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rogueshadeaux · 2 months
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Chapter Thirty-Three — Shadow Play
“I see the mark on each affront to God, now. The Mark of the Beast. It burns in their chests like the pits of hell, it’s on their hands anytime they use their powers. They’re all branded. All marked, even me. But I see it now, I see why God has made me what I am.”
7k word count | 2 spacers provided as pause points | TRIGGER WARNINGS: a lot of words, possible claustrophobia [they are UNDERGROUND please remember that!], human experimentation, military mention. ONE imbedded link.
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Our footsteps echoed back a thousand times as we walked along the crescent-shaped dais on the other side of the room, Dad the first to step up onto it. “How far back do you think this goes?” He asked, shining a light down the rounded archway of the hall he was standing in front of. ADVANCED SYSTEMS. The last words of his sentence reverberated in the chasm, Brent joining him to look down it. 
“Hey!” He hollered, his voice overlapping Dad’s as the single syllable hopped around again and again. Brent turned back to face everyone, motioning down the hall. “It’s gotta be long.”
“Has to be some sort of tech lab,” Dad muttered in agreement. 
Brent smirked at the thought. “Think we have enough time to go look? Maybe they have, like, ray guns back there,”
“If we’re talkin’ Vermaak,” Zeke started, looking over my head at Dad, “We should probably start here. Advanced systems has gotta mean power transfer device, right?” 
Dad, though, wasn’t listening, not really; his phone’s flashlight had traveled along with his stare, looking across the dais to the hall on the other side, brow furrowed. His eyes narrowed a bit like he was trying to decipher something in the shadows, and he stayed quiet long enough for me to share a worried glance with Brent. “Dad?” I eventually asked. 
“Hmm?”
“You okay?”
He blinked hard, coming back down to earth from wherever his head had dragged him as he looked over at me, then to the other men. “Y-yeah, sorry,” he stammered, giving the hall at the other end one last look before turning fully to Advanced Systems. “We should see what’s down there.”
 Everything looked insane, so futuristic, and I felt bad for laughing at Bertrand when he said he was amazed by what he saw because I couldn’t help but agree. This place was amazing. 
Dad blew past the unmarked doors in the hall, moving deeper into the hall as he sensed something I only caught onto the further we traveled; there was something at the end of the hall echoing our footsteps back just a little too loudly, the sound coming back like an irregular heartbeat as it tried to match the loud drumming in my ears. Zeke stayed behind Brent and I as Dad held up a hand, light sweeping the rounded ceiling and noting the strange change: “It’s getting taller.”
“The entrance was wider too,” Brent muttered, shining his own against the wall. “Means there’s something at the end, doesn’t it?” 
“Probably.” Dad agreed. 
And they were right; as the ceiling widened like a maw, it spit us out into a rounded room littered in broken glass and severed wire, the walls lined with pods built into the walls. It looked like the shattered glass came from there, rained down by nearly a hundred of something escaping. A raised platform stood in the middle of the room, the perimeter circled by computers while the center held some excavated hole, something ripped up out of the ground and the concrete remains left strewn among the glass. 
And hanging from the ceiling were two cuffs, and a thick dangled wire with its copper ends sticking out. 
“Jesus,” Zeke muttered, shining his light behind him at one of the pods. They also had wires dangling from their enclosure, the ends looking like the pasties of EKG machines and some still holding catheters for veins. Zeke came to the conclusion I did, first to verbalize it: “They look like experiment pods.”
“Think this is where the Vermaak were?” Dad asked, stepping up to the platform. The computers stood on metal podiums with no visible wires, some with broken screens. “Wish Eugene was down here…”
“Could be,” Zeke hummed, messing around with the electrodes. 
Brent followed Dad up onto the platform as I slowly walked around it, shining my light at the base. There was no gap or welding or something that connected the platform to the floor; the ends simply bent out like the platform had been molded from the ground on a pottery wheel, no actual bolts in sight. It was so sleek, so unnaturally smooth and perfect.
There was a flash on the side and I glanced over to see Brent taking pictures of the pit, probably just as much for his own files as Dad’s. ‘Course. But the shine was enough to distract me, and I didn’t know there was something in my path until I could feel it under my ankle boot.
I lifted my foot to peel off the little thing off of it — it looked like a tag? Like the sort of paper tags I’d put on my gymnastics bag before going to a meet. It was in near-perfect condition, having been untouched since it was dropped.
Date and time of capture. Circumstances. Weapons, physical conditions, name rank, all duplicated three times on a page that signified needing to be cut. I flipped the page over, the sections on the back more for the holder than whoever the form was supposed to be attached to, the top titled ENEMY PRISONER OF WAR (EPW) CAPTURE TAG (PART A). “I found something,” I announced. “I think it’s some sorta…some sorta army thing?” 
Dad’s head snapped up. “What?” 
I didn’t bother answering, instead following the rounded edge of the platform again to where he stood and handed him the page. He breezed over the front before flipping it to the warnings on the back, huffing. “‘DA Form 5976,’” he muttered, looking over his shoulder at Zeke. “Direct Action form. The military raided this place."
“Oh yeah, more than likely,” Zeke agreed. “New Marais was under martial law for a bit as they dug around for information on the Beast and the First Sons. Guess they got here first.” 
Dad made some sort of dissatisfied noise in his throat, flashlight going from the form back to the computers — and then to the divot in the floor. “If this is where the Vermaak were…that had to be where the power transfer device was. They came in here with the intention of detaining anyone they found.”
Zeke left where he stood to join Dad on the platform, his light adding to the one shining down into the pit. “Guess now would be a good time to tell you they didn’t get the original device, huh?” 
Dad perked up, looking at Zeke. “Really?”
“Yeah. Bertrand tried shipping out the device, the original one meant for one-on-one transfer, when I was spyin’ on the Militia for Cole. He was trying to get it outta there before Cole got to it. You know the whole story about that gang fight at Fort Philippe?”
“Yeah,”
Zeke nodded once. “It was for that. We captured the place from the Militia, got the device, and Cole used it right there with Kuo. It exploded after.”
“What happened to it after?” I asked. Sure, it exploded, but it had to go somewhere, right?
Zeke shrugged. “It was basically scrap. Even if they got it, they wouldn’t have found anything useful in it.”
Dad’s brow furrowed. “So they never actually got the power transfer device?” He asked Zeke. 
“If it’s what was in this hole? No. Most the military coulda done was download whatever was on the computers.”
“And probably wipe them,” Dad added, more a complaint than an observation. “I’m surprised they didn’t rip these things out of the ground.”
Brent stared thoughtfully at the computer we were standing in front of, finger tracing the pole of steel that was holding it up. “We could.” 
I blinked. “What?”
Brent looked up, glancing between Dad and I. “You can recover deleted stuff from computers, right? Even if you’ve done everything to scrub it off. If we take the computer up to Dr. Sims, maybe he can find something.”
Dad rubbed the back of his neck, looking at the pedestal and the defunct computer on top of it. “We’d have to find its hard drive,” he eventually mumbled before looking back up at Brent. “We can’t just take the monitor, that’s useless.” 
“Wouldn’t the army take the hard drive?” I asked. It seemed illogical that they’d sweep the First Sons base and leave behind something so crucial. 
Brent’s eyes traveled down the metal pole, all the way to the floor and along it. “Maybe they didn’t know where to look,” he muttered, following some line we couldn’t see. His eyes raised to follow the wall and I saw all green was gone, replaced with a silver that reflected the light like…well, steel. He tracked whatever he saw to the wall next to the atrium’s entrance, eyes narrowing slightly.
“Hold this,” Brent asked Dad, not even looking at him as he passed over his phone and causing Dad to almost drop it on the ground. Brent stalked over to the wall and ran his hand along it, looking for some bump in the smooth texture and cursing under his breath when he couldn’t find it. “There’s something…under this…” Brent growled under his breath, sounding sure. “But the wall isn’t steel. I don’t see any…any bolts either.” 
“Think it’s welded straight on?” Zeke asked. 
Brent shrugged. “No idea. Either way it’s way too smooth to get through, unless I…”
Brent stared thoughtfully at the wall for a beat before bringing up his fist and turning it to steel, some extra metal shavings layering against the ridges of his knuckles as he reared his fist back and slammed it against the wall. 
Whatever metal was there instantly gave away, revealing a hidden server farm sitting stagnant behind it, all ziptied servos wires and electrical tape. “Oh, shit,” Zeke muttered as Brent moved to grip the second panel and rip it off, more of the server bank being revealed. He looked over to Dad. “That’s gotta be for every pod in here and these computers."
Dad nodded slightly. “Alright. Okay, Zeke, you’re our best bet for this, so salvage what you think might be useful,” 
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Thirty minutes later, Zeke was zipping up the sling backpack and Dad sighed, turning to look back in the room. He looked absolutely displeased at how much nothing there was in this room. “The ice Conduit, Kuo — you said she was activated down here, too?”
Zeke nodded. “She came outta here cold as a corpse. Said they injected her with something to get her goin’.”
Dad mulled over those words. “We should try Bio-Science, then.” he decided unilaterally, voice making it very clear that this wasn’t up for discussion. “Whatever activated her here had to be made there.”
It was unsettling how loudly our footsteps echoed back at us as we walked out of the hall and back into the atrium, across the floor to the space where the Bio-Science hall stood. Dad was leading the pack, steps sure the entire way to the hallway before he faltered, staring down the hall with reservation. 
“You okay?” Brent asked. 
It took Dad a moment to even register that Brent spoke, glancing back at us. “Yeah, yeah, I just…” he drew off, attention going back to the hall. “You ever get a really weird feeling, like something’s wrong?”
“It’s probably the shitty horror movie lighting,” Zeke joked. 
“Not like that,” he chastised. “I mean, there’s just…there’s something wrong here. In this hall. I don’t know what it is or…”
He drew off, growling under his breath as he failed to translate just how wrong it felt to him. I could sort of relate; I’d get a bad feeling in situations that did turn out to be bad, and there was whatever that gut feeling was when the ice soldiers appeared on the Sound. Maybe Dad was getting that weird sixth sense right now too? “Do you want to leave?” I asked. 
“No,” Dad answered almost immediately. He flexed his shoulders, and that unsureness left him. “Come on,” He decided, “Let’s go see what we can find.”
Our footsteps rang out sharply like slamming gavels as we walked into the wing. God, how huge was this place? The hallway seemed to go on forever, large spaces in-between the labeled and rounded doors. And those labels didn't exactly help. Once we passed the basic ones that said things like 'Laboratory Supplies' or 'Restroom', the placards began to list off actual project names: Project Emerald, Project Mirage, Project Fracture.
I wasn't feeling very hopeful about much, especially when Dad just blew past the doors to keep walking down the hall. “There's...a lot of rooms to go through,” I mumbled, shining my phone light at another door that said 'Project Helix'.
“I know,” Dad replied. “Try to remember all the names. Let's get to the end of the hall, see if there's anything there,”
The end of the hall came swiftly after that conversation, the placard reading 'Project Metamorphosis'. The door…it was scratched to hell and back, chipped away like someone took an axe to its front and failed to take it down. Dad’s hand traced the edge of the door, that pensive look still on his face. He stayed unspeaking for so long that I finally cracked, saying, “Dad? Are you okay?” 
Dad nodded. “This is it,” he said with so much assurance. His phone light traveled around, inspecting the weirdly shaped door. 
“You sure?” Zeke asked. 
Dad nodded slowly. “Yeah, I…” his brows came together, like he was confused by his own knowledge. “I’m sure. Let’s go.”
“Looks like someone else tried getting in, too,” Brent pointed out. “Think the military tried taking down the door with no luck?”
No one answered. If that was true, it meant we probably wouldn’t have a chance to get in, either. 
Dad stepped up to the door and tried opening it. Tried. He pushed against the door, he fit his hands in the linear grooves to try and pull. Brent put his hand against the door only to flinch away at the attempt to drain it, and I crouched, running my hand along where the door met the floor — or, more accurately, where the recess was. “It lowers,” I said, looking up at them two. “Goes down, like a car window,” 
“Without electricity, it’s basically useless,” Zeke said as Dad got to my level, looking at the recess. “Delsin, I know you’re intent on this, but it doesn’t look like we can get in—”
“No.” Dad snapped a bit. “This…there’s something in this room. I need to see it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment before turning his head to look at Brent. "Well, any advice from the architect?"
Brent huffed, humored at the recognition but unable to answer. “Couldn't tell you. Haven't really looked into how to tear down buildings, yet. I don’t even know what kind of metal this is.” He hit the metal with his knuckle, the metallic ping that reverberated back high in pitch. 
