#and if you see inconsistencies in how things are colored/lined/drawn

[stickynotelovers-art]

TW and CW: Depictions of anxiety/panic, eyestraining colors (If ever someone thinks I should warn for something else, please let me know)

Donnie's going through it too, man. I didn't really emphasize in Chapter 1 what exactly Donnie is dealing with, but felt I should show it in some way. I think he'd deal with a lot of sensory issues, especially if he has just a sudden muscle spasm or pain flare up in his back. His back muscles would be especially sensitive to overactivity and that's why he's sitting through almost the entire comic.

I was originally going to have Morse code written out on the panels where Donnie and Mikey are tapping on Mikey's shell to each other, but decided to forgo it for a simpler communication. If Mikey shells himself, the others know to give him some taps and tell him what they are going to do. If Mikey doesn't verbally or somehow give a response they will wait/leave him alone for some time and then try again.

I think the 4 of them all have a specific person they go to for comfort for the really bad moments. Mikey will go to any of them depending on how upset he is because he definitely gets the most relief from physical comfort. However, on those especially bad days, when Mikey has hid away in his shell, Leo is the one that everyone knows to alert or directly give Mikey to for comfort.

Masterpost\Previous\Next

[babyangelsky]

Back in March when I was doing the BL Challenge (brought to us by the lovely @negrowhat), I mentioned in my post about Korn Theerapanyakul that it isn't often that we get an actual villain who isn't just a love rival in a BL. The presence of an antagonist in a story doesn't necessarily make them the villain and not every story calls for one either. That being said,

Jak is a villain.

I want to break down this shot because it tells us a lot about the dynamic at play and Jak's point of view.

There's a lot going on here. The first thing my eye is drawn to is the line between them (and how Mut is just slightly crossing it since he stepped into the lion's den). Once you see that, the differences between both sides of that line become more obvious.

Mahasamut is dressed in a dark cool color and he's in shadow but his face is catching the light. The flowers, fireplace, candles, and TV behind him feel warm and homey. Fitting for a cafe. On the other hand, Jak is dressed in a warm light color and he's sitting in the light but his face is in shadow. The windows behind him and his positioning makes it feel like he's sitting at a desk in a corner office in a high rise instead of a cafe.

I weirdly wish they'd shown us when they arrived at the table because I would bet you anything that Jak sat down first. He's the older one, he's relaxed, etc. It makes sense for him to have sat first which means he chose that specific seat and the only reason I mention it, and really the only reason it matters, is that it tells us how Jak sees himself in this situation.

He's sitting there in the light in his dad sweater telling Mahasamut about wanting to fulfill his role as Tongrak's father and that he's so sorry about his behavior in the past and wants to atone for it and it's all bullshit because look at this man's face.

It is completely shadowed, just like his intentions and his agenda whereas Mut's is completely in the light.

And the difference becomes even more stark once Jak tells Mut to break up with Tongrak.

Jak is spewing nothing but ill-intentioned bullshit and Mahasamut sees it for what it is and makes it clear that he isn't going to fall for it, which is why things devolve.

Now. Just so we can get it out of the way, yes, obviously Mut should not have agreed to that meeting. He shouldn't have engaged and should've put the baby in the car and driven in the opposite direction. I was screaming at my screen for him to do just that, as were many of us I'm sure. However, I have to point out that it is not inconsistent for him from a character writing standpoint to have agreed.

Lest we forget, he said this to Tongrak last week when he was explaining why he turned Prin down when she tried to buy him.

"But Leah the dad is so much worse how could he not see—!" I know. Trust me, I do.

I'm gonna put on my baseball uniform and go to bat for my man for a second though because I think part of the reason that he agreed to talk to Jak is that he vastly underestimated him. And to be completely fair to Mahasamut, I did, too.

If I had to guess, I would say that he was expecting to be dealing with someone cut from the same cloth as Prin. Maybe a little worse since he knows what Jak has done in the past but certainly nothing he couldn't handle. Mahasamut is not a reckless or a thoughtless man. I don't believe for a second he would've even walked in the building if he didn't feel confident that he could deal with Jak.

The problem is that Jak is very much not cut from the same cloth as Prin.

I noted in my expressions post that it looked like the only time Jak was actually feeling something was when he accepted Prin's offer to destroy Tongrak but that's not entirely accurate. Having gone back to watch his scenes, there's a second instance where genuine emotion peeks through.

There's such a cold rage in his expression when he reproaches Tongrak for choosing his mother and cutting ties with him. And make no mistake, he's not angry because he loves his son. We already know that he doesn't. He's angry because in his eyes, he lost to a woman he felt nothing but disdain for.

If Tongrak and Kwan had chosen Jak over their mother, do you think Jak would be out here causing problems? No, he would've flat out ignored them. He wouldn't bother keeping such close tabs on Rak and his relationships because he would've already won and if he's doing it now, it's because he wants to win.

This is a game to him. This is fun for him.

His son is terrified and begging him not to hurt an innocent little girl and a young man and Jak's response is, "Don't be greedy."

He tries to force his son to choose which one of the people he loves most in this world gets to be safe but the choice isn't really a choice. He says he'll choose for Rak and he already has. Jak had already had Mahasamut beaten by the time he comes to see Tongrak and we know that because Mut's injuries have been treated when Rak gets home and Vivi is already there.

Matter of fact, the only reason Jak is even here talking to his son is because his attempt to convince Mut to leave has failed and he knows that going to Rak won't fail. He knows his son is afraid of him and he knows he can use that fear to get what he wants, which is why he brings up the uncle doctor.

Although we've gotten little of Jak so far, it's safe to assume that he is not a man who makes empty threats. Tongrak knows this, too, which is why he becomes so panicked when the doctor is brought up. We as the audience don't know who this doctor is but we can surmise from Tongrak's expression that he's important enough to be used as a weapon by Jak.

Until this point I don't think Tongrak realized that his father had anything to do with whatever happened to this doctor, he looks genuinely surprised. But all Jak had to do to prove how serious he is about his threat is mention the man. That's all he does. Rak puts the pieces together himself.

And here is where I bring up next week.

If you can look at this man's face as he rips the contract and think for a moment that he's going to try to push Mahasamut away for some flimsy petty reason, I am here to tell you that you are dead wrong. If I so much as SEE the words 'noble idiocy' I'm going to kick off.

Because we know that by the time Tongrak picks up this contract to rip it, Mahasamut has already been beaten twice and that Jak made a barely veiled threat to have him killed. Rak is rightfully terrified of his father and afraid for his boyfriend's life and wanting to keep Mut safe and ALIVE is not noble idiocy.

Now is it going to work? Smart money says no, wild horses couldn't drag Mahasamut away. He loves Rak too much to take any threats lying down. But as much as I understand why Mut talked to Jak, I understand why Rak wants to keep him safe even more.

Jak didn't accept Prin's offer because he wanted to help her. He doesn't give a single shit about her agenda except to mock her for it. He agreed to destroy his son because he wants to, because doing so will allow him to win and get back at his ex-wife. The money is just a bonus.

Jak is a Villain.

[messinwitheddie]

Have any tutorials of how you draw your tallest? (Or irkens in general?)

If Cini could wear any human casual clothing, what would he wear that is comfortable?

If he had it his way, would Cini change the life of Irken society?( you know with the whole tall and short thing.) or change everything with the empire expansion. We know their people must have many enemies with other alien races but if there was an alternative to that and not concur or go to war with them, would Cini be that one Tallest to break that cycles? I mean he looked tired of being tallest.

I'm not the best teacher. My drawings are pretty inconsistent. The best I can explain my process is, make a mark, erase a mark, rinse, repeat until it looks like a figure.

These were drawn super quick. Not sure how much help they'll be, but I tried to leave in as many reference lines in as possible.

These are some sketches on how I approach drawing a tallest with the typical JV bone-skinny body frame

The torso is where I struggle the most. I probably draw them too tall, but that's how it comes out.

It's fun to experiment with different body types;

From left to right; Tallest Spittle, Greezee and Blitz

From left to right: Tallest Miyuki, Dava and Kii

I have a tendency to draw women tallests with big hips (because that's fun for me), but Irkens really don't have gender dimorphism, and their fashion/ clothing styles are all unisex, so there's no need to follow that rule when you design your own ocs.

I would have to look through my blog to find any posts about how I draw smaller Irkens. Mostly same advice.

As far as Cini's choice in comfortable human clothing; his robes are very uncomfortable, so anything would feel comfy by comparison.

But I imagine he would immediately gravitate towards those flimsy tie dye sun dresses you see in those little hippie boutiques at the mall. Tie dye is something he would never have seen in the empire plus so many swirls and colors!

He would have a field day dress shopping. Most human male clothes would be too lacking in flair.

And to address the third question; Irkens are brainwashed at birth into believing their height based hierarchy is the natural and correct way for their society to operate and have been brainwashed into believing this for MILLIONS and millions of years.

I'm not sure if it's within the limits of his imagination to conceive a reality where Irkens did not serve a tallest who carried out the will and executed the design of the control brains.

BUT Cini wished from the moment he was measured someone, ANYONE else had been measured taller than him. His favorite partabout being tallest was lounging and smoking record breaking amounts of pipe amber.

His passion was his trapeze act and watching performances at the civilian theater. No "important" occupation really appealed to him when he was a cadet; too boring, not enough fun music and visuals. He only served in the military because all Irkens are required to go through basic training. His stats were a joke as far as his height bracket went. He stayed the same rank for almost 200 years.

Cini tried as hard as he could to be a good tallest, as much as his imposter syndrome made it for him. MOST of his reign was actually spent improving infrastructure within the empire's existing territories. He was a generous patron of the arts and sciences (beyond military research). Service drones legally received more off time and better medical benefits. Cini avoided brute force unless absolutely necessary. He loved to play ambassador. The Vortians, the Space Bees, the Inquisitorians, ect all became official allies of the Irken Armada during Cini's rule. He genuinely took the time and effort to listen to their concerns and compromise.

Cini was wise enough to know it's better to make friends than enemies in the long game, especially unnecessarily. The empire wasn't perfect, but Irkens and alien citizens alike enjoyed a higher quality of living under Cini's leadership methods.

It wasn't until the very end of his reign did he declare a war. He did so because of pressure forced down on him by the control brains, who were intimidated by the corrupting freedoms the lesser drones seemed to be enjoying and deeply concerned by the lack of new conquests that have been made over the centuries.

The Irken/ Planet Jacker war was bloody from the very beginning.

Cini would not live down the shame of his decision. Too many casualties on his conscience.

Every drone is worthy of dignity; Cini believed that. He would change A LOT about Irken society if he could. He tried. He wish he had tried harder.

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

At the cafe library by the riverside

To beat the winter slump, I find that a change of scenery is super helpful, especially in an unfamiliar place. Spending the week at Lilypad Brook with Daisy Jane, Spencer, Sapphire, Steven, and Arabella has been chill, which was exactly what we needed.

Along with wandering around the shops I often found myself drawn to the river, mesmerized by the movement of the water and the cold breeze blowing against my face. Something about being there just makes me feel more awake, like a constant reminder that I’m right here, right at this moment not drifting off somewhere else. As someone who tends to be stuck in my own head, I feel like I need some sort of anchor to keep me grounded or else I might end up veering too far somewhere I’m probably not supposed to be.

Instead of feeling trapped or chained down, this kind of anchor is reassuring, like a safety net. While it does prevent me from drifting away, I still can move freely without fear of losing my way. This anchor is a guide, a helpful tool instead of something that restricts me, and I could use more of that in life.

When it gets too cold to be outside, I often found myself at Espresso Lane, a popular cafe library that has become our meet up spot. There, I’ve been doing art journal stuff or knitting my latest sweater while enjoying the food and coffee.

Art block has struck me again so I’ve been kinda slacking off on the art journaling aspect so my spreads have been feeling a bit uninspired. At least I can still fill the pages with my thoughts, though I’ll admit I’ve been having a bit of trouble with that too. Sometimes the words come easily and I’m going off on tangents, other times I have thoughts but struggle with getting them on paper. This journal entry started off on the former, but it looks like I’ve found my flow now so let’s hope this sticks.

See, this is part of the reason why I can’t be like Daisy Jane and Cheyenne in terms of being productive as a creative, I’m too fucking inconsistent. On one hand it’s a me thing, as in I don’t always like sticking to the same thing for too long and prefer to jump from one thing to another depending on when inspiration strikes. Like for now I’ve been more focused on knitting and cooking while journaling and drawing has kinda been on the side. But it’s also frustrating when I kinda have an idea of what I want to do but my brain refuses to focus so I have a bunch of ideas but they’re just sitting there because I don’t have the energy to think things through. I mean, I��ve found ways to work around it but I still can’t help but feel frustrated sometimes, but at least I’m no longer super hard on myself about it, so that’s an improvement.

So I’ve been focusing on drawing in my journal and knitting a new sweater, which is turning out good. I’m trying to be a bit more experimental with my journal spreads so while some of my drawings don’t turn out as good as I expected, at least I’m trying. Also, it just feels good to experiment and try something different, because even if it doesn’t work out, at least you gain something out of it. Like with drawing, even though it doesn’t feel like it, I find that I do have a style and I have preferences and that’s what makes my art unique. I may not stand out or have a trademark style but it’s the little things that makes my art mine, like how I do my line art or what colors I tend to gravitate towards. Art is self expression after all.

As for my sweater, I’m trying out this mock cable pullover in this lovely moonbeam color yarn I got on sale for a great deal. Raglan sweaters have become my new favorite thing so I definitely want to get more into expanding my me made closet some more. Cables aren’t something I gravitate towards because they seem like a lot of work so a faux cable sounds more appealing since no extra tools are necessary. Basically it gives the look of a cabled sweater without the extra effort and I’m all for that. As soon as I saw the pattern I knew I had to make it and now I’m almost done with the yoke.

Speaking of knitting, I should really invest in getting more DPNs because magic loop ain’t doing it for me anymore. While I’ve gotten used to the technique, it still puts a strain on my wrist and I just don’t like that. I’ve already invested in interchangeable needles so why not do the same for DPNs, for my wrist’s sake? Also, I’m pretty sure I’d get the sleeves done a lot faster and avoid second sleeve syndrome while I’m at it. Yeah, if I’m gonna keep making sweaters I’d better start looking into that.

So everyone’s been doing their own thing while meeting up at the cafe to hang out. Daisy Jane’s on a well deserved break after a busy holiday season. She, Almie, and I had to pack so many orders that we had to set aside a couple days specifically just for that. While it is overwhelming, it is a good thing that her shop is doing that well. Not only people are buying her stuff but it also means that Daisy Jane can afford to take a month or two off so she won’t get burnt out and I’m happy that she can do that. It took a lot of trial and error but Daisy Jane has achieved a balance between art and work that allows her to do what she loves without being burnt out. She deserves a nice long break without feeling guilty.

Steven, Spencer, and Sapphire, the time warp trio, have been doing well. Steven’s still with Eats & Treats and while desserts remain his forte, he has branched out to other videos too. He’s been focusing on music too and finally had the courage to post some of his songs online. While he has always been confident as a musician, he admits that he was a bit self conscious putting himself out there as a lot of his songs are super personal. So he was pleasantly surprised that his original compositions were not only well received but the fact that people have said they relate to his lyrics. Music has always been an outlet of self expression for him, something he found can be a good and bad thing for him.

Despite being a generally positive person, Steven admits to easily falling into negativity, which is understandable as I tend to do the same. A lot of it has to do with the fact that he’s lived through some difficult times and that has affected his relationship with music, something that has always been a big part of his life. After his father died, he pretty much lost interest in everything, which was why he abruptly left home, basically running away from life because it was just too much for him to deal with.

For me, the standout song Steven composed was Taking Back What’s Mine, which he says is one of the hardest for him to write. Basically it’s about his complicated feelings about the past and how he’s slowly healing from it, taking back his life by not letting the past cloud his future. Everything about the song - the lyrics, the music, and the way he sings it - I can’t help but replay the song several times because it really struck a chord with me. For him running away kinda helped him and set him back at the same time, so with this song, it kinda forces him to go back and confront his past problems, this time with the new experience and perspectives he gained and that allows him to finally close that chapter and fully move on with his life.

Sapphire and Spencer took his words to heart and finally confronted some unresolved issues from their past they’ve been putting off for a long time. At least with Sapphire she had an excuse with her time travel powers not working, which meant she couldn’t go back to her time safely. While she has regained some of her powers, it’s still not safe for her to travel alone so she needs someone to accompany her or else she might get stuck again.

