#also i have art block and most of them are art requests

[psystirene]

asks are temporarily closed due to paranoia reasons, they will reopen eventually (i will still respond to current asks at some point but,,, i'm lowkey going to be staying off tumblr for at least a few days)

[meo-eiru]

🌸Welcome🌸

⋆˚✿˖° About me °˖✿˚⋆

I'm Meru, she/her, 19 years old. I mostly draw my original yanderes. I'm still new to writing instead of telling my stories purely through art so please bear with me :D

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‼️Minors DNI‼️

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‼️This account contains yandere and non-con content, if you are uncomfortable with these topics please block me‼️

While I am ok with most things I won't be answering asks that are too personal. While all traumas, coping mechanisms, sexual identities and experiences deserve being recognized, I'm not a professional and can make mistakes handling certain topics.

I read every single ask I get, sometimes it's hard thinking of an answer for them or something similar has been asked before so please don't take it personally if I fail to reply to you. Also while I sometimes reply to certain asks about my OCs with drawings, I don't take requests so please don't request me to draw a certain type of character.

I'm ok with you making fanart, fanfic or other fan content of my characters as long as you credit me and you are free to tag me if you want me to see it!

Please don't send me asks and/or dms just saying "hello", talking about how your day went or how you are feeling.

!!Before you send an ask about Silas or Elias!!

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[nicoleknives]

Sorry for disappearing, I still plan on doing some requests! Right now, I'm having a bit of an art block, but I want to plan a comic with Shane (18+), so part of my brain is focused on that.

About the requests, I'm not sure if I'll be able to do every single one, but I'll try my best to do most of them. You guys gave me some really cool ideas for drawings, and I get excited just thinking about making them. Please feel free to keep sending them, or anything at all! I also can answer any question you guys may have!

Anyway, here's a WIP/sketch for you!

[stave-writes]

hello!! may i request mitrun and thistle(separately) x artist!reader who is very interested in their appearance, but hides it very well. most of the time they did not notice the reader's interest in their appearance(and they don't really notice the reader either lol), but one day, approaching the reader from behind to discuss something, they make some very high-quality sketches with them?? I hope this is not a very long request and don't forget to drink water!! :)

Mithrun & Thistle (Seperately) x Artist!GN!Reader

Word Count: 555

So sorry about how long this took to come out! Been fighting writer's block but the power of Mithrun debut (!!!!!) is forcing me to make sure I'm up to date with requests ^^

Also in terms of writing Thistle, I view them as mentally still underage so this will be platonic for them, sorry to disappoint at all ^^'

Mithrun could never understand why you look at him like you do, with a gaze full of curiosity and hiding behind your sketchbook when he catches you. Was there something in his hair? Did he do something to upset you? He tended not to pay you any mind, after all, he didn't care about much anymore. So, when asked by a mutual friend to go talk to you, he wasn't exactly against it.

He'd chosen to approach you from behind, simply to see how you'd react. It was funny seeing people jump or flinch when he teleported behind them, even if he didn't have a desire to play around like a child. So, he'd appeared behind you, face leaning right over your shoulder and opening his mouth to speak before he saw it. A...sketch of him?

It made more sense now, that you'd been watching him so often, that you were always face first in your sketchbook when he was around. You'd been drawing him, and he wasn't against it. In fact, the amount of detail was impressive, even if the visible bags under his eyes and the gauntness of his face did make him recoil just a bit.

"Good job." Was his quiet mutter, turning to look you in the face while you were visibly dying with a mix of surprise and embarrassment that you'd been caught by the very man who filled pages and pages of your sketchbook. A smile couldn't help but rise on his face, chuckling softly as he moved away from your personal space. It seemed he mulled his words for a second before shrugging, speaking plainly, "Someone sent me to come get you, said they have a message for you."

And with that deadpan speech, he was gone. Although, anyone who ran into the Captain that day did seem to think he was a little...sunnier than usual. Odd.

Thistle on the other hand is used to posing for portraits with his family, sitting politely still for the painters or being urged to smile brightly to not distract from Delgal or Yaad. He quite enjoyed not being the focus of the paintings, especially with his ears not paid much attention to.

So it was a little confusing when, as he draped himself to look over your shoulder, he saw a sketch of him. With his white hair tied up into the bun, it'd been in for the last 1000 years, and his ears were floppy slightly with youth but still pointed due to his elf heritage. It was a little flattering, being the subject of someone's art!

Smiling brighter than he had for a while, Thistle leant his head on your shoulder, peering up at you with those curious purple eyes and waiting for your reaction. It was a little confusing when you seemed almost upset he'd found your work. Was...he not supposed to see it?

"It looks good! Why didn't you show me it?" Thistle queried, leaning his elbows on your shoulder with a head tipped to the side, as if tilting his head would just knock understanding right into place. Even when you explained they were just personal sketches, Thistle let out a huff. "I like them. Can you make me one to have?" Eventually, you agreed with a sigh. He was lucky he was so damn cute.

[therealslimshakespeare]

|| Sanchez ||

Requested? ☑️

Circa: October 1943

Summary: Upon being shot down on his last mission, Major Gale Cleven finds himself in the company of a female officer -and not one from the 100th. While already inclined to show solidarity, the increasing threat towards his fellow officer forces him to act. The jeopardy such action puts him in is more than he could have ever estimated, as is the fallout upon finding women he knows in the stalag

Cast: Cleven, Sanchez, Demarco, Brady, Egan, Kendeigh, Lu Smith, Ida Brady

Author’s note: the first portion of this segment is in the immediate time frame of Gale being downed. The second portion follows the events of What Took Him So Long? the mirroring of both these segments will hopefully prove enjoyable but I worry perhaps confusing

Content Warning: due to the disturbing content listed below the cut, I understand some may choose not to read this segment. If you’d like an abridged summary of the events herein to keep up with the series, I’d be happy to supply that 💋🌹

Warnings: usual universe warnings apply 18+ additionally for this chapter there are warnings for depiction of rape. This entire arc was produced on popular request, i have tried to portray the brutal events found herein in the most elevated and respectful terms I found effective. I would not call it graphic, however, it’s not vague either. And it’s rape. Male and female. Depiction of rape and discussion of past rape. Violence as well, obviously, fucking Nazis, ptsd from said assaults, choking, hints of childhood trauma, mentions of medical experiments. General cloud of dread. With light at the end of the tunnel.

Note: my blog and writings are strictly 18+, this means that we are all adults here enjoying free connection and art. The themes of this particular story are mature, at times harrowing and for some, potentially intolerable. No worries if the latter is your case, feel free to move on or block tags. On the other hand, please take responsibility for your reading, I provide warnings as a courtesy but I cannot cover them all and if something doesn’t sit right, please exercise adult autonomy and make your way to the nearest exit. Xo

When Gale extended his hand to aid the next prisoner up into the truck, he hadn't anticipated one so small or so brown. Busted knuckles that had rivulets of crimson pouring over copper flesh; he was mildly fascinated by it. His concussed mind flashed to ‘Lu Smith and her shaded face, before belatedly realizing it was indeed a woman’s lighter frame he was hauling in beside him to the shrill insistence of German threats.

The woman who flopped on the bench opposite him, legs spread wide and boots braced with a brow like a thundercloud, was not Smith. And for that Cleven was relieved.

Last he had seen of Ida and Graham’s fort, they’d been carrying on over Breman, and while he had every reason to think few had made it back, who’s to say they weren’t lucky? And Ida could fly a tin can on the fumes of an alcoholic's breath. Smith wasn’t here, Ida either, and he tried to arrange his mind to that, to not even let the doubt creep in, and instead took to studying the newcomer in between the passing of more downed airmen filling the benches.

The incessant barking of their dogs must have been half strategy, the throbbing in his back working its way into his head as the minutes went by. It had taken too long for them to be brought to Luftwaffe jurisdiction, he knew that much, even with giving them the benefit of the doubt for wartime communication failures and muddy roads. He’d been well read and prepared and braced for the outcome of being downed since before they left the states, grilled his men on procedure, on their rights, their privileges as prisoners of war, also on their duties to silence. The fact he’d never truly thought it would happen to him didn’t mean he wasn’t perfectly knowledgeable about the requirements.

So far Cleven had managed not to say a single word to anyone, the farmer with the pitchfork probably didn’t speak English and a wheezy “please don’t kill me” seemed like a flaccid bunch of last words that Gale refused to let off his tongue.

Instead he let them haul him to the nearest company of Wehrmacht soldiers and had been marched for ages by them, had seen and given Benny a nod when his column of prodded, sheepskin wearing sad bastards merged with Buck’s column of the same. Kendeigh hadn’t been there; crew get themselves killed in a hard landing as often as an exploded plane.

Cleven thought about breaking the silence now to ask the woman opposite where the hell she came from, her patches not what he was used to. But no, bad precedent, he stayed quiet and watchful as the Krauts pushed the last of the men into the overcrowded truck and snapped the tailgate shut. Someone could easily make a run for it by jumping out, but the jeep following behind at a steady few yards with a bristling assortment of machine guns suggested against it.

Once the truck began to move, Benny leaned forward beside him on their jostling journey and motioned in an ingratiating arc at the woman’s patches. “I don’t know those.” he said what Gale had been thinking, half yelling over the clamor of voices and the roar of the truck engine, “Looks half like varsity shit.”

Gale wasn’t sure his kindhearted co-Pilot meant those sorts of digs out of innocence or as a tactic to get reticent folks to defend themselves with the very information they might has previously withheld. As said, Gale didn’t know, but he knew it never failed. The woman went from scowling at Cleven -a pastime she had set herself to with such diligence that every time he tried to make discreet observance of her she already had her eyes on him- and turned to Benny.

“201st, fighters.” well that explained nothing and everything. “Sanchez.” she offered Benny after a beat, maybe knowing her name was hardly damning considering her looks.

Kinda like how Benny looked and sounded likely to have a name that started with “De-“ and a dog named meatball. “Eagle Wings, huh?” Benny nodded at the patch. “And a uh, uh triangle.” he couldn’t make it out all the way from his seat, but Buck could -the patch read ‘Mexico’ above a magnificent spread of Eagle Wings with a green triangle as the body.

They were all a long way from home.

“Aztec,” Sanchez tweaked it, “Aztec Eagles.”

“Mexican?” Benny asked, the accent wasn’t one he commonly heard in Philly but even crappy shows and movies got some things right, and Benny had seen his fair share of westerns.

“Sanchez.” she repeated instead and was back to scowling at Buck.

They seemed to drive for all day, until the light began to dim and what was a pleasant day turned into a misty chill as evening grew near.

The truck came to a halt at last, barbed wire and mud about them and the painted checkpoint arm whirled by as they drove into the dulag and came to a final stop. In the quiet that followed the cut of the engines, the rain was suddenly audible, pattering on the canvas above them. At the resumption of barked order and harsh commands the prisoners stood up, gingerly hopping out of the truck with just enough quickness not to be hit and just enough slowness not to be shot. Didn't help much anyway, muzzles were pointed quite liberally around here and you just had to hope the trigger fingers weren’t so generous.

The dulag guards turned away a good seven of those remaining after the packed truck had dispensed its human cargo. They didn't have enough room.

Go up further, to the next one, go to Frankfurt -those seemed to be the directions.

Directions their drivers and guards took poorly; it was late, it was drizzling and Buck could guess how little they enjoyed the on-edge detail of ferrying outnumbering prisoners around the countryside. They cut down on the number of guards, five to go with: a driver, two in the jeep, one more in the cab and another supposed to be with them in the truck back.

After a bit more haggling, the Dulag accepted three more prisoners. Cleven made sure to stay put, he didn’t know the foreign arguments well enough to decipher all but half the protesting seemed to be over who got Sanchez. And he sure as hell wasn’t leaving her here without a superior officer as defense. A dulag guard had hopped up into the truck and shined his flashlight at Buck’s markings, that’s when he mentioned something about Frankfurt.

