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#look at me drawing him an entire illustration
the-hinky-panda · 3 days
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The Winter Series: Part I
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Title: The Winter Series: Part I
Rating: Explicit
Summary: You're the wife of the Captain of the Red Guard and own an apothecary shop in Paris. A chance meeting with a dashing Musketeer changes the entire course of your life, if you're brave enough. (Trigger warning for domestic abuse, infidelity)
Tag list: @bullet-prooflove
You’re used to being on your back. Pinned down, eyes closed, waiting for George to finish so you can wash up and write the latest pieces of knowledge that you’ve acquired concerning compounds, herbs, and alchemy. You try to think about words you’re going to string together, how the slant of your writing will fill the page. Then the illustrations that you’re going to draw, the scrape of the quill against the parchment as you draw the blossoms of the lavender spikes in your small garden. Anything, you think of anything to distract you from what George is doing to you. 
It’s not like that with Aramis. 
He allows you to take control. You keep your eyes open and focus on as many details as possible during these intimate afternoon rendezvous. The words that fill your mind are the descriptions of how his hands feel against the skin of your ribcage as he steadies you, how it feels to lower yourself onto him, to be filled by him. How it feels to have a choice as to when a man enters you. The pictures you would draw of him beneath you, color rising to his cheeks, dark eyes growing darker with each roll of your hips. 
The ecstasy that hits you both is indescribable. That’s when you lose your words and pictures, the world shatters around you. It’s like dying and being reborn in the same moment. 
Peace comes afterwards. You enjoy the quiet that invades the storage space of the shop as well as your mind. Aramis contentedly traces random patterns against your back and side while you lay your palm against his heart, waiting for its pace to match your own. He pulls you closer to him in the pile of the blankets on the floor, presses lazy kisses against your neck, murmuring lines of poetry and adorations. For you, someone who has never run out of words, you find it difficult to tell him that this experience with him is unlike anything you have ever had before in your life. All you can do is try to memorize these moments as detailed as you can before having to return to your world where kindness is just a memory. 
***
“Who is it?” 
The jar of dried peppermint leaves almost slips from your hand at the sound of George’s voice behind you. Your thoughts had been on the previous afternoon’s occurrence, replaying the light touches and soft kisses shared with Aramis while listening to the rain fall on the roof. You slip your spectacles into the inside pocket of your bodice, an alteration that Constance had done for all your corsets to ensure the safety of your repaired glasses. 
“I didn’t hear you come into the shop, George.” You brush past him as you continue to measure out the order for the peppermint. “What do you mean who is it?” 
The strike is quick, fast enough that you never saw it coming and hard enough to knock the scent of mint out of your nose. “Don’t play your word games with me.” 
You can taste the tang of blood in your mouth and you swallow it down. “I don’t know what you’re asking.” 
“Who is the man you’ve taken to our bed?” 
You try to hide the slight tremor of your hands by busying them with wrapping up the satchel of herbs. “You share the same bed as me. If I brought someone else in, I would think you would take notice.”
He leans on the counter and waits for you to look at him. “I did notice..” 
You hold his eyes in a soft defiance. There’s no possible way for him to know. All your encounters have been at the shop, not at your home. George hates the shop, only crosses the threshold to take things that he wants: you or the money that you’ve made that day. You don’t even know if he’s aware of the second floor storage room. “What makes you think-” 
Another strike, against the other cheek this time. 
“What makes you think you can embarrass me in this way?” 
“George-” 
“It is my good graces that allow you to keep this shop open, to allow you your…indulgence of independence. If you want to keep the shop in your ownership, I suggest you remember your place and end this affair before you bring any more shame to my name. If not, it’s being sold to the highest bidder.” A cruel smile curls his lips. “Perhaps that would be in your best interest anyway. I dare say two years is enough time to adjust to married life. Caring for children and managing the shop will be too great of a time constraint for you.” 
You feel the icy grip of terror go through you at the thought of having children with this man. It makes you more fearful than that of having your affair come to light. If this is how he treats you, how in the world will he treat your children? You couldn’t bring a child into a home where they would know the same violence and fear that you do. You swallow down your pride and nod with downcast eyes. “Thank you for your generosity, George.” 
“That’s better.” He moves towards the front door and picks up a small jar of dried nettles. “What is this used for?” 
“Teas. It helps with swelling and gout.” 
He’s looking right at you when he drops the jar, glass and nettles spilling over the floor. You may be able to save some of the herb but the danger of having shattered glass mixed in there is too great. Thankfully, it wasn’t too expensive but you didn’t want him to know that. With a sigh, you pick up the broom and bend down to start cleaning up the mess. You’re reaching for a piece of glass when his boot rests on the back of your hand. You hold your breath, praying he doesn’t put any more pressure on your hand. 
“What is his name?” 
You set your jaw, locking it tight. He’s taken so much from you, he’s not taking this. You’ve found a glimmer of happiness, joy even, and you’ll go to the grave before condemning Aramis to George’s obsession. Your resolve damns you though and your prayers are unanswered as he slowly applies his weight and the shard of glass cuts deep into your palm. 
“A reminder then, of your place and who you belong to.” 
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aquarisma · 7 months
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Another night, another hunt - doing his bidding. There was no way out.
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yumeka-sxf · 5 months
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In addition to Yor's epiphany scene, this scene was the other one I was most looking forward to in season 2 - a scene that, in my opinion, is one of the most Twiyor-ish scenes in the series so far 💖
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Why is it so significant? Because there was no reason for Twilight to put on any Loid Forger acting in that moment. He wasn't conversing with nor being scrutinized by anyone. So why would he give that soft smile followed by such affectionate, comforting words as "お疲れ様/otsukaresama"? (this can be translated in many ways, but generally it's something you say to thank someone for their hard work).
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The answer is because it's something he truly felt...he understood the sacrifice Yor made for Anya's happiness and genuinely appreciated it (if only he knew the sacrifice she made on the larger scale, lol). While he's a bit perturbed at first since some onlookers were snickering at him, it didn't take long for him to soften and then graciously carry his queen and princess the girls back to the ship 😭
But Twilight overall was really soft in this episode and I loved it~ From his blush upon seeing Yor to the several times he gave that same soft smile when talking with/looking at her...I think Anya was right when she called him out on the ship about missing his wife 😅
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I liked how the anime conveyed his shock when noticing her bruised face...what must have been his thought at that moment? 👀
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The scenes of the family activities translated better in animated form in my opinion. While they were each only a single panel in the manga, they lasted a few seconds each in the anime, plus the addition of the insert song helped the with the comfy, wholesome vibe~ Also the part where Yor inadvertently chucks Anya across the ocean is still hilarious.
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Loid's dorky skip at the beginning of the episode translated very well in animated form too 😅
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The ending of this chapter in the manga always felt a bit rushed to me...it quickly jumps from the aforementioned scene of them returning to the ship, to suddenly being home, reuniting with Bond and Franky, having a meal together, then Twilight meeting Sylvia, all within a few panels. Even though I wish the anime added more than just some additional scenes of the ship leaving the island, I felt it flowed much better in the anime since, just like the family activities, each scene in the ending lasted a second or two instead of being a single illustration.
But I love how this chapter/episode ends, with Yor, Anya, and Bond napping while Anya draws about her family vacation. This seems to take place the next day or maybe later the same day they got home, so makes sense they'd still be tired from the trip!
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By the way, the manga has this additional scene showing that Olka and company are safe. Weird that the anime didn't stick it in at some point.
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Also, the anime team didn't have to go so hard with this episode's key visual but they did...and I love it 😍 Might actually be my favorite of the key visuals so far!
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I was very happy to see the "surrounded by liars" panel finally animated! This is such a funny scene and a great way to fully wrap up the cruise arc.
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I also burst out laughing at Yuri's locker 🤣
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Damian is surprisingly laid back in this episode. I think the reason is because Anya's antics aren't directly involving him. He tends to go total tsundere only when she's actually talking to him, lol.
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The new scene of Yor getting the keychains for her coworkers was a nice addition! Guess it's canon that Yor and Anya didn't sleep for the entire trip back, lol. Glad they got to spend family time on the ship too! (though I wish we could have seen Yor's reaction waking up in Loid's bottom bunk bed, haha. He must have brought her to his room since he wouldn't know where her room is. Unless she woke up before he even put her in a bed, in which case she would have been super embarrassed knowing he was carrying her around in public 😆)
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Looks like next week the anime will be changing the order of things a bit and giving us the Becky home-wrecking and Fiona chapters (the latter of which seems to have some anime original content?) The Becky chapter is one of my favorite stand-alone chapters...I'm already dying of laugher thinking about it 😂
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vroomvroomwee · 8 months
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Aziraphale's vest
I'd like to take a second and talk about his vest because I think it's a really good metaphor for Aziraphale's internal feelings.
At first glance it's obvious the vest is quite old. Really old in fact if you note the way it's practically disintegrating.