It wasn’t easy for her, but Sapphire knew that sooner or later she had to go back to her time, she just didn’t expect it to take years before she was finally able to do so. She’s built a life for herself here with Steven and Spencer and she’s happy with it, so that added to her hesitation. After her best friend died, she pretty much had no reason to go back to her time where she wasn’t as happy. Funny thing was that when she was trapped here, things weren’t as good either as she and Spencer ended up running off, which was how they reunited with Steven.

Now that she can go back and communicate with her family, Sapphire promised them to keep in touch often. Her parents weren’t too happy to find out how much they missed out on her life but they’re glad she’s doing all right. It must’ve been disorienting for them to see their daughter go from a teenager to a young adult in a short amount of time (to them) but then again time travel shenanigans are weird.

She also visited Lizzie’s family and promised to keep in touch with them too but she admits that she’s not sure if she can keep up with her end of the bargain. Lizzie was her best friend and seeing her family kinda reopened the wound for her, especially since they just found out she’s never coming back, something Sapphire had to live with for years. While I hope Sapphire keeps her promise to keep in touch with them, I get why that’s hard for her.

Spencer has been busy with Written in Ink, his thrift shop. In fact, he’s here with Arabella on business while taking it easy at the same time. He also said that he’s been hanging out with his sister more, even invited her to spend the holidays with the gang. From what I know, Spencer always had a complicated relationship with Dylan for understandable reasons. Their father cheated on Dylan’s mother, which resulted in Spencer, and for whatever reason Spencer’s mother kept coming back to him. Spencer speculates maybe they blackmailed each other or something - not that it matters anymore since his mom’s dead and he’s not on speaking terms with his father.

Like Sapphire, Spencer’s also confronting his past, specifically his parents and how they screwed him over. His mother was the renowned time travel scientist Lynda Sage, the kind of person who looked good professionally but their personal life was in shambles. Spencer was close to her and looking back he said that maybe she relied on him as a crutch a little too much while putting work above him at the same time. I guess in other words that meant outside of work she had nothing else aside from her son, so that complicates things a lot. After losing his mother suddenly while stuck in an unfamiliar time with family who somewhat resented him for existing, it’s no wonder he wanted out. After Dylan, who he was starting to get along with, decided to live with her grandparents, Spencer and Sapphire had no reason to stick around so they packed their bags and hopped on a bus to get as far away as possible.

According to Sapphire, Dylan has been easy to get along with now that she’s no longer under her father’s influence. She said that Dylan had been hostile to her since she was a complete stranger who suddenly became part of the household - which is not an excuse but she can kinda see where she’s coming from - but over time they’ve been getting along. I mean if things were rough on Spencer and Dylan, imagine being Sapphire, who was basically the outsider. Well, at least she was able to live with them as she had absolutely nowhere to go, but that didn’t meant she wasn’t alienated by the others for basically being an extra burden to them. Again, it was a shitty situation all around so it’s no wonder why she was totally on board with taking off when things predictably didn’t work out. Why stay in a place where you’re clearly not wanted?

So Spencer and Dylan have been catching up as well as finally dealing with their own problems, most which stem from their father and Spencer’s mother. They’ve accepted that the past is in the past and they shouldn’t let other people’s mistakes and shortcomings dictate their relationship. I think that’s something a lot of people need to hear so I’m glad that they’re able to move past their parental issues. Hopefully one day I’ll finally get to meet Dylan and maybe hear about her side of the story if she’s willing.

As for Steven and Spencer’s time traveling abilities, they don’t use them often. Steven’s busy enough as it is so time travel isn’t a part of his life unless he’s accompanying Sapphire or maybe he needs some inspo for recipes or songwriting, which he says is basically all he does with his powers. Spencer is the same in terms of using time travel only to get a change in scenery, though he sometimes takes on jobs, but very rarely, He says he has a bit of a complicated relationship with time travel since it’s his mother’s thing and she kinda relied on her work too much. On one hand he wants to be like her and use his time travel powers to help people but at the same time it’s a bit hard for him to do that as it also reminds him too much of the past. At least, he says, the feeling of wanting to use his powers for good is stronger than the negative feelings attached to that so I hope he finds some peace with that someday.

Hanging out at the cafe knitting and/or journaling my thoughts away has been good for me. I don’t know what it is about this time of year that makes me feel uninspired and stuck so I’m glad to be able to get some creative inspiration back. Like the others, I too will keep moving forward and learn not to be too hard on myself when things don’t work out.

[sorryimanon]

Pairings: Bakugou x fem!Reader

Tags: 18+, dirty talk, explicit scenes, mutual masturbation, penetration, bakugou being a switch, reader is a dom, lots of back and forth between characters, slow burn

A/N: this was supposed to be divided into two parts but surprise, surprise! i got lazy :) i had so much writing this. this might be my favorite fic ive written so far! this is a loooong one. enjoy! 

P.S this is the unedited ver. I will posting the final on my AO3 account (sorryimanon)

-

Katsuki disliked her. No, he absolutely loathed her. Ever since she stepped foot into the classroom, it was destined for there to be a hostile barrier between the two of them. Granted, all she did was sweetly greet him like the rest of her fellow classmates, but Katsuki completely saw through her fading facade and ignored the kind gesture with a threatening showcase of his quirk.

"Being nice won't get you anywhere, baka," he snarled, glaring intensely at her all the while everyone watched the whole scene unfold.

He treated her like a foolish peasant after that initial encounter, disregarding her in any way shape or form as disgust shone through his eyes.

Y/N persevered the oncoming school years despite the blonde breathing down her neck consistently everyday. Katsuki's aggressive nature towards her subsided once graduation commenced, alluding to the blossoming maturity each student should have endured before branching off into hero work.

Not long after the celebratory succession, y/n bounced to several agencies that offered the same beneficial agreements for her. None caught her attention. Until one day she received a recommendation from Endeavor himself to work full time at his agency. Of course she accepted it and immediately wrote her sloppy signature down on the contract. Unbeknownst to her excitement, a separate copy of the contract was sent to another uprising hero around her age group.

So when she strutted in that morning of orientation, she never expected to see the very infamous Katsuki Bakugou slouched on one of the many chairs in the meeting room. Her throat tightened as she took a seat next to him, his height still freakishly tall even when they were just sitting. Staring straight forward to prevent from any means of eye contact with him, he lowered his head at her eye level and crooked a half smile.

"I'm gonna make you regret for even considering joining here, extra." A fleck of his spit hit the side of her face. Learning from her past encounters with Katsuki, y/n held her tongue in hopes for him to feel satisfied enough to leave her alone.

Thankfully their office hours were inconsistent to where they didn't intervene with each other, neither of them awkwardly meeting in the lobby or an elevator. However, sometimes y/n and Bakugou would desire the same craving for a caffeinated beverage and find themselves standing shoulder to shoulder by the coffee machine.

Bakugou likes his coffee black, she mentally jotted down as she intently watched his usual routine of preparing the beverage.

Like the asshole he is, Bakugou would purposely tip the mug and let a few trickles of the hot liquid burn her hand. He's done this every single time before he leaves y/n alone in the break room. Deep down, he relishes in the strained expression on her face when he inflicts the pain upon her. Thoughts danced across his head. Some involving him blasting y/n into the stratosphere to her kissing the tips of his boots for mercy. Either way, her being so submissive and, dare he say, a pussy to stand her ground sufficed him enough for the time being. But sometimes it pissed him off.

The constant harassment by the angry blonde went unnoticed by their other colleagues, including Endeavor, leaving y/n to prepare every morning to face the wrath of Katsuki Bakugou. His verbal abuse never wavered, occasionally whispering under his breath "weakling" or "stupid girl" whenever the pair were in the same room together. One time he sent her on a wild goose chase to find a missing case file that miraculously disappeared from her desk while she was copying something in the other room. Hours later, she soon discovers the said file tucked behind Katsuki's arm, snatching it from his grip and not once reprimanding him for wasting her time. Y/N eventually got used to it. Adapting to the annual insults of her work ethics and anything he could muster up from his sleeve. Both finally accepted their twisted dynamic, and became accustomed to the work lifestyle.

Months later, the dynamic soon changed when Endeavor announced an emergency meeting with everyone in the building. Apparently a new wave of villains have been reigning terror over the city, causing major damages and fatalities in a matter of weeks. Rumors started to circulate that the new generation of heroes don't have the capabilities to apprehend this group of evil doers. In the meeting, Endeavor made it clear for everyone to be partnered up before he dismisses them to patrol for the night, suggesting that pairing up with someone who is complimentary to your quirk is efficient for when dealing with these kinds of villains.

That's why y/n didn't voice her complaint when she inevitably got matched with Bakugou. His quirk alone was powerful already. With both of their quirks combined, there's no telling how the mission will go, but she surprisingly feels safe knowing he'll be sticking by her side throughout the rest of the night. It'll be a quick mission, then they'll return back to their previous mundane duties in the office. Back to Katsuki's mental and verbal torment.

"Could you move any slower?" Katsuki barked as both he and y/n were taking a quick stroll through the public park, scoping out for any signs of danger.

She was a step behind him, careful not to bump his shoulder or invade his space. She mumbled out a quick apology and fastened her pace, catching up to the man in gear. Tonight he wore his alternative hero costume, the design made specifically for when the temperature reaches an undesirable degree. The collar touched below the tip of his chin, his chiseled chest covered with the thick black material, and his arms protected from the cold with the addition of sleeves.  

"Fucking weakling..." she heard him mumble once they circled the perimeter again.

Bakugou insisted for them to scout out as many places as possible in hopes for an encounter. He desperately needs any excuse for some action, to use his quirk out of anger. Previously, they patrolled the empty plaza of Tatoone shopping center. Other heroes were there as well, but still no signs of any villains lurking in the dark. For the third time, they met up at the center of the park after making another round, both already tired of the tedious task.

"Just our fucking luck. Still no signs of those stupid villains. I guess we should patrol the outskirts of-."

A bright luminescent beam struck the middle of Bakugou's chest cavity, ricocheting him backwards to slam against the trunk of a large tree, knocking him unconscious instantly. Startled, y/n's eyes frantically searched for the perpetrator, only to meet a pair of glowing green orbs staring right back. She shifted her stance in preparation for their next attack, blocking Bakugou's lifeless body from the villains view. Another beam shot from the darkness, only this time y/n counter balanced the blow by rolling to side, the blast missing her by a couple of feet. Y/N quickly raised to her feet and ran head first towards the dark figure. Without preamble, the figure shot multiple beams at the hero, each one emitting from the void of their chest.

Y/N dodged the bright suffocating strips of light, her feet shuffling and heart racing due to the adrenaline rush. However, she miscalculated her next move which allowed the figure to strike her left shoulder when she was distracted for a split second. Pain shot throughout her shoulder blade. Eyes drawn to a close, her hand shot up to cradle the injury. The intense sensation started to spread from the upper half of her body to below. Everything suddenly became numb, including her sensors. She couldn't feel the tips of her digits nor move any part of her face. The muscles in her legs soon stopped contracting, resulting in her knees giving out. She felt the hard, coarse ground beneath her as the darkness began to swallow up her line of vision. The last thing she saw was a scuffed up Bakugou laying face flat on the drenched grass.

- Y/N stirred awake, lifting one of her half lidded eyes expecting to see the villain looming over her tired body. But all she saw was the popcorn ceiling sheltering her, an overhead fan turned on and the curtains tightly shut. She slowly inclined her body upright and peeled the covers from her clammy figure. Still in the process of waking up, she made her way to the attached bathroom by the bed and located the sink. She splashed the cold water on her face, letting the droplets drench the clothes she was currently wearing. Turning off the facet, she craned her head to view the damage on her shoulder in the mirror. But how come she couldn't recognize herself?

Tuffs of blonde spiked out from her head. Her eyes weren't the same color either. Red crimson irises replaced the ones she had before. The injury from last night on her shoulder wasn't there no more, but she took sight at how broad they became. And she wasn't wearing her typical pajama top and bottoms. This morning she was clad in a black tank top and a pair of soft sweat pants.

No, this can't be true. This has to be some sick nightmare. Jolting backwards on her heel, she let out a terrible shriek. After screaming for a good minute, she calmed down and rested her hands on the bathroom counter, transfixed on the reflection in front of her.

"I-I somehow transformed into Bakugou!" The deep timbre voice of bakugou replaced her own. She tugged on the unkept hair and knitted her eyes shut. "This is only a dream. I'm dreaming right? I can't possibly be in Bakugou's body."

A loud ringing noise alerted y/n to open her eyes again. It was coming from her bedroom. Correction, his bedroom. She glanced at herself in the mirror one more time before retrieving the phone that was stuffed in a green duffel bag. Her eyes widened. She recognized her phone number on the screen. Knowing the circumstances, she pressed answered and awaited for the receiver on the other end to speak.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!"

-

"So, we somehow switched bodies because of being struck by that villains quirk the other night. How long did they say this will last then?" Y/N questioned Bakugou the following morning once they agreed to meet up somewhere in private. Right now they were sitting across from each other on a stone bench by the lake, the morning sun peaking through the tall skyscrapers behind them.

Bakugou shrugged his shoulders, technically hers, and said, "Endeavor informed me it'll probably linger for a good week. He also wanted us to not be on duty till we recuperate from this, saying that the side effects will drain our bodies." He couldn't muster up the courage to stare at her, because all he would see is the reflection of himself. "Unfortunately the villain fled the scene before the others arrived to retrieve us. They're still out there causing havoc."

"This is freaking weird."

"Fucking."

Y/N tilted her head in confusion. Across from her, Bakugou pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed in frustration.

"If you're gonna be me for a whole week then you might as well not sugar coat my vocabulary-dumbass."

Right, she now has to devote her time and effort into mirroring Bakugou's explosive personality. But that also means he too has to put on a show in order to persuade everyone he was her.

"Oh, okay..." she started but tensed up when realizing Bakugou was gazing expectantly at her. "D-Dumbass?"

Katsuki groaned as he rolled his eyes at her failed attempt of portraying him.

"This is going to be a long ass week."

- Bakugou grunted in disgust as he scavenged through y/n's closet for something to wear. Every piece of clothing so far hasn't met his criteria of approval to put on his body. There was an unnecessary amount of yoga pants and the most ugliest oversized graphic tees he's ever laid his eyes upon stored in her drawer. Growing up in a household of highly praised designers, the influence shifted his taste in fashion over the years. So, he made the rational decision to make a quick trip to the mall and purchase a few outfits for himself. Considering he's going to be in this body for a whole week, maybe even more, he might as well present himself looking ten times better than she ever has.

He tittered around the mall window shopping, entering store after store leaving with a handful of clothes in plastic and paper bags. So far he bought some outfits that edged a little on the fancy side, but paid no mind to his bank account. Bakugou guesstimated y/n's size during the venture, not wanting to pry or see what's underneath these restricting fabrics. He was about to leave when a frilly-pink themed store caught his attention.

It's a lingerie store, Bakugou thought as he neared closer to the entrance.

Posters inside the displays showcased attractive half naked women clad in nothing but the delicate material. Not to mention they were all posing seductively. An involuntary image of y/n flashed across his eyes, her imitating the same lustrous pose as well as wearing the sheer lingerie like the women behind the glass. Steams of heat practically blowed out from his ears, along with the embarrassing shade of pink panting his cheeks. He clamped a hand on his mouth, eyes widen in disbelief.

The fuck did I just imagine? There's no way in hell that just happened!

He must've been loitering there for awhile because a young girl, possibly his age, was standing in the threshold of the store wearing a pastel pink apron, giving him a welcoming smile.

She spoke, "Looking to shop for something, ma'am?"

Remembering back to y/n's distasteful clothing, he noted that she also lacked having any 'pretty' undergarments. It wasn't that he intentionally raided through her underwear, he just so happen to have stumbled upon the almost empty drawer by accident. In retrospect, he's doing her a favor. He cleared his throat before speaking.

"Yes actually. Can you show me your most expensive set?" - "To your left! That dudes been camping by that spot since the match. He'll snipe you in the open!" Kirishima informed y/n as they both sat criss cross on the cushioned couch.

They've been playing the same game for hours. Y/N prayed for at least one water break or grab something quick to eat since they haven't moved an inch from their spots. Kirishima promised after this match he'll order some takeout for the both of them, but he said the same thing 8 matches ago. All she could do for now was pretend to be immersed in the game, getting a couple of impressive kills here and there, subsequently ranking her to a bronze level. Her digits were beginning to cramp up due to the repetitive moments of smashing down on the labeled buttons on the wireless controller. The screen across from them suddenly went dark and flashed the scoreboard from the recent match. Another successful victory.

"BOOYAAA!!!!" Kirishima clapped his hands and did a celebratory dance. "Ah, good game Bakugou."

Y/N flinched from hearing the blondes name.