Benny didn’t move without Cleven and so, when the truck took off again into the evening gloom, it was Buck and Benny and Sanchez and another hapless kid who looked all of fifteen and was, according to his over liberal offer of conversation, a scared shitless waist gunner.

“They’re arguing over you.” Cleven finally chose to speak up. It could get rough, the guards’ distinction of her. He felt it with a premonitory dread that came from too many right predictions as a child. He hated this feeling, he hated how right it usually was, he hated how it was usually met with folks telling him he worried too much. He’d taken to not saying much the older he grew, watching things play out, grieving over foreseen misfortunes all on his own. Until he met Bucky. But right now he had to speak up, this time he had to.

Yet Sanchez remained scowling, “They argued over you.” she retorted.

Gale gave her a tight smile, “I’m a major.”

“I’m a lieutenant.”

“I can see that.” he proceeded cautiously, “But they just took in a baker's dozen of lieutenants. No problem. But they didn’t take you.”

“Didn’t take him either.” she nodded to Benny.

“His captain’s ass never left the seat.” Cleven said, “You were on the ground, ready, they put you back. I’m tellin’ you, if they can’t decide who you are, where you go, I’m gonna need your assurance you’ll fight like hell with me. For recognition of it.”

-Just don’t say I worry too much, Gale thought desperately, he could almost feel Bucky’s gentle squeeze of his shoulder, like shaking out the tension in a cat as he said the same; his back was so stiff he thought it might snap if Bucky did it now but -but John wasn’t here. Thank Almighty God.

“You know you look more German than most of our guards.” Sanchez replied and Benny suddenly snapped to attention beside him at that. “I’m not assuring you of shit.”

“He’s not a damn spy!” Benny insisted, more loudly and vehemently than was maybe best with guards all around.

“You know this how?” she asked, unmoved.

“He’s my goddamn co-Pilot.”

“Pilot?”

“Ya think he just ripped his own cheek open for a part?”

Sanchez swayed with the jerk of a pothole and shook her head, “Maybe you both are.”

Smart, and a worse worrier than himself. Cleven liked her immensely and stared out the flap of the tarp, watching the rain pour down, dusk fully settling over everything outside and the trailing jeep’s headlights poured into their little haven, whiting-out his vision of the road.

“I’m not leavin’ this seat ‘till a Dulag takes you.” he told her, it was all he had to give. For her part she seemed determined to wait and see before expending any thanks. He didn’t expect it.

They weren’t in any city when the truck brakes checked them in a squeaking lurch, followed by the sound of tires turning off gravel and into squelching mud and then the echoing silence of the engine being cut once more. This wasn’t Frankfurt, and this was no engine failure. From the headlights of the following jeep, all Gale could make out was trees. So many damn trees. It had stopped raining.

“This isn’t Frankfurt.” He remarked to the guard sitting with them, the sullen fellow had not said a word for five hours and he didn’t start spilling now.

The others made an appearance when they joined them in the truck, hopping up with muddy jackboots and the clatter of what seemed to be a portable camp stove, along with rucksacks, utensils and the like. They unwound rope from the cloth neck of one sack and poured out oats, and another seemed to have been wrapping some preserved sort of meat. Gale eyed the discarded rope where it lay on the floor with the lust of a man used to working with what he was given, while Benny stared with barely concealed longing at the now simmering concoction on the tin stove.

These guards made conversation, or at least they tried. But not even the scared little gunner was in the mood to reply, and so it remained one sided. His boys hadn’t eaten since chow this morning at the crack of dawn, and Cleven didn’t blame them for their hunger but his own stomach was in loathsome, uneasy knots, and by observance of Sanchez’s wary sullenness, he figured he wasn’t alone in that. A dinner break for the Germans was one thing, he guessed, but the solitude was oppressive along with the forced proximity of all these grinning enemies stirring and chopping their porridge bits and laughing amongst themselves on the benches and floor next to them.

When they offered Demarco a hunk of whatever they had prepared, to his credit, Benny didn’t even acknowledge them. Their offer had been mocking enough, even without understanding the language.

“You must be hungry, ja?” The one with sergeant stripes cajoled, greasy teeth flashing, the muggy smells of rain and sweat and steaming food were all so noxiously trapped under the tarp, Gale had to bite his cheek to keep down the salient precursors of vomit.

The sergeant tried it on Sanchez next, insistently holding out a hunk of the meat impaled on the knife tip. She wouldn’t even look at him and that was an admirable thing until it served to anger him, and the man reached out, hand snagging in her waistband and hauling her smaller body beside him on the bench with ease. Benny was almost to his feet when Cleven fetched him back with a grip of his own, sitting him down firmly.

He managed to keep his voice perfectly neutral when interrupting the man’s flashlight lit perusal of Sanchez’s frozen features, “Hey, she doesn’t mean any harm, you let her go now.”

The sergeant looked up, less surprised to have gained a reaction from Gale but maybe at hearing his voice at last. “Only trying to be good hosts, ja? She von’t eat. Neither you?”

“Just not hungry.” Gale countered mildly.

“But ve must thank you,” the Sergeant laughed, and Sanchez stayed stiff as board in his grip, shying away from the still offered meat as much as the touch “so many parcels of gifts you drop.”

“Let her go.” Gale insisted, gently.

“She not drop zeez parcels?” The sergeant asked.

“She’s not a bomber.” Gale grit his teeth, “I do the dropping.”

The sergeant pulled her jacket apart in curiosity, thumbing at the patches, “Not’z a bomber?” Cleven felt his tongue go numb as the man tugged at her clothes, it was a curious inspection so far and yet- “Then it’s you should be given meat, ja?” The man left off his tugging and rose from his squat on the floor to approach Gale, the man was huge upon closer acquaintance, “For Hamburg,” he insisted through gritted teeth, his anger more palpable up close, and he pressed the meat to Gale’s tightly shut mouth, “and for ze little ones you turned to ash with your parcels.”

Gale kept his jaw locked and his mouth shut, eyes meeting the sergeants’, unblinking and unsorry.

“Open!”

Gale didn’t obey. The man sighed as if he were actually a host turned down. Gale could feel Benny’s eyes on him, wary, careful, his whole posture shockingly good at blending in, a damn good man to have next to you in a place like this.

“We have no beer,” the man confessed, knife and meat still pressing insistently, “or else we would offer it for such heroes. But not to fret, you have provided refreshment, ja? Full belly and beer iz ze best, full belly and a voman iz better.”

Carefully Gale turned his head away from the offered chunk, “That's a prisoner of war, not a woman.” He saw how little effect that had and added for benefit, “And your superiors are waiting for her.”

The man scoffed loudly and turned towards his men who were, Gale could now perceive past his bulk, scraping the last of their tin plates without so much as looking at the bowls -they were eying her. With intent. The kind of intent Gale wished he didn’t recognize but he did, carnival dins and race tracks after dark being hardly the best places to grow up unless you wanted to learn how often folks really would act on their worst impulses.

Not tonight, not if he could fucking help it. By Benny’s taut posture beside him, he knew he had an ally in the assumption that this would end in a fight. He eyed the rope lying on the floor.

“Eat with us.” The sergeant insisted, “She von’t be alive to tell on you, prisoners make a run for it all ze time. Must be shot. Ve’ll let you fuck her too.”

Oh Jesus- “Your superiors know-“ Cleven reminded, voice starting to shake in rage from the keyed up adrenaline he was barely keeping a lid on.

“-zey know emergencies happen.” The man snapped, almost annoyed at Gale’s persistence, as if he expected less protest from an airman at the prospect of one of his own being abused. “Zey would send more guards if zey cared as much as you ‘sink.”

The men had finished their bowls, they set them aside on the bench, pushing the stove away as well. Clearing the floor.

“Or fuck, oh fuck.” the gunner kid, who Gale had almost forgotten about on his end of the bench, began to panic, sounding like he was retching his prayers.

Gale met Benny’s eyes, then down to the rope on the floor, then back up. It was good to have a man who got it. Always got it, his Benny.

“Can I go first.” Gale asked, and held his breath.

“Vat?” The sergeant lowered the knife in surprise, the meat chunk slid and fell to the floor but neither cared.

Gale let his lips twitch, his eyes conspired, “I don’t wanna catch whatever shit you fuckers got.”

He could hear more than see Sanchez begin the thrash on her bench but she made no progress, maybe already being held. “And you von’t tell?” the sergeant asked.

Gale gave him a look that could be universally interpreted as ‘whadda ya think?’ and bent to retrieve the meat nugget from the muddy floor, right by the sergeant’s boot, the rope was just out of reach. When he straightened his back he popped the soiled peace offering in his mouth, he chewed it loudly, the rush of an imminent attempt thrumming so strongly in his body it replaced the queasiness for a moment. The sergeant clapped his hands together, once, in appreciation for the despicable deal.

Gale knew they wanted nothing more than sport of him, it was no comradely favor to allow him to go first, it was blackmail and it was likely something worse once he got his pants down. But they could all play along, he just needed to get close to her. They had her jacket off already, her boots, too.

This didn’t really have a chance in hell but if she was like Ida, or Smith or anyone else, she’d rather be shot barefoot than have this happen to her. Gale supposed dying with German ham stuck in his teeth was about a draw with being killed via pitchfork prongs through the belly.

He didn’t process much when he stood up: not beyond the two paces it took to get to her, the men holding her on the bench seat and wrestling at her clothes, the way Benny didn’t say a word. He really was thinking of Benny in those paces, hoping his co-pilot was ready -it didn’t occur to him even once that Demarco might be as fooled as these sick fucks around them, letting go of her all too quickly at the prospect of a degrading show.

Cleven had his hand around her necktie, pulling her off the bench before he’d even really registered being close enough, he’d forgotten how to hold his face for this act but maybe the mad determination passed for lust, he didn’t think of anything but yanking her up when he felt a sudden, stinging slice against his right cheek. She’d been waiting for this moment, smart thing had a penknife hidden somewhere, it was something one of the Banshees would have pulled, and the mirroring slice was disorienting enough that he wasted a good two seconds in smarting surprise as warm blood trickled down his chin and the guards began to shout.

Someone else wrested the knife from her grip, someone else held onto her wrist now, his moment of shocked pain wasted his fucking plan.

Still, he tried.

Cleven yanked her further toward the middle of the space, spun her around despite her incessant clawing -and maybe the actions seemed to the guards in accordance with his plan, plus some anger from the wound. He didn’t know what they thought, he only knew that no one halted him, they just gathered closer to see, never expecting it, just as he didn’t expect to manage it when he got her turned to the open flap of the tarp and bodily hurled her out its back, into the night.

Benny must’ve tripped the first one, a clunky helmet clattering as the guy fell flat at Cleven’s feet, right as he turned around to help. It wasn’t ever gonna be a nice fight, or a likely chance for her to have even a ten second start but it was something besides sitting on a bench and watching them violate a fellow officer. He’d have done the same for Benny. Just as Benny now looked pretty resigned to dying in this fight, getting in a couple of excellent, unapologetic punches with the next guard who manned up and realized what was what. -It’s gotta be a let down to be keyed up for a nice orgy in the woods only to end up having to play guard again. Gale wanted to manage to kill one before he got shot, that’s all he really wanted anymore.

And for the girl to get out, for all the girls to get out wherever they were.

He was grappling with the closest one, the guy nearest the flap who almost managed to give chase to her right away, when he felt something that gave him a chill of horror he never expected. Rope; he registered it slipping down his chin, making him let go of his opponent to try to slip his fingers between the twine and his collared throat -too late. He felt himself bodily yanked back, a burn in his throat all consuming and the sudden deprivation of air turning him into a desperate mess, nothing useful about his scuffing feet and clawing hands.

They were giving orders to go after her, and two men were scrambling out the back as Gale began to sag. From his new position gasping on the floor, Gale could see that they had a gun to Benny’s gut, while the gunner kid hadn’t needed such firmness, he was braced at the back of the truck in absolute terror.

Well this was over faster than desired but -to be expected. Fuck.

