. 

You take this Bucky, and stick him in canon? Things are going to explode, and there’s going to be a lot of screaming.

Bucky’d take one look at canon, with its “assholes are yelling ‘Hail HYDRA’ in the year of our lord 2014″ and “wait what do you mean I killed Tony’s parents and all these other people” and would immediately go ‘thanks I hate it’. 

Would go “I don’t care if they have hoverboards, take me back, I want to go home fuck this I’m out”, because to him, canon’s a melodramatic mess and clearly a very bad timeline because the people he cares about are either long dead or wouldn’t be able to look him in the face [and it would sting, knowing that this Tony has very good reason for why].

And Steve— the way this other Steve looks at him would freak him out. Because there’s a strange sort of hope in there, only it’s not very comforting when it’s the “oh my god you look so much better!” hope, with a side of “you’re the person I remember you as, and if you’re not it’d only take a few tweaks” […yeah I’m still salty about the way Steve handled Bucky’s trauma. Fight me.] and as if that’s not enough, all it’d take one look at his alternate to know that apparently he got off lightly when it came to trauma.

Only— that’s not true, is it? It’s just that he was lucky enough to have been able to heal from the worst of his trauma in an incredibly supportive environment, and for all that they give him grey hairs, Bucky is still very grateful for the sheer diehard loyalty that Maria and Tony showed when he was at his lowest. 

But these guys don’t see it, just see him after years of recovery. 

…yeah, Bucky wouldn’t really like this weird alternate universe. 

As for the stunts that Steve pulls, though…hmm. 

On the one hand, part of me thinks that he’d be almost desensitized to it. After all, in his universe, Maria burned both Stark Industries and SHIELD in the early 1980s— so when he finds out that Steve did something similar in 2014, he’d be torn between facepalming and screaming. 

On the other hand, finding out that Steve caused an international incident […or just gets wind of the Civil War mess in general, for that matter] because of Reasons would just result in internal screaming. Because come on. Steve was supposed to be the reasonable one, was supposed to be the one who wouldn’t go to town if Bucky was ever mildly inconvenienced and how was it that he kept hanging out with these jerks in every universe? He’d have expected this shit from Tony or Maria, but he had high hopes for you Steve, gdi.

.

Meanwhile: it’s Uncanny Valley Hour for everyone in canon. 

Because this Bucky looks like their own, but the way he acts? The way he keeps blurting out stuff that’s just this side of ‘wait wtf’, or fumbles with smartphones but has no issue with talking to JARVIS?

Tony’s freaked out because this Bucky acts very, very familiar with him [Bucky: I taught you how to shave, kid. Enough said]. Doesn’t help that this Bucky’s also very very protective with a side of mother-hen tendencies [Bucky: how tf is it that you have even worse self-care habits than you did as a tiny fifteen-year-old?! Eat something you’ve been up for nearly 36 hours now]. [Incidentally, stuff like this also gets him into JARVIS’ good books, too.]

Everyone’s heart hurts whenever Bucky mentions Maria and Tony’s face just freezes over for a second, and there’s a lot of brain-breakage when he mentions wanting to punch Howard too. 

Clint and Bruce and Sam would just be watching from the sidelines, Natasha stealing popcorn every so often because this Bucky remembers bits and pieces of his time in the Red Room but it’s clear that he’s healed from that and they’re cool. 

Steve, though…

Steve sees this Bucky, and he can’t. 

It’s just— this Bucky is a staggering contrast to his Bucky, in all the worst ways.

This Bucky is everything he wishes his Bucky could be— he has his old self-confidence back, is clearly at ease and comfortable with his place in the world, isn’t struggling to put himself back together again, isn’t a patchwork of scars and open wounds. 

[This Bucky is unrecognizable. Is clearly better off without him.] 

It’s everything he could hope for, in terms of recovery for his best friend. It’s so close, and so, so far. 

This Bucky can barely stand to be in the same room as his alternate self. Shifts uncomfortably whenever it happens, looks at his alternate with a strange sort of pity [Bucky: torn between going ‘holy shit was I ever that bad? Wait nvm I don’t want to know’ and ‘…I am still going to yell at Maria next time she blackmails municipal government into unnecessarily changing zoning laws’]. 

All in all, nobody’s having a very good time, if BDEL!Bucky were to crash-land another dimension. 