"Kirishima, it's Y/N," she reluctantly reminded him.

Kirishima's whole demeanor went south. He chucked out a dry laugh and nervously started rubbing the back of his neck.

"R-Right sorry. Couldn't help myself. I mean, I am looking at Bakugou. Same face, voice, hair, and scary eyes."

After being battered by the villains quirk, Kirishima and Sun Eater were the ones to retrieve them before law enforcement shortly arrived once the perpetrator fled the scene. They were all under one strict oath to not mention this to the public, or else everyone’s image will tarnished and skew the potential of our future rankings.

"I know. I'm still trying to process this whole thing. I've been avoiding all the mirrors in the apartment since I came back." Y/N stood up from the couch and sauntered over to her designated bedroom for the week. She reached for the door handle but stiffened when a pair of hardened hands rested on her broad shoulders.

"Aye, don't worry so much. I bet you Bakugou is thinking the same thing. This week will be over before you know it," he absentmindedly began massaging the area between your shoulder blades and neck.

Does he always treat Bakugou like this despite that nasty little Pomeranian being a complete asshole to everyone?

"Kirishima?"

"Yeah?"

"What is Bakugou like around you?"

The red head hummed to himself at the random question, thinking of a perfect answer to her curiosity.

"The same how he was in high school except more tamer I guess. But I enjoy his presence none the less."

Then why does he seem to unleash his untamed feelings towards me specifically?

Y/N sighed, obviously not satisfied with that answer.

"Out of everybody, he seems to despise me more and more like it's a game," she said without realizing.

"You know how he is Y/N. He's very abrasive and blunt when it comes to other people's emotions, but deep down I know he only acts like that because he wants to present a strong image in front of everyone," he started. "He's scared of others looking down on him, I know that for sure. But I always looked up to Bakugou from the day I personally got to know him. So, I guess he just stayed by my side because of my admiration for him."

Bakugou is always putting up a front then.

"Interesting...well I'm gonna go to bed now. Thanks for keeping me company," y/n said once again reaching for the knob and opening the door, ignoring the red heads pleas for her not go to sleep on an empty stomach. -

The next day Bakugou found himself inside y/n's bathroom, feet firmly planted on the tiled floor not daring to move an inch. Even though he wasn't in his own body that didn't stop him from paying a visit to the gym this morning. He went extra hard on every machine, not caring about the wandering eyes men gave him while he dead lifted weights. Drenched in nothing but his own glistening sweat, Bakugou entered y/n's small apartment as he dragged his tired feet to the bedroom he was now familiarized with.

Something foul wafted into his nostrils, almost making him teary eyed to the stench. He tried to recall the last time he took a shower. Vaguely he remembers washing his body the morning before he got attack by the powerful quirk. It's been several days since then. This was one thing he didn't want to endure during his experience of switching bodies. He's been neglecting his own hygiene to avoid seeing y/n's exposed body parts. Changing out from her clothes with closed eyes was difficult enough, but taking a fucking shower?! Such a shitty predicament. But he can't smell like this for the remainder of being stuck in this body. He'll die of suffocation.

Ah fuck, that must mean she has to take a shower as well. Or worse, she already has and saw everything.

His eye twitched, lips trembling in fear at what he's about to witness.

Fuck it, I can't go out smelling like shit!

With shaky fingers he began stripping, eyes trained on anything but y/n's figure, the faint sound of the water streaming white noise to him. Her gym clothes piled on the floor, Katsuki slipped into the shower, head titled slightly to view only the shower head. He messed around with the chrome handle, indecisive on what temperature he wanted. Settled onto cold to awaken his sluggish state, he positioned himself under the shower head, goosebumps prickling his skin due to the sudden drop of temperature. Water droplets streamed down and canaled to his lower regions, the sensation relaxing his anxiousness just a smidge. He surveyed the options y/n had laid out for hair care products and grabbed the nearest one. Rubbing the body wash into the palms of his hands, he caught himself, arm mid raised getting ready to wash each crevice of his body.

Shit shit shit shit

The hand in front of him began shaking.

She won't know. It's not like I'm touching her sexually, I'm just keeping her clean for fucks sake!

As gentle as he could, Bakugou washed away the soapy residue, fingers cautiously ghosting over anything perking out. A moment too soon, he accidentally skimmed over her chest a little too fast, the tips of his fingers touching something that was hard and protruding. His breathing hitched.

I just felt her fucking nipple!

But fuck, it strangely felt quite pleasant. Pleasurable even if he had to admit.

He continued on with his previous ministrations, cupping her boobs like a madman and swiping one thumb over the taunt surface to test the waters. A fierce, tingling sensation surged shivers down his spine. An unsolicited low moan spurred out from the blonde.

"Hah!"

What the hell?! Why am I still touching her tits? And why am I enjoying it?

Finishing up his routine quickly, Bakugou snatched a towel from the cabinet and rubbed away all the sinful thoughts desperately from his head, a constant fight between his morals and neediness. Nobody will never know what he committed in the confines of her own apartment. And it'll fucking stay like that till on his death bed.

I practically assaulted her. I'm so fucking disgusting

For the rest of the remaining day, Bakugou planned on meeting up with Kirishima to hangout. He wanted to coerce the red head into talking about anything other than y/n. His mind needs the relief. He needs this spell to be over with.

He can't stand trying to fit into women's jeans any longer - Kirishima woke up that morning to a chorus of shrieks. Girlish shrieks, might he add. He thought maybe the neighbors were selfishly doing not-so-holy-things at the peak of dawn. But him and Katsuki were resided on the highest level of the penthouse, them being the only residents on the empty floor. It clicked once he heard his name through the thin walls.

"Ah! Y/N I'm coming!" He leaped from his bed and reached y/n's, technically Bakugou's, room in a matter of seconds.

Y/N's body twitched to the sound of the door being slammed open, the impact rattling the very few wall decorations in the blondes space. Standing in the threshold was the friendly red head, huffing and puffing air out of his chest like he just got done running a marathon.

"K-Kiri! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to wake you up!" Her words afterwards became a jumbled mess, realizing the predicament she pushed herself into.

"Hey, hey, calm down! Tell me what's wrong. It sounded like you were in pain. Did you hurt yourself anywhere?" The red had to remind himself this was indeed another person inside Bakugou's body, because Bakugou would never apologize repeatedly for the sake of apologizing in his entire life.

Y/N was looking quite pallid now, sheepishly tugging on the black covers of the bed, trying to find the easiest way on how to lay this out to her new roommate.

"Well...I just...I woke up to - ah crap."

Instead of explaining her situation, she pulled back the blanket to show kiri the thing protruding between her uncommonly, muscular legs. Kirishima's eyes widen instantaneously, eating up the pitched tent inside her basketball shorts. Oddly enough, this wasn't his first rodeo upon seeing the blonde with a boner. They were dudes. And dudes living together were bound to witness each other's 'flesh swords', he'd like to put it.

"Oh, morning wood? That's pretty normal. Nothing to fret y/n!" He dismissed her with the wave of his hand. "Bakugou gets them all the time! In fact, I remember he'd get them after sparring sessions back in our U.A days-."

"Okayyyyy, Never mind that! I know I have a boner. Just exactly how do I get rid of it?!"

"You mean, you don't know? Haven't you been taught this in Sex Ed class?" Kiri was actually curious as to why she doesn't know nor remember. He surly does. Learning about the human body by the infamous sultry teacher, Midnight, engraved so much information into his tiny-teenage brain.

"That was considered an extra curricular class. I took a CPR class instead."

"Right well, from what she taught us and from my own personal experience, you gotta rub one out."

Y/N's whole face contorted into a confused mess of disgust.

"Rub a what now?" She asked, although she had a feeling what the euphemism meant.

Kiri's face blotched red, the tint flushing to his chest as well. The man was evidently embarrassed about having this conversation with someone who wasn't Bakugou.

"I essentially mean you gotta masturbate. Ya know, in order to calm down your boner," he paused seeing how distraught y/n became. "It won't hurt I promise you! Don't worry, it feels really good! Like, eating ice cream good! Ah no that's not a good analogy!"

"This is so fucking horrifying..." Y/N poked at the thing, rightfully known as his dick, and kept starring as if it might miraculously subside to its original size.

Kiri coughed, grabbing her attention away from Bakugou's dick.

"He has lotion stashed in his drawer," he started, but malfunctioned seconds later. He revealed something private to someone that bakugou condemned as a 'weakling'. "That is if you need it for lubricant. It's kind of tough to jerk off dry..." his sentence fell off midway.

Y/N mumbled out an "Ok", and retrieved said lotion from the lower bunk of his drawers. She felt a pair of eyes on her. Kiri was still standing awkwardly by the doorway, unsure wether or not if that's his cue to leave.

"Um, thanks Kiri. You can leave now," she plopped back onto Bakugou's king sized bed.

This man sleeps alone. He doesn't need a ginormous bed all to himself.

"R-Right! Well, enjoy jerking off- ah no I meant - I didn't word that correctly! Ah geez, see ya later!" He sprinted out the door like his life depended on it.

Locking the door behind her, y/n forced herself into the attached bathroom, the lotion burning the palms of her hand each second. Once she settled down on the lid of the toilet, she shimmied out from his loose basketball shorts, letting them pool at her ankles.

If there's one thing she learned that morning, it was that being a man had its weird benefits. - "Slow down Bakugou! Let me at least catch up before you black out!" Kirishima was on his third shot while Bakugou just downed his sixth one for the night.

The blonde growled under his breath and tugged the red head by his collar to his mouth.

"Fucking idiot, don't call me that. It's y/n when we're out in public," he loosens his grip and snatches kiri's shot and tips his head back to drain it all down his throat, the burning sensation long gone.

"Ugh, my brain can't keep up with this whole switching body shit. It's been so hard back at the apartment." He internally cringes from the recollection of y/n popping her first boner this morning.

"What do you mean? Has that dumbass been giving you a hard time? If she has, I'll give her a piece of my mind."

"Not at all! She's been a saint while living with me. Which by the way, how come you can't just live at the penthouse while y/n stays at her place?

While Kirishima was talking, Bakugou ordered another round of shots. The bartender shoved a whole bottle of Fireball towards the man, saving him in the future to not ask anymore. The young server gave Bakugou a sly wink and returned back to serving other customers down the line. Cheeks flushed red, Bakugou thinks the man behind the bar was being too nice for his liking. He poured two more shots while keeping an eye on the average looking employee. If kirishima kept babbling, he might as well funnel the entire bottle in one sitting.

"I'm just following endeavors orders. We're not supposed to gain attention from those stupid reporters that camp outside our penthouse," he takes another swing of the warm liquid. "I'd rather fucking be quirkless than mistaken for having any rumored relations with her."

"Can I ask a genuine question? How come you hate y/n so much?"

"I don't hate her, I dislike her. There's a difference."

"I don't know man. Sometimes I mistaken your dislike with love."

"EXCUSE ME? IM NOT IN LOVE OF THAT BITCH?!"

"C'mon dude, I'm sensing a lot of denial from you. Also, shouldn't you be acting like her right now? She's very soft spoken if I'm not mistaken,"

"I'm not in denial idiot. I hate how soft she speaks. I hate how sickeningly kind she is even though nobody deserves it. I hate how she wastes her talented quirk and doesn't see the potential. She's a lost cause Kiri. She won't last for much longer in this field if she keeps this up."

"Wow, for someone who dislikes her as such, you surly sound like you care about heeeerrrrrr," kirshima drawled out in a sing-song voice.

"Shut up and finish your shot, shitty hair."

When the blonde was driving back to her apartment later that night, he slammed his fists against the steering wheel when an afterthought came to him.

His whole reasoning as to why he went out in the first place, and he can't seem to restrict himself from talking about the girl he's trapped in.

Even in this goddamn body I can't seem to steer clear from y/n talk! - Izuku had to do a double take when he entered the small coffee shop. Something about seeing the pensive blonde sitting patiently in a booth by the corner really made him feel like he was sucked into another dimension. Today y/n was wearing a white v-neck with a wool green cardigan and tight black jeans.

Kacchan owns cardigans? He thought, clearly amused.

Upon hearing the ding coming from the door, Y/N raised her head from her phone and waved Izuku over to her table. The poor man seemed like he was going combust right there. It's been awhile since he's spoken to his old classmate.

The green haired hero slid into the booth across from her and immediately started speaking Deku language.

"H-Hey Kacchan! Boy it's been awhile hasn't it? I was a little stunned seeing your message this morning asking to hangout. I'm sorry that I couldn't meet up sooner. I had an early patrol shift from 9 to 5. You might know how that feels, right?! Oh gosh I'm sounding like an adult. Can you believe we're adults-."

"Midor- I mean Deku, I called you up to ask about if you have any leads on the villain with the body switching quirk?" She cut him off.

"Oh yeah, that villain has been spotted a few times since the last attack. Of course most of my team hasn't been able to reprimand them. A few close calls though. But I heard two people from your sector got hit by the quirk! Are they doing okay?"

I hate lying to those big freaking green eyes.

"That's not true. They got hurt, but no one was attacked by their quirk. I just need to know if you have any information on the quirk in particular and what to do in order to reverse it."

Underneath the table, Izuku fumbled inside his pockets in search for his mini notebook. He still obtained the habit of jotting down everything, literally everything, in hopes the information will provide any source of aide. Izuku became all jittery and excited at the thought of sharing anything with Kacchan!

The small, crinkled notebook was slid across the table, hitting the tips of y/n's knuckles.

"Page 124, the first indent I wrote. It's mainly about my own conspiracy on what the villains quirk is. That was before their first debut of course. But now since we know it's a type of body switching quirk, I tried to pin point on what exactly lifts the quirks effect on the victim," Izuku explained casually while y/n skimmed through the notes and passages. "I did a little detective work on my own and contacted the people who were attacked by the villain. From what I gathered, let's just say- it's a bit taboo ."

This piqued her interest.

"What do you mean by, taboo?"

The man began to wave his hands around fervently in attempt to steer the blonde away from prying more. But y/n swatted Izuku's hand and continued reading the sloppy inscriptions.

Her eyes popped out from her sockets.

"I have to what?!" A few civilians stared in their direction, obviously gravitated to the familiar gruff voice.

"Calm down Kacchan! Why are you so angry for?"

Y/N rubbed her temple all the while wanting to slowly die than endure anymore of this.

"Nothing. Just- Ugh...Is it alright if I borrow this?"

"Y-Yeah! Kacchan can borrow anything from me as long as he returns it!" There was that gleam again in his eyes.

"Thanks Izuku, I owe you one!" She squeezed the greenettes freckled hand before leaving the booth and the shop all together.

Still in the cafe, Izuku sat frozen as if someone walked in with gun. Internally though, he was screaming. -

Y/N: Please call me. It's urgent

It was a Friday night when Bakugou received the cryptic message from her. He was in the middle of  watching his true crime show when the annoying ding from his phone went off. For once, he just wanted to relax his mind and go on auto pilot without stressing his already strained body. It's the whole principle of Friday's. To fuck off and ignore everyone. What's so fucking important for her to text him out of the blue then?

Another acute ding.

Bakugou peeked over his shoulder to see who disrupted him this time.

Y/N: Bakugou, we need to talk. This isn't something to ignore.

He rolled his eyes and retrained his focus on the tv screen.

Ding Ding Ding

"FOR FUCK SAKE!" He released an animalistic growl from the depths of his throat, scratching his voice box even more. His fingers typed away aggressively, not bothering to read her previous messages.

BK: Leave me the fuck alone. You're to only text me if it involves with the reverse of this stupid quirk 🖕🏼

Three dots appeared immediately after he sent that. Bakugou started losing his patience while waiting for her response. He hated wasting precious time, especially if there was a second party involved. Her message finally delivered. Bakugou's eyes grew larger in size as he read the text.

Y/N: that's why I'm texting you idiot 🙄 I met up with Midoriya today and he may have given me the solution to our problem.

He bit down hard on his bottom lip as he typed out his last text message to her.

BK: fine. come over then. we can talk about it when you get here.

This time he didn't wait for her to respond back and began cleaning her apartment. - Feeling nervous was an understatement. Y/N felt like she was driving herself to her own execution. Bakugou being the one to carry out the death sentence. She didn't doubt the blonde would be elated at the idea of her being put under a torture device.

Okay, maybe he wasn't too malice to actually do it, but he probably entertained the thought.

Thankfully Bakugou's penthouse wasn't far from her own apartment, saving her much needed gas in case he goes ballistic on her.

The door flew open when she arrived shortly after one knock, revealing a very sluggish looking Y/N shooting daggers at her. Well, at least her body wasn't dressed in bruises or burn marks. That's a win. Bakugou paired herself with a cute crop top and silky pajama shorts. He's got taste she'll give him that.

