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aclowntiny · 6 months

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Task Failed Successfully- Hyunjin x GN!Reader

Word Count: 2.6K | Friends to Lovers, College AU | Warnings: none really, very slight alcohol mentions but Reader doesn’t explicitly drink, one small swear

In all honesty, you were thankful for that tiny little art class with that temporary professor who moved universities the following semester. You were thankful even though you felt like those new brush types you were made to use irreversibly brought down the quality of the one portrait you painted- paint was a difficult, sometimes fickle medium anyway. Even though sometimes it felt like that class so few people had heard of was but a fever dream, it was more than worth it to you since you wouldn’t have met Hyunjin otherwise.

Your tablemate was a gifted painter, humble as he was toward every compliment paid him. The joke you two shared was that he could have taught the class, but art was Hyunjin’s major and he was truly eager to soak up every piece of knowledge his seniors had for him- even if he disregarded it sometimes to prove a point. Art types, you know. You remained more of a rule-follower, but you guys shared one of your famous stingingly enthusiastic high-fives for it. High-fives came so naturally to you two, neither of you had to look anymore. Hence why Hyunjin’s friend Minho described you two’s ‘creepy eye contact’.

Hyunjin was what you called a hopeless romantic. Many of the gorgeous children of his brush were roses, couples from movies that had become his muses. You teased him, called him the type of guy who must have had a ring already in his nightstand just waiting.

“Easy,” he shot back, “or are you trying so hard to get rid of me?”

“No, of course not,” you shook your head and mirrored his grin, “who’s going to buy my drinks at the campus café if I marry you off too soon?”

“Oh,” he elbowed you, “so that’s why you keep me around, huh? Bold of you to assume I’m going with you.”

Giggling, you shouldered your backpack and kept on down the posh brick walkway that marked the campus rose garden. Hyunjin kept by your side the whole walk past the waving blooms and right to the student center where the little restaurants and cafés were.

“Alright, fine, but only if you take bowling with me next semester.”

Your campus had a bowling alley and its own ‘sports’ course set there, a class that filled up quickly with students eager to get credits for fun, even if they sucked, because how do you fail bowling?

“Oh, no,” you placed your hand over your heart, eyes rolling away from him dramatically, “truly a fate worse than death.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What’s that supposed to be?”

Hyunjin was peering at your canvas, tracing the latest line you’d smeared across it with his head tilted and eyes darting. He looked like a curious cat.

“Why, what does it look like?”

“Oh, no,” he shook his tilted head, “this is the ultimate trap. I say the wrong thing and it looks terrible. Not falling for that one bit.” He punctuated his statement with an enunciated pronouncement of your name and a finger booping your nose.

“Well, I’ll give you a hint, it’s going to be a landscape.”

“Ooh! The beach! It’s the beach, huh? I should have known you were painting the sea again!” Straightening up, he clapped and pointed in excitement, having gone from cat to puppy in three seconds flat. That was one of your favorite things about him.

“Guess I’m predictable,” you replied jokingly, giving him a smile, “it is the beach. Well, sort of. At my family’s little spot there was this pier that would silhouette perfectly in the sunset, the water trapped on the sand reflecting it as an inverse on the ground. All the orange melting into blue- the sky geld more colors than the sea! It was like setting foot into another world.”

“Wow,” Hyunjin breathed, “and you say you’re not much of an artist. If I had half the way with words you do, it’d be over for everyone.”

“Well, then we’ll have to take over the world together.”

“Sounds good to me. Dictatorships sound lonely anyway.”

With that nature of his, it was only a matter of time. Hyunjin’s art spoke volumes about his subconscious, so it was no surprise when he started telling you about a blind date a friend of his was setting him up on.

“So I guess he sits by her in his fashion design class…”

“Ooh,” you muse. Sounds up his alley.

“And she’s been looking for a date for a while, so he told her ‘I have this art major friend’ and the rest was history.”

How was it so easy for some people? Though then again, volunteering your friends was a considerably different task than asking someone out, especially if your friends were as hot as Hyunjin. Not that you thought about that often. It was just a sort of objective appreciation thing, like straight guys talking about Ryan Reynolds. Yeah.

“So besides being single and taking a fashion design class with Felix, what’s her deal? Did he give you any detail?”

“She’s twenty-one. A bit of a partier, but sounds like nothing I can’t handle.”

At that, you suppressed a snort. Hyunjin was an E type, but the last thing he was was a partier. Getting a few drinks with his eight-person friend group or attending a wine and paint night was as crazy as he ever got. For being such an amazing dancer, he never hit the club and you were fine with that. All the noise and crowds could be sort of anxiety-inducing. Call you a child after heart, but you’d take the nights you two had painted the arcade red over going out dancing with strangers.

Enough about that, though. Pulling your jacket a bit tighter about your chest, you shook your head as if to dissipate a cartoon thought cloud. “So, where are you taking her, then?”

Hyunjin smiled, a bit…nervously? “We’re just meeting at the bar-and-grill across the way here, nothing fancy.”

“Hiding that side until a few nights in, huh?” You nudged him, chest feeling like it expanded at the way his smile opened up, relaxed.

“She’s a fashion major, she’s going to be way more pretentious than me.”

“I dunno, Mr. Windows to the Soul,” you kept teasing, this time with the name of his last assignment sketch of a pair of eyes.

“Not my last minute title,” he waved a hand before playfully grabbing yours and swinging it back to your side, “next time I’ll just use a drama quote like you did. Really show how serious I take the assignment.”

“Hey!” You protested, shoving his hand away in mock offense.

“Gotcha,” he grinned.

Hopefully Miss Fashion could handle him as well as you could.

Forwarding a picture of your pet that your parents had sent you earlier in the day, you texted Hyunjin ‘Good luck!’. Too robotic? You hoped not, because by whatever cosmic dice roll the vibes had just been off all day, clouds rolling across the atmosphere of your mind and obscuring any small good that came your way. If you seemed off, he would worry, and he didn’t need to carry anything unnecessary into his evening.

Hyunjin 🐹: Thank you 👍🏻 heading to the bar now! Hope we both have a fun evening 😁

You shook your head as your phone’s backlight illuminated your face an artificial blue-white. Hyunjin was too sweet for his own good.

Me: I’m just having a night in lol so have fun for both of us!

Squirreling your phone back into your hoodie’s front pocket, you wiggled a bit deeper into the garment and sighed. It wasn’t that you wanted his blind date to go badly or anything…so why weren’t you feeling the excitement you led on in your text?

It was about forty minutes later, just about seven-thirty, when your phone buzzed again. Reaching into your pocket with one hand, you paused the video you’d been watching with the other. The first word you registered was Hyunjin’s name, the little hamster emoji you’d given his contact because they didn’t make a ferret for some reason.

Hyunjin 🐹: She never showed.

Just three words, but that message alone was enough to have you kicking your blankets off and feeling your hand curl into a fist. You barely bothered beyond a perfunctory check and touch-up of yourself in the mirror before you had your keys in your hand, all but stomping out the door of your dorm suite.

How dare she! How dare Whatever-Her-Name stand him up! Guys like Hyunjin didn’t grow on trees, and whatever planet she was on where she thought she could do better than your friend, it wasn’t much like Earth. Had Felix’s words been cause of any caution, set forth any reservation? It sure hadn’t sounded like it from Hyunjin’s recounting.

Me: Stay there, I’m coming to get you.

Hyunjin 🐹: You don’t have to do that. She just forgot, apparently. She was already out with friends when I texted a follow-up thirty minutes into sitting here.

Swallowing down some very uncouth nicknames, you sent one more message before starting your car.

Me: I know I don’t have to, but I want to. Not cool 😕

Metaphorical red clouded your vision, forcing reminders from the greatly-diminished level fraction of your brain to slow down, keep a vigilant eye upon the dim road still. This was the kind of thing you read about in ridiculous website articles about ‘Top Ten Dating Nightmares’ or saw on a corny sitcom, not a real-life thing. Petty, sure, but you wondered how many assignments Party Girl had ‘forgotten’ in her college career.

After what felt like much longer than a twelve-minute drive you were pulling into the bar-and-grill, where a serendipitous front-row parking space was just opening up. Swiping the black SUV’s former resting place, you parked and took a short, forceful walk through the doors. It didn’t take long to find Hyunjin as he sat blank-faced in a red leather stool beneath the bar’s wine-tinted neon, chin in his hand and cocktail in front of him. The lights splashing the place perfectly mirrored the literary light of your fervor, spurring you on… and inspiring your next piece for class, but that was beside the point.

“Hey,” Hyunjin greeted you in a deadpan, giving you a halfhearted wave.

“I- I- I cannot believe her!” You spluttered, forgetting yourself as you grabbed Hyunjin’s hand and practically yanked him out of his seat. “But it doesn’t matter- we are not giving her the power to ruin our evening.”

When it became ‘our’ evening who knew, but such did not even occur to you until much later. Only one thing was on your mind, after all.

“Come on. Let’s forget all about that and have some fun at least.”

No resistance from Hyunjin- he simply followed you out the door, chuckling and sarcastically thanking you for making sure he’d paid for his drink.

Stopping right before the doors, you cocked a brow. “Had you?”

“Yes.”

“Look at you- picture of integrity,” you remarked, disappearing back out from the reddish glow into cool night air, the feeling of your friend’s hand in yours a warm tether.

Soon the two of you were bathed in a much different light, the brighter-and much cheerier in your opinion-blinking of the arcade. Your spot. Fiddling sheepishly with your hoodie strings, you bid Hyunjin pick a game since you’d paid.

He chose air hockey. Good man. Whirs and rampant clicks drowned out the echoing thoughts you both were surely having, brought forth shaky, then stronger and stronger smiles. He won. You pretended to be upset before relenting with an infamous no-look high-five, secretly happy he got the victory.

“You paid and you lost!” Hyunjin urged, waving a hand as if to usher you deeper into the colorful madness. “Pick the next one!”

“Alright, basketball!” You agreed, following the wave down to the hoop-shooting game.

With a swipe of your card, you were off, tossing with the best of your aim and protesting the snickering at your side when you proverbially ate it. Like a Jedi sense, you leaned to the left right as Hyunjin made to nudge you, something he’d done on your last trip too, and vowed your revenge.

In a way, you got it, because you won that game. Playing clean, you reminded him.

Neither of you brought up the evening’s previous half for several games, truly successful in your endeavor of distracting yourselves. It rose to your mind a few times, mostly when the sight of his smile drew one from you. No longer were your eyes framed crimson, though- rather all you felt was gladness at your move, satisfaction like the last piece had tumbled into a puzzle.

It was after the roulette spin that the subject of your un-ruined evening was broached. Your head had swiveled in search of the next expense of credits when his voice at your side had you turning back.

“Hey,” he’d said, and when you faced him again he tugged at the hem of his jean jacket and glanced up to your eyes and back down, “this means a lot to me.”

Your gaze softened into his, chest leapt at the sudden heartfelt words. “Of course. I told you, no reason to let the evening be ruined.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, scratching sheepishly at the back of his neck, “but I guess what I really mean is I realized something when we came here. When Felix told me about the blind date, I just jumped at the chance without thinking. Well, we see where that got me.” He gave a short, sardonic chuckle. “Now, though, I’ve been thinking. Everything just feels right like this with you and I. You’re the one I’d rather be with.”

You gaped. “Like, date?”

“What happened to inverse worlds reflected on sand?” Hyunjin teased, giving you one of those infamous smirks of his.

“I wasn’t exactly surprised out of my mind talking about the old bay pier,” you shot back, though your expression was anything but intimidating, a smile no part of you could fight spreading across it in place of any pout or death glare you normally would have attempted.

And there he was, smiling back with a hopeful look in his eyes that had your heartbeat stuttering. “So, we going to unpack ‘surprised out of my mind’ or nah?”

“Nah,” you shook your head beneath the whirlwind of thoughts and thrumming of heartbeats, all your vision’s red faded to the rosy glow of something you never thought you would let yourself give into, “I’m just going to surprise you out of your mind.”

Ryan Reynolds, your ass. It blew your mind someone could pass over a person as amazing as your classmate, someone who could translate their heart into the most amazing things and feel like home in physical presence too. An open conduit for all the teasing banter that never went too far. Well, no matter- the floodgates had been opened, and with no further warning you surged forward to shut out every centimeter of air between Hyunjin’s lips and yours, smiling and resisting the urge to shake your head at- well, everything. Your arcade light fireworks lighting up the insides of your fluttering eyelids, the way his fingers found the curves of your cheekbones, tracing them like he was plotting his next painting.

Maybe both of you were hopeless romantics.

#stray kids #stray kids imagines #stray kids reactions #stray kids x reader #stray kids scenarios #stray kids x gender neutral reader #hyunjin #hyunjin x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader #friends to lovers #college au

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mewpangxin · 10 months

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— With a s/o who is a writer and illustrator—

FT. Riddle, Azul and Malleus.

♢˚‧ Riddle Rosehearts ♢˚‧

• He would be viewing it with an astonishment.

• You can contrive the world that you want to see by a pen or on the phone? That was a feat from you.

• He'd be a tad bit flustered when you drew his pictures on your sketchbook or wrote about him.

• He was surprised that you always asked for his consent before doing with your pieces.

• How quaint. And you said it's what you must.

• All the more reason for Riddle to keep you with him.

• No one else can have you! They don't treasure you as how he does. He was the most suitable for you.

• “Aren't you a fortuitous one? Not many would make me this way with them. You told me you are into poems recently, isn't it? I have memorized some from the contents and genres you'll like.”

♢˚‧ Azul Ashengrotto ♢˚‧

• He considered that this may be profitable.

• Would you be keen in being his business partner? Your abilities should be honed, he insisted you.

• He won't give you free drinks or food, darling. That would be awful for his famed Mostro Lounge.

• He will hand you a paycheck instead.

• Don't worry, you needn't to concur into his deal.

• Artists and any creators should be praised.

• Azul was charmed to have you as his significant other. He was over the moon because of you.

• If you agreed in accordance, he'd be grateful.

• “Starfish, if I beg you, will you stay with me in Twisted Wonderland? I understand — if you don't want to. Your happiness is the first and foremost but I just couldn't help feeling sad about it...”

♢˚‧ Malleus Draconia ♢˚‧

• He was marveling at your hobby.

• Another who values art and nature as him?

• He falls for you even harder.

• How could he not? When you were empathetic?

• He suggested that he'd play a violin as you were devising your drawings and prompts of drabbles.

• You guys have a quality time.

• Malleus was so happy to have your company.

• You were also like that with him.

• “It's truly a pity. That days and nights went by without stopping, is it not? Child Of— No, I shouldn't refer to you distantly. Are there nicknames or aliases you prefer me to address?”

#twisted wonderland #twst scenarios #twst x you #twst fanfic #twst imagines #twisted wonderland x you #twisted wonderland x reader #twst riddle x reader #twst azul x reader #twst malleus x reader #twst headcanons #disney twst x reader #twst prompts #gender neutral reader #twst x reader #twisted wonderland headcanons #disney twst

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ohcaptains · 2 years

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You should be so so proud of yourself, oh my goodness!! I started following your works a little before you hit 2k, and to get the privilege to see how much you've grown, how much you've done, and the absolute art you capture in your writing has been astronomical. You deserve this and more, I hope you take some time to treat yourself and truly acknowledge how talented you are! Thank you for sharing your gifts with us 💚

If you're still taking requests by the time I send this (hopefully you're not too overwhelmed with submissions) could I ask for something involving Carmy? I absolutely adored the pieces you wrote about him and how you were able to grasp how complex he is. 💕 I've had a bunch of thoughts involving him and face-riding, overestimation, or squirting because a friend of mine and I were talking about how his need for perfection and drive to push the limits in the kitchen might carry over to the bedroom and I would love to see your take on it! If this isn't something that interests you, I would love to see any thoughts you have to share on his character!

Whether you choose write it or not, I hope you took the time to read this just to know how appreciated you are.💚

Congratulations again! You deserve the world *mwah* 😊

okay noah fence but this message was so lovely. thank you, angel. I'm so incredibly grateful that you're still here. I hope I've done your request justice<3

Carmen. Carmen was an enigma that you wanted to figure out. Now and then, he’d give you some clues. An inch of the truth, and you’d cling to it, desperately hugging it, until it would reveal something else. One of those things was the admission that he was a perfectionist, and that perfectionist quality bled into all things.

“Carmy,” you whisper, the tone of it high pitch and cracking. Pushed from the back of your throat, finally managing to get the word out. You pair the word with your fingers tightening in his curls, the blonde/brown mop of his between your thighs. That, plus the push of your hips, arching into his mouth, feet shoved into the mattress, trying to get him closer, trying to get him to stop – not sure which one you want.

He's been at this for hours. Well, minutes. Feels like hours. But 3 times was a good endpoint. Four? Now that was being greedy. You guess that’s another thing you can put to him – Carmen was greedy. Well, greedy when it came to you. The thought makes your skin heat and makes you all gooey inside. Then, his big, bumpy nose is nudging at your clit, and you’re gasping, the sound a strangled, shocked sob.

“Carmy!” you repeat, louder, this time. He doesn’t answer, though. Too busy taking his time – too busy pushing his tongue into your hole, and dragging it upwards, between your wet, puffy slit, then circling it around your clit. You jolt, clutching his hair tighter. Clutching the duvet, too, to keep you to this plane of existence.

“Fuck – okay, okay, okay, okay,” you breathe, trying to self-soothe. The grumble of what sounds like Carmen laughing echoes through you. “Asshole,” you spit, and he laughs louder, now. Fumbles about and gets onto his knees.

“Jesus.” You watch the whole thing, thankful that you’ve got some reprieve, but this is worse, somehow. Better, even, as he braces his arms around your hips and lifts you, ass coming off of the bed, your fingers scrambling for something to hold onto before he’s back where he started – blue, bright blue eyes alight as he works you over with his tongue and sweet, pink lips.

“Think you’re—fuck, m’god –” your eyes roll back, and you forget what you were about to say. Something about being too good at something, but the thought goes to purgatory as heat pushes at the back of your clit, again. This time, though, it’s hotter and heavier. Tight, your body tense as it readies itself for something else.

“I’m – Carmen.”

You’ve lost your thought again.

He speaks, words muffled by the wet of your cunt. “Don’t be silly, I’m carmen.” “Shut up.” “Mm, mean,” he mumbles, glancing at you for a brief second. A second too long, really, when you see his lips and cheeks glistening with you. “Don’t know why I like you so much.” “’ cause I let you eat me out for hours.” He hums a laugh, “it hasn’t been hours. We’d be on number 10 now if it had been hours.”

You note how he says we. Note that he’s counting. “Can’t take ten, can barely take four.” “Guess we’re about to find out, huh.” “Please be—” you take a deep breath, cunt clenching together and mouth falling open. A loud, unkept moan comes out, and Jesus, If you were watching Carmen, you’d come right there. His face goes red. Beams with accomplishment.

“Please let me do this forever.” “Okay,” you gasp, not hearing him, but your fourth orgasm is gunning for you, threatening to take you under and never release. You fumble for his hair. “Okay,” you repeat, brain blanking, going to goo as he pushes his pointer finger at your swollen hole. Pushes inside, and you’re clenching around him, tight and unyielding.

“Please lemme come,” you sob, looking down at him with pleading eyes. Mouth open, tongue coming out, burning all over. You bump your pussy against his mouth, the scene so hot and desperate that you swear it’s not happening to you. But it feels all so real. Real, as Carmen sucks your clit into his mouth, and pushes his finger deep inside of you, in, and out, rolling and you don’t have time to warn him.

Hits you, and it’s wet and hot, spreading over his mouth and cheeks and god, soaks his chin, too. Carmen licks you clean. Groans and mumbles through the whole thing, and you swear, somewhere in there, you hear a thank you.

#carmen berzatto x reader smut #carmen berzatto smut #carmen berzatto x reader #carmen 'carmy' berzatto #carmen berzatto #carmne berzatto imagine #carmy berzatto x reader #carmy berzatto smut #carmy berzatto #carmen berzatto drabble #blurb night october 22

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spiders-notagain · 1 month

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How to tell if your vulcan buddy is into you

The first thing to establish is why your vulcan chose you in the first place. There are two main methods vulcans use to choose an intended mate. The first is obviously based on logical criteria. This is a process that evaluates personality, ethics, and life goals to estimate compatibility. Mental/psychic compatibility is also evaluated alongside other criteria but is often weighted more heavily, with psychic incompatibility being a huge dealbreaker. The other method is shon-ha'lok, loosely translating to love at first sight. This traditionally describes the state of being in romantic infatuation/obsession with someone but is often used by vulcans to describe one who chooses an illogical choice of mate. It is however possible to be in shon-ha'lok for someone who is also a logical choice of mate.

As with human courting, actions are functional, either being used to demonstrate worthiness as a potential partner or to fulfill internal desires. They can be sorted into the five love languages.

Gift Giving: Gifts have a long history of relevance in vulcan marriages. In historical times, gifts were often expensive and extravagant. This is not necessary in a post scarcity society so vulcans commonly give gifts that are thoughtful and personalized to the receiver. Vulcans very rarely give gifts in this manner to another vulcan who is not A. their intended or B. a family member because it may be seen as nosy. Gifts given may be functional (ex. a can opener), decorative (ex. an art piece), or just enriching to your life (ex. a tea flavor you just ran out of, a book you mentioned was hard to find again)

Quality Time: Spending time with another is a logical way to measure compatibility through conversation and psychic proximity. However, vulcans have a looser definition of how much quality time is needed before marriage than humans. Any time spent together that fulfills these criteria is counted as quality time including time spent together for work or social group purposes. Additionally, vulcans avoid complete isolation with their intended (they're trying to avoid the temptation to maul you) and will prefer instead partial isolation, such as public parks or restaurants.

Physical Touch: Hand-to-hand contact is not only a logical way to measure psychic compatibility but is also physically desirable. This may be expressed as subtle touches (ex. brushing hands when giving each other objects, resting your hands near theirs.. etc.) or deliberate (offering the ozh'esta, touching their arm to get their attention, pressing their shoulder to lead them along.. etc.) Physical contact is taboo in vulcan culture so touching someone unnecessarily is specifically notable.

Words of Affirmation: In general vulcans only say things that are true and do not exaggerate facts to flatter. Excessive praise is thus reserved for things that are truly extraordinary. However if excessive praise is given, it could possibly indicate a romantic bias. This includes praise that is a personal expression of emotion (ex. I like your eyes, I enjoyed your performance) Pet names and expressions of endearment are usually reserved for relationships that are more cemented but occasionally if a vulcan is really down bad for their intended, they may use them earlier.

Acts of Service: Caring for one's intended is a logical way to demonstrate capability as a logical mate. This includes an attentiveness to your needs that outpaces even human friendships (ex. providing food or snacks, fetch quests for you) In the courtship stages, vulcans will temper this desire, balancing it with public decorum. However, this may include actions that are nosy and intrusive by human standards (ex. organizing your cupboard, folding your laundry) By vulcan standards, inviting your intended to your home to hang out casually is an intimate milestone and indicates a deep commitment to the relationship, soon before a proposal. So touching their things is not especially more intimate than the mind meld you'll have soon if not already.