#I got an ask! #Naught replies #replies #behind the scenes #By Dawn's Early Light #shatterpoint #Naught rambles

[dzamie]

I watched the live action Jungle Book! I’d say it was disappointing, but I set appropriate expectations going in. So, imma get into it:

So, the good parts first, in no particular order:

I really like Kaa’s hypnosis effect. The Disney animated movie’s swirling colors always looked really, really goofy to me, but the live-action’s waves of light and dark were very well done and legit alluring.

There are a lot of little jokes here and there that I feel were written in case they wanted to use them in a commercial. “You have never been a more endangered species than you are at this moment” is actually pretty darn funny.

The bodies moved well. King Louie was really the only animal I thought was straining realism too far; the positioning of limbs and torsos and stuff was pretty spot-on. Tails were a bit wonky, but you have to be looking for something like that, as someone with a slight tail fetish might.

This is definitely unintentional, but Mowgli makes an “oof” sound whenever something bowls into him or he leaps roughly against something. It sounds like the Roblox hurt noise. Tone-breaking, but HILARIOUS.

Having Mowgli seem to fear the bonfire was a nice touch.

As was having the final fight seem to take place at the watering hole, this time during wet season. Far from dry, the exact opposite of the Water Truce occurs - everything is in conflict.

Now, the less pleasant bits.

I mentioned the Water Truce callback was neat? Yeah. What a shame they took multiple minutes to repeat over and over that the Water Truce was that there was a truce around the watering hole. I’m glad they used all that time to explain why it was that Shere Khan wouldn’t attack anyone so he could conveniently see the man-cub. Also to set up the schtick where Mowgli has been Inventing Things because he is a Man.

Elephants are now a religion. I don’t like it, especially because it’s used to set up Mowgli rescuing a baby elephant from a hole, so that Baloo and Bagheera can see that Man Is More Powerful Than God.

The wildebeest herd exists only for shakycam purposes. There really isn’t much reason for Mowgli to not go directly into the river and escape Shere Khan on a log that way.

Oh how they ruined Kaa. I do rather like how she has a more cloying, sweet personality (it’s not better or worse than the animation’s rather goofy fellow, just different), but they whole-ass saw a snake character and thought “hey wouldn’t it be cool if she never wove around him or approached him from different angles? Let’s make sure to never show her for more than 8 seconds at a time, too; we MUST cut between her and Mowgli. There’s simply no way to shoot a scene where they’re both in the shot, talking.”

I hope you like snakeless ScarJo voiceover, because that’s literally half of Kaa’s appearance, from first line to last. It’s great that the man who hurt Shere Khan with fire just happened to be Mowgli’s dad, because I guess it’s not enough that Shere Khan wants to kill all humans in the jungle; he must have a Deep Personal Connection with the man-cub.

I can sort of understand coming out of the hypnotic vision to see Mowgli entirely in her coils, from a “this is Mowgli’s perspective” point of view, but wow it’s really unsatisfying. Look, the animated version had Mowgli slide into pre-coiled snek body, but at least we saw them interact. Kaa is pretty much a static prop here. What a waste of a serpentine character.

For someone who is afraid of heights and doesn’t know Mowgli, Baloo sure is eager to climb a big, tall tree and risk his own life against a giant, hypnotic snake.

Minor note: with all the focus on seeing Kaa from Mowgli’s point of view, Disney sure chickens the fuck out when it’s time to be snake chow. C’mon, you stupid mouse, show us what Kaa looks like inside.

It’s kinda weird that Bagheera and Baloo are so familiar with each other, considering that Mowgli has been in close contact with Bagheera all his life and neither met nor heard of the bear.

Shere Khan is almost comically evil to the wolves. Makes it hard to take his “I’m actually justified in my desire to kill you” thing seriously.

I feel like Disney hasn’t grown out of its “haha imagine SONGS in a CHILDREN’S MOVIE. What a stupid fucking idea” phase. Baloo and Mowgli sing off-tempo and off-key, and King Louie does a weird half-speaking thing that lets you know they want to do a song, but haven’t the slightest clue how to transition into one, and they still want to pretend to be a gritty serious realistic movie with no singing because that’s too silly.

King Louie Is Twenty Five Goddamn Feet Tall Because We Watched King Kong The Other Day

They set Louie up to be a mob boss, calm and composed for like a minute or two, and that goes out the window in no time flat. They try to bring back that structured “I help you you help me bada bing bada boom" thing back in the chase scene, but literally nobody cares what the chaser says in the chase scene. If they did, it wouldn’t be a chase scene.