Her apartment remained exactly the same as she left it when they both were ordered to switch residency's.  Only a few traces of Bakugou were found. Mainly in the kitchen, where all his fancy cooking equipment and utensils were laid out. Unlike him, she ate out almost every night due to the red head being incompetent in the kitchen. He almost burnt down the complex last night. He relied upon his friend to do most of the cooking in their household.

The blonde briskly brushed passed her to sit on the couch, slinging his feet on the coffee table to make himself comfortable. Too comfortable, she noted.

"Well, spill it. What did the damn nerd tell you that could help us with this shit?" He inquired without preamble.

Like a hero, she was here on a mission. A mission that needs to be completed as soon as possible, even if the mission itself was ludicrous. She reached into her jacket pocket to retrieve the mini book, and flipped soundlessly to the page Izuku marked for her.

"On here it says that the quirk can last up to a week, maybe even more, depending on the victim(s). The effected will experience dry eyes, nausea, insomnia, painful migraines, and uncontrollable shaking due to being inside another persons body. They must let the quirk take its course then," she read out loud, ignoring Bakugou's groans of annoyance. "But, for rare cases, there have been reports of one's libido being greatly impacted. The victim will be in constant, insurmountable pain unless they relief themselves, then the two bodies will return back to normal."

To her surprise, Bakugou didn't show an ounce of indignation after hearing this piece of information. He seemed almost indifferent.

And there's no denying the truth. Both of their hormones have been off the rails. Ever since the incident in the shower, Bakugou has caught himself numerous times touching Y/N's boobs. Coping a sly feel as he cooked, cleaned, and even while he scrolled through his social media.  Sometimes her ass as well to see if it felt good in his hands. Y/N was no saint either. Sporting boners every hour for no particular reason. All the blood rushing to her lower region became unbearable when she didn't take care of it. Kirishima kept reassuring her that it's natural for a man to get them a lot. But how much was too much?

He threw his hands up in the air and scoffs. "That's it? I just gotta jack off and then we're free from this curse?"

This is the part she dreaded the most. An uncomfortable heat flash roused up her face, a deep shade of red inching across her cheeks and nose.

"No. That's not what it means. We basically have to...ya know...," she paused mid sentence, too bashful to finish, desperately wanting Bakugou to put two and two together.

She shrunk in her position as the blonde narrowed his eyes at her.

"We have to fuck each other?" He profoundly acclaimed.

"Don't put it like that! But yeah, technically, we have to...help relief each other in order to switch back."

"If you wanted to jump my bones so bad you could've just asked." He leans back against the couch, arm draped lazily over the shoulder of the furniture, along with a playful smirk tugging up on the corners of his mouth. Y/N's blood ran cold when she felt the tiniest twitch down below. Her borrowed reproductive organ is betraying her!

"Do you want to be in constant pain till this all wears off? Or do you want to get this over with and never talk to each other again?" Y/N shuffled more towards the abrasive man, a strong tidal wave of anger rising within her.

"It won't matter because you always wound up in my presence anyway. Like a fucking pest that won't leave me alone." Without realizing it, Bakugou got up from his spot on the couch and marched over to Y/N, who at the moment looked like she was about to pop a blood vessel.

Another thing he hated about switching bodies was the fact that everyone towered over him, despite him being on his tippy toes. The woman in front of him acclimated his height, giving her the upperhand if they were to battle it out right now. If anything he could kick her shins at best.

"Whatever...I'm leaving," was all she said before storming off to the front door, grabbing her things along with her as she grew farther from him.

Katsuki's legs were moving on their own. His hand reached out and grabbed Y/N's forearm, halting her movements altogether. She's clearly enraged, thrashing her body back and forth to loosen his grip on her. He eventually grew tired of her stubborness and secured his grip on both of her arms, trapping her between the door and his body, producing a loud 'thump!'. Although he was in her body, he still carried his strength. In a matter of seconds, both Y/N and Bakugou were chest to chest now, their centers tapping aganist each other.  She averted her gaze to the floor, as if their shoes were more interesting than this whole shitshow of a dilema. Bakugou squeezed her shoudlers, a little too much for her liking, to gain her attention again.

"I didn't say no, did I?" he asked hotly, his warm breath hitting her collarbones. An ice cold shiver ran down her spine, causing her breathing to hitch. Bakugou noticed her sudden stiffness and began rubbing gentle circles into the tender flesh of her skin. "Hoho, someone's excited aren't they?"

Confused, Y/N furrowed her brows and backed up further into the wooden door. But her question was soon to be answered as she followed Bakugou's hungry gaze to the prominent bludge taunting from her pants. Betrayed once again by her unstable horniness!

"Guess I'm not the only one," she accuses once spotting the definite wet stain around Bakugou's crotch. He smirked at that.

"Take care of it then," his voice oozed of seduction and want, rewarding him another twitch in your tight pants. The libido was taking full effect now, any animosity they had before was thrown out the window. Past arguments also long forgotten. Their main priority at the moment was to experience the sweet relief of coming undone.

Y/N darted her hand down to the spot Bakugou needed attention from, and cupped his crotch with her abnormally large hand. Bakugou lets out a shaky exhale as her fingers danced around the sensitive area. One of her fingers moved instinctively, feeling how drenched he was in his panties, and rubbed the underside to get a better feel of the sex.

"You're so wet Bakugou," Y/N mused softly. She leaned forward, searching into Bakugou's eyes for any signs of him wanting this to end. But the pool of his irises were blown out, no tint of your original color in them anymore. "Do you want more?"

He nodded quickly, his hair bobbing up and down. Y/N chuckled and removed her hand from its previous position to the hem of Bakugou's shorts, teasingly toying the waistband. She slipped smoothly into his shorts, tickling him in the process, and toyed with the corners of his panties before moving them aside so she could have access to the thing she's been craving to touch. Wetness lathered up her fingers with just one swipe, causing Bakugou to purse his lips and shut his eyes tightly.

"Is Bakugou embarrassed? Are you mad that I have the upper hand now? After all those years of verbally tormenting me, you can't handle my simple touch?" She whispered dangerously close into his ear. During this, she couldn't tell if he was pissed or turned on. Maybe a mixture of both, but she took pride in his strained expression.

"W-Watch your goddamn mouth. Or do I need to shut you up myself, eh?" By shutting her up, he meant mirroring her exact ministrations. The petite hand of Bakugou's latched onto the zipper of her jeans, and impressively dragged it down in one swipe without getting anything caught. He reached into the tight restraints of her boxer briefs and pulled out the hardened dick. He clicked his tongue. "Not to sound like a narcissist, but you gotta admit, my dick looks pretty."

"Just shut up and jerk me off you asshole. I'm starting to see stars," She wasn't lying to speed up the process. Her body felt like it was on fire, including her dick. If Bakugou keeps stalling for the sake of punishing her, then he's going to be seeing white for days on end.

Bakugou tentatively began pumping her, his grip not too tight nor loose on the flesh. Y/N sighed in relief as he swiped his thumb over the slit, covering his fingers in her precum. Seeing that he's giving into her needs, she returned the favor by inserting her index finger inside, not allowing him to adjust once she massaged the velvety walls.

Bakugou arched into Y/N's body, panting harshly against her chest. "H-Hah fuck, slow down. Shit!"

"Take it like a champ, Mr.Dynamight."

"F-Fuck you."

Oh no. Probably shouldn't have patronized him, because Bakugou sped up his languid motions to pure vigorous jerking of the hand. A wave of pleasure shot up through her body, jolting backwards due to the intense sensation. Of course he's a pro at this. What isn't he good at?

Bakugou rested his head onto the crevice of your shoulder since he could only reach so far, and ghosted his lips on the skin, carefully restricting himself to not engage in kissing the area. While doing so, he cupped the underside of your balls, rolling them around in his small hands. They looked so big when being manhandled in her grasp. Y/N stifled her moans as he kept messing with them, all the while stroking her simultaneously. She felt him smile. The cheeky fucker! Two could play it at this game.

Y/N used one of her thumbs that weren't preoccupied inside Bakugou to massage the only place she knew that could make him cum in seconds.  Two fingers inside, one thumb attentively on the clitorous. It was enough to make Bakugou bite down on her shoulder, trying to prevent any moans from escaping his mouth.

"Moan for me Bakugou. I know you want to," she tried to persuade him with more strokes to the clit, occasionally pinching it with her unoccupied fingers. She can feel he was close. So was she. But she needed to coerce him into helping her to finish too. They need to be a team. "Say something Bakugou. Don't you want to cum? If you don't speak your mind I'm going to stop." She couldn't believe the words that were spewing from her mouth. Y/N has never dirty talked before. Nor has she gotten this far with anyone without freezing up. Definitely the libido effect.

Bakugou detached his teeth from her shoulder and stared deeply into her eyes. Pleading.

"Go faster. Please." The want and neediness in his voice said it all.

He indeed felt vulnerable and exposed right then and there when confessing his desire, but he couldn't care less. Her fingers inside him were heavenly. A mantra of ,"yesyesyesyesyesyes", left his throat as her ministrations didn't falter.

"Fuck! Keep going. Just like that- shit - just like that... yesssss." His moans were beautiful. Not because they sounded like hers, but the way how he vocalizes his pleasure made sense in the world. Every whimper or moan puts her closer to the edge.

"Are you- are you about to?" He asked quietly, as though he was afraid you might stop at any rate.

"Yes! So close, just keep stroking," it was difficult to form sentences after that, the build up tension in your stomach tightening like a ticking time bomb, making your pleads indecipherable.

But Bakugou didn't want to hear that. He wanted to her to say those three words of encouragement.

Make. Me. Cum

And then, as if his thoughts were broadcasted live, she snaked her hands into the locks of his hair and pulled him close to where the tips of their noses touched briskly.

In a small voice she whimpers out, "Make me cum, Katsuki."

Listening to her instructions, his grip tightened around the base of her shaft and began teasing the slit, never once averting his glare from her own. Y/N's legs turned into jello. It became harder and harder to stand any longer. She needed to release. She quickened her pace and brutally scissored his pussy, the erotic sounds of their wetness reverberating in the tiny apartment.

"Cum then baby. Cum for me only."

Baby

Next thing she knew a strip of white shot out from below, dirtying the hands of Bakugou's. Her body began to spasm. Katsuki didn't loosen his grip, the stimulation becoming unbearable at this point.

The coil within him loosened, the evidence of his climax coating her fingers, allowing his orgasum to reach its full potential.

The pair blacked out for a split second, but recuperated once the light hit their corneas again.

"Shit." "Fuck." "..." "..."

Silence. Then the realization hit.

"I'm staring at you and not me! It worked! Hallelujah!" Y/N exclaimed, feeling herself to make sure it wasn't a hallucination.

"Gross. You got cum all over my expensive shirt," he said, wiping away the white substance with his sleeve.

Both of them went into the kitchen to clean the after math. Bakugou would grunt occasionally in disgust, sponging away the grime. Y/N throughly washed her hands and towel dried them, thoughts stiffly empty and vexed. She broke the awkward tension.

"Well, I guess we should call Endeavor and inform him that we switched back."

He hummed in agreement.

"And we should probably exchange our things tomorrow or tonight, but preferably soon since we're going to be on duty again."

Another grunt.

"Don't worry about me mentioning this to anyone. We can just keep whatever happened minutes ago between us-

Bakugou cut her off entirely by smashing his lips against hers. Shell shocked by his action, Y/N kept her eyes wide open whilst Bakugou's were knitted shut. She laid her hands on his chest and shoved him away harshly, putting their distance at arms reach.

"Bakugou, what the hell? All of sudden you want to kiss me?" Y/N's face fell, contorting into a mixture of sadness and confusion. "You only kiss people you like. Not hate."

Bakugou moved towards Y/N slowly, a hint of a smile forming as he neared closer.

"And that's exactly why I did it, idiot," he proclaimed confidently, cupping the side of her face. The touch was so tender and gentle she forgot that it was Bakugou at first.

"You're toying with me, aren't you? The libido is probably still lingering. If you really liked me, then tell me the exact moment you did."

Without hesitation he said, "The first day of school. When you walked in."

Y/N slapped the hand from her face, her skin flushing red by his blunt confession.

"Stop lying. You were mean to me the first day of school. And every day after that. I don't think calling people a "weakling" or "stupid" constitutes as liking someone."

All he did was chuckle and continued scooting closer, eventually towering above her. She squirmed underneath him. She secretly missed having his height.

"You're absolutely stupid if you think I really meant any of that crap. I may have gone overboard on the whole berating thing, but that was just my way of pushing my feelings away, in hopes you'd improve better and not take shit from people like me."  

"Ya know, it's kind of hard to detect that when you were practically spitting on my face."

He leaned down and pecked a chaste kiss on the crown of her forehead.

"You can call me all the names you want later. Kick my ass if ya want, but for now let me make it up to you," he whispers before planting his mouth to hers again, only this time she didn't protest.

Heat swirled within her as she watched Katsuki's eyes flutter close, enriched in the moment to open them, and gripped the base of her neck to apply more pressure into the kiss. The man guided her as he moved his plushed lips ontop of hers, consuming the pretty noises she made. And my, were they absoultey rich coming from her.

I want to hear more, the selfish thought banged repeatedly inside his lust filled mind.

Y/N nervosuly closed her eyes shut when Katsuki's wet tongue prodded the entrance of her tight, lipped mouth. Letting him take full control, Katsuki managed to enter the strong muscle into her wet mouth and explored the canvernous place with such eagerness, such tenacity. Like he's been dying to do this for as long as his skillful mind can remember. Y/N found herself moaning as Katsuki grabbed her waist and forcefully collieded their bodies together, her soft breasts pressed up against his hard chest. Her perky tits put him in a trance, remincseing back to the day when first touched them, the guiltiness eating him up from the inside-out. Katsuki slithered one of his hands to the taunt boob and gave it a firm squeeze, causing Y/N to squeak out in embarrasement. They still feel fucking amazing in his hands.

"You're so fucking cute," he drew back from her, already out of breath. Everything was hitting him like a tsunami. He can finally admit to himself that he's been wanting this since they became co-workers. Hell, since the fucking beginning. Younger Katsuki would deem him as a horny loser who lost at his own game, but he wasn't a damn kid anymore.

"K-Katsuki...bedroom?" her hands found their way back into his crisp locks, futher egging him to comply. The small action made him moan.

"Fuck yes," Katsuki growled out and in a haste hooked his arms underneath the back of Y/N's thighs, hoisting her in the air to lead them into the bedroom they're both familair with.

Journeying to her bedroom became a difficult task. If only she'd stop giving his neck, the most sensitve spot out of his entire body, kitten kisses then he'd be plowing her back by now. He grew weaker by the second as the shy, acute kisses trandsitioned into full on sucking and biting. Not that he was complaining.

Katsuki threw her down onto the bed, unable to contain his smile when she hiccuped a chorus of giggles. God, even her giggles are fucking contagious. Strong arms scooped her up momentarily, bringing her to the center of the bed. Grazing her aching spot was Katsuki's growing buldge. Y/N circled her arms around his tiny waist squeezing him closely as Katsuki rolled his hips downwards to meet hers. She seized Katsuki's bicep, whimpering, and rythmically pushed her groin towards his, the tin material of her shorts scraping the surface of his jeans deliciously. His head dragged down to her collarbones, panting softly, wetting the skin from the condesation of his breath.

"I want you so fucking bad, please," he managed to choke out in between the continous grinding.

Gaining a newfound confidence, Y/N mimiced the way how Bakugou unzipped her when they were still in opposite bodies and peeled back his briefs till his inflamed member popped out, smacking his lower belly. He cursed under his breath noticing the immense amount of pre-cum leaking from the head. As much as she wanted to lick it all up, there were other things to tend to. She shimmied out from her skimpy shorts and crop top, not wasting any time for lingering touches. But Y/N caught a menacing glare in his eyes. His attention was focused on something else. Looking down, she saw that she was sporting a sheer laced bra with matching panties. She definitely doesn't remember having these in her personal closet.

"You bought me lingerie?" Y/N tried to sound unfazed at the thought of Katsuki willingly purchasing these pretty undergarments for her. That must mean he's seen her boobs!

"Yeah? So what if I did. Your sense of fashion is nonexistent. I pitied you that much to where I bought you shit with my own money."

His face was stern, scarily resembling the times he'd be bashing someone's head on the concrete during a bloody battle. But his eyes told a different story. She couldn't quite pin point the time or place when she witnessed the same gleaming spark in those vermilion orbs, but she felt safe and wanted all in one.

So she began teasing the straps of her bra, head still in disbelief that the blonde underneath her bought it, and let the material slip off her shoulder seductively. Bakugou's breathing quickened as he watched y/n toy with the next strap. He stopped her midway.

