#—wings adjust in size based off of the person

[greenwingss]

hmmm idk if in actually ginna get to writing abt the bird au courtship thing. so!!! i’ll bulletpoint infodump some idess i have here:)

-preening is actually an act of intimacy for owls— and they’ll need to do that regardless bc it’s not really easy to reach all of one’s feathers when your wings are as ling as you are tall (plus, since stan and ford have owl wings, they’d need to apply a synthetic wing oil so they dont go hypothermic and/or sink if they land in the water)

-ford rubbing noses with stan (mostly when he’s asleep; though he might do it a few timed when they’re awake, too;3)

-stan making sure ford eats, even if he needs to handfeed him himself*

-occasionally, they end up doing mating calls back and forth; hoots n’ stuff:) not often though; and mostly when theyre more aware of the otjer’s feelings

-when they actually know about the toher’s feelings more, they might actually also do the more typical ourting habits (ford doing the bowing with drooped wings, stan making a nest similar to how eurasian eagle owls do, ect)

-i’d imagine that (unless i change my mind and add like. proper abo style dynamics to the au) that in same sex relationships the ‘female’ and ‘male’ in the instincts (for my ease if nothing else; most of the courting behavior articles assume theyre a male/female fairing) will be based off size:) stan’s wings are larger, but ford is the taller one; leading to stan taking up the male role, usually, but they’re close enough in size that it’d probably be switched up pretty often**

[lovifie]

Hormones

When you suddenly find yourself thirsting over your LT!Simon that on any normal day you have to restrain yourself from throwing a chair at.

Enemies to lovers | Fluff | smut | 895 words Next Part

It's been a couple of months since you started working with the Task Force 141, an awesome force of men that save the world while the world sleeps.

The same way Soap and Gaz are, you are a sergeant. Not yet included in the task force officially, but still being asked to tag along to some missions.

It's been great! The sergeant's quickly become like childhood friends, the captain took you under his wing like one more of the team, Laswell is euphoric there is another woman and the lieutenant… Well, he's there.

It's not that you would expect him to give you special treatment, THE Ghost from Task Force 141. You are not a nosy person, but c’mon, it's Ghost! Who hasn't heard of him?

In the military world, it was the closest to meeting a celebrity. You were not expecting him to fall head over heels for you, but you were still a bit taken back when the first thing he said to you was:

“The fuck you looking at? Want a pat on the back for making it here without shitting yourself in the process? Get the fuck out of my face, go bother somebody else.”

You were not expecting a kiss on the forehead, but shit, a “Good morning” would have been enough.

Still, as time went on, the interactions between the LT and you remained just as bad. At the end, you stopped trying to talk to him, and just asked the sergeants or the Captain.

Except that bothered him too, like a stubborn toddler.

“Now you are too great to speak to your immediate superior? Need to go cry to the Captain like a brat? Make sure not to wet your nappies, soldier.”

And honestly, what's his fucking problem?

As a sergeant, you are proud to admit you have a wide range of skills and abilities, one of them being your patience to not absolutely destroy all the idiots that you have come across in your life. But honestly, you can feel it run thin as time goes by.

Even the captain had to jump to your rescue on more than one occasion, when Simon attack was completely uncalled for or he got a bit too hurtful.

But unlike your lieutenant, you remain professional. Listening to your captain, getting along with your sargeants and completely ignoring your lieutenant.

Until today.

The summer weather, great when sunbathing, not great when the AC is broken and you get stuffed in a room without windows for a debriefing with the team.

It's Ghost's turn to talk, standing to his full heights, when he finally takes off his jacket. And your eyes follow the movement, and then they just… stay there.

The tablet he is using looks like a smartphone on his hand, digits so thick you wonder how he manages to get them on the weapons triggers. The tendons of his hands moved under the skin as he adjusts his hold of the electronic.

And you follow the line, taking in the tattoo sleeve on his left arm, trying to decipher what they are supposed to be, some damaged with scars, others seems so old the ink got blurry, but still you can tell the way his muscles move under them.

Such a big arm, you know he could lift you with ease. Shit, he could lift everyone in the room. His biceps must be the size of your head, and he seems so unbothered by it, like it is not incredible the way he is built.

He switched his weight from one leg to the other, and your eyes traveled to his hips and waist. A waist that looks small, not that it is, there is nothing small about this man, but the sheer size of his shoulders in contrast makes his waist look small. His shoulders and his back, wide enough that it makes you wonder how he can enter through the door at base. He must enter sideways, there is no other way.

His hips called you again, making your eyes travel down your body, until they set between his legs. The bulge in there makes you feel offended, of course the idiot would be packing even when soft. How dare he?

Would he be a grower or a shower? Cause if he is a grower and this is the soft stage, you wonder how he doesn't get tangled.

You wouldn't mind getting tangled, you think, biting your lip.

Wait.

WAIT.

WHY ARE YOU THIRSTING FOR HIM?!

You look at the front, standing straight, and come face to face with Soap; who is perfectly aware of hour hatred towards hour LT is now looking at you like you just grew a second head on your shoulder. For a moment you don't know who looks more confused with your actions.

A silly thought goes through your head, and you pull your phone out, opening your period track app. And as you guessed, you were right. You show your screen to Soap and as he read: “Prediction: Ovulation. High risk of getting pregnant.” He burst out laughing making you chuckle as well as you shake your head.

Maybe, if you wouldn't have been so engrossed in your imagination, you could have noticed the way Ghost was stuttering while speaking, in ecstasy he finally managed to get a reaction out of you.

[enteringdullsville]

I got bored so I made a thing. Modern Nick AU featuring a handful of the child protagonists, a chibified SpongeBob being their chaperone? A summer camp setting, perhaps? With everyone save for Danny, Jenny, and Dora having their ages fudged to be closer?

Sure, why not? From left to right:

Sanjay Patel

He may or may not have snuck Craig into his cabin, and Craig may or may not have started charging people for “sage advice from the talking snake”

Sanjay’s a relatively good kid but kind of a hellion. Manny spends much of his early life in a moral dilemma. Having them be partners seemed like a logical decision

His bowling pin head was really hard to adapt to my usual style without utterly mangling his face, but I think I did alright

Manny Rivera

He’s wearing the boots and scarf from his El Tigre costume

Bessie thinks he’s the coolest thing, but his and Danny’s egos clash almost immediately

This presumably takes place after he’s settled on heroism, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a troublemaker

April O’Neil

She’s quite possibly the only person getting any actual work done in camp

She’s ostensibly the least insane person in the group, but she’s prone to egging on the others’ antics and starting bets on how much things will escalate

Her age has been dropped a couple of years, so she’s often with Lincoln foiling Dora’s whole escape artist routine

Tommy Pickles

Still on his filmmaker career from All Grown Up! He has a lot of footage of a lot of things in a lot of places

Normally mild mannered and agreeable, but being given “strict orders” instantly makes his good mood vanish

His mind tends to wander when he’s bored, and it has no regard for its curfew

Lincoln Loud

He’s a weeb canonically, so he’s been given a vaguely animesque appearance

Whatever camp this takes place at, I can guarantee at least one of his sisters had been there prior. Since most of the characters here are the Everyman type, Linc’s cunning and trickster attributes are played up a bit

Has no regard for the fourth wall. Tommy has no clue what he’s on about and thinks he’s insane

Aang (Just Aang)

Whether or not he can bend is based purely on what’s funniest at the moment, especially since he and Dib make it impossible for this to be canon compliant

He’s definitely living in an AU with a less horrific backstory. Less responsibilities, less issues

Wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he’d definitely give a wasp a warning shot if it was being a jerk

Danny Fenton

Danny, and only Danny, is actually a little older here. He and Jenny are the counselors. Lucky them.

Doesn’t even bother with the secret identity since Bob’s the only one dense enough to not connect the dots

Being able to turn invisible is really helpful when Dib has questions he doesn’t feel like answering

Jimmy Neutron

There he is, officer. That one’s the ringleader

Aang’s existence is a constant source of frustration for him since he can’t come up with a scientific explanation for all…that

He’s right off the heels of Nicktoons Unite and is wondering when and why SB became so serious

SpongeBob SquarePants

The only adult we see at the camp for some reason, and the only nonhuman besides Jenny

I messed up his scaling, he was supposed to be small enough to fit in someone’s hand, hence his overly simplified design. That’s the height he is in-universe

Ironically and disproportionately strong. Not Jenny’s level, but about as strong as he is in Unite…without being adjusted for size. In other words, he can easily pick up and throw the campers like rag dolls

Jenny Wakeman

The only nonhuman kid at camp, as well as the oldest/youngest at 16/5

She’s the one thing stopping land bears from tearing the camp apart

She’s justifiably a little wary since she’s not exactly nature proof, but all the kids think she’s the coolest thing

Timmy Turner

A closer look at him reveals three familiar looking trinkets shaped like a wand, wings, and a floaty crowny thing

He doesn’t need magic, anyway. He’ll make everything possibly go wrong his own way

He and Bessie butt heads almost immediately; Timmy’s fine with one hypercompetent overachieving Girl Scout in his life, but he does not need another

Ginger Foutley

Usually found with fellow artsy types Rudy and Lincoln

Riddled with anxieties and restless leg syndrome. She comes of as brooding, but she’s just introspective

Since April’s a menace, she’s the actual least insane camper

Eliza Thornberry

It took her a bit to realize SpongeBob could actually talk to begin with and that everyone else didn’t have the same power as her. In fact, there’s a non-zero chance there are a bunch of animals from assorted Nick shows that are screaming in the background constantly and it’s messing with her head

I gave her just the one braid to make her distinct from the other Elizabeth in the cast

She slips in and out of her father’s mannerisms. SMASHING!

Rudy Tabootie

Mysteriously disappears to parts unknown it’stheChalkZone every now and then when he needs to blow off some steam

I find it funny how stylized I made everyone else while Rudy’s just slightly taller

SpongeBob sees a lot of himself in the kid. Rudy doesn’t know how to feel about that

Dora Marquez

Y’know, I added her as a joke, and she immediately became my favorite

She’s the youngest kid at her canon age of seven, so she’s coddled by everyone else. She HATES it, given that she’s been adventuring on her own for the longest time, so she’s a lot more cynical than usual. Easily the biggest departure from the norm

Constantly tries to escape supervision in favor of wandering the wilderness, but the talking cheese won’t let her

Arnold Shortman

He doesn’t know how he ended up as the “cool guy”, but he’s not gonna fight it

Appears detached and aloof, but he’s more likely just dissociating

Always seems to know what he’s doing to the point of parody. As smart as he is, I must reiterate he’s just improvising

Dib Membrane

Eliza, Rudy, and especially Timmy aren’t too keen on hanging around him for very obvious reasons

The fact he’s with people who are reasonably sane this time around means he’s in much better spirits. Lincoln’s probably his best friend at the camp, although Dib’s still a loner

He and Jimmy always run the risk of killing each other if they talk for more than two minutes at a time due to differing views on magic

Bessie Higgenbottom

The kid most likely to actually listen to the inane drivel that comes out of SpongeBob’s mouth

Since she’s still working on the whole Mighty Bee thing, she’s all over Manny, Danny, and Janny

There are very few campers that aren’t at least a little intimidated by her

There were a few other characters I wanted to add like Nate Wright (Big Nate), Annie Bramley (It’s Pony), Mikey Munroe (Bunsen is a Beast), but I scrapped them for space.

I elected to only use one character per series, causing me to drop Korra, Sheen Estevez, Ronnie Anne Santiago, and Hazel Wells for being spinoff characters (especially since Sheen and Ronnie Anne were around before getting their own shows). It also forced me to remove Fanboy and Chum Chum from my initial plan entirely.

I additionally wanted to keep SB as the only organic nonhuman character due to the inherent absurdity of having him as the sole adult figure, which is why Dib and April represent their series rather than Zim or a Ninja Turtle and why I chose not to use Harvey Beaks.

[yurissweettooth]

My Typical Art Process✨🌈

Was gonna reply to anon with this, but figured it was a bit too unrelated so I'll make a separate post! I do kinda wanna share my process anyway for anyone curious. I made something similar for twitter once but I no longer use twitter and my style has changed since then so here's a new one!

Tl;dr I draw for fun only and I have learned that textures and overlays and post-processing can do a LOT when it comes to making something look more "complete" while also not taking a lot of additional time. This is just my personal style spawned from my laziness and my love of harsh colors😆

I'll put it below the cut because it's long!

So to begin with, when I doodle (as opposed to a proper drawing that I take my time on) this is my typical "lineart":

I just draw the… what do you call it? The under parts… Like the circle and shapes, etc. to get the pose. Then lower the opacity and do another sketch on top of that. Then I lower the opacity of that and do ANOTHER sketch on top. 😆 I do that as many times as necessary until it looks like something. I don't worry a ton about anatomy or messiness or stray lines, it's just for fun to get an idea out of my head :)

Sometimes I also leave the under-sketches in or sometimes I turn the layer off. For this one I left them in.

Then I turn on all my textures, overlays, and H/S/L correction layer and crank the saturation up. The selected colorful layer was something I made once and saved it as an image material so I can just slap it on any time as an overlay. You will see it in almost all of my art, she's my beloved crutch and also I just like it lol. Other than that, I sometimes use paper textures that CPS came with and sometimes I make a perlin noise layer with the smallest grain size and set it to 'soft light'.

I also have recently been using a manga screentone overlay that comes with CSP.

Then I start coloring underneath!

This is how it looks without all of the blinding colors and textures I put there to distract you from the mess lol

Even in ones where I DO put in effort and try to use better anatomy and clean up a lot of the scribbles I pretty much never use clean lineart simply because I cannot be bothered 🤷🏾‍♂️ I don't really do anything different here, I just spend more time one it:

Also, even then the overlays and textures do a lot of the heavy lifting. Some of the overlays and effects I draw myself like the rainbow boarders around them and of course the doodle hearts. I don't draw backgrounds very often but I don't like an empty background so overlays or little doodles or text effects typically go there.

I should also mentions that I use the lightroom mobile app to further enhance all of my art, as shown above in the before and afters. I don't really have much to say on this point. I used to use lightroom mobile a lot when I did doll photography and I pretty much just wing it based on what I learned doing that. I like to mess with the texture settings and do masking edits to change the foreground and background independently to get better color balances. Like a bozo I pay for the subscription but I bet you could use any old editing app.

Oh, and I do pretty much everything with these brushes here. I got them a while back when they were free for 48 hours but unfortunately they are no longer free and cost 80 clippy now :( Should also warn you that they saturate any color and idk how to stop it from doing that so I just adjust the color accordingly before using or edit in post. Very nice though!!

Some other (free) things I like and use a lot:

Warm color set

Watercolor paper texture (free)

Cloud brushes

Watercolor auto action

Real paper textures

Prism brushes

Freckle brush

Aaaaand that's basically it!

[herofists]

#𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐒 ────────  noun. a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.

The 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐥, a guardian. Not just of flesh and bone, but of hope. Fiercely defending his allies who place their trust in his strength, Snow will always put himself in harm's way, time and again, if it ensured that they would live.

an independent, highly selective, private, unaffiliated & mutuals only  𝐒𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐑𝐒 of Square Enix's 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐘 𝐗𝐈𝐈𝐈 series. my portrayal is heavily canon divergent with minimal references to the games. i want to solely focus on building and fleshing out snow.

                                  saving the world with 𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐒𝐎𝐍.

