#also yes this is from the doodle page I posted earlier

[painted-bees]

Hi-Note Masterpost!

[Also available to read over on our website!: https://www.larkandwren.com/hinote (some of the earlier writing and such has been edited there, as well, for better/more accurate continuity! It's a better read, in general.)] So, who are these guys?

They're just characters who've been living in my head rent free. Sean and I have been kinda developing them on a whim and we don't really intend for them to have like... a formal comic production or anything, just really casuall...little slice of life comic sketches, largely unedited walls of texts, that kinda thing. This little masterpost is about as organized of a product as you're gonna get about them!

Here, have their toyhou.se pages, as a starter!:

https://toyhou.se/2430896.cortes

https://toyhou.se/21370126.rafael-ephrem

https://toyhou.se/21369477.magritte-bailey

Introductory post, the basics about these guys!:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/cortes-80275480

Raf's Family: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/720121276234170368/one-person-said-yes-thats-all-the-permission-i Raf's Condition: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/724184582183927808/good-questions-and-im-nervous-to-answer-cuz?source=share

[comic] The litmus test:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/722423019768774656/nah-just-bog-standard-this

[prose] The Meet-Cute: i https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/731262008425644032/august-12-2008-magritte-had-only-ever-heard?source=share&ref=painted-bees ii https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/733051366576144384/part-i-hitting-a-cafe-during-rush-hour-wasnt?source=share&ref=painted-bees

Raf and Margie's early relationship:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/713687883290214400/thinkin-more-about-magritte-and-rafael-because-of

[comic] Place to stay: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/728717693050650624/november-2008-magritte-and-raf-had-been-meeting?source=share

second night: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/732783223474733056/a-scribbley-little-comic-about-the-second-time-raf?source=share&ref=painted-bees

[prose][nsfw] First Kiss: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/735866872788074496/cw-explicit-content-march-18th-2009-the-top?source=share

[comic] Forgetful:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/722820351292211200/a-quick-sloppy-little-comic-about-magritte?source=share [New!] Job Offers and Commitments: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/745376745457418240?source=share

[comic] Oui'd: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/733959177193586688/terrible-thanks?source=share

They had a little fight: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/724734371517579264/haha-okay-deep-inhale-so-back-before

[comic] "Omelette du Fromage":

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/718285360589930497/she-doesnt-understand-a-word-of-french-original [New!][comic] What if things were different?: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/745579096757747712/rafs-amount-of-self-awareness-and-the-amount-of?source=share

[nsfw][comic] Havin' a normal one:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/714015076047273984/its-dead-hours-on-tumblr-everyones?source=share

[comic] The Phone Call:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/727857213109059584?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/727881395615170560/follow-up-from-last-nights-lil-doodle-magritte?source=share

[prose]How They Met Cortes:

i https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/733653276161130496/september-23rd-2010-i-the-tide-was-lower-than?source=share

ii https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/733928740517724160/part-i-and-ii?source=share iii https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/734558753585856512/part-i-and-ii-part-iii-iv-and-v?source=share iv https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/738680136750219265/part-i-and-ii-part-iii-iv-and-v-part-vi?source=share [comic] Bong Water: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/739481533849698304/a-sketchy-lil-comic-about-the-first-and-last?source=share [nsfw][comic] "Want anything from the store?":

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/713269794440364032/smutty-sketch-beneath-the-cut-youve-been-warned?source=share

[comic] The Grant:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/714134937042927616/magritte-receiving-the-most-validating-news-shes

Fourth Roommate:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/716454157486374912/painted-bees-they-found-a-very-unwell-cat-in-the

[New!][comic] Quiche: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/745361507256238080/she-said-what-she-said-raf-hi-note-draw-by?source=share

[comic] Today's Mood: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/745084030149689344/hi-note?source=share

[comic] Dig your vibe: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/725286527536611328/dorks-ocs?source=share

[New!] [comic] No DuhVinci on Youtube Dot Com: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/754347606775414784/a-sketchy-little-comic-about-margie-finding-a-cute?source=share

[New!] [comic] Fictional Stage Guys: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/749272041458450432/raf-voice-say-sike-right-now?source=share [interview] Vanity Fair: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/741733741222854656/raf-ephrems-return-to-be-honest?source=share

Lil' timeline of major events:

-1980: Rafael is born in Monaco, January 29th. -1984: Rafael receives his first custom-made violin and begins lessons. -1987: Magritte is born in Timmins, Ontario, August 12th -1988: Rafael's uncle, Guillaume, quits his role at Ephrem Records and leaves Monaco. -1992-1997: The peak years following Rafael's rise to becoming an internationally recognized child performer, bringing the Ephrem Records label into popular culture. Raf begins attendance at Juilliard during the autumn of 1997. -1999: Magritte buys her first musical instrument (Yamaha PSS-270). -2001: Rafael graduates Juilliard with a bachelor's of music. -2002: Rafael reaches out to his uncle in Vancouver and moves in with him the same year. Begins his job at Hi-Note Studio as a sound engineer. -2003: Rafael receives his formal diagnosis of (complex)post traumatic stress disorder and paranoid personality disorder. Moves out of his uncle's house and into his own apartment during the winter. -2004: Magritte graduates high school. -2005: Magritte is kicked out of the house. -2006: Magritte starts her "Stampy Ptarmigans" youtube channel with recordings of her street busking sessions. -2008: Magritte and Rafael meet in a downtown Vancouver skytrain station. -2009: Magritte moves in with Rafael and begins working at Hi-Note Studio with him. -2010: Uncle Guillaume passes away, leaving Rafael to inherit the cabin on Cortes Island. Rafael and Magritte move to spend a full year on the island and meet Cortes during the autumn. -2011: The trio return to Vancouver as their main home, electing to spend the late spring months on Cortes island. -???? -???? -2014: The trio formalize To Be Honest as their band name and release their debut album.

QnA and comic doodle repository:

Cortes tidbits

#All Cortes Posts! About her shapeshifting:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/714957835563417600/so-do-magritte-and-ralph-also-kiss-cortez-when?source=share

Some more about Cortes: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/724506918894338050/bestie-i-just-gotta-know-more-about-cortes-i?source=share

Favorite marine animal to eat??? Wanderlust?:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/716285392928849920/cortes-when-not-in-human-shape-whats-your?source=share

Sexuality?:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/712778141904551936/ive-not-seen-the-uh-juiciest-bits-but-is-she

Smol ears:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/714819788155879424/brush-back-your-cryptids-hair-to-revealtiny-ear

On weaknesses, grudges, and stress:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/719478125281558528/29-30-32-36-for-the-beloved-sea-monster

[nsfw] Aphrodisiac seafoam:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/712764198982172672/weird-sexually-suggestive-sketch-under-the-cut-no?source=share

Rafael tidbits

#All Rafael Posts! About his upbringing:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/713735788987400192/as-a-fellow-acespec-i-want-to-toss-raf-into-a

Age meme: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/736152968285585408/here-a-quickly-drawn-little-age-meme-thing-of?source=share

Why Raf didn't quit music:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/712841341417177088/aw-haha-hes-come-close-lets-be-real-initially

His relationship to music now: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/731592322959245312/this-little-meetcute-writing-doodle-has-funnily?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/737858475276779520/reading-through-your-hinote-tags-it-was?source=share

Past Relationships: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/735254268413657088/okay-lets-start-with-margie-then-when-she-was?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/735961804412436480/do-you-have-a-drawing-of-rafs-ex?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/735972292585259008/lacey-and-raf-brought-out-the-worst-in-each?source=share

On wanting to be loved:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/719294362638499840

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/719299404703711232/has-raf-not-had-a-single-loving-relationship-in

Why the shitty shades, buddy?:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/712297486497267712/the-glasses-are-dorky-orange-plastic-framed-dollar

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/714677266522734592/raf-latched-on-to-the-cheap-dollar-store?source=share

Patience and therapy:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/722908753561812992/i-was-wondering-if-theres-a-story-reason-or?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/722980953078792192/everyone-is-sharing-about-the-ticket-comic-from?source=share

Anxiety Beach:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/725410887443398656/rafael-has-always-had-a-lot-of-trouble-with?source=share The shoes are his toxic trait:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/715404514243608576/rafael-pls-ignore-me-im-just-an-unremarkable

On appearance, wants, secrets, and gestures:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/719483329917894656/aaaaand-27-42-43-48-for-raffy-3

On being scared:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/723058277983862784/for-rafael?source=share

Has he met Margie's folks?:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/714545195223515136/a-while-back-i-asked-if-margie-met-rafs-parents

[nsfw] sexuality:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/713594497867595776/smutty-sketch-and-character-ramblings-under-the?source=share

Magritte tidbits

#All Magritte Posts! Age meme: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/736321876488601600/margies-turn-to-be-quickly-sketched-for-the-age?source=share Past Relationships: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/735254268413657088/okay-lets-start-with-margie-then-when-she-was?source=share Her relationship to music: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/732043488118636544/best-reactions-of-me-playing-on-toy-pianos-which?source=share A bit about her (very nascent) career: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/725706356775075840/i-havent-said-much-about-magrittes-musical?source=share Her feelings towards her parents: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/737368200819458048/ok-im-just-gonna-come-right-out-and-say-it-i?source=share

[New!] She really likes Kirby: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/737230742514548736/okay-but-i-feel-like-i-need-to-make-a-post?source=share

On smarts, self image, and hobbies, home, stress, and gestures:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/719481526715318272/for-the-ask-game-that-you-just-posted-i-would

One ridicule, humor, life goals, and voice:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/719482287952199680/sweet-magritte-39-40-44-48-49-3c

Has she met Raf's folks?

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/712869691265253376/has-margie-ever-met-rafaels-parents-howd-they

All Three

Is it polyamory?? (yes):

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/714455918796013568/this-has-probably-been-explained-already-and-i

Their dynamic between the three of them: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/724339636885995520/sometimes-a-family-is-a-man-a-woman-an-eldritch?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/722433005627555840/okee-good-morninganswering-this-for-real-now

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/723077384272773120/im-procrastinating?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/735210215055736832/who-can-resist-a-good-meme-template-not-me-x?source=share

on conflict and resolution: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/724639084135530496/i-am-very-late-to-the-blorbo-birthday-ask-party?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/724640459960565760/cortes-wasnt-mentioned-in-that-ask-but-i-want-to?source=share

Jealousy?:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/714952145726816256/question-for-bee-are-any-of-the-cortes-trio

Raf + Cortes:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/714226843319943168/if-you-took-the-whole-vibe-of-lofi-beats-to-study

Drugs..?:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/714312079362932736/ocean-spray-mdma-makes-me-want-to-know-more-about

The best gifts they have received?: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/724537976617648128/happy-birthday-what-is-the-favourite-gift-the?source=share

On manners, school, and humor:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/719479400026062848/raf-21-magritte-14-cortes-40

Who cooks?:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/712782848085622784/ooh-speaking-of-favorite-foods-do-they-all-cook

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/714402100415709184/about-the-cortes-trio-what-is-their-go-to-dish-to?source=share

Sexuality:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/712832179060801536/so-now-we-know-that-cortezs-sexuality-is-squishy

Nightly routines:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/716217886433230848/cortes-trio-question-what-are-their-night-time

Who likes suprises?:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/715000402582667264/magritte-loves-surprises-unexpected

Favorite type of music? https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/724508117912748032/happy-birthday-hope-you-have-a-great-year-your?source=share

Favorite hobbies?:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/716215145470246912/cortes-trio-favourite-hobbies-and-things-to-do

Favorite Animals?: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/724510976169443328/what-are-the-trios-favourite-animal-i-would-ask?source=share Favorite foods?:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/712779176885780480/i-have-a-question-youve-mentioned-that-cortes

On pokemon teams, soup, and surprise encounters:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/719931743598231552/bless-you-esh-lmaooo-we-did-give-them-pokemon

Do they like bugs?: https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/724508334491877376/happy-birthday-do-any-of-the-cortes-trio-share?source=share

Voice HCs:

https://www.tumblr.com/painted-bees/719754784740098048/you-ever-listen-to-a-song-and-think-the-way-i

[mimi-croissant]

Sharing a drink it’s like an indirect kiss!!

[cafedanslanuit]

@rfadaydreaming​ said: ALLIE domestic hawks x reader hcs ple a se <3 love u 🥺🥰 

a/n: i missed writing about my birdman so much!! i had a lot of fun writing these mwah thank u cae

Takami Keigo / Hawks Domestic Headcanons

- When he moves into your apartment, it's not something that happens in a day. It starts little by little. The free t-shirt that came with your pizza order that he now uses as sleepwear, his favourite brand of tea in your kitchen, the extra toothbrush you gave him one night he had a meeting early morning. It’s like he starts building his nest, piece by piece, and one day you realize he has his own drawer.

- He is usually up really early, no matter what time he went to bed. His bird antics plus his training played a part in this, so most mornings he just likes to look at you sleep, a soft smile on his lips to show how grateful he is to be able to wake up next to you.

- Keigo tries to cook, but he isn’t the best at it. His macaroni and cheese are pretty good though. He’s the most happy whenever, for some reason, you get home later than him and he gets to cook something for you.

- Once, he tried to take you out to dinner, but as soon as you had asked for appetizers, a lot of news reporters and fans crashed your date, wanting to get a word out of Hawks and his new ‘fling’. Since he couldn’t really hide his wings, all your dates have been indoors. You usually order take out, put a blanket on the floor and sit there, often accompanied by some candles and music.

- However, every once in a while, he will ask you to dress up and you two have dinner at the balcony. He says just because he can’t take you out without other people bothering you shouldn’t stop you from having special date nights every once in a while. He’ll even order from a fancy restaurant. He makes sure to bring you flowers and also dress up, making sure he uses your favourite shirt he owns.