"No," his fingers were ironically cold.

"No?" She questioned him, awkwardly frozen still on his lap. His evident boner pushing up against her sex, making her wet even more.

Numbly, Bakugou pulled up both of the straps to her bra and chuckled lightly to himself.

"I wanna fuck you with this on. It's been on my mind since I bought it," he admitted out loud.

Y/N held back a moan, his words carrying so much weight to them all the while directing it straight to her drenched pussy.

Without saying a word, y/n left acute kisses on Bakugou's neck, trailing it down further and further till she reached the leaking head of his member. He became antsy as she wrapped her petite hand around the base, fingers tracing the topography of his veins. Y/N saw the desperate look on his face and took all of him in her mouth, holding in the breath of oxygen she took before doing so. Bakugou hissed, teeth clamping down on his bottom lip nearly ripping the skin apart. This feels way better and more appropriate. He prefers her wet mouth over her fingers any day of the week.

Y/N sucked in her cheeks, allowing herself to take more of his member. The tip of his head eventually hit the back of her throat, causing her to gag and choke due to the sudden pressure.

"F-Fuck. Holy shit, keep going," Katsuki begged, tears swelling in his ducts already.

The saliva from her open mouth created a natural lubricant, making it easy for her to bob her head up and down. Bakugou's ears picked up the erotic wet squelching sounds coming from her as she kept up the brutal pace, the noise alone making him want to come undone. The sight of y/n slobbering on his dick is now engraved in his head. He let out a wanton moan when she played with his balls, recalling the memory of him performing the same ministration on himself with her beautiful hands.

He can feel the familiar sensation spreading down below, his throat constricting as the stimulation of her sucking and licking becoming too much. Before she could continue, Bakugou reached over and lifted her head by her hair.

"I can't hold it in any longer. I need to be inside you now," his voice was strained to point where it came out as a whisper.

Pushing her back gently, Bakugou latched his mouth onto hers as he spread her legs wide apart. Revealing a canal of her wetness dripping from her panties to the inner thighs. Bakugou licked his lips hungrily. Mentally slapping himself for not tasting her before she gave him head. He'll make sure to explore that endeavor later.

Lips still locked, Bakugou tugged the bottom half of her laced panties aside, strings of her glistening wetness shimmering, and positioned himself at her aching entrance. The tip of his cock teased her folds, coating it even more. He agonizingly went in slow circles, occasionally slapping her clit with it. Y/N's arms were above her head, clutching the linen sheets in anticipation. Katsuki smirked against her lips at her wrecked expression.

"Bakugou please...," y/n pleaded with her full chest. She wants to know how it feels to be wrapped around him. To be one with him. "Don't hold back. Just fuck me."

Bakugou's eyes grew darker after the demand, pure lust taking control over his body now. He sheathed into her quickly without taking his eyes off of her face. A quiet whimper left her throat when he fully bottomed out. He checked for any signs of y/n looking displeased or uncomfortable, but he got his answer when he felt her legs wrap around his torso, pulling him in as close as possible. Bakugou basks in at the sight of y/n sucking him completely, her legs fully bent back in an awkward position. He decides to pull his cock halfway out. y/n whimpers due to loss of friction but gets rewarded seconds later when Katsuki rams his cock inside again, pushing all his weight onto her.

"Oh, fuck, Katsuki!," she whines, instinctively clutching her walls around him.

"You're so tight for me huh baby? Can't help but to clamp around this dick," Katsuki sneered while pumping tentative thrusts into her.

His hands clasped both of her thighs now, pulling her towards him, urging her to move in a harmonious dance with him. Finding somewhat of a rhythm, y/n fucked Katsuki back by rolling her hips, a synapse of heat exchanging between them. Sweat starts dripping down from the crown of his forehead onto the peaks of her breasts. Lost in thought, he tipped his head forward and lapped up the remains of his salty musk, tongue expertly twirling around the taunt nipple. Y/N mewled, hands searching - reaching - for anything to ground herself, settling on interlocking her fingers with Katsuki's nitroglycerin drenched hands. She titled her head and took a whiff.

Caramel and soap

A popping sound went off in her ears. Katsuki released her swollen tit only to look up with hooded eyes, his infamous smirk on full display.

"Open your mouth," was all he said before raising one of his fingers that she was so embarrassingly fixated on moments ago. When she didn't obey Katsuki grabbed her by the jaw and shoved not one, not two, but three fingers in her mouth. Like with his cock, she couldn't handle the intensified pressure in the back of her throat, gagging instantaneously.

"Atta girl. Just take my fingers like a good bitch. Oh? You like it when I degrade you huh? Don't lie, you tightened instantly when I said that." Katsukis pace sped up rapidly, pumping into her cunt like a madman, fingers still lodge down her throat. Each thrust left her shuddering for more, his hips meeting hers to create a loud song, the noise drowning out her muffled screams.

It became hard to see now, a tunnel vision of just a crimson glow. Soon she feels herself becoming light. Katsuki grew impatient and flipped y/n on her stomach, a tiny oof rocked out from her, and inserted his member back into her stretched out cunt.

Y/N yelps as Katsuki's cock hits the sweet spot - fresh tears flooding down her flushed face, babbling nonsense into her pillow.

She caves, sobbing, "yes, yes, ohgod. you feel so good. you're so fucking good -ah katsuki!"

Looming over her trembling body, the blonde slows his harsh thrusts to a savagely slow grind. He lowly chuckles watching her writhe and wiggle her body in desperation.

"You think you can just come that easy? Beg for me to let you come!"

Smack!

A harsh sting rattled her lower back, causing her to bite down harshly on her lip to avoid showing any pain.

"Such an asshole..." y/n huffed out, oblivious to the way how Katsuki was preparing for her next punishment.

Smack! Smack!

"Not good. Ask nicely for me to fuck this pretty pussy into the mattress."

More whimpers into the tear stained pillow.

"P-Please Katsuki..." she begins, frustration growing exponentially with every word. "Fuck me. I need your cock. I always needed your cock Katsuki. Make me scream out your name when I come!"

She didn't even have time to process what she said before Katsuki enclosed his hand around her throat, forcefully dragging her writhing body to his chest, cranking her head in a 90 degree angle. Cock still warming up her insides.

"That's my girl," he said before kissing her lips again, devouring the sweet noises she made.

Her neighbors were in for a long night. - Both of their bodies the next morning faced more damage than any crusade of a patrol. Bruises painted the outskirts of y/n's body, trailing from her thighs to the divots of her breasts. Katsuki paid no mind to it, seeing how he can make a bloody lip a trailblazer look.

Even though no one wanted speak much about the issue at hand - last night was a pivotal moment for their relationship.

Because y/n wouldn't be making a fresh batch of coffee for the Katsuki Bakugou in her kitchen right now.

Because Bakugou wouldn't be lounging by her washing machine, waiting for the timer to go off so he can put her bed sheets in the dryer.

They found themselves sitting comfortably in silence - the soft whipping of car horns outside her cracked window - Katsuki blowing on his coffee before taking a sip. It all seemed unreal to her. In any other circumstance they'd be at each other's necks by now, screaming nuisances in the air. She considers this whole ordeal a ruse. But it isn't. Thank god it isn't. Because Katsuki never looked calmer or relaxed in his entire life till now. And she wasn't going to bat an eye away from this ground breaking phenomenon.

Intently watching him drink from across the table, she ponders if Katsuki liked her from the get go, and maybe just disguised his feelings with disgust towards her later on. The question will go unanswered, possibly until he confides and tells the story himself, but for now she was content not knowing the what if.

"How did you know I like black coffee?" Katsuki asks, quirking up an eyebrow at her.

Y/N takes a long drag from her mug, indulging in the sweet taste of the caramel creamer.

She smiles and says, "I don't know. Just took a wild guess."

-

[onebizarrekai]

v3′s art is comically terrible for a professionally distributed game in a series: a compilation

in this not-essay I will list all of the mistakes and problems I have spotted in v3′s art. don’t worry, it’s entirely for fun and I’m doing this on a whim, so please feel free to not take this seriously but also it’s hilarious and embarrassing how ridiculous this is like what happened did they speedrun the whole production or what

see, there are some things you can take as meta like “they made it bad on purpose to allude to the downfall of tv shows that have been on air for much too long” but I have a very strong feeling this is not the case due to the nature of some of these errors

disclaimer, the more I study this art, the more I fear that the artists were underpaid and underslept, so if this is in fact the case, I am so sorry to all of them but also I’m going to make fun of the art anyway

anyway let’s get started!

if you study this image for longer than 5 seconds, you will see that kaede is the only one fully shaded and keebo is literally just his normal sprite pasted into the image. every other character is just an ordinary ref, hence most of them facing the exact same direction with neutral expressions on their faces. it looks like a bad edit, and is probably one of the worst pieces of art in the game. it kind of gets better from here on, but my roasting will not.

with that out of the way, here’s the problem that officially bothers me the most and clarifies my viewpoint of “this is not meta and an actual lack of company communication”

this freaking cg, which seems normal at a glance, but some wiseass was like “oh, kaede is a girl, so obviously she’s going to be shorter than the Male Protagonist™” ah, that’s funny. because if you look at the character bios, kaede is, in fact, one inch taller than shuichi and not like 6 inches shorter as she is shown here.

also shuichi’s shoulder is disproportionate and horrendous and he looks vaguely like a jojo character, but I wasn’t even thinking about that until right now.

thanks guys, 50% of the fandom who has never bothered to check these bios thinks that kaede is like 5′3 (did the developers really put so little thought into her to the point where drawing her correctly in the game didn’t even matter??)

also I would like to point out that, even though this isn’t related to the art itself, yes, a character kaede’s size being only 117 lbs is unfeasible, but this applies to literally every character in danganronpa ever and it’s not new news that it’s unrealistic

update: someone in the tags informed me that in versions of the game that use centimeters, like the japanese version, kaede is actually shorter than shuichi, which just adds another thing to the list of weird decisions the localization team made for no reason. that said, after confirming this, kaede is 167 cm in the original, while shuichi is 171 cm, which are approximately 5′6 and 5′7 respectively, but one inch is still nowhere near as drastic as it is depicted above. (in spite of this, I would rather depict kaede as slightly taller, so I’m probably going to keep doing that.)

the journey continues!

bro if you want kaede to have shoulder length hair then stick to it to begin with

you can pretend this is at an angle all you want but they definitely committed the shorter kaede sin a second time

wait a goddamn second.

DO YOU SEE THIS

no………… it wasn’t kaede who shrank. it was shuichi who got taller

speaking of which, can we talk about how shady the perspective is in this elevator pic? look at shuichi and kokichi in comparison to kaede. kokichi, who is canonically 7 inches (edit: or 5, if you’re loyal to the original) shorter than kaede, looks taller than kaede. he’s growing too. what steroids are these gays taking

running into the room, electric boogaloo: I don’t think tsumugi is supposed to be the same height as kokichi

gonta… gonta you’re lookin a bit like a jojo character there

I love how kaito’s head looks kind of like it was pasted onto his body. why is he the same size as shuichi? shouldn’t he be high school bully size or something? his torso is teensy

ah yes, white angie.

I love this cg but why is shuichi’s right hand so much bigger than his left hand

I also love how this cg looks like they literally took pictures of trees and pasted them into the background, especially on the left. the shadows are so weird, especially closer to the ceiling, it’s difficult for me to believe they didn’t do exactly that.

return of Enlarged shuichi

puberty update: kokichi is now taller than shuichi in spite of shuichi never missing leg day. what crimes will he commit

I have to mention it, guys. this has to be one of the worst danganronpa cgs. kokichi’s facial proportions look atrocious. look at the way his face sticks out like his jaw is in the wrong place. his scarf is a pasted texture. that’s it. this moment was so iconic but the cg just looks so… so… off. like something is terribly wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it.

you know what? let’s get into that ‘pasted texture’ thing.

let’s imagine you’re an artist working on a professional game. you’re assigned to draw cgs of kokichi ouma, who has a checkered scarf from hell. sure, it will be terrible to draw, but you only have to draw it once at a time! plus, perspective is pretty important, right? can you be bothered? nah, actually. let’s just copy paste a checkered pattern into the cg, because I’m sure nobody will notice. it’ll blend right in with the other cgs that someone actually put effort into drawing his scarf in, right?

no. the answer is no and I very much noticed. this genuinely looks terrible and I would understand taking a shortcut like that in fanart or even an indie game but this is a full price pc and console distributed game

(an addition: look at kokichi’s TINY HANDS in that last one)

meanwhile, they straight up forgot to color in kokichi’s scarf in this cg.

dude. I forgot about whatever the hell this cg was. anyway look at keebo please just look at him

lovin kaito’s baby arms

real talk, maybe you could argue that he’s missing muscle because he’s deathly sick, but most of his cgs don’t line up with this, and his arms just look disproportionate to his torso size (granted this is a consistent problem across all danganronpa games and a lot of characters have this weird problem, like hajime, but also kaito is bigger than hajime so I kind of have higher expectations of him) maybe it’s his stupid goatee and the way he reminds me of yasuhiro?? it creates this illusion that he’s older than he is and so I keep expecting him to look more like an adult

oh, also rantaro is missing some of his accessories in that video he made–you know the one–but I don’t wanna go back and screenshot it

also you may have noticed that I’m skipping all of the monokub cgs because I literally do not care about them and I’m not even bothering to check and see if they have artistic mistakes in them

JIMMY NEUTRON???

hey um uh kaito you seem to be missing your neck

hey guys do you like my pregame fanart

so, that done, the sprites are also pretty terrible at times. they’re not as interesting to go through, however, and downloading the full sprite sets for every character and studying every single one of them will drive me insane, so I’ll just sum some of the ones I noticed up. I made things for kaede and shuichi before deciding I wasn’t going to get into it, so here are these.

that said, other mistakes include kokichi missing his purple highlights in all of the sprites encompassing a specific pose, stray pixels all over the place on everyone, and everyone also has heavily inconsistent shading, but literally all I think about is how pregame shuichi is unshaded and two of kaede’s pregame sprites have glaring outfit change mistakes in them

anyway, thank you for taking the time to read my ridiculous ramble. in all seriousness, there’s this looming presence of some lack of communication in the development team, like with all the art and design inconsistencies, pieces and sprites that look rushed, stray pixels, and missing basic proportional stuff. these are the kinds of things that you supposedly have to pretty much have in the bag in order to get jobs in professional businesses, so it’s really weird to me that this game suffers from so many of these problems. it’s like they tried to make the art so much more crisp than the other games, but it fell on its face as they realized it was going to take longer to draw everything and they started to rush. it’s weird, because the coloring itself looks normal–it’s just sloppily drawn, and the proportions are a mess once put into the context of perspective. many of the cgs look like they were drawn by different people, and I’m still not over the fact that half of kokichi’s cgs have his scarf pasted in as a texture.

the moral of the story is that if you’re selling a game at full price that also happens to be in a series that has had 3 very good games in it already the stakes should probably be higher than this. v3 has been out for more than 3 years and it’s still $40 (did it cost more than that before? I sure hope not), and the overarching quality of the game is just not as high as the other games. I’m not saying that the other games don’t have any problems with their art at all, they’re just not as glaringly obvious and every artistic choice in those games feels intentional.

regardless, I had a blast roasting the art at 2am, so maybe you got a kick out of all this chaos.

[sokkalore]

You're probably tired of people whining about this to you but I HAVE to get it off my chest, I've finally found my people. My God, I was starting to feel like I was insane for not liking the manhua (like at all). I genuinely feel bad when I'm in the minority, I feel like there's something wrong with me. I've felt like this for months and I really tried to force myself to change the way I felt towards the art because it's everywhere and I can't even interact with the fandom without it hitting me in the face constantly. There's this other BL manhua "Here U Are" and I remember literally being addicted to the way it was drawn for some reason but the TGCF manhua makes me feel weirdly overwhelmed (by all the colors and the detailed backgrounds, it's perfect for separate art pieces but when it's supposed to be a comic it's like... where do I even look) and extremely uncomfortable (with the faces especially and the ooc stuff) and I know how dramatic this sounds but it's the truth and I feel like it has even affected my perception of the story and Hualian and kinda ruined them in my eyes. It's more about the way the fandom treats their manhua version I guess, it's canon after all but like... How do you not notice the inconsistencies and the ooc stuff? And why do they have to treat the donghua like that "donghua hc is crying rn/could never" "manhua x would wipe the floor with donghua x" and so on. (this bothers me because it's a large majority of people saying this). It's especially frustrating to me because I love the donghua and the way it potrays xl and hc and just the whole story. And I'm sorry but hc's manhua potrayal lowkey disgusts me. Also no I don't hate starember but they're literally the official manhua artist... And look, I don't care if a gay ship consists of a super feminine shy petite guy who only bottoms and tall sexy dominant guy who only tops, as long as these are their canon characters then fine. It's not a bad thing, people like this exist irl. But my god when you change the way characters are/behave canonically to fit this criteria it's just like... Uhh. And I still can't get that post from STARember with the glasses and "the top should be a top and the bottom should be a bottom" (or instead of "should be" it was "look like a" something along these lines, they used the chinese slang for it the numbers 1 and 0). Dude... Is this all these characters are good for? For real? Anyway this is long as fuck, I can say even more things but whatever, I'm just tired

sorry this is from the other day and i just got to it but like yeah seeing how people are reacting to my tweets about the new art, there are a lot of people it seems who don’t like starember and are uncomfortable with their art but don’t say anything because it feels like the majority of fandom will dogpile them which sucks a lot..

however in that vein, me talking about it on twitter led to a lot of people also talking about how they were uncomfortable but didn’t know how to/were scared to say it and even people who praised it earlier and are now like …….. oh wait what the fuck (not excusing the latter i think it’s kind of pathetic to have to be Told something blatantly racist is… in fact racist but the point being here that i guess people are capable of listening if people point it out). idk i’m not gonna shut up about it if it has Any effect at all in making the fandom aware of starembers blatant colorism/racism bc rn… it’s not. not openly at least

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep5: Female Friends

So I was up hella late because of Daylight Savings screwing my sleep schedule, and I was on Twitch and one of the people I follow was speedrunning a Yugioh game (I think it was called Forbidden Memories like it was some Romance YA novel) and I was like “that’s a thing?” And I watched about 15 minutes of just complete nonsense. Like this game makes no sense when your scrubbing through 30 minutes of gameplay, but when a whole game takes 45 seconds and they have mechanics using like planets and astrology symbols? What?

What?

Y’all, I’m a little concerned your card game ain’t real. Like this is some ploy by knowing adults and this is some sort of Santa Claus situation where everyone else knows that this game ain’t real, but I’m the last person alive who’s like... “it is real though, right?” Hoping that I haven’t been played all of these years, despite having literally no empirical evidence that it is.

Just saying, I’m on to you, Yugioh.

Thanks dub.

I am pretty convinced (could be wrong) but pretty convinced that Grandpa was probably just normal horny in this scene. Like it just kinda matches what I know about horny grandpa tropes (that and Vivian is really talked up to be this hot stuff although she’s just youknow...some girl who exists.)

He immediately falls over. Like immediately, and I don’t know what’s up with Grandpa’s weird slipped disc, but luckily this is the one thing that Mokuba is prepared to deal with as a park manager.

Or what was his job again, Master of Ceremonies? That was the name of Mokuba’s actual chosen job that a 12-13 yo would choose?

Only Mokuba would have the choice to choose “a literal astronaut” and not choose an astronaut. This kid probably hates space though, with his family’s countless war machines now currently flying through the void.

The amount of times that the Kaibas have had to call a doctor for these guys.

(read more under the cut)

Bro was like “So Hawkins paid Grandpa to pretend to fall down so they could ditch Rebecca’s duel, right?” and youknow...probably. It was a pretty boring duel. They got off scott free.

Rex and Weevil do cartoon antics that actually feel like cartoon antics--which feels so weird for this show. Of course, it also has this Vivian plotline that is a little sus for a children’s show?

OK, show. You keep throwing women at Yugi Muto, and I get it’s a joke because he’s the world’s most undateable boy but there is a line of plausibility that even for a kid’s cartoon show it’s like “eh, probably not.”

Anyway, Vivian has Cho Chang energy of “I’m here for a problematic romantic conflict that never needed to happen and hamfisted diversity and uhhhhhh that’s it! I won’t exist after book 5!”

What a step down from dueling on top of the train, right? Like this whole time you could have just dueled next to it? What? In this show?

The rest of the party show up to the train station, where there’s really no other audience watching. Like where are Rebecca’s adoring fans who were asking for her autograph like 3 episodes back?

Card culture is brutal, y’all.

Vivian is not drawn like a 16 yo, being real. I was pretty surprised that she was under 25 according to a cursory Google search. Course, Joey Wheeler is drawn like a built adult, too, so I think the only convincing teenage child on this show is Pharaoh because at least he’s short. Just ignore how sometimes he’s got muscles on his arms that have no right to be there at the age of 16. (17?)

Then we had like a little Season Zero vibes where everyone just picks on Yugi for a hot minute.

And so Tea’s character development comes full circle as she realizes that this whole time, the Female Friend she needed was already here in the form of that small child who has a crush on her kinda boyfriend.

This was such an episode written by a bunch of dudes.

But at least Rebecca and Tea found something in common, although I really wish it wasn’t Yugi, considering how little on screen development he has with either of them. Where’s the reward for me as the viewer? If I cared about either of this love pentagon at all (well, hexagon...Bakura’s still in there.) there will never be a payout. You very well may be waiting forever for a relationship the writers clearly had never any intention to ever write except to act as a foil for our protagonists instead of like...a relationship.

And the show seems a little inconsistent with the relationship between Rebecca and Tea, too. They hang out a lot as the girls on the sideline, and appear to get along a lot of the time--but then they hate eachother a lot of the time as well because of jealousy? It’s just so weird.

I feel like TV shows in general have a really hard time approaching girl friendships, and speaking as a girl, I wish TV and books recognized more that our female friendships don’t have to be so freakin serious. We just act friendly and that’s freakin it.

That and these girls are going to go right back to hating eachother half the time after this is over because the main problem--Yugi not piping up and telling one of them to back the hell off--has never been addressed and never will be because Yugi is a broken, broken wet blanket.

Back at the base, Seto is also making up his own problems to be upset about in the absence of any apocalypses happening on screen.

Unless that hacker is Noah Kaiba, you’re probably fine. I really haven’t had too much of a reason to feel any fear over Zigfried von Schroeder. And maybe it’s because his character design was pretty complicated so no one wanted to draw it.

This was a ‘who’s on first’ joke but still.

...why do cards have to be like this?

Also, I didn’t see anything about this nonsense in the speedrun I watched the other night so, guys, this game ain’t real.

Anyway, Rebecca won.

We find out a little more of what happens to other duelists. Our Cowboy lost to a Sherlock Holmes boy, and I was very happy that I don’t have to come up with jokes about country music because I have none other than like...Taylor Swift jokes? Does she still count as country? I have no idea what’s going on in the country music scene.

On other side of the park, Yugioh decide to pay another tribute to the creative crotch shot with one of these:

Rex and Weevil are off to fight the big bad, and when you think “OK, we’re gonna get a wacky duel battle with these two balancing on top of eachother,” they kinda whiffed it before they made it to the stage.

And then I kind of whiffed it when I realized that Mokuba and Weevil have never spoken in the same place before and they have the same exact font color so fml.

The fact that Mokuba didn’t realize anything was wrong until they fell and revealed they were two small adults in a trench coat says a lot about most of the competitors in this duel.

It is incredible how both the Battle City Tournament and the Kaiba Corp Tourney (s that it’s name?) are both poorly managed, but in a different way. The Battle City Tourney unfortunately had a bunch of murderers in it. This tournament, no one is killing eachother, but they are still kind of sneaking in through the back door and being chronically late to everything.

(and I just want to point out that after the last match Mokuba oversaw that had Joey nearly miss the appointment, Mokuba decided to set this one in front of a Giant Clock just to get his point across)

So Zigfried has some sort of flying horse card that wiped them out right away, which makes you wonder........

.............why use any other cards?

Kaiba makes these cards, right????

Like he should be the last person who’s surprised????

Anyway, Zigfried top-decked a horse, and the guy who spends about 15 minutes getting ready his big ol blue eyes dragons every match he’s ever played was like “Yo I have GOT to get into speedrunning!”

And yes, the speedrun I was watching did not use Blue Eyes White Dragons. They were using a bunch of other stuff that I tried to look up just now and the art is completely different from what I recall so...unfortunately that means that your game is fake. Pretty sure it’s fake and you have no way to prove to me this is real.

Anyway, that’s it for now, not much to say since we’re still at the beginning of the arc. Next week I guess we’ll find out if Seto ever removes his ass from this chair.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[ears-awake-eyes-opened]

My #HayffieFics (Masterpost)

In May 2020, I started writing Hayffie fics as pieces of a puzzle. I’m drawn to the complex bond between Haymitch and Effie, which I see rooted in attachment trauma, codependency, friendship, authentic love, and other intensities I’m interested in exploring in concert. — I recognize I don’t have the capacity to *fix* the actual dystopian world I live in, so my nervous system has been ruminating thoughts and fantasies about how to move beloved traumatized characters toward integration and resolution in a fictional dystopia. — I’ve tried to list my fics here in chronological order as they might happen in THG universe rather than in the order in which I wrote them. Fics which span long periods of time I’ve placed wherever the flow feels best to me. — When I began writing the characters, my vision felt murky. It feels clearer now, but it’s still evolving. I continue to get to know the characters mostly through listening to their voices in my head. They are not as faceted in my earliest fics because I didn’t yet feel the fullness of them inside me. Several fics are inconsistent with the book-verse because that wasn’t a concern for me in the beginning. — Continuing to allow my vision of their puzzle to unfold is a day-to-day decision between myself and the characters. If their voices give me a little story to tell, then I write it. I’ve appreciated prompts which have stretched me to imagine content I otherwise would not have considered. I haven’t yet felt ready/able to explore the darkest nooks of dysfunction. Perhaps in time. — As I’ve mentioned often, I arrived quite late to this party. Knowing that other people are still interested in Hayffie content after all these years helps me feel less alone. I value connection with other content creators and readers. My inbox is always open. — ��� Kim

Origins

Coffee and secrets

Brothers

Peaches and a tyrannical sea

Games Era

Almost

More than frivolity

Tics

Smashed

The hairpin

Something undefinable

Now or never

The moment Effie starts to reevaluate her desire to be promoted to a “better” district… 

Slipping veils

Unavailable people

Black and blue

District 13

Cracked

Intoxication (Part 1)

Intoxication (Part 2) — (*NSFW 🔥)

Intoxication (Part 3)  — (*NSFW 🔥)

Wedding Colors (Part 1)

Wedding Colors (Part 2)

Wedding Colors (Part 3)

Wedding Colors (Part 4)  — (*NSFW 🔥)

Touch  — (*NSFW 🔥)

18:00  — (*NSFW 🔥)

The first four years post-revolution

Too many miles

When the games are done

Reunited

The High Priestess

‘I promise to love and cherish you each day’

Textures

Gossip

2000 miles — (*NSFW 🔥)

Naked

The Gift  — (*NSFW 🔥)

The Uninvited Nightmares of Effie Trinket

A thin line  — (*NSFW 🔥)

Surrender

Falling Asleep  — (*NSFW 🔥)

Three seasons in wonderland  — (*NSFW 🔥)

Lace  — (*NSFW 🔥)

Choice

Mahogany, curtains, and a baby  — (*NSFW 🔥)

Lost

Home

Shopping Trips

The Deal  — (*NSFW 🔥)

Effie Turns 40 — (*NSFW 🔥)

Effie and Johanna

The better to taste you with, sweetheart  — (*NSFW 🔥)

Little Words - musings and some dialogue

Monsters

Confidantes

Impossible Things

Impossible Things (Part 2) — (*NSFW 🔥)

The Mirror

Falling

Peeta Bakes Fortunes

Toasting

Hayffie’s Girl

Musings I may turn into fics

E + H - musings and some dialogue

What might bring Effie to 12 - musings and some dialogue

[wistfulkitten]

i dream you'd love me again (2) || jk

sadness, guilt, regret. all things jeongguk felt after reading her letter.

genre: angst and fluff? childhood friends, cheating, sisters boyfriend au

pairing: jeongguk x reader

word count: 2.3k

posted: 200518

warnings: longing, infidelity, profanity (kinda), mentions of sex, probably inconsistent punctuation 

a/n: theres probably gonna be minor grammar issues because grammarly is shit and im tired. n e way i tried making this longer, it took me like four hours believe it or not. funni how i can make time for writing but not for my hw. silly me. i tried explained why he did what he did and im sorry if it was crappy. thank u to yall who read the first one. if you guys have any requests or ideas feel free to send me something in my inbox or message me. tyty:))

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

sadness. sadness is what jeongguk felt at the end of ___’s letter. sad that he hurt her enough to the point that she thought of herself as anything but perfect. sad that she doubted his feelings for her. sad that despite everything he put her through, she still loved him and still wished him the best. he always knew she had a big heart. it's one of the many reasons he was drawn to her in the beginning, but it was also one of her biggest weaknesses. her heart was too big for her own good and it scared him. ___ was always too quick to forgive and forget and most of the time it came back to bite her in the ass.

 he saw it time after time when her dad had left. he had had an affair and left his wife and two kids for a younger woman and yet she never got mad or ever blamed her father in contrary to yoona. while yoona never gave her father the time of day after the separation, ___ always made sure to set time aside for him even when he never put in enough effort to interacting with his daughters. he was a pretty crappy father, content with his new life. and though it made her sad that her family was no longer whole and her mother was practically always crying herself to sleep, it made her happy that her dad was happy. she was just about twelve then and still, she never gave into childish grudges. thirteen year old jeongguk found her slightly stupid for this trait but as they grew up, he found it quite endearing. 

guilt. after the sadness had settled in, a great wave of guilt washed over his being. while he was here, newly married with a whole life ahead of him, you were somewhere out there living the life you always wanted sad and lonely. too heartbroken to even enjoy it properly. he didn't deserve it, the comfort and security his new marriage gave him, he didn't deserve it. 

 jeongguk was merely seventeen when he fell in love with a sixteen year old ___ all the while he dated yoona, her older sister. he’d known them practically his whole life and it was such a small town that it was simply impossible for you not to know anyone and everyone. everyone went to the same schools and hardly anyone moved out of the godforsaken town. he and yoona started dating in the sixth grade. much too young to be dating but their families were long time friends and saw it appropriate for the two to start early. so that one day the two families would unite. jeongguk hadn’t minded at first. he was eleven at the time but yoona had always been a good friend. they played together all the time so nothing really changed except for the frequent hugs and occasional kiss on the cheek.

 as they grew older they graduated into more mature ways of affection but it never bothered him too much. though he was friends with yoona, he was always closer to ___. sure at first, he had trouble expressing but afterward never once did they ever feel reserved towards one another, only ever honest with every bit of their being.  while yoona was more reserved and occasionally bratty, ___ was outspoken and adventurous. always willing to try something new even if it wasn't exactly encouraged. she never shied away from speaking her mind and that was something jeongguk always aspired to be. she was everything he wasn’t.  she expressed herself in every possible way. hair color was constantly changing since the start of high school. she pulled off any type of style you could think of. you could pick her out of any crowd in an instant. she painted, wrote poems and songs, sang, played various instruments, even took up photography. she turned any type of art form into a way for people to understand her, every single part of her. she was good at so many things and jeongukk, jeongukk was good at one thing. basketball. yet she never made him feel bad about it, instead she went to every game. cheering him on. she was mesmerizing in every single way. 

 while they had their good moments, yoona had a knack of patronizing him for every fault and imperfection. when they started high school she had tried so hard to be looked at as the perfect couple. she made it a point to show that they ‘never fought’ and were always ‘happy’. he never spent too much time with his friends because ‘every boyfriend had to put his girlfriend first’. this is the exact reason jimin never liked her and why jin always referred to her as a pain in the ass. it was safe to say his friends weren't exactly fond of her either. she was so different from ___ which was good or bad, depending on who you were asking. 

yoona was pretty, though jeongguk would say ___ was prettier. soft features, soft personality, light colors were a constant, skirt never too short, hair never too long. she was a straight line kind of girl like the majority of girls in town. grades never faltering. she always believed in the whole study hard, get a good job, have kids plan everyone stuck to and it was always so suffocating. 

he wanted more out of life, he wanted to explore places, explore himself. he wanted to get to know himself in more ways than one because he had yet to know all of it. all of him. but by the time he was sixteen, jeongguk already had a career to work towards and a girl everyone was so sure would be his wife. it was like his life was a book and everyone but him was the author. he had no control and he started to dread the future. he was running and he knew what would be at the finish line, so he slowed down. while yoona was running full speed, he was jogging at most. he started faking a persona in front of his family and yoona because they simply didn’t get it and they never would. 

when he couldn’t exactly talk to his own girlfriend about his feelings and problems ___ was always there to listen. she was good at that. listening. she never judged, instead always reassuring him that when the time came he’ll know what to do. she had an easygoing way of living and he longed to live like that too. though her mother didn't agree and favored yoona more, she simply took it as it was and cherished what she had for the time being. her love for her mother and sister never faltered even if their love never measured up. ___ had a way of looking at the world that could get her far, far away from here and jeongguk envied that. she said all his feelings were valid and no one should be mad at him for simply feeling. once he had slowed down enough for the once blurry images to become clear, he’d realized that running with yoona was far too tiring and that walking with ___ was far more fulfilling.

 jeongguk was merely seventeen when he fell in love with a sixteen year old ___ and it was the most exhilarating feeling ever. it had started out as just a friend being there for a friend, but one day it turned into something more. they had been out on one for their many infamous nightly drives when they had stopped at a cliff, a pretty view of their small town in sight. pretty lights below and above. the stars were out that night just like them, watching the rest of the world sleep. she’d looked into his eyes, simultaneously looking into his soul. with anyone else, he would’ve felt naked and exposed but with her, he wanted her to see everything and to understand everything. he realized he only ever wanted one person to do that and he wanted to express it in the best way possible. he kissed her. really kissed her and she didn't shy away. he knew it was wrong, they both did, but it felt so good. so good that it felt right. right there, in the back of jeongguk’s first car, clothes disappeared one by one and they wrote love poems into the bareness of their skin. so passionate, so raw that it was impossible to stop afterward. they did it again and again behind closed doors, behind the curtain they drew in the depths of night. it was nothing they ever felt before. when they weren’t tangled within each other they explored as much as the city would let them. talking about anything and everything. no boundaries. 

___ planned on leaving once she graduated, didn’t know where to but the farther the better. she hated it here and so did he. it made jeongguk sick to even think about a life without her in it. he was selfish, he knows. he had them both and it was very clear which of them he loved more yet it saddened him that the one he favored more would ever leave him here. alone. that was until she asked him to come with. she asked him to run away with her. he swears if he wasn't deeply in love with her then, he was now. of course he said yes. running away and seeing the world with his favorite girl was a dream. a dream he truly wanted to become reality. 

they planned it out. jeongguk and yoona graduated and while ___ finished her final year in high school and yoona stared college, jeongguk took a gap year waiting for ___. waiting for their dream while working jobs here and there, financially preparing. he also took a business internship so that his family would get off his back for working instead of college. it was full proof, even the boys knew. though they thought it was risky, they supported them both. they had grown fond of ___.  they’d both work jobs to add onto their savings and the day after ___ graduated they’d leave and never come back. that was the plan, the dream. and yet they never made it.  

regret. he regretted it so much. the faithful day came but jeongguk didn’t. she waited and waited but he couldn’t do it. he watched from afar, luggage in hand. watch her wait. watched her cry when she realized. he cried with her. he was just so damn scared. a coward is what he was. he was scared of the unknown, something he craved so much and yet he was scared of it. and that's exactly how he felt for ___ at that moment. he craved her so much, loved her so much, and yet he was scared of her. scared that her spontaneous ways would one day be the end of them. he thought of yoona, at least with yoona he knew what he was getting. knew exactly where they’d end up. he wanted certainty and that's why he watched her leave. but to his surprise, she didn't leave, not yet. she stayed and waited, waited long enough for everyone else to find out. she was then branded as a little slut that wanted a taste of the forbidden fruit, the one he didn't choose. it was far from the truth but its what everyone believed. and so she left far far away and he didn't chase after her. god did he regret it. every day since that day he’s felt nothing but regret. he was back to putting the mask on trying to appease everyone. surprisingly no one reprimanded him and for that he felt anger, anger he’d only felt towards himself.

___ was the love of his life so it hurt. it hurt to see that she didn’t think of herself like he did. he wasn't aware she felt that way. like she was in yoona’s shadow. to him, it had never been like that because she’d been the one he sought to look at first in every room. it hurt to see she thought so low of herself but you could say he wasn't any better. he was newly married and yet he was miserable. it had only been a few months since he and yoona got married and people were already asking when they were having a baby. straight out of college and things were moving so fast. he was nauseated and lived life in such a lethargic manner. he needed her. 

she said she still loved him. maybe it wasn’t too late. maybe he could turn things around and fulfill the dream they never reached. so he picks up the phone and dialed the number he used to call every night. it was so familiar that he didn’t need to think twice about it.

it rang once, twice, and finally, on the third ring, she answered.

“gukk?”

he cried at the sound of her voice. he missed her so much. after a while, he could hear soft sniffling from the other line.

“can i come home?” he asked, voice so hoarse it hurt.

“you are home… aren’t you?” voice strained, sounding confused.

“no no, you’re my home ___. i need to come home. “

with that jeongguk couldn’t help but cry harder.

“shhh shhh gukk, it's ok. everything will be ok.” she cooed familiar words he hadn’t heard in a while. “ok, come home. come to me baby.”

he booked the first flight he could as soon as she said where she was and packed up as much as he could. he was gonna stop living this lie and start living for himself. something he should have done four years ago. and in a few hours, that’s exactly what he was gonna do. live the life he dreamed of with her, no holding back. he needed to stop being afraid. he was on his way, without a care in the world. jeongguk loved ___ and ___ loved him. that's all that mattered.

he’d send the divorce papers over tomorrow.

[faerielleart]

hello my easter bunny! tysm once again for the wonderful art and all the effort that you've put into it! and i hope you indulge me in asking you this question, but how would you explain your drawing style? do you have any artistic influences or so? i just noticed that you tend to make use of pop culture references or literary quotes, but i'm not sure if that's something you deliberately intend to do in all of your works. much love <3

hello dearest! :D

thank you for the nice words aaa ;w; i am genuinely so happy you enjoyed your present ✨

these are very interesting questions 🧐 i’ll answer in order:

how would you explain your drawing style?

this is probably the hardest question for me to answer because i tend to switch it up a lot shdjskdkd it kinda depends of what i’m trying to convey, if i want to make something cartoonish or something more realistic, but i’d like to say it’s generally semi-realistic with a heeeavy emphasis on the “semi” hhhh i guess i am also kinda inspired by old school anime that i used to watch as a kid like sailor moon, the rose of versailles and others. i tend to do my best to get realistic proportions for the characters i draw and don’t really do heavily stylized work with exaggerated features, i try to imitate real people but i’m also incredibly stubborn and like to suffer so i always avoid using references unless i really need one (ex: muscles, hands, feet, dynamic poses) because i want to build a better visual memory for how a human is supposed to look like. when i first started posting my art i tended to do black and white only, then i got progressively more comfortable with colors. i’d say my signature thing would be the lighting :D and the lil dots of atmospheric dust, but yeah i have a tendency to do a lot of backlighting or random streaks of light, i think it looks pretty 🥺 also i like drawing hurt/comfort which is why i do a lot of black and white art, i think it looks nicer bc it reminds me of old photographs and it’s just a ~vibe~ i enjoy hehe but when i use color it’s super vibrant and saturated kinda like a punch in the eyeball. so yeah my artstyle in really brief words: inconsistent but shiny as hell with an extra colorful punch in the face when i feel like b&w doesn’t do the job :’D

do you have any artistic influences or so?

quite a lot! when it comes to backgrounds, i take inspiration from studio ghibli and makoto shinkai movies for scenery, kyoani for indoor settings. i freaking love yusuke murata and takehiko inoue’s artstyles and i love hirohiko araki’s use of color. as far as the technicalities go, my art never looks “smooth” bc i can’t figure out how to draw with airbrush tools to save my life, and i am very very veeery influenced by impressionism, which is why i paint in broad strokes that look messy and you can also kinda see all the lines hhh and i guess the focus on the lighting comes from my obsession with caravaggio when i was in school :’) oh also i absolutely have to mention the two italian comic artists whom i’ve been following since i was a first year middle schooler just getting started with digital art, mirka andolfo and angela vianello; they’re probably my biggest influences and lil fangirl moment i met mirka at a comicon a few years ago and she drew me hiyori from noragami as she was in charge of drawing the alternate cover for the first volume release and she was so nice and kind and encouraged me to keep making art and excuse me i’m gonna cry- angela vianello is also an absolute legend and her work is absolutely breathtaking, she’s probably *the one* who helped me shape my artstyle the most through the years. haven’t met her yet unfortunately ;;;;

about the pop culture references and literary quotes

BINGO i am a literature student and an anthropology student which comes with an extra art history, theatre history and philology+mythology on the side which means that basically 99% of everything i’ve ever posted stems from either a song i was listening to or a book i was reading or anything i was studying for my lectures bc i’m a huge nerd and i love making art of things i love inspired by other things i love (cue me recalling the obscene amount of AUs and wips i have in my gallery). my fav levihan stuff i’ve ever drawn were inspired by jane austen, victor hugo and anne carson quotes :D also a ton of musical theatre songs! i am a giant les misérables stan (book and show) and i have quite a few things inspired by it. yeah i basically have no originality and my brain needs to go “OH THIS QUOTE IS RAW AS FUCK” and “OHHH PRETTY SONG LYRIC” for me to start producing things hhhh

thank you for the questions 🐰💜💜💜

[nikkywrites]

Day 1: Disinterest

This and the thirty things after is things I did for Creatober -- a prompt a day for a month. I think after I get through the 31 prompts, I might be done transferring things. How exciting! The end is within sight!

No edits except maybe a bit of grammar/rewording.

*****

Amelia is like the sun, in a lot of aspects. Her laughter radiates warmth, as do her hugs, and she brightens the darkest of people. She's alluring in that she's kind and gentle and selfless.

She's prattling about an interest -- honestly she can't remember what exactly it is, but knows it's nothing she has any interest in -- and the passion is a night sky in her eyes.

Most won't make the sun comparison, will dive for the easier earth, nature, the trees. But while she's dark in her skin and hair and eyes, she uses herself to reflect brightness. To make a super powered flashlight from a single flickering candle.

She's bright and warm in all the ways that aren't misleading aesthetics. She can't help how she looks, but she dresses in bright colors that look neon on her. She acts the part and in all the ways she controls her looks, she looks it too.

She is the sun. Simple. Undebatable.

Pearl is not Icarus.

She is not easily drawn in by simple promises and warmth that's so often fleeting. She grew up in cages of ice and she won't melt at the first sign of warmth.

Winter was eternal and summer was temporary.

"'Melia," Pearl says, a near inaudible quiver to her voice. She means to continue after that, to say her request all at once and confidently, but she freezes.

(It's all she's ever done.)

The bright brunette before her is attentive and hears the call of her name in the midst of her rant about inconsistent characters and lackluster plot lines. She halts her passion to hear what her friend has to say. "Yeah?"

Her eyes are glimmering like a moonlit pond and if Pearl swung that way (she doesn't), she'd be in trouble. Big, big trouble. It was effortless to fall into those eyes, to get sucked into the riptide and not care about whether or not you drowned.

Pearl hears the sick amused laugh of her mother ringing in her ears. "Can we talk about something else?" Her heart is pounding, racing, and she's preemptively hearing taunts her mother has thrown out a thousand times before.

Amelia’s eyes flicker, a few of the stars dying in a supernova. “Oh.” Her expression’s shift is slight, but stark. “Yeah, sure.” Her lips lift after, a smile, but this one doesn’t spread any warmth, doesn’t niggle at something in the other girl’s chest, and doesn't light her eyes like usual. “I guess I was rambling, huh?”

She sighs. There’s guilt, now, grappling against her fear. She wasn’t a great listener. She wishes she was, wishes she was the ever-present shoulder and unwavering hand, but her mind has learned to tune out long rambles to avoid the barbs hidden in the words. Amelia isn’t malicious like that, of course, but habit is habit and it’s hard to change.

“I’m sorry,” she says, cradling her cup in her hand, warm like Amelia had been before she got greedy and snuffed it out. “It’s just…” she slides her other hand down her face. “I’m having trouble keeping up, everything has been so,” she waves her hand through the air, “muddled, lately.” Choking. Stifling.

Amelia digests the words, pursing her full lips. “Alright. What would you rather we talk about, then?”

Oh, the kindness. Nothing hurts quite like it. Not when she was undeserving of it -- who was she to stop her spiel? Her mind was a whirlwind, true, but that was her issue to deal with. Not Amelia’s.

“Did you see the newest episode of Project Paranormal?”

“Of course!”

Pearl bites the corner of her lip, masking her smile. “Well, I didn’t catch it. Mind giving me the rundown?”

Dramatically, the other girl gapes. “You missed it? After the cliffhanger from the last episode?”

Pearl recalls said cliffhanger. She remembers watching it in the living room on her couch. She winces. “Yeah. I was… busy.” Grounded from TV, more like. Her mother had come home early and seen what her daughter was watching. She didn’t approve.

No daughter of mine will worship the devil, she’d said, practically hissed. The cross at her neck had felt like hellfire then.

That cross is tucked into her pocket now, still burning. (Always burning.)

“Well, you see…” Amelia hops onto the new train of rambling quite quickly — she’s made to talk in that her words are bait on a hook. She draws others in, for better or worse or worst.

Maybe the Icarus comparison isn’t too far off.

Maybe she was already in too deep, over her head and drowning in honey. Sweetness all around, but too much.

What was Icarus’ mistake, anyways? When the sun calls, Apollo’s pretty words and reaching hand, was he supposed to ignore that? God’s attention, no matter how meager or plenty, is not something for a mortal to pass up. Especially a summons. Especially when the sun had been so scarce for him.

He hadn’t really had a choice, in the end, except in how he’d like to go. A mindless plummet into the freezing, or a soaring arch into the smile of a carefree god?

Pearl was quite like Icarus in a lot of ways. If she had to choose between her blood, who were far less sacrificing then Daedalus had been, or her sun, she’d burn too.

There were far more unpleasant things than dying in a fire one chooses.

“You’re kidding,” Pearl gasps, derailing her inner thoughts for the shocking tidbit she just heard (she’s good at multitasking, on some things). “That’s what happened? No shit?”

“Nope. That was how she died.”

“Never would have guessed that. Shit.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “Hey, I’m sorry I’ve been a bit MIA lately.” This is their first time speaking in a couple of weeks -- by far the longest gap of silence they’ve ever had, though it wasn’t all silent and wasn’t preplanned.

The long list of one-sided texts, gray bubbles with read receipts on and no replies, vouches for that. Let’s have a movie night soon! Hey, wanna go to the fair while it’s here? Are you okay? Did something happen? Text me back! Coffee? I miss you <3 Tell me that you’re ok. Texts that had gone unanswered.

Texts that had sent Pearl’s parents breathing down her neck.

But she hadn’t been busy, like she’d said she had been when she finally got around to replying. Though she actually had been busy. Fielding questions, praying, going to church, fending off her mother’s paranoia about her daughter turning to the devil, ignoring her father’s disapproval. All of her parent’s overbearingness was unneeded. They were just friends, Amelia and Pearl. Nothing more. And Pearl didn’t swing that way, didn’t daydream about the softness of the other girl’s fingers wrapped in her own or of the gloss shining on her lips. No. She wasn’t gay. That was sinful.

“Hey, it’s cool.” Amelia smiles, radiant and honest. Pearl feels the guilt again.

Liars will burn in the lake of fire and sulfur.

She was lying. She actually… kind of really did like Amelia. Like Icarus did Apollo, like Juliet did Romeo.

She sips her drink again, wishes it was still hot enough to scald her tongue. “Go ahead and tell me about the other thing.”

“You sure?”

She nods. She can sit through an hour’s worth of what’s drivel to her but gold to the other. Sacrifice. Small things. She can handle listening to the other girl’s joy if she must. One day, she may even actually follow through on one of the thousand book recommendations she’s received. She’s not a reader, finds it hard to focus on something utterly silent and blocked with words, but maybe she’ll try one day. One day when she’ll be living on her own, out of her parent’s toxicity. One day when she’ll be free to watch whatever she wants. One day when she can…

Well, the future was the future. Not here. Unpredictable. Subject to whims. Bound to change drastically from tiny choices, a butterfly’s wings. But there were some certainties.

Pearl and Amelia would stay friends. Amelia will always ramble on about her books while the other listens with more amusement and fondness than any real interest in the topic. They will drink coffee and stay at each other’s side, together.

As friends, obviously. At least at first.

But until then, there was today. Coffee and friends and a rambling she doesn’t care about (same as the future, except here there are no touches that blatantly linger).

One day things would be different. But today was pretty good.

[ct-hardcase]

ID: A grid with boxes labelled for each of the 12 months, with a drawing from that month in each of the boxes. 