“No, they don’t fear me, they fear you.” Except clearly they fear you because your MO this entire time has been “let’s kill and threaten animals and see if Mowgli comes back faster.”

Baloo, the laziest bear you ever did see who heard the wolf pledge exactly one (1) time and immediately dismissed it as propaganda, can recite it from heart because Shere Khan needs to be directly confronted with The Power Of Friendship

Can’t be a climax without fire. It’s a good thing that Mowgli can always find a safe path through this raging inferno that’s been burning steadily through the forest for the last few minutes or more.

Mowgli’s entire strategy hinges on many things that could go wrong at any moment:

a) the vines don’t catch on fire as he’s running through the burning forest

b) the vines and branch don’t catch on fire after he suspends them in the air in the middle of a huge forest fire

c) the dead tree, notably made of dead wood, which some may know to be extremely flammable, is not on fire nor does it catch on fire as he’s climbing it

d) Shere Khan follows him onto the branch

e) Shere Khan leaps at him on the fragile branch that Shere Khan seems to notice is weak

f) the vines and branch don’t catch on fire while he’s climbing them in the middle of a huge forest fire

g) he finds a way back out of the woods literally filled with fire

h) Shere Khan even follows him all the way in rather than going “nah the little bitch is gonna burn. Let him.”

i) the animals forgive him for setting the trees ablaze

They let ScarJo sing Trust In Me during the credits. Minor suggestion: don’t.

I choose to interpret Mowgli not seeing what happened with Kaa and Baloo to mean Kaa is still alive, and the monkeys trying to dig Louie out of the ruins to mean that he’s dead. This is entirely because of favoritism.

Compared to the animated version, this movie is much more based around Shere Khan, compared to around Mowgli and the jungle. Rather than “Mowgli won’t be safe here; send him to the Man Village so Shere Khan won’t kill him,” it’s “Mowgli won’t be safe here, but Shere Khan is going to threaten and probably kill us until Mowgli returns anyway, which he surely will because Shere Khan said so.”

They tried to do a grey-morality sort of thing by justifying Shere Khan’s fear of fire and hatred towards Men. But it kind of backfires because Shere Khan keeps being incredibly evil for no particular purpose aside from making his death be a good thing for everyone, and the one crime Mowgli commits (big fire) would not have happened if Shere Khan hadn’t announced his plan to kill the man-cub.

I really miss the allegories to different kinds of philosophies towards society from the animated version. The live-action replaces them with examples of different abusive relationships (Baloo is a manipulative fast-talker, Louie is supposed to be a mob boss, Kaa’s comfort is genuine but overshadowed by a desire to do harm), which is... nice, but not really my cup of tea.

Holy shit there is SO MUCH SHAKYCAM. You can barely see some of the scenes from all the shaking around. “Did we inspire adrenaline in you? Don’t you wanna go fast?” Yes, of course, but what am I doing this about? “...SHAKYCAM!! LOUD NOISES!!” It’s overstayed its welcome.

Realistic CGI animals are actually terrible at emoting.

This felt like yet another action film. Every opportunity they had, they threw in another fight scene or chase scene. You could take most of them out, cut off about 15 minutes from the movie, and still not have removed anything important.

All in all, I’m glad I now have 22 seconds of Kaa saying things. They really shouldn’t have given ScarJo so much coverage in the commercials, though. She’s in the movie for about 4 minutes, and she’s a visible snake for much less. I don’t think I’d pay to see this, and really this just gives me more reason to not watch other Disney live-action remakes.

Shakycam should have died eight years ago. Bring back shot composition.

#text #long post #The Jungle Book #reviews

[cyanpeacock]

“On yer bike!”: An introduction to the wacky world of cyclins, and cell division control. 

Just like you cycle through your thoughts and emotions in a day, your cells cycle through a process of their own, to divide and grow so that you can do amazing things - like reading this post.

Setting the scene:

Your DNA comes in long curly strings called chromosomes, literally “coloured bodies.” From the day you’re conceived, these chromosomes replicate, segregate, and are separated into new cells. They build you! 

We’re diploid organisms, so in most of our cells, we have two sets of chromosomes. We call the amount of DNA in a cell 2n - two times n, where n is the haploid amount of DNA (the amount in a single set of chromosomes, which you would normally find in an egg or sperm cell). 