- I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Hawks has a playlist that reminds him of you. Actually, it’s two playlists. One is filled with any songs that remind him of you (and yes, some of them are meme songs) and the other is specifically for your dates. Whether you’re eating on the floor or having a balcony date, he will always put that playlist on for you to slow dance with him (you can listen to the playlist here).

- Keigo didn’t get to decorate his own apartment, as it was bought by the Commission. So, once while you are browsing for new curtains, you tell him you want him to pick which ones to buy. He gets really nervous about you putting that much trust into him, knowing you will have to look at those curtains every day. He takes his time choosing, and when the curtains arrive, he insists to help you install them. Sometimes you can still catch him staring at the curtains with a small smile on his lips.

- While he wants his relationship to stay away from the public eye to avoid the Commission trying to interfere, he does post a lot about you in his Instagram private stories. Most of them are candid pictures of you drinking coffee, reading the news on your tablet or cooking with some heart doodles on the side.

- When he comes home after a long day of hero work, he loves to find you laying on your back. That way, he can crawl up and lay between your legs, his head on your chest. There’s something really reassuring for him to fall asleep listening to your heartbeat. 

- During quarantine, you felt really upset about not being able to go out, and he noticed you becoming restless and pacing around the living room more than usual. One night, he took you flying with him and instructed you to close your eyes until he told you to. After some minutes, he landed on one of your favourite parks in town. Since it was really late, no one was around, so it was okay to be without a mask. He took your hand and walked alongside with you, his chest filling with warmth at the sight of your usual smile once again back in your lips.

- He remembers special dates, such as your birthday and your anniversary. Since he always gets up earlier than you, he will bring you breakfast to bed. He’s not the best at cooking, but his special breakfasts always include your coffee just the way you like it, your favourite juice box, slightly burnt toasts (he doesn’t fully believe when you swear you like them like that) and scrambled eggs. After breakfast, he will pull you back into bed and hold you against his chest, whispering reminders about how grateful he is that you came into his life and how much he loves you.

- Having said all this, Keigo also has some bad days. You still don’t know exactly what triggers them, but you can notice him forcing a smile whenever you talk to him. On those days, you take the lead and cook his favourite dinner. You make sure to hold him the rest of the night while running your fingers across his scalp. Most of the time, you stay silent as you do so and press kissed to his forehead and temple every once in a while. You know there is a reason behind him not talking about his family or the nightmares that wake him up in the middle of the night covered in sweat. But for now, you don’t ask any questions, but rather make him feel you’re a secure port for him to land.

- Even if he wakes up first, when you know he has to get to the agency early, you wake up early as well and prepare coffee for him. You bought him a tumbler from Starbucks and he was so happy and giddy about it. He even posts a lot of photos of it on his main Instagram page. There’s something really special for him aout you waking up early even when you don’t really have to and make sure he goes patrolling with freshly brewed coffee. That plus a goodbye kiss from you is all he needs to start his morning on a good note.

- When it’s your turn to come back from work tired, he will help you sit down on the couch and rub your shoulders for as long as you need to. To help you relax, he really likes combing out your hair. He seems to have a lot of fun putting some products on your hair and brushing it out, massaging your scalp every now and then. He can stay hours doing that, a loving stare while he takes care of someone he loves.

[fluid-chainsaw]

I posted this on my Reddit earlier but I wanna tell more people so enjoy my rant

I think Evillustrator 2 is going to happen because of Lila

Lila hates Ladybug, right? Well, she sits next to the kid who idolizes her, imagines scenarios where he can work with her, is constantly drawing her for comic books, etc. I’m assuming there’s some pent-up anger inside her head. My plan for how the episode’s going to go is as follows:

It starts with a scene showing the miracuclass, with Nathaniel drawing a cover of one of the comic books. Lila’s looking over his shoulder with a disdainful look on her face. When he notices, she pretends she just wants Volpina to get an issue, and playfully says she's fine with an interview for the comic. Nate agrees and promises to talk to Marc about it. He continues with his drawing; Lila couldn’t make him stop. She tries a couple more times to get him to change gears, but to no avail. This one needs to be done soon, as he and Marc need to meet with the editor tomorrow. Lila gets an idea for him to stop and to get Shadow Moth a new victim.

During this entire time, Marinette’s listening to them in annoyance because she knows Lila’s exhausting her manipulative tactics again.

Lila finishes the conversation with, “I’m so excited to read the next issue! Maybe I could even get the famous manga publisher I told you about to give you lessons to improve those little doodles!” She then giggles to make it looks like a joke, while Alya holds Marinette back from putting the liar in a sleeper hold. Caline walks into the room and starts class.

When class ends, Lila takes note of where Nate put his sketchbook. Mari vents to Alya about how she believes Lila is up to no good. Mari mentions that Lila subtly insulted Nate's work, she gave herself an interview that no one asked for, and that she was staring at Nate and/or his sketchbook with obvious animosity. Alya tries to convince her that she's just being paranoid but fails. Mari continues with her rant, intending to keep an eye on Lila for a few days.

During lunchtime, Lila steals the sketchbook from Nate's bag and ruins it. Wetting all the pages, ripping off the cover, and ripping out some of the next comic's concepts for good measure. she hides the book in her bag and sneaks over to the art room, where she also destroys the only current copy of the comic, to the same extent of the sketchbook. After returning the comic to its original position, she prepares her fake tears.

Nathaniel and Lila's first meeting since that morning was when Lila ran down the hall, yelling and crying about how some unknown students ruined Nathaniel's work. The both of them alone, Lila briefs Nate on the horrors of the culprits. She sobs out, "I-I saw some people take your book out of your bag, so I followed them to see what they were doing and t-they ran it under the sink before ripping out a bunch of pages! I'm such a horrible friend, I should have stopped them somehow! Oh, you all don't deserve to be friends with a terrible coward like me!" Nate has no choice but to comfort Lila as she fills him in on what these imaginary offenders did to his poor book, but more importantly, her.

"After they noticed me, they threw the book at my face! I blocked it with my hand, but that hurt it so much! How does that book pack so much of a punch?"

Now, the entire bit about being a bad companion is manipulation. Lila pretends to have strong feelings so Nate has no choice but to push aside his own and support her, even though he's the one who needs support.

Lila continues on, "Oh, no... If they ruined your sketchbook, do you think they went to the art room while I explained and ruined the comic too?" Nathaniel, understandably afraid of more work being lost, ran to the art room with Lila on his heels. Finding the dilapidated comic, Lila finishes her script.

"Oh, no... What's Marc going to think about this? The entire story about those people somehow destroying your sketchbook AND the comic in such a small window of time is so... odd. I'll go find him now and you can explain."

Nate cried out to Lila, wondering why she couldn't help explain to Marc.

"You saw them destroy the book! Aren't you a better source to tell him what happened?" He also wonders how the vandals did all this so fast.

"Nope, sorry. I need to go try and find the troublemakers! You'll be able to explain, just tell him what I told you! Good luck."

When Lila leaves, all the feelings from the past couple minutes starting flooding into Nathaniel's head. Sensing all the fear, frustration, and anger, Shadow Moth sends an akuma. By the time Marc gets there, Evillustrator had already popped back into action. After trying to convince him otherwise, Marc runs to find Lila and hide her from Evie in hopes of safeguarding the bullies, as much as it annoys him to do so.

I'll be honest that I don't have an idea for how the fight's going to go. My main idea is that Evie goes through the school, trying to find Lila or the bullies to take revenge fir all his lost work. I also think that Caprikid will come in to help the cat and bug team.

After the deakumatization, I think Nate will realize that this little situation doesn't make any sense. The timing doesn't add up, Lila somehow doesn't know who any of the bullies are or what they look like, they seemingly had no motive, etc. Either that or he already knew she was a liar (Based off that look he gives at the beginning of the episode "Ladybug") and the shock of losing both the sketchbook and comic just didn't let him realize that she was full of it soon enough. After that, we can have some NathMarc moments when Marc and Nate start working on a special issue of the comic featuring Reverser and Caprikid working together or something like that.

Did I just spend a bunch of time typing out my prediction of Evillustrator 2 that no one is going to read? Yes I did!

TLDR: Lila ruins a bunch of Nathaniel's work, he gets akumatized because of it, and Marc gets a miraculous to save him.

[ghosttotheparty]

cotton candy skies always look better in person

6. also on AO3 chapter five

The wind is cool on Lucas’s neck as he looks down at his phone. The bright green grass of the park he’s in is scratchy on his ankles as he crosses his legs in front of himself.

He has Instagram open, but not his personal account, not the one that Kes and Isa and Liv follow. Not the one with his face and funny captions and comments by his friends. Not the one people know about. 

This one, he started sometime last year, when hiding became too much and needed an outlet, and a diary didn’t work. He never posts pictures of himself (the profile picture is of a Greek statue), and never posts regularly. The captions never really make sense, are never thought out or planned. And the pictures are all of buildings, art, flowers, trees, the skyline of the city, Every last one: black and white. 

Until today. 

The photo he posts isn’t very colourful. It was taken at night, as Jens walked away from him down the street, illuminated by the yellow streetlamps, his arms extended in an impromptu pose as Lucas called, “I’m taking your picture!” The photo was taken seconds before Jens said, “Wait, shit, my bag!” and bolted back to the alley, emerging with his duffel bag hanging off his shoulders and Lucas nearly dropped his phone laughing. Lucas types out a quick caption, nothing thinking as his fingers move across the letters on his screen, posting it to the very few accounts that follow him. 

Lucas sighs, clicking his phone off and tilting his head back to look at the sky. It’s overcast, cloudy, but not gloomy exactly, the sun peeking through gaps in the clouds as they shift and flow above him. He reaches out, picking up a disposable coffee cup, and takes a tentative sip, watching as an old man through the park with a dog. The dog walks slowly for him, and Lucas smiles as he lowers the cup. The coffee isn’t too hot anymore, although his tongue still hurts from when he burned it earlier. He sets the cup on the ground, taking his hand away slowly to make sure it doesn’t fall in the grass, and leans over his legs, picking up his pencil and looking at his sketchbook in front of him. The page is blank, inviting. 

Lucas picks up the sketchbook, setting it on his lap and looks up at the building in front of where he sits, scanning the lawn, the door and windows, the trees, the roof, looking at the people walking past. Glancing back and forth, the building begins to take shape on his paper, light, straight lines stretching across the page. The building looks more geometric on his paper, faint guidelines just visible at every corner, every line rigid and straight, except the scribbles filling spaces for the trees.

This is peaceful, listening to the birds, to the faint sound of people talking across the park, hearing his pencil slide across the paper. Hearing dogs barking, cars passing, wind rustle through the trees. He hears faint laughter by the street and smiles softly. 

He drops his pencil on instinct when he hears his phone buzz, looking at it as it vibrates with the screen alight on top of his bag. At first, he rolls his eyes in annoyance at the interruption, but his face brightens when he reads Jens’s name on his screen.

He beams, leaning over and picking it up, a sudden giddiness glowing through his smile, the same giddiness that glows every time Jens calls, every time he texts, every time Lucas so much as thinks about him.

He pauses before answering, taking a breath, and notices the time before pressing answer and lifting the phone to his ear.

“Shouldn’t you be in class?” he asks before Jens can say anything. 

“I’ve got a class in five minutes and I’ve managed to escape my friends for the time being, I have a question!”

Lucas raises his eyebrows and grins as his sudden urgency.

“Ask away,” he says, leaning across his crossed legs and lifting his pencil, looking back at the building as he adds details lightly around the roof.

“Do you have any plans this evening?”

And Lucas drops his pencil again. 

“Uhm…” He thinks, heart pounding in his chest excitedly. “I don’t think so.” And if there are plans, Lucas is more than willing to cancel.

“What do you think about going to that cafe I mentioned?”

“The cake one?” 

“Yeah.” It sounds like Jens is surrounded people, his voice a little breathless. 

“Yeah, I’d love to.” He pauses. “You don’t have a party or anything with your friends?” 

“I—Yeah, there’s a party, but I…” He trails off. “I’d rather be with you, to be honest.” 

Lucas squeezes his eyes shut and grins. 

“Okay.” 

There’s a moment of silence and Lucas can hear people talking and the sound of Jens’s breath and steps as he goes down stairs. He wonders if Jens can hear the birds on his end of the line.

“So yeah?” Jens asks. “I’ll meet you at our spot?” 

Our spot.

“Yeah, what time?” 

“Seven?” 

“That works for me.” 

“Okay.” He can hear Jens’s smile. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tonight.” “Bye.”

“Bye.

Jens hangs up and Lucas slowly lowers his phone, smiling. He’s going on a date. A real, actual date, with the prettiest boy in Antwerp. The prettiest boy in the universe, really, as far as Lucas is concerned. 

And fuck, if he doesn’t look pretty in a button-down.

“You clean up nice,” Lucas says, reaching out and straightening his collar. Jens flushes under the lamplight, looking away and scratching the back of his head. 

“Thanks.” Jens takes a deep breath, looking Lucas up and down and suddenly Lucas feels self-conscious in his sweater. 

“Am I underdressed?” he asks, putting his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his feet. 

“No, you look good.” Jens is smiling softly. 

“So, where are we going?” “Cafe. Come on.” Jens cocks his head and turns to go down the sidewalk. Lucas joins him, walking at his side silently. It’s already dark out, the street lit up by streetlamps, and Lucas looks up at Jens’s face, seeing his eyes shining in the light. 

“Yes?” Jens looks at him, smiling again.

“You’re pretty.” He looks ahead of himself and hears Jens scoff lightly.

There’s a moment of silence before Jens asks gently, “Can I hold your hand?” and Lucas grins, pulling a hand out of his pocket and holding it between them. Jens laces his fingers with Lucas’s, brushing his thumb over the back of his hand. Lucas sighs happily. 

“So you’d rather get cake with me than go to a fun party?” Lucas asks, and Jens swings their hands slightly.