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And it got me thinking a bit. The way the white practically bleeds from the edges of the neck, shoulders and buttons, going further and further, one day if he's persistent enough to wear it, it might even take over the entire vest. You could say that that, somehow, mirrors Heavens influence over Aziraphale. Slowly, slowly, biding their time, until it has completely ridden him of any colour. Until it has completely washed him of his identity, of his originality, of his character.
Take a look at his clothing when he's up in Heaven.
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Completely and utterly white. Every piece of clothing he's wearing is pure and untarnished white. Upon entering Heaven, against his own accord, it has stripped him of his uniqueness, of anything that might distinguish him from any other angel who blindly follows orders and who's sole purpose is to do Heavens bidding.
Now, he could miracle the white patches on the vest away easily. But he doesn't want to.
The thing is. He likes the imperfect. He likes partaking in human activities and pleasures, like food, music, etc. Likes to indulge himself in earthly things Heaven would label as sinful or "sullying." And as someone who bas been on the receiving end of Heavens ridicule and passive aggression for millenia, as someone who for centuries has been told that he's underperforming and needs to do better, as someone who is all too aware of his own impurity by the standards an angel should hold and of the quite frankly unholy behaviour in performing immoral temptations and directly going against Heavens orders no more than a few times throughout the eras, it's no wonder he finds comfort in the imperfect.
He keeps the deteriorating edges because they are a perfect representation of his own internal feelings and image. After all, there's no rule that says he can't. And a big kudos to the costume department, for the patches perfectly encapsulate his religious trauma. Without it, he would probably be a very different person. He wouldn't be the same Aziraphale we know and love. The same way he likes being old-fashioned with his clothes and how that is a part of who he is, his trauma is a part of him as well, along with Heavens influence that has shaped him into who he is today, whether he likes it or not.
Every part of the vest illustrates Aziraphale's character and internal feelings, which brings me to another point I want to draw attention to, and that is the BACK of the vest.
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It's DARK. And I don't think I'm mistaken when I say that most of us didn't expect it to look like that from behind. We all just assumed that it would be the same beige colour as the front, which is in tune with the rest of his attire. After all, seeing him wearing a dozen different outfits all throughout history, all of them some shade of white, it was the logical conclusion.
But no.
It's not white. It's a dark, slightly viridian or a dark blue colour. "Dark blue suggests a more mysterious depth or ominous quality. Power and authority: Dark blue signifies power and responsibility. "
Not what we would have expected that colour at all. Similarly to how one wouldn't expect an angel to perform temptations or be gluttonous, or envious, or slothful, or hedonistic. Not at first glance anyway.
Not unless you look carefully.
Not unless you know him.
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The coat almost acts like a cover. The light over the dark. Almost as if it's trying to hide something. The only times we see Aziraphale not wearing the coat is in his bookshop. Which is logical, of course. You wouldn't wear a coat indoors, obviously. Except he DOES. He wears the coat when he and Crowley are drunk, he wears it when he's reading Agnes Nutter, he wears it when Gabriel and Sandalphon pop in, he wears it when he's talking to the Metatron, he wears it when he's listening to Shostakovich, he even wears it at the Ritz where it would be custom to take off your coat while dining. And it's worth noting that during the events happening (at least in the first season), the season is summer. Which would make it quite ridiculous to be wearing so many layers everywhere you go and therefore risk boiling. But he still wears the coat.
The only times he doesn't wear it is in the first episode after the sushi, when he's all ALONE, and in season 2 at the bookshop when Crowley comes back and in 1941.
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And there's something oh so personal about that.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the darker part is specifically the back of the vest. There's always been this natural human instinct to protect yourself by never ever turning your back on a foe. And I don't think this is a conscious effort on Aziraphale's part, but rather genius writing, directing and costume design, and anyone who's watched and read Good Omens knows that almost nothing is coincidental.
Note this is probably the first time Aziraphale has called Crowley his friend, seeing how uncertain and doubtful he was to even say the word in this scene and how quick he was to deny their friendship in the Shakespeare scene. And the camera immediately cuts from Crowley to Aziraphale, who is turned away, whose back is turned to Crowley oh so casually without a care in the world. Just before he calls him his friend. His back is turned, and so is the dark part of his vest.
The dark part he only shows in his bookshop, when he's alone and there's no one there. The part that he now only shows to Crowley as well. Crowley who knows him so well and who's been with him through everything. "I won't tell anyone if you won't." And "you said trust me""and you did". Just this small motion of Aziraphale depicts exactly how much trust he has in Crowley not only that he'll keep him safe and protected but to accept him just as he is, to not judge him, to not demean him for his imperfections as an angel. Practically mirroring Crowley's self-protection mechanism that is reflected in his motions to hide his eyes with his sunglasses (there's a wonderful meta on this by @simply-brightly-zee here )
And it might just be clothing, or it might just be genius symbolism, but note how self-aware Aziraphale is of his looks when Gabriel pops up.
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The desire to impress is almost unconscious in this scene, and how does he go about doing it? By making sure he looks presentable. Presentable, despite the white patches and the vest that is falling apart, he doesn't even realise it. Therefore, it's clear Aziraphale puts thought into his clothes, whether consciously or unconsciously.
I personally dont think any of this (the coat, the patches, the way he turns his back, when, where and around who he's most comfortable) is a deliberate and intentional act on Aziraphales part but rather creative brilliance from the directors and producers. So him being shown to expose the back of the vest only in scenes with Crowley (and the one in s2 infront of an amnesiac Gabriel with the intelligence and awareness of a squirrel) is a master move on the costume department's part. The symbolusm being so small and imperceptible, but holding so much meaning. This small metaphor shows how much Aziraphale trusts Crowley and how comfortable he is around him. Crowley who knows about Aziraphale's transgressions, sins, unholy behaviours, lack of interest and dedication to his job, and overall "incompetence" as Aziraphale might put it and how he's "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing". Crowley, who will accept him and love him no matter what. Not despite those things, but because of those things.
They have found their "own side".
Edit: Not that important, but I just want to mention how, despite being tattered and falling apart, the vest is still in perfectly good condition. No matter the white seeping in and draining its colour, the vest doesn't have a single seam torn, not a button lost, perfect as the day it was bought. No matter what it's been put through, it's still kicking, whether by miracle or sheer willpower. Very much like the person wearing it.
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⋆ ˚。⋆౨ৎ˚ Coloring Pages And Baby Fever
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content: leo valdez x daugher of poseidon! reader fic warning: maybe cursing but i really don't think so??, toothrotting fluff, discussion of kids and futures and whatnot author's note: this one BRO THIS ONE- i dont even want kids idk where this came from fr. also, leo is a girl dad. everyone can stfu if you don't agree. her middle name is his momma's name, obvi. but that's just a headcanon, a COVEY headcanon jk jk
y/n always held a soft spot in her heart for the younger half-bloods. she arrived at camp at seven and she was a sobbing mess inside the hermes cabin then the poseidon cabin. she couldn’t imagine going through that at a younger age. which is why she always volunteered to run the younger kids activities rather than participate in some of the more grown up games. today was coloring of greek mythology. y/n wasn’t sure what part of the internet chrion pulled these from, little explanations put in bold next to the coloring pages and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know. maybe a past apollo child, grown up to be an illustrator just for camp half-blood. y/n was detailing away at a cartoonish hippocampus, smiling softly at one of the girls who ran up to show y/n her drawing of her mother, athena.
“aww, phoebe, it looks so good!!” she mused, excitedly looking over it, shamelessly ignoring the scribbles over the lines and the mixing of wrong colors. in phoebe’s defense, she was only eight.
“thanks, y/n!! i based it off of how my daddy describes her all the time!” phoebe explained, bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement.
“must be accurate then, you clever girl!” she joined in, smiling widely at her before handing the paper back, settling a hand against her back and pointing towards chiron, who was resting in the shade with a book in his lap, “now, go show mr. chiron and tell him what you learned.”
“okay!!” the girl bubbles, snatching her picture back and racing towards the centaur, who looks up with a warm smile towards the girl, happily indulging her. y/n felt a poke against her ribs, spinning around with a warm look since she knew who it was.
“how are you so good with them?” leo huffed, crossing his arms as he stared down at his terrible doodling of the battle of troy. he taken up following y/n to kiddy camp; one because he loved spending as much time as he could with his girl, and two because harley asked him to start coming. y/n glanced down at his work, nearly melting at the sight. helena took a striking resemblance to y/n and troy to leo, something that wasn’t lost on the girl.
“i dunno. exposure therapy? i used to teach little kids how to surf a long, long time ago,” y/n laughed, shaking her head slightly before pointing over at his drawing.
“that’s what you think helena looked like?” she questioned with a smirk, pointing a blue crayon at him. his cheeks warmed up but he didn’t lose his cool.