Some very clever sod came up with imaginative names to identify these stages of cellular replication and division. Here they are:

M-phase: Mitosis. Here, replicated chromosomes separate, and one cell, containing two diploid sets of chromosomes, divides into two. 4n becomes 2n. 

G1: Growth phase 1. Your cell grows to its optimum functional size, making sure it contains the right amount of everything for it to work, so far as it knows. Here, it might leave to a state called G0, or quiescence - the cell is no longer part of the cycle of division. It may be re-induced to divide by the presence of certain conditions, or go on to some kind of cell death. In this stage of the cycle, the cell contains 2n DNA.

S-phase: In S-phase, your cell begins replicating its chromosomes. 2n becomes 4n.

G2: In G2, the cell goes about replicating all the little machines inside it that make the cell able to function. It contains 4n DNA, and grows in size to accommodate all the molecules that get synthesized within it. 

So, we see this progression, with the exception of cells in G0:

M → G1 → S → G2 

[2 * 2n] → [2n] → [2n → 4n] → [4n]

And back to M. 

Now, how is this weird little progression controlled?

Cell division control genes, and their products:

It gets complicated, but basically, the progression is controlled by two families of proteins, encoded by the cdc genes. cdc stands for cell division control - makes sense, right? These genes make proteins, which act as little machines to control the division and growth of your cells. 

One family of proteins produced from cdc genes is called the cyclin dependent kinase group, or Cdk proteins for short. A kinase is a protein that phosphorylates a substrate (another molecule in the cell). All it does is add a little phosphate group onto the molecule, and that’s enough to change its behaviour entirely! 

Cdks are always present in your cells, and there are several types, but they don’t really work on their own. They can’t take the proper shape to phosphorylate anything without their pals, the cyclins. 

Cyclins are a bit strange. Again, there are several kinds, but unlike Cdks, they’re not present in the cell all the time - and for good reason. The different types need to be created and destroyed at certain times, so that they can cooperate with the Cdks to make the right things happen for your cells to divide normally. 

So, how do cyclins and Cdks pair up to do this?

Well, that requires looking at their structures.

Parts of a puzzle:

Cdks are pretty small, about 34 kilodaltons in weight, if you wanted to know the measurements. They have a little pocket on the side called the kinase domain, but without a cyclin pal, it doesn’t work!

Cyclins are also pretty small, and often very structurally different, outside of a small region called the cyclin-box. The cyclin-box is the bit that binds to a Cdk, which changes its shape, and activates the kinase domain. They also have an N-terminal destruction box - we’ll cover what that means in a little while.

So, a particular cyclin gets made, and through mystical processes vaguely described by physics, it floats along to find its best bud, the Cdk. Their shapes just - want to fit together, because of the basic laws of attraction that apply in this part of spacetime. We call this kinetics of association and dissociation. There’s handy maths for it, but that’s for another time.

The cyclin binds to the Cdk, and that little kinase domain pocket on the Cdk becomes active! It can hold onto the -OH group of serine and threonine amino acid side-chains, and add on a phosphate group nicked off ATP to its substrates. 

This action changes the shape of various molecules to produce an overall interaction with your DNA, so that it can be duplicated, and so that different sections can be transcribed into RNA, then translated into proteins. All this lets your cells grow and divide. Boom! Brand new cellular material. Isn’t that awesome?

Then, when enough time has passed, a protein called E3 ubiquitin ligase comes along to degrade the cyclin, by recognizing its N-terminal destruction box and tagging it with ubiquitin. Ubiquitin targets the cyclin to the proteasome - a little shredder for molecules, so their constituent parts can be recycled. It literally looks like a little bin with a lid! This terminates the action of the complex, and the cell is free to progress into the next stage of the cycle, or into quiescence. 

Who does what?:

As you might have guessed, the specific transitions between cell cycle stages are controlled by specific Cdks and cyclins. Thanks to the very clever work of many individuals, my lecturer Professor Andrew Fry (University of Leicester) included, we know quite a bit about precisely which cdc genes and products do what, and when. 

M-phase: Entry into M-phase from G2 is controlled by Cdk1 + cyclins A and B.

G1: In G1, it’s Cdks 4 and 6 + cyclin D. This combination permits passage through the G0 restriction point.

S-phase: Cdk2 + cyclin E permit passage into S-phase. Cdk2 + cyclin A allow for progression through S-phase.

What does that look like, paired up with the little sequence we made earlier?