Zeke’s eyes narrowed at the sound, and before long he was digging in his pockets for something, pulling out his keys. He held a little flashlight-shaped thing on it up to the door, sliding it around its face. “It’s not magnetic,” he declared, shoving his keys — with the magnet on them, apparently — back into his pocket. 
“So then, what’s that mean?” Dad asked. 
Brent was the one to speak next. “Means it’s probably titanium,” he said, pushing his own hand against the door. “Which means it’s strong.” 
“So we’re not gonna be able to get in?” I asked, standing. 
Dad’s face darkened. “No. We’re getting in.” He said, determined. “How do you break titanium?” 
“You don’t,” Brent said, almost sounding offended at the idea. “Do you know how strong it is?” 
“There’s…” I drew off, unsure how to ask what I wanted to. “There’s rankings or classes or something for metal strength, right? Are there any stronger metals?” 
“Steel,” Zeke hummed, looking over at Brent. 
Brent shook his head. “I don’t know if it’d be enough,” he admitted. 
“It's worth a shot,” Dad said, standing straight. “We throw enough steel at this door and it’s bound to break,” 
“Yeah, and it could also take down the entire hall.” Brent stressed. “We have no idea what’s load-bearing in here and what’s not. Most doors are connected to one—” 
“The door sinks into the ground,” I interrupted. Not only that, but this one was round. Didn't load bearing walls have to be vertical? “What’s the likelihood of it being one if it does that?”
Brent’s words faltered as he looked down at the rubber flaps on the door’s edge. “I…” he drew off, thinking hard. “Less…less likely, but still—”
Dad seemed to think that was enough. “Then we just aim for the door,” he decided. “And try not to bring anything else down.” 
Brent’s eyebrow cocked. “‘We?’” 
Dad nodded, saying, “We should use our powers together. Steel and concrete.”
“What about Jean?” 
Dad’s eyes broke from Brent’s to glance my way, and he dedicated all of seven milliseconds to the thought before saying, “Jean, you and Zeke move back, be ready to help if something happens.”
I tried not to let the request get to me. My water probably couldn’t help here, anyways. 
Dad and Brent passed me their phones and Zeke pulled me a good eight feet back as they both positioned themselves in front of the door, Dad hovering over Brent’s shoulder. I hadn’t realized they were nearly the same height before now. “You prep, I’ll add, we both throw. Okay?” He asked Brent, who nodded. 
The steel Brent produced caught the light from the phones, little beams bouncing around and the very large and very threatening looking beams Brent was making grew over his shoulder like some magical spear being materialized from thin air. I guess, in a way, it was. But what was different this time was Dad putting his concrete-laden hand through the shrapnel cloud to reach for the bars and touch them, the black rock on his arms sloughing off and onto the steel to make a jagged battering ram. 
“Now!” Dad yelled, moving to cross his arms over his face. Brent’s arms flinched as Dad threw his out and the battering ram went flying, the sound it made as it slammed into the titanium door something unpleasant I could feel in my bones as it screeched in protest, making me cringe so hard I accidentally bit my cheek. The door jolted hard, but stayed standing. 
“Again!” Dad yelled over the echoes of the grinding metal. Brent built up another large spear, Dad touching it with his gravely grace before they both threw it at the door a second time. This impact came with sparks and a divot in its center that exposed a way darker metal beyond the painted surface, a bullet hole in the kevlar the First Sons gave the door. “Come on, almost,” Dad encouraged. 
They ran the same race, Brent putting his entire upper body into this next throw, and the way the entire hall shook as the battering ram made impact with the door frightened me so badly that my water was reacting before I even saw the shrapnel, phones falling to the ground to instead let my hands shoot out to weave a wall of water between them and the wall they took down. The remains of the bent circular door shot back, taking out multiple desks in the room behind it and careening into a wall as my water caught whatever rubble it tried to throw back at the two men. The shaking stopped and the horrible sounds died off soon after, and within a beat, everyone breathed. 
And then immediately groaned as the broken door slowly fell forward, revealing the hallway it couldn’t fit through. “God, it's neverendin', isn't it?” Zeke muttered, glancing at me. All I could do was sigh in return.
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I let my water fall and we all entered the lab dedicated to whatever Project Metamorphosis was, shining our flashlights around the room. God, even the furniture was white, pure metal desks laid in rows in the center — well, minus the ones Brent and Dad sent flying — with standing laboratory tables lining the walls, the expo marker on the white boards posted on the wall above them faded out but still legible.
Zeke beelined it towards some leftover lab equipment while Dad moved to shift through the contents of the first desk. Brent and I glanced at each other and simultaneously shrugged, moving to the edge of the room and exploring on our own.
With no luck at my station, I moved back towards Brent, him not even looking up as I moved. “This is insane,” Brent murmured, looking down at some files. “It looks like they were trying to do something with inactivated Conduits,”
“What, like what the DUP did?” I asked, looking around his shoulder at the document. Or, trying to — the font was so small that it looked like gibberish to me.
Brent shook his head. “No, different than that. Not sure how, though...” His flashlight left the laboratory counter to shine on the board screwed to the wall — which we only then realized wasn't a board at all, but one of those x-ray lightboxes. There were still some x-rays attached to it, but Brent's phone light wasn't hitting the picture right to make it show.
“Here, hold this,” he said, passing me his phone so quickly that I almost dropped it on the ground. After throwing a quick glare my way, Brent leaned forward, ripping the x-ray from off of the board and holding it in his hands, elevated a bit. “Okay, shine the flashlight under it,” he requested.
I did — and immediately cringed after. God...what happened to this person? Their jaw simply wasn’t there anymore, shatterings of bone protruding out of the open orifice in ribbons. I've seen brain x-rays before in health class, and while you're not supposed to see every nook and cranny, it's also not supposed to be foggy white, almost like it was riddled with infection or melted to mush. “Jeez,” I murmured, shining the light farther down the x-ray. It stopped just after the clavicle — not that that was one anymore, either. It was riddled with extra growth, as if wrapped up in solid tumors. “What the hell happened to them?”
Brent opened his mouth to retort when Dad, in the center of the room, called out, “Found some stuff on the Ray Sphere!” looking up at Zeke.
Zeke turned, in the midst of wrapping a stoppered glass vial with his sock while handlessly shoving his foot back into the tennis shoe. “What's it say?” He asked, taking off the sling bag so he could store the vial away.
“A lot of big words I don't know,” Dad started, holding up the rather thick file as Zeke and Brent's light landed on Dad's form, illuminating his tall shadow against the wall. “But it has a beginning note — apparently, the Ray Sphere can corrupt a person's powers?”
Zeke's head tilted to the side as he slipped the sling bag back on, looking at Dad curiously. ""Corrupt?'” he repeated. “Corrupt how?”
Dad looked back down at the file, phone light traveling across it in tandem with his eyes. “Says it makes a person's power stronger, but more volatile. Harder to control.” He looked up at Zeke. “Were Cole's power like that?”
Zeke shook his head, almost seeming offended at the accusation. “No, he was in control of what he could do.”
“And his power didn't affect his daily life? He wasn't having issues with—” Dad looked down at the file in his hands, “—his 'enhanced capabilities exceeding the threshold of practical applicability in routine activities, leading to the unintended manifestation of his powers in a potentially disruptive or uncontrolled manner?'”
“What does that even mean?” Brent scoffed.
Zeke's eyes, though, went wide. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. Then repeated it, louder. “Son of a bitch!” With a foot stomp, like he just made the world's biggest breakthrough.
Dad glanced back up, eyebrow quirking. “So is...that a yes?”
Zeke nodded fervently. “Cole couldn't do anything with electronics 'cause his power would short circuit the wires. He couldn't sit in a car or hold a gun 'cause he'd make 'em explode. You're telling me that's why he couldn't do that? The Ray Sphere corrupted him?”
Dad looked back down at the document. “More like made him too powerful for his own good. Which I mean, did help with the Beast, but he would have had a horrible time trying to live in the Age of Technology.”
Zeke nodded. “Yeah, you've got that right. Had to create a double insulated phone pouch just so he could call me whenever we were off doing stuff,”
“These powers,” I interjected. “The, uh, corruption. Would it be enough to turn someone into a monster?”
Dad looked over at me like I was insane — but Zeke just nodded sagely. “Guess that would make sense. Bertrand, his power was...well, it was somethin'. He could turn himself and other people into these things, buncha fucked up looking creatures.”
Brent held up the x-ray, and we both immediately shined our phone's flashlight behind it to brighten up the image of the jawless person. “Like this?” Brent and I asked in unison.
“Jesus Christ,” Dad muttered, looking at the image as Zeke nodded.
“Exactly like that. Well, one of them, at least.” He replied.
Dad looked equal parts confused and bewildered. “So there was a Conduit that could turn just anyone into monsters?” He asked Zeke.
Brent let the x-ray fall, turning back to the table. “Not just anyone,” he said, grabbing his own stack of documents. “People with inactivated Conduit genes,”
“That's somehow worse,” Dad's murmur echoed easily to us. He raised his voice. “But if someone's able to manipulate a Conduit like that, we need those notes. Anything that can affect their powers is close enough to what's going on with your sister.”
We nodded, Zeke motioning for us all to come here as he took the sling bag off once again for us all to put our found documents in. As I worked on rolling up the x-ray and slipping my hair tie around it so it would fit easily, Brent muttered, “You don't think you're gonna turn into one of those, right?”
I could feel the blood leave my face as I thought of the possibility. “Oh God, I hope not?” I said. “I mean, the notes said it was nearly instantaneous, right?”
He nodded. “They did, they did. Just wondering, 'cause it seems like it would be a great cosmetic improvement for you,”
My smack against his head rang out loudly through the room and into the adjacent hallway, his yelp bouncing around just as vibrantly. Asshole. 
As Dad tried to find a way to fit the large x-ray into Zeke's bag, I watched Brent turn, shining his flashlight across the room and to the gap in the wall where the vast hallway stood. “What do you think is back there?” He asked me.
“I don't know,” I shrugged. “Probably more human rights violations.”
“Was there anything else over by that x-ray viewing box?” Dad asked us. We both sorta shrugged, giving him some noncommittal sounds that had him huffing hard. “Alright, I'll go double check. Do me a favor? Go check out the desk we flung next to the hall.”
We nodded, separating from the group as Zeke moved to fiddle with the other desk that was thrown to the side when Brent and Dad broke in. Brent put the flashlight on me like a spotlight as I tried to shift through the contents of the desk despite the weird angle it was at, pulling out nothing but useless to-do notes and nicotine gum foils.
“Anything good?” Brent asked me.
I scoffed, “Unless you wanna count old McDonald's receipts as loot, then no,”
I sat back on my heels and looked up just in time to see Zeke straighten, holding his hand up triumphantly like he had found gold — but whatever was in his hands was too small to see. “Got something!” He declared. “Some sorta recording chip.“
Dad turned to look over his shoulder. “Any idea what's on it?” He asked.
“Not yet,” Zeke hummed. He grabbed at a little pouch on the strap of his sling bag and there was a quick snap as he unbuttoned something. “But luckily, I brought Cole's old phone. I had tinkered with it a bit way back when — gave it a chip reader.”
Dad's eyebrow raised, and he 100% looked like he was not buying whatever Zeke was saying. “And you're sure a 25 year old piece of technology will work?”
Zeke snorted. “I modified a Nokia. I'll die before this thing does.”
Dad began walking over to Zeke as he fiddled with the old phone and the chip reader. The beam of light above me slowly started to move, and I glanced up to see Brent's attention — and inadvertently his phone — begin pointing towards the hallway again. “C'mon,” he finally said as I rose to my feet. “Let's go check out what's back there,”
Brent was already walking away by the time I called out to Dad to tell him what we were doing. “Okay, just shout if you find something, alright?” he requested as I jogged to catch up to Brent.
The hall was squared, which was different from the others — it felt like a normal hallway. Brent flashed the light everywhere; the high ceiling, the floor, where they met. He had this studious look on his face that left me wondering if he was taking notes for his own build down the line, or if he was critiquing the place and thinking of how he could have done it better. “Wonder if every other room is this big,” he hummed, light jolting to shine behind us. I couldn't blame him; I wasn't really a fan of treading through the dark underground, either. It felt like there was always something breathing over my shoulder. This entire place was freaky enough even without the fact that it was entirely powered down.
“Well, it's going to be a very long night if they all are,” I murmured back.
We turned forward simultaneously, just in time to see the light of the phone catch in the reflective surface of a pane of glass. It was as long as Brent was tall, following the curve of the wall in a slope. “What the hell...” Brent muttered.