“yup. what do you think of troy? handsome guy, isn’t he?” he pushed, leaning closer. y/n snorted, shaking her head at him.
“the hottest,” she agreed with a roll of her eyes, earning a shove against her shoulder.
“don’t be looking at other men! so disrespectful to our relationship!” leo huffed, setting a hand against his chest in mock hurt. y/n laughed harder, leaning against his shoulder before pushing off him with a shake of her head, looking around her boyfriend at the shy child on the other side of him.
“can you believe this guy, harley?” y/n asked, smiling warmly at the little boy, who looked up at the older teens with wide-eyed wonder.
“he’s pretty silly,” harley agreed, swinging his feet under the table happily.
“the silliest,” she added, wrinkling her nose at the boy before looking down at his coloring, “oh, super cool coloring of the argonauts, harley!”
“thanks! leo’s told me all about this story,” harley stated, smiling up at his older brother, who returned the gesture.
“sure did. one of my favorites,” leo hummed, eyes growing distant at the thoughts that swarmed. the nightmarish time he had on that damn boat, the constant fighting, the constant worrying, the weight of the world on his shoulders. he snapped out of it as y/n subtly set a hand against his thigh, though she didn’t acknowledge it. he rested his hand on top of hers, pressing his lips to the top of her hair without another thought.
“did he? hmm, i don’t think i've heard it before. you wanna tell me about it, harley?” y/n asked, tilting her head at the boy. i’d heard the story hundreds of times - chiron reused the same website every year so one kid always ended up telling her the story at some point - but she knew harley was having a bit of a hard time. leo had been stressing about it for a bit now and she figured she could help.
“you really haven’t heard about it?” harley questioned, frowning slightly as he didn’t believe her. panic flared in y/n’s eyes and leo was quick to save her.
“y/n is so busy with all her quests and training that she barely has time to listen to stories, harley,” leo reasoned, shrugging his shoulders like it was common sense.
“oh. i guess that makes sense,” harley muttered, glancing down at his feet for a moment.
“come on, harley. i’ve got time now! i feel like i'm missing out on something big. come here, between leo and i,” she told the younger boy, putting on a pout.
he laughed a little at the look on her face before squeezing between leo and i, setting his drawing down on the table and using his cubby fingers to point at specific people in the drawing. he rambled on and on about it, clearly something that fascinated him. y/n asked questions like she was confused by the topic and gasped at the appropriate moments.
leo just stared at her over harley’s head, feeling his heart race and his mouth go dry and the tips of his ears light on fire only for him to quickly snuff it out. he started to imagine what it would be like to do this in the kitchen of their home and instead of harley in the middle, a child of their own. a wedding band on both of their hands and vows stronger than the river styx. y/n caught his gaze over harley’s head, giving him a soft smile and leo melted at it. he loved her with everything inside him and he could feel the love from her radiating off in waves. from the way she looked at him to the smiles she gave him. he could feel it. like the sun when your eyes are closed. that warmth that manages to seep through your eyelids
“aren’t they just the coolest?!” harley exclaimed, proudly wrapping up his story.
“yeah!! super cool. jason reminds me of someone but i can’t quite think of who,” y/n mused, tapping her finger against her chin in false thought. leo snorts, looking away as he covers it with a cough.
y/n glanced across the table, noticing a little boy following along with what harley was saying, but trying to be as subtle as a child can be. she knew him, ryder, one of the new hermes kids. she already had a feeling the stoll brothers were rubbing off on him, based on the sunglasses set upon his drawing of apollo. he was around harley’s age and her eyes twinkled at the opportunity.
“hey, harley,” y/n whisper down to the boy, leaning down to his level. he looks up at her with wide eyes, asking a quiet ‘what?’
“i think someone else wants to hear the story of the argonauts,” she tells him, nodding her head towards ryder, who looked shocked that the attention was on him and quickly dropped his head and returned to his drawing. harley paled slightly and began wringing his hands, nervously.
“hey, dude, it’s okay. we’ll be right here the whole time. just start talking and it’ll just flow. trust me. it’s just like at the forge. it’ll start to flow,” leo cut in, setting a gentle hand against the boy's shoulder. harley took a deep breath before blowing it out.
“just like at the forge,” he mumbled before grabbing his drawing, his small fists crumbling the drawing the slightest bit before he moved around the table and up to ryder, who looked at him, intrigued. leo and y/n both leaned forwards to hear better, though they pretended like they didn’t, trying to give harley his space.
“h- hi, i’m harley. i’m from c-cabin 9, son of hephestus,” harley managed to get out, holding his hand out to the blonde boy.
“hey! i’m ryder! cabin 11, son of hermes,” ryder told him, proudly, shaking harley’s hand vigorously. harley couldn’t help but laugh at the rapid hand shake and y/n set her hand over her heart at the action, giving leo a look as tears filled her eyes. he laughed at the emotional daughter of poseidon, rubbing a hand over her shoulders.
“do you want to hear the story of the argonauts?” harley asked, tilting his head, much like leo. surely a habit picked up over time.
“totally!” ryder cheered, nodding his head as his blond hair ruffled about and he moved over, giving harley space next to him. when ryder looked away, harley gave the older couple a proud thumbs up with a toothy grin before making a shooing motion with his hands.
“are we being sent away?!” leo asked, incredulously, with his jaw dropped.
“i think so. little rascal,” y/n replied, shaking her head at him before standing up, taking both of their drawings. she shot a glance over her shoulder, watching the two boys excitedly talk to each other and tears filled her eyes all over again.
“i’m so proud of him. oh, gods, i’m gonna cry,” y/n gasp out, laughing at the craziness of it. leo laughs with her, pressing a kiss to her cheek. y/n started thinking about how she'll react when their son does the same thing, which brings on a whole new wave of tears. their son. leo and hers. y/n looked at him, her lower lip wobbling. he sees this, tilting his head, a little worried.
“what?”
“i love you so much,” she whisper to him and he smiles, his brows unfurrowing.
“no need to cry about it, hun,” he laughs and y'n hits his ribs and shove him away from herself. he quickly comes back and wraps his arms over her shoulders, locking them together just over her chest.
“i love you too much to put into words,” he replied, shoving a kiss against her cheek.
“that’s a first,” y/n bit back, hearing a chuckle from behind and feeling the rumble of his chest against her back.
“leo, y/n, you’re off shift. we’re taking over,” will says, nodding towards one of the demeter guys he was with. she give him a thumbs up and a smile before a little girl looks over at them with sad eyes.
“y/n’s leaving?!” she asked, tears already pooling.
“hey, it’s okay. will’s a super good friend of mine and he’s so much fun! i promise you’re gonna have a blast, honey. plus, you get to spend tomorrow with me!” y/n tells her, rubbing a hand against her shoulder before nodding at will to take over, which he did, kneeling next to her and asking about her shirt to distract her.
“they don’t react like that when i leave,” leo pouted, slinging an arm over y/n's shoulder and she raised a brow at him.
“because you don’t interact with them, dear,” she mused, leaning into his side with a bright smile as they made our way towards her cabin.
“touche,” he replied, nodding his head before he glazed off for a moment before wetting his lips and opening his mouth, “do you think i’d make a good dad?”
y/n paused at her cabin door, frowning at this question as she looked over at him like he grew three heads.
“the best dad. what a stupid question. i expected better than that, hothead,” she tells him, swinging the door open and walking towards her side of the cabin, set aside for the girls, though it was just her.
“i’m being serious,” leo argued as he shut the door, still frowning a bit, “i mean, i have no idea what a good dad is supposed to look like. and i can’t talk to those kids like you can. and-”
“leo.” y/n cut in and he stops, snapping his eyes up to hers and taking a calming breath.
“if i thought you’d be a bad dad, we wouldn’t be together. if i had any inkling that i couldn’t put my future in your hands, i would have never wasted my time getting to know you. and you’re good with the kids, but in your own way. like, harley. you could talk that kid off a ledge. and it’s not just because he idolizes you. it’s because he trusts you, leo valdez. just like everyone else does. just like i do,” she told him, gently setting her hand against his chest. y/n reaches her other hand up to his cheek, rubbing it with her thumb. he draped his arms around her waist, pressing his head into the junction between her neck and shoulder. him, pressing kisses to the sun kissed skin. y/n paused for a moment before pulling him impossibly closer.
“i want one,” she muttered against his curls, hiding her head in his shirt. she could feel the confusion radiating off him.
“one what?” he asked, always wanting to meet her every request.
“a baby. of our own,” y/n whispers, her voice cracking a bit, the thought scaring but exciting her. leo pulled back to see her eyes, to which he smiled softly at the look in them. one he could only describe as love.
“me too, y/n,” he states, firmly, like it was already set in stone but then he tilted his head at her, resting his hand against her cheek, “but, it’s a bit early.”
“lee,” y/n pouts, sinking into his hand a little though she knew he was right. he laughs lightly.