“I’d rather sit on a dumpster with you than go to a fun party.” “That’s sweet.” Lucas squeezes his hand. 

“If I had gone, though, I probably would have ended up calling you again. 

“Also sweet.” 

Jens lets go of his hand to open the door of the cafe, stepping aside so Lucas can enter. ( Lucas tilts his head and says, “Oh, a gentleman.”) They sit at a small table against the wall, away from the door. There aren’t many other people, an elderly woman near the window with a thick book and thick glasses, and a middle-aged couple sitting in a booth, a small bouquet between them. The lighting is dim, yellow light omitted from hanging overhead bulbs and fairy lights. 

Jens sits against the wall, looking up at Lucas and propping his chin on his hands. 

“Hi,” Lucas says as he sits, copying him. “You know what you want?” 

“Uhm…” Jens scans his face. “I don’t know.” 

Lucas slides the menu next to him across the table and Jens takes it, opening it and looking down. 

“Coffee...Tea...Croissants…” He looks up. “Cafe basics.” 

Lucas laughs, cocking his head, and Jens looks back down at the menu. As Jens continues to read from it quietly, Lucas reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, snapping a picture of him. Jens hears and lifts the menu to cover his face, smiling bashfully. 

“Do  you think it’s too late to order a coffee?” Lucas asks, setting his phone on the table. 

“Oh, never.” Jens sets the menu down. “My mother would say yes, but I don’t feel like an herbal tea right now. 

“All I know is I want cake,” Lucas says, spinning the menu to see it. 

“Okay.” Jens snatches the menu and moves it away from him. Before Lucas can protest, Jens is standing. “I’ll surprise you. You’re not allergic to anything, are you?” 

Lucas looks up at him and shakes his head. 

“Okay, I’ll be right back.” Jens leaves to the counter and Lucas sighs, running his hands over his face and smiling. He takes a moment, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, before opening them and grabbing a napkin with one hand and reaching into his pocket with the other, pulling out a pen. He’d almost forgotten the pen on his way out his room. He likes carrying a pen with him, usually doodling on his hands or his ankles as he crosses a leg on top of the other. Other times, he doodles on trash, spare paper or receipts, napkins. The ink is black and light over the soft paper, a small flower taking shape. The lines are rough and sketchy. He tries to do a straight line but stops when the paper almost rips. 

There’s a small square of flowers by the time Jens joins him again, placing a mug in front of Lucas and another across from him. Lucas looks up and drops the pen, but Jens is walking back to the counter. Lucas watches as he lifts two plates and comes back, and moves the mugs and napkin out of the way for the plates. 

“Okay, I’m back now,” Jens says, flopping in his seat. He drops several packets of sugar on the table. “I figured with the cake that you have a sweet tooth, so here.”

Lucas smiles and grabs three, ripping them all together and pouring them into his coffee. 

---

“You’ve got…” Lucas gestures to Jens’s face, suppressing a smile. 

“What?” 

There’s a smudge of chocolate on his cheek, and Lucas hesitates before grabbing another napkin and leaning across the table and carefully wiping his face. Jens lets him, his cheeks and ears turning red. 

“Oh.” 

Lucas giggles and retracts his hand, letting Jens take the napkin.

“You’re an idiot,” Lucas says softly, affectionately, picking up his pen and adding some tiny lines to his doodle of Jens on the napkin. He hears Jens scoff. 

“Fuck you.” There’s laughter in Jens’s voice and Lucas smiles.

“Take me out to dinner first, damn…” 

He finishes the sketch and looks up to see Jens staring at him with a straight face, his lips pressed together. Lucas stares back, trying not to smile, and Jens takes a deep, slow breath, exhaling shakily before bursting out laughing. Lucas laughs, shushing him.

“Shut up!” 

“Sorry, I’m just—” Jens covers his face and turns away. His eyes are squeezed shut and Lucas can hear his short breaths as he laughs, making Lucas laugh harder.

Jens takes a deep breath and lowers his hands, gesturing to the two almost-empty plates of cake between them.

“What the fuck am I doing here?” 

Lucas laughs again, dropping his head against the table, his shoulders shaking. He’s glad there aren’t many people in the cafe. 

“Cake doesn’t count as dinner,” he says, lifting his head.

“What do you mean?” Jens leans in, tilting his head and furrowing his brows. “Anything is dinner if you’re not a coward.”

Lucas snorts and takes another bite of cake. 

“Okay, fine.” He starts to draw more flowers around Jens. He can feel Jens’s eyes on him as he does, and the air has shifted around them slightly, but he ignores it as he feels Jens’s knee press into his under the table.

---

He walks Jens home. Really, he just wants to spend every last second possible with him, but the excuse he says is that Jens was the gentleman at the cafe, and now it’s Lucas’s turn.

They stop outside an apartment building and Jens turns to Lucas, his fingers twisting in Lucas’s so he’s holding their hands between them. Lucas’s eyes flick back and forth between his, both their eyes glistening in the light of the streetlamps.

“I’ll see you on Thursday?” Jens asks after a second. 

“’Course.” 

Jens smiles softly and Lucas watches his mouth as he does, tightening his grip on Jens’s hand, and leans up slightly, bumping their noses together. Jens’s eyes flutter shut.

There aren’t just butterflies, it feels like there’s a flock of birds in his belly. And in his lungs, making it hard to breathe. He can feel Jens’s breath on his face, soft as gusts of wind from a butterfly’s wings.

Nudging their noses together, Lucas leans and turns his head, and presses his lips to Jens’s cheek gently. He can feel Jens’s cheek move as he smiles. 

“I’ll see you Thursday,” he says after kissing his cheek again and Jens nods. 

“Bye,” Jens whispers.

As Lucas walks away and he knows Jens can’t see him, he beams, squeezing his eyes shut. He turns a corner and presses his back to the wall, covering his face with his hands.

He stays there for almost a full minute, breathing deeply, waiting for his heartbeat to slow down. 

The napkin is stuffed in his pocket.

[rgrettes]

heyy, I hope I'm not bothering but I've seen that you used to post about faberry and faberry fics like Shafd, and since I'm trying to find some faberry fanfics to read, could you please recommend me some of your favorites? Thank you :)

OKAY so this took me a whole lot longer than anticipated because I didn’t want to make it be like 500 fics long! But here, in no particular order, are my top 10 faberry fanfics! [excluding SHAfD of course bc whomever asked this definitely knows SHAfD!]I will be including trigger warnings/content warnings! Please be sure that you can handle the subjects before reading the content! Be safe and put your mental and physical wellbeing before a work of fiction!

10. Dirty Little Secret by patchesofink

Chapters: 77/77 [208k]

This fic would actually happen to be the first faberry fic that I ever read. I felt my little 15 year old self cry several times throughout this fic. It’s what first got me into writing fanfic, because I wanted to write as well as this author! There is a content warning so please be careful reading it if you are sensitive to topics mentioned!

Rachel has a secret and Quinn has figured it out - but will Quinn use this knowledge to exact revenge on Rachel for telling Finn that Puck was really the father or will she use her own experiences to help. WARNING - language and sexual content, r*pe.

9. I’ll Be by stix04

Chapters: 20/20 [330k]

God I was such a sucker for fake dating au’s as a young teenager and I’m most definitely a sucker for them now. This one I didn’t read right when it came out, I didn’t actually find it until it had finished but it still makes my top 20 because it’s just too good not to talk about!

Can Quinn pretend to be in love with Rachel just to get out of Lima? Can Rachel pretend to love Quinn so she's not so lonely in New York? And what happens when both girls realize they're no longer pretending?

8. Long Way to Happy by patchesofink 

Chapters: 42/42 [104k]

This is the sequel to Dirty Little Secret and makes the list for being just as good as the original. This author is so talented and the story just resonates in my soul! 

warnings for sexual content, language, violence and potential ptsd triggers!

Sequel to Dirty Little Secret. Rachel still has some healing to do as well with dealing with becoming a mom. Quinn has her own issues to deal with. Can their fledgling relationship deal with the ups and downs of life and cope with senior year? Quinn learns to open up and Rachel deals with motherhood and not letting her past define her. It's a Long Way to Happy.

7. Leather Jackets and Bad Coffee by antonius

Chapters: 11/?? [75k] [has not updated since 2018 :(]

Bikers, 50′s style diners, and good girl/bad girl pairing. Literally who could ask for anything more? I’m super sad this one hasn’t updated in a long time but it’s still such a fun read!!

warning for violence!

Ninety miles and nearly two hours from the heart of New York City, just off of PA-33 North, is the little town of Belfast, Pennsylvania: population 1,257. Right outside the city limits sits Moe's, a small 24-hour diner whose newest waitress, Rachel Berry, has taken her best friend Kurt's advice and started a calm summer temp job away from the hustle-and-bustle of busy city life in order to rest up before her final year at NYADA.During her very first midnight shift, she encounters a group of rowdy regulars led by a pink-haired woman with piercing hazel eyes. Quinn Fabray is the leader of the Skanks, a small but well-known local biker gang that doesn't take shit from anyone.So began the strangest summer of Rachel Berry's life.

6. Talk by saintdyke

Chapters: 17/? [43k] [last updated may 2019]

This is another one I’m sad hasn’t updated in a while! This honestly stole my heart to a point that in the time I found it in mid April 2019 and June of 2019 I have re-visited the fic 105 times, rereading it at least half as many as that. I’m really hoping the author comes back to the fic, because it was keeping me on the edge of my seat.

warning for violence, abuse mentions and depictions, homophobia and ptsd triggers!

(Previously titled Grease Stains, Starry Skies) Famous actress Rachel Berry’s car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. A pretty blonde with a blue truck rescues her from the side of the road, and just so happens to own an Auto Repair shop in town. Quinn is frustrating and mysterious, and Rachel is just as stubborn. Together, they start a revolution.

5. Just off the Key of Reason by iamapanda

Chapters: 30/30 [129k]

This one is another absolute classic in the Faberry fandom, and is another fic that has stuck with me throughout the years! It has a fantastic softer take on Quinn that I truly appreciated because everyone back in the early years of the fandom would make her so angry and bitter and she’s just so soft in some interpretations

Rachel Berry is a successful Broadway star with a new roommate, the very odd, naive Quinn Fabray. It starts with a note on the fridge and a childishly scrawled doodle of an elephant. Everybody has a little crazy in them.

4. Still off the Key of Reason by iamapanda

Chapters: 37/37 [185k]

The sequel to Just off the Key of Reason! Still as soft and as crazy! I can’t mention one without having the other in the list as well! I can’t explain how it feels to look at the ff.net pages after so long, my heart is transported back to 2011 and I’m sitting on my bed after I’m supposed to be in bed. I miss the days where I could just spend time reading these fics and not having adult responsibilities.

Quinn is thundering her way through vet school. Rachel is enlightening the west coast with her talent. The story continues with a wedding, dogs in tuxedos, and Pooh Bear vows. Crazy never fades.

3. A Million Miles of Fun by Jade8Devlin

Chapters: 12/12 [103k]

This one is a little different from the last ones! It isn’t my favorite because of its literary genius, but because of how fun and out there it is! It’s concept is fresh and dark and something I honestly didn’t expect to see but it quickly grew to be a favorite for me!

warning for violence, abuse, mentions of murder! the whole story revolves around The Unholy Trinity + Rachel murdering Quinn’s family so please take that into consideration!

And in Lima, Ohio, a man and woman were killed earlier today during what is believed to be a home invasion. Russell Fabray was last seen leaving Gas'N'Go at two o'clock; his wife, Judith, from a grocery story an hour earlier. Police are linking the double homicide to the area's recent surge in breaking and entering – though these appear to be the first fatalities. The victims are survived by their daughters; Quinn and Stacey."Jessalyn Briggs shuffles the papers on her desk, clearing her throat. The somber expression on her face seems to float off her as she turns towards camera 3."Otis-the-Otter finishes today's news headlines as the little critter that could. Abandoned by his mother and found foraging for scraps in the Nelson family's garbage cans, Otis has proven; if you can't teach an old dog new tricks, teach them to an otter! Otis placed second at this year's Ohio Dog Show after last year's well-documented struggle by the Nelson family to allow Otis to be included. Well done Otis, we here at Channel 43 salute you.

2. The Silence of Silence by your.kat

Chapters: 31/31 [135k]

This one... I can’t describe why I liked it, I just liked it.

warning for mental health, and trauma [possible others, please read with caution]

Quinn and Rachel meet at Haverbrook under unusual circumstances. Why is Rachel silent? And why does Quinn care? "You can hear," Quinn said simply, "but can you speak?"; "Yes," Rachel signed. "I can speak. But silence is a friend who will never betray."

1. Kissing Quinn Fabray by vondrunkaton

Chapters: 6/6 [45k]

This one just makes me super warm and fuzzy inside. I don’t think I can say it’s entirely changed my life but it’s just so soft and i love it

Quinn comforts Rachel after Finn says something oafish. Rachel is surprised by how sweet Quinn is. There's also some making out in delicious detail. Fluffy getting together fic.

I am super open to talking about more fics I love/like and other pairings! This was a ton of fun to talk about and sent me down memory lane! I went searching for two hours on a vague memory of a fic that I think has been deleted by now. But if anyone wants to help me track it down! Hit me up and I’ll give you the details!

[tellmealovestory]

How It Began

Summary: Helping you move Bucky stumbles upon something curious and learns more about you.

Notes: Also posted on my a03. This was written for @ussgallifreyfics​ 550 followers writing challenge and the prompt I had was Bouquet. Congrats on your milestone!!

Warnings: fluff

"Shit,” Bucky grumbled to himself as he watched helplessly as a pile of books tumbled from your bookshelf landing in a pile in front of him with a loud crash. 

Sighing he crouched down, his hands sifting through heavy dictionaries, lightweight paperbacks and a handful of what looked like journals, each one with a different plain colored cover. His eyes drifted towards a light blue one which had landed on it’s spine, pages splayed open. He knew that he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself. 