The closer we got, the more I realized it wasn't a window, but a door, some large and super thick plexiglass thing that had five separate locking mechanisms on the outside. None of them had a keyhole though. There was a screen the size of a small television on the side, and a laminated piece of paper above it haphazardly taped to the wall like it was an afterthought, the 'TEST SUBJECT 0409' in giant bold.
There was nothing else about the corpse in the viewing room. No name, no demographics, no gender. Just a set of numbers the First Sons only bothered to throw on the wall after the fact. Barely cared about, barely human.
“What the fuck…” Brent drew off as he looked into the chamber. I couldn’t say much, I was too shocked. 
The glass was iced at the edges, patterned spreads of white frost that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. There wasn’t a bed in the room, no sink or anything. There was barely something that constituted a toilet — but it was all frosted over. The corpse in the corner of the small observation room was curled in on herself, arms wrapped around her knees as if she was trying to keep every little bit of warmth she had left contained to her core until the very end. She was perfectly preserved. That’s what was worse; I could see her frosted eyebrows still screwed close together, how she seemed to have froze in the middle of chattering her teeth. The folds of the thin scrubs she was in were stiff with icicles, her lips softly blue. 
“They froze her?” I whispered, the reminder of that feeling making shivers run down my spine.
Brent moved his phone’s flashlight around, up and down, trying to get a good look inside the chamber. “Look, see that?” he asked, pointing to the corner of the room. I looked up where he was pointing; it was one of those old flip signs, the kind they’d have at super old airports that would flip to say if a place was boarding or whatever. The white on it was damaged from the frost, but the dark black lettering showed through with ease; PRESERVATION ENGAGED.
“Do you think it was something to keep her body…” I drew off, unsure of how to even say what was going on, “...mummified?” 
Brent flashed his light around the room once more before letting it settle on the 5 locks. “That, or keep her from squealing.” he sighed hard, turning. “C’mon, let’s look at the others.”
I threw one last look at 0409 before letting my eyes fall to my feet, following Brent. 
There was a cshchsk that echoed into the hallway from the main room of the lab, like a walkie talkie was receiving interference, and then that same sickeningly sweet voice from the other dead drops came back, the voice of the Bertrand guy. 
“At first, I questioned His choices,” Bertrand’s voice echoed down the hall, the gross drawl of his accent making another shiver go down my spine after the one wracked up it by the cold hallway. There was another testing room, this time a man in it, hands frozen to the wall as he died trying to claw through the frost. I couldn’t help but hold my arms close to my core and Brent noticed, dragging me along. “Why would God turn me into such a monster when all I’ve done is follow His word? I never strayed far from His grace,”
Brent scoffed. “Isn’t this the same dickwad that was a fascist?”
I shook my head in disbelief at this asshole’s words, looking into the next testing chamber — and pausing when I did. In this chamber, there was definitely…someone, but I couldn’t see them well. Not when they were buried under the frost like that. But there was something off about the lump in the frost that I couldn’t put my finger on, like they were misshapen in a way. 
I mean, of course, that could have been a side effect of being frozen alive. 
“I prayed for days after I used the Ray Sphere to ask God why. Why turn me into this beast, this monster?” He asked no one. I’m pretty sure it was just to hear himself talk. “Why would He damn one of His most loyal soldiers to be a demon for the rest of his life? But I don’t believe that’s it anymore, no. I think I finally see what He has planned for me.”
Brent stopped dead in his tracks, making me run into his side. “Wh–, dude!” I snipped, rubbing where the bridge of my nose hit his hard bicep and blinking back the tears from the impact. 
Brent didn’t react. He didn’t even really care. He was too busy staring wide eyed into the next testing chamber, face a bit paled even in the dim light of my phone’s flashlight. I followed his stare, my own eyes widening as I looked at what was in the room. 
There was a human…I think. It was definitely the remains of one, at least. Their skin was leathery, grayed out in the way you only expected corpses to be. But the color darkened to match the texture the further it crawled down their arms, the skin growing and hardening to become these scythes of a pollex crab claw. It looked shelled, too, just like a crab’s would be. There was still a face to the person, still a mostly human body…but those claws…
“I understand what the auras I see are now. Marks of the Beast, of the devil’s influence. I’m branded with my own, and that’s why the Lord has made me what I am. I must atone for my sins.” Bertrand’s voice said from the other room as both Brent and I looked at each other and then rushed to look in the next cell. This one had the same claws and grayed skin, but there was more. Jagged frills of shell climbed up their — its — arms, clubbed claws where its feet used to be. It laid curled, back to us, so I couldn’t see its face — but I could see how its back seemed larger than humanly possible, like there was an extra set of muscles along its spine. 
“What the fuck?” Brent murmured again, more aghast this time. 
“I see the mark on each affront to God, now. The Mark of the Beast. It burns in their chests like the pits of hell, it’s on their hands anytime they use their powers. They’re all branded. All marked, even me. But I see it now, I see why God has made me what I am.”
 I followed Brent as he walked briskly down the hall, glancing into each chamber before quickly moving on. God, they were all the same; the huge claws long enough for them to use as crutches, the bent backs. At some point we got to see the horrors of that x-ray in all their fucked up glory; black bled through their abdomen and up their spines like something was poisoning them from the inside, their jaw shattered by the force of those thick appendages that jutted out of their jaws like tentacles. I guess the only solace I could cling on to when looking at these monstrosities is that they looked tranquil, curled up in the frost. Hopefully the people they once were passed peacefully. 
“He is giving me a chance to repent. To be more. His son was betrayed by one of his own, yet through that betrayal, we received salvation for our sins. That sacrifice is what He is expecting of me now.” Bertrand said, sounding so sure of himself. “I’m to be His sword and His might. I’m to cure the world of these demons by turning them into such and exposing them to the world.”
Brent’s steps slowed as the phone’s flashlight moved to face forward again and started traveling up, higher and higher as it caught the red and black exoskeleton of whatever that was in front of us. The chamber was at the end of the hallway and double the size of the others with the little crab-guys — but it needed to be to hold that creature. It was doubled over, reinforced arms being used as forelegs as it glared forward, three eyes on each side of its elongated head. It looked like something out of a horror movie, especially with its mouth open like a lotus, three long pincers coming together over a row of razor-sharp teeth. You could barely see the skin of the human it used to be under the exoskeleton of its hard shell, just as grayed and veined as the other crab-guys only an evolved form. Was this the end stage? Two segment claws as long as my arm and knees facing the wrong way?
“I’m meant to be the cure to the monster Kessler saw in his visions, the Beast that will burn the world to the ground,” Bertrand affirmed to himself. “I’ve done it, and watched them be hunted like the vermin they are. I’ve built the Militia to help track them down. These Conduits are not human, and they won’t be when I’m done with them. We are in the end times, and I am one of the disciples God intends to help salvage the world.”
Brent and I stepped closer to the frosted glass, standing on either side to get a look at just how tall, how wide this thing was. It had blades that ran up its elbows like knives, one elbow nudge away from spearing through someone. “Let them devour New Marais like a swarm of locusts. Let them see the monsters that are hiding among the meek, and let me be their savior. Let me lead them away.”
As I was looking at the jaw ripped open with tendrils of tissue holding the bones together, a volt of electricity shot up my spine when I realized the thing was staring back at me, blinking ice off of its translucent eyelid. 
“Let them ravage the world and get rid of the sinners, and may God help those that fight against them.”
“Jean,” Brent warned when he saw the head of the creature, the ‘Ravager,’ snap sideways to look at him.
We both took a half step back as the Ravager’s elbows flexed and it stood straighter, looking down at us from behind the glass. The three pincers on its mouth flexed open so it could give off a garbled scream that even the thick glass couldn’t keep silent, making me flinch and move to cover my ears. Its limbs moved lazily as it awoke from whatever hibernation the frost had it in before its super thick and long claws slammed into the concrete ground, shattering it with each rake. 
It was trying to dig its way out. 
“Run,” Brent said as Dad’s voice yelled something from the lab. “Go, run!”
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monkeylucy · 1 year
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That aquarius oc seems looks like she's young girl
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I'm going to assume this ask is based on this drawing on the right. I blame my attempt at perspective :p She's actually supposed to be an adult. I guess you can see that more in her human design:v Though she does behave pretty childish at times :v
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slasher-male-wife · 6 months
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Horror characters seeing their s/o covered in blood
Happy Halloween everyone. I did a poll awhile ago on what I should post for Halloween and this won. So I'm here to deliver what y'all voted on. I included a lot of characters in this just for fun. Disclaimer I haven't written for some of these characters in awhile or that much at all, so sorry if some of these are ooc.
Includes: Amanda Young, Michael Myers, Otis Driftwood, The Lost Boys, Candyman, Doomhead, Patrick Bateman, Severen Van Sickle, Pyramid Head, and The Sinclair brothers
Warnings: Mentions of real and fake blood, slightly suggestive content, gn reader, talk of drinking blood in The Lost Boys and Severen's section, violence, murder
Amanda Young
You weren't supposed to find out about what Amanda did. She wanted to keep you separate from the gore of her apprentice work. But accidents happen and somehow you get to where a trap had happened.
You were in the where-house when you slipped on a puddle of blood and got your entire front half covered in it. You screamed out and Amanda quickly came rushing in.
You standing there covered in blood made something tick inside of Amanda. Something she knows she shouldn't feel seeing you covered in blood.
But she pushes this aside and quickly assures you it's fake blood that happened to spill all over the ground. She can't stop herself from giving you a quick kiss before helping you leave.
She'll get you all cleaned up back at home but she won't be able to stop thinking about seeing you covered in blood.
Michael Myers
Michael was out while you were getting ready for a Halloween party. A part of your costume involved you getting drenched in fake blood. After pouring the fake blood all over yourself in your bathtub you let it dry and step out.
You're downstairs, gathering up your things for the party when you notice the feeling that you're being watched. You turn around and spot Michael watching you.
Michael knows what real blood looks like and considering you're pretty calm he knows this is for your costume. But something inside of him is yelling at him. Not in the usual 'kill someone' way, but in a 'get them and try not to hurt them' way.
You're going to be late to that Halloween party. Michael is going to stand there and make you spin around for him so he can watch you move while you're covered in blood. You know he's getting some kind of kick out of this, so who are you to stop his fun.
After this Michael will try to hint at you to get covered in blood more often. He'll even offer to get the blood this time, but it wouldn't be fake if he got it. He'll keep thinking about you covered in blood and won't be forgetting how it made him feel anytime soon.
Otis Driftwood
You walked in on him at a bad time. While you've grown to accept what your boyfriend does, you don't like partaking in his torture of other people. But when you walked into the wrong room at the wrong time you got sprayed all over with blood.
It coats your face, hair and chest. You thankfully didn't get any in your eyes or mouth. You do let out a scream of surprise but you're not too grossed out by the blood, living with the Firefly family for as long as you have will do that.
Otis takes a good long few moments to just stare at you. You're hot enough as it is, but seeing you all covered in blood like this? Otis is going to have to go take a long cold shower.
"Well isn't this my lucky day." He'll say before walking over to you, completely ignoring the victim now. He'll take all of you in and won't let you wash it off so quickly.
"I just wanna take a couple pictures of ya darlin'." He'll quickly get his camera out and have you pose for him while you're still covered in blood. This will come in handy when he's having art block or he just needs to have some 'personal time'.
The Lost boys
It's your first time feeding and it ended up getting really messy for you, considering you've never done it before. So you got just as much blood all over yourself as you did in your mouth.
Dwayne is the first to notice and he's smirking a little to himself as he watches your blood covered body move. He's committing this sight to memory and he'll probably find a way to get you covered in blood again.
David is the next to notice. He'll smile wider than Dwayne and make some comments about how messy eating can get at times. But he'll also talk about how hot you look covered in blood.
Marko doesn't even make a comment, he just straight up lunges and kisses you right then and there, fangs still out and everything. Seeing you all vamped out and covered in blood really got to him, making him loose all self composer that he has.
Paul also joins in on kissing you, but he'll opt for your neck since your mouth is taken. I can see him licking some blood off of you, but not too much because he loves the sight of you drenched in blood. But the boys will agree to try and get you that messy again the next time you feed.
Candyman
You didn't want to go with him. You summoned him and when he showed you how devoted he is to you, you didn't want to go. So he had no other option than to make you go by force.
You're entering your apartment after going to a Halloween party. Your costume was something you put together quickly and involved you pouring fake blood all over your front half. As you walk further into your apartment you get a strange feeling.
You try to ignore it as you walk to your bathroom to wash off the fake blood. Before you can do that you hear something moving in your medicine cabinet. You open it and after a few moments a hook jumps through it. You obviously scream and run out of your bathroom.
You're in your kitchen, picking up your phone when you see him again. He's looking at you with that same adoration in his eye from the first time you met him. He's looking you up and down. You're frozen again as he watches you.
"You're even more desirable covered in blood," He says in his sultry voice. You shed a couple tears as you try to move, but you're unable to. "I'll have to remember this the next time I see you my love. I'll never be able to forget this."
Doomhead
He knew you were going to a Halloween party, but what he didn't know was that you were going to be covered in blood when you came home. He knows real blood from fake blood and when he sees you he can't help but chuckle.
31 is coming up and he's always tried to keep you separate from it. Seeing you covered in blood is a bit of a double edged sword for him. On one hand he loves seeing you covered in blood, but he also can't stop thinking about 31, and what would happen if you got caught in it.
"Ok so I got a little too close to one of the decorations and I accidentally got covered in fake blood." You explain, taking off your shoes, "I should probably shower all of this off."
"Well I was hoping to get a better look at you like this." He says with a Cheshire grin. You roll your eyes but smile and walk over to him. He spins you around a bit, taking a good look at all of the blood on you.
He knows he'll have to tell you about 31 eventually, and that he'll always keep you away from it. But for right now he can enjoy watching his s/o look stunning while covered in blood.
Patrick Bateman
He got a little too careless and right as he was killing someone you walked in, getting covered in blood from the victim. You of course start to scream and he quickly covers your mouth.
He's so angry with you for interrupting this, but something about seeing your face and body covered with blood, excites him. "I can explain this. Calm down and listen to me." He says, trying to keep his voice calm. His anger starts to mix with arousal as he slowly slides his hand away from your mouth.
"Oh my god Patrick what happened? Who is this?" You ask, holding back tears. His attraction to you is starting to get a bit too much for him. He'll find a way to explain this murder, just like he'll find a way to explain why he wants to do it while you're covered in blood.
"He broke in and attacked me. I had to fight him off and I went a bit too hard I think. We can't tell anyone about this alright?" He says, trying his best to keep a calm, in control voice, "But right now we need to get to the bedroom.
Murder's don't get him as excited as seeing you covered in blood got him. He'll have to go out and buy some fake blood and recreate this with you again. He's glad he has such an understanding s/o.
Severen Van Sickle
It's been awhile since your last feed and when you finally got someone you could barely hold back from drinking as quickly as possible. Because you were so worried about eating as much as you could as quickly as possible you got yourself covered in blood.
After you pushed the body away Severen took notice of your blood soaked clothes. He couldn't stop himself from smiling and taking a good long look at you. He knows you'll be too full to do anything after feeding that much so he'll have to commit this sight to memory, just for some fun activities later.
You wipe your mouth and smear more blood over your face and Severen can barely contain himself at this point. He'll have to quickly ask you if you're up to help him, or if he should do it alone.
Either way he doesn't want you cleaning yourself up anytime soon. Even after his issue is taken care of he just wants to see you covered in blood. He loves how it looks in general but also aesthetically. If he has a camera on hand he's taking a picture of you.
He will try to recreate this later. Next time you're feeding he'll try to get blood all over you. I can see him filling up his mouth with blood and just spitting it on you because let's be honest, he's very dirty and probably has as many diseases as a stray cat.
Pyramid Head
You're walking around Silent Hill, trying to find some more food to stock up on when you come across one of Pyramid Head's recent kills. You don't notice and you slip on the puddle of blood.
You're used to the blood and gore of living with Pyramid Head in Silent Hill so slipping on blood and getting it all over your clothes is more of an inconvenience than scary. You groan and stand up, looking at blood slightly dripping off your clothes.
You turn around and find him standing near you. "I just slipped on some blood. It's not mine and I'm not hurt." You say. You can never really tell what he's feeling or his emotions but you can sense he's feeling a certain way about you being covered in blood.
You two just stand there while Pyramid Head is thinking about smearing more blood all over you. Seeing you covered in blood is doing something to him. So he walks over, get's blood on his hands and rubs it over your face and clothes.
He'll follow you around and just keep watching you while you're covered in blood. He'll be thinking about this for awhile, and he'll try to recreate it whenever there's free time or he just needs to see you covered in blood.
Bo Sinclair
You were busy going after a victim and it got a bit messy. You got yourself covered in blood. By the time you get the body back to the House of Wax the blood that's on your hair and face has dripped down to soak your clothes even more.
You hand it off to Vincent and when Bo sees you he pauses for a moment before he chuckles. "I like yer new look darlin'." He says teasingly. But he's using that teasing to mask how damn hot you are covered in blood.
You're able to pick up on this and you know a great way to get him back for making you chase down someone and kill them.
"Oh I know. I love this look too." You say teasingly back to him, moving your hands up and rubbing your hand over your face and neck, getting a good amount of blood on it. You walk over to Bo and smear the blood on his shirt before you step back.
"Too bad I'm about to wash it off." You say before you dodge Bo trying to grab you, "If you catch me before we get to the house I'll let you wash it off." You say before running out of the house, Bo follows behind quickly.
Lester Sinclair
You're helping Lester out by picking up a deer from the road. You're in the middle of lifting it into the truck when something happens and you get covered in deer blood.
Lester quickly rushes over to you and lifts the deer into the back of the truck. He's looking you over and making sure that you're ok. You'll have to assure him at least ten times that you're perfectly ok and that the deer just got blood all over you.
Now knowing that you're ok he does kind of realize that, you look good covered in blood. Lester loves when you get a bit dirty in general, but blood has him feeling a bit more excited than normal.
He'll zone out a bit for awhile until you bring him back and he acts like everything is good and he's totally not obsessing over the look of you covered in blood.
He'll keep this to himself until it starts to boil over and he admits to you that he hasn't stopped thinking about you being covered in blood. If you suggest the idea of getting covered in blood again he'll be all over that idea.
Vincent Sinclair
When you offered to model for Vincent's study you didn't expect to get covered in fake blood. But Vincent wanted you covered in blood and you didn't really mind so that's what the two of you do.
You stay still the entire time but you notice Vincent staring more than he is drawing. But once he notices you noticing him he gets back to drawing you.
He takes his damn well time to draw you and at one point he stands up and walks over to you. He starts to pose you in a different way and it's totally not an excuse to touch you and see you covered in blood up close.
He'll put you in so many different positions and will keep pouring blood on you. He's honestly memorized by you standing there covered in blood. At one point he'll bust out the camera and ask if he can film.
He sees you being covered in blood in a more romantic, artistic way that makes his heart beat faster. He'll have to get you covered in blood more often so he can draw, paint, photograph, etc you.
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cuubism · 5 months
Text
work is driving me fucking insane this week, so here's this silly self-indulgent thing i wrote to distract myself.
the spirit of this post is here as well XD
coffee shop au, meet cute, literally falling for your crush
--
In retrospect, forgetting to eat for three meals in a row wasn't Dream's best move. Not that he'd done it on purpose. Hence the forgetting. But taking time to cook always felt so wasteful when he was finally making progress on his novel. He could eat later, whenever the hyperfocus burned itself out.
The only thing that eventually got him out of the house was caffeine. He'd run out of both coffee and tea in the dysfunction of this week, and thus was forced to venture out to the cafe a few blocks away from his flat in search of enough energy to keep him awake for a few more hours.
Technically, there was a place that was closer. There was also a grocery store, where he could have bought coffee grounds. But Dream took the excuse to go a bit further, and not for the quality of the coffee.
He and Johanna, on the occasion she could convince Dream to leave the house and attempt to be part of society, had first started coming to this particular coffee shop because Johanna's girlfriend Rachel worked there. But Dream had to admit that what really kept him coming back, including at times when he wasn't being dragged along by Johanna, was another employee entirely.
Hob.
Hob was, in Rachel's words, "a perfectly nice guy but I don't know why you're so obsessed with him." In Johanna's words, Hob was, "quite fit, I can't lie, but I really thought you'd have gone for someone who's a bit more of an arts gremlin like you."
In Dream's words, Hob was perfect. He always had a smile for Dream, and a kind word or compliment, and he had kind eyes, and nice hands, and was terribly handsome. Dream had never been particularly attracted to masculinity before but Hob was proving him wrong over and over. He looked like he was strong enough to pick Dream up, and that did all sorts of exciting things to Dream's insides. Dream may or may not have had an actual dream about Hob holding his hand.
Hob also made terrible coffee. But Dream didn't care. He took whatever coffee Hob made him, whether the grounds were burnt, or it had way too much cream, or was vastly overbrewed, and drank it quite happily, sneaking looks at Hob all the while. Because Hob's coffee might be awful, but he always smiled at Dream as he gave it to him, and sometimes their hands brushed and it sent a thrilling little shock up Dream's arms. And anything Hob made for him felt made with love, he could tell, it was like a homemade birthday cake with uneven frosting and an undercooked part in the middle.
It was possible Dream should care more about the quality of the coffee and less about the symbolism of it.
In any case, he went to the coffee shop, underfed and undercaffeinated, hoping that Hob would be there, even if it meant he would have to down another cup of extremely bad coffee. Hob should be there, he did usually work Tuesday afternoons, not that Dream had memorized his schedule like a stalker or anything.
He stepped inside, the little bell over the door jingling, and found that he was right, Hob was there. A thrill of delight ran through him. Dream did not often feel anything as carefree or joyous as delight, but he was very sleep-deprived, and Hob was there, so there it was. Rachel was also working, and waved to him as he stepped up to the counter. As she and Johanna were both very aware of his embarrassing crush on Hob--much to Dream's chagrin--she didn't come over to take his order, instead leaving him to Hob.
"Hey, it's Dream, right?" said Hob, wiping off his hands on a towel and leaning on the counter, looking at Dream with a smile. He knows my name, Dream thought with a heady rush, then remembered that Hob was obligated to write it on his coffee cup, and that Dream came here often, and it didn't have to mean anything. "Dark roast with almond milk and caramel?"
How Hob could be so diligent about remembering his order and so terrible at making it, Dream didn't know. "That's correct," he said.
Behind Hob, Rachel mouthed keep going, which Dream took to mean that if he wanted to get anywhere he had to attempt to engage Hob in slightly more conversation than his usual coffee-ordering script. This was unfortunately true, particularly since Hob had already nullified half the sentences Dream would usually say by predicting his order.
"You remembered my order," he said, which felt like a reasonably normal response, definitely better than do you want to see if you can pick me up? which would probably be creepy. Rachel gave him a thumbs up.
"Of course. You're quite memorable," said Hob, and winked at him. Was he flirting? Dream would like to think so, but he wasn't usually very good at picking up on that sort of thing. Why would Hob be interested in him anyway? Perhaps he meant that Dream was memorable in a bad way, that he was annoying or weird, or--
Dream still hadn't responded.
"I am not trying to be," he said, and behind Hob, Rachel sighed. It was true, though. In most areas of life Dream preferred to go unnoticed. It was only Hob's attention that made him feel all bubbly inside.
"Task failed successfully," said Hob, "because I can't stop noticing you."
Was Dream... still succeeding at the conversation? That was truly unexpected, that he hadn't already turned Hob off by being utterly unsuitable for human society.
"Is that a good thing?" Dream asked.
"Is it?" asked Hob.
Undoubtedly it was. Dream liked the thought of Hob noticing him. He liked the thought of Hob remembering his name, and his coffee order, and when he came into the cafe, with as much detail as Dream had memorized his schedule. He did not normally like having people's eyes on him but he liked the thought of Hob looking. Of Hob caring about what he saw. It made him feel interesting and worthy, and sort of giddy and lightheaded--
Oh. No. That wasn't Hob's attention. That was the fact that the last meal he'd eaten had been a sleeve of biscuits for breakfast two days ago, and that he'd been on his feet for a long time, or what constituted a long time when one had only had a sleeve of biscuits two days ago to eat. And he hadn't slept, and he'd had quite an exciting few minutes just now, and apparently this all meant that his body had decided it needed to check out for a moment, thanks, goodbye.
Inconvenient timing, Dream thought, as everything went sort of spinny and blurry. He was making such progress! He really thought Hob might even like him, and falling on the ground was not going to help his case.
Inevitable now, though. The last thing he saw before he passed out was Hob's face, expression shifting from amusement to concern, and really, there were worse ways to go out.
He woke up not much later, or at least it felt like little time had passed, to find himself lying down on a couch in what seemed to be the cafe's back office, as best as his overtaxed mind could gather. And Hob was crouched beside him, looking at him worriedly, Rachel leaning over his shoulder, face likewise creased in concern.
Dream wondered how he had gotten to the couch. Had Hob carried him there? It was a pleasant thought, though he wished he could have experienced it in person.
"You know," said Hob, "there are easier ways to get out of talking to me than blacking out." The words were light, but he sounded genuinely stressed out about it.
Dream immediately felt bad. "I'm sorry."
Hob chucked him on the cheek, a light touch that felt fond. "Not what I meant. Are you okay?"
Dream carefully pushed himself up to sitting, Hob watching all the while, hands hovering over him but not touching. Dream sat up. His head didn't spin. "I am okay," he said.
"Probably didn't eat anything today, huh?" said Rachel. She didn't look quite as concerned as Hob did, she was used to Dream's habits. Meanwhile, for all Hob knew, Dream had a brain tumor and would imminently die.
"No," Dream admitted. "I was... occupied."
"Will you be okay here for a sec?" Hob asked, brow scrunching as if he truly thought Dream might just collapse again onto the floor without him. "I'll get you some water. Something to eat, too."
It was worth fainting in a public place, Dream thought, just to have Hob look at him with such care.
When Dream nodded, Hob hurried away to do just that.
Only now his crush was going to be one million times worse, and certainly not reciprocated, not after the scene he'd caused.
Beside him, Rachel was laughing, hiding it behind her hand.
"Is my suffering humorous to you?" Dream asked, but there was no heat in it, he was too busy looking after where Hob had disappeared.
"You should have seen it," she said. "He launched himself over the counter to catch you. Oh my god, I wish you could have witnessed it."
"Surely Hob would aid any customer in distress," Dream sniffed. But something turned over in his stomach, a little flutter of hope.
"Yeah but not literally vault the counter. It was terrific. I was worried he'd break a hip."
"I'm not that old," said Hob, coming back around the corner and crouching beside Dream again, water bottle and what looked like a chocolate muffin clasped in his hands.
Rachel was unrepentant. "You're lucky you didn't wind up on the floor, too."
"You caught me," said Dream, staring into Hob's eyes. He had such pretty eyes. Rich brown, like coffee with a dash of cream.
Dream might still be a bit lightheaded.
"Of course," said Hob, and uncapped the water, handing it to him. Dream took slow sips, realizing as he did that he hadn't drank any water all day. "I'm fond of you, you know. Can't let you hit your head on the floor."
Fond. Dream might faint again.
"Should I take you to hospital or something?" Hob asked, still so concerned it was making that floaty feeling bubble up again in Dream's chest.
"I will be fine here," he said.
"He just fell for you, that's all," said Rachel, and Dream glared at her. She just smiled back. "Swooned and everything."
"I did not swoon," Dream protested.
"You kind of did, actually," said Hob. "I've never seen someone just crumple so dramatically."
"Oh, have you seen many people faint, then?"
"No, but--"
"I'm going to man the till," said Rachel, patting Dream on the arm. "I don't think I want to be in the middle of this. Let me know if you want me to take you home, Dream." She winked at him. "Unless you'd rather Hob do it."
Johanna was never this meddlesome, Dream thought bitterly. She just made fun of him and left it at that.
Then he was alone with Hob, which was both an exciting and anxiety-inducing state of affairs. He clutched his water bottle for balance.
"Um. I got you this," said Hob, and handed him the muffin. "Made them this morning."
Dream was really quite hungry, so despite Hob's poor coffee record, he took a bite of the muffin.
And this was how he learned that Hob was utterly lacking in coffee-making skills because all his talent was in baking.
The chocolate was so rich, it tasted more like cake than a muffin. the chocolate chips melted on his tongue, and he had to force himself not to just immediately take another huge bite. He really was so hungry. Perhaps, now that he knew he could get such things here, he would have a reason to visit the cafe other than just Hob -- and a reason to eat breakfast, too.
"Good?" said Hob, and Dream nodded, licking the melted chocolate from his lips, and he didn't fail to notice Hob watching the movement of his tongue. Perhaps Johanna and Rachel were right, and it wasn't hopeless, even if Dream's best attempt at flirting back was collapsing onto the floor.
He did not know what possessed him then. Perhaps it was the chocolate. Perhaps it was the worry still lingering in Hob's warm eyes, or maybe he had just hit his head and forgotten about it. Either way, he leaned forward in his seat, and kissed Hob on the lips.
His lips were so soft. Just as Dream had dreamt they would be. Hob made a sound of surprise against Dream's mouth, and caught him by the arms so he wouldn't fall out of his chair. Which was a definite possibility, though now the lightheadedness was not caused by a calorie deficit but rather because he was kissing Hob.
Hob who was kissing him back, too. Softening against his mouth, licking the remaining chocolate from Dream's lips. Would Hob hug him, too? If he had already caught him? Dream had fantasized so much about being hugged by Hob.
Only one way to find out. He leaned into Hob's arms, and Hob caught him again, wrapping his arms around Dream's back. He was so warm, and strong. He was wonderful.
"It is a good thing," he said into Hob's shoulder.
"What is?"
"You noticing me."
Hob chuckled. The sound rumbled through Dream's chest. "It's not hard to do. I've been eyeing you for a while, you know. I always hoped you'd talk to me more."
"I am not very good at talking more," said Dream.
"I think I've got that now." Hob pulled back to look at him, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiled. "Falling over is more your style."
"I only faint on occasion," Dream protested, which only seemed to amuse Hob more.
"Well. If talking is a bit tough, maybe we can go for a walk sometime?" He tucked a strand of Dream's hair behind his ear, and Dream shivered. Hob clocked it, too, and let his hand rest on the back of Dream's head, fingers curled in his hair as his gaze flicked to Dream's lips and back up. "Or. Something else?"
Dream thought something else might make him spontaneously combust. That might have to wait a bit, at least until he could cope with Hob looking at him like that without feeling like he was about to explode in a flurry of butterflies.
"A walk, if you will hold my hand," he said, and Hob smiled, and took his hand, and Dream learned that all dreams really could come true at once.
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hotchfiles · 1 month
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hotch "representing the bau" hotchner x activist!reader who won't stand for bullshit
not like actual conflict cause we know hotch is a very principled guy
more like
"shit i can't shitpost about overthrowing the government anymore cause my boyfriend is the government" vibes
you have no idea how deeply i feel about this i've actually posted about this because i'm very much against all cops and he's a literal fed ! but
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you met in the most conventional of ways, which makes the whole thing even funnier to the outside person. a bar. you noticed him the moment he walked in, too downright gorgeous to be ignored, you stare at him completely shamelessly and get a few shy awkward smiles in return while he sips on his first drinks and talks to his companion, who you later learned was rossi.
he will find it later on that you're not really up for games, but it takes him by surprise when you approach him, card in hand with your phone number and the red stain of your red lips on the other side. he's immediately smitten, being flirted with so openly at his age does wonders for his ego and he makes sure to text you as soon as he gets back to his apartment.
the texting back and forth goes for hours, a lot of flirting, you're much more outspoken than he is, but still you find him hilarious, you will be telling your friends he's the funny one between you two (none of them will believe you, but you like having this only to yourself as well).
you talk movies, plays, music, favorite drinks and by 2am he asks you on a date. it's perfect from the get go. he's flattering, compliments your choice of clothes, says he likes the lipstick (the same you used on the card he is keeping safe on his wallet), takes you to a nice restaurant.
you tell him since you made the very first move, he would have to be the one to kiss you, he argues he sent you the first text so you should be the one to do it, in the end none of you know who took the first move, you're just sure you were the one to unlock your apartment door, stumbling along with him as you two passionately kissed.
it's not common for this to happen for him, he's too much of a gentleman, sleeping with someone on the first date isn't the gentlemanly thing to do, you're not attached to those norms so even if he tried to argue, your lips glued to his neck as you worked on his belt took his mind off of it.
it's not until the next morning that he really notices your place: the types of books you had, some revolutionary art pieces and it's then he realizes he has no idea what you do for a living. neither did he tell you he was a fbi agent. you two talked long hours and career wasn't even a topic (that may be why you caught his heart so fast).
you were a journalist, a writer, quite proficient and known for your progressive ideals and less than civil protests, so when you both realize the differences and the conflict it might bring, the first instinct was to pull away. forget the whole thing. it was only one date after all.
it's a matter of days for the realization that being apart won't happen, your thoughts are filled with him and his voice and the way he touched you and aaron can possibly detail every curve of your body and the way you smelled as if he was still in bed with you.
there's a mutual agreement of public discretion, you can't have your readers knowing you're falling for a fed, nor does the media needs any more reasons to write about the fbi.
his team knows though, and so does strauss, she had to be warned of the possibility of your name popping up in some lists. she reads half of your writings after that, highlighting stuff you should not be writing about (you won't listen to her on it) and the compromise you make is to keep all of your opposition material completely professional, no tweets, no tiktoks, nothing of the sort with jokes about overthrowing the government.
"did you... did you just cite and use one of stalin's books as resource here?" he asks, he's in your bed, blue boxer shorts and white t-shirt on, completely comfortable with you already, his reading glasses sit on top of nose like an old man and he furrows his brows, looking up at you. aaron's interested in what you write, he truly reads whatever you hand him just to learn more about you, he's not the one to try to censure any of it.
"well yeah... his writings are the easiest to comprehend on the topic." you shrug, not understanding the tone of his question at first.
"honey... you can't just... do you know how many... forget it. your editor will love it." his poor attempts to talk you down failing each time he looked over and saw your expectant eyes as his opinion is important to you. you smile at his defeat, taking the papers from his hand and throwing somewhere else in the room, his glasses go to the bedside table and soon you're kissing any of his worries away.
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patheticbatman · 3 months
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I haven't seen any posts about this yet but l've seen some fan art that makes me feel this needs to be said:
Don't forget Leah Sava Jeffries has darker skin when making Annabeth Chase fan art!
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She is much closer to Lupita Nyong'o than Zoe Kravitz when it comes to shading, reflection, and complementary color usage :).
Lighting for dark skin is different on light skin. Light skin gets changed by lighting, and dark skin reflects the lighting. Below is a lovely shot of Nyong'o's character from Wakanda Forever in mourning. The filmmakers emphasize the umber qualities of her skin in contrast to the funereal white and (arguably harsh) light across her shoulder below.
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Try to pick spots that aren't directly in or near the light, and try mixing 3 or more! You can put it into a color mixer online, or even color pick, lower the opacity, and lay the shades over each other until you find one that fits. And of course, the more 'realistic' you want to go with shading and lighting, the more shades you're going to want to be able to explore vivaciously :D.
Let's take a look at the same 3 beautiful actresses I mentioned at the beginning, with a bad color picked area and a better-ish color picked area. (Please keep in mind, these are not perfect comparisons, as I was not able to find pictures of all 3 actresses under the same kind of lighting.)
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Kravitz's has a clear difference between the two, but they aren't too far apart, in comparison to Nyong’o’s and Jeffries’s. Note the dullness in the poorly picked shades as opposed to the better ones. Also keep in mind that while Kravitz has a rosy undertone (at least in that picture - it’s from The Batman, which has stylized coloring) Nyong’o has a slight cool undertone (I can’t pin down quite what, but the picture is definitely not stylized like Kravitz’s).
Jeffries runs more ochre or russet, but neither of those are pink. They are more red than terracotta or umber, but to call Jeffries’s face rosy would be wrong. Err more towards the golden when drawing her.
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^^saved an image from a writing tutorial long ago, but can’t seem to find it. If someone recognizes it, I’ll link it. EDIT: it’s from this post. Thanks @autumnrowancollector ! <3
And also, the darker skin gets, the less likely warm undertones are going to appear. Don't be afraid to use blue or purple or even green on occasion!
Additionally, cool lighting on dark skin is always a win imo.
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(I was going to use that picture of Jeffries as Annabeth by the lightning bolt, but then I realized the lighting on her face doesn’t quite match up with where it should hit from that angle, and I realized they kind of just turned everything bluer, so screenshot time!)
(Also if you want another really great live action example, check out anything Aldis Hodge is in, like Leverage and Black Adam)(and of course there’s Spiderverse <3 but I want to post pictures of Hodge)
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Now, to here’s a list of more experienced people’s advice:
Black facial features & hair
Shading digitally for a (somewhat) monotone Black character
Stylistic choices and places to start looking for inspiration (besides a search engine).
Coloring Black people’s lips
A better coloration tutorial
Also a nice tutorial for Indigenous skin tones, just in case yall want to draw Piper or use this information for other dark skinned characters :).
EDIT: Some actresses who are closer in skintone to use for Annabeth, provided by the lovely @blackfemmecharacterdependency ! If you can’t find a reference for Jeffries in a specific lighting, maybe check out these ladies’ pictures! It’s a reblog, so scroll down.
TLDR: Don’t make Annabeth pink and pale, make her dark and golden.
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cieloclercs · 8 months
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what would you say (if i told you i love you)? — charles leclerc
PART: 5/? (read part 4 here)
summary. in which childhood best friends blur the lines between what they’ve always known, and something more
pairing. charles leclerc x artsy!reader
warnings. it’s GROVELLING time !! sad charles, sad reader, swearing, everyone still kind of hates charles (as they should) angst but not quite as angsty as the last part
face claim. tara michelle
author’s note. i hope this is enough suffering for you guys 😭 i’m weak tho so there’s a tinyyy bit of progress at the end 👀 i feel like this one’s a bit messy so i’m sorry about that?? it’s also kind of just setting up the next part but oh well 😭 anyways, LAST PART COMING UP NEXT ☹️ i’m gonna miss this series :’(
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NOW PLAYING | Singapore 2023 post-FP1 interview: Charles Leclerc
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COMMENTS 32k
username i’m still charles’ number 1 hater rn but he looked so sad at the end… ☹️
username girl no we need to be strong! don’t fall for the sad puppy dog eyes (i know he’s cute but srsly don’t) 🫠
username you’re right, you’re right 😔 haters until the end 🫡
username sir don’t try and blame your shitty mistakes on y/n 😭😭
username HE LOOKS SO SAD I CANT 🥲
username i really hope y/n sees this and realises he’s actually sorry
username no way that’s too easy. charles needs to apologise properly !!
username oh my GOD the way he started smiling when he said y/n is his ‘lucky charm’ AND THEN THE WAY IT DROPPED WHEN HE REMEMBERED THEY’RE NOT FRIENDS ANYMORE IM GONNA SCREAM 😭😭😭💔💔💔
username charles do you see what you’re doing to us charlesy/n stans?? PLEASE JUST TELL HER HOW YOU FEEL FFS 😫
username i swear if these two don’t pull their heads out of their asses soon I WILL COMMIT MURDER
username so real bestie 😔
username it’s such an invasion of privacy to ask about this though 😭
username fr the press don’t know when to keep out of it 😒
username i think he knows he’s in love with her now, he’s just not sure how to fix things ☹️
username i’m scared this feels like right person wrong time you know? 😃
username don’t say that 🫣 i’m just praying y/n forgives him. as soon as he apologises properly ofc, can’t make it too easy for him mwahahah
username i want to keep hating him but i’ve never seen him look that sad 🥲
username CHARLES YOU DONT GET TO ACT LIKE THE VICTIM WHEN YOU’RE THE ONE THAT’S CAUSED THIS
username so true. he needs to stop feeling sorry for himself and apologise 🙄
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liked by yourfriend and 47,837 others
yourusername always on my mind ☁️💫
view all comments…
username SHE’S BACK IN MONACO GUYS EVERYBODY STAY CALM
username MOTHER HAS RETURNED !!!
username wait is that f1 she’s watching on her phone? 🤨
username omg it is 🤭
username SHE WATCHED THE RACE OMFG
username charles podium as well 😩😩
username it’s like he knew she was watching 🥹
username i hate how quickly everyone’s switching up on the charles situation just because of that interview but at the same time i can’t deal with my parents fighting anymore i need them to make up 😫
leclerc_pascale Bienvenue à la maison, ma fille ❤️ / welcome home, my girl
yourusername 🥰
arthur_leclerc YOU’RE BACK
yourusername did you forget? i literally saw you twenty minutes ago 😭
username the caption 🤔
username we can all agree she’s talking about charles, right?
yourfriend ma femme 🤩 / my wife
yourusername mon amour 😘
username she is everything.
username forget her art SHE IS THE ART RIGHT THERE
charles_leclerc belle / beautiful
username EXCUSE ME??
username SIR WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE PHAHAHA
username charles get tf out of here 😭
username i love how y/n’s just straight up ignoring him 😭
username CHARLES IS HERE GUYS HOW ARE WE FEELING
username i’m so conflicted rn
username like i want them to make up but at the same time he needs to SUFFER like he made y/n suffer
username fr, make him squirm a little 😌
username idk guys, if charles leclerc commented ‘belle’ on MY instagram, i’d be on my knees in an instant 🫣
username girl please 😭
username charles babe please go away you’re ruining the vibes x
username i swear to god if he’s here just to fuck with y/n’s head again i’ll fucking kill him
username he wouldn’t do that
username @charles_leclerc if you want to win her back this is NOT the way to do it
arthur_leclerc @charles_leclerc what did i tell you? 👀
username HAHAHA ARTHUR STOP
joris_trouche @charles_leclerc you should listen to our advice mate 😃
yourfriend @arthur_leclerc @joris_trouche shut up both of you 😒
joris_trouche yes ma’am 🫡
username they’re all ganging up on him 😭
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liked by formula1updates and 9,736 others
f1gossip Charles Leclerc and Y/N Y/L/N spotted at the same night club in Monaco 👀
view all comments…
username OH MY GOD IS IT HAPPENING??
username there’s no way this is coincidence charles is boutta beg for forgiveness i’m calling it
username y/n’s actually smiling tho 😭 charles please don’t ruin it x
username we need y/f/n to scare him off before he can ruin her night 🤞
username AHAHAHA YES
username what i’d give to be in that club rn 😔
username fr y/n better be roasting him 😭
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➜ part 6
taglist: @cxcewg @incoherenciass @formula1mount @allywthsr @meabhcavanagh @driveswiftly13 @zzblooda @gaslysainz @be-your-coffee-pot @siovhanroy
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cmoundiamante · 15 days
Text
SOMETHING THAT I WANT ✦ S.JY
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pairing flynn rider!jake x fem!reader
genre hc, high school!au, fluff.
warnings reader has really long hair, mommy issues, n i think that’s it lol.
a/n hello everyoneee. as i wanna post at least once a week, heres a little gift (; the release of miniskirt is being delayed because ive been studying lately, but dont forget that the taglist is still open to anyone who wants to be notified the day i post it.
wc +1,0k
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Flynn-Rider!Jake who knows you from school, a classmate of yours who never came near you, but you felt his slanted eyes fixed like daggers in every class.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who tells his best friends about you, slowly acknowledging that he was attracted to you. Highlighting your eyes, your lovely lips and especially your immense long hair.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who comes to you for a school activity, that's your first interaction.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who as the days go by continues to keep in touch with you, greeting you when he saw you, talking to you from time to time and even changing his desk place, forcing his friend Sunghoon to sit with him behind your desk.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who notices your passion for art. Little by little you became friends, but he wanted to be more than that, so the way he thought he could get your heart by buying you things you liked. One day like any other, he showed up in front of you with a gift bag. "What’s this?" you asked, the bag he was holding in his hands moving closer to you. "Open it by yourself."
You grabbed the bag, discreetly touching Flynn-Rider!Jake's cold fingers, and pulled out what was inside. Without much surprise, it was square and wrapped in gift wrap. You raised an eyebrow and without much force tore the paper with your fingers, discovering what lay beneath what covered it. "Jake what the-?" "Do you like it?" Your eyes widened like saucers, causing Flynn-Rider!Jake’s eyes to sparkle. "It's Faber Castell, they are very expensive." You tried to refuse his gift, but he insisted anyway. You were so full of happiness, so full of joy, that you jumped out of your seat to hug him and kiss him on the cheek.
Rapunzel!Reader who comes home wishing her mother hadn't come home from work. You swap your school clothes for a more comfortable one and tie your long hair in a bun, lock yourself in your room and seek inspiration from your thoughts, while delicately opening the temperas that Jake had given you.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who the next day receives a very nice drawing made by you. It was a forest, decorated by a very tall tower and a large mountain with a waterfall behind it. The sky was decorated with clouds and night lanterns, all done in a contrast of purples and yellows. "I made it with the temperas you gave me."
Flynn-Rider!Jake who put the canvas on his bedside table, hoping one day to hang it on the walls of his room.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who invites you to the park to spend the day together. "What do you mean?" you asked, walking down the halls, barely brushing your hand against his. "A picnic, I saw on tiktok trend that people get together to draw, would you like to go?" you couldn't say no to that. "Of course."
Rapunzel!Reader who, as she prepares to leave, is questioned by her mother in every aspect of her life. You wished she were at work today. "Where are you going dressed like that?" asked your mother, looking at you with some disgust, "I'm going out with some friends." You knew the mess you could make if you told her you were dating a guy. She just rolled her eyes and didn't respond to you again, completely ignoring your presence. You weren't with her half the day, and when she showed up she despised you.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who could get you out of your bad thoughts, who could finally make you feel the way you should. You both painted all afternoon, talking about your lives, including your mother's relationship. At the end of the day, both of you kept each other's drawing.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who took you to collect flowers in the park, with a basket and holding hands.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who was becoming the guy you were falling in love with.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who watched tutorials on youtube to know how to make a braid. When you finally came back together, he used the same flowers you both had collected to embed in your braid.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who decides to move to your place in class, deciding to accompany you. Sunghoon was jealous but quite happy for his friend. "You look very happy, and so does she." he said, metaphorically congratulating him on the good work he was doing.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who was aware that you were falling in love with him, started to be more flirtatious and compliment you to make you nervous.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who invites you to take a boat ride. He begged his father to rent him a boat so you could both go see what you wanted most in this life, the night lights. Your eyes lit up as you watched the little fabric marshmallows go by, and even though Jake had come to see them, he could only keep his gaze on you.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who after so long, in a place as romantic as a night on a boat, gives you your first kiss.
Rapunzel!Reader who when she gets home, is terribly scolded by her mother. Wondering why you were coming home at this hour, telling you that you were a terrible daughter, that you were good for nothing, and that as long as you lived under her roof you would do whatever she told you. You understood her concern, but there was no need for verbal violence.
Rapunzel!Reader who finally decides to move on. One early morning, exhausted by your mother's attitudes, you cut your hair above your shoulders, having no problem leaving it uneven.
Rapunzel!Reader who calls her best friend… boyfriend… for help. Jake gave you a space in his house, also that same night you were given the opportunity to meet his parents, who gave you a warm welcome to their home.
Flynn-Rider!Jake who even though he saw your hair darkening from the haircut, there was something that shone brighter than that, and that was your gaze.
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staridust · 10 months
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★ DO NOT USE/REPOST WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. NO MINORS.
Jack in my Pouring Rain AU vs Jack in my Sunnyverse AU
Gonna ramble a bit here about the two portrayals, there’s a lot more typing space here so I will also be using my posts as a bit of infodump sometimes! ↓
For starters, I really adore Jack as a design and character, there’s not much I wanted to alter about him in the design department, so all changes are subtle!
✦ Starting with Pouring Rain!Jack!
This guy’s probably the closest to how he’s presented in game honestly— still manipulative, still colorful, probably a bit more deranged because his sunshine keeps forgetting shit.
Art wise, I wanted to really keep the colors on him vibrant, but also give him sort of a dim vibe as well. His hair is a bit more reflective of turquoise highlights with a gradient of a muted darker blue at the tips.
I like to imagine Jack uses colorful knives (if he most certainly has to use one). I have colorful knives in my house, it just seemed right as I was doing the dishes one day. He also changed his paints ever so slightly, because stars are very important to him.
He’s also rather glitchy when upset, but not that of a computer glitch when it happens.. more of like… something that’s being rewinded and re-written over numerous times, no?
Or, maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about!
And finally, the colorful paint on him!
Rain!Jack’s original sunshine way back nowhere was actually a graffiti artist, so does Jack know how to paint? It’s not like he would say, but it is a bit easier to play off a mysterious red stain if you’re covered in all the other colors.
——
✦ Ending with Sunnyverse!Jack!
Sunnyverse, is quite frankly a bit of a community like idea. The premise being quite similar to the same notion of Spiderverse, where multiple of the characters can exist and vibe but may look different, while still following a canon of sorts. It’s basically like showing off your characters and AUs in your style!
(Honestly, with a name like that, maybe I should draw Spider-Jack… *Sunrise Spider?*)
This Jack is a divergent of the idea where the fictional world of CloudyTown is real. ← This information also is a slight spin-off of an unofficial AU called “Sunny Time Town” by artist Sauce! I will also be using “Sunnyverse” for the official name of my AU that includes my ocs that switch up the story in a non-yandere manner!
SV!Jack here rocks a bowtie and suspenders with the design paying a full tribute to a sketch I did in March! I’ve seen a few comments relating it to his teaching profession… and now I can’t I see it, haha!
To contrast Rain!Jack, SV!Jack’s hair is a nice pure blue gradient that dips into indigo/purple at the tips!
I added his belt as a tie in both of them (don’t ask why the belt is doing a :3), but now I hear the belt is sentient… that’s a cool idea I seen around, I gotta learn about that!
That’s about all the information I had on this piece though, til next time!
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zarla-s · 9 months
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Man it's been a long time since I've done an ask cluster! Let's see if I can get some down...
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He's an extremely fun character to write for and play with! So in that sense I'm fond of him, haha. He's such a huge disaster of a person, there's always something fun to do with him. Well "fun" in a relative sense.
I don't have anything to forgive him for, he didn't hurt me. |D He hurt the brothers!
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I do have an idea for a cute feature inspired by Six-Eared Macaque! I should really sit down and do that already... and finish the one I half started but never finished...
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I don't think my opinion on any of them changed! I love them all, haha. Which ones I drew comics about just depends on which ones I get ideas for really. Sometimes I get Alphys ideas and sometimes I get Goatparents ideas! Inspiration is fickle!
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I don't have any solid plans or anything. :B Just gonna keep chugging along with silly comics and art! Work on Defrag and such. I'd like to finish a Ladyverse comic I've had lying around forever, and I had vague plans for doing a doujin for them too I could work on... and also seeing if I could format Handplates into a book format... I've always got a bunch of projects, haha.
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It works on that level! It wasn't intentional though. |D
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I do enjoy speculation! I don't really have much of my own though, I didn't predict anything in chapter 2 so now I'm assuming I can't predict anything in the future chapters either, haha.
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Emesis Blue is great! Some really beautiful visuals in there, very striking! Love the mood of it too and a lot of the surreal imagery. I think it helped spur me back into TF2 again, haha. Medic and Scout's relationship was so cute.
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I have thought about this! It has its share of challenges though... I outlined them more in this post. A pdf would be more doable though... could even include some extra stuff as well! Hmm...
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I can see that! He'd probably spend as much time out in the rain as he could just doing whatever to stay outside.
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It was pretty much always going to end like that. I always wanted it to end on a hopeful note! Which might seem weird with how dark it is at the beginning. I DID for a brief period at the very beginning of Handplates think about stopping with the Pacifist run, but that was only because I thought going where I wanted to go would take too long and already the project seemed so dauntingly huge at the time, haha. But it was always going to end in a positive way!
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Gaster talks about what he originally intended to create here, and he explains a bit about the physical experiments he runs on the brothers here. They aren't really a solution in and of themselves so much as tools to try and find a way to break the barrier. Really though, Gaster got stuck in the sunk-cost fallacy lol.
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I don't really have opinions about what canon Gaster would be like. |D Handplates Gaster is his own thing really. Canon Gaster, who knows! Deltarune Gaster, who knows! I will say I hope Gaster stays a mystery in Deltarune and never actually shows up but I think the odds of that are really low at this point.
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I thought about doing a script along those lines! I did a few rough drafts of one, but it never really went anywhere... it'd end up dead-ending or kind of meandering off. I might see if I can get an actual script down for a side-comic or something in the future... it might be better suited for a fic.
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I was just thinking about this lately! I was picturing Gaster totally forgetting about that until he sees Papyrus squinting and is like OH GOD YOUR EYES THAT'S RIGHT D: and goes to get him looked at lol.
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I couldn't come up with a good idea for Flowey which is a shame, I do like him, haha. If one comes to me though I might make a little side comic about it!
Gaster's LV is complicated... his stats in-game are ludicrous if I recall correctly. Did he carry the damage from his murders into the void, even if those murders weren't his in the new timeline? Deep thoughts.
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He fed them anything he could find, haha. Which is why sometimes they just ended up with chocolate bars (which he intended as dinner for himself). He probably fed them more often than he fed himself lol. He did feed them fairly regularly though.
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Not about skeletons, probably. |D
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Man I know I had an explanation for this but it was so long ago... it's hard for me to remember. It could be that the Riverperson is just weird and has weird insight into elements of things, had a prophetic dream... I don't know! It bugs me now that I can't remember this, haha.
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elysiansparadise · 3 months
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Hi Elysian ! ✨
First I wanted to tell you that I really love your posts 💖
I have seen that you have your ask open and you haven't post about Neptune in the 2th house so can you please describe Neptune in the 2th ?
I have this placement and wanted to know more about it.
Thanks a lot/ Merci beaucoup ✨
Kiss from France 💖
Hello love, thanks for loving my posts. Of course I can describe this beautiful placement. A kiss right back at you. 💖
Neptune in the 2nd house
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These people may not place as much importance on money, they feel that the money a person may have does not define their value and quality as a person. They care about money just enough and necessary to know that it is crucial to have a decent life in which they do not lack anything, but they consider that there are things more important or of greater value than this. They stand out for their generosity and altruism, being people who can seek to help those most in need or provide support to those who do not have enough money. They can really enjoy buying details for others without worrying much about the price. Since this is the house of values, the presence of Neptune here indicates that they place a lot of emphasis on their spiritual world, keeping in mind values ​​such as devotion, tolerance and empathy. You can spend a lot of time investing in your spiritual growth or expanding your knowledge in these areas. They are likely to pay for services such as aura cleansing, tarot readings or other things related to esoteric topics. Likewise, they can enjoy buying things related to art, paintings, notebooks or things that help them develop their creativity in some way, such as instruments.
This is a house linked to self-esteem, so it is likely that these natives are very humble and even shy people when it comes to receiving compliments, not knowing exactly how to take them. These people dream big with the idea of ​​having everything they once lacked, and not only in the material field, but also emotionally, especially that feeling of stability that they may not have had when they were young. These people should be cautious when lending money, because even if their intentions are good, they may more frequently encounter people along the way who will not pay them on time or who do not pay them at all. This house reflects everything we acquire since we were born, so it can represent those talents that we have since we were young. Many people with this placement may have artistic talents, such as painting, singing, music or some other branches of art. Likewise, it can tell us about spiritual gifts of any kind. It is likely that these people can use their talents as a way to generate or invest their money.
One of the things that these natives should be careful about is their disorganization, it is crucial that they be very organized, because they have a tendency to forget where they leave things, if Neptune is making multiple tense aspects [especially with 2nd house ruler or Venus], they can even forget bank passwords or they can even lose documents related to estate. They have a rich inner world, feeling very disconnected from the things or people around them, they may feel that they do not give importance to things that others usually do. They highly value the human quality behind things, they do not like to buy items or things that, for example, are experimented on animals or that affect or damage the environment. Another thing they value a lot is inner wealth, both their own and with others, as I mentioned previously, they give value to things that others hardly put emphasis on.
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whxre-bxby · 1 year
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Mansk(recom) Characterisation
I have Mansk brainrot <3 here's my interpretation of him and some random things I want to point out. Some of it is canon :)
I will totally be adding more things to this as time goes by.
(This is a clusterfuck of thoughts, no order sorry. It's a mess. This has absolutely no structure)
HE IS NOT NEARLY APPRECIATED ENOUGH AS HE SHOULD BE
Masterlist
MANSK HAS AN AMERICAN EAGLE TATTOO ACROSS HIS CHEST (I think that's what it is, I'll make a separate post about it with sketches)
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Just like the eagle Quaritch has except its wings are spread above his (massive, sexy) pecs.
(I saw some art and maybe it's not an eagle but a three headed angel of death)💀
Here is a random picture I found of the back of Mansk's head. <3
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love him sm
The look of DISGUST he has when handling Tsireya (gorgeous queen).
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(ew it's wet, quickly tie it down)
She's wet from the ocean and his hands must have gotten wet and he's all grossed out from the 'fish-lipped alien' and has to touch it.
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Deffo thoroughly wanted to wash and disinfect his hands after.
The man HATES nature. I mean he despises it, on Earth too (whatever was left of it). That's why he is wearing the opposite of Walker's outfits. He's covered, head to toe. Expect for, well head. But everything else can't come in direct contact with nature on Pandora because to him it's scary and gross.
He hates native Na'vi too but once he becomes a recom, it dies down a little. Now, his hate for them is divided between blue forest Na'vi and the water Na'vi.
He still thinks of himself as human rather than Na'vi. I'm saying, when the man woke up from recom, he needed to be alone for the rest of the day while the others were discussing the mission. He just left the room and locked himself in his room, sitting in silence. He didn't want to look at himself in the mirror because it was too much. He just died and now he was back in the form of his enemy. The enemy terrified him because that's how he died in the first place.
While Lyle's first thought would be to pull down his pants and check out (yk) , Mansk would refuse to remove his clothes because he was worried he would lose it if he genuinely saw himself properly for the first time. I'm saying if the man saw all of himself in the first few days he would be so lost in himself and overwhelmed he would break down and cry. He seems like this intimidating tall man who has it all figured out but I'm telling you HE IS A SENSITIVE SOFTIE AND TAKES EVERYTHING TO HEART. He would avoid reflections, keep his head down and prefer not to directly look at his teammates because they were blue too. (Blue Na'vi racist kinda, but with PTSD)
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He is quiet. Not shy quiet, just observing quiet. When he does speak he uses the least amount of words to express himself. Mansk is clever and when he says things they have been thought through by him. He never speaks before thinking. He's confident but doesn't express it. Basically the opposite of Lyle.
He likes wearing his shades because 1. they look dope 2. he isn't happy about being in a Na'vi body so he wants to seem as human as possible. Adding to that, his tail freaks him out. He wishes it weren't there. Sometimes he forgets it's a part of him now and it scares the shit out of him. His new body has him feeling really down because he knows that he can never return to Earth like this.
Grillmaster 100% without a doubt. I love that this fandom just decided that. It fits so well. Can't cook things like pasta or make soup. He can grill and fry shit. That's his thing. For properly baking something he will need luck on his side but it might work.
Another random thing. This man NEVER gets sick. I'm saying he's immune to it all. You're sick? Have the flu? Covid? It never gets him. He's safe with the immune system of a god.
He gets a sore jaw from constantly biting down and clenching it due to stress (just like me fr fr)
Adding to that, he almost always looks like he is in deep thought. He looks almost scary because he seems so intimidating. It's rare when he smiles.
THAT'S WHY THIS PICTURE IS SO PRECIOUS.
(Quoting Taylor Swift: Yeah, you got a smile that can light up this whole town) :0
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YOU PRECIOUS MF COME HERE AND GET SOME LOVE! ISTG SO FUCKN CUTE I WANNA EHUEIJDNJKE AHHHHHH
He is the type of person that lays in bed for hours before falling asleep. Maybe because of some fucked up shit he has seen that stays in his head. He also refused to sleep on his back in his new body because of his tail and braid.
If there would be a skiing holiday, THIS MAN SNOWBOARDS. Quaritch would be the dad with skis and a large backpack.
He is super precious and soft. Will never want any of his teammate to know but if he finds someone he likes, he will be silently obsessed. Not in a creepy way, but he can't stop thinking about them. He doesn't fall for people easily but when he does HE FALLS HARD.
Mansk is self conscious so if he likes someone he will never act on it and never tell anyone. At night when he is alone, he would be going over all the reasons of why it wouldn't work out and why his crush doesn't like him or can't like him.
All he wants is to be cuddled, taken care of and kissed to sleep. Honestly, that's it. He wants to give everything he can to the person he cares about but will need constant reminders that they actually like him back and that he isn't just imagining it. If the person is gone for a few days, his bad thoughts will return and when they come back he will be distant and ask things like 'Sorry, I'm bothering you aren't I? You probably have lots to do.'
TO WHICH YOU HAVE TO TACKLE HIM INTO BED, WRAP HIM IN A BLANKET LIKE A BURRITO AND CUDDLE AND KISS HIM ISTG HE NEEDS LOVE BECAUSE HE HAS BEEN DEPRIVED OF IT HIS ENTIRE LIFE.
Leading to his fam, he joined the military because his dad did and so did his grandpa etc. It's a bloodline thing and because of that, he's never been loved properly and always treated as a soldier in making. He needs to be drowned in love.
SUPER NERVOUS around his crush. Sweating palms, stuttering, all that shit. He's down bad.
Here is him freaking out that they are under attack and yelling "NA'VI" in his super masculine deep ass husky voice✨️
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More...
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gorgeous fuckin precious bean
- if ANYONE compliments ANYTHING on him he will never forget it and always think back to that moment
Example : "Hey Mansk, nice shoes/shirt/shades/tattoo's"
"Thanks." Is all he says but HIS HAPPINESS IS GOING THROUGH THE ROOF AND WHEN U GO AWAY HE WILL TURN AWAY FROM OTHERS BECAUSE HE CAN'T SUPPRESS HIS SMILE ANYMORE.
NSFW: if the person he likes is wearing an apron with barely anything on or nothing underneath = huge turn on, instant boner, Mansk will become putty in your hands
random: (lyle listens to taylor swift (shake it off while working out))
have a nice day :)
Tag list:
@drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed
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2soulscollide · 5 months
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Underrated tips to spice up your writing journey
Hello hello, it's me, Rach!
Today I'm here with a fresh post where, as you can guess from the title, I'll share some (underrated, I think) tips to help you go through your writing journey with ease.
So, let's get started!
People watching: Not in a creepy way :') but we, as authors who write about people and want to create realistic characters, should always be observing everyone around us: perceive how people laugh, go through their daily lives, talk, move, etc. Every little detail is crucial!
Create playlists for everything: I'm quite sus here because I'm obsessed with the art of playlist making. I reallyyyy love to pick songs that make me feel things, but hear me out!!! This will be so helpful to set the mood. Create playlists for your characters (that show their personality, their mood, etc), for your books, and for YOURSELF as a writer, too. Playlists are never too many, trust me.
Don't feel the need to write scene after scene: When I started writing, I thought I needed to write the events as they happen in the story, but later found out it wasn't true! I find it so fun to write whatever comes to my mind and then put everything together. You might even come up with an unexpected scene that you wouldn't think of if you were writing scene after scene!!
You can write everywhere: Well, you don't have to always wait until you get home to continue working on your masterpiece! If you keep all your writing in a synced software, you can take off your phone anytime and write a few paragraphs while you wait for your coffee, for example!
The empty page isn't a monster: You're starting a book... Okay, I've been there... It can be quite scary!!! You stare at the empty page and you're afraid to start with the wrong word, phrase even. But listen, you always have the chance to edit and re-write it later :) the most important step is to get started.
Let your characters take charge: Don't control your babies!! Let them lead the story to places you could never imagine. Let them have their own life, needs, and choices. This sounds crazy because they're the fruit of your imagination, right? But hey, once you see them as real people, you'll start having so much fun, and the events in your book will flow so much easier and they will even feel more realistic.
I really hope this post was somewhat useful! Feel free to reblog or share with someone who might love it as well <3
Also, don't forget to check my gumroad shop, where you can find plenty of FREEBIES (from notion templates for writers to workbooks and sheets).
-> Check out my freebies
Happy writing! <3
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laurark · 4 months
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2023 Wrap Up
A strange year that was both long and short. The main lesson to learn from 2023 is the same lesson I have been learning every year since I was 6 years old: Things happen if you try!
 I spent a lot of time this year hitting my head against a wall, or rather healing from an RSI that caused making art to become really fraught. I could bear the wrist pain in order to do my favorite thing (drawing!!!) but then the pain stuck around after I had clocked out for the day and was making dinner. It would go like this: I want to make pasta sauce using canned tomatoes, but using a can opener is so painful now that maybe I should just do something else. The onions and garlic are already cooking in the pan though, what can I pivot that to? I felt like the biggest dunce in the world. I worked my way into being cursed, I deserved it.
I have this craving to just commit to a big art project, like a graphic novel, and keep my head down working on it. Having all my time devoted to work feels a bit like doing penance, like earning my bread. But I look at the world and I know I cannot draw my way out of this. I can’t write my way out of this. I can’t post my way out of this. I am unprepared for what I need to do to earn a better tomorrow. But I am prepared to learn.
I changed up my desk ergonomics and my wrist healed. Thank you to the huge desk easel that I stole from my parents’ house. It’s ugly, heavy, stained, and I keep banging my elbows on its sharp corners. It sucks but it saved my life. Do not resist making your workspace uglier if it might help you! 
Making The Influence and participating in the ShortBox Comics Fair was a huge work highlight this year. I’m so grateful I can make a work with dark themes and have it be understood and appreciated. The encouraging response to The Influence did a lot to kill the bad faith reviewer in my mind. Things are possible if you try!
I started painting again and I really love it. I’m trying to just follow the image-making. Painting is play to me and I want it to remain so. I feel myself itch to turn it into some kind of profitable thing, to make it palatable, but I’m trying to resist so it remains a place of experimentation. 
I also wrote a short novel. It’s awful. I just re-read it and it’s so bad, but reading it makes me happy. It needs serious reworking to be a proper novel, but I did technically cross the finish line and write the whole story. It was very refreshing and informative to branch out like this, even if I don’t think this particular example is fit for human consumption. Earlier in my life I was so stubborn about ONLY working in comics but now I’d like to pursue whatever path I can to have a creative career. If you try!
I had a great time tabling at Short Run this year. Two different people came to my table and told me they came to the show specifically to see my table. One person said Bug Boys was responsible for facilitating “many special moments” with them and their niece. I don’t want to forget about moments like this. It means a lot to me. 
It occurs to me as I type out this year’s accomplishments, they’re mostly things I did at home alone. I haven’t rejoined the world after COVID in a meaningful way, the way I hoped I would during lockdown. It comes naturally to me to make up excuses to stay home, keep my head down, watch how things play out before joining in. That attitude does me a disservice. It isolates me. When other people are only in the screen, they become hypothetical. It’s not right to live this way, but it’s comfortable to me. It feels “safe” after COVID, even though it’s not safe. I know I need to change this. 
It feels sick and strange to be blogging in my safe little apartment during a time of bloodshed. To flip through my planner and think of my future while others starve is obscene. My entire life was obscene in this fashion. It’s my responsibility to sit with this feeling and do something with it.
Here’s to a better 2024. We can do it, we can try. 
In love and solidarity, 
Laura K.
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intro post whoopee!!!
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hi guys im lucid :D you can also call me daylin i don’t really care but i may be like woah how do you know my name (i will forget about making this post 2 seconds after posting it) also I AM AN ADULT im 22 and i do not use pronouns just use my name pleaseeeeeee if you have a disability that makes words hard to process i understand if that’s difficult you can just use they/them instead
first off just getting this out there if youre proship, zoo, pedo, incest supporter, endo system supporter, any kind of discriminatory against protected minority groups, and anti-otherkin, shoo. dont want you here youre not welcome. bye bye my content isnt for you.
immmmm an infp-t 4w5 sanguine-melancholic existential-intrapersonal-visual learner seer of heart prospit dreamer true neutral rogue shifter airbender and dragon type trainer for all you personality label freaks
i like to DRAW!!!!! this is an art blog!!!! i will only post art here, all of my reblogs will be on @trickstergemini save for the posts my close friends make that i want to support here. sometimes i will post just text but thats only if i really need to let you guys known something or im answering a question
my commissions are OPEN!!!!!!!! right now they are strictly on emergency status, which means you choose the price and what i draw and ill agree if its not ridiculously unfair. check back soon for it to be changed to fixed price commissions though
im AUTISTIC i am on that mf spectrum been diagnosed since i was three. for me this means im not naturally fluent in social norms or what’s expected from an interaction or how to read others very well. i also have heavy special interests and find it really hard to turn the conversation away from something im fixating on or specially interested in. i also have extremeeeee sensory issues and a hard time being completely flexible when im comfortable in a routine so just be patient with me man adjustments are hard for me. my empathy is also extremely low and im a really really high masking person so if i come off as well versed or allistic just know that i either took a million years to format the right way to say things or i am entirely going off a predetermined script and will fumble if caught off guard. other important stuff ive got adhd bpd cptsd and major depressive disorder which all those combined makes me really flaky when it comes to responding or follow through. i may not reply to you for like 500 years or maybe i will be gods speediest most motivated soldier. just don’t expect me to be a readily available fully capable robot ok?? ok.
i am one half of @ask-kas-n-lamp the other half is some guy i don’t know he just hacked himself into the account and now i have to deal with him
in all seriousness mod dum, aka @unoriginal-and-dumb or unodum or unoriginal or whatever u know him by, thats my best friend my number one my pal my buddy my servant i keep locked up in my basement and i feed him cement and staples for every meal and for dessert maybe he gets rust shavings. he will be featured in my art like a lot or in my comments and reblogs and i will also be present in his stuff sometimes. if im drawing kasper im drawing his design, that design is not made by me its made by him sooo you should check him out and support him if you like that style or how about instead we get a mass unfollowing going there and you all come to my page and i exclusively will draw his design of kasper and get all the credit lets do that instead
if my requests are closed that means theyre closed EXCEPT for lampert requests those will always be open please ask me to draw him and i will take like three weeks but will happily draw him
uuueeehhhmmm my special interests are pokemon homestuck regretevator geography disney parks and personality psychology. i guess i also am specially interested in dragons but its less of an ill infodump to you interest and more of an i want to be surrounded by this thing because it brings me extreme comfort because it feels like me. i am otherkin im a dragon and i look like this:
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i will also represent myself like this if im feeling it:
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yes i know i am not actually a physical dragon and im not a spiritual kinner i kin for identity purposes and the fact that i feel some pretty intense crippling species dysphoria idk ive been like this since i was 5 i don’t really have memories of my life where i wasnt experiencing animalistic behaviors and instincts
my favorite music artists are s3rl twenty øne piløts onerepublic imagine dragons of monsters and men thefatrat glass animals ajr queen nine inch nails and muse my favorite medias are httyd movies pokemon homestuck regretevator invader zim our flag means death infinity train gravity falls rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead doctor who my little pony fim dont starve and the mcelroy brothers content
heres some more characters i represent myself as:
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ok BYE
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queer-reader-07 · 2 months
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do you have any recs for good omens fics? ❤️❤️❤️
hi anon!! yes i do :)
i don't really have any kind of theme here, i'm just going to list some of my favs with a range of maturity ratings. hopefully at least one floats your boat!
a picnic plan for you and me by anonymous (G, 20.8k words)
Crowley makes Aziraphale food after the world doesn't end. It has absolutely nothing to do with how much he wants to make Aziraphale smile.
tooth rotting fluff, post s1, absolutely delightful!
got a pretty face, pretty boyfriend too by KissMyAsthma & leukozyna (T, 9.9k words)
Aziraphale and Crowley are next-door neighbours. They’ve been attracted to each other since they met. The only thing keeping them apart is a thin wall between their bedrooms and Atticus and Freddie, Aziraphale’s and Crowley’s respective life partners… or are they?
A human AU glued together by misunderstandings and wet food.
a comedy of errors that put a smile on my face
I'm Beginning to See the Light by @ineffabildaddy (E, 15.9k words
Aziraphale has quite the pash on his colleague Crowley, who seems resolutely disinterested in him. As their annual Christmas party progresses, it appears that Crowley may not be as disinterested as Aziraphale first thought.
a human AU in which aziraphale is transmasc and crowley is so in love. when i tell you that Sam healed my trans heart with this fic, i mean it.
Communicatio in Sacris by @voluptatiscausa (E, 10.4k words)
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been one year since my last confession. These are my sins.”
There’s a slight pause. “Gosh. Give me a moment. I knew I should have made up a list, this happens every year. Forget my own head next. Ah, yes. Hmm. Now you may want to get comfortable.”
Communicatio in sacris: communion in sacred things. Also translated as 'worship in common'.
THE good omens priest AU in my humble opinion. read this for hot smut, "seduction via book binding" (from the tags), and explicit consent.
i am not exaggerating when i tell you that this fic did something to heal my religious trauma. there is something so beautiful about saying that love can't be a sin. that love is holy in all its incarnations.
Just Up the Stairs by @foolishlovers and @ineffabildaddy w/ art by @omens-for-ophelia (E, 39.1k words)
(necessary disclaimer that i'm not actually done reading this one but it's phenomenal thus far and i have all the faith in jane & sam that it will continue being phenomenal)
On Valentine's Day, amidst the chaos of handling work and university deadlines as a mature student, Crowley seeks solace with his neighbour Aziraphale. As they share a meal, their long-standing friendship begins to unravel, revealing hidden feelings they've harboured for six months. It's a night that could change everything.
a wonderful human AU in which aziraphale and crowley pine for each other to a truly remarkable extent. mutual pining, fluff, and stunning artwork throughout!
if you couldn't tell i've got a bit of A Thing for human AUs, so hopefully you're into that lol
i'm sure i have more fics i love but i hope this list is sufficient for now!
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