“i gotta put a ring on that finger of yours first. get a nice house away from all the monsters and gods. then we can revisit this,” he reasons, tucking his hand inside of hers. he talks about an escape that will never come but she doesn't tell him that. instead, y/n closes her eyes and pictures the house, cozy and lived in. she pictures the wedding, leo at the end of the aisle in a suit, percy walking her down the aisle like she always promised him he would. y/n pictures the nursery, set up for a little girl who looks just like her dad.
“okay…we’ll wait then,” y/n whispers against his lips, pressing hers to his softly before pulling back, “i’d wait lifetimes for you; for that.”
“you won’t have to. not in this lifetime,” he mutters before pulling her back into his lips, more of a collision than a kiss. she couldn’t help but smile against his lips, knowing she'd found the kind of love she always wanted. the kind that transcends death and age; the kind of love that is generations in the making.
three years later, on that same day, y/n and leo would find out they were expecting their first child.
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critterbitter · 3 months
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I finally got all my brain ducks into enough of a row to send this! I just wanted to say that Tumblr recommended your art to me on a whim, and I am actually OBSESSED now lol. I had no prior investment in Submas or anything tangentially related to it prior to this (aside from liking Pokémon generally lol), but I couldn’t help but tear through everything you’ve drawn for these silly little rat children and I love them so much now!!! I wanna pick them up and shake him around like little action figures! The shenanigans and the heartfelt moments are just,, UGH so good! I have no words! Thank you for the food I am going FERAL over them <3
Your art is also high key goals for me now tbh. I absolutely ADORE your coloring and rendering style, and also they way you draw Pokémon in general?? Very animalistic but still recognizably Pokémon?? Literally galaxy brained. I’m going to SCREAM. I know you already posted a bit of your art process, but I’d love to know if you’ve got any rendering tips and/or how you get that clean but sketchy look. It looks so good I want to eat it lol.
(Also I really love the way you’ve been formatting Elesa’s dialog, with the extra lines around the letters. It really gives the vibe that her grasp on Galarian is currently shaky at best and idk, I like that you’ve managed to find a way to convey that over text. I think that’s pretty cool :D)
I SAW YOU REBLOG A WHOLE BUNCH AND IM,,, (throwing hearts at you)
Thank you so so much! I’m glad you love these terrible little guys wandering Unova just as much as I do, haha!
As a treat, lemme pull out some drafting for the mini illustrations. I usually start every snapshot with a run down of what I remember from the area, possible shenanigans encountered, and then a doodle of ideas to come.
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From there, it’s a SUPER rough sketch, followed by lineart and rough color, and then cleanup!
(More thumbs and their finals below!)
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At the end of the day, all my lines are VERY sketchy. I’m a lot stronger when it comes to mashing colors. That, and if you set your line layer from normal to multiply, the lines will always be automatically darker then whatever layer is placed underneath. It’s a trick used quite a bit for placing cel shadows in animation, but it’s useful for lineart in a pinch.
For colors, I like to stick to a limited pallet and branch out only after setting my primary colors. This entire series has been very experimental for me though, as you can probably tell.
As for the last bit— YES… YOU GET IT! As Elesa grows, the lines in her dialogue will start appearing less and less. It’s the little things that map the span of time for these guys.
Yippee!
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beatcroc · 2 months
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a year!!! as of today i have now been drawing these funny little pizza freaks, to the exclusion of almost everything else, for!!! an entire year!!! i wanted to do a nice group shot/lineup of everybody to compare to when i first started trying to draw them because oh boy were they bad. i never even posted most of them anywhere because they were so bad. but im posting them here, now, to see how everything's changed/evolved.
this is probably the hardest time i've ever had trying to figure out how to work with a style, but we got there eventually; i'm pretty happy with the handle i've got on everybody now...dont let ur memes be dreams. lots of unimportant journaling and idle thoughts abt it below.
older pics
the first one is the VERY first time i drew them, before i thought i was going to actually have any interest in drawing them [lmao]; it was just the one isolated image, for my friendserver, to illustrate the funney message, so there was no attempt to make it Good or actually understand anything going on w/ the designs or style.
second is the original run of practices sketches to start trying to figure them out for real; done after i started having ideas for the comics and such and realized oh god maybe i am actually gonna draw fanart for this. [again, lol, and lmao.]
third one is the first pt art thing i posted on here. there were a couple weeks of sprite studies between this one and the previous image. the one on the top right wasn't part of that post i just threw it on as space filler; i'd intended to shift to doing Sprite Redraws But Stylized to explore tings more, but that was the only one i did. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
individual characters
peppino: by far the hardest dear god. bro what ARE your shapes how DOES your face work. jesus christ. everything i have trouble with this style for, peppino has it in excess. i draw in polygons! i need consistency! and that is the last thing this kind of style is concerned with. they are made of squarshy clay and i do not understand how to mold them. i was really hoping trying to learn this game's style would GIVE me that kind of flexibility for fun exaggerated facial expression but i don't think much came of it in the end 😔. anyway on the bright side all this means once i got peppino figured out a little bit everybody else clicked way easier.
fake peppino: honestly i never did anything with him on purpose except for how his eyes work + the perma-smile thing. i figured ok hes supposed to look weird and off model so whatever happens with him happens. and it did. and it kept happening. it is still, in fact, happening.
noise/ette: somehow, for every bit that peppino was the least natural thing i've ever tried, these two worked pretty much right off the bat. i still don't understand it, seeing as pretty much all the things at play for peppino are also at work for them. i think the new sketches are actually a little worse than older ones but not enough that i care.
gustavo: really funny bc i drew him on model twice and just went 'okay, cool nice, easy, um. he doesn't have any fucking legs?' fortunately he was the only one i had a strong idea for how to stylize him [square] and it worked exactly as i was hoping so wahoo.
brick: is an animal and therefore 5000x easier and more natural for me to draw/stylize than anything else in the cast. that is Just a rat bro. i can draw a rat.
gerome: i think the funniest one here. the most drastic and least necessary change imo. i was gonna have him be really small at first, like smaller than the noises, but then i just... didn't. he's just peppino-sized now. also i gave him like. actual human facial structure, which is funny bc in most cases i'd do anything to avoid, but it works well for his being A Rock to give him some angles and definition like that+ to differentiate his vibe from the rest of the cast who are all very squishy. also since he is essentially Just A Head it's good to emphasize that too ig.
john: i only drew john a couple times but he gets to be here because i like him. and because most of the stuff i applied to gerome was readily applicable to john, though i did try to keep him a little more uncanny because he is a Huge And Lanky Freak. i hate that he is barefoot btw but idk how to make his color balance look right with shoes.
pizzahead: i did not want to put him on here honestly but i Have drawn him a handful of times and more importantly i didn't know what i was gonna do with john's pose if i didn't have him there to be glared at. the only thing that's different with him is giving him wider-bottomed pants, which i got from when i tried to draw these guys in clone high style [i never posted that one either][i will eventually]
snick: he gets to be here because 1. he's like 6 lines 2. i like him and 3. ive scribbled him a few times offhand and it went pretty well
misc
there are some guys missing because those are guys i didn't draw enough [or at all] to have gotten comfortable with them. sorry
i would have Liked to shade these but for the time being i have accepted that my grasp of light/shadow has decayed to the point im not going to be happy with anything i try there, so For Now i am working on my presentation with flats i guess. gerome has a shadow only because he's shaded like that ingame and looks naked without it
anyway if you are still reading [hi?] i get to shamelessly plug now. i'm over the hill of my pizza run now, and while i still have plenty of things i want to make here, most of the bigger more in-depth ones have passed. pizza tower was the first thing in THREE YEARS to get me out of my oc groove to doing fanart, and once i am done with my ideas here i will be going right back to it. if you like my art or how i write characters/interactions you should check out my oc/webcomic blog @jamverse . i can't promise people who like pizza stuff will be terribly into my designs, but i can guarantee i treat my guys with the exact same sort of tone i handle the pt guys with. and hell, i've mentioned it a few times before, but like 70% of my characterization for fake pep is just copied off one of my characters, so if u are going to miss him... he will still be there in spirit >;p
and if you dont care about any of that and are still reading thank you anyway. actually making these comics + seeing how shockingly well-received they've been has done a lot for my confidence, and for seeing that my kind of stuff IS something people enjoy :')
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factual-fantasy · 2 years
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(Part 3/4) / Start / Previous / Next 
Despite this part being the shortest part at only 12 canvases and 58 drawings, it still took me over a week to draw. I got a little distracted with Glamrock DJ..😅 But none the less, its here! I hope it was worth the wait. Part 4 is significantly longer than this so it’ll take me a while to post.. so stay tuned!
Also, I was very excited to show this part. Foxy slowly realizing that something is horribly wrong was fun to try and illustrate. And when he’s surprised that Gregory doesn’t know him, he’s not being arrogant, narcissistic or even prideful! The fact that someone could go to Freddy Fazbear’s and not know who Foxy is, is basically impossible! That’s like going to Freddy’s and having no idea that they serve pizza??
