#I really like mechanical pencils for this kind of thing
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(Tumblr was dumb and posted before I'm ready, unfinished.)
[TW : Abusive parental character is included in this fanfic.]
Vroom!
Chrysí, kept her head down as her mother drove through the countryside of Long Island, New York. As the wheels of the mini-van turned, all that the new teen thought of was how much of a failure she felt. The teachers, assistant principal, principal, and even her own mother believed that she harmed some kid. Everyone believed that stupid story. She wasn't even near the crafts supplies! How could Chrysí have stabbed some jerk with a pair of scissors?! The guy's arm just... started aging quickly... and going away...?
And yet, everyone believed that mouthy Bobofit boy... and now here she was, sitting in the back of a dusty old mini-van with her mom sighing as they went on the way to a camp for troubled kids.
Look, Chrysí Óra didn't want to be a weird kid.
But it turns out she was so much more than weird...
Her mother was cursing at the GPS for taking them to 'the middle of nowhere' despite the fact that--to Chrysí, at least--they were, in fact, somewhere. She could see rows of strawberry fields through the window and what looked like a large pine tree with a... yellow blanket on it? The 13-year-old couldn't tell.
"Hey, Mama..? Can I go to explore the--"
"Yeah, whatever, just get out of my sight. The director of something or other said something about a tree and hill. ...Then I can finally be free for the summer..."
Chyrsí paused. Her mom never said anything about her staying here all summer...
"What?! Didn't I just say to get lost?!"
Chyrsí knew that tone and nodded, grabbing her backpack and leaving the mini-van quickly. She didn't like it when her mom got mad like that.
She heard the dusty, white van speed off as she walked down the road to the hill and the tree on top of it. Guess she was on her own now.
The sun shined above as she stepped towards the large hill... woah... the blanket wasn't a blanket at all! It was more of a fleece, really. ...and it was a golden fleece that sparkled in the sunlight as it was drapped across the tall pine's branches... ...golden...
But it wasn't the sights that Chrysí found the most amazement in, but rather the sounds. ...Laughter. What seemed like the purest laughter in the world. It sounded like... siblings? Maybe friends? And a soft carving sound and... soft breathing, and the slight sketching on paper from pencil. And... is that a marble?
As the 13-year-old ran closer to the top of the hill, she finally saw the source : 6 teens, all doing different things, and yet, being so happy to do these different things together.
An older scene teen with a colorful outfit and (brown... no, blonde... bronze, that was it.) bronze-colored hair spun a laughing curly-haired girl who seemed to be beaming with sunshine through her equally as cheerful yellow and orange clothes. She couldn't be more than a year older than Chrysí. Leaning against the roots of the tree, there were two more people! Maybe around the same age as the scene guy? One was a girl with her hair dyed a mint green, her hand holding a mechanical pencil as she sketched flowers and trees in a book the color of the pine needles above her. The other was sleeping peacefully in the shade, the hood of their lavender jacket, and their crochet hat acting as a personal pillow for the blonde. There was a redhead with silver glasses and curious expression, making some kind of machine while a brunette talked about geckos and birds from a large book. They were all so happy here...
"Put me downnn!!"
The young girl protested through her giggles as the older boy spun her around.
"Not a chance!"
The green-hair gal sighed with a smile.
"Will you two knuckleheads knock it off? We've got to head back down soon if we want to be able to get the marshmallows at the bonfire before the Hermes kids."
"We've made it before in less time," the redheaded kid piped up as they put away their project.
The blonde yawned, seeming to have been awakened from their nap. "H-Huh...? Marshmallows...?"
The eldest girl closed her sketchbook, helping her friend up.
"Yes, Dev, Marshmallows. But we have to get there before the Hermes kids take em all."
"Uhm... who are the Hermes kids, and uh... where's the bonfire...?"
As Chrysí spoke up, the other teens looked to where she was with a sense of suprise. The scene boy carefully put the brown-curled girl down as the two walked to greet the 13-year-old.
"Well, if it isn't a new friend. Welcome to camp, kiddo."
Chrysí giggled as her hair got ruffled by the bronze teenager.
"Hi there! I'm Dawn, Dawn Tempo." The curly haired girl waved to her before talking again. "Oh! And this is Kiton," She mentions, pointing out the colorful teen.
"Sup!"
"Oh, and the sleepy bean in the lavender jacket is Devon, but they prefer their nickname, Dev."
Dev yawned and waved to her. Chrysí waved back while the redhead, brunette, and green haired walked over. So many cool people...
"Hollis here thought there might have been a new camper on their way." The green haired girl smiled as she looked from the brunette to Chrysí. "I'm Thyme, Hollis Temple aka H.T. is our expert on anything animal facts, and Nelio--"
"Have you ever wanted to make a Rube Goldberg machine?" The kid with the silver glasses interrupted with curiosity.
Thyme laughed as she playfully elbowed Nelio. "I was talking there!"
"I know, sorry, heh." The redheaded teen admitted sheepishly.
"I'm Chrysí! ...You guys all seem so cool..."
Dawn smiled as she quickly tapped Chrysí's shoulder.
"Come on, we're just silly peeps, just like you!"
Kiton had this mischievous smile on his face as they looked to his friends.
"Last one to the bottom of the hill..."
"Is a gooey marshmallow!"
Laughter ensued as a race to the campfire started, Chrysí laughing and running along.
* * *
"So... this is a place for the kids of the people who created everything?"
Dev nodded in agreement.
"Yeah... pretty much. Oh, by the way, did you see a strange symbol floating above your head on your way to the hill?"
Chrysí shook her head. "Nope. Is that bad?"
"Kinda. And also weird. Cause, remember that long story Dawn told you?" Nelio questioned as the new youngest member of the friend group nodded.
When you were brought to Camp Half-Blood, you were told that one of your parents is a Greek god or goddess. You were supposed to be claimed as soon as you got to Camp, but you weren’t. When you’re finally claimed at the bonfire, your godly parent is not what people expect.
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Glad for pencils when I really want to draw but I need to wait for a new tablet adapter!
#yunyinart#sketch#the way I default to digital now... it's something!#but sometimes there's nothing like physical media#even if I don't photograph it well and it's a bit smudgy#I really like mechanical pencils for this kind of thing#and this is just computer paper
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#not art (yet)#once in a while I look at my prelim sketch and wonder if literally anyone else can read them other than me lmao#Ive returned to sketching in black recently tho... for a Long time I sketched in red. but before that I was doing it in blue#I think doing it this way kinda reminds me of drawing on loose pieces of a4 paper with mechanical pencils#will be nice to have this to chip away at for the foreseeable future. while I do other things also. a not obligation thing#I dont really have the diner experience but I feel like this is. kind of me in last year of high school on yearbook duty#(I was art committee. used it mostly as excuse to skip class with the other art committee kids lmao)(we were all friends)#this would be like. a cafe or a boba place. mostly bc those would have booths or tables tall enough for us to actually draw on#wonder if itd be fun to do a like. art challenge or something like that with this format... like DTIYS but its finishing the same sketch#tbh I only think it's viable bc my sketches are an enigma even to me lmao. esp. prelim/first sketch#would u like that. idk would that be fun for folks#drawing is fun! sometimes. we work towards making it fun more times. Im having fun with this
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I never stop thinking about them.
SEND ME ART REQUESTS BOY
#yeah this is basically an art dump#just a bunch of miscellaneous doodles#that last one is from when I first made the au. I do like. basically doodle sheets. if you understand#there's a bunch of other stuff that I marked out that's why there's a bunch of empty space at the top#if you recognize the individual things from it. no you don't.#god for some reason I think I'm fucking ALLERGIC to using reference. of like any kind#the only one I used anyreference for was the. snowball one which was a pose#also btw I'm trying to break out of a bit of art block teehee#anyways.#spenxer lou art#lou is an artist#fma au#I need to make an actual tag for this au but I'll do it later. when I pin down a name#I really like tongued alchemist. . . it's funny#roleswap au#fma#fmab#fullmetal alchemist#fullmetal alchemist brotherhood#alphonse elric#edward elric#traditional art#writhes around on the floor#I have a short comic idea for Ed. because I like making them talk about their feelings sometimes#but Idk if I wanna do it rn. . .we'll see#it's been on my mind#AUUAGHHUHUH Also I lost. my favorite mechanical pencil at a waffle house#I'm so fucking sad about it#I'm going to the craft store tomorrow tho so. fingers crossed#I think. I can stop now. falls to the floor and rolls away like a log
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I'm still grieving the dreams I lost due to my disability and I just added another one
#ones id already lost: wanting to hold any job at all. wanting to be a doctor. wanting to be a gymnast. wanting to play bass#wanting to be a therapist (maybe still possible? this is due to my inability to hold any job but im still hopeful i may be able to do this)#i wanted to go to school... i can still learn things of course but its harder and there's no community#i wanted to learn everything. everything about plants and animals and quantum mechanics and languages#everything about history and culture and sciences. but i can't. i mean that was never a realistic goal of course#but I cant get as close to it now as i wouldve if i was healthy#the one i recently added is discovering my fingers have deteriorated so much that playing keyboard is nearly impossible#thats been a lifelong dream of mine... even drawing hurts unless i draw with my finger. i cant hold a pencil without pain#like im figuring things out. working through accommodations and making new goals#but that grief is still there and the wound is still fresh and sometimes it just feels like its growing and it will never stop#i need too much that i cant have. I have so few options#i really dont know what kind of future there is for me if my pain and disability is already this bad in my 20s
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First I want to say that I really love and enjoy your writing and take all the time you need :)
Second I would like to request a jinx x artist reader who likes to sketch her a little too much (not a weird way just like just the reader do absentmindedly)
Thank you so much for your kind words. I’m sorry it took me this long to fulfill your request, but I finally finished it, so here it is 🤍 Also, guys, I’m sorry for disappearing for so long. I’ve had a lot on my plate, but I’ll try to post more often like before 😔
masterlist
Sketching Jinx
The workshop was dimly lit, a safe haven for Jinx’s chaotic energy. You sat cross-legged on the couch, sketchbook balanced on your knee, pencil in hand. Jinx was deep in her element, hunched over her workbench littered with wires, gears, and various mechanical parts. She was busy assembling a new invention, her tongue poking out slightly from the corner of her mouth in concentration.
You watched her—loose strands of blue hair escaping her braids, the way she pounded a hammer against a stubborn piece of metal. She didn’t notice you drawing her, and you preferred it that way. You liked capturing these candid moments of Jinx—her in-between states, before the chaos took over.
With each movement, she seemed more alive to you—vibrant, unpredictable, like a force of nature. You captured every detail: the smudges of oil on her fingers, the way she occasionally glanced up at the ceiling, clearly lost in thought. Your pencil moved smoothly across the paper, sketching her unfiltered essence.
“You drawing me again?”
You nodded, barely looking up from your work. “Yeah,” you answered, your voice soft but certain.
Jinx let out a small laugh, shaking her head as she continued to tinker. “It’s the third time today I catch you sketching me,” she commented, not bothering to hide her amusement. “And you don’t even let me see them.”
A playful smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you glanced up at her. “Guess I like keeping my favorite sketches a secret,” you teased.
Jinx paused, a smirk playing on her lips as she turned to face you, crossing her arms. “So now I’m your favorite thing to sketch, huh?” she echoed, raising an eyebrow. “Guess that means I’m doing something right.”