Glancing up to your bedroom doorway he sighed in relief when he didn’t see you, his fingers inched forward, picking up the journal as he glanced through the pages. 

It was wrong, he knew that, invading your privacy like this and though he knew if he saw anything written in it he’d place it back and come clean, but as he flipped through the journal he was surprised not to see words overflowing, but what looked like flowers pressed against the cream colored pages. 

His eyebrows knitted, the tip of his fingers brushing over them, his eyes glancing to see dates and one or two words, sometimes little doodles covering the pages. Flipping through the journal he saw each page was the same, flowers, dates, words, doodles. Closing it he set it down, his fingers reaching for another one even as warning bells were ringing in his head telling him this was an invasion of privacy, a bad idea. The next journal he picked up had a pale green cover and was filled with the same thing. 

“What are you doing?” 

Bucky jumped at the sound of your voice. Had he not been so busy looking through your journals he might have heard the sound of your footsteps, smelled the faint scent of your perfume, heard your voice before it was too late. He might have even found the situation comical, but being caught red handed like this he swallowed, closing the journal and placing it on the floor. He couldn’t quite read your expression, your face was blank, but your shoulders were tense, your eyes flickering between the mess he had made on the floor and the journal that he had set down next to him.

“I can explain,” he started, watching as you crossed your arms over your chest. “I’m sorry. I was trying to help you pack and your books fell and then one landed open and I got curious and I started looking through it and... fuck, I’m sorry.” He swallowed the lump in his throat, his eyes staying steady on yours as he watched. 

“When I agreed to move in with you that didn’t mean you could go through my stuff when you helped me move,” you said, stepping into your bedroom and moving aside the books to sit down next to him.

“I know.” 

Glancing over at you he wasn’t sure what to think. Your expression was still blank as your eyes stayed locked on the mess he had made. Usually he was able to read you better than this and he felt a wave of guilt wash over him for invading your privacy. “’M really sorry, Y/N. Your books fell and then one landed open and I got-.”

“It’s okay,” you said with a shrug of your shoulder. You weren’t mad, a little embarrassed maybe, but not mad. “Did you find anything interesting?”

Raising his eyebrows Bucky was taken aback by your question unsure of how to answer you. 

“What are these?” he asked, gesturing to the journals that littered your bedroom floor. He could hear you sigh next to him and for a brief moment he wondered if he was pushing you by asking you that. After all he had been the one to invade your privacy and if you had wanted to tell him he was sure you would have. 

“Dried flowers,” you replied, shrugging your shoulders as if the answer was obvious. 

Lifting your gaze up to him you debated with yourself if you should explain. On the one hand he had invaded your privacy, but on the other hand it wasn’t that big of a deal. You knew that a lot of people kept mementos of things that were important to them, this was no different. 

Bucky could sense you were hesitant to explain and he felt even more guilt about invading your privacy. Nudging your shoulder with his he said, “Come on, I’ll clean this up and we can get back to packing your stuff up.” 

“Bucky, it’s okay, I want to explain, just... promise not to make fun of me?”

“I would never make fun of you, doll,” he said, his lips pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. Part of him was offended that you would even think he’d make fun of you for something that obviously meant a lot to you. He could feel you relaxing as you leaned against his side and he wrapped his arms around your shoulder, pulling you closer.

“When I was a kid my mom used to love flowers I think that’s where I got my love for them. And anytime she’d pick some from her garden or buy herself a bouquet before they died she’d press them into a book to save them. I never understood why, you know? I always thought they’re just flowers. When they die you can pick more or get yourself another bouquet, something prettier than the last one. And even though I thought they were pretty when they were dried and I liked the idea of saving them I still didn’t get the appeal of it. Not until... well, do you remember our first date? When you arrived way earlier than we agreed on with a bouquet of daises?” you asked, glancing up at him. 

“I thought we agreed not to bring that date up again?” he asked, groaning next to you which earned him a soft giggle from you.

“I know, I know, we agreed never to speak of it again, but come on, if it wasn’t for that disaster of a date we wouldn’t be where we are right now.” 

Bucky thought phrasing it as a disaster of a date was putting it mildly. When he had asked you out he had been so nervous, convinced that you would say no, that you weren’t interested that when you had said yes he was shocked, shocked and terrified at the thought that he was going to have to go through with this. It had been a long time since he had gone on a date and he was no longer that suave, ladies man he had been in the forties that Steve used to tell him about. 

When the night of the date approached he was such a nervous wreck he had asked Steve multiple times if he could cancel. When Steve had said no he resorted to begging him to come along. And when Steve said no to that because it would be weird with him there as a third wheel he had suggested he bring Natasha along, a double date, less weird. But still, Steve said no, which left Bucky with sweaty palms and nerves so bad he was sure he was going to pass out despite Steve convincing him he was going to be okay.

Wanting to make a good first impression he had left so early in his nervousness that when he arrived at your apartment he was over a half hour early. Standing outside with a bouquet of flowers had been fine for a couple of minutes, but he couldn’t help noticing the curious looks he received from people passing him. 

No stranger to people staring he went up to your apartment early and when he knocked on your door he could see he had caught you off guard. He had all but thrown the flowers in your hand, wanting nothing more than bail right there and head back to Steve. But when he watched your eyes light up at the flowers, when he watched you so delicately bring them up to your nose inhaling the sweet scent, when he watched you place them so gently down on the counter as if they would break while you got a vase and filled it with water placing the flowers in there only to take another inhale, your eyes lighting up again, a smile gracing your perfect lips he was a goner. 

He could tell you were nervous too and when you opened the door for him he could smell the roast chicken and vegetables. It was only after you had invited him in, after the two of you had sat down on your couch and started up a conversation that he had begun to relax slightly. You were easy to talk to and he had liked that about you, getting lost in conversation he had thought maybe this night would turn out okay. Until he saw the smoke and smelled something burning. 

Dinner had been ruined beyond repair. You had been so embarrassed you couldn’t even look at him, but Bucky took it in stride suggesting a diner he knew about a couple blocks over. The food was good and maybe he could somehow salvage the disaster of a first date. The walk over had been smooth with no problems. The fresh spring air seemed to soothe both of your nerves as the conversation slowly flowed, your fingers brushing up against one another every couple of minutes, but each of you had been too nervous to reach for the others hand. 

The diner wasn’t crowed which Bucky appreciated, still nervous around big crowds and as he led you to a booth near the back that offered you some privacy he had thought to himself he could do this. First dates weren’t so bad, there was nothing to be nervous about. That was until the waitress had placed your drinks down on the table and Bucky had spilled yours all over you and your dress. 

You had assured him it was okay and when you left to go to the bathroom to try and dab out the stain he had called Steve in a panic begging him to pick him up, to show up with Natasha or even Sam, to rescue him. Unbeknownst to him when you had left to go to the bathroom you had called Natasha in a panic, begging her to come pick you up, to make up some emergency that you needed to attend to. What neither of you knew once you hung up the phone was that each of you had called your best friend, something that you wouldn’t be revealed until many, many dates later. 

When you arrived back at the table your dress a little wet from the spilled drink the conversation was awkward to say the least. Both of you speaking at once before pausing and telling the other to no, go ahead first. It was that, that awkwardness that had finally pulled a laugh out of each of you and allowed you two relax, if only a little. 

Dinner had been good, the conversation ebbing and flowing as each of you began to open up just a little bit. On the walk home Bucky took you the long way back, wanting to spend a little bit more time with you. It was on that walk home that he finally reached for your hand, your fingers intertwining with his as if you had been made for him. 

When you had arrived back at your apartment he paused, wanting to kiss you, but unsure if you wanted to, unsure if he should given the disaster of the date. Pausing at your door each of you stood their awkwardly, not knowing what to say or do. When he felt your lips brush across his cheek he couldn’t help the sight blush that covered his cheeks before he stuttered out a murmured reply of how he had fun tonight and would you maybe wanna do this again? his words coming out so quickly they sounded like one long word. Surprise had been written across his features when he watched you nod your head yes, a small smile curving up your beautiful lips. 

“Even though the date was a disaster you decided to keep the flowers?” he asked, coming out of his thoughts, his eyebrows knitted as he looked down at you shaking your head no.

“Not at first. I kept the flowers because I love flowers and the bouquet was beautiful. It wasn’t until our second date that I decided to start pressing the flowers into journals so I’d always have memories.”

The second date had gone a lot better. Bucky had taken you to a farmers market where he bought you a beautiful bouquet of sunflowers as he searched for the ripest and brightest fruits and vegetables. After you had burned dinner during the first date he had promised to cook for you, teasing you that he’d show you how you were supposed to cook dinner. 

The third date arrived with another bouquet, this one full of brightly colored purple and pink and yellow and blue and orange wildflowers that had taken your breath away. 

Each date, another new bouquet and another page of a journal to fill, but it wasn’t only dates that Bucky gifted you with bouquets. Sometimes it would be because he knew you’d had a bad and day and had wanted to cheer you up. Other times it was simply because he had been out, saw some flowers, knew you would like them and got them for you. 

Not every bouquet he brought was a happy occasion though. There was the time you two had gotten in a fight. Coming home from a bad mission bruised and bloody and when you had tried to get him to talk to you he had pushed you away, refusing to talk, trying to convince you that you were better off without him. It was only when Steve told him he was being an idiot and once he had cooled off did he show up at your apartment, a bouquet of daisies, your favorite, an embarrassed gleam in his eye, his feet shuffling back and forth, apologies tumbling from his lips. It was that day that he had finally begun to open up to you and it was the day that your relationship grew stronger.

There was also the time he had promised you he’d be back in time for your birthday, but when a mission had run long and he didn’t get home until a week after your day he had showered you with bouquets, daisies again, to make it up for it. 

And of course there were the countless times during the summer on a hot day that would turn into a muggy night when there was nothing better to do and you were itching to get out and do something the two of you would take a drive upstate, stopping at far away diners in towns that time had all but forgotten. Pulling over on the side of the road when he spotted wildflowers growing in ditches he’d stop the car getting out and pick you bouquets as you picked your own flowers to put behind your ear.

“I know it’s kind of... cheesy, but I don’t know. I guess I just always wanted to have memories of our dates. Even the really really bad ones,” you teased, breaking him out of his memories as you glanced up at him through your lashes.

“It’s not cheesy,” Bucky assured you. He wasn’t going to say it out loud, but he kinda liked the idea, liked the idea that someday when you guys were older and had kids and grandkids that you’d have journals filled with memories of all the bouquets he had bought you, stories to tell your friends and families. While the flowers wouldn’t last forever, even if they were dried, the dates and doodles would. A forever memory of your love story, all the good, all the bad, all of you two. 

[albatris]

Hi hello I hope you're doing well and getting read to sn00ze soon, STS! Saturday! Yes! Cause you're an artist and a writer, I was wondering how much the two mediums bleed into each other? Does drawing something out help you visualise it better, or do they not really interact much at all?

hello hi hey there and happy storyteller saturday :D thank you for the question!! I hope ur having a cool day B)

and even though you sent this yesterday you telling me to sn00ze is equally applicable today as it is almost every day of the week so................ yep, I’ll be sure to get onto that at some point. you’re probably going to make a >:c face at me for answering this at 3:06am

anyway! this is an interesting question! and a good one! unfortunately it may not have a very interesting answer?

my initial response was gonna be that they don’t really bleed into each other at all, but then........ nah, they kinda do

(and then about halfway through typing this draft I was like But What About Undertow, and my response became “oh yeah they definitely do”, but I’ll get to that in a bit)

but yeah! I think my writing definitely influences my art! both in the sense that I tend to draw mostly story stuff, ‘cause I like my stories and drawing is fun, but also in terms of like....... inspiration! usually I have a pretty good image of stuff in my head already while I’m writing, n sometimes this image will make me go “hell yeah I vibe with this I wanna draw it”, but the art itself generally turns out nothing like what I envision and usually takes a life of its own ‘cause I’ll just end up drawing whatever looks cool hahahaha

so I get some neat experiments and doodles and weirdness in various art pieces that definitely stemmed from story daydreams, but probably aren’t super related to the story itself in the end :P y’all don’t see much of this stuff ‘cause I mostly just post character drawings lmao

(this is bc I’m most confident with character drawings, and I will fistfight Drawing Backgrounds And Scenes in a wendy’s parking lot any day of the week)

but kinda hopping back up for a sec, one example that IS related to the story is like

drawings I’ve done that are centred in ATDAO’s unreality aren’t actually a super good representation of what the unreality is actually like? or I mean. they could be. they can be! but the drawings are centred around very literal concrete representations of glitchy weirdness

whereas in the story itself (at least to start with) there’s much more a focus on the general looming Hey Something Is Horribly Wrong vibes and, like, the unravelling and bleeding together of senses, the way the narration changes (ie the way your own thought processes slowly start becoming completely foreign to you), n just........ glitchy weirdness, but not glitchy weirdness that you can visually represent, glitchy weirdness that is canonically in the category “you can experience this and have no way to process it because a human mind is not equipped to translate it and your senses have no way of taking it in”

n then I bring the body horror in full force but that’s neither here nor there

existential terror and uncanny valley vibes r hard to draw, y’know? so the drawings mostly just wind up as me having fun with the aesthetic hahaha

but yeah, art stuff stems from story daydreams, it’s very rare that story stuff will stem from art daydreams

character drawings were something I started doing just ‘cause I liked my characters and I was vibin, but they ended up being the one exception in that they DO tend to actively inspire the decisions I make in the story itself, unlike my other art

written descriptions of people are a weak point for me, generally I’ll kinda know at least the key aspects of what folks look like, but the descriptions I come up with on page are always frustratingly vague............. n drawing them out helps me fill in the blanks and give my descriptions a bit more life and personality IMO, ‘cause I mean

there’s little things about people’s appearances that are pretty personal, little quirks or habits they have, etc, that I wouldn’t think of in writing, whereas in art they just crop up naturally

and also sometimes I’ll write a description of a character or have an image of them in my head and I’ll be like Yeah This Is Them but then when I draw them my hands will just make their own decisions

and whatever the hands create is Law and Official Canon as far as I’m concerned, I will always trust the hands over my initial plans when it comes to characters, and they have not failed me so far

and now that I’ve gone on a whole spiel about how (outside of helping me pin down character details) creating art isn’t generally something that inspires a lot of story development or daydreams, it’s time for me to completely contradict that because, like I said earlier: Undertow

this is a WIP that came into existence purely from art inspiration! basically I came up with Aster’s design on the fly because someone was like “it’s genderqueer pride day” and I was like Oh Sick Time To Make A New Genderqueer OC

most of the characters in Undertow were drawn and designed long before I had any clue who they were or what their deal was. the entire premise of Aster as a character was born within like two hours from one silly doodle. then I was like “BUT WHAT IF SHE HAD FRIENDS” so I drew some friends, who ended up being Kit and Meg. n their relationships with each other and the kind of story in which they find themselves all just kind of spiralled out from a series of silly doodles and took on a life of their own :P

