#THIS ONE RLY GOT AWAY FROM ME

[blenselche]

always bugged me that charlie lost her stripes

their tarot reading would be bananas

[luck-of-the-drawings]

OOH YEAH BABY ITS THE SURGERY EPISODE BABY!!! ME AND THE HOMIES NEED SOME NEW FACES FOR OUR NEW PLAN, AND WHO BETTER TO GET THE JOB DONE THAN THE TWO MOST EVIL PEOPLE WE'VE EVER HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF HAVING OUR LIVES VIOLATED BY? I MEAN IT WOULD BE FUNNY. IT WOULD BE FUNNY.

[rikebe]

tfw your shitty dad wont stop having kids

commission info

[soulmvtes]

the people in the notes on my booktok post are soooo funny i have to laugh otherwise i'll cry

[parkitaco]

hey if you're still doing the kiss prompts -> #11? maybe? it would be super sweet and your writing is so cool (no pressure tho!!!!)

Will is asleep when Mike gets home.

Mike discovers this almost immediately, when he opens the door to a darkened hallway and bangs his shin on the shoe rack. Almost all the lights are off, with the exception of the soft glow coming from the fairy lights in their bedroom, the ones they leave on at night because even after nearly a decade since the days of, as Will likes to call it, “the horrors”, neither of them are very fond of the dark. 

Mike hisses out a quiet curse, rubbing at his leg where it smacked into the metal rack as he fumbles for the light switch, turning on the hallway light long enough to shrug off his jacket and set his keys on the table. He’s a little tipsy, courtesy of some assorted booze he’d confiscated from his students, who are generally very sweet people but tend to be a bit stupid and unsubtle where alcohol is involved - not that he hadn't been the same way, but then again, he'd been stupid and unsubtle about most things as a teenager.

Prom, he thinks bitterly, huffing out a breath as he kicks off his shoes and nudges them aggressively in the direction of the offending shoe rack. He and Will had skipped out on their own, back in the day, under the excuse of the fact that school dances were “lame and unnecessary”, which isn't untrue, but had served as a somewhat weak cover for the real reason. They hadn’t been able to dance together like they wanted, then.

They can now, though, Mike thinks triumphantly, as he heads toward their bedroom and the promise of his sleeping boyfriend. Suck it, Hawkins bigots.

Just as Mike suspected, Will is asleep, his form visible from where Mike stands in the doorway, the door thoughtfully left ajar for him. He leans against the wall, smiling a little to himself as he watches Will’s chest rise and fall softly against the pillows. His back is to him, hair spilling softly over the pillows, and he’s a beautiful sight, bathed in the golden glow of the lights strung across the ceiling. Mike loves him.

He shifts, carefully slipping into the room and shutting the door softly behind him. He casts another fond glance at Will, still dead to the world on his side of the bed, as he slips off his jeans and dress shirt and exchanges them for his sweats. Will’s usually a fairly light sleeper, but Mike supposes that these days he’s well enough accustomed to Mike’s presence, routine and constant in the apartment they’ve shared since college, that it doesn’t disturb him. Either that, or he’s faking sleep just to annoy Mike, which is entirely possible.

Mike flops onto the bed beside Will, propping himself up on one arm as he snakes the other around Will’s midsection, leaning over to press a kiss to the side of his jaw, just below his ear. “Will,” he prods in a soft, teasing lilt, lips still pressed to his skin, and Will shifts a little under him. “Are you awake?”

“No,” Will huffs, wriggling in Mike’s arms and shoving his face into his pillow. “Go away.”

Mike laughs softly, entirely ignoring this request in favor of rolling further on top of Will, hooking one leg over his waist and pressing a series of overexaggerated kisses to his cheek. “Didn’t you miss me, though?” he asks, as Will whines in protest under his unrelenting embrace.

“I saw you this morning, asshole,” he grunts, shoving uselessly at Mike’s arms and trying in vain to roll out from under him. “Go to sleep.”

Mike rolls his eyes and again refuses to meet this request, resting his chin on Will’s shoulder instead and staring imploringly down at him even as Will refuses to open his eyes. Sleepy Will usually goes one of two ways - either Will is soft and sweet and pliant when Mike drags him off the couch after a movie night and guides him to bed, or he’s grumpy and scowling and his eyebrows knit together in disapproval whenever he’s asked to do something. Mike finds both of these options endlessly adorable. 

"This morning was, like, seventeen hours ago, though," he points out, reaching up with one hand to poke Will's cheek, right over the freckle under his eye. "That's, like, forever."

Will's nose wrinkles in fake annoyance, and Mike moves his finger away in favor of kissing the same spot on Will's face. Then again, and again, until Will huffs out breath and bats at him, placing his entire palm over Mike's entire face and giving it a gentle shove. "You're so dramatic," he says, but the protest is blurred around the edges, softened by sleep and Mike's kisses.

Mike grins. “So mean to me,” he murmurs, and Will opens one eye to glare at him even as his mouth twitches, like he’s fighting a smile. Mike leans down to kiss it, lips glancing lightly over the corner of Will’s mouth, and for all of Will’s griping, he doesn’t pull away. “You don’t want to hear about prom?”

“Not unless it’s to tell me that I was right about chaperoning being a dumb idea,” Will says flatly.

“It was not!” Mike protests, and as retaliation squirms closer, face centimeters from Will’s even as Will stubbornly closes his eyes again. “It was- nice.”

Will’s mouth twitches again. “I bet it was,” he says dubiously, shifting and pulling the blankets further over them both, “You smell like cheap vodka, by the way.”

Mike squawks indignantly, releasing his grip on Will just long enough to flick his forehead. “It was only a little. Those kids are idiots, bringing that stuff in.”

“They take after you,” Will mumbles, giving up on trying to wriggle his way out of Mike’s grasp and instead lifting a gentle hand to rest against his arms where they’re wrapped across his chest.

“What, because of the booze?” Mike asks absently, smiling to himself as Will’s thumb brushes gently back and forth over his skin. 

“No, because of the idiocy,” Will replies, and Mike laughs, dropping his head into the crook of Will’s neck. “I still love you, though," he adds, as an afterthought, his other hand coming up to brush through Mike's hair.

Mike smiles against Will's skin, and Will rolls onto his back, hand pressing into Mike's spine and pulling him in closer. "You just told me to go away."

"Yeah, well," Will hums, tapping a fingertip against Mike's nose, "I'm also an idiot, so."

He wraps a hand in the front of Mike's shirt, drawing him down closer, and Mike smiles into it when their lips meet in a proper kiss. Will is warm, soft and hazy with interrupted sleep, and Mike can feel him smiling back as he wraps his arms around Mike's waist. Mike loves him like this, the traces of Will's feigned irritation fading away entirely as he lazily traces his tongue over Mike's lip. Mike shivers, humming happily as he wriggles closer to Will, as close as he can physically get as he presses him gently into the pillows.

"Knew you missed me," Mike mumbles against Will's lips, and Will laughs, breaking the kiss as he presses his forehead against Mike's.

"Maybe a little," he admits, voice laced with amusement as his lips brush Mike's another time. "Dork."

"Knew it," Mike says, grinning triumphantly and finally deeming it appropriate to free Will from his crushing embrace as he flops over onto his back, head lolling to the side to smile lazily at his boyfriend. Will rolls his eyes but stays close anyway, scooting under Mike's outstretched arm and resting his head on his shoulder. He hums softly, reaching up to card a hand through Will's hair and pressing a kiss to the crown of his head.

"So how was prom, anyway?" Will asks quietly, fingers tracing a gentle pattern over Mike's chest. "Besides it being boring and lame and full of drunk teenagers?"

Mike laughs. "I didn't say it was boring. Or lame."

"I know," Will hums, "I'm saying it. Boring and lame and definitely not worth missing precious hours with your boyfriend."

"For sure," Mike agrees, which is entirely true, because as much as he had enjoyed watching the kids dance together and definitely not feeling at all bitter about never going to his own, he'd mostly spent the whole time thinking about Will. Which was maybe a given, considering the specifically engineered romantic environment, and Mike thinks about Will all the time even in normal environments, but still. "It was sweet," he says thoughtfully, staring up at the ceiling and feeling the soft motion of Will's breathing against him. "The kids were happy."

Will grunts noncommittally. "It's all fake."

"I know, but they're- it's just nice," Mike huffs, and Will tucks a smirk away against his neck, "I know you agree with me."

"No," Will huffs immediately, and then, almost immediately, "Well. Maybe."

As much fun as goading Will is, Mike knows where the resistance comes from, and a bittersweet sort of feeling settles in his gut as he presses another kiss to Will's forehead. "Hey, are you free tomorrow night?" he asks, nudging Will's chest with his shoulder.

Will tilts his head back to look at him, frowning. "Um. Thought we were watching Star Wars again?"

Mike laughs. "Sure, we can still do that. But I was wondering if you wanted to have- a make-up prom."

Will stares at him for a solid thirty seconds. Then he coughs, blushes, and looks away. "You're an idiot," he says, which means I love you more than life itself, and Mike grins, tucking his face in beside Will's. "Go to sleep already."

"Oh-kay," Mike hums teasingly, kissing his temple gently, "The offer stands, though. Eight PM. Living room. Whatever dumb music you want."

"Sleep, Michael," Will repeats, voice muffled as he talks into Mike's t-shirt. Then, quieter, low enough to give the impression that he thinks Mike can't hear even though they both know he can, "I'll be there."

Mike smiles.

[hollowfairybabybat]

one thing about me is if i find it funny i will fully commit to a bit idc

[luck-of-the-drawings]

when i was in highschool one o my biggest coping mechanisms was drawing all the kids i hated getting killed and eaten and killed. and well. time is a slowly ascending spiral. you will find patterns.(i work as a blackjack dealer. gamblers are FASCINATING

[phagodyke]

yeah I'm not gonna talk abt it am I...

[getougender]

hello captive audience. have we considered cowherd and weaver girl nobamaki au

[spinoff-antithesis]

(muth being music theory!)

[just-spacetrash]

😶‍🌫️

[pepprs]

last few hours in boston :(

[fabcreature]

right at the beginning of music school is actually a fantastic time to think "really when was the last time making music or working with music made me happy?"

[g0reoz]

ok yknow what. i honestly think the reason a decent amount of mainstream autism rep has historically been bad isn't because it's. like. wholly unrealistic yk. it's because a) that's ALL most rep boils down to which gives allistic ppl who don't do research or whatever a good chance of thinking that IS autism instead of just a simplified version of one of the many ways someone on the spectrum might be and b) even when it's an accurate-ish way of how someone might exist it's constantly treated as either a joke or a morally bad thing. like.

as someone who definitely to some extent falls under the Emotionally Detached Low Empathy Guy Who Is Smart And Likes Science And Toys And Overanalyzes Social Interactions trope. it would be nice to a) see more than JUST that in media. just bc autism has been historically diagnosed way more in men does not mean every autistic person is smartass mcwhiteboy. and b) when it is depicted this way, see it as smth other than demonized. yknow. obviously sheldon cooper is the first thing that comes to mind. but it's the combination of horribly oversimplifying someone to a bunch of stereotypes and then taking things that might feel more like a person having experiences and turning them into bad things, either by having em pointed out by other characters as such or using narrative framing & a laugh track to do the job. low empathy? yeah that character is unfeeling and cold or something. and also super arrogant and selfish because the autistic tendency to put others' issues in terms of your own experience totally isn't someone doing their best to relate to you and offer comfort. they just only care about themself.

and it goes on and on and on and on! nobody wins. people who don't relate at all to a specific portrayal just don't get any representation, i guess! and those who do identify with some ways autism manifests itself in a character get to see it constantly belittled.

[spinoff-antithesis]

[@distinguished-turtle-enjoyer ]

i actually have not stopped thinkin bout your bb!edit like,,,, its so good and scratches my brain right

how long have you been doin edits for? do have any tips for someone, who hypothetically, wants to start doin edits too? what programs do you use? how did you do the cool animated bits?

im so sorry for all the qustions 😭😭 i just think youre very talented and inspirational and i hope you have a good day ^_^

hi firstly oh my gosh you're literally so sweet i am gently shaking you i love you so much /p. secondly, i apologize for the long answer! (it's all under the cut. this got away from me. i'm so sorry apparently i have a lot to say.) (also you're so good about the questions i would constantly be asking one of my professors questions during class to the point where she said i didn't have to go "i have a question" every time i approached her)

i've been editing since 2016! around march/april, i think? loved it so much i went into film & video production in college as a major so i could do editing for a living. (i have done more motion graphics for my classmates than i have done edits outside of class assignments, BUT!)

the program i use is after effects - i started learning it when covid first hit the united states because i had nothing better to do with my time (other than music theory but i failed that bc my professor focused more on the history aspects than the actual theory soooo) and my ipad kept giving me the "no more storage" whenever i tried to use videostar lmao. (vs has, apparently, gotten a LOT of good updates, so if you're looking to start editing and have an ios system, i'd look into it! only downside is you have to pay for some of the cool stuff).

also the program i use for masking (i think i explain this later dwdw) is superimpose. i've been using it since 2014 and it's SO nice bc i can use my fingers to erase backgrounds & stuff instead of hoping i can get it to work correctly in ae or photoshop (photoshop my DETESTED i'll use it but i'll complain the entire time).

for people who want to start editing: tutorials on how your program works and how to do specific transitions are gonna be your best friend when you're first figuring things out! i forced a friend to literally walk me through how after effects worked when i was first figuring it out, and when i had swapped to videostar back in 2017/2018(?) i had watched a Lot of tutorials. that and played around a lot and figured things out on my own - which is also always a good way to start!! it's also totally valid to look at other people's edits for inspiration - most editors don't really care, as long as you don't flat-out remake their edit (some people don't like that!). i have a style insp folder on instagram where i save edits that i like so if i need transition ideas or i'm doing a different style, i can look there for inspiration. at the end of the day, as long as you're having fun with it that's all that matters!

also, starting simple is always okay!! my edits for a year were just me slapping gifs & video segments together on a timeline in cute cut pro bc imovie didn't load them lol & it'd crash every time i breathed. ++ it never hurts to ask people for feedback/constructive(!!!) criticism/etc! (also not to sound like everyone else but practice? good. it's so good. if i showed my 14/15y/o self some of the edits i can make now they would've passed out on the spot bc i was still trying to figure out transitions back then. programs can also sometimes make a difference in edits, but usually it's not super noticeable until you start getting to the Complicated Shit.)

a lot of popular programs i've seen are ones like video star (ios only), alight motion (android only), after effects (i recommend 🏴‍☠️ing it tbh, i only use it legally bc i had to use adobe programs for school), capcut, and i think some people still use sony vegas pro & maybe cute cut pro (i've heard it may have actually gotten better since i last used it in 2018)? i have no idea. programs also depend on whatever device you're using to edit on! since i've been using my laptop, i'm able to use after effects (it's computer-only), but when i used my phone/ipad to edit i used ccp & vs.

for the animation - it's a lot of cutting up the image and masking! more complex animations, like the one i had of leo walking down that red 'hallway' have several different layers that have been masked. (i removed the background & filled in the spot where leo originally was in two different apps - superimpose (taking leo out) & photoshop (filling in the bg)) in after effects, the way i've done this was mask out the specific thing i wanted to move (like an eye) and then put that mask on what i've called a "base" (not animated), and then stick a solid behind the base to match the color of the object. (some of my layers are not named appropriately; base 2 is the left arm & the four "SIX_[...]" layers are the mask/bandana tails)

an example of this would be for any of the eye blink animations i did! this (above) is the same shot, with and without the eye - since it's masked out and i have the background solid behind it, it doesn't look too unnatural/have a black outline/mass where his eye should be.

what it looks like without the solid layer behind it ^ (the red lines are from the null layers - ignore that)

this is what my timeline looks like if it's a more simplistic animation - the only five things being animated here are leo & raph's eyes. (there's only this many layers bc it's two characters in one shot & i was also animating their pupils - typically, an eye-blink animation is about 4-6 layers for me (solid, base, mask, & null to animate with, 6 if i'm animating both eyes & 4 if just one))

in after effects, there's this really cool tool called the puppet pin that one of my friends (lovingly) yelled at me for not knowing about - which. yeah fair she wasn't wrong it's SUPER useful in animating, provided you chop up your image first. if you don't it's a mess.

(separated by layer vs i should've really put the mask tails & leo's head on separate layers and didn't bc that was the 2nd to last animation i had to do and i was losing my mind bc i wanted to be done with the edit lmao)

the way people animate depends all on their style (there's two common ways to do blinking animation - having the anchor point at the bottom of the eye, or the middle of it) and the program they use. it's been a while, but i could probably tell you how to do some basic animations on videostar still even though i've been doing them in after effects for about 2-3years now. ALSO the best way to have an animation be noticeable is to over-exaggerate it/make them Big - which, yes, can mean 'breaking bones' and having the limbs be a little wonky at the start. (if you want it to be realistic though go Just to the point where it looks uncomfortable lmao)

uhm. again i am so sorry that this is so long i THINK this is everything? if not: my inbox/dms are always open if you ever want to ask more questions, wanna follow up on something, etc etc!! (also if you ever start editing please send me your edits!!! i'd love to see them <3)