You chuckled softly, meeting her playful gaze. “Maybe,” you teased back, a hint of mischief in your voice.
Jinx stood up and stepped closer, clearly intent on convincing you to show her the drawings. “Come on, let me see them,” she insisted. “I’m your favorite subject, remember?”
You pretended to think about it, giving her a sly smile. “Hmm, I don’t know…” you teased, shaking your head. “What if I don’t want to share?”
Jinx’s smirk widened, and she reached out to tickle you gently on the side. “Come on, just one peek?” she urged, her voice a playful mix of frustration and laughter.
You held firm, shaking your head. “Nope, not showing them.”
Jinx’s expression shifted as she suddenly lifted you up from the couch and wrapped you in a tight hug, pulling you close against her while you return the hug, your sketchbook left on the couch. “Come on, just one little peek,” she whispered, her lips brushing against your ear.
You resisted, a smile tugging at your lips. “Not a chance,” you teased.
Jinx let out a soft huff and started planting kisses all over your face—on your cheeks, your nose, your forehead. “How many kisses do I need to give you until you show them to me?” she asked, her voice playful and warm.
You couldn’t help but laugh. “A lot,” you replied, trying to keep your composure.
Jinx’s smirk softened into a smile, and she began to kiss your cheeks more insistently, each one lingering longer than the last. “How about now?” she murmured against your skin, her breath warm.
You held out, a defiant sparkle in your eye. “Still not showing,” you teased back.
Jinx’s playful grin returned as she started to tickle you, fingers dancing over your sides. “How about now?” she repeated, her kisses turning into playful bites on your cheeks.
You laughed uncontrollably, trying to squirm away. “Okay, okay, you win!” you finally surrendered, grabbing the sketchbook from the couch and giving it to her. “But you owe me big time for this.”
Jinx’s eyes lit up with triumph, and she pulled the sketchbook from your hands, giving you one last peck on the lips before stepping back to examine your drawings. “Totally worth it,” she said with a satisfied grin, flipping through the pages. “These are amazing, you know that?”
Jinx flipped through the pages, her expression shifting from playful amusement to genuine amazement. She stopped on a page and held it out for you to see. “Did you… did you draw me while I was sleeping?” she asked, her voice a mix of surprise and wonder.
You peered over her shoulder at the sketch—Jinx, head resting on her arms, a soft smile on her lips as she slept peacefully amidst her mechanical work. The moment had been so fleeting, so candid, that you hadn’t even realized you’d captured it.
You nodded, a soft smile playing on your lips. “Yeah, you looked so peaceful,” you admitted softly. “Couldn’t resist.”
Jinx’s eyes softened as she studied the sketch. “This is… wow,” she breathed, running her fingers over the paper gently. “I didn’t even know you were watching.”
You shrugged, feeling a little bashful under her gaze. “I like capturing moments like these. They’re the real you, without all the chaos,” you explained, your voice low and sincere.
Jinx’s expression turned tender, and she stepped closer, placing the sketchbook back to you. “You really see me, don’t you?” she murmured, her voice barely a whisper. “Not just the crazy, but all of it—the quiet moments, too.”
You met her gaze, nodding. “Yeah, I do,” you replied softly. “That’s what makes you so… special to me.”
A smile tugged at the corners of Jinx’s lips, and she leaned in, brushing a loose strand of hair from your forehead. “Guess I’m glad you didn’t hide this one,” she said, her voice affectionate.
You shrugged, feeling a warmth spread through you. “Maybe I’m starting to trust you with these,” you admitted, your heart pounding a little faster than usual.
Jinx’s smile widened, and she leaned in even closer, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. “Good,” she murmured against your skin. “I want to see more of them.”
You smiled back at Jinx, your heart swelling with affection. “I guess you’re worth the trust,” you replied softly, leaning into her embrace.
Jinx’s expression softened, and she pulled you into a warm, gentle hug. “I’m glad,” she whispered, her voice full of sincerity. “Because these moments, they mean everything to me.”
You snuggled into her embrace, feeling content and happy. “You’re my favorite thing to sketch,” you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper. “But maybe now… I’m starting to like sharing them with you.”
Jinx squeezed you tighter, pressing her lips to the top of your head. “Good,” she murmured again, her voice thick with emotion. “I want to be a part of all your moments, even the quiet ones.”
With Jinx’s arms around you and the warmth of her embrace, everything felt just right. You knew that no matter what happened next, you’d always have these sweet, quiet moments with her to hold onto. And that was enough to make you happy, for now and forever.
#jinx arcane#jinx x reader#jinx x y/n#arcane jinx#jinx/you#jinx posting#jinx x fem!reader#jinx league of legends#jinx lol
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Sham Sacrifice: Chapter 2
(Sham Sacrifice: Chapter 1)
Chapter 2, because @ciestess voiced an idea that absolutely consumed my entire mind and I could not rest until I made this
...
Danny’s eyes tracked the swing of gunfire raining bullets across the horizon. Tucker reloaded, crouched, dodged left and pivoted, another blast of bullet confetti launched through a gaggle of zombie heads. He tossed the magazine and reloaded. Click. Ching. Danny flinched when a zombie smashed a hammer clean through Tucker’s head.
“God. Fucking…” Tucker pulled out of his hunch. He unclamped his fingers from his controller like bug legs unfurling. He extended the controller to Danny, bouncing it in his grip. “Your turn.”
“Huh?” Danny asked, as if he hadn’t been watching Tucker’s game the whole time.
“You. You’re up. I died.”
Danny accepted the controller, reloaded the screen, and jogged about a hundred feet forward before the first horde of zombies took him out football-style from the left. The death screen rolled.
“Oops,” Danny said.
“Not your best work.” And Tucker took the controller back. Tucker shot a few spare glances to Danny while the level restart loaded in. “Is it Vlad?”
“No. Well, yes,” Danny answered, flopping back into his normal position on the Foley attic armchair. Tucker’s mom had planned to toss it ages ago, before it became Danny’s chair. “But at least he left when my parents went all zombie mode into the basement.” Danny picked absently at the scabs of leather flaking from the armrest. “It was just weird.”
“I don’t mean this as an insult, but it’s definitely not the first time your dad’s gotten some math wrong,” Tucker said. “He blows up like three things a week doesn’t he?”
“He does. But he doesn’t care when he gets that math wrong. This one was like I broke something important.” Danny’s expression soured, and he picked a leather flake clean off the chair. “Vlad did, I mean.”
“Does any of the math actually work?” Sam offered from Tucker’s desk. She leaned an elbow around the back of his chair, head tilted to Danny. A pencil dangled from her loose fingers, nib-half worn to the History of an Invention report she was actually working on. Tucker had half-assed his earlier in the day about the palm pilot. Danny had not done his. “Like, it’s all crackpot theory, right? Do ghosts even follow math?”
“I think they follow some math. It’s not magic that makes the ecto-bazookas work, or the Fenton-phones work, or—well the thermos DIDN’T work—until I made it work.”
The unspoken thing Danny had been not-quite-saying hung in the air. He said it this time.
“So I’m wondering if I did it. Like the Fenton thermos. And now maybe they’re gonna do the math all over and realize the missing piece of the equation is one half-ghost son.”
“Well the order is backwards, for starters,” Sam said. “Thermos worked because you pumped ghost-energy into it. How would you have done that to the portal? You were human when you walked in.”
“Sam’s right. What do you think you brought to the table exactly? Button-slapping abilities?” Tucker loaded up the next level. “It was their portal, and their math, and it worked. There’s a million-billion kinds of math and they probably just forgot one thing.”
Tucker took a headshot and died. Mechanically, he handed the controller back to Danny.
“Yeah, probably.”
“Ask Vlad. He’s got a portal.”
“Like Vlad’s gonna tell me.”
“Just promise to be his diligent little son minion or whatever. He’s easy. Wait, let me do the next level. You know I like the cyberpunk levels.”
“It’s not your turn,” Danny said, reeling the controller just out of Tucker’s wiggling grasp.
“I’ll let you do two in a row for your next turn.”
Danny knocked Tucker away, distracted just long enough for a zombie cyberbeam to launch from the horizon and take him out through the head.
The screen washed sepia. Danny stared at it. You died.
…
Danny hadn’t really meant to stay the night at Tucker’s place. They’d just gotten really far in Man vs. Zombie, and Sam had gone home, and Danny was just resting his eyes between his turns with the controller.
So when he woke to the bright strip of sunlight beaming into his eyes through the attic skylight, his first thought was Fuck.
He was awake, here, morning, school. Fuck he had not actually done his History of Invention report, despite the stupid amount of grief it had already caused him this weekend. He pulled his face out of the armrest, now pineapple-patterned from the decaying leather, and pawed for his phone fallen on the floor. If it was still early enough, he could maybe still afford to desperately half-ass something before sixth period science.
He flipped his phone open. A text from Jazz. “Don’t come home. Make up an excuse.”
“…Fuck,” Danny whispered, through the sensation of his heart launching itself into his throat.
He scrambled upright, whole body shaking at the mercy of adrenaline shock so soon after being pulled from dead sleep. His mouth was dry, teeth unbrushed, wearing his old clothes from yesterday, report not done, Don’t come home, Don’t come home, Don’t come home.
They knew. He’d fucked it up. Somehow they knew. The math. Something. And it had to be with guns blazing, because Jazz would not send that text if they’d taken the “We accept you” angle.
Were they coming for him? On their way here? Tracking by his phone? Did they like Mrs. Foley enough to not SWAT-slam her against the wall when she opened the door for them so they could come capture the ghost pretending to be their son?
Fuck.
Danny was upright. Danny was standing. Danny was shaking. Danny wasn’t actually sure what the next thing was he was supposed to do.
Tucker’s ball of blankets rustled from the couch. “Mmph?” he asked, articulately.
“I have to. Go deal with my parents, I think,” Danny said, because any plan felt a little better than no plan. “I think they know.”
Danny was a ghost. Danny was gone. Tucker sat upright, alone, blinking himself awake. He was staring at the You Died sepia screen still displayed on monitor, now burnt into the plasma of the tv.
…
Danny paused with his human hand slick on the Fenton front door. The gears in his mind turned as his plan quickly unraveled into no-plan. He had no plan, right? What was his plan? Handle this Man vs Zombie style—open the front door ready to dodge wide, because both zombies and parents liked to camp behind closed doors with bazookas at the ready?
“—absolutely absurd, and entirely unscientific, with no probability of being true. It goes against everything we know about neurology.”
Oh, Jazz. Was Jazz enough of a bazooka-deterrent? Probably not. Knowing his parents.
Danny turned the knob. His heart hammered. If bazookas, dodge left.
The first thing he noticed was in fact the no-bazookas. It was what he was most looking for. And so it was Jazz’s expression he did not notice until second—whites of her eyes wide, snapped to Danny, with a look that would be accusatory if worry hadn’t won that battle. Her cheeks were pale. Her hair was unbrushed.
He noticed his parents third. Compulsively, he rocked back onto his right foot, still outside the doorway, still outside the threshold of the Fenton family household.
Seeing his parents tired was of absolutely no shock-value to Danny. It was at least a twice-per-month tradition to see them haul themselves up from the basement sweaty and glaze-eyed at 7am, babbling excitement about some new ecto-spectral-hoozy-whatsits whose concept had shimmed into their minds at 8pm and now existed, fully operational, 11 nonstop hours later.