I think it’s a different scenario since Undertow exists purely as a vessel for shenanigans and self-indulgent nonsense, so I was feeling a lot less pressure to be grounded and serious, I could just throw things around like “amnesiac clairvoyant delivery driver with an illegal magic crime truck” and “necromancer who doesn’t believe in magic who wants to reanimate a t-rex to honour his dead wife” to see what stuck and I had no need to be like “hm, but is that Realistic, though?”

unrestrained summer fun!

it’s easier for me to let myself daydream in relation to art when there’s none of this pressure, which I think is what separates Undertow from my other projects c:

plus Undertow is the one WIP of mine that I’ve always pictured in a kind of episodic comic format, though I lack the skill set or the patience to pull this off hahaha

as such, most of my development for it comes in the form of messing around with the artistic side of things!! as it should be, I think

anyway that’s enough from me I think, thanks for reading, have a fantastic day, hope you see some cool birds (if you do please tell me about them)

[quackspot]

i started thinking about that gay bastard oc of yours. platano. can u tell me about him

omg u wer thinkgin about platano..... mr banana man... mr 4011. i am obsessed with the banana code srry i just got back from work (it was good :-D)

any way. um. im going below the cut. he kidnaps people and he murders people and i hate him because he’s also a massive weeb so. hm

HISTORY OF PLATANO... yea his name is spanish for banana

his father, pablo, will probably get a name change someday but i literally never think of his father since the only thing he did in platano’s backstory was disappear 

since platano’s world has characters based off like. fruits and vegetables (there aren’t really any limit to what the characters are based off of. it was in my lazy google translate name phase so we have like... a gay character named arcenciel who becomes dadlike through my powerful canon-changing touch. also arcenciel wears the colors of the rainbow as often as he can i haven’t figured out a good design for him since i’m not used to using more than 5 colors. he also owns a hat factory)

i think arcenciel and platano are friends they met when platano was like. 17 probably and arcenciel would be around uhhhhh ummmmmmm 21??? idk man but in canon he’s probably around 30 . yes i m saying “in canon” because i wrote a really dumb and horrible story back in 2018 arcenciel used to have HUGE internalized homophobia and i turned that into a running joke and i dislike that so that’s a reason why i’m not sharing the fun little story i wrote for my friends

(the best part of that story is when arcenciel threw his light-up rainbow heelies at platano, thus starting the boss fight which the main cast LOST.)

ok back to the topic at hand. platano.

i have a whole doc named platano where i just wrote drabbles about him so i’m going to summarize them

the first one was his friend, percisi (my only cishet oc he’s very short and very aggressive while also dressing in a soft-colored turtleneck since he’s based off of peaches) using a misunderstood form of satanism to summon satan. guess what percisi and platano summoned satan for. it was a manga update! wow

i won’t say the mangas name it was an inside joke

so platano was like “hey satan can i have this manga now please please” and satan went “sure just kill people for me” 

that determined platanos job for the next 7 or so years <3 wonderful. 

(it was basically me writing a backstory for a scene to happen in the main writing i wrote for my friends. he killed someone because someone else in the building was trying to summon satan. very confusing but okay i guess.)

i think right after that i wrote about platano meeting his boyfriend, sage, for the first time. i have horribly mixed feelings about their relationship since it’s very. Hm.

so platano kidnaps people to watch anime with him because all his friends left him and his best friend, mangue, is too busy being a dictator over the Land of the Fruits. i shit you not fruits oppressed the vegetables. i wrote that dynamic between the two because i was learning about the revolutionary war in US History. something like that at least

(the Land of the Fruits is not the official name)

on the topic of kidnapping people. guess who his favorite person was. sage. it was sage. so he tried to take sage often but they probably discussed Proper boundaries since everyone else tried to run away. hmm i am now going to write a bit right now 

“Platano,” Sage started. “Why do you keep kidnapping me? It’s rude and I hate it.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” The yellow-haired fool leaned on his sword, digging the tip deeper into the ground. 

“ASK ME IF I WANT TO HANG OUT??” 

“I can do that?”

“You keep making my dads worried.” Sage looked around the area, fidgeting with his hands. 

“Oh. Okay. Want to hang out? Watch some anime?” Platano paused for a moment, but managed to say “Maybe kiss?” before Sage got to answer.

“I- KISS??? We can watch anime together. We can go now.” 

Sage ushered Platano through a portal as fast as he could. 

His dads were never worried.

hmmm maybe that’s alright idk i’m a little tired so it’s probably a little out of character. sage probably isn’t that loud but i think it was trying to be the dynamic of “oh, we’re not dating” when they kiss every sunday at 5 pm by a romantic river scene 

he’s a character who is, at his very core, horrible and bad. he is portrayed in a way i DESPISE but i’m too lazy to correct it. his interest in sage actually started with me going “hmm i think platano would draw sage like this” then sauce giving me fun facts about his oc, sage, yea sage is sauce’s oc <3 epic win . so sauce gave me fun facts about sage and i was like “time to doodle these in platanos ‘art style’” when in reality it’s just the mockery of people just getting into an anime art style, with the chin so pointy it could cut a cake 

i might reread my old writing from 2018. i gotta agree with the judges for that year i did not write very well

it mightve actually been made in 2017 which would be FUCKIN CRAZY im gonna check rn 

yea it was started in 2018. february 14th... huh . finished it completely in june of that year it was 41 pages total and it’s not even double spaced how did i write something without double spacing it

OH MY GOD BOB IS GOING TO HIJACK THIS RANT JUST FOR A LITTLE

so bob is a fluffy little anthro cloud with a grey top hat and bowtie. he is amazing. i love bob. bob is another one of sauce’s character and mangue (mentioned earlier) was made by my friend jamie 

(you can always ask for their tumblrs but i’d ask them if its okay to share their tumblrs. i might just look at them and reblog their stuff cuz i like their art!!! maybe jamie posted a drawing she made recently on her blog but tbh i don’t think she would she’s more of a twitter user)

ok so im skimming thru UMG which is the story it stands for “Universe of Magic Gardens” and it was originally made for a prank on ponytown so people would go “what’s UMG” and my friends and i would be like “ur mom gay xDDDDDD” or something like that . horrible but i’m glad i’ve changed from . that.

here’s a bit i actually like AKLJFISJFIO

“What the actual FUCK, Ilkie?!” Arcenciel cringed in fear. “Put it back- it’s too ugly.” He pointed at Platano, whose arms were crossed. 

why is it bolded. anyway.

i just saw a part where eau used y’all... water cowboy moments <333 i really need to make refs for all of those old characters. all of my umg-related characters have to be my oldest-living ocs. 

i cant believe this is making me genuinely reread my old writing just to go “WJHFSIDAJKSFIOJ WTF????” 

some of the lines on it sound like something you would hear on like. a school bus or somethin 

looking at umg like “wtf how did i add so much Meat to this writing” bc most of my writing now is mostly quotations to progress the story (like the quickie i wrote earlier. i could add meat to it but im  tired lol)

OK THIS IS MORE GENERAL BUT MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT THIS WAS WRITING HAIKUS FOR PORTALS. after you visit a place enough times it’s kind of just an instinct to open a portal there so you don’t have to recite a haiku 

uhh ok here’s another bit becuase im feeling like living la vida loca.  ur biggest regret should be “can you tell me about him” by this point bc i’ve written too much to go back now

He landed on his face once he was outside of the hat. Meko quickly walked over to the guest room, opened the Portals for Dummies book, and flipped to a page. It looked devious.

“Banana, mango,

Each tasting amazingly.

A taste of evil.” 

Meko did the dance on the page, it consisted of something that looks like it’s from an anime. A portal opened, the familiar scent of bananas and mangoes coming from it. With some hesitation, Meko stepped in. He quickly made it so only his head peeked in.

it wasnt bolded this time but i like it bolded. ok i understand how i added meat it was just shitty expired meat ALKFSJSHDAIUJKFEIODSJAK . it wasnt even that much meat DAMN. it just looked like more.

actually that’s all i will write. i could  do more w platano but yea at his base he is a blonde twink who kills people because he wanted a manga but now he’s friends with a dictator. woo! wow. amazing character writing. i cant wait to get motivation to rewrite everything and make platano a good villain (he will still be very interested in anime sadly. idk why around that time i liked making characters who were obsessed with anime i didn’t even watch it much myself. i think it was because i wanted to put capes on them)

[picturebookmakers]

Axel Scheffler

In this post, Axel takes us on a journey through his art studio and career. As well as sharing wonderful development work from some of his much-loved picturebooks, he shows us unseen sketchbook pages, early illustration commissions, etchings he made as a student, and his recent work to educate children about the coronavirus.

Visit Axel Scheffler’s website

Axel: I’m not really sure how many books I’ve illustrated in the 30+ years that I’ve been working. Over 150. I mostly work for the UK market, but occasionally I do books with German publishers. Not picturebooks though, so nothing that collides with the co-edition market.

Each of the boxes you see here contains one of my books: the sketches, illustrations, dummies, alternate versions of covers, everything.

I organised these boxes with Liz, my assistant, to have all the main books there so we can find things for exhibitions. There’s still lots of drawings in these boxes which aren’t sorted yet. Liz is such a great help, but it’s very difficult for me to keep on top of everything. I think I would probably need two Lizes, or perhaps three.

So yes, I don’t really know where to begin... I’ve got endless sketchbooks and little drawings on paper. I’ve got some really old sketchbooks I could show you.

Shall we start with The Gruffalo?

My early sketches of the Gruffalo were thought by my editor to be too scary for small children. So I had to make him a bit rounder and more ‘cuddly’. Initially, I‘d also thought that all the animals would be wearing clothes, as they often do in picturebooks. But Julia had different ideas, and to be honest I was relieved. How would I have dressed the snake?

Here’s some spreads from the dummy...

I tried a lot of alternate covers for this book; I think there were twelve in total. There’s some where the Gruffalo doesn’t even feature on the cover.

My latest book with Julia is called ‘The Smeds and The Smoos’. It was quite nice to work on because it’s so different from the other books we’ve done together. The text is a bit like a mixture between Dr Seuss and Lewis Carol; it has this nonsense element. But it’s basically Romeo and Juliet in outer space.

It’s an alien story, so I didn’t have to draw any rabbits or squirrels for a change, and I could invent more. I had more freedom. But like always, I got bored with drawing the same characters over and over again. But that’s picturebooks.

There was quite a lot of development work in the case of this book. But when it’s a story about a fox or a squirrel, I don’t do this kind of stuff. Over the years, it’s become much quicker and easier working on my books. I do far less research than I used to. Now I generally just do a quick pencil sketch then go straight to artwork.

Sometimes I have to start again because things go wrong though. This was a finished piece that was abandoned. I think I suddenly thought that the rocket was far too big or something. I do that; I work on something for ages, and then I suddenly look at it from a distance and realise that something needs redoing.

Did you spot the little Gruffalo in this picture? Since ‘The Snail and the Whale’, I’ve hidden a Gruffalo in each of my books with Julia (not ‘The Ugly Five’ though).

For almost all of the books Julia and I have done together, our editor has been Alison Green. We’re an old established team. And I’ve always worked with the publisher Kate Wilson; I followed her from Macmillan to Scholastic, and then to Nosy Crow. Julia moved from Macmillan to Scholastic, and decided to stay there. So Julia and I have some of our joint titles with Macmillan and some with Scholastic. Julia does books with other illustrators for Macmillan, and I illustrate other books for Nosy Crow.

People often ask me which of the books I’ve done with Julia is my favourite. It’s quite hard to choose, but I enjoyed working on ‘The Smartest Giant in Town’. I liked the way I could do a crazy world with animals, giants, fairytale characters, everything mixed together without anyone caring or questioning it. I’ll show you a few things from the box...

For this book, the cover was changed at the last minute. The original design had the title written on a poster stuck on a brick wall, but the sales people said they wanted a landscape, so I did another one. Years later, they used the original design for a new paperback edition, so it wasn’t completely wasted in the end.

I mentioned my endless sketchbooks earlier. I’ll show you a few of them. This was mainly me playing around without thinking about what I was doing; it wasn’t a conscious thing.

I haven’t looked at these sketchbooks for ages. It was such a long time ago. I don’t work in sketchbooks like this anymore, and I no longer doodle. But for fun, I make illustrated envelopes for friends.

I often think about doing a book with just pictures, but I’m always too busy doing other things. Posthumously, perhaps there will be time to do this. I’d also love to experiment and be more spontaneous; it’s been my dream for decades to do something completely different. But when I receive a book project, I always feel under pressure to finish it, and I’m always late with everything, so I end up doing it the way I’ve always done it.

This is my drawing table, which is and always has been too small and too messy. I think I have to accept it will always be this way.