Foxy was the most popular attraction at Freddy Fazbear’s. Because he was very unique and a showcase of Fazbear’s incredible engineering. The kids loved him! The Parents loved him! You’d walk into the building and boom! Pirates cove is literally right there and a huge crowd of people are swarming the entrance just to get a glimpse of Foxy. 
So when Gregory says he’s never seen or heard of him before, Foxy isn’t offended, he’s concerned. How can Gregory not know about him? Has Foxy been absent from the stage for a while? He looks around the room and sees boxes upon boxes of old dusty toys and costumes, labeled “DISCONTINUED”. He then wipes away some of the dust from his arm that he now noticed has caked his entire body.. And realizes that yes, he has been absent from the stage.
And from the looks of it, he’s been absent for a very.. very, long time.
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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 4 months
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It’s one in the morning let’s talk Six of Crows analysis - it feels like it’s been ages since I did any analysis, which is like the entire point of this account so sorry about that but here we go: We should talk more about Adem Bajan you guys okay because first of all he effectively comes to represent the vast majority of everyday people in a clear juxtaposition to both Inej and Van Eck, but he also is in a position of far less choice than I think we give him credit for.
As a reminder, Bajan is a young Suli boy (presumably somewhere around 19 but we have no confirmation of that) working in the Van Eck household teaching Alys music. He is highly implied to be having or to have interest in having as affair with Alys, and was Van Eck’s chosen jailer for Inej at the beginning of Crooked Kingdom. Van Eck claims he made this choice because he thought “a Suli boy would be most conspicuous” when he was attempting to lure Kaz into a trap to save Inej, but it was also an inarguably smart decision in that, as Inej even comments herself, Bajan was easy to talk to, made her feel nostalgic, homesick, and alone, and very nearly succeeded in drawing information out of her without having to restore to torture. If anything, resorting to torture was Van Eck’s major mistake at this point but that’s really a conversation for another time. Bajan is a really interesting character because he doesn’t want to hurt Inej and specifically encourages her to tell him things so Van Eck won’t escalate things further, but when Van Eck does escalate things Bajan is unable - or possibly unwilling - to stop him. For this Inej calls him a monster, and when he claims he did nothing replies “no, you’re the man who stands idly by congratulating himself whilst the monster eats its fill”. She draws a Suli phrase on him that effectively means he’ll be rejected by the community forever and his spirit/soul won’t be accepted, and she describes it as the worst fate or something along those lines sorry I can’t remember exactly. But what’s the most interesting thing is that even though he claims not to believe in any of it Bajan gets noticeably upset by this and says “that’s not fair”. Inej is surprised that he’s this soft, and there’s a very clear juxtaposition between the lives they have lived.
BUT - let’s look at this from Bajan’s perspective. And remember - this is important - Bajan is not described as an employee of Van Eck’s, but an indenture. An indenture. So Bajan is a young boy indentured in a foreign country to a man as high up in the country’s government as you can get and who has clearly been illustrated to the reader as a terrible person on several different levels that I won’t dissect in too much detail right now. He appears to have acclimatised himself to Kerch surroundings and acts with elevation above his status, because that’s what he has to do to survive in the upper echelon of a deeply classist society that actively diminishes and disapproves of his culture. (<<if anyone wants references for that let me know and also I’ve written about it quite a bit before so that’s kicking around on my page somewhere) He refuses to speak to Inej in Suli because “it makes me maudlin” and my question to you is: is he rejecting the language to further attempt to fit in and as a product of internalised prejudice, or because it’s so incredibly painful to be half-connected to a culture not only that he has forced himself to reject but also that he feels he can never safely return to? Probably both. He tells Inej he doesn’t believe in Suli superstition, religion, or culture, and yet is deeply upset when she uses it against him. Is this because he actually does believe, or wants to believe, in the Saints and the Suli interpretation of them but has rejected them for survival and the supposed betterment of himself? Possibly.
Bajan strikes me as very similar to Jesper in the way he presents himself as free, flirty, and casual, but had a considerable weight to almost everything he says and considerable pain hidden closer to the surface than he may have realised. I think there are parallels between him and Inej if we want to see them, but also a very stark difference in the way Kerch and Ketterdam have treated them. Bajan may not be privileged but even as an indenture he has - or at least as far as we know has had - a far safer and kinder experience than Inej has. This could be related to gender since the hyper-sexualisation of Suli culture is mostly centred on women - “the Menagerie always stocked a Suli girl” (I’ve intensely analysis this quote before so I won’t now but ugh there’s so much to say) - but we do know there are young boys captive at the pleasure houses as well although less commonly and it’s also possible that this difference is linked to Bajan’s decision to turn his back on Suli culture in order to appeal more to Kerch society whilst Inej continually embraced her culture and arguably became more religious in response to her experiences.
This is complicated because I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Bajan. I understand and support Inej’s perspective and everything she saw whilst in a far more dangerous position that he was, but is it possible that this was a lonely boy who saw someone he thought was like him and tried to communicate with her the only way he thought was safe? You are completely isolated in a foreign culture and hate yourself for having suppressed your own upbringing in order to survive, but now you meet someone else who yes, is in more danger than you, but who you might be able to help so that she can help you in return. You aren’t safe to speak freely and so you subtly tell her that you are an indenture, hoping she acknowledges that none of this is of your free will and because you know that she was indentured too (and remember from a societal pov there is very little understanding of what indentured girls at the pleasure houses actually go through and although that doesn’t excuse ignoring Inej’s trauma it may explain why he doesn’t fully acknowledge that their positions aren’t equal), you tell her that speaking your own shared language makes you feel maudlin, hoping she realises that you desperately miss your homeland and using your language makes you feel even further from your family than you already are because you can’t share it with them. She doesn’t seem to be taking any of it in, your employer has every intention of hurting her and you don’t know what else to do, so you make a last plea: you ask her about home. You think you’ve already made it clear that speaking about home is painful, so you ask her about it to invite that pain, to share it, so you both understand. But it fails, because she only sees your employer puppeteering you. You openly beg her to tell him the truth so that he won’t hurt her but she refuses to comply, and after all of your efforts and your desperate attempts to connect and beg her to help you both go home, her response is to turn your home against you and banish you from it for eternity. So when you see her the next morning, how could you possibly look her in the eye?
Bajan did not make all of the right choices in his brief time on the page. He didn’t. But maybe he was trying really hard, and he had no other options left.
Anyway I’m not saying this is definitive one way or the other it’s just an interpretation but I find him a very interesting and very sad character and I although I support all of Inej’s actions in these scenes from her point of view I do find myself wondering how she appeared to Bajan and how he felt in the aftermath.
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ambientdoom · 10 months
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Look, we all know the Titan’s implosion and the loss of life is a tragedy. There’s just so much irony with all of the events surrounding it that it borders on the ridiculous:
You’re telling me? Another boat? Literally just sank last week??? Except it’s full of *poor* people??? And nobody cared at all??? Get outta here.
Wait, hold on. They’re using a PS5 controller to pilot the thing? And the co-founder LITERALLY MADE STATEMENTS that he’s cut corners… sorry, “broken rules” during the creation of this titanium death trap? They made the hull an ENTIRE 2 INCHES THINNER THAN THEY SHOULD?? Do they know how much pressure is down there? And these people STILL paid him $250k to get into this glorified VW bus??? This can’t be real. The WIFE of one of the billionaires is a DESCENDANT of two people who were actually ON the Titanic!? Dude. No way. The fact that the OceanGate website literally sanitizes the entire operation and makes it seem as if it’s as safe as going to the grocery store…
The fact that this billionaire literally paid for his own son’s death…
What is this if not a literal illustration of everything that is wrong with modern civilization? The people redirecting attention to “those were PEOPLE how COULD you joke about it!?” are arguably drawing attention away from the most important lessons we could take away from this situation. These people were all adults and they made the choice to be there. To say that the exclusivity of being one of the few to see the Titanic, and the other implicitly classist aspects of the situation weren’t contributing factors to this choice would be naive. Not being willing to call attention to the irony in the situation and talk about the societal issues this event highlights is not doing anyone any favors.
…And honestly the people who are virtue signaling about this whole thing are also kinda the same people ignoring the refugee ship sinking and being refused aid. Which is pretty cringe bro ngl
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bakuhatsufallinlove · 23 days
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U.A. High School Field Trip Around Japan: Day 1 Translations
To celebrate My Hero Academia reaching one hundred million copies worldwide, Shonen Jump is releasing special illustrations in the newspapers of Japan's 47 prefectures, calling it "U.A. High School Field Trip Around Japan." It's being rolled out daily across one-week.