So it wasn’t the exhaustion on their face. It wasn’t the stagnant smell of sweat or the paleness of their faces or the stains on their clothes.
It was the way they looked at him. Like their whole world had fallen apart with his foot passing over the doorstep.
“Danny,” Jazz said, choked, a break in the silence. “Things are…! A little weird here. So maybe, if you wanna just get to school, I’ll finish clearing up—there’s a misunderstanding Mom and Dad have with their math. I am state finalist in Math League and have been studying college-level calculus in preparation for school applications so I’ve offered to help them fix their math, or prove to them—”
“Danny,” Maddie said, an echo of Jazz, but it felt worse. Danny scanned her hands for anything pointed enough to be a weapon. They were empty. “Danny can I just ask you something honestly, just quickly? Jazz is right. I’m just trying to clear up an issue with our math. And I won’t be mad. Whatever the answer is, I won’t be mad. I just want an honest answer.”
She stepped closer. Danny fought the urge to match her with a step backwards. Her eyes roved over him in a starved way, looking for something.
“Were you there when the portal turned on?” she asked.
“No, I wasn’t,” Danny answered. He wasn’t sure what to do with his face to make it look convincing. “It just. It needed some time to boot up, or something, right? That’s what you two said.”
“That was our guess ,but we don’t really know. The security tapes are wiped. We tried to make them EMF-resilient but a very, very strong blast of EMF could still corrupt them.”
“Yeah. I mean the portal’s gonna do that, right? When it turned on? Ripping open the Ghost Zone that’s—gotta be huge EMF.” Danny’s focus bounced between his mother’s eyes. “Just a guess. I really don’t know. I was in bed, already, whenever the portal started working.”
Left eye. Right eye. Why was she looking at him like that? Like she was sad. Was this part a trick? Make Danny let his guard down, go hey Mom need a hug? and that’s when the bazooka-whipping starts? It made his ribs feel scratchy. Stop looking at me like that.
“Have you felt anything weird at all, since the portal started working? Any gaps in your memory? Any parts of you that don’t feel right? Is there any part of you that feels like it’s changed in a way you can’t explain?”
She reached a hand out. Danny instinctively recoiled.
“Uh, yeah. They taught us about this in health class. They call it ‘puberty’ there.”
“Danny,” Jack said, and his voice was scratchy from disuse, from a long and uncharacteristic amount of time spent not speaking. “Did you die in the machine?”
A beat. A moment. Like when the zombie sends a hammer through your head.
“I’M alive!” Danny declared with a crack in his voice, with hands slammed to his chest. “Look at me. What are you talking about?”
“It’s the only math that works,” Jack continued, his words like chalk, his voice too dead. He looked too much at Danny. “If one of you two walked into the portal, and died in it. And I don’t think it was Jazz.”
This was bad. This was weird. Danny had ghost powers, sure. ‘They can’t kill me I’m already dead,’ was a funny joke sometimes. But it was funny as a joke. He was a ghost sham, really. A faker, a LARPer, whatever Tucker had called it. He was a human who was just kind of a freak now. More of a freak than he already was. He looked dead, for someone who was super-duper still alive.
He’d buried that worry, already. They weren’t allowed to bring it back.
“Look… at me!” Danny continued, mouth dry. He threw his arms wide. “Look how super alive I am! I’m awake! Using energy! Eating food and sleeping with my human body. I’ve got flesh and blood and bones and stuff! I’m not a ghost-expert but ghosts don’t have that.”
This was weird. This made Danny feel like something was scratching to get free from inside his rib cage. It twisted his entrails. Sure Tucker and Sam had thought he was dead, for those first horrible few minutes, but then he changed back to a human and the nightmare ended there. Jazz never called him dead. The ghosts called him freak and halfa and whelp, but never ‘one of them.’ That was his whole thing: being different from the ghosts who became ghosts by something so normal as dying.
He was not dead.
“If you died in the portal, your ghost wouldn’t have been ripped out of your body. It would have been allowed to stay, and then you’d be…” Jack hesitated. “I don’t know what you’d be, but you wouldn’t be alive.”
“Dad,” Jazz said, and she stood herself bodily between Danny and Jack. “What an absolutely messed up out-of-line thing to say to your son! You don’t know that! Dad you’re tired, and just because you weren’t able to solve your math problem in one night doesn’t mean you get to treat Danny like this! I said I’d help you with your math! Now apologize to Danny.”
Jazz looked over her shoulder to Danny, her expression falling at the sight of Danny’s face.
Danny backed up over the door threshold. He shook his head. “I’m not comfortable with this. This is weird. I’m gonna go to school now.”
“Danny, I promise they’re just—”
Danny turned on heel. No backpack, no change of clothes. He took to the street without a single school supply and moved, and moved.
It was supposed to be guns-blazing. Molecule by molecule. Headshot you died. He’d prepared for that this whole time, in the shower, in his dreams, in his daydreams in class. He’d duck and dodge and explain himself over and over until they understood him.
Danny wasn’t sure he was capable of explaining himself anymore.
…
Danny knocked the heavy iron knocker. He was in ghost form, as a threat. He wondered if he still smelled like yesterday’s sweat now that he wasn’t wearing yesterday’s clothes. Now he was wearing the clothes he died in.
No one answered the door. Danny phased himself in.
“Vlad!” he called, and his words echoed along the slope of the two elaborate winding staircases that twirled and met at the top like caduceus. Gold-plated banisters. A security camera buried somewhere in the ceiling, no doubt.
Danny phased into the library. His eyes roved the three stories of bookshelves wrapping the perimeter like a sheath. Gaudy. Audacious. Like Vlad would ever read that much. Danny racked his brain because some something in here was the secret to opening Vlad’s laboratory. Jazz had told him. Some gold something to be touched, and pressed down, or pushed up? Or it opened to a button. Or a keypad, maybe.
Danny spat a curse. He was being stupid. He was frazzled. He wasn’t thinking straight.
He dove into the floor below. Intangibility was the only key he needed.
The sheetrock was cold, even when he wasn’t touching it. The darkness was so piercing it made static jump in his vision, some weird trick of the brain Jazz had explained where, in the absence of all light, the brain hallucinates its own. It came with a sensation of pressure against his eyeballs, and a complete disorientation of direction, and he simply just kept going down.
Danny emerged into a wash of cold air. Cold like metal was cold. The low lights of dials and clicking machines were bright to his eyes previously dunked into the pitchest nothing. He drank it in, eyes grateful for light no matter how little, inner ear grateful for orientation that had left his head swimming and his stomach tight.
His feet tapped down to the stone ground, and the air that breezed past him was chilled.
“Vlad!” Danny called again.
Nothing.
He moved by the floor lighting, which ran in trim along the perimeter of the laboratory rooms. It lit things from beneath, made machines gaunt and specimens into sharp geometries of darkness and flesh. It made the Fenton lab feel warm in a way Danny had never considered it warm.
His feet clacked. His breath puffed.
“Vlad!”
He followed light, followed a wash of green miasma percolating from some far room and catching on the particulate of water and dust that disturbed with the air currents. Danny disturbed it too, walking through, wearing its shade of green which his shadow robbed from the wall behind him.
“Vlad. I swear to god Vlad.”
He crossed the threshold of the portal room, where the dusting of green ambience became a medallion wash of golden-green coating, painting every surface of the room. The Fenton lab was one single expansive room, portal anchored into the far wall and facing all the dead and empty air in front of it. This was different. A much smaller room, walled on all sides save for the simple doorway, and each surface reflected the color back deeper and heavier. It was like a fishtank in the wall of an aquarium lit radiant aqua-blue by all the lights within, but green instead, pure ecto-green.
Danny approached the open portal. He stared into its placid swirls, mesmerized, and scared of it, in a way he hadn’t previously felt about the portal in the Fenton basement.
“Ah, seems the cat is a good mouser after all, it dragged you in my boy.” The words came sing-song. They came spine-shivering for Danny, who felt them like hot breath on his shoulder and reeled back, pivoted, fire crackling to life in his palms.
Vlad stood at the doorway, a solid 20 steps from Danny.
“Vlad.”
“So I’ve been hearing.”
“I need you to explain the portal.”
“Ah, I see you’ve spoken to your parents.” Vlad stepped in, washed in the ecto-green which muddied his ruby red eyes. He held his hands behind his back, cape trailing, a smirk on his fanged face. “Last I heard they weren’t taking the news very well.”
“What news. What did you tell them?”
“Me? Nothing. In fact, very kindly for your sake I even tried to drive them away from the answer but… We know how stubborn your parents can be.”
“What answer?”
“That you’re dead, Daniel.”
Shock washed like ice down Danny’s spine. It sent prickles like spider legs across his skin.
“Well, I suppose there’s still chance for some doubt. It could be Jazz. She could take the fall for you, if there’s any benefit to that at all.”
“I’m a halfa. We are halfas,” Danny said.
“A silly made up word by a silly child,” Vlad mused, and the light smile left his lips. “We are dead.”
“I’m not dead,” and Danny’s words were small, and they were childish.
“You are. I am. Embrace it. It’s nicer this way.” Vlad took a few steps closer, lionously tall in his saunter, feet clacking the ground. “It’s very freeing. After you’ve died already what is there left to fear?”
“I’m alive.”
“You’re a dead body with its soul still stuffed inside it like a Christmas goose. A lot of things in your body don’t work anymore, but ghosts don’t work right anyway and it is, for all its defiance of nature, a perfectly symbiotic relationship.” Vlad’s smile brushed his lips again, warm. “It’s nice to share this with you. Isn’t it nice to share things with people?”
Danny’s heart was beating too fast in his chest, and it was a human heart, a human beat. “I’m not dead,” he declared.
“Your wounds heal quickly because the ghost piloting you only needs to remember form. It stacks cells back into place and calls it good. You’ll endure fatal injuries as you no doubt have many times in your fights, but they’re trivial because physical trauma is not what kills a ghost. It’s what creates one. You’ll necrotize in places but it’s okay, because you’ll carry on, and it will bother you only if you let it bother you, if you’re too sentimental about the puppet you’re still inside.” Vlad closed in closer, neck craning to appraise Danny. “Ghosts love a facsimile of life so you will keep your heart pumping, your lungs breathing. You’ll eat and you’ll sleep but you’ll find you won’t perish if you don’t. It just won’t be a good time if you want to keep occupying your flesh form. Take better care of it. You won’t get another.”
“You’re psychotic. And you’re wrong.”
“I have all the math to prove it.” Vlad leered from over Danny’s shoulder. He circled the boy, knocking Danny’s balance, who still on a hair trigger stood ready to fight. The light from the ghost portal painted Vlad’s face like the phases of the moon as he moved. “Did your parents explain that part to you properly?”
“No, because they didn’t get the math right.”
“Oh they’ve gotten it right. This time. It only took them two decades longer than it took me.” The portal rolled like static, and its fizzling pattern crashed like an ocean wave across Vlad’s cape. “No amount of man-made power is sufficient to drag the entire fabric of the Ghost Zone up against our own, tear a hole through it, and anchor it to a stable frame. It requires something with a pull on the Ghost Zone, a strong pull, and that thing is a human life at the moment of an extraordinarily violent death.”
Danny backed a step away from the portal, from Vlad, but the walls boxed him in. He swam in its green light.
