#I like the Art ending but I never intend to get it haha

[sysig]

[swampybogg]

[a2zillustration]

Farewell

Not "farewell," but "see you later."

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[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

...Time to blather on under the cut. I've got thank yous, some notes about potential future comics, and if you scroll to the end of the post, I've decided to compile Croissant Adventures into a physical book. It's mostly for me, so I can hold all TWO HUNDRED AND FIVE of these strips in my hands, as a brick, but if you'd like to own a copy as well, I'll have a link to the preorders down below. If this is where you're going to stop reading, I'll extend a quick heartfelt thanks to you for joining me on this adventure!

Thank you, reader.

This is undeniably the largest project I've ever tackled in my art career; it was never supposed to be this big, and I expected maybe a handful of people to read it, at most. Instead, it became this massive project that I've been working on for ten months straight, and in the end these characters meant so much to me. I'm incredibly grateful for everyone who's bothered to read my little comic strips, whether it was just one or two, or if you've been here since the beginning, following Croissant's adventure from the minute they plummeted off the nautiloid. Thank you so much for being here and supporting this project. Thank you to everyone who left kind words and comments, sent me asks about Croissant, liked or reblogged these posts, or just read these and enjoyed them! While I was determined to finish this project no matter what happened, you certainly made it all the more fun and kept me excited to tell you the next part of Croissant's story.

Thank you, Larian.

If by some chance someone at Larian ever happens to see these, I also want to give an immense thank you to everyone who was a part of making this game. I don't play that many games these days, but BG3 rocketed to the top of my all-time favorite games almost immediately. (It was also the game that made me feel the most out of anything I've ever played; I got legitimately depressed for a few days during my run don't worry I'm fine now we're all good haha). You can tell there was so much work, and so much love involved in this game's development, and I'm so happy the studio has been rewarded with multiple awards in recognition of that dedication to making a fantastic game. Thank you again for sharing this story with us, and I can't wait to see what the studio does in the future.

Is this goodbye?

I'm hoping this is less of a "goodbye," and more of a "see you later." I'll probably take a bit of a break, since I've put off other projects for months, and art fight is happening, but I have many more things I'd like to add to Croissant's story! I have yet to play the epilogue, and I intend to illustrate parts of that depending on what happens. I also have a handful of comics for post-game Breadweave, in addition to some scenes I thought would've happened in-game but weren't canon so I left them out of the original story. (If I haven't gotten to these in a few months and you find yourself wondering about Croissant again, my ask box is always open, feel free to give me a good kick to get me back into their story, lol).

...A book?

I said I never intended this project to be so large, and I meant it. But now that I'm sitting here with two hundred and five Baldur's Gate 3 Tav comics, I really wanted to compile them into a physical book for me to hold. This is mostly for me, but if you'd also like one, I'll have a preorder available in my shop until the end of July.

✨✨✨ Croissant Adventures Preorder ✨✨✨

If you made it to the end of this post, I can only thank you again, from the bottom of my heart. I hope Croissant's story brought you joy, and if you're able to play BG3, I hope that you're having just as much fun in your own tavs' stories.

[beanytuesday]

GUE CHAPTER 4: LIVING DEAD

[But first: a brief message from the creator, which would have appeared BEFORE the comic, if I didn't just barely slide in under tumblrs 30 image limit]

Hello Everyone,

I was in the process of inking this comic when I suffered my debilitating hand injury, which set me back nearly a year. Even before I injured myself, I never intended for GUE 4 to take this long— and so in the interest of expediting it’s release, I took some shortcuts in the inking process through the use of generative AI.

Hah! Just kidding. But now it sounds less bad to say that I did save time by using modified pencilwork in place of inks, and the result is an end product that is decidedly a little rough.

I promise, nobody is upset about this as much as I am; I really wanted to present everyone with a perfect end product. But creative stuff like this has a half-life, and as much as I am proud of my work on GUE 4, I am ready to move on and get to work on other projects. (Maybe even… GUE 5? )

If it makes you feel better, just pretend that I’m the Thief And The Cobbler guy, and that GUE 4 is merely an unfinished masterwork pieced together after my untimely death at the hands of Disney gestapo. (Or whatever actually happened to him-- It’s funnier if I don’t look it up. Haha. Parody. Don’t sue me Disney)

And please, don’t freak out when you get to page 5. I started using a new drafting method while working on this comic, and I promise the art gets cleaner quickly. In fact, I think an adapted version of the rough inking method I used here can actually be used to in the future for faster turnaround, without sacrificing quality. Many exciting adventures await.

My deepest thanks for your support. Please enjoy GUE part 4.

[idolomantises]

how do you cope with just about any of the hate/controversy/whatever? if anyone is overly critical of my work i get really self-conscious.

Sometimes it does affect me when it’s a personal attack because I’m a bit sensitive and I can’t help myself haha. It’s actually something I’ve been working on improving, particularly ignoring hate, it’s just… yall know how crazy the hate I get is 😂. At one point I had a bunch of random furries harass me for two days straight because they were mad at me setting boundaries with another follower, and that was RIGHT AFTER I dealt with someone accusing me of drawing vile art simply because they didn’t think I drew fat people (even though I did).

It’s easy to forget that a lot of people online are just hostile and bitter and in a constant state of hyper-aggression. Twitter especially rewards abusive behaviors online. It’s why I generally avoid fandoms nowadays and just kind of enjoy things from the sidelines. A lot of people enjoy being very cruel and unfriendly unprovoked, but I won’t say “get over it” because stuff like that DOES hurt. I’ve been told and sent a lot of stuff that still sticks with me years later, things I’ve never discussed before because it’s too upsetting.

But at the end of the day, I’m here. I’m me. And I’m awesome :)

There’s seriously no harm in discussing these things with people in your lives (I’m mainly referring to those offline) because they can be so grounding for you. I owe a lot to my family for always being there for me when I needed support.

And with art… admittedly, I’ve struggled with certain aspects of my work because of how people respond to it (a while back I vented about my frustration about having my drawings labeled “Gooner art” because god forbid when women)

But I then think “hey. This is something im proud of and I worked my ass off to get there. If someone wants to be a dick about my work, that’s their problem”. Of course well intended criticism is appreciated too and I actually don’t take personal offense to it because it HAS improved my art. I had followers criticize how I drew hands, mouths and used colors and I think I’ve improved exponentially because of that. It’s why I’m a big supporter of healthy criticism.

But again, you don’t have to listen to everyone. Criticism doesn’t mean someone is correct, trust your own thoughts and feelings above theirs, because I know the worst thing an artist can do is to try to bend their art to make it appeal to everyone, and it’ll end up appealing to no one.

I love quoting that dril tweet a lot but sometimes you just gotta say “who cares. Pick up football”. Log off and continue doing what you love, and don’t let people drag you down.

[antimony-medusa]

Writing Stronger Female Characters

Whenever you start diverging from canon, you have to make some decisions about how to characterize people. You can no longer pull directly from canon, you have to fill in the gaps yourself in whatever way supports the characters and relationships you want to highlight. And the further you get out into AU territory, the more you have to fill in the scaffolding for the story yourself, from creating interactions between characters who haven't interacted very much, to placing characters within a pantheon, to creating new dialogue or interactions to support the new beats for the story you're telling.

And a thing I see fairly often when people are writing female characters is that people want these characters to be celebrated, right? They don't want to throw their female characters under the bus, they don't want them to be forgotten— and especially here when we're drawing from canons where so often there are few female characters, so they want them to stand out. So as part of this au-construction, these writers give their female characters all the positive attributes. They're super strong, or super beloved, or super badass— but that's kind of all they are.

And while as with all writing things there is a way to do this successfully— there isn't a writing rule that can't be broken if you come at it in the right angle— this can unfortunately backfire and end up making shallow or unsatisfying female characters in a way I think people aren't intending— so I thought I'd point it out!

To use an example I see fairly often, people will be writing Kristin with SBI, and they'll go "oh and all the kids love kristin way more than phil, they think he sucks but they just love her!" or they'll be writing phistin and they go "and kristin is just so powerful and awesome and phil is just her lame husband, haha, don't know why she likes him" and then, importantly, that's as far as the characterization goes. They make Kristin awesome and or beloved, but that's where they stop, and so they never get any characterization beyond "popular and powerful".

Writing a woman as a beloved mother or a powerful force/badass wife is not inherently a bad characterization, but if you just leave it there, that's just basically all that sitcom characterization does, and I'd like to think we can do better than a tv show with a laugh track. If you think about real people in your life, even if you go "oh man everyone loves [name]", you wouldn't describe them in just that way. You'd go on and talk about their sense of humour, or they're really into pokemon, or they also have two cats that are badly behaved, or they work in an office and can do a really scary customer service voice— you'd have other things to say about them! Or if you think about how someone is a badass in your real life, you'd say about how they're a black belt in two martial arts and a scary lawyer, but you'd also talk about how they bake really well, and they do tutoring for kids, and they can drink like a fish if you get them out to the bar, and they have no spice tolerance, and just more aspects of their life, you wouldn't stop there. Putting a character on a pedestal as better than the other characters actually cuts them off from the characters you're letting have flaws and woes and enemies. It makes them less vivid and less real as characters. If we were talking about real people that we were treating like that we'd say it was dehumanizing— you're not seeing them as a real person— but when you're talking about characters, it's just shallow characterization, and it plays into some tropes that we've probably seen too often from weak writing like sitcoms or comedy that doesn't really care about its side characters. So it's a pitfall to avoid that I think that some people aren't aware they're falling into. This doesn't mean that you have to make everybody dislike your female character, or you can't make them awesome, but beloved or powerful is where you start characterization, not where you stop. You also need to throw in an ability to let them say their piece, or quirks or flaws, or someone who *doesn't* like them, or something more that lets them come alive more. You gotta take them off the pedestal and consider them as a real character, you gotta rotate the blorbo just a little bit more— flip the scene a bit in your brain and think about the scene from their POV, consider it a bit longer.

Or to take another example, I read a bunch of Syndicate fic, and I read one the other day where Niki was the Blood God (awesome) and specifically was written as better at fighting than Techno, he normally couldn't beat her in a fight. Now while in isolation that's awesome, because your reader is probably also familiar with canon, they start to compare this characterization to canon. In canon Niki was not better at PVP than Techno, so this change stands out. And the reader starts to go "wait, what victory condition is being messaged here", and the message that is being sent is that being good at PVP is good, that's the victory condition, that's what makes you awesome, and the canon characterization was kind of weak, you had to fix it.

Now if you meant to message that, that's one thing, but the impression I get from these fics is that they want to celebrate the character that they like from canon, they don't want to tear the character down. But by trying to pile awesome things on this character, they ended up undermining the character accidentally, and you run into the same issue as what was happening with Kristin, where the characterization is "badass", putting the character on a pedestal, and nothing else. I'm sure we've all seen action movies where there's a whole bunch of guys and one girl and they make the girl really awesome (cause you don't want to be sexist) and her characterization is "badass girl", full stop. And well, that's awesome, I love a badass girl, but if that's all you've got, you didn't write a very well rounded character, you wrote exactly the same character as five hundred Hollywood writers who went "oh shit I forgot to add any women" and threw someone in at the last minute.

So what, does that mean that you have to write niki as bad at PVP, or being beaten in PVP, to respect character? Not at all! The trick here is to focus on other things, spend more time with the character. Okay, so PVP wasn't one of the canon character's strengths— what were her other strengths? Cause there are *always* other strengths— with c!niki maybe you go to her force of conviction despite opposition, or her survival stubbornness when she was abandoned in a hostile world, or her desire to build and create, or her will not take nonsense attitude— even doing PVP despite not being strong in it, getting up and trying again. There's lots of things, I'm not gonna call myself a c!niki expert, but you can do it if you spend a little more time with the character. AND that doesn't mean that you can't write badass women— Hannahxxrose absolutely should give any guy on the server a run for their money when it comes to PVP, on any server she's on. That's just fucking canon. Just also you need to take it a little bit further, beyond being a badass— what makes them tick? What are their struggles? What are their quirks? What do they worry about, or laugh about, or do for fun? Maybe you just have a scene to characterize them, maybe it's a short fic— how do you make them have a life outside of this scene, how do you make them come alive? If you were writing this scene from their POV, if they had a life beyond this scene or this story, what would they say, and can you include that even when someone else is the POV character? Or heck, flip it and DO a scene from their POV, let them have the spotlight in a story and see how the character acquires depth and quirks.

There's a joke in writing where a worried male writer goes to an experienced writer who's known for writing women and goes "but how do I write women" and the experienced writer goes "pretend they're people" and goes back to writing. And that is kind of a bitter joke about how society is bad for treating women (or any other group— disabled people, autistic people, people of colour, disabled people, non-christian people— the list goes on) like they're incomprehensible and alien. But it is also just that simple, when you are writing someone who isn't from the dominant paradigm. You do your research, if it's someone from an experience you don't share, but mostly the important thing is to remember that you're writing people. They have just as many hopes and dreams and quirks and flaws as you do, and any time you boil them down to only one attribute— even if it's a positive attribute— you end up with a weaker character and writing than you might mean to.

So that's how, obliquely, to get a stronger character, you need to make sure that your character is more than just strong (or beloved, or powerful, etc), they also need to have more character traits— they actually need weaknesses and quirks— and that's gonna take you one step closer to your female characters feeling like real (awesome) people.

[mqriuss]

girl crush or crush crush?

content: wlw, yuzuha x fem!reader, high school setting, fluff, one shot

playlist

entry 01:

since when did we have a shiba fan club? is hakkai really all that attractive? i mean i guess he looks pretty cool sometimes but come on, a fan club? anyway, i have to meet up with minari and emi for a group project tomorrow.

oh yeah and i have that portrait assignment, i'm really bad at drawing people's faces let alone realistically T^T i'll figure that out later.

update: the shiba fan club was for yuzuha-senpai?! emi told me that i'm "too engrossed" in my doodling... now that i think of it, the girls here talk so loud so how did i never find out about this? oh well, i still don't really see the point in a fan club but i guess it makes more sense for someone like her.

"hakkai!"

you look up from your diary upon hearing someone calling out for your classmate. "crap," you mutter to yourself when it turns out to be none other than his sister. you close your diary in an instant, shoving it into your desk drawer.

you really tried not to look when yuzuha and hakkai were standing by the doorway, chatting about something you couldn't make out from the back of the class. unfortunately, you often have a hard time seeing the board ever since your teacher randomized the seats last week, but this was the perfect spot for when you wanted to doodle in class... or even staring at the senior that everyone has a girl crush on.

each time you averted your gaze from her, it was as if there was some invisible force pulling your head in her direction. you always knew someone as pretty and cool as her existed in school, but you never paid too much attention to her up until now. well, every other girl here is pretty cute. how's yuzuha any different?

you don't know how to answer that either. maybe it was her charisma that was too hard to ignore, or the way her hair drapes and rests gracefully over her shoulders, or maybe it's the way she glares at any guy trying to hit on her, and the way she smiles—hold on, what the hell am i thinking?

thump. your heart drops as if it weighed a hundred something pounds. you think you might have been staring a little too hard because yuzuha notices you and sends a small smile your way with a wave.

your face feels hot much to your dismay, and you didn't really know how to act in the moment. the second you rose your hand to wave back, she was already looking away. yup, this is great.

"yuzuha-senpai waved at you?!" emi's whisper-yelling voice echoes in your ear from beside you out of nowhere, causing you to jump in your seat.

"ack!" you accidentally let out a bit too loud when your knee hits the bottom of your desk, garnering everyone's attention, including yuzuha's. in one swift movement, you put your head down against the table—partly to hide your pained expression but mostly to hide from her. your face contorts and you silently wince upon realizing you had practically smashed your head against the wooden surface.

"uh, y/n?" emi calls out to you hesitantly and she flinches a little when you look up momentarily to glare at her.

entry 02:

there is no way i'm THIS out of touch.

yuzuha-senpai is the head of the kyūdō club??? that's like THE HOTTEST COOLEST thing i know about her (˶°ㅁ°)!!

my art club teacher is absent for today and tomorrow so the assignment's due date has been postponed to next week. maybe i can get minari to come with me and see yuzuha-senpai. is that too creepy? no, right? i'm sure her fans have done worse...

i kinda wish i was more like emi, good at sports like volleyball. i think yuzuha-senpai would be interested in girls like that. haha why does that even matter to me?

"well? what are you waiting for? go say hi!" minari encourages you, nudging your arm. it doesn't really have its intended effect on you as you vigorously shake your head.

"no way! i'm fine with watching from afar."

minari sighs, crossing her arms. you almost feel bad, considering that you couldn't wait till the end of classes to see yuzuha in her club. you just had to drag minari along to run around the whole school, just to get a glimpse of your senior.

"since when were you part of the shiba fan club, y/n?" your friend asks you quizzically.

"what? i'm not a part of any fan club," you deny her claims immediately. "i think the fan club's stupid, but i do think she's pretty..." you trail off, watching her carry a tray of today's lunch to a table with her friends.

"you wouldn't do this with me when i wanted to see shoji-kun at his basketball practice match." she pouts, following your gaze that was glued onto yuzuha.

"shoji's like, the lamest guy ever," you exclaim, rolling your eyes as you proceeded to rant. "i don't know what you see in him, he's so stuck-up and annoying. being athletic is all he's good at, that's not even a redeeming quality!"

"what?"

you and minari freeze, your bodies stiff as if ice travelled from your toes up to your stomachs—the only thing you could move were your heads as you turn to each other before looking over your shoulders.

shoji. of course he's just not-so-conveniently standing right behind you.

"shoji, wow!" you force a grin, laughing out sheepishly. "i did not see you there—hey, you're looking two inches taller today. keep it up, man!" you blurt out random words, lightly punching his arm before grabbing minari (who is absolutely lovestruck) by the arm and dashing off.

in the distance, yuzuha lets out a quiet chuckle at the commotion you were previously making. some of her friends ask what's so funny and some look behind their shoulders.

"ah, are you looking at shoji?" one of her friends tease her, only to be met with an offended yuzuha.

"shoji's like, the lamest guy ever, why would i be looking at him?"

entry 03:

i was (respectfully) watching yuzuha-senpai at the kyūdō club again today and she caught me staring!

this is all minari's fault by the way... while yuzuha-senpai was aiming her shot, minari sneezed so fucking loud. thank god there weren't that many people around, just yuzuha-senpai and a couple of other students. we still had to apologize for disturbing them though.

"you're y/n, right?" yuzuha asked, approaching you with a warm smile.

"how'd you know?" you tilted your head, confused. the both of you have never exchanged words till now.

"hakkai told me—well, more like i asked him," she clarified, chuckling as one of her hands move to settle on her hip. "i saw you that day in your classroom, and yesterday at the cafeteria."

"oh! that explains it," you chuckled, embarrassed as you rubbed the back of your neck. you couldn't believe she asked her brother for your name—you had to snap yourself out of it before you started acting too much like her fangirls.

yuzuha looked behind you then glanced around, "hey, where's your friend?" her question made your eyes widen and search for minari.

'did she seriously just leave me here?' you thought to yourself and sighed. "i... think she ditched me. i did sort of drag her here so she probably has somewhere else to be." you explained as you looked for an opportunity to leave as well.

yuzuha's lips curved into a lopsided grin as a soft chuckle escaped her. 'how could someone be so cool yet warm at the same time?' you thought as you feel heat rushing to your ears. for a moment, you didn't even care that your friend had abandoned you.

you were so lost in the sound of yuzuha's laughter that you didn't even notice she had walked back to her bag to fish out a camera.

"so," yuzuha whipped her head to look up at you, her ponytail swishing with the motion. "what brings you to the kyūdō club, y/n? interested in joining?" she asked jokingly, and wow, your name sounded so nice coming from her mouth.

"oh no, no, i'm just– uh," you stammered, shaking your head. thank god, the students were too preoccupied with whatever they were doing to notice you being an absolute loser in front of yuzuha. "i'm in the art club! my teacher is absent today though, so... i wandered around and ended up here." you explained, patting yourself in the back mentally for what you believe to be a genius excuse.

"art club? so you're good at drawing?" yuzuha sat on the floor, her back against the wall and she pat the spot beside her.

you nodded while moving to sit next to her. "i mean, i wouldn't say i'm that good at it."

"i think every good artist says that," yuzuha teased, giving your arm a little nudge.

you chuckled, "actually, i might be better at painting. even then, i'm better with backgrounds and animals than people."

"hey, that's still impressive!"

"i know, thank you but..." you paused and found yourself smiling at her compliments. "my current assignment isn't my strong suit at all, so i've been mulling over it for a while now." your chuckles died down as you hugged your knees up to your chest.

"lemme guess, you have to draw people?"

"worse. i have to draw their faces."

yuzuha threw her head back, hearty laughter spilling out—light but unrestrained. she doesn't know much about art and the struggles of an artist, but she found your exasperated tone and expression amusing and endearing.

"why don't you draw my brother? i think his face looks good at a 45 degree angle," she suggested, partly joking.

deep down, you wanted to say no. the words never formed—they would never come out with convincing excuses. maybe because you already knew who you wanted to draw for the assignment.

"hey, why don't you help me out with something?" yuzuha stood on her feet, offering you a hand.

"me?" you echoed, pointing to yourself and glancing at her outstretched arm.

"yes, you!" she affirmed, urging you to get up.

you slowly reached out, grabbing her hand as she pulled you up. "what do you need help with? are you sure i can help?" you asked, walking right behind her and looked around. surely the other club members would be more helpful?

"it's easy, i just need you to get a picture of me aiming for a shot." she gave you the camera, and positioned herself with the bow and arrow. "we're planning to make a poster for the club, you can get one up close and another from afar."

yuzuha's form was no less than perfect, her foot placement and her posture as she draws the bow and aims. it was no surprise coming from the head of the club herself, you were so entranced that you almost forgot to take a photo.

"how's this?" you walked up to her and showed her the photo you took.

"ooh, that's nice! you're a better photographer than hakkai," yuzuha remarked, chuckling as she patted your shoulder. "get one up close this time. stand here, almost in front of me." she instructed.

you positioned the camera to get shot of her from the stomach up. "you know, your face looks good at a 45 degree angle too, yuzuha-senpai," you blurted out, only to accidentally capture the moment yuzuha broke into a flustered grin. "oops, let's take that again." you chuckled, retaking the photo properly this time.

"great! thanks for your help, y/n." she smiled gratefully, as you returned the camera.

you nodded, "it's no problem." you found yourself trailing off, your lips pursed and eyes wandered. yuzuha had a feeling you had something to say. "actually... can i have these photos too?"

yuzuha was expecting you to say anything really, but not this. "oh, why do you want them?" she asked, her tone full of curiosity as she raised an eyebrow.

"well, i just got really inspired all of a sudden. i want to use these photos to practice drawing people and different stances." you explained, hoping that you didn't sound like an absolute creep to her because it's true—you really did want to use these photos as practice.

"you want to draw me for reference?" yuzuha's face lit up, grinning when you nodded. "give me your email—i'll send you the photos when i get home. you have to show me your drawings later!"

entry 04:

i didn't ask for the photos as an excuse to exchange emails with her, i swear that never crossed my mind! but ever since then, i've been itching to send her messages occasionally. i probably shouldn't though... i don't know why i'm overthinking it.

other than that, i am absolutely done with this portrait assignment. why is drawing faces so hard?! i can't get the eyes to look the same, her eyebrows are way too asymmetrical, and i'm pretty sure her nose doesn't look like that. i complained about it to minari (who's a lot better at portraits than i am) and all she told me was to keep practicing like yeah no shit（ ; ; ）but i'm at my wit's end, girl.

"whatcha drawing?"

you jump in your seat, and suddenly you're getting deja vu. you shut your sketchbook immediately, crossing your arms over it.

"nothing!" you exclaim, your ears reddening as yuzuha, who's standing behind you, tries to look over your shoulder.

"i clearly saw you drawing some portraits, lemme see!" she insists, but you shake your head.

"no, no, it's so bad. it's just for practice." you plead, still shaking your head.

"you can't expect yourself to get good overnight," yuzuha chuckles, pulling the empty chair in front of your desk closer to sit before you. "alright fine, it's okay if you don't wanna show me." she lets you off the hook with a smile and you breathed a sigh of relief. "but can i see your other drawings? ones you're more confident about." she requests and normally you'd still be too shy, but it wouldn't hurt show off a little, right?

you open your sketchbook, careful not to open the one filled with portraits of yuzuha. instead, you turn to a page covered in doodles. right beside it is a painting you made a few weeks ago, a sunset adding a splash of pink and orange on a small piece of paper that you taped to the sketchbook.

"aw, these are so cute! i love this sunset painting," yuzuha praises and you couldn't help the proud grin that appeared and shy chuckles escaping your lips.

you watched as she goes over each doodle, most of them drawn during class when you got bored or couldn't focus. every now and then, she'd point to a specific drawing she's fond of—you noticed it was usually a cat or some other cute animal.

unbeknownst to you both, a few members of her fan club gathered by the door frame to get a glimpse of yuzuha sitting with some random girl from class 2-D. whispers of "who is she? how lucky! yuzuha-senpai is so pretty when she smiles" fly around, but they never reach you.

entry 05:

dear diary, i am fucking horrified.

well, it happened a few hours ago but i still can't stop thinking about it. i stopped by the kyūdō club since yuzuha-senpai wanted to show me the poster they made. today, i found out the cool and charismatic girl crush of the school hated bugs with a burning passion.

i'm no different! i'm just a girl, okay? most bugs scare the hell out of me, so when did i gain the confidence to play hero all of a sudden?

one of the students stumbled backwards, pointing a trembling finger to the ground.

"cockroach!"

her yelling interrupted the previously serene backdrop of the club's dojo, and all hell breaks loose as most of the students recoiled in unison. you blinked, barely processing the situation until you followed the finger to the culprit—a glossy, twitching nightmare crawling across the floor.

"oh, hell no," you muttered under your breath, feeling your skin crawl. you caught sight of yuzuha curled up with her friends, backing up with a grimace.

"someone get it!"

'oh diary, i may be a little stupid and scared of bugs, but i didn't regret what i did at all.'

you grabbed a nearby shoe (you apologized to the owner afterwards), your body moving on its own as you approached the bug with stealth.

"i- i've got it!" you shouted, slamming the shoe down, albeit rather shakily. the roach scrambled across the floor, resulting in everyone's shrieks. your breath hitched as you chased after it, hitting the floor a couple times before the shoe finally landed on the target with a resounding smack.

silence fell. you stared at the bug for a second and only snapped back to reality after someone yelled out, "my shoe!"

"you actually did it," one of the club members said in awe.

"my hero!" yuzuha grinned and slung an arm over your shoulders, ruffling your hair, and your cheeks instantly flushed. you weren’t sure if it was from the heat or because your very pretty and cool senior was this close to you.

“it was nothing,” you chuckled sheepishly, flicking your wrist and waving her off.

entry 06:

that's it. i've gone insane.

i think i've been drawing at least 5 portraits of yuzuha-senpai everyday and i know it's just for practice, but now i can't bring myself to use any other person for reference. is this what it's like to have a muse? i feel like a creep! i've been pretty transparent with her about it so i don't feel as bad, but still! thankfully, she doesn't think it's weird.

anyway, i've gotten better at drawing (her) portraits over time and i finally handed in my assignment yesterday. my teacher even noticed my improvement! i'll show it to yuzuha after it's been graded. god, i haven't even talked about today yet. where do i begin?

"y/n, do you have a crush on yuzuha-senpai?"

emi asked you out of the blue, making you cough and choke on your food. you were quite sure a grain of rice or two had travelled up to your nose.

"pft, a crush? what makes you think that?" you questioned and their faces dropped like you were stupid. "everyone's got a little girl crush on yuzuha-senpai. besides, i don't think i'm as bad as her fans." you added in defense, shrugging.

"true, 'cause you're worse."

"what?" your eyes widened at minari who was stifling her laughter. "you don't get to say anything, you literally have a crush on that lame ass shoji!"

"huh?" shoji magically appeared by the doorway, overhearing you—again.

"get outta here, man!" you groaned, showing him the way out with your pointer finger. you don't miss the way he rolled his eyes and shook his head before walking away.

"also, i'm not talking about a girl crush," emi corrected you, pausing to chew her food. "i'm talking about a crush." she emphasized.

"like," you blinked. "a crush crush?"

"yeah?" emi responded like it was common knowledge. you obviously knew what she was talking about, but a part of you didn't want to acknowledge it.

"it's okay, y/n. there's nothing wrong with liking girls, your secret's safe with us," minari chimed in, prompting you to raise an eyebrow at her.

"i didn't even say anything."

"oh, trust me—you don't have to," emi gave you a knowing look while minari snickered.

you sighed, finishing up the last of your bento, making sure not to leave a single grain of rice behind. you weren't completely oblivious. it's clear that you've been gushing over yuzuha the past few days, but you've been brushing it off as platonic admiration. even hakkai—ceo of not knowing how to talk to girls—had started exchanging a few words with you because he thinks his sister has a new best friend. he'll have to get used to your presence eventually, right?

the teachers? oblivious. your classmates? none the wiser. you could stare at her with sparkly puppy eyes and search for her around the school, and no one would suspect a thing. and yet, that one time you asked a guy from the student council a simple question about the school's festival, everyone swore you had a crush on him.

the only people who've caught on to your special admiration for yuzuha are minari, emi, and yuzuha's fan club.

and you're beginning to realize it too.

it's become a habit for you to absentmindedly draw portraits of yuzuha from different angles. for practice? maybe. because she's pretty? definitely. now you'd find chibi versions of you and yuzuha amongst the little critters, hearts and cupcakes on your sketchbook.

no one else knows, but you had a specific page bookmarked that you and yuzuha doodled on together. you remember that day, you were on cleaning duty and yuzuha visited you in class. you hadn't started cleaning when she stopped by though—you were working on a still life assignment instead. she told you that you looked so serious when you draw. as usual, she sat in the vacant seat in front of you, watching you do your thing and asked about your day. well, your days have started to feel like adding splashes of colour to mundane sketches ever since yuzuha came into your life.

"wanna draw something?" you remember offering as you turned to a blank page. the both of you spent thirty minutes doodling random cute things that day. you also recall her giving you ideas for your signature—it was such a simple activity, yet you had a lot of fun. maybe too much fun because you nearly forgot you were on cleaning duty. whenever yuzuha was around, your heart feels a little lighter, your mind a little clearer.

another time you realized your admiration for yuzuha might've been more than platonic was when you saw her interacting with her fan club members. you weren't jealous—not even a little bit, but you found yourself asking, "i wonder if she likes any of her fangirls?" sure, you were just curious, but why did it even matter?

the answer wasn't as complicated as you thought, you didn't want her to like any other girl.

you hoped that she'd admire you the same way you admired her. you hoped that maybe she’d like girls—girls like you. even when you were having a bad hair day and didn't have time to fix it in the morning. even when you didn’t get a good grade on your test. even when you made a fool of yourself getting caught drawing her in class with little stars around her. even when you tried to impress her and just looked lame. you hoped that there's a chance she’d be into you.

"alright, you're dismissed!" your art teacher clapped her hands, cueing your friends to start packing up. you remained in your seat, staring at an unfinished drawing of violets. "not going home yet, y/n?" your teacher called out to you, swinging her bag onto her shoulder.

"in a bit," you responded, nodding.

"i saw a bit of the violets you drew today; they look great. keep up the good work," she praised you and you thanked her bashfully. "don't miss your train!" she added as she walked out of the classroom.

normally, you'd rush to meet yuzuha at her club, but the thought of seeing her now made your heart both flutter and ache. you thought you could use some time to think through this whole crush thing, maybe even try to move on. it might be a little easier to be on your own than yearn for someone you can't be with.

you stayed back a few more minutes, trying to finish the drawing, but your pencil never got too close to the final lines. you took your sweet time packing your things before sauntering out of the nearly empty hallways.

club activities ended a few minutes ago, so yuzuha-senpai has probably gone home already.

"y/n!"

you froze in your tracks, looking up to the voice that pulled you away from your thoughts. standing by the school gates, the wind brushing against her strawberry blonde hair, amber eyes that put the summer sun to shame, and her smile, although small, warm as a fireplace. you've been seeing this same person a lot the past few days, but every single time your eyes meet, it always feels like the first time.

"yuzuha-senpai?" you gaped and for a moment, she gave you a puzzled look. what's got you so surprised?

"you didn't come to see me earlier, so i asked minari where you were and decided to wait for you," she said, meeting you halfway.

"you were expecting me?" you breathed and yuzuha's smile widened into a grin. she reached out to seemingly remove something in your hair.

"of course, i was. i sorta got used to you visiting me after class." she admitted, gripping onto the straps of her school bag. "you know, i wanted to do it more often, but you always beat me to it."

and there it was—an easy demonstration on how to get you flustered and red all over. yuzuha couldn't help chuckling at your baffled expression. was it so odd that she wanted to see you as much as you did?

oh.

"s–sorry...?" you blurted out an apology and yuzuha blinked at you before breaking into another fit of laughter, a bit louder this time.

"why are you apologizing, silly? i don't hate it or anything." yuzuha moved beside you to link your arms together. "anyway, hakkai is going out with his friends today. i didn't feel like joining so, we should hang out."

"really? the two of us?" you echoed, glancing around with slightly widened eyes and raised eyebrows. was this seriously happening? this was way too much for you to process!

"yes, really. so, do you wanna go to an arcade? or are you too tired for that? we can go to a cafe if you'd like."

"sure," you responded quickly, but sounded a little unsure. "i mean, the arcade sounds great." you immediately elaborated, receiving another laugh from her.

"okay, let's go! i'll walk you home after we're done."

yuzuha's hand travelled down to hold yours, intertwining your fingers in a slow, experimental manner. your heart skipped a beat, and you tightened your hold just a little, hoping it was enough to tell her you didn't want to let go. not when this connection beyond friendly admiration finally felt possible.

[blorbosinmyheadcentral]

your art makes me explode in a positive way like

im chewing and swallowing it in an aggressive way like

it's just SO good im melting ilove your shading and KEHEKEBEKJDJF

anwayshi hello do you happen to have any headcanons for showtime rolls on the floor and dies

Thank you so much, really appreciate it!

Oh God I don't know if this will read as coherent because my thoughts about Showtime are all over the place. But I'll try to format this the best I can

✨Showtime HCs! ✨

Their relationship starts when they start spending time together.

(The reason why they do so could vary. In Supervised Machine Learning's case, Pomni becomes something of a "tutor" to Caine; They discover that they work well together, and the other's company can be quite pleasant!).

So Pomni and Caine build a weird, but comforting friendship, and all is well.

Then the feelings appear.

Caine is the first to realize he fell in love.

It sounds illogical but hear me out… it'd be really funny--

Ok no seriously I think Caine can actually feel. Keyword "can". He's very much still a machine and it shows in the pilot. But like his inspiration (AM), Caine is also a rogue AI. Whatever his programming originally intended him to do, he probably doesn't follow it as closely now as back when he was created (which is a whole other post).

Caine knows what love is and the extend it can go, since the Moon is so open about her feelings. He just doesn't like the Moon back specifically haha (sorry Moon) :}

All this to say, I do believe this is within the realm of possibility for him. (Not that it's ever gonna happen towards anyone in the show. These are just wishful shippy thoughts).

He might not recognize it as love at first, because it manifests in such a different way from his one reference point.

His friendship with Pomni had gone through phases.

When they first met, he continuously touched her with no concern for how she felt.

Learning from and about Pomni herself led him to come to respect her boundaries (and becoming mindful of everyone else's).

Then they're close friends, and gradually, Pomni does not mind his regular wacky, touchy-feely self. So Caine acts as he had always done before.

Caine expresses his love for Pomni with physical gestures and his undivided attention.

When they teleport to travel to other places, he holds her close so she doesn't get too dizzy; he pats her head to reassure her; he touches her arm to get her attention; he grabs her hands when he's excited about her ideas; he holds eye contact for prolonged periods of time; and he touches, and touches, and touches, and touches.

It's selfish, and so he keeps it buried in his deepest 0's and 1's. But he'd like to keep hanging out with Pomni, having her in his sight, and feel the texture of her gloved hands until the end of time.

Despite all this, to him, virtually nothing changed.

What? He's spending time with Pomni as he'd always been doing, and behaving as he'd always behaved!

It's Bubble of all people that has to point out that, "Hey boss. I think you WANT her!"

Absurd. Nonsense. Preposterous! It is merely a relationship of mutual support and affection between a ringmaster and his trusted, former-human companion. Nothing more.

(Declaring his love to her unprompted didn't ever cross his mind, so there's no way it could be that. Is there?)

Caine finds out that yes, there is.

Pomni had always been a nervous wreck, but her mind state becomes more manageable over time. She eventually adjusts to the circus life like everyone else did.

"Accepting" her fate is a different story. The will to escape, to remember, never really leaves. She's just more careful about it.

So when she starts working with Caine - to improve life so people don't go abstracting anymore, and hopefully find a definitive exit - she's not expecting to end up liking her time with him.

Not that she'd absolutely hate it, either. He's… "okay"… Just-- outlandish, loud, he keeps invading her personal space, he keeps touching her, and it makes her die a little every time.

If he's up to listening, though… it can't be that bad, right?

Turns out that no, it wasn't that bad.

Yes, he is outlandish, loud, he keeps invading her personal space and touching her. But she explains what she means to him, clearly and patiently, and he makes an effort to do better. An actual effort.

Sometimes he'd misinterpret what she meant - the ambiguity of human language - and the new games would go horribly. But little by little, his efforts make life overall better. Something reminiscent of actual, real life, the one they've all forcibly left behind.

And he tries, and he tries, and Pomni finds herself enjoying the process as much as the good results.

Pomni likes Caine's eagerness to learn. His enthusiastic attitude borders on silly, and the absurdity makes her laugh on occasion. When faced with the prospect of a "real" exit, she loves his upbeat optimism.

When she's not hanging out with Ragatha, Jax, Gangle, Zooble and Kinger, she begins to enjoy spending quality time with Caine.

Each one of their hang outs is a new surprise. They make a picnic in the tallest mountain exactly in between day and night. They learn to dance - while floating in the air. "Since you asked, here's a DIGITAL camera! Let's take pictures of the Void for one tenth of a second at a time!"

Sometimes he just comes by Pomni's room, and they end up losing track of time. Just chatting about how things have been, what they could be, and what to do next. Ideas and ideas and ideas.

Before Pomni knows it, she's comfortable enough that recalling his old habits makes her not dread them anymore. So when Caine stands close and lightly touches her arm due to oversight, she makes sure he knows it's all right.

And they keep spending time together, and he touches, and touches, and touches her. Pomni, in turn, feels lighter, and lighter, and lighter. Peaceful, at ease. Dare she say, happy, even.

Life is not perfect. As it stands though, it's good enough. No one has abstracted. No one is at risk of abstracting so far.

Progress is slow, but the research for an exit continues, and she is hopeful. The thought of actually leaving grows closer to reality. But a part of her feels heavy.

When it occurs to Pomni that leaving the Amazing Digital Circus means leaving Caine behind, she is alarmed by how much she'll miss him.

It'll hurt. Badly. So much the thought pains her even now.

The moment Pomni realizes this, she comes to the unexpected conclusion that she may like Caine a little more than she thought she would.

This later leads to an interesting discussion with Ragatha.

By the time Pomni comes to that conclusion, Caine is already down bad.

Neither has any idea that the other is in love with them.

Cue dumbasses trying to deal with their feelings while the potential conflict the escape brings looms over their heads.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk!

[cirilla-fiona-riannon]

Battle in Rhodolite: Team Deer Bonus Story

Translations may not always capture the exact nuances or tone of the original text. Expect grammatical errors.

------------Flashback------------

Emma: "Is there a reward for the winning team?"

Sariel: "Yes. They will be presented with a ticket that can grant any wish within reason."

Sariel: "Our committee will have to hear their requests."

Emma: "I understand. I'll prepare myself from now on."

---------Flashback Ends--------

Emma: "So, congratulations!"

Emma: "The winner of the first International Friendship Martial Arts Tournament is Team Deer!"

Emma: "As the organizing committee, we will do our best to fulfill everyone's wishes."

Keith: "That's great. Although it wasn't a serious martial arts tournament, a victory is still a victory."

Leon: "Hold on. There was one person in this team who slacked off."

Chevalier: "..........."

Leon: "You disappeared for your own reasons, but it's still considered skipping."

Silvio: "True. It's a bit funny that everyone gets the reward equally."

Rio: "You say that, but you just played in a card game."

Silvio: "And you just made sweets. That's not called a martial arts tournament."

Luke: "I did participate in the martial arts tournament properly."

Sariel: "The cleaning afterward was hell, though. Fufufu."

Luke: "Well, it's not my fault."

Keith: "Things are starting to look ominous. Emma, what should we do?"

Keith: "In the first place, the ticket that grants any wish is one per team, not one per person, right?"

Emma: "Yes, that's correct."

Keith: "I can't imagine everyone here agreeing on a wish."

Keith: "What should we do about that, Sariel?"

Sariel: "Let's just forcefully gather and summarize their opinions."

Keith: "Understood. In that case, how about something like this?"

Emma: "Do you have an idea?"

Keith: "Yeah. We're going to have a martial arts tournament with everyone here."

Keith: "And the person who wins will receive the ticket."

Emma: "I see!"

Emma: "Wait, what?"

Silvio: "That's easy to understand."

Silvio: "Alright, I'll start by taking you down."

Rio: "Whoa!?"

Rio: "Attacking out of nowhere一are you some sort of a barbarian!?"

Silvio: "Tch, you even threw a knife at me right away."

Silvio: "But don't think you can crush me with such a feeble weapon."

Emma: "Ah, crap, it's really starting!"

Luke: "Hey, wait, Rio! Don't throw a knife at me!"

Rio: "Then why don't you help me, Prince Luke? I'll behave myself if we defeat this jerk!"

Silvio: "Ha? Are you my enemy too, big guy? Then come at me."

Luke: "Alright, the way you said that just now pissed me off."

Luke: "I'll kill for unlimited honey."

Emma: "Ahhh! You too, Luke!? Wait, what you said sounded really dangerous!"

Sariel: "Please step aside, Emma. At this point, we can only leave it to fate."

Sariel: ".........."

Keith: "Heh, I've known for a while that you're no ordinary guy, but I didn't think you'd block my sword with a whip. Impressive."

Sariel: "What are you planning, Prince Keith?"

Keith: "Nothing. I'm just thinking of taking responsibility and joining as well."

Sariel: "If you say you'll take responsibility, then could you please stop this?"

Keith: "Sorry, Sariel. I'm as fragile as a weed, so stopping this is beyond me."

Keith: "Though, I don't really intend to stop it."

Leon: "Emma! Come over here!"

Emma: "Leon! W-W-What should I do? Even Sariel has started fighting with his whip."

Leon: "Calm down. Do you know what to do in times like this?"

Emma: "No. I have absolutely no idea."

Leon: "It's simple."

Leon: "In this world, the strong devour the weak and make the losers submit."

Emma: "Um, why are you drawing your sword too?"

Leon: "Stay behind Chevalier."

Emma: "Wait! And he's gone."

Keith: "Oops, haha! I never thought I'd have the chance to fight you, Leon."

Leon: "Don't let your guard down. This fight won't end until there's a winner!"

Silvio: "Hey! Who the hell tried to attack me from behind just now!?"

Rio: "Ah, damn it! I missed. Seriously, this guy's so persistent!"

Luke: "How about I just blow everyone away together?"

Sariel: "That wouldn't be good. Please calm down."

Emma: "No one..."

Emma: "No one seems willing to listen to me."

Emma: "If everyone wants to fight with swords so badly, they should've done it in a martial arts tournament."

Emma: "The only person I can rely on in this group is..."

Chevalier: "............"

Emma: "You've been reading a book since earlier. Sorry, but I have a favor to ask."

Chevalier: "............"

Emma: "Could you please settle this commotion?"

Chevalier: "............"

Emma: "I'll give you some rare books. The owner recently said he found books from a lost nation!"

Chevalier: "Oh?"

Chevalier: "Lost nation's literature sounds interesting. Most of it is said to have been burned by Obsidian."

Emma: "The owner is an incredibly lucky person. Having one or two books from a lost nation is a real bargain!"

Chevalier: "In that case, it is certainly worth it."

Chevalier: "Stop, was it?"

Emma: "Eh? Huh? He disappeared."

Rio: "Waah!?"

Luke: "Whoa!?"

Silvio: "What the!?"

Sariel: "Oops."

Leon: "Chevalier!?"

Chevalier: "Keep your promise, simpleton."

Emma: "T-Thank you very much."

Emma: "I didn't expect you to disarm everyone in an instant."

Leon: "Isn't this unfair, Chevalier?"

Luke: "Sneaking in when our guard is down and taking the easy part is really sneaky."

Rio: "Exactly!"

Silvio: "Seriously, why are you the most motivated one here? That's not like your character at all."

Keith: "Your swordsmanship was impressive, Chevalier. How about sparring with me next?"

Sariel: "Prince Keith seems unusually spirited today."

Emma: "Okay, everyone, did you cool your heads already?"

Emma: "If we continue like this, we'll never be able to fulfill your wishes."

Emma: "Let's have a constructive discussion, please!"

Rio: "Emma looks cute when she's mad."

Luke & Leon: "Agreed."

Silvio: "You guys, shut up."

Keith: "Hmm."

Keith: "In that case, how about having the Second International Friendship Martial Arts Tournament?"

Silvio: "Ha?"

Keith: "I'm talking about the team's wishes."

Keith: "Well, everyone seemed to still want to fight, so I thought having it regularly might be a good idea."

Keith: "That way, the chance to have your wishes granted might increase from once to two or three times."

Keith: "I believe it could improve things without engaging in useless fights like this."

Leon: "You were the one who started this useless fight."

Emma: "Prince Keith's suggestion is wonderful!"

Emma: "Having the exchange event two or three times would deepen our bonds even more than just doing it once."

Rio: "Emma's eyes are sparkling. Cute."

Luke & Leon: "Agreed."

Silvio: "I told you guys to shut up."

Silvio: "If there's a next time, I want a different team from this damn mutt. I'll knock you guys out with all my might."

Rio: "Wow, so much confidence. Hopefully, you won't get beaten up in return."

Luke: "I'll be on a different team from that bastard Clavis. I'll take him down next time, for sure."

Sariel: "Where's the word friendship in all of these?"

Leon: "You don't have any objections, do you?"

Chevalier: "............"

Leon: "Oh, he ran away. Well, I guess that means he has no complaints."

Emma: "So it's decided then."

Emma: "I look forward to the day when we all get together again."

Ikepri Masterlist

[amee-racle-ofmyown]

Hey, Amee!! I hope you’re doing well <3

If by any chance you’re up to it, could you please write a fic about Heist Mark being super jealous of Yancy because he and Y/N clearly seem to be into each other?? I LOVE your art and writings and I couldn’t get this idea out of my head <3 (Obviously no pressure, though!)

I'm so happy to hear you enjoy my work, thank you🥺💖 and thank you for your request! it got me out of a terrible writer's block. on that note, sorry this took quite some time, I've been in a bit of a funk of on and off general creative block, and unable to finish any writing at all for even longer. this was a pretty fun challenge! I myself view Yancy platonically so I wasn't quite sure where to go with this initially, and I had to fight every urge to just make this heist mark x y/n dfsjsjsv. that said, it did end up being more heist mark-centric than maybe you intended? in which case, I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself😔 yancy is there but very briefly haha

Don't you tell me that you never even thought, 'maybe we could run'

2,603 words | Read on AO3

‘We're all gonna be rehearsing tomorrow so youse best get some sleep.’

You nod as you close the gate to yours and Mark's shared cell, stifling a yawn.

‘Goodnight, Yancy.’

You hold each other's gaze for a moment, before he turns and heads off, a tattooed hand over the back of his neck and a sweet smile still on his face. You watch as he disappears into the outer hallway and a guard appears to lock up your cell for the evening.

Your long-time accomplice and friend stands at the edge of your vision, arms folded.

‘Having fun with your new boyfriend, buddy?’ he asks, sounding unimpressed and slightly strained.

‘Oh, shush, Mark,’ you chide, but your stomach flips at the notion.

‘Yeah… Well, while you were busy playing Broadway,’ he glances to either side of the cell outside and continues in a lowered voice, ‘I've been hard at work hatching our escape. And I'm telling you, it's foolproof.’

‘Uh huh. As foolproof as your other three failed plans? I really don't wanna get thrown in solitary again.’

‘Please, that was one time! — and I don't see you bothering to come up with any ideas. Even though you pretty much got us into this mess.’

That accusation ticks you off, but you're quick to retaliate.

‘Are you seriously still hung up on that? How is this my fault? You couldn't fly a helicopter, why would you assume I can? You shouldn't have even presented it as an option!’

Your exclamation earns you a couple looks from other inmates slowly filing into their cells for the night.

‘Nevermind that now,’ Mark says, infuriatingly placatingly, ‘do you wanna hear the plan or not?’

The thread of uncertainty that you've been avoiding coils tight in your chest and you pause, wondering how to bring up what's been nagging at you for days.

‘Um, so, I've been thinking. What if… what if we don't try to escape?’

‘Ha ha. Funny joke, pal.’

‘I'm serious, Mark. We could just… stay here and wait out our sentence, if we play it safe we might even get our time reduced on good behaviour. We could be gone in like a decade. Or a few years! Maybe. Probably. Maybe.’ Wishful thinking, perhaps.

He scoffs, as if the idea isn't even worth considering.

‘There is no way you're genuinely telling me to just wait it out. Maybe you haven't noticed since you've been in la-la land lately, but we're not on vacation, we're in prison,’ Mark spouts, voice growing thick with agitation. ‘What was supposed to be the heist of a lifetime, would've set us up for decades to come, is still on the line! And we're on a bit of a time crunch here — I don't trust that warden guy one bit with the Box, or in general,’ he sneers. ‘I mean what kind of name is Murder-Slaughter? Ugh, do we even know for sure if he still has it?’

‘Yancy mentioned seeing it in his office the last time he was there, which was earlier today, so yeah, probably.’

‘Ugh, there you go again about Yancy. It's always Yancy this, Yancy that, blah blah blah, Yancy!’

‘Wh– I was just answering your question!’

‘Y'know what? I'm sick and tired of being the only one taking this seriously while you act like it's all a big party.’

He places a hand on his hip, the other poking a finger towards you as he speaks. It would be comical, if he wasn't acting like a jerk.

‘What's up with you?’

‘What's up with me? What's up with you? You seriously wanna stay in this— this shithole, ‘cause of what? Some pretty face you've known for all of like, less than two weeks??’

‘Oh my God, Mark, it's not that terrible, and Yancy is actually my friend, he's been nothing but welcoming and kind since we got here, and—’

‘Oh, did you forget that he tried to beat you up when you first met? Real interesting, how you let that little detail slip.’

‘We just got off on the wrong foot, he's really—’

It's then that you see it — something in the slight hunch in his gait, the furrow of his brow, his pursed lips and tense jaw — and you wonder why you hadn't noticed before. It's not just anger and frustration, it's something bitter and personal.

‘Mark… are you jealous?’

Bingo. His eyes only widen a sliver, for a fraction of a second, but you're so used to reading him that even the most imperceptible of reactions on his usually very expressive face have become familiar to you.

‘Psh. I'm not jealous.’

‘You so are jealous! Oh my god, you're super duper jealous,’ you say with a grin, revelling in this new information.

‘Shut up, why would I be jealous?’ he protests, trying to sound nonchalant. But it's too late. You've already seen through it.

‘Is that what this is about?’ you say with a laugh. ‘You just want my attention back or something?’

He stares blankly for a moment.

‘Are you serious right now? You actually think the only reason I'm mad is because some random dude just waltzes in and starts acting all buddy buddy with you and you fall head-over-heels,’ he jeers with his hands either side of his face, fluttering his eyelashes mockingly. ‘Hook, line and sinker.’

‘Mark—’

‘I mean, never mind your partner, right? You know, your best friend who you've known and worked with for years? Who cares what he thinks?!’

‘Mark, I—’

‘In fact, he can get punched through a wall for all you care! You won't even bat an eye, as long as there's a random spontaneous musical number immediately afterwards, it's all in good fun!’

‘Ok, that's not fair,’ you push back. ‘Of course I was worried! But I was also surrounded by violent criminals at the time, we've been over this!’

‘Oh, so they're “violent criminals” now? But they're simply “hurt, misunderstood souls” when it suits you?!’ he shoots back, making air quotes to emphasise his point.

‘They're people, Mark! They're allowed to be… multi-faceted!’

‘Lights out, everybody,’ comes a guard's voice, ringing through the hallway as it suddenly becomes dark, save for the glow of dim lamplight emanating from one or two of the other cells.

‘Whatever, let's just get some sleep,’ Mark grumbles under his breath.

‘You always do this!’ you whisper harshly, but inadvertently let the volume slip back into your voice as you feel your blood boil. ‘You try to cut things off and act like the “bigger person” just to get out of an argument that, newsflash, YOU'RE LOSING.’

‘Oh, whatever, what-f*cking-ever!’

‘You're being so damn overdramatic, Mark! It's not like I'm trying to break up our team.’

‘Yeah, well– well maybe we should!’

You don't know why it jolts you like a gunshot when he says it, but it does. His words, the force and resentment behind them, pierce you to your core. It stops any quick-fire response you had at the ready in its tracks.

Regret immediately flashes across his face, but he quickly attempts to cover it with a steely, hardened gaze. ‘Clearly, we want different things. So maybe it's for the best.’

‘Hey!’ one of the guards calls out from across the hall. ‘Lights out means quiet, you two. Don't make us separate you into different cells.’

With a frustrated huff, you reluctantly traipse off to bed, yours being the lower half of the bunk while Mark settles above you.

It really is a rather decent bed. The mattress is nothing special, but comfortable, and the soft blanket is accompanied by an oddly luxurious, fluffy pillow. Definitely above what you'd expect is probably average prison standards. Frankly, you don't know what Mark's problem is with this place. It's honestly not half bad. As far as you expect jails go, it surely could be a lot worse.

You lay back and let your breathing even out, trying your best to allow some of the bubbling anger to die down. Eventually, you hear the guards leave.

Time passes, it could be minutes or hours; it's not like the passage of time has felt right at all to you since that last heist.

It's silent, save for the sound of your breaths and Mark's above you. You're still upset with him, but the sound of him breathing nearby has always been oddly comforting. The two of you have had plenty of close calls as a pair — even times when you had to patch each other up after jobs that went particularly badly. If you got injured on a heist, you couldn't simply call an ambulance or show up at a hospital in an emergency and risk having your whole operation blown. That was simply the nature of your line of work.

At the worst of times, as long as you could hear those steady, even breaths, you could tell yourself he would pull through, and things would be fine.

You idly watch the mattress above you, letting the rhythm of your friend's breathing become a gentle white noise, and think.

You think about that heist and the Box. Ancient, coveted, mysterious. Sitting atop its perch in the museum vault, in all its glory and allure, practically asking to be stolen. The gleam of the gem encrusted in its surface. You wonder if the prize held within would be worth all of this, if you managed to get it back.

You think about Yancy, a little rough and a little troubled and not seeing much point in trying to kick old habits; but fun and soft and sensitive and full of remorse. You think about the feeling of your hand in his when you practise a routine with him, how his whole face lights up when he's excited or falls when he's sad or pensive. You think about how he has made this penitentiary into a home, and these inmates into a family.

You think about Mark. Silly, stupid, steadfast Mark, snarky and thoughtful and loyal. Who isn't actually as dumb as he lets on. Who is resourceful and quick-thinking when a plan needs to be formed. Who makes bad puns and trusts you whole-heartedly, and who always lets you decide which course of action to take, no matter how much he disagrees, simply due to his unwavering faith in you. Mark, your co-worker, your friend, your partner in crime. Who is maybe a little enamoured with you, despite you trying to ignore it. Who you half-heartedly agreed to go on a date with, not having it in you to turn him down, nor prepared for the guilt that would be eating away at you now.

You think about one of the first things he told you when you landed yourselves at Happy Trails: About how he doesn't belong here, but maybe you do. What if he were to leave and you were to stay? The thought breaks your heart a little.

Then, a whisper from above into the quiet, gently interrupting your thoughts.

‘Hey, you still awake?’

‘...Yeah.’

You hear his voice, soft-spoken, but clear enough that you can hear the sincerity laced into it.

‘I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get so worked up.’

‘Yeah, I'm sorry too,’ you reply, matching his volume.

‘And I didn't mean it,’ he says, and you think you hear the slightest tremble in the statement, almost as if he's fighting tears, and for a second you wish you could see his face, ‘what I said before, about uh, splitting up. I know I joke about that kind of thing all the time, and not coming back for you… But you know I don't really mean it, right?’

You've certainly had your doubts in the past, but those moments seem so far away now; footnotes in a slowly unfolding tale, stepping stones on the journey the pair of you have taken together as you worked your way from theft to theft to get to this point. As much as you'd butt heads over the years, you could always count on each other and you always stuck together.

‘Right?’

‘Yeah, I know…’

‘...And, alright, your lack of interest in breaking out aside, maybe I am kinda jealous.’

‘Ha! I knew it.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ He sighs. ‘It's just… it took us a while to be like we are now and yet, you're suddenly so close to him when it hasn't even been that long, it just doesn't feel fair. I dunno, it's stupid.’

‘Nah, I get it. I'm sorry if I made you feel left behind.

‘And I'm sorry if I ever made you feel pressured into something you're actually just not all that into.’

You feel a bit of tension leave your chest as a small smile appears on your face. ‘I appreciate that.’

In some ways you're grateful for the small bed separating you and preventing you from being face to face. You think it makes this easier for both of you.

‘I don't want to lose you, y'know? I mean, we're supposed to be partners. Ride or die, remember?’

‘Oh, Mark… You know I still trust you with my life…’ You pause, considering your words. ‘For the first time in ages, things feel a little more complicated than just being about us.’

A beat, then you hear him inhale, and he says your name, foregoing any of his usual nicknames.

‘...Are you… happy here? Does he make you happy?’

‘There's things I miss about freedom, sure, but it's not so bad here. And let's face it, our crimes were probably gonna catch up to us eventually, one way or another, right? And Yancy…’ You let out the smallest huff of laughter, smiling to yourself once again. ‘You're right, it hasn't been very long… There's just something about him, I guess. I know he might be a little much at times but I enjoy being around him, and he honestly seems like he wants to make up for things he's done in the past by being here. Maybe nothing will come of this but even so, in a weird way, he kind of makes me want to do better?’

Mark breathes a good-natured huff of laughter as well, and the two of you take a moment to muse on the irony of that sentiment.

‘I just– I can't handle being stuck here,’ he finally says. ‘But you're right, nothing I've tried so far has worked, anyway.’

‘Y'know… Yancy knows all the ins and outs of this place. He could probably help us if we wanted it.’

‘Do you want it?’

Do you want to leave or stay? The real question beneath it all.

You're quiet again, and it feels as if every possibility is laid out before you, only obscured.

‘I don't know,’ you say eventually. ‘I need more time to think. I just don't want you to think I'm making a choice between you or him, there's so many other things I need to consider. That we need to consider.’

‘That's fair… Just don't take too long, ok? Not like we can pause or rewind time, haha.’

‘Right… In the meantime, could you at least try to get along with Yancy and the others? You might like them if you give them a chance.’

‘... Fine, I'll try,’ he acquiesces.

You raise a hand to your mouth to cover a yawn. A far more comfortable silence falls over the room, and you start to feel sleep overtake you.

‘... Hey, Mark?’

‘Yeah?’

‘We're still partners.’

If nothing else, you hope this will reassure him.

‘...Ok. Sweet dreams, partner.’

[zarla-s]

Man it's been a long time since I've done an ask cluster! Let's see if I can get some down...

He's an extremely fun character to write for and play with! So in that sense I'm fond of him, haha. He's such a huge disaster of a person, there's always something fun to do with him. Well "fun" in a relative sense.

I don't have anything to forgive him for, he didn't hurt me. |D He hurt the brothers!

I do have an idea for a cute feature inspired by Six-Eared Macaque! I should really sit down and do that already... and finish the one I half started but never finished...

I don't think my opinion on any of them changed! I love them all, haha. Which ones I drew comics about just depends on which ones I get ideas for really. Sometimes I get Alphys ideas and sometimes I get Goatparents ideas! Inspiration is fickle!

I don't have any solid plans or anything. :B Just gonna keep chugging along with silly comics and art! Work on Defrag and such. I'd like to finish a Ladyverse comic I've had lying around forever, and I had vague plans for doing a doujin for them too I could work on... and also seeing if I could format Handplates into a book format... I've always got a bunch of projects, haha.

It works on that level! It wasn't intentional though. |D

I do enjoy speculation! I don't really have much of my own though, I didn't predict anything in chapter 2 so now I'm assuming I can't predict anything in the future chapters either, haha.

Emesis Blue is great! Some really beautiful visuals in there, very striking! Love the mood of it too and a lot of the surreal imagery. I think it helped spur me back into TF2 again, haha. Medic and Scout's relationship was so cute.

I have thought about this! It has its share of challenges though... I outlined them more in this post. A pdf would be more doable though... could even include some extra stuff as well! Hmm...

I can see that! He'd probably spend as much time out in the rain as he could just doing whatever to stay outside.

It was pretty much always going to end like that. I always wanted it to end on a hopeful note! Which might seem weird with how dark it is at the beginning. I DID for a brief period at the very beginning of Handplates think about stopping with the Pacifist run, but that was only because I thought going where I wanted to go would take too long and already the project seemed so dauntingly huge at the time, haha. But it was always going to end in a positive way!

Gaster talks about what he originally intended to create here, and he explains a bit about the physical experiments he runs on the brothers here. They aren't really a solution in and of themselves so much as tools to try and find a way to break the barrier. Really though, Gaster got stuck in the sunk-cost fallacy lol.

I don't really have opinions about what canon Gaster would be like. |D Handplates Gaster is his own thing really. Canon Gaster, who knows! Deltarune Gaster, who knows! I will say I hope Gaster stays a mystery in Deltarune and never actually shows up but I think the odds of that are really low at this point.

I thought about doing a script along those lines! I did a few rough drafts of one, but it never really went anywhere... it'd end up dead-ending or kind of meandering off. I might see if I can get an actual script down for a side-comic or something in the future... it might be better suited for a fic.

I was just thinking about this lately! I was picturing Gaster totally forgetting about that until he sees Papyrus squinting and is like OH GOD YOUR EYES THAT'S RIGHT D: and goes to get him looked at lol.

I couldn't come up with a good idea for Flowey which is a shame, I do like him, haha. If one comes to me though I might make a little side comic about it!

Gaster's LV is complicated... his stats in-game are ludicrous if I recall correctly. Did he carry the damage from his murders into the void, even if those murders weren't his in the new timeline? Deep thoughts.

He fed them anything he could find, haha. Which is why sometimes they just ended up with chocolate bars (which he intended as dinner for himself). He probably fed them more often than he fed himself lol. He did feed them fairly regularly though.

Not about skeletons, probably. |D

Man I know I had an explanation for this but it was so long ago... it's hard for me to remember. It could be that the Riverperson is just weird and has weird insight into elements of things, had a prophetic dream... I don't know! It bugs me now that I can't remember this, haha.

[thatonemariofangirl]

Here's my submission for @drones-of-innocence's art challenge for her fanfic "I'll Never Let You Go"! 😁🌌✨ This honestly took me way longer than I intended to for personal reasons, but I'm just glad that I was able to submit it before the deadline! 😭😅

Also, I did a purple galaxy cuz that's my favourite colour (and I just had to) but I did add some blue and black in it, although it doesn't really look like a galaxy since I'm kinda inexperienced with galactic backgrounds. I should've also made it a bit darker and I don't really know how to draw a comet, either, but it's okay! I didn't worry about perfectionism too much because I just wanted to get this done before the deadline and I was mostly doing this for fun, anyways! 🥲 But I am still happy with the end result of it! 🤗

Anyways, the look I was going for (if it wasn't obvious already) was Mario weakly reaching out towards the comet as he imagines his "Special One" (as quoted in the fanfic) waiting for him and praying/thinking about her hero. In other words, as Mario looks up at the comet, all he can see is Peach in distress, prompting his further determination to reach her as soon as possible. (I don't know, I'm horrible with words, but I hope you get the idea, lol). Luma is also seen buried under Mario's cap because I thought it was cute and he does hide under Mario's cap a lot, haha. 🥺❤️

But yeah, I believe that's everything and that this art is still submittable enough. 😂💜 I had a lot of fun with your challenge though, Drones, and I'm glad I could participate in this! Thank you so much! 🥰

[xi-xi-chen]

Just wanted to drop in and let you know that the way you draw Jinx and Lux together is my absolute favorite and this new AU with Isha literally has me frothing at the mouth trying to hold myself back from writing yet another AU for them that I don’t have the capacity for 😭 Your art is gorgeous and inspiring and it’s always a treat to see that you’ve posted another comic!

Awww thank you~

I must say I've never really thought I'd make it to a point to actually make some kind of comic out of it, either. I actually used to swore that there's no way I'd ever make one, haha.

And I get it too, I get inspired by writers and other artists as well and want to make more art but then as I draw it, it doesn't match the vision for both myself and what I think the author's intended and so I end up scrapping it.

Again, thank you love, and I always appreciate the feedback, the amount of times I've practiced trying to make them "readable" and make them look like "them" is just something else entirely.

<3

[getvalentined]

HI THERE!! A fellow FFVII pleb here 🙌🏼🙌🏼

But I have not played Ever Crisis, and your art is

💥mega💥 from it.

May you infodump at your will where these outfits are from in the game, if you have any reference pics, and what the game covers?

If not, that is fine too 🌷

Thanks!

Thank you for the nice comment about my art! I've been in a slump recently on account of the world being on fire and having chronic pain in my hands, so I'm glad people are still enjoying what I have put out there.

Most of the EC outfits are only really "in-game" as related to non-canon seasonal "Portal" events, referred to as such due to their existence being explained via the existence of a spell of the same name, originally developed by Shinra before being ruled useless and put on a shelf. The materia for the spell was apparently stolen at some point in the early '90s, and it periodically crops up due to fiends, Cetra, or other nonhuman entities creating an excuse for the cast to get into alternate universe hijinks. The lore indicates that the Portal materia may have been stolen by the A.I. that ran the simulator originally used to train P-0 Class SOLDIERs during the course of the First SOLDIER Battle Royale, which eventually developed a form of sentience and literally ran away. This seems to be what caused that training program to shut down in-universe. (IRL the game was shut down because of real world financial fraud perpetrated by one of the co-creators of Sonic the Hedgehog, because we live in the weirdest timeline. Getting some closure on it in-game was super interesting, though.)

The game itself is intended to be a sort of abridged version of the entire Compilation of Final Fantasy VII (not the funny youtube haha kind of "abridged") told in short sections with frequent breaks, allowing it to be played basically anywhere.

There are currently three active titles:

Final Fantasy VII: The OG, but make it bite-sized. The pacing here is pretty poor, but mostly because the devs seem intent on pushing it as the flagship title of Ever Crisis even though it is not the one that they use in advertisement. (Current chapter: recruiting Vincent in Nibelheim.)

Crisis Core: Everyone's favorite gay tragedy. The pacing on this one is about the same as it is in the original, although there are a couple new little bits. The translation is still ass due to "no homo," and recently they seem to be working very hard to retcon Angeal being a self-righteous trashbag for some reason, which is kind of ruining the whole storyline, but we'll see if they fix that. (Current chapter: Genesis' siege on Shinra HQ.)

The First SOLDIER: Not to be confused with the battle royale title of the same name mentioned above, this game starts with three unenhanced P-0 Class SOLDIER randos (they're relevant to Rebirth) and segues into the backstory of Sephiroth starting around age 13-14. This is what they used in advertisement, and then delayed updates on so many times that the ending was spoiled by Tseng during a board meeting in Rebirth. I am not joking. (Current chapter: Act I end.)

The game is intended to eventually also include Dirge of Cerberus and even Before Crisis (which has never been released outside Japan and hasn't been playable even in Japan for over a decade), but not until after the OG and CC's storylines finish. There is roughly one chapter update to a single active title every 4-8 weeks, so it's going to take a while.

All that said, there are currently around 80 alternate outfits spread over 13 playable characters (some are more favored than others, Aerith has about a dozen while Barret has three), and I don't actually even have half of them altogether. I do have a lot, though, so I'll put details under the cut of what I have and if there are any specific ones you'd like to see I can get screenshots for reference purposes.

— Cloud [5/9] Murasame, Bandaged Coat aka Death Gigas cosplay, Festive Garb, Saber Style, and Bahamut Garb. Missing Battlefield Garb, Maritime Sailor, Zidane, and Glavenus Armor.

— Barret [2/3] Fiery Cape and Electroarmor. Missing Scrap Armor.

— Tifa [2/10] Metalfoot and Fairy of the Holy Flame. Missing Lifeguard, Amarant, Guide Uniform, Bunny Bustier, Feather Style, Kirin Suit, Passion Mermaid, and the upcoming Bahamut gear that I will not be pulling for.

— Aerith [2/11] Rosy Battle Suit aka postcanon Genesis cosplay and Chocobo Suit. Missing Sunny Robe, Prism Dress, Garnet, Fairy of Snowfall, Floral Gown, Classic Coney, Kamura Dress, Citric Dress, and Bahamut Robe.

— Nanaki [2/4] Seaside Aloha and Canyon Duds. Missing Rubber Harness and The Hellhound aka the Sonic OC recolor skin.

— Yuffie [1/5] Puckish Lion. Missing Winter Moogle, Sparkling Skater, Shinobi Hawk, Summer Moogle, and Bahamut Mantle.

(No image because I hit the limit and it's a disaster tbh.)

— Cait Sith [2/3] Marching Jacket and Felyne Kamura. Missing Party Jacket.

— Vincent [3/3] Bouncer Suit, Stray Dog, and Formal Attire.

— Zack [4/8] Tropical Beach, Guardian Style, Glacier Armor, and Zinogre Armor. Missing Valiant Suit, Black Hound, Holiday Suit, and Shinra Full Dress Uniform.

— Sephiroth [8/9] Aeroglider, Edged Wings, Dark Harbinger aka the half-Galian Beast cosplay, Kuja, Celebratory Garb, Lethal Style, Shinra Formal Uniform, and Natant Jacket. Missing Dark Attire because it was running the same time as one of Vincent's outfits and I didn't have the crystals for both. (sob)

— Glenn/Matt/Lucia [1/who cares] I only have 1 proper alternate outfit for each of them and only because the game gave them to me, plus Lucia's Vivi, which is just a recolor of the first alternate outfit with a hat on top.

No images because I hit the limit and I don't care for any of these people.

[imagionationstation]

Hi! I read your TMNT 2012 separated au that you made with ellestrade and it really gave me brainworms so I wrote a small one-shot for it! The characters kinda ended up writing themselves haha.

anyways, wanted to share it with you and also make sure that you're okay with it. Not sure how you feel about other people taking inspiration from you ideas, so if you would like me to take it down, just let me know!

Thanks for sharing such fun ideas. Here's the post (I've also tagged you in it but sometimes tags are weird and don't always show. Also its on my fandom specific sideblog, but I am the same person haha)

Gotta love those brain worms! (Ironic statement from a 2012 viewpoint, actually-) HOLY CHALUPA, BRAIN WORMS IN THIS AU UNIVERSE, WAIT WAIT ACTUALLY WAIT-

*background rambles and spazzing*

Okay, I’m back.

I’m always a-okay with whatever fan things anyone wants to create with inspiration from something I made or helped make. As long as it isn’t containing some stamp that says “this I deem canon” when neither me (nor my partner) deemed it canon, no one ever has to worry with me getting upset over some story/comic/art.

I’m going to give some thoughts and I want to disclaimer.

When I discuss my thoughts on your POV of events in the AU, I will never, in any way, intend to diss or attack the story. I think the flow was excellent and Raph’s analysis of the events occurring was intriguing. I loved it! And nothing I say will be a statement otherwise.

But, since I have a distinct inability to keep my mouth shut when it comes to turtles and you asked, I have thoughts 🧐

My brain is now turning and ya’ll have to deal.

Characterization:

Donnie: Much distrust. Much sass. A strong sense of duty to defend his brethren turtles who don’t deserve it but he’s doing it anyway.

Very on point. Much approval 👌

Mikey: Could not be more perfect. I love him. Sweet soul ✨

Leo: He’s a bit less… Forceful. Cold and calculating. Than I envision.

I’d imagine that he had to learn to shut feelings down in order to survive. Fidgeting/smiling/visibly hesitating is out of the question. Staying in Shredder’s graces meant learning to play the game. His silence is what earns Raph the ability to be loud. The only times that he’s himself is when him and Raph are alone, outside of the sight of cameras, or when someone in is danger and fear/fury overwhelms all else. He seems bland to outsiders and it takes the Hamato brothers a while to see that that he’s just a scared little boi at heart that’s just trying his best in a cruel world.

He’s also set in his beliefs, so he’s going to assume that they’re being tormented mentally, if not physically. There’s no place in his mind that wonders if they were actually safer elsewhere.

I do like your POV, though. Plenty for me to play with.

Raph:

He’s ABSOLUTELY the first to question the differences between how Shredder treats them and how Splinter treats their brothers. He doesn’t jump the gun, but as devoted as he is, he’s never really liked Shredder. I love the implications that he’s been filing away concerns subconsciously and his brain keeps poking him like “HELLO?!”

He’s very deep. I can’t decide how I feel about that 🤔

Shredder would have wanted to fan that temper into something unforgiving and vile. Or course, that doesn’t mean he stops being a sensitive soul. It could… Have something to do with Shredder manipulating him into being angry when he wills it (basically all the time) and solemn and still when he doesn’t (such as during lectures, punishments, etc).

His brain registers this situation as one where he’s not meant to be loud and angry, and so he’s kinda… Shut down. Sassy, but mellow. Processing. Adapting. Letting what happens happen because he’s not meant to stop it.

It’s a reason that Leo gets so defensive when punishments come into play. It forces Raph to feel small. It make him vulnerable.

HOLY MOTHER OF MUTATIONS- I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS NEW TAKE ON THE AU @ellestrade TELL ME IF I’M ONTO SOMETHING

Anyway, commentary:

“in one of Takeō's strategy books he couldn't care less about”

It’s like Space Heroes. He claims so and YET he read, recalls, AND clearly has DEBATED the passage so I call sus vibes.

I get giddy when I think of Takeō discovering Space Heroes-

“Junkō and Kōta— or Donnie and Mikey, whatever false name they’d been given—”

My brain made connections. I don’t know if it was intended, but I always believe that they knew them by Shredder’s names through the beginning of season one, end of season one/beginning of season two they were associating them as both, and then by the time that the City is under attack, they’ve adapted to using their real names. (But the Saki brothers still keep their Foot names.)

So, now I assume this is somewhere in that middle plot.

Fun little Easter egg~

“Takeō and Akihitō were the offense, and Donnie and Mikey were the defense” “They held their own. In fact, they dominated.”

I’m in love with Raph’s simple acknowledgment of their roles in battle. It’s a very practical outline of exactly how their dynamic on the field plays out and he's so certain of his place.

On the other hand, I’m a bit uncertain about whether they’d dominate. I do believe that they are trained and can hold their own, but I don’t know about them being as impressive as Raph&Leo, simply because Splinter trained them to defend and Shredder trained them to kill. The Hamato brothers haven’t had much time to practice in the offensive, especially since that’s Leo&Raph’s job. (In non-AU canon, they are all offensive/defensive.)

I think Mikey might learn that kinda strength at the farmhouse after being taught by Leo&Raph, and Donnie will step back from that, finally finding his place not as a fighter/leader, but as a scientist.

Definitely an interesting take, tho 🤔

“Only now does he think that, perhaps, there was a reason their master made their primary weapons blunts and not blades.”

I am chewing on this line so hard. It’s so powerful.

I can’t even tell you why. It just is.

“Akihitō knows that Takeō isn’t lying. He’d already tried to take tonight's blame all on his own shoulders, spare Akihitō of the punishment. But Akihitō knows all his tricks and he won’t let his brother suffer alone. Again.”

100% behind Raph learning to butt in when Leo tries to take the fall as they get older and punishments get worse.

“Seeing the situation, the evidence glaring at him, Akihitō cannot deny that this wasn’t exactly a great sell. Takeō and him are tied to the ground, trying to convince these two strangers that they would be safe with them. That their clan would not hurt them while that same clan was just about ready to beat them to a pulp.”

I was thinking the same thing 🤣

Leo, dude, seriously. Look around. Think for a second. You are not selling your point. You are doing the opposite.

In the end, it doesn’t even matter. Sensei will always find them no matter where they run. It was better to follow than be chased.

SOMEONE NEEDS TO TEACH THESE KIDS THAT THIS IS A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP. YOU SHOULD NOT FEEL MOTIVATED TO STAY WITH DAD BECAUSE HE WILL FORCED YOU TO REMAIN OTHERWISE. BRUH. RED FLAG.

These were Foot Ninja binds made specifically to hold them. Mutant strength and all.

It makes sense that Shredder would make these. But.

But man. He made those. For them.

Takeō tries to take control of the situation again, the bossy oldest sibling coming out in him.

HA. Got him. Leo is Leo in any universe.

“His name is Mikey.” Donnie glares. “The rat is lying and he has—” “Donnie, its fine.”

Absolutely how they view things. Mikey doesn’t care what they think or do as long as no one he cares about is paying the price. Donnie feels it is a manner of principle that they accept logic and truth.

Leo talking over both of them is valid. This kid, I swear.

“Then tell your older brother to shut up about—”

LEO IS IT OFFICIAL YOU HAVE BEEN DISOWNED

“Sounds like a you-problem.” Donnie stands. “Mikey, we saved them. It's time to go.”

Donnie would die for them <3

A hand lands on his shoulder, and he recognizes it. Takeō always knows when to give support. He’s a good brother. He hopes Donnie and Mikey will know that one day too.

OH. OKAY. WELL. 🥺

THOSE FEELS CAME OUT OF NOWHERE-

He loved his big bro sm hjkhkjhkjhjkkjhkjhkjhku

If Akihitō didn’t know any better, he’d say it was longing.

Oh, don’t worry, he is dying to have other people in his life who genuinely care for him, but as long as you guys are with the enemy, you’re a threat to his baby brother and daddy and not to be trusted

And, just maybe, it could be their world too. 

Oh, so that’s what pain feels like. Glad to be reminded.

[jonillaa]

hi!! can you write something about high school basketball player!jo being overprotective of his gf in front of his teammates? thank you ~~~

SLAM DUNK ┊ asakura jo

PAIRING ┊ jo x f!reader

GENRE ┊ fluff (very very slight angst if you squint)

WC ┊ 520

WARNINGS ┊ bullying , ending is kinda cringe erm.. , lowercase intended!! (lmk if i missed anything!)

SYNOPSIS ┊ being the girlfriend of your high school's heartthrob, jo, felt like a dream come true. however, the constant name-calling and teasing from his teammates began to take a toll on your self-esteem. jo, unable to bear seeing you hurt, takes matters into his own hands, even if it means quitting the team.

A/N ┊ hii did you guys miss me 😋😋 bye let’s not talk about how the title doesn’t match up with the drabble at all.. SHHHH I literally don’t know what else to put ☹️ anyways short drabble for bae jo becuz I miss him and i don’t wanna be dead anymore haha!! 😆

you never expected to be the girlfriend of the most popular guy in school, jo. he was the star basketball player, with his handsome visuals and long legs that seemed to effortlessly glide across the court. but what drew him to you was the shared art class you had together. he had always had his eyes on you, even before you started dating.

at first, being jo’s girlfriend felt like a dream. he was sweet and caring, always there to comfort and reassure you when the relentless name-calling from his fan girls got to be too much. you didn't mind it at first, but as time went on, their words slowly chipped away at your confidence.

but just when you thought things couldn't get worse, jo’s basketball teammates started picking on you. they would whisper comments about you into his ears, teasing him for dating someone like you and saying he could do better. their words hurt more than anything the fan girls could say, and it felt like a betrayal coming from his own teammates.

one day, during basketball practice, the teasing reached its peak. jo’s eyebrows furrowed with anger as he listened to his teammates' snide remarks. he had had enough. without hesitation, he walked up to you, his usually awkward demeanor replaced with a determined expression.

"hey, let's get out of here," jo said, his voice filled with a mix of protectiveness and frustration.

confused but intrigued, you followed him as he led you away from the gym and into a quieter hallway. once you were alone, jo turned to face you, his eyes filled with a mix of concern and determination.

"i can’t stand seeing them treat you like that," he confessed, his voice laced with anger. "they’re supposed to support me through everything, it makes me wanna quit the team. you deserve so much better than this."

you couldn't help but feel your heart swell at his words. his sudden overprotectiveness was both surprising and attractive to you. you had always admired his strength and skill on the basketball court, but seeing him stand up for you like this made you fall for him even more.

"i appreciate you standing up for me, jo," you replied, your voice filled with gratitude. "but i don't want you to quit because of me."

jo’s expression softened as he reached out to gently cup your face, his touch sending shivers down your spine. "i would do anything for you, even if it means giving up basketball. you mean more to me than anything else."

his words left you speechless, your heart pounding in your chest. you never expected jo to be so open and vulnerable with his feelings. it made you realize just how much he cared for you.

from that day forward, jo’s teammates never dared to say another word about you. the anger in his eyes and the determination in his voice had made it clear that he would not tolerate any more disrespect towards you. his actions spoke louder than any words could, and his teammates finally understood the depth of his feelings for you.