“Halt.” Cleven felt the sergeant’s boot kick at the side of his head, emphasizing his order to cease his struggles.

World grew fuzzy then, not at all like drowsy sleepiness in a hammock but instead like being caught in the river current when you thought you’d managed to strike the ford just right. Gale’s pulse thudded between his temples like the blows of a sledgehammer on his skull, his lungs burned, the cuts on his cheeks blared their pain like screaming infants demanding to be heard above the rest of the pain and terror and fury. He could taste the blood gushing out of them from the pressure, the cuts spurted and dribbled down into his already choking mouth.

What a way to go.

He felt cold air, he felt himself drug and a painful drop to what was likely muddy ground, felt himself dragged some more and his own finger -wedged between the rope and his throat- hurt him worst of all, that knuckle digging into his windpipe.

When some slack finally came, it was minimal, only enough for his body to heave and gag and try to force air into collapsed pipes, enough for sounds of cries and shots and clanking metal to flood into his consciousness. He was either at heaven’s gate or on the cold hard ground at eye level with the beaming jeep headlights -that would explain the blinding glow in his vision.

Or else, heaven wasn’t half what it was cracked up to be.

Someone or a few someone’s, were standing over him and he could see then that he was tied by the makeshift noose to the trailer hitch of the truck, tarp flaps widened far above him like stage drapes. Was Benny still alive in there?

“Maybe you defend her because you too are female?” One guard suggested while prodding at his crotch with a boot, and that made Gale’s frozen, sluggish, oxygen deprived blood begin to pound. “Hübsch.” they complimented him repeatedly -pretty, so very pretty. Too pretty for a man. “We should check, ja?”

He spared one single hope, that Benny wasn’t watching. He didn’t hope they wouldn’t act on their threats, and he hadn’t any hope left that he could actually save Sanchez from what they were even now wrestling her to the ground for. But it felt worsened somehow at the idea of his co-pilot seeing him this way, he yanked his head against the noose and regretted it after. The constriction made his eyes burn, and all his efforts were once again concentrated on grappling with his breathing as they tugged at his clothes and made sport of discovering he was not, in fact, lying about being male.

They laughed, they touched, they said he was some mistake. A face like that had no business owning a cock. He wished he knew less German, in fact he knew little but there are kindnesses and there are cruelties that need no articulation to be understood.

The earth beside him, the mud beneath Sanchez’s hands, was tilled up from her nails, like furrows for planting and her face was so near his when they threw her down, he could make out the spit and blood on her lips.

“Should I?” One was saying and they had their knife out, Gale’s panicked mind had a generous moment of hope that they would cut the rope, that he would soon be able to breathe again. Or else his throat, and he’d not breathe anymore. Both sounded perfect.

They cut open his flight suit instead, a hand heavy on the back of his head, turning him fully over, and then there was the feeling of a warm and sweaty body beginning to roll on top of him.

The mud was cold beneath his cheek, smooth on the forest floor, none of the rough gravel of that endless road, only mud and pine needles sticking to his face now, their knobby little ends roughing up the older wound on his cheek. Every time the guard pushed closer, it scraped him -that blade to his other cheek. The metal tip glittered in the periphery of his one good eye, shining from the headlights.

Sanchez had begun to scream.

Hoarse, wounded, fox like.

It felt very much like a demented dream, even down to the hunter’s attitude above him, the grunts, the prey-like waiting for the lethal blow. He wasn’t sure how long he had floated with only her wounded cries as a grounding agent when he felt a splatter against his lower back and consciousness came back with a heave of his chest and a revolt so strong he fought again against the noose. Predictably, it only tightened. There was cold on his skin then, when the man drew away, fresh night breezes mocking the mess he’d made of Gale, kerosene and exhaust fumes ruining the smell of soil beneath him. Then the heat was back, someone else draped over him, and Gale dug his fingers into the earth too, readying for what the other had spared him. It didn’t matter, if they tired themselves out with him, that was one less -now two less- to use her instead. There had been only five.

This one flipped him over, Gale went easily, both hands occupied straining to get even a finger between the asphyxiating pressure of the rope and his throat.

“He is easier now.” he heard the man laughing, foggy, hazy, unfairly. “The bitch has gone quiet, maybe he will make music, huh?”

Gale frantically turned his head to seek her out, desperate to find her alive -she couldn’t be dead. Not just from this, surely not, what could they do to kill her?-but his own vision was spotting and his throat spasmed in protest. They surely could kill them this way, they could do anything they wanted because they could kill them. And no one would ever hold them to account.

His poor girls. What were they doing to his poor girls?

It burned enough to jolt him awake again, both the forceful entry and the smack to his cut cheek. They wanted him awake, aware, he refused to look at them. This was reminiscent, bright lights and unwanted hands and all but the carnival music missing. He kept staring to the side at her, and at her face, at the way the headlights lit them both up like a carnival spectacle and cast the shadows of their tormentors in looming, grotesque proportions against the treeline. She had her eyes closed, face almost suffocated in the soil, balled fist growing lax beside his own, just out of reach. She didn’t even react when the next replaced the other. There were only five, Gale repeated to himself, there were only five.

No, no, no.

“Smith,” he begged her, “Smith don’t fuckin’ give up on me now.”

His poor girls.

Gale’s own voice made him cringe, how hoarse it was, how young, what a beg it sounded like, how punctuated each word was with the winding pain of a fresh thrust. But her eyes flew open at his call.

Sanchez, her name was Sanchez, he reminded himself. And Smith was with Ida, probably throwing the ball at the flack house after making it back from Breman. She had to be. He didn’t want to live in a world where Lu felt what he felt now as the man shuddered inside him, used him like a skein, a shell, a vessel, hot breath stinging at his cuts.

“Stay with me Sanchez.” he muttered, wondering if he had it in him to do the same. He didn’t have the luxury of ignoring his tormenter any longer, he felt his face gripped and turned, cuts smarting beneath calloused fingertips, cheeks being squished like Bucky used to do in play. The yeasty splatter spit landing on his own tongue was somehow more revolting than all the rest. He gagged, he struggled, his body was on fire.

Smith was screaming again.

There were only five.

He refused to remember more until there was a sudden absence of the heat and the breath and the tearing pain, and if he wasn’t so drugged on misery he might have thought everyone seemed a little rushed at the end. Not how he expected them to be with all the time in the world to wipe their pricks, close their pants, pull out a pistol and deliver a headshot. One apiece here in the mud. See ya there, Benny, he thought dismally, not bothering to open his eyes.

But then there were sounds of squealing tires and the roar of engines and the white bright glow behind his eyelids grew in intensity until he realized -in a fumbled state of what felt like being redressed- that someone else had pulled up to this horror show. There’d only been five and now- now, oh fuck, he didn’t think he could, no, no, no, he yanked at his noose, half hoping to strangle himself or at least be caught fighting this.

If he didn’t know much German when lucid and keen, he certainly wasn’t adept at deciphering the angry babble above him when half dead, half uncaring about listening for an order to flip him over for the next or to blow his brains out. No, no he was far away in the Silver Wings and Maureen’s boot was dug into his shoulder as she turned himself and Egan into scaffolding, all to smoke the club’s ceiling with testament of their survival for their 20th. No big bash like for 25 but it had been a milestone, as terrifyingly hopeful as it had been all too fortunate. He’d seen her cry for the first time that night, hands shaking, admitting she felt in her bones they’d not be lucky, that she’d never really thought about this part, not when she joined up, about getting so close and now she wanted to see it through she was sick to death of the idea of seeing it though being a fiery death. Well, Gale knew now she’d managed to jump, she’d not known fire.

But what else, oh what else?

Next time Cleven woke he was face down on the same old bench seat from hours before, burning ribs nothing compared to the lapping flames below his waist. The truck beneath him was moving and his cut face was only partially gentled by the feel of someone’s meaty thigh beneath him. Horrified, he startled up, hating the idea of being someone’s pet after-

-but it was Benny, looking busted as hell but alive and holding onto him lest he jolt off the bench with the next pothole. As far as he could feel, Gale had his clothes on, muddy and cold and it was daylight and they were moving. A guard he didn’t recognize was on the opposite bench near the flaps, watching them curiously with a rifle slung easily over his lap. He had wings on his lapel.

Sanchez was sat as far from him as possible near the front of the truck, alive and looking for all the world like she might kill the sniffling and unharmed gunner on the floor.

“Luftwaffe.” Benny informed him and Gale winced at their good fortune before giving his friend a pat and letting the sludge of insensibility take over again.

————————————————

“What was done to you: I am horrified.” Lt. Hausmann’s eyes were warm but his smile was cold, as cold as the holding cells, an odd dichotomy, opposite to most but not foreign to Gale. “I have heard they had intentions to hang you, yes? You, a prisoner of war. An officer. Horrifying, base, cowardly, I can only apologize for my countrymen’s attitude, they will be held to account. Was there anything else? I shall make a note. Are you well? Was there anything else?”

“There was a fighter pilot with me.” Cleven did not miss the eagerness in the man’s body language when he let loose his voice at last, hoarse from the rope and suppression of his cries. He’d been sat at this frigid desk with its proffered whiskey and smokes for half an hour already. “She was brutally raped, Lieutenant. And it is my understanding she is under Luftwaffe command now. Held here. I’d like you to make note of both, treat her accordingly.”

“Appalling.” Haussmann insisted, pen scritching away at his pad, “Noted, I-i will see that they are brought to account. Appalling. And you, Major, were you treated well? Besides your throat, I mean. Satisfactory? Honorably? I will make a note.”

The gnawed and broken thumbnail he’d bitten off hours ago slipped from between Gale’s molars. His teeth grated against each other for a split second. It was the only sound that filled the room. There’d been only five.

He passed Benny in the hall when they drug him back to his cell. But he never saw Sanchez again.

———————————————-

He didn’t see Sanchez again, not until a month later when she came with Smith. And all the others. Not until after a month of a John Brady biting through his lips with well placed anxiety over the absence of their female fellows. A month of Gale acting like he actually thought they were alright. As far as he knew, the boy’s sister was fine. Until she came through that gate, head shorn, cheek disfigured, half her buttons missing and a look in her eye that was half fury, half woe.

He was angry for Ida, but she didn’t belong trapped in a dog run with all these men. So Gale protested.

“If it can happen to you-“ John Brady had the gall to suggest at the gate, to suggest something Cleven had never confirmed. But Brady was like that, and Cleven had stopped his fight against the girls' inclusion all the same. Perhaps his fight had been less about the rules being broken, and more at the idea of having to see any more of their mistreatment, being witness to it, his rank proving useless once more. Never again. Not if he had to barter the golden gates for their safety.

———————————————--

“You ok?” Cleven asked Brady on the second day after their arrival as he counted out the syringes on the rough hewn table, one by one. He didn’t doubt the kid’s promise to get the supplies but instead the stalag doctor’s elusive provisions and willingness to comply. But sure enough, there was one for each of the girls, and a spare.

Brady gave him a tight lipped nod before expounding, “Sunnuvbitch wouldn’t dish on the iodine, I could see the damn relief package right there behind him but -no swabs. Dry stab. I guess.”

“It’s ok.” Cleven insisted, eyeing him still; he had his coat bundled about him even indoors but the buttons of his shirt beneath were redone, Gale knew that because they skipped one and started again wonky, wrong buttonhole, twice over. Like they’d been redone in haste. It hadn’t been that way when he left. “These are what we need.” he glanced up from his task at Hambone who was animatedly informing Benny of his visit.

Cleven had tried at subtlety, listening in with discretion but he couldn’t help it anymore, too curious himself. “You went with him, yeah?”

“Yes sir.” Hambone gestured to his newly smoothe cheek, stitches gone.

“So, what’s he like? The doc?”

Hamilton gave a signature sneer, “Weird as fuck and a little weirder than that. Wouldn’t fuckin’ shut up.”

“Yeah? What about?”

“Yeah!” Hamilton insisted, pissed off by it apparently, “On and on about psy- psycho -sam-“

“psychosomatic.” Brady rescued him boredly.

“-reflexes and shit. On and on. Just want the stitches out, ya know?”

“Yeah.” Cleven agreed. Waiting for the shoe to drop. He stared at the extra shot, his stomach curdling. “Just want some shots.” he added, eyes drifting up to land on Brady and his sightless stare at the opposite wall that bunked his motionless sister.

“Yeah, that was a whole other debacle.”

“Oh?” Cleven prodded, the picture of nonchalance as he started to divide the shots into groupings. He was seeing things, he was projecting, he was doing what Egan told him not to ever do -assume what has been is now what is. What he’s experienced is what everyone else has. He knew that deep down, but there was a brittle bravery to Jack Brady these days that reminded Gale too much of his own fraudulent brand of survival.

“Hammy it’s- how about you leave off.” Brady muttured. “Don’t bother the major with it.”

“Weird as fuck.” Hambone confirmed stubbornly.

“I’m the one who asked you if you thought he was weird.” Brady corrected, irritated enough by impression to continue.

“And it was! I said he was.”

“I’ve been telling you guys.” When Brady said it, it was without heat. “Him and his stupid little hammers.”

“Yeah what was all the hammering for?”

“Reflexes, Hammy. Psychosomatic.”

“Weird as fuck.”

Gale bit his tongue so hard he hoped it cleared his head before daring, “He make you take your shirt off for it?”

There was a pause in the slapping sounds of the card game ongoing behind him, Kendeigh and Demarco and Crank all freezing at the question.

“He keeps checking the shoulder.” Brady finally said, it was admittance enough.

“And the fuckin’ knee.” Hambone chipped in.

He shrugged, meeting Cleven’s eyes stubbornly, “He’s obsessed with reflexes.”

“You hurt your knee landing?”

Brady’s flat line of a mouth tugged up wryly, his eyes flitted over to his sister's motionless form. “A tad. Uh, the shots sir, he said they go in the hip. Didn't have the pamphlets, no instructions.

“I remember.” Gale had some knowledge of it, they’d all gotten a few vaccines in training, and he knew enough to ask for them in the first place, to help with whatever the poor girls might have contracted. His own eyes skittered to Kendeigh who sat at the table, making a poor show of holding her deck of cards. “Well, you first?” he pleaded.

She looked a little cross but she didn’t fight him, she rose from the table with stern imprecations on anyone skipping over her turn and cast about for a place. Gale put his hand on her shoulder and gently guided her to a corner by the bunks, it was really all the privacy he had to give.

“You’ll have to undo my belt, Ida had to do it up-“ she flashed her swollen hands again, “-my hands.”

“I got you.” he whispered, gently reaching around and loosening the belt so that her borrowed trousers sagged enough for him to get at the meat of her hip.

Johnny was rolling Ida over in their bunk beside him, and Gale wasn’t sure who should give Ida her shot but he supposed her brother was the best candidate. Much as he hated the boy having to. But, perhaps, it wasn’t the worst thing he had to do tonight, and that made Gale’s stomach sour. He willed his hands to steadiness and undid the cap off the needle.

“Jesus Christ.” Johnny was suddenly exclaiming, hoarse and infuriated, Gale glanced aside and saw the boy had uncovered a hip alright, with his usual meticulous precision, and still, there wasn’t a spot of skin on Ida not green or else blue or else near to black. Gale stared back at Maureen and the jagged little scratches on her hip, crescent moon ditches, the blooming bruise here and there and swore not to count his blessings.

What did he know? Nothing, he knew nothing about any of them really. Except he knew such injuries didn’t have to show to hurt like hell. He drove the shot home with merciful force, squeezed in the stinging contents and retracted it, smooth and fast as anything.

“Hell, fuck, damn! Son of a carpet wearing Methodist-“ Maureen hopped around on her one good leg in barely contained frenzy at the sting.

Gale tried not to smile, “Bad huh?”

She scowled back at him in between pained giggles, “If I could give yours just for pay back, I would. Damn!” she held her hands up up once more and Cleven kept his eyes above, “But I can’t, sorry, can’t help with the other girls either, fucking useless.”

Johnny was standing, straightened up again, syringe empty, sister still just lying there. Bucky Egan out cold beside her. Gale couldn’t even allow himself to question if those two would be alright. They had to be, he didn’t think he could make it without them, make everyone else make it along with him. “She didn’t even budge.” Jack muttered.

What was there to say to that?

“She didn’t make it all the way here just to fuckin’ die.” Kendeigh assured him while straddling her chair again, voicing her peculiar brand of kindness and her true opinion on Ida Brady, “She’d never be so wet. They had a whole day to kill her on that train and they didn’t manage to.”

A day? A train? Gale didn’t know what to make of it; he was just glad that Bucky was dead to the world for now and not getting riled again by every new tidbit so that Gale would have to talk him down and also administer shots to a bunch of traumatized women.

“We’ll help sir.” Crank offered to him as he stood over the divided piles of syringes again.

“Alright,” Gale agreed, “but some may wanna give it to each other instead, you let them. Give ‘em space. I don’t think they’ll fight it, they know they need ‘em.”

Benny sauntered up beside him, flicking at the supplies, “This one yours, Buck?” he asked casually, fiddling with the spare.

Gale glanced at Brady and found him looking back at him. “Yeah.” He told Benny. “For the cuts.”

“Here, let me-“ Benny was already at it. Gale tugged his waistband down to assist, just enough to expose a sliver of pale hip and leaned a little over the table, there were bruises on his hipbones, he knew, but they could be from anything.

It did sting like hell.

“Alright you take those, and that’s enough for, yeah-“ Gale divided the supplies to each man, lingered just a moment as they went into the hall to brush by Brady, and murmured to him him lowly, “That was real thoughtful, thanks. You need one?”

To the credit of his poker face, the boy didn’t startle a bit, except for an infinitesimal flutter of an eyelid. “No sir?” he asked as if that were an idiotic question.

It was the only way Gale knew to ask him: to ask about something more. -Tell me son, just tell me you need a shot and I’ll know I’m not imagining shit. That I’ve not become paranoid and irritable and callous, too.

But then, “No sir?” and that incredulous face that left even the strongest man feeling like a dunce.

Well, that was it.

“I’ll help you tell them.” Maureen was by his side suddenly and Gale appreciated that, Smith was the only other female Lieutenant and he could use Kendeigh’s unapologetic pragmatism. “Ida told them she’d ask for remedies. Think she meant for pregnancies but, this is a start.”

There really wasn’t much of an announcement to be made; who didn’t understand what penicillin was needed for? It was needed for the dreaded thing that was hung over every bathroom stall door at canteens and on the underground in London, warning of having too good of a time and catching something. No one needed explanations, even though Gale watched their faces as Kendeigh announced and helped distribute the shots one room after another, he was trying to detect if any were hesitant or unconvinced. He found none.

He did find Sanchez, across one identical wooden room and still in her jacket with the eagle patch. She must have washed her face with the others, the mud was gone. When they locked eyes he saw a hard and warning look harden her eyes further; it made his cheek throb. Stonefaced, she broke the stare after a moment and advanced to grab her allotment, even as her fingers dragged along his palm, even when she passed him, Gale could not get her to resume it.

In one of the last rooms he went in alone -Maureen was delayed with one of the girls doing poorly, one who was not well enough to rise from her bunk. “They about drowned her” Maureen told him casually, and that was something else he dreaded learning about.

“Drowned?” he’d repeated a bit dumbly, and he deserved her

annoyed face.

“To get info from us.”

“Us?” he repeated again, low and slow, “You too?”

She gave him another of those looks before nodding at the last parcel in his hand, “Go take care of Smith’s girls before Johnny gets to them first and helps them with all the tenderness of a mortician.”

When Gale had stepped back into the hallway, Johnny’s voice could be heard still two doors down with Benny, fighting a fine line between helping and making themselves scarce. Personally, Gale felt Johnny was a gentle fucker when he needed to be. This wasn’t one of those cases, none of the girls wanted pity from them. Or acknowledgement even, judging by Sanchez’s cautioning venom.

In the last room, Smith and Tong had the girls sorted efficiently, and it was a little thing to ask the ever obliging Graham and the other men to step out briefly. Same old script here as before, Gale felt in a numb sort of loathing for his lack of originality -he distributed a shot a piece and apologized for the lack of iodine to sterilize the injection site and they all assured him it was fine, and everyone knew he was apologizing for far more than the lack of iodine and they knew that they’re assurances were more than about it either. Gale liked these girls for how well they knuckled under, it had made them pretty great in the crews after a shaky mission. They shoved a bad thing down as well as the next man, and if they punched their bed frames at night or cried in the showers, just like how it was for his men, that wasn’t Gale’s concern.

Only Lu Smith’s face went off script when he pressed the needle and its cartridge in her hand, something besides tight lipped thanks or a nod of efficient understanding. There were questions in her eyes, dancing slow and swirly and blatant as sorghum specks in molasses. A rich dark pool of uncertainty. Some girls were already discreetly headed for corners of the room to make the stab or else rolling up a shirt sleeve and insisting to the giver that they wanted it given there. Lu glanced away from him only to watch these proceedings with something like fear and then she was looking back at him, a hesitant plea written on her face. He didn’t know she was scared of needles.

“Major, is Ida awake?” his lieutenant asked, voice scratchy and a little closed, like how it got when she tried her hand at professionality or had to present a solution in front of a crowd. “I need to ask her something.”

That was a remarkably vague sentence, not at all professional. “No, she’s not.” He told her, watching as the fear grew more pronounced around her mouth and chin, “You ask me, Lieutenant.”

“May I?”

“Course,” Gale nodded his head toward the door, “step out here.”

He strode down to the very end of the combine, by the locked double doors, just far enough away from the windows not to invite a guard to come in and give them shit about it. The bright orange lights of the camp came in from the general darkness outside, glowing through the always dusty glass and making Smith’s skin shine a pretty bronze, even with the dark spots on her chin. Those made his blood thud quicker. It was quiet down here, as private as he could get.

“What’s up Smith?” he urged.

“I’m sorry sir I-I’ve got a few questions.”

“Told you to ask, Lieutenant.” Gale reminded, “So ask.”

“Yes sir.” She’d developed a tick since he’d last seen her, an odd sort of hugging of herself, arm crossing her chest and hand gripping her opposite clavicle, fingertips curling just over her own shoulder. “It’s about the shots. Ida’s been teaching me but she never mentioned about those.”

Gale took a deep breath, only the faintest bit of mirth left at the reminder of the ‘condom balloon’ incident. Ida had needed a stiff drink after taking her engineer aside and informing ‘Little Lu’ those were rubber socks men put on their members, and not in fact balloons. And yes, Benny had lied out of niceness, and yes men’s bodies sprayed things like cattle’s did when they got excited, and yes it’s for the purpose of making babies. Gale had heard all this from Ida after three stiff shots she’d downed like medicine, she’d relayed it in a perfect montone and Gale had not asked but she told him all the same, then said she needed to hit the sack and Ida Brady was gone while Gale remained at the bar with his cider and shaking shoulders. The memory had been amusing only weeks ago, when Douglass came to loot Benny’s footlocker for more rubbers and they’d all made a joke about Smith having beat him to them -for balloons.

“Everyone else seems to know and want them and I’m the slow one again.” Smith was muttering, a petulant look of annoyance crossing her young face, angry at herself.

“It’s about the guards.” Gale murmured.

Smith looked so hurt by that he wasn’t sure where he’d misstepped, but then, “Is it for what they did? Or is it such a sure they’re gonna keep hurting us and these- how do these help, sir?”

Gale startled and laid a heavy hand on her shoulder out of pure, gut instinct to impress on her his next words, “Not a single thing is goin’ to happen to you again, not like that, you hear me, Lu?” he shook her a little and it dislodged her own hand from her chest.

“Yes sir.”

“These are for anything you might’ve caught.” he tried to explain, coming up short and he knew it. If Bucky were here he’d use all manner of crass slang and common vernacular phrases to jog the poor girl’s memory about magazine advertisements, the sorts that warned of ‘diseases’, the underground posters and the bathroom stall flyers urging chastity or safety. Gale could not manage it back then and he couldn’t now. “Diseases Lu.” he tried again, “Men who aren’t- careful, or- disciplined, they, they spread diseases to the girl they’re with. Uh, with- intimately. If they’ve been with other girls before.”

He hoped to God that Ida had used the word ‘intimate’ when educating Smith on these finer yet so utterly crude aspects of human interaction. ‘Intimate’ seemed like a word Ida Brady would use, he thought he recalled her accusing him of being intimate with Kendeigh. Maybe the accusation had been ‘fraternizing’. Or ‘getting familiar’. Gale wasn’t sure, he only recalled that it had not been complementary and he had blushed into the floor under her stare but her accusation had been vague. He knew Ida had been vague.

Was she equally vague with Smith? Did that mean Smith was as uneducated as she’d been before Ida gave her an ineffectually Catholic lesson?

“They can spread it with-“ Smith paused only a minute before deciding to trust him, “-with their bodies? Like a wound?”

Gale gave her nod, trying to stay teacherly, “With their bodies. Yeah. They don’t need wounds it comes from- well, other places. Intimate places they- look, Smith if you weren’t hurt that way, you don’t need the shots.”

Grueling as this conversation was, nerve wracking as her dense innocence could be, it fed that traitorous bit of hope he’d been harboring since he lost all hope for himself that she might’ve been alright. It wasn’t fair to Kendiegh or Ida or Sanchez or any of the others to hope for that, but none of this was fair anyway. Maybe her lack of comprehension was a kindness.

Smith’s eyes were latching onto one surrounding thing and then another, a good long beat between each new object, not darting but roving, now latched on the doorframe and now on Gale’s coat buttons and then on to the glass window panes beside them as if she could see through the bubbled glass out into the dark yard. He could tell by her change in breathing more than the light when she began to cry.

“I didn’t want the girls to think I’m stupid.” She admitted, and she was definitely crying, “I’m their officer, I should know these things.” she explained, lips going into a full tremble, all the harmless jokes of before suddenly not a bit funny, “But I don’t know at all, I didn’t know they’d-“ Gale kept his hand on her now jolting shoulder, spending a little too much time thinking how to mould his own face to some correct expression for this as she began to crumble, it was better than watching too closely as she broke apart, “When they beat us and put the bags over our faces I- I expected it. It wasn’t right, we weren’t treated like prisoners but, I expected it. Ida had told us. Then they started saying things to her, the ones that could speak English and I-i really didn’t know what they meant, not at first until they started- oh Major, they, they started touching her, like lovers in a movie.”

Lu had her eyes squeezed shut like that would get the image out somehow, one brief flash and Gale could remember everything about laying there and seeing Sanchez’s face -and he knew nothing wiped the image out. “They had her chained to a bar and they kept doing that,” she went on, “It was over her head, the bar was over her head and I could tell how much she hated it, and she couldn’t do anything and they weren’t hurting her anymore, they were- they were touching her. They stopped beating her and started touching her, sir and I- that’s when I realized that, there could be something worse. They wanted us to start giving up ranks, and they kept doing that until we did and I wanted to give up then more than any time else. Just to make them stop doing that to her.”

Gale squeezed her shoulder and she jerked under it but cried afresh, she stayed still next to him and just kept crying. “Smith, right here and now I need to know if you’re alright.” he steered her away from memories back to now, as gently as he could, “Ida is gonna be alright, and she’s proud of you, and she expects you to take care of her girls, you hear me? And I need you well for that, Lu. I need to know if you’ve been hurt.”

Smith pulled herself back into a shaky composure, her neck still trembling so badly her head made tiny little jerks from time to time. “They did hurt me.” she agreed.

“Hurt you where you need these shots?” he gently clarified, hoping she was catching on, dreading the confirmation all the same.

“They put -they kept putting themselves inside me.” she got it out, her face dazed like she still didn’t understand it even as her voice cracked from a soul deep knowledge of the wrong done, “I didn’t know they could- they could use their bodies like that. I didn’t know. They kept doing it.”

-There had been only five.- Gale felt his belly lurch, some bowel deep memory of the same torture taking over him, like a haunting he couldn’t prevent. He’d thought he had it locked far down enough, hardly thought on it these days, but maybe he’d shoved it down to where it hurt in the first place, with his belly in knots all again and Sanchez’s cold face sneering and Benny’s worried eyes making his stomach shake and salt flood his mouth. He wanted to vomit.

“Oh Lu.” he muttered ineffectually, “C’mere.” and he had her hugged and cradled to his ratty jacket before his ingrained and temperate habits could interfere. He had her turned to the doors, her sobbing eyes pressed into his sweaty layers and it was better that way. With his lips pressed to the crown of her head he watched the rest of the hallway go on without them, men going back into the rooms once the shots had been administered, Benny darting into one with a bucket in hand. Gale saw Brady as Brady saw him, only making a small pause in his stride as he watched Gale hold Smith before he turned away, face still a blank slate, the boy went back to his sister.

Maybe if Gale had been closer or the hallway brighter he might’ve seen the same hurt and tears there as he and Smith were sharing, but Brady wasn’t close and he wouldn’t say and maybe Gale was a fool to think his own experience wasn’t a fluke. But Brady just went back to Ida, and Gale still felt the damning weight of the shot in his palm even as he hugged Smith’s narrow shoulders.

His own hip still smarted from the injection, -the shot for his cuts. Just his cuts.

“I’m sorry sir.” Smith was trying to say in between sobs, no doubt finding her emotions galling in the face of her prized professionalism.

“Don’t be.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll be fine-“

“I know.”

“I’ll be fine i just, I didn’t know-“

“I know, Lu.”

“It hurt so much.”

“I know.”

She pulled her face away, he was glad to see that while it was puffy and reddened, she looked far calmer. The suddenness of her recovery should have warned him. “Do you sir?” she whispered, pained.

“What?”

“Do you know, sir?” she asked again, harmless yet intent, “Did they hurt you that way too?”

Gale felt a rush of heat, heat and numbness where his hands fell from their grip on her and shook by his sides instead, and he hated his limbs for that betrayal. Heat, like she could see it so clearly on his face, like the harmless cuts on his face really spelled it out. Everyone’s suspicion of them put him on edge, wondering what was wrong with his bearing, his walk, the way he took a seat, that somehow exposed him. With her dark, pitying, horrified little face staring up at him, he felt like he was back on the bench with Benny holding him there, knowing most likely why he had to lay on his belly and not his back.

“Smith you can’t-“ Gale sounded young again and he hated it, when he was ready he began again, and this time he sounded like Major Cleven, “-don’t ever say shit like that again, alright? You can’t say shit like that. Not about- men. Not about me.”

She looked affronted and close to tears again, but his tone couldn’t be helped, last thing this stalag needed was news their Major had been so easily overcome. “I was just asking sir-“

“Not something you ask a man.” he informed her. “Like ya said, there’s lot of things you don’t know, it’s alright. But you don’t ask that, Smith.”

Harsh but necessary, he told himself again. Except she looked less hurt now and closer to something like anger, if her kind self could be angry. He’d seen her get angry when someone kicked a dog once. He’d seen her angry after a shit mission. She looked close to it now, like some grave injustice was firing her up. “But it can happen to men.” she was suddenly wise and he picked a cuticle bloody in trance-like distress, his face was motionless, “I know because they- they can put themselves both places.”

Fury took the place of numbness in his being and he grabbed her again, pulling her close and tucking her under his chin, she made a wounded noise when their chests collided despite the layers, but she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed back. “They’re never gonna do that again, Lu, never again. I’m gonna make sure of it. Bucky’ll make sure of it.” he swore, his voice gone so low it shook. “They hurt you other places?”

Smith shook her head against his chest, “I’ll take the shot, sir.” she murmured meekly. “Would you give it? I don’t want the others to-“

“Sure, Lu.”

He waited until she pulled away, her eyes downcast but the look on her face broke no argument that she wasn’t in a humor to be less than her rank. Gale shifted the shot in his palm and bit his lip, willing away any sentiment about it.

“Goes in the hip. Mark my words, those bicep shots that Tong went for- gonna hurt for ages, you don’t need that. Lemme put it in your hip.”

Smith nodded and cast a furtive glance behind her at the empty hall, only looking down again to undo her belt when Gale moved his body to block any hapless onlooker.

There were bruises when he gently aided her in tugging the drab olive aside, some nearly as dark as the ones on Ida and welts from what looked like a belt strap, even on the high swell of her hip. Gale knew the smarting bite of a belting.

“Did you wash these?” he whispered to her, crouching to better see his work as he made a harbor of unmarried muscle between his thumb and index finger, bunching up the meat of her leg and holding it for her to relax into his touch before he jammed the shot home.

“When we showered.” Lu wasn’t crying anymore but her voice matched his in its softness, tense anticipation for the jab mellowing the longer he kept her staid under his hold.

“Good.” he commended her, voice muffled by the needles’ cap between his lips.

She only stiffened when he drove it in, pressed down on the plunger with his thumb, kept his hand gripping her hip, shaking the muscle just so, “Loosen up.” he ordered, it would hurt less that way. Cleven heard her take a breath and try.

When he stood straight again he took the cap from his mouth and clicked it back on the needle, acting like it took great concentration and focus to do so, all while she pulled her trousers back up and refastened them discreetly. Her cheeks were wet once more, either from before or she’d begun crying again.

“You ok?” he asked.

She gave him a long series of nods as she got on top of the embarrassed anger. “Yes, thanks Buck.”

“I’m right down there.” he reminded, thumbing at his own quarters. “You feel the least bit sickly or- or anything, you come get me. Same for your girls.”

“Yes sir.”

“Alright, well get in there Lu,” he patted her toward her room, “one thing the krauts are picky about here is bedtime.”

Smith sucked in a breath between her teeth, a shuddering thing, “Alright, I’ll remember. Bedtime.”

“So you’re gonna remember bedtime and what else?” Gale catchized her.

“Bedtime and that…you’re -right down there.”

“Very good, Smith.”

“Night, Buck.”

“Night, Lu.”

💋 Hope you enjoyed! Feedback is a writer’s lifeblood, please feel free to scream in comments or the inbox, I love it and wanna hear it all. Trust me, nothing is “too dumb”. Your thoughts mean the world to me.

MOTA taglist, I only have one so ignore if this is not the universe you signed up for:

@stylespresleyhearted

@ab4eva

@earth-to-lottie

@suraemoon

@blurredcolour

@steph-speaks

@crazymadpassionatelove

@rubyfruitjungle

@taestrwbrry

@storysimp

@javden

@sexualparkour

@jointherebellion215

@sunny747

@ask-you-what-sir

@xxanaduwrites

@pretty4u

@yorkshirekiwi

@waitedforlove743

@elvismylove04

@blikebarbie92

@luminouslywriting

@justheretoreadthxxs

@bookotter01

@mads-weasley

@ka-ski

@darkestbeforethedawn16

@slowsweetlove

@richardslady121

@barbeygirl

@prfctplcsreads

@vaf24

@harrys-housewife

@claireelizabeth85

@pearlparty

@piastrinho

@sapienti0sat

@atrophyingaphrodite

@beingalive1

@vendylewin

[tf2occontest]

“Okay team, listen up:

You’re all going to be fighting each other to the death, and whoever wins gets to start their new lifelong career under contract with Team Fortress Industries!

So. Here are the rules.” - P

----------------------------------------

RULES FOR SUBMISSION:

Your character must be original and be directly related to TF2. 

This can be any kind of OC: Class OCs, tenth class OCs, Machine/robot OCs, Team Fortress Classic OCs, OCs who work outside of TFI (such as assistants to Merasmus or Saxton Hale), YLW/GRN OCs, Teufort citizen/civilian OCs, anything—as long as they are directly related to TF2 and are yours !!!! If you have concerns about this, please dm or send an ask to this account BEFORE submitting your character !!!!

2. !!!! ONE OC PER PERSON !!!!

If you are submitting an original tenth class OC, you are allowed to submit a RED and BLU variant in one bundle. This is the ONLY bundling that is allowed.

Any posts from this blog involving your OC will follow this system of tags: #TF2OcContest2024, #[your tumblr username], #the [class name], & #[character name] (if applicable)

3. You are still allowed to submit an OC even if you’ve never posted them anywhere before. Make an oc for the contest if you want!

An image representing your character and a description of your character are REQUIRED upon submission. Details on what is permitted for each of these are included in the submission form below.

4. Propaganda is allowed and ENCOURAGED, even for others’ OCs!

If you make propaganda including other OCs, you are required to have the creator’s explicit permission before posting. Joking, lighthearted ‘smear campaign’ type propaganda is fine, but again—both parties must consent to this and no real harm should come from it. 

Please post any propaganda of your OC under the #TF2OcContest2024 tag.

5. You are not required to make new art. If you participated in the previous OC Tourney hosted by @/tf2shipswag, you are allowed to reuse any old art you made for that, including your half of the VS cards! 

6. AI GENERATED IMAGES FOR SUBMISSIONS AND PROPAGANDA ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED. YOU WILL BE BANNED.

“You will be considered a traitor to the Mann vs Machine cause and shot on sight. There are plenty of other ways to make images that don’t require drawing!” - P

--------------------------------------------

RULES FOR PARTICIPATION:

There will be NO TEAM-UPS for organization’s sake. Any ties will be broken with a coin-flip and a quick shot to the head by Miss Pauling—so aim to win.

“Sooo… Don’t try any funny business! We’ve only got enough room in the budget for one person.” - P

2. You will not be able to make requests for match-ups. Contestants will be paired up randomly each round.

3. Please be respectful about others' OCs. Verified claims of harassment will result in disqualification and/or being blocked from the contest account.

“You’ll also be shot for this, just so we’re clear. Can’t leave any loose ends!” - P

4. You are allowed to submit propaganda directly to this blog if you do not want to post it on your own account!

5. Deadlines will be strict.  Keep an eye on when dates for things are posted.*

“I’m looking to hire someone punctual and professional, please!” - P

*The contest hosts reserve the right to make changes to deadlines, rules, and so forth but it is unlikely to happen. If it does an official statement will be made!

6. THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: PLEASE have fun with this.  Everybody needs to be a good sport and remember this in no way reflects how people view your work, ideas and character.  In our hearts, you’re all winners.  

!!!! What do you get for winning? !!!!

You’ll get fanart of your winning character! Art will be by @/sicc-nasti, @/mickmundane, and @/chattycattycal on tumblr PLEASE keep in mind these are NOT requests, just gift fanart!

“You get to live! And bragging rights, of course. Oh—and the job contract. I think someone could also make a celebratory cake? Don’t hold me to that last part, though.” - P

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE SEND IN AN ASK!

APPLICATIONS CLOSED

DEADLINES:

November 30th - SUBMISSIONS FOR OCS CLOSE

VS ART DUE: JANUARY 3RD

VOTING BEGINS: JANUARY 5TH

MATCHUP LIST ROUND 1 OF VOTING HAS BEGUN!!! GO VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE OCS!

FIND THE POLLS WITH THESE TAGS

#Poll AND #Round 1 - VOTING POLLS check this tag to see who's up against who!

Other Notable Tags:

#Announcement - For dates, updates, anything important.

#Asks - Answering your asks

#TF2cContest2024 - Our main tag! #Mod Sicc and #Mod Mick - Moderator tags ^_^

[grandline-fics]

Ohhhh i really really really like your writing, it’s so very good!! Could i request some fluff with zoro? I was thinking about the reader being an artist, and he finds her sketchbook and is impressed by her art, and then he finds drawings of the crew and him. Or something like that, you can definitely change the idea. Thank you very much, i hope you have a good day/night!

DESCRIPTION: You’re an artist and he asks to see your sketchbook

WARNINGS:  none

CHARACTERS: Zoro

WORDS: 680

A/N: Thank you for the request! I've been feeling a bit of writer's block creeping up but hopefully you like what I came up with.

*REQUESTS ARE OPEN*

MASTERLIST

———————

“You’re going to hurt your back if you keep hunching over like that.” Zoro told you as he looked over his shoulder to fix you with a meaningful look, amused to see you snap out of your trance to look up in surprise. It didn’t matter how many times he reminded you to sit up properly, you still ended up in this kind of position when you were intensely set on drawing in the sketchbook that was rarely far from your reach. He didn’t miss how your hand instinctively curled over the pages currently being worked on, protecting them from view but also using practiced care to avoid smudging the drawings. 

Zoro couldn’t help but note you were more protective of your sketchbook around him than you would be with the rest of the crew. Yes, you still would shield it initially from view but if asked you would reveal what you were currently working on. With him? You never showed it unless it was finished products on a canvas. Silently he wondered why he was different. Though he supposed he wasn’t one to ask outright compared to the likes of Luffy who was impulsive and excitable, Sanji, who gushed over the slightest thing, and even Robin who was naturally curious about art and anything intellectual. Compared to them, Zoro never felt the need to ask even when he did want to see your talent. “Can I see?” he asked.

You tensed in surprise and quickly let your gaze flicker to the sketchbook and back to his face. It wasn’t that you didn’t want him to see, it was just you weren’t sure how he would react. Hesitantly you pulled your hand away and let the pages be revealed to him. Zoro stepped closer and lifted the book into his hands, he’d seen how you held it enough times to know the proper way to treat it without ruining any of your hard work. Slowly he started at the beginning, taking in scenes you’d drawn from previous adventures on different islands. 

Some pages held detailed studies of plants and landscapes, each bringing out a memory for him, whether it of a vague feeling of relaxation or a stronger emotion as he recalled the hard won fights they’d engaged on. Most of the pages however he knew had been taken from some place on the Sunny, the focus being some, if not all of the crew. It didn’t take him long to notice that he seemed to feature more heavily than the others. He would be lying if he didn’t feel some sort of satisfaction at that. 

For the first time since you’d let him look at the very thing you were most precious about he lifted his gaze to see you were purposely looking away from him. “It’s not like you to be insecure, you’re talented. Why are you so nervous?” He asked, pretending to be oblivious. Part of him hoped you’d give him an answer he’d been hoping on. Zoro watched you lightly chew on your bottom lip as you tried to form an answer. Finally you cleared your throat.

“I’m not insecure about my skill…” You began simply, slowly building the nerve to look at the swordsman while also trying to stop the growing blush on your face. “It’s just I don’t want you to think I’m stalking you or anything, I know I’ve drawn you a lot.”

“You have?” Zoro couldn’t help the teasing tone creeping into his voice as he looked down at one page in particular that was a study of him training with his swords. “Hadn’t noticed.”

”Oh shut up!” You grumbled lightly, taking the sketchbook back into your hold. “It’s not my fault I can only draw things that interest me. It’s just how I am.” Quickly you clamped your mouth shut, the blush burning on your skin stronger now as Zoro grinned down at you, looking even more pleased with himself. He only wished he’d asked to see your sketchbook sooner had he known this was what he was going to get.

[lukolucky]

INTRO!!!

Yes I waited till new year to post this

Who am I?

My name is LukoLucky! For short, you can call me Luko or Oliver. I am an artist and animator!

I REALLY love jsab and dragons, so expect my art to be mostly about those things!

About my ocs & Au....

I have a lot of characters, which I can't keep track of... But I most certainly say some small facts about them, their name included!

I am also writing my own JSAB au; Lost Memories.

After the pandemic pink anarchy happened, several of those involved were still struggling to be accepted, trying to fit into a society that hated the loud, bright pink in their souls. But the one who struggled the most to live a normal life is Fresh, who always won people's attention, not only because of his color... But because of the controversial fact that he looked almost exactly like the figure that caused such an immense rebellion...

Anyway... I might change the name, but I'd love to hear some opinions first<3

About me!

Despite my yapping and long conversations, I am actually very shy and reserved, It's not anyone's fault that I don't want to make friends or respond to comments, but please understand that! But if you'd like, you can always leave a question!

I am trans (ftm) and bisexual! I go by HE/THEY with male pronouns being preferred, thank you!

If you can't tell... I FUCKING LOVE LYCANTHROPY!!! And Cubic from TPC...

You can always request me something! But there's a high chance I won't do said request, sorry about that pal

I won't do a dni list, because I'll just block anyone whose behaviour is harmful to me

Sharing my art is highly appreciated!!! Just please don't delete my watermark, copy or claim as yours.

Socials!

I only have Discord, Telegram, Roblox, Pinterest and Tiktok under the same name

Thank you for reading ♡ please, enjoy some of my art below!

[pastel-medic]

My name is Xed/Pastel ^v^ (He/Xe/They)! I am 24 years old and any other art accts will likely have the username pastelxapple if you want to find me on other platforms!

Medicsona:

Mercenary Intros

Full Refs:

RED Team:

BLU Team:

Gentlesurgery Ship 💜:

Roulette Class AU:

Blog intro, tags, & rules ⬇️

Ko-fi (sketch comms):

Strawpage:

Tags:

#my art (or #xed art) - My art tag! You can find my artwork directly with this tag 🐍✨

#ask box - All replies to my inbox are tagged with this! It comprises mostly of Q&As of my mercs or other characters, art requests, and other questions!

#roulette class au (or #tf2 roulette class au) - This is the tag for my TF2 AU, the Roulette Class AU! The long and short of it is I swapped all of the mercenaries' classes and there's major differences in the lore.

#quixote - My gentlesurgery ship tag! So not to confuse my ship with RED Medic and VLT Spy from the usual gentlesurgery ship you can find their content separate from that with this tag!

#medic brothers - This tag is specifically for my Medic Brothers (Fritz and Ludwig), so any art and lore for them are tagged with this!

#lore crumbs 🍰 - Small pieces of art and/or posts about my ocs or AUs! 👏🏼✨ I try to tag posts with any info or headcanons about my characters/AUs ^^

#shortcake medic - Tag used for any art I make of my Medicsona, Shortcake Medic! 🍰💖

#tsu art - (or #twin art) - Art tag for my twin's artwork 🦊 (@/hoshi-tsubasa )! I love sharing her work and she deserves more praise for it! ^v^✨ Yes she is a furry so be kind!!!

#moot art 💖 - Art tag for my artist mutuals! I love to share their work so I keep this tagged to their stuff so I can find it again (cuz I'm dumb and don't wanna scroll through reblogs for eternity)

#other artists (or #reblog) - This is the tag I use when I reblog other amazing artists' work!

General Info:

I've technically been in the TF2 community for more than 6 years but I just recently got back into it as of 2024!

Pr0shipper/“problematic” accounts DNI!!! I will block you >:(((

@/hoshi-tsubasa is my twin! Her art is just as incredible so go check her out too if you'd like! She also draws TF2 stuff here and there, plus she has some TF2 merch you can check out on her redbubble!

My main ship is Gentlesurgery, which I draw quite a lot! If that ship is not your cup of tea I kindly suggest to be polite and just move on, harassment and hate will not be tolerated here. I also have other favorite TF2 ships that I don't have listed above in the "Meet The Artist" template that I may draw from time to time! However, please be mindful that I don't really draw HeavyMedic (Red Oktoberfest), MedicScout (Quickfix/Blunt Trauma), or SniperScout (SpeedingBullet) ships, as those are not ships I'm particularly fond of compared to others (MedicScout cuz as a passionate MedicSpy shipper it just feels uncomfy for me) ;3; very sorry! (ALSO ABSOLUTELY NO SPYSCOUT GET OUT OF HERE WITH THAT DISGUSTING STUFF) I do like most TF2 ships tho (I especially love all Spy ships)! 💖

Please be aware I likely will not draw nsfw! There may be suggestive art tho from time to time :3c Some things will be tagged with tw if needed!