“You stepped in and you turned the portal on, that’s what you thought, right, Daniel? Pressed a careless button on the inside and now here we are. Silly parents for not finding that button first.” Vlad’s face hardened. “No. Jack and Maddie knew about the button. Maddie explained it to me over the phone. What engineer designing and building their own portal would forget the location of the on button? They’d pressed it from the outside. It didn’t work. And so you pressing the button was not the important part. It was you dying to the electrocution that clicked everything right into place. And while your ghost should have been torn from your lifeless corpse and pulled to the Ghost Zone you instead pulled the Ghost Zone here. Your ghost got to stay put. You opened the portal. You became the undead freak you are. And now we’re here.”
Danny’s eyes bounced between Vlad’s. His cheeks felt hot, like he was enduring an accusation of wrongdoing. And he had none of the knowledge to refute what was being said.
“You’re messing with me. You’re wrong,” Danny shot back. He thrust an arm out, drenched in the fog of the portal. “If the portal needs a person to die in it then explain your portal! Are you so casual about it? You killed someone? You’re admitting to murder and you think I won’t do anything about it?”
Anger flashed like a storm across Vlad’s face. His aura swelled, pressing down with a pressure on Danny as Vlad halted and cast his shadow clear across Danny, coating the back wall. “The killing of other people with the wanton carelessness of half-baked machines is the domain of Jack and Jack alone. I’ve brought no such harm onto anyone else.”
“Then how do you have this portal?”
“This portal? This portal that I’ve had for 20 years? Which I opened when I solved the piece of Jack’s broken math that he was never able to solve until this morning?” Vlad stalked closer, hunched, imposing. Danny stepped back. “My boy Daniel you’ve had it so easy. You had it so simple. A truly clean break. So clean so lucky. A single lethal dose of electricity and it was already over. I’m jealous. You never even suffered.”
Vlad stepped closer, striking distance, arm extended. Danny flinched, but Vlad only swept his cape around, clenched in his fist, and pivoted to approach the portal.
“Put out of your misery before it even started.” Vlad slammed his fist against the portal rim, and the explosive metallic clang bounced through the rooms. His laugh belted out. “I should have been so lucky.”
19. Vlad Masters was 19. A sophomore in college. A man actively in the midst of sabotaging his social life to chase a woman who was already deeply in love with Vlad’s best friend who he hated more every day. He wasn’t sure what he ever enjoyed about Jack’s bumbling ineptitude, or his loudness, his brashness, his poor social skills, his bad breath, his mullet. Maybe Vlad had gravitated to Jack because deep down he loved how superior it made him feel to surround himself with the likes of Jack Fenton… And now, he hated how enraged it made him to watch Maddie’s eyes skip past his to focus on Jack Fucking Fenton again and again and again and again.
But surely there was hope still. Surely it was a matter of time before the rose-tinted glasses fell away and Maddie saw bumbling and inept and every such word in the basket when she looked at Jack. There’d come the day she tested the waters with Vlad to complain about one of Jack’s little quirks, and they’d find solace together in all the things Vlad was that Jack wasn’t, and all the things Vlad had that Jack didn’t. And he’d be gone, back to bumble elsewhere, and it would be just them.
The day didn’t come. It wouldn’t come. And maybe Vlad needed to change himself for Maddie. If he listened to her and Jack’s ghost ramblings, if he could put Jack in his place and solve the things Maddie couldn’t, it would show her. She’d understand.
Because that was the thing about Jack. His math was never right. Enduring Calculus 1 with Jack was all it took to prove this to Vlad. How many times he’d caught a single error on a single line for Jack, like a dropped stitch that would unravel the whole sweater. Every problem, without exception. Jack only passed on his homework grade with Vlad’s help. On his tests, he failed.
So Vlad was staring at Jack’s equation, full of bogus math, which Vlad knew was wrong because Jack had penned it, and Vlad had not yet fixed it himself.
“I’m telling you Jack, it won’t work.”
“Bogus V-man it totally will!”
It wouldn’t. But Vlad wouldn’t fix it for him. Not yet. Vlad would let Jack embarrass himself first, fully in front of Maddie, watching on, judging. Vlad would solve it for her. After. Once Jack had made a fool of himself for the hundredth time since college began.
He leaned in to study the portal frame. The gears were turning in his head already. He didn’t hear the whir of the power source catch.
…
19. Vlad Masters was 19. A tube ran down his nose and into his lungs, supplying oxygen for lungs which were failed by a diaphragm sloughing itself away. He was poisoned from the outside-in. Irradiated by ecto-energy none of the nurses or doctors could fully understand. It damaged his DNA. First obvious in the skin of his face where the blisters of his ecto-acne drained and sloughed. “Acne” was the wrong word. An unkind word. They were boils where the blast had cooked his skin, microwaved his cells. The skin on his body blackened over time. Organs decayed. Vlad Master read a lot about radiation sickness. He knew everything he had to expect.
Jack and Maddie had stopped visiting. They were dating now. It was on their last visit they’d told him, and Vlad hadn’t taken it well, and he’d perhaps burned a few bridges with the words he chose. It was deserved. Considering what Jack did to him.
He’d found the error in Jack’s math, by the way. Errors, but all the rest paled in impact compared to the lambda. The ecto-energy. The necessary ecto-potential to pull the Ghost Zone here. How stupid. How idiotic. For Vlad to die to a machine so botched in its construction.
When Vlad was released from the hospital, it was not because they’d cured him. It had been because there is a certain cruelty in making a 19-year-old live the last of his days bedded down in a white-walled room with just his books, his equations, and no one coming to visit anymore.
He was released with bedrest instructions. Vlad did not heed them. In his beater car, every cell of his body aching, he drove. At the materials lab, he disconnected his oxygen tank and moved through the lab space with the tube dangling loose from his nostril. No one was Vlad Masters’ friend. No one cared to stare long at his ugly boil-ridden face. No one stopped him as he hauled sheet metal, and supports, and bolts and wiring and resistors and power tools, checked out with a valid student ID, from the lab. The lab inventory room would not be seeing these back.
It was a prep bunker, buried beneath a vast lot of empty Wisconsin land, that Vlad hauled his materials. He and Jack had discovered it as freshmen. Poked through its bowels with flashlights and quipped and laughed over how eerie it was. Deep beneath the sheetrock, boxy rooms carved out of walls of stone. Shelf upon shelf of dusty canned foods, and shotguns sealed in cases fastened to the walls. The locks had rusted with water damage.
His arms ached until they throbbed, dragging beams of metal across the stone floor, scratching chalk-mark stains into the ground. His skin sloughed, inflamed, burning to the touch. Vlad didn’t bother to rest, because these injuries would never heal anyway. He hauled, and welded, and wired up his circuitry and resistors with a care and caution Jack would never have bothered to practice. He checked it against his math by flashlight. He took naps on the cold stone floor and woke with deep purple bruises on every part of his body that had pressed against the ground.
His appetite left him. His lungs filled with mucus. The boils on his face had spread down to his chest, his shoulders. The touch of his shirt chafed them, so he worked without one, a figure of skeletal rib ridges jutting from tight skin that bloomed with the projection of his shadow against stone walls.
He knew why Jack’s math was wrong.
A silly mistake. A stupid mistake. Anyone with half a mind for the paranormal should have realized the Ghost Zone was not so easily at your beck and call. Not without chumming the water with something it would rise to feast on.
And in that violent death, what would happen to the ghost? It would stay, wouldn’t it? If it successfully anchored the Ghost Zone to the portal it stood inside, then by definition the ghost would stay?
And was that death? Yes, in a way. But it was a death one would get to keep living. As opposed to the death Vlad was headed for, whose coldness and finality scared Vlad more than anything he could put to words.
He’d fixed the oxygen tank back to himself. He couldn’t work without it, hauling it about on a little dolly with him, back and forth, while he fetched and affixed the last of the plating he needed to craft the frame of his silent soulless portal.
He’d stolen a generator from the sports storage shed. It was meant to be enough to power the portable stadium lights they hauled onto the fields for late games, an absolute obelisk meant to cast light across an entire football field.
Surely, it contained enough power to kill one simple human.
Vlad fixed the last bolt in place. Jumper cables clamped generator to portal wiring. It was a pure skeleton. A paltry thing, like the bones of something already picked clean. Built in haste, sloppy, by a 19-year-old whose fingers were too inflamed to clutch a wrench any longer.
He could have asked Jack for help. Maddie. But he wouldn’t let them have this. They had to solve the portal on their own. They didn’t get to know his hard work. They did not get to save him.
Vlad would save himself.
A ghost anchored to a body. What was that? What monster was that?
Vlad moved. He coughed mucus from his lungs. It made it hard to breathe. So he moved slowly, and crouched, bony jutting angles, painted blotchy purple, all bruises and skin, sloughing away.
He crouched, because the portal he’d constructed was not large enough to hold him standing up. He bowed inside it, a small thing, a pathetic man of little life. He wheezed. He hurt. His eyes burned.
And he held in his hands the remote to flip the generator switch, and connect the circuit, and bring to life the math Vlad had so kindly corrected out from under Jack’s grip.
Vlad did not. Because throwing the switch would kill him.
Deep in his animal brain, his dying brain, he knew this intimately. It filled him with a drowning fear like paralysis. He did not want to die.
He would die if he did nothing.
It would be this one throwing of the switch which could save him. Which would burst the portal to life right through his heart. Electrocute it out of its rhythm, slaughter him like a pig on spot and… maybe… hopefully… drag the Ghost Zone here. And whatever he was, dead, would stay.
And whatever he was, dead, would be better than this.
Vlad held the remote in his clammy hands.
And from within the humming skeleton of his portal, his fingers caressed the on button.
…
The portal sung its happy contentment, mused in its healthy green aura, staining all the slabs of rock wall. Danny swiveled his head, recognizing now the bunker this had been before it had been a laboratory.
“I’ve harmed no one, Daniel,” Vlad concluded, his voice too measured for the horrors it had spilled forth. Too calm against the blossoming terror its words had wrought across Danny’s face. “I opened the portal to save myself. You’re lucky, Daniel. It was because of my fast thinking that your father is not a murderer. I took that honor from him.” Vlad’s head tilted to the side, suddenly sympathetic. “Although, you’ve maybe made the title whole for him.”
Vlad reached out, Danny shot away.
“Dad didn’t kill me,” he choked. “I did this to myself.”
“How lucky Jack is, to always dodge responsibility for his actions.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Of course you don’t. If you believed me, you’d have to accept you’re not wriggling out of this. There’s no denial you can bring home to your parents. If you believe me, then this is reality.” Vlad smiled, a playful glint to his fangs. “I suppose I should have more sympathy. I quite like being this way. It is so much nicer than wasting away to death, like I was. But you. You were healthy before this. This killed you, and it didn’t save you from anything.” Vlad cocked his head. “Such tragic fates, both of us, due to the carelessness of Jack Fenton.”
Danny shook his head. His heart beat—his human heart beat—all too fast in his throat. It made him sick. It made him feel like the walls were closing in around him. This was Vlad’s doing. Vlad’s trap. Vlad’s prison he’d been forced to join.
"That's not true. I'm not like you."
“Of course not,” Vlad said, sweetly. “How sweet denial is. Deny it if you like. Call me a liar. But if you ever want to come to terms with what your father did to you, consider coming to me. I understand you in a way no one else will.”