I use Saunders Waterford paper for my illustrations. It’s funny how we all have our special paper. My rough sketches are often quite small, so I have them blown up to the correct size. Then I trace the sketches on a lightbox onto my watercolour paper. After that, I draw the outlines in black ink with a dip pen. I colour everything with Ecoline inks using brushes, and then coloured pencils on top of it (I use Faber Polychromos and Prismacolour crayons). I might then need to redraw some of the black lines, or use some white gouache for highlights.

I studied History of Art in Hamburg, but left before graduating. I realised this wasn’t what I was good at; I’m not an academic.

Then I had to do my alternative service as conscientious objector. Sixteen months. There was still conscription then; that’s how old I am. I worked with mentally ill people in their homes. It was during this time that I had a friend studying ceramics at Bath Academy of Art in England. I went to visit her. I really didn’t know what else to do, so I thought maybe I could move to Bath and go to the art school. So this is what I did. The course was Visual Communications, so it was design, printmaking, photography, all that stuff. But I realised I only wanted to do illustration.

I’d gone to art college hoping to learn something. I don’t think that necessarily happened, but drawing intensively for three years was, I think, what I had needed to do. I don’t remember actually finishing any projects though.

Here’s some drawings from my student sketchbooks. I did lots of observational drawing back then, which I don’t anymore. I did it then because they told us to. I’m an obedient person!

While I was a student, I did an exchange in New York: Cooper Union Art College for three months. These drawings are of Jewish immigrants, meeting for coffee. It was 1984, so many of them were still alive; refugees from Germany or Austria. I heard them speaking German, so that’s how I knew.

Sketchbooks are such a good way of memorising things. Nobody really knows about these sketchbooks; I used to take them to interviews, but they’ve been hidden away for years.

After I graduated, I moved to London and took my portfolio around. My art teacher had suggested I should do this to get work, so that’s what I did. In those days, you had to ring them and ask to come around. I got two commissions straight away, and it’s been busy ever since, really. I’ve always had something to do.

Here’s some of my early commissions. Starting from 1985, I guess. Very pointy noses...

I did so much of this kind of work. It was a good way of earning money quickly. Occasionally, I still do editorial. I did some Brexit drawings for the remain campaign. Sadly, it didn’t help. Maybe I wrecked everything!

I’ll say a few words about the KIND book... 38 wonderful artists donated a picture to illustrate some of the many ways children can be kind. Such as sharing their toys or helping people from other countries to feel welcome.

One pound from each book sold goes to the Three Peas charity, which supports refugees from war-torn countries. It’s been a big success so far, and Three Peas has received a lot of money from sales in the UK and co-editions.

I’d quite like to do the UNKIND book next! I think illustrators would probably enjoy that, but I don’t imagine it would sell very well.

And now for something completely different! Some etchings I made when I was a student.

People often ask me which illustrators I’m inspired by. I don’t seek any direct influence on my work, but I’ve always said that Tomi Ungerer had the greatest influence on my approach to illustration. Although his style is quite different to mine, this humour and wackiness is something that has always appealed to me. And the details.

William Steig is someone I got into later, when I was already illustrating. And Edward Gorey of course. And Saul Steinberg. I think the Czech artist Jiří Šalamoun is wonderful. And I like Eva Lindström from Sweden a lot. She’s so great.

Okay, to finish with I’ll talk about the coronavirus work I’ve been doing...

I asked myself what I could do as a children’s illustrator to inform, as well as entertain, my readers here and abroad about the coronavirus. So I was glad when Nosy Crow asked me to illustrate a book on the subject. I think it’s extremely important for children and families to have access to reliable information in this unprecedented crisis.

You can download the free digital book in English here, and in over 60 other languages here.

I also wanted to do something light-hearted to cheer people up, and I thought, “What if I imagine some of our characters in corona situations?” Julia liked the idea and wrote rhymes for the new scenes. This was really more about entertainment than serious information.

Artwork and verse © Axel Scheffler and Julia Donaldson 2020. Based on characters from ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ (2004), ‘Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book’ (2005), ‘The Smartest Giant in Town’ (2002), and ‘The Gruffalo’ (1999) — © Macmillan Children’s Books.

And here’s one more thing: my ‘letter from lockdown’. On The Children’s Bookshow website, you’ll find lockdown letters from lots of other wonderful authors and illustrators.

Illustrations © Axel Scheffler. Post edited by dPICTUS.

Buy this picturebook

The Gruffalo

Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler

Macmillan Children’s Books, UK, 1999

‘A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood. A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good.’

Walk further into the deep dark wood, and discover what happens when a quick-witted mouse comes face to face with an owl, a snake... and a hungry Gruffalo!

‘The Gruffalo’ has become a bestselling phenomenon across the world. This award-winning rhyming story of a mouse and a monster is now a modern classic, and will enchant children for years to come.

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Buy this picturebook

The Smeds and The Smoos

Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler

Alison Green Books, UK, 2019

The Smeds (who are red) never mix with the Smoos (who are blue). So when a young Smed and Smoo fall in love, their families disapprove.

But peace is restored and love conquers all in this happiest of love stories. There’s even a gorgeous purple baby to celebrate!

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Kind

Alison Green, Axel Scheffler & 38 illustrators

Alison Green Books, UK, 2019

Imagine a world where everyone is kind; how can we make that come true? With gorgeous pictures by a host of top illustrators, KIND is a timely, inspiring picturebook about the many ways children can be kind, from sharing their toys and games, to helping those from other countries feel welcome.

One pound from the sale of each printed copy will go to the Three Peas charity, which gives vital help to refugees from war-torn countries.

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Bulgarian

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[leviathiane]

SHOW US YOUR WROR RAW UNPROCESSED WHOLE GRAIN ORGANIC NOTES

this is going to be a long-ass post i am so sorry to Everyone! i take a lot of notes.

So, as You specifically know (as well as all of my lovely Soggers) I take a LOT of notes. Obsessively. I write fucking everything bc i have very little memory and very much paranoia. This results in literal Piles of notes. Raw planning, on paper, on my phone– doodles of scenes im brainstorming, bulletpoints, entire SCRIPTS– it’s all there but scattered (I’ve got scenes planned in the margins of my goddamn anthropology notes and deciphering it was a NIGHTMARE) 

I won’t even upload all the photos of my writing notebook, because itd be like 50 pages of illegible nonesense. but heres a couple of planning phase pages. (may be hard to read, I dropped this notebook both into some tidepools, into a creek on campus, and accidentally leaked my waterbottle onto it in my backpack :/) 

if you can’t tell already, yes they all look exactly like this. Some are even more illegible, because I wrote them with the notebook half under my actual class notes. Because i wrote most of them in class. During lectures. And pretending very badly that i was not doing exactly that. (pay attention in class please i got away with this bc i was filling up elective units) 

I’m also flat out MISSING a large portion of my notes bc some of it? isnt even in the damn notebook. its on a sheet of binder paper, or on the empty back of an assignment. I’ve now lost most of those notes, but the ones i do still have are just as (even more, actually) indecipherable chicken scratch: 

Wow, how clean and tidy and easy to follow! i am in hell. 

and this doesnt mention the PAGES and PAGES of outlines that are on my laptop, and the pages of outlined scenes that are on the notes app of my phone. if i put them all, you would have entire chapter spoilers up to the very end of the story so i cant post a lot of them– and also theres just a goddamn lot of them. currently i have 16 pages of outlining. There are no spacing breaks. It is a solid 16 page block of text. Looking at it gives me a migraine. 

some assorted notes which i have dredged up from the deleted parts of the main draft google doc go all the way back to when i started Wror in June and they are Barely more readable than my handwriting on sheer account of: articulation is not my strength. These include: 

“Ch 8 plan: sabo gets trained specially, awakens his armament haki, beats ace in a bunch of spars and proves himself to be anything but vulnerable. The boys are like “we fucking recognize that technique ryu taught you before us!!” and goad ryu into finally starting them both on basic haki training, just to awaken it, since sabo already has. Also this is the chapter that ace finally confronts ryu for his devil fruit after ryu confirms that some devil fruit users can’t be hurt without haki and ace immediately catches onto that and tries to slam his pipe through ryus head. It doesn’t work, ryu catches the weapon with a haki covered hand, to avoid turning to flame with hit and ace just gets frustrated and accuses ryu of hiding his devil fruit, because he remembers what he saw in grey terminal and that now that he has seen haki he can distinguish it from what he saw and he’s sure no one could do what ryu did. He calls ryu a hypocrite for coddling them even after telling them to stop coddling sabo and ryu has to sit them down and explain that yes he does have powers and he has been hdiing it and explains his reasoning. However instead of understanding th eboys just get fired up and say they don’t wnt to be scared of fire, especially not when it means ryu isn’t taking them seriously in a spar. Ryu finally agrees to start them on desensitization training for fire trauma. Fire desensitization training happens on the beach, so that they have water nearby in case things get out of hand. At some point ace gives ryu a considering look and is just like “if you have a devil fruit that means you can’t swim either right?” and ryu is basically just like “lmao yeah” and then ace immediately attempts to drown him. Lots of murder attempts in ace’s department toget his older brother to be less of an idiot with little success lol(extra: ace tried to attack ryu earlier both to confirm that ryu has a devil fruit that would force him to use haki to hide it, and because he now knows that he CAN’T hurt ryu without haki and as thus can’t beat him and make him admit he’s awake without being good at haki.)” [chapter 8] 

“Small sabo lost his hat and goggles in the incident and while he doesn’t remember having them future sabo notices he looks uncomfortable and keeps touching his hair and head. Ace yells at him for it thinking he bandaging are bothering him and that he can’t touch them but little sabo just comments that something about it feels wrong. Luffy blurts our that he had a hat, like luffy does, But he doesn’t now ace begrudgingly mentions that they can’t get a new one in town. Future sabo doesn’t even hesitate and just plops his own hat onto his younger selves head. It clearly too big for him, and almost falls over his eyes but he grins up at future sabo and is like “wow!! Thank you! I’ll take care of it till I have one of my own” and creates a paradox like Luffys own hat. The footsteps younger sabo has yet to fill. This HAS to happen AFTER the talk where they explain that future and past sabo are both the same person, to give little sabo that pressure.” [chapter 9]

“(Right after this older sabo takes them down to the ocean so that they can play a little and desensitize themselves and immediately fucks himself over when he goes weak in the water bc he somehow fucking forgot his own devil fruit again and now even younger sabo is on his case about not letting him near the fucking ocean that little goddamn HYPOCRITE—) )” [for chapter 9]

“Ch 9 plan: they finally leave dawn island. Starts with the boys getting a haircut after training and luffy mentions how long it’s been since they’ve last needed a haircut, giving sabo and ace time to point out that it’s been 2 months now since ryu joined them, and that sabo was completely healed by now. The boys are now aware of the basics of haki, and while luffy hasnt awakened either yet ace and sabo both have a little bit of weak armament haki. (sabo won’t awaken observational haki until he gets his memories back) ryu tries to sneak off into the city to steal a boat but his brothers refuse to leave him behind and keep sneaking out after him, not wanting him to go alone and saying that since he’s been training them they’re clearly stronger and he needs to let them do this. Ryu eventually just lets it go because why the fuck not it’s a dream and they make him feel better. They get the boat out on open ocean and finally fucking sail out, cheering loudly, ryu struggling to make them all calm down but also not really trying. He’s happy as shit, and they’re all so excited and happy and sabo dips a hand into the waves and then smiles so fucking wide and tackles ryu so violently they both nearly tip into the water and it’s just very very good. “ [also for ch 9] 

** I flat out dont Have any outlining from before chapter 6, because i only started actually outling chapters after that. i tend to just sit down and Write up until i hit a plot point or writers block and then am forced to actually think it through and plan rather than letting it come naturally. thats also why the quality and editing is better in later chapters despite everything being written within the same time frame. 

besides entire chapter outlines, there are the scene specific phone notes like:

“(ADDED) Right after they leave dawn, when sabo is sure they’ve gotten enough of a head start, he calls Garp. He doesn’t say who he is, but that all of the boys are safe and happy with him and has them all talk into the phone to assure him that they’re fine. Garp is honestly just pissed off he doesn’t know who’s calling and when he asks sabo just laughs and says a disobedient brat before hanging up. “

“(ADDED) TO EXPAND ON CH 3: sabo gets offered the chance to go with dragon, and he hesitates on the offer to go through with his previous life with the family he’s made in the revolutionary again. He almost agrees, because the bought of losing them in this lifetime is near excruciating but reminds himself swiftly that it’s no place for his brothers and not what they’d really want, and he wants selfishly to be with them as long as he Can until he “inevitably” wakes up. The boys are visibly relieved by this, especially ace. (Sabo gets asked who he is by dragon, who wants to know more about the stranger with his son, but dragon has always been quicker to make connections no one guessed and he just smiled knowingly at sabo and tells him he’s sure the other will have no trouble finding them if he’s in need. Sabo in turn warns him to keep Kuma close, and to look for a slave girl named koala.)”

I have…. many of these. I have Many of Everything. 

finally, i have scene doodles. if i hit a bad writers block it usually helps me to sketch scenes or the character designs to regain my grip on what the hell is happening in the plot– Breach of Intention has character design sketches, pakcbond has MANY scene sketches, even some of my nsfw has some sketches. my wror skecthes arent Good of course, I am an art teacher for children and that means i am more often explaining the color wheel and brush techniques over drawing perfect human replicas– and i just dont really make a lot of fanart? ive never drawn sabo before but i sure have a bunch now. i wont include close ups because they genuinely suck but heres an example pic 

So… yeah thats about everything. this is a VERY long post and yet i only included like maybe ¼ or 1/5 of all the notes i have dbskhjgfkjadns lmk if anyone wants more (or notes for my Other stories, which contain NO WHERE the same absurd amount of shit that wror does.)