Also please do not tag my art with ship tags unless I have them put under my art! I am not comfortable with certain dynamics being labeled as ships, especially if the dynamic is not meant to be in any form romantic/sexual ;;

My hyperfixations do shift so I may hop from one media to another or draw crossovers! I will usually post my other non-TF2 art on my instagram, but all TF2 content will be here!

In addition, please be aware I have ADHD and an alter system (DID), so please note that I may go silent with posts every once in a while. My mental health is not a subject I care to make front and center here, so I prefer any questions or topics of such be kept private! Thank you! 💖

If you can I encourage you to reblog my artwork if you like it! Traction on tumblr is very different than on other social sites like twitter and tiktok, so it would mean a lot to me if you could share my art! 🥺💌 I'm deeply humbled if you enjoy my content, thank you!

Ask Box Rules:

This is a 16+ ask blog, so if you wanna ask me or my version of the mercs something pls feel free! Anon questions will be turned on and off from time to time, but if people completely abuse it or things get out of hand I will shut them off permanently ;3; Also please respect that there's a limit for how much you can ask of me, I won't consistently draw the same thing over and over if it's asked for like more than 3 times (especially by the same person)!

Also, if I do not respond to your ask, it may be because I am either uncomfortable with the ask, am unsure how to respond, or simply do not feel that it is an ask that needs to be posted. I am also NOT an rp blog so I will not respond to rp-like asks. Please respect this, thank you!

Please be respectful! I have major anxiety and communication/socializing is difficult for me, so I may not engage in conversations much ;0; I do get super nervous with parasocial behavior!!! I will do my best to respond to my inbox so please be patient with me 💌

Fanart/Art Rules:

Art Trades are for mutuals only! I rarely do them but think they're fun! Also will only do an art trade if the level of art quality and skill is the similar to my own, thank you! 💖

This isn't entirely an art request blog but depending on the question in the ask box I might doodle something if I'm interested enough! 🍰✨ I don't really draw ship requests often tho! ;3; Might do some that I like but depends!

I don't mind fanart! If you'd like to make fanart for me please tag me so I can see your lovely work! However pls don't draw my ocs or version (aus included) of the mercs inappropriately or in ships I otherwise am not comfortable with, as they already have pre-established relationships ;; Also please do not misinterpret/take creative liberties with my Medicsona (Shortcake Medic) specifically, as he is my personal sona and I am more sensitive about art of him! He is not an oc, he is a sona, so I am uncomfortable with misinterpretations and/or nsfw art of him. If you are unsure about anything please ask me first, I am very firm and particular about him! Thank you!!! 💖🍰

If you want to use my art as a profile pic please ask me first!!! DO NOT REPOST OR EDIT MY ARTWORK!!!!

[captainzigo]

Hi everypony!

My kofi is ko-fi.com/captainzigo if you enjoy my art, consider leaving me a tip! this is otherwise entirely a labor of love so,,,

you can also send a request with your tip! but if you choose to do so, please read the disclaimer later on in this post**

my non-art blog, where i accept asks is @snapewife-divorce-lawyer and my reblog-spam blog is @3amgaypotion also i am on bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/captainzigo.bsky.social

that's a bunch of pictures of my oc(/ponysona) Prickly Pear. she's a cowgirl

Frequent/noteworthy questions below the break

**on donations made to me:

i still dont take commissions currently, but if you send a request with a donation, there's a 99% chance i'll do it. and that remaining 1% i'll probably just ask you for a different request. if you send me a request with a donation you are not sending me a commision. you are making a donation, and i might do you a favor as a result. you do not own the resulting art. and I am under no obligation to complete it or to do it in the way that you like. you do not need to make a donation in order to make a request. i talk more about it here

hello mutuals!

If you are a mutual, DM me for an invite to discord server and subsequently to minecraft server

on sending me asks:

any asks you send me should be like Strongbad emails. one paragraph. no attachments. unless you are sending me refs.

in any interactions, please keep in mind that i am a stranger on the internet and act accordingly.

unless I have explicitly said otherwise, you can safely assume that I do not count you amongst my friends. it is nothing personal, it is in fact the opposite.

why am i like this?

i am autistic. i say this because representation matters, but also because i would like to ask that you please be very frank with me. i don't even really need your patience. just say what you mean and we will get along fine.

can you draw my ocs?

you most certainly can draw any of my ocs. i'd love that acually. tag me

on (re)posting my art:

do not post my art on other platforms. do not repost my art period. I don't really exist on other platforms since i deleted Twitter. So if you see my stuff on other platforms, it's not me. except for my bluesky.

transformative works are obviously allowed, at least here in USamerica where i live. but if you want my blessing, please keep them SFW, and try to keep the spirit of the original artwork

is my blog SFW?

im in my twenties. i keep my blog SFW (as i define it) as a strict rule.

i do not consider the fact that sex exists, that some people enjoy it, or some innuendo to be NSFW. i also do not consider swearing, even as tho a sailor might, to be NSFW.

are NSFW interactions ok?

in short: no. while i have no aversion to to that sort of thing, and often actually enjoy it, i keep this blog SFW. the intention behind my art is to be SFW even when it might be skirting the line. in general, and especially, specifically with mlp, i do not wish to have NSFW interactions on the internet. please respect this boundary.

on shipping:

in my opinion, all romance real or fictional should be between people who are similar in age, doing age appropriate things, not closely related, and all with mutual consent. i am not interested in witnessing or interacting with anything outside of these parameters.

on my blue hair and pronouns:

i am a trans woman. i am also bisexual. i am also poly and demi since im listing things. i am out online becasue i know how important it is to know that you aren't alone.

do i take constructive criticism?

NO 🖕👹🖕 FUCK YOU!!!!!!! GET BLOCKED IDIOT!! unless you are a marginalized person who feels i have unintentionally made you uncomfortable somehow with my art or otherwise. in that case i am sorry and you do me a great favor by calling me out. OTHERWISE FUCK YOU DUMBASS IF YOU DONT LIKE MY ART GO DRAW YOUR OWN 🖕🖕🖕🖕

“i hate bronies”…

i don't necessarily hate you if you self identify with that label. i like to make myself off-putting to keep creeps away. i talk about it more in this post: https://www.tumblr.com/captainzigo/744131513208176640/when-i-say-i-hate-bronies-in-my-header-its

brony?

i don't hold a lot of nostalgia for old brony stuff. infact it's quite the opposite. i was a child when the show came out, and more than that i was a girl. i am not a brony.

do i like g5?

i like all generations of mip including the new stuff. gen 4 is just the one i grew up with

why is my header aurora, bori and alice from the best gift ever?

well that would be because i hate them like a mother hates a child. like the sun hates the moon. like sickly victorian child hates the slightest morsel of bread.

on flurryheart:

i often draw stuff about cozy glow x flurry heart. this is with the understanding that cozy glow spends about a decade turned to stone. nullifying the age gap.

🤓☝️ i think you mean effect, not affect

i am dyslexic. i spell stuff wrong all the time and i type weird. please don't bother correcting me. wooptydoo your brain is wired normally. sending you a medal.

on my username:

i've had the same username since i debuted on the internet. zigo is the name of an oc i made that i dont really talk much about anymore. zigo is a fine enough nickname, and at least one person calls me that irl.

[gojinka]

🚧 I’m carny, (he/him, 19) but feel free to call me WorldSewage, World, Sewage, Gatored, any other iteration of it, as long as I know you’re talking about me. This is a side account!

Click read more and scroll to the ⚠️ section for a FAQ!

Some of my content WILL be suggestive. Please block #suggestive (or maybe even nsfw?) if you’re uncomfortable with this content! I can’t imagine that I’ll ever be drawing sexually explicit (exposed genitalia) nsfw content but block the tags NSFW just in case…

AU content will be rolled out slowly, I am not a very fast artist, but my ask box will always remain open, so feel free to ask questions (chances are it will be answered! Albeit slowly!)

I love my mutuals, do not be afraid to talk to me! I can’t promise I’ll be super chatty, but I want it to be known that I love a good conversation. I don’t know how to convey this so often I wind up drawing your characters.

If you bastards open up a white board, @ me! I want to join! (Joking)

Homerun Au / ABOUT ME / extra art / info under the cut! 📌

My agents:

Alligator : (she/her)

Saint : (they/them)

Valentine : (they/them) (and she/her? But sparingly, they’d prefer if you would begin with they/them, you can ease into she / her.)

July : (they/them)

My tags are formatted pretty clearly, but just in case:

Homerun au - pertains to all information / art that takes place in this au, my agents are all designed to fit into this au— BUT, can be viewed as canon compliant if you want :]

Most of my character tags are formatted like “Name ( thing they are )” — (examples: “saint (Neo 3) , fido (oc) , carny (sona) , valentine (agent 8) )

Carnying - off topic posts , I don’t usually vent publicly , but most of my rambling will probably be under this tag. I also tag off topic (ie non splatoon asks) with carnying at times.

EMERGENCY EXIT - name of my Splatoon Idol ocs, I still tag their names, but this is the name of the group.

My art - is my art tag… I usually always tag the characters featured in my art.

Doodles - a not very often used tag… I use it for WIPs or joke drawings sometimes? I forget this tag exists frequently … I do use it for WIPS.

Salmonids/Octarians/Inkling tags - usually for world building or headcannons…!

⚠️ I draw on JSPAINT or on Procreate: I use primarily custom brushes.

⚠️ catch me on my Main account— @gatored , and for warrior cats content: @rendside

⚠️ here’s my artfight to those who are interested! https://artfight.net/~Gatored

⚠️ I don’t currently have a toyhouse, when I make one, I’ll link it here!

⚠️ I do not take commissions (currently.)

⚠️ I don’t know how I pick colors, I just do. I would like to make a tutorial some say, but I have no idea what I’m doing!

⚠️ art requests are ok! I’m willing to do art trades, but as of right now, I am unavailable:)

⚠️ I’m okay with fan art! Please just don’t be weird! I’m okay with oc interaction fanart but only with my splatoon ocs!!

⚠️ Please mind the ages of my characters, any inappropriate comments made towards characters who are children / depicted as children (ie. Characters who are 18+ but in the post are under age) will be killed.

⚠️ He/Him. Refrain from using “they” to the best of your ability… I’m 19– January birthday, year of the rooster. I’m the guy who draws the bipedal salmonids.

⚠️ I work in the kitchen and get paid minimum wage and I love my job and life to bits, I am not a “professional” artist, but I work quite a bit, so my drawing time isn’t very long.

⚠️ I don’t believe DNIs work, but let it be known AI / transphobes / unsolicited critiques will be blocked. I abuse the block button, at times.

⚠️ feel free to tag me! I don’t mind! If you have questions Asks are the best way! I don’t respond often to Direct Messages.

⚠️ you are required to compare my art to various foods. (Joke. but I will smile big if you do this)

——

🥩— I can’t promise I’ll update the below as of posting this (3/6/23) so please check out the “HOMERUN AU” tag for all information, but here are some quick links for those interested!

I know this au MAY seem a tad confusing, but I’m updating it as I go!

Homerun World Building: X — X

SQUIDSISTERS X — Evil Callie + “MUD” — 🐙Octavio

DEEPCUT: “Return of the Mammalians” (designs) (designs + small information) (bigman comic)

[airxn]

Protecting Yourself from Fetish Mining.

The rise in fetish mining anons has become horrifically rampant over the past year in RPC. Unfortunately, many folks have fallen victim to them due to the nature of fetish miners. The purpose of this PSA is to aid in spotting fetish mining anons within the Tumblr RPC.

Before I continue, please proceed with caution as this topic is adult themed but is a PSA for everyone. I will not go into detail about any fetishes. To learn more about general fetish mining, and what to look out for, check out this detailed PSA by BeckiiCruel, and this PSA about fetish mining within the art community by BluSilurus.