                                             MOBILE GUIDELINES.

I'm in my 30s. So I ask that you are 21+ if you want to interact with me. I will not give you a chance if you aren't in that age group! Also, no bullshit. Thank you.

𝟶𝟶𝟷. As with all my blogs, I'm low activity, solely due to prioritizing life off this site and the fact I have adhd. I revamped this blog from my previous one sentrinel. So certain things from there will be transferred to over here. Reminder: it's not reflective of a lack of interest or commitment. I kindly request your understanding and patience during periods when my responses may be delayed.

𝟶𝟶𝟸. My other blogs are @corelshot (barret wallace) / @nihileth (oc) / @polyeus (multimuse). Any other blogs I have are inactive/on an indefinite hiatus.

𝟶𝟶𝟹. I'm multiship friendly, but ship exclusive. (ex. I will only ship with one Serah.) I ship solely based off chemistry (between both our characters and us as writers ourselves). If we gush about it, are on the same page, then we can make it work. If it doesn't work out, it won't mean that I will stop interacting with you. Our character's breaking up ≠ the end of our partnership. I also do not follow solely for shipping, I'm more interested in the crossover interactions (especially with other FF muses). If shipping happens, it happens.

I will warn that I do have a guilty ship with Snow/Lightning, but this doesn't mean I'll force a ship in any kind of way.

𝟶𝟶𝟺. I'm always excited to delve into plotting for structure, ensuring we create compelling and intricate tales that captivate our readers. Plotting allows us both to understand the direction of our story and build it with intention and depth. But if you're someone who prefers to let their imagination run wild and discover the story as it unfolds, I'm more than willing to wing a thread with you.

𝟶𝟶𝟻. I typically write with small text and format for aesthetic and thematic purposes. However, I understand that this might not be comfortable for all readers and can strain some eyes. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you find the text challenging to read. I am more than willing to adjust and switch to a standard text size and clearer format to accommodate your needs. Your comfort while engaging with the stories here is important, and I want to make this blog a great space for all role-players.

𝟶𝟶𝟼. Absolutely no drama. Let me be crystal clear: I have zero tolerance for drama. Life is too short, and we're all here to enjoy our shared interests without being bogged down by disputes or misunderstandings. I believe in handling disagreements privately rather than publicizing them on the blog. Any indirect means of airing grievances will not be tolerated. My inbox is always open. If there's something I've said or done that you take issue with, please don't hesitate to reach out directly. If you notice that I am interacting with someone who has a history of abuse or problematic behavior (and by problematic, I mean genuinely harmful, not trivial matters), please inform me at once.

[szrssecuritytripodturnstile]

servo motor slim turnstile door also called gain access to wing turnstile doors, which belongs to the access control system, is one of the crucial components of contemporary entryway and exit control. The door wings are driven by the control system and open and close automatically. The operating mode can be chosen through shows settings: As quickly as it is validated that the individual getting in is licensed, the door wings open instantly. It closes after a hold-up, and the delay time is adjustable. Typical servo motor speedlane gates door are divided into scissor doors (metro flap turnstile gate) and swing doors. (1) Scissor doors are typically utilized in rail transit, and common scissor doors are mostly utilized in subways and other places. The door wings extend from the inside of the box, which can successfully seal the passage and play the function of access control. In addition, an infrared sensing gadget is installed inside the door body, which can understand the function of "a single person, one card" for people to go through. (2) The swing door appeared later than the scissor door and belongs to the second generation dc brushless speedlane turnstile door. Such dc brushless slim turnstile door is that the door wings run in the front and back instructions. The operation process is within the body's view, which is safer. In addition, considering that the door wings do not require to be retracted into the box, The designs of swing doors are more different. Due to the above attributes, swing doors are normally used in banks, corporate structures, high-end office buildings, and so on. Anti-trailing function: There is a total infrared light band detection area in the channel. The switch state can be adjusted by software application according to the customer's precision requirements. The application of the light band to adapt to different needs prevents the drawbacks of point-type infrared detectors that are quickly polluted and impacts the reliability of judgment, and can successfully evaluate the future. Tag reader who checks out the card. When the system determines that tailgating has actually taken place, the system will react based on the place of the valid cardholder returned by the infrared detector. After the door opening signal is sent, there are still some abnormal uses that will set off an alarm.

[jackarthurdavenport]

Some of my lovely friends asked to show how I do my blending, so here is a very long tutorial! I will explain how to:

Blend GIFs with lots of movement

Blend three or more GIFs on one canvas

You will need:

Any version of Photoshop with a timeline

Basic-intermediate knowledge of GIF making (including cropping, how to use adjustment layers for color correction, applying layer masks, and placing multiple GIFs on one canvas)

Since the way I blend depends on the footage I'm able to work with, I often end up going in a different direction than I first planned. So this isn't a strict step-by-step guide that can be applied to everything you make. These are just some tips!

Read the rest under the cut.

TERMINOLOGY:

(Pretty sure you already know this but I will be repeating these a lot here, so just in case!)

Highlights & Shadows - The highlights are the brightest parts of the image. The shadows are the darkest parts. Remember that just because it's bright doesn't mean it's actually white, and just because it's dark doesn't mean it's actually black!

Negative Space - This refers to empty space around your subject. When there's negative space, it's easier to spot the focal point of the image.

BLENDING GIFS WITH LOTS OF MOVEMENT

Number of GIFs: 2 Main GIF: Closeup of Sam (“big!Sam”) Secondary GIF: Sam flying (“flying!Sam”)

STEP 1: Find the right scenes Since the subject of the secondary GIF is much smaller and basically cuts across the frame, it’s important (but not always essential!) that the main GIF has less movement and a decent amount of negative space.

STEP 2: Make your individual GIFs Make your GIFs like how you usually do (Important: Remember that your GIFs need to have the same number of frames). When it’s time to crop, it’s best to have the two files opened in Photoshop at the same time so you can compare them against each other. It’s absolutely fine for them to overlap because that’s the whole point! The secondary GIF has Sam flying in from the top left to the bottom right, so I cropped the main GIF with him off-center so there would be space to see flying!Sam.

Now we have these two GIFs:

STEP 3: Combine your GIFs Place the secondary GIF over the main one and adjust the blend mode. Setting the blend mode to Screen usually works, but in this case, this is how it looks:

As you can see, the highlights in the main GIF are obscuring flying!Sam in the first frames. You can only see him clearly when he’s flying over big!Sam’s face. This is because the shadows on the top GIF will lighten and/or disappear against the highlights of the bottom GIF when set to Screen. It would be too complicated to fix this with a brush (which we will get to later) because of the movement in the secondary GIF, so instead I set the blending mode to Multiply, which is the opposite of Screen. Now here is the GIF:

We can now see flying!Sam. But the blue of the sky is now a pseudo-filter over big!Sam’s face up until the last frames. So I applied a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer over the secondary GIF to remove those colors. The sky in the GIF is made up of cyans and blues, so I dragged those sliders down to -100. Here is how it looks now:

STEP 4: Erase the bits you don’t want So that big!Sam’s face isn’t covered by flying!Sam’s wings and that pesky airplane up top, we have to use a brush to erase those parts. In the Layers panel, make sure your GIF layers (in this case, groups/folders) are selected and click the Add Layer Mask button. A little rectangle next to the layer/group name will show up like so:

Then in the Tools panel, click the Brush tool, pick a soft brush and set the size to around 180-210px. The larger the brush, the softer the look. I learned this from Becca (@inejz-ghafa) who made an amazing tutorial a while back (will link it in the source at the bottom)! Adjust the brush size if you have to.

Now click on the little rectangle layer mask of the group you want to erase (in this case, the secondary GIF). When you do this, the Foreground and Background Colors buttons in the Tools panel will revert to the default black and white.

Painting with black will erase and painting with white will undo the erasure. So I erased the airplane and the bits of the wings covering his face. I didn’t erase the parts that overlap with his uniform, just to keep the effect of flying!Sam zooming across the GIF. And here is our finished product:

BLENDING THREE OR MORE GIFS ON ONE CANVAS

We will be working with these two GIFs since they use different techniques:

STEP 1: Compose your image Find the scenes you want to put in your GIF and choose which of those is the most important. Once you've decided on that, you can build the rest of the elements around it.

Sam's GIF: Multiple Exposure Effect

Number of GIFs: 3 Main GIF: Bloodied shield Secondary GIF: Closeup of Sam Tertiary GIF: Bucky with the shield

STEP 2: Make your individual GIFs Since the shield is the most important part, I made it the largest GIF and cropped it close to emphasize the star and the blood. I made Sam's GIF the same size, but cropped it with his face off-center so that the star wouldn't completely cover his face. Again, it's totally fine for the images to overlap! The tertiary GIF is the least important so I cropped it smaller. To determine the size of that GIF compared to the shield, I made the Rulers visible (View > Rulers; or Ctrl+R) then clicked the top ruler and dragged down to create a guide to where I wanted the smaller GIF to end. Then I measured from the bottom of the GIF up to the guide to determine the height of the smaller GIF. (Tip: It's better to make the tertiary GIF too large than too small. That way, you have more to work with. So size it larger than it will appear on the final GIF.)

This is only a stylistic choice for this particular set, but I removed the blue from the shield and set the tertiary GIF to black and white, so that the only notable colors in the GIF are red, black and white. Varying up the coloring of each GIF (i.e. color vs. monochrome) adds some spice to the image, so play around with these different styles if you like!

Here are our three GIFs:

STEP 3: Combine your GIFs At first, I made the main GIF of the shield the bottom GIF. Then I placed the secondary GIF over it and set the blend mode to Screen, but found that it lacked depth. So I switched them and made the Sam GIF the bottom GIF (blend mode: Pass Through) and placed the shield GIF (blend mode: Screen) over it. And this is what I got:

Notice how the window behind Sam on the left side is distracting? It also partially obscures the star. So I went back to Sam’s GIF, created a New Layer and painted over the window with a black brush. Now here is our GIF:

This is just my personal preference, but I wanted the area around the star to be a solid black rather than gray, so this time I created a New Layer over the shield GIF and applied a layer of black with the Paint Bucket tool, setting the blend mode to Soft Light. Now we’re done with the main and secondary GIFs:

Now let’s add the last GIF:

STEP 4: Erase the bits you don’t want Lastly, I erased the warehouse rafters over Sam’s face and a bit of his shirt and the warehouse floor on the bottom right corner using Layer Masks and a soft brush (like in the first tutorial). And we’re done!

Bucky's GIF: Silhouette Effect

Number of GIFs: 3 Main GIF: Bucky holding the notebook Secondary GIF: View of the sunrise from the boat Tertiary GIF: Sam and Bucky walking away

STEP 2: Make your individual GIFs To achieve this silhouette effect, the main GIF needs to have a clear focal point, which means it’s better to have negative space around the subject and for there to be minimal movement. In this case, the subject is made up of Bucky’s hands, notebook, and part of his shirt; and there’s some movement but we can still work with that. The other two GIFs will then be placed “inside” the subject. Because the negative space in the main GIF consists of highlights, I chose a secondary GIF which emphasized the shadows. For the smallest GIF, I used a guide like in the previous tutorial to measure its size.

We have these three GIFs:

STEP 3: Combine your GIFs Place the secondary GIF over the main one. In my case, I didn’t measure it right so I had to nudge the top GIF a bit to the right to fit it inside the silhouette. The important thing is that the edge of the secondary GIF should not overlap with the silhouette itself, or else the illusion “breaks.”

Now let’s add the third GIF:

STEP 4: Erase the bits you don’t want For this GIF, there’s a lot we need to erase! Using Layer Masks and a soft brush again, erase the parts of the secondary GIF that extend beyond the silhouette. It’s entirely based on personal preference if you want to keep some parts of the secondary GIF outside the silhouette (like I did here) or if you want them completely removed. And for the small GIF, erase the edges for it to blend with the secondary GIF while also staying within the silhouette of the main one.

Now here is our finished GIF:

And that’s it! If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. I hope this was useful! Remember, there is no definitive way to blend GIFs, so keep experimenting. And don’t be afraid to make mistakes either, because we learn a lot from those. Happy Photoshop-ing!

- Elle

[ack3rlady]

Being Wooed By Miche

Summary: A head-canon on going out on a day-long date with Miche Zacharius who will leave no stone unturned to make you feel like the most special person on the planet.

Warnings: Fluff, Fluff and Fluff

A/N: I'm turning these floooofy head-canons into a series called 'Soft Sundays', where I'll be posting a fluff piece every Sunday evening. Feel free to send in your ideas for any AoT character that you like :)

Word Count: ~1k

Master List

Being Wooed by Miche is when you hear the rev of his motorcycle followed by two quick honks at 11:00 AM sharp, right as you are applying the finishing touches to your winged eyeliner. It is when you run to the window to find him leaning against his Harley Davidson, cheekily smiling up at you while holding a beautiful bouquet of red roses.

Being Wooed by Miche is him whispering, “Hey, gorgeous. Today’s going to be the best day of your life.” in your ears when you walk up to him. It's when he engulfs you in a bear hug, deeply inhales the aroma of your fruity shampoo and dramatically demonstrates how your scent makes him weak in the knees.

Being Wooed by Miche is having brunch at your favorite Italian restaurant, while sitting at the best table that gives you a panoramic view of the city. It is feeling the weight of his hand resting over yours at all times while you both converse about how your week went.

Being Wooed by Miche is him stealing a piece of chicken from your pasta and flashing a boyish grin when you playfully slap his arm. It is also him trading his decadent Tiramisu with your drab slice of cheesecake just because you like it more.

Being Wooed by Miche is spreading your arms wide like wings and feeling the wind rush through your hair while on a long drive through the national park on the back of his Harley. It is when you smack him after he pressed hard on the brakes on the empty street for the sixth time, just to that you would fall on him. It is him asking “Oh, was it that obvious?”, while mischievously smirking at you through the mirror

Being Wooed by Miche is hugging his broad back from behind as he drives and resting your head on his shoulder. It is being entranced by rows and rows or giant trees passing by while you hum the tune to your favorite song. It is smiling when you feel him bump his helmet into yours and humming along.

Being Wooed by Miche is a picnic by the lagoon on the beaming autumn day and sitting on a crisp picnic blanket, reading your favorite novel while sipping on champagne. It is him laying his head in your lap and twirling the dangling strands of your gorgeous hair, hoping time passes just a little bit slower.

Being Wooed by Miche is laughing till you begin to tear up at a hilarious joke he just cracked and then blushing profusely when he abruptly stops mid-laugh just to tell you how beautiful you look.

Being Wooed by Miche is him briefly disappearing only to return with your favorite ice-cream from the ice-cream truck nearby. It is you being pleasantly surprised about him remembering what you like based on a random fact you mentioned to him many months ago on your first date.

Being Wooed by Miche is taking a tranquil nap under the thick, green canopy of a sugar maple tree while you are nuzzled into his size, feeling warm and protected by his arm wrapped around you. It is quietly smiling when he carefully adjusts his position to block the rays of the sun from falling on your face.

Being Wooed by Miche is a dreamy walk on the beach as the sun sets over the horizon, with his hand firmly holding on to yours. It is him carrying your shoes so that they don’t get covered in sand. It is him swiftly pulling you in for a gentle kiss when no one is watching.

Being Wooed by Miche is going to the pier and watching the whole city in awe while you are at the top of the Ferris wheel. It is his arm snaking around your waist when you continue to ooh and aah at the stunning view.

Being Wooed by Miche is him sneaking pictures of you when you aren't looking, to browse through when he misses you throughout the day, one of which he would set as the background of his phone later that evening. It is him practically wheezing after accidentally capturing the image of a seagull stealing the lobster roll out of your hand while you gape at it in utter shock.

Being Wooed by Miche is feeling a protective arm wrapped around your waist as you both wade through the crowd. It is him smiling at you smiling at two twin toddlers dressed up in identical sailor costumes, and quickly looking away when you’re about to catch him in the act.

Being Wooed by Miche is being snuck away to a secret spot at the pier, far from the hordes of people, just in time for the fireworks to begin. It is having his arms on either side of your body and his chin resting on top of your head as you both lean against the railing, eagerly waiting for the show to begin.

Being Wooed by Miche is him peeling the black leather jacket off himself and wrapping it around your body when he feels you slightly tremble against his chest. It is the feeling on being consumed by the fragrance of his cedar cologne, and losing yourself in the nostalgic bliss of his scent.

Being Wooed by Miche is him softly whispering, “I love you” in your ears, as you watch the fireworks light up the sky with starry eyes. It is the pounding of your heart when he gently turns you around for a kiss, while you both stand in your own little bubble, away from prying eyes and against the dark canvas of a sparkling night sky.

Being Wooed by Miche is you falling asleep against his back on the ride home, and him carrying you upstairs to your apartment. It is you sheepishly tugging on his arm right as he is about to leave after laying you on your bed, and whispering, “Stay.”. It is him happily obliging.

Other HCs: Levi | Miche | Erwin | Hange | Moblit

Master List

[archetypal-archivist]

Tommyinnit and Hermitcraft- Heartstone

So this builds off of the whole "Tommy has somehow found himself on Hermitcraft after the exile arc" thing that got really popular with @redorich and @petrichormeraki on tumblr. Basically it's an excuse to give Tommy therapy and 20+ parent figures. One thing that's a common thread in those stories is that Tommy is shocked that Hermitcraft has infinite respawns and all of the hermits are quick to reassure him that he really won't perma-die in their world. And I had the thought- well, what if he wasn't in their world anymore? And thus came forth 1500+ words of angst~

It begins like this. Evil X is stuck in the void, alone and with no one to talk to. He misses daylight, he misses touch, he misses hearing voices other than his own. One day, he sees something get shot through the void as if by slingshot, leaving a trail of code in its wake, tethering the whatever it is back the way it came. This is Tommy, and while he begins to get adjusted to Hermitcraft and company, Evil X watches as the string of code begins to imprint itself into the void, and eventually learns that he can interact with it, albeit only on the most superficial of levels. On Tommy's end, he slowly begins to heal from his time spent in the war zone that is the Dream SMP, making fast friends with Grian and several of the other hermits in the process. He goes pranking with his newest, winged older brother figure, laughs at the antics of Impulse, Tango, and Zedaph, builds a cobblestone tower with BDubs, etc. But for all that he's healing, such a process isn't linear. No one on the server can truly understand just what sort of stuff he has been through, and so he often finds himself alone, trying to deal with his wildest emotions by talking to himself.

One day, however, a little voice in his head starts talking back. It's rough and gravelly and not very nice at first, but it's faint enough that he chalks it up to his imagination and moves on with his life. He follows Stress around like a duckling for a day, plays squire for Welsknight, and has a roaring panic attack after an unfortunate spar with False leads to him getting flashbacks to the Pit with Technoblade. He retreats back to his tower for a good cry, and in the midst of his tears, he hears the voice again. This time it's a bit nicer, sounding unsure and a bit panicky as it tries to encourage him to stop crying, god this is awkward, kid, it'll be fine. Wait, are you a kid? You seem tall for a munchkin.

This time, Tommy knows that it isn't his imagination, but half of his old server seemed to have voices in their heads so he really isn't all that alarmed that he seemed to have developed one of his own too. And he does something that no one else does when Evil X reaches out- he starts talking back. It's rough going, at first, especially since both of them have abrasive personalities, but eventually they settle into a rough estimation of friendship that means more to them then they are willing to say. From Evil X's perspective, this is the first time someone has actually listened to him and hasn't been turned away by his violent streak, his bad manners, and lack of proper social skills. For Tommy, this is a chance to vent to someone who seems to understand his pain. It helps that neither of them are inclined to ask too many questions. Tommy, on his part, has no clue that Evil X is an actual person and not a voice in his head, while Evil X can't bring himself to ask why Tommy has left a trail of code in the void and why it's all so glitched. He especially fears asking about the perma-death clause that seems to naturally have occurred in his code.

He will come to regret this choice.

The day is like any other, at first. He begins his day with a slice of sweet melon and then flies off to whatever hermits are awake at the time to "share a meal with them." Really, it started as an excuse to make sure that Tommy was eating at least one meal day, even in his most dissociative of states, but has since turned into an opportunity to eat weird things in front of people to see their reactions. (Etho is his favorite. He's always up early and half the time, asks to try a bite of whatever Tommy is having. They both agree that spider eyes taste a lot like sour boba.) From there it's off to the shopping district to restock his dirt shop and claim his share of the profits from the hole-digging service he runs with Grian. After that, there's just enough time to complete an order or two and collect more cobble and dirt before he has to meet up with Grian to go on their biweekly End Busting session. The two usually have a lot of fun as they go about it, Tommy jokingly shoving Grian off the platform only for his adopted brother to catch himself and fly up to join him on the narrow platform spanning the emptiness once again. Every once in a while, Grian mock-threatens to do the same in return, but he knows better than to actually attempt it after he did it once and had had to catch Tommy when he started screaming and even after they had gotten back to solid ground, he wouldn't stop for the better part of half an hour.

On habits die hard, after all. Tommy may have been told time and time again by everyone on the server that infinite respawns are a thing, yes really, but he still has a hard time believing it. He actually has a rather insane number of levels racked up- even more than Xisuma, which is impressive- because in all the months that he has been on Hermitcraft, he hasn't died once. It's a combination of survival skills taught to him by Philza and his own paranoia which has kept him alive for so long, and most of the hermits agree that it is rather impressive, if not entirely healthy for him to be so scared of dying. (Doc once offered to kill him as evidence that yes, it really is safe here and you will respawn, but for all that death by crazy redstone machine might of been cool, Tommy took a hard pass on that. Grian low key took exception to Doc offering to kill his adopted little brother, really man? Not cool.)

Anyway, Grian and Tommy meet up in the End and start off bridging with the insane amount of cobble that Tommy has stored up. Usually Tommy is in front, placing the stones, and Grian is in back, watching out for any sign of a slip up, but this time they decide to switch it up a bit, head in a new direction, play around with who's doing what this time. It ends... poorly. They bridge out into the black, on and on and on, farther into the void than they ever have before. Slowly, the islands of floating white stone stop appearing with such frequency, but they become larger in size and stranger in shape. Every once in a while Grian will see what he swears to be a glowing white mountain of Endstone in the distance, although Tommy calls bullshit each and every time. They chalk it all up to bad luck and going nuts from boredom, but really, neither one of them knows how to quit while they're ahead. As the islands disappear altogether and all that remains to orient themselves is the tenuous lifeline of cobblestone beneath their feet, the unthinkable happens.

Grian slips. And Tommy, taught compassion by the very world that will now kill him, reaches out to save him.

For one, brief moment, the two brothers clasp hands- and then Grian's weight pulls Tommy right over the edge and down, down, down into the void below.

Grian fell out of the world.

Tommy fell out of the world... and into a new one.

----

Xisuma wakes up late that day. He's been doing that a lot, if he's honest, given how late he's staying up most nights finishing up builds and the like. Those hours of sleep have to come from somewhere, after all, and he's far from an early bird. He gives into the impulse to relax a bit, drinking some tea sweetened with just enough honey to rot his teeth, and then heads off to his computer room to start up his duties as admin for the day. It's the red lights that alert him to something being wrong, and at first, he thinks it's just one of hermits' cam accounts being buggy again. Perhaps it got shut off while the hermit was bridging through the void and the hermit in question simply hadn't retrieved it yet? But who would name their cam account Tommyinnit? The looming dread sits cold in his gut as he flicks his fingers to open up his admin panel... Best to check, just in case.

The death messages are clear enough- Keralis had just perished to a ravager yesterday, likely Tango's from Decked Out if he had to guess. Zedaph had been slain by a piglin twenty minutes ago. And Grian and Tommy had fallen into the void. But if that were the case... why had only one of them respawned?

On Grian's part, he comes to with a lingering chill deep in his bones and an awful headache. The bed underneath him is warm and the sheets are a soft rosy color, likely one of the ones in Scar's magical village if the persistent smell of spruce is anything to go by. He winces against the light filtering through the window and turns to the side, squinting at where Tommy had placed his blue bed right next to his, apology on his lips for his stupid mistake. The sheets are undisturbed. Huh. That's weird, he could have sworn that he and Tommy had set their respawn points at the same time. Maybe Tommy had just forgotten and he was back in his base or at spawn? Grian rises to his feet slowly, giving his body time to adjust to the colors and sounds of the Overworld, then flaps his wings and takes off to go looking for his Tommy.

He doesn't find him.

---

The reactions to Tommy's "death" are many and varied, although for the most part, the hermits are split into two camps- those that think Tommy is gone for good, and those that think he may still be out there somewhere. For the first few days of Tommy's disappearance, most everyone is in the latter camp. Xisuma spends hours upon hours scanning the code, becoming increasingly more frazzled and terrified as his lack of sleep gets to him. Tango and Doc join him in the endeavor, although none of them have any luck or are able to spot the piece of code that caused the problem. No additions, no changes to the text, nothing. Grian leads the other team, those who set out on foot and one wing and with pick in hand to scour the world for their youngest charge, taken from them too soon. They begin in a grid pattern, setting out in ones and twos to search the whole world, but as the distance increases, the neat, orderly flyovers turn into frenzied boosting as panic starts to get the better of them. Some of them hold onto their composure better than others, but Grian ends up flying over the same patch of forest three times because he can't see for his tears. False, Impulse, Welsknight, and Beef cross the Nether, fighting their way into Bastion after Bastion and leaving Nether portals in their wake. In their tracks comes the fliers- Grian, Ren, Iskall, and BDubs. Each one takes a portal and does a sweep through the corresponding patch of Overworld before picking a direction to continue the search. Cubfan, iJevin, and Scar take to the seas, Mumbo, Stress, xB, and Zedaph to the End, Etho down into the depths of the caves below. Strangely enough, there are a few hermits who don't join the search- Keralis, who got the unlucky task of taking care of Xisuma and the others searching through the code, Tinfoilchef, who doesn't provide a reason but everyone gives him a pass because of his age, and Joe Hills and Zombie Cleo, who refuse to explain themselves.

Eventually, the searches dry up. Eventually, some of the hermits admit defeat. Hundreds of thousands of blocks out from spawn, down to the bedrock below, beneath sea and sky and every place that lacks the sun. How far is too far? For Xisuma, enough is enough. Tommy is dead. The search is over.

He stops looking. And soon, others do the same.

And the tone of the server... shifts.

For the first time that any of them can remember, a person has perma-died. Sure, they've all heard the rumors, of servers where infinite respawns is not the norm, of servers where the world glitched and a creeper is supercharged enough to damage a player down to their code. But they'd never thought that one of their own would be on the receiving end of such a curse. And to the hermits, the possibility of dying themselves suddenly becomes all too real. The constant flying is the first to go, and for those that insist on it anyway (outside of Grian, who has wings), checking the elytras' durability becomes more than just a habit. Eating spider eyes and other junk is out of the question, now it's golden apples or nothing. The Nether is all but abandoned, as is the End, and everyone on the server either groups up so that they are never alone, or retreats into their bases, becoming true hermits befitting of their server's name.

The joy that had once been so characteristic of the server is gone, and in the hearts of all, there lingers the dread that any one of them might be next- although, there are still those that hold on to hope that Tommy may not be as gone as he seems.

---

The hermits who think Tommy is dead for good and have stopped searching: Doc, Etho, Xisuma, Welsknight, Grian, BDubs, Cubfan, TinfoilChef, Stress, False, Iskall.

The hermits who think Tommy is still out there, alive if still missing, and that the search should continue: Keralis, Mumbo, Tango, Vintage Beef, Impulse, Zedaph, Joe Hills, Zombie Cleo, Scar, Rendog, xB.

Doc and Etho are old. They don't like to admit it, but they've been around since the beginning, back when players were first learning how to jump servers and communicator technology was undergoing its first upgrade. They've seen a lot and know well by now that dead is dead. Tommy is dead. All that is left to do is mourn and move on, and they have shed their tears already. Call them cold for it, but in the face of a kind of drive that can keep a man going after his entire server has burnt down around his ears (Mindcrack will be missed), they know they need to keep moving forward. There are enough broken messes on the server these days, and it is through their efforts that shops remain stocked and the torches don't burn out. They hold onto normalcy with an iron grip and hope that some day, the rest of the hermits will join them in rationality.

Stress too has a comparatively healthy approach to all of this. She doesn't want it to be true, god no, but so far everything is pointing in the direction of Tommy being dead for good. She eats a couple dozen bowls of ice cream, has a some good cries, doesn't leave her base for a week, and even afterwards she can't bring herself to wear pink for a while. But she's mourning. She's accepted things. She lets her heart break, and as time passes, she lets herself heal. And that's enough for her.

Scar is of the opinion that Tommy is still out there, and while he clings to that hope with all his might, it's fragile and Cub just knows that his best friend is going to be cut to pieces when that hope inevitably breaks. So he takes Scar aside for a quiet conversation, to break his heart before the world can break it for him. Afterwards, Scar stops talking about Tommy as if he's coming back, but his smile is never as bright as it was before. And Cub's heart breaks too.

Team ZIT swings the exact opposite way as the rest and are firmly of the belief that permadeath is impossible and thus Tommy must be alive. The three of them aren’t known for their impulse control at the best of times, and with so many hermits having given up, the trio is rightfully vicious about the fact that the others, in their eyes, have abandoned their friend. Zedaph, Impulse, and Tango all kind of feed into one another and start doing lots of dangerous stunts, as if daring the universe to permakill them and prove them wrong. If one of them does something, the other two join in and escalate things, which gets impossibly dangerous very, very fast. Tango is furious, Impulse is bitter, and Zedaph is straight up heartbroken that his other friends would give up on another of their number. They do things like fly incredibly high, go cliff jumping in the Nether only to catch themselves at the last minute, and sprint across the End bridges. If they have doubts, they never voice them. Even when Tango feels like he’s burning up from the inside and wonders at his newfound hate. Even when Impulse is utterly terrified but goes along with things anyway because Tango is doing it and he can’t bear to leave a friend alone. Even when Zedaph looks at his friends and can’t help but feel scared of and for these strangers wearing the faces he knows so well. Even then.

Team ZIT often gets dragged into and starts lots of screaming fights with the other hermits who believe Tommy is dead, especially Doc, BDubs, xB, and False. False especially gets vicious, as while pvp is no longer permitted on the server, her tongue is as sharp as any blade. She believes firmly that the others are trampling on Tommy’s memory by insisting that he isn’t dead and she is determined to make them stop. And if they refuse to give up their foolishness? Well, all she might have left is her words but with them she will make them bleed.

xB and Vintage Beef are as close to neutral as you are going to get from those that get into regular arguments. xB thinks Tommy is dead until proven otherwise, while Beef thinks the exact reverse. As some of the more chill hermits, they often get dragged in to play negotiator so that the fights don’t turn physical. And some days, when someone says something particularly hurtful, they’ll close themselves up in one of xB’s bunkers and drink until they can no longer remember why they ought to be enemies. It’s hardly healthy, but they both agree that it’s better this way. Better to forget than to hurt, after all.

Grian is… somewhat the same. Sort of. He was traumatized by Tommy, the boy he adopted as his little brother, dying before his eyes, and he can’t help but blame himself. That is, when he can remember that Tommy is dead at all. After the fall, Grian’s mind was badly broken and he couldn’t accept that his little brother was dead for the longest time. He fell into two weeks of deep depression, barely eating or drinking, and eventually Iskall came and took care of him when he realized that he hadn’t seen his buddy in ages. Iskall nursed Grian back to health, only to feel his heart shatter in his breast when Grian turned to him, eyes feverishly bright and tone childlike, asking where Tommy was. The winged man’s mind couldn’t cope with the loss so it had shut down entirely, making him forget the tragedy that had occured. Iskall had deflected then, frantically trying to figure out what to say, but after a few days of Grian wandering about in a dreamlike state, his memory came back to him and he collapsed in on himself once more. The winged hermit is now locked in a loop of this, while poor Iskall is stuck trying to keep his friend alive and relatively sane.

Iskall, for his part, thinks Tommy is well and truly dead. In part because of his own certainty, in part because anything else would be even crueler for Grian. He doesn’t resent his friend for his break downs, just quietly bundles him up and clutches him close, coaxing him to eat and bathe, to put down the guilt and realize that it’ll be okay, the world won’t end with Tommy gone. He gently tries to nudge Grian down that path of acceptance of Tommy’s fate, and though he faces many setbacks, he tackles each one with a special kind of patience born of platonic love. They’re bros, despite everything. It’s only right.

Mumbo is, weirdly enough, on the side of Tommy being alive. Iskall doesn’t exactly approve and while he and Mumbo sometimes get into whispered arguments over it, they try to keep their little disagreements from Grian. Both of them only want to see their friend happy again, and will do just about anything to make it happen. For Mumbo, this means putting together crazy redstone contraptions to try and find Tommy again, as he’s certain that Grian’s little brother is still out there somewhere- and he has a piece that might prove it. Iskall comes over one day, face drawn and haggard from a night of soothing Grian through another set of screaming nightmares, only to find Mumbo waist high in redstone wiring, all hooked up to a strange portal design that looks too much like Doc’s infinity portal from season 6 for comfort. At the top of the arch is Tommy’s compass, needle whirling about like a hurricane, and while the portal isn’t lit, it does give off a faint blue-black glow. Iskall is frightened that Mumbo is tampering with something that could get him killed and Mumbo rushes to reassure him that no, the compass was specifically linked to Tommy so if Tommy was really dead, it would have been reset, right? He’s merely borrowing that tie to try and figure out where the two ends lead. Iskall is less than sure about this, especially since Mumbo is just as drawn and pale as he is, if a bit more covered in redstone, but they agree that fighting is pointless. They care about each other and about Grian too much to put any of them through that sort of pain- and besides, there’s more than enough fighting on the server already.

Ren too thinks that Tommy is alive and he is one of the ones who gets into regular fights. He’s a lover, not a fighter, but something about this whole situation just burns him up. When the pressure gets too much, he goes flying, tracing over those old familiar trails they searched so long ago, trying to see if there is anything they missed. There never is.

Welsknight has made his peace with Tomy’s death, though the server tends to forget that he and Tommy were closer than most. He alone knew that Tommy was once upon a time a boy called Theseus (a name given to him shyly when Tommy had asked him if there were any great heroes with that name that didn’t die). He alone knew Tommy’s love for horses, or that he would spend hours whispering horror stories to them when he thought no one would hear. Tommy was his squire, and although he had accepted the tragedy, he still wept for the hurt it brought him. He alone knew of the little grave he had dug under the willow tree in his castle courtyard and the headstone he had placed there, engraved with Tommy’s true name, death date, and supposed date of birth. He couldn’t have been more than 17, and perhaps that was what hurt the most. Every morning at dawn, Welsknight brings a bouquet of flowers to that little grave and says a prayer before disappearing into the morning fog. The flowers are always the same- forget me nots, for remembrance, violets, for devotion, and clover. (Think of me).

Tinfoilchef stays out of it- always has and always will. He’s too old to rush about searching or to feel as wildly as the others do. He feels, of course, but more so as the mountain does, steady and strong despite the winds that tear at its surface. Tommy is dead, but then, so are many of the people he has known in his life. It’s best to just keep plodding along.

BDubs is a mess. He had never spoken of it, but long before he had come to hermitcraft, he had had a daughter- a beautiful baby girl whose heart was too big for her chest, and she had died for that difference. He had grieved for years, but eventually the peace of the hermitcraft server had left him soothed, if a bit different than before. Tommy had been another chance at fatherhood, not that he could ever bear to call the teen that, even in the privacy of his own mind. Instead, he had taught the kid to build cobblestone towers that weren’t entirely offensive (if shaped a bit oddly) and had been the first to volunteer any time Grian was out and Tommy needed a place to spend the night when the nightmares were particularly fierce. They had so many fun sleepovers like that, and staring at those awful cobble towers in the distance, BDubs can’t help but bawl his eyes out at the memories. He waffles between taking the towers down or leaving them up- they really are ugly, and the feelings in his chest that they inspire are even more so, but somehow, he can’t bear to see them gone. Instead, he dries his eyes, flies off to grab a shulker of cobble, and sets about adding a few more to their number. A final remembrance for the boy he would have gladly claimed as his own, if only he hadn’t been too late. (He ends up building a lot more than a few).

Joe and Cleo are somehow the only ones who are actually neutral in the whole mess. Whenever they are asked their opinion on if Tommy is truly dead or not, the pair simply smile mysteriously and refuse to comment. Joe always seems to know more than he lets on and Cleo is his closest confidant, after all. Despite the anger and tears directed their way for refusing to commit to either side, the two keep their silence. (They know the truth of the matter, after all. Everything will be okay in time).

Xisuma has given up. Tommy is dead, and there is nothing he can do but spend days and days going over the code with a fine tooth comb, trying to find the glitch that cut the life of their youngest member short. Keralis takes it upon himself to take care of his long time friend, but it’s not an easy task, not when the other is so determined to make sure that such an incident never happens again. And Keralis can’t find it in himself to complain, especially since he is laboring under the impression that Xisuma agrees that Tommy is still out there and is trying to find him. It is only when Keralis mentions it in an aside, thanking the admin for his dedication, that Xisuma breaks the illusion and explains. Tommy isn’t just dead, he says tiredly, his very presence is well and truly wiped from the world’s code. All that is left of him is the faint impression his code had left behind, and trying to read it and understand what went wrong is a bit like trying to read small letters that have been drawn out in dry sand. Even for a voidwalker like himself such a task is near impossible, and Xisuma can only do so much. The needs of the many above the needs of the few- best to secure those he can now than worry over those that are gone beyond his reach. And Keralis can’t help but look at his friend with new eyes, a fleeting sense of betrayal in his heart. He had thought better of his Shishwammy, and he says as much. 

He cries while Xisuma watches on in solemn, mournful silence.

---

TBC  :)

[elleonmybeloved]

Zhongli invites the traveler to sit on his lap. His treat.

“It’s not that running around this much is hard for me. It’s just that... I’m not used to having all my weight on my feet for this long. I had no idea they would get this sore just from standing on them.”

“I see. I find that a bit peculiar. If not on your feet, how else would you be getting around?” Zhongli asks, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Hmm...”

“Don’t worry about it.” Lumine says, not really interested in having the ‘had wings but they got stolen’ conversation when she’s in such a good mood. “But could I trouble you for a chair?”

There aren’t any in the room, and she’s not so bold as to just shamelessly sit on someone else’s bed. Especially such a fancy one.

“Ah yes, of course, it’s no trouble.” Zhongli nods. “However, I’m afraid that in terms of chairs, I have none.”

What.

“When furnishing my personal quarters, I ran out of mora before I could purchase any.” He elaborates at her baffled look. “Indeed, it was probably the gold-woven bedsheets... or perhaps the jasmine scented silk pillows? that drained the last of my allotted funds.”

“Oh, okay.” She tries really hard not to laugh, covering her face with one hand to hide her smile. “I’ll just sit on the floor.”

Zhongli misreads her covered expression as one of distress. “The floor? Come now, there’s no need for that. Please feel free to use the bed, so long as you take off your shoes first.”

Ah, it’s unfair. The casualness with which he just invited her to his bed, completely unaware of her enormous crush on him. There’s no way she could just sit on the bed where he sleeps... probably shirtless... like the statue of Rex Lapis. Besides, she’s been outside all day and her clothes would probably get it dirty.

“Thanks, but I can’t. I’d rather sit on the floor.”

Zhongli frowns. This is not going anywhere near as well as he had hoped when he suggested they go to his dwelling and discuss matters in private after the dinner he had treated her to. He’d imagined something far more romantic, and yet here she was, chosing the cold hard floor rather than his very nice, extremely comfortable, pleasant smelling bed.

Maybe she didn’t like him. Maybe he had misread what he had assumed to be the flirting advances of courtship, and she had just been being friendly.

“May I ask why?”

Lumine shifts uncomfortably under his gaze. “Well... it’s just a bit... I don’t know. I would be nervous. Besides, where would you sit?”

She is blushing. He smiles. Of course, she’s nervous. Any woman, alone with a man in his personal room would be wary of the implications of joining him on his bed.

“No need to feel shy.” He says. “I’ll gladly share my personal space with you. Rather than my bed, you can sit on me if you prefer.”

Zhongli takes off his shoes, hangs up his jacket, and goes to sit on his bed. He pats his thigh invitingly.

Lumine gingerly places her boots against the wall and hesitantly steps up in front of him.

“I don’t want to get your bed dirty.” She says, tugging at her skirt.

“Hmm. Take it off then.” He says.

“My dress?”

“I assume you have something on underneath. I assure you no one will barge in and see you in a state of undress, if you’re worried about that.”

“I- I do, but it would be awkward for me to be like that when you’re fully dressed.” Its the truth, Lumine would feel self conscious in the body-hugging one piece of innerwear she has under her dress but really, she would just like to see Zhongli without clothing.

She’s already got an idea of what his tall, muscular figure looks like.

“I suppose you’re right.” He says, rich voice filled with amusement. “Very well, I’ll divest myself of a few layers.”

Lumine watches happily as Zhongli takes off not only his vest, but his dress shirt as well. His skin is pale and she really appreciates the view of his broad chest and muscular stomach. How did she know he would have a six pack? Intuition... perhaps.

Feeling bolder now, she grips the hem of her skirt and lifts her dress up and over her head, discarding it on the floor beside her.

Zhongli’s amber eyes burn into her own.

“Come sit.” He says.

The bed creaks as she climbs up into his lap, pulse jumping as strong hands grip her waist and help her settle between his legs. He moves back a bit towards the center of the bed so that he can draw his legs up and cross them behind her.

His hands don’t leave their spot on her waist.

“There we go,” He says. “Much better.”

It’s not very relaxing. They’re in each other’s personal space, and Zhongli’s face is even more attractive up close. If he bent forward just a little he could..... His hands give her hips a squeeze, and she can read something in his gaze that makes her mouth go dry.

“Do you like this?” He asks.

“Yes.” She says.

“You’re so tense.” He murmurs, trailing his hands up her sides. They stop but an inch under the swell of her chest. His face is very close to hers and his gaze rests on her lips. “Let me... loosen you up.”

“Ple-please -ah-“ She meant to say ‘please do’ but his hands had shifted, thumbs rubbing her nipples over the thin fabric, and it stole her breath and sent an electric jolt to her core.

A pleased hum rumbles deeply in Zhongli’s throat at her expression and he presses a deep, romantic kiss against her lips. He moves them firmly against hers in an addicting slow motion, and she cranes her neck forward to press them harder together. Her nipples peak against his thumbs and grow sensitive from the touching, heat pooling wetly in her core.

They kiss for a long time, and by the moment he breaks free to give them air, they are both breathless and hot. The fabric of Zhongli’s slacks is tented between his legs, straining up towards his bare stomach.

Zhongli gives her a hot look and shifts her to the side on his lap, her crotch over his thigh. Then he begins to gently rock her on it. Thrilled, she moves her hips back and forth, pressing her core down hard as she grinds her sex on his leg. There’s gonna be a wet spot on his trousers.

He starts kissing her again, and this time, his tongue prods mischeviously into her mouth to stroke at her own. An aroused moan has him stiffening against her. She can’t keep up with these deep, intense kisses, and she breaks free to gasp for air.

“Just -ha- a second- Zhongli.”

“Mmhm.” He strokes the sensitive shell of her ear as he waits. She leans into his touch.

After a minute, he gently lifts her chin. “May I?”

She nods, and he’s back at her lips, kissing, licking, and gently biting and he coaxes her back down into the mindless haze of seduction. The friction of her grinding is tantalizing, but just a tease, and nowhere near the amount of pressure she would like. She squirms in his lap and whines into his mouth.

He chuckles in his deep baritone, a fond sound, and grasps her hips to shift her over and drag her sex up and down his clothed erection instead. It feels even better, and the pressed silhouette of his cock has her mind reeling at the size.

“Let me inside you, my love.” He says, breaking the kiss, and her heart soars at the endearment. “You will feel much better.”

“Okay.” She says bravely. “Just be gentle... go-go easy on me.”

“Of course.” He says, and unzips his pants, freeing his erection from its confines. It’s kind of hot how he keeps his pants on, somehow still elegant and refined even in such a lewd state. His cock is just as pale as the rest of his beautiful skin, but smooth and thick where it juts up from between his legs. The tip of it glistens with pre.

Zhongli helps her out of her undergarment, balancing her weight as she shrugs out of it and shimmies it down to slide off her legs. Now fully bare, he draws her into his arms in a tight embrace. Big man as he is, the hug almost completely envelops her.

“You are very, very beautiful.” He says sweetly into her ear, and she shivers at his deep voice. “I have dreamed of this...”

He lowers her down slowly, pressing the head of his member against her opening until her slick folds yield. She bites her lip at the stretch, making a distressed sound.

Zhongli licks two of his fingers and then reaches down to the apex of her sex and swirls them in circles over her bud, soothing her as he presses her down inch by inch. When he is hilted to the base, he gives her a moment to adjust to his girth, toying with her clit in rubbing motions. Every motion strokes the flames of fire growing in her stomach, and her pussy clenches down around him with an aroused squeeze.

“That’s it.” He murmurs, beginning to thrust shallowly. “Relax for me.”

When her walls no longer have so much give and his shaft slides easily in and out, he picks up the pace, hilting himself completely with each thrust now.

Lumine watches his length disappear inside her again and again, mesmerized. It starts to feel amazing when he hits a spot deep inside her, and she shivers at the sensation of it like it’s in her head. Unwittingly, she starts dropping her weight down on him, wanting to feel it more. But true to his promise to be gentle with her, it’s not quite hard enough.

“Go rougher.” She says, clutching his shoulders. “Please.”

He does, shifting his hands to palm her ass so that he can lift her up and down with more ease, and there’s a slapping sound at each contact. It’s stimulating that spot so well, and she moans out at the intense pleasure.

“Mo-more!” She pleads, pressure in her stomach coiling tighter.

Zhongli complies, slamming her down hard on his cock, grunting with the effort but barely breaking a sweat. She is shuddering and moaning in sweet pleasure, and he wants nothing more than to see her come apart on his dick.

Lumine withstands but five minutes of this, and she gasps and snaps her hips forward when she hits her climax, trembling all over as she lets out a weak moan. Her eyelids flutter, and drool leaks from the corner of her parted lips as the ecstasy steals her strength and coherence, leaving her body limp.

Zhongli pulls out of her and strokes himself to completion, pearly white streaks of cum dripping onto his spent lover’s stomach. He brushes the blonde bangs from Lumine’s damp forehead with a tender gesture.

“Come,” He says after a moment. “Let us bathe and take a rest.”

“You’ll have to carry me there.” Lumine says with a breathless smile. “I don’t think I can stand right now... and it has nothing to do with my aching feet.”

“Ah, yes.” He nods, looking the most chagrined she’s seen him yet. “I -ahem- can absolutely take care of that.”

[uvobreakmylegs]

On Golden Wings

Anonymous requested a Kurapika x reader story where Kurapika has a mythical element.

Kurapika is technically a seraph in this, but I added some elements of a griffin because I thought it was fun and Kurapika is extra so it fits

(sorry about the bad title it was the best I could come up with)

Warnings: mentions of violence, kidnapping, threats of torture, implied death

Feathers.

Everywhere you looked, you could find golden-brown feathers strewn about the city. In the streets, sticking out of bushes, stuck within whatever cracks they could find or drifting across the pavement as the wind pushed them along. Even some children would pick them up and use them as accessories.

When they first began to appear people had noticed them quickly – they were hardly small, some that you had seen were longer than the entire length of your hand. Questions about them came just as fast, on where they had come from and what kind of bird this was, to be losing so many feathers at such a seemingly rapid pace. The local zoo and bird sanctuary claimed to know nothing, and no one of the upper class within the city admitted to having some sort of exotic pet that had escaped. And if all of those parties were telling the truth, it only meant that it was wild. And once again taking in the size, it was extremely likely that it was a bird of prey.

The fears began then. That there was a monster bird stalking the city, ready to maim and kill whatever it came across. Despite the fact that there was no evidence of any actual danger, once those ideas were planted fear was quick to make the majority of the public lose their minds. For a few weeks, at least. Once enough time had passed and there were no reports of anyone turning up dead, the public's sights shifted to a new fear to worry over, and the feathers that covered the city were accepted as a new norm with only a small handful of people still trying to find the feathers' origins.

You fell within the former category, content to accept that the feathers were there to stay and since it wasn't actually affecting anyone negatively, it wasn't anything to worry about. The feathers could get annoying, yes, but it was a nuisance that was easily taken care of so you could get on with your day.

Whether it was just an abnormally large bird or something that fell under the category of a magical beast, you had no desire to kick that particular hornet's nest just to sate your own curiosity. There were things in this world that were beyond your comprehension. You were happy to accept that fact and content to continue living your life not worrying about such things.

The feathers stayed, and you continued as normal.

Or at least, you would have had it not been for a chance encounter one night.

It was a late Sunday evening when your work shift finally ended. It had been a hectic, exhausting day as usual and you wanted nothing more than to return home and pass out on your bed.

The walk back towards your apartment was quiet, with virtually no one else on the street and only a few cars passing you by every once in a while. Though you usually did your best to keep yourself calm, there was always a part of your brain that worried about being out alone so late at night. Women getting snatched up and murdered was something you frequently saw in the murder documentaries you occasionally watched, and as much as you told yourself that it could never happen, it didn't hurt to keep your guard up, subtly glancing around the area every so often to make sure no would-be murderer was following you.

Checking around again, you sighed to yourself when you confirmed that there was in fact no one tailing you. Adjusting the grip you held on the paper bag holding the donut you'd grabbed before you left your work, you told yourself that at least there was no one there to see you acting like a paranoid idiot.

But even you were caught off-guard when you heard a commotion coming from the alleyway a few feet ahead of you, followed by a stray cat who ran out and down the street at full speed. You stood still for a few seconds, waiting to see if anything else would come out. Nothing did, but you could hear movement from within the alley. Along with.... Breathing? It was most likely a person, then, and who knew what they were doing in there.

Common sense told you that you should probably go to the other side of the street before going past the alley, or maybe even to turn around and find an alternate route home. As much as an inconvenience it was, you would have done just that had you not seen the flurry of feathers that came rushing out of the alley, followed by what sounded like the flapping of wings.

…. That didn't seem normal. Granted, none of this seemed very normal, but the sounds and things you saw coming from that alley were decidedly strange.

Maybe the thing that's been leaving those feathers was in there.

The thought popped into your head, and once it had, you had a hard time getting your legs to take you away from the area.

You didn't care what sort of creature was hanging around the city. That was what you had told yourself. So why were you slowly moving forward, straining your neck to try and get a glance at whatever was in that alley? You didn't care, and you weren't going to actually do anything with that information.

But just getting a quick glance at it wouldn't hurt, right?

You took a few small steps forward, and finally, you could see into that alley.

A young blonde man, most likely in his early twenties and wearing all white, stood before you, a hand holding a trash bin lid as he was very obviously rooting through the garbage. But those things weren't even what was most significant about him.

It was the four large wings that protruded from his back.

Even as he held them tightly to himself, the wings still brushed against the walls and ground of the alley, the natural grime of the ally dirtying the golden-brown feathers. There was also a tail that swayed from side to side, resembling that of a lion and of a similar color to that of the wings. And to top it off, you noticed that on his bare feet and his hands were long sharpened nails. Or perhaps they were claws. Either way they looked deadly, and you inhaled sharply when you noticed him freeze.

He slowly turned his head, looking over his shoulder to glare at you with sharp gray eyes.

The two of you stood there for some time, neither of you taking your eyes off of the other even when he turned to face you fully, tossing the metal lid to the ground with a clatter. His chest puffed up and his wings extended as he stood at his full height. It was a show of force, you realized. He saw you as a threat and was trying to scare you away by intimidating you.

Common sense was back, telling you that you had gotten what you had come for and that you should retreat while he still gave you the chance. He hadn't attacked you, so it was safe to assume he would leave you alone if you left now.

But even as you thought that, another look over his figure made you reconsider. His white clothes were muddied, covered in dirt and what looked like blood. The fabric was ripped in several places as well, the wounds that were beneath partially visible. On a closer inspection, his wings weren't faring much better: there were several spaces that were empty where feathers were clearly supposed to be, and quite a few of the ones that remained looked scruffy and unkempt. Like he had gotten into a fight with something and had lost. Then there was the fact that you had caught him literally digging through the trash. Taking another glance at the trash bin, you saw the remnants of rotting food sitting at the top.

He must be hungry.

The man continued to glare at you, and then tensed when you held out the paper bag that you had been holding.

“Do you want this?” you asked, offering it to him.

His eyes narrowed further, and he looked at the bag and then back to you.

“What is it?” he asked.

Relieved that he could understand you, you answered “a donut. Food.”

He stayed quiet as you continued to hold the bag out to him, his guard not letting down in the slightest. He was clearly trying to assess if you were plotting something and if this was some sort of trap. You tried not to be offended. You had never heard of people with wings before, but if you had, you were certain that the general public would have treated them as being some sort of magical beast to be gawked at or hunted. Based off of his actions, he must have good reason not to trust you, and you couldn't blame him for that.

“Toss it over to me,” he finally said.

You did as he told you, throwing the bag over which he caught with one hand.

He carefully opened the top, peering inside while his figure relaxed slightly. Once he had determined that there was nothing wrong with the bag, he tentatively reached inside to grab what would have been your late-night snack, letting the bag fall to the ground as he inspected the donut, turning it over and sniffing at it. It was the first time you had seen someone give such an accusatory look towards a simple donut.

He looked back at you briefly before taking a small bite, carefully chewing before he swallowed. You saw the tension in him dissipate further, and he took a few more bites as he leaned back against the alley wall, satisfied that you hadn't done anything to tamper with the food. He would periodically glance over at you as you smiled to yourself, happy that he seemed to like it.

“Can I come closer?” you asked.

He paused in between bites, once again looking you over.

“.... Not too close,” he finally answered.

Delighted, you took a few steps forward, stopping when he ordered you to stop with a swish of his tail.

“You're a strange one,” he commented as he continued to eat, “why did you do this?”

You shrugged.

“I wanted to help.”

“But why?”

“You were hungry.”

He didn't seem satisfied with your answer as his eyes narrowed at you once again, but he chose to continue eating instead of questioning you further. Within moments, the donut was gone, and he was licking the last remnants of it off of his fingers.

“That was hardly filling,” he said, “but your kindness is appreciated.”

Lifting off of the wall, he turned and began to walk away.

“Wait!” you called out.

He stopped, glancing back at you.

“What is it?”

“Can I help you with anything else? Is there anything you need?”

“What else could I need from you?”

“Maybe some bandages? You're hurt, aren't you?” you pressed.

One of his hands instinctively went to his stomach that had one of the many wounds on his body, covering it as he bit his lip. He turned away and began to walk again.

“If I decide that I require your assistance again, I will come to you,” he called out, “but do not count on such a thing happening.”

“... Okay,” you answered, feeling a bit dejected.

“Could you at least tell me your name?”

He ignored your question as he reached the other end of the alley, his wings spreading out and lifting him up with such a force that the backdraft he created caused the paper bag on the ground to fly up and hit you squarely in the face.

Despite what he had said you saw him the next day, peering at you through the thick foliage of a local park. He vanished the instant the two of you made eye contact, his golden head popping back down beneath the leaves.

He must have been confident that he would get your attention and not alert anyone else that was around, you mused.

Or he was just that desperate.

Taking it as an invitation, you made your way into the the thick bit of forest within the park, quickly coming upon a small clearing where he stood, arms crossed as he waited for you.

“Am I right in thinking that you wanted to see me?” you asked, grinning as he nodded.

“Yes,” he said, sighing, “I'm trusting that you didn't tell anybody about our meeting last night?”

“Who would I even tell? No one would believe me.”

“And you intend on keeping my existence a secret?”

“Again, no one would buy it.”

“Very well,” he responded. His gaze shifted to the ground next to him in an almost bashful way.

“Is that offer to help still on the table?”

He couldn't look at you, and he was clearly embarrassed that he needed to ask.

“Of course,” you said, smiling at him.

“I have nothing of value, and will not be able to compensate you in any way. Is that still acceptable?”

“I don't care about anything like that. Just tell me what you need,” you insisted.

“As long as you're certain,” he said, his wings lowering in defeat as he let out another small sigh.

“You were correct last night; bandages would be very useful. It's also been a while since I had a proper meal, so if you could bring me some more food, it would be appreciated.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

“Just that for now.”

Nodding at him, you hurried out of the park and to the nearest grocery store. One quick trip later and you had returned, holding a bag full of bandages, medical supplies and food that you hoped he would like.

He hummed as he looked through it, picking out the bandages and ripping the packaging open. He glanced over to you a few times as he did so, looking more embarrassed every time he looked away.

“... Do you want me to leave?” you asked.

“If that is alright with you,” he mumbled, “I don't wish to be rude after you've done me a favor, but the majority of my interactions with your kind have been largely.... Unpleasant. I would feel more comfortable if-”

“It's alright. I get it,” you said.

“Thank you,” he said, sighing in relief.

You made your way to the 'entrance' of the clearing, then stopped.

“Can I ask you one thing, though?”

He looked nervous again, but nodded slowly.

“Can you tell me your name?” you asked, smiling at him.

“..... Kurapika.”

“So what do you normally eat?” you asked, resting your chin on your knees.

“Before I came here I largely ate the animals that I could hunt down,” Kurapika answered, “but the majority of the animals in this city are domesticated, and I couldn't bring myself to hunt any of them.”

“Why?”

He glanced away, a slight pout on his face.

“Just thinking about killing someone's pet for food made me feel badly, even if I was desperate enough for that.”

Kurapika sat across from you in the clearing, taking bites out of the lunch you had brought him for the day. He had forbidden you from visiting him more than once per day, in the event that your behavior would stick out as being suspicious to anyone that was trying to hunt him. So you went once every day under the guise of eating lunch in the park, secretly taking him a big meal that could get him through until the next day.

You wanted to ask about his life before he had become a fugitive, but you knew that would only cut your visit short. Any question that was even vaguely related to where he had come from and how he had ended up in this situation would result in him clamming up. It was clearly something that still caused him immense amounts of pain, and you didn't want to add to it. So you did your best to steer your conversations to more mundane subjects that you hoped wouldn't upset him. It had taken a lot of effort and convincing him that you were on his side and that all you wanted was to help him, and you didn't want to ruin that by asking intrusive questions.

His wings were in slightly better shape (after he reluctantly allowed you to help him clean them) though a lot of them were still growing back in.

“How long did you say your molting period lasts again?”

“About two months,” said Kurapika, “I believe it's been a little over a month since I started, so it should be over soon. Then I'll be able to leave this area.”

“Do you think the people who hurt you will follow after?”

“Most likely. But when my molting has ended they won't have a trail of my feathers to hunt me down again,” he said.

“I really do have to thank you,” he continued, “you helping me like this means I don't need to go out and risk getting caught.”

“Happy to help,” you said, grinning.

“I think I'll be sad when you leave, though.”

“I can't remain here,” he said, finishing up the last of his meal.

“I know. But I'll miss being able to talk to you. I really like you.”

Kurapika paused, looking over you carefully before snapping his head away, another blush on his face.

“We barely know each other. Ridiculous.”

You just smiled in response.

Although he stopped mentioning it out loud, he was continually perplexed by your willingness to help him. There were many times during your visits with him that he would watch you carefully, or even watch the woods that surrounded the two of you as if anticipating an ambush. While he trusted you enough at this point to believe that you had no intentions of harming him, he didn't trust that you wouldn't be followed, and he emphasized to be on the lookout for anyone who seemed suspicious.

You weren't sure what exactly counted as suspicious until you happened across the two magic beast hunters.

Walking by a crowded plaza, it seemed quieter than was expected. Everyone there was speaking in hushed whispers and seemed nervous about something. The air around the plaza made you pause, and you looked around the area to see what exactly was causing people to behave in this way.

Then you saw the hunters, armed to the teeth with an array of gnarly looking weapons accosting some old man. One of them was tall with a stocky build, looking smug while his partner, a smaller scruffy-looking man with far more knives than was reasonable did the talking. You frequently saw the old man make an attempt to leave but the hunters wouldn't let him, the bigger one going as far as to grab him by the shoulder to keep him in place while the other continued to speak to him, waving one of Kurapika's feathers in his face.

Oh shit.

You wanted to just run out of there and get away from them as fast as you could, but that would have gotten their attention. It would be less suspicious if you followed the example of the others you saw in the plaza and quietly left. Surely they wouldn't notice you among the dozens of others hoping to leave without attracting their attention.

It was easier to breathe when you had made it to the side streets, and when you saw Kurapika that day you told him everything. When you had described them to him, his hand went back to the healing wound on his stomach.

“Those were the ones who attacked me. You're certain they didn't see you?” he asked.

“I'm sure of it. There were too many other people around for them to have noticed me.”

“Alright. But if you ever see them again, don't come that day. Right now I'm still too weak to fight them, so if they found me it'd be over.”

You nodded. He wasn't back to 100% yet, but he had been doing much better since you had begun to help him. Even so, you didn't want to let him go without food for a day, but it was better that he go hungry for a bit instead of being captured.

There was a tense air that stayed over the next few days, and you noticed a change in Kurapika. Dark circles were forming under his eyes and you asked if he hadn't been sleeping well. Instead of actually answering your question he told you not to worry about it.

That only made you worry more.

This particular day you had asked him if he was doing okay, and he said that he was fine, brushing away your concerns, his annoyance evident.

But not five minutes later he fell over.

Directly onto you.

It was almost panic-inducing when it happened, and the first thought that went through your mind was that he had literally dropped dead. But after a moment you could see that he was still breathing. Given the dark circles that were under his eyes, Kurapika seemed to have passed out due to sheer exhaustion.

'You can't stay with him. You have work in an hour,' you thought to yourself.

So why were you adjusting him so his head could rest comfortably on your lap?

He'd probably be mad at you if you stayed with him while he was completely vulnerable. If there was one thing you learned during your time with him, he hated to appear to be weak in front of others.

But the thought of just leaving him passed out on the forest floor left a bad taste in your mouth.

After a few minutes, you called your work to say that you were sick and couldn't come in. As expected, your manager was upset and berated you over the phone. At least that call only lasted a few minutes. The money you would lose today would hurt a little bit, especially with all of the spending you'd been doing on Kurapika, but when you looked back down at his sleeping form, you were confident that you'd made the right choice.

Kurapika slept soundly on your lap, his wings and tail twitching from time to time. You laid a hand on his head, slowly stroking his blonde hair. Your touch was light, and yet you heard him let out a soft sigh and saw his body relax further. How long had it been since he had received a kind touch from anyone? Likely just as long as the last time anyone had shown him any kindness. Your thoughts went again to the questions he wouldn't answer: what had happened to his friends and family? How had he ended up like this?

You thought of those questions, and yet you could make a pretty good guess as to the answers. He had been alone on the streets digging through the trash for food, covered in wounds and dirt, carrying no money and being chased by hunters. If his life was in danger like that, then it was clear that his loved ones weren't alive anymore.

Time passed, and the sun dipped lower into the sky while Kurapika continued to sleep. You let him stay as he was, even when it was becoming uncomfortable for you as your legs began to fall asleep.

There wasn't a lot you could do for him, and while it hurt to admit it, what you were able to do for him wouldn't be much in the long run. But even if it helped in even the slightest, you wanted to do whatever you could.

It was nearing evening when he finally stirred, his wings fluttering slightly as he blearily opened his eyes. He seemed to take a little bit to fully awaken and realize the situation, his eyes widening in surprise and looking up at you.

You were expecting him to become upset. To shoot up and ask what you were doing, or to just turn away from you and tell you to leave.

But instead he stayed as he was, head on your lap as he continued to look up at you.

The silence was becoming awkward for you, and you cleared your throat before explaining “sorry. You fell asleep and, uh, I didn't feel good just leaving you.”

He stared at you, unblinking.

“I don't remember falling asleep,” Kurapika finally said.

“You just fell over,” you explained, laughing a bit as you continued, “fell over right onto me, actually.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“Ah! No, I'm fine.”

“That's good,” he said.

Kurapika pushed himself up, switching to a sitting position in front of you. He glanced about the clearing and noted how late it was.

“Isn't it too late for you to be here? Didn't you have work?” he asked.

“It's fine. I called in.”

“Won't that be an issue?”

“Ah, well. My coworkers won't be happy with me, and I'll probably get bullied a bit by the manager tomorrow,” you explained, but you tried to change your tune when you noticed how his face fell.

“It's fine, though! It's not the end of the world because I called in one day of work.”

He didn't look convinced, but he seemed to concede as he sighed at you (just how often had he sighed at you at this point?).

“Shouldn't you head back to your home? In case someone goes there to check up on you?”

“There isn't going to be anybody coming to check on me,” you assured him.

“You should still head back; you've been out here too long,” he insisted.

“Okay. But, uh,” you began, scratching the back of your head, “could I wait a little bit? My legs are still asleep.”

“That's fine.”

The both of you stayed where you were, sitting in the clearing while you waited for the feeling to return to your legs and feet. Kurapika was still staring at you, a thoughtful look on his face. Just as you had been surprised earlier that he hadn't immediately retreated from you when he'd woken up, it was unusual that he stayed this close to you. He hadn't made any move to back away. It was a stark contrast to how things had been when you had first met.

“You don't have to keep an eye on me, you know?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I just mean, you don't have to wait on me until I leave. If you've got other things to do, you don't have to keep your attention on me. As soon as my legs feel better I'll be out of here.”

You weren't sure what other things he might need to do without you there, but you didn't want to assume that there was nothing. With the way he was staring at you, it felt as though you were inconveniencing him in some way.

“It's fine,” he said. You hummed an affirmative, and the silence fell back over you.

When you felt like you were able to safely walk again, he spoke.

“You remind me of someone I once knew.”

… This was new. Kurapika had never talked about anyone other than the beast hunters that were trying to track him down.

“In what way?” you asked.

“Going out of your way to look out for me. Taking care of me, even at your own expense,” he added wistfully. There was a distant look in his eyes as he appeared to recall his memories of this person.

“Were they.... Like you?” you asked, unsure if that was the best way to phrase the question.

“Yes. His name was Pairo, and he was part of our clan,” said Kurapika, “he died with the rest of them when a group of murderers found our home.”

“I'm sorry,” you said, ���I can't imagine what you've been through.”

He hummed noncommittally, seemingly lost in his thoughts.

“Are they the one who're chasing you?” you asked.

Kurapika let out a harsh breath that resembled a laugh.

“If they were I wouldn't be talking to you,” he said, “they didn't seem to care that one of us happened to not be there. At this point, I wonder if they even remember about my people and what they did to them. No, the ones who are after me are petty bottom-feeders. Apparently they want to sell me off as being an exotic pet.”

“They're... Hunting you for that? But then why did they hurt you?” you asked, looking at his bandaged wounds.

“Doesn't seem like they're that good at taking something alive. I suppose I'm lucky that they're not trying to kill me,” he scoffed, “if I'm having such trouble with rabble like them, it's only a testament to how weak I really am, and how much stronger I'll need to become if I want revenge for Pairo and the others.”

You didn't know how to respond. You couldn't respond. There was nothing you could say to offer him any sort of comfort, and any sort of encouragement or guarantees that things would be fine would be insulting.

“I'm sorry,” you said again.

He didn't answer you.

You stood up on slightly shaking legs, giving him a short goodbye and promising to see him tomorrow. He nodded in response.

The next day he was gone.

The clearing was virtually empty with no signs that he had been there other than the feathers that you had grown so accustomed to. It was the first time since you started this that he was gone when you went to visit, and your first thought was that he needed to leave to take care of something....... In the middle of the day. While trying to lay low.

Yeah, maybe not.

Your next assumption was that he had been discovered and taken away. But surely there would be some evidence of a struggle, right? And there was nothing that indicated that Kurapika had left unwillingly. Then the next thought was that he had found a new hiding place. Maybe those hunters had come a bit too close for his liking and he felt like he needed to find someplace safer, and he just didn't have a way to find you and tell you where it was yet.

That last scenario somehow seemed less likely than the other two, and you were forced to reconcile with the idea that he had left.

It wasn't too unexpected. He'd been getting better, and his molting was almost finished so he'd be able to fly about safely.

You had just hoped that he would've told you so you could have given him a proper farewell.

Maybe what had happened the day before had upset him more than you had realized. That hadn't been your intention, but who knew what it had looked like to him.

But he had opened up to you a bit more, hadn't he?

It was confusing and you didn't understand, but the longer you stood in that empty clearing, you accepted that he was gone, and your chances of seeing him again were likely nothing.

You tried to be happy for him. It was a good thing that he was able to finally leave the area. Hopefully he could get to someplace safer, maybe not need to worry about those people hunting him down, or at least get far enough away that they would have a hard time finding him again.

But even then, you couldn't help but feel sad that he really was gone.

You set the bag of food meant to be his lunch in the middle, just in case he did come back and needed something. It seemed unlikely, but you felt better leaving it for him. As you weaved back through the trees that surrounded the space, you picked up one of his errant feathers that had been caught in a branch, running your fingers over it. A small memento; something to remember him by. It was the most you could ask for, and you told yourself to be happy that you were able to help the way you did.

With you being so caught up in these thoughts, you didn't notice one of the hunters from earlier standing at the edge of the park, or the way he watched you as you left.

It was another Sunday night after work: your feet hurt from standing too much, your back and arms hurt from the overwork, and if you needed to hear one more complaint from an entitled customer you'd probably stab your own ears just to get away from those shrill voices. The one consolation you had was that you weren't working the closing shift and didn't need to worry about taking care of customers while simultaneously trying to close up for the night. Once the end of your shift came around, all you needed to do was run to the break room, gather your things and escape.

One day you'd get a better job, you told yourself. Something that you actually enjoyed and wouldn't cause you ungodly amounts of stress. You just needed to figure out what that could be.

Your thoughts went back to Kurapika as you walked the familiar path back to your home. It wasn't all that long that he had been around, really, and yet the idea of not seeing him again felt strange to you.

You pulled out the feather that you stowed away in your bag, looking it over again. With how busy you had been throughout your shift, you had managed to take your thoughts away from him, but now that things were more quiet, he was all you could think about.

It wasn't too late yet, with some people walking along the same walkway as you, but that didn't stop the car that suddenly pulled up next to you.

Or the man who opened the door and pulled you inside.

The amount of force he had used to grab you almost broke your arm, and all you could do was scream as you were shoved against the seat as the man who had grabbed you yelled at the other to drive while he shut the door behind you, keeping his forearm on your throat to the point that you could hardly breathe.

A knife in your face and him yelling at you to “shut the fuck up” made you silent, and your fingers latched onto the seat beneath you, your nails tearing holes into the worn fabric.

The car sped along, almost hitting several other vehicles and pedestrians in the process. Doing your best to calm down, you realized that the men who had grabbed you were the hunters you had been avoiding; the bigger one in the driver's seat while the smaller one waved one of his knives around, nicking your face a few times when the car lurched him from side to side.

It finally stopped on an empty embankment by a river. The water that rushed through the canal was almost black and it was impossible to see to the bottom.

'They're going to kill me,' you thought. 'They're going to kill me and then dump my body in the water.'

Your heart was beating in your ears when the smaller hunter began speaking.

“Let's make this quick, okay? A lotta people saw our little stunt and the police'll probably be here soon,” he said.

“We really need to know where that bird boy went. Tell us everything you know, and you'll be able to get home safely. If not-”

He grabbed one of your hands and held it up to your face.

“- I'm gonna to cut off your fingers one by one 'til you talk, and then they'll need to fish your body out of the river when we're done with you. If you're smart, you'll pick the first option.”

You sat there in shock as this man spoke so matter-of-factly about brutally torturing and murdering you while the man behind him sat there grinning.

There was a lump in your throat, and you couldn't make any sort of sound.

“Listen you stupid bitch,” he hissed, grabbing your face and pulling you closer, “I'm not gonna lose any sleep over killing you. His life is valuable; yours isn't. So tell me where the fuck he is or-”

You spat in his face. There was barely any saliva with how dry your mouth was, but you managed it.

One of his blood veins popped and his lip quivered.

“That was the worst thing you coulda done, you stupid little bitch.”

He barked at the other man to come back and hold you down while his hand went back to your throat, mercilessly choking you to keep you in place. The other man was already stepping out of the car, and with what little you could see, you could tell he seemed excited about the prospect of torturing you.

You tried to pull the knife man's hand off of your throat as he waited for his partner to walk around the car.

And he waited.

And waited.

Black spots were beginning to appear at the edge of your vision when he finally loosened his grip, leaning forward over you to look for his partner through the car windows.

A loud crash from the front of the car startled you both. His hand left your throat completely, and while he turned his gaze to the front, you lurched to the side, desperately grabbing at the door handle.

He noticed your escape attempt with a sharp cry, and you felt something slice down your back as you opened the door and stumbled out.

There weren't any thoughts running through your head as you ran; you were going off of a pure primal instinct and a desire to get out of there and survive.

Noises sounded from behind you: the sound of something flapping and a scream. But you could barely acknowledge them, your eyes only focused on the lights on the road next to the embankment.

You could feel blood running down your back as you ran but you didn't stop. Even when you had put several blocks between you and that car you didn't stop. You needed to get to safety, and that could only be found with other people.

A figure dropped down from the sky in front of you and you ran right into them. They wrapped their arms around you and you screamed, bashing your fists against their chest while you struggled to get out of their grasp.

“Calm down,” a familiar voice said.

You stopped, slowly looking back up to see who was holding you.

In your adrenaline-fueled haze, you managed to not notice the wings the person hand.

“Kurapika-!”

You sobbed into his chest, your hands grabbing the fabric of his shirt while he soothed you. His hand ran down your back and you winced, the skin still tender from where you had been slashed.

“We need to get out of here,” he said.

“Th-those two-!”

“I took care of them. Now hold onto me.”

Kurapika picked you up bridal-style, and you wrapped your arms around his neck. He lifted off the ground as his wings pulled him up, and within moments you were in the sky, miles above the buildings that littered the ground. The air was chillier up here, and as he flew, the wind stung your back-wound, making you bury your face into his neck.

You could vaguely make out him apologizing to you, and something about promising to fix you up. The wind made it hard to hear it, though.

It felt like only seconds had passed when he touched down on top of a large building, carefully lowering you to the ground while continuing to hold you, his wings folding over you to barricade you from the wind.

He ran his hand down your back, careful to avoid the cut while you took in huge gulps of air as you tried to calm down.

Half an hour passed before you could properly form a sentence. You pulled away from him slightly, your tears mostly dry now. There were a lot of questions running around in your mind, and you didn't know where to start.

“I thought you left,” you whispered.

“I did. But I got a bad feeling, so I came back. I'm so glad I did,” he said, a hand trailing down your cheek, “it would have been devastating if I found out that those two had killed you.”

For the first time, you noticed that his hands were covered in blood, but you didn't say anything.

“Thank you,” you whispered, “I- thank you.”

He didn't say anything for some time, and the two of you sat there on that roof. There was still pain coming from you back and you were about to ask that he take you somewhere to get that fixed when he spoke.

“Come with me.”

“What?”

“I can't stay here, and therefore I can't be around to protect you,” he explained, “if those men told anyone else about you, your life is still in danger.

“I was wrong when I left you like that, because for the first time in a long time, I finally have someone who I can't bare to lose. It'll be hard, but I want to rebuild my clan together with you. Once I get my revenge, I want to spend the rest of my days with you. So please, say you'll come with me.”

Kurapika held you tightly against him, his tail wrapping around your ankle.

“Please, let me have this little bit of selfishness,” he breathed.

“..... Okay.”

He tilted your head up to meet your lips in a kiss, and you found yourself pushing up into it, closing your eyes while his wings remained caged around you.

[crystalirises]

Death was Fated to Be...

... it just never specified whose.

TW: Implied Character Death, Ghost Children, and Blood

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28886223/chapters/83167660

His eyes fluttered open, the taste of ash sharp against his tongue. He felt cold, everything was cold. He shivered, little hands coiled around the stone ground. A red sky greeted him, shrieks and screams echoing in the distance. Faintly, he could smell a metallic scent in the air. A feather floated by, its black hue somehow bright against the red sky. He tried to stand, but a sharp pain ran through his whole body. Tears ran past his cheeks, stinging at his skin. Soon, the mild hurt turned into agony, and he let out a tortured shriek. Arms wrapped around him, the world grew dark. He screamed against the hold, more tears running past his cheeks and burning at his face.

“Shhh, you’re alright, mate. You’ll be alright. Your grandpa’s right here.”

His face was buried in a cloak, the scent of mint and tea reaching his nose as his cries turned into small sobs. He still couldn’t see, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw that it wasn’t darkness that covered him. It was a wall of feathers. He whimpered, struggling in his captor’s hold, but they kept a tight hold on him. He could hear explosions, but his captor blocked away the world from his view. He heard the rustle of feathers, their muffled steps, and knew that his captor was moving towards the cacophony of chaos. He whined, hoping that his papa would come save him soon. He didn’t want to be taken, not by a stranger, even if they did have wings.

“I know you’re scared, Fundy. It’s alright. I have you, you’re safe.”

A hand petted the back of his head, fingers pausing at the base of his ears before scratching. His tail wagged, a yip escaping him despite the fear that was still curled in his mind. They curled closer to their captor’s chest, clinging to their calming scent. They smelled old. Fundy would have snickered if he wasn’t a bit too scared to offend the person who was holding him. After a moment, the panic of outside melted away into a tense lull. His captor paused. Fundy sniffed at the air, his nose wrinkling at the strong scent of metal and of withered rot. The wings unfurled away from him, giving him a view of the world outside. He preferred it inside the safety of the wings. His attention focused on the scorched ground and the rubble that scattered the dead earth.

“Phil… I didn’t think you’d be here.”

A gruff and tired voice broke Fundy from his thoughts. He buried his face deeper against his captor’s scratchy cloak. He didn’t like the voice, and he didn’t want to see the voice’s source.

“Well, mate. It’s not everyday you’re told your son has plans to blow up a nation, a nation that he founded himself, mind you.” His captor - Phil - sighed, adjusting his hold on Fundy. The new position didn’t allow him to hide his face. “I just can’t believe it, Techno. He loved this country.”

“Didn’t seem like that to me, Phil. I may have not agreed on the idea of the continuation of government, but I never agreed upon the TNT placement. Wilbur made that choice all on his own. He was the traitor, and I don’t lie when I say that I saw it coming.” The piglin hybrid before them spoke low, his voice barely above a whisper despite the roughness in it. Crimson red eyes met his gaze, a wince crossing the piglin hybrid’s - Techno’s - face. His regal clothing was bathed in blood and ash, the once white shirt now drenched in red. Fundy whimpered, but despite his fear, he tried to hold the man’s gaze. Techno mentioned his papa’s name. Maybe he knew where his papa was. The piglin hybrid snorted, crossing his arms across his chest. “Phil, I know you have an addiction with adopting orphans but this is a bit much, don’t you think? He’s dea—”

“Techno. Not now.” A hand rested on top of his head, petting his… has his hair always been white? Fundy blinked, eyes wide as a strand of white curly hair clung to his forehead. “I’ll tel—”

“Can Fundy ask a question, pwease?” He didn’t mean to cut off Phil, but he was scared and wanted his papa. The man holding him paused, flashing a gentle smile while he nodded for Fundy to continue. He pursed his lips, throwing a cautious look towards Techno. “Where papa?”

The man froze, teeth clenched as he sucked in a deep breath. Techno averted his gaze, attention fixed to the sword that had been sheathed at his waist. Fundy frowned, trying to reach both their eyes, but neither of them could look at him. He tried to squirm out of Phil’s hold, intent on finding his way back to L’Manburg. The sky was beginning to darken, and papa wouldn’t like it if he came home late. Phil didn’t let him go. He whimpered, eyes pooling with tears that were quickly brushed away before they could even touch his skin. Phil shushed him, rocking him back and forth as he paced around the ground. “No, no, no. It’s alright, Fundy. You’re safe, I promise. I’m your grandpa… your Grandza, as I assume Wilbur would have told you to address me as.”

“G-grandza?” He sniffled, wiping his nose on the man’s cloak. Phil laughed, wrinkling his nose, but he didn’t berate Fundy for the action. He looked over at Techno, taking in the strange piglin hybrid who looked extremely uncomfortable underneath his stare. He thought back to his dad’s stories - at least the ones that weren’t as fuzzy in his mind - recalling how his dad would mention his older twin brother who was a powerful warrior. He also mentioned that his older twin brother had long pink hair. Fundy pointed at Techno in awe, all previous fear gone. “Uncle Techno!”

“HEH?!” Fundy giggled, tail wagging as he tried to reach towards his uncle. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you ask Technoblade), the screams of an angry mob reached their ears. Fundy withdrew, whining as he gripped at his ears. He heard his grandza and his uncle quickly exchange words, and then they were running away, the wind brushing against his hair and cheek.

But… he didn’t feel cold. No. Not at all.

---

Fundy poked at the hole in his chest, phantom blood oozing out in a hue of orange. He wrinkled his nose, the blood splattering against the wooden floor before disappearing into thin air. Grandza had given him a mirror, something to occupy himself with as they continued to build the cabin around him. He wanted to help, but his uncle and his grandza said that he could help decorate the inside of the cabin instead once they finished building. His attention turned back to his reflection, his small frown going back into a smile. He was wearing his favorite sweater. It was orange, warm, and very fluffy. Like his tail! His papa had asked uncle Tommy to make it a few sizes bigger, so he could barely even see his little hands as the sleeves covered them entirely.

His white curly hair nearly covered his blank white eyes, and he couldn’t help but wonder how Eret would feel if he showed them his eyes. They matched now! He giggled, sitting down on the floor after looking at himself in the mirror for as long as his attention remained. He watched his grandza and uncle work around him instead, his grandza having built a small roof above him so that the cold, wet snow wouldn’t touch his skin. Fundy was a bit disappointed to realize that he’d never be able to touch snow or water again. They hurt him, and Fundy didn’t like getting hurt.

“Hey, mate. Need anything down there?”

“No, Grandza!” He looked up, waving at his grandza who was standing on a nearby wall that had yet to be finished. Fundy frowned, floating off the ground for a bit before settling back down. It was snowing heavily now, and he didn’t want to get hurt again. They learned the hard way that Fundy couldn’t touch snow when Phil had placed him down on the snow, in which Fundy began to shriek the moment his feet touched the ground. He sighed, laying down. “Want to help…”

“You know you can’t, mate. Not with the snow.” His grandza stuck out his hand, a snowflake landing against the palm of his hand before quickly melting away. He frowned, turning his head to the white flurry that flowed down around him. Grandza hadn’t thought of how big the space he should have for movement, the two by two wooden roof barely gave him any space to run around in. He looked just as a cold gust of wind slapped against his cheek. He turned back to see grandza back on the ground, his wings had let out a puff of air as he landed gracefully on the ground. Fundy sat up as grandza walked closer to him, ruffling his hair. “Bored? Alright, wait.”

Grandza began to add more wood to the roof, giving Fundy more space to run around in and play. Fundy was happy about it… until he realized that he didn’t have anything to play with. His toys were back in L’Manburg, and his papa was still in L’Manburg. He followed after grandza, the man focused so much on the roof that he didn’t notice the small tugging at his robe. After a few seconds, Fundy gave up on trying to get his grandza’s attention. “When papa coming?”

His grandza winced, eyes darting here and there like any other object was much more interesting than Fundy. He frowned, tugging at grandza’s cloak once again. Fundy heard his grandza let out a sigh under his breath, crouching beneath the wooden roof so he could pull Fundy into his arms. They sat there, Fundy fiddling with the mint tea-scented cloak that helped him calm down. Grandza smelled nice, even his papa didn’t smell that nice. His papa always smelled like gunpowder and freshwater. Fundy only ever liked the freshwater, the gunpowder not so much.

“Fundy…” His grandza’s gaze flicked down, black wings ruffling behind him. Fundy tried not to look as nervous as his grandza, maybe if he looked brave, grandza would be too. A hand petted the top of his head, fingers shaking as it held a strand of white hair. “I need you to understand—”

Fundy looked behind Phil, noticing a familiar figure trekking through the snow in the distance.

“Papa!”

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The sword clattered against the blood-stained cobblestone, red ichor dripping past the edge and landing somewhere far below their reach. Phil could hear the loud thump of his heart in his ears, the rush of adrenaline seeping away from his veins as the body collapsed against the ground. He moved before his mind could process what happened, hands gripping at the corpse that had stopped breathing the moment his sword had struck. Not a single word had been said. Not a cry. Not even the chance to say goodbye. His fingers gripped the back of the body’s head, rocking back and forth even as it began to fade away from his hold. The soul was being claimed, he of all people should know there was nothing to be done to stop the process. He held on a little tighter.

He’d flown miles from the solace of his home. He was an old man, at least as old as his real age would imply. He was an immortal, a man who has seen countless wars. He has seen empires rise and fall. He has seen mortals rise from the ashes and return to the earth. He has watched the world change around, adapting to the times, careful to never fall for the charms of mortals. And he’d stuck to that mora; ever since he realized he could never grow beyond the age of 40. He’d stuck to it even after countless forms of death. He couldn’t seem to die. He’d walked the earth, alone and content with his immortality. Then he’d met Technoblade, a warrior possessed with the spirit of the Blood God. Phil has yet to determine what Techno is, a mortal or a god. Then after, he’d fallen in love with the goddess of death herself, and gained the title of ‘The Angel of Death.’

In all his years. In all his lifetimes. This very moment affirmed his moral to never befriend or ever grow close to a mortal soul. He didn’t know why it burned so badly, but it did. And he’d never felt this pain in a very long time… not since his first lifetime. The body beneath his fingertips crumbled into dust, lost to the winds of time. Blood still clung to his fingertips and to his cloak. His breath stuck against his throat, tears springing to his eyes. He held them back, his hands trembling instead. Phil held his hands close to his chest, eyes fluttering close as he whispered a prayer of death and safe passage. Perhaps his wife will receive him in the afterlife, and maybe he’d be happier there than he was in this life. He shook his head. In all his years. Among all the souls he’d reaped and sent away. He didn’t realize how painful death really was.

“Phil…” He forced himself to look up. The sword was no longer on the ground, instead it had been picked up. Blood slid down its steel blade, staining the ground even more. Phil winced at the noise, at the drip-drop of red. He stood, his shaky knees threatening to give way beneath him.

He let out a shaky sigh, forcing himself to meet his son’s dark eyes. “Wilbur…”

=============================================================

Hm... is the Wilbur coming to where Phil, Fundy, and Techno are Ghostbur or just Alivebur?

:3

[docholligay]

Passover Seder for 15--This is How I Jew It (No, I will not apologize)

So, I am the Jew in Charge of Seder every year, not only in cooking the damn meal, but in leading it, which means I, as a practical matter, can’t be away too much. So, I do a meal for between 10-15, with stepping away for about 2-30 minutes. If I moved less quickly in the kitchen, it would probably be 40-50 minutes, but I am a creature of the kitchen and it’s no big deal. 

The name of the game is: PRE-PREP. I have two ovens, but I put this together like a human being that does not, to show you how easily it can be done. 

You need: 

An oven

An electric roaster (I have no fucking clue what this is called in the UK. It’s this thing. I have one from when I did Tday with one oven, but I imagine you could sub a slow cooker if you had a smaller crowd.) 

A large slow cooker

A sheet pan

A roasting pan

So, if you’re interested, in the New Year, closer to Passover, I can give you the actual recipes, but here is, from a timing standpoint, how I do things. 

Meat: Prime Rib, which is BELLIIIEVVVEE is call Rib of Beef in Ye Ol’ Ingleterra, but I’m not 100%. Prime grade rib, here, is in the neighborhood of 20 bucks a pound. I do in fact ask my guests if they’d like to chip in, but I certainly don’t require it--Passover is our most expensive holiday and we make a huge deal of it in the way a lot of goyim do Christmas, food expense wise. I get a 15 pound roast. I go about a pound a person. I have never done a vegetarian seder, I don’t have vegetarians I’m close to, it’s just not common here even among the ~community~. I suppose I would do a slowroasted stuffed pumpkin or something--I find vegetarian centerpieces sometimes want for something. 

Sides: Potatoes cooked in beef broth and spices, Honey dill carrots, brussels sprouts with duck bacon and mustard sauce. Passover is the one holiday where I make an honest to god, no dairy on the table, kosher style meal. So no mashed potatoes or anything like that. 

Dessert: These are made the day before, no exceptions at all. Do not try to steal the time day of: Macaroons, Tarta De Santiago, flourless chocolate cookies. 

So, how I do this. This is going to change based on how long you take to lead the seder. You have to know your own timing to adjust the timing of the meal. 

Night before: unwrap your roast and let it dry in the fridge. Makes it cook better, makes the seasoning stick. 

Morning of: Put your roast out and let it get to room temp. THIS IS ESSENTIAL for calculating the cooking time correctly. Should take 3-4 hours. Season it when you take it out of the fridge to let it get working, and season HEAVILY. THis is a big piece of meat. 

Cut up your potatoes, toss them in a bowl, cover and put in the fridge. Same with brussels sprouts. I use baby carrots because I’m a lazy piece of shit so I don’t have to prep them. 

DEPENDING ON ANTICIPATED MEAL TIME: Preheat your oven to 500 degrees F/260C yes you heard me correctly. I am the angel made of eyes and wings in front of you booming BE NOT AFRAID. So how you calculate the cook time is 5 min per poud, so yes, for a roast of my size that is 75 goddamn minutes at 500 and then TURN OFF THE OVEN AND DO NOT OPEN IT FOR TWO HOURS. DO NOT. 

3 hours before meal time: throw carrots in the slow cooker with honey dill shit and cook on low (for my slow cooker, ymmv, try this one before your seder so you know) 

2 hours before meal time: throw potatoes and beef broth, brown ale, and seasoning in your roaster. Turn onto 325 or so. This is also when I usually make the duck fat and mustard sauce and leave it sitting out. 

Sit down and have your seder! When your two hours for the meat is up, get up, take it out of your oven, and turn your oven up to 425. Toss the brussels sprouts on a pan, and cook for 18 minutes or so. Heat up the sauce while you’re doing that, cut your meat. Toss the potatoes and carrots into serving dishes. Get it to the table. By the time you do that, brussels sprouts should be done, toss in warmed sauce, take to table. 

Boom. Done. You’re a flawless Pesach angel. 

[theleafsheep]

You’ll Grow Into Them

Recently Silverr’s horns had started to bother him as they had begun to obstruct most of his vision. He was used to having the horns as he was born with them but they had grown a huge amount in the past few weeks. The large horns combined with his scruffy hair had combined to make Silverr one of the most accident-prone people in HBG. He had been perfectly fine before he just hadn’t had enough time to get adjusted to the new size of his horns.

HBG had just reached a new world in hopes of settling there as a permanent home so they all had a place to be when they weren’t off exploring new worlds and defeating the enderdragon. The new horns and the new environment did not help Silverr’s new situation. He had to almost solely rely on all his sense besides sight.