[catbatart]

CATBATART’S ALTERNATE SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS

I should have done this WAY earlier in this whole ‘tumblr is going down’ debacle but I guess I didn’t actually worry I was going to be much affected until today? That’s when I woke up and saw more porn bots had reblogged my shit overnight than literally any other time before.

Let me make it clear that I will continue to try to post SFW content on tumblr as long as this hellsite will let me. I have way more active and engaged followers here than I could have ever hoped for, and tumblr has been an amazing platform for me until recently. However, I’m afraid I could be booted at a moment’s notice and I’ll need another hub to post NS/ FW art on, so here are some other places to follow me:

QUICK LINKS

PATREON  (ns/ fw art) TWITTER MASTODON (ns/ fw art) INSTAGRAM FACEBOOK FURAFFINITY (ns/ fw art) ETSY DEVIANTART 

WHAT TO EXPECT 

--PATREON: Obviously my personal favorite place where you can support me. ;P Patreon is the only way to get guaranteed commissions every month, and I’ll be posting more NS/ FW content there come the new year. In the past, I’ve done patron exclusive stream doodles and art games as well! Once I get my student loans paid off (sometime next year, knock on wood,) it will also be the primary hub for updates on my Dark Fairy Tale Comic, Blight.

 At the lowest pledge tier of $2, patrons get:     -48 hour commission priority    -participation in polls and most importantly    -access to my Patreon Discord which is like a mini social media in and of itself! There is even a sub-channel for D&D and Looking For Group Table Top games! 

Other sites/descriptions and giveaway info below the cut! 

--TWITTER:  Prrrooobably going to be my next most active site, though by the nature of twitter, there’s going to be a lot of retweets from other artists and random passing one liners that I think are funny. You all probably know how to navigate twitter better than I do, so if you join me here, bless you as it will be a learning experience. For now, I only intend on posting SFW content here, but that might change in the future.

--MASTODON: This will be my hub for general art AND where I’ll be posting NS/ FW art! It’s still a small site with a small community, but I’m really enjoying it thus far! I know it’s a hard sell to get people to join new social media sites, but if you can get over the weird instance selection on sign up, I highly recommend you give it a shot! 

--INSTAGRAM: If you like traditional art, sketches, WIPs, and cats, this is definitely the one I’d recommend checking out. Though I try to post digital art there from time to time, I really use my instagram primarily for traditional art. I also feel a lot more comfortable posting AESTHETIC CAT PICTURES there than I do my other platforms. :P

--FACEBOOK: That’s right! I have a business FB page just for art. Sometimes FB is the ONLY form of social media that people have! This is the closest thing to my Wholesome Christian Social Media that you guys will find (as I have family members who follow me there, HAHAHAHA-) but it’s also my best site to find updates on events and conventions I will be at! 

--FURAFFINITY: Hey guys, did you know your friendly neighborhood CatBat has had a furaffinity this entire time? It’s TRUE! It’s something that I find intimidating to dip my toe in, but it has one of the best in-site commission platforms I’ve ever seen to be honest. I’d love to try more YCHs and maybe...like...adoptable designs??? at some point? Anyway, support over there would be MASSIVELY appreciated. 

--ETSY: Not exactly Social Media, but a great place to check if you’ve ever wanted to purchase original content and work from me! I’ve got prints, originals, woodburning projects, and coloring books up there! 

--DEVIANTART: Yes. Ya girl has a dA. And has since like 2005ish but I deleted my old account and started a new one like 8 years ago. I was born to the dArkness. Molded by it. But now it’s primarily used to post finished works and use them as quick portfolio links for zines and conventions. Follow here if you really only wanna see polished finished works! 

That’s about it for my various accounts. I’m probably going to try to stagger giveaways across them over the next few months, (starting with Twitter in January/February) since until now, I’d put most of my eggs in the tumblr basket and it’s going to be rough trying to build that up anywhere else. 

As an artist, it’s wonky and rough to explain. Your follower base is your life. It’s how you make your living. And for me, it goes beyond that. I’ve made SO many new friends- many of whom I’ve had the pleasure to meet IRL- through this platform. It’s so DUMB seeing what’s going on. I’ve long touted Tumblr as being my favorite social media site for it’s specific format and how it promotes sharing and community in ways most of these other sites don’t.

But it looks like that’s kinda crumbling. :T

[creativenicocorner]

More Ch11 sneak peeks! Cause I saw an image of Tom and Jerry and can’t contain my own excitement. 

Good gravy things are gonna get silly. Silly, and Emotional. So much of this chapter’s writing experience is me going ‘omg this is so dumb. I love it’ and ‘Oh no™.’ 

Draal exhaled an exasperated snort. “Fine. I have rocks for brains. Would someone tell me what’s so obvious?”

“We are gonna hold down the fort.” Jim explained, enjoying his mom’s choice of words. 

“We survived one night.” Strickler grinned, “He’s not going to survive the next.”

“Right.” said Draal slowly. His own mental cogs starting to get on the same wavelength as Jim and Strickler’s. The troll smiled with equal vigor now. Nodding his head in a way that made his nose ring clink against his stoney face. Draal’s approval of this was evident. “We fight here. Take back the tactical advantage. An ambush! Yes, I like it.”

“But,” stepped in Jim beside Draal and Strickler, “we’re going to need supplies.” The teen suddenly gave a very intense gasp that made the troll and changeling very worried. Jim practically bounced between Draal and Strickler, “This is like every kid’s dream come true!”

Draal and Strickler continued to share worried looks.

“Do you know what this means?!” Jim pressed on with a smile that accented the bags under his eyes. “We’re going to Home Alone the shit out of this house!”

“Jim!” huffed Strickler with a tone that suggested a reprimand of language about to come. Instead he grinned wickedly, “You are absolutely right. Rube Goldberg himself will be rolling in his grave with glee.”

Jim started to do a little robotic dance, half singing and half humming the tune of Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse. More commonly known to most kids as the Looney Tunes assembly line song.

“Can we focus please!” interrupted Draal. “We’re wasting…we’re..hrm..”

“Burning daylight?” offered Strickler while placing his cereal bowl in the sink to wash and clean.

“You can’t burn a day.” snorted Draal very seriously. 

“Not with that attitude.” Strickler snickered over the soap suds. 

“We’re going to need so much rope.” realized Jim. He started to regret cutting the rope he used on Strickler earlier. “Oh! I should get some paper.” Jim’s sneakers squeaked as he changed directions left and right all over the kitchen to find some paper. 

He settled for the notepad that was usually on the refrigerator. 

“We can’t hurt Angor Rot with a paper cut.” Draal laughed. 

“No silly, for a list.” Jim smiled at the little Vespa doodle his mom made. He turned the page over so to preserve it, and started writing the word ‘Supplies’ on the top margin. 

Jim tapped the paper a few times and circled Supplies three more times until it looked right. “So how are these things planed? Like usually movies just montage through this stuff. Do we get the supplies first then see what we can make out of it?”

“I suggest we come up with a plan first. So we know what supplies to get and look for.” Strickler said as he dried his hands on a towel. “Now we should probably make peace with the idea we might not get all the supplies we need. But nothing a bit of elbow grease and thinking on our feet can’t -”

“I think a giant battle axe should swing down on the door when it’s opened.” said Draal.

“Yes! Sweet!” cheered Jim. Who’s cheer had a suspicious lingering of a potential yawn. 

Strickler pinched the bridge of his nose. This might take a while. Luckily it was still considered very early in the morning. 

“Draal you’ve seen a bowling ball before, right? Oh!” Jim pulled out his phone, and flipped it around to face him. He fumbled and nearly dropped the phone in the process. “Whew. Should we watch Tom and Jerry for ideas? Inspiration? Or..?”

“Only if you allow me to make some coffee.” Strickler said as patient as possible before Draal could ask what Tom or Jerry had to do with anything. 

                                        Powerhouse

The talks, were long. The Tom and Jerry skits, copious. A full pot of coffee, and a glass of orange juice for Jim, later and the kitchen table was scattered with plans and blueprints. Ranking from outrageous to ridiculously plausible. 

There were also several rulers scattered about, a few colored pencils, chicken scratch of engineering and hypothetical math, sometimes right next to crude stick figure drawings. 

One example was a stick figure drawing of Angor Rot, a line that represented a shelf, and a circle representing a bowling ball. Next to it the calculated speed the bowling ball would have to be flying at to do damage. Next to that was a post-it note reminder of their calculation of how much Angor Rot could hypothetically weigh. 

“Strickler, have you ever thought of teaching math?” Jim asked at one point while observing his ex-history teacher use a protractor. 

“I’d sooner perform at the Folies Bergère.”

“Hu?”

“No.” Strickler said simply, putting his pencil down, “Now please remind me again what was Angor’s calculated Mass?”

“Uuuh.” Jim leaned over and started searching through the papers. “Oh! Here it is!” and Jim plucked another post-it note. This time it was stuck to one of Draal’s horns.

“Thank you. Besides, I don’t have Lenora’s way with numerical explanation.”

“Lenora?”

“Excuse me, Ms Janeth.” Strickler corrected. 

“LeNORA???”

“Atlas, please sit back down. Now where did that calculator go?”

One paper just had the word, ‘magnets’ written on it. There was a simple line through the word and next to it another word that read, ‘Loadstone’.

[lowkey-lokis-bitch]

sketchbook - peter.parker

warnings - none :) just some fluffy peter parker x stark!reader

word counter - 1281

a/n - dang I have such a soft spot for peter x stark!reader , also requests are open! I posted one earlier for Loki that I’m super proud of - it’s called uncovered secrets please give it a read! thank you!! <3

Peter Parker is in many ways, an oversized toddler. He is easily excitable, almost constantly smiling and fairly naïve to his surroundings. Hence the way he didn’t realise that Tony Stark’s daughter was sitting right next to him in the Chemistry classroom. To be fair, Tony had done a pretty good job of making sure your parentage was a secret, it would have made life a lot more difficult for you if everyone had known. Personally, you preferred it this way. You had had more than a lifetime's worth of fake friends using you to get closer to the Avengers, or the Stark fortune. This way, life was simpler for you, and you had the chance to make some actual friends.

However, the fact that it was a secret didn’t mean you completely dissociated yourself all day. You often spent your time at school scribbling ideas for projects that you would take home to show Tony and Bruce, often ending up in some lab experiment gone wrong deep into the night. Your most recent project was a suit that your father had designed, and you had been tasked with upgrading.

You were sat in the Chemistry classroom, roughly sketching a design for a compartment containing some mechanical, spider-like legs when you felt a soft tap on your elbow. You quickly looked up, instinctively covering your design with your other hand. Peter was looking up at you, smiling softly.

“Whatcha working on?” he whispered, not wanting to get the two of you in trouble. He attempted to peer over your shoulder to see the design, but you insisted to keep it covered.

“It’s nothing, just doodling,” you smiled as innocently as you could, closing your book over and putting it to the side. As the book was closing, Peter managed to sneak a quick glimpse of your design, noticing the strange-looking legs. He took a mental note to mention that to Mr Stark, it could be quite useful as an addition to his suit. He shook his head slowly and looked back up at you.

“Okay, do you wanna come hang out after school? Ned’s coming over and I think we’re going to watch Star Wars,” he grinned at you, using one of your greatest weaknesses - your undying love for Han Solo - against you.

“Original trilogy, or sequels?” you narrowed your eyes, knowing there was only one correct answer.

“Originals duh,” he laughed quietly, quickly glancing up to make sure that the teacher hadn’t noticed anything. “You in?”

“Sorry, I can’t. Got to study.”

“Aw come on, we don’t have any tests coming up.” “Hey, some of us need to study to keep up with the brain-boxes, such as yourself.”

That was a straight-up lie. One of the many things you had inherited from Tony was his brain. Also his crippling mental state, but let’s not discuss that just now.  

The school bell rang, giving you an easy escape route. “I have to go see coach Wilson, I’ll text you later,” you gathered up all of your books quickly, not realising that you had left your sketchbook.

“Sure, see ya,” Peter smiled as you left, before noticing your book. “Hey, (Y/N), you left your book,” he spoke with no real desire for you to hear him. His curiosity got the best of him, and he flipped through the pages, seeing designs for what seemed to be adaptations for something. But there were no hints as to what the something could be. He slipped the book into his bag, making a mental note to return it to you tomorrow.

He left the classroom quickly, the school building even quicker, as the excitement of getting to see Mr Stark and his new suit overtook him. He stumbled into a back alley, slipping his mask over his head, ditching his bag in a dumpster and leaping into the air, soaring above Queens.

You arrived home, excited to show Bruce and Tony your new designs for the suit. When you approached the lab, pulling your hair up and out of your face, you saw the suit in all of its glory, glistening under the lights. Excitement bubbled in your chest as you placed your bag on the desk, unzipped it and reached in, rummaging around for your sketchbook.

But it wasn’t there.

The excitement quickly evolved into fear as you replayed the days events in your mind. You had it in Bio, worked in it at lunch, continued working in Chemis-

Peter.

“Dammit,” you muttered, pressing your head into your hands.

“Hey kiddo,” you turned around and saw Bruce, fluffy hair and all. “You alright?”

“Uh, yeah, no, not really. Lost my sketchbook.”

“Oh, anything important in it?”

“Um, well, somesketchesforthesuitandithinkakidatschoolmighthaveitnow-” you braced yourself for the response you would receive.

“Does Tony know?” Bruce asked, pushing his glasses up his face and looking back at the clipboard in his hands.

“I haven’t seen him yet,” you looked up slowly, anticipating punishment.

“He’s waiting for someone upstairs, so you’ve probably got about half an hour to find it.”

“Bruce, I owe you big time buddy,” you jogged towards him, giving him a quick hug and sprinting towards the door. “Thank you!”