Danny gave no response. He gave no acknowledgement of Vlad’s words. He took to the air, phased himself up through the sheetrock that had been packed atop the doomsday prepper bunker. Up through the mansion, which had been built atop the portal beneath it, and not the other way around. Into the open sky, he breathed fresh air not stagnant and damp beneath the ground, bathed in light pure white from the sun and not tainted green like the bowels underneath him.
And he flew back toward the portal that made him, leaving Vlad with the portal from which he’d made himself.
...
(inspiration post from @ciestess)
#sham sacrifice#danny phantom#dp#dp fanfiction#vlad masters#danny fenton#YELLS AND THROWS THIS AT YOU#ive been spinning around like a top on this idea#tw: suicidal ideation
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Why did you start writing? From what I can tell you put a lot of passion into the works you make, where did it all start for the lovely stories you make now?
Wayyyy earlier when I was 9-10ish, and even at that age I was writing a lot, with just pencil and notebook paper. I know I have written earlier than that, but I have no evidence of it.
I filled up an entire 3inch binder with an entirely hand written story about a girl who lives who her grandma and has a dog named Trout, almost dies in tornado at school and finds out the tornado as a sentient being that was trying to kill her because she has some connection to a random dude that can control the weather, and a elegant queen lady who controls ice that basically adopts her and turns her into a scout to find other people who have elemental powers. She doesn't have any herself, but for some reason she can tell who does, and then can steal it. I still have that binder in my closet. Would not recommend reading it though lmao
I started publishing my writing online, fanfiction specifically, when I was 11ish and totally not supposed to be online yet. My first fanfic I wrote and published was for Soul Eater, and that account and those stories are still up to this day. (cringe warning for the exact kind of thing you would expect an 10-11 year old to write) I actually had two fanfic.net accounts, this one where I wrote L4D stuff too.
I switched from fanfic.net to Wattpad after I got into FNAF and wrote a bunch of Fnaf stuff from an AU I had in 2015, and that AU is what led me to making a tumblr account that year, mainly to post my art for my stories. (I had always been drawing, too, but I didn't start posting that until wattpad)
And then I switched to AO3 around 2018 and my stories have been there since. I have, quite literally, been writing for nearly 15 years, with pretty much all of my work well-documented online since I started.
I hate my older works from when I was a teen/kid, and even work from just a few years back, and even removed them at some point, but decided to keep them up for archival purposes. Especially since you can kinda see how my writing style has changed, my standards in writing like the wordcount going from 80k at 11yrs old to 200k something for my long fics, my viewpoints and beliefs, etc etc. I am also very...picky about the stories I read, so if I cannot find what I want, I will make it myself.
Writing is absolutely the best and most practiced coping mechanism I've had since forever. I will write even if I do not have any readers. I still write things that I do not post online, so overtime what was something I deeply enjoyed as a hobby and an outlet to process difficult and low parts of my life becoming something enjoyable to other people is kind of wild to me, still.
And I'll continue to do it even if one day this account explodes or something. When I said 'Writing and creating art is the only thing keeping me sane' I was not trying to be quirky /lighthearted. I'll dedicate entire days to writing chapters in a row.
But yeah I've been writing for a long while, I'm glad you guys really like it! Look at my cats
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eighteen — just wanted you know to know
mess it up — gojo x reader & sukuna x reader
⁀➴ when i told you i’m fine, you were lied to. when the love of your life falls for someone else, you decide to move on—by pretending to date your best friend, the campus fuckboy.
previous — masterlist — next
word count. 2.4k content. profanity, everyone’s bad with feelings
Satoru was having a lovely day. Although “lovely” would be a relative term considering the fact that finals season has descended upon the general student population and he is one of its many victims. Still, he woke up on the right side of the bed, he managed to find some clean clothes, and the barista at the coffee shop down the road wasn’t as mean to him as he usually is.
Overall, his day had gone fairly well. As he walked over to the library, he didn’t dread finishing the mountain of papers he had to write or the problem sets he had to review. He even texted Suguru to come join him in his study session so that they could compare notes—something he usually steers clear from because the man always distracts him.
Overall, Satoru was having a lovely day.
Until that asshole showed up.
There he goes, with his usual lazy smirk, walking over to a table with his friend. They’re chatting—about something shitty, Satoru suspects—and laying their books out on the surface, pulling laptops and notes out of their bags. Satoru wonders what would happen if he just walked over, grabbed the guy and—
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Satoru looks down at his hand where a pencil has already snapped in half. You should really just get a mechanical one, your voice echoes in the back of his mind, the hint of a laugh bubbling beneath your words.
“Satoru.”
He looks up.
Shoko.
“Hey,” he says, flashing her that grin of his. As if he wasn’t just trying to stare your boyfriend to death. “What’s up? Wanna join me?”
The girl rolls her eyes, obviously seeing through his nonsense. “Why are you looking at that guy?” she asks, glancing over at the table where Sukuna is gesturing frantically as he explains something to Choso. “You into him or something?”
Satoru scowls. “That guy is dirt,” he says. “Worse than dirt actually. He’s the scourge of the earth.”
Shoko watches him with an amused look as he directs his attention at Sukuna, sending daggers at the guy that he obviously can’t feel at all. She’s known Satoru for a while, since they were freshmen. He’s usually the kind of guy who tries to be nice to everyone. He calls it being a nice person. She calls it being a people-pleaser.
She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him look at anyone the way he looks at Sukuna. He usually hides his disdain until the other person is out of his general vicinity. So this, him looking at the poor guy like he wants his whole family dead, is both ridiculous and completely strange.
“What did he do?” she asks, sitting down at the table. She takes a sip of her coffee as Satoru wills himself to rip his gaze away from Sukuna. When she realizes it might take a while, she busies herself by digging through her bag to grab the things she needs to study. “Did he steal your girlfriend or something?”
The silence that her question meets leaves Shoko curious, glancing up at Satoru as he turns away looking a little defeated.
“Oh shit,” she says. “Really? That’s why you broke up?”
“No,” Satoru tells her. He groans, slumping onto the table. “I don’t know, okay? All I know is that one moment she’s breaking up with me, the next she’s with that guy.”
Shoko looks back at Sukuna, waiting until she finally recognizes the man. Her eyes widen. She didn’t know who he was before, but now she definitely does.
“That’s the best friend!” she whispers to Satoru like it’s some big secret. “He’s the one you told us about!”
Satoru sticks his tongue out. “Yeah. Duh.”
She swats his shoulder. “Don’t be a fucking brat,” she says. “I can’t believe she jumped ship like that. What a bitch.”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Well, I’m a bitch, so I know when someone else is being a bitch.”
“Shoko.”
She raises her hands in apology. “Fine, fine. Sorry,” she says. She takes one more look at Sukuna then sighs. “You know, at least you’re free of all that now. You and Kimi seem great.”
That seems to cheer him up.
“We do, don’t we?” he says, beaming. “She’s just the best, you know. Lights up every room she walks into.”
Shoko curses herself as Satoru launches into a whole spiel about how great and wonderful Kimi is. She knows that she brought this on, she knows that the best way to distract her friend from his melancholy thoughts of you is to get him to talk about his new girlfriend, but fuck does it make him annoying.
“She does this little thing when we kiss, where she takes her hand and she—”
“Holy shit, please stop!” Shoko says. “I don’t wanna know about that!”
Satoru smirks. He knows just how much this annoys Shoko. It’s half the fun.
“She grabs my butt.”
He gets a well-earned smack on the arm.
“Hey, why are you starting the violence without me?” Suguru slides into the chair beside Satoru, beaming at Shoko as she glares at him. “What did he do?”
“He was being annoying,” she tells him, slouching in her seat. “I brought up his girlfriend once and off he goes on a whole tangent. ‘Oh, Shoko, you should see her eyes! You should smell her hair!’”
Satoru shrugs. “Not my fault you’re painfully single.”
“I’m pre-med, I don’t have the time,” she says like she always does. “I’d also like to point out that you fall in love way too easily. It’s gross.”
“I do not!” he gasps. “I’m very careful with my heart, you know.”
“Nah, I have to agree with Shoko on this,” Suguru chimes in, oh-so-helpfully
“You have to agree? You don’t have to do anything!”
He pats Satoru on the back. “Why don’t we just study like you said we would?” he says. “Take your mind off your fickle heart.”
“I’m gonna throw you into a dumpster,” Satoru says, glaring.
“After my finals, buddy. After my finals.”
It takes a while, but they do manage to get Satoru back on track and start working on his papers.
At a table a few feet away from them, Sukuna is trying to focus too. And failing miserably of course.
“Shut up,” Choso says without even looking up from his laptop.
“I haven’t even said anything.”
“But you were going to.”
Choso sighs. “Dude, I swear I’m gonna leave if you don’t let me focus.”
Sukuna pouts, trying his best to put on the best whole “woe is me” performance of his life. “But I have something really important to ask.”
“I have something really important to study for.”
“You don’t want me to fail, do you?” Sukuna asks. “If I don’t get this off my chest, I may just flunk out of here.”
“Okay,” Choso nods. He waves at Sukuna. “Bye, dude. It was nice having you here.”
“Choso!”
“Seriously, man! We can talk all you want after we die from our exams, okay?”
“Fine,” Sukuna says, clearly not fine at all. He gets up and grabs his belt bag. “I’m gonna go take a smoke.”
Choso raises his brow. “I thought you quit.”
“Yeah, well, I’m stressed,” is all Sukuna says before he marches out of the library, completely unaware of the fact that he’s just walked past your ex-boyfriend who has not only noticed him but decided—against his friend’s wishes—to follow him outside.
Technically, no one is allowed to smoke around these parts of campus. But technicalities haven’t seemed to stop the group of distressed students camped out behind the library, heads in their hands as they all ignore each other and take their misery out on the ozone layer.
Sukuna leans against the brick wall, fishing a pack of cigarettes out of his bag. He’s just about to light it when someone scoffs at him. Now what piece of shit would do that?
“She hates those, you know.”
Oh, that piece of shit. Of course.
“What do you want?” Sukuna says, his voice as cold as steel as he meets Satoru’s eye. He lets the cigarette dangle from his fingers. Yeah, you wouldn’t like this at all. “Come to beat me up? Your little girlfriend not around to stop you?”
Satoru doesn’t budge, just continues to stare him down. “Have you told her?”
“Told her what?” your boyfriend spits. “That you’re a creep who can’t seem to get out of his ex’s life?”
“If you don’t, I will,” Satoru tells him. He runs a hand through his hair and crosses his arms over his chest. What is he doing? He knows that Sukuna’s right. That he should just let you live your life. Make the mistakes you want to make. It’s not like you didn’t cause them.
But he can’t do that. He could never do that to you.
“Listen, I don’t know why she chose you,” he says, the venom dripping from his tongue. “But the least you can do is not treat her like shit.”
Sukuna rolls his eyes. He lets the cigarette drop to the ground. “How do you know how I treat her?” he asks. “This is getting pathetic, man. You have a girlfriend, don’t you? Why don’t you just move on like any other sane person would.”
“You fucking ass—”
“She doesn’t want you,” Sukuna whispers. His voice is low and threatening. Any other man would be scared shitless.
But not Satoru.
His lips curl into a smirk. All smug and cold and heartless. “She misses me, you know?”