The schedule is:
April 4th, Day 1: Hokkaidō & Tōhōku regions
April 5th, Day 2: Kantō region
April 6th, Day 3: Chūbu region
April 7th, Day 4: Kansai region
April 8th, Day 5: Chūgoku & Shikoku regions
April 9th, Day 6: Kyūshū & Okinawa regions
April 10th, Day 7: Nationwide release
You can see the illustrations on their website here, where they are released digitally the day after their newspaper release, so Day 1 and Day 2 are available right now.
The illustrations depict charming scenes between Class 1-A about something related to each prefecture's culture or history, so I thought it would be really fun to translate them and share a little bit about Japan.
Here we go!
Note: As I mentioned, the illustrations are available on the official site, but they are all rather small, which makes them hard to read, so in this post I have included photographs from fans which I used for my translations. Every photo was available publicly on twitter and I have credited the posters, but please be respectful and don't draw undue attention to these fans. If anyone contacts me wishing for their photo to be removed, I will do so.
Hokkaidō Region
Hokkaidō
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Photo credit: twitter user URix0307
Iida: "Heroes! Be ambitious!!' Aizawa: "I'm leaving you behind."
Iida is standing in front of the statue of William S. Clark at Hitsujigaoka Observation Hill, a scenic spot in Sapporo. Clark worked with the Japanese government to found Sapporo Agricultural College (now Hokkaidō University) in 1876; he is a very famous figure in the history of the region. The statue is inscribed with a quote attributed to him as he left Japan: "Boys, be ambitious!"
Tōhōku Region
Aomori
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Photo credit: twitter user redaotkrsn
Dark Shadow: "Fumikage!! I GOT ONE!!" Tokoyami: "The allure of forbidden fruit which tastes so sweet..." Dark Shadow: "One simply cannot resist!" Asui: "Tokoyami-chan sure likes apples, huh?"
Agriculture is huge in Aomori, and specifically they are famous for their apples, contributing about 60% of Japan's entire apple production. Raw apples, jams, juices, desserts, etc., they are everywhere in Aomori, and fyi, they are all absolutely delicious. The sweetest, richest, freshest apples I've ever had in my life were the ones I had here! Dark Shadow is right, one simply cannot resist!!!
Iwate
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Photo credit: twitter user bakkk_17
Todoroki: "I can have as many bowls as I want, right?" Endeavor: "SHOUTOOOOO!!!" Kouda: "Todoroki-kun!! Your dad said he wants to eat with you, too!!" Todoroki: "Check, please."
Todoroki is eating wanko soba, a specialty from Iwate where it's basically an all-you-can-eat. The soba is served in many small bowls, and you slurp them up and immediately get served more. The verb he uses, ikeru, is one people also use for "holding your liquor well," which I personally found hilarious. "Oh yeah, I can hold my noodles."
Miyagi
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Photo credit: twitter user Abino_Haru_Maki
Ashido: "Teacher, what's wrong? You keep lollygagging about!" Aizawa: "Kittykittykitty..." Shouji: "Anybody suspicious around? Nothing has come up in my search for enemies." Iida: "We're leaving you behind, teacher."
Miyagi is famous for being home to Tashirojima, the so-called "Cat Island" where cats outnumber people. Iida gets revenge!!
Akita
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Photo credit: twitter user kado0730
Hagakure: "Namahage faces are so scary!!" Kaminari: "Looks just like Bakugou, don't it." Bakugou: "THERE'S NO RESEMBLANCE AT ALL, I'LL SEND YOU FLYING!!" Sero: "He's a rotten kid who looks just like a Namahage!"
Namahage are frightening folkloric figures from Akita's New Year's festival. Men wear big demon masks and straw coats and wield a (fake) weapon; they march through the streets or knock on doors to scold misbehaving children, asking if there are any "warui ko," (naughty/rotten/bad kids), which is what Sero calls Bakugou.
Yamagata
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Photo credit: twitter user ha_n_a_0
Yaoyorozu: "Oh, tranquility! Penetrating the very rock, a cicada’s voice." Kaminari: "Jirou! How about you put your earphones on that rock?" Jirou: "Are you stupid?"
Yaoyorozu is reciting a famous poem by Basho Matsuo written when he visited the Buddhist temple, Risshaku-ji (also called Yamadera, meaning "mountain temple"). This translation is by Helen Craig McCullough. Risshaku-ji, a National Historic site, is home to a number of beautiful buildings and statues built into the mountainside; temple history claims a lineage back to the 9th century. The trail up to the temple consists of 1,015 steps; I visited in winter, which made it quite the precarious climb!
Fukushima
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Photo credit: twitter user kingyo0927
Kirishima: "This right here is what I should be aiming for!!" Aoyama: "A fateful encounter~!" Bakugou: "When I said 'just being able to keep standing through anything makes you crazy strong,' this ain't what I meant!!"
Kirishima is looking at rows of okiagari koboshi, which are traditional papier-mâché dolls popular in Fukushima's western Aizu region. They are weighted so that no matter what you do to them, they pop right back up to standing!
That's all for Day 1! I'm still translating Day 2 and collecting Day 3's as they roll in, so please look forward to those. :D
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raydays-swap-au · 24 days
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Rayday's Swap AU ~ Vox
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This is probably my most out-there design for my swap AU so far, but I have my reasons! Please just hear me out, guys--
More information about the design + "sprites" under the cut
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Why his face looks like it does - I tried my best to emulate the UPA style. I actually had to research for this shit, and I accidentally made him have a Butch Hartman face at first, but I figured it out eventually I think. I felt like I had to add the nose though, cuz it's honestly pretty common in illustrations from the 1940s/1950s where this style originates from ( from what I read. ) Either way, I felt it was important to have a style from around the era he died for his face, and Vox's character in my swap AU is the old-timey type.
Why no shoes - This decision is also due to the UPA style, where a lot of male characters would have their legs me entirely black. I decided to add the hatching and lighter lineart though to make it obvious where his legs separate and all.
Tie instead of bowtie - This is simply due to the fact ties being more common in the 1940s/1950s from the quick Google searches about that era's fashion I did.
More simplistic/shape-y style - This is also due to the UPA style. It was actually rather fun to emulate, if I'm honest, and I think I mixed the UPA- and Helluva styles relatively well imo idk.
Microphone cane/staff - This is pretty much inspired by the older types of mics, and while the eye's style isn't from the UPA style, it was the easiest way to convey it's an eye in an older artstyle while also making it look good to me.
Color scheme - For his color scheme I first colored everything in grayscale ( with some blue accents ) and then put a blue, transparent layer over it to pull it all together. Not only does this give a nod to the fact older TVs used grayscale, but it also ties into how regular Alastor's color scheme is mainly entirely red. Still not too sure if I made the color scheme too light, but eh I'm too lazy to change it now considering I've been drawing for a while.
Swiped-to-the-side antennae - This was a design choice based on how hairstyles from Vox's era used to be slicked-back, and I thought it'd be a neat idea to have his antennae emulate that.
TV head model - It's simply loosely based on TVs from the 1950s. Do note most of the TVs back then ( from what I saw ) had a more wooden look, but I just wanted to stick to the grayscale/blue color scheme more.
Neck stripe wires - giving him a regular neck felt a little off, so he got metal pipes/wires for a neck now. Why? Because I say so and it makes the design a little more interesting.
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Aaaand here's the "sprite"!
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jayteacups · 1 year
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Ignorance Is Bliss
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Out of the entire cast of Attack on Titan, the member that spends the least time online is probably Levi. And after seeing the responses to the latest collaboration promotional photoshoot, he wants to keep it that way.
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Pairing: Levi Ackerman x GN!Reader
Tags and warnings: Actor AU, established relationship, fluff, (my sorry attempt at) humour, some other characters are mentioned, a few suggestive things are briefly brought up in the form of internet slang, mild spoiler about Levi's state in S4
Word count: 1.1k
A/N: First piece of writing in almost three months 😭 my writing is rough I apologise in advance. Anyway this is very much inspired by the AOT x Gutedama collab illustrations. Might the use of internet slang become very dated in a few years? Probably. Did that stop me from writing this? No. Enjoy this incredibly dumb piece of writing XD
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“Why the fuck are they calling me ‘breedable’?” Levi grumbles under his breath, causing you to choke back a laugh. 
Setting your book aside, you shuffle closer to your boyfriend on the sofa. “What did you just say?” You ask, incredulous. You’re not entirely sure you heard him correctly—it isn’t a sentence you imagined leaving his mouth, ever. 
“I said,” Levi repeats, waving his phone in his hand, “these random perverts on the internet are calling me ‘submissive and breedable’.” With his other hand, he creates air quotation marks. A deep blush washes across his cheeks and ears. “They’re all saying I did a slutty pose, too. How is that slutty? How?” 
They’re not wrong, is the sentence that lingers on the tip of your tongue. Instead, you reach out, your lips twitching. “Let me see.” 