He knew his adjustment to the new world would be easier if he just told the other members about his newly founded vision problem but he couldn’t. The irrational part of his brain kept telling him that they’d think he was weak, that he needed to be watched over and worst of all they would pity him and that’s exactly what he didn’t want. He was his own independent person and no one could take that from him.

And then he ran into a tree because of course he did. Everyone else was getting wood perfectly fine and here he was running into a tree.

“Nice going Silverr!” Mustard jokingly said towards him.

“Oh fuck off,” he responded.

He regathered himself and started punching the tree he had just run into as to make a boat and sail to the other island where most of the members were going to be settling. Once he got enough wood he made said boat and sailed off in the direction he believed the island to be. In all honesty, he was guessing at where the island was but he thankfully got it right. Once he got out of the boat he heard someone yell at him.

“Hey Silverr,” he heard Feinberg call out towards him. “It’s getting dark out, you might want to get in the cave with the rest of us.”

“Oh okay, sure,” everyone knew Silverr wasn’t one for small talk but even then he felt bad when he only responded in short sentences.

He should have noticed the changing in the light but he wasn’t paying close enough attention. He should have figured out where Feinberg was based on where his voice was coming from. He should have been able to find where the cave Fein mentioned was. He should have, he should have, he should have.

Instead, he fumbled around trying to find the cave where some of the HBG members were laughing at his fumbling and failed attempt trying to find the cave.

Suddenly he felt someone grab his hand and drag him off, “It’s over here silly,” oh it was Marcus.

Marcus dragged him over to an opening he figured from his limited sight was the cave along with the sudden dampness surrounding him.

“We don’t have enough beds so we just have to wait out the night,” Reignex proclaimed.

“For speedrunners, you’d think we could get beds in time for a night cycle but apparently not,” Feinberg commented.

“We want this world to last, for it to be our permanent home and that can’t happen if we treat it like a speedrun world,” Silverr responded.

Silverr felt around until he found a rock to sit on and took it as his place in the cave. Almost everyone was gathered in a vague circle shape happily chatting to each other and joking around. Eventually, the voices became like white noise and Silverr fell asleep.

Waking up because your head started to fall from the wall it rested on was a very disorienting way to wake up Silverr decided. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and could tell that everyone in the cave the previous night had already left.

“I swear this slow pace world will be the death of me,” he muttered to himself while leaving to find a place to settle down. “If not for these stupid horns I could be off killing the enderdragon but no biology hates me. I will just have to get used to them before I can go off on my own.”

He spent the rest of the night mining into the cliffside to create himself a home, occasionally having conversations with the members who were passing by. He could feel their eyes linger on him and he knew why. He knew he was acting strange and he knew they were pitying him. He could take anything but not their pity.

If he spent all his time alone then there was no way they could pity him or think of him as weak, at least that’s what his brain told him. So he isolated himself from others, interacting as little as possible, but doing the same thing over and over again didn’t help him adjust to his horns. And of course, him isolating himself just made the members even more confused and concerned about him.

Many days went by before Illumina’s shadow appeared outside Silverr’s new home. His silhouette loomed over the cliffside hole as it included his horns and dragon wings

“You do know everyone is concerned about you right? You literally stopped responding to everyone who tried messaging you, we barely knew that you were still in this world,” Illumina confronted him.

Silverr couldn’t meet Illumina’s eyes, instead looking at the floor. Even if he wanted to explain, he couldn’t get the words out. Instead, he sputtered out random sounds that could not make up a coherent sentence.

Illumina looked him up and down then something seemed to click in his eyes. Illumina grabbed Silverr and brought him further into his house.

“What happened to your horns?” Illumina asked with concern laced in his voice.

Silverr looked at him puzzled then dragged his hand across his horns where he felt multiple cracks and one horn had the tip broken off.

“Huh, I guess I didn’t notice,” Silverr responded. He really hadn’t noticed but it made sense because he kept running into the stone walls of his home while digging it out and even now as he hadn’t gotten used to the layout.

Silverr could feel Illumina’s eyes back on him and linger but he kept looking down. Even though he didn’t have much of his vision, he just couldn’t make eye contact.

“How do you even see with your horns and your fringe?” it was a rhetorical question.

“I don’t, at least not very well,” Silverr stated matter of factly.

Illumina let out a deep sighed and ran his hands through his hair, “sh- shouldn’t I bandage you up or something?”

“I thought someone with horns would understand that bandages are useless.”

“W-well you have ram horns and I have dragon horns they aren’t exactly the same thing so I thought maybe—,” Illumina rambled. “You do know the other members would be willing to help you with the vision thing, right?”

Silverr mumbled a response, “I just don’t want them to think I’m weak.”

“Trust me they won’t think that, they’re just very concerned because you cut contact with everyone for like too many days,” Illumina tried to comfort him.

“I just need to get used to them and I’ll be fine. I’m always fine alone,” clear distress could be heard in Silverr’s voice.

“You’ll grow into your horns but maybe having people to help you while you get used to them will help. Come on, let’s go meet up with the others,” Illumina left, leaving Silverr to begrudgingly follow him.

Maybe he’ll be fine in time.

[szrssecuritytripodturnstile]

dc brushless slim gates doors likewise called security swing barriers gates, which comes from the gain access to control system, is one of the essential elements of modern-day entrance and exit control. The door wings are driven by the control system and open and close immediately. The operating mode can be picked through programming settings: As quickly as it is validated that the individual getting in is authorized, the door wings open immediately. It closes after a hold-up, and the hold-up time is adjustable. Typical servo motor speed gates barriers are divided into scissor doors (train flap barrier doors) and swing doors. (1) Scissor doors are frequently used in rail transit, and common scissor doors are mostly utilized in subways and other places. The door wings extend from the within the box, which can effectively seal the passage and play the function of access control. In addition, an infrared noticing device is set up inside the door body, which can understand the function of "a single person, one card" for people to go through. (2) The swing door appeared behind the scissor door and comes from the 2nd generation servo motor speed turnstiles doors. Such dc brushless glass turnstile doors is that the door wings run in the front and back instructions. The operation procedure is within the human body's view, which is safer. In addition, given that the door wings do not require to be pulled back into package, The styles of swing doors are more varied. Due to the above attributes, swing doors are typically utilized in banks, business buildings, high-end office buildings, etc. Anti-trailing function: There is a total infrared light band detection area in the channel. The switch state can be adjusted by software according to the client's precision requirements. The application of the light band to adapt to different needs prevents the drawbacks of point-type infrared detectors that are easily infected and affects the reliability of judgment, and can efficiently evaluate the future. Tag reader who checks out the card. When the system determines that tailgating has taken place, the system will react based on the location of the legitimate cardholder returned by the infrared detector. After the door opening signal is sent, there are still some unusual usages that will set off an alarm.

[stillness-in-green]

I felt like the plf war was rushed

1.Plf advisors getting hype but no payoff

2.Only miruko, Momo, and Kirishma got time to shine

3.Machia got defeated to easily

4.The war felt more like a raid

I don't know if I feel like it was rushed, per se--it's by far the longest arc in the story so far by number of chapters, and would be even if you cut off the Tartarus jailbreak and the entirety of the hospital aftermath. What it absolutely does feel like to me is unbalanced.

You note that the "war" feels more like a raid, and you're right. As a caveat, it's worth keeping in mind that "Paranormal Liberation War" as a name for the arc in question is entirely an invention of the fanbase. To the best of my knowledge, the reasoning for the name was that big action shonen series like BNHA (Naruto, Bleach, Hunter x Hunter, etc) always have a war arc, so what we were seeing in the lengthy, mass combat confrontation with the PLF had to be HeroAca's equivalent. It's not a term that's in the manga itself, however, not called as such by the characters, not referred to as such by Horikoshi or his editors, not even namedropped in chapter or volume titles. If it feels like a raid, that's probably because that's what it was intended to be.

And that's the problem, really. This arc shouldn't have been about a couple of raids; it should have been about a war.

(Below the cut: a bunch of fired-up complaining. Uses some harsh language, and talks about both injuries and deaths we did see and some we logically should have.)

From the outset, we were told that the resources Shigaraki had amassed were "on par with, or even stronger than" the resources of the hero-saturated society. Yet, we're expected to believe that a force that strong is so easily taken down by a single coordinated set of raids? Yes, the heroes had the benefit of surprise, but there's just so much that doesn't work for me.

First off, and to get this out of the way, it's ridiculous that the heroes even had the benefit of surprise. The MLA had an unknown number of hero double agents. They had people in the government; they had people in the infrastructure. This is an organization that had been living undercover completely unsuspected for multiple generations--how did the HPSC ever manage to carry out a massive, country-wide investigation on such a secretive group and coordinate multiple simultaneous, comprehensive raids without a single person finding out and alerting the higher-ups over a period of only three and a half months?

When exactly did Hawks have time to go and revive Best Jeanist--which he tells us he did personally--such that none of the bugs and micro-cameras he was covered with picked up on it, and both he and BJ could be back in the positions they needed to be in for the raid to begin?

How did Skeptic find out about the raid such that he only discovered it at the last possible second and not minutes, even hours, before it kicked off? How did hundreds of heroes (and even "hundreds" is being conservative, given the fact that they had seventeen thousand people to detain) close in on the villa without anyone from the PLF noticing, either Skeptic with his information network or mundane precautions like people on watch?

Even granting the heroes their surprise advantage--which I don't want to--if the advisors were all supposedly "stronger than the average hero," why didn't we see any of them winning? Okay, yes, Hose Face beat Midnight, but he had every possible advantage in that "fight"; I hardly count it as some big impressive defeat that shows us that the villains were holding their own.

Here's another thing: the MLA styled themselves as an army--they were demonstrably trained in troop tactics. When we saw them in Deika, even their nameless on-the-ground people were capable of coordinating with each other on the fly in response to the movements of the enemy, as we saw come up repeatedly:

Yeah, they were off-guard at first, but as soon as the advisors made the front line (which, you'll note, was immediately), that disadvantage really should have begun eroding. Certainly once Geten--Geten! The number one MLA member most willing to disregard collateral damage! And there he was being a proper leader!--got to the front and started yelling orders, we should have seen the PLF rallying, and I can't imagine any sensible justification for the tides not turning when a) Re-Destro showed up to occupy the highest-ranked hero on the field, b) a bunch of heroes peeled off to try to stop Machia only to get trampled for their efforts, and c) Trumpet got dug out.

You know who don't style themselves as an army, though? Heroes. Oh, they get some basic lessons in cooperation as students, but the extent of such lessons we see is stuff like "why it's important for heroes to have signature moves"--so that on group missions, their reputations will precede them and fellow heroes will already know their shtick. U.A. teaches the odd lesson plan that involves the kids fighting in groups, but there's a huge difference between you and 3 to 6 of your buddies fighting a similarly-sized group in a practice fight, or a handful of heroes teaming up to take down some criminal low-lives, and the mass combat scenario that was the raid. For heaven's sake, look at our closest other equivalent: the raid on the Hassaikai base. At every turn in that encounter, the heroes let themselves get split up and picked off, winnowing down their numbers. It's even explicit in the narrative that hero team-ups were, in the age of All Might, uncommon, and heroes are only just beginning to adjust to fighting in teams. The erstwhile MLA should have had the advantage there.

As to Machia's defeat, I think the big problem with it is not how it happened, per se, but the timescale involved. The plan itself was sound enough, and even with all the kids' efforts, it still took Machia reaching Shigaraki and not getting any new orders to follow to really do him in. Given what we can extrapolate about his movement speed, though, I just don't think the kids should have had time to set all those traps, especially given how much of that equipment would have had to be fabricated by Momo on the fly. I know she's gotten stronger and all, and good for her, but you're telling me that in the four months between Joint Training and the raid, she went from passing out because she created a bag of goodies and one (1) cannon to being totally fine and still able to coordinate her fellow students while cranking out 23 jars of sedative, dozens of feet of rope/cable, multiple fire-resistant coats, explosives they somehow had time to bury, and three cannons?

For fuck's sake, Jirou gave Machia's ETA as under ten seconds. Yeah, Mount Lady slowed him down, but "only a little"--how much time could she possibly have bought them, that the kids were able to to coordinate and enact everything that plan involved?

You guys, go read this post by @codenamesazanka. Machia is so fast. So unbelievably, incredibly fast. "Twice as fast as the fastest train in the world" fast. "Horikoshi clearly did not stop to think about the distances involved here" fast. Three miles in ten seconds fast. It would have been hard enough to square with the needs of the plot that the kids were sufficiently far from the villa to have the kind of time they needed to swing Momo's plan at all, but Horikoshi explicitly letting Machia get right on top of them before the kids even start just makes it completely impossible for me to credit. Machia clearly being slower aboveground than he is when burrowing does not make that much difference to my suspension of disbelief.

My other big complaint? More people should have died, for real. The PLF warriors would not have been holding back. They were ready and willing to kill anyone they came up against. The heroes did have to hold back, because heroes, as we're told over and over again, are not supposed to kill, no matter how dire the circumstances. That difference in ability to exercise force should have been yet another significant advantage for the PLF. I could write an entire list of characters that I think could have reasonably been killed during the raids. That wouldn't be to say that I think any individual, specific character on that list should have died, just that, based on the parameters as they were presented to audience, some number of them should have.

I mean, honestly. How did Horikoshi wanna show us Gang Orca's unmoving claw in the wake of Machia's passage and not have Gang Orca on the list of the dead? How did Fat Gun run right into a mass melee and still have enough fat left over afterward to survive getting trampled by a walking mountain? How did Thirteen survive not getting pulled out of the hospital basement when Shigaraki's Decay hit? How did Trumpet survive getting a staircase dropped on top of him? How did Gran Torino survive a fist through his tiny old man chest cavity?

I could go on and on, but it's not just about the deaths, either. I'm not saying that Kamui Woods necessarily should have died by swinging himself face-first into a blast of blue fire, but I am saying that he should have been out of commission for longer than three goddamn days. You bet your ass I'm saying that after telling us that Hawks' weak point is fire, making us watch him spend at a solid minute or more with his wings wholly enveloped in Dabi's 2000 degree flames, and having Dark Shadow exclaim that his back is completely burned away, Hawks should never have grown his wings back, much less so quickly that they were already visible under his shirt a single day later.

More deaths, more maiming--heck, even more retirements. I'm not saying I love that kind of thing in my fiction--I don't, actually. I think an overreliance on it is a sign of edgelordy nonsense. But the scenario that we had demanded to be treated with the kind of gravity that would have led to such an outcome. To set up a conflict like the raid and have the villains only barely be able to scrape a partial escape, to try to tell us that Shigaraki's victory in Deika granted him such a terrifyingly powerful force only to have them lose every battle they got into, to tell us this was a blow that shook Hero Society to its core, only to be so unwilling to kill or retire any heroes the audience cares about that Midnight is literally the only significant loss… It doesn't work. None of it works.

I don't have much to say on which characters did or didn't get a highlight. I think there were a few more people than you listed that got some good scenes--Tokoyami and Uraraka both got material I liked quite a bit; Dabi famously out-trended the U.S. presidential election on Twitter when he (literally) came clean, and Mr. Compress gave us some wonderfully interesting and characteristically opaque material to chew on. On the whole, though, adding more character moments would only have been dragging out the problem: the scale of the PLF's threat and the HPSC's chosen method of dealing with it are simply incompatible with the feeble "neither side truly won or lost" resolution we got.

And that's my rant on that--thanks for the ask!