You may notice that many of these things are very typical for a normal human friendship and thus not particularly intimate. This is because vulcans are so ridiculously reserved that expressing the love languages at all is very notable.

There are of course, cases where vulcans may do these things not because they've chosen an intended, but because they've chosen to integrate with humans and reciprocate their actions of friendship. In this case, you can tell the difference because vulcans can't pine romantically for years. Not only is it illogical, but biology will inevitably force their hand in some way. If rejected they will either enforce distance and move on (abruptly ending all displays of affection whatsoever) or stubbornly attempt to change their intended's mind, increasing their displays and attempting to resolve any perceived obstructions (if it's another person this can lead to violence)

Vulcans technically have a sixth love language which is their mental contact but nothing substantial is done with this until bonding.

#star trek #vulcans #vulcan culture #the spirit of amanda grayson inhabited me i suppose #this is more or less an amalgation of stuff ive seen in canon and in fics #with a few of my own hcs #fandom ramblings

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iztea · 5 months

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How to start an art account?

well obviously by posting art but i guess this is not what you wanted to hear so i'll go more in depth

i think the biggest piece of advice i can offer when starting an art account is to not become fixated on numbers or likes and let external validation be your main source of motivation because in the beginning you will simply lack the visibility regardless of the quality of your art so if you start with the mentality of " i want to get big and get tons of likes and be popular" then you'll just give up prematurely as growing an audience takes a lot of time and effort and it's never something stable or consistent (unless you and the content you post are but that's another can of worms) If you want to post on instagram, you can even disable the likes option so that they won't influence you

What i do suggest, however, is to take the first step, which is also the hardest one: post one (1) artwork online. The rest will flow naturally, you don't have to force anything (it took me sooo many months to start posting again on instagram and here on tumblrr; i was always waiting for Something that never came until i finally did it and then it became "routine" fun, even. This is also general life advice from yours truly that I myself don't follow but i digress).

Really now, just post for fun, scream into the abyss, share your art with whomever comes across it. Don't think too much about it and live in the present or in a day-by-day manner. If you start with no expectations, you can't become disappointed, so just don't expect or wish for anything. Don't even think of yourself as an artist or an art account, you're a person who likes to draw and shares said artwork online. That's all there is to it. The rest is not in your control.

From my observations, there are two routes you can take your art account down on:

a) use your account strictly for art== the post-and-dip type, the ~mysterious type that never engages with their "audience"

b) the talkative personality haver art account that besides posting art also shitposts, replies to comments, answers questions etc (like me god i tried to be mysterious but i can never stfu so maybe it was never a choice in the first place sniff sniff) anyways pick your poison! Or try to be both. Or neither. Don't even listen to me that's just what i noticed

Last but not least, be patient. If your art is objectively good skill-wise, it's only visibility that you lack and that will come one way or another. Just focus on improving your skills by drawing what you personally enjoy. it's a win-win situation. And trust me, you can definitely tell when the OP really had fun with an artwork, you can see it in everything so practice that..... having fun and enjoying yourself is crucial that's ur lifeline brotherrrrrrrr As always, there's a mental and concrete side to anything so i guess this was more ~psychological advice, if you want actual tips for posting your art online, i've answered similar CCs before so you can check my courious cat account for that

Hope it helped!

#also this is general advice if u do art as hobby #if you want it in a career way then don't listen to me #sorry it's long i talk a lot #im glad tumblr doesn't have a word limit unlike cc #i had to shorten a lot of words lol #ask iztea

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kiwikiwii · 2 months

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Very Big and Very Long AI rant.

After the recent OpenAI stuff I'm gonna be here to share my two cents about the whole very realistic AI stuff, from the perspective of a very anxious and very art oriented person who loves techy stuff.

I very much would understand if this isn't your cup of tea so it's all undercut, thank you for your time anyways <3

Now. Onto the AI stuff.

Recently OpenAI has put out some new technology that's showing off some very nearly realistic videos and they're both creepy and very uncanny. About 2 or 3 years ago, the concerns about AI was already rising with deep fakes and the such and is going to start being a lot worse if this technology isn't properly regulated. This is what is prompting my very long and apparently, 927 word rant.

Going to put this in a few parts so it'll be easier to digest I hope.

About the tech.

We are at a point where the lines of AI generated content and real life are starting to blur. It's to a point where a sentence or a prompt could create scenes that look realistic enough that most people wouldn't even suspect that it's AI.

It is such a powerful and interesting technology that's slowly growing out of control. The people who are supposed to regulate the content and lawmakers has no idea what the fuck is going on and how the content is made in the first place, how are they supposed to make a change when they don't even understand what they're supposed to be tackling. The lack of understanding of how AI functions, how it comes to be, where the data was even gotten from in the first place and how it will impact society as a whole will truly be how we'll lose control of it someday. I'm not saying any of this because I want to be a 'hinderance to the future of technology', I'm saying this because the later we try to do something about it, the harder it is to do anything that is useful and effective for safeguarding artists, creators and everyone else who's using the internet. Not to mention the amount of frauds or scams that will skyrocket, children's safety on the internet being compromised, YOUR safety on the internet being compromised, people faking inappropriate images, videos and more will be a nightmare to deal with.

About art.

Many corporate companies unfortunately don't give a fuck about how the art is made and whether it's good or not but how fast it can be made and how much money can be made off of it. In their eyes, the trade off between quantity and quality is worth it. And that to me is extremely frustrating because where the art comes from should also be a part of the story when talking about art. Who the person who made it was like, how they developed a certain style and so on should be cared about and should be appreciated just like the art piece that was created. It shouldn't just be treated as another piece of thing to be fed to the scanner to be spat out as something else.

About creating.

Art is intrinsically a very human thing. People who make the argument "it's letting more people experience how it's like to create art" doesn't understand what it's like to create art. The entire idea of art is the learning, developing and polishing of the skills that you yourself develop. Taking away the steps that it took to get there in the first place diminishes the point of wanting to make art in the first place. It's degrading the time, energy and effort of the people who've already put effort into creating said art to be put out as a cheap and gross mimic of what it came from.

More emotional stuff that doesn't fit in any of the spaces above.

I saw someone use the word 'amalgamation' to describe what AI is today and that about wraps it all up. It's an amalgamation of dots and data skinned off of what there was and chained together to create an image, a video, an audio sample and more without a shred of humanity, love or emotion put into it.

I barely go on twitter nowadays, when I so, I see people sing high praises about the "the amazing advances of AI" and downplay the part of artists that were stolen for to create the technology they love so much in the first place. This whole ordeal makes me sick. It's depressing to see companies laying people off because they're seen as useless or worse than AI. It's disgusting to see the amount of talented people out there stolen from so that people could churn out heartless work at a faster pace to replace you. It's not a stepping stone for humanity, we're stepping over the ledge blindfolded.

I will never stop creating. It's what makes up a big part of me and will continue to be even if AI starts crumbling humanity to ash. One thing they can never take from us is creativity.

To the people who read this far, thank you. Thank you for spending your time to read over my word vomit that has been cooking in my head for the longest time.

To the artist that are still reading this. Remember you are irreplaceable. Without your art, this technology wouldn't have been here in the first place. Your art is invaluable. Never stop creating. Never give up, never give in.

Have a bear <3

#rant #ai rant #very long post #no beta we die like men #bonus bear #thank you for coming to my ted talk

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packedlunchmeat · 1 month

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COMMISSION ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

HOWDY Y’ALL!!!!

I’m deciding to open commissions once more! And finally making them public rather than just offering to friends.

This took a TON of deliberation, as I fear as an artist being taken advantage of for my time. And so, before we get into pricing and my boundaries as an artist, lets talk ground rules! Just so you, as a potential customer, understand my expectations as the artist.

(Also please be patient with me as I work 12 hour shifts at a hospital, so it may take a few weeks to get to yours if it’s behind a lot of others in the queue)

RULES & EXPECTATIONS

First come, first serve

This is mainly because I like to prioritize those who come to me first. With this being said though, if you express interest in a commission from me, but do not state what you are wanting, as well as a price range you are going for, I will prioritize a person who has already given me a commission request. Basically! I put you in the queue the moment we have a request worked out! :-)

No revisions after a finalized sketch

This is mainly to protect myself as the artist, and you as the customer from being in a perpetual revision cycle, after already finalizing the sketch. If you aren’t happy with something, please let me know before I begin the line art process! Once I begin to do line art or color, I enter a zone where doing any sort of serious revision could cause the quality to diminish!

Make sure it’s my art you are wanting!

I do do a plethora of art style mocks like persona 5 eye cut ins, as well as other sorts of persona art style stuff. But I don’t wish to copy another artists style thats already offering commissions. If you’re wanting a certain style that isn’t adjacent to mine, you’re better off saving up for the artist you truly wish you could commission :-). I like to feed into fandom wants and needs, but I don’t want to take away from other freelance artist’s business.

I will not send the art until paid

Since I manage to work rather fast, I don’t mind making pieces that don’t get paid for, as any piece I do is good practice!! That being said, I won’t send my art until I have proof of payment for the time I spent on it. I will always be super clear on which part of the process I am in, but to protect myself from being scammed, I cannot send the piece until payment is proven.

DETAILS

Now lets get into the fun stuff!! To start, I do not charge my commissions based on how complex the art is, rather, how long it took me to make it. Which is the reason I can’t ask for up front payments. I charge, instead, by the hour. And my pricing is based on my state’s minimum wage. The software I use to make my art (Procreate) tracks the elapsed time I’ve spent drawing, and so I calculate the owed amount based upon that. So, to start:

I CHARGE $15 AN HOUR (USD)

METHOD OF PAYMENT IS THROUGH PAYPAL.

Now that that’s out of the way, here’s what I CAN and CAN’T draw!!

THINGS I ABSOLUTELY WILL DRAW:

Character references! (TTRPG CHARAS, OCS, ETC.)

Armor (I can do mecha, but because of the complexity it may bump up the price just because of how long it takes)

Main stream art style replication (Persona 2D Sprites, Ace Attorney, Steven Universe, The Owl House, and a few others as well)

People

Portraits

Couples (hugging, kissing, holding hands, cute stuff :3)

Inklings & Octolings (anything splatoon related pretty much)

THINGS I CAN DRAW (BUT WILL PREFACE WITH THE FACT THAT I AM LESS SKILLED IN THESE AREAS)

Furries

Animals/pets

Scenery

Pixel art

Vehicles

Weapons (this ones tricky because I can draw swords pretty quick, guns take quite a bit of effort to get right though)

THINGS I WILL NOT DRAW

NSFW/suggestive content

Gore

With the parameters out of the way, I’d like to talk about pricing now! Since I charge by the hour, I’d like to make it clear that I am 100% willing to work with money difficulties! I draw pretty fast, but as there are certain things that cause my pieces to take longer, it’s only fair I let you all know what those are, so that you can know what to avoid if you’re wanting some art from me!

THINGS THAT WILL CAUSE MY ART TO TAKE MORE TIME!

Lineless

Complex mecha/outfits

Complex props (e.g. instruments)

Anything in my CAN DRAW list

Complex backgrounds

And lastly…

EXAMPLES OF QUALITY OF WORK

(With time spent and how much they’d be priced)

ROUGH FULL BODY

Time spent: 30m

Calculated price: $7.50

STYLIZED TAROT

Time spent: 2h 16m

Calculated price: $34.00

SIDE ORDER LINELESS

Time spent: 3h 44m

Calculated price: $56.00

FYNN 1920S ‘IT’ GIRL PIERROT

Time spent: 5h 24m

Calculated price: $81.00

Anywho!! If anyone is interested, please DM me! I’ll hand over my discord so you can send me pictures easy :-)! Reblogs are greatly appreciated!!!!

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7grandmel · 4 months

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Todays rip: 19/12/2023

Dancin' Tranquility

Season 5 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume C

Ripped by Ahmaykmewsik

youtube

Requested by xinos (Discord)

Y'know, it feels like almost any time I highlight a rip by Ahmaykmewsik, I'm obligated to highlight just how good they are at gripping a track's emotional core, making rips with so much pure visible feeling and heart. It was only earlier this month that I talked about It's Snowy but its snowy, and a month before that I covered one of my all-time favorite rips in Your Silent Reality. Even in simpler, earlier rips, with simpler mashups like Picture This Ranch, their talent has been evident, and though I don't want to pick favorites too much on SiIva there's just something about Ahmaykmewsik's rips that keep me coming back time and time again. And, really, today's no different: when Dancin' Tranquility got suggested for the blog, I saw it as an opportunity to just get to talk more about this incredible ripper.

I have a lot of feelings on A Hat in Time in general, that honestly sort of mirror my experiences with SiIvaGunner - it has the wholesale heart and soul of a pure indie project, and wears its influences, strengths, weaknesses, excellence and imperfections equally as proudly. Its a game that's immensely hard to dislike due just to how earnestly happy the development team seem to always be, and the Peace and Tranquility screen really embodies all of that. Referencing an older Tumblr meme whilst also feeling like a sort of acknowledgement of how caring and friendly the game's community had become, it's an aesthetic touch that had no reason or requirement to be implemented into the full game. Yet its addition was just one of the many pieces that makes the whole of A Hat in Time feel so lovely.

In that same way, a rip of the theme could have very well been executed perfectly with any sort of hip-hop mashup, akin to something like Noonsummer Madness or even Door into a Hundred Summers. Yet the remixing effort Ahmaykmewsik has gone through here feels so painstakingly, carefully done - incorporating elements and samples from Dancin - Krono Remix, a song with a similarly lo-fi, kick-back-and-relax energy to it. There's a newfound energy to Dancin' Tranquility that's hard to really describe - it feels lo-fi, yet the remixing add a subtle feeling of urgency, without actually becoming stressful.

There's so many little touches to the remix that make it truly stand out, breaks and sound samples, additional backing pieces - yet it all fits together surprisingly cohesively. And like I said before: that's kind of like A Hat in Time itself, isn't it? It really shouldn't come as a surprise that the official A Hat in Time twitter account found, loved and shared the rip with its own fans, one form of independent art creation supporting another. Ahmaykmewsik continues to impress me, and I'm so happy to see their work be appreciated through Dancin' Tranquility in particular.

#todays siivagunner #season 5 #siivagunner #siiva #Ahmaykmewsik #a hat in time #ahit #ahit remix #ahit peace and tranquility #peace and tranquility #indie games #indie #indie platformer #gears for breakfast #Youtube #Bandcamp

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shukakumoodboard · 4 months

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anon i hope you are able to find this because you asked my original blog and i’m trying to stealthily migrate so my irls can't find me dkgjhfkjl

answers below the cut <3

would you like some fandomy thoughts?

1. list 3 positive things about your current fandom(s) [which ofc im answering for gaalee]

the discord i'm in for it is the highlight of my day and forms approximately 65% of my social life! who knew you could hyperfixate on some gay ninjas and as a result, end up visiting people irl and getting christmas cards and making incredible friends all over the world? pretty sure i have standing invites to homes in at least 3 different countries rn. incredible

fic quality is fuckin'. superior. and i'm not saying that because i write, i'm saying that as a reader. it's a smallish fandom and yet there's folks who can write full-length novels like @sagemoderocklee and @the-moss-project, people who can write every possible trope and au greyson's georg @ghoste-catte and @urieskooki and so many others i couldn't list them all. it's beyond obvious that the authors who write the gaalees are SO passionate about them. writers i lov you evryday

seguing from that into art!?!? pleas i have a dragon hoard of fanart only for my fics and there's over 100 pieces. A HUNDRED ARE TIOYU GIKISDINDIGME. giving u all a kissy rn. also the way i can get on discord and get immediately smacked in the face with bespoke paneenis liike every day help. gheelpp don't look at me. i will save my money and commission every one of u if its the last htign i do

2. a headcanon you weren’t sure about at first but have come to like!

oho! ready for this one? i was initially not super on board with hairy!lee. what was i on actually. me, a Wrong, and now i will purposefully include it in every fic as a sign of penance for my sins

3. answered!

4. say something nice about a ship you don’t ship (it can be another ship in your fandom, a mutual’s OTP, etc)

those who know me know that i strictly see leesaku as a brOTP, like those dudes are buddies to me. but that being said, i think leesaku as a romantic pairing is far healthier for sakura than her canon partner. lee is capable of so much love and forgiveness and they do parallel each other so much as the like... "underdog"/non-gifted member of their respective teams. she deserves love and support and understanding and lee would be genuinely ideal for it.

5. something you see in fics a lot and love

sunans (and team gai) being multilingual. oml one of my fave headcanons. you cannot tell me these different countries with different isolated villages are all casually speaking the same language when in big chunks of nart they didn't even like. get along properly. i loooove the concept of a shinobi common tongue and regional languages. further on that same thing, given team gai is pretty chinese-coded, i think it makes sense that they'd also be speaking another langauge, whether taught by gai or just because of their own independent histories or whatever. @sagemoderocklee has some truly stunning worldbuilding and it where i got my love for this hc from <3

6. something you see in art a lot and love

h-h-h-hHEIGHT DIFFERENCEEEEEEE

ok joking aside i refuse to believe gaara made it past like 5'3" that man did not sleep for his whole adolescence. conversely lee was probably on the Optimum Macros and that healthy eating would 100% contribute to maximum height gains etc. that man deserves to be 6 feet tall, that's my opinion and im right

thank you so much for the opportunity to gush about my blorbos <3

#gaalee #gaara #rock lee #team gai #leesaku #sakura haruno #fictalk #answers #writing gronp hours #also if anyone i @ed is like who dis itsa me kel

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separatist-apologist · 1 year

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It pisses me off that miss rokii has like thousands of likes and followers but real artist get like only 100 likes. Imagine studying art for so long, excited for everyone to see your final products but Instagram won't even let your artworks come up in the tags (because Instagram just doesn't care about artists) and then you see stupid worms showing off stolen artworks and everyone loves their robot made art.

Do you perhaps know some more artists that I can give my support to? Because they deserve the world.

No I started typing this and clicked a new notification and lost it 😩. I'm sure some of my friends who do artist commissions and know artists would love to weigh in, because I won't scoop up even close to a third of the talent

I obviously love @sarahsoba and _jadee.art

Artbyjuliajm was popular on this blog two days ago when LB shared our origin story

@laxibbeb who drew Arina (my pfp) (and she draws other things!!)

Dawningdaylight, who is also just SUCH a wonderful person

Fissart, who has a style I personally love

Jrtart_ has a really lovely style too and this Lucien is one of my absolute favorites

Vmiae who has given us so much quality content (especially of LOA and Helion!)

Colouranomaly has a really beautiful Elain imo

Kolumnist_ who did my hands down favorite Elucienweek piece

Kanescribbles is on Twitter and has the hottest Azriel in the fandom according to my discord. She made elriel simps of us all

@dimalry is wonderfully talented- her curly haired Elain is my fave + baby ivy 😭

Phantomrin is another with SUCH a good style

I know there are so many more. I tried to leave out all the truly big people- though I love @naariel and if you have $5 to throw around, her Patreon is SO worth it (Lucien removes the leaf) (Cassian is THE big boy if ya feel me). I hope people add to this list- there is no shortage of talent, we are not deprived of content. There is no need to rely on AI when actual artists draw the characters we love with so much care and thought and passion.

#acotar fandom #acotar #anti ai #anti ai art

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creaturefeaster · 1 year

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this post is sponsored by uppsulka

This post has nothing to do with Uppsulka I just had this doodle sitting for like a day. I just wanted to talk about my last post-- that ask about CQ’s story and the likes. I’ve gotten a handful of messages about it since I answered it (+a couple replies on the post itself) and I wanted to clarify a couple of things.

Please, if you’re worrying that I’m overworking myself, or pushing myself to put stuff out that isn’t ready yet, know that I am certainly not under any pressure to put things out before their due time. I share lots of tidbits about the story on this blog of course, but you may notice that any actual, physical writing for the story is virtually nonexistent on this blog. If I wanted to, I could have shared the drafts long ago, but I’m taking my time and making it perfect (for me). It will be out when it’s ready, and you don’t have to worry about outside pressures/lack of quality.

Another thing! Some of the messages I’ve gotten were in response to some of the tags on the post, as I am known to ramble quite a bit in the tags from time to time. I mentioned the possibility of me seeking out artistic help in the future. The amount of people wanting to help is heartwarming, it really helps me realise just how many people want to see this story come to fruition. However there’s still a long road before the real, official art for the story will come into play.

Finding the right people to help with such a personal project of mine, if I so choose to go down that fork in the road, would be an arduous process in making sure I know and trust those people and their abilities. (I’m also really picky about how my style is drawn, if people were to help. But that’s a discussion for another time) Not everyone has all the time in the world, either! This is a long term project. Keep in mind this story has been developing for over a decade, and while it’s only the last handful of years that I have really kicked everything into overdrive to try and fully piece it all together, it’s still probably got a while to go before I could ever consider it complete. So please, keep all of this in mind.

As I continue structuring and polishing the written story, I wish to release it in divided chunks. When any given chunk comes close to its finish, I’ll be having beta readers scour the texts for a little bit. Placeholder sketches would ideally be littered throughout the story as needed, but by beta reader’s judgement, more or less may be added. That right there, once the beta reading is done, is the end of the road to visuals-ville. That is to say, that’s when I’d start actually drawing out the things that I need.

So now you have some insight on how the process would work. Was it all necessary to explain? Probably not!!! But if I didn’t ramble so much, I don’t think I’d be able to write this story, either. It’s so big x_x.

All of this could be (and probably should have been) summarized to this:

For those who want to help, for those who truly enjoy the content I create for my universe and want to see more of it, I just ask for your support. Seeing likes, reblogs, reading the tags or comments people add onto the content I share, they really, really help keep me motivated. Every piece of fanart makes my day, whether I comment on it or not, I’m always behind the screen getting all giddy and excited that someone cares about the characters and world I’ve poured my heart and soul into. All the asks you guys send, while I can’t always answer all of them, it lets me know there are still people who are interested in the world and want to know more about it. That’s what keeps me wanting to write. So if you want to help, that’s how you can do it right now.

#i'm a very quiet person so i know i don't comment on a lot of stuff sent to me #but if you are reading this. if you have created fan content and wondered if i've seen it or not.#i probably have. it's all that's on my mind when I have the time #and my god the amount of video edits and color-overs of my sketches that i have saved from various people...#thank you guys for your support <:3 #and i hope you're all staying warm and safe if you live in the northern hemisphere #especially if you live in the US right now. -70 degrees. what the fuck.

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misslavenderlady · 1 year

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Hello!! First off I just wanna say that I adore your blog! Especially your Daddy Dwayne stuff 🥰 (we all are weak for Daddy Dwayne). So I was wondering, what do you think Marko would be like as a dad? I've seen stuff about Dwayne and Paul but never Marko and now I'm truly curious lol.

Thank you love!

This is my first ask I've gotten, and getting it from someone whose writing I admire so much is a real honor. So thank you! 🥺💕

I'd love to share my thoughts! I hope this is well received and I'd love to give more of my HCs for the boys in the future!

Marko as a dad 💚

Everyone kind of underestimates Marko's potential as a parent. He's often seen as the wild, unpredictable one, so when the idea of him having kids comes up, there's a sense of doubt.

But to everyone's surprise, the best qualities in Marko shine through when he learns he's going to be a father. He's always been so loyal, doting and ready to be there for his friends, and he'd do the same for his child in a heartbeat. And that also applies to the situation BEFORE they're born.

Anything his partner needs or wants, they'll get with no questions asks. Have a very specific food craving? He'll have it ready in mere minutes. Can't get comfortable? He'll make the coziest nest you've ever seen. Need some supplies for the baby? He's got bags and bags of food, clothes, diapers, and anything else you need. Just don't expect him to actually buy the stuff. He's still a little thief at heart.

When his child is born, he's immediately in love. Like he would 1000% walk into the sunlight for his kid, even if they're only a few minutes old. He soothes them so sweetly and promises to keep them safe.

While it's very sweet, he's also a bit territorial with his child. Even with his own friends he's hesitant to let them hold the baby. After his fears are settled, Marko will let the others have turns spending time with the little one.

Only family and friends are allowed near his kid. If Marko doesn't like you, you're NOT getting near them.

The others tease that he's more of a guard dog than a dad. But with time and trust, Marko learns not to hover so much.

Despite being protective, he's definitely a fun dad!! He's the kind of parent that thinks kids should enjoy playing in the dirt, going on adventures and taking some risks.

He's also quite creative, so if his kid likes coloring books or arts and crafts, he's right by their side, making something special together.

Is definitely the parent that saves every single piece of art their kids make in school. Does he need to hold onto every stick figure drawing his child makes? No. Is he gonna do it anyway? YES.

If his kid is into sports, he's their biggest fan. Since they're vampires, his kid only plays during nighttime. No matter what it is, he's on the sidelines, cheering the loudest!

Is big on teaching his child to care for animals. He shows off his pet pigeons to them and let's them know how to handle the birds with care.

Definitely on board with getting his kid a pet. Dog, cat, bird, fish, it doesn't matter. Whatever makes them happy.

Another thing he's surprisingly great at is teaching his child valuable lessons. Like "treat others the way you want to be treated" or "it's okay to cry if you're feeling sad". Even his friends are surprised to see him act so wise.

PRIDE DAD🏳️‍🌈

YOU BET YOUR ASS HE'D BE THE COOL DAD THAT TAKES HIS KID TO A PRIDE EVENT. No cops at pride, just the Lost Boys.

He'd teach his child about the different flags and what they all mean, encourage them to learn more about the community, and to be respectful of everyone's identity and pronouns.

Fashion icon

What I mean is that he's definitely getting his kid a jacket of their own, and sewing on any patch they want. Maybe he'd even teach them how to sew as well.

He'd also encourage his kid to express themselves however they want with fashion. He's been around so long that he doesn't worry or care about stuff like who wears pink and who wears blue. So he's supportive no matter what.

Same goes for haircuts and makeup!

Now don't get me wrong, he's definitely a sweet kind of dad. But he's still a wild child at heart, and he's letting that rub off on his own baby.

He teaches his child how nazis deserve to be punched in the face, that cops aren't your friends and that privileged people in power try to keep down those who are poor, POC, or a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

In a way, Marko encourages his child to be a vigilante of some sort. Taking down those who think they can mistreat those who don't deserve it.

If his kid gets into a fight, he's either tagging in to help or defending them so they don't get in trouble.

When teaching his kid how to use their powers, he's encouraging them to be ruthless with their kills. Leave no survivors and enjoy your meal.

He also does a bit of combat training. Deep down, he's terrified that someone is going to hurt his baby, even if they've got powers to defend themselves. He just wants to do whatever he can to keep them safe.

Marko isn't the best with discipline. He loves trouble-making and being a bit chaotic, so unfortunately, his partner will have to be the "strict" one.

However, if his kid does something where they're potentially in danger, THEN he'll give them a serious talking to.

"I told you not to go with strangers! You could have gotten hurt! I was worried sick!"

He's worried about his baby.

Oh yeah, God help anyone who hurts his baby. They WILL die, and it will be painfully slow.

Now I personally HC him as being Italian and also Jewish (in honor of Alex Winter's faith). DISCLAIMER: I'm not Jewish myself. However, I believe whatever important teachings or stories he wants to share with his child would be done in great detail. He'd share details about his heritage and culture, teaching his child Italian and Hebrew as best as he can.

((Side note: If anyone out there does in fact practice Judaism, I would love to get your thoughts on how Marko would relate to it. I want to be as respectful as possible and learn whatever I can!))

Overall, Marko is an amazing father. He's devoted to his baby every step of the way. He's not perfect, but what parent is?

Would be referred to as "Avi" by his kid. (meaning 'My father' in Hebrew)

Favorite nickname for his kid would be "Bambino/a" (meaning 'little child' or 'baby' in Italian)

I hope I did Marko justice!! Thank you again!

#marko the lost boys #the lost boys #tlb #lavender headcanons #headcanon #lavender lady rambles

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antics-pedantic · 2 months

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In the not-too-distant-future of the 22nd century…

The Wishbone was an old ‘Bakshi-Class’ freighter, currently being refitted for service as part of a new INTERPLAN initiative (a shortening of the Interplanetary Alliance/Fleet/ETC). Truth be told, the construction of the starship looked closer to a tuning fork the size of a town, or a small city. Its scanners and research laboratory were state of the art for the sake of the work it was conducting. But besides the lab and some standard-issue particle projector banks, everything else came as is. Largely in the form of refurbished, industrial-strength mining equipment.

Next to the name on the side of the vessel were the letters U.F.V., signifying the initiative as a joint venture between INTERPLAN and colleges from its various member worlds as a University-Fleet Vessel. Of course, some preferred P.O.S. (Piece of Slag, and other unflattering four-letter words). Only a few ships were ordered into the service this way as surveyor-support craft, intended to conduct preliminary scouting for the exploration flagships…

It was a bright and early morning. A new batch of crew members were being taken up to the Wishbone while it was in orbital spacedock. One could go in aces high with the Officers' Academy where the cream of the crop got made (or so they say). Transfers could use their experience from working in local Solar System Self-Defense Network or bring in a sterling desk job resume from the uppermost suites of the corpo-colony atmoskyscrapers.

Of course, one could also do as the mutant Nougat Ntlor did, and get sloshed at a bar on the Ganymede strip. Stumble into a fleet recruitment center that hadn't met monthly quota yet, as the kind of grunt that was expected to carry boxes and barrels from one part of the ship across to another. There were also a number of prisoners from the corporations that seceded from Earth and other INTERPLAN member worlds put on a work-release program, many were just glad to be away from there. The off-world corpo-colonies were already overburdened before the secession. Now they were warring with one another and other cultures.

In terms of the turnout from the colleges, they had a mix of professors and students. That is, professors who had not seen a drop of grant funding in quite some time, whose magnum opus of scientific research was laughed out of every scholarly journal. And the students in question were either on academic probation, or were such overachievers they volunteered here of all places. Truly, it was a recipe for turbulence; but also, for those who remained after everything was said and done, it might very well have been the only place they could go if they wanted to touch the stars themselves, to be more than a mere tourist.

“—And I am telling you, as a chief medical officer I believe I should be accommodated with one of the deluxe penthouses.” said a woman in her forties, who couldn’t stop reminding everyone she held up in line behind herself, as well as the crew member acting as a customs officer, that she had her doctorate degree.

“Dr. Hwan, those are reserved for our VIP guests. All members of the crew manifest are to stick to their assigned quarters.”

“Preposterous!” spat Dr. Hwan. “How the devil am I going to be able to get any work done if I can’t be provided state-of-the-art quarters to relax in?”

“You would have your own personal quarters, just not penthouse suite quality, ma’am.”

“So, I could have a penthouse then?”

“You’d have to share. Optimize crew space.”

Dr. Hwan looked back at everyone in line. Naïve grinning and evil smirks painted these faces. She looked back at the customs official/crew member, and groaned.

“I’ll see you in the final dimension for this.”

There were service robots, referred to as the Buffers. These were the descendants of the humble Roomba, now equipped with hover-jets and an extendable armature with which to do tasks. An android crew member was taking inventory on one of the cargo bays: This was one of the J.E.V. series (Just Effectively Vacuums), named for the very first task they could ever perform. Since then, they had developed to perform a variety of other functions, eventually serving as crew members on starships. Some were even built to be the vaunted K.E.V.s (Kills Effectively & Victoriously), deployed into combat or security.

W4-114CE fit into the former category as a JEV. He used to work on Earth at a volcanic research station, built onto a cliffside overlooking a river of lava somewhere. And if he had not gone to space, he might have carted off to work on an undersea base. In the end, he opted for the space assignment. The organics would chafe, but W4 swore he would do fine through the power of superior robotics.

*THUD-THUMP*

W4 looked around. Something clearly hadn’t been sealed properly. He wondered if it was those damnable blue barrels again, or one of those big, new-fangled containers with seven or more different locking mechanisms that had to be activated in a certain order or the whole thing would explode. W4 approached the particular container that was making the offending rumbling noises, and sure enough it was one of those multi-lock nightmares. The service android proceeded to access the shipboard database, used authorization codes to acquire the access information, and promptly entered in a simple enough pin number of four digits.

Then everything immediately went to ruin, as W4 was then made to work with some kind of glorified rhythm toy: including pressable buttons, pull handles, twisting cranks, spinnable wheels, and flickable switches. Following the patterns set forth by the device was difficult enough for an organic, but it even managed to tax W4’s robotic dexterity. At least, he thought-computed, that it would be over after this. It had to. Until a screen offered an unforgiving message:

“PLEASE CREATE A 52 INPUT PASSWORD FOR FUTURE USAGE.”

W4 looked at the input device. It offered no sound, no lights. Nothing charming. And then the locking mechanism activated a self-destruct with a 2-second window to escape, W4 only able to hop away just far enough that the explosion would only send him flying through the air, with small flames all over his jumpsuit. And then there before him, emerged some kind of hostile mutated alien animal.

And just when there were no organic lifeforms around, one crew member strolled right into the cargo bay with audio-cubes over their square, ear-like structures. This meant that W4-114CE had to adhere to the Asimov subroutines and make sure the organic wasn’t killed. To that end the android put up his fists, and started swinging at the creature. This eventually resulted in an arm being torn off by a claw that could vibrate at high-frequencies to enhance its cutting power. With W4-114CE’s remaining arm, he grabbed onto the creature, and dragged it towards the next nearest holding container. A fool’s gambit, as the creature’s thagomizer-equipped tail started smashing boxes marked with warning stickers for explosive hazards—and eventually, opened the nearest airlock.

Sounds were muffled in the void, as the service android and mutated alien animal went at it. W4 kicking the creature repeatedly in the hopes of hitting some sensitive area that would have earned a serious foul from the referee of a Dysonball game. Likewise, the creature tried everything it had: acid spit announced by head-frills flaring, the aforementioned high-frequency claws, and some kind of egg-based missile. The egg of course was the creature’s undoing, as W4 caught the projectile and used it to bash the creature over the head, encasing it within an amber-like yolk while W4 was brought back aboard by a slew of loyal buffers.

“WHAT-A DA HELL HAVE YOU DONE?!”

It was one of the galley cooks. The human looked like they were about to explode while W4-114CE was trying to reattach his arm.

“That-a creature was gonna be the crew’s dinner! It was gifted to us by one-a the Dagarian Kingdoms!”

W4 looked back. The amber-yolk encased creature was probably long gone by now. It was at times like these an intrepid INTERPLAN crew member had to think fast.

“Let’s check the uh… the star charts. There’s gotta be some place we can rustle up some ingredients.”

The galley cook stared at W4-114CE for the longest time before pulling out a portable teledex screen, with which he began to press buttons and turn dials. Examining nearby planets, moons, and other places for potential replacements.

There was no time to argue.

On a ship like the UFV Wishbone, there should have been a captain. In lieu of that, was an administrative adjutant. Tasked with all the responsibilities of the captaincy, but minus its perks. Respect was not guaranteed whatsoever. And worst of all it was a title conferred to someone already working. In this case, the inimitable technician second-class Nero Pathan was selected for the duty.

The personal terminal at the desk of his quarters hummed to life with the gradual start-up. Immediately, a communication program activated before any other. On-screen were coordinates for a distant star system, followed by the frog-like face of a politician. The amphibious one’s camera was zoomed in too closely, rather than keeping his face in frame.

“Is this thing on?” asked the frog-like politician.

“Mayor L-Mes, on behalf of the INTERPLAN fleet, I’m honored that you would invite our humble ship and crew to—”

Just then, Nero had to cover his ears. A horrible sound began to fill his room as Governor L-Mes fiddled needlessly with his microphone of choice—which resembled one of Earth’s early telephones of the 1890s, as L-Mes held up a stand with a speaker and held up a wired receiver to the side of his head.

�� “Is this ruddy thing on?” sputtered L-Mes. “Hallew. Hallew~? Is that the correct word? Grief upon grief, is my universal translator working? Is yours?!”

“More than well.” said Nero, through grit teeth, turning some dials to focus the image and an attempt to soften the audio. “If you wouldn’t mind going easy on the mic, maybe knock down outgoing volume a bit?”

“Ah, but of course. It is our honor to be the first stop on your latest mission, Captain Rickles! The USS Hebe is welcome here, along with that delegation from the Minoazoans, and the roller coaster people to survey for a new amusement park—”

Nero cut off L-Mes with a teeth-sucking sound that went ‘Tssss!’, to preface some unfortunate development.

“About that: The USS Hebe is conducting field research in… some nebula some ways away from here. They’ll only arrive after we’ve scouted in advance for them.”

“… Who’s we, exactly?” asked L-Mes, taking on a sour tone.

“That would be our University-Fleet joint Vessel—UFV Wishbone. We’re part of the preliminary survey and reconnaissance initiative with a few other ships.”

Silence at first. Then, L-Mes consulted with one of his advisors.

“So. You mean to say we don’t have to roll out the red carpet? Or really, use any of our exceptional preparations for you lot? It costed us a considerable amount.”

“They would be nice—”

“Ha! But unnecessary, understood. We shall receive you shortly.”

The screen shut off. Nero stared at the screen for a good minute, and his reflection within it before sauntering out of his quarters and onto the bridge of the ship. Watching as others in INTERPLAN fleet uniforms, prison jumpsuits, lab coats, and casual clothing all attempted to find their appropriate stations. He’d have to take a shuttlecraft down to the planet soon, the tele-pad array onboard the Wishbone was unreliable right now.

The shuttle itself was given the unofficial designation ‘Hodgson-class,’ meaning it was potentially going to be a screaming metal deathtrap, or *somehow* the arrangement of miscellaneous spare parts would work together well enough to safely transport people from ship-to-planetary surface. He stared long and hard at the captain’s chair, before traveling to the appropriate launch bay and boarding. Here he would take attendance of the crew members he buzzed.

“Jenndy Klortho?”

“Here!” exclaimed a chipper woman’s voice. “You think we’re gonna shoot at anybody, sir?!”

“With that attitude, I’m sure someone will want to hurt us.” said Nero, offering a thumbs up. “Next up, we’ve got… Bolso Torbiton?”

“Spare me the zapcrap and drive the ship, tek-boy.”

Nero looked around the shuttle interior, offended. Jenndy was just bouncing in her seat. Nero resumed checking his attendance datapad. No one would support him here.

“Okay. Lint Corpuscule? Is there a Lint Corpuscule here?”

No response.

“There’s like two other people here instead.” Said Nero “Who are you two?”

“I’m Gurt,” said a mutant, before gesturing at another mutant. “And he’s Gort.”

“Alright. Awesome, very flavorblasted.” said Nero, kicking the shuttlecraft into gear languidly. “And awaaaaay we go.”

Lint Corpuscule rose from his cabin bed in a fright, bashing his quadruple forehead alien cranium against the empty top bunk of an only slightly more dutiful crewmate that had already left the room to begin on ship duties five minutes ago. There was no possible way he could spin this in such a way that he wasn’t disregarding his responsibilities.

Unless.

Lint Corpuscule raced to a certain room, one of a few aboard the UFV Wishbone. Doing so in spite of the fact there was an ‘OUT OF ORDER’ sign in large, intimidating red ink and given a marker outline for better readability, in as much as a crew member trying not to put too much effort in all at once could provide. For this was the room where an array of telepad platforms were located. Lint would start slapping buttons and levers, before diving onto a platform that began to glow and hum. He was certain he could make it to the planet in advance of the shuttlecraft.

Trouble is, he was telepunted.

Teleporting was an apt description for successfully transporting every little iota of matter from one position to another safely. Telepunting on the other hand, was more like something, or someone on another plane of existence kicked a person in the pants in such a horrendously forceful manner that they were quantum-propelled somewhere. Maybe not even the target destination. To Lint Corpuscule’s credit, he at least landed on L-Mes’s planet. Simply erring due to the fact that he manifested with grazed asscheeks in some random part of the desert, on the outskirts of L-Mes’s settlement if coordinates from the mission briefing were to be trusted.

Well. This was what INTERPLAN was all about, wasn’t it? Exploring the cosmos.

Lint Corpuscule marched for a time across the arid land, as purple clouds rolled in, thunder and lightning cracks occurring in shades of brilliant, unsettling red. The Wishbone crewmate could spot a village in the distance.

Immediately after landing, the Wishbone’s Away Team was almost immediately ambushed by L-Mes’s security forces. The group was beaten soundly about the sensitive areas and got tossed into the settlement sheriff’s jail.

“What is the MEANING of this?!” demanded Nero, rattling the bars with a tin cup. “I demand to speak with Mayor L-Mes at once! We’re INTERPLAN!”

“Oh, I damn well know you’re with INTERPLAN.” said the Sheriff, some kind of a mutated lifeform with craggy stone-like calcium protrusions all over his body, one of which was shaped like a handlebar mustache, just over what was probably his nose. The only clothing he could wear was a pair of swim trunks and a sash for his badge.

“Then let us go?”

“Shut up, Gort.”

“I’m Gurt.” said Gort, trying to play mindgames on Sheriff Cragg. “He’s Gort.”

Gurt mischievously waved hello with fingers wiggling. Sheriff Cragg scowled at them and looked to Jenndy.

“And what’s your game? Huh?”

Jenndy sashayed over from her bench-cot. After a delicate twirl, she proceeded to reach through the bars to try and strangle Sheriff Cragg. Nero halfhartedly tried to pull her away, weakly saying things like ‘nooo stop, please,’ and ‘don’t kill him, pleeeaaase’ among inaudible murmurs. Sheriff Cragg eventually broke free of Jenndy’s grasp, with the help of the only member of the crew not in jail: Bolso Torbiton!

“Bolso! Bolso, let us outta here and I’ll promote you to lieutenant!” exclaimed Nero.

“You won’t.” said Bolso.

“Okay, okay, lieutenant-COMMANDER!”

“You don’t have that power, idiot!” said Bolso. “You’re just an administrative adjutant, not a real captain. But with L-Mes’s recommendation I’ll bet I could jump up the INTERPLAN ranks. Or I could take my talents to some other space faction.”

“Jenndy, go for the jugular!”

Jenndy Klortho reached through the bars again. But Bolso, devious fiend that he was, was standing just out of her reach. She grasped at air and nothing more. Just then, Mayor L-Mes arrived.

“L-Mes! What is this zapcrap?!” hissed Nero.

“I ought to be askin’ you that exact question, boy!” hissed L-Mes. “Sheriff, chain these chumps. We’re gonna show ‘em our evidence.”

The Wishbone Away Team each got tazed, and then once too weak to fight back, they were shackled to one another. At first, they were transported through the desert aboard a hover-skiff, but once there was a quarter of the distance left to go, the group was forced to march the rest of the way there, where they found a more rural village, accompanied by local specialists in anthropology and paleontology.

“We’ve also contacted your ship’s chief medical officer to confirm.” said Sheriff Cragg, offering up a portable viewscreen, on-call with the disheveled Dr. Hwan.

“Not that you really needed it, but I have a DNA match with one of our crew members, sir.” said Dr. Hwan. “A Lint Corpuscule?”

“That dipstick was supposed to be part of our Away Team!” exclaimed Gurt.

“He was plotting some kind of a SCHEME!” screamed Jenndy. Though less in terror, more in gleeful delight that there was a conspiracy.

“Now hold on a minute—” said Nero, pointing a finger. “Let’s not jump to conclusions until AFTER we’ve seen the remains.”

L-Mes and Sheriff Cragg waved to one of the archaeologists on-site. Lo and behold they found one of many skeletons, only this one wore an INTERPLAN uniform shirt. Tattered now, but still bearing a legible name tag. No uniform pants, however: Lint Corpuscule insisted that only one article of clothing was necessary for himself. ‘If only,’ thought Nero. ‘If only he chose to wear only pants instead of uniform shirts,’ and perhaps they would not have been in this mess.

“Wait. How did he get there? Lint Corpuscule is a present-day member of the INTERPLAN fleet.” said Nero, probing for answers. “I literally have him marked on my crew manifest with birthday and everything.”

“We detected tachyons, among other curious particles.” said one of the archaeologists. “Don’t look at me funny, you’ve seen some weird, anomalous bullshit out there too. We have reason to believe Lint time-traveled.”

“How in the blue blazes—” hummed Nero, before realizing what they were getting at. “You think we sent him to—to what, plant some kind of a trap? Sabotage your settlement? Are you daft? Have you been in contact with mind-bending moon rocks? Or both??”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, ass-tronaut.”

Nero looked over at the rest of his Away Team, trying to garner some sympathy and support against these accusations, but no one leaped to dispute any of this.

“Now listen, if you just contacted Captain Rickles already, I’m sure we can hash this out minus any retribution—”

“Tell it to the judge, INTERPLAN man.” said L-Mes.

“With your luck you’ll be put on the cerebral scrambler.” said Bolso.

And then Nero and his cohorts were clubbed about the head, or similarly disorienting bodily regions until rendered unconscious.

A fog machine filled the stone-like chamber. Really, all the large stone bricks were actually purely cosmetic, like a 20th century recreational laser tag facility’s approximation of an even more ancient culture. Strange iconography adorned the place, from truly alien designs to the familiar, such as a “SIGN ON FOR PRODUCT LAYAWAY TODAY!” sign, or a spinning blue light, used in the ancient commerce temples to indicate a clearance sale on discounted items. Devout followers traveled the aisles and corridors in the sacred vestments. Which in this case were single color vests adorned with at least one pin to indicate the retailer of goods they were employed by. But these practitioners did not serve any surviving company: Instead, they mourned for the demise of others, and the quality they guaranteed. Even if it was only marginally better than anything they had today in the near future of the 22nd century.

It was in the great council conference room that the Prime Mall Santa, Vice Councilor Easter Bunny, and other gaudy figures addressed their muscular visitor.

“Hark, and be readied: Are you prepared for the undertaking upon which ye shall have to embark?” asked Prime Mall Santa. “Are you tired of waiting for your greatest quest of all? Do you find yourself possessed of superior skill and dedication? Could you benefit from exploring the greater cosmos?”

“Aye, Prime Mall Santa.” said the muscular visitor.

“But that’s not all: It may also throw in an exceptionally long time away from here.” said an arcade mascot themed after a narwhal. “But don’t delay: If you do not order transportation now, the sabbatical may be tripled for the price of one altercation.”

The muscular visitor did not hesitate, and began entering the sacred numbers—made even more sacred through the use of a device modeled after an old Earth-style cash register combined with a home telephone. He felt a brief comfort as his fingers pressed each button, which yielded an equally satisfying *BEEP!*, *BOOP*, or the rarely heard *BUP!* followed by the ‘hum of establishment,’ in which everyone opened their mouths to offer the sacred Dial-Up Cry.

“He is ready.”

“They will need him soon.”

“Go now!”

The muscular visitor turned to see something. It was like the edges of a public swimming pool, as the archaic symphony behind him wordlessly foretold of mystery, great danger, and opportunities for storied heroism. The swimming pool archway began to glow, as chlorinated water gushed outwardly, then back in, after a device blew a giant lifeguard’s whistle to regulate the poolwater flow. With no further hesitation, he kept a steady grip on his lacrosse stick and plasma grenades.

The muscular visitor burst from a strikingly similar portal arch on L-Mes’s planet. He proceeded to pummel the tar out of a couple of Sheriff Cragg’s deputies, and sprayed their resting place with air freshener. In the distance, the settlement was not far off. A bell had begun to ring out as the Wishbone’s Away Team was being carted off to the courthouse with burlap sacks over their heads. This, the muscular visitor saw with a pair of binoculars he ordered from a ‘wun-ayt-hundred-numb-barr,’ in the short span of time afforded to him by a vid-screen commercial.

He could only hope he wasn’t too late to intervene.

L-Mes activated the town’s robot judge. It seemed to just be a figurehead for his orders. But by the looks of things even the jury had some idea what to expect, if their scowls and obscene hand gestures were any indication. The Wishbone Away Team huddled up together to figure out a plan of attack.

“Alright. Any idea why they might be doing this to us?” said Nero.

“Maybe it’s a secret AN-XR scheme to subtly conquer this sector?” said Gurt.

“No no, it’s a scheme alright. But it’s clearly being perpetrated by some kind of semi or fully technological culture that absorbs anything and anyone it comes into contact with.”

Nero just stared at everyone, exasperated.

“Lint used the telepads, didn’t he.”

“Wow! You must be some kind of detective, boss!” said Jenndy. “Alright, we’ll just show our telepad records to Mayor L-Mes and that should clear things right up.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea--” said Nero, raising an index finger. The trial began, and everyone urged Nero to start tapping at his wristcomm to get the telepad data as the others insisted. The robot judge seemed to nod and offer an approving *DING!* sound.

“This just proves you achieved a form of time travel!” bellowed L-Mes. “And even if you didn’t order your crew member, they might have gone AWOL, or started acting on orders from higher up at INTERPLAN command. Can you honestly say that’s not possible?!”

Nero was about to speak. Usually in these situations an experienced leader like Captain Rickles would read aloud a legal disclaimer and be absolved near instantly. Trouble was, Nero had no such disclaimer. Just workplace culture (and stacks of over-exacting rulebooks, more composed by HR to absolve the organization than adhere to moral tidings with clarity) whose only guarantee that INTERPLAN recognized self-determination as an inherent right to all lifeforms, was all sentiment and assumed standard operating procedure. Claiming to operate purely on vibes would not hold up in court whatsoever and would in fact cause an uproar.

“Errm. Well…”

Where was a definite answer he could cite when he needed one?

The worst part, was that Bolso Torbiton was approaching to testify on that very point, in his swanky new five-piece suit made from megarachnoid silk as he walked through the halls. Or he would have made it, if the muscular visitor hadn’t arrived, accompanied by a handful of the planet’s native inhabitants.

“… The hell?”

“I have witnessed infomercial visions foretelling of secret actions,” said the muscular visitor. “If you or your loved ones have gone back on your oath to the Interplanetary Fleet, you may be entitled to a sound beating.”

“Dude,” said Bolso Torbiton. “Eat a piece.”

Bolso swung a fist at the muscular visitor, who rolled from weathering the blow, to kneeing Bolso Torbiton in the groin, and tossing him through the doors into the courtroom, where he would use his lacrosse stick to lob plasma grenades, forcing Sheriff Cragg and L-Mes away.

“What is the meaning of this?!” spat L-Mes. “Sherriff, call the marines!”

“We don’t have marines, sir. But we could wheel in the cannon from Fort Gordie.”

“You will do no such thing,” said the muscular visitor, pointing his lacrosse stick. “Not while Bowflex draws breath. I bring with me the rightful population of this planet to protest this farce you call a fair trial. Mayor L-Mes seeks to extort INTERPLAN.”

“That’s right.” said one of the local aliens, who resembled a classic style little grey-greenish humanoid with bulbous black eyes and a large head on a short, gangling body. “We have been here since time immemorial, with artifacts held by the local museum putting us within hundreds of thousands of years, minimum. L-Mes’s settlement is barely thirty years old. He’s been trying to build all sorts of tourist traps around here in all that time after we allowed him to build this township. The one called Lint Corpuscule was killed by birds before he could even meet our ancestors. All they could do was bury him.”

“Indeed.” said Bowflex. “And as a potential INTERPLAN member world, you must treat other lifeforms with a certain modicum of respect and dignity. The crew of this visiting ship would not be remiss to pummel you about the sensitive areas for your works against the Muuldarian Greys, L-Mes.”

Nero looked to Bowflex, who nodded back. Just as Lint Corpuscule chose to use the malfunctioning telepads and L-Mes set about his scheme, so too did other lifeforms retain the power of choice, and the potential to use it for purposes beyond harm, greed, or snitching on each other over emulating rare old video games. Maybe, just maybe, not everything in this universe sucked after all.

“Hey, he got away! And funny thing, I remember seeing Bolso’s new suit in a store display on the way over—for fifteen thousand credits.”

Jenndy pointed at the recently departed Sheriff Cragg and Mayor L-Mes, who hopped aboard a hover-skiff and raced for the Star Portal that Bowflex entered the planet through. Bolso was still writhing in pain when he dropped a receipt that indicated the credit utilized was under L-Mes’s bank account.

“We’ll sort out things here in town in case they come back.” said another member of the local alien group—Seftar. “If you wish for the planet Muuldar to join your coalition, then bring Mayor L-Mes to us.”

Nero pointed and nodded to Seftar.

“You got it. Let’s move it, people!”

On the way out, everyone each took a turn kicking Bolso in the ribs.

L-Mes and Cragg were fiddling with the cash register/telephone styled interface that activated the Star Portal. They had just emerged on one of their neighboring planet’s moons, where a disgruntled chef and an android were hunting for some big game in the form of the wild ‘Dodecapus,’ that with just one body’s meats, could feed many.

“Hey.” said the chef. “Aren’t you-a that mayor our adjutant was-a supposed to meet?”

“It is.” said W4-114CE, before taking out a handheld device. “Oop. Just got a long-range, subspace communique. Shoot this guy. I repeat—eighty-six this toad.”

After that they ran like cowards tried dialing a random sequence, which briefly deposited them on a world conquered by the AN-XR empire, with its chrome-brutalist architecture. Regal-uniformed commandants led troops in armor-vests with an abundance of extra pouches as they interrogated pedestrians in an attempt to root out anything they deemed seditious.

Sure enough, being chased by imperialists with electri-knives and particle projectors in the form of pistols and rifles wasn’t their idea of a good time. Cragg and L-Mes’s attempt to dial for a pleasure planet of some sort had also failed, and landed them in the middle of a battle between two Dagarian Kingdoms, part of a larger feudalistic structure that yearned so much for the clash of blades, like their isosceles swords with two grips at the center of the awkward triangular sword. Harrowed by the failed Star Portal attempts and currently pursued by several goose-stepping stormtroopers and chainmail chic honor-lusted warriors, they returned to planet Muuldar, where the Wishbone Away Team was waiting for them. Gurt and Gort both simultaneously attacked a Dagarian warrior by pinching two exposed areas on his body, causing some kind of electrical overload within the nervous system, using some esoteric technique. Jenndy Klortho was having a standoff with an AN-XR commandant, twisting his arm so that the electri-knife went around her—coincidentally stabbing L-Mess in the gut, or some other organ.

Bowflex was lobbing plasma grenades and throwing an Olympic discus to prevent anyone else from entering through the Star Portal. Nero was trading punches with Sheriff Cragg, before remembering he could also use at least one of his legs at a time to kick, sending the Sheriff backwards through the Star Portal with an unforgiving boot sole back to the Dagarian battlefield he thought he’d escaped. It was at that point that Nero was tired, yet bitter enough that he produced his particle pistol from his side holster and fired. On the other side, Sherriff Cragg was mostly vaporized, stray chunks of himself flying out in every direction, unintentionally slaughtering a dozen warriors via high velocity shrapnel.

In any case, the mortally wounded L-Mes was apprehended.

Back aboard the Wishbone…

Dr. Hwan was not an engineer. She was a doctor. But in a pinch, she proved she could fill in on other tasks. Like when she saw Lint Corpuscule—who had been the INTERPLAN officer in charge of boarding and customs checks the morning of departure—racing towards a telepad room. Without hesitating to consider the Hippocratic oath, she tore a panel off the corridor wall and tampered. Mostly in the hopes that he would explode right then and there. But using the longe-range scanners aboard the UFV Wishbone to confirm he’d died during planet Muuldar’s distant past would suffice.

As Dr. Hwan poured herself another light blue liquid—some manner of ale, Technician-Adjutant Nero, the newcomer Bowflex, and Jenndy Klortho were all seated together for a dinner meeting with her. Jenndy was burning an effigy of Bolso Torbiton, the poppet seated within a diorama of L-Mes’s courtroom back on the non-grey Muuldar settlement. She really wanted Bolso harmed further, maybe more chaos erupting as a general thing. Bowflex took to his protein shake, having joined the crew as evidenced by the badge he wore over his regular garb. Gurt and Gort were fidgeting in their seats.

“… So, wait. You didn’t know I interfered with Lint’s telepad?” said Dr. Hwan, incredulously. “I could have kept that a secret?”

“No, I didn’t know.” said Nero, not waiting a moment to respond. “Yes, you could have literally gone the rest of your life without having told anyone that. Under anyone else’s command you’d be court-martialed.”

“And I’d take you bastards down with me. Every. Time.” said Dr. Hwan, raising up her ale. “Cheers. And here’s to honor among thieves.”

“Technician-Adjutant Nero, I believe this is not entirely unsatisfactory.” said Bowflex, leaning in to address the INTERPLAN crewman. “Lint still made his choice. As did Dr. Hwan when she attempted to slay him. I would dare even say this is cause for celebration, along with the fact that your Away Team was not disembowled, disintegrated, or stretched out over a—”

“THANK you, Bowflex.”

“Indeed.”

W4-114CE had personally offered to wheel in the grilled Dodecapus, and after delivery plugged himself into the room’s audio system to start playing some fast-paced techno. Bowflex took up a barbell and started doing an intricate dance he picked up at the gym back on Adworld. Jenndy just rested her elbows on the table, and put her hands on the cheek as the colors of the diorama fire deepened. And at last, Gurt and Gort just played patty cake.

Nero just slumped in his seat.

This was going to be a long journey. Maybe not *completely* insufferable. But still, it would be very, very grating.

#web fiction #Quick On It

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rexaleph · 6 months

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Fruit pt 1 lmao

Back when I was first getting into perfume my assumptions around what was gonna work for me were in the vein of traditional men's fragrances from like when I was a kid and vague ideas around freshness and perhaps coniferous woods. However I'd come across a discussion of Byredo's Pulp and the way people spoke of it as this super strange, polarising, borderline unwearable art piece got me interested, so I tossed a sample of that into my cart, intrigued but expecting not to get it. Ofc I fell in love instantly. It was in fact the only fragrance I ended up liking out of everything I picked going by vibes and word associations, probably bc all of the others smelled of air freshener for the car. So i was like ok, it's fruit for me now, I am a fruit perfume person, and have looked p widely into that fragrance family since. Fig was always a note i was interested in bc it is allegedly central to Pulp, and its plant-like, soft-green juiciness is attractive to me in concept. However! As i started looking towards shifting my lifestyle away from a million samples and decants into a small number of truly beloved bottles, I came to the realization that the only even fruit adjacent thing I was immediately interested in having in a large volume is the fucking grapefruit cologne from Zara. And they don't even usually count citruses as a fruit! So fruit ended up not being my thing in practice, but the thought of it still haunts me. I feel like there should be a fruit for me out there. So i want to spend some time thinking abt the fruity scents that I've tried and maybe figure out where to go from here. I am about to get deeply weird once again.

So to start at the beginning - Pulp by Byredo.

Byredo is a brand with a deeply unappealing aesthetic. When I picture their bottles it is on a glass and gold tray in an influencer's white interior and that is not something I want to associate myself with. But given that the first perfume I fell in love with was one of theirs, I still pay attention to their line.

So Pulp is a very intense, tart, barely sweet fruit. The haters have often said that the fruit smell is fermented and rotten, but I perceive it to be on the other end of the sour fruit spectrum - green and underripe. It suggests maybe an inedibly hard pear. Another major feature - I keep saying "fruit" without specifying, because I struggle to discern anything particular. People will say apple, blackcurrant, citrus, fig. I do perceive the intense opening blackcurrant and maybe apple. Besides the that I get cedarwood, and i guess that woody-green-sweet effect could be a fig note. Pulp does not feel like it evolves much as it wears, but what it does is first fill the space around itself and then settle within minutes, which I think is a quality created by like carrier molecules. (I know of iso e super, which allegedly improves longevity but that would be the opposite effect i think, though i feel like it's in here as well. What i experience w Pulp feels like theres sth that increases volatility, momentarily dragging scent molecules into the air w it. Or theres just a lot of the cassis top note ingredient and much of it evaporates off quickly.)

This room-filling effect is what brings me to the haters' 2nd point that sticks in my mind: Pulp is less like a perfume for a person to wear and more of a large scale air freshener, not even for your home, but for hotel lobbies and shopping malls. And I think this is how I ended up feeling about Pulp - beautiful scent, but I don't want to wear it. There are other perfumes in this post I consider unperfumelike and don't want to wear for their industrial chemical quality, but those actually smell bad to me. I'm not generally concerned w wearability (outside of like not wearing strong or irritating things where people will be forced close to me), I don't think of perfume in terms of daytime vs evening or seasonality, but there is something about Pulp, however much I like it in theory, that makes it unwearable to me. Like whatever I'm looking to wear, be it sweet, fresh, complex, natural-produce-like, loud - Pulp is never the answer. I think what drew me in at first was it's brightnness and intensity, and how different it was from any perfume i had experienced before. I'm wearing it now and it is still impressive, mostly a powerful, mouthwatering blackcurrant; leaves, berries and wood sap. There's another strong natutalistic plant perfume I love - Vetiver Extraordinaire by Frederic Malle. I tried to articulate the vibe i get from it as "you can't fuck me, I'm a tree". Which, I love that for a cold deciduous tree trunk you can't get your arms around. To me right now Pulp also has a strong you can't fuck me aura, though I used to think of it as insanely attractive (the mouth-watering aspect, confusing different kinds of intense sensuality). But i guess being high-pitched, juicy and ultimately friendly and food-like, this is not the unfathomable remote unfuckability of nature; "you can't fuck me i'm covered in berries" is not sth i want to embody. I used to really love the idea of scent-as-art in a vacuum, but now I probably am more concerned with what a perfume can do to create me as i present myself to the world. That mostly excludes unpolishedly naturalistic plants at this point. (Btw a 20 y o coworker who is just starting to get into perfume told me that someone introduced him to Pulp and he loved it so much! It is a good entry point to unisex niche perfume - beautiful, approachable but characterful, different from most designer scents, especially as marketed to men. I'd probably still it like very much on someone else.)

Having spent 4 notes app pages on Pulp I'll be brief on the fruit shampoo types: Kirke by Tiziana Terenzi, Antigua by Phaedon, Eau de Rhubarbe by Hermes, Sirio by Mendittorosa, I wanna say Cedrat Boise by Mancera. The widely recommended fruity one by Mancera anyway. So turns out banana flavored candy isn't weird bc it's based on an extinct breed, it just uses a single flavor compound out of the bouquet found in real bananas, so the flavor comes off distorted. This is I think what people mean when they use "synthetic" as a criticism in perfume. I assume that for shampoo they mix individually made molecules, which is what causes unnatural-seeming compositions, even if the ingredients themselves aren't in any way worse by being synthetic. All the above fragrances have that screechy, fruit-scented toiletries/household chemicals vibe to me, plus Kirke and Antigua at least have some kinda sickly musk note that I don't get along with. I've also encountered it in a number of of woody-fresh cologne type scents. So these fragrances are all widely beloved (except maybe the Mendittorosa on account of being less well known), I think because of what I outlined with Pulp - they're bright and friendly but still fairly unusual. Common notes i believe are lychee or rhubarb - tart, juicy and sweet, which I guess is what most people look for in this type of fragrance. I'm just particularly sensitive to their type of dissonance. Eau de Rhubarbe i think is the most successful one of these - only inelegant, but for the most part I find them fully unpleasant.

Speaking of unpleasant, let me briefly return to Byredo. Mixed Emotions vs Amouage Jubilation XXV

So after my first unsuccessful run at Amouage with the florals I held off on trying their big iconic scent for years. The way people spoke of Jubilation it's this amazing layered masterpiece of resins, woods and fruit, meant for like distinguished gentlemen. Obviously I never felt like I could pull it off, but earlier this year I decided to have another go at Amouage as well as figure out fruit, so I finally tried it out. And yeah it's alright. I think what I'm realizing is that these niche fragrances massively popular among men are always gonna be on the safe side, but spoken of as hugely transgressive bc they smell a little bit outside of menthol shaving foam. Jubilation is soft, deep, smooth and resinous, with like an overtone of sweet-spicy toothpaste freshness I'd put down to blackberry, orange zest and tarragon. Very attractive, would not feel incongruous on any age or gender, for sure not a mature man kinda scent. I went on two week-long trips within a month in August/September and wore it throughout for like professional and leasure occasions and it never felt out of place, I never wanted for anything else. Dudes online are big mad abt alleged weak reformulations, idk abt that, however I will say it is kinda subtle and I wouldnt pay Amouage money for it.

So given that 15 years ago Amouage came out with this hugely popular cult hit, why would Byredo in 2021 make basically the same thing but worse? Black currant for blackberry and birch smoke and mate for all the woods and resins, Mixed Emotions to me is just a loud, unbalanced version of Jubilation, though idk that i've seen anyone else make the comparison. It's very northern forest, tree sap and berries, which is kind of an obvious combination and doesn't make it feel less heavy-handed. Junk by Lush feels adjacent, which is not a compliment. A recurring review phrase is cough syrup. The fruit is scratchy and cloying, overconcentrated. I kept trying to get myself to like Mixed Emotions, but given that it feels like basically a worse version of something that's just pretty nice but not worth the money, it's probably time to give up on her.

So do I hate a scratchy, cloying preserve-like fruit? Not necessarily.

Mendittorosa Rituale

I am a mark for Mendittorosa. I feel like i can still tell when they really don't work for me, but I probably exaggerate how special the ones i do like are. Anyway.

The vibe is nectar: flowers, blackcurrant, pomegranate, raspberry, honey, beeswax. Its heavy and sweet while having a rough scratchy quality (down to beeswax, patchouli and hyrax I'd guess) that can give gourmands a real kitchen-y feel. Mugler AMen has that imo, as well as El Born by Carner Barcelona, both of which suggest rustic dessert to me. Rituale is not really like them them with its big heady floral and fruit elements but that effect is the same. It's like when you have a very sweet pastry with black coffe. Rituale puts me in mind of traditional desserts that use preserves, honey and rose water in a way that doesnt get along with my modern milk chocolate sour gummy palette, so it is a little bit challenging. Going off the notes alone, I was very excited but also apprehensive about this one, I expected it to be either breathtakingly beautiful or just fully disgusting. Especially lavender can really fuck things up for me when it goes nauseating soapy-sweet potpourri. And some of that is there: i notice the lavender and the whole composition teeters on the edge of sickly, but never quite goes there. The actual flowers throughout its middle stage (rose, jasmine, narcissus, what do daffodils even smell like?) give me this high-summer orchard honey bee fantasy. Raspberry is i think the most prominent opening impression, maybe pomegranate, quickly overtaken by floral honey. That's probably the way to discuss the florals in here - not flowers but the way e.g. linden honey can smell of flowers & pollen. Beeswax is also discernible from the very beginning. As it sits and the fruit recedes it goes from nectar fantasy to complex rosewater dessert while always maintaining that little bit of low-pitched roughness you usually get with honey fragrances, just enough to keep things interesting. It's all a whole lot. The very end is a rounder mellower sweetness, feels like vanilla to my nose, but might be some combination of the woods, resins and beeswax. I wish I perceived more of the hyrax, some people complain about it being crazy animalic and i just don’t get that at all unfortunately. I love dirty animal shit :( On the other hand it already has borderline too much going on.

If Mendittorosa made small beautiful bottles Rituale would be a no-brainer to get. It is a very special combination of rich and opulent while also consisting of what to me reads as basically all food-like botanical notes. Real nectar and ambrosia vibes. Very different from those fresh effervescent unisex fruits, a very cool take on the genre imo. And like, yeah, if I'm so bored of fruits, maybe my one fruit perfume to have should be the one that's unlike any of the others. But even with this one, I'm not sure that I want to smell like this! There is again an air of botanical unfuckability about this one that makes it a little emotionally confusing. Not sure what mood I'd want it for, especially if we're talking about getting a bit expensive bottle. I think I wore it for my 29th or 30th birthday, she's festive and attention-grabbing but doesn't necessarily make me feel attractive. One idea I'm holding out for is that if I tried it from an atomizer instead of the shitty dabbing wand sample and got a more accurate idea of how it wears from the bottle, there would be more hyrax and that'd swing it into something more obviously my style. As is it may or may not be my one fruit but for sure points to some directions to continue thinking in.

Putting here so I don't forget my other fruits to discuss: Un Jardin sur le Nil, Pomegranate Noir, Wilde, Bitter Peach, Peau de Peche. And then the figs.

#perfume #long post #loooooong post lmao #cut it in half so it won't be too annoying to scroll past #and turns out i didn't have notes on any of the others anyway

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