He sighs and relents, pressing his phone into your hand. He’s been browsing Twitter. Or, more specifically, scrolling through the replies underneath a promotional photoshoot he and his cast members had a few weeks ago: some kind of collaboration with Gutedama, the Sanrio character. You’ve seen the photo before—the actors involved were able to get a sneak peek of the photos a week before they were to be posted, and Levi had shown you his. You’d thought it was hilarious, the way Eren, Mikasa, Armin and Hange all had ordinary, somewhat conservative poses, as opposed to Levi. 
“I’m not surprised they’re reacting this way,” you muse, zooming in on Levi’s photo. “You do happen to be the only one on your back, with your legs spread and knees up, giving the camera a very clear view of your crotch. You also happen to be the only one with the ODM straps on, so that does draw attention to your thighs—which look great, by the way…” 
Levi crosses his arms. “Don’t tell me you agree with those degenerates.” 
Saying nothing, you pointedly continue to scroll through the replies and quotes. ‘He’s so babygirl,’ reads one. ‘I am going to breed this man,’ reads another. Both of those are very tame in comparison to what you have seen before, but as you dive in further, the comments become more and more debauched, most obviously being exaggerated jokes. It’s become the norm. You’re not threatened in the slightest, not at all—in fact, you’re amused. You simply tilt your head and say, “hm.” 
Levi throws his hands in the air in exasperation. “Not you too.”
You look up at him through your lashes. “Listen,” you begin, “I’ve been thinking this since day one, but for your sake I didn’t say anything—”
“I am never doing these photoshoots ever again,” he grouses, rubbing his temples. “It’s not… it wasn't even my idea, the photographer asked me to pose like that.” 
“Oh, trust me, they got you to pose like that for a reason.” You pass Levi’s phone back to him, patting his shoulder gently. 
He scoffs. 
“Maybe you should avoid Twitter for a bit, sweetheart, because this isn’t going to end any time soon.” 
Sighing, Levi sets his phone down firmly. He resettles on the sofa next to you, his shoulder touching yours, warm body pressing up against your side.  “I still don’t get it,” he grumbles. A small wrinkle appears between his brows. 
“Get what?” Carefully, you lower your head and press a gentle kiss on the space between his eyebrows, right on the little furrow. He shuffles closer, now leaning his weight against you. 
“I get that they’re joking, but… some of the perversions they’re speaking of don’t even make any sense. For a moment, I thought about asking Connie, because the kid basically lives on Twitter—seriously, his screentime is concerning—but knowing him, he’s not going to tell me anything helpful. He laughed in my face last time.” 
“Wait, you asked him about this stuff before?” 
Levi’s gone redder than a tomato. “I asked him what a ‘little meow meow’ was when the promo photos of me in the bandages got posted.” 
You know perfectly well what a ‘little meow meow’ is, but elect not to say anything. 
He continues on with his rant, nose wrinkling in both disgust and confusion. “That was a clear lapse of judgement, I know. I’m not asking him or the other kids a thing about this shit ever again. Anyway. What’s with these Twitter users wanting to ‘breed’ me? That’s not even possible. And what does ‘babygirl’ even mean? Isn’t that—” His face sours even further, a realisation dawning upon him. “Fuck, no.” 
“What?” 
“Isn’t that what the creepy guy from 365 Days says to the main character? That’s… no. I hate it. I hate everything. Fuck this.” 
You tilt your head back and laugh. One of your hands comes up to cup the back of Levi’s head, pressing his face to your chest. “No, no, it’s not like that. It’s… it’s an internet saying. Don’t think too much about it, yeah?” 
“You know what? I take all my questions back. I really don’t want to know.” His words are muffled. The two of you are sinking further and further into the sofa, lying almost horizontally, with him on top of you. 
Giggling, you slip your fingers through his silky hair. “You know what they say. Ignorance is bliss.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“So why were you looking through Twitter, then, hm? You usually stay off social media for weeks on end.” 
“Why’d you think? The rest of the cast wouldn’t shut up about it in the group chat, saying I had to see what the responses to the photoshoot were…”
“By the rest of the cast,” your lips twitch with barely restrained laughter, “you mean Hange and Zeke, don’t you?” Those two always love to tease Levi about his rabid fanbase. “I honestly would not be surprised if one of those replies was Zeke on his burner account, having a laugh. You know how much he enjoys winding you up.” 
“Fucking hell. I would not put it past him, now that you mention it. Thanks for putting that weird picture into my head.” He rolls his eyes, as you laugh. 
———
After enjoying his morning off, Levi gets a private text from Erwin whilst he’s on his way to set: What was all the ruckus about on the cast group chat? I don’t quite understand what was so funny.  
He sighs, tapping an answer back on his phone. 
Ignorance is bliss, Erwin. 
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iztea · 4 months
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How do you get the ideas for your backgrounds?
mmm ideas.... sometimes i draw the background directly from a photo reference (the happy case) so there's not a lot for me to change and i can have a rather peaceful painting process
othertimes, the BG is tied to the subject/concept/scene I'm thinking of, so it only makes sense that i have that as the background
for example, for this fem skk art, i knew i wanted to have chuu kneeling in a crater after destroying a city so drawing that background was just a logical follow-up because i already had the entire idea in mind
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Here, I wanted to have Akiangel sit on a building, watching over the city. The ominous sign with "the day of salvation" and crow came later after I found this picture on Pinterest, so they helped further develop the concept, but the main idea was there and so on
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The third background option happens when my painting doesn't depict a certain irl scene or landscape, nor do i have any particular references i can use. In that situation, I first and foremost think about the general composition, the shapes, how they flow with each other, how I can tie them to my main theme and what sort of symbolism or little easter eggs i can throw in there just to keep it fresh and interesting for the viewer ( aka the person reading this aha ;;) :-* )
For this piece, i started with a big circle for the background, and then I started breaking it up in pleasing, cloud-like shapes and swirls that constantly keep your eye moving around the picture (i mean hopefully lol). The composition was inspired by a) Dazai's Mayoi card ofc, that trad Eastern illustration style with the circle and then branches of trees, and also .. kazuha's splash art ok i admit it bshsj
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for this one, the roses came much, much later. Again, I added that sort of golden arcade to better frame the focal point or the main subject of the scene which was ofc her face and/or outfit. Then, since it still felt rather empty, awkward, and directionless, I tried finding a pleasing, spiral line that would compliment the already existing shapes and that would, again, move your eye all around the composition. I figured since her outfit already had those small roses stuffed in her belt, those curvy lines could become some bloody, spikey roses and boom! here are the theme and elements for you: blacks-roses-blood-deadly-sharp-gold etc. I then had her crush some of those roses in her right (ik it's the left hand shut up) hand to balance out the busier left side
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and a last example, sometimes I draw multiple character poses in one piece and they sort of become my background. Yet I still have some blank spaces left so i gotta figure out a way to fill them out. Here, since the pose where he's all curled up was inspired by the TDIPUD light novel, i drew him as a "corpse" in a pool of blood, and contrasted it with some nice flowery-ish patterns and swirls that sort of come from within that bloody mess ( someone also mentioned it looks like a womb which I found very interesting as well ). The cats also helped fill out the space. On the left side, i added that swirly black sun that drips into three squares that gradually fill up with straight blackness and raindrops falling below inspired by the "a conviction that the sun will never rise again" line. I don't think I should go into detail with the symbolism cause it's pretty obvious and not that deep so i won't but yeah, and that's my BG all filled up!
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I do this with most of my BGs, it's mostly just abstract shapes; I'm very fixated on making the overall composition look okay and for the piece to send a message ( most of the time ), so i don't think of backgrounds as a separate entity, they are part of an already existing idea, generally speaking.
This kinda turned into a composition discussion midway......... sorry about that....... To be completely honest with you, I have plenty of BG ideas, they kinda just spawn in my brain so i'm not exactly lacking in that department. Having to draw them and finding refs is the hard part for me
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hlupdate · 9 months
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W​​hat’s the secret to a great portrait? At 86 years old, David Hockney has a few ideas. A lifetime of looking has taught him to always start with the face. “I begin with the head first,” he says, matter-of-factly, from his home in France. “From there, I place everything else.”
That was his approach when, late last May, Harry Styles traveled to his light-filled studio in Normandy and stationed himself on a cane chair, ready to become the esteemed artist’s latest subject. Over two days, Hockney worked to capture the exact hues of red and yellow in Styles’s striped cardigan, the indigo of his jeans, the string of pearls at his neck—not to mention the unmistakable tousled fringe of one of the world’s biggest pop stars. For the artist, though, the goal was merely to capture the essence of the person in front of him. “I wasn’t really aware of his celebrity then,” Hockney says, with a shrug. “He was just another person who came to the studio.”