M → G1 → S → G2

[2 * 2n] → [2n] → [2n → 4n] → [4n]

(Cdk 1 + A/B) → (Cdk4/6 + D) → (Cdk2 + E) → (Cdk2 + A)

You’ve probably noticed these transitions don’t line up precisely. That’s because this is a very fluid process - we’ve just made these discrete distinctions to make it easier to learn the major transition points, before you can visualize the whole process in motion. 

Study in vivo:

Did you know that these cyclins and Cdks are virtually identical between laboratory yeast cells and humans? They’re more than 95% similar!

This means we can use carefully-measured application of radioactivity to generate mutant yeast cells, with single point mutations in their genomes, to study them - no humans get harmed in the process, unless we’re careless with the X-ray machine. (O_o) 

Some of these mutants fail to grow and divide at all, and some, perhaps more usefully, fail to grow and divide at certain temperatures. 

These temperature-sensitive yeast cells with mutations in the cdc genes can be induced to grow and divide again. We can add plasmids to them - little circles of DNA containing certain genes, one of which might restore the function lost by the mutant yeast cell. 

This is called complementation, and it lets us retroactively figure out which gene has gone wonky in the mutant, by looking at the gene on the specific plasmid we introduced from our plasmid library (yes, we have a whole archive of them now!). It’s the process that allowed us to confirm that human cdc genes can cover for mutant yeast cdc genes, and perhaps vice versa in the future. 

We can also use the oocytes of marine animals (egg cells) to study the transitions between cell cycle stages. Frog oocytes are good for this - they’re big, and translucent enough for the cycle stages to be observed under a light microscope, so it’s not too expensive either. 

It’s possible to take the cytoplasm from a frog egg cell we’ve noticed is in mitosis, and inject it into another cell that’s not doing much at all, yet. The introduction of the foreign cytoplasm drives the cell into mitosis - so there must be the presence of a mitosis promoting factor, or MPF. We can see the mitotic spindle form under a light microscope. Isn’t that neat?

Through experiments like this, we’ve figured out that there’s an order of dominance to the cyclins and Cdks present in a cell, i.e. some cyclins and Cdks take effect over others. 

MPF, or Cdk1 + B, is dominant over all other cell cycle stages.

SPF (S-phase promoting factor), or Cdk2 + E, is dominant over G1 phase cells, but not G2 phase cells. 

So, why do we care?:

Well, it’s just plain interesting!

However, beyond human obsession with novelty, the study of cdc genes and their products has implications for a wide range of human diseases. 

Perhaps most notably, cdc genes can be implicated in cancer, where cells divide outside of the healthy range of control. By studying them and elucidating their structures, we can get a clearer idea of what might be going wrong in some kinds of cancer, and how to fix it.

We have the technology, here, today, now, to make replacement cdc genes from a functional template like the plasmids I mentioned earlier, and introduce them into new cells using something like a virus - SV40 is one that works in humans. It’s limited right now, because we don’t want anything to go horribly wrong with it, but it’s possible.

It’s a pretty funky little cycle, and although it’s scary when it goes wrong, it’s a joy to watch in motion when it goes right. 

I hope you enjoyed reading about it!

#fliptext #sciblr #medblr #could have said more but then i'd be getting into modern alchemy #i mean #this is already #but i'm talking full like... grey magic #helical rotations and electron transfer and whatnot #decided to leave that for another day #wondering if i should make a sideblog for this kind of thing #many thanks to prof. andrew fry for his excellent lectures and powerpoints on this particular piece of the puzzle

[irageneveart]

hello! i was wondering what program&brush settings you use for your artwork? im new to digital art and i really like the way you colour! Especially those light effects they're so extra cool!

omg Anony you’re such a wonderful being, thank you for liking my art enough to ask me that!

now watch me failing trying to explain things to you lmao. I’m self taught and I’m in no way the best at this, so what I’m going to tell you might still be flawed but this is how I do things o/

hmm it’s gonna be long so I’ll put it under a cut!

1) I’m using Paint Tool Sai for everything in my art but if I still feel the need to, I’ll use Photoshop to correct colors and lighting. for example in this progress gif:

you can see where I decided “no, I don’t like this cold blue feeling” so I went to Photoshop (because it allows changes much easier than Sai when it comes to colors) and I changed it to a warmer purple! you can always play in Photoshop and try to see different versions of your art, different colors will give off different feelings

most of my artworks don’t look the way they do at the end because while drawing I tend to be focused on other things (line, where to place shades, lighting, etc) while when the picture is done I can focus on the feeling I initially wanted it to have!

