#but the tip was to not have the subjects be aimed to look out of the comic but rather in? guiding the viewer with where they’re looking

[keskeaa]

Can she even comprehend the lengths I would go

#crazy cat lady posting don’t mind me #my art #comics #comic art #cats #furbaby #original comic #artists on tumblr #procreate #digital artist #sorry if this isn’t really cohesive in how I posed the subjects I tried following this comic tip and idk?? still trying 2 understand comics #but the tip was to not have the subjects be aimed to look out of the comic but rather in? guiding the viewer with where they’re looking #I could’ve done it better if #I remembered that tip from the vet go instead of flipping frames lol

[totheblood]

i still hear you. (prologue)

PAIRING: post tlou2!ellie williams x reader

SUMMARY: ellie stumbles upon your self-run town after her life is destroyed, except there's more to this town then what meets the eye. and it seems like there is more to you too.

WARNINGS: 18+ mentions of death, grief, related subjects; cursing, mentions of drinking/drugs, mentions of s*x

A/N: i've been working on this one for a while... i hope you enjoy! please send asks, reblog, and reply to this post <;3

WORD COUNT: 3k

"i still hear you laughing, but only for a minute"

Spring couldn’t come fast enough for Ellie. 

The cold still nipped at the exposed skin on her hands, ghosting the phantom limbs of the two fingers she was now missing. Everything was cold. The tip of her nose, her ears, and most importantly her heart. As she wandered aimlessly, unsure of where to go, she knew there was one place she couldn’t go: home. 

Jackson was no longer a place for her. Joel was gone, Tommy thought she was weak, and Dina…Well, Dina wanted nothing to do with her. Dina had a lot she could blame Ellie for before Ellie left, but she never did. She stayed. And now, on top of all of that, Ellie had left one of the few people in her life who cared enough about her to stay. Spring could come tomorrow but it would forever be winter inside her. 

She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she was going west. She couldn’t handle the harsh winters of the East Coast, and Wyoming stopped feeling like home before she left for Seattle. She thought about staying on the farm and living out whatever short life she was going to have there, but staying in that home painted with memories of “what ifs” would drive her crazy. 

So she packed enough supplies to last her a few months if she hunted her food and headed to the West Coast. The first few days were silent, she only encountered a few infected and found shelter in abandoned buildings. She lived off of expired food she found in vending machines in old universities and occasionally sang herself to sleep. 

On her tenth day, she found a car that lasted her about 2 days. Once it broke down, she just kept walking. Over abandoned highways and thick forests, she just kept walking. On day 17, she reached California and stumbled upon an eerily similar set of walls. It looked just like the gates at Jackson, except these were concrete and better built. They were much higher, and the gates almost looked… automatic. 

Ellie was hesitant. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she definitely wasn’t looking for another hometown to destroy. She approached the large walls cautiously, with her hands up and slowly. As she walked closer she was screaming, “I come in peace,” over and over again. She was almost 50 feet near the gate when she heard a girl's voice shout, “Don’t come any closer.”

She stopped in her tracks as the automatic gates began to open. Ellie expected an army of people with guns blazing, just how it was when she first arrived at Jackson, but when the gates opened there just stood you, grounded in all your glory, and a gun aimed right at her face. She wanted to laugh, but that just seemed sexist. 

Instead, you pressed forward, unwavering, with your gun aimed right at her. She didn’t step backward, or even breathe, she just stood there until you were close enough to her to make out all the freckles on her face and the slit in her eyebrow. 

“Who are you?” you spat at her.

“Ellie,” she breathed out, her hands faltering a bit. 

With your hand firmly wrapped around the cold metal of the gun, you inched forward again, pulling back the slide, a metallic click echoing in the silence. The gun was loaded, and you were letting Ellie know that you weren’t afraid to shoot. Her hands stiffened again. 

“What are you doing here?” Your tone was tough and the look on your face was enough to send Ellie running for the hills, but it also made her want to crack a smile. Your nose scrunched up as you spoke, and your lips were somehow not chapped in this weather. But Ellie didn’t smile, she was sure if she did you would put one right between her eyes. That much she was sure of.

“I-” Ellie hadn’t thought this far. What was she doing here? “I’m just looking for a place to stay.” 

Your eyebrows creased as you gave her a once over, looking for any sign she was trouble. It was in your nature to search for danger, but she wasn’t raising any red flags. Except the fact that she made it here alone and unscathed, and was missing two fingers. 

“What happened to your hand?” you asked, tipping the gun slightly to her hand. A pained expression crossed her face, it was almost like she forgot that two of her fingers were quite literally bitten off, but that fight was somewhere shoved deep inside her mind. It wasn’t something she wanted to remember.

“Lost them in a fight,” she replied simply, there was no point in telling the full story. It’s not like you had the time. 

“You can’t stay here if you’re going to be trouble,” finally you put the gun down, resting your hands on your hips, giving her a firm look. Ellie would hand it to you, you were absolutely scary. In her mind, she knew she could take you, but she also wasn’t so sure of that.  

“I’m,” she sighed, lowering her hands slowly, “I’m done with that. I won’t be trouble,” and for the first time in Ellie’s life, she meant that. She was ready to start over. She knew the fighter in her would always be there, itching to come out but she had been fighting her whole life. It was time to give up. She had already lost everything. Or so she thought. 

Your face softened slightly before firming up again, your empathy peeking through like it always did. You looked her over again, sighing, as you signaled for someone at the gate to come. A man with short blonde hair trotted over, a leash in his hand. He looked kind as he offered a smile to Ellie.

“Old girl here is just gonna check to make sure you’re not infected,” he smiled, dropping the leash. Ellie’s heart rate picked up again as she watched the German Shepherd approach her slowly, sniffing around her as it circled her. You stood behind the blonde guy with your arms crossed across your chest. The dog found nothing and returned to the man, sitting down next to him, “Looks like you’re all clear!”

“Welcome to Mono City,” you deadpanned, rolling your eyes as you turned back towards the gate, walking in that direction. You were halfway there when you realized Ellie wasn’t moving. Turning on your heel again you stared at her, hand on your hip again. You had an attitude, Ellie thought, cute. “You coming or what?”

The small town sat on a large lake, glistening as the sun's rays bounced off the surface. Buildings were built close together, trees without leaves scattered on the walkway, and about a hundred people out on the street as she trailed behind you, earning dirty looks from half of them. Ellie scowled back. Ellie smiled when you introduced yourself to her, telling her your name and a few key details about yourself. She learned you served as some sort of mayor here, keeping everything in order, and that you were the person that people came to. She would be lying if she said that didn’t intimidate her. But all Ellie did was give you her name again and tell you that she was from Jackson, anything else she said would fall short. 

“How are you with your hands?” you asked, voice flat and simple. Ellie choked on her words, stuttering a response. 

“I’m, well,” she coughed, “I’m just okay with them now, since,” she shrugged gesturing to what she now called her ‘bad hand’, “you know.”

A wave of guilt crossed your face as you composed yourself, somehow already forgetting your previous interaction. You shook your head solemnly, cursing quietly under your breath as you stopped. 

“Shit,” you turned to her, eyes squeezed shut, “sorry, I’m so used to asking the same questions, I didn’t even think.”

“It’s fine don’t worry about it,” she gave a tight-lipped smile. Now, with the illumination of the buildings, she could see your whole face. You were pretty, that she was sure of, but it was a more down-to-earth pretty. A type of pretty that you had to take in. You had scars around your face, and a pretty big scar down the side of your neck. It almost looked like the one Ellie had on her arm. But still, scars and all, you were just nice to look at. 

“Well, just for that reason we probably won’t have you be on guard duty,” you stated, eyes flicking around her face, “do you have any other strengths?”

“Uhm,” Ellie had to think for a minute. She had never really been asked anything like this before. What were her strengths? Did she have any at all? She used to be good at guitar, but now she couldn’t play, and that probably wouldn’t be useful at all to anyone here. She was good at art still, something she couldn’t take for granted anymore. It was all she had. The scratched-out drawings of Dina, JJ, Jesse, and Joel were stuffed deep into her bag.

“I’m good at art,” she shrugged, “and writing, maybe.”

“Okay,” you smiled, showing off your teeth, making her warm a bit, “that we can work with. Maybe you can teach at the school.”

“You have a school here?” Ellie gawked. Jackson had a school but it was small and had maybe two or three teachers. 

“Yeah,” you turned to keep walking, making Ellie stumble behind you to keep up, “we have three. An elementary, middle, and high school.”

“Wow,” Ellie was in awe, “It’s not like a military school or anything?” 

“No,” you answered quickly, your voice tight, “It’s not like any of that shit. We don’t fuck with FEDRA here.”

Ellie would be lying if she said that wasn’t music to her ears.

“It’s just like a normal school except we teach a lot more practical things. Things we can use like, cooking, science, and English. Like reading or writing. Since you’re new you will probably start with the elementary school. We also have little extracurriculars and we’ve wanted to introduce art but haven’t been able to find anyone yet.”

“Oh, cool,” was all Ellie said as you both stumbled on what looked like a residential street. There were rows of houses, all that looked the same. There was a road, with cars parked on them and driveways with gates. Most of the houses looked about two stories tall, some had toys lying in the front yards and a few animals were roaming about, small cats and dogs. The porches had furniture on them, little couches and chairs, and as she walked she noticed some people outside with mugs in their hands as if they were drinking their morning coffee. The town looked like something she saw out of a movie, only something she could dream about. Her eyes were wide in awe as you rambled on about something but Ellie was honestly too entranced in everything. Here, in the middle of nowhere was a whole town of people living their lives, as if nothing had ever happened to them. 

“Ellie?” you stopped in your tracks, crossing your arms over your chest. There was your attitude again, “are you even listening?”

“Y-yeah, I am. It’s just-”

“A lot, I know,” you sighed, “but you gotta listen, there are a lot of rules here. Rules that make this place function and if you don’t follow them, you could easily be kicked out.”

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, genuinely meaning it, “I’m listening, promise.”

“It’s fine,” you gave her a fake smile, turning to push open a gate to a nice house, “This will be your place.”

“Uhm,” Ellie stopped, not entering the front yard, “what do you mean ‘my place’? This is far too big for me.”

“This is the only size our houses come in,” you replied matter-of-factly, “you can just say thank you.”

Ellie blinked as she looked up at the blue house, that looked like it was built yesterday. It had a wrap-around porch and two white columns right by the entrance. The door was a giant white door with a gold handle. This was nicer than any house she’s ever been in, and way too big for one girl.  

“Thank you,” Ellie replied, still awe-struck, “this is just so nice.”

“You’re welcome,” you smiled, fishing around in your bag for something. You pulled out a pair of keys, and handed them to her, “Here’s your house keys. You don’t get a car quite yet, that’s something you have to work your way up to, but there is a bike in the garage. Spring is around the corner so it will get warmer and you should have your car by next winter so don’t worry too much. My house is right across the block, but I’m usually in the City Center if you need me.”

She wrapped her right hand around the keys, tightening them in her palm. She watched as you searched through your bag again and pulled out a little device. 

“This is your walkie,” you took a deep breath, “Try to find me before using it. It’s usually only used for emergencies so just be mindful of that. I’ll be by tomorrow to take you to work, so you have time to get settled in today. Okay?”

“Okay,” Ellie smiled, her voice sounding a little bit breathless.

That night Ellie settled into her new home. Well, she tried to settle into her new home but kept shifting around in every seat and couch, like she couldn’t find something to get comfortable on. She examined every part of the house, picking the smallest room for herself and shoving her backpack in the closet. She took a bath for the first time in months, washing all the dirt and grime off of her. Left in the shower was a bar of soap that looked like it had been handmade and unused. It smelled so good she almost took a bite, but instead chose to use it how it was meant to be used.

As the sun began to set she stepped outside, watching the activity on the block and smiling to herself. Everything just seemed so normal, but with the state of this world this town was certainly abnormal. From her window she could see you in your front yard, feeding a pack of cats that slipped through your white picket fence. She smiled to herself as she watched one rub against your leg, and your gentle hand coming down to pet it. She continued to watch as kids passed your house, waving to you and running back to their homes. 

The next few days were uneventful. Ellie found herself getting used to teaching young kids, always laughing when they asked about her missing fingers. It was out of her comfort zone, but she was around JJ enough to know what kids liked. Her voice always got so high-pitched when she spoke to them, and they liked being chased around the room. On her fifth day of working, a kid ran in screaming, “Miss Ellie! Miss Ellie!” with a chicken scratch drawing of his family. He was so proud that all Ellie could say was “Good job, bud!” and ruffle his hair. He left with the biggest smile on his face.

But now, Ellie found herself at the city’s most popular bar, with the other teachers who wanted to congratulate her on her first week. Della, who invited Ellie out in the first place, made a toast to her, clinking her glass with Ellie’s and taking a long swig of her drink. Ellie took a sip of hers too and fuck, this shit was strong. 

She felt human again, laughing with people her age in a bar and old music playing. She was almost having a good time until a song came on that reminded her of Joel. It was like her whole demeanor changed and everyone could tell. She excused herself from the group finding a small corner to sit on and finish the rest of her drink, hoping maybe it would make her forget everything. But then, the bell at the front door rang making Ellie look up to see who had entered. 

There you were in all your glory, tight shirt on and hair completely loose. It almost looked as if you were wearing makeup. Ellie must’ve been staring too long because she blinked and you were standing in front of her. 

“See you got yourself a drink,” you laughed, voice making Ellie’s cheeks turn pink. She was… really drunk.

“Yeah, I could get you one too,” she slurred a bit, goofy smile spread across her face. She watched as something odd crossed your face and now she was worried she said something wrong, “I just mean, like.. you know… I mean like as a thank you.”

“Right,” you sighed.

“For my mansion, you know,” she shrugged and you giggled. You giggled and it went straight to her head. What was she doing?

“You haven’t been paid yet,” you smiled back at her, now moving to sit down, “and it’s okay, I don’t drink unless it’s a special occasion.”

“What? Meeting me is not special enough,” she teased, knocking her shoulder with yours. Her eyes scanned your face, your smile reaching your eyes as you giggled again. Her stomach sank again. She wasn’t so sure if this was just the alcohol anymore, she felt like she was 12 and crushing on Riley again. 

“No, it’s special,” you reassured, “Maybe, I’ll drink when you decide to stay.”

“Who said I’m not staying?” she questioned sitting up.

“Some people don’t,” you shrugged, smile fading. Ellie’s brain wanted to make it better, make you laugh again, or shit do anything to put the smile back on your face. 

“Well, I’m gonna,” she said gently, so only you could hear her, “I need to get my paycheck.”

You laughed and Ellie breathed a sigh of relief, laughing with you. 

“I’ll get that to you,” you smiled, “and we don’t use paychecks.”

“What’re you gonna pay me with?” she smirked, “I know some other ways you can pay me.” Then the same look from earlier crossed your face and she cursed quietly to herself, muttering an apology. 

“No, no,” you said, like you were about to let her down gently, “I just try not to get… involved with anyone since…” your voice trailed off.

“Since?” Ellie questioned, but as you opened your mouth to speak the group from earlier made their way over, noticing your arrival and screaming your name. She watched as you got up, hugged everyone and started chatting with them, leaving her with her drink and too many questions. 

There was one thing that scared her though. She knew you needed someone who could stay, and the only thing she was good at was leaving.

#ellie williams #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams smut #ellie williams tlou #ellie williams x reader smut #ellie williams the last of us #ellie williams tlou2 #ellie williams fanfiction #ellie williams fanfic #ellie williams fan fic #ellie williams x female reader #ellie williams x you #ellie williams imagine #ellie williams oneshot #modern!ellie williams #college!ellie williams #ellie williams one shot

[secretswiftymarvelfan]

Run Free - Alpha!Ari Levinson x Omega!Reader (Part 1: Run)

Summary: As an Omega you knew your place in the world, however when the opportunity arrives to escape you take it... only to find yourself face to face with another Alpha

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: Language! Captive Situation! Suggestion of Non-Con environment! Angst!

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Series Masterlist / Masterlist

Chapter 1: Run

You woke up with a start, the sound of your cell door opening with a loud creak. You looked up to see one of your captors standing at the door looking down at you. The scent of the large Alpha assaulted your nose making you want to vomit.

“Eat, you’ve got a long day ahead of you” he ordered dropping the plate of food by your feet.

You glance down at the plate of food. Seeing the pathetic excuse for food, something that just looked like mush. Even though it was the only food you’d get you weren’t racing to eat it.

“Eat it you worthless omega” The Alpha commands with a growl grabbing your head and forcing it down “Or do I have to teach you where you stand?”

You didn’t dare say anything, your body reacting to the alpha command, picking up the plate and forcing the food down trying your best not to gag. The alpha watching on with a disgusting smirk on his face. You’d been held captive long enough to know your place in the world. As an omega, you were nothing more than a piece of meat for Alpha to use however and whenever they please, you had to lose certain battles to avoid others.

“It’s sale day for you Omega so you’ll be out of here soon enough” he smirks before making his exit.

You knew your future was dire, you were to be sold to the highest bidder. Your only hope was that you were brought by someone nice, that or when they did eventually kill you it would be quick. It was better than starving to death. 

Once you had eaten you were dragged out of your cell. All the other Omegas were lined up and marched through the compound out to the courtyard. As you walked the other captors would laugh, purposefully tripping you up. Grabbing you as you passed, taunting you.

Once outside they ordered you to line up against the wall and strip down naked. A couple of omegas protested but were instantly whipped using the silver-tipped whip. They screamed out in pain, instantly submitting and removing their clothing. Soon you were all standing there naked, with the exception of the collars that stopped you from shifting. You could see the captors watching, a few of them whistling making your skin crawl.

They then turned on the high-powered hose and started spraying you all with freezing cold water. As much as you tried to avoid it they would always purposely aim the water at your face. Making you feel like you were drowning before giving you a short moment of respite. Just another level of torture they subjected you to.

Once they turned the hose off they handed out clean clothes. Which only consisted of shorts and a vest. They didn’t give you a towel you just had to remain damp until you slowly dried off. It wasn’t uncommon for people to fall ill and die from pneumonia here.

Once you were all dressed they attached silver handcuffs around your wrists. The pain from the metal stopping you in your tracks, the skin around your wrist already burnt and scarred. 

Once you were all bound you were attached to a chain and dragged out. The sounds of whines filled the corridor as the silver dug into everyone’s wrists. You were led out to a truck and shoved inside. Someone coming and securing you all in place, additional silver restraints being attached around your ankles. Ensuring none of you could escape during transport to the sales centre.

You weren’t sure how long you remained in the back of the truck. All the omega quietly talked with each other about their lives before this hell. Eventually, the truck stopped but it wasn’t the end of your journey. Instead, you were herded out of the truck and into a shipping container.

Once in the shipping container, they gave out bottles of water and stale bread which felt more like a brick. Once they were gone they shut the shipping container leaving all of you in complete darkness. 

Overall you had no clue how long you had been in this container. You had no way to tell the time, not that you did before when you were in your cell. Occasionally they’d bring more food or water but that was it. You guess though that you were in the shipping container for at least 3 days though.