The pair struck up an instant rapport that was likely helped by Styles being a full-on fanboy. For his Vogue cover shoot in 2020, Styles wore a pair of hand-painted Bode cords that featured a talismanic illustration of Hockney by artist Aayushia Khowala. It’s also hard to imagine the wide-eyed wonder of a flamboyant Brit discovering the sunny thrills and spills of California—a theme, and sound, that has permeated the former One Direction singer’s solo albums—without Hockney as a precedent. “David Hockney has been reinventing the way we look at the world for decades,” says Styles. “It was a complete privilege to be painted by him.”
The unveiling of the portrait kicks off the second iteration of the National Portrait Gallery’s Hockney exhibition “Drawing From Life,” which first opened in February 2020, only to close weeks later due to the pandemic. With the addition of a new room of pictures charting Hockney’s creative impulses throughout lockdown, the show returns on November 2—a few months after a refurbishment of the entire museum—with Styles’s portrait as its crown jewel. “The whole world shut down, and the exhibition was still sitting there, in the dark,” recalls Sarah Howgate, the gallery’s senior curator of contemporary collections, who oversaw the exhibition in both phases. “So it’s nice to know it will have another life.”
The Styles painting may bring star wattage, but the unassuming genius of Hockney’s portraiture is still the main exhibition draw. What makes his images tick, you quickly learn, is their honesty: whether in the tension bubbling beneath the surface of his famed double portrait of Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell, painted between 1970 and ’71, or the seated figures that populated his 2016 Royal Academy of Arts exhibition, which included the likes of his own sister, Margaret, and the late comedian Barry Humphries. Hockney’s eye for the human figure may be playful, often kaleidoscopic, sometimes fantastical—but it’s always, most importantly, frank.
Styles’s portrait will hang alongside those of writer Gregory Evans, Hockney’s printer Maurice Payne, the mayor of his local town Dozulé, his gardener, and even his chiropodist, or in Hockney’s words, “the dandy who cuts my toenails.”
One of his more recent subjects was the eminent music producer Clive Davis, who first suggested inviting Styles to swing by. “Clive told me about Harry’s new album, and JP [Hockney’s studio assistant] sent Harry a note and asked him if he’d like to come to my studio and sit for his portrait,” Hockney remembers. “He replied straight away and said, yes, he’d love to.” From there, Hockney’s process of painting Styles was instinctive. “Everybody just came to sit,” he says, breezily, before admitting: “Now I know Harry’s a celebrity, though: I’ve seen all his music videos.”
“He’s not a traditional portrait painter,” says Howgate. Hockney’s interest is not in what people do, but rather in who they are. “He’s not interested in fame. He’s interested in depicting people and their relationships.” It’s why his eye is primarily trained on his inner circle these days—but it also pays testament to his enduring curiosity that he’s still willing to open that up to a newcomer every so often. Styles seems to know how lucky he is, adding, with a tinge of disbelief: “I’m in awe of the man with enough one-liners for a lifetime.” As to what those one-liners might be? Styles and Hockney’s mutual silence on that question suggests that what happens in the studio, stays in the studio.
“David Hockney: Drawing From Life” will be at the National Portrait Gallery from November 2 to January 21, 2024.
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maple-seed · 6 months
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Thrown - Chapter 43: A Perfect Fit
Summary: You and Loki discuss the upcoming ball.
Word Count: 1,251
Author's Notes: I was hoping to keep the once-a-week schedule up at least through November, but the days have gotten darker more quickly than I expected. May be switching to every-other-week. Will decide in the next several days.
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"This neckline, I believe, would most suit you, my lady." Elof held up the bodice of a dress as an example. You nodded. "I'll trust your judgement on that." "Excellent. Now, if you please?" The tailor gestured to a riser near a set of mirrors. You gingerly stepped up and he bustled about, taking measurements with his tape and writing on a pad.
Loki stood nearby, leaning against a table and watching you intently. The preparations for the Midsummer ball were moving along on schedule. This meant Elof certainly had all the work he needed, but he had been adamant that you were not to wear a dress made by anyone else. Then, when he found out you would be attending on Loki's arm he insisted on a fitting immediately. A grander dress was called for, was the reason given. You had tried to protest but he wouldn't hear it. It was a scenario Loki had seen play out a few times now with Æsir who were determined to repay your kindness. You were often reluctant to receive any boon, but you were met with the same dogged generosity that you had surely shown them. A smile turned up his lips as he watched you now. Your expression was somewhat awkward as Elof circled you and made notes on each of your dimensions. Loki's mind was already swimming in the image of you in an Asgardian gown. He couldn't wait to see it.
"So, my dear, what were you thinking for the color?" Elof looked up from the pad, his eyes cutting to Loki. "I was thinking red?" You kept your expression perfectly level, but Loki knew better. "Maybe a nice crimson?" Loki set his jaw and narrowed his eyes. "Never entangle yourself with a mortal woman, Elof." He warned as he pushed off the table. He kept his glare fixed on you as he approached. "She will try your patience at every turn." You were doing your best to rein in your smirk as you looked down at him from the riser. Elof chuckled while he scribbled something on his pad. "I would expect nothing less from your match, sire." Your eyebrows rose in victory. Loki took your hand and considered it for a moment before placing a kiss to it and meeting your eyes again. "I suppose you're right." Elof waved toward another room. "I have some very lovely green fabrics in my inventory, if you would like to come take a look." "I guess that will do." You sighed dramatically as Loki helped you step down.
**
Upon leaving the tailor's shop you immediately took Loki's arm and leaned into him as the two of you walked down the street. This garnered a few stray glances. Contrary to what Thor might have led him to believe, the shared feelings between the two of you had not been known by the entire population. Though the gossip seemed to be spreading quickly and he had yet to meet someone who seemed surprised at the revelation.
"Tell me again what I can expect at this ball." You squeezed his arm as you walked. "Food and dancing. Wreaths of flowers. Outside there will be bonfires. Plenty to drink. For the Æsir, even. I hear that Asbjorn and his sons are building up enough stock of their Asgardian spirits to drown half the town." He looked down at you. "The food and drink will be the main draw. And the dancing." You bit your lip. "I'm a little worried about the dancing." Loki waved away your concern. "Nonsense. You're a beautiful dancer." You looked up at him skeptically. "That's not what you told me before." "Well, you dance beautifully when I'm leading you." To illustrate his point he stopped, took your hand, and spun you away before drawing you back to him. "And I will be leading you." You laughed as you regained your footing. "And what if someone else asks me to dance?" "You are welcome to make a fool of yourself with another partner." Your laugh was light and you tucked yourself against him again.
He took you on a leisurely stroll through New Asgard. Tonight's dinner was to be held at his home, so there was no need for any hurry. The weather was fair, spring was bringing gradually warmer weather each day. The two of you meandered down the streets until you reached the building site of the hall and found Thor at work managing the efforts there. After some coaxing --and a stern look from you-- he was eventually convinced to take his leave and join Loki for their evening walk.
Thor turned to you. "I understand you were making your own Midsummer plans today?" An uncertain nod from you. "Yeah. Elof just won't take no for an answer. I'm still convinced I'll be completely out of place at a ball, but at least I'll be dressed for the party." Loki was about to object when Thor did it for him. "Ridiculous! You would never be out of place. You belong at the ball. It is your place." He opened his arms to gesture to the town before him. "Just as this is our place. Our new home, where we didn't belong but now we do." He clapped you on the back. "That's precisely what we are celebrating." "Okay, okay." You put your hands up in surrender. "You don't have to weaponize the unity of our people." Loki smirked and gave his brother an approving nod when you weren't looking.
"Elof asked me what color dress I wanted." You glanced up at Thor. "I told him I'd like red." Thor's eyes immediately lit with a teasing mischief. "Ah. A superior color, to be sure." Loki glowered. "I thought so too," you continued with a wry smile, "but he seemed to think I should go with green instead." "I think I can explain. You likely don't know this, but red is considered to be my color." He pressed a hand to his chest dramatically. "It would give people entirely the wrong idea about the two of us." "Oh, I see." "This charade is beneath the both of you." Loki muttered. "Could you imagine?" Thor bellowed a false laugh. "A prince of Asgard, courting a lowly mortal?" You were grinning, and feigned a gasp. "The scandal!" "That is really quite enough." Loki interjected. "Well I would hate for you to lose face like that." You didn't appear to hear Loki at all. "I'm glad Elof set me straight." "I will have to thank him for saving the crown from such shame." Thor nodded. "It would be no trouble at all for me to drop the both of you in the harbor." Loki scowled. You and Thor subsided, but not before indulging in a laugh at Loki's irritation.
The walk ended at the brothers' house, where Valkyrie was already waiting with dinner from a restaurant in town. The four of you sat down to share a meal and it occurred to Loki what a strange party this was: the rightful king of Asgard, his brother from another universe, a warrior lost and returned, and a human who had simply decided it was her business to help. Still, somehow, nothing could have felt more natural.
When the night drew to a close you bid goodbye to Thor and the Valkyrie. Loki walked with you to your home. You reached down to lace your fingers with his. Even your hands fit together perfectly.
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