I feel like I have to add an addendum for this year because obviously, everyone's lives changed drastically and that affects the mood of the art and the artist. I got the "lack of time and motivation" end of the stick, and while I sometimes tend toward self-deprecation for this, and it's weird to see my art sort of "regress" (less fancy lighting, ambitious poses, etc.), so I'm going to take a moment to be proud of the fact that I've learned how bodies work in space better, how to more seamlessly slot two people in a picture again as opposed to it being out of place, I've gotten better at working on the head from different perspectives and action shots, and most of all, I'm still growing, despite all of this.

Thoughts about individual months under the cut:

January: I realized that, even though I branded myself with clone content originally, it'd been a while since I...drew any of the clones. I decided to change that for a short burst in January, and this is probably my favorite of the bunch: I love the vibes, tension, and me adding a highlight for the hell of it (even if the light source is a bit inconsistent). February: I drew a lot this month but I figured I'd be remiss if I didn't put at least one rwby-related piece in here. I think this is the best Penny I've drawn, but still need to work on Ruby. Either way, Nuts and Dolts won this year! March: Bar none the piece I'm the most proud of this year—I worked with a pretty intense pink palette and the fun of working that into the usually black armor as well as the background. Also, the slightly tilted up perspective was a beast, and I had to trace and then reference my own tracing in order to create something that was still consistent with my style, but I did it! I think this was the transition into what I wanted the trajectory to be for this year, and in a way, I sort of kept that going with realizing how limbs work in a space. Also, create the obscure inquisitor content you want to see in this world. April: I finally settled on a face for Eighth that I really enjoy, and also I came into my own with the beginnings of digital painting. Also, more highlights for the hell of it, which I love and will continue to incorporate into as much as I can. May: I did a few fun couple shots in May, but this one was my favorite because during this and April, I learned that I could do backgrounds without putting maximum effort into it but still add depth and interest to a space. June: I did neekaz at sunrise so tamnara at sunset felt appropriate. I got to expand on their character design and am finally starting to get better at making people organically fit together. Also, the easter egg in the image is that Synara's wearing Tam's bandana around her leg, and Tam's wearing Synara's necklace. July: I wasn't initially super proud of this when I first drew it, but audience reception helped me realize it was a step for me—once again going with the theme of having fun with lighting and relying on the lightsabers to cast light for the image. Also, create the content for obscure inquisitor duos you want to see in the world. August: Even though I'm not as into it anymore, I feel like these would feel naked without some sort of ags material on the list, so I decided to have Alex and Zee live out my fantasy of waking up next to your partner/best friend in a tent and enjoying the sunrise together. September: This month started the mother of all art block which has lasted up until this point, and also w*rk got really busy. Either way, I did make something I was proud of this month, for Voe Starwars who absolutely deserves both the world and more canon material. I like the sense of dynamic movement and the actually doing a simple background with markers! This is also probably one of my favorites from the year. October: This was also...something. I redrew an old piece because my motivation was at a low, but I ended up enjoying both it and the noise filter which I applied on top. My cycle this month though was pretty much I came home and slept though, so honestly? Still proud. November: Once again was barely able to muster the motivation to draw, so this is an art ask game, but I love the simplicity of duo-toned markers to color something. It makes it feel more polished than it is. December: I drew all of one finished thing this month. Granted, it was 23 whole characters in different positions, lined and colored in so I'm proud of that! I mostly drew this just so I could get out some concepts which all deserved their fully-finished glory, but I didn't dredge up the wherewithal to do, so I at least did something.

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

an art by em year in review!

2020 was frankly awful but, on the bright side, this has still been a year of firsts: the first year i’ve consistently done art, the first year i actually intentionally explored different art “styles” (frankly i’m still hesitant to call them styles, if only because nothing’s changed except the way i outline and color), and the year i bothered to figure out autodesk sketchbook

some unsolicited commentary below the cut

january: i’m amazed that’s theresa like GIRL u are unrecognizable. so blessed that she moved past her fiona from shrek phase ❤️ i still like the tiara though that took ages for me to do

february: ah yes, the meme picture of the 13th doctor and sacha dhawan master that made me slightly famous on twitter (we don’t talk abt it.) it’s still funny but the inconsistency in line thickness is. oof. i’m glad i caught that later on

march aka when it all went down: first lineless art! barbara is so cool like wtf,,, i remember not touching the first doctor’s run initially bc one of my friends back in c*tholic sch**l had something against him (i literally don’t even remember what at this point) so naturally, not having had access to streaming services at the time, i thought he must not be too good but then i watched it during the phase of the pandemic where everything seemed like an early spring break and barbara reminded me of my favorite english teacher so i—this isn’t even about the art at this point wtf. anyway this took me a long time and really helped me understand layers let’s move on

april: another lineless! this time theresa! the jewelry is literally the same as january’s portrait lol but i switched the dress. i don’t know why but i’ve always gravitated to having her wear blue green. i’m trying to break out of it though. anyway i thought she looked too orange but i had already finished so there wasn’t much i could do about it, but looking back it doesn’t look so bad. only thing i’d fix is that i can’t see her nose if i squint (same issue with many of my other lineless drawings, so i should really get on that)

may: oooo hello aileen, otherwise known as the politiciansona! (god i’m never typing that again) tbh i think this ones a step back from the progress i made in march and april with regard to lineless art, and it shows; after this i started gravitating toward line art again

june: you can see that here! i tested out two new brushes and decided to ditch the realism bent i was treading towards, and i still think it’s really cute! ALSO apparently i didn’t realize eyelid creases were a thing til this month,,, no wonder everyone used to say all the people i drew “looked asian” they just all had monolids apparently

july: the infamous hawaiian shirts cp fanart. i was supposed to color in carolyn’s sunglasses but by the time i noticed i had forgotten to do it, the post had blown up so...i just didn’t fix it. anyway that’s the most people i’ve drawn at once and it was a labor of love

august: here we see the proto-notions of cp characters being filipino in my head, starting surprisingly with herc. my reason being him saying “what a ridiculous dog” about snoopadoop in ottery when he and carolyn meet up. like no “hello, how are you, are you doing well?” he just goes straight to calling snoopadoop ridiculous. that’s got the most filipino vibes. this was verified by my dad

september: ah yes, the politicansona again. i included this one bc i liked the detail work i had put in on the robes,, no i won’t provide context i’ll just say that was for practice,,yes just for practice,,stinky bitch fuck ofF

october: i really liked this picture when i drew it and i even put it as a widget on my phone screen but honestly i’ve fallen out of love with it,,, there’s a lot that just looks awkward. looking back i think this is the point where i realized it may be time for a redesign (reconceptualization? is that even a word????) of the cp fam

november: my first work with my new tablet! otherwise known as theresa doesn’t know how to cook (may be projection idk). anyway it was good practice for expressions. yes that’s a ratio test behind her, because i thought it provided maximum comedic value and also i loved that part of single variable calculus

december: i think this is the best thing i’ve drawn this year. and since this year is the best i’ve been yet, this drawing is probably the best i’ve done so far, ever. i returned roaring to my lineless art and improved my coloring by using references instead of the preset colors in the app. like those are better skin colors. so much better. it makes me choked up a little, because that’s what my skin looks like. that’s MY skin color. i used to be so ashamed of being darker and loved winter bc i looked more light skinned in winter but now i’m so proud to be morena, even when my fam in the philippines are shocked that i’m not pale and skinny like american actresses (i’m not joking my father’s godmother literally said “why,,, are you dark” and i was like “....sun.”) and drawing barong tagalog is so special to me because all the representation we get are crumbs. CRUMBS. if we see someone who looks vaguely southeast asian, let alone wearing a translucent shirt, we go WILD. so this is also one of the most self-indulgent things i’ve ever drawn because i drew carolyn like family. THAT’S MY MATERNAL GRANDMOTHER’S FILIPINIANA. THAT’S MY PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER’S HAIRSTYLE. i never met my paternal grandmother and everyone tells me i look like her. so filipino carolyn looks a lot like her, and also maybe me. and it means so much and hfhrheheuejeh this was going somewhere but uuuuhhhhhh i’m crying looking at my own art it feels so silly but here i am!!! i love being filipino!!! i love cabin pressure!!! i love herc and carolyn!!! filipino herc and carolyn loving each other!!! yeah!!!

happy new year. here’s to getting out of one dumpster fire and being told to put out another. stay safe, happy, and healthy. and let’s do this with love.

[nikkyshows]

Day One: Disinterest

And so Creatober 2020 begins! This, admittedly, might have gone off prompt, but its there if you squint? I have a bad habit of getting carried away with something and having the story get away from me. But I tried. That’s what counts, right?

Warnings for religion/toxic Christianity, anti lgbt mentions, keeping someone in the closet, controlling/overbearing parents, some cursing, mention of tv ghosts.

*****

Amelia is like the sun, in a lot of aspects. Her laughter radiates warmth, as do her hugs, and she brightens the darkest of people. She’s alluring in that she’s kind and gentle and selfless.

She’s prattling about an interest — honestly she can’t remember what exactly it is, but knows it’s nothing she has any interest in — and the passion is a night sky in her eyes.

Most won’t make the sun comparison, will dive for the easier earth, nature, the trees. But while she’s dark in her skin and hair and eyes, she uses herself to reflect brightness. To make a super powered flashlight from a single flickering candle.

She’s bright and warm in all the ways that aren’t misleading aesthetics. She can’t help how she looks, but she dresses in bright colors that look neon on her. She acts the part and in all the ways she controls her looks, she looks it too.

She is the sun. Simple. Undebatable.

Pearl is not Icarus.

She is not easily drawn in by simple promises and warmth that’s so often fleeting. She grew up in cages of ice and she won’t melt at the first sign of warmth.

Winter was eternal and summer was temporary.

“‘Melia,” Pearl says, a nearly inaudible quiver to her voice. She means to continue after that, to say her request all at once and confidently, but she freezes.

(It’s all she’s ever done.)

The bright brunette before her is attentive and hears the call of her name in the midst of her rant about inconsistent characters and lackluster plot lines. She halts her passion to hear what her friend has to say. “Yeah?”

Her eyes are glimmering like a moonlit pond and if Pearl swung that way (she doesn’t), she’d be in trouble. Big, big trouble. It was effortless to fall into those eyes, to get sucked into the riptide and not care whether or not you drowned.

Pearl hears the sick amused laugh of her mother ringing in her ears. “Can we talk about something else?” Her heart is pounding, racing, and she’s preemptively hearing taunts her mother has thrown out a thousand times before.

Amelia’s eyes flicker, a few of the stars dying in a supernova. “Oh.” Her expression’s shift is slight, but stark. “Yeah, sure.” Her lips lift after, a smile, but this one doesn’t spread any warmth, doesn’t niggle at something in the other girl’s chest, and doesn't light her eyes like usual. “I guess I was rambling, huh?”

She sighs. There’s guilt, now, grappling against her fear. She wasn’t a great listener. She wishes she was, wishes she was the ever-present shoulder and unwavering hand, but her mind has learned to tune out long rambles to avoid the barbs hidden in the words. Amelia isn’t malicious like that, of course, but habit is habit and it’s hard to change.

“I’m sorry,” she says, cradling her cup in her hand, warm like Amelia had been before she got greedy and snuffed it out. “It’s just…” she slides her other hand down her face. “I’m having trouble keeping up, everything has been so,” she waves her hand through the air, “muddled, lately.” Choking. Stifling.

Amelia digests the words, pursing her full lips. “Alright. What would you rather we talk about, then?”

Oh, the kindness. Nothing hurts quite like it. Not when she was undeserving of it -- who was she to stop her spiel? Her mind was a whirlwind, true, but that was her issue to deal with. Not Amelia’s.

“Did you see the newest episode of Project Paranormal?”

“Of course!”

Pearl bites the corner of her lip, masking her smile. “Well, I didn’t catch it. Mind giving me the rundown?”

Dramatically, the other girl gapes. “You missed it? After the cliffhanger from the last episode?”

Pearl recalls said cliffhanger. She remembers watching it in the living room on her couch. She winces. “Yeah. I was… busy.” Grounded from TV, more like. Her mother had come home early and seen what her daughter was watching. She didn’t approve.

No daughter of mine will worship the devil, she’d said, practically hissed. The cross at her neck had felt like hellfire then.

That cross is tucked into her pocket now, still burning. (Always burning.)

“Well, you see…” Amelia hops onto the new train of rambling quite quickly — she’s made to talk in that her words are bait on a hook. She draws others in, for better or worse or worst.

Maybe the Icarus comparison isn’t too far off.

Maybe she was already in too deep, over her head and drowning in honey. Sweetness all around, but too much.

What was Icarus’ mistake, anyways? When the sun calls, Apollo’s pretty words and reaching hand, was he supposed to ignore that? God’s attention, no matter how meager or plenty, is not something for a mortal to pass up. Especially a summons. Especially when the sun had been so scarce for him.

He hadn’t really had a choice, in the end, except in how he’d like to go. A mindless plummet into the freezing, or a soaring arch into the smile of a carefree god?

Pearl was quite like Icarus in a lot of ways. If she had to choose between her blood, who were far less sacrificing then Daedalus had been, or her sun, she’d burn too.

There were far more unpleasant things than dying in a fire one chooses.

“You’re kidding,” Pearl gasps, derailing her inner thoughts for the shocking tidbit she just heard (she’s good at multitasking, on some things). “That’s what happened? No shit?”

“Nope. That was how she died.”

“Never would have guessed that. Shit.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “Hey, I’m sorry I’ve been a bit MIA lately.” This is their first time speaking in a couple of weeks -- by far the longest gap of silence they’ve ever had, though it wasn’t all silent and wasn’t preplanned.

The long list of one-sided texts, gray bubbles with read receipts on and no replies, vouches for that. Let’s have a movie night soon! Hey, wanna go to the fair while it’s here? Are you okay? Did something happen? Text me back! Coffee? I miss you <3 Tell me you’re ok. Texts that had gone unanswered.

Texts that had sent Pearl’s parents breathing down her neck.

But she hadn’t been busy, like she’d said she had been when she finally got around to replying. Though she actually had been busy. Fielding questions, praying, going to church, fending off her mother’s paranoia about her daughter turning to the devil, ignoring her father’s disapproval. All of her parent’s overbearingness was unneeded. They were just friends, Amelia and Pearl. Nothing more. And Pearl didn’t swing that way, didn’t daydream about the softness of the other girl’s fingers wrapped in her own or of the gloss shining on her lips. No. She wasn’t gay. That was sinful.

“Hey, it’s cool.” Amelia smiles, radiant and honest. Pearl feels the guilt again.

Liars will burn in the lake of fire and sulfur.

She was lying. She actually… kind of really did like Amelia. Like Icarus did Apollo, like Juliet did Romeo.

She sips her drink again, wishes it was still hot enough to scald her tongue. “Go ahead and tell me about the other thing.”

“You sure?”

She nods. She can sit through an hour’s worth of what’s drivel to her but gold to the other. Sacrifice. Small things. She can handle listening to the other girl’s joy if she must. One day, she may even actually follow through on one of the thousand book recommendations she’s received. She’s not a reader, finds it hard to focus on something utterly silent and blocked with words, but maybe she’ll try one day. One day when she’ll be living on her own, out of her parent’s toxicity. One day when she’ll be free to watch whatever she wants. One day when she can…

Well, the future was the future. Not here. Unpredictable. Subject to whims. Bound to change drastically from tiny choices, a butterfly’s wings. But there were some certainties.

Pearl and Amelia would stay friends. Amelia will always ramble on about her books while the other listens with more amusement and fondness than any real interest in the topic. They will drink coffee and stay at each other’s side, together.

As friends, obviously. At least at first.

But until then, there was today. Coffee and friends and a rambling she doesn’t care about (same as the future, except here there are no touches that blatantly linger).

One day things would be different. But today was pretty good.

*****

At some point this month, I’ll add a Creatober section and throw everything I manage to do there. Don’t hate me if I don’t manage all 31 prompts?

[dweemeister]

Marona’s Fantastic Tale (2019, France)

Before delving into the thick of this review, I have a few personal biases to reveal. First, I am not a “dog person”, let alone a “pet person”. I understand why people adore dogs, but I have long been uncomfortable around them – small, energetic ones especially. In addition, I tend to view the subgenre of animal movies (dogs, cats, horses, etc.) as littered with saccharine, but nevertheless watchable, dreck. Reading back those last few sentences, you may conclude that I am describing a heartless monster that should not be trusted with living things. So be it.

Anca Damian’s Marona’s Fantastic Tale, also known by its original French title L'extraordinaire Voyage de Marona, avoids the common traps of this subgenre. It, too, happens to be an animated film. Damian, a Romanian-French filmmaker, has previously only directed two animated features, both documentaries: Crulic – The Path to Beyond (2011, Romania/Poland) and The