Eventually, the door to the container opened and a blast of warm air entered the container. A direct contrast to the cold metal you’d grown accustomed to over the past few days.

As you stepped outside you savour the fresh air before you were taken into a rackety old truck. They chained you all up to the rotten wood. A thin layer of tarpaulin covers the roof and sides. You sat at the very back giving you the best view.

As the truck drove off you were able to look out. Dreaming of one day having the freedom to go wherever you pleased. Maybe the Alpha they sold you to would be kind enough to give you those freedoms. As the truck drove through the forest you imagined what it would be like to run through the trees. Darting in and around them, the wind whistling past your ears and through your fur.

Everyone bumped around as the truck travelled down the dirt road. At one point, however, you shifted just as the truck hit a large pothole causing you to be thrown hard enough for your retrains to break free of the rotten wood. Now completely free despite your hands and feet still being bound you got thrown out of the back of the truck.

As you roll along the dirt track you wait for the truck to stop but it doesn’t. You realise this was your chance to finally be free. You couldn’t stay here though. You quickly shuffled off of the road and into a bush to hide. 

You waited there in silence waiting for your absence to be noticed and your freedom to be taken once more. But that never happened. They never returned.

You sat up and looked down at the silver shackles around your ankles. You start working on getting yourself free wincing at the metal brushed across your skin. Finally, you got yourself free and tossed the shackles as far away as possible. You examine the burns on your ankles, they were bad but like the rest but they would just scar over eventually.

You had no hope of getting your handcuffs off alone, you needed help. You passed through a town not far back, maybe you could find another omega or a beta to help you. You also knew you needed at least a beta to remove this collar that would allow you to be truly free. 

Pushing yourself up onto your feet you steadied yourself against a nearby tree. Once you were certain your weakened ankles could hold your weight you started walking back towards the town. You made sure to stay hidden in the trees just in case you were spotted by the wrong people.

You walked for hours. Your body was so tired and weak. You clung to trees as you walked past, desperate to keep yourself up and moving. You couldn’t stop, not until you found somewhere safe. 

Eventually, the edge of town came into view. Leaving the forest you stumbled through the back alley behind some building. At one point you stumbled catching yourself on the side of a dumpster. 

Your legs felt like lead, it felt impossible to keep yourself up for a second longer. You slump against the dumpster hoping a moment of rest would help.

Suddenly a backdoor to one of the buildings opened. You froze in fear as the scent of an Alpha filled your nostrils. You turned to look and saw the large man walking out of the building trash bag in hand. He shouted something back to someone who was inside as he ran his hair through his long brown hair. 

You didn’t dare move as he approached the dumpster seemingly unaware of your presence. You barely breathed as he threw the trash bag into the dumpster and turned to head back towards the building.

You risk glancing over the side of the dumpster a move you instantly regret when you accidentally make a sound. You saw the alpha freeze before slowly turning to face you, his eyes widening in surprise when he spotted you. His nostrils flared as he scents you and you knew you were in danger. There was no way this Alpha would let you get away now that he knew you were an Omega.

So you ran, or at least you tried to. Your weak legs refused to cooperate, leaving you stumbling.

“Whoa wait!” The alpha shouts moving after you.

You desperately try and get away but you trip and fall. With your hand bound by handcuffs, you weren’t able to catch yourself. Hitting your head as you fell, you tried to move but your body refused exhaustion taking over. The last thing you saw was the Alpha crouching over you.

Ari had woken up early that day, not that he’d slept well that night anyway. His mind running at a million miles per hour, running through all the things he could do and needed to do. He went on his usual morning run, hoping that would help but it didn’t. 

In the end, he just decided to go to work early. He drove from his cabin just outside of town parking up behind the bar. Letting himself into the bar he owned he made his way into the back office. 

Dropping his bag in the corner he first makes himself a pot of coffee before dropping down onto the small couch he had. He sighs running his hand through his hair. 

Once the coffee had brewed he pushed himself up from the couch. He poured himself a cup taking a large sip as he moved to sit at his desk. 

As he sat down at his desk his eyes fell on the picture on his desk. He smiled slightly as he remembered that day. It was the day his bar, The Red Sea, officially opened. He and his friend all stood outside smiling proudly.

When the bar first opened business had been booming. They almost had to herd people out when closing time rolled around. Presently the story couldn’t be any more different. Now they would shut up early to save money on utilities.

Ari knew he needed to do something but he had no clue what. If he didn’t find a solution too otherwise he’d have to consider selling up. And anyone who knew Ari knew that he wasn’t a quitter.

Sighing to himself he started going through the month's expenses. Doing all the paperwork that made his position even more painfully obvious. 

“Do you ever go home?” Rachel asked leaning against the door frame.

“No it saves money” Ari says not looking up from his work.

“What’s the verdict?” She asks walking in and perching on the edge of the desk.

“Not great we maybe have 6 months at most to turn this place around otherwise I’ll have to sell” Ari sighs shaking his head.

“It’ll work out, you always think of something,” Rachel says patting him on the shoulder as she stands up.

“The rest of the guys are coming up later so don’t hide away in here all day” she adds before leaving him in the office alone.

Ari nodded in agreement before turning back to his work. He ended up spending hours in there working away. Putting off going out to see just how empty the bar would be. He could hear his friends though all laughing and talking loudly.

Eventually, he had done all the work he could and decided to head out to his friends.

“Ah, there he is the slacker!!” Jake shouts once he spots Ari.

“I hope you all paid for those beers” Ari retorted looking at the three men.

“Hey, we’re your best customers!” Max complains.

“You’re my only customers” Ari sighed as he stood behind the bar.

“Don’t worry Rachel charged us” Sammy said pointing over to Rachel who rolled her eyes as she wiped the bar down.

“Good because otherwise there won’t be a bar to come hang out in,” Ari says.

“Stop being so melodramatic you’ve just hit a slump. Every business goes through it, it’ll pick up soon” Sammy tells him.

“Yeah I bet something is right around the corner” Max says.

“Right let's stop being all depressed, you owe me a game of pool” Jake says pointing at Ari.

“I do?” Ari asks not recalling promising him that, the last game they played Ari wiped the floor with him.

“Fine call it a rematch” Jake says shrugging his shoulders as he racks up.

Ari smirks as he walks over “Fine let’s make it interesting”

Jake raises a brow as he stands up “What are you thinking?” Jake asks.

“You win, I’ll buy you a drink for a week. I win, you take a garbage out” Ari smirks.

“Oh no not that dumpster, that thing fucking stinks!!” Jake complains.

“Fine we won’t play,” Ari says shrugging his shoulders and stepping away.

“Okay, okay fine, you can break” Jake relents holding out the pool cue.

Ari smiled taking the pool cue from Jake and lining up his first shot. The balls broke with a resounding crack and much to Ari’s joy and Jake’s annoyance, 2 striped balls rolled into the pockets.

“Fuck sake man” Jake complains shaking his head.

“Regretting that decision now?” Ari smirks.

The rest of the game was pretty close, with Jake managing to catch up when Ari missed a couple. Everyone else cheering on who they thought would win.

“Go on Jake!” Sammy shouted.

“Hey you’re supposed to be backing me up” Ari complained to his childhood best friend.

“Nope sorry I’m backing my fellow Beta today” Sammy says holding up his hands in surrender.

“Don’t worry Ari we’ve got you” Max says gesturing to Rachel.

“Oh, so it's alpha’s vs Beta’s then?” Jake asks.

“Seems that way” Ari laughs.

Eventually, the game got down to the final ball. Ari lined up his shot, it should have been easy. It should have gone in, but for whatever godforsaken reason it hit the side of the pocket and bounced out. Leaving it perfectly open for Jake to easily pot it, which he did.

“Yes!! Rachel grab me a beer and pass Ari the trash” Jake says smiling victoriously as he walks back towards the bar.

Ari groans in annoyance as Rachel passes him the trash bag. All of his friends laughed as he made his way to the back door.

“And no holding your breath that’s cheating” Sammy shouts after him.

“Shut up I’ll do as I like” Ari shouts back as he steps outside.

As he approaches the dumpster he holds his breath as he chucks the bag into it. As he turns around and starts walking away he hears shuffling. 

He turns around expecting to see a raccoon or something. He wasn’t expecting to see someone peeking out beside the dumpster. He sniffs slightly realising that it was an omega, one that looks completely petrified. He cautiously takes a step closer but you take off.

“Whoa wait!” He shouts moving after you.

He watches as you stumble and fall, it's only then that he notices the handcuffs around your wrists. He sees you try and push yourself up before completely slumping down in exhaustion.

“Hey it's okay, I’m not gonna hurt you” Ari says calmingly as he crouches down beside you.

You look up at him and he can see the fear in your eyes before they completely shut and you pass out.

“Shit” Ari mutter looking down at you “Sammy! Sam!” Ari then shouts “I need you out here” 

“I swear to god Levinson if you throw something gross at me” Sammy says stepping outside “Fuck what the hell happened!” Sammy says when he spots Ari crouching beside you.

“I don’t know, she was hiding behind the dumpster and then ran when she saw me but tripped and must have hit her head” Ari said looking over at all your injuries, spotting the burns on your ankles.

At this point, everyone else had made their way outside wondering what was going on.

“Whoa is she okay?” Jake asks nodding down to you.

“I dunno, we need to get her inside” Sammy says as he looks over you.

“What’s she got around her wrists?” Rachel asks.

“Handcuff by the looks of it” Max says, 

Ari decides to try and break them off but when his finger comes into contact with the metal he hisses in pain.

“Fuck that silver” he hisses shaking his hands.

“That must be what’s caused these burns” Sam says pointing to the burns on your ankles.

“Fuck. Who the hell would do this to someone” Rachel says shaking her head.

“Sick bastards” Ari growls ignoring the pain as he breaks off your handcuffs.

He then gently scoops you up in his arms to take you inside. He had no clue who you were or where you’d come from, but he was damn well sure he wasn’t gonna let anything happen to you now.

Sharing is caring so please reblog and leave a comment to really make my day!

This series has no schedule, please don’t ask when it will be updated!

Series Masterlist / Masterlist

I don’t have a taglist but follow @secretswiftymarvelfanlibrary​ and turn on post notifications to stay up to date!

#niamhwrites #Run Free Series #Ari Levinson #Alpha Ari #A/B/O #Ari Levinson x Reader #Alpha Ari x Omega Reader #Ari Levinson x You #Ari Levinson x Y/N #Chris Evans

[pogueswrld]

Hello! Can you do a smut as a femme afab with ASM Peter Parker? If you feel comfortable can you please do some bondage with his webbing? Thanks a ton!

BONDAGE WITH HIS WEBBING ARE YOU INSANE ANON ilysm omfggggg

*•.¸♡ stuck in your spider webs ♡¸.•*

pairing: peter parker x fem!reader

warnings: smut obvi 🦢, porn without plot lol, both reader and peter are switches, web bondage, edging, praise, mommy kink, multiple orgasms, oral (both fem & m receiving)

note: I wrote two pieces- peter tied up and reader tied up for whichever one you like most, hope y'all enjoy this!!

tying up peter was a simple task. you were surprised at his enthusiasm when you brought up the subject; his head nodding, a dazed look in his eye- already picturing the sight, mouth drooling and cock twitching in his pants.

he complied with every request and demand that tumbled off your lips, slowly stripping off his clothes and laying still on your shared bed, panting in anticipation for your next move. in your hands was his web shooter, inspecting it closely before pulling it onto your wrist.

you raise a single brow, "hold your hands above your head." peter did so without complaining, his eyes zeroing in on his web shooter on your wrist. you did his famous motion and a single string of web aiming at his joined hands stuck them to the headboard of your bed and the wall behind it. peter spared it a single glance, tried to free his hands, and whined when he realized he could not do so.

it didn't take long for you to expose his erection and even less time to have him moaning and begging for your touch, bucking up his hips into your hands as they wrap around him, tip red and dripping precum down his throbbing length.

you talk him through it, cooing at his whines and cries for the taste of sweet release as you casually praise him.

"That's it, such a good boy. look at you pretty baby, making a mess on our bed. you like this, don't you? working so hard to please mommy."

and he trembles. absolutely breaking apart at your words, unable to keep quiet as his entire body shakes at the force of the orgasm you pulled out of him. and it wasn't the last, as you push him to the brink and drag him back again, altering between your hands and your mouth as he whines and jerks beneath you, the webs holding him back from touching you or forcing his cock down your throat like he's done so many times before. he was completely at your mercy and he enjoyed every second of it.

getting to tie you up wasn't as easy of a task for peter, but from how enjoyable it was for him you figured you'd give it a chance. and boy were you so thankful you did.

he coaxed you into bed, kissing up and down your neck, softly nibbling at your skin while simultaneously kneading at the skin of your hips and sides. he was so smooth with it, his hands sneaking up to your arms, intertwining his fingers with your own before bringing them above your head. he pulled back momentarily, smirking at you stupidly before sending a web to your joined hands. your gasp of surprise didn't deter him as he pulled off his shirt and continued down the path he'd set for himself.

he'd start by eating you out; a pillow placed underneath your ass with both of your legs resting on his shoulders, one of his arms lazily draped across your hips, his thumb casually caressing your skin there while his other hand is buried deep in your cunt, three fingers curling and uncurling themselves, working your inner muscles up to a mind-numbing high while his tongue lapped up at your juices and pressed random figures on your puffy clit.

he knew all your sensitive spots by heart, and he made a point to pay extra attention to them, forcing loud moans and gasps out of your bruised lips. his eyes blink up at you from between your thighs, blown pupils capturing every expression on your face to memory. those same beautiful brown eyes roll to the back of his head as you grab a handful of his hair by the root and tug as an orgasm washes over you, he moans into your pussy, and the vibrations make you let out a silent scream followed by whimpers of his name.

he wishes he had your self-control and your ability to not ride him when he was tied up, but he doesn't which is how he ended up with his cock buried deep inside of you, his eyes blinking down at you. he wishes he had a camera on him to take a picture of you; tied up, hickeys and bruises mark your skin, a trail leading down to where your body swallows him whole, your tits bouncing with each thrust.

"fuck- baby~" he whines, losing his rhythm temporarily, his hands going from groping at the skin of your ass and hips to your boobs and face, he was working overtime to pleasure you first and foremost. "look at how good you're taking me- jesus, you're gonna kill me~"

#GIGGLING #I WANT HIM SO BAD #anon i hope this is similar to what you wanted #sorry if it ain't #LORD DO I LOVE THIS MAN #he makes me go so feral oh my god #send help #peter parker #peter parker smut #amazing spider man #marvel spiderman #the amazing spiderman #andrew garfield spiderman

[cozage]

The Daughter's Return: Month 1

Stories around the Breakfast Grill

Part One | Next Chapter | Table of Contents | Read on AO3

This idea was sent to me by my good friend @kimahrii and by Anonymous! CW: Some light reader past trauma Characters: female reader x Portgas D. Ace Word Count: 2.7k

“Thatch!” you yelled, peeking your head inside the kitchen. “Fruit for breakfast again?! Where’s the bacon?”

“Sorry kid,” Thatch apologized, scooping a strange liquid into a bowl. “We’re out of charcoal.”

You scowled. “So make more.”

“We could…but were out of wood, too.”

Your eyes grew wide. “We’re three days from another island!”

“We have food! Just not anything to cook with.”

Ace popped his head in next to you. “You could use me!”

The cooks in the kitchen froze at his words, trying to decide if he was being serious or not. On one hand, the day would be hard without protein. But the last time someone tried to cook food…

You laughed. “Thatch doesn’t let people do that.”

“No,” Marco appeared from the supply closet, clearly digging for his own rations. “Thatch doesn’t let you do that. Since you almost burned down the ship last time.”

You pouted at him, your cheeks turning bright red in remembrance. “I was eleven!”

“And a walking fire hazard,” Marco grumbled and went back to the storage closet. Ace was grinning at you, but he could tell you were embarrassed, so he didn’t want to press the story any further at the moment. 

“So, eggs and bacon?” Ace walked to the cooler area and reached for the eggs and meat. Thatch scowled at him but passed off the paste that he had been preparing to another crewmate, and picked up a frying pan. 

“I’m cooking,” Thatch said, gathering a few ingredients. “I don’t trust you heathens to do it properly.”

“Yay!” you cheered. Thatch always came through for you, in some way or another. You were a lousy cook anyway, even if he had tried to teach you.

Ace wrapped his arm around you and led you out of the kitchen and onto the deck, both of you thrilled with the victory.

“Grab some water buckets!” Thatch called after you. You rolled your eyes but did as you were told.

You and Ace headed up to the secluded part of the deck, buckets in hand. Ace laid down on the deck, giving you a wink and placing his hat atop your head as he spread out. 

“So,” Ace said, bathing in the morning sunlight. “You’re gonna have to tell me about this fire hazard thing, you know.”

Before you could answer, you heard footsteps coming up behind you. 

“She was a fire hazard for years,” Marco griped, sitting down next to you. You groaned, wanting to crawl away and find a hole to hide in. Marco knew it all, and he certainly wouldn’t spare the details. 

A chorus of voices laughed from behind him, and you realized that Ace would now have an audience as he was cooking the food. Surely everyone was coming to see if he would suffer the same humiliation as you had in the past. 

“She burned everything she touched when she was younger,” Marco said. “And oh boy, you couldn’t criticize her at all without getting a flaming rock shot at you. Thankfully her aim wasn’t very good.”

“Really?” Ace was grinning, looking over at you. You tipped his hat lower to avoid making eye contact with him, but you could see him trying to catch your attention.  

You could feel your cheeks starting to burn, and you could hear the sound of your hair around the tips of your ears starting to fry. You could only hope that Ace’s lucky hat wouldn’t have burn marks when you returned it to him. 

Curiel laughed. “She was! How do you think Thatch got that scar around his eye?”

You stared at the ground, knowing you were giving yourself away. Most of the commanders didn’t even notice your embarrassment. They loved making fun of you, even if it was a sensitive subject in your mind. 

“Ah, it’s no biggie.” Thatch gave you a playful wink, sitting down on the other side of you. “I gotta think of a cooler story though. Telling people I was beat up by a seven-year-old doesn’t sound as cool as you think it does.”

The rest of the crew laughed, and you gave a polite smile yourself, trying to bury the shame you felt at that story. You had never meant to hurt Thatch, and seeing that scar made your mind cloud with guilt some days. 

You felt a hand wrap around yours, giving you a light squeeze. You met Ace’s eyes finally, and he gave you a little smile, letting you know it was okay. He wouldn’t judge you. He wouldn’t laugh at you. 

“Let’s get crackin’.” Thatch passed the eggs over to you, along with a bowl and a whisk. “Just scrambled today. Nothing fancy.”

You gave a nod and released Ace’s hand to pick up the eggs and begin preparing breakfast. You had done this a million times before, ever since you could remember. 

When you were little, Thatch pulled up a chair for you to stand on and taught you how to crack an egg. People told him it took you 5 times longer than anyone else in the kitchen, but Thatch made you stick with it, even when you were ready to explode with anger. You had been mad at him then, but now you could crack eggs more skillfully than most of the cooks in the kitchen. 

Thatch began preparing bacon while you cracked the eggs, and Marco began cutting scallions and mushrooms to add to your bowl. 

Thatch looked around nervously. “We’ve got water, right? In case it gets out of hand?”

“Dude,” Ace laughed, looking very nonchalant as he got comfortable on the deck. “Stop freaking out. I can handle it.”

“Heard that before,” Thatch mumbled, shooting a glance your way. “Okay Ace, light it up.”

Ace skillfully created low flames from his torso, keeping them contained but burning hot. Thatch carefully lined the bacon on the pan and then placed it on Ace’s stomach, watching it carefully. The second division commander gave a light chuckle, but kept the flames under control. 

Thatch still didn’t seem convinced, though. He didn’t take his eyes off it, looking for any sign of disaster. 

“Relax, Thatch,” Ace assured him. “You can put the bacon right on me if you want.”

Thatch physically grimaced at the offer. “That would be a major health hazard. When’s the last time you even showered?”

Ace bit his lip, trying to recall. “Do I have to answer that?”

Thatch gagged at his answer, but Marco chuckled to himself as he examined the vegetables, clearly lost in his own world. “Y/N, do you remember that month you dressed up as a scarecrow?”

“Because of the seagulls!” Rakuyo chimed in. “You were…four?”

“Oh,” Ace grinned, looking up at you. You didn’t look as mortified as you had for the previous story, and Ace was dying to hear more about your childhood. “A scarecrow, huh?”

“Yeah,” Rakuyo said. “She thought the seagulls were going to eat our vegetable garden, so every day she dressed up as a scarecrow to keep them away.”

“Too bad she didn’t realize that once we left land, we left the seagulls too!” Vista bellowed, joining in on the fun. “But hey, she was determined to stand there all day. She was convinced that standing there kept the seagulls away!”

“You guys told me it was working!” you blushed, your cheeks glowing from embarrassment.

“Damn straight we did,” Marco said, adding his ingredients to your bowl. “Kept you out of our hair for most of the day.”

You rolled your eyes. “How did I even like you as a kid? You were so mean to me! And you weren’t even a good babysitter!”

“Oh my god!” Jozu yelled, laughing to himself. “Do you guys remember when Marco let Y/N have 3 shots? He got a six-year-old hammered!”

Now it was Marco’s turn to turn red. “Now, now!” Marco defended. “That was not my fault! I turned away for thirty seconds!”

Ace was clearly humored by the story because his flames shot up, increasing the heat level.

“Hey!” Thatch hissed. “Keep it under control.”

You must’ve really scarred that man. In more ways than one. He was paranoid about everything now.

“You know what she told me?” Marco continued. “ ‘It’s in a little glass so it must be for little people.’ Three shots. In thirty seconds. And it was the good stuff, too!”

“I think I recall her claiming it tasted like candy juice,” Thatch chuckled.

“Coconut juice,” you corrected. “But it was sweet like candy.”

“You were drunk off your ass!” Marco yelled. “At six years old! And you were a mean drunk, too!”

“Shouldn’t have let me drink, then,” you shrugged, grinning at him. It was nice for the heat to be on someone else. 

“Why do you think you weren’t allowed at parties until you were 13?!” Marco hissed. “Man, I was in so much trouble that night.”

“If I recall correctly-” Fossa had a grin on his face, showing he definitely did remember correctly. “Marco was put on babysitting duty all night for the drunk kid.”

“God, I didn’t sleep a wink! That was one of the scariest moments of my life. I thought for sure you were going to die. But you didn’t even throw up! You just giggled yourself to sleep and then slept like a rock all night!”

“Even then, you could handle your alcohol,” Thatch chuckled, bumping his shoulder against yours. 

“And then that time you ran away!” Marco groaned. “That was probably the most scared I’ve been in my life, actually. God, I was sure I was Pops was going to kill me for losing you.”

Ace perked up, interested in your rebellion. “Ran away?”

“I was five!” you shouted. “And you weren’t listening to me!”

“We had to go grocery shopping, which you agreed to do!”

“I was bored! I would’ve found my way back!”

“Like hell you would’ve,” Marco shot back. “You would’ve found your way straight to a Naval Base.”

“Oh, I will need this story,” Ace said, instantly intrigued. He tried to turn to face you and Marco, but Thatch smacked him back into place. 

“You have food on you, in case you forgot,” Thatch scolded. “Stay still.”

“She ran from Marco and got picked up by some bounty hunters,” Jozu explained, ignoring the ongoing bickering you and Marco were partaking in. “They were taking her to a Naval Base to turn her in for her bounty.”

Ace raised his eyebrow at you, trying not to laugh. “How’d you get away from them?”

You shrugged. “They ran off. Marco grabbed me and took me back to the ship before they came back.”

“That is not what happened,” Marco cackled. “That is not what happened at all.”

A few others joined in on the laughter, but you didn’t understand. That’s exactly how you remembered it. “What are you talking about?” you asked, looking around. 

“Don’t act modest!” Rakuyo called out, like he was trying to pull out a story that you weren’t aware of. 

“Come on,” Ace begged. “Tell me.”

“I don’t…” you trailed off, looking at Marco for help. You really thought that was the story. You were certain Marco had rescued you.  

Marco watched you closely, trying to see if you were bluffing. “Holy shit,” he mumbled after a few moments.  “Did nobody tell you?”

“When exactly was that supposed to come up?” Thatch replied softly, taking the scrambled eggs and pouring them into the pan. 

“What?” you demanded. “What happened?”

“You killed those guys,” Vista said, chuckling at his own words. “After you ate that fruit, you set off an explosion. Marco went to investigate, and found you at the heart of it all.”

“No.” You laughed nervously, looking around the deck at everyone’s faces. Vista was always making up absurd stories; making fun of how gullible you could be. You refused to fall for it again. “I was five. I couldn’t have done that.”

“You did.” Marco leaned across you and grabbed a piece of bacon from the plate. 

“No,” you reiterated. “I remember you coming and getting me. I remember-”

“The crater you left? The ash? How exhausted you were after?” Marco asked, pressing you to remember. “You told me that those guys were trying to grab you, and then they just disappeared. You think they had time to run away?”

You knew he was right, but you didn’t want to believe him. 

It’s not like it mattered. You had killed plenty of people, both accidentally and intentionally. And those two men weren’t good people. They had wanted you dead. You were just a kid when it happened, too. It was so long ago, the details were fuzzy when you thought back to it. 

But still. How had you not realized that they had died by your hand? Had you chosen to be oblivious for this long? Had a part of you realized what you had done and tried to block it out?

“Badass,” Ace said. He patted your knee gently, bringing you out of your thoughts and back to the present. 

“Yeah.” You gave a weak smile, trying to show that it wasn’t bothering you. 

Thankfully, Thatch finished up his breakfast cooking at just the right time, and everyone immediately forgot what you had been talking about. They were far more interested in food than in embarrassing stories from your childhood. 

Ace extinguished his flames and jumped up to grab food. You watched everyone, trying to force yourself to move, but you couldn’t. You were stuck thinking about those men. 

Thankfully Ace fought the other commanders for double portions and came back with plates for each of you. 

“You okay?” he asked, sitting down next to you. 

“Yeah.” You shook your head a little, trying to clear it and the old memories that had resurfaced. 

“It was nice hearing about your childhood,” Ace said, picking up some bacon. “You sounded cute.”

“They’re going to pay for those stories,” you grumbled, shoving eggs into your mouth. 

“I was told they have some really old bounty posters of you too. I heard you might even be missing a tooth in one of your younger ones.”

You shot him a glare. “You better not go looking for them.”

“Oh darling,” he shot you a mischievous grin. “You know that the first thing I’m going to do after this. And I can’t wait to see them.”

Tag list! @taeyoge @teiza @tojislawyer @trafalgardnami @bloopbopsblog @dancingnewcat @dxestyi @flooofity @nyxthedragon01 @deadsnothere @h-rhodes1598  @morgyyyyyyy @trafalgardvivi  @fiestynatureweeb @frogpogjoghurt @beepboopcowboy @ms-portgas @luvyallbabes @aikochan4859 @zuchkaa

(if you'd like to be included in the tag list, just comment or send me a message!)

#one piece #one piece imagine #one piece scenario #one piece x reader #one piece x you #portgas d ace #portgas ace x reader #portgas d ace x reader #ace x reader #portgas ace x you #ace x y/n #portgas d ace x you #cozage

[housewifebuck]

hi everyone! I've gotten several requests to make a tutorial on how to make gifs for someone just starting out and I finally got around to slapping a tutorial together.

This tutorial will cover:

software recommendations

choosing what to gif

creating a gif step by step with probably a lot of unnecessary detail

some tips and tricks:)

(This particular tutorial will not cover how to find tv and movies to download and gif, or any specific instructions on coloring. only the basic gif making process.)

so for the purposes of this tutorial, we will be using Adobe Photoshop, which is the most common program for making gifs, and the one I recommend. the version you have doesn't make a major difference in terms of capabilities but the interface may be slightly different looking if you have an older version or a different type of device. you cannot make or edit gifs in any mobile version of the photoshop application. Optionally, we will also be using Adobe Premiere Rush/Pro or another video editing software of your choice. wherever you are downloading Photoshop, whether from Adobe or a third party, you should easily be able to acquire Premiere as well. I am aiming to be as detailed as possible in this tutorial, so it may sound more time consuming than it really is. once you get the hang of things, it goes fast. the most time consuming part by far is the editing and coloring. in my opinion, one thing that majorly saves time while giffing is knowing your keyboard shortcuts and using your mouse/trackpad as little as possible. I will be going over these in this tutorial as well.

before we begin, some general tips:

gifs of single shots that do not cut between angles or subjects generally will look the best, barring exceptions

for a single gif set, choosing scenes and shots with similar lighting will be easiest to get to look uniform when compiled together, since editing wildly different looking scenes to have similar coloring and lighting is hard and takes some practice!

avoid shots that will require you to majorly crop or zoom to properly frame the subject, as this will greatly diminish quality

speaking of quality, gifs will look best using 1080p video, but you can get away with 720p as well. I would not recommend giffing with anything lower resolution than that

Tumblr's upload capacity for image and gif files is 10mb. be sure when exporting your finished gif that it is under that size. if it is a bit over, you can try trimming a few frames off your gif in the video timeline.

if you get frustrated, don't give up! giffing is hard and complicated especially if you are new to photoshop. I tried to make this tutorial as detailed as possible so it's easy to understand (although im sure I still forgot some stuff)

ok onto the tutorial!!!

STEP ONE: choose what range of frames you want to gif, and how.

once you have decided what you want to gif, there are two main way to convert your episode into a range of frames to make into a gif. the first is by screencapping. this involves downloading a program like mplayer or vlc which can be used to convert video files into "stacks" of screencaps, which can then be separated into whatever range of frames you want and imported into photoshop. this is seemingly by far the most common method I have seen amongst gifmakers*, but personally I don't care for it and I think it's more confusing and time consuming overall, so I will be explaining the second method: importing video frames to layers.

now, normally what this would mean is opening the full episode in photoshop and using the pathetic little playheads on either end of the scrub bar to trim the file into a clip. this is where your video editing software comes into play.

open whatever episode or movie you want to gif in your program. if it is a large file like a long movie in 1080p, this may take a few seconds. like I said, I am using Premiere Rush. I will be using a random episode of 9-1-1 for my example gif.

in your media browser, hover over whichever episode you want (you can also just add the whole episode to your project and scrub through, but that can take longer unless you know what time stamp you're after). click the fullscreen button by the bottom righthand corner.

now you can scrub through and trim the episode before you even import it to premiere. this makes trimming your clip even easier.

use the trim bar (yellow outlines) to trim as close as you can around the scene you want to gif.

then click this plus, and then "add" below. this will add the clip to your project.

now, move the blue playhead up to the frame you want your gif to start on. then, use the scissors button off to the left to slice the clip. select the portion before the playhead, and delete it.

now move the playhead to where you want the gif to stop. a good length for most gifs is around 1.5-2 seconds in my opinion. some may be shorter depending on how long the shot is, or longer if you plan on making them smaller (remember, the uploading capacity on Tumblr is 10mb per file.) trim again, now delete the portion after the playhead. you can also use the left and right arrows beside the play button to move frame by frame, and you can adjust the side of the horizontal scroll bar below your clip to “zoom” in on it and make scrubbing easier.

once you have your clip, go up to where it says "share". your clip will be rendered, and then you can click export to save it.

repeat step one as many times as you want for each gif. I know this may sound complicated, but like I said above once you get in the rhythm this step takes only a few seconds.

STEP TWO: create your gif!

close premiere. open photoshop. head to the control bar at the top. select file > import > import video frames to layers.

navigate to whatever folder you exported your clip to. select it, and hit enter. a second popup will appear asking you to select your range of frames. since you have already trimmed your clip to your liking, simply hit enter a second time.

now your screen looks like this, and we are going to crop and resize our gif! (troubleshooting: if you do not see the timeline bar at the bottom, select window from the control bar, scroll down, and make sure timeline is selected as part of your workspace. Adjustments and layers should be there automatically but if not add them too).

Tumblr posts are 540px wide, so in order to make my gifs as small as possible while maintaining quality, I typically crop my gifs to be around 550-600px wide, with varying heights depending on what shape I want the gif to be. experiment with this a little and decide what works for you. just don't make the width lower than 540px. once you have the portion of the frame you want inside the cropping grid, hit enter again. sometimes you have to hit it twice.

here are the measurements I am using for this gif

now in your timeline, select frame 1. hold down the shift key and scroll to the end to select the very last frame, thereby highlighting them all. from here we will edit our frame delay rate. photoshop will automatically set it to .03s, which will make your finished gif awkwardly fast. I typically use .05s, or .06s if I want a gif to be subtly slower (this comes in handy if the shot you are trying to gif is very short). anything longer than .06s will look weird though. choose "other" from this menu and type in your delay rate. make sure not to miss the zero after the decimal.

once you've set your frame rate, go to the other end of your timeline and click here to convert your frames into a video timeline.

then press option + command + A (on Mac) or windows + alt + A (on PC) to select all layers. then right click (control + click with a trackpad) on any one of the highlighted layers in your layers tab off to the right. scroll down in the popup menu and select Convert to Smart Object.

THAT'S IT!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! WE HAVE GIF!!!

from here comes the fun part!! you will begin adding action filters like sharpening as well as adjustment layers to color and edit your gif. experiment with different adjustments and styles until you find something you like. too many adjustment layers will up the size of the finished gif though, so I tend to keep mine to 3-4 layers max unless its a really hard to color scene. if anyone is interested in a separate coloring tutorial, please let me know!

once you are finished editing your gif, click file > export > save for web (legacy) OR hit shift + option + command + S. play your gif in the export window to make sure it looks okay, and then hit save!

I hope you guys find this helpful and informative! please hit up my in box if you have any questions or if anything doesn't make sense. happy giffing!!!

*one reason people seem to prefer screencapping to this method, is saving all the individual clips as video files does take up a lot of space on your scratch drive, which in turn can cause your computer to work slowly or crash programs. this can be rectified by making sure to delete the clips from your computer once you are done making the gifs. another space hoarder to look out for is the proxy files of your episodes that will be automatically saved to your hard drive whenever you add an episode to your project in Premiere. Periodically, go through your storage and delete all the .proxy video files. this will not delete the original episode files, only the proxy files created by Premiere.

tagging some mutuals to sb hehe: @shitouttabuck @lover-of-mine @honestlydarkprincess @eddiediaaz @compactdiscmp3 @eddiebabygirldiaz @bigfootsmom @callaplums @athenagranted @firemedicdiaz @sibylsleaves @loserdiaz @buck2eddie @diazass @eddiediaztho @giddyupbuck @monsterrae1 @icecreampotluck @sunflowerdiaiz @swiftfootedachilles @singlethread @aziraaphales @911onabc

#if this doesn’t make any sense yes it does. I’m very sleepy #tutorials #gif tutorials #🪐 #gif help

[ari-leah-arts]

Hi Ari!

I’ve always been a fan of your severitus art  and I’ve started to pursue digital art as a hobby, i only have procreate and I struggle to draw without using a reference. I was wondering if you have any tips to help, especially that I will usually be drawing Snape and Harry 

Thanks in advance! 

Hello!

Thank you! I'm delighted to hear you're picking up on digital art! It's a truly fun medium. I'm familiar with procreate, though I'm trying to stop using it. Nothing against the program(long story). SO. I want to address "I struggle to draw without using a reference" .

-clears throat- This is NOT an issue. Using a reference does not make you a lesser artist, or at all symbolize lack of skill. ALWAYS use a reference, even if you're sure you don't need one, you may notice something regardless. I have a bachelors in Illustration with a Concept Art Concentration and I STILL USE REFERENCES. Dreamworks, Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, DC, Wizards of the Coast artists, they all use refs. I know this because they were the ones who TAUGHT me. Allow me to prove a point->

These are all WIP screen captures I've sent to servers I'm in. I'm using refs. When I'm at my PC?

Please, don't ever feel like using a reference is like wearing training wheels, or CHEATING. IT'S NOT and I know there are people out there saying otherwise and they ARE WRONG. Do I use a ref for everything? No. But I do for a good 85% of my work. It can be a color ref, a mood ref, a pose ref, doesn't matter. There is very little I don't need a ref for. Let me put it into perspective.

Darth Vader is the only subject(besides dragons) I 99% of the time don't need a ref for(sometimes I open my Vader model for tough head angles or take photos of my mask replica). I have been drawing Vader, consistently since I was SIXTEEN. I've been drawing him for 13 years. After 13 years, yeah...I don't need a ref. Like with anything, PRACTICE is key. Repetition makes for great xp points. Do I use a reference for Severus? Yes. With my Sev, I created a face I felt fit my vision of him using Alan Rickman and JK's sketches as a base. After that, I used my OWN work of him as a ref just to ensure I kept him in the same style. For Harry and Snape. Don't rely on the actors. You don't NEED to. My Snape looks nothing like Alan. You don't have to worry about likeness with these characters unless you are aiming for the actors. All I really grabbed from Alan for my Snape was his hair and robes, which I began altering over time. Have FUN with these characters. Go off what the books say and create your OWN VISSION. I did.

Sorry for the long reply. oops. I'm adamant/passionate about this.

#long post #ask answered #answered ask #darth vader #severus snape #harry potter #professor snape #art #piett #admiral piett #firmus piett

[aimasup]

I can't do this anymore I have to get this out now

Welcome Home but if they were students in like middle school, human or puppet idk

long post warning

Poppy Partridge

she's the class monitor alongside Howdy and a very good one because she cares so much. Almost too much

more stressed about collecting the homework and class fees than the teachers

takes lab rules verrrrry seriously but you could not pay her to even stand next to a bunsen burner

favourite subject is Physics, oddly enough. Knowing how all these unpredictable accidents can be put into numbers gives her some kind of peace.

If something isn't explicitly stated in the instructions she'll wonder if she's missing something in between the lines

she gets made fun of for her troubles :(

Sally Starlet

Keeps getting into the principal's office

Has skipped school so many times and her grades are barely passing

If she's called up and doesn't know the answer she will make one

Is actually the president of a couple clubs and very enthusiastic during cocurricular activities, also a competent leader

Volunteers for so many activities and events. Not for credit, for fun

Rules announced at school talks because of her: No feather duster lightsaber battles, no standing on tables and starting impromptu sing-alongs, no 'grand car tire roly poly racing' down the halls, no broom twirling, no white balloons, etc.

identifies as Poppy's weekly heart attack

Eddie Dear

Exchange student! The mystery is from where. Most people think he's avoiding the answer

Isn't a leader in anything but has gained a reputation for being such a reliable stand-up guy whose flaws are more forgivable

He's a prefect who gets called out of class more than anyone to help with something

He's always so happy to help but then he gets even more late or tired, and his grades are falling behind

If you asked him to share his lunch money he'd gladly do it. with hesitance.

needs better boundaries

Julie Joyful

School's beloved. The kind of student who gets immediate applause when they perform or receive an award during an assembly

Started her own gardening club, grades are in the top few, an optimism that's as baffling as it is infectious

Sneaks gum and random toys into class, somehow manages to style her uniform in a unique way every other week

"psst can I copy your homework? I'll do your nails"

Can make any old cleaning task fun

Best and favourite subject is physical education, which includes games, gym, health, etc. Basically hands-on learning because she gets bored sitting still too long

Has a competitive side that gets wild if left unchecked

Frank Frankly

Number one in grades, always was, always will be

He's organizational, not lawful. Doesn't mind climbing over a fence or two in the name of education

His desk is almost unreal to look at it's so clean. Thinks of ways to solve a task so efficiently you'd think he's aiming to be class monitor (he is)

Though he intimidates people they often ask for study tips. His handwriting is an actual font and his diagrams look printed

Favourite subject is Biology but you wouldn't know because he excels at all of them

Also a prefect. He met Eddie during the orientation

During free time if he's not studying or doing homework exercises, he's sketching or letting Eddie and Julie gather at his table to chat

*raises hand* "uUhm teacher you forgot to assign homewo-"

Barnaby B. Beagle

If Julie gets candy into class he's somehow having whole dinners at the back. There's a rumour his bag can carry a microwave

He makes jokes during class, he balances stationary on his nose, he calls the teachers dude, his uniform is messy, but he's so chill and sweet that he's comfortable to be around real quick

Never pays attention during class. If he's not sleeping he's poking holes in his eraser with a pencil or something

yet he keeps getting decent grades. Teachers do NOT like him but popular among students

Best subject is English, but not everyone appreciates his poetry and essays unfortunately

Wally Darling

There's being well-liked and then there's 'most crushes accumulated school-wide'. It's no wonder because of how nice and helpful he is

Often told he has so much potential and that he's a model student. Basically teacher's pet

He's apparently known as so kind and sweet and gentle and perfect and cute but his friends know he's just a silly sleepy guy

You either love him or hate him, no in between

Best subject is art, his paintings are often posted around the school and he's done a few wall projects

Focuses verrry well in class! Appears so anyways. Head's always in the clouds, such a daydreamer

Also, certain unexplainables noticed about him. Brings one shiny apple every day but doesn't eat it. Leaves school, yes, but how does he get home? He's always the first one in class too, before Poppy. Somehow has all the latest gossip, but he'd never spill a friend's secret :)

Howdy Pillar

Class monitor, next to Poppy. He's just a handy dude

Helps out in the school cooperative selling items, most responsible out of everyone because he can keep a level head for tasks

Doesn't stand out much, originally just wanted to get through the semesters and get the business experience but soon became a social butterfly

Jarringly cheerful under all the work he takes upon himself. His organizational skills rival Frank's. No one knows how he does it

If someone can't afford to pay for something he helps them out in a way that doesn't technically break any rules

Is also the reason their class alone is cleaner than anyone else's. Poppy is the reason no one's dead

#welcome home #my post #headcanons #long post #julie joyful #sally starlet #poppy partridge #howdy pillar #eddie dear #wally darling #barnaby b beagle #frank frankly #welcome home puppet show

[itstheghostofmypast]

Love is like Fire

Five x F.Reader (Pyrokinesis)

H.C - lowkey story like

Powers: Pyrokinesis

Codename: Arson

Summary: Love, a word that held little meaning for him, a word that would disgust him. Love, a word that would haunt her, remind her of the purity that was stolen from her, replaced by the of gift sent from Hell. Love, a word that had ignited a new flame within him. Love, a word that had her burning with passion at the thought of him. Love, that had taught both the meaning of 'forever', the fragility of morality and chaos.

Genre: Angst/Fluff

WARNINGS: Suicidal thoughts, mention of domestic violence, child abuse, human trafficking, self-hate, murder to some extent (yeah, i was on a roll)

Requested by: @madelynmulford (okay, so I know you gave a simple request, but I kinda went ahead and added a bit too much- I'm so sorry and I hope you like it (」ﾟﾛﾟ)｣ )

Love, what is love? Great minds from all over the world, for centuries, have pondered upon the true, exact meaning of this horrid abstract presence- one that can be considered as a feeling, a gesture, or even a physical act. More importantly, what is considered love? What is the most accurate and favored form of love? A mother's love, one that is deemed to be unconditional and eternal, or a father's love, is often categorized as tough love, one that raises his children as warriors. Or perhaps the love of a soul mate claimed to be as gentle as the morning breeze, soft as dandelions, and pure as an angel's kiss. To Five Hagreeves, all that was bullshit. A mother who sold him, a father that just trained him as a soldier, and no matter how much he claimed to love Delores, at the back of his mind, he knew she was only with him because he was the last man alive. So to him, love was a complicated subject, and all the branches attached to it.

Which is why, when he first met her, he had no clue as to why he felt like he was on fire- well, at that moment he was literally on fire as well. 

He wasn't supposed to be doing that alone tonight. This was a military base he was sent to and the 25-year-old was told by the Handler that he'd have assistance but at the moment, he was blinking around the base, avoiding as many bullets as he could, praying he didn't run out of juice. Unfortunately, blinking into a dead end was not how he thought he'd end up dying, frankly, he thought he'd go back in time, and f*** up the timeline a few times with his siblings- either dying in the process of actually living a decent life. 

"In my defense, I'm not really American." He said raising his hands, as all guns were aimed at him, "Ah shit-"

Several clicks were heard as they aimed, ready to fire, but as they were about to, the tips of their guns began to burn orange for a split second before melting. Confused, the guards exchanged a look before they heard someone scream, a guard had caught fire, followed by another, then another and in a matter of minutes, the entire fleet was on fire. Their horrifying screams echoed across the base. One of them pounced on Five as he blinked away, out of the building and into the parking lot, surrounded by tanks. 

"What the f***-"

"Your shoulder is on fire."

"What? SHIT" patting away the fire he stared at the burnt hole in his coat, examining the damage. 

"Wanna see something cool?"

He turned to finally look at the person, she was sitting on top of the tanks, staring at the buildings of the base with a look in her eyes- he'd seen that look before. A shiver ran down his spine as he blinked her in, a woman radiating an ethereal presence, one that poured out strength....and violence. She wasn't wearing the usual commission uniform either, no, in fact, she was dressed in all black. A stealth suit- who was this woman and why did she make his palms all sweaty? Suddenly a deafening screech rang across the field, causing him to cover his ears as one by one, each building exploded, the raging fire eating the concrete jungle before them. He heard her chuckle, eyes wide as he stared at the amusement in her eyes, she was enjoying this, the act of burning everything to ashes, the screams of pain and- MOTHER F***ER

"The FILE IS STILL INSIDE"

"WHAT." Her head whipped in his direction, another boom echoing in the back, "THE HELL WERE YOU DOING IN THEIR FOR THE PAST THREE HOURS''

"TRYING NOT TO DIE- YOU'VE BEEN HERE FOR THREE HOURS AND DIDN'T COME INSIDE TO HELP ME???"

That is how the two first met, the first mission the two had together- screwing it up perfectly. Hence, the two stood in front of the Handler who sighed, staring at the two,

"I know her tendencies but you, Five, darling I thought you were better than this"

"She didn't show up on time- in fact, she almost killed me in the process too!!

"Is that right Arson?"

"N-ye-maybe"

Taking a deep breath, the blonde looked at the girl then at Five, "Tell you what, from now on, both of you will be partners. Learn each other's strengths and weaknesses and make it work. I have high expectations from both of you- do not let me down."

"But-"

"No buts Arson, your track record is declining and your previous partner left some complaint in HR- we need to fix that, understood?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Good girl, now here's another file, I expect both of you to handle this one properly."

Therefore, Five decided to be civil, for two reasons, firstly because the Handler had demanded them to do so and he didn't want to ruin his end of the bargain and secondly, this tug deep within his shrunken, dried-out heart forced him to look past the recent catastrophic events of mass homicide- at least try to. 

"You can go through it first." he offers.

"I will." she muttered quickly skimming through the file and closing it, "Here." she offered it to him.

"Thanks", reaching for it, with a surprised expression, not expecting her to be so normal, his fingers were an inch away from the file before it caught fire. Hissing from the heat that barely scraped his fingertips he glared at her.

"oops~"

To say that the two got off on the right foot would be plain stupid. He didn't like her- no he loathed her, in fact, he believed (and told the Handler several times) that this little burnt-out lighter should be behind bars, or even better PUT OUT. He never understood why the Handler didn't do anything. This woman- or as everyone called her Arson was completely chaotic, destructive, and a sociopath. Not to mention she was OUT OF CONTROL. It was incredibly difficult to do anything with her, even a simple conversation would break into an argument. For example, when they exchanged immediate personal information, such as their names;

"Five Hargreeves"

"Arson."

"Is that actually your name?"

"No, but there is no need to tell disposable people my name."

"I'm sorry, but last I checked, all of us were disposable."

"Apology accepted, but you were wrong, though I wouldn't worry about it, you won't be staying too long anyway."

"Come again, flamethrower?"

"What.did.you.call.me?"

Let's be real, it's not like she wanted a partner it is very true that the night at the base, she was about to kill him too. She'd just say he turned into collateral damage and that was that, but she didn't know he could...blink. Was the Handler collecting beings like her now? Anyway, if this was their boss' pathetic attempt at taming her, she was a fool- she'd burn this dude to a crisp in a matter of days. Or so she thought she would.

Five was no idiot, he didn't like her, that much was evident, but he wasn't egotistical enough to call her useless. No, she was the exact opposite. She was a genius, she knew what she was doing and how to do it. The way her eyes would calculate the area and presence around them before battle, often mumbling about how the weather would affect her powers- the drier the weather the better it was for her. Often he would spot a book in her hand, literature of old age, literature of a variety of languages, which is why when she spoke in fluent Russian during a mission he wasn't surprised- especially when she looked at him with that shit-eating grin as if taunting it. He just shrugged in response though, he had long figured out she could speak more than one language. Unfortunately, all that brain was useless when it came down to the concept of 'morality and boundaries.' For even though she looked like an angel, the demon inside her burning soul spoke in volumes that could put hell to shame. It would haunt him, the killings, he'd get up at the dead of the night, drenched in a cold sweat, heart pounding against his rib cage but her, no, he'd never seen her flinch while she was awake, let alone have nightmares at night. He had seen her torture, purely for fun- especially men. Most of the time, their missions were simple in and out, but for some reason, as they would be leaving, the screams of men on fire would be bouncing around behind them.

He bothered her, he really did. She knew he'd complain to the Handler about her, but he'd never quit being her partner. It was aggravating. She had not been partnered up in so long, let alone FOR so long as well. It had been 2 years and he'd been putting up with her- what was more surprising though is that he never really 'insulted her . She knew she was a monster, one that was sent from hell itself, yet, there were the briefest moments where he'd say these things and just leave her with her thoughts- she would know that he was upset, but he wouldn't take it out on her. Just leave for a while, the next morning he'd get up as if nothing happened.

"Must you do that every time?"

"Do what?"

"Set people on fire? For God's sake Arson, that wasn't even needed."

"Why are your panties in a knot, you got feelings for them or something-"

"No. But I see no need for murdering people for fun."

"Who said it's fun?"

"Whatever it's worth Arson, I think you don't know why you do it too." with that he blinked out of the car, leaving her sitting alone with herself.

He was right. She didn't know. She was Arson, and setting things on fire was her job. Her powers, this curse, was all she had, all she was, and never in a million years have fire or anything related ever been described as anything but demonic or hell sent. This was who they wanted her to be, what they said she'd turn into, so why was this wrong? 

Love, disgusting thing ain't it? Hell, he still wasn't sure if it was love, but when he'd look at her, sitting in the car as he blinked out, he felt an unsettling mixture of emotions settle in the pit of his stomach. He knew he wasn't wrong, she was out of control. There is a difference between being chaotic-good and just plain messed up and right now, she was borderline messed up. What bothered him the most was the most important question, why did he care? Why did he care about her wellbeing, how she felt, how her choices reflected her- none of that was his business. Hell, he didn't even know her real name, yet, for some reason, for the past whole year, he had been trying to figure her out, to peel away the layers- he knew, his gut told him, there was more to what she was, more to all this fire and destruction. Maybe it was because of her powers, the fact that she had powers too, just like him, made him feel a bit better about himself, less lonely. She was the first person he had seen in years who didn't gawk at him in awe when he blinked, someone who wasn't scared of him either- she looked him dead in the eye. He wanted to talk to her, for some reason he felt like that may solve this a bit, but he was no conversationalist, nor was she- moreover, he was sure she couldn't care less about him. 

Well, at least that's what he thought- to some extent she thought the same, you know, not caring about him. Unfortunately, the little blue bird in her cage felt differently. One of the blessings of having her powers was that in winter- she was a human heater. The cold never bothered her, she'd rid of her stealth suit as well. Ironically, she'd switch to what Five later described as - the Deigo outfit-  a leather jacket, covering a basic white tank top, a pair of faded jeans, and combat boots. Now, to any sane person, she looked like a lunatic, especially when they were sent to Alaska, during the harsh winters. 

Five had seen the winter through the apocalypse, one of the worst kinds, but recently, he had decided that this was the worst kind of winter he had ever had the pleasure to deal with. Not only was it cold, but they got ambushed, the temperature had affected his ability to blink and they were lost in a blizzard. What was more surprising throughout the entire thing, she had stayed in control she was keeping her destruction in check ever since he confronted her in the car- almost two years ago. See, he knew there was a little morality within her. 

"I can see a building nearby."

"What if there are people there-"

"Five, that place is busted up and it's freezing here, I assure you, it's abandoned."

That is how the two ended up inside the abandoned building. She was searching for something to burn while he was looking for something to wrap himself up with, unfortunately, there was nothing there. The place was an abandoned lab, almost empty, minus a few tables and chairs- empty vials and shattered glass on the floor. He hissed as the freezing sensation begin to take over his body, at this point, he couldn't even feel his fingers anymore, the tips blue- shit. She came back into the room, closing the door behind her, holding a pile of papers she had found, they were wet, but she could easily burn them. Turning to look for him, she paused, until she noticed him on the floor, shivering in a fetal position. 

"Shit- FIVE" running to him, she placed the papers beside him, setting them on fire. She took off her jacket, placing it over his shoulders as he pushed it away, mumbling; "No...you'll get co-oh-old" he shivered. 

"Shut up man." she snapped back, her jacket was small for him, naturally. Nonetheless, she pulled it closer, rubbing her hands together, then taking a deep breath, "I have an idea...but...I...tell me if it gets too warm okay?" she muttered, dragging him to a corner as she sat him down first. He could only groan in response, too fazed out. She sat beside him, pulling him closer, wrapping her arms around him as she hugged him close. His face buried in her shoulder, she took a deep breath before closing her eyes, "Five...I need you to live through this okay? Just...just focus on my voice." When she got no response she shook him-violently- earning a, "yes... please you're warm." He snuggled closer to her, wrapping his arms around her frame, laying there, semi on top of her, as his cheek pressed against the exposed skin of her neck. He was almost asleep- his body going in and out of consciousness until he heard her, she was reciting a poem. He knew that poem;

"There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you."

"Ch-Charles B-Bukowski" he whispered, earning a chuckle from her, it was beautiful. Not once in these years of knowing her, had he heard her. "Shhh...just don't fall asleep okay? I need to concentrate, otherwise, I may potentially burn you." 

there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out

but I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke

and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that

he's in there.

He could feel her body warm up, the numbness from his body slowly fading, allowing his mind to work in overdrive- the usual way it did. If he could warm up just a bit more, he could blink the two out of there, possibly to someplace warmer. He wanted to tell her this, but he wanted to listen to her as well, this was slowly starting to make sense to him.

There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out

but I'm too tough for him, I say stay down, do you want to mess me up?

You want to screw up the works?

You want to blow my book sales in Europe?

She pulled him closer, honestly so lost in the moment that she didn't notice him looking up at her. How her breath was shaky and her lip was quivering. He had never seen her so vulnerable. There was much more to this woman and he knew it- and he was right to. 

There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out

but I'm too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody's asleep. 

I say I know that you're there, so don't be sad.

Her breath hitched, eyes clenching harder as she let out a small whimper. Five slowly sat up, pulling her closer, in an actual embrace, his chin placed on top of her head, as she let out a muffled sob. He was glad how well she was controlling her powers because Handler had warned him about how she would lose control of them whenever she was emotional. He waited for a moment, to check if she would finish the poem, but her silent crying against his chest told him otherwise. He felt better now, warmer, enough to get them out of this shit hole. Taking a deep breath he whispered to her,

then I put him back, but he's singing a little

in there, I haven't quite let him die and we sleep together like that

with our secret pact and it's nice enough to make a man weep,

but I don't weep, do you?

With that, he blinked them out of there, into the last motel they had checked into. She had not realized they were in a different place, but then again she was drained, more importantly, she was staring up at him in awe. Watching how his lips would move, pouring out each word of Bukowski's BlueBird with such grace. It only occurred to her that they had blinked when the dim lights of the room illuminated his angular face, casting shadows to make him look even more handsome than he already was. That was it, with that she groaned, falling onto the bed, eyes slowly closing as he got off the bed- honestly, he hadn't thought of blinking right onto the bed, but maybe his tired brain had thought of it. He pulled her shoes off, tucking her in, only for her to whine in her sleep and toss the blankets off her, turning to the other side - the cooler side of the bed. That's when he noticed something on her back, her tank top, and rode up due to her movements, revealing a good portion of her back. He knew he wasn't supposed to, it was wrong and disrespectful, but the tattoo peeking out forced him- curiosity to get the better of him. Making sure to cover her front with the sheets, his fingers reached for the hem of the material, slowly pushing it upwards, exposing her back, his fingertips brushing against her warm skin. His breath hitched at the sight of what was tattooed between her shoulder blades, a fire poppy. With a heavy sigh, he adjusted her attire, fixing it properly and tucking her in once more- there was so much more to her, each piece he discovered would make him feel as if he was punched in the heart- was this....love? 

Naturally, the next morning he never brought up the tattoo, knowing she'd burn him to bits, especially when he realized she never mentioned the poem either- or the fact that she was crying the entire time. She was back to her a**hole routine, much to his displeasure. 

"Man, could you have brought us to a hotter place???"

"It's not that hot, Arson"

"Yeah, says the guy whose balls freeze at the slightest of breeze."

"Nice to see you're doing much better-"

"Mention last night again and I'll kill you."

"But I like Charles Bukowski too-"

"NEVER AGAIN."

So yes, Charles Bukowski, the Bluebird, or even the tattoo were never mentioned again. For a very, very long time. The only change that had occurred after that night was that she was slightly more open, when it came down to trivial conversation, while Five. Oh, well that man was in a pickle, for he had developed a new trait when he was around her- possessiveness. When they'd be on a mission, he'd be sending death glares to anyone looking at her, when she'd be in a fight, his attention would be on her, blinking around her, keeping enemies away from her- she didn't notice though. Or at least he thought she didn't. She did though. She noticed everything, how he would watch her every move, how he would be gentle with her. When he'd get himself a coffee in the morning, he'd get her something cool to drink, often a fresh juice, claiming it was healthy. He bought her a new leather jacket, even though she told him not to,

"No."

"I owe it to you."

"You can pay back by SHUTTING UP IM BUSY"

"Are you going to set something on fire?"

"Five, please, I haven't in so long and that man looks like a creep, look at how he's staring at those kids and I just-"

"You realise you can just go punch him."

"The smell of ashes is bette- and he just grabbed that kid great. THANKS, A LOT"

It's safe to say that Five managed to blink there, grab the kid and blink away before the man was mysteriously set on fire- a fire that could not be put out even by water.

"Feeling better?"

"Much...we should do this more often."

Things rolled like this for some time, usually, he'd be cleaning up her mess or at least making sure she didn't cross any boundaries, in return, she would only become 'destructive' when he would deem fit, not that she minded it- he was violent, she knew it, but then again, he was Five. The Handler's new favorite, the commission's best member. For her though, he was slowly becoming something very important, something she could cling on to, something permanent- someone permanent, someone who cares. Though she would remind herself, again and again, how that was what she WISHED he was, for just how everyone thought she was a monster, he did the same, only instead of being scared, he was trying to tame her. Or so she'd tell herself, the bluebird could stay in that cage of fire, or she'd burn it.

He began to make it difficult for her though, other than his usual protectiveness, he would sometimes just sit with her in silence, watching people go by. He'd play a tune, and lower the volume enough so it was only a faint whisper in their ears. On one particular occasion, 1st October, the most horrid day of her life- her birthday-, they were sitting in the car, they were done with their mission. So now, they were parked in a drive-in restaurant, waiting for whatever Five had ordered for them.

'Here, I got you something for your birthday" he spoke up out of the blue, handing her a wrapped object 

"Oh..." She looked at the rectangular object, wrapped in shiny...blue paper- it was the same color you'd see when he'd blink. Around the paper was a red ribbon, tied up into a pretty bow. "I...ehem.. thanks but I didn't get you anything."

He shrugged staring ahead at the waiters on roller skates, "don't need to..."

He watched her eagerly rip it open, fingers hapting as she whispered to herself, "no way..."

"Open it." He urged her, waiting for her to see what was inside.

Flipping open the book she read on the first page, it was a note, from Charles Bukowski addressed to her, "To dear Arson, interesting choice of name. May the fire within your keep you forever warm." Her fingers traced the ink, staring at the paper, not only did he get her an original "The Last Night Of The Earth Poems" but he got it signed too.

"Do you like it, Arson?' he whispered, leaning to look at her expressions as she turned away, facing the window. He heard her sniff as he chuckled, reaching for her hand, giving it a light squeeze.

Clearing her throat she wiped her eyes with her free hand, before facing him. "It's Y/N"

His grip tightened on her hand, moving closer as he stared at her, "What was that?"

"My name...it's Y/N".

"It's...beautiful..."

This was it, he was finally getting to know her, his heart was beating like crazy, her hand warm in his ears ringing as he admired her beauty, leaning closer to her. He didn't know what he was doing, but his body was reacting on its own, eyes closing, that is until she gasped, accidentally slapping him- "FOR GOD'S SAKE ARSON". Well, he misread the situation.

"I know what to give you as a gift."

"What?"

"I won't use my powers for three missions."

"....so no burning?"

"Well, I can see how you always almost piss yourself when I seem to be punishing evil people-"

"...because being the lawyer, judge and executioner is -"

"Yes, yes, wrong we've had this discussion before BUT ONLY 3."

"Who knows Arson- Y/N, you might even like it, hand to hand combat is much more cathartic."

He was right, it was tiring, but it felt so much better. The crunch of someone's bone under your knuckles felt good- though when she told Five this he responded with a chuckle and an "as long as its bad guys."

They made a routine out of this, she'd only use her powers when necessary, and he'd cover her when needed- which was apparently more than often. Yes, she did notice, but never said anything, for some reason, knowing someone cared about her made her feel a bit...less angry. She began to feel this way once she told him her name, it felt sweet and tingly, every time he'd use it when they were alone, even when he'd ask her the simplest of things, like what she wanted to eat. Five didn't mind the rate of this progress, he knew she was opening up to him, and frankly speaking, he was more concerned about her well-being most of the time to care about whether she loved him or not. Ironically, he was overprotective of her, the urge to be around her all the time was irritably strong. He wanted to go back to his family as well, but the math was still off and he wanted to know if he could take her- it's not like anyone appreciated her here. But would she want to or rather how long would it take her to let him in?

It was supposed to be a simple mission, go in, get a file and not kill anyone in the process- okay, so not killing anyone was difficult for both Y/N and Five. Though she had avoided burning anyone to death, they were outnumbered. Five had blinked ahead, while she was supposed to be the distraction. Five had made sure to hurry up, because as much as he trusted her ability to defend herself, the last thing he'd want is for her to get hurt because of him- especially when they weren't allowed to kill anyone here.

She was doing fine, in fact, she had managed to bust up more than a dozen men who had come at her, everything was fine until a familiar face caught her eye. She had seen that man before, who was running towards her with a bat. Frozen in place, her breath hitched, her brain switching off at the sight of the attacker. She had seen that necklace before, that face, she knew him- Five blinked back to where he had left her, file in hand, he was about to call her out when he heard a loud thump, only to see her falling to the ground, being tackled down by a man. He was about to blink to her before she reacted, her hand on fire, colliding with the man's face who hissed in pain. He fell backward, holding onto his face, staring at her as she stood up, slowly approaching him. 

"Shit." Five hissed, blinking to her only to blink away when her whole body lit up on fire. "ARSON SNAP OUT OF IT!"

"You filthy swine!" she hissed, "How much do you think I'm worth now?!" her hand extended forward, aiming for him as the man begged her for his life.

"NO!" Five blinked in front of him, staring at her, "Y/N listen to me, okay? Our instructions are clear-"

"MOVE OR DIE!"

"THEN DO IT!" he glared back at her, turning his head to stare at the man with now a burnt cheek, "Get out of here, NOW!" with a curse the man ran away leaving-

"NO!" she screeched aiming for him again but Five got in the way, shaking his head, "Y/N, please! Listen to me! This isn't right-"

"FIVE MOVE OR HE'LL DO IT AGAIN!"

"Whatever it is we can't mess with it!" he yelled back moving closer to her, hissing at the heat radiating off her ablaze body. He extended his hand, reaching for hers, "Don't be the monster they want you to be" he yelled before grabbing her hand, waiting for the burning sensation, but it never came. Her body was normal again, skin warm against his. sighing in relief he pulled her closer, hugging her as he kissed the top of her head, "Let's go - NO" he blinked away. It all happened in a split second, one moment he was holding her, and the next he was gone. She whipped around at the sound of a gunshot, he had blinked behind her, protecting her. Panicked she grabbed onto his falling form, looking at him as he hissed in pain,  eyes trailing down to the blood on his shirt, the stain growing larger by the second.

"Shit- f*** Five, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" she yelled at him before looking at the man who had fired the shot, "YOU-"

"Y/N" he coughed, gripping onto her arm, "I'm blinking us out of here." he groaned, not waiting for a response as he blinked them away, safe in their motel room. He blinked up at her slowly, eyes growing heavy as he chuckled, "Are you...crying?"

"Shut up" she hissed, pressing a hand to his wound, "I'll fix you up- I- don't die on me okay," she said trying to get up but he kept her still, hand on her arm, his breathing shallow. "Wait, Y/N, you need to know that I-I love you." he groaned before blacking out.

His eyes snapped at the loud boom, sitting up only to wince and fall back on the bed- oh shit, they were back at the motel, and- holy shit did he survive? Pulling up the blankets he saw that he was wrapped up, pretty professionally too. Glancing around the room his eyes landed on her sleeping form, seated in the chair beside him, brows furrowed. Slowly reaching for her hand, he winced when she slapped his hand, staring up at her he gulped, "Hey-"

"No. No hey, nothing. How dare you say something like that and almost die?"

"Actually, I thought I was dead, you patched me up well."

"I didn't have a partner for a long time, so I had to learn to do it."

"Y/N about what I said-"

"Forget it. I don't love you."

Her words stung, his heart felt like it was being squeezed tight, "You don't love me...or you don't want to admit it-"

"I am unworthy of such things. Are you blind?? Don't you see Five? I'm a monster! I'm not like you! I have no code of conduct, no morals- I almost killed you!" she cut him off, about to stand up only for him to grab her wrist and pull her back down.

"But you didn't! You aren't a monster Y/N! F*** I'd love you even if you were"

"DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT LOVE IS?"

He stared at her, grip tightening around her wrist, he knew she could tell he had no clue about it, hell, he didn't even know if what he felt was love, but he knew he wasn't letting her go.

"Five..." she whispered, leaning closer, her words soft, "Love...is for the pure, for the worthy, I am neither. If you knew anything about me, you'd kill me yourself-"

"Then tell me." he spat, pushing away the sheets, glaring at her, "I don't know a damn thing about you, yet, here I am all putty in your hands- You think I like feeling this weak, woman? I give you my all and you just push me away, what do you think I am?" he seethed through gritted teeth, inches away from her face, "Do you think I'm some kind of saint? I've done shit you can't even begin to imagine. I don't enjoy feeling this way Y/N, I don't have to protect you but I do because I want to... I don't know why, and just like why you don't know why you like burning people to death, you don't know why you shouldn't let me love you. You think you're filthy and a beast, well let me break it to you, you have no idea" he whispered, "what a monster is.`` With that he let go of her as soon as he noticed the fear in her eyes, "I-I'm sorry I just..." he trailed off staring at the wall behind her, maybe he was mad at her. For once, hearing her reject him so openly and bluntly was not something he expected or rather was not something he was ready for. 

"I'm...sorry," she whispered, his eyes darting to her face, her orbs fixated on her hands as she sat back down in the chair beside his bed. "I...I don't tell you anything because...I don't want you to leave." she whispered, biting her lip to hold back a sob. 

"You've tried to kill me several times, Y/N." he stated bluntly laying back down as he stared at the ceiling, "You don't have to talk about it, I understand you don't feel the same way-"

"That man, the one you saved..3 years from now, he's going to buy a little girl from a horrible excuse of a father and put her up for auction."

Head whipping in her direction, he stared at her wide-eyed, letting out a shaky, "W-what?"

"I...This girl was born on 1st October 1989, to a poor couple who could not conceive. With an abusive husband, the wife would often be the victim of his abuse, before their child's birth. Once, the child was born, things got worse between the two, neither could...have a child, yet, here she was, their baby girl. The wife thanked every entity possible for this miracle but the husband, no, he hated the birthed creature...called it...satan's unwanted child. He wasn't wrong though, they soon discovered the child had powers of the sort- a curse as the husband named it. Fire. She could set things on fire, her whole body could light up ablaze and she'd be alright. In winters, her body would grow warmer, but the wife didn't care, she l-loved her daughter. Like nothing she had loved before, she'd protect her child from everything, the world, the evil spirits, and her husband. Whenever he'd bea- punish his wife, she'd tell her daughter to cover her ears and close her eyes, count to 100 and it'll be okay. It would, every time she'd open her eyes after counting...things would be back to normal, she'd see her mother smile at her and the husband wouldn't be there anymore." She sighed, staring at her hands, ashamed to look at him, "One night though...she... she opened her eyes before she could reach a hundred and she saw what he was doing to her...she doesn't remember much after that, only the sound of her mother screaming in pain. She woke up to find the ashes of everything around her- her whole world lost...her mother, the only person to see him as a human, the only person to love her, her world, the only person fighting this war for her...lost. Next thing she knows, she is at an orphanage..." she stopped to look at him, wondering if he was still listening, meeting his emerald orbs, swirling with emotion. 

"Then?"

"The place was a front...it was a brothel or something run by the headmaster...the girl was different though, she was the headmaster's favorite." Five wasn't sure how or why, but once again he felt this fire ignite, reaching for her hand, gently clasping it in his as he looked at her to continue, "One day, there comes a man, I don- the girl didn't know what he wanted but she heard him argue with the headmaster, then he came in her room telling her how he owned her now. Next thing she knows she's in a cage, on a stage, surrounded by these people- monsters- they were yelling number and" her breath hitched, gipping his hand as her words caught her throat, clenching her eyes shut as she leaned forward, resting her forehead against the hand that was holding onto hers.

"Was it the same man as today?"

"Y-yes...she did it again though when he pulled her out of the cage she ...lost control, blacked out and woke up to a lady standing in front of her...offering her a job. She told her she'd give her a new life, a new identity and she took it."

There was silence after that, neither knew what to say for a while. He watched her silently weep, holding onto his hand, he wondered what it would've been like if his father had adopted her too. Maybe she'd be different, happier, safer, less broken- not saying that his childhood was any better, but compared to what she had just told him, it was a f***ing blessing. After almost an hour of crying she slowly sat up, staring at their hands, "Please...Five, I'm okay as Arson- a monster-, that's who I am and who I'll be forever."

"You're not, you're Y/N, the strongest person I have ever met. You're no monster, I've never seen you kill an innocent person in our time together- you may have a f***ed up sense of execution, but it isn't wrong...sometimes, it's okay to not see the grey between the black and white." He smiled at her, bringing her hand to his lips, kissing it gently, "I'm not asking you to love me, I just need you to know you're are worth so much more than you think- and I'll take a bullet for you over and over again-"

"Please don't do that again, if you hadn't blinked us out I'm pretty sure I would've burned everything to the ground, you included." 

"Understood...I have...one more question, what does the fire poppy represent, the one um.." averting his gaze he cleared his throat, "On your back."

"I won't ask how you know that, but my mother used to call me a fire poppy, and then...poppies represent remembrance...and she was my world."

"Oh." was all he said before sighing as he closed his eyes, "Y/N, I know you don't love me, but I think I'm f***ed."

"Why?" she asked, averting her gaze from her lap when she didn't get a response, only to find him asleep, still holding onto her hand. For the first time in a long while, she had felt something, she felt loved. Staring at their hands for a moment, she leaned closer to him, thinking for a moment before placing a soft kiss on his lips, whispering, "You never let me say I love you too." 

Naturally, the next morning when he woke up, he found her curled up next to him, holding onto him for her dear life. He wanted to wake her up, but stopped when her eyes met his, "Morning sleepy head, did you enjoy kissing me while I was asleep?" Instantly pulling away- falling off the bed with a loud thud- she stared up at him, face flushed, "y-you were awake??" The only response she received was the sound of his laughter, making her blush harder.

The two were considered a couple, not that anyone in the commission knew. No one in their right mind could imagine the horrid Arson to be so human and for Five to like someone like her. The Handler didn't care, she was getting results and her plan of taming Arson was going well, what she didn't know was the Five had no plans of letting anyone use or manipulate his little firecracker anymore. 

To say they were an ideal couple would be a bit far-fetched, most of the time, they'd be arguing- as usual. Though Five never cared about it, he enjoyed seeing her all angry, it made him feel like she cared- which she did, don't get him wrong, but the way she'd turn all red and whine when she was angry was adorable.

"Five."

"Yes?"

"Where's my cola?"

"Orange juice is better and healthier."

"But I DON'T WANT ORANGE JUICE"

Nonetheless, he would often be her moral compass as well, though she would claim to be his 'moral compass.' Usually, when they'd be on missions, he'd be stopping her from committing arson for fun- even if the base belonged to bad guys, and she'd be stopping him from becoming more violent when his overprotectiveness would kick in. He'd make it a habit to calculate whether it would be okay to kill certain people if they were irrelevant to the timeline but had managed to hurt her during a mission and then he'd go after them.

"Why are you covered in blood????"

"Don't worry, it's not mine."

"HOW IS THAT BETTER FIVE?"

"Remember that group of guys that got away when you got shot and I blinked us out?"

"yeah..."

"Well, I happened to bump into those a**holes and taught them a lesson."

"...Five you went out to get dinner."

"Shit."

When he told her about traveling back to stop the apocalypse she just shrugged, saying she'd be okay with whatever it was, as long as it was with him. Honestly, it wasn't any of her business, rules, codes, the math, all that shit didn't matter to her anyway, even before she had realized how she felt about him, and clearly, that wasn't going to change. All she needed was him, and everything would be okay. 

At forty, the two had decided to tie the knot in secret, she never wanted anything flashy- frankly, when he proposed to her she set the magazine she was holding on fire.

"I'll take that as a yes."

But when it came down to traveling back in time, he wasn't sure if he should take her anymore. Not because he didn't trust her, but over the years he had learned that deep inside she was nothing more than a fragile little girl, one that was naive enough to trust the world over and over again. More importantly, he was well aware of his impulsive and violent tendencies when his overprotectiveness would kick in like a bull all he'd see is red. It was destructive, to say the least. It's not like he didn't enjoy her company, he did, being together uncovered a whole new side of her, a side of Y/N, one that wasn't Arson. Sure, she was still snappy and an a**, but that came along with the package, a bundle, a girl who would stay up all night with him, while he'd be working on the math. Making him coffee out of the blue, he never asked her to, even when he was craving it, she just knew. Another thing about her that made his heart beat like crazy was her sudden impulsive streaks of affection, he'd be sitting and reading in silence only for her to slam open the door and run to him, smothering his face with kisses then walk away as nothing had happened. He'd be making breakfast only to feel her wrap her arms around his waist, pressing her face on his back, muttering nonsense about a weird dream. She was no saint, but she had become the warmth of his life, the kindling fire of his joy. For someone who could speak multiple languages and had command of most literature of the century, she had her...as he'd call it, Diego moments.

"I can fry an egg in my hand."

"...we could use the stove-"

"Nonsense, observe."

"...was burning it part of the process-"

"Shut up the egg was bad. Oh, I'll toast the toast-"

"Please stop acting like a kitchen appliance."

"Funny how you don't say that when I warm up your coffee or your di-"

"OKAY THEN."

Due to these very specific reasons, he made up his mind as he looked at his beautiful wife, who had aged gracefully, asleep on her side of the bed. He was not going to take her. He knew he had promised to stay with her but the risk of putting her in any kind of danger would kill him. This is why he left her a sweet note, thanking her for spending her life with him, for loving him back, and how he was not going to risk the love of his for personal reasons. He told her he'd come back for her- if he lived through this. So he took a deep breath and jumped into the portal.

"Shit" he looked at his hands at his siblings who were still looking up at the portal, wair what- he looked up to

*Thump* 

He opened his eyes to find her sitting on top of him, "I'LL COME BACK FOR YOU? SWEET LITTLE ANGEL?" Gripping him by the collar she glared down at him, "YOU THINK I NEED YOU TO SAVE MY A- " she paused, staring at his face then  quickly getting off him and looking at her own hands and legs- "WHAT THE F*** FIVE?"

In the kitchen, the siblings were more terrified than confused by the way the two children in front of them were communicating. He was slapping things onto the table arguing with her as she sat there cross-legged, arms folded over her chest snapping back.

"Why did you follow me?" He seethed.

"Because you're stupid."

"Woman. How do I keep you safe if YOU FOLLOWED ME"

"OH AND leaving me in Dallas was a great idea- " she stopped to grab the slices of bread, toasting them with her hands and putting them back on the plate where he was smothering them with peanut butter.

"Number Five-"

"Just a minute Luther, I have to deal with this one first." He snapped at him and then turned to glare at her, "Just because I chose to dive into a volcano doesn't mean you do too"

"BITCH I WOULD THRIVE IN LAVA!

"NUMBER 5"

"WHAT LUTHER?"

Needless to say during the entire exchange with his siblings, she chose to stay out of it, eating quietly and then looking around the place, nice place, a weird arrangement but pretty chill actually, it was cold, and she liked it. 

"And this is my wife. Arson."

"Is your name really Arson?" Diego asked from the back, only to get snubbed by Five.

"No, but you don't need to know her actual name."

"Hey, one more question for the senior citizens," Klaus raised his hand, "Did you just use your hands as a toaster?"

"Yeh- Fire powers, heat, flames, lava, anything related."

"Nice."

"Well, time to go." with that he grabbed her hand and blinked them to his room. Only to turn around and frown at her, "I was serious about not following me, this is dangerous Y/N and I'm not gonna risk losing you or letting you get hurt-"

"Five, you can't wrap me up in bubble wrap." she muttered sitting on the bed and looking around, "Man, what kind of nerd has chalkboards for walls?"

He turned around to look at her, smiling at him, swinging her legs off the bed, knowing full well he couldn't stay mad at her for too long. "Just don't do anything reckless."

"Please, I never have".

As the days went by the siblings were very much disturbed by the way the couple worked, most of the time they'd see their brother losing his mind while she'd be casually looking around. Naturally, they assumed it was him who loved her more than the other way around, especially when Luther and Diego fought, the others noticed how he pulled her back, protecting her with his body, and even when Klaus had put himself in front of Five. It wasn't until the lab explosion that they really caught up on what she was actually like, especially when she diverted the flames back into the building, protecting Five from the fire. Or when she came to Diego when she was looking for Five after that explosion, claiming the two had fought.

"What- how did you find me?" he looked down at her, only for her to shrug and point at Luther who was sitting inside, "Followed the big guy, anyway, I need your help, I lost Five."

"He sure runs away from you a lot huh?" he snapped back, being his usual brooding self.

"Well, he has his ways of being 'protective', now after the explosion, he yelled at me, something along the lines of, 'we're all doomed and you followed me bla bla bla- and I can't find him," she said entering the small area, looking around and frowning at the heat, she'd roast in here. 

"Arson, if you don't mind me asking, why did you follow him to 2019?" Luther asked, standing up as he was ready to look for their brother.

"Because I'd die for that moron and lose my mind without him." earning a look from the brothers.

That being said, after they found the drunk idiot in the library, Luther was carrying him as he tilted his head back, staring at Y/N, "You know, you're a cute kid."

"Thank you, I am aware."

"But jump in front of me to save me again and I'll kill ya myself." with that he puked, earning a groan from Luther as she burst out laughing.

Though things started to go down south real quick, especially when they were in Leonard Peabody's house, attic to be accurate, staring at the dead body wrapped in a rug. Five and Y/N had just come back from the commission, and on their way out, she had possibly gotten shot. Not that she had time for that, they finally had a lead and that was more important, plus it wasn't that bad. Or so she thought because as they were staring at it, she fell backward, only to be caught by Diego muttering, "Shit, FIVE she's bleeding." On the way to the manor, she lay in the backseat, with her head on his lap, breaths getting shallower as she looked up at him, his forest orbs staring back at her with guilt. 

"Why didn't you say anything?" He whispered, this was all his fault, he should've known something was wrong with her. She had asked for his blazer (since she wore the uniform without the blazer and the sweater) as soon as they came back from the commission, of course, he was confused, she never felt cold, but he had given it to her anyway. Now she lay there in his arms, a shivering mess. 

"More...important things to do." She shivered, pulling the coat blazer, "I f-feel cold." 

"Diego! Hurry up" he hissed, pressing his hand against the wound that was still bleeding, glancing at her face, "stay awake for me okay? Can you do that love?"

By the time they had reached his room she was a shivering mess, he barely gave Grace room to stitch her back up, feeling the need to be with her was eating him up. Fortunately, Grace gave him a small smile before placing her hand on his shoulder, "She'll be alright dear." Everyone had left the room but Diego.

"Let her rest, Five, we should go and deal with this."

"I should've been more attentive."

"It's not your fault Five, none of us noticed."

"You know, she hasn't been using her powers much...wants you guys to like her." He sighed, covering her up with a blanket as he turned to Diego.

"I don't know about anyone else buddy, but I liked her the moment she came out of the portal and almost socked you in the face."

"Thanks, Diego."

So, Five and the siblings took care of the rest while she was told not to move a muscle by Five. Instructed to rest, fortunately, she agreed, as her body not being used to the cold was going to cause a problem. Nonetheless, when Vanya escapes the basement again, ready to attack everyone, Five blinked her out without waking her up. Which is why when she opens her eyes to their destroyed house she's just, "Please tell me I didn't black out again and do this?"

"No, this one's on us." Diego groaned as Klaus held onto him.

Nonetheless, when the time came they traveled back to 1963- dispersing, much to Five's displeasure. So, when he landed in the alley without her, he was very close to losing his mind. 

Luckily, he found Eliot, unfortunately, he wanted to smack himself when he realised where she had ended up, rather with whom.

She fell out of the portal to land on something soft with a thud. Sitting up she looked around in the alleyway only to hear someone groan under her, "You got a thing for assaulting us?" 

"Oh sorry, Diego." Getting off him she helped him, up then looked around, "I don't...see Five anywhere." She mumbled to herself, though he caught on.

"Stay here kid, " he stopped her with his hand, "I'll do a round then come and get ya"

"I'm literally 58."

"Yes, and in a child's body with a wound from a gunshot. So let's keep you safe, shall we, cause if Five did show up and you were dead, he'd put me through hell before killing me."

This exact conversation led the two to the asylum. He had gone to "save Kennedy" and when he didn't show up back in the alley she went to look for him.

Hissing, he dropped the knife, turning around to look at her, "Did you do that without touching it?" He asked, referring to the burning hot metal.

"What the F*** are you doing!?"

"Saving Kennedy-"

"YOU IDIOT. U CAN'T SAVE HIM WHEN THERE'S NO THREAT AND STOP MESSING WITH THE TIMELINE."

"Listen Arson, I'm doing the world a favor-"

"Oh my God, I'm stuck with the lunatic with a hero complex."

So, naturally, the two fought, and she ended up using her powers, trapping him in a ring of fire, hot enough to keep him warm and toasty, but not burn him. Unfortunately, when the authorities arrived, she had planned on escaping but the gunshot wound had begun to bleed again, she didn't understand why it was taking so long to heal, usually, she'd heal up quicker. Maybe her body's age recession pulled her back to the time when her body was weaker as well. Nonetheless, the cops arrived to find a tied-up Cuban man and an unconscious girl in a school uniform bleeding beside him. 

Therefore, when Diego walked into the small room after 76 days of being stuck there, he was glad to see Five, who in return sighed in relief.

"Hey Five, how'd you find me?"

"This...thanks for getting my wife in here too." He whispered to him, leaning  closer to the table, "Where is she?"

"Well, she burnt my fingertips and fainted- by the way she's using an alias, a nice name actually, Y/N"

"That's her actual name, you idiot. Now, what is this about Kennedy?"

"Wait what??"

After that wonderful interaction and him telling the guards about Diego trying to escape, he requested to meet her. Though the guards looked at the boy with some kind of pity, 

"You know the kid too?" One of them asked

"I do, why?"

"Kid had a gunshot wound, bleeding pretty bad when we found her, looked battered up in general- has a tattoo-"

"Do you examine female patients?" He cut him off, glaring at him.

"The female staff told us."

When she comes in she rushes to him to hug him, feeling him wrap his arms around her. The guard clears his throat, "You can't do that here."

"Yeah?" He asks before pointing behind the man, "Look at that fly on the wall would ya?"

He blinks them out as soon as the man looks away, the only reason he had asked for Diego first and not her was so he could check if the room had cameras- it did not. He had blinked them to Eliot's, still holding onto her, breathing in her scent as he felt her warm body against his. 

"I'm sorry for leaving you."

"As long as it wasn't on purpose." She muttered pulling away and looking around to find Eliot hiding behind the couch.

"Who is this??" He asked, only for them to ignore him. 

"Did they hurt you?" 

"No, actually took pretty good care of me, see" lifting her shirt a bit she showed him the wound that was now just a scar, "Turns out age recession affected my overall performance too, I can't heal as quickly as I usually do either."

"You know." He said as he led her to sit on a chair, "You could have gone to a hospital," whispering he crouched down to her level, scanning her face then lower, clicking his tongue. "Need to get you clothes too- Eliot, I would like for you to get my companion a uniform, preferably with pants-"

"Skirt." She cut him off sheepishly, avoiding his gaze, mumbling, "Hormonal changes make everything hot."

"A u-uniform? Of which school?"

"Any."

"But why?"

Five gave him a stare only for him to nod and quickly leave. Turning around he looked at her and sighed, going to sit on the couch, groaning. "So tired." He muttered as he closed his eyes, only to snap open when he felt her by his side, arms wrapping around his torso as she buried her face in his neck. "I missed you." Placing an arm over her shoulder he hummed, "Lost my shit when I couldn't find you."

"Well, I thought of leaving a trail, but Diego's Kennedy obsession had me follow him there. Had to keep him under control- the man has no regard for rules of time traveling or anything-"

She was cut off by his laughter, utterly confused she pulled away glaring at him, "what's so funny?"

"Look at you, following the rules, cleaning up someone's mess." He said turning to look at her with a smirk, "Y/N, I'm so proud of you, acting like Diego's moral compass"

"Haha. Very funny. Oh, and he has this weird chic around him- totally using him for something if I wasn't so tired the time, would've burnt her to a crisp."

"And we're back." He chuckled, grabbing her face and pecking her forehead, "I'm glad you're okay, darlin."

Nonetheless, when Diego did show up with Lila, to say she got along with the older couple was an overstatement. Neither trusted her nor did they like working with her. Five particularly began to despise her when they went to look for their father but were greeted by the Swedes. 

Naturally, she went to help Five, using her powers to the minimum, to avoid any kind of fire accident. What was surprising was when Lila came upstairs she chose to help Five instead of Diego, running down when he blinked out even though Diego had called her.

"Shit." Y/N ran to save Diego, knocking the man off him, "Nice girlfriend, tell him your brother's taken." She snapped at him, too distracted to notice the incoming blow.

"FIVE STOP! It's not his fault I was distracted and-" She yelled pulling at him with one hand as he charged towards Deigo. She had snapped her wrist in the process and now at Eliot's place, Five was giving Diego a piece of his mind. The rest of the siblings had shown up as well- somewhat amused by the scenario.

"Y/N! This is between me and my brother", he turned to look at her, "so stay out of it please." He whispered before turning back to Diego, "you're unbelievable-" he stopped only when he saw Y/N run out of the building. He had assumed he had pissed her off, hence he followed her.

He had initially lost her, only to hear a loud explosion. Blinking to the abandoned factory he made his way through the smoke, only to Y/N standing face to face with the Handler. Behind the blonde was Lila, gripping onto her arm, which was possibly burnt due to the explosion.

"Ah, Arson, you never really were controllable".

"Lost my mojo for a while, but your copycat knock-off pissed me off enough to bring it back." 

"Oh? No wonder you weren't burning people to ashes in 2019-"

"Don't tempt me, I'll show you two a glimpse of hell right now."

"I'd love to see that but right now," the lady looked behind Y/N with a creepy smile, "and there he is, the star of the show."

When they were told to kill the board, both agreed since they were getting a briefcase in return. However, Five had asked her- forced her- to stay back while he would handle it, much to her displeasure.

"No."

"Please."

"But I got my powers back too- like fully I mean-"

"Listen to me. You came back because of me, got shot because of me, look at yourself now, it's because of me. I promised to give you a better life and keep you safe and so far, Y/N I haven't. Please, just, stay put- keep an eye on my siblings but just stay here okay?"

"You have given me all you promised...that's why I followed you in the first place."

So, when Five returned with the briefcase, all bloody and in a hurry, he was greeted by the absence of most of his siblings. Where he was busy with his monologue about how stupid all of them were, she thought for a moment before speaking up, "Well, we could always...you know...meet you."

"W-what?" he groaned before sighing, stomping inside the building as Y/N and Luther followed him, "What's he doing?" Luther asked as Five poured a bottle of baby powder down his shirt and then pants.

"Preventing Paradox Psychosis, that would explain why he's been extra jumpy, I thought it was because you met with your father, then I saw the date."

"Luther, I need ya to be my spotter."

Five did not expect to see his younger self sitting in front of him, let alone his wife, who too was a teenager now, sitting beside his other self. Other than the occasional farts being let out the two were staring at each other for a good fifteen minutes until the older-looking one spoke, 

"Arson, what happened to your arm?"

"You can call me by my name, Luther knows it, they all do- got it while fighting."

"I guess we had one job that we couldn't do."

"Guess we couldn't" the younger one snapped, "Now be a good husband and help your wife out, would ya."

"Why should I, you'd just hurt her more."

"You literally left your wife a note and dipped, you don't get to comment."

"Said wife sitting right here, a**hats."

He excused himself to go to the washroom, only for her to do the same after a few seconds. Though Five is too paranoid to care about that at the moment, he looks at Luther and tells him how he doesn't trust himself.

She came into the washroom when he was washing his hands, only to stop and glare at her, eyes softening at the sight of her sling, sighing, "You should've stayed."

"You knew I wouldn't, yet you wrote that sweet dumb note."

"You know what I'll have to do right?" He asked, standing up straighter as he looked at her in the eye, only to sense her body radiating heat at an abnormal rate, "You can't even control your powers in that body-"

"I can, you're just pissing me off."

"Why do you do it," he sighed, grabbing the briefcase, only for her to shrug calming down, "Guess I love ya."

"Isn't that music to my ears." with that he brushed past her and out of the toilet.

While they're on their way, Five screaming at every passing being, Luther looks at Y/N clearing his throat, "So, he uh, said he'd kill you two." Only for her to nod, "Well, he can kill himself easy, it'd be fun to see him try to kill me."

"Well, he did say you're an anomaly" Luther stated as a matter of fact.

"Son, I burnt down an entire battalion in front of your brother, and a year later he proposed to me- trust me, I am the bug that corrupted his morality." Luther stopped and stared at her, she was smiling back at him as innocently as possible, "Oh don't worry, I'm passed that phase, though I wouldn't test me." 

When the fight broke out between the Fives, Luther trying to stop them asked Y/N to help, who thought it would be really funny to stand between the two fives. Both stopped their hit mid-air, glaring at her, earning a look from both of them. "You thinking what I'm thinking." the younger one asked the older one who nodded, only for the younger five to grab her and blink her back to the bar and blink back to continue the fight.

"Now, where were we?"

Once the older one was pushed into the portal, the younger Five looked at Luther, about to speak, when something flew past him like a meteor- while Luther backed off, Five could swear that time slowed down and he stared at his older-looking wife for a good minute, both exchanging a confused look as she flew in the blue portal, closing in after she was gone. 

"What was that?" Luther asked only for Five to mutter out, "My wi-" a blurry figure knocking him down, "HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YA TO NOT LEAVE ME BEHIND?" she asked, getting off of him.

"The real question is, how many ways can you shoot yourself like a rocket?" He asked as Luther helped him up.

"Several, why?"

"Did you throw yourself into the portal like the Human Torch back then?"

"Of course Five, I've told you multiple times, I'd set anything you love on fire."

"And that includes you?"

"Well, you do love me." She said kicking the vaporized briefcase, muttering a f*** under her breath, as she turned to look at him giving him that heart-stopping smile of hers, "Because I'll kill ya if you changed your mind."

"I assure you, sweetheart, that won't change even if you set the whole world on fire," was all he said as he grabbed her uninjured hand and began to walk away from the scene, they were officially f***ed but at least one thing was clear- he finally figured out what the hell love meant, 'the burning passion that makes one forget how everything's f***ed'.

Poor Luther, however, had no idea what the hell that exchange was, however, he was certain about one thing, Y/N wasn't insane alone, his brother was no better. Well, at least they were together, he thought to himself as he followed the couple holding hands, talking about how they'll probably be dead pretty soon. He was glad though, that Diego was right, once they had met in Dallas again, he had told him how Y/N would count down the days, convincing Diego that Five would come for them. Perhaps this was true love, not that he knew what love actually was- guess he was glad at least one of his siblings found one that lasts.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A/N: Yes, this was supposed to be a simple HC , but I kinda lost control okay- I wasn't in the best of moods lately and writing this just was an emotional roller coaster. I'm so sorry @madelynmulford , I really do hope you like it <3

TUA Taglist: @imaginesfire  , @placidpluto  , @achingwoundforaheart

 ,  @esmaada  ,

 @samyourneighbor

 , @xuenihao  

 @whoreofscience  , 

@navs-bhat ,

 @yuuki4646  , 

@simpformoonkight  ,

 @crowleysqueenofhell  ,

@anapotatowriter  

@sibsteria  ,

 @ryugujitr  , 

@imherefortea  ,

@jeeminyo ,

@ryshio

thank you, you lovely people for choosing to be part of my taglist ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊˚)

#five hargreeves #five x reader #five hargreaves x reader #tua x reader #five x y/n #diego hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #luther hargreeves #fluff and angst #the umbrella academy spoilers #the umbrella academy #sparrow academy #pyrokinesis

[mysteryshoptls]

SSR Deuce Spade Bloom Birthday Personal Story: Part 3

"Happy Birthday"

(Part 1) (Part 2) Part 3

[Heartslabyul Dorm – Birthday Party Venue]

Malleus: This will be the final question.

Malleus: “What would you like to do in the coming year?”

Deuce: I want to study hard for my exams enough so that I can be in the top 50… No, wait, top 25 for my year!

Malleus: That's quite specific. Why did you change the rank you wished to peruse mid-sentence?

Deuce: I thought I'd get more motivated if I set my goal higher.

Malleus: I see. So, essentially, you are looking to focus your efforts on your studies.

Deuce: Yes! I'm thinking of focusing on protection magic, specifically.

Deuce: My dream is to join the police. I've been wanting to join the counter-magic defense teams…

Deuce: And the area of magic they tend to focus on is protection spells.

Deuce: …Or, at least, that's what I've seen on the tv shows with magical police.

Deuce: But I heard that show has some actual police guys consulting, so that's gotta be true!

Malleus: I understand, that is a vital skill for you to learn to make practical your goal.

Malleus: And? How do you fare at it now?

Deuce: URGH!!! Right now, uh… I'm not doing that great.

Deuce: I practiced super hard by myself for my last assignment, and I just barely passed by the skin of my teeth…

Deuce: But I'm used to not being able to study as good as other people, so…

Deuce: And I'm stubborn enough that there's no way I'll give up before anyone else does.

Deuce: I know I have to put in the effort for my other subjects too, but… When it comes to protection magic, I'm gonna get better than anyone else out there!

Malleus: I like your enthusiasm, Spade. When you believe you've mastered that, perhaps we can see if you'll be able to defend against my magic.

Deuce: ER!!???

Malleus: I, too, have been thinking that there is still room for me to grow in that course of study. Do you not think this is a perfect opportunity to practice together?

Deuce: P-Practice together!? With Draconia-senpai!? There's no way I'd possibly be able to protect against your magic…

Deuce: …No, I gotta aim higher. When I get better at it, please let me be your opponent!

Malleus: The interview is over. I shall hand over this broom that was specifically prepared for you. Take it.

Deuce: Thank you very much! Woah, this is intense. The tip of the broom is like a bouquet.

Malleus: The blue flowers are the centerpiece of the bouquet. It is a rather refreshing assemblage of colors.

Malleus: Now, head towards the Birthday Road. Show everyone your valiant flying figure.

Deuce: Yes, sir! I'm gonna go all out!

Deuce: Whew… It's a little nerve-wracking to fly in front of everyone, but I'm gonna fly properly just like a top student should!

(Part 1) (Part 2) Part 3

#twisted wonderland #twst #deuce spade #malleus draconia #twst deuce #twst malleus #twst translation #twst birthday

[beginningdrawing]

Art Tips Two: Drawing What You See Vs. What You Think You See

The first significant assignment for my drawing class was to do a modified contour drawing of a building, spending at least 4 hours on the drawing. For a modified contour drawing, you are supposed to keep your eyes on the subject about 95 percent of the time, looking at the paper only occasionally to place your pencil or check the lines you are making; it is a type of drawing that really reinforces the connection between what your eyes are seeing and what your hand is drawing. It's less about creating realistic art and more about hand-eye coordination.

It's quite clear that many students in my class did not understand the assignment. I've drawn something similar to the things I've seen submitted and will be comparing it to the drawing that I did for the same assignment.

But let's start with the fact that brains are very weird and one of the things that's so weird about them is that we spend a lot of time not seeing.

Most people don't process 100% of the full detail of the things they see around them in day-to-day life. If you were to process that much detail about everything all the time, you would be constantly overstimulated by it. So your brain takes shortcuts and sort of fills in the details instead of processing every single thing. It looks at a sidewalk and says "okay, I know what a sidewalk looks like, no need to render all the shadows unless something breaks the expected pattern because a break in the pattern might mean a trip hazard."

This is very useful in day to day life! People who have trouble tuning out details of sounds and sights and sensations often find themselves overwhelmed and frustrated. It's a good thing that you are likely not seeing every tiny little irregularity in the bricks in your walls or the fibers of your clothing.

However, seeing precise detail is important for representational drawing.

Because this is a *beginning* drawing class, it is about learning the basics of drawing what you see, not stylizing images or creating art from your imagination, so the very first lessons are about how to see what you want to draw. Blind Contour drawings are almost entirely about seeing and hardly at all about drawing, and Modified Contour is about *mostly* seeing and only somewhat drawing.

When people (adults especially) begin to learn to draw, they often want to draw what they think they see (the world with the details their brain has sanded off) and not what they actually see. Sometimes this is because they think the things they think they see look "better" (more intentional) than the things they think they see.

(As a side note, my cartooning professor liked to tell a story about doing commercial illustration for a sock company; he drew an accurate, realistic foot for the ad and it got sent back he asked what was wrong with it and they said "nobody is going to buy socks when they're on such ugly feet". The next ad he sent featured a simplified, cartoonish foot and was accepted with the feedback "much better, much more realistic" - we often see stylized things as more real than real things because we spend so much time eliding what the real world looks like)

Okay, with all of that in mind, here is a drawing similar to what many of my classmates turned in next to the drawing that I turned in.

The first one is full of things that the artist thinks they see. It has trees that don't look like real trees, but do somewhat look like the idea of trees that people get from cartoons. It has sidewalks that don't look like real sidewalks, but look like how your brain thinks a series of evenly-sized concrete slabs on flat ground should look. The artist knows a little bit about perspective, and as such has drawn straight lines aimed at a point on the horizon to show distance, but you would almost never see that many straight lines in an apartment complex. They have scribbled in some grass, but those scribbles are a signifier that there is grass in those spaces, not a representation of what the lawn area actually looks like. This is a drawing from someone who saw the assignment "draw a detailed building" and 1) ignored the time requirement and 2) was not aware that the purpose of the assignment wasn't to draw what a building looked like in their mind, it was to draw the lines on a building that they actually saw.

My drawing is certainly not a fully accurate representation of the building I was drawing; the perspective is wonky and the whole thing ended up being very cramped compared to the actual building, but it is much more representational than the first drawing because it was completed by very slowly following the lines that I saw and putting them down on paper.

I'm not trying to mock the other students in this class, this isn't me being mean or trying to show off that I'm more skilled, this is a constructive criticism that I wish I could offer to the other students but that I will share here instead for the people who want to learn and may be running into this issue as the assignments continue.

This is the difference between drawing what you think you see, and trying to draw what you actually see. And also putting in the time; unfortunately a lot of students just clearly didn't spend the time on this. If you don't have the time or focus for a four-hour drawing it's better to work on several smaller drawings of simpler objects in 5-10 minute increments than it is to rush through one big drawing and fill in the gaps with details that aren't there.

If you are trying to learn to draw, learning from the basics is the best way to do it, which sometimes means forgetting what you already think you know.

You don't know perspective, you don't know shading, you don't know what trees look like, you don't know what a sidewalk looks like. When you're learning to draw, don't assume that you know what these things look like, and instead draw what you actually see.

[prettygirlmjmjmj]

How to study like Anne Shirley

Whenever September rolls round and the air starts feeling crisp, I pick up Anne of Green Gables and put Anne with an E on. I love Anne for so many reasons, but especially for her academic prowess. So here are some tips to help you study just like her!

Be creative. Anne was always imaginative and it helped her do better in her studies. Try out a new way of studying like a mind map or storyboard. Being more creative whilst studying will help you create more meaningful revision resources and do better in class. It can also be a nice break from the more repetitive revision methods!

Keep working hard. Even when Anne accomplished a goal she recognised that she still had more to achieve. Even if your next goal starts off small like writing a page of notes or making a new study timetable, it's still worthwhile and useful. Having new goals and ambitions will help you to feel more motivated and excited to start studying again and find new methods for improving.

Write more! Anne loves writing, so much so she's always trying to get her friends to do more. Even if you don't feel you can write a whole novel, try writing an essay, poem or start a study journal. Getting into the habit of writing more will help your writing to flow more and make it feel so much more natural.

Study with friends. Anne loved studying with her friends. She regularly studied in a group, with Diane and with Matthew. Studying with others can help you to learn new study techniques, understand information and better and help you improve in discussions and debates. Try joining an in-person or online study group or with friends.

Read more. Anne loved to read, so much so she'd often get in trouble for it! Reading even for fifteen minutes a day can help you to learn more words, find out more information about topics and is just relaxing and fun! You don't have to read books exclusively to do with you subjects (although it's fine if you do!), try reading anything that interests you.

Try to learn something even when you aren't in school. A school break or simply not being at school is a perfect time to learn something that interests you whether it has something to do with a school subject or not. Try reading articles, books and journals, listening to podcasts and watching educational videos. Learning will help keep you focused and also gives you something to research and look into, which is always fun.

Practice using a big vocabulary. Anne loves big words and her usage of them are part of what endear her as a character. Using big words will help create more interesting, well written pieces of witing, help you feel more confident in class discussions and allow you to be more creative in general! Look up better words to use or try finding fun new words in online/real dictionaries. Reading more will also help to expand your vocabulary.

Aim high. Anne never gave up and never tailored her dreams to fit other peoples ideas. Regardless of whether those around you think you can accomplish something, through hard work and dedication you absolutely can. Instead of aiming for a B, aim for an A. Instead of aiming to write a really good essay, aim to write the best essay you have ever written. If you constantly put the bar higher you will push yourself to do better and work harder.

Constantly find new ambitions. When Anne accomplished something she never rested on her laurels or decided to give up. Instead, she would find something new to aim for. Even if your next aim is something as small as writing a page of notes or as big as graduating your dream university, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that you continue to push yourself to keep working harder and stay motivated.

Take breaks outside. Anne loved going outside and after a long period of studying, getting outside and going on a walk or sitting somewhere is so relaxing and calming. If you normally read a book in your breaks try reading outside or having a snack and drink outdoors. It will help you feel so much more refreshed and motivated for when you go back in to re-start studying.

Don't be afraid to ask for help. Anne knew that in order to be good at a subject you have to ask for help when you need it. Whether you ask a teacher, classmate or people online it's important that you reach out to people who could help you. While independently learning something is great sometimes learning something with the help of someone is the best way to help it stick.

Romanticise studying. Studying doesn't have to be a chore or boring, instead try to find ways of making it something that you can do regularly and is enjoyable. Whether that means using pretty pens and taking pictures of your notes, creating a study area or trying new study methods, find something that helps make studying feel more fun and romantic!

Thank you so much for reading! All my love, mj x

#glow up era #self care #that girl #self development #study inspo #study motivation #studying #self love #glow up #anne with an e #anne shirly cuthbert #anne shirley #anne of green gables #anne of avonlea #coquette #study blog #studyblr #studyspo #study aesthetic #student #student life #university

[f1-stuff]

How to Make High Quality Gifs

A few people have asked me for a gif tutorial, so here we go! As a disclaimer, there are many parts of gif-making that are subjective, and this is just my personal process/preferences. If anyone is confused about a particular step, or wants more in-depth info about something, just message me!

Tools: ✧Laptop/computer ✧Adobe Photoshop 2024 ✧External Hard Drive (mine is 250GB) ✧Video Downloader (I use the Video Downloadhelper extension on Firefox)

PHASE ONE: Make Animated Gif

1. Download high quality video This is very important! You should download the highest quality of the video you can find. I use the free Video DownloadHelper extension on Firefox, but it doesn't download audio sometimes (it could be me not using it properly, or they want you to pay to get audio). No audio is fine for gifs, but if I'm doing a video edit, I either need to record the audio separately with Quicktime or use a free online downloader for youtube, twitter, or instagram videos.

For this gif, I downloaded an HD interview from the F1 website with the Video DownloadHelper extension on Firefox.

Tip: Make sure your video file is an .mp4 -> photoshop can struggle with .mov files bc they're larger

2. Import: Video Frames to Layers...

File -> Import -> Video Frames to Layers... -> Open your video -> Selected Video Range -> Make Frame Animation

If photoshop has to load a while to make the frames, it means you should select a smaller portion of the video to animate.

Tip: If you discover that there are duplicates of every frame or that there are way too many frames for the portion of video you want to gif, you may need to re-import and check the "Limit to Every _ Frames" box, and write in "2". This will import every other frame of the video and get rid of duplicates or too many frames.

Once your frames are imported, make sure you're working in the "Motion" workspace by going to the top to Window -> Workspace -> Motion.

Now, all your frames should appear at the bottom in the Timeline. Make sure that the box in the left corner is set to "Forever", and now it should play the frames and loop back to the beginning each time.

3. Choosing your frames I usually aim for around 60 frames total for a gif, but sometimes I'll go under or over that number. This particular gif is 55 frames in total. In general, I want my gif to be around 3 seconds in length bc under that feels too short and over that starts to be a large file size. Totally subjective, though! (edit: I have started to experiment with up to 80 frames for some gifs, which comes out to about 4 sec.)

Play through your frames and if you want to delete some, select them and click on the trashcan icon, which you can see in the screenshot above. (If you don't delete them this way, you'll have issues later.)

4. Set Frame Delay

Once you're happy with your frames, select all of them and click on the part that says "0.02", then go to "Other..." I usually choose 0.05 or 0.06, to land my gif around 3 seconds, but it depends on the video and how many frames you have. This particular gif is set to 0.06 because it looked good and brought me to around 3 seconds.

You can always choose a delay and if you don't like it, go back and change it! Just do what looks good to you.

5. Convert to Video Timeline

Click on the symbol that looks like 4 lines stacked, and choose "Convert to Video Timeline". Now is usually when I play through the gif to see what the speed is looking like/if I like the frame delay and it's landing somewhere around 3 seconds. If not, you can just Undo and adjust anything when it's still in the frame animation stage.

Next, scroll through the Layers on the right side and delete any layers that don't have the "eye" symbol next to them -> these are frames you deleted in the frame animation stage, but they need to be deleted in the timeline stage as well. Lastly, select all your remaining layers (which should all have the "eye" symbol) so they're all highlighted.

6. Convert to Smart Object

With all layers selected, go to the top to Layer -> Smart Object -> Convert to Smart Object. Ta da! You have a gif.

I always make sure to save my file at this point (you can do it before, but it just depends on how fast you work). Remember to frequently save your progress while gif-making: sometimes, photoshop gets overwhelmed and quits while you're mid-color correction 🥲. You never want to start over from scratch...

Now, some people like to crop & resize their gifs first. Or do sharpening before color. Or color, resize, then sharpen. It's really up to you. The order I like to do is Color, Sharpen, Crop, Resize, Export.

PHASE TWO: Color & Sharpening (the fun part!)

1. Brightness/Contrast

So here's where we start getting into the really subjective stuff. I always use the Brightness/Contrast and the Selective Color adjustment layers to do my coloring. I rarely touch the contrast bc that can be adjusted in selective color, but almost always, the gif needs overall brightening.

Tip: Even when I think a video looks bright to my eyes, sometimes I post the gif and they look dark once they're in the app. My advice is to always brighten a little bit, even when you don't think it's needed...

Here shows the very subtle shift in brightness I did for this gif. It can be a lot more intense depending on the video quality/lighting. The difference will also look a lot more stark after the color layer is applied.

2. Selective ColorNext is color. This is totally up to you and what looks good to your eyes. Make sure you have any software turned off that might change the color of your screen (like a nighttime filter or something that removes blue light).

I use selective color bc you can adjust the levels of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black in each color channel independently. This is how I adjust the specific color of red that Charles and Carlos wear, or the amount of cyan in the blacks, etc. The "Neutral" layer effects the whole image, so I'll sometimes add some yellow there if I'm wanting a warmer image, or I'll add or remove black to brighten or darken the mid-tones.

Just play around! Sometimes, I'll take the slider from +100 to -100 back and forth just to see what it's doing to the gif. And I frequently turn on and off the color layer to see what the gif looked like before and after color. (I've found that most F1 content is really magenta-skewed, which you may not even notice until you've corrected it out).

Above is Color vs. No Color. It might look extreme to you presented this way, but when the whole gif is colored, no one questions it! As long as there's consistency across gifs, that's all that matters. I frequently copy and paste my adjustment layers onto another gif from the same interview/video so the look stays consistent.

Above is Color w/ Brightening vs. Without. This gives you a better idea of how much of a difference that Brightness/Contrast layer makes.

3. Sharpening I got my Sharpening routine of choice from this tutorial on gif-making. To be honest, I don't know if it's the best sharpening procedure bc I haven't taken the time to in-depth compare to other ways of doing it, but it looks good to me! So I've stuck with it. (edit: I've also added a Reduce Noise filter to my sharpening routine. But as always, just do what looks nice to you!)

I copy and past the sharpening from my other gifs onto new ones so I don't have to do all the steps again. There are quicker ways of doing this, like using quick actions and stuff, but how I do it is fast enough for me.

If you want to figure out your own Sharpening routine:

With the gif layer selected, go to the top to Filter -> Sharpen -> Smart Sharpen. It will bring up this window:

Here you can play around with the amount, radius, noise reduction, etc. and see what you like.

I also add a Gaussian Blur effect, which you'll find under Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur.

^All of your Sharpen and Blur effects will stack up underneath your gif layer like this. To adjust the opacity of one of these effects, double click on its adjustment/slider symbol to the right, and it'll bring up the Blending Options window.

If there's any sharpening or blurring layer you don't like, you can easily drag it into the trashcan symbol to get rid of it.

Above is a visual of Sharpened vs. None. You can really tell with the difference in the Snapdragon logo on either shoulder. But I also personally love how much more Carlos' eyes pop to me on the Sharpened side.

As you can see, it's up to your preference. Sometimes, I really love gifs I see that aren't sharp, but rather really smooth and almost painterly. It's up to the gif-maker!

PHASE THREE: Crop & Resize

1. Cropping

Go to the toolbar on the left and choose the Crop Tool. Above where it says "Ratio", you can choose from preset ratios that photoshop has, or you can make your own. I like to use the presets, or at the very least, clear numbers that you can apply to a whole gifset. Free transforming without a ratio makes it nearly impossible to maintain consistency across a gifset.

If it isn't already, uncheck "Delete Cropped Pixels". This will allow you to move the gif around inside the cropped area later if you want to adjust what's in frame. It also gives you the option to increase the frame later, if you want. You can also click the gear icon next to "Delete Cropped Pixels" and change how you view the gif during cropping.

When you're done, click the check mark or hit Enter. Now, you've got a cropped gif!

2. Resizing

Go to the top to Image -> Image Size...

Make sure you have Pixels selected. For the Resample tab, I have it set to Automatic here, but sometimes I'll use Bicubic smooth or sharpen, depending on what I'm doing. Here's a cool post that compares the different settings. Just experiment with it.

(edit: I no longer change the resolution to 150. I've found that increasing the resolution, and therefore the size, before ultimately resizing down to 540 px means you are compressing even more (the larger something is, the more it has to be compressed within 540 px). I now leave the resolution at 72, which is what it's set at originally, and if the image composition allows it, try to crop in as close to 540 px as I can get so that when I resize, there's the least amount of compression happening.)

If I know a gif is going to be the full width of a tumblr post, I'll resize the width to 540 pixels (the height doesn't matter). But if I make a portrait-style gif which will be sharing a row with another gif, I'll resize anywhere from 270 px -> 350 px. If it's smaller than 270 px, tumblr will enlarge the gif and it'll look bad. If it's wider than 270 px, tumblr might reduce its quality a bit and it won't look as good. But personally, I prefer that if someone clicks on the gif to enlarge it, it looks better enlarged, so I usually will leave it around 345 px as long as the file isn't too big.

PHASE FOUR: Export (last one!)

Once you're happy with everything about your gif, it's time to export. (Remember to save your progress frequently!)

Go to the top to File -> Export -> Save for Web (Legacy)...

^It'll bring up this Save window.

These are the settings I like to use for gifs. You'll find a lot of differing opinions out there about Adaptive vs. Perceptual/Pattern vs. Diffusion, but you should always have "GIF" selected, "Transparency" checked with "No Transparency Dither" selected, Looping set to "Forever", and Colors set to "256". I like "Bicubic Sharper" for my Quality tab, but there are whole tutorials just about comparing those settings. The best thing to do though is to try them out and compare for yourself.

(edit: I've discovered that if a gif is slightly too large and I don't want to shorten it or resize it down, I can try to reduce the colors from 256 to 128 to get it under the limit. I'll never go below 128, and sometimes I will go to 200 or 170 to try to eliminate as little color variety as possible, but often there is not a noticeable difference in your finished gif. But always compare, of course, to make sure.)

On the bottom left is where the size of the gif is shown -> tumblr requires gifs 10MB and under, but in my experience, gifs load/play best on tumblr when they're around 6MB. I always leave a little growing room as well, bc it might say 5.8MB in this window, but after it saves, the file will have grown a little bit and will likely be over 6MB at that point. (edit: I now regularly post gifs that are around 9.5MB and tumblr seems to be able to handle it better.)

AND THAT'S ALL!

If you've made it this far...congratulations! haha

I know this is a whole lot of information and you might be feeling overwhelmed! But I hope, if anything, this shows you just how complex gif-making can be, and how it is absolutely an art! No one should be stealing anyone's gifs, as a lot of hard work and love goes into the process.

This doesn't include things like adding text to a gif, or more complex adjustments and corrections like masking or key frames. But I'm happy to do more of these if there are specific questions people have.

Let me know what you're curious about or if something is unclear! And happy gif-making! ❤️

#wooow this was a process to make lol #people can let me know if they're curious about adding text or more complex adjustments - i am at your service! #gif tutorial #ask

[jades-typurriter]

Pretty Fly For A Brundlehaj

This is a commission for @totalcudgel done back in September 2023, starring her witch OC (who you may recognize from this story a few days ago) and with a guest appearance from Sally.

Well. Eloise had to say that this was the most off-course she’d ever had one of her rituals go.

She mentally retraced her steps, trying to figure out where it had gone wrong. She’d heard about other spells that had ended in the merging of the subject and nearby materials, but that had been a spell with the aim of displacement; it made perfect sense that, if one tried to move a body to a space where something already existed, the two would become interlaced with each other. The results had been a tempting lead in the pursuit of magic to perfect her own form—the combination of a human mage with an insectile bystander was nearly seamless!—but the magic was too unpredictable for her to be willing to attempt it.

Already satisfied with her appearance, she had been attempting something unrelated. A form of transmutation, one could argue, but on a conceptual level rather than a physical one. It was honestly fairly well-trodden ground! Alchemists had done similar work for decades (love potions were in high demand, and to make a subject more suggestible was child’s play with tinctures of truth and similar concoctions), but she had neither the materials nor the experience to take that approach, and she felt it to be in contempt of consent, besides. A ritual to adjust something about herself, to increase her appeal, would be easier for her to execute and weigh less on her conscience. She had a hot date, and she was set on making herself irresistible to other trans women.

She supposed her major error was in not keeping her ritual space clear. Even if she wasn’t attempting to move anything, magic was finicky, and liked to reach its ethereal fingers into anything particularly receptive that happened to be nearby. She should have figured that a stuffed animal, an object that typically was the object of much sentimentality, would count, especially given its reputation among her “target audience”. She realized that something was awry when she could feel literal threads weaving through her at the same time of the more metaphorical threads of the spell.

By the time she had looked down to take stock of herself, it was already too late: her hands had morphed into soft, padded, and most importantly, blunt abstractions of paws that could no longer perform the gestures to dispel the magic. Her fur shortened all across her body, and was now tinged a pale blue; that same fur had sprouted all along her tail, which now bore a floppy pair of fins at the tip. Her teeth… well, they didn’t sharpen. They became longer, and they came to a sort of point, but they were as squishy as the rest of her, now; she was glad that her tongue was no longer wet with drool, or it’d be little more than a soggy flap of felt before long.

There was just no way around it. She wasn’t just a plushie, she was a bean bag. A few hundred pounds of flesh and bone had, in a flash, turned into—what, a hundred pounds of stuffing? It was strange how slow to move she still felt. She supposed that paper falls slowly because its weight didn’t push very much against the air, and that her body was now doing something similar. At least it was one less thing to get used to. She already had to adjust to being half shark. How would she explain that to Sally? The whole reason she had even attempted this was that the two of them had a date tonight, and now—

Knock knock knock.

Oh, for the love of—

“Eloise?” came the raccoon’s contralto from the other side of her front door. The witch hesitated; she’d known Sally long enough that she’d probably be comfortable just walking in after announcing herself, which meant that she didn’t have much time to come up with… with a cover story, or a way to reverse the spell, or something. She briefly considered playing dead—she supposed she was still half-possum—and pretending to be a regular plushie, but she had started this whole endeavor in the name of honesty, and she supposed that would be how she finished it, too.

“Come in,” she sighed, her shoulders slumping. The door creaked open, and Sally gasped as she walked in, striped tail swishing behind her and head cocking to one side.

“Well, aren’t you cute!” she chuckled, walking over to where Eloise stood at her desk, looking up at her newly-rounded snout. “What in the hell happened?”

“I was…” Eloise hesitated. She crossed her arms and huffed. “I was trying to get ready for our date.”

“Well, hon, I’ve seen botched eyeliner, or, y’know a bad dye job—I’ve even seen some wardrobe malfunctions! But usually that involves tearing fabric, and not, uh, becoming it.”

“I suppose that my great talent lends itself to the extraordinary,” she blustered, trying to seem at least a little composed in all of this. “Even extraordinary failure.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t use the word failure! I wasn’t just poking fun when I said I thought you looked cute like this.”

“It’s not a total loss, then,” Eloise conceded. “Our date seems like it’s going to be a wash, though. Going out to dinner without a digestive system seems… ill-conceived.”

“Doesn’t have to be. A date can just be a cozy night in, too.” Ah. Of course she couldn’t get off the hook that easily.

“A-are you sure? I was rather hoping to wait out the effects of the spell and plan something with you another time—”

“Eloise, c’mon. Are you telling me that this isn’t the perfect opportunity to stay in and snuggle up?” She wanted to protest, but something about the way she said it was extremely compelling. Downright tempting, even. The part about snuggling? Was that because she was part plush toy? Did plush toys have cravings? She would have to dig further into this once she had returned to normal, but in the meantime—

“...That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“Great!” Sally cried, already pulling off her coat. “Just show me to the bed and we can see what exactly you’re made of.”

And so Eloise did. She took up most of it even when she wasn’t a massive pillow-creature, but that wasn’t a problem for Sally. After Eloise had clambered up and rolled over to look back at her date, the raccoon climbed up after her, flopping onto the possum’s tummy and shuffling up to perch on top of her.

“I hope you don’t mind me getting comfy,” Sally rumbled in that husky voice of hers. Eloise, for her part, looked away, bashful, but trying as ever to seem cool and collected.

“You’re already in my bed on the first date. Why develop reservations now?”

“You’re right,” the raccoon cracked, “We already canceled our reservations when we decided not to go out.” The plushie turned her gaze back to Sally, whose snout was inches from hers. She tried to keep the eye contact cold, so as not to entertain the pun, but she broke first, snorting and sending the both of them into a fit of giggles.

The two of them spent the rest of the night getting even cozier with each other. Sally’s digits sank into Eloise’s memory-foam midsection; Eloise rolled over, smushing Sally like a weighted blanket; fluffy tail and chunky tail intertwined, the two of them looking for every place they could find to get a tiny bit closer to each other. By the time Sally awoke, Eloise was back to her full-possum, no-stuffing self, clinging to the raccoon as the two of them spooned.

“Oh,” she mumbled, groggily. “Have you been up long?” She wriggled around to face Eloise, once again bringing her masked eyes to meet the possum’s.

“Only a short while,” she replied.

“But you still could’ve gotten up without waking me? Had a good stretch after being squished in so many places, maybe gotten a bite to eat?”

“I suppose I could’ve. Why do you bring it up?”

“Oh, nothing,” Sally hummed. “It’s just, you seemed awfully eager to get rid of me last night so you could figure out how to deal with the whole… IKEAfication situation, and yet, you’re still in bed. It’s just a little funny—I think you’re just as cuddly normally as you are when you’re all plush out!”

“I simply didn’t want to disturb you,” Eloise countered, as coolly as she could. One of the great misfortunes of a flesh-and-blood body, though, was that that blood was liable to rush to the skin. Really, it made it quite a bit harder to seem as confident as she often sounded. The smile on Sally’s snout grew wider and wider, and Eloise began to feel the burning in her cheeks as she realized she’d been given away. As the raccoon started to laugh again, Eloise seized an advantage that hadn’t been lost in her reversion to her normal form: she could still smother the girl in her chest and spare herself the eye contact.

Thank you for reading! If you'd like a commission of your own, my prices are here; if you'd just like to see more of my work, check here!

#blahaj #writeblr #trans author #plush tf #lesbian #transfur #trans #furry fiction #plush furry #plushie #plush #transgender #transformation #species transformation #raccoon furry #possum furry #witch #furry writing #indie author #wlw #single-scene #my writing #totalcudgel

[selfhelpforstudents]

Hello. One of my spring courses has given us our booklist before the semester starts (though we do not have the syllabi yet, so I'm not sure how many of these books I need to read). I'm struggling with wanting to read the entire book because the subjects are so interesting, and with only want to read what I need for the class. Any tips?

Girls in Finance project server // other posts

Hey there! I totally get the struggle between diving deep into those intriguing subjects and figuring out what's a must-read for class. It's like having a buffet of knowledge, but not being sure which dishes are the professors' favorites!

Here are some tips that I would recommend:

Remind yourself of your motivation: Keep the big picture in mind. Remind yourself of the broader goals you aim to achieve through the course. Knowing how the readings contribute to your overall understanding and skill development can be a strong motivator.

Break down your goals into manageable tasks: Celebrate small achievements to stay motivated throughout the semester. Remember that a genuine interest in the subject matter can fuel your motivation to engage with the readings, making the learning experience more enjoyable.

Prioritize Based on Syllabus: Once you receive the syllabi, prioritize readings based on what is explicitly mentioned as required or recommended. This will help you focus on the essential material for your coursework.

Identify Key Topics: Look for key topics or themes in the course description or any introductory material. Focus on readings related to these topics, as they are likely to be central to the course.

Time Management: Assess your schedule and allocate time for both required readings and additional exploration. This way, you can strike a balance between covering the necessary material and delving deeper into topics that interest you.

Stay Flexible: Understand that the syllabus might evolve, and additional readings may be introduced during the semester. Stay flexible in your approach and be ready to adjust your reading priorities as needed.

Engage with Classmates: Discussing readings with classmates can provide insights into what others find valuable or interesting. This can help you make informed decisions about which readings to prioritize.

Utilize Reading Techniques: If time is limited, consider skimming or using techniques like SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review) to efficiently absorb information from the readings.

Remember that the primary goal is to succeed in your coursework, but there's also value in exploring topics that genuinely interest you. Finding the right balance will contribute to both academic success and happiness in what you do! <3

Always reach out if you need anything!

Love, Sophia

#studyblr #studygram #study tips #motivation to study #study notes #studying #100 days of productivity #studyinspo #study blog #exams

[stories-and-chaos]

Tarnished pt 29

[Helluva Boss AU where Blitzø’s childhood theft from Stolas’ palace is discovered and major consequences ensue for everyone involved.]

[Part 29/?? Word Count: 1535]

—————

Blitzø continued explaining the upcoming festival. “The locals have a great time and the Pain Games are fun to watch, but I gotta do my bodyguard thing. Don’t even get to play.” He pouted, looking more like a grumpy impling than an adult. “Loonie’s coming for extra security. Dina’s never seen it so she’s tagging along for fun.”

Barbie made a noncommittal sound, mostly acknowledging she’d heard. She sipped her iced coffee, the rattling sound from the straw saying it was now more ice and coffee. She shouldn’t be upset. What was there to be mad about? Besides her coffee running out. There, that was it. She was annoyed about missing a free coffee after therapy. Her tossed cup landed in a trash bin; at least her aim hadn’t suffered from all the abuse she’d put her body through.

Blitzø, also finishing his drink, dumped the ice in his mouth. Gotta get all the chocolate he could from it. His cup followed Barb’s, hitting the rim before falling in. Crunching on his ice cubes, he saw Barb cross her arms and stiffen up. He’d seen her chomp on ice too, so he didn’t think that upset her. “‘Ey,” he said around a mouthful of coffee flavored ice, “‘ou w’nna come wif?”

“Huh? Swallow Blitzø, can’t fucking understand ice mouth dude.”

He crunched and swallowed some, giving himself brain freeze. “You wanna come with?” he repeated once it passed. “You’ve been doing great with rehab, maybe your therapist will clear you for the day?”

Barb blushed a little. Nope, she wasn’t embarrassed that he picked up on her feeling left out. Because she didn’t feel left out! “Well, how else am I gonna get my free coffee?” She huffed, deliberately loosening her shoulders and uncrossing her arms. “Which day is it?”

After giving her all the information, Blitzø realized there was something he needed to mention before she saw him in a public setting with Stolas. “Uh, one thing real quick. I gotta play the whole master/servant bullshit. For appearances and crap.” He rubbed his neck, his discomfort radiating off of him. “And that means I gotta have this.” He brushed his other hand against his forehead where the All Imp Circus mark was.

But when his hand moved away, there was a solid white heart in its place. It was topped by a crown with elegant scrolling lines on either side. Barb felt a flash of rage at the sight. You asshole, you covered up our mark?! Then she saw Blitzø’s expression underneath the changed brand. Hurt, shame, and fear. He couldn’t make eye contact with her. Her twin took a shaky breath and passed his hand over the mark again. It was back to a stylized skull heart.

But his expression didn’t change. “It’s… it’s part of the binding,” he said, voice thick with emotion. Fuck this hurt more than the brain freeze. “I learned enough magick to illusion it back, for when I’m solo. But anything in public with Stolas… yeah.” His voice trailed away.

Something else for her to process. “Well, thanks for the gut punch. Least you didn’t spring it on me at the festival.” Barb’s tail cracked in annoyance as she walked. The tip poked him in the side. “C’mon, I’m hungry and I wanna get back before the cafeteria closes. If you beat me there I’ll let you tell me more over dinner.” She picked up the pace, Blitzø slack jawed behind her.

“Fuck you Barb, you know the way better than I do!” He ran to catch up. He didn’t beat her to the dorm but they still had dinner together. They chatted about less heavy subjects and Barb agreed to the festival, pending therapist approval.

—————

A week later, Barb was waiting at the elevator concourse, not quite patiently. Either Blitzø or one of the girls were supposed to meet her at the Sloth terminal and head to Wrath. Normally, Barb was dressed in some sort of tight miniskirt dress with tall boots. She’d swapped that for denim shorts, sensible shoes, a crop top, and a checkered button up tied under her breasts. No point in her good heeled boots getting stuck in mud or worse at Wrath’s farms.

Loona hopped out of an elevator for foot traffic. Like Barb, she wasn’t wearing her usual goth outfit. Unlike Barb, she was dressed in a dark jacket, slacks, and wore a set of dark shades. “What’re you supposed to be, Men In Black?” the imp scoffed.

The Hound plucked at the jacket. “I know right? Blitzø wants my help with security and this is his idea of a bodyguard outfit. But fuck all happens at this thing. This is the third one I’ve been to and it’s soooo dull.” The two got in line for ascending foot traffic. “By the way, if you and Blitzø are cool now, should we call you Aunt Barb?”

“Fuck no! Makes me sound like an old lady, one that sits around knitting and shit. Just Barb, got it?” The imp glared up at the Hellhound. “And I still don’t know if I’m ‘cool’ with the jerk.’

Loona shrugged and pursed her lips as they boarded. “I mean, you accepted his invite? Been talking after every group?”

“I wanted a change from all that Sloth-pink. And he gets me free coffee.” Loona smirked and let the matter slide, for now. They complained idly together as the elevator steadily rose. Once at the Wrath level, they exited to see a throng of imps outside the terminal, gathering for the festival. “Dad and the rest are waiting at the main tent. You wanna see them first or check things out around here?”

Barb squinted at the harsh orange light. After years of Sloth’s dreamlike hues, her retinas felt like they were burning. “Might as well let Blitzø know I’m here.” They pushed through the crowd; the festival stage and tent were easy to spot amidst the countrified buildings. “Waiaminnit, isn’t that royal here too?”

“Oh shit! Yeah, Stolas, Dad’s with him.” Loona halted a few yards away from the tent. “You gonna be okay? I can let Blitzo know you’re here if you don’t wanna deal with Stolas.”

Barb glared at the fancy tent walls. “Fuck it, I’m here. Let’s rip off this freaking bandaid.”

Living in the circus gave her a flair for drama. She whipped open the tent flap and announced, “Barbie Wire’s here, bitches.” The small group inside all looked at her blankly before her twin walked up.

“Barb! You made it!” Blitzø had a similar outfit to Loona, black jacket and slacks, with dark shades. “Everyone, this is my twin sister Barbie Wire. Barb, you know Loonie and Dina. That’s Millie and next to her is Moxxie; they’re my employees. And this -oh shit.” Blitzø stumbled over his words as he’d just been about to introduce his twin to his master. Barb crossed her arms, suspicion rising over Blitzø’s hesitancy.

“Allow me, Blitzy, darling.” Blitzy? Darling? The Goetia rose gracefully from his ornate chair. His hair feathers almost brushed the tent canopy as he stalked over. Then he bowed deeply, putting his face at eye level to the twins. “A pleasure to finally meet you, Miss Barb. I am Prince Stolas of Ars Goetia.” His deep pupil-less eyes looked sincerely pained as he continued in a voice only the imp twins could hear. “Although it may not mean much at this late day, I deeply apologize for the pain my father put you and yours through.”

Barb shifted uncomfortably. “Just Barb, none of that ‘Miss’ crap. And uh…yeah…” From Blitzø’s side of things, Stolas was as much a victim as he had been in the whole debacle. But she hadn’t been prepared to deal with all that right this second.

“Not the right time Floof,” her twin muttered at the royal. Floof? They have pet names for each other? Stolas gave a surprised hoot. “Right, we can discuss this later if need be. Today is a festival after all. Why don’t you all take a look around before the official event’s start?” Stolas shooed all the smaller demons out into the Wrathian heat. “You too Blitzy, have a bit of fun.” Barb noticed Blitzø’s grimace as the flicker of light shone under his collar.

“You sure you’ll be alright on your own? You remember what happened the second year you hosted,” Blitzø protested as the owl demon continued to usher the group out.

Stolas laughed. “Yes of course I remember darling. You did an excellent job dispatching those assassins and their leader is still making a splendid horse hitch at the edge of town. Ah ah ah!” He shook a long finger at the imp as Blitzø tried to interject. “I promise I shan’t move from this pavilion until you return and any attackers will find themselves encased in stone. I’m sure someone could use a fence post around here.” With that he pushed his lover outside and closed the tent flap with as much drama as Barb opened it.

“Bad idea to piss off royalty boss,” Moxxie called out. “Better do what the prince says.”

“Oh go fuck yourself Mox.”

—————

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