Sukuna sneers. “Oh, yeah? Who told you that? Your fucking delusion brain?”
“No. She did,” Satoru says simply. “I ran into her a few weeks back and she told me.”
“Oh, please.” Sukuna tries to maintain the stoic facade he’s put up, but that bugs him. Did you really tell him that? Why? “You’re insane.”
He pushes past your ex and heads back into the library.
When he plops back into his chair, Choso shoots him a confused look, but he just ignores it, turning back to his notes. He tries his best to read through his scribbles about something, but he can’t help his mind from drifting to you.
He knows he should tell you about the party. It’s not like the two of you were actually together yet, and you did tell him you didn’t mind if he kept fucking seeing other girls. You’re not vindictive. You’d be just fine with it—all he has to do is tell you.
He reaches for his phone and stops short of calling you.
You wouldn’t care. You would be fine. The two of you would be fine.
But would you? Things between you are so new. So fragile. You’ve barely just crossed the line between friends and an actual proper adult relationship. Everything is still hanging in the balance. Sukuna knows that one wrong move could wreck it all. He just doesn’t know what that move is.
And then there’s Satoru.
“She misses me, you know?”
What would possess that man to say something like that, Sukuna will never know. Maybe he’s just jealous. Maybe he’s just trying to get in Sukuna’s head. Maybe he just wants to mess with your relationship so that you come running back to him.
But maybe he’s right.
You wake to the feeling of your phone buzzing somewhere on the floor of your living room. It’s the middle of the day, but you, Maki, and Nobara have managed to pass out in the middle of your studying. Figures. If you had the choice between sleep and school, you definitely know what the three of you would pick.
You lift your head and pat the space around you until it finds your phone. Your eyebrows furrow when you see the contact name on the screen. You answer.
“‘Kuna?” you say, voice a little hoarse from sleep. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah!” he answers immediately. “I just wanted—were you sleeping?”
You chuckle, placing a hand on your forehead as you rest your head back on the floor. “Yeah, we needed a break,” you tell him. “Why are you calling?”
The other line is silent for a moment. You can already picture the way he looks right now, rubbing his thumb over his lower lip as he considers his words carefully.
“Sukuna, what is it?”
You hear him exhale. “Nothing,” he tells you. “I just wanted to let you know that I miss you.”
“We saw each other yesterday,” you say teasingly. You wish you could leave the conversation there, but you know there must be some other reason why he’s decided to call you out of nowhere. You know Sukuna. You know that there’s something going on. “What did you really call me about though?”
“Nothing,” he says again. You can tell that he knows he’s not convincing you. “I just thought… you remember when we snuck into that reservoir?”
You groan at the memory. The two of you were stupid back then, trying to escape the realities that you lived in. But you have to admit it was fun.
“Of course I do,” you tell him. “You called me just to remind me of that?”
He laughs, the memory apparently just as fun for him as it was for you. “That was when I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“You’re really gonna make me say it?”
You frown. “Sukuna, what are you talking about?”
You hear him sigh. Hear him ruffle something. Probably his hair. “That’s when I knew that I loved you,” he tells you softly.
You nearly drop the phone. “Oh.”
“You don’t have to say it,” he says. “I just thought you should know.”
Now, it’s your turn to be all jumpy. This is just like Sukuna to drop something on you like that. To drop the fact that he loves you, just like that. The fact that he’s apparently loved you for a while now.
“I love you too.”
The words hang in the air for a while. You’ve told him you loved him before, but that was always different. Always spoken beneath the cover of your friendship. Never something that meant anything important.
But is it really different this time?
You try to keep the thought out of your mind.
“‘Kuna? You there?”
“I’m here.”
You clear your throat. “Is that really why you called?”
“Yeah…” he says. “I just—yeah. I just wanted you to know that I love you.”
notes. me while writing this: *just sweats profusely*
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How dexterous are phocid hands? I I know they’re fully capable of various works like weaving, intricate tattoos and stone carvings but is there any special aid they use to do this or are they comparable to a typical human and improve with practice and time at a similar rate to us? I’m wondering things like how writing utensils and other tools are shaped! I imagine a pencil would look different for lots of different creatures.
Phocids are actually quite unique among sirenians because their hands are, mechanically, completely unaltered human hands. They've got a blubber layer and different skin composition but the hand bones and the ability to grip and manipulate tools are completely comparable to a human hand of the same size. When the aquatic Sirenians were being engineered, phocids' hands were not changed from the basic human blueprint because there was no need; they were models of tail-driven aquatic locomotion.
^ phocid hands. They have four fingers each consisting of three phalanges, an opposable thumb with two phalanges, and fingernails (fingernails are very important for tool manipulation). because phocid hands are not really designed to bear weight despite them being quadrupedal, they can suffer from wrist and elbow pain if they spend a lot of time on land.
when working with slender tools they would need expanded grips (like the padded pencil grips you can get to reduce wrist pain)
Just to see what I could come up with I made an ink-pen with an expanded bowl for phocids to grip onto. The bulb part is the refillable ink reservoir. Obviously this type of writing cannot be done underwater. I think most writing utensils would need to be adapted to phocid hands not because of how they work mechanically but just because of their size.
Underwater, the main writing system is woven. Signs are made using knotted and interwoven lengths of waterweed which can be read at a glance, but also read by touch, as well. This is important to phocids because their necks are quite long, their arms are quite short, and sometimes they can't actually look at what their hands are doing. So most reading and writing is done without even looking; they make a cat's cradle kind of web of fibres and knit out a message. sitting back to read a nice book is, for a phocid, a matter of unrolling a tapestry scroll and running it between their fingers to feel the tactile woven pattern.
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Your Jason Todd hcs,hand 'em over
ok ok *putting my hands up in the air* i yield /j
jason is a v interesting character for me, and also one i don't really have a full interpretation on, because ive never read a comic for the sole purpose of reading abt him. it's always been incidental when im reading about like damian or cass, so i haven't had time to get super into him. regardless here r my headcanons so far!! :33
He prefers to go to movie theatres alone rather than with other people, and always gets really annoyed whenever someone forgets to silence their phone or is talking too loudly. Jason takes the Cinema Experience very seriously
(also sneaks food in because he thinks the prices in movie theatres are bullshit)
has a habit of just kind of nudging stuff around unconsciously. like he fiddles with things all the time. picks up a key or a little figurine in one room and puts it down in another without realising. it always annoys people because their decor is ever so subtly Off but he can't stop himself
left handed. i will not elaborate
i like the idea of uncanny valley jason, but honestly i think it's more fun if only jason thinks he has the 'uncanny valley' look. like to everyone else he's just A Guy but he feels like he looks weird and different ever since he was resurrected. basically just body dysmorphia
asexual. i will not elaborate
terrible internal clock. shows up for things incredibly late or incredibly early. cannot give an accurate eta to save his life. thinks its been like an hour but it's been 40 minutes
prefers mechanical pencils to pens and regular pencils, and he's always carrying around at least one of those little led containers yk the ones
when he was robin he was used to cutting his own hair and the first time alfred took him to like a barber he hated what they did to it so much he tried to 'fix' it later that night. he wore hoodies and hats for three weeks straight.
this one is mostly just me projecting but he eats things in very specific orders. like he eats all the green m&ms first, then the brown ones, then the red, etc, etc. he hates when other people just take his food without asking because it messes up his system. if you want some of his food you jsut have to accept that he needs to be the one to carefully pick and choose what you get out of the bag.
talks wayyy too fast when he's pissed off
that's all of em i have for now !! thank you for the ask as always, i love seeing u in my inbox its wonderful !!! <333
when i write headcanons theyre always very small and stupid lil things, like habits or tiny preferences or stuff like that
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Question: how long does medusa neil takes to grow?
Like, taking the hands as Andrew's, is it more of a "whiplash because I was petting this baby a month ago and it's now Big" situation or "wait what you're telling this hot mer is that tiny cute thingy I'd found around as a teen?" one
Ok ok so I had just put out “Andrew finding baby jelly neil would be really cute” as like a fun little side thought but now I REALLY LIKE IT AND I WANT TO PUT IT IN THE TIMELINE
so to answer this question: physically? A Sea Nettle mer like Neil I’m going to say takes about 17-19 years to reach physical maturity/full size (which in jellies is pretty far removed from mental and emotional maturity, jelly brains take a good while to develop because they start with so little)
So this. This is what I’m deciding thank you so much @snazzy-jas-z-is-a-fan-of (which counts as your second option, dear galacticvampire)
And it looks like this:
@exy-is-sexy medusa admirer 🥰
So Andrew always comes back to the beach (fisherman’s son, they’re there a lot) and always gets distracted going to a specific tide pool housing this little thing he found. Aaron thinks it’s really cool too, their dad is too busy with work down the beach and is happy his kids are entertaining themselves while he gets ready for the day. Of course, yes, he tells them. Very good, finding such a mer in these waters. (He thinks it’s kids being kids. No one’s seen a jelly mer, they’re kind of believed to be extinct if not simply legends. But a little imagination is healthy.)
Then one day, Andrew checks the tide pool and finds it empty of the tiny jelly. It’s nowhere in sight, he looks all over the nearby waters and in any grass or rocks it could have gotten caught in. Nothing at all.
Maybe by the time he’s taken over his family’s fishing business, Andrew has convinced himself it really was in his imagination. His memory serves him well but if he’d convinced himself it was real back then, that would be what he remembered now.
Until he finds a monster washed up on his beach.
(A shot of the process under the cut)
IT DOESNT COME ACROSS IN THE PANEL. BUT I CANNOT PROPERLY EXPRESS TO YOU HOW TINY THAT SECOND NEIL IS. literally I think that is the single smallest thing I’ve ever drawn. Look at this
That’s me sharpening my 0.3 mechanical pencil to get it small enough to draw the eyes. I just need everyone to know this because I think it’s so stupid and funny. And we all love tiny baby jelly Neil and it doesn’t get ANY tinier than this folks
#BABIES#not pictured: directly before and after#before when Andrew got seaweed on his foot#saw a bug in it#and flung it across the beach in his surprise#then went looking for it bc wait that didn’t seem like a bug#found it in a tide pool#huh. jelly mer#and after when Aaron says ‘can I hold it’#and Andrew tries to drop it into Aaron’s hand#but it’s barely hanging on to his finger by its teeth. hanging straight down#love them#fan art#my art#aftg#all for the game#neil josten#andrew minyard#mer au#jellyNeil au#jellyfish#asks#tags#jellyneil
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On the ADHD demigods' stim habits (headcanon list)
Percy
He talks and mutters to himself a lot and he also paces around his cabin
Restless Leg(TM)
He used to chew on things a lot but adults told him that he was Not Allowed to bite pencils or shirt sleeves or paper or anything so his outlet is mostly snacks, chewy candy is the best for this
Someone get him a seashell chewy necklace please
Oh you know what they should have stim toys at the CHB gift shop for all the ADHD kiddos
He also probably cracks his knuckles and joints a lot
He hums when there's a song stuck in his head and it's really annoying but he can't really stop it cause he doesn't notice until someone gets mad at him and then hes like ??
Annabeth
Annabeth tends to chew up her pencils a lot
She also compulsively daydreams and builds designs of buildings in her head and reviews lists of stuff she wants to remember
She finds herself doing random math while she's supposed to be paying attention. Like if someone is telling her something and her brain drifts off more often than not she's looking at something around and being like "let me just calculate how many bricks are probably in that stack over there" or "hmm i wonder how many gallons of water are in the canoe lake"
She also gets distracted if there's any other social interactions of people around her and she just people watches and makes inferences about what people are feeling and whats going on in their lives
Also she chews her hair and sometimes puts little braids in it
She picks at her skin too a lot and sometimes pulls out strands of hair
Piper
Piper flaps her hands a lot especially when she's excited
She flips and braids her hair too
If she has feathers on her she will sometimes take it out if she's bored and either preen it with her fingers or use it to tickle someone to annoy them
She sings a lot but mostly to herself and sometimes she can be heard humming or softly singing without noticing
If she has any kind of paper available, like notebook paper or napkins or maybe candy or gum wrappers, sometimes she'll make little origami things
She also picks at her nails quite a bit
Leo
Leo has the most stims that he's unable to mask, as we know already.
He taps on surfaces and messes with his clothing a lot
He also whistles sometimes which can get annoying to people around him so he tries not to do that but if he's alone or really concentrating on something he will
He will also play with pretty much anything he finds on the ground like paper clips and those office clamp things and he'll take apart mechanical pencils and pens and put them back together and if he finds a tack or a safety pin or something there's a 90 percent chance he'll stab it through the skin of his finger(s)
If he's outside he'll pick up leaves and flowers and shred them or pick up sticks and break them
He was also probably one of those kids who would put glue on his hands so he could peel it off
Jason
i wasnt sure if Jason had ADHD but I looked it up and it said he did so oh well lol
Hes like. Freakily good at masking stims and it kinda creeps everyone out especially the CHB demigods
BUT he still has them
He have the restless leg
He also does like random stretching sometimes
When he's standing in one place for a while he kinda stands on one leg or bounces his heels
Sometimes he'll pick up objects from the ground or something and play with it like Leo does, especially if he's outside and there's like rocks or something
He does a similar thing to Annabeth too but instead of math he'll try to identify any animal noises or animals he sees like birds in the sky or like if he hears a dog bark he'll try to figure out what kind of dog
Hazel
Hazel's stims are the least obvious but they are definitely there.
If she has a view of outside she will gaze out of the window or look around her and figure out how many types of trees or whatever that she can see
She will also mess with the seams or edges of her clothing
If she has paper around she'll draw horses or other animals or sometimes people or she'll practice her cursive letters and make them fancy
She picks at her skin and her hair as well
Frank
Frank does not have ADHD. He sits there quietly and everyone thinks hes weird. Sometimes he gets wiggly if he's nervous but otherwise nah
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quick n easy list of gentle coping mechanisms for bad mental health days / neurodivergent understimulation episodes!! some are more applicable to one or the other but when i'm feeling particularly like a tiger in a too-small enclosure i find doing at least a couple of these things helps me so much
drink water. basic, but annoyingly effective
eat a snack. same as above
stretch! even just some laying down stretches like pulling on your arms and knees (in fact, here's a great tiktok series for "depression stretches" and workouts/physical stimulation you can do laying down/without much movement)
music/podcasts/video essays. your favorite playlist you haven't listened to in a while, a podcast you like/have been meaning to start (i listen to podcasts while i'm drawing!)
draw/color! if you don't wanna draw, a coloring book is always fun. i actually prefer kids' ones.
read a book. i prefer physical books bc i know i'll get sucked back into the social media scrolling for hours if i try to read on my phone. i also recommend a nice tea/hot chocolate/juice with this one.
video games. this can be anything from minecraft to destiny 2, but i usually never give myself time for these, even when i have it (stuck in that phone scrolling). a more action-packed game for mental understimulation, maybe a more mellow one for a bad depression episode.
shower. i am fully aware this tends to take a lot of spoons but even just sitting under running water ALWAYS makes me feel better when i can manage it. it also helps me with adhd overstimulation!
clean/organize. this sounds counterintuitive but i actually do enjoy organizing stuff for understimulation, and cleaner workspaces help with the depression. even if it's something as simple as "put all the pencils on the desk back into the pencil cup."
puzzles/brain games. this one is almost exclusively for mental understimulation but once i get going it makes my depression SO MUCH BETTER, TOO. my niche is getting myself some algebra sheets but this can be anything from math to jigsaws to crosswords to word searches!! some kind of problem solving that engages your brain and requires focus. this one is my favorite because i find it really grounding.
playing an instrument. this is in the same vein as the last one! again, my personal niche is the piano, but this could be any sort of thing. in fact this could even be substituted for some kind of alt hobby all together, like knitting or crocheting or something! again, mostly for understimulation, but gives me the serotonin boost to get through the depression stuff as well.
this is all i have for my list, but i'd love for anyone to reblog and add their own stuff!!
#mine#long post#mental health#mental illness#adhd#adhd resources#neurodivergent#neurodivergent resources#i have been having. such a bad sad last few days and im actually SO angry about how miserable ive been feeling that i decided#to make this whole list for myself and hang it up on my desk just so i have something to do besides the endless social media/tv scrolling#and i hope this helps someone!!!!! i would really appreciate if you guys would reblog this#no pressure or anything but. if it helps
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dragon riding equipment | aethergarde academy dr
date: november 23, 2024
it's been a sec since i've done a longer post (like a little over a week or smth.. right?)
I was busy with my finals... I still am, but like... I miss posting 😭😭
Equipment will be outlined in aethergarde's student handbook too!
ANYWAY-- enjoy this incredibly long post! I'm sorry if there are any typos, I don't feel like looking over everything (T-T)
how to get your equipment (kinda)
It's pretty easy to find shops that sell dragon riding equipment in cities-- but in rural towns and villages, this kind of equipment can be almost impossible to find near you.
If you are not starting off as a noble like me, buy your equipment within the first week of school-- actually, no, get it ASAP. You should, ideally, start looking for equipment after you retrieve your egg (you need to get your egg as soon as you get to campus).
What if you don't have the equipment by the time you need to start using it? You'll be left out of lessons, standing off to the side while your peers fight or fly, which will absolutely tank your grades.
You should have your equipment before the first month of school ends.
If I have a month to get said equipment, why not wait?
There are lots of dragon riding equipment shops, but not all of them are of good quality. Roughly half of the students attending Aethergarde will not be nobles, on top of that, nobles will commission the best shops-- especially luxury brand shops-- to custom make their armory, saddles, etc.
This makes the dragon equipment market rather busy around this time of year.
BUT
I'll help ya'll out, though, I can't promise you'll be the only commissioning things from these places.
school supplies list
let's start with the obvious, you'll need either an enchanted fountain pen, a regular fountain pen + ink, or some quills and ink. Quills and ink are cheaper, they're the equivalent to like, wooden pencils. Fountain pens have the same reputation as mechanical pencils. Enchanted fountain pens are really trendy! Definitely also get a set of gum wax, aka waxers (erasers); kids like to call them gummies (fruit gummy resembling snacks are called jellies here!)
You should get basic stuff like loose parchment (loose leaf paper), an academy bag (a backpack, highly recommend a messenger type bag), and writing books (notebooks to take notes in)
dragon mounting gear: includes such things like a saddle and reins, very similar to horse gear
wind-breaking charm OR riding goggles OR a riding visor: Wind-breaking charms are pretty hard to find-- I mean it's not impossible, but it's just not cheap. Riding goggles are an old rider thing, they aren't used much anymore. Riding goggles look like your typical steampunk-esque goggles. If you want a physical facial wind breaker, get a riding visor. Riding visors look similar to ski visors, but the glass lookin part tends to be tinted orange due to a strong sunglasses effect.
kinda like this ^^^^ but w/o the gas mask; if anyone's got a better idea for this btw, plz let me know!
I'm still in the works with this aspect.. mostly bc I feel like the visors don't fit the fantastical aesthetic-- but I didn't want to immediately default to using magic and charms because I want the rider uniforms to be more unique than the typical 'fighting leathers', yk? Idk, maybe the décolletage cover is unique enough.
Other sight wind-breaking options:
wind-protectant eyedrops: these are rather new (has been released to the market a year before you shift here) the liquid is runny like normal eyedrops when you put them in your eyes, but the substance begins to form a film over your eyes. The film feels exactly like contacts, so it's easy to forget the substance is still on your eye. The film only lasts for a few hours (the film will eventually dissolve), and does not do any damage to the eye. To manually remove it, use the 'antidote' eye drops (wind protectant eyedrops and antidote eyedrops are sold in a set) to lubricate your eyes, then after blinking a few times, remove the film by softly pinching it out of the eye (NOT WITH UR NAILS, USE THE PADS OF YOUR FINGERTIPS!!!). The downside to these eyedrops is that they do not protect against the sun; though, sun-resistance eyedrops are starting to come to the market. You must make sure the sun eyedrops are wind-protectant friendly, or the sun eyedrops won't stick to the film, causing the sun eyedrops to leave your eyes too quickly. These eyedrops are also pretty expensive, but it's still less expensive than rider grade wind-breaker charms.
rider grade sun-resistance charm: A lot of people carry these around just in general, especially during summer, but the one's you should buy should be rider grade. Rider sun charms are stronger and are made to be used when you're flying in the sky for long periods of time. Sun charms need to be replaced every few months; all sun-resistance charms have to (legally) have a label that gradually changes to black-- the darker it is, the less it works. It typically starts to darken after two months of use.
moving on--
fighting attire: Unfortunately, it's not ideal to fight in aethergarde's uniform-- But, it's not like it's impossible if you take the outer coat off. Speaking of uniforms, Aethergarde provides a fighting garment set that comes with the formal uniform (the pretty one). You're required to wear it for fighting lessons, including outside missions; in your third, fourth, and fifth years, you can start replacing elements of your uniform with better material. Why not simply allow students to get their own fighting garments from the start? Students need to know how to fight wearing armor made for higher ranking riders-- the material is different from lower ranking riders' uniform.
you'd be wearing smth like this but w/o all the stringy bits! consists of a lot of wild dragon hide.
a weapon: you'll need to have chosen a weapon before the end of the second month!
optional riding supplies
décolletage cover: Main purpose is to provide warmth for the face and neck area without compromising movement. It's highly recommended-- plus, you'll look cool. Many décolletage covers are charmed to always be warm and protect against harmful gases.
often looks like this but less kinky looking and the bottom part is fitted to the chest-- also not all of them have this same design, but they all do cover the same areas.
it'd fit like this ^^^^ to the body!
riding gloves: helps you have a better grip with weapons or to your saddle. If you're planning to sleep on your dragon while it flies, there's a little belt mechanism that you can loop through the front of the dragon saddle that attaches your hands to the saddle. This helps keep your body from sliding off the dragon during flight. If the front of your saddle isn't comfortable, you can loop the belt through any belt buckle on the dragon; the most common place is around the bottom of the dragon's neck (pictured in the 2nd pic). It's best to get black gloves, but brown can also work.
the highlighted yellow area is, relatively, where the most popular glove attachment is (for napping). There'd be more belts and stuff around the dragon btw, I just didn't feel like doing all that shit.
belt vial holder: you can place travel sized containers of potion bottles in the best + you can attach charms to the belt too
flight bag(s): This bag can be easily attached to your dragon's saddle, most saddles can hold up to 2-4 bags. Bags in general can be tailored to become flight bags, but it's best if the bag has some sort of tight buckle-- you don't want your bag to fall open when you're flying around!
these kinds of bags are common riding bag designs! if you have a smaller satchel you like bringing around, you can put it inside of one of these bags
how to get your equipment (actually) pt.2
Like I mentioned earlier, it's better to buy rider equipment in cities rather than villages and small towns. During rider season, it won't be uncommon to see a bunch of stalls along the streets selling rider stuff.
Getting stuff like academy bags, belt vial holders, and travel bottles from stalls isn't a bad idea, but it's always best to get your most important equipment from an expert with a good reputation.
Unless you know the crafter is great at making everything-- extremely durable saddles, reins, weapons, and fighting attire, you should go to shops that specialize in each part.
recommended shops:
Since common street shops will be busy this time of year, I'm going to recommend you some underground shops.
I cannot guarantee that these places will be completely empty, as they're all well-known in their own right, but they all will be able to cater to you before all of your deadlines.
Make sure you bring the actual school supplies list with you!
middle steed
Name: Aadam El-Hussein
Specialization: dragon saddles, belts, and flight bags
Summary: After his father's arthritis in the hands started becoming worse, Aadam took over Middle Stead. His dad still helps around at the tannery though! As with all the shopkeepers, Aadam and his father are extremely passionate about their jobs. Don't be afraid to ask for any innovative features; like if you think you'd sleep a lot on dragonback, you can ask Aadam to make the saddle more comfortable for you to lay in a certain position. If you're extremely worried about safety, you can always ask to have other safety features implemented in the design.
To get here:
Find the Dragonmead Brewery in Itresal (the city Aethergarde Academy is located in) the alehouse is located on Millmount Street.
There should be a space between that brewery and the bakery next to it-- go down that alleyway and pass two wooden doors. When you get to that third door, knock; either an old man (Aadam's dad) or Aadam himself will open the door
From there, you can order a saddle and all the appropriate equipment you need
Some tips:
Get another saddle commissioned by him every two years; dragons grow relatively fast, so simple tailoring won't always suffice
You can put off getting saddles until your dragon near rider flight age
Instead of bringing your dragon to Middle Stead, bring him into Aethergarde. He'll need measurements to make a proper saddle
Any metal (like in the buckles) should be plated with a matte coat or cold black iron
storm forage
Name: Reynard Ulysses
Specialization: Dragon rider armor and rider fighting attire
Summary: Reynard was born into a rural farmer family, but after his older brother ended up being a rider, Reynard moved to Itresal with his brother. Since Reynard was often tasked with preparing hide, he decided to work at a local butcher shop to help his brother financially. Oftentimes, his brother would come home and complain that he needed to replace his fighting garments. The two of them couldn't afford to keep buying cheap fighting attire, so Reynard started learning how to make it himself. Eventually, he started selling his products to other people-- over the years, he's honed his skills, and became known in underground spaces for having great fighting attire.
To get here:
Located in the southern part of Itresal in Ranger's Way
Go down the alleyway between Steel Whim (blacksmith) and the Loving Fowl Inn
Walk straight until you reach a fork; walk through the rightmost path, then go left at the end of the path
There should be a wooden sign that says Storm Forage on a door; knock on that door, you can order from there
Some tips:
You may see Callisto here
Everything you wear has to be matte; tell Reynard to plate any metal on your fighting attire with cold black iron
waning moon burrows (face wear)
Name: Yessuf Yohannes Tarik
Specialization: rider goggles, rider visors, cloaks, aerodynamic magitech
Summary: Yessuf is the only one out of all the merchants so far who was born of noble status; however, he left home to escape from the classic noble lifestyle in his early 20s. He no longer wants to be a noble, and simply identifies as a commoner. Yessuf was particularly driven to escape his luxurious life to pursue his passions and sell his products at a more reasonable price. Ever since he was young, he had a strong affinity for engineering, but when magitech came around, he took his passion to a whole different level. Though is not a dragon rider, he was always fascinated by dragons, this spurred him on to make technology that would aid riders. Yessuf is an innovative prodigy; Yessuf's shop is most likely to be busier than the all of the ones I've mentioned so far.
To get here:
Located in the central part of Itresal in Quarry Avenue
Find The Pioneer Brewery and ask for a "vermond tea served with a stick of sweetbark"
The bartender will ask you to come to the back to see the new selection of sweetbark; follow the bartender, they will take you to Waning Moon
Some tips:
Literally every single product this guy sells is amazing. Not a single one is bad, he puts in a lot of effort to make everything he sells as good as he can make it
Only sells wind-resistance charms on the weekend, but sells wind an sun-resistance eyedrops Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
His wind-sun resistance eyedrops and his wind-resistance charms sell really quick
if there's something you want that he doesn't actively sell, like, perhaps... a flying ship.. you can commission him to make one, but you will prob need to provide him with a lot of the materials
You should get wind-sun resistance charms here; they're cheaper because Yessuf does not base the price on existing market value
the dew drop: potion's shop
Name: Katherine Dowenstein (Blonde lady), Lorelai Dowenstein (Brown hair)
Specialization: Potions, tonics, elixirs, balms, herbs
Summary: Katherine Dowenstein grew up in an orphanage. Despite that, her life was rather peaceful growing up. Since she loved going outdoors, cooking, and baking, her caregivers often remarked that she'd be a great apocathary when she's older. Determined to meet their expectations, she began learning all about different plants and potions through both books and experience. When she was older, she decided to work in a potions' shop, but hated the restrictions placed on her. Kathie grew to hate her job, and her love for potions waned, but it wasn't until she healed a child who was thought to have an incurable disease secretly by giving the child tonics Kathie believed had a chance at helping her through her illness. That child was Lorelai; after she recovered, Lorelai begged to become Kathie's apprentice. By Kathie's request, Lorelai lied and told her parents and everyone else that her body simply fought the virus on its own. Kathie didn't want a lot of people knowing about her skills, as she didn't want to be confined by strict regulations any longer. Kathie started her own potion's shop; Lorelai helps her out.
To get here:
There's two different ways
One way is to find Lorelai; she frequents a bread shop called Crumb Hours at 8AM-10AM to read a book and eat before she goes to work (Mon-Fri)
Ask her if she's reading Time of Barbury by Guinevere Roth; she'll say yes, and she'll ask you to join her on her walk back to The Dew Drop at 10AM
Another way is to find the way to the shop yourself
To do this, go to the same bakery that Lorelai likes to go to, Crumb Hours, and go down the alleyway located between the bakery and Utred's Lenses
Go straight down until you reach the area where the path deviates; go left, continue down the path until you come across a fork
Go down the middle path; then knock on a door labelled The Dew Drop
Notice that the area is not the shop is not selling any potions-- only herbs
Lorelai will answer; tell her if she's selling the book Time of Barbury
She'll nod, and she'll take you down a trapdoor, which you lead you to the actual store
Once you see Kathie, you know you're in the right place
Some tips:
Katherine prefers to go by Kathie!
Ok so do note that the regulations placed on potions and tonics are there to (obviously) make sure that potions and stuff are safe to consume, but since it's so strict, it's hard to be innovative, and use different kinds of ingredients and recipes to make potions
"but what about weapons?"
You'll need to go to a shop that specifically caters to your weapon type; if the store sells weapons that aren't closely related to each other (like swords, bows, and scythes), it's unlikely that to shop is of the best quality. if a shop sells only daggers and swords, that means that the people making the equipment are actually specialized in making those weapons. Since there are so many weapon types, I don't think I can make shopkeepers for each!
#shiftblr#reality shifting#shifting community#lalalian#desired reality#shifting blog#shifters#shifting diary#shifttok#scripting#aethergarde academy dr
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so mind was repainting his walls last week. he dragged me in his room as if it was some kind of intervention, but he just wanted me to watch. what? him painting the walls? seriously? it was silly. even if you disregard how WRONG it is, for him to do that, for him to throw that little bit of whole away, it was just silly! like, the walls didn’t need to be repainted! there were a few scratches, a few places where the paint peeled, dents and stuff, but like. not enough for such a practical thing like the mind to bother repainting it when he has so much better to do! he was working on a song. i think be born? i don’t know why he chose be born, we don’t like be born, as you would expect from every tally hall fan ever. anyway, so he was working on a cover of be born, i saw the sheets. he uses these really tidy sheets, mechanical pencil. it fits him. such a minute detail, it seems to fit. of course he would use a mechanical pencil. a normal pencil isn’t dignified enough, i guess. and a pen isn’t erasable which sucks when you’re doing something like music. why is he working off of sheet music anyway? it confuses me. i got sidetracked.
so he has better things to do, and yet, he was repainting the walls? he didn’t even ask me, just kind of snatched my hand. it was really like something heart would do. he was getting into my space, just kind of arranged me on his bed, and i didn’t go. i don’t know why i didn’t go, i could’ve. i’m far stronger than him - that is to say, he’s a weak motherfucker who loses in any kind of fair fight. but i just sat there, staring as mind’s blue slowly overtook whole’s color. it felt like a metaphor, and not a pretty one.
did mind want to eradicate whole so thoroughly? fucking fool’s errand, but heart and mind are fools, mind’s just a bit more subtle about it. usually, when he’s not forcing me to watch him repaint his room. his room. it’s whole’s room, truly. whole’s walls, and it was whole’s color. mind doesn’t get it. he thinks he can do whatever he wants. even heard heart calling him dawn the other day. i detest it! like, truly detest it. it’s so stupid. dawn? what was he saying, he is the dawn? when the sun rises? beginnings, golden light spilling through his window? oh, look out your window and see me? HE DOESN’T DESERVE A NAME. AND CERTAINLY NOT ONE LIKE THAT. GOD FUCKING DAMMIT. that is not the beginning. what about whole? what about Him? it’s as if heart doesn’t care. and maybe he doesn’t. i’m SORRY i tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. cause i looked at his feathers and thought, just for a little halfsecond, oh. maybe there is a chance after all. but no! those two are so obstinant i want to claw my own skin off. so arrogant? you think you deserve a name? wearing stolen faces.
{what are you trying to show me,} i had asked mind, cause i know he would be doing that - that’s just what the mind does. nothing without purpose. he tapped the paintbrush on the wall. the paintbrush splattered a bit. it struck me. not as neat as he usually is. in fact, that’s something the heart would do. regardless, i was sitting there, just waiting. maybe he hadn’t logicked this out after all. maybe he just wanted to see me? ha. i hope not. [change.] is what he returned. [i can change these walls.] there was a breath. i’d say He was taking one too. it doesn’t quite make sense, in those words, but that was the feeling i had. i could hear Him. and mind was shutting him out. [and you can too.] he was obviously really hesitant with it, immediately turning back to the wall as if avoiding my expression. what did he think i would think? {oh, you’re so right mind. thanks for showing me this.} HA. i tried to leave. his desperation surprised me. [just hear me out. just hear me out,] and he was barely skirting around the please, as if i wouldn’t notice. [you’ll see.] something in it convinced me. he was pleading to something that would never listen, and yet he went on pleading. it doesn’t matter what it was about it, cause next time i’ll make sure i’m not convinced by it again.
but it was just him and me and his little art project, so i sat down. of course, i wasn’t convinced. but a smile was twitching at his lips, as if this was a little win. war of attrition. but i refuse to break down - pity for him, isn’t that.
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