What is Fetish Mining?

Fetish mining, within the Tumblr RPC, is the soliciting of fetish content through Tumblr's inbox via anonymous asks. These asks are sent without the receiver knowing their true purpose and without their informed consent.

People are allowed to have fetishes, but fetish miners thrive off their victims being unassuming and unable to give informed consent. Fetish mining is a nonconsensual fetish and exploits their victims into giving them fetish content.

What to Look For.

Fetish miners within the Tumblr RPC use the anonymous inbox feature to conceal their identity, evade accountability for their actions, and come off as nonthreatening. They'll most likely come off as playful and exploit the fun in receiving anonymous asks within the RPC.

Fetish miners prefer targeting SFW blogs over NSFW ones. Why? Fetish miners want to claim their asks are not of fetishistic nature and to deny the receiver consent. They rely on plausible deniability in order to continue sending asks to their victims.

Please note that anything can be a fetish. Fetish mining asks will appear as innocent as possible to trick unassuming victims into giving them fetish content. They can also be super subtle or extremely obvious. Here are a few behaviors and examples of what to look for:

– Persistent or fixated on the same topic, action, request, or question over an over again. – Pressuring the receiver to answer the ask/s in a playful manner. – Pulling or stomping on a muse's tail, limb, hair, etc. – Putting your muse in a scenario where they're stuck in something. – Transforming your muse into an object, creature, or adding new features. – Cloning a muse repeatedly over several asks. – Feeding a muse over several asks. – Tickling a muse over several asks. – Fixating on muse's underwear, shoes, or other specific garments. – Wanting a scenario of a muse's scent or smell in detail. – Any kind of bathroom talk, including the discussion of diapers, the sender wetting themselves, discussion of any bodily fluid, and so forth. – Giving a muse a kind of potion, magic etc, that will force the muse into their desired effect ( changing their size, making them pregnant, expanding or shrinking certain body parts, laughing fits, the muse becomes lustful, or anything listed above, etc. ). – Super detailed scenarios featuring any of the listed topics that is without any plotting or context. – And much more as anything can be a fetish.

All instances above have been reported in the RPC throughout the years. Here is a Google document with current records given by victims. Please take a look to see real examples of fetish mining. You are free to submit your own instances if you have the victims consent. Instructions on how to do so are in the document.

How to Protect Yourself.

If an ask feels off to you, trust your gut. You do not need to answer every ask that comes into your inbox. If you're still uncertain check with trusted friends, or cross check the Google document listed above. Block any anon that makes you feel off, uneasy, or unsafe. Set your own boundaries, but be warned, fetish miners will not respect them if you leave them unblocked.

If you feel you must answer the ask, take a screenshot, block the anon, and then put the screenshot and your answer in a seperate post. Remember anons must be a member of the tumblr community. Unless they have another account, blocking them will keep you safe from further fetish mining attempts.

If you think someone is being fetish mined please reach out to them and inform them. Victims rarely realize they're nonconsensually playing into someone's fetish. Victims should not be shamed or told they should know better. Stay vigilant and stay safe. Look out for your fellow rper if you see anything that could be fetish mining.

[nintendonut1]

I absolutely despise making posts like these, I just turned 35 years old and have little room in my life for online drama, but this has gotten to the point where folks' actual safety has become a legit concern of mine, so I don't think I can let this go without saying something.

At this point, for everyone in the SMRPG sub-fandom, or any other fandoms, honestly, it's probably a safe bet to block Yoylecake420 wherever you see them.

I don't have time for details or screenshots, I'll just summarize my personal experience with them.

At first, I got plenty of asks from them about their hyperfixations here on tumblr. I'm busy as hell, so most of them got lost in my inbox, and the ones I saw I had little time to entertain with an answer.

Then, they joined my Discord about a month ago, where they were active in sharing their art and stuff. Then me and the mods caught wind of them sending unsolicited DMs and friend requests to various members of the server, often with uncomfortable topics. We gave them a fair warning to stop. They did not.

This repeated behavior ended in a ban from the server. During this, they were also repeatedly making a mockery of my webcomic's OCs by making uncomfortable art/captions and submitting the characters to Kiss-Marry-Kill-style blogs despite me asking them not to, so I blocked them on Discord, Tumblr, deviantArt, and Art Fight. I know this is small potatoes compared to harassing people, but it's important context for the following.

A day after the ban from my server, they joined up the Spiderforest server, knowing I'm a part of that webcomic community. I was even warned by the mods, who were aware of Yoyle's behavior as they had already been messaging the SF tumblr about my comic.

A week later, they joined ComicFury, and replied to me on the forum, complimenting my work. Like nothing had ever happened. Like I didn't have them blocked everywhere else. Like they hadn't fully disrespected me, my work, and my community.

I directly messaged them telling them to leave me alone. Their response was a slight apology, but also admitting to being obsessed with my work, having a hard time moving on, and, ultimately, wanting the attention.

So. There it is. It pains me, knowing this is giving them the attention they want, but I'm too fucking old for games like that and the need for me to look out for everyone's safety is more important.

Yoyle is a person who does not care about others' personal boundaries. If you ignore them, they persist. If you tell them to stop, they do for a day or two, and then persist again. And if you block them, they'll evade it and stalk you to somewhere else on the internet.

Of course, it's not my place to tell anyone how to interact with others, but I am suggesting a pre-emptive block if you make, at the very least, Geno fanart, and aren't interested in being harassed across multiple platforms and having your boundaries stomped on. I do not suggest interacting with them, as they are the embodiment of "give them an inch and they'll take a mile."

I've got one screenshot here from a friend of all their alt accounts (this is publicly available on their main tumblr) for any pre-emptive blocking on those sites:

[chimichaching]

I know it's bland, having an art block type moment ig.

After fiddleford left the project, Ford started to become delusional, having no one to keep him grounded in reality. He lets Bill possess him more frequently, to keep the one he trusted in the most in his life, he isolated himself from everyone, and Bill was all he had left. He hears Bill in his head, in his thoughts, and sees him in his dreams. When he wasn't in them, Ford would beg, or pray, to bill, afraid he'll lose him. Sitting in his room full of bill cipher relics, drawings, and tapestries for hours, he'd be finishing up the portal as Bill requested. When Ford did go out for food and toiletries, he'd ramble to others about Bill, how powerful he was, and how they'd benefit from his wisdom and power. Some would brush him off, others, looking for answers and already suseptible to manipulation and promises of an easier life listened. Bill, the narcissistic being he is, commands Ford to grow a following, a place of worship, Ford being the priest, his disciple.

As Ford loses his sanity, he believes anything bad or good that's happened to him was because of Bill being either pleased or displeased with him. He sees him in anything that had any resemblance of Bill, a yield sign, triangle perfume bottles, children's books, hell, even pizza and doritos! Feeling as if he was watching, anywhere at anytime.

Ford has finished the portal, or has put the finishing touches on it, allowing Bills plan to finally begin, Ford, his henchmaniacs and his cult help Bill in various ways, destroying the forcefield around the town, Bill begins his never-ending "party" with Ford as his devoted disciple and partner. The world goes into chaos.

The twins, dipper and Mabel, never visit gravity falls, Stanley never getting that call from Ford. The twins were not born yet, never stopping Bill, fiddleford still created the blind eye, but the group is forced underground to avoid danger as the cult grew. "The all seeing eye" was Ford's new cult he made for Bill, mocking the blind eye's group.

Dipper and Mabel are born into chaos, raised to fear and worship Bill and his henchmaniacs, however they rebeled, Dipper researching how to stop Bill, his henchmaniacs...and his grunkle Ford. Mabel has a knack for building weapons and is able to evade detection from gangs as she searches for food, water, and supplies for her and dipper in their hometown, piedmont, California.

Ok, ok, I know it's long, but i just needed to put this somewhere, I'm not a good story teller and I haven't truly read the journals or the book of bill just yet, I'm going off by the little I know from the show and what I've seen and read. I wanted to see an angsty AU, didn't find one or just didn't search hard enough, so...forgive me if it's totally out of order, thank you for reading and I hope I did ok. <3 it's also 4 AM where I'm at..so there might be mistakes.

[scooburst]

Alright jsut realized I have no like… intro. You all have no idea what’s going on. I don’t either, bur okay.e

Also join my discord (lmk if the link doesn’t work)

SO HERE, AN INTRo

Intro.

Hey. My name is weird, but that’s just my pets names combined.

I will post the most random things ever and be an idiot while having a good time, so enjoy.

Pronouns are whatever. I couldn’t care less. (I am technically she/they, but I really do not care.)

I’ll take any asks and answer them, BUT I CANT TAKE MONEY ASKS. I’m broke and can’t donate.

If you have multiple go ahead and send them, i don’t mind. I’m so happy just to get one

Also I’m a minor. And asexual. So please don’t be weird. I don’t mind jokes but like actually being weird WILL get ignored or blocked depending on what.

I have ADHD, Anxiety, and probably a host of mental issues.

I don’t like physical touch (unless it is some people specifically) so uh sorry

I have so much trauma. Be careful. But also I don’t have many triggers.

I have never had a source of affection until installing this app, so I will melt if you show me any kindness or love at all, and likely trauma dump and show just how fucked up I am

I also take art requests. I will not accept money or NSFW (loose definition of this)

Here is an ask blog I made for Tem: @ask-tem

AND HERES MY AU!!!

@ask-wanderer-au

Also we have a contest to see who can blow up my notifications better! It’s the notification spammer of the day award! Current winners have been:

@unablethethird

@caretaleandotherstuff

@zermizomilk x3

@skelpiescool x11

@ratmare-catnap x2

@comiverse

@eatheire

It’s announced daily at 8pm ET

As for DNI, honestly, just don’t be a jerk. I really don’t care otherwise.

Here’s some stuff for the askbox as well

Have I hit my post limit yet: nah

Wife: @blooming-skeleton

Children: @caretaleandotherstuff

Cut because of things

Another note, if there is anything harmful in the inbox or replies/reblogs of this I will either ignore it or answer with only a “.” and leave the rest to anyone seeing it. If you catch me in a bad mood though I may yell at you. Anyway.

NOTIFICATIONS ON THE OTHER BLOG S DO NOT COUNT. IF YOU DELIBERATELY ATTEMPT TO USE RHAT TO WIN, YOU ARE NOT WINNING.

[mj-iza-writer]

My note to the whump community.

Alright.... *takes deep breath*

31 original stories..... I am so tired.

Whumptober 2024 has been completed. I had an ot of fun writing for this event. It's also nostalgic for me. Whumptober 2023 was my first event. I was completely new to Tumblr. I had just joined in September of 2023 after Pinterest kept giving me issues. I wanted to be able to fully immerse myself into the whump community. Pinterest is where I first learned about it and only wrote in the comment sections of pinned post. These posts normally where screenshots from here. Prompts, small stories... I wanted to be with my whump heroes on this app.

I've been on Tumblr for over a year now. I've met so many amazing people. People that have pushed me to become a better writer. People who have allowed me to write freely, and when I had writers block, I always seem to get asks that help pull me out.

I have been able to see some goals met. I know the biggest one was fan art. It was my dream to see characters that I've written in an art form and see how others saw them. None of my goals have to be met. It's just something I enjoy setting for myself. But, when I was randomly scrolling on here one day, I hadn't even looked at my notifications yet. I looked at someone's art, and thought that it was cool how it resembled a character I had written, then to scroll and find out it truly was from my story. I tell you, I still think of that first one. @anonwithwhumperflies has also sent me art that I cherish so much.

I love the whump community so much. It is filled with the most amazing people. I don't think I've ever known a fandom to be so filled with people like the whump community. The nicest, sweetest people.

I know I have a few requests that people have been waiting for. I am so thankful for everyone's patience. I am going to take a one day break on posting a story, but I will get those requests out.

Thankyou to everyone on here, and thankyou to the whump community. - Mj-iza-Writer.