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#another thing i'd turn into a sticker if i had the will to
coffee-bat · 2 years
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oof ouch owie my veins
#cw// GRAPHIC MEDICAL TALK#vein- and needle-related specifically#they keep fucking up my fucking iv catheter#my first one was ok. it was on the side of my left elbow and lasted 3 or so days. it was good.#but nooo it had to break#started leaking iv fluid after they changed the sticker bandage(?) around it#i thought it'd be an easy thing to fix but then it turns out they have to put in a new one#i was freaking tf out i'm scared of needles#they put a new one in on my upper inner forearm#hurt like a bitch but i hoped i'd survive with it until i'm let out#but of course noooo#it broke the next day#or rather when they injected antibiotic into it (from a big syringe) my vein got fucked and the antibiotic spilled into the muscle aroundit#(​the whole time they were injecting i thought i was just being a pussy and it's normal for it to hurt that bad. no)#so they had to replace it AGAIN#they'd have put it on my right elbow but i've already been stabbed there thrice by that point (four by now) and had a bruise#so they wanted to put it on the back of my hand and i freaked out#begged them to put it anywhere else#so they tried my forearms and missed twice (ow my veins)#until another nurse came and just put it like 2 mm higher than my first one was#that was ok. i could live with that.#but of course the next day it ALSO started leaking (that was yesterday)#i had a crying fit#and of course they had to put a new one in the back of my hand (ow!!!!!)#so now i have that#and i'm honestly just really scared it'll break again and won't make it to my discharge tommorow morning#i have NO MORE VEINS LEFT#i dont know what they'll do if this one breaks#i'm so scared over the whole thing and everything fucking hurts oughghghgh#vent
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mallowmaenad · 3 months
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6'3" Underweight Trans Girl With Eyebags whose wearing an Oversized Black Sweater: I recently remembered all of my past lives. Most of it was spent as various plant life and fungi in the same twenty foot radius in a forest by a rural interstate route until a robin ate the seed containing my soul and flew to another forest where I reincarnated as her child. I would then die a tragic death at a young age to a local fox where I'd live a long life as her kit and eventually die of old age, I then spent several generations as various plant life and fungi in that forest which was eventually destroyed by industry.
I was a tree during that time and my plant fibers were processed to manufacture paper used to make a sticker placed on an orange whose peel was placed in a compost bin, eventually leading me to the dark yet decadent life of a worm until I then eventually expired and awoke as a tomato plant in the care of a kindly older woman, it is that life whose memories I treasure the most.
She was a very skilled and warm woman, and many of my cycles afterwards were spent as my own kin in generations of tomato plants in a blink of an eye. One day she took me into her car in a pot, I remember how she spoke to me. At the time she had named me Reynolds, she had set into a trend of naming me after Hollywood actors she found attractive. It was the day before her daughter's birthday and I was to be her gift, I could not feel bittersweet about this a the time, because I was a tomato plant.
She buckled me into the back seat of a car as if I was a child of her own and drove down a rural interstate route, illuminating the black sea of the night sky with her headlights as the shadows seemed to drown out anything but us. A deer with bone wasting disease stood in the road like a grim reaper, white eyes shining as her aching foot tried to react in time on the break peddle.
The two embraced in a bloody collision, I remember the deer in its last moments weakly nibbling at her flesh as they both bled out in an agony they were ignorant to, I wilted and died in that car along with her and that deer, I do not know what the journey of my soul was like, but my next life was as a patch of semi-feral grass on the side of a similar road caught in the mouth of a possum eating a partially full discarded box of Wendy's fries who was then promptly turned into road kill, when the day was new a burly Appalachian man whose stern demeanor hid a soft heart would legally and cleanly collect the cadaver and break it down, using the remains for a meal some yuppies would find ghastly. This man was my father- or rather my father in this cycle of life.
I know in my heart of hearts that you were that old woman who nurtured me so many times as her beloved tomato plants, you had the rare privilege to live your life as an incinerator at a crematorium, but the march of technology and nut after bolt you grew broken, a death by a thousand cuts, a death by a thousand bodies. Your massive metal cadaver was melted down over time, the raw materials eventually finding itself to a factory that manufactured bullets, a life of darkness in a cardboard prison only to be shunted into a pistol's magazine... your entire existence is interesting, stretching the meaning of what it means to be eaten and to live. The meek 24 year old boy thought nobody would mourn him when he was gone, you lived as an amorphous patch of greenery ahead of his grave stone.
A curious thing would happen during a visit to this boy's grave, his childhood dog either in embarrassing coincidence or a moment of sentience began to dig at where the body was, being wrenched back as it began to desperately sink his teeth into the soil, ripping you asunder. Almost as divine penance, you lived your next life as a member of this dog's litter, you'd be named after the boy, despite being a girl. Maybe the dog was given some precognition and wanted to eat the boy and take his soul into its mouth to get her the life she always wanted. You were unfortunately born with a chronic condition that led you to a young death, the girl's mother crying just as hard after the vet put you down. You were buried lovingly in her back yard where you became a tomato plant, your same mother not being as much of a green thumb as mine but she devoured your fruits all the same, eventually giving birth to another meek boy after growing pregnant during the time when your last tomato was picked off your wilted stem. I have pursued you since that day with my whole body and spirit, one part unintentional one part in this moment of enlightenment. I love you, and I will love you for the rest of forever.
Trans girl who dropped out of high school to make Hello Kitty breakcore who has her girlfriend's dick in her mouth and is high as fuck right now: Waash dat?
Their shared girlfriend sitting across from them playing Wario Land Shake It on her modded Wii U: Was I the deer with bone wasting disease?
6'3" Underweight Trans Girl: ... Yeah...
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hi! i saw your post about how true the makers of atsv were to real-life brooklyn and i loved it so much that i just had to ask if you'd be willing to make a more in-depth analysis on that? i'm not from america but i adore the movie so it's very interesting to hear firsthand accounts about its authenticity from locals! ofc this is just a humble request and i completely understand if the answer is no <3
I'd LOVE to! The Spiderverse Series is honestly the most accurate movie of New York I've seen in my life - including live-action movies. I say that not just in essence but in everything. And Across the Universe takes it over the top. Like, INSANELY so.
Across The Spiderverse & It's Dedication to Cultural Accuracy [aka ATSV is so goddamn good I can tell you exactly what street Gwen and Miles went to Mumbattan from. It's that accurate.]
I'm a black, afro-latino, and a born and raised 'Brooklynite'. Despite there being thousands of movies of New York, I'd say less than 5 percent of them are in any way accurate or current. (Yellow taxi cabs are no longer a thing here really.)
But Across the Spiderverse defies that in every way - nailing it historically, culturally, and even by replicating exact locations.
Wanna see the Bodega Spot robbed? Cause it's a real, random bodega! And the building he goes into at the end - I can tell you exactly where it is, with 100% assurity. All by street signs.
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In the first scene with Spot we see him standing outside on the curb, looking into the store. On the corner there is a street sign that reads Fulton St.
Fulton is an actual street in BedStuy (Bedford Stuyvesant, pronounced Bed-St-eye), literally a stone's throw from my house. And they take it further.
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Although it can be hard to see, the other side to the left of it reads Nostrand Ave. Fulton and Nostrand is a very popular intersection in the neighborhood, mainly because there's a subway station for the A line located on one corner.
There's Nostrand and Fulton.
But if you turn to the other corner you see...A Bodega! Looks familar?
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That's the bodega Spot robbed.
99% of the people who watch this movie will be from New York. Even less will be from BedStuy. Even less will catch the split second sign on the corner, only on screen for only a few frames.
It took me 3 watches to notice. But I noticed. And my jaw dropped. How much that means is unexplainable. I've been on that corner, and the TacoBell across the street. And so has Miles. That's insane.
It doesn't stop there.
Spot enters the store, as we pass we see a sticker for 'WIC/EBT' on the cashier's counter. I'm not sure how common this is - but WIC and EBT standards for Welfare Benefits and Food Stamps. As you cannot buy warm food with Food Stamps (sadly), lots of bodegas advertise taking EBT for the deli sandwiches.
Nice shout out to the struggling families in the communities, I love a Bodega that takes EBT.
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We move towards the back of the store - In the Bodega while Spot messes with the ATM we get a wider shot, and another very insanely specific shout out.
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Behind Spot is a sign showing a Beef Patty (which I'll mention in a moment) and a sun logo called 'Sunny Patty'.
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This is a direct call out to a specific chain of Beef Patty shops in Brooklyn and Harlem called 'Golden Krust'.
I cannot stress how much of a niche reference this is! Golden Krusts only exist in low income neighborhoods - mainly in Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Bronx. If you're anywhere near Times Square or any place else New York shows choose to portray - you're not finding a Golden Krust.
Golden Krusts are store that is ingrained in Caribbean culture, which Brooklyn is full of - hence the adapted Jamaican flag up front. I grew up eating Golden Krust and I'd eat it more if they didn't close so goddamn early.
But it's there.
Once again, only a few pixels, only a few frames, but someone probably took 6 hours drawing that. For the 0.009% of the people who'll get the reference. Low-income, black New Yorkers - like me.
ATSV is so accurate that you can even find the exact spot in which Miles and Gwen leave through the portal.
But before I tell you where it is - I wanna talk about why it's so important.
It's important because one of the most famous Spider-man scenes in history is just plain WRONG to New Yorkers.
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This scene is ENTIRELY incorrect, and I knew it even as a child.
Firstly, based on the skyscrapers everywhere, this is solidly Manhattan. The train says Bay Ridge, which is in South Brooklyn, maybe 40 minutes away by train. So I'm going to assume this is the Q or B train, running through Manhattan. Which, okay they do, but -
There are NO elevated trains in Manhattan. The Q, like every other train, only goes above ground in Brooklyn and Queens. This is very clearly Chicago.
So he couldn't be doing this. It's a simple but HUGE fuck up. Any one born in New York will notice it because Manhattan just looks wrong with elevated trains.
And it would've been fine if they just set it in Brooklyn where Bay Ridge and the elevated trains actually are.
But instead they made generic Manhattan streets - so much so I can't even tell what neighborhood they're in. Do you see how this is such a problem?
Across The Spiderverse is animated. And they still put in the effort.
I can't tell you where Peter Parker is stopping that train - it ain't Manhattan - but I CAN tell you where Miles and Gwen leave for Mumbattan.
So let's go back to where we started. We're on Fulton and Nostrand both in BedStuy.
Throughout the fight, we see Spot and Miles go through a couple streets - most notably a very popular street in the neighborhood - Broadway.
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This happens twice, once while fighting Spot, and once when Miles and Gwen grab the hot dogs. They show this twice, cause this will be important for what we're trying to do.
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Now this may not make any sense to you, since it's just random streets, but I'm about to tie it together.
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Gwen releases the bug near an elevated train. When we see Miles and Gwen swinging, they cling to a train. Now, it's hard to tell what train this is but so far we know.
We're in Brooklyn
We're near Broadway
We're near an elevated train line
There's a station on Broadway called Broadway Junction. It serves the G line and the J,M,Z line.
When we see the train pass by, we get a glimpse of the model. Each train line has a slightly different variation, with some being a lot old. The one that passes is one of the newer ones.
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(Once again, very accurate, as those models do run on elevated lines)
And although we can't see the letter on the train, by that alone, I can guess we're by the elevated J,M,Z lines in BedStuy - near Broadway Junction. Easy. Now we just need to know what stop we're at.
Well, they tell us that too. Finally, When Spot heads into the building we get a glimpse of the exact street he's on - Bedford.Ave
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So I just threw a LOT of information at you - but look at this map of the J,M,Z line and hopefully it comes together
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At the bottom along the green line - we see Bedford/Nostrand Ave. Remember, the robbery starts us off on Nostrand. Let's move up the green line. We get to a part where the green line passes the brown and orange ones - the JMZ trains.
They connect at Broadway (Officially Broadway Junction Station). We see Broadway with the hot dog vendor there.
If we move to left of Broadway we see Marcy Av. - and if we look to the left OF THAT we see a faint white line heading north.
THAT line is Bedford Ave. Where Spot enters the building.
Because we know they're in Brooklyn, and we know they passed Broadway. Plus we know they're now on Bedford by an elevated train that runs newer models.
So from those signs alone we can definitely say that Spot is on Bedford Ave. and Broadway. Next to the JMZ elevated trains, two stops from Broadway Junction in Brooklyn.
100% that's the spot (lol). That's the only place Bedford crosses an elevated train. And as a New Yorker, I got that from this photo.
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Trust me when I say - we can tell.
By those short shots of street signs, we know that Miles started in BedStuy, swung north towards Broadway, then took a turn towards Bedford Ave in Williamsburg. And that's where Gwen plants the bug - and the place she returns to before going to Mumbattan.
Is that crazy? That's CRAZY. Percision accuracy that I have never seen in a movie live-action or otherwise.
All throughout the first scenes of ATSV - they are on actual streets, that are reasonably within swinging distance of each other, along actual train lines - with their stations accurately located.
That's INSANE. There was no need for that amount of detail, but they did it anyway.
There's SO many times in Spider-men movies where they'll start swinging in Queens, and then the next scene is like Upper Manhattan. They don't label the neighborhoods, but from buildings alone, I can tell what neighborhood it is.
And I'm supposed to believe Peter just swung 2 and a half boroughs in twenty minutes. I don't notice. But I NOTICE.
Here, Miles and Gwen are truly swinging accurate distances in the right amount of time. That's mental. And refreshing!
In a live action movie - they have NO excuse. Just film in the city, it's not like we're Gotham. And we give film crews huge tax breaks. In an animated movie - completely understandable. But they still said 'No, that's subpar.' and went the extra mile.
They didn't even have to show ANY street signs, they could've left it at the easter egg at the corner store.
But they didn't. Because they're telling a story about a Black kid from Brooklyn, who leaves for someplace completely unfamiliar. BedStuy is Miles' home, and they wanted to make it feel that way. So when he's not there - in the cold polish of Neuva York - you can feel it.
You can feel Miles leaving his warm, rich community when he lacks that community in the Society. In the movie and IRL, BedStuy is so full of color, with so many people doing so many things and sharing so many cultures.
And in the society, everyone is the same. There's no culture. That's dedication.
Because of a train in Spider-man 2, I was immediately taken out of the story. And because of train in ATSV, I was immediately brought in.
For once, it feels like they're swinging around a neighborhood - cause they are.
A Large Detail in ATSV:
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So I talked about Trinity Church - the real church that Peter Parker was buried at in ITSV - and how accurate the team got it to the actual building.
In fact, this is the spot where Miles is standing.
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Like he's standing maybe 20 feet AT most from this spot, you can see in the windows and spires at the top.
But I also wanna explain why this - and why the fact that Peter was buried there is SO important.
Trinty Church is one of the most famous historical churches in the United States. It was started by the first English settlers in New York. It's extremely famous, and extremely sentimental.
For reference - Alexander Hamilton and his family are also buried at Trinity Church, along with dozens of other important US historical figures - across centuries.
You can't just be buried in Trinity. It's a city landmark. The cemetery is full, small, and you CANNOT pay your way in. The church is extremely choosy with who they will bury there - and honestly, I don't think anyone has been buried there for maybe a century or more.
So for the city to bury Peter Parker's body in the most prominent church in all of the city, if not the country - that speaks VOLUMES.
Like I said in the last post, my father use to work at Trinity Church - and they're the whole deal. Candles burning everywhere, super quiet and devote. The church has catacombs under it, everything.
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They didn't just bury him anywhere. The people of New York went out of their way to give Peter Parker the most honorable burial physically possible within the city of New York.
The highest honor for any New Yorker. One reserved only for Spider-man.
Which I think was an amazing touch. Especially since Trinity is in downtown Manhattan - so anyone could come visit and pay respects.
Other Cultural Accuracies
Before we wrap up I wanna breeze through some other cultural accuracies that appear in ATSV.
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Miles stops to eat a Jamaican Beef Patty while in the Bodgea. I spoke about these earlier with the Golden Krust sign. Jamaican beef patties are these flaky pastries colored with tumeric, full of spicy meat. And they are very popular with the large Carribean community in Brooklyn - which I'm apart of :)
In the case, we see the Beef Patties labeled with red dots. But Miles seems to go for the only one without it.
I'm guessing the red dots indicate which ones are the spicy Beef Patties and which ones are the mild, and Miles grabbed the last mild one they had.
They draw it really well, especially while Miles is eating it.
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"Spider-man seems more Dominican." Genuine question - did anyone laugh at this joke in your theatre?
Because all three times I went, people laughed. The first time people LOVED that joke.
NYC, especially the Bronx has a HUGE Puerto Rican AND Dominican population - many times living side by side
And there's this kinda 'beef' in the same way Yankees fans have beef with the Mets fans (NYC baseball teams)
The best way I can describe the joke is that they're two very strong, very proud Spanish cultures that are often mistaken for each other - but Puerto Ricans and Dominicans can very obviously tell each other apart. Mainly because of the Spanish they speak.
So for him and his mom to have that back and forth, it's kinda an inside joke of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans getting confused for each other - but them being able to tell the difference.
His mom says Spider-man is Puerto Rican, but Miles corrects her - without backing it up with any reason.
It's like they can just TELL.
I don't know how else to explain the joke but its a very New Yorker thing to do - discuss that out like that.
Since a lot of us are the children of immigrants - it's knee-jerk to identify with your parent country and not this one.
If you ask someone in New York 'What are you'. Many young people (me included) would say "Oh I'm *parents nationality*." In my case, I say I'm Bajan and Peruvian. Even though I was born in New York.
Miles would say he's Puerto Rican though he's never been.
So them discussing where Spider-man is 'from' even though he's obviously a New Yorker is the joke.
Like - someone on the writing team HAD to be from New York to add that in cause it's so...oddly New Yorker???
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While swinging Miles and Gwen pass the B46 bus. Once again, completely accurate. The scene starts on Nostrand and Fulton. The B46 does indeed stop on Fulton St.
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When they're swinging, the movie accurately shows the new World Trade Center (aka The Freedom Tower) - which is the tallest building in the picture.
Also, the bridge to the LEFT is the Brooklyn Bridge, while the tall one on the right is Manhattan Bridge. Many people don't know there's actually two bridges. (There's more but those two are the main ones)
Good on them for showing both Bridges, both accurately placed as well
Fun fact: Trains run over the Manhattan Bridge - the Q, B and a couple others (beautiful - I love it when they do) but trains do not run over the Brooklyn Bridge.
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And lastly, when Miles and Spot are on Broadway, the school behind them is actually architecturally accurate for a Brooklyn school. So much so that design is iconic.
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______________________ So those are most if not all of the cultural accuracies in Across the Spiderverse!
I cannot stress enough how ridiculously bang on this movie is in terms of everything.
The team put in so much work, and it paid off. To me, at least.
I don't feel like Miles is some kid from a different alternative New York. I feel like he's a real kid in MY New York. From everything down to his Jordans (don't even get me started on how much Jordan's has a CHOKEHOLD on teenagers in New York. Like...it's a status thing. Even since I was a kid, everyone wanted Jordans. Jordans or Nike Air Force 1s. So having Miles wear Jordans is my favorite thing cause yea a kid from BedStuy would think those are flyest shit ever even though they're just regular degular Jordans lol. And you KNOW Miles 42 a sneakerhead. Look at those shoes. He aint creasing those)
This movie, is chef's kiss. It tops all other New York portrays - live-action or otherwise and I stand on that.
If you read this far, thank you SO much. I love sharing New York culture (and the cultures that make it what it is to begin with) and I'm SO happy I can share this stuff and hopefully help people appreciate the movie more too!
If you learned something or have any questions, I'm all ears!
And I usually leave a photo of Hobie here as a send-off but this post hit the photo limit LMAOOOOOO
Bye.
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luveline · 2 years
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omg omg your reqs are open!! can you pls write smth with james spoiling his s/o who doesn't know how to accept bcs they're not used to being given anything unless there's a special occasion? thank u so much!!
thank you for your request! I think this might be really long i wrote it in the app so idk how much it is ♡ fem!reader
James bursts into your flat like he owns it. The door slams up against the wall and his bags fall to the floor in a tumultuous heap. He groans so loud you can feel it in your own chest, and then he asks, "Where's my girl?"
You poke your head out from the living room and take in all his things with wide eyes. Your smile quickly turns elated. "You're staying the night?"
"A few, if you'll have me."
You stroll straight into his arms, ignoring the cold of the rain on his windbreaker and how chilled his cheeks are as you take his face into your hands.
"It'll cost you," you joke, smile fond enough to have him laughing, thrilled. Adored.
"Good, because I brought gifts."
You giggle at him and look down at his bags. There's a rucksack, a bigger duffel bag, a grocery bag, and what looks like something from a clothes shop — a canvas bag with a fancy brand printed over the side. "Is that one for me?" you ask, pointing at the supermarket bag. "You've brought me something nice for dinner?"
"I have, my angel."
James rubs the length of your arm with his hand until your drop your hold on his face and wrap them around him instead to hide in his chest. He kisses over the top and side of your head a handful of times, each one gentle and very, very warm.
"Okay, give me a real kiss and let's put this lot away," he says after a moment.
You raise your head and pout. His lips are hot and sudden as he ducks down — he steals your breath, grasps your cheek in one hand and your shoulder in another. He means it when he says a real kiss. This one warms you all the way to your toes.
You break first. He chases you, pecking your fizzing lips with a quirk to his own.
James makes you feel very lucky to be loved the way that he does. His affection leaves you dizzy and giddy in the silly breathless way, like the rush of a schoolyard crush buffeted by a stickying devotion. You're more than reluctant to move away from him now, as if your hands have been glued to his coat.
"Alright," he says gently, giving you another kiss. "Alright. I brought ice cream, and it's melting. Otherwise I'd stand here and kiss you all day."
You help him carry his bags into the kitchen and peak into the supermarket bag cheekily. When he catches you looking you shy away.
"It's okay, shortcake. You can look. It's all for you, anyways."
You beam and open the bag. He's brought the makings of your favourite food, expensive branded ingredients and off the counter cuts. You delight at his spoiling though it really is too much. It helps to know he'll be sharing; it's not entirely for you. Still, his spending always surprises you, used to shop brands and reduced stickers.
"Are we gonna make this now?" you ask.
"Maybe in a bit? I have some other things I want to show you."
You blink. "Okay."
He pulls the fancy clothes bag onto the table and smiles at you. "I had to get new polo's. If you don't like anything I can take it back."
"You have good taste," you say, quizzical. James hardly cares if you hate his clothes anyways. He'd once worn Hawaiian themed shirts for an entire fortnight.
He pulls out the first thing and you abruptly understand his meaning. It's a soft white top made up of very thin cotton. It's a sleep shirt, the fabric delicate and brushed to the touch. Tiny, dainty flowers are cut out in lines down the length.
"That suits you, don't you think?" he asks thoughtfully, holding it flat to his chest so he can look down the front of it. "There's matching bottoms, too. Here."
He hands you the top and pulls out the bottoms, shorts made up of the same fabric with lettuce, ruffled hemming.
"I got the bottoms a size up because they looked on the smaller side, but I can swap them out if they're wrong." He runs his hand over the hem. "They might've been a selfish purchase. They're lovely, aren't they?"
You smile a second too late. "They're really nice," you say sincerely.
He puts the shorts down and reaches back into the bag. You're excited but also in awe, the kind that plays with your tummy, has you shifting from foot to foot.
He shows you a warmer pair of pajamas. Just as sweet as the first but in a muted lilac and made up of a more substantial fabric, he holds a pair of relaxed fitting bottoms and a short top with short sleeves.
"I think the bottoms might be a bit long on you, shortcake," he says. "What do you think? Are they alright?"
"They're nice," you say, mouth dry.
He nods, satisfied, and digs right back into the bag. Last up is a t-shirt with your favourite artists album cover on the front. "I knew you'd like this, so I basically cheated. It's a big one. I think it's meant to be a proper shirt but I reckon you can wear it for pajamas if it's not your style."
He's very thoughtful. You run your hand down the fabric and can't choose where to look, the clothes and their tags or his face, waiting casually for your feedback.
"James, what have you got me all this for?" you ask. You can't keep the love out of your voice.
"You like it?" he asks, relieved.
"I love it. All of it. I mean..." You turn back to the white and lilac pajamas on the clothes. "They're really beautiful. Almost too nice to wear to bed."
"That's not really true. You look so pretty when you sleep," he says, reaching out to poke the soft of your tummy.
You rub your lips together. "It's not- I haven't missed our anniversary, have I?" You laugh weakly, scared for your life.
James' dark curls bounce as he laughs. "No, of course you haven't. It's three weeks and-"
"Two days," you finish. "That's what I thought. But why?"
"Why what?"
"Why have you got me all this?"
He shrugs. "I mean, 'cos I wanted to? I thought it would make you happy. Why else do you buy things for people?"
You bring your feet together and beam at him. "I don't know. Special occasions?"
"It is a special occasion. I'm staying with my girl for the weekend."
He must see on your face that you're going in for a thank you kiss because he puts down the shirt and opens his arms to bring you in. His forearms press to your arched back and pull you up, and he receives your gleeful kiss with a similarly overlarge smile.
"I don't know what to say," you confess against his lips, driving in for another kiss. "Thank you."
The words are all smushed up into him. He encourages your head carefully to one side and kisses you silly, hands roving appreciatively up the slope of your back and thigh pushing between yours.
"That's more than enough," he says after pulling away.
You make a terrible, indulgent squealing sound in the back of your throat. It's rather exciting, getting gifts for nothing. Not that James hasn't bought you things, he has, but some pajamas just because he likes you?
It feels amazing, the gift and the feelings behind it.
"I got you some other stuff, too," he admits, hands having moved to a more amicable place on your waist. He clings as you try to move. "I'm sorry! Sorry, but there was this candle that smelled like your moisturiser and then there was a whole section of things, don't run away!"
You stop your struggling and pretend to go limp. James catches you, pulls you in until your torsos are kissing. You bring up your head and narrow your eyes, softly chastening.
"I love you," he says lightly, hedging for forgiveness.
How can you stay mad?
"I love you too. I feel throughly spoiled," you say.
"Good! You deserve to feel spoiled, angel. I'm spoiling you."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, gonna make you dinner and everything."
You straighten out to kiss him again. You really are spoiled.
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to-be-written · 2 months
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Caffeine and Chemistry-1
Pairing: Jolly Karlsson x Danielle (OFC)
Summary: On a break from recording, Jolly heads to a local coffee shop. There he meets the owner Danielle and they hit it off. After a date, they head back to Jolly's place and Danielle realizes it looks eerily familiar.
CW: 18+ MDNI, I don't think there are any real warnings needed for this, but let me know if I'm wrong!
A/N: This one's kinda short, mostly set up
Word Count: 1.3k
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Bad Omens was focusing on their upcoming album release. Jolly and Noah were heavily into the producing process. Lots of late nights and lattes and passing out rather than falling asleep.
Jolly was tired of the Starbucks near them always getting his order wrong, so he decided to look up local coffee shops. He had only officially lived in LA for about ten months, so he had plenty of new things to try. Luckily there was a coffee shop in their neighborhood called Magic Oven Roastery. The name intrigued him, so he made his way inside the small shop around noon on a Tuesday.
Outside the shop was a chalkboard sign on the sidewalk that said "When life gives you lemons, give them back and tell them you want coffee" Jolly chuckled to himself at that and opened the door, walking into the shop. There was Lofi music playing and the aroma of coffee and pastries made Jolly's stomach growl. He had no idea when the last time he ate was.
He approached the counter and the most gorgeous girl he had ever seen rounded the corner over to him. She had dark hair, framing her face in waves, and the rest was pulled back into a bun. She had blue eyes and her arms were covered with fine-line black and gray tattoos. An apron was covering most of her graphic t-shirt.
She gave him a bright smile. "Hi! What can I get for you?" She asked. She had a cute voice, Jolly noted. 
"What's the best coffee here?" He asked her.
"Well, I'm a bit biased because I own this place, so I think everything is great." She told him.
"Really? Well, nice to meet you..." He trailed off realizing he didn't know her name.
"Danielle." She supplied.
"Danielle." He said her name like he was testing it out. He liked how it sounded. "I'm Jolly." He told her.
She smiled. "Jolly? That's a fun name."
"My given name is Joakim, but I prefer Jolly."
"Joakim." It was her turn to test out his name. "Did I say that right?"
"Yes, you said it perfectly."
She smiled. "Okay Jolly, well I'd say our top seller right now is our Almond Joy iced coffee." She told him. "Our cinnamon french toast latte is probably my favorite at the moment.”
"Oh, a cinnamon French toast latte sounds amazing. I'll take a large iced please." He looked at the pastry case. "And a dozen macarons. These flavors look delicious."
"Thank you, I come up with the flavors myself and make them in-house." She rang him up and told him his total.
He gave her a $20 bill and she gave him his change, which he put in the tip jar while she was grabbing the box for the macarons. She got a piece of wax paper to grab them with.
"I'll take one of the cookie butter, one Fruity Pebbles, one strawberry cheesecake, a creme brulee, a churro one, one red velvet, a smores one, a salted caramel, a cookies and cream one, double fudge chocolate, one of the mocha ones, and a margarita one." He named them and she grabbed each one as he did, putting it in the box.
Danielle closed up the box and sealed it with a Magic Oven Roastery sticker, passing it to him.
Jolly watched her work and then realized that may be creepy, so he turned to check out the shop. He liked the chairs that looked like giant coffee mugs with brown pillows to look like coffee. There were about eight other patrons in the shop, reading books and drinking coffee, and some talking in small groups.
"Here it is." Danielle caught his attention and he turned, receiving his drink sans lid.
"Thank you so much." He said gratefully.
She flashed another cute smile. "No problem." She said. "Lids are there if you'd like one." She pointed them out on the counter.
He grabbed a lid and put it on, noticing the sign that read: We no longer carry straws! Help yourself to a sip-thru lid OR you can go topless😉
Jolly smiled, going to compliment Danielle on it but another patron had walked up to the counter and she had to focus on them.
He walked out of the shop with his coffee and macarons and a smile, ready to tackle the day.
He took a sip of his coffee and it was the best coffee he had ever had. Yeah, he would definitely be back. Fuck Starbucks, he only wanted to drink Magic Oven Roastery and see Danielle.
Jolly went back home and as soon as he walked in carrying the box of macarons, his roommates pounced.
"Whatcha got there?" Jesse asked. He was standing in the kitchen making himself a coffee.
"That coffee smells really good. Where's it from?" Michael asked, getting up from the couch and walking over.
"Are those treats to share?" Noah asked.
"Ooh, did I hear Jolly brought back treats?" Orie barked, bounding down the stairs.
Jolly was tempted to keep the macarons all to himself but decided to share purely because the sooner they were gone, the sooner he could justify a trip back to Magic Oven Roastery.
"These are macarons. Let me cut them in half so we all get a shot at trying all these different flavors." Jolly set the box on the kitchen counter and got a knife from the block. He pointed out all the flavors while his roommates oohed and ahhed.
Jolly grabbed one-half of the creme brulee macaron, eager to try it. 
The macarons were gone within ten minutes thanks to the five of them.
"Where did you get these from?" Noah asked.
"This coffee shop in the neighborhood, it's called Magic Oven Roastery," Jolly responded.
"Hmm, I've driven by but never stopped in. Now I've got to give it a shot." He said.
"Yeah, clearly whoever made these knows what they're doing." Jesse agreed.
"I met the owner, she's really cool," Jolly said.
Noah smirked at him. "Yeah?"
Jolly fixed him with a look. "Don't. Just because she's attractive doesn't mean anything."
“Hey man, you were the one to bring up her being attractive. None of us said anything.” Orie teased.
"If it doesn't mean anything to you, then maybe I could-" Noah started, joking.
Jolly's jaw tensed. "No."
"Hey, that's great, Jolly. I'm glad you met someone. Maybe you should ask her out." Jesse said.
"I don't even know if she's single or not. For now, I enjoy her coffee and desserts." Jolly reasoned.
"If she's attractive and bakes this good, you should probably find out if she's single sooner rather than later before someone else does it." Michael jerked his thumb in Noah's direction.
Jolly fixed Noah with a glare and he put his hands up innocently.
"Hey, if not me, I'm sure lots of other people have their eye on her. You shouldn't wait too long." Noah told him.
"Fuck you guys." Jolly grabbed his nearly finished latte and went to his room.
Jolly decided that he would be back at Magic Oven Roastery the next day just to see Danielle and get a coffee if nothing else. But if she were single and interested in him at all he could get her number.
He pulled up a track he was working on and got back to work.
There was a knock on his door. 
“Yeah?” Jolly looked up.
Noah opened the door enough to poke his head in. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Jolly spun his chair around to face Noah as he stood by the doorway.
“I hope you know I was just messing with you. I wouldn’t take a girl you’re interested in.” Noah told him.
“I know,” Jolly nodded. “I trust you, Noah. You’re one of my best friends.”
Noah smiled. “Okay, I just didn’t want a girl to come between us.”
“Nah, you’re good, man. All in good fun.” Jolly turned and gestured to his computer screen. “Wanna get back to it? I think I’ve got a good verse for The Grey.”
Taglist: @spicywhenspeaking @jilliemiw86 @lacktoesandtoddlerants @blackveilomens @ravieisunhinged
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happyk44 · 6 months
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Reyna's entire arm is covered in weird scars. No one really knows how to ask her about it - probably some odd quest she and Jason went on as kids. Then one day she walks into their biannual argo 2 group meeting while Jason is pacing back and forth while Leo is chattering up a storm about some project, using words only Annabeth understands.
Jason isn't really the type to pace, that's more Leo's and Percy's thing. He's more like Annabeth, sat down with tapping feet and fidgety hands, hyperfocusing on one specific thing to keep from going insane. But there he is far in the back of Percy's cabin. It's back and forth, from wall to wall. He chimes in with a clipped tone at times. It's odd, but no one calls him out about it. He seems stressed. Drawing attention to his stress tends to only heighten it.
Then Reyna barges in. Her question, "Where's Nico?", goes answered by Hazel, but she doesn't turn around and walk out. Instead she catches Jason's speedwalking form. A scowl immediately cuts her face. She stomps through the group's impromptu circle on her way towards him.
"Jason!" she barks, hiking up the sleeve of her left arm. The scars are much lighter than the rest of her skin. "Arm!"
Jason draws short. His eyes are wide when he looks at her. Then an annoyed draw of his eyebrows. But before he can say anything, she grabs him by the back of his head, dragging him down and shoving her arm into his mouth.
Suddenly the scars make much more sense.
There's a moment where nothing happens. Jason just looks pissed off, Reyna is unbothered, still holding on the back of his head, and everyone thinks he's going to detach and snap at her with whatever annoyance is glowing in his eyes.
Then a guttural snarl rips out his chest. It's more animal than human. It takes a minute to realize Jason was the source and not some emergence of a creature from the shadows. He bites down and Reyna barely flinches. She draws up to the balls of her feet as Jason rises with her arm in his mouth. Her other arm falls to her side. With a roll of her eyes, she sighs and turns to the confused group before her.
"When we were younger and he'd get overstimulated and agitated, I'd let him chew on my arm," she says, like it's the most normal thing to say about a childhood. Then again only two of the demigods in the room had vaguely normal childhoods, so it's not necessarily out of place.
"Why not just get a chew toy?" Piper asks. "Or a bone?"
Jason drags his teeth down to Reyna's wrist. She squints at him and he pulls back up a bit. "Because Jason likes fleshy things and it's less creepy to chew on your friend's arm instead of the dead rabbit you caught and ripped the head off.
"Jesus Christ," Hazel mutters.
The neutral look on Reyna's face remains. "Exactly."
Frank grimaces when Jason draws up to her shoulder and a weird noise clicks in the air. Leo has already moved on and is rambling about his latest project again, Annabeth turning away from Jason and Reyna to listen in. Percy eyes the two for a bit before going back to placing star stickers all over Piper's face.
"Doesn't that hurt?" Frank asks, slightly drowned out by Leo's loud chatter.
"I still a feel it, but it stopped hurting after the third time," Reyna says. A bit of blood drips down her skin, Jason's eyes wide and feral. "Apparently I have a degree of nerve damage in this arm, which is why-" She cuts her gaze back to Jason who is uninterested in anything else but chewing her skin like he wants to rip it open and eat it. "-he's not supposed to go near my hand."
He chuffs around her arm and bites harder into her bicep. She flicks his forehead. It lasts another minute. By the end, the others have drawn their focuses back to one another. Jason drops Reyna's arm out of his mouth like a cat giving a rat to its owner. They knock their foreheads together. Jason rubs his cheek against hers, then draws back. There's still a simmer of something in him, but he's not pacing like he's trying to catch up on his steps for the day.
Reyna marches back to the door and repeats her initial question. Annabeth answers with a wave goodbye. In the back of the cabin, Jason has relaxed in a slump on the floor. No one questions him, but eyes are drawn and Leo fades off for the first time since they all sat down and asked, "What have you guys been up to?"
However Leo is never silent for long, and shouts, "Are you gonna start biting my arm? Because I've kind of been thinking about mangling it up on purpose to make myself into a bitching cyborg."
All three girls reach across to swat him across the head at the thought, but he just ducks it with a laugh. James draws up out of his slump. He stretches long like a dog waking up from a good nap, and crawls over just enough to drop his head into Frank's lap. He reaches around to grab his hand and drops it into his hair. Frank rolls his eyes but starts petting.
"No," Jason says, tone clipped. "I stopped doing that when I was like thirteen."
Frank tugs once at Jason's hair. "When did you start?"
Jason's eyes slide close. "When was I given to the wolves?"
Hazel's nose wrinkles. "Those poor fucking rabbits. Did you at least eat them?"
A wide grin splits Jason's face. Then he shakes his head and twists over a bit so Frank can cover some more ground in his pets. "Of course," he says, half into Frank's belly. "But I've got other things I can do now." He doesn't elaborate on the other things. "Camp's just loud. I forgot."
Before Leo had launched into his latest project spiel, Jason dropped that he was meeting with minor gods across the country. Touring cities and states alone certainly approached more silence than the screeching and yells of kids calling out to one another from several feet away. Or the constant clang of swords, the breakout of musical renditions from the Apollo cabin, or the braying of pegasi and unicorns.
"Jason, you grew up around wolves and Hannibal," Frank laughs, "And you don't like noise?"
Jason gestures to his ear. "Sound carries on air. I hear a lot more than everyone else."
Oh, they all think, then grimace at memories of embarrassing noises they've made when they thought they were far enough away no one else would notice it.
"It's more... in-depth," Jason adds quiet. "Like the flap of a butterfly's wings. And the last few gods have lived closer to the nature. Quieter, solitude." He laughs a quiet wisp of a laugh. "And then I come back here and it's more than just leaves rustling." He's quiet for a breath, then, "It's noise. And it's like it's inside me."
"I get it," Percy says. "I have whales trying to talk to me and that goes right through my bones." He shakes his head, voice quieting down. "It is hell."
Jason's knees draw up closer to him, his face twisting further into Frank's lap. "Yeah. It is."
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theagenes · 7 months
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This is a late night rant about 2014 Sebastian Vettel, not my usual type of content at all but I had to get it out of my system. 🎀
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I would have not particularly written this but I heard a comment about Sebastian's 2014 season and it bugged me, then I saw something very similar later that day and just thought about doing this.
Then what is it about ? Well initially, what I heard came from a commentator discussing George Russel and Lewis Hamilton's dynamic at Mercedes, and how, in their first moment driving against one another, the younger one tended to force the elder into driving a bit more desperately : to commit mistakes to try and beat their younger teammate. To this, the commentator also put the example of 2014 Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo, which the former had seen as a threat, and as a result, had been pressured into driving poorly in 2014.
The problem I have with this is that it just highlights how little people know, and on the contrary, how much people assume, about Sebastian's 2014 season — which, arguably, is probably one of his most overlooked. It is not so much that he had a poor season that year, more than why — and you will find that it is the combinaison of many factors, most of them I thought people knew very well, but as it turns out, not so much.
Why was it such a terrible season for him then ?
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First things first, I'd like to put this into perspective : we view 2014 as an “awful” season for him, if not by sheer, automatic contrast to 2013. It's not easy to have both your best and worst season follow each other in a 2 years' spawn : is it really though— his worst season ? Because it's not. Sebastian finished 5th in the driver championship that year, and stepped on a few podiums — some of them he even shared with his teammate Daniel Ricciardo.
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Here he is in Singapore 2014, lifting his trophy at venue which has never failed him. 🥸
Now 5th isn't so bad, especially considering there were more drivers competing in the championship, as well as a fiercer competition. Why does it stick in our minds as such a forgettable season for him then ? Well, as we saw, 2013 was his most dominant form ever, and there is nothing more humiliating than losing a Grand Prix with the “ 1 ” sticker branded onto your every belonging : car, caps, race suit, garage ; right next to your own name.
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But once that this a priori is out of the way, you will find that his 2014 season – although nowhere near his last four championship-winning years – was not simply Sebastian making silly mistakes, in the heap of the moment or born out of a rage to prove himself, because he felt threatened by his new teammate.
There are reasons behind 2014, and there are numerous.
An obvious reason, although going slightly in the same direction than what the commentator was saying – without ever reaching the same conclusion though – was that the 2014 season was all about changes for Sebastian : new regulations, new engines, new cars, new teammate : new dynamic. A change to which he adapted pretty poorly, that's undeniable, but which does not warrant for such a drastic drop of performance — when compared to 2013 or 2011, his most dominant years, but even 2012, one of the hardest fought championship he ever won, or 2010 or 2009, two championships to which he teethed and clawed at, for two very different outcomes. What I mean is that you simply do not go from breaking and setting new, unheard-of records (still unbroken, as I write this), winning 13 races out of 19, and only missing out on 2 podium finishes in an entire season, to climbing on the top of a few, scarce podiums the very next year — or at least, not without a justification.
This justification, you will find, comes into a much simpler, intertwined reason than you might think. To put it very simply, I would say “Ferrari” on one side, and “Michael Schumacher” on the other. Don't forget where we stand, and where we are : this is 2014. A few month prior, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian's greatest hero, friend and counsellor, had been drastically injured in a skying accident.
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This might seem a bit foreign to us nowadays, and although we all know about his accident, do we always remember the precise date ? December 29 2013, during the winter break and somehow, both at the same time, a moment of joy and celebration for Sebastian, as well as sorrow and grief. How do you celebrate your greatest achievement in the sport of your dream, when a primordial component of this very childhood dream, your hero, fights for his life in a remote hospital ? And it's no well-hidden secret that Michael's accident dealt a terrible blow to Sebastian's mental health — he talked about it himself in interviews saying that the period which followed was one of the toughest of his life. The 2014 season cannot be extracted from its context, and the driver that got into his car this year was a man grieving, constantly ; persistently.
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The third reason is very much linked to the second, as Michael Schumacher had a great impact over Sebastian's dream of ever driving shed in red. 2014 is also a turning point in Sebastian's career : both a pivot and a fulcrum, to later become an unsteady keystone. The thing is, the discussions over Sebastian ever joining Red Bull had started as early as 2008, although at this time, he had chosen to commit to Red Bull. The movement from Red Bull to Ferrari did not happen in one day, and it surely did not pop into Sebastian's mind over the spawn of a few month. It must have been there for years, simmering until he finally crossed the threshold and took a step. A move he had to make without any word of advise from the person who had made him want to join Ferrari in the first place.
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The 2014 season was not so much his last year with Red Bull, more than a springboard-year before his first season with Ferrari. It was never going to be a year where Sebastian would fight for a championship, not even for wins or podiums : on the contrary, not winning with Red Bull was the only remaining necessity. His contract with Red Bull was set until the 2015-2016 season, and as we've seen in the past, a driver leaving his team is always legally managed by a contract : in order for this to happen, there has to be a clause which can break their pre-existing contract. It was the case with Daniel Ricciardo last year (2022) who was kindly thanked by McLaren in exchange of a good sum of money : that was the mandatory loophole in the contract for it to work. Similarly with Sebastian in 2014, the loophole in his contract was all about championship points. Helmut Marko talked about it after Sebastian's move from one team to the other, saying that this transaction had not came as a backstab at all, simply because it had been done in full knowledge of their team.
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What do we think about it, as a whole ? Of course, I have no purpose to cast a shadow on Daniel Ricciardo's very good season in 2014 : his victories were his and he didn't rob anyone of them, nor his podiums. What I am trying to say is that there is no correlation between those two chains of event : in the same way that Sebastian losing did not help Daniel winning, Daniel winning did not make Sebastian lose. I don't think this 2014 season should be summed up as Sebastian feeling pressured by a younger teammate into making mistakes after mistakes — all the more considering his sheer streak of unluckiness and the unavoidable DNF's, engine and car failures he had no role into. Wouldn't it be pretty simplist, to link Daniel's victories to Sebastian, and wouldn't it take a bit from them ? I sincerely think that they are not linked, and that his – arguably weaker, although 5th position in the championship is no small feat if it is regarded as your very worst, considering most drivers never even win a Grand Prix, let alone make it to the top 5 of the WDC – 2014 season was about something else entirely.
Perhaps that it was less about being beaten by a teammate than saying farewell to a former team in the smoothest way possible ; for once losing sight of the championship to achieve something bigger, to try and reach for a childhood dream.
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Pictures are from Motorsport Images (cr: Vettel 2014 Portrait) / Alfred Guillou - Adieu ! / - Lora Mathis - If There's A Way Out I'lI Take It / Edward John Poynter - The corner of the villa / Franz Ludwig Catel - Porch of a Church in a lunar landscape / The Guardian / Witold Pruszkowki - Falling Star / Patrick Gale - Notes from an exhibition, p.36 / Sebastian Vettel for the Daily Telegraph / Dr Helmut Marko for Sky Sports / Johan Christian Dahl - View of Dresden by Moonlight.
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sam-loves-seb · 4 months
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weely tag wednesday
thanks for the tags @energievie @metalheadmickey @deedala !
which character from any media would you like to have as a father? jed bartlet (the west wing)
if money, laws, time, and effort were no object, what animal would you want to have? probably just a cat tbh i'm not a big animal person (i think they're neat, i just don't really have the desire to own any of them)
what is your Chinese takeout order? pork fried rice and chicken fingers
what's your favourite emoji? this one: ✨
would you rather have a library, greenhouse, or home theater in your house? a home theater. a library would be sick but i read mostly ebooks so i think a theater would get more use out of me.
what childhood tv show do you think of the most fondly? Spongebob Squarepants. me and my sister used to watch this every single night with our dad when we were little, but if we wanted to stay up and watch it we had to be all ready for bed by the time it came on
what was your tumblr like when you first joined? it was a lot of reblogs of aesthetic photographs because it was 2012 and i was 14. not long after that tho it turned into a sebastian stan fan blog which is how i got my url, and over time that slowly morphed into the multi fandom madness you see today
what clothing style do you love but don't feel compelled to replicate yourself? god i don't know, my closet is a little bit of everything because i always wanna try a new style when i see it. i honestly don't think i have an answer for this one, i really do love fashion and my style is constantly changing
if you were plopped into a fictional world, which one would you know the layout of the best? i have no idea. acotar maybe? solely because i've read those books so many times? yeah i guess i'll go with that
what is your favourite piece of art? café terrace at night
do you have a water bottle? what does it look like? i have a light blue wide mouth nalgene water bottle that is covered in stickers and has two friendship bracelets dangling from the cap strap. it's giving major camp counselor vibes.
what fanfic trope is a quiet fave? look, if i go on a quiet hunt for fics tagged aftercare every now and then, that is between me and god so shut the fuck up about it
do you carry a daily bag? what does it look like? what's the weirdest thing in it? nope. i don't have an office bag bc i wfh and on the weekends i absolutely despise carrying a purse. i have one of those phone cases with card slots on the back and it holds everything i could possibly need.
if you had to ship Mickey with another Gallagher, who would it be? sexually i think it'd have to be lip, but if i could platonically ship him with someone i think i'd pick fiona. idk i just think they'd get along better than anyone would think.
what is a fanfic trope you didn't expect to like and then very much did? friends to lovers kinda snuck up on me in my adulthood. i used to be very against it as a teen, but now that i'm grown and have actually seen the trope done well in fics and in media, it's one of my favorite tropes of all time.
Do you think s11 Mickey can still carry s11 Ian? yes 100% absolutely and anyone who says otherwise is lying. (did we all see noel's s11 body? we saw the abs right? mans was ripped in the last season even tho the writers like, never showed it, and it is my personal mission to avenge this wrongdoing) i'm kidding about the lying part but yeah, he absolutely can still carry s11 ian, being able to lift his husband is the only reason he still goes to the gym
who got custody of the killing bat when they sold the house? debbie. i think carl wanted it, but he already has a gun so he gave it to debbie instead.
tagging: @suchagallabitch @gallawitchxx @callivich @michellemisfit @iansw0rld and anyone else who wants to play !
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scrapheapchallenge · 4 months
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"Just Neil Gaiman being wholesome again" but also Rob Wilkins being extra wholesome too! On Tuesday evening I went to this talk https://living-knowledge-network.co.uk/library/the-worlds-of-terry-pratchett By Rob Wilkins and Neil Gaiman.
Neil was co-author of "Good Omens" with Sir Terry Pratchett, and they collaborrated on many other books together here and there, just not sharing co-author status too - read this article for more info: http://www.elizabethcallaway.net/good-omens-stylometry?fbclid=IwAR2hVnd8aTYFBZqphk8SzYt8j1NucBl5mUxbDscF3kljQ9Bpuq2leUW2S6I Confirmed by Neil yet again on Tuesday.
Rob Wilkins was Terry's PA, and now manages his estate, as his representative. He also wrote "A life in footnotes" - the official biography of Terry.
On Tuesday evening, I arrived at the British Library very early, and was guided up to the Piggot Theatre lobby to wait by a security person, so I was there before anyone else, including Rob. All the staff were absolutely lovely. When they noticed there weren't any gaps for wheelchair spaces in the audotorium, facilities engineers were summoned and made short work of unbolting a set of 3 seats to make a wheelchair space for myself and another wheelchair user who turned up later.
Then Rob turned up, carrying a mannequin, Terry's leather jacket, scarf, hat, and other stuff.
Now the email we recieved before the event said that Neil wouldn't have time to do any signings that evening, although they didn't mention Rob, so I asked him if he might be able to sign my copy of "a life in footnotes".
He happily said yes, and once he'd sorted his things out, he came back out to chat to me for a while and OMG he was the loveliest person EVER!
I gave him a print I'd signed of my ink portrait of the Bentley, and some stickers of my other Bentley illustrations, and he said "WAIT! I have presents for you too! I'll be right back!" Then rushed off to the green room. (Below are the ink portrait, then I gave him small stickers of the "this is fine" flaming Bentley - which I was also wearing on my t-shirt that day - and my most recent digital portrait of Crowley and the Bentley - and yes it is all hand drawn, not a photo manipulation, feel free to zoom in. A couple of years separate these 3 drawings and I'd been working hard on learning photorealism.)
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He came back and gave me Terry and Neil badges, which he explained you only get if you meet them in person. I had met Terry (and incidentally Rob as well) years ago at a book signing, plus I met Neil, albeit briefly, on Tuesday as he came through the lobby and said hello.
He was happy to chat and especially about cars, which he also loves. He confirmed that I was 100% correct about the "2 whole cars and a cab for CGI" between seasons 1 and 2, and that the interior colour change is nothing to do with plot it legitimately is just continuity errors if they forgot to cover the new Bentley's new seats with covers matching the old Bentley's orange ones. (The cab only also has orange leather seats).
When I told him about this year's RREC (Rolls Royce Enthusiast's Club - also for Bentleys) Christmas card design, he was delighted, and asked to take a photo of the image I had of one on my phone because he wants to order some as well.
I showed him my re-usable coffee cup from "give me coffee or give me death" which we were given on the set tour, and which I had Sir Derek Jacobi sign at a comic con the other week. Rob thought that was wonderful, and then did something extra sweet...
He asked me "if you're ok trusting me with this for a little while, would you like me to sneak it back to the green room to ask Neil to sign it for you as well? Then I'll come and find you afterwards to give it back again."
HELL YES! I couldn't believe it! I hadn't wanted to ask because we'd been told that Neil wouldn't be signing things due to lack of time, so for Rob to spontaneously make the offer was not something I was expecting. He did also take my Occult Edition of Good Omens to ask if Neil would sign that as well.
I didn't fully expect that he would, and was prepared for him to come back later and say "sorry he was too busy", and that would have been fine, but no: Neil DID sign them both!
Neil writing "burn this (big fancy) book!" was a spin on how Terry used to sign copies of Good Omens: "burn this book" - which is actually embossed on the rear cover of this edition.
Later, Rob also signed it for me, as did Colin Smythe, who was Terry's publisher and lifelong friend.
We were sitting at the front, only about 7 or 8 feet from Neil, the talk was wonderful, we laughed, we cried a little, and Terry was with us in the form of the mannequin with his jacket, scarf, and hat (which are also on set of Good Omens at all times while filming, and also even during rehersals/table reads - so he's always present.)
Rob is honestly so bloody wholesome, he was hugging a lot of people, and ever so sweet, taking time to chat to other people as the venue filled up, and stayed behind to sign things and talk to other folks as well.
I also got to chat to Dr Pat Harkin and Dr Jan Clarke, who were the researchers who spent months of hard work tracking down Terry's lost short stories in the national archives in Boston Spa, which were released in a compliation book "A stroke of the pen." If I'd known that they'd be there as well, I'd have taken that book and asked them to sign it too. They were in the audience and sitting next to us with Colin Smythe. I was truly surrounded by Pratchett royalty, and everyone, without exception, was SO friendly and lovely.
I had done two prints of the Bentley drawing and stickers, for Rob and for Neil, in case I got chance to give them to them, and when I gave Rob his, I said I had some for Neil as well, and again, he OFFERED to take them to give them to Neil for me.
Although I didn't get chance to thank Neil in person, I wanted to reach out to let him know I was very grateful for his kindness as well, so sent him a message via his "ask" channel, although not with an expectaction of reply - just for him to see privately and know that I was appreciative. But he chose to actually publish it as a public reply, which was lovely of him. I hadn't wanted to thank him publicly just in case he didn't want others to know that he had signed some items after all. I'd been expecting to have to wait until he did a proper public appearance with signing at a comic con or something - although with him living in the USA, not the UK, I may have had to wait a long time.
So I guess the answer is to getting an autograph - turn up 2 hours early, and be very VERY nice and polite to Rob Wilkins 😅 (but also don't expect results - I didn't, it just sort of happened).
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journalsouppe · 5 months
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The Afternoon Tea DGS zine by @afternoonteazine!! Oh I absolutely adore this zine it is such a perfect theme for The Great Ace Attorney :') The art and writing and merch are all just gorgeous and made me so hungry, I can't get over how cute everything is
As a bonus I also ordered the sketchbook! I have a small review and test page of the sketchbook under keep reading but I am SO pleasantly surprised with the book. Any DGS or even Ace Attorney zine/stickers/spreads I make will now be in this sketchbook so commentary might be shorter because of it! (Game spreads will still be in my larger journal)
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Writing Typed Below! (As well as images of the merch and sketchbook notes)
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Sept 2023
Zine theme: An English and Japanese tea theme with DGS characters
Merch List:
TEA PARTY (Full bundle + Sketchbook)
Phys + Dig zine
digital emotes
cookie sticker sheet (lostkimin)
tote bag (ooowyn)
Steeping prints (jasminebythebay)
iris charm (jasminebythebay)
gina sticker (starjuicebox)
cups charm (pandalanachick)
coaster (merrymint)
pin (merrymint)
washi (replikayt)
herlock and yuujin stickers (replikayt)
sketchbook (replikayt)
+2 page art spreads turned into prints
This is such a perfect zine theme for this particular game duology. I absolutely love what everyone has made. The art and writing is all so cozy and sweet, it makes me want to have a tea party of my own. I am so pleasantly surprised by the quality of what I received, especially the notebook which is much thicker than expected! TYSM to all the artists, writers, and mods, y'all killed it. I love this sm.
Comments
The cookie stickers are so cute and look so yummy
tea cups ride charm :') :') :')
nyasked disciple cake pin... I'll eat him ngl
AHHH the case names but with tea puns
All of the art is gorgeous and making me so hungry
LOVE the tote, I really like the size of it too omg
I'd love to frame the tea prints and hang them near my tea area
AHHH THE IRIS CHARM
all the stickers are so cute and silly
ryuu with onigiri rice on his face on the coaster omg
that washi is so perfect for this zine omg
THE SKETCHBOOK IS SO NICE
steep for 2 minutes is going to make me cry T^T!
love all the tiny and homey details on the cover :')
had to take a snack break before working on this more lol
love the poison iris is brewing <3<3
the gregson, stronghart, and sithe piece is such a cool idea
klimt and lady baskerville are so cute
Sketchbook Review
The cover is printed well and very durable. The pages are thick and I was surprised at how big the sketchbook is! I have a few mini square sketchbooks and they don't have nearly as many pages as this sketchbook. It also includes a back pocket, a ribbon, and an elastic clasp. Another surprising bit is the pages are honestly some of the smoothest pages I've ever felt. It's not a bad thing at all but I have just never touched paper this nice before lol. That does mean the way some materials react to the paper will be different, but none of my test materials bled through the pages. (only faint outlines/shadows but not full bleed). I genuinely adore this sketchbook and am so happy to have snagged one during preorders
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polarisdelphi · 3 months
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Back on posting old art I never posted, Frau Schneider, my beloved 🖤
I'm seriously considering turning her into a sticker and slapping it everywhere I need to remember something to do. Drinking water? Frau is there judging me. Writing? Frau is waiting. Sleeping at a decent time? She's at the clock, looking at me with hatred in her eyes.
Jokes aside, this was more of a try on stylized drawing, which I completely suck. Since I studied Schneider's face thoroughly once for another drawing, I figured stylizing him would be easier for me as a first try.
I love his nose HAHAHAHA that's my anchor on his likeness xD
Sketches, breakdowns on how I got here, what I thought on shapes and more on his features - and just general artist blabbering, down below!
It was born from these loose sketches:
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And I do like the ~proper~ one too. Took a lot of screenshots of the video's making of to understand his mannerisms when ~in Frau~, and there's a big change between the video and the live versions.
Video is a proper, collected, older woman with a dark side from repressed unfulfilled desires, live one is a brute, angry, harshly dominant one. 100% angry all the time, taking her dogs for a walk 🖤
Keeping some harsh shapes on the first one 'cause we all know she's evil, and some more organic ones on the second one 'cause she's UNHINGED.
(Also, Frau's coat are a thousand little Edelweiss 'cause you know. Schneider, Austria, his wife hahahaha aaaaand I have roots from there too, so I decided to shamelessly slap Edelweiss everywhere xD)
Another interesting thing to note, was trying to keep the male proportions on a female presenting appearance. Because we all learn about better shapes for women, how they usually are ~smaller, softer and more delicate~ than males (please read with sarcasm) but Schneider is still a man in woman's clothing, acting like a woman. So I had to keep in mind what I'd draw if it was just him as himself - big hands, big feet, tall as a fucking tree, very large shoulders, toned arms and muscles, all that. No ~delicate~ features 'cause he's still a man, but in here he's a woman.
I'm not saying I succedeed. But it was a good first try :)
Given I have so many drag queen original characters, it's something I think it was nice to study and have in mind T-T
About his features, like I said, I studied him once 'cause I was trying to go for stylized Live aus Berlin Schneider illustration once, but all I got is: I can draw his likeness from memory now, that's it *cries in incompetence*
I said before, I'm not good at stylizing.
So, his key features are: very slim and small mouth, big nose (gods I love his nose, I'll always say that), kinda small eyes and there's almost no distance to his eyebrows (on the video they paint his brows to make a LOT more arched, almost like original Maleficent), longer face, big and square chin, sharp and high cheekbones. I figured if I kept all that in mind, I'd have his likeness.
That's what I used to go figuring out how to draw Frau like that :)
And why am I blabbering all this?
I just hope it helps other self-taught artists out there who have a hard time finding resources and see other people's drawings and go "oooh man how do I get there?" and the artist always go "I dunno just draw a lot and you will get there :)"
Yes, yes, draw a lot. If you don't practice, you won't learn. But there ARE tools, observation studies, drawing studies and a WHOLE lot of things you can learn from other people to get where you want to faster and easier - but most of these resources are, nowadays, behind a paywall. So I just figured I'll share what I learned and hopefully it'll help someone struggling with the same things I did less than a year ago ;)
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heartfulselkie · 10 months
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Love Letters too?
So this is an idea that's been sitting in the back of my mind for a long time and I got to thinking about it again recently thanks to discord conversations.
This AU comes from me thinking about this concept art and some discussion about it that was floating around awhile back.
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Basic premise is that this is a non-Miraculous AU Adrien and Felix are twins. Felix is more or less the same as he is in canon except he obviously lives in Paris and attends the same school as the Miracuclass.
However in this AU Adrien has never gone to public school because of a disability/often poor health. (I'm still trying to decide what exactly but I've been considering chronic fatigue/balance problems.) Because of this, he's homeschooled and housebound a lot of the time unless he's doing photoshoots etc. because Gabriel is still worst parent to ever parent.
Through some shenanigans (and Felix's reluctant involvement) Adrien and Marinette become anonymous pen pals. Even though they don't know the face behind the letters they receive, they become very attached to each other through those letters.
Here's a little snippet from my drabbles:
With the envelopes safely in hand though, Adrien could now take his time in appreciating them. He smiled as his thumb traced over the embossed shape of a sticker. It was how she sealed them. A cute sticker to hold the envelope closed, which he would then meticulously open again so that the stick would remain intact. He couldn’t help but smile as he looked at the envelopes in hand, reminding himself of which particular decorative seal they had. One had a pink flower, another had a peach coloured macaroon and the last had a little black cat face. He chuckled at the cat in particular, because he suspected that it hadn’t always been black but had in fact been coloured in by her. He would read each letter in turn, but it was that one he went for first. Cher Chaton, The suggestions you made to my latest project were just what I needed. You were right for me to need to step back and look at it with a fresh eye. I finally figured out where I was going wrong and now the dress is finally coming together! And I know you suggested green (yes I got your hints about it being one of your favourite colours) but I think lime green would be a bit too much. But don't worry Minou, I still listened to you. Green makes an excellent accent colour with black after all. Adrien smile grew as he continued to read through the letter. Her writing, while a little bit smudged and wobbly in places, was so precise in its detail and description that he could easily imagine the dress she'd been toiling over for the better part of a month now. It helped that he knew what a mermaid skirt was or a Peter Pan collar was, but even so he could visualise her delicate fingers meticulously sewing the fabric together.
I've spoken about this AU before, but it has has gone through a lot of shifts and changes sicne then. Mainly I've been reconsidering if I want it to be a non-Miraculous AU or not, because keeping the kwamis and miraculous involved does open up for more love square fun.
There was also a number of ideas the I lifted from my original concept for this AU and transferred to one of my other fics, since that fic gave way more space and scope for those ideas to work.
Sadly this fic just hasn't taken a forward spot in my active WiP rotation. I do really want to write it, but I want to make sure I do a fair job depicting Adrien's disability and struggles. Something like that just takes time and research (such as making sure that whatever disability I give him works narratively among other things) and I'd hate to do it poorly.
Ask Game
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rainytomorrows · 8 months
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Hunk x GN!reader | Leaping for Love Letters
Hey, y'all! I have had no willpower to write my ao3 fics, so I thought I'd throw up a cute little one-shot. I've had violent Hunk brain rot for a while now, so I made him ANOTHER fic. He totally deserves it. Enjoy! Gender neutral as always. (1,995 words)
♡~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~♡
Letters had begun showing up from under your door. Beautiful colored envelopes closed with cute little stickers. Though, miraculously, whenever you opened the door to check who had sent them the hallway would always be hauntingly barren. A particular silence overtook it each time as you’d return to your room to read them. The paper was always decorated in a way that pertained to you. A faded print of your favorite flowers in the back, a pretty color you liked, never dull white paper. They read like old-time poets and Hozier songs, yearning dearly for you in such a beautifully worded way you couldn’t do anything but wonder who sent it. Realistically, there were only three people who could be sending these. Unless one or more of them were in cahoots with some alien and indirectly handing these off to you. You continued to sit on your bed, thinking of each and every possibility. Any singular way that it could be anyone but Hunk.
It’s not that you didn’t want it to be him, you dearly hoped so. There were just risks with getting your hopes up. You were stuck in space with him- with everybody. Making things awkward would be so much worse.
The endless cycle of overthinking was killing you. Who could it be? It ate at you nightly like a dog gnawing on a bone. A deep part of you seemed to find hints that didn’t truly exist, the same part that hoped desperately that it was Hunk behind the correspondence. You’d wake up in the mornings wishing, and spend waking nights hoping. Though with no hope, as every night that the letters came in there seemed to be no trace leftover. You were one letter away from performing high-level espionage.
Then came the fateful afternoon, you were reading another letter when you heard a knock at the door. Setting aside the letter you called out, “Come in!” and Pidge walked their way into the room. They could see a particular air around you, sitting down on the edge of the bed beside you. Having solved many problems on the ship with Hunk, they began to notice whenever someone was trying to mentally figure something out. Seeing this they moved from the other side of the room to sit next to you.
“Whatcha thinkin' about?” Pidge questioned, their usual voice quirk raising at the end of the sentence. Their head in their hands as their legs dangled off of the bed beside you. “Well,” You hesitated, unsure whether or not to bring Pidge into this. “I’ve been receiving what seems to be love letters, and I have no idea who is sending them.” You admitted, picking up the said letter and handing it to Pidge. “…Do you have someone you hope it is?” Pidge asked, almost seeming as if to interrogate. You turned your head a little, looking off in thought. “…Maybe”
The two of you talked for a while, you had some unshakeable feeling that they knew more than they let on but you tried not to test it. Ever since the letters started you were suspicious enough of everything as is, it’d be best not to jump to suspect any single person you talk to as some sort of accomplice to the letters.
Pidge had talked with you every so often, but not all of the time. It almost seemed obvious, but at the same time, it could just be your predisposed hopes. The letters were loving and well thought out. They had attention to detail and were tooth-rotting-ly sweet. The only people on the ship around your age were Hunk, Keith, and Lance. High hopes on the former, Hunk. Keith was too much of an edge lord. Sure he could have a soft side, and maybe you were being judgemental, but the letters just did not seem his style. Not to mention, the way they were written just seemed too, intricate, for Lance. He was flirtatious for sure and you could see him writing daily letters way easier than you could see Keith doing it, but something told you any love letter written by Lance would be a lot less formal and a lot more amorous.
Then again- what if Hunk was simply helping them write their letters? That would be a real punch in the gut. Or back to an earlier suspicion- what if an alien you met on another planet was simply getting these letters delivered to you? You relayed memories, trying to remember any alien that was any sort of a romantic. Admittedly there weren’t many you could think of, but it still wasn’t a crossed-off possibility. Hunk seemed more the type for these kinds of letters, but the concept of it was stuck behind a mental jail cell. That possibility entirely depended on him even liking you back. The concept seemed too foreign. The idea that a guy such as him, a total catch, had reciprocated such feelings. Not only regularly, but to the degree to send secret letters and on occasion even well thought gifts alongside them. It was unthinkable. He was amiable and adorably friendly to you- but that didn’t mean squat. I mean, he was friendly to most people. He was a nice guy. You had no right to assume based on just that. Sure you were also a total catch, and no doubt incredibly attractive. Though still, with any crush there’s a sense of doubt.
Days dragged on and hints grew thin, you had no real valid proof or reason. At this point, it wasn’t far-fetched to imagine you hanging up a corkboard littered with pins and string in your room. The same way they do when they solve mysteries in the movies. Letters stockpiled within your desk, notes in journals. You were desperate to find who was sending them, in the same breath desperate for the author to be Hunk.
More weeks passed and no closer. It was a Saturday, and by the time noon had shown itself on your clock nearly all you did all day was try and figure out who was writing you. By now, everything about their handwriting down to the exact way they dot their i’s was memorized. The way they spoke, their mannerisms. Exhausted, you dramatically sat up from your chair. Cracking your back, stretching your arms and legs. It was time for a break. You fixed yourself a snack and roamed the halls, whoever you spotted first you’d likely try and join them out of boredom. Taking miscellaneous sips of your drink whilst looking into any doorway you came across.
On your way, you cross Hunk’s room. The door was left open but he wasn’t there. Strange. You were about to leave when a pile of various colors spot your eye. It was a pile of cute decorative paper. Similar to the ones used for the letters you were receiving. Next to it, the same cute envelopes you always found them in. And a sticker book, the ones they always got closed with. Next to all this, a piece of cute paper with an unfinished letter. Was this the final hint? Was it truly him? Not yet, you told yourself. One more hint though, one more sign, and you might just lose it. Finally, you leave without poking around too much. Continuing your journey to find people.
Just your luck you finally spot some people, it just happened to be Pidge and Hunk problem-solving at a blackboard. There had been some issues with the ship that Allura and Coran couldn’t figure out. It was very minimal, but nipping things like this in the bud was always good. You sat yourself down before taking a good look at the board, leaning back in your chair and asking Pidge what was going on. Hunk was busy on the blackboard writing down some equations alongside some notes to try and solve the aforementioned issues.
“Well, there are some navigation issues and general glitches. Doors won’t close when they’re supposed to, the food machine is being weird again, and on top of all that the map seems to be-” They didn’t even get a chance to finish their sentence before you suddenly spat out your drink, hopping out of your chair and running towards the board. Your gaze shot back and forth between him and the board fervently, placing your drink and snack down to run a lap around the room. Once you were done you returned to him, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him in excitement.
“I KNEW IT! I FUCKING KNEW IT!” You shouted eagerly, spinning around and pumping a fist in the air. Part of you wanted to stop- to think of what other explanation there could be for the similar handwriting. All silenced by your overflowing joy at the possibility of it realistically being him. “What? Knew what??” He asked confused, unsure what about his equation could be sparking this sort of revelation in you. “YOU’RE THE ONE WRITING ME ALL THE GODDAMN LETTERS!” You exclaimed vehemently, throwing your hands up before gesturing at the board. “I’ve been studying them this whole time! All day every day! I’ve memorized the handwriting, it’s the same! The same way you dot your i’s, the same way you write your a’s, it’s identical!!!” You laid out your observations. Unaware of how crazy you sounded. “You uh,” He started nervously, a light blush only further proving any point you had. “You memorized my handwriting that- acutely?” He questioned, impressed with the dedication you had clearly put forth. You were unsure from your perspective how he felt, however. “Well, yes.” You began, now a lot less energetic and confident than before. “I uh, I really wanted it to be you.” You backed off a little, unsure of how to read his expression.
“I TOLD YOU!” Pidge responded for him, also jumping from their seat now. “I TOLD YOU THEY WERE TOTALLY INTO YOU! BUT ‘NOOOO THERE’S NO WAY’!” Pidge asserted. As it turned out, Pidge was in on it the whole time. Pidge delivered all of the letters, and while they had no input on what went into the letters they were deadset on it working. Absolutely sure that the two of you were uselessly pining for each other. Hunk was a blushing mess, hand on the nape of his neck while he tried to gather his words.
It seemed Pidge had enough of this, as before he could successfully do so they were pushing y’all out the door and shutting it. Not without struggle, as they still hadn’t fixed the doors, but they did so. You were stuck, also without words, with the man you had only now learned had reciprocated feelings for you.
“GO ON A DATE ALREADY!!” Pidge shouted, muffled by the door they had just managed to shut. Leaving you alone without any sort of plan to follow up with. Or your food. Hunk turned to you slowly, clearly also unsure of what to say. Until he noticed at the same time you did that your food was stuck in there.
“How about for our first date,” He began, gaining your full attention. You were so alluring, he choked on his words for a minute before gaining the ability to speak again. “I cook you some more food to make up for the stuff you lost in there?” He offered, hands shaking and face going red. “I’d love that.”
Y’all hung out in the kitchen for a while, him cooking and you giving the rundown on all the notes you took on the letters. An impressively long conversation in that regard. He returned it by mentioning the work it took to find all your favorite things. Your favorite flowers, colors, snacks, and interests. All the things he mentioned and used in his letters.
The two of you started out starstruck, and as you started to date that never seemed to go away. ♡~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~♡ Hope you enjoyed it! I had a lot of fun writing it, lord knows I'm a sucker for big strong men with a soft spot. I just know he could throw me around like a paperweight and would totally care about you. What else do you need in life? Anyhow, have a good day/night, and a great life!!
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roller6262 · 11 months
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I generated a picture, I think you'll really like embodying! You'll get to eat without worry and spend lot of time in the garden, doesn't that seem fun?
HELP! Do any of my followers have a picture of me? I mean the REAL me?
I got this ask in my inbox and didn't think anything of it until I went shopping and saw mangoes in the produce section. I'm usually more of an apple man, but today I had a craving. No, a need. I couldn't even wait, peeling the sticker off to pay later so I could take a bite. It was like heaven! Perfectly in season too. I ravenously finished the rest and was about to grab another before
"UUURRRRPPPP" I belched! And it wasn't just the smell of mango. Vegetables, spices, and more unfamiliar were on my breath. That's when I noticed my usually baggy shirt grazing my stomach. It wasn't flat anymore, maybe a bit paunchier? I guessed bloating would explain the sudden gas, but my suspicions turned to an allergic reaction as it kept growing! I bolted towards the door, growing bigger with every step, from gutted to chubby to fat and down right obese! I would say I was inflating if it weren't for my belly also softening. It now rose and fell with every movement, my growing man boobs also suspending then slapping back down on my stomach.
I could even feel the fat on my face when I finally made it outside. I hunched over, hands on my knees and breathing heavy between plump cheeks. I shouldn't be this tired already, but I had to walk the rest of the way to my car. And to make it worse my thighs were irritated by the friction in my soccer pants as they rubbed together. By the time I arrived I was waddling with what felt like trunk legs and labored into my sedan.
I rushed home and heard honking, probably from my reckless driving, but there were no cars around me. It was this fat gut slapping the horn! I adjusted my seat back and sighed. BEEP. Seriously!? I adjusted back again BEEP. It wasn't until the farthest back that I stopped getting fatter, but now that it wasn't touching the wheel I could feel the breeze on it. Of course, my shirt was too small now, riding up to nearly my moobs. I tried to tug my shirt down multiple times to cover myself with no use, until suddenly it all came down at once. If I had looked down, I might have seen the pink fabric flowing down to my knees, but I was distracted by a "BRAAAAAAAP"
I grabbed a pink handkerchief in my car to wipe the mango juice from my lips when I felt... hair? Looking in the rear view mirror I saw a full beard, and it wasn't just my face. I had a full mane of beautiful long hair, black hair! It was just too weird! I tied my hair up with my handkerchief to keep it out of my peripheral vision. I just had to focus on driving, I'd be home soon enough. However, I could feel something silky wrapping around my head. It was lopsided at times, throwing off my center of gravity. When my head tilted left, I turned left, and the same thing on the right. I made so many wrong turns I wasn't sure where I was, but looking in the rear view mirror again I saw that my handkerchief had grown and wrapped into a pink turban. With another tilt, it tugged me to make a turn into a neighborhood next to a gurdwara. I drove a few blocks and parked in front of a house. It wasn't my house, not the one I remembered, but it was home.
I heaved myself out of the minivan (which I had only realized was changed later), and waddled with more comfort in my silk pants. But I didn't waddle to the front door. No, I went to the garden... the garden where mangos were growing. I grabbed one and took a bite. Why, these were even better than the grocery store! Just like the ones in my farm in Punjab! I was so happy I could keep a taste of my homeland with me, even in another country.
Sorry, I lost my train of thought! Anyways now I'm in this garden and it's getting dark! I feel like I'm going to have to go inside this house soon, and meet the new family that is waiting for me. I'm afraid that if I do, I'll get sucked further into this new reality! Please, if anyone has a picture of me, send it to my asks so I can transform back to normal!
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cloudlessly-light · 1 year
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Hello🤗 I have a request.
It's not smut (weird from me lmao)
So they are with an unsub, and this unsub is like "torturing" aaron. it could be something personal like foyet because hotch is like tied up end blah blah.
Emily comes and she is like "shoot me" or she puts a gun to her head to distract the unsub in order to save aaron. the team arrives and shoot the unsub and blah blah and hotch is like "you never point a gun at your head again to save me. i'd rather get shoot twenty times over than ever see you do that again".
It could be something like what happened in season 6 of grey's anatomy but him is awake and not in an OR lol.
I saw it on tiktok and i thought it could be really cool
A/N: I hope that you like this, it was definitely out of my comfort zone but fun to write!
Title: If the world would ever stop Rating: T Summary: "Shoot me." It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. They were supposed to catch a murderer and go home, it was supposed to be a fast case done in a couple of days. He had never been so wrong. Warnings: Violence, canon typical violence, guns, knifes, mentions of blood, swearing
Six days ago
“Alright my friends, you’re all going to Wisconsin.” Penelope turned the screen on as soon as the team had sat down around the table, all reaching for the files in the middle of it. “Green Bay have had five men shot once in the back of the head and disposed of in garbage bags…” She stops like she always does she when a particular detail filled her with horror. “Multiple garbage bags actually.”
“The ME concluded that the dismemberment was done postmortem.” Aaron continued for her. “The rate of the kills have escalated from a month apart between the first two victims, to just one week between victim four and five.” He looks around the team as they nod along, already getting ready to stand up.
“The locals are worried that they won’t catch him until another body drops.” Derek finishes and Aaron nods.
“They want us there as soon as possible, we’ll work on the profile on the plane.” He stands when the rest of his team does. He looks to his left at Emily and lets his hand move to the small of her back. “I’ll call Jessica.”
“Sounds good.” She moves away but not without grabbing his hand and squeezing it, a small gesture of affection before she leaves the room like everybody else.
Five days ago
They had hit the ground running, the profile given as early as the same day thanks to evidence and the police work already done but no one had any idea how to catch the unsub.
“I don’t know honey, something feels off. Like we’re missing something.” He sighs as he lets her into their hotel room.
“So you’ve said.” Emily turns to him as he comes to stand in front of him. “It’s been one day, in the morning things will seem clearer.” She reaches to push some hair that’s fallen over his forehead and he smiles at the gentle gesture.
“You’re right.” He kisses her, lingers against her as they finally give in to the urge of each other. He feels her hand stroke along his jaw, grabs at his suit to push it off his shoulder.
“How about we shower, I show you just how much I love you, and then we’ll try and get some sleep?” She mumbles with an arched eyebrow, her eyes playful as she continues to push at his jacket until it falls to the floor.
“I like the sound of that.”
Four days ago
“There’s no surveillance footage, there’s no car, there’s nothing to go by.” Penelope tells them and the sighs are heard throughout the conference room.
“There’s no pattern to the disposal sites either.” Spencer says as he puts red stickers on the map. “No witnesses, nothing.”
Emily leans on her hand as she looks around at her team, all of them tired, all of them trying to find anything to go by. She looks to Aaron who sits across from her, his eyebrows are furrowing, the lines on his face deeper than she’d seen them in months.
“We’ll catch him.” She says to no one in particular but his eyes find hers. “We always do.”
It was a lie and they all knew it, but it seemed to be enough for them to push through.
Three days ago
Aaron silently puts the takeaway cup of coffee in front of her. They were no closer to catching the unsub than they had been when they got there three days ago. They had a profile, they were sure of it, but it wasn’t enough to go on.
“Thank you.” Emily smiles and takes a sip of the coffee, not caring that it was too hot. “Any leads?”
“Nothing.” Dave says as he sits down beside her while Aaron remains standing.
“It’s like he’s a ghost.” JJ mutters as her forehead rests on the table in front of her.
“No killer is uncatchable.” Dave reassures them. “He will make a mistake.”
“And by the time he does, we’ll have another man dead.” Derek says, the morbid thought having already been on everybody’s mind.
Two days ago
“He clearly has a type, he kills white men between the ages 40 and 50. They must represent someone in his life.” Derek looks through the file for what could possibly be the twentieth time that day as he massages his temples.
“We know that, what we don’t know is why.” Emily feels just as frustrated, what had seemed like an easy case was taking longer than any of them thought. “He kills them execution style, it’s cold, detached even.”
“But then he chops them up and puts them in garbage bags all over the city.”
“That could just be a way to easier dispose of the bodies.” Spencer adds before taking a sip of his coffee.
“I don’t know…” Emily starts as she looks at the crime scene photos from the first scene. “There’s something more to it.”
“What are you thinking?” Aaron asks as he walk into the conference room they were in, Dave and JJ in tow. He sits beside her and immediately sees the tension in her body. He puts his hand on her knee and her leg stops bouncing as she gives him a grateful smile.
“I’m not sure, but I think if we figure that out, we’ll figure him out.”
Yesterday
It was late, almost midnight when the team finally decided to get some rest, all of them frustrated at the lack of progress. They had all gotten back to the hotel, exhaustion etched into all of them as they muttered good night before disappearing into their rooms.
“You’re right, something feels off.” Emily says through a yawn as she pulls her shirt over her head.
“I hate saying this, but if we do get another victim we’ll have more to go on.” He answers as he looks through his pockets. “I forgot my phone in the car.” He sighs heavily, his own enervation clear. “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay honey.” She stamps a quick kiss on his lips, already moving towards the bathroom.
He sighs again as he grabs the keycard and heads back out toward the deserted parking lot. It’s quiet outside, dark and cold from the fall weather and he shivers as he hurries towards the SUV. He’s quick to grab his phone and is about to turn around, wanting to get in the shower with his fiancé. He’s barely able to take two steps before he suddenly feels something hard in the back of the head, and then everything is black.
Emily gets out of the shower and wraps a towel around her body. She had expected Aaron to join her after grabbing his phone but she had seen his exhaustion, she felt it as well and didn’t fault him for going straight to bed. She expects to find him on their bed sound asleep, something that happens sometimes on cases. But then she opens the door and he isn’t there and she immediately knows something is wrong. She reaches for her phone and dials his number and it goes to voicemail, calls again and the same thing happens.
She rushes through getting her clothes back on and hurries out to where they had parked the car. When she reaches it she can feel the blood turn to ice in her veins. The door was open, Aaron’s phone on the ground next to a small puddle of blood.
It’s too familiar, felt too much like when she got to his apartment and Foyet had attacked him, the panic feels the same, the worry for the man she loved almost all consuming. She runs back inside the hotel and bangs on the door next to their room.
“Prentiss what the hell… what’s going on?” Derek asks, his irritation quickly turning to concern when he sees the panicked look on his friend’s face.  
“It’s Aaron… he’s gone.”
Present day
When he wakes up the first thing he notices is the headache, a sharp pain that made his eyes unfocused. The next thing he realize is that he’s tied to a chair, arms secured behind his back and ancles tied to the legs of the chair with zip ties that cut painfully into his skin.
“He’s a fed that was not the plan.” He hears a voice, male and low, almost a whisper and Aaron looks around. He’s in a warehouse, empty and dirty but the smell of blood prominent, making him nauseous.
“I- I didn’t know.” Another voice sounded form somewhere behind him, this one shaking, scared.
Through the pounding in his head, Aaron realizes that this is what they’ve been missing. There was two of them, a team, and from the sound of it they seemed like a typical dominant submissive partnership. He hears a bang, followed by a whimper and he thinks the first man hit the second one.
“One more fuck up like this and I’m getting rid of you.” The voice is closer now and Aaron can hear the sound his steps coming at him. “Look who’s awake.”
Emily is pretty sure her heartrate won’t ever return to normal, at least not until she sees Aaron. If she ever sees him again, a voice in the back of her head sounds and she does her best to ignore it as they wait for Penelope to hack to the surveillance camera that covered the parking lot.
“Okay here it is!” Penelope pulls up the footage and all of them watch in horror as Aaron is attacked from behind and collapses on the ground. A man dressed in a black hoodie gets him up and pulls him into a car and drives off. It’s little to go on, but it’s something, she thinks as the license plate shimmers under the streetlight.
She feels JJ’s comforting hand on her shoulder and she fights every urge not to shrug it off. She didn’t want their pity of comfort, she wanted her fiancé back.
“Can you track the license plate?” Dave asks as they hear Penelope typing on the other side of the screen.
“Already on that.” She answers and not for the first time, Emily is thankful for the blonde always thinking one step ahead. “Okay the car belongs to a Stewart Smith, not much on him but he has an older brother Nathan Smith and let me tell you he’s a real piece of work…”
As Penelope starts telling them about the Smith brothers, Emily realizes that this was the break they needed to find them. A location to a house and to a warehouse quickly being found as Penelope dug deeper They had made a mistake, and now the team had an address. She just hoped it wasn’t too late.
Aaron groaned as a fist connected to his cheekbone, his head flying back with the force of it.
“They’ll kill you. My team, they’ll find you.” He spat at the floor, blood trailing from his split lip from a previous hit. His body was aching, his head was spinning but he refused to give in to them.
“Your team? Look around, you’re all alone.”  Nathan cocked his head to the side. “We’ve gotten away with this for over a month, and we’ll get away with this as well. But we’re going to have some fun first.”
Aaron felt the feeling of the cold steel cutting into his shoulder and he flinched before looking to the other man. He was younger, avoided eye contact as he pulled the knife back to look at the blood covered blade.
“So this is what you do?” He looked to Nathan. “You shoot them and then have him cut up the remains?”
“Stewart here have always enjoyed the blood more.” He looked to his brother who still kept his eyes on his knife. “I enjoy the kill, he likes the cleanup.”
Aaron sucked in a breath as the knife dug itself into the flesh of his arm again, slowly and shallowly. Somewhere in the midst of the pain he realized that this was the first time Stewart had gotten to cut someone while they were still alive and as much as it hurt he knew that this gave his team more time to find him.
“You forget that you messed up tonight. That parking lot has cameras.” He smirks as Nathan’s eyes flashed to the younger mans before he gets out his gun and points it at Aaron.
“You talk too much.” He pulls off the safety. “No one knows we’re here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Emily says as she comes out from the back where she had sneaked in. She held her gun up and aimed it at Nathan while her eyes moved frantically from the unsubs to Aaron. “You messed up taking him. Put the gun down.”
“I swear I’ll shoot his brains out right here.” He pressed the gun to Aaron’s temple and Emily fights everything in her not to shoot him. She knows it’s too big of a risk, that if she shot Nathan he could still pull the trigger or Stewart could use the knife. She looked to the younger man, he looked terrified as he looked between her and his brother.
“You don’t want to do that.” She doesn’t know how her voice doesn’t shake as she walks a few steps closer. “Then I’d shoot you and then Stewart, is that what you want?”
“No, we are getting out of here.” His voice gets louder as she gets closer. “Don’t think I won’t shoot, bitch.” He sees the way Aaron tenses out of the corner of his eye just as Emily lowers her gun.
“How about this, don’t shoot him. Shoot me.” She lets her gun hang loosely from her hand and Nathan raises an eyebrow in surprise.
“Emily don’t!” Aaron yells but she ignores him and keeps her eyes locked on Nathan.
“If you have to shoot anybody, shoot me.”
“Why would you do that?” He asks, gun still pressed to Aaron’s temple.
“Because I love him.” She says as she finally looks at Aaron, her eyes filling with tears as she once again raises her gun and points it at her own head.
Aaron starts fighting the restraints desperately but is stopped when a fist hits him in the stomach, knocking the air out of him.
“Let him go, shoot me.” Emily says again and she sees Nathan slowly lower his gun.
It’s the sound of a gun going off behind them that sets everything off. Derek and JJ are coming up behind Aaron, guns drawn as Derek hits Nathan while JJ keeps her gun on Stewart, the man dropping his knife the moment he sees his brother fall to the floor. He lets out a scream as he hurries to Nathan’s side, all of them knowing that Stewart wouldn’t last long without his older brother to guide him. Derek pulls his arms behind his back and forces them into cuffs while Emily rushes to Aaron.
“Are you okay?” She cuts the zip ties quickly and the moment he’s free he pulls her into his arms, holding her tighter than his body really allowed him to.
“I’m okay.” He whispers as her tears soak through his shirt and mixes with the blood already there.
Emily only pulls back when Derek clears his throat.
“Took you guys long enough.” She huffs and wipes her cheeks. They had entered from different points, figuring that distracting the unsubs would be their best bet and Emily refused not to be the one going in first.
“This place is like a maze.” JJ tells her and she sees the relief on the blonde. “Come on, the ambulance is waiting and I want to get out of here.”
“Give us a minute.” Aaron tells them as Derek starts to lead Stewart out with JJ following close behind. When he turns back to Emily she’s already looking him over for whatever damage they had done to him.
“I’ve never been more scared in my life.” She tells him and he hears the way her voices trembles, sees all the emotion she’s forcing herself to hold back until they’re home, safe behind closed doors.
“I need you to listen to me,” He gently cradles her face to make sure that she’s looking at him. "You will never point a gun at your head again to save me do you hear me? I’d rather get shoot twenty times over than ever see you do that again." Emily tries to shake her head as her eyelids close. “Emily you can’t do that again.”
She looks back at him and she sees the desperation in his eyes, the hurt of having to picture his life without her and she inhales slowly. It had been a distraction, but she knew that in that moment she would have shot herself if it meant saving him.
“I can’t promise that.” She whispers and he sighs. “And I know that’s not something you can promise me either.” Her hands comes to cover his on her cheeks and pulls them away to hold them in hers.
“Emily…”
“Are you saying that you won’t?”
“No, but I…” He stops and takes a breath, trying to calm the lingering anxiety from seeing her hold the gun to her head. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“And hopefully we won’t ever come to that until we’re old and gray sitting in wheelchairs.” She smiles and she sees the corner of his lip tug upwards. “But until then, all we can do is promise to try and keep each other safe.” When he nods she pulls him into a gentle kiss, foregoing the taste of blood in favor of feeling his lips against hers but still careful of his split lip. “Come one, the ambulance is waiting.” She takes his hand and pulls him with her.
“Emily I’m really fine…” He stops speaking when she turns to look at him with stern eyes. He knew there was no point of arguing with her and instead decided to follow along.
Three broken ribs, a concussion and a lot of bruises, that’s what the Smith brothers had done to him. Emily refuses to leave his side, sleeps besides him after forcing him to stay overnight at the hospital, sits next to him on the plane ride home.
“I love you.” She whispers against his ear quietly. The rest of the team asleep on the plane.
“I love you too.” He kisses her, a promise in his kiss as he holds her close.
“Let’s get married when we get home. I don’t want to wait.” She grips his hand tight with excitement.
“Yeah?” He smiles and gently nuzzles her nose. “This isn’t because I almost died?”
“Oh it most certainly is. But I want to be your wife, I want to marry you.” She kisses him, lingers against his lips until they hear someone coughing beside them.
“Did someone say wedding?” Dave asks, already holding the champagne he had hid in the jet months ago.
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zarvasace · 6 months
Text
PROGRESS POST
(10/4/23)
This is partly for accountability and partly just to get all this out of my head! This last month or two have felt so hectic, getting used to a new work and sleep schedule and all. I'm still not quite there.
If you're curious about what I've been working on and what my plans are in terms of writing and art for the rest of the year, read on. :)
I will say, though, that if you want more of a specific AU or story, the way to get it is by asking questions and leaving comments! Asks and comments remind me about things I'm doing and get me excited about them again! I have these plans, but I also am very good at chasing inspiration to unknown (and sometimes unimportant) corners!
By Fandom
Linked Universe Projects
I've been feeling less motivated to work on LU stuff, but I still plan on at least finishing what I have open, so you can look forward to some of that!
Writing
Disability AU—one small mobility trio fic in the works. A few vague ideas for doing backstory fics.
Council (1931 vampire AU)—this is still the "backburner to backburner" fic, but I do have some fun ideas. I just have been distracted with other things! I think this AU is a lot of fun and I'd love to do more with it. We'll have to see.
The Marvelous Misadventures of Wind and His Merry Band of Maybe-Human Misfits—chapter 7 (out of 9 or so) is in progress. I have it all outlined out, and it's fun to work on, but I have (again) been distracted! This is, I hope, going to be my main December project. It'd be nice to finish before it turns 2 years old next summer. Oops.
I have several other WIPs that aren't very exciting and probably won't see daylight, but they're there if I feel like them
Art
Coloring book—I'm part of the coloring book project! :) I have already finished 1/2 drawings, and they went so well, I'm considering doing more.
Shatterproof manga page—still on my radar! I'm doing the end scene from dazzling diamond danger, and my ambition keeps outgrowing my time.
Four Swords Projects
Writing
Fairytale AU—man I've started this Vidow BatB fic literally five times. I have an almost-complete draft sitting at like... 20k?? iirc, but I kind of hate a lot of it. I also like a lot of it. It's a bit difficult for me to work on rewriting something in that situation. Anyway. Another December thing probably.
Fright Fight—I have ideas for every week, but am currently unsure if I want to draw or write for them. Most of my October will be focused on filling these prompts!
Vampire Lords AU—I have strange as severe is this my fate open right now, with a fair amount of material... it just needs to be edited a bit. I do want to keep working on that, I've just... well. Distraction. A common theme. XD I might be feeling another little bite fic coming on, too.
Art
Fright Fight—see above
Fright Fight part 2—I have a few side things to do for this, like making graphics that I haven't quite finished yet. They shouldn't take long, I just gotta do em!
Non-Fandom
Stickers—I am in the process of drawing some stickers! Yay! These are for my work, but also just for me. I want some Halloween stickers. This is a backburner project.
Nanowrimo project—I need to spend some time figuring out a few things to really get going on my princess-verse. I'm going to be doing Nanolympics this year, so hopefully some of their preptober stuff will help!
Hearts Linked Together—my super-cool Linkverse. XD I love my dumb timeline, and all the characters, they're just filler drawings that I haven't had time to continue.
Secret Zelda project—I really really need to do this! I can't say much right now, but it involves a fair amount of work, both writing and art. I think I haven't gotten very far on it yet because I'm intimidated. Stop that.
Zine edits—I worked really really hard on an art piece for a LoZ zine coming up! This week is critique, and I anticipate a few edits later.
By Month
Facebook posts—a lady I know wants to commission pretty quote images to post on her Facebook. I need to reply to her text. And do them.
September
I primarily worked on the fic Blood-Sucker's Guide to High School. I also worked on and submitted one fic and one piece of art to two different zines, which I hope you'll see soon.
October
If you care, you may have noticed I'm not doing Whumptober this year! Part of this is because I'm a bit burned out from the above, and part of it is that the prompts just didn't seem very inspiring to me this year. Maybe that's just my mindset. I haven't been in a very whumpy mood.
I'm planning on filling weekly prompts for @fsfrightfight this month and maybe chipping away at some other fics, in addition to one more zine contribution. I'm also going to be planning for November and doing some scattered art work here and there.
November
NaNoWriMo! I considered skipping this... but I'm feeling really inspired and motivated to do it, especially with October as a break. I'm going to write some original work, and that will be the focus of my November. I'll likely get some other art done, too.
December
I hope to dedicate this month to finishing things up from this year! That means working on "backburner" projects.
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