Peter walked up to the entrance of the Avengers facility, still in awe of the fact that a place like this existed, and he was there. As he approached the large windows, he saw Tony pacing back and forth, obviously annoyed at someone on his phone. With your sketchbook in hand, he entered the facility and jogged up the stairs to meet Tony.

“Okay. Y’know what, I’ll get Pepper to chase this up. Yeah, okay bye,” Tony put the phone back in his pocket and turned on his heels to meet Peter. “Hey kid, you okay?”

“Hey, Mr Stark. Yeah, I’m good. I think I did well on my Spanish test,” Peter smiled up at his elder, wanting to make him proud.

“That’s good kid,” Tony wrapped his arms around Peter’s shoulders and led him towards the lab. “Now, we’ve been brainstorming some ideas for the suit. So, spiderling, anything to bring to the table?”

“Actually, I’ve got these,” he held up the sketchbook in his hand and a look of recognition washed over Tony’s face.

“Where did you get that?” he started before footsteps approached the pair from behind.

“Hey, Dad, I need to-” you stopped abruptly when the boys turned around and there he was, Peter Parker, holding your sketchbook. “That’s my sketchbook.”

“Um, yes, it is. I was, um, going to- trYING to find you. Not in a weird way, so I could give it back, to you,” Peter stuttered, his face displaying a shade of pink, as he reached his hand up to scratch the back of his neck.

“Yeah, okay,” you spoke, reaching to take it back.

“Uh-uh,” Tony furrowed his eyebrows, taking the sketchbook from Peter’s trembling hands. He flipped through the pages, glancing at the designs on each page before stopping on your most recent design, the leg compartment. “This, this is good. This is /really/ good, wow. Have you shown this to Bruce?”

“No, I was going to but /someone/ had stolen my book,” you looked back at Peter, his cheeks flushing an even darker shade of pink.

“Yeah, sorry,” he mumbled, finding anywhere to look other than you or your father.

“We need to get this added, like, now. Let’s go,” Tony stated, striding away, leaving you to jog to catch up. “It’s his suit by the way.”

You were a few feet ahead when you noticed that Peter still hadn’t moved. “Well, are you coming spiderboy?”

“It’s Spiderman,” he sighed. “Wait, DAD?”

[ijustwanttoexist]

Love Isn’t Just a Walk in the Park Pt. 2

Part 1

There are a weirdly limited number of pictures with Sidney Crosby with dogs that I could find, so that first installment is probably going to be the only one with a picture. Sorry! (This is turning out so much longer than I anticipated)

Pairing(s): Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin

It’s been three weeks since Sidney Crosby started taking a randomly chosen dog on a jog with him in the mornings. Sara and Angela have been solely in charge of making the tweets. Geno has stayed as out of it as he can.

Which means he absolutely does not check the shelter’s twitter page first thing when he wakes up every morning, no matter what Sara and Angela (or any of his so-called friends) say. He has better things to do for his daily routine than check twitter. Besides, Sidney doesn’t come in every day the shelter isn’t open every day. It’s closed on Mondays and Wednesdays, the days they had the least traffic those first six months when the shelter was open every day.

Besides, he doesn’t have to check the twitter feed every day, because whichever of the two girls is there when he gets in tells him all about it when he comes in to work.

“Sidney took Abby and Dessy out together because he said he didn’t want to break up siblings.”

“Oh my god, I expected him to have a big deep sneeze, you know the ones that almost echo with how loud they are, but he let out the cutest little sound, and then turned bright red because I was laughing so hard.”

“He came in today in black clothes and got mauled by the golden doodle he took out, Sasha. He was covered in fur when he left.

“Sidney had a black eye today. Apparently he took a bad hit yesterday?”

“Sidney brought a dog stroller in so he can take the puppies and cats out, because he doesn’t want to leave anyone out.”

“There was a mom and a little boy in today when Sidney got back, and they adopted the dog he took out jogging because he gave such a great review. We posted a picture of him with one of the snakes instead.”

His employees were many things, but subtle was not one of them. He had quickly learned to tune them out when they started talking in that certain tone of voice. His mother used the same tone whenever she told him about some cute guy or girl she met the other day while she was out shopping.

So Geno resigned himself to being told all about someone he was very definitely not interested in from his two otherwise wonderful employees.

Just as they’re going into the fourth week, Geno gets a frantic call from Angela. One of her professors decided to change the requirements for an assignment that’s worth fifteen percent of her grade and it’s due in two days. She needs the time off, and Geno is happy to give it to her.

So the next morning, Geno’s alarm goes off much earlier than he would have liked, but he gets up and gets ready. It reminds him a little of when he first opened the shelter and was the only person working there, nine to five, seven days a week.

He gets there five minutes before they’re supposed to open with an extra large black coffee from the coffee shop down the road from his apartment. He fumbles with his keys, but gets the door open with little hassle.

He’s in the back, putting food in bowls, when he hears the little alarm he’d had installed in the back that lets him know when the front door opens. He finishes the last few stalls, then makes his way to the front expectantly.

Sidney is standing there in a sky blue t-shirt and baggy basketball shorts, and neon-bright running shoes. He doesn’t even look tired to be up this early in the morning.

“Hey,” he says, and smiles at Geno, “it’s good to see you again.” And the thing is, Geno believes him that it actually is good to see him again, the man’s voice and face are so sincere.

“You too. Happy to see best dog walker.” He makes his way to his spot behind the counter and leans sleepily on it. “Have to wait a few minutes before you go. Just feed them.”

Sidney gives him a warm smile. “No problem. I got here a little earlier than I usually do because I wanted to ask Angela about that recipe she was telling me about. She not coming in today?”

Geno shakes his head. “Professor change her final project. She need few days off so she can fix, so I’m taking her shifts.”

“I’m sure she really appreciated that. Not all bosses are so accommodating.”

Geno shrugs. “She been with me long time, almost two and a half years. First employee. Know when I hire her that school comes first.” He looks up and sees that Sidney is resting his chin on his fist, his elbow up on the counter. He’s got a soft smile on his face as he looks at Geno.

“You’re a good boss.”

And again, Geno feels like Sidney actually means what he’s saying. He hides his flush by taking a long drink of hot coffee and makes himself power through the burn, knowing his tongue will suffer for it later.

“Dogs probably done eating now,” he says once he puts his cup down, “can go find your friend for the day.”

Sidney makes his way to the back and comes out with Dante, a large black lab that comes up to his hip. Geno waves them out the door, then buries his face in his hands on the counter. How can someone who gives some of the most monotone and awkward interviews turn out to be so friendly and sincere in person?

And it’s not like he can foist Sidney off on one of his employees when he gets back, because he’s the only worker in the store, and will be until Sara comes in to help with the afternoon rush. And worse still, he knows his English still isn’t great, so he’ll have to ask someone for help writing the tweet for today.

He could always just skip the tweet for the day. Sidney not having an official twitter of his own meant that they couldn’t tag him in the tweet, and the tweets themselves weren’t getting much attention. It wasn’t like they were making a huge difference in the amount of traffic the shelter saw. 

Okay, that was a lie. He had noticed that the dogs Sidney took out had a high turnover rate. Daisy had been adopted just four days after Sidney had taken her out, and most of the other’s he’d taken out had been adopted in a similarly short time. Dante was a good dog. He didn’t deserve to have his day skipped just because Geno couldn’t talk to the most attractive man he’d ever seen simply because he was also the nicest person he’d ever met.

Geno shook himself out of his self-pitying stupor and made himself get to work. It was another freight day, and the truck would be here soon. Geno needed to organize the shelves and work his way through some paperwork before that got here. He would worry about the tweet when it came time.

Geno is hunched over the lip of a box, digging for that one more bag of treats he knows should be inside it when he hears the bell above the door ring.

“Be right there,” he calls back as he shifts other items out of the way. He’s just seen a promising sliver of red when he hears a strange almost choking noise behind him.

He shoots up in alarm and glances over his shoulder. Sidney is standing in the same aisle as him, cheeks red from exertion, sweat making his hair shiny and just that one shade darker. His eyes shoot up from wherever it is they’re looking to meet Geno’s.

“I just,” Sidney says, voice sounding oddly strangled. He clears his throat and starts again. “I just wanted to let you know that we’re back.”

“Yes, good,” Geno says and makes his way down the aisle to them. “Need water?” He asks as he passes him, gesturing to his own throat in explanation.

“Yeah, please,” Sidney says and follows him back to the counter. Geno grabs one of the water bottles from the mini fridge he keeps behind the counter. He slides it over to Sidney, then grabs his phone from where he’d left it next to the front computer.

“Ready for picture?” he asks once Sidney has drained half the bottle.

“Yeah,” he says. Geno rounds the counter again and follows Sidney outside into the morning light. Sidney hunkers down by Dante, who takes the opportunity to lick a long, excited stripe up Sidney’s face. Geno’s glad he had his camera ready because he gets Sidney’s look of amused disgust perfectly.

He takes two more, one with Sidney and Dante looking at each other, the other of the two facing the camera, Dante laying down in the grass and absorbing the attention Sidney is giving him.

They go back inside and drop Dante back off in his kennel, where he greedily laps up the water that’s available to him.

They go out to the front and settle on the third picture before Sidney starts gushing about Dante.

“He’s a great dog,” Sidney says, “Super calm and gentle. Probably great with kids.” And really, Geno has to stop him before he says too much and he misses it all.

“Please talk slower,” he says, typing slowly on the English keyboard. He sticks his tongue into the corner of his mouth in concentration as he types. “Calm. Gentle. How he handle on leash?”

“He’s definitely leash trained,” Sidney says. “No pulling.”

“No pulling,” Geno repeats. He stares at his phone for a moment, then sighs and shows his phone to Sidney. “Need help,” he says. “My English not so good.”

“Your English is great,” Sidney says before he gets distracted with the phone. Geno huffs.

“Been here five years. Still don’t know how to use pronouns, Angela says.” Geno grumbles.

Sidney looks up from the phone and meets his eyes dead on. “I think anyone who can learn how to communicate in a whole new language is really impressive, especially someone who moves to a whole new country and uses that language to make a living.”

Geno huffs to hide his embarrassment at the compliment. “Have friends who do better. Sound better.”

“If your friends are giving you a hard time for not being as good at English as them, fuck’em,” Sidney says as he types something out on Geno’s phone. Then he freezes and his entire face lights up like a bad sunburn. “That.. I mean... can we just forget I said that?” He asks as he hands the phone back to Geno. Geno grins at him.

“Nope. Tell all my friends Sidney Crosby says mean things about them and I’m best at English.”

Sidney laughs, and it’s endearing how unpolished it is. Geno has heard Sidney’s media laugh in odd bits of interviews he’s seen on tv as he’s flipping through channels. This laugh isn’t that. It’s more high pitched, slightly grating, and entirely charming in how imperfect it is.

Geno swallows down a groan of hopelessness. Finally, something that is arguably unattractive about this man, and somehow Geno is even more smitten. 

He looks down at his phone and reads through the tweet. It looks good, and Sidney seems to approve. He hits post and then puts his phone down to find Sidney still looking at him with a side half smile.

“Even though it sucks that Angela has to redo part of her final project, I’m kind of glad her professor changed the assignment,” Sidney says low, like it’s a secret.

“Oh?” Geno says after he swallows loudly.

“Yeah,” Sidney says, making direct, earnest eye contact, “It was really good to see you again.” He gives Geno a couple seconds to say something to that, but Geno is tongue-tied. Sidney doesn’t seem to mind, just gives him a kind smile, and then bids him goodbye. 

Geno waves as he walks out the door, then sags heavily in the chair for the computer. He takes a deep breath, the lets it out in a strangled sigh. He is so fucked.

[galaxy-koi-art]

Okay so!! Apparently I wanted to doodle a lot more than usual today. I covered about two pages, most of it is DnD art.

To spare most from the length of this post, I’ll describe everything below the cut.

The first page was mostly from before I met up with the DM, so the newer NPCs and Wall had my initial ideas about their designs. I kind of wish I had numbered these, now that I think about it. It would make it easier to talk about. All of the notes beside the characters are notes I got when I spoke to our DM today between classes.

Going from top to bottom, left to right:

1) Mainly notes to myself in the top right corner. However, see that third note on the list? That’s right! I’m trying to push towards a Halloween date for Draft 2’s completion. It still won’t be done, as I’ll have to go through a final edit, but it should be readable.

2) The first doodle of Korst that I did. She’s a gnoll of unknown class, and she’s a sweetheart. Of course, unfortunately, she’s now been thrown into a very heated flirting war between Cynthia and Paddy, with her in the middle. Yes, this is the gnoll I mentioned earlier today.

3) Jim Bean (yes, named after the alcohol...) is a gnome who was originally a part of the bandit group. However, after being defeated and interrogated, Cynthia let him into the crew. He’s good at making traps and wields a large gun.

4) Cynthia talking/flirting with Korst. The two of them reminisced about the war that happened years ago, and Cynthia did everything she could to help Korst’s remaining group, who fled from Dren to escape his plans. It’s two buff, thirty-year-old women! And as I found out later, Korst is most likely much taller than Cynthia. :3

5) Notes on Dren, the bandit captain.

6) The whole bottom section of the page is from the session last night. Our group actually LARPed this part of the session, and it was really fun. I even got out my longsword for it. We interrogated Jim Bean on what he knew about the bandit group’s plans, and he gave us a decent amount of information. Wall (the one PC I don’t really talk about much, whoops) held him back while everyone else threatened him. I imagine Roth was just making the “Then Perish” face the entire time while Poth continued his reign of being the most terrifying member of the crew.

We took a picture of the LARP hilarity that happened, and I used myself as a pose reference for Cynthia in this doodle.

The second page was mainly for the second round of designs. I’m still unsure on Wall’s design, but I feel confident about the others. I also quickly doodled a not-great bongo cat and myself.

Also, this is what I’m referring to on this page when I mean my hair is becoming a lion’s mane: