#The wonky lines and thickness are a ☆ feature ☆

[the-contraire-of-zugzwang]

hehe class doodles go brrrrrrrr

[simplyvalinor]

The consorts and their random physical features

because Voltage just copy-pastes when making their CGs, and that’s not what they actually look like. They are not all the same.

Rio

gets the most delightful patch of sun freckles across his cheeks. No matter how potent the sunscreen Thoma creates, it never make a lick of difference. He’s always reddening like a damn strawberry from all that garden and outdoor sword training. Definitely has the most wicked tan lines.

Lynt

The kind of skinny that is lowkey concerning.

Tino assures MC that he gets the precise amount of calories and nutrients he needs in a day. But bros hipbones???? Lethal. The hanky-panky gets downright painful if he gets too rough.

Tino

Tino isn’t just muscular he’s got those veiny, strong hands and thick fingers too. Watching him knead bread is a privilege. But he gets scrapes and bruises easily. MC spots a gnarly scrape on his forearm and immediately panics like omg tino are you okay???? Tino is like ☺️not to worry i just brushed against a cabinet earlier all is well☺️

oh ok…

It comes in handy with MC though. He likes seeing the bruises on his skin the next day. It makes him feel closer to her.

Roy

is the Saligian equivalent of a ginger in my mind. Argue with the wall. His face? Deceptively clear. You undress him and woah pinkish hued freckles EVERYWHERE.

Grayson

Calloused. Hands. Broad shoulders. Scarred from his days in the guard.

At events, in walks Roy and Sherry….oh! And there is their buff valet towering behind them all serious and straight faces. Don’t worry guys he’s a gentle and shy man 🥰🥰🥰

You just know those bitchy nobles talk shit about his lack of “delicate” touch meanwhile he’s exceptional at his job and valet duties actually require you to be in incredible shape.

Toa

Toa has long fingers. Okay, Mr. Monkey Fingers, lemme suck them.

Oh and he has terrible circulation, with veins so prominent they map his whole body. His toes and fingertips are practically purple. No wonder he’s always cold. Poor guy.

GET HIM A BLANKET, STAT.

Knight

The cutest wonky smile. The kind where a tooth grows behind another, making everything just a little misaligned. Adorable.

Aghhh, I just want to see him smile all the time.

Guy

Literally allergic to the cold. He has Raynaud’s disorder. The moment he steps outside into the cold he starts bitching and whining about his hands itching and burning.

He’s exceptional in every aspect of life, but when it comes to his physical build? Average. He’s imposing but it’s all in the way he carries himself. If he were even three inches shorter, he’d look like a damn chihuahua. Like, bro, stand down stop your yipping.

Average height. Average muscles. Even his endowment? Average-sized.

Jasper

Oblong. Get the fuck away from me Slenderman.

Aquia

Taller than Guy. Probably not true, but in my mind it is. He’s so insecure even though he’s got more muscles and stands taller than his big brother. Baby stand up tall, no hunching to make yourself smaller.

Fenn

Beauty marks and moles everywhere. On his throat. His shoulder. His belly button, even his ankle. Hell, there’s one on his left nipple too. Lemme kiss each one💋

Lou

Hairless. The thinest eyebrows to ever thin and sparse eyelashes. Nothing on his arms or legs or chest or groin. MC’s like uhmm do you wax or something how are this smooth. Lou is confused. what’s waxing???

Dia

Has mild androgen insensitivity syndrome, hence why he’s androgynous. During puberty, he developed small breasts, but despite others trying to “correct” them with magic, Dia has never minded them.

Lance

MY MAN IS HAIRY! Come on now, we all know he doesn’t shave. He’s got nice bushy eyebrows and immaculate chest hair and happy trail.

Maybe a bit of an excessive bush…

He does however, shave his face bc he can only grow a mustache and he looks ridiculous with it.

[lost-my-hed]

Chapter Eight

while writing this i got an idea that completely changes the premise of the story…8 chapters in. I briefly changed the blurb as well as the first paragraph or so in the first chapter. I think that helps fit this new narrative better and hopefully it makes sense !! If you find any issues with consistency or wonky plot lines please let me know, constructive criticism is greatly appreciated !!

The Aftermath

⋆✩⁺₊✩☽⋆

Their ear burned the whole car ride home and into the late evening. It was a warm pain that they could make throb if they focused on it for too long. The first thing they did after saying hello to Butters was run to the bathroom and stare at the pair of stacked matching studs now in their ear. They shined in the soft, warm light of the lightbulb above their mirror, and Y/N fought every urge to touch them. They know better than to mess with piercings. Soap gave them an extensive and stern talk about what not to do before they left. But it was almost like touching them; feeling the cool metal against the flushed skin would prove they did it. The ache would have to suffice for now.

Now cuddled up under the quilted duvet that covered their bed, they focused on the pain and reveled in the throbbing that followed. And the more they enjoyed the pain, the more the ache changed—rather than emanating from the top of their ear, it began to stem from low in their belly. Their thoughts switched from how brave they were today to how nice the large masked man's voice sounded—low and gravely, thick with a Manchester accent. His head ducked down next to Soap's, mumbling about the best option for them, for me.

Soap was pleased with his boyfriend's two cents. Glowing with admiration and excitement, so much so that they shared a quick kiss—Ghost, as Soap liked to call him, pulled down his mask and planted a sweet peck to his lover's expecting mouth. And just as quickly as it happened, his mask was replaced, and Y/N barely had time to comprehend what they had seen. If anything, it made them warm all over, feeling as though they were intruding on a private moment between a couple, a moment they should not have seen. Y/N felt like they were a preteen again—the interaction was nothing but innocent, and here they were, flushing as if they just witnessed a sex scene in front of their parents for the first time.

Usually, they would have forced themselves to stop thinking about how good the two men looked next to each other, plump lips pressed together, but it seemed impossible. No matter how hard they tried to remove the memory, it came back, the image seared into the inside of their eyelids forever. Subconsciously, these images morphed into something more.

⋆✩⁺₊✩☽⋆

Ghost's hands cupped their jaw in his large hand, swiping his thumb across their bottom lip, waiting for them to "open up" for him. Soap's arms looped around their waist from behind; his head pressed into the space between their neck and shoulder. His mouth pressed soft kisses to the sensitive skin, chuckling low in his chest when they shivered.

"Darling," a voice says from behind them? in front of them?—they don't know, "Look at me sweet'eart," the same voice continues, drawing their closed eyes open (they didn't even realize they had closed), "there you are…" the same voice coos as their eyes flutter open and lock onto Ghost's pretty brown eyes.

"I think our baby is enjoying this, don't you agree, Johnny?" Ghost asks, a smirk taking over his features as his eyes flick between the two people before him. Y/N can feel the shorter man smile against their heated flesh, and rather than answering with his words, Johnny nips and sucks right under their ear.

"Oh," they gasp, their eyes widening in shock, cheeks flushing a deep shade of red. Y/N could feel their heart beating against their ribs, followed by the sound of their blood rushing in their ears. They felt dizzy—lust and adrenaline flooding their senses, making it hard to feel the room around them. They were beginning to float away into the overwhelming emotions. And Y/N was having trouble deciding whether or not the feeling was bad—is feeling weightless and heavy all at the same time comforting or uncomfortable? It could become overwhelming if they allowed it. However, the two sets of hands caressing every inch of their skin made it hard not to like.

The sound of muffled voices speaking about Y/N but not to Y/N was prominent. It was hard to decipher what the two men were saying, and truthfully, they didn't care. They were too busy enjoying the floaty new space they were in.

"I think we broke them, Si," Johnny smiles amusedly, brushing his fingers along the stripe of skin peaking out from the hem of their shirt. "Isn't that right, Sunshine?" He teases; their lust-glazed eyes widen, and their heads begin to nod 'yes' rapidly. This makes Simon groan as though he'd gotten injured. The blonde reaches one of his hands up to grasp their jaw. He forces their chin upwards, making Y/N hold eye contact, "There you are, puppy," watching as their hazy look begins to focus on his own.

"So well behaved." He says it more like a statement, an observation of the truth, not a praise. It makes Y/N squirm under his stare—unyielding and oh-so-hot. "Let's see if you know any tricks." Before Y/N knows it, they all move to their (Ghost and Soap's) shared bedroom: a large California king bed is against the back wall, and dark grays and neutral decor fill the space and decorate the walls. The large black duvet on the bed looks like the most plush cloud. Their suspicions are confirmed when Ghost tosses them onto said mattress.

Without any preamble, Johnny gives Y/N their first command, "On all fours, pet." He says the last word like it pleases him without end. His tone is teasing and derogative, and who can blame him when they take it so well?

It makes the part of their brain that makes them want to please, please, please start firing. Without so much as a second thought, their limbs are moving faster than their mind can comprehend what they are attempting to achieve. Y/N quickly flips onto their tummy--using their arms to push onto their knees and wait for further instructions.

"...not only are you obedient, but eager," Simons says after a beat of silence. Neither of the men moves to join them on the bed, nor do they touch them. Y/N is stuck, waiting for someone to make a move or give them an order, making it delicious and frustrating. When it feels as though neither of them will make a move, Y/N begins to get impatient. Not only were they a good listener and well-behaved, but they were also greedy. A whine threatens to sneak past their lips, but they get pulled out of their head abruptly. A hand is placed on the back of Y/N's head, fingers carding through the hair at the nape of their neck. The greedy part of them wanted to preen at the attention and subtle display of affection. However, the desperate and all-consuming need to be good overshadows everything else." They refrained from leaning into his touch, their lips sealed and head bowed, eyes focused on the black fabric underneath them.

A pair of lips brushed against their right ear, hot breath fanning their cheek. It would be to turn their head and look at him—both of them. It would be even easier to press their mouth against his, licking and sucking the plump flesh between their own. How good it would feel to whimper against the fabric of Ghost's jeans, their face smooshed into the meat of his thigh, while waiting for Johnny's next demand. Y/N can almost taste the way his detergent smells; the image in their head is starting to feel plausible.

They can feel the light dusting of sweat that begins to settle on their heated skin. The fan above the bed rotates leisurely, occasionally allowing the cool air to brush against their heated flesh. Goosebumps litter their body, and they will the shiver that wants to rack through their body away. The images of being at Ghost's feet fade away when light-smacking noises occupy their senses. It takes them a moment to comprehend what they are hearing. Are they making out? "At first, Y/N thinks so, but they realize their mistake when they feel a pair of lips still angled toward their ear."

That's when they also realize that the press of lips to skin isn't the only thing they hear. The prettiest sighs and quiet moans float into their space.

Oh. My. God.

The thought rings through their head like an alarm. The two men aren't making out—no, Johnny is giving Ghost a hickey. Ghost really likes hickeys.

Y/N's brows furrow, and a frown pulls at their lips. They wanted to play, too; this wasn't fair. They hadn't been bad, they were good, they had to be good—needed to be good. Their skin prickled in warning, and their tummy turned uncomfortably as though they had just fallen three stories. The sweet noises had stopped. Ghost had leaned away from their head and moved to stand next to Johnny, who was a couple of feet from the foot of the bed. The subtle shuffle of footsteps sounded against the hardwood floor before the room fell silent again. Both men had their arms folded across their chests.

"Center."

No. No, no, no.

⋆✩⁺₊✩☽⋆

With a gasp, they wake, chest heaving with deep, uneven breaths and a hand pressed over their heart. Y/N had sweat through their nightgown (oversized t-shirt); feeling clammy and uneasy, they tossed the covers back and padded the short distance to their bathroom, flicking on the light. They look awful—splotchy cheeks and tear stains reflected in the mirror. Tears pool in their eyes, and an ugly, broken sob racks through them. They had been doing so good. They were being so good. It had been months since they had thought about that since they had a nightmare. They suck shaky gasps of air into their lungs, trying to calm down the rough hiccups that catch in their throat.

A quiet little meow forced their gaze to break away from the mirror and down at their feet. A concerned Butter Bean looked up at Y/N, watching closely as though he was trying to gauge their mental status.

"Hi honey," they smile, though their voice quivers and their bottom lip still has a slight wobble. "It's okay, I'm okay, baby. You don't need to worry about me." They fight the second wave of tears that threaten to fall off, leaving them with glassy eyes and red nose. They lean over and scoop their fella into their arms and sigh. Their eyes fall closed. And I thought I was emotionally deceased? Right now, it feels like they have a lot of emotions, very confusing ones. It makes it hard to remember why they wanted to feel again in the first place.

"Let's get a midnight snack." They murmur, walking out the door and flicking off the bathroom light before walking to the fridge. The two of them stand in the refrigerator glow, eyeing the various food available to them before Y/N decides that the can of Ready Whip! looks really appetizing. They set their handsome man onto the counter and squirt a tiny mountain of whipped topping in front of him. Y/N then tilts their head back and squirts enough cream into their mouth to make their cheeks puff out. The two of them finish their treat in silence.

When they flip the light on in their room and see the mess that is their bed, they decide to start fresh. Y/N strips the blankets and sheets off the mattress and throws them into a big pile on their rug-covered floor. They walk to the small closet in the hallway where "The Mary Poppins Closet" hides. Y/N thought the name was fitting; it holds all their extra linens, toilet paper, towels, rags, bandaids, Tylenol, extra toothpaste, and mouthwash; there is even an extra umbrella tucked away on the last shelf. They head back to their bed with their arms full of sheets, pillowcases, and a "new" throw blanket.

Y/N is quick to make their bed, and Butter Bean has learned that in times like these, he should wait until they finish the bed before getting cozy. So, he waits in the open doorway of their room and watches contently, waiting for permission to jump up. Within no time, the two of them are tucked under the covers of a freshly made bed and turning on yet another random movie from their list of "I'll watch you someday" movies while mindlessly petting the top of their kitty's head.

It didn't take long for their eyes to go droopy and their breathing to even out. For the first half hour, they try to fight it-- not wanting to chance waking up like that again. But, although today went well, it was incredibly stressful, and although Y/N wouldn't want to admit it, the day was acting up to them. Soon enough, they didn't have the energy to open their eyes and finally let the low rumble of people talking on the TV lull them back to sleep.

⋆✩⁺₊✩☽⋆

i hope you guys like this one xx it’s not what i planned for at all, but once it hit me i couldn’t forget it lol <3

[molathesunfish]

How do you draw so freely? Its beautiful

Thank you very much!!

Assuming you're referring to how loose my sketches are, I think it boils down to mileage. Alongside the classic recommendation of reference + study, usually when I get really into a piece of media I'll draw characters I like a whole lot and it builds muscle memory, and the ones that end up in my posts usually have already been through that process to some extent.

Studying references + going through a couple dozens rounds of extra wonky proportions and nonsensical physics (definitely visible on my own posts lmao) will help with both your brain and muscle and once you've stacked up enough of that it'll become easier to intuit certain things and keep stuff looser.

(hey this got really long, so just scroll to the bottom to see my current sketch process if you'd prefer that)

In my personal experience as a hobbyist, I spent roughly 3 years butchering the loomis method until things looked even remotely to my liking. And by that I mean "layering bullshit guidelines so thick and heavy that by the time I'm done lightening it via eraser there was barely any paper left." Drawing has been and still is really frustrating sometimes but for most of it I have a lot of fun and honestly as long as you have that it doesn't really matter whatever else (again, hobbyist here. my stakes are low). Switching up medium every once in a while if you can helps keep things interesting, and drawing with a pen is good for building both line confidence and tolerance for your own mistakes.

Honestly for all of that this stuff is still RNG to me lol. Every once in a while things just Will Not Work Out, but the rates definitely gets better the more experience you have. I only post about, say, 20% of what I draw probably. The rest includes but is not limited to practice sketches, personal art, stuff too nonsensical for even tumblr, or sketches I just plain don't like.

Uhhhhh now for what you actually asked. I've grown really lax, if not a little lazy, regarding guidelines (when you've drawn a specific thing often enough it just kinda gets tedious) so now i just do these very thin and light lines vaguely hinting at a character's pose and position. The only thing I consistently do is probably the little circle to indicate the head. For more heavily stylised proportions I'll go into more details at the outline stage, mostly aiming for the feeling of it (usually how goofy it looks since thats what I use them for). For more complex poses/ones I'm not familiar with I'll do multiple iterations.

Unearthed some stuff that I probably wouldn't post otherwise (the proportions are a bit off from what i'd prefer and the lineart isn't that confident). Here i am redrawing this for demonstration purposes

gonna go in order of the photos. everything shown was done with a 0.5 mechanical pencil.

usually i start with these very thin, light lines, just getting a very rough ideas of where everything is - head, torso, pose (spine, arms, legs). i sketch largely with approximations and landmarks, keeping in mind some bullet points for the relative distance among certain body parts (e.g. make sure the elbow is always a little past the rib cage. i'll write more out at the end) rather than any precise guidelines. i often don't even clean these up - at the end the main lineart is harsh enough that they override these, and though they're visible they do not interfere with the image as a whole. you can look at any of my sketches prior to this and find them.

then i go in with hard, dark lines, once again noting the respective distance among facial features (i'm using the loomis proportions, thinking about the face in thirds)

this is so unhelpful when i just say it, but genuinely at this stage i rely on muscle memory and mileage. if you've drawn the same anime girl for a bajillion times you can probably intuit the proportions. remember that 3d things have volume and interact. ("yes, see, her bangs and eyes round out like this, two locks of hair (they're thick and well kept, so they should have a solid cylinder shape...) against the side plane of her face - split that plane of the skull in half, and the ear should be somewhere around there...")

ok for the parts where a lot of things happen (clothes, tie, the pose interfering with them etc) i just go ham. make a mess! draw everything out even if they overlap each other. so you can keep track of them. here i also bring in some light shading to make out the form of her torso.

i lighten the whole thing with eraser, but the previous lines are harsh enough that the residue can act as a new base of sorts. i think this is comparable to having a sketch layer with lowered opacity in a digital piece

i go over the whole thing again now that i've got a better idea of the form

rinse and repeat. go all in, adjust, blow the whole thing up if it looks off and then build on the remains

for the last photo, you can see that I've adjusted the right leg, since now im taking into account perspective. I uhhhhh still am not particularly confident in drawing her shoes (or any other shoes for that matter) in 3d space so once again I'm bullshitting the form with trying to wrap around its shape and to visualize the shadows. usually for these I pull up references and pray

a side note for the hands: against an earlier ask, I've mostly switched to using silhouettes and then sectioning the fingers after. here the slight shading approach also help in blocking out and making them readable without you having to stress over the minutiae of what joint should bend where.

...I've hit the upload limit for photos, so I'll reblog with additions, but in essence:

• very thin lines to map out the pose and mark where certain body parts may go

• i draw everything in approximation, keeping a few bullet points in mind and adjust as i go (which does keep the sketches loose and make it easier to vary proportions for different characters, but also make floating features more likely (evident in some of my more recent posts as well):

loomis for the head and neck

rib cage (+collarbone), then elbow slightly below it

pelvis, crotch halfway point of the whole body

legs, knees their halfway point

feet are about as long as the forearm usually

(Disclaimer: i must stress again that I'm not a professional, and cannot guarantee that these bullet points are entirely correct. This is just how i draw at the time of writing - stylized with little regard for the intricacies of human anatomy)

• with the exception of the first stage, my lines are dark enough that the mistakes get reused as base for correction after they've been lightened with eraser a little bit.

• I also bring in some shading while doing lineart to make sense of form if I'm having trouble. I use this most often for noses, hands, legs, and breasts.

• if you encounter a sketch that Refuses To Work Out, leave it. No, listen to me, Leave It. Revisit it sometimes later, if you want (for mine they range from a week to 5 months, but my sketchbooks disorganization is another matter entirely). just leave it for a bit.

• do a bunch of pen sketches if you wanna get comfortable with mistakes/build muscle memory

• once more, all-time classic: reference the hell out of anything you don't know. 100000 google images. look up a human anatomy 3d model to see what muscles attach to which bone. practice copying 1:1 things that look good to you (practice!! don't post/claim anything as your own if it isn't - this applies to my own stuff btw, feel free to trace for practice at your own risk). note again that the only reason i can only bullshit my way out of these is because i've drawn them dozens of times - the moment you throw me more complex perspectives i'll need to start the learning process all over again

[shadowwoodlywrites]

Not so Average Chapter 4: He’s a villain, I should be scared —I am being saved by a villain. What is my life?

CARTER’S POV

Realistically, I likely should’ve heated up something warm to eat, ideally leftovers from the previous night, while waiting for Mom to come back from work. Again, ideally I should’ve taken another dosage of sensory suppressants and had something on my stomach to pair. But my focus, while the morning dosage wore off, had been on searching for an old dusty folder I hadn’t seen in two years, give or take.

A thick pile of folders I pulled out with a huff, then dropped on my bed, was followed by the sound of scuffling as folders full of old homework, abandoned sketches, or forgotten grade reports got scattered across the plaid comforter. The talk at lunch—I had supposed I felt some sense of nostalgia, or something along the lines of that feeling—when it had been brought up again.

Chances were, however, very high that this folder was outdated, but it was fine, I guessed. Not like I am an active participant of a government scheme or whatever. Despite my prior behavior at the thought. Perhaps Mal had been right—freaking out over something as minor as what it was… had not been a good choice.

I let out a hurrah once I found the nilla folder with two rough doodles of a cat and a star. The words of a horrifically misspelled underlined ‘Clasisfied’ had been scribbled across the front of the folder—likely the result of some early heatstroke-sign-induced joke from my fourteen-year-old self. I placed it on the bedside table, proceeding to shuffle the other folders into a pile and drop them back into the box, kicking it underneath the bed. Stiffly turning around, my hands grasped the cold sides of the paper folder, small markings of frost creeping along the edge from my fingertips. I collapsed onto the bed, opening the folder and blowing dust off the first page.

This folder was the very thing that consumed my time from ages thirteen to fourteen. Neitlim, as a condition, fascinated me—as a patient and an onlooker. Every article, every review, every video, every record of the news station… if it could be named, if it featured the conditions of heroes, villains… or otherwise? I watched it. I read it.

Then theorized on the specifics.

Whatever theories I had settled on got written in this very folder. Pages that had thin strings of yarn glued to the paper, connecting the evidence I deemed proved my point. And reading these pages now—I wondered how the hell I came to some of these conclusions.

Like, for example, the man of the day—Cinderash. He had only been a recent villain back then—not much was known about the guy, what he did or why. He hadn’t had a name, even though the guy was mysterious enough to grab the attention of the public eye. Often people didn’t look away either. My fingers touched the wonky handwriting that was stuck to the scratchy paper as I read it. The conclusion quote read as follows:

‘When utilizing his condition, there appears to be a brief moment when nothing happens. I suspect it's more of a chemical reaction. Since his flames are a deep shade of red… Strontium Nitrate perhaps? Perhaps he secretes a liquid or powder form from his hands with some manner of triggering it. His enhanced senses, however, are a no-brainer—nothing escapes his line of fire.’

End quote. Then next was of a hero that had gone missing in recent times, who had an even more bizarre quote.

‘Electro-Shock’s electric voltage seems to strengthen and weaken at the same beats per minute of the average heartbeat. Is it weird to suspect her heart manages to produce these shocks? Likely weird, not impossible. I constantly deal with reverse hypothermia and still survive. If her heart does produce it, her surviving it is not much of a question as one might think.’

End quote. Electro-Shock’s theories didn’t even have much in the little box with the yarn as evidence. Why was I like that back then? It was a brief thought before remembering: child throwing thoughts around, and after an argument with a friend over my identity, having no one to throw them to anymore. I was a sad, sad, lonely child. That said, I still did agree with the sentiment I had back then:

Neitlim was a fascinating condition in nature. The side effects varied; the abilities that came from it were entirely unique for each patient, with the rare occasion of two conditions being similar. Heightened senses in the same sentence were as much of a gamble as the powers—possibly worse. You never knew which sense or two would surpass the rest, then be a pain in the ass—and how crazier one’s looks may be, that varied, as the condition also affected pigmentation.

I personally was a less extreme case. I often get mistaken as someone with albinism—but if someone squinted, they would note how my eyes seemed like crystals or potentially see how reflective they were.

Neitlim was still a recent condition. Only appearing sixty or so odd years ago. At first, it was everyone one in sixty-thousand who had it. Now it is just as common as heterochromia, which is only 1% of the population. Not really much, but more common than it used to be…

Scientists also suspect that percentiles may increase as years go on. I sighed as I skimmed through the pages. Then I found a… schedule? A few schedules. I terrified myself as I read it.

‘Oh, I studied their rotations and tried to predict when they would hit certain cities…’ Not even just heroes, but villains…

I sat upright, placed the folder on my bedside table, then stood up and stretched. I murmured to myself, “Alright, enough of that.”

I moved my arms back down, then briskly walked down the staircase with a sigh. Then walked out of the house. I figured I could use some fresh air… the last few days had been something… not sure what, but something. Made a new friend? Found out I might end up with a stepdad? Got stuck in a tree like a cat?

Yeah, certainly a day. I also wanted to distract myself from my fourteen-year-old self’s questionable habits. Because I don’t remember ever making those calculations—there was a distracting thought I kept pushing away that screamed at me to test.

I won’t. I'm not an idiot! I swear!

I shoved my hands into my jacket, releasing a sigh as the cold wind blew through my hair. I closed my eyes briefly while walking down the street, then opened them again.

I loved the cold. Unfortunately, even my body had its limits when it came to the cold. I still enjoyed it anyway.

But that bliss dissipated quickly. I kicked up my pace as I heard the shuffling of feet behind me. I felt my heart start thumping uncomfortably.

Now I don’t regret skipping that dose of medicine.

Survival instincts kicked in—the shouts the human body did to run, of which I had to refrain. Running would only make this person run too. Currently, I heard them attempting to match my pace.

‘Okay, Carter, stay calm,’ I thought to myself. ‘Ignore the adrenaline—running didn’t save you from Zachary, it won’t save you from worse.’

Albeit the contexts would be different, akin to comparing apples and oranges. If a confrontation was needed, I would do it—I could freeze and run. Like a hit and run, but without the cars and not a felony. I lifted my cotton hood over my head slowly, then dived into an alleyway, where I quickened my pace, getting out of the person's gaze. I grabbed the roof, lifted my leg up, and hauled myself over the fence. This wasn’t the weirdest method of hiding I’ve done, to be honest. I ducked down, lifting my head just enough to peer over said fence.

The person had just managed to walk into the alleyway, seemed to be looking around confused. I heard shouts and the shifting of crates. I held a hand over my mouth.

This was terrifying, horrific with a dash of very uncomfortable. Not that I understood why this person seemed like he was hunting me down to begin with. Then I heard feet behind me again.

‘Oh god damn it—’ I turned my head. Then I relaxed. Why did I relax?

THIS WAS A BAD GUY.

“What are you doing, kid?” THE Cinderash asked. For some reason, my thoughts—instead of being panicky—were, ‘Why does he sound familiar?’

What is wrong with me? I answered with a soft tone of voice. “Er, hiding from someone who was following me?”

He walked over to the roof and looked down. “The hell did you do?”

That was an odd question—I answered anyway. “I was on a walk, freaked myself out after reading some ridiculous calculations my younger self did—”

“Past cringe. Reasonable,” he interrupted, then gestured for me to continue… asshole.

I sighed. “Then I heard footsteps behind me and...”

I pointed down below at the man still rummaging through crates for a teenager who wasn’t even on the ground. The man nodded, then rubbed the edge of his metal mask, groaned, then said, “Alright, kid, stay up here—I’ll handle it.”

I murmured a quiet ‘huh’ as he jumped down.

A bad guy helping kids? Was this a requirement of working with Zel.Corp? Did he just have a weakness for kids? What was I witnessing?

Peering down, I winced as I watched Cinderash create flames… and huh, I guess past me was right—there was a delay in the summoning of his flames… wait, I am focusing on the wrong thing.

He said stay up here. Should I listen to a villain? He didn’t kill the guy—which was a relief in itself. I didn’t want to witness a murder—I could still hear both heartbeats. He tied the stranger up. Then Cinderash put a hand down to the ground and blasted himself with fire, and I skidded out of the way.

[tayne-dot-exe]

ok tutorial because I've made this cut 3 times now and I'm obsessed with it, I think its a perfect look and would be even better on someone with more tits and a softer stomach than me.

I feel like there's a lot of "truth of material" about the design cos it literally is a big ribbon loosely wrapped and things are allowed to stretch and flow over each other.

The idea is that it will have some give if I gain weight too, I originally made this in a more rigid fabric but then when I gained weight I couldn't breathe in it, so this is the remake with a stretchy material. The trick though is that I wasn't able to do a stitch with my sewing machine to preserve the stretch and leave the seams small enough so I thought I was gonna hand stitch, but this was tedious and messy looking, and I ended up liking the look just with cutting narrow ribbons of iron-adhesive, that were easier to get nice straight edges with, though I wanted it to be able to stand up to the washer and dryer with the rest of my clothes, the adhesive would probably melt in the dryer. I tried to make it as close to half a centimeter as I could, because it projects through to the top slightly.

I don't have a pic of how the pieces looked before sewing, but this is the shape I used for each of the ends. the slope of the top is not going to be the angle the tank top part is going to end up as, because the red part is going to be just the length you need to pinch the fabric into a dart for whatever your boob size is. The blue part is the thickness of the ribbon that will wrap around the rest, mine was about 3 inches but I feel a bit exposed like that and wish I had cut the fabric a bit thicker there.

The length the blue section continues is going to be however much you need to wrap around your body twice. I was able to cut the whole thing in one piece out of a 2 yard piece of fabric for another version, but the one shown was actually from a stretch satin t shirt I found and usually you're probably gonna need to do at least 3 sections anyway, but you wanna do an odd number because if you only did the right and left side, due to how its wrapped you would have the seam over your bellybutton. Which you could make a feature if you wanted idc.

Once you have the pieces, do a seam around all the edges except where the dart is going to be, and I applied the seam adhesive to where the 3 parts connect to each other without actually attaching it. Since this will actually be tension bearing and not just a seam to clean up edges, I hand sewed the seams back to back, and then ironed down the adhesive to hide the stitching. Wish I had a pic of that but I don't...

Then where the dart goes, glue them down from the front all lined up. I Sewed on a little bra hook and loop to hold them together here when worn, but it looks a tiny bit wonky and would benefit from some jewelry on the front covering it like I did on my mermaid one.

Then for where to attach the ribbon on the corners, I got these bar and loop bracelet closures. This ribbon I actually got from cutting off a swimsuit of the same material and happened to have just enough, so using the existing loop on the end its a tough squeeze for the bar so I'm leaving one attached a bit more permanently, and on the other side I made the loop a little bigger so I can actually take it on and off.

I made this top and just realized at age 28 I have the ability to look like this but I dont like doing the kind of activities you dress like this for and the kind of people im attracted to dont care about this look so idk what to do with it

I still think I can make the top feel more Daytime with some high waisted pants....

[vaimetanyx]

"...Stygius, the Blade of the Underworld, must have been amongst the finest weapons ever wielded..." - Stygian Blade entry, Codex of the Underworld.

Unfortunately this one isn't so fine and needs a remake, but here's how it was made while I work on Stygius 2

(Full process under the cut)

[Skull pauldron] [Belt] [Greaves] [Toga + sash] [Wig + Laurels] [Armbands] [Flaming feet] [Satyr Sack] [Stygius v1] [Stygius v2] [Nectar]

Unfortunately Stygius was the victim of con time crunch, and I wasn't even sure I'd be able to make the rest of my outfit in time for the con so Stygius, as a prop, had the lowest priority. But hey for a sword done from scratch in a week, not too bad.

I guessed all the measurements (which ended up making Styg 1 a hand and a half sword instead of the one handed sword it should be) and made a pattern. From there I was able to cut out a base, attach a handle, and then cover it in EVA foam. I then proceeded to so a VERY wonky job on the blade bevels, and even took a few chunks out, which meant I had to use foam clay on some parts of the edges which ended up leaving an inconsistent finish once it was painted.

For the skull I used spare EVA foam for the base, built up the bulk with aluminum foil and hot glue, then used more foam clay to sculpt the features and create depth (and ideally for that thickness it should have had several more days to set). The leaves were just some cut and dremelled EVA foam, and the pommel base was, you guessed it, more EVA foam and foam clay.

The gem was made from epoxy resin, and poured into a mould I made out of cardboard, sticky tape and some plastic lining, and coloured with some watercolour pigment. Somehow that actually worked.

I primed the whole thing with plastidip, and next was Spray Paint Hell. I had to do it all in one day, and the masking tape I was using to protect the parts I'd already done started pulling off the actual paint and sometimes the plastidip when I tried to remove it. I don't have a lot of experience with spray paints so my coats also weren't to the standard I wanted, and there was overspray despite my best efforts.

The spray paints I used were cheap and it showed. So I decided that they would be a base coat, and that the whole thing should be hand painted over most of the sections in order to achieve the correct colours, and in the case of the skull, match the other bone accessories. My sister helped do a lot of the base coats while I was at work so I could focus on detail work when I got home, and even there I was still painting the night before.

To tie everything together I did a few coats of gloss spray the morning of the con. Unfortunately, it didn't quite dry so it stuck to the surface it was resting on when I did the other side, which caused most of the paint defects. However, it was finished in time for the con and luckily the worst of the marks were on the back.

The main issue to address with Stygius 2, besides not doing an absolute catastrophe of a paint job last minute, is to fix up the hilt. It's too long and thick, the pommel is too chunky and badly shaped, and the gem is the wrong colour. The skull could also use more sculpted depth and a bit more shading to make it really stand out.

[bogleech]

“INSTANT LINE ART” TRICK FOR THIN AND NOODLY THINGS:

Just draw your thin, noodly things as thick brush lines

Select their whole area

Find the “increment” feature if it’s present in your art program, which expands the size of a selection. I clicked it a couple times to make an increment of a couple pixels.

On a lower layer, fill that area in black.

Now it looks like your shapes had line art all along!!!

On an UPPER layer, try fleshing out little details and touching up anything that came out wonky.

[unbridgeabledistances]

ok i have an inbox full of prompts, but i was making valentine’s day plans & all of a sudden felt very inspired to write some valentine’s day gallavich! featuring uncle mickey, homemade cards and a lot of domestic fluff- i’ll probs have a part two up sometime this week!<3

--

It was a lazy, slow-paced Sunday afternoon at the Gallagher house. Mickey had been lying on the couch passively watching trashy reality TV for god knows how long—and apparently at some point he’d fallen asleep, because now the TV volume was just a low hum, and he was being woken up to the startling crash of the kitchen back door slamming shut, and the rustling of shoes and coats being taken off and discarded by the front door.

“Alright Franny, let’s set this stuff up on the kitchen table.” Mickey heard Ian’s voice sail across the room, his eyes still closed to block out the cheery sunshine teeming in the living room.

Mickey tried to doze off again, attempting to block out the bright light infiltrating his eyelids, but it was no use— whatever Ian and Franny were doing, murmuring and clanging in the kitchen, there was no way for Mickey to escape the sound now and drift back into his sunwarmed sleep. He begrudgingly shoved the scratchy crocheted blanket off of his lap, stretching as he rose and stumbled into the kitchen.

He wasn’t expecting the carnage that he saw when he turned the corner; the kitchen table was covered in an explosion of sheets of multicolored construction paper, all reds and pinks and whites, with tiny multicolored stickers and tubes of glitter and shiny ribbons arranged and spread wide across the countertop, scattered with glue sticks and pairs of scissors and an exploded box of crayons. There was a small mountain of cut-out hearts piled high on the table, smattered with glitter-glue and blocky handwriting.

Mickey rubbed his eyes, taking in the scene. “What’re you two Picassos up to?” he asked drowsily.

Ian looked up, his eyes light. “Look who’s awake!” He gestured at the table emphatically, like it was Christmas morning. “Isn’t it great? Me and Franny grabbed all this stuff at the dollar store for less than ten bucks. The glue sticks definitely kind of suck, but I think it’ll get the job done.”

Mickeys eyes scanned to Franny, who was hard at work trying to cut a shape out of a piece of red construction paper, her brows furrowed in concentration. Ian kept chattering on as he unwrapped another sheath of the paper.

“Debbie left Franny with me since some rich lady called her with a weekend handywoman emergency that popped up at the last minute, so now I’m helping Franny make her valentines for school.”

Mickey scoffed. “Fucking valentines?”

Ian rolled his eyes as he contentedly started to glue together two pieces of paper. “Yes, Mickey, valentines. You know, those nice things that normal people give to each other on Valentine’s Day, along with a box of chocolates or some shit and a note about how much they love each other—”

“Yes, I know what they are, smartass. Don’t know why you didn’t just buy the little cardboard ones at the store though.”

Ian smirked, his eyes still focused on the paper beneath him that he was smudging glitter on. “Yeah, well. Franny wanted to make them, and I thought it’d be kind of fun.”

Just then Franny gasped triumphantly, raising a lopsided and crumpled paper heart up for Mickey to see. “Look, Uncle Mickey! I cut a heart! Uncle Ian showed me how!”

Mickey raised his eyebrows at Ian, who had a sheepish look on his face. “Didn’t know you had so many hidden talents, Gallagher.”

Ian flashed a grin. “I used to be really into art class in elementary school, what can I say.”

Franny looked up at Mickey with wide eyes. “Do you want to make valentines with us? We have to make twenty-seven, because that’s the number of people in my class.”

Mickey faltered. Sitting here gluing fucking glitter to pieces of paper was not exactly what he’d had in mind as his plans for the weekend…

“Uh. That’s okay kiddo. I think you two’ve got it covered.”

Franny seemed to readily accept Mickey’s answer, instantly looking downward again and grabbing a fistful of crayons from the table to continue enhancing her masterpiece. Ian, on the other hand, tore his gaze from his own valentine.

“Oh c’mon Mick, you don’t wanna help?” Ian asked, his voice goading and his eyebrows raised.

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Yeah, thanks but no thanks.” He turned, walking over to open the fridge and grabbing a beer from the top shelf.

“C’mon, just one valentine. Franny can show you how to cut out a heart shape, right Fran?”

Franny nodded vigorously. “Yes, I know how!”

Mickey took a swig of his beer and sighed. “Jesus, fine.” He pulled a chair between Ian and Franny, slowly scraping it on the linoleum, and then perched on the edge uncomfortably. “Alright Franny, show me what you’ve got.”

“Okay, so the first thing that you have to do is pick which color is your favorite. What’s your favorite color?”

Mickey had taken another sip of his beer, and now he sputtered slightly. “I don’t know Franny, you pick for me.”

Franny’s face melted into a pout. “But you have to pick, Uncle Mickey, it’s your favorite color!”

Ian bit back a laugh, his eyes still bright and cheerful. “Yeah, Mick, c’mon. What is your favorite color? We’ve never gotten this deep in our relationship before.”

Mickey gulped again from his beer can and flipped Ian off in the process. “I don’t fucking know. Never thought about it before.”

Franny held the stack of construction paper up to Mickey. “Look! There’s red, and yellow, and blue, and purple, and green—”

Mickey cut her off. “Uh, give me a green one.”

Ian smirked. “Green?”

“Fuck you, it was the first color I thought of.” Of course, that wasn’t really true—if Mickey needed to have a favorite fucking color, it was obviously going to be green, like the green eyes that met his gaze every morning and were the last thing he saw before he went to sleep at night— even if he would never be caught dead admitting that sappy bullshit to Ian.

Ian looked like he was holding back a smile. “Right,” he mused. “Hey, Franny, pass me a blue paper? Cause y’know, that’s my favorite color.”

Mickey gently shoved Ian in the square of his chest. “You’re being fucking soft.”

Ian let a crooked smile burst onto his face. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

Mickey leaned back in his chair, holding the piece of thick green paper in front of him appraisingly. “Okay Franny, what’s step two?”

Franny stretched her body across the table to reach for one of the strewn pairs of scissors. “Now, you fold the paper in half, and then you cut out the shape of half of a heart, like this.” She drew an example of the curved pattern on the backside of Mickey’s paper with the tip of her finger. “And then you unfold it and it’ll be a perfect shape!”

“Sounds easy enough.”

Mickey took the scissors from Franny’s grasp, and held them up to the paper. It was just a fucking half circle with a little indent at the top— this wasn’t going to be too difficult. Ian and Franny went back to being absorbed in crafting their valentines, while Mickey started to botch and slash at his piece of construction paper.

When he was finally satisfied he unfolded the shape, the outer shell of the paper falling away. It was… well, it was kind of a heart, with two slanted sides and a wonky top half. It looked more like a blob attached to an angle than anything else.

Ian looked up from where he was doodling on a glittery heart and snickered.

“That’s uh… that’s a good first try, Mick.”

Mickey slammed the piece of paper down onto the table. Fucking arts and crafts, he was never good at this shit even when he was little—he fingers were always too fumbling, too clumsy for him to make anything delicate and pristine. Ian’s hands should have been as ungainly as his, but instead they were quick and nimble, smoothly cutting perfectly-rounded circles and gluing neat lines of glitter.

Franny noticed that Mickey was done cutting his shape. “Good job Uncle Mickey! Now you just have to draw on it, and put on stickers and glitter.”

“Yeah Mickey, let’s see those artistic skills.”

Mickey aggressively flicked some flecks of glitter from the table in Ian’s direction, then picked up a crayon and gripped it with an iron fist. What the fuck was he supposed to draw? This was a valentine for kids at Franny’s school, the fuck did kids like anyways? He started to draw some sort of stick figure, but the arms were too long and the head was too small, so he tried to color over it and make some sort of tree or some shit…

As Mickey scratched at the paper, he looked over at noticed suddenly how content Ian looked—how blissed out and settled he was, just running a crayon over the colorful paper and shaking bits of glitter onto pools of glue. If Mickey was being honest, he hadn’t seen Ian this light and happy in a while; he’d had a hunch in his shoulders for months after the wedding and the pandemic and all the minimum-wage job bullshit, the shadows of expectation hanging over him and causing a deflated weariness in his gaze that was impossible to ignore. But right now, Ian looked like he was having as much fun as Franny was, practically vibrating with satisfaction as he put the finishing touches on his drawing and reaching to place his completed valentine in the growing pile.

Mickey snatched the paper out of Ian’s hand, slightly crumpling it around the edges. “Wait a second. How the fuck did you do that?”

The valentine was immaculate, the heart symmetrical and traced in a thin outline of glitter. In the center of the paper there was a perfect little cartoon of a dog in a top hat, with an air bubble that read “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Ian shrugged. “Watched a lot of cartoons when I was little. And I’ve always kind of liked to draw.”

Mickey shoved the valentine back in front of Ian. Goddamn perfect fucking husband who’s good at fucking everything. He crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair, suddenly losing all motivation to play along.

Ian smirked, then reached to rest a hand on the back of Mickey’s neck. “Giving up already?”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Fuck you, Gallagher.”

Ian’s smile just widened. “Here, how about I cut the fucking shapes and you glue stuff onto them. That’d still help me and Franny a lot, right?”

Franny nodded. “It’s okay Uncle Mickey, I was bad at cutting the shapes too at first.”

Mickey huffed. Okay, so maybe he was horrible at this shit, but the least he could do was suck it up for Franny’s sake. “Fine,” he muttered, and grabbed a glue stick and a bottle of glitter.

A few minutes passed and they settled into a comfortable silence, enveloped in the sound of the scissors gliding and Franny scribbling on paper.

Suddenly, Franny looked up as Mickey reached across the table to grab a pad of stickers.

“Hey Uncle Mickey, what do you and Uncle Ian do for Valentine’s Day?”

Mickey didn’t really know how to answer that question— he darted a glance over at Ian, trying to signal as much. Could you ruin the spirit of Valentine’s Day for kids in the same way you could fuck up Christmas? “Uh, nothing really.”

Ian chimed in. “We used to like Valentine’s Day when we were little like you Franny, but now that we’re big we don’t really celebrate it. Right Mick?”

“Yup.”

Franny’s brows were furrowed again, this time in contemplation. “But. You love each other, right?”

“Sure, Franny. But we don’t need a special day for us to remember that,” Ian explained.

Franny seemed appeased enough by that answer to resume her drawing. “You don’t give each other valentines or candy or anything?”

Mickey almost laughed. Of course he and Ian had never celebrated fucking Valentine’s Day; if he was being honest, he didn’t remember even really thinking about Valentine’s Day before now, other than it being a day when Mandy came home crying in middle school because the boy she liked didn’t ask her out, or buying all the half-priced chocolates in red and pink wrappers at the drugstore a week later with his brothers. With all the shit in his life the past few years, frilly fucking holidays like Valentine’s Day were just… not on Mickey’s radar.

But maybe— maybe this year was different. This year, for maybe the first time in his life, Mickey felt secure and steady in a way that he never had before, like the ground was solid beneath him and wasn’t going to cave in at any minute. He had a fucking husband that he loved—why couldn’t they celebrate Valentine’s Day like a normal goddamn couple? Ian didn’t seem to be too bothered that they both didn’t give a fuck about the holiday, which was all the more reason to catch him off guard. He kept pressing stickers down onto the construction paper, his mind starting to churn.

By the time they’d made the twenty-seven fucking valentines, Mickey had made up his mind; this year, he and Ian were going to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

part two here!

[yeah-klave]

Jungle Dreams

Written, with love, for EnKlave Fest 2021. 

Prompt: Sneaking away into the jungle. 

Genre: Smut, with a side of fluff.

Word length: 2.1k.

Warning: Explicit sexual content (18+ only, please).

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of The Umbrella Academy characters or settings.

****************************************************************

Finally out of sight and earshot of the camp, they stumbled through the undergrowth, laughing and kissing and fumbling, hands blindly pulling at clothes in their haste. Dave gently pushed Klaus against the trunk of a tree and attached his lips to Klaus’ neck.

“I didn’t think we’d ever get chance to sneak away!” Klaus gasped, tipping his head back and frantically grasping at Dave’s shoulders.

“Dramatic,” Dave breathed heavily, his lips pressing kisses along Klaus’ jawline. He took the lobe of Klaus’ ear into his mouth and sucked hard. Klaus shivered and Dave grinned, grazing his teeth along the flesh before giving it a sharp nip.

Klaus gasped and clutched at Dave, raking his fingernails through Dave’s gloriously mussed curls.

“It’s been three days, Dave,” he whined. “Three whole days. I’m practically dying here. Dying of blue balls.”

Dave huffed a laugh. “What a tragically fitting end for Vietnam’s biggest drama queen.”

He sucked a kiss into Klaus’ skin, just below the line of his collar.

“Oh, Daaa-vuh,” Klaus moaned, clawing desperately at Dave’s back. “Please can you stop being funny and charming for one second and just fuck me already?!”

Dave grinned and caught Klaus’ eye. “Certainly, your highness,” he added with a quirk of his eyebrow.

Klaus rolled his eyes, but hurriedly turned in Dave’s arms, his hands scrambling to unbuckle his pants. With a flourish, he let them drop around his ankles. Then he leaned forwards slightly, holding on to the tree trunk for support. He looked back at Dave over his shoulder and pointedly spread his legs.

Dave grinned again, leaning his head to one side and taking in the view.

Klaus huffed, his eyebrows comically crinkling together in an adorable frown.

Dave moved forwards and reverently ran his hands over the pale skin of Klaus’ ass. He gave the right cheek a proprietary little squeeze, then gave it a light slap, watching the glorious jiggle of the flesh.

“Please hurry up,” Klaus sighed, his eyes huge and beseeching.

Finally, Dave acquiesced. He couldn’t deny those eyes anything.

He dug into the deep pocket of his pants and drew out the little jar of lube. He coated his fingers, then ran the tip of one around the rim of Klaus’ hole, before gently pushing inside.

Klaus let out a deep sigh and rested his forehead against the arm he had propped against the tree.

Just as Klaus had taught him, Dave began moving his finger, methodically pressing and stretching. He pulled his finger out, stacked his index finger over his middle finger and then placed them at Klaus’ entrance, only the very tips inside.

“Squeeze, please,” he said, and Klaus sighed, but then clenched obediently around Dave’s fingertips.

“And relax,” Dave instructed after a moment. Klaus relaxed his muscles and Dave watched in admiration as both his fingers easily sank another inch inside Klaus’ body.

“I love watching you suck me inside like that,” Dave said in awe.

“Daaave,” Klaus whined, “come on.”

Dave eased his fingers the rest of the way inside and started scissoring them, gently stretching Klaus’ entrance further. Klaus let out a low moan.

“You don’t have to be so… thorough.” Klaus wheedled. “I have done this a few times before, you know. I’m good to go!”

“Or,” Dave said patiently, “we could just enjoy this bit before racing on to the next part.” He ran his other hand down the gentle curve of Klaus’ spine, ending by giving his left ass-cheek an affectionate squeeze.

“God, Klaus, I love your ass.” Dave brought his other hand around to Klaus’ front, took hold of his dick and gave it a couple of gentle tugs. “Among other things.”

Klaus moaned wantonly and spread his legs further.

Dave smiled and curled the fingers of his other hand and Klaus let out a desperate gasp.

“Please.” Klaus said shakily. “Please, Dave. I need you inside me. Now. Before they start to wonder where we are and come looking.” He swallowed thickly. “Please, Dave. I need this.”

His voice was as breathy and light as usual, but Dave could hear the undercurrent of real urgency. The genuine desperation that didn’t stem from raw sexual desire, but from the need to connect with someone. To really feel something. While they still had chance.

Dave leaned forwards and pressed a tender kiss to the exposed skin of Klaus’ shoulder, right at the juncture of his neck.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured soothingly in Klaus’ ear, “I’ve got you.”

Klaus gave an involuntary little shiver, but nodded slowly.

“I know you do,” Klaus whispered back.

Dave slowly eased his fingers out of Klaus’ body. He unbuckled his own pants and unceremoniously pulled out his achingly hard cock and quickly slicked it up.

Dave moved behind Klaus. He rand one hand down the curve of Klaus’ spine again, before taking firm hold of Klaus’ hip. Finally, holding the base of his cock with his other hand, he lined up and gently pushed inside Klaus’ body in one deliciously long, slow slide. Then, he stopped. His heartbeat was thudding in his ears and all his nerve endings were on fire. He’d never get used to that feeling. Never. Not if he did this every day for the rest of his life. Completely unparalleled bliss.

Klaus let out a long, low moan.

“Fuuuuucck, yeeeeesssss! Dave! Finally!”

Dave withdrew slowly and Klaus released a breath in a deep, satisfied exhale. Dave took hold of both Klaus’ hips and thrust in again firmly, snapping his hips as he bottomed out. Klaus gasped and his internal muscles contracted sharply around him as Dave’s cock hit that sweet spot deep inside. Dave grunted and gripped Klaus’ hips tighter.

Suddenly, all the frenetic energy from earlier came crashing back and Dave pulled out and thrust forwards again firmly, then started snapping his hips and driving into Klaus in a gloriously intense and deliciously punchy rhythm.

“Fucking finally,” Dave heard Klaus exhale between grunts of pleasure.

Below him, Dave could hear Klaus chanting his name between desperate little moans and uninhibited grunts. Dave felt a warm glow start deep in his chest, Klaus’ obvious pleasure urging him on.

Dave found his rhythm and soon lost himself to the indescribable feeling of fucking Klaus. The tight, wet slide… the sound of Klaus’ desperate panting moans and punched out grunts of pleasure… the obscene slap of skin on skin… the delicate, warm weight of Klaus’ hips under his palms… chasing his desire… succumbing to this primal need… the rough pleasure of engaging in something so base and animalistic… pure carnal instinct driving his hips forwards… sinking himself inside his partner… claiming and taking and pleasuring and pleasing and thrusting and thrusting and thrusting.

“Dave!” He heard Klaus cry urgently. He swallowed and tried again. “Fuck, Dave,” Klaus said more urgently, “I’m close.”

Without loosing his rhythm, Dave brought one hand around and started jerking Klaus’ cock in time with his own thrusts.

Klaus keened. The pitch of his voice changed. His moans became higher and he released little abortive wails on every thrust. He sounded breathless and desperate. His legs started trembling and distantly Dave was aware Klaus’ knuckles had gone white where he held onto the tree trunk for support.

Dave grunted and increased the pace of his hips, the muscles in his powerful legs tensing and straining.

“Dave!” Klaus sobbed and then, suddenly, Dave felt him tense and then the world held its breath for a second. And then Klaus released the breath he’d been holding in a long shaking exhale as his body began contracting rhythmically around Dave and his cock pulsed and twitched as he ejaculated thickly onto the jungle floor.

And then Dave’s entire word narrowed to the glorious pressure building between his legs and the roaring in his ears and the sound of Klaus’ moans and the feeling of Klaus cumming on his cock and, finally, Dave let go and fucked his release deep inside his partner in heady waves of crashing pleasure, grunting and moaning and sweating and cursing.

And then he was done. Dave felt all his muscles relax and he slumped forwards slightly over Klaus, trying to catch his breath. Klaus’ knees buckled. But, on instinct, Dave caught him and held him up firmly with one large, strong arm around his tiny waist. He planted the other against the tree trunk, anchoring them and keeping them both upright. Dave nuzzled into the soft, warm space behind Klaus’ ear, then peppered kisses down his neck and across his shoulder, licking a soothing stripe over the mark he’d sucked into Klaus’ neck earlier.

“Was that what you needed, baby?” Dave asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Klaus replied throatily. Still slumped bonelessly against the tree, barely holding himself upright save for Dave’s strong arm holding him firm. Klaus turned his head and blindly sought Dave’s lips.

Dave leaned forwards and kissed him. It was wonky and off-centre and wonderful.

Slowly, Dave pulled his softening cock out of Klaus’s body. Klaus sighed and his hole gave a delicate flutter. Dave watched a thick bead of cum ooze out and dribble thickly down the inside of Klaus’ thigh.

Dave dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief and gently cleaned the sticky mess from Klaus’ skin. He ducked down and carefully helped Klaus pull up his pants and fasten them again, then, finally, tucked himself away, refastened his own pants and snapped his belt back into place.

Leaning back against the tree, Klaus watched him fondly through half-lidded bedroom eyes, absently trailing his fingers down his neck to press lightly against the spot of darker skin. The shadow of a lost kiss.

Inches apart, Dave looked at Klaus and the satisfied expression that softened his features and gave him a radiant glow of happiness. And, once again, Dave was overcome with a wave of pure affection. He reached out and tenderly cupped Klaus’ cheek in one large, soft palm, his thumb gently rubbing the delicate skin at the corner of Klaus’ eye. Klaus blinked slowly and looked back at Dave, the expression in his eyes unmistakable.

“One day,” Dave said simply, “I’d like us to do that in a proper bed.”

“We will,” Klaus said quietly.

Dave gazed deep into Klaus eyes and was filled with the almost overwhelming urge to pour all of himself inside this man – not just his sticky, orgasmic release, but his whole heart as well.

“I want to lay you down and kiss every inch of you” Dave said reverently. “I want us to take our time. We could take all night if we wanted. And then, I want to hold you afterwards, until you fall asleep in my arms. I want to wake up the next morning to your hair in my face and your ridiculously cold feet pressed against my legs. I want all your sleepy grumbling and your morning-breath kisses. And then I want to make love to you again, in a pool of early morning light, while you’re all groggy and warm and loose-limbed and peaceful.”

“I want that too,” Klaus said, looking wistfully back into Dave’s kind, sincere eyes. “Well, we are due R&R in a few weeks…” he trailed off suggestively, his eyes scanning Dave’s face and the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile.

“The thing is,” Dave said quietly, “I don’t just want it here and now. Not just a Vietnam fling. I want it every day. Every. Single. Day. For the rest of my life.” He paused, took a deep breath and added, “I want you forever, Klaus.”

Klaus swallowed hard and took a deep shuddering breath. “Me too,” he said hoarsely. He pulled Dave’s face towards him and pressed their foreheads together and held him there, just breathing the same air. “We’ll make it work,” Klaus murmured into the space between them. “Somehow, Dave, we’ll make it work. That’s a promise.”

“Don’t,” Dave replied sadly. “You can’t promise that.”

“I just did,” Klaus said stubbornly. “And you better believe I’m not going to let the universe make a liar out of me about this. God might have written me off, but nobody should ever underestimate my selfish streak.”

Dave huffed a laugh and held him tighter. They stood quietly, just relishing the moment of peace and closeness.

“We should get back.” Dave said finally.

“Yeah, we should.” Klaus grudgingly agreed.

But neither of them made any attempt to move.

They just held on to each other and shut the world out and pretended prejudices didn’t exist and that the war was happening somewhere else to some other people.

Instead, they ran gentle hands over warm flesh and slowly kissed in a dappled green, enchanted bubble of hope and love and jungle dreams.

[bennettandyank]

Glitter Girls Keltie review!

This is my first time doing a review for this blog. I tried to cover everything. Sadly I do not have other 14 inch dolls (like Wellie Wishers) to compare her to, but from what I have seen they can swap clothes perfectly.

Keltie, as I mentioned above, is a 14 inch Glitter Girls doll. She has dark skin, dark brown wavy hair, and brown eyes. She retails for $21.99 from the Glitter Girls store, but is currently out of stock. I bought mine from Mercari for $16 plus $11 shipping. She was new in the box, but I did not take pictures of it.

Keltie comes wearing an outfit consisting of a pink t-shirt, blue ombré skirt, leggings, Mary Jane shoes, and a white bow. True to the name Glitter Girls, every single piece of the outfit has glitter.

The shirt features what I believe is an exclamation point. It has a geometric design inside. The sleeves are sewn so that they look cuffed, which I think is a nice detail. The triangles in the middle of the shirt are in gold glitter, however I did not notice this glitter shedding. The material is rather thin, but she’s a $20 doll. I’ll manage. I give it an A. It’s cute and simple, and has decent mix and match potential.

The skirt is a blue ombré skirt. She wears it quite high on her waist, and it stops above the knee. It has a glitter trim. I didn’t notice this glitter shedding either while I handled her. A+ This is my favorite part of her meet outfit. The quality is good for the price and I think it’s very pretty, and again has good potential to mix and match.

She wears white leggings with a geometric triangle print in blue, pink, and gold glitter. Due to the way these are sewn, most of the pink triangles can’t be seen on her legs, which is a shame. The glitter on these did shed a bit when I removed them. I give them a B- for shedding and not being able to see the pink triangles.

Her shoes are white Mary Janes that are absolutely covered in glitter. I liked these in the stock photo because white Mary Janes can go with so many different outfits. However, these shed pretty bad.

I also absolutely cannot get one of the shoes to buckle properly. The other one closes fine but this shoe will not. You can see here that the shoe has shed glitter onto her skin. Shoes get a C+ because they shed and don’t close, but are saved by still being good for mix and matching for photos.

I forgot to take a close-up of her bow. It’s white glitter and is on an alligator clip. It doesn’t shed. A

Keltie’s brown eyes are pretty and detailed. They do not open and close. She has eyelashes, and you can probably tell that the one on the right here was glued on a little wonky.

The wonkiness is even more evident in bright lighting. I may use tweezers and try to pull them off and glue them on straighter.

Keltie’s face paint is bright, but natural. Her eyebrows are long and thin. They remind me of Josefina’s eyebrows.

Her ears are about as detailed as an average AG doll in my opinion. I think her side profile is quite cute.

Her hair is a little wild when taken out of its ponytail. She doesn’t have a part in her hair, so I think having her hair up, or at least half up, might be the best move. However, it is incredibly soft, and surprisingly thick.

Her waves are not very neat. I kind of want to put curlers in her hair and see how it turns out.

Her hair is rooted and her scalp is painted black, but with white lines that can be seen wherever you try to part her hair.

I have hit the 10 image limit so stay tuned for part 2!

[kashuan]

All right, there are quite a few things that come to mind with a question as broad as this, so here’s my best attempt to sum up what character design means to me in like 5 minutes :,D. I’m going to start with a few very quick sketches that talk about more my general approach to drawing, but I’m going to build up to how it all connects with character.

Step 1) Find reference! Whenever you can, use reference, it will always make your character’s posing look 100 times more genuine than anything you can pull from your brain, and that’s nothing to feel bad about. It’s not cheating because we’re not stopping at Step 2 either, which is where the misnomer comes in that you’re just ‘copying’ (protip: even step 2 isn’t a straight Copy; as long as you’re not tracing, you’re not copying, and even tracing has its uses for personal studies). I could do a whole answer of it’s own about picking your reference, but I’ll keep it short by saying: not every reference will fit every character. Keep in mind your character’s attitude when choosing your ref. Some poses are so generic they’re one size fits all, but even this very simple pose has unique character to it. The way the legs are posed, to me, gives it a young and girlish feeling, and depending how you played with the expression, you could even make it come off shy. An overbearingly confident character, while also taking an arms crossed pose, will likely position their legs differently, assuming a stance that takes up more space, etc.

Step 2) Draw pretty much exactly what you see first, but keep it simple. Think of the body like individual shapes; anatomy is not the focus right now, and you’ll actually hinder yourself if you hone in on that first. What you want to do at this stage is capture what the pose is generally doing; character isn’t involved yet Step 3) Now, working off 2′s framework, start considering body type. If you skip the previous step, you might have a hard time capturing the gesture correctly, since it’s a lot for your brain to juggle at once. When I sketched these two different body types, I built it straight off the first drawing, erasing lines as needed.

So the first image includes some extremely basic body type variations, this one pushes that idea further. 1 is the basic frame from the last image, while 2 is about playing with proportions. There are a lot of ways you can play with proportions, and as I’ll come to sound like a broken record about: make those decisions thoughtfully. For example, when I made this version shorter than the reference base, I had to consider exactly where I wanted her to lose that height. Here, I made her shorter waisted, took a little length from the legs, and gave her a squatter neck as well. You can do one of these or all of them. Just keep in mind those are all individual options. Letting your train of thought stop at ‘this character is short/tall so I’m just going to generally shrink/stretch their body’ means you’ll run out of variety pretty fast, and sometimes the overall proportions can end up looking wonky (though there’s always exceptions to the rule, remember that the individual body parts should remain correctly scaled in relation to each other). Image 3 is another approach to proportional manipulation, except rather than focusing on height, it focuses on fat distribution and to a lesser extent bone structure. Again, there’s so many individual places you can focus on here, make sure to mix them up. Arm size, shoulder broadness, chest and hip size, leg thickness and musculature, foot and hand size and so forth.   Image 4 is a further exaggeration of image 3 and the lines have started to get a little more stylized. While image 3 is still reasonably realistic, 4 is just starting to cross into cartoon territory. Advantage of 4 is that when you are able to push the proportions further due to the leniency of style, you can sell a clearer idea and a clearer character. Downside is, well, it looks more cartoonish now, and depending on the needs of your image that might not be what you want ie: it can look like a mistake rather than a purposeful choice if everyone else around the character is drawn more realistically.

Also… I see variations on this general advice quite a lot for women, but don’t forget about doing the same for men. It’s great to see how eager a lot of artists are to experiment with the female form that is simply absent in a lot of mainstream media, but I find that men really tend to fall by the wayside here even though they often get equally shallow treatment in the mainstream. There’s usually like 2-3 ‘go-to’ body types for men and that’s it. Men’s bodies can have the exact same amount of variety as a woman’s, including the individual ways the fat can be distributed on it, and the assorted ways their proportions can be played with. Whenever I find an artist that does this it’s like striking gold to me tbh. 

So there’s some very rough hows. But, perhaps even more importantly than any of that, is WHY you make these choices. This is going to get a little stream of consciousness, but with a question this broad, I tried to hit on as many general points I could think of in regard to my own process.

-When I start to design a character, I really need to have an understanding of them first. This includes things like backstory, personality, habits, so and so forth… Yes, all of this stuff shows up in their design, even if it’s just a drawing of them standing straight up. This isn’t just like ‘this character got this scar at age 7 so I need to know where it goes′, I mean in depth info about them. I touched on this a little bit earlier, bringing up the different ways a character would assume the same general pose, but let me expand on that. -What do I mean by personality? So there’s the most obvious answer, which is that a bubbly character will assume bubbly poses, a sullen character will slouch more, etc… But let’s take it further than that. This is a concept I’ve touched on in past tutorials, but here’s a quick recap. A character’s personality involves their opinions, for one; how do you make that show up in their design? Well, one of the most obvious questions I always ask myself is: what is their opinion on their own appearance (the thing we are drawing)/how do they want to be perceived by others? Consider a strong character. I see a lot of artists who take this thought as far as: okay, this character is strong, so I’m gonna throw a 6 pack on him, maybe a nice pair of guns, and call it a day. Which leads to like, nice art, but also...kind of bland? I think that’s because this is a rather half-baked approach. How can we take it further? Ask yourself more specific questions. Is your strong character concerned with being perceived as an ‘ideal’ sort of fit by others (the type you give that showy 6 pack to) or does that not matter to them? (more likely to look ‘chubby’ if not outright fat, though probably is just as if not more capable of actually doing some real heavy lifting than saran wrapped abs man). If they’re some kind of mystical being that can look like whatever they want (ie: the anime waif that can also lift 1000 lbs-trope), you should still take into account their personal perspective on appearance. Don’t just stop at ‘this guy/girl is strong so they’ll look super shredded’ or ‘they’re magic so I’ll do whatever’. Doing this, you’ve instantly lost a chance to inform the audience more about the individual there beyond ‘they’re strong’ -Break it down further with their habits. What is their daily life like? If they’re running ten miles every day they should probably have some strong looking legs. If their job involves a lot of lifting, maybe focus on the upper body more and leave the legs less defined. Do they eat a lot? Or drink? The way the fat distributes in both these cases will be noticeably different (and this isn’t even taking into account points like an endomorph vs an ectomorphs body, which I always suggest reading up on). I’d definitely recommend drawing as many different body types as you can just as studies, in order to add these variations to your mental library. I’m sure every artist has seen this popular athlete line up by now, but really study images like this. Don’t just mindlessly copy what you see when you create your own characters though; think about why those athletes have the bodies they have, what they specifically did to get them like that, and how that can apply to your character’s own life. -One thing that has always bothered me is how often artists are afraid to use the head (not the features; I’ll get to that in a second) as an extension of the body when it comes to imbuing it with variety and character. While it is absolutely possible to have a thin face and a fat body (as is any combo), it’s another missed opportunity not to experiment with chubby cheeks, a soft jawline, etc. It’s a cliche to mention him at this point as an inspiration, but one of my very favorite things about Mucha’s art was how he was able to make fuller faces look so beautiful despite being a rather nontraditional approach (so many art books try to tell you this is a big NO). example, example. These faces actually look like real individuals to me than a drawing that focuses too hard on being generically aesthetically pleasing. -So, facial features. A face with less traditional features isn’t just going to be more memorable than Stock Beautiful Face #73, but it’s basically a more zoomed in version of informing the audience about the character in the same way the body does. -Know tropes, play with tropes, do not rely on tropes. Sunken bone structure, long features-guy will always pretty much read like a villain (or at least someone off-putting), but find somewhere to make the formula your own. Give him thicker eyebrows or big ears. Give the girl with the standard doll-face a nose that sticks out a little more prominently or a crooked smile. -Speaking of are so many different ways to draw a smile, do not underestimate the mileage you can get out of this one feature alone. Artists tend to have a favorite way to draw smiles, in my experience, but remember your character. Would they have a big toothy grin, a handsome ‘cool’ looking smile, a small shy lopsided one, ones that touch the eyes, ones that don’t… This is probably a repetitive point by now but just do whatever you can not to draw the exact same feature on two different characters, and make sure to think through your reasoning for every choice you make. To me, it’s always immediately evident if an artist really knows their character or if they’re just trying to make something aesthetically pleasing. The former is always more attention grabbing in my opinion. -One of my favorite things to consider when designing a character who’s part of a family: genetics and how you can play with them to inform the audience more about the character’s story. Does this character take after their mother or father? How? Why? Why why, you might ask? This isn’t a photo of a real person, this is an illustration that you should be making deliberate choices about every step along the way. It’s one thing to draw a character that looks like their parent simply because logic dictates they should, another to make meaningful decisions as to where and why they do. Some examples: He has his father’s eyes because they carry the same intensity and other characters are a little put off by him because it (conversely, maybe he’s such a gentle character that this detail stands out twice as strongly). He has the same hair as his father, but he styles it differently to avoid the association. She has her mother’s nose which everyone compliments her on so shes happy to be seen in profile. She has her father’s broad shoulders and she’s a little self conscious about it so she tends to wear baggier clothing. Etc etc! In all these cases, you can communicate these details through even a simple drawing of the character standing alone, and should try to as often as you can. -In the end, the only way you’re going to know how to draw all these different details, whether they be different body types or different facial features, is by studying real people. Draw as many different kinds as you can, add them to your mental library. Your reference will never give you everything you need to work it, and I’m not sure if that’s maybe what this question as getting at-- if I have a reference folder of go-to ‘types’ or something. I don’t. I have a folder of poses labeled with characters I think they’d fit, and that’s about it. If you’re just imitating what you see in a photo, you’ll always be drawing That Person, not Your Character. So you are going to have to pull some of it out of your brain. Note, however, the important difference between just ‘making it up’ and recalling information you’ve studied in the past. That said, while on this last topic of expanding your mental library, that includes not just doing studies, but also learning and observing the ways other accomplished artists work. Here are some of my book recommendations when it comes to those which have most helped me in regard to this particular subject. This includes books that specifically tell you how to vary your body types, but also ones that just have a lot of examples of different kinds: Morpho: Anatomy for Artists Morpho: Fat and Skin Folds Famous Artists School Course in Illustration and Design (If anyone is interested in this one and has trouble finding a non $500 copy, hit me up and I’ll help you out) Spirit of the Pose Anatomy Lessons from the Great Masters Drawing People: How to Portray the Clothed Figure Figures from Life (my favorite currently; not the most varied array of figures but he goes in depth on how to successfully grow an academic study of a model into an illustration influenced by your own ideas and personal style) If you found this answer helpful, although it isn’t specifically about character design, I go a little more in depth about some of the topics I briefly covered here (such as choosing the right reference, good vs bad reference in general, honing in on shapes, pushing the pose, etc) in this short book of mine :>

[pollylynn]

Billet Doux, Chapter 2—A Season Two Caskett WIP

Title: Billet Doux, Chapter 2 WC: 1100

A/N: An insert for Sucker Punch (2 x 13) 

She camps out in the laundry room’s lone chair while her clothes churn back and forth in the washer. She has smuggled her still-damp jeans and blouse down a basket full of non–blood soaked clothes and forced herself to throw the whole lot in together. It’s sensible. It would not be sensible to afford them—the two offending items—their own damned machine.It would give them more power than they already have, and it turns out they have a lot of power. So she is sensible and a good citizen of her apartment building to boot. She shoves the entire load into the one washer sufficient to her sensible needs and camps out like she’s guilty of something. 

She is guilty of something, of course. She ended a man’s life. The fact comes to her that way for the first time as she rocks without rhythm from the chair’s three level legs on to the single wonky one. It comes to her that way as she studies the blur of suds and dark fabric tossed on stormy seas behind the machines’s glass front. 

She has regrets. That is astonishingly gross understatement for the complex and potent mix of emotions roiling just beneath the surface, but that’s the part she’s ready to acknowledge right now. She regrets with a pain that is sharp, deep, and constant that she ended Dick Coonan’s life before she could learn anything more about who ordered her mother’s murder. 

She remembers with a burning mix of fury, shame, and embarrassment the first slash of that regret. She remembers the thick, sickening pump of Coonan’s blood beneath her hands and shock of her own scalding tears. But here, with the unsteady tick of a metal chair leg against cracked tile—with the regular shug, shug, shug, of the washer—she regrets taking a man’s life.

That part is belated, and she feels a new kind of shame. She feels a deep uncertainty about herself a cop—as a human—that it’s taken her a day to come around to that. It’s too heavy for the laundry room. It’s too much, and she feels the press of a decade of loss inside her own chest. 

Her phone dings just then. 

She almost jumps out of her skin. The wonky chair nearly goes over entirely backwards and she has a deeply unpleasant flash of memory featuring Sarah Manning and tragic, accidental head wounds in the laundry room. She rights herself at the last second, and the moment is . . . weirdly cathartic. That hot-skin prickle of fear all over her body pops some kind of release valve, and if she’s not actually smiling when she digs the phone out—if her heart is still thumping without rhythm in her chest—she is something closer to centered. 

Full day? Alphabetizing your Russian literature? 

It makes her laugh. The asinine specificity of it—the fact that it’s a dig and a compliment at the same time—makes her laugh loud enough that the sound bounces around the room. 

It’s 9:30 am. Dewey decimal-ed all that after my 10K, before breakfast. 

The washer whirrs to a drum-shaking stop. She pockets the phone and makes herself ignore the second, damned near immediate ding as she separates out what can go In the dryer and what she’’ll take upstairs to toss over the rickety drying rack she needs to replace. She holds up the jeans and tries to decide if the dark color on the damp thighs is imaginary or not. She bundles them into the basket with half a dozen other things and shoves the rest into the dryer. 

She lines up her quarters and gives the silver tongue of the coin slot a shove to set things tumbling. She eyes the damp clothes in the basket, then the wonky chair. It should be no contest. Her tailbone is already griping about the forty-five minutes she’s spent with little but cracked vinyl between her and the plywood seat. 

She launches herself back into it anyway, though. She slips the phone from her pocket and tips herself over on to the wonky leg. She tips herself as far back on two legs as she dares and peeks down at his reply. 

Library talk? Why, Detective, I don’t think I’ve ever sexted before noon . . . 

She blushes. It’s a stupid comment—dorky in the extreme—but it makes her blush and press the phone face down against her thigh for long enough that he must think he’s crossed a line. The phone dings again, and when she flips it screen up, he’s backing off at speed. 

Anyway. Won’t bother you. 

There’s a pause not quite long enough for her to kick herself for locking up for no good reason, other than the fact that she’s not sure whether she’s imaging the dark discoloration on the thighs of her damp jeans. The phone dings again. 

Glad you’re keeping busy. 

Laundry, her thumbs tap out, and there’s a spiritual exclamation point. There’s a plaintive cry and a follow-up. Staring into the tumble-dry void. 

It’s a bit much. It’s more than a bit much, but she doesn’t want him to go. She wants company. She wants his company, but the phone stays silent until she’s on the verge of propping the basket on her hip and heading upstairs. There’s a ding just as the wonky short leg thunks against the cracked tile. 

What’s your tumble-dry mantra? 

Her eyes dart to the machine’s glass front. She hears the metal-on-metal report of zippers and buttons. She thinks of the washer’s shug, shug, shug. She shakes her head, laughing again, because it is meditative, camping out here. It might also be messed up hyper-vigilance about a set of clothes no one in the world would recognize as recently blood soaked, but it’s meditative and not entirely at odds with the reason she said yes to the Captain’s offer of a few days to herself. She closes her eyes and lets sounds of the tumbling drum fill her mind.

She opens them again and grins hard as she taps out her reply: Brassiere. 

She lets it land. She bites her lip and makes herself wait for a long count of five before she follows it up with Yours? complete with the most innocent question mark  in the history of question marks.

It’s more than a long count of five before he replies. It’s more than a long count of five fives before the screen flares. 

Same. How weird is that? A/N: See? Another short chapter where nothing much happens. Brain Poneh gonna Brain Poneh. 

[honestlyfrance]

Summaries :) I’ve always had trouble deciding how to summarise my story but make it very intresting so people want to carry on and read it

hi, anon! Thanks for the ask 💕 having trouble with summaries is a common thing I have too

summaries

Fun fact, you can write summaries however you like to! My summaries were wonky at first because being on AO3 was alien to me at that moment since I was so new to the platform, which was why I write summaries in two ways. Firstly, you need to know two things:

a) Don't spoil in the summary. One thing that peeves me (and maybe others) off is that the major turning point in a story is said, which sucks because then I know how it's going to end. Your summary, the back of the book kind, should have: characters and their role, setting, and major conflict/goal. You can set the major conflict in a question or any way you like, as long as you don't spoil any other small detail or plot twist.

Here's an example of mine to give you an idea:

The twenty-year long partnership between Agent Sam Wilson and Agent James Barnes comes to an end when a promising lead on their cold case, the Missing Carol Danvers, arises, but on their way to Louisiana, obstacles are stacked, secrets are spilled, and tension is thick in the air. Now they must ask a question to themselves: Will I stay, or will I leave this place?

Full name, time setting, place, their roles in the story, and their goal. That's what English class teaches you, and it definitely doesn't mean you should go all out. If you read your summary as a reader and it reels you in, it should work flawlessly for others too.

b) Now you get the usual AO3 kind, or the "excerpt + or + sentence summary." or "excerpt" kind. A cool trick to pull this off, if your opening line is good enough to reel in readers (which it should) you can use that alone! Another thing is if you're going to use this kind of summary, is that you shouldn't use anything that spoils the entirety of the work. To get this output, you can use a dialogue piece that gets you excited and all hyped up, because if it works for you, it will definitely work for others.

Example for you:

"I love art," Sam had signed in ASL, his hands moving enthusiastically as Bucky held onto every word, and it's a tragedy really, when the brown in Sam's eyes had a glint of yellow in them when the sunset settled in them beautifully. "I'm a tour guide actually. Studied it all my life."

Bucky had nodded, his grin almost contagious as he watched the light from the plane window outline Sam's features as if a mosaic. "Do you make art yourself?" He spoke carefully, and his ASL was wonky at best, but Sam appreciated every move of his fingers and lips.

Sam smiled, mouthing, "I wish."

OR

Sam Wilson is in love with art and a sergeant named Bucky Barnes.

It probably won't reel you in the work, but it definitely reveals a lot of things without having too many details stacked upon another.

Overall tip: If your work has a discernible goal and stakes, then use the first tip up there. If it's just your cute lil drabble or one-shot with no discernable goal, you can use the excerpt kind.

I hope this helps you out 💖

-

ask for writing advice?

[oggyfromthebog]

HOLD! WHO GOES THERE? WHY, IS THAT [OGGY BOGWNWAYNE] THE

 [CRIMINAL SCUM] OF [FAHALUNE]? THEY DO LOOK [RAGGED] FOR A [MAN] OF [648] YEARS. DON’T THEY CALL [HIM] THE [JAUNTY AND  WELL-CONNECTED SCREW UP]? I’VE HEARD THEY’RE ALSO [BOORISH AND THICK-HEADED] THOUGH. DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT BUT THEY DO LOOK AN AWFUL LOT LIKE [JOE GILGUN].

Additional Info

Criminal Ties: While not a criminal mastermind Oggy has connections. Is your character involved in smuggling, laundering, selling drugs, unfortunately for your character Oggy is your regular plug. Or your one option to turn to in anycase. He’s also available for thievery, intimidations, inflicting wanton violence, and general mischief.

Best friends, just about, maybe: Oggy just adores your character, looks up to them or is incredibly attracted to them and as such tries very hard to impress them and convince them how similar you both are. He may not have success with that and ends up more as a toady then a ride or die best friend.

Every Cousin’s got a cousin: Oggy is mostly elf, a little human on his mother’s side, and somehow tangentially related to the great house of Fahalune, and a few of its crime families though most would rather ignore this distant cousin he could pop up and remind your character that blood is thicker than water and couldn’t your character set him up with a new job, some cash or a place to stay. Yeah you’re related, he swears, probably.

Drinking/Fighting Buddy: Oggy has a tendency to over indulge, it gets him in trouble sometimes it gets other people in trouble. Your character could be involved. 

We all owe somebody: Oggy also indulges in the vice of gambling, he always manages to have money but rarely keeps it. Your character may be looking to collect a debt, or if he was lucky once he’d be looking to collect from your character.

Optional Info

He has multiple scars and multiple tattoos. Most notable are the scars on his face bisecting his right eyebrow, one clipping his nostril, and one trailing from the corner of his mouth to his chin that sometimes makes him dribble when he drinks.

He has a right eye he describes as ‘wonky’ from getting it cut then healed wrong. The magic “didn’t take right” and like a bad knee that swells and hurts when the weather is bad his eye gets cloudy when it’s bad out.

While technically part of a lesser house he’s never been noble in anysenes. Growing up with organized crime rampant in his port city he took more to the streets. His lesser house never had much in the way of reputation and funds anyway, connections were nice but he still had to fend for himself.

He’s got animal-bonding to some extent, and before teachers gave up on him they thought he could have been a dragon-rider, or at least a gryphon-rider. After problems attending regularly and fighting during magic classes--plus subsequent injuries--that avenue is closed to him.

After failing at dragon riding he’s wondering if someone could teach him how to channel animal-bonding into berserking magic.

Physical Description

HEIGHT: 6’4”

HAIR COLOR: Messy Brown

EYE COLOR: Golden Hazel, Except when the right is Milky White

GENDER: Male

BUILD: Wiry and Tall

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES?: Pointed Elf Ears notched in places, Multiple tattoos, Multiple scars. One notable scar bisecting his eyebrow and running partly down his face.

ANY HEALTH RELATED ISSUES?: Partial blindness in his one eye. 

Personality

Oggy doesn't have a steady job, he picks up the odd one when he can. People who want things done know how to contact him. He's survived this long making a less than legal living, and intends to do so for as long as he is able.

Oggy’s look is distinct, with a notched pointed ear, multiple scars and tattoos, and an eye that works only half the time so much so that Oggy leans into his intimidating features. In his typical line of business it is more lucrative to be scary than goofy as he’d otherwise look.

Oggy is not big on ideals or responsibilities. He’s not a cruel person by any means but he does look out for himself and his own comfort above all else. Not mean, just self centered and lacking a strong moral code.

Oggy is an animal appreciator but also a pragmatist when it comes to meals. 

History

Oggy was born a moderately privileged elf who squandered away opportunities to succeed on the straight and narrow path. Not much happened in his early life that he would consider important. He struggled with motivation for schooling, found an easier path with friends of the family in the organized crime side of the port city he grew up in. Failed out, grew up, disappointed his parents, but still swings by for family dinners and to cause problems on purpose. 

There was always a question in his youth if his biological father was the father he knew since birth, the one his mother married. Neither Bogwnwayne parent seemed to care about monogamy, neither was very good about family conversations, but his mom was the more open one by far. Because of this he’s wary of certain philandering council members, and how related he really is to a portion of the Vae population.

Being gifted in the animal-bonding magic and a city boy in his bones, the majority of the animals he’s been exposed to appart from the meal have been rats. Predominantly rats, but also street dogs, and street cats. May have affected his outlook a bit. 

[emsartwork]

I hope its not too much of an ask, but what would be like a "typical traditional dress" of each of the winx home planets? Like, I know modern and interplanetar fashion is mostly worn, but what about like a dress that just screams *insert planet*?

omg yes!!! ive been wanting to talk about this for a while lol thank you for indulging me

all of the girls are drawn as the princesses of their respective planets(even the ones who aren’t princesses), excluding tecna who is drawn as the queen of zenith because the royalty there is based on intelligence and not bloodline.(and also because tecna will def become queen lbr)

lynphea has very temperate climates, not too cold but not too hot. the land is primarily covered in forests and prairie, with a moderate level of variation in hill and valley heights. the costline is ragged with many inlets and port cities, as well as many many sources of fresh water inland. Lynphean clothing is primarily made with natural fibers and dyed with various plant and animal substances. though many dyes of lynphea could produce VERY vibrant colors, they prefer to leave their cloth in more subdued colors. 

lynphean traditional dress consists of a light colored stand up collar shirt with lighter cuffs, dark loose pants gathered at the ankle, and simple flat bottom shoes(or none at all), and is all gender neutral. in warm weather they wear cotton or linen as a short sleeve shirt, with loose and breathable silk pants, with flats usually made of bees-waxed fabric(to water proof) with a leather sole. in cooler weather they wear a long sleeve silk shirt over a woolen undershirt, with wool pants and leather boots. Lynphean royal dress(floras outfit here is based off of krystal’s dress at the sovereign’s council) consists of a loose shirt/dress over pants with metal accents, and a sleeveless floor length coat featuring a high detailed collar. The lynphean circlets are two parts, one on the head and one around the shoulders, both are tied in the back with cords and are made of a uniquely flexible metal called lynphenite. The heir’s circlet’s have an orange stones and the sovereign’s have blue.

lynphea is the only one that i didn’t base off of another culture, which might be why its a little more plain lol

Melody has a varied climate, leaning a little more towards cold than warm, but some areas can approach tropical. The topography is full of mountains and valleys, and people live where they can. the coast has many many small islands scattered around it before stretching out into open sea. fresh water is available primarily in the form of rivers. Melodian clothing is primary made of silk and hemp equivalents that leave the cloth in strong colors from the beginning. They can produce very strong dyes, but a sign of wealth is having clothing in pure white which is very hard to achieve with traditional methods.

Melodian traditional clothing consists of a wrapped tunic/robe with a belt, over tight or wide legged pants, and slippers. Its mostly gender neutral, thought men tend not to wear as wide belts/sashes.  In warm weather they wear a short robe over fitted capris and slippers, they tend to wear brighter/warmer colors in the summer and spring. In colder weather they wear a long robe, usually layered over another robe or wide pants(not pictured), with an unfastened coat of thick woven fibers. Melodian royal dress (i VERY VERY loosely based what musa is wearing off of Galatea’s outfit at the sovereign’s council) consists of many many layers of snow white cloth trimmed in gold, its really hard to do anything in traditional royal dress so its only really worn for ceremonies and hyper formal events.

I based Melodian clothing off of chinese and japanese clothing.

Solaria has a warm to VERY WARM climate.  The land is very largely covered in desert, the only spots of life are surrounding a river or oasis. the coast is full of river deltas and is the where the most cities are located. Solaria has a near constant rain storm at the northern pole due to their wonky rotation. It is the source of most of their rivers, and living in that area is considered impossible. their clothing is primarily made of linen and is incredibly light. They have mostly blue or orange/red dyes.

Solaria traditional dress consists of a light linen dress fastened at the chest or shoulders, a belt of leather or metal, and leather strap sandals. It is all gender neutral. In warm weather, solarians wear short tunics draped from the shoulder. In the odd cool weather, they wear a long, short sleeved dress, with a draped vest. leather is more common than metal in cold weather. Solarian royal dress(stella’s dress here is based off her episode 1 dress before she and blood get to alfea) consists of a long long dress or short tunic, with a long, colored sash/wrap over it. metal accessories at the waist and collar are common. the crown  of the solarian heir has no jewels, but the sun and moon crowns feature white/blue and yellow/orange gems.

I based the solarian clothing off of ancient greek, roman, and egyptian clothing

Andros is MOSTLY ocean, and has a climate similar to earth’s, warm in the middle cold at the poles. Islands are spread all over the planet but most of the population lives on the largest cluster and have a lot of bridges and ferries through them. Their clothing is made of linen and silk, as well as a planet specific fabric called tidal-web which is mostly water resistant. a lot of it is actually knitted instead of woven leaving no seems. They have MANY dyes and prefer bright colors.

Androsian traditional clothing is a bright thigh or knee length shirt, is belted at the waist, over darker pants gathered into a cuff below the knee, with leather, strapy sandals or boots; there is gold embroidery everywhere. Gender neutral. In warm weather the shirts are sleeveless and the pants shorter, both are made of linen or tidal-web. in colder weather they wear a short sleeve tunic over a cuffed long sleeve. the pants are thicker and have more fabric but are still gathered into a cuff. the leather androsians use is generally seal leather, and is used for shoes and belts, and sometimes coats. Androsian royalty wear a longer tunic over silk pants. The tunic is usually more complex with more embroidery or a different cut to the sleeves. The heir and the king/queen related to the ocean also wear a draped, pinned, floor length vest. 

I based these outfits off of other androsians I’ve drawn, but I think i based the original version of Aisha’s parents off of Afghan clothing.

Zenith has a very cold climate, most of the planet is tundra or glacier. where there is land, they have some impressive mountain ranges and a lot of the zenithian cities are actually inside the mountains in cave systems. the coastline suffers frequent cold storms in the winter and much of the population there are summer only. Zenithian clothing is made of cotton, wool, fur, and leather. They use knit as often, if not more, than woven material. They have very few plant based dyes, and are limited to purple and green. 

Zenithian traditional clothing consists of a front fastened, collared, shirt, a fur lined coat, and wool trousers with leather boots. they’re pretty gender neutral, women will sometimes wear a skirt instead of pants, but this isn’t preferred as its leaves legs cold. In warm weather they wear a light coat over a cotton long sleeve, the pants are a loose wool, and the boots are water proofed leather.They usually wear darker colors in the summer. In cold weather they wear fur hats, wool scarves, knitted undershirts, sweaters, a fur lined wool/leather coat, wool thermals, leather/wool pants, and waterproofed leather boots with metal grits on the bottom to grip ice. Zenithian royalty is determined by intelligence, so even if your dad is the king of zenith you might not be the prince/princess. The King/Queen formal wear consists of the Spark of Zenith head-dress(the crown basically), a collared shirt, with metalic fibers woven in, a fur lined, metal accented coat, a metal collar/chest plate, pants, and leather/metal boots.

I based the zenithian clothing on russian and mongolian traditional clothing.  

Domino has a unique climate as its totally dependent on the topography. The planet is covered in high, high mountains, and most peaks are uninhabitable. The people of domino live in the more temperate valleys between the mountain ranges. The coast line is a lot of sheer cliffs, but where some valleys meet the ocean there are thriving port cities. Their clothing is made of cotton, linen, leather, and wool, as well as a planet specific clothing called dragon’s-breath, which is light while still being very warm. They have access to a few dyes, and mostly stick to light/bright colors, or leave cloth undyed.

Dominian traditional dress for women consists of a shirt and skirt, made of either linen, cotton, or dragon’s-breath, with a leather corset and shoes. The men would simple substitute pants and a vest. In warm weather, they wear the most basic set of shirt and skirt, with a leather under/over bust leather corset, and water proof leather shoes. the sleeves are often rolled up and the skirts are occasionally hiked up to the knee depending on the heat. IN cooler weather the shirt and skirt are made of dragons-breath, providing warmth with out heaviness. the shirt is ruched and fastened up all the way. an over skirt is also added consisting of moisture wicking wool and a contrasting trim. the corset is leather and lined with cotton. Dominian royalty (bloom’s dress is completely made up here) have a shirt with invisible fasteners, and a long skirt. The over skirt is replaced by a draped floor length vest under the embroidered leather corset. The sleeves are full and gathered along the upper arm with a ribbon that matches the cuff holding the sleeve to the wrist. Dominian royalty hand make their crowns so each one is different.

I based Dominian fashion on medieval europe, specifically scotland/ireland, with a few chinese aspects thrown in(because the great dragon looks more like an eastern dragon despite being associated with fire???) 

lmao this was probably more than you wanted but i love worldbuilding so much sry