2) My usual brushes are really basic. also ignore my ugly writing.

Sketch: I use this to sketch because it has a nice and easy flow, I can get messy lines that look good (the latest Brahms Heelshire drawing I did is entirely drawn with this one!)

you can always switch between your brushes depending on what feeling you want your art to have

Lineart: this one has nice, smooth and bold lines. I like to play around with it’s size. I believe it’s the basic one Sai has

little advice: if you’re not happy with your lineart try to alternate heavy lines with tiny ones. for example:

you can see how bold her hair is, but adding thinner lines to the glasses, the folds of her clothes, hair etc. it will create a better dynamic of your picture and will leave the eye of the viewer to run around it! I’m honestly awful at explaining stuff fdkjsnjkfds ofc this is a personal preference but my linework improved since I started to think like this

Base color: this is the color tool sai gives you, I changed my names so I can’t remember its default name. I like it to be bold because when I was little I used to color entire coloring books, so even now digitally I like to color every bit like I’m using crayons haha. time consuming and useless but shhh. basically I put down every base color with this one

Acrylic: now this one is tricky, when I got it the first time I wanted to use it to shade, but using it I discovered it’s much better for blending. after I put down the main colors and shades I just use this one to blend them together and I sometimes paint with it too

Blending: it’s literally the blur brush Sai provides you xDD

now keep in mind that using its settings (the things near the “Normal” option!) you can get different types of blur! always play around to see what looks good in your art. also remember that not every shadow has to be blurred or blended out, there are many ways shadows can look, using both blurred and heavy (cast) shadows in your art will definitely improve it. using real life references might help

Airbrush: the very brush Sai gives you. I’m using this one mainly for lighting. what I do is basically put down a hard light, like literally take a light color and place it where I see fit on the character, then I give it a bit of glow with the airbrush. one thing I noticed is that depending on the surface, the glow will change!

in this one you can clearly see the light on his cheekbone, but then there is a much weaker light on his face, that’s made with the airbrush and then blended into the structure of the face.the glow on the cheekbone and the ear is made with airbrush, using orange and playing around with the layer modes (overlay and luminosity, these are your best friends when it comes to lighting!)

lastly I want to present another best friend for us artists, the eraser

you can make highlights with the eraser too! you can cut the light in different shapes to give different feels and many other things, the eraser is definitely your best friend and not only in erasing mistakes. try to play around with it sometimes

Other things I learned:

try to use a different color for shading, using the exact color but darker will only make your art look dull, lifeless. the same goes for lighting! there are lots of tutorials on color theories and practices out there to help you with it

don’t be afraid to get wild, use oranges, reds, blues, purples in your skin and play around with the layer modes, you’ll see how much more alive it will feel. also don’t be afraid to try different styles, constancy is not the friend of a creative mind. experiment, try things, go out of your comfort zone. make it fun, make it personal. if you like drawing dogs then keep drawing dogs and enjoy it! don’t let labels and others to influence you and your spirit

ik this is obvious but never compare yourself with others. your journey is yours, you have a different hand, a different brain and a different being. this also goes to drawing things others did already! who cares there’s 0284e4895 other pictures with Kitbull already? draw yours, it will be unique and special because it has something from YOU in it, and no one can replicate that not even with tracing

watch people online! of course when you sit down to draw it will be completely different, but involuntarily you’ll learn and exercising you’ll find your own way of doing things. there might be much better ways for drawing lighting than I do, but this is how I feel good and I like to do it!

I know you hear this everywhere but really, practice, daily if you can! in October 2017 I tried to to the inktober challenge for the first time, I haven’t finished it and I was late anyway but I can tell you that trying to draw daily definitely improved my art. now I’m able to draw a picture per day with not much effort (yesterday I was able to draw three pictures with pretty good quality! o/ always start small and be proud of every step!!)

lastly, don’t be hard on yourself. every picture is a lesson, doesn’t matter how it came out. maybe the anatomy is wonky af, but you learned and your brain will remember what not to do next time. try and try and try and never say “my art sucks”, say “this pic doesn’t look how I wanted, but I still like it. I’ll do better next time!”. the moment you start to like your art you’ll see how much it will start to shine hehe

I might come out with more stuff but this is already really really long xD  just be yourself, love your art and enjoy it!! lots of luck for you Anony, I hope I didn’t bore you and this will be helpful for you and others! :D

#ira geneve #art advice #tutorial #sai brushes #art tips #anon ask #ira rambles #wah this was long sorry #but it warms my heart to know some people look up to me for things #and I'll do all I can to help anyone

[rapturcd]

R U L E S

- DISCLAIMER: This blog is SUPER glitchy for me. Why? Who can say other than this place is a hellsite. I might at some point have to try out moving to a new account depending on how bad it gets. I have a lot of issues with my notifications and follower count, so there might be a very good chance I might miss something or miss you following me, though I do try to check where Tumblr will actually allow me. If that’s the case, please don’t be afraid to send me a nudge through IMs! 

- I’m on the fence as to whether I’ll include other non-Bioshock related verses.  Considering the rpc for the game is nearly non-existent on here, probably be the smarter choice, but currently, it’s a no. Nick’s story is so heavily intertwined with that of the first two Bioshock games, I cant picture his character being in other verses and it having as much impact.  This could change in the future or if something is heavily plotted out.  Overall if you want to interact, it will have to be within the world of Rapture.  But - you are more than welcome to hmu or approach me with something if you have an idea.

- Reblog memes and the like from the source please. My notifications are already wonky

- I will NOT interact with blogs that use youtubers, social media influencers, or anime / drawn characters for their Fcs. Nothing against you, it’s just not my thing.

- I will BLOCK personal blogs that reblog or follow, as I like to keep interactions here between fellow rp mutuals.

- As stated this blog is SELECTIVE, meaning i will only write with mutuals. if i dont follow back there’s genuinely no hard feelings, I just get very overwhelmed with an overly busy dash and need to be a bit selective to prevent my anxiety from going nuts. you’re more than welcome to unfollow. though its very much a mutual thing; if you want to interact but dont follow me, chances are I’ll say no as I take following as a sign of interest. I may take a while to follow back as my notifications on here are the worst. If I don’t follow back within a weeks time, feel free to unfollow.

S M U T:

-  While I, and my muse, are of age, I’m not entirely comfortable writing smut unless it’s with a mun 1.) I know well and 2.) Is of age. Nick lies more on the romantic spectrum than outright sexual. So for the most part any if it all suggestive scenes will lead to a fade to black.

T R I G G E R S:

- The world of Bioshock is horrific and in many ways gross, and Nicks story is no cake walk. There will be mentions, and maybe the occasional image, of : Blood, Violence , Medical related subjects, Imprisonment,   Torture, Needles / Injections , Mutation , Mental Illness , Child Abuse , Terrorism , & Riots / Civil War. I will ABSOLUTELY tag NSFW material  and triggers where applicable, though if you would like me to tag something specific to your needs or if there’s something I missed, don’t hesitate to let me know and I will do so right away!

M U N:

- I write under the alias Nox! ( She/Her ) and I am of age.

- i am a-okay with questions, especially about my muse! if you have any about anything at all i will be more than happy to answer them the best i can! Also totally fine with random IMs even if we havent talked before so hmu.

R U L E S / O T H E R THREADS:

- usually, i dont drop threads, but if for whatever the reason i do, i will always let you know beforehand and would hope that courtesy would extend to me as well if you decide to drop one.

- if you want to turn a meme or ask into a thread, I’d prefer to be asked before hand. simply because sometimes its nice to have memes just be memes for the fun of it you get me.

R E S P O N S E  T I M E / A C T I V I T Y:

- As it is i have a hard time keeping muse, just the way i am sadly. i know this is something a lot of people, myself included, can find frustrating (especially when you’re really into a thread) but a fair amount of the time i may take a while to respond. as much as i love this, aside from being a hobby, i have a chronic illness that makes me exhausted most days or just not in the mood to write and not in any kind of state to type out a response you lovely people would deserve. though i will always try to quickly reply when i can.

M E M E S:

- Yes. please. send as many as you want, as often as you want. Even if we haven’t interacted, you’re free to send one my way; They can be a great place to start things off.

P O S T  L E N G T H:

- You don’t have to match my length in posts! sometimes i can write far too much when i get really into writing (and alternatively not write enough), so don’t feel obligated or pressured to follow suit by any means! whatever you are comfortable with is totally okay! it’s not a contest, this is all for fun.

G R A P H I C S  /  C R E D I T:

- all icons and graphics are created by me unless stated otherwise

- psd (heavily edited) originally by kingsleigh

- icon border ( edited) originally by jaynedits

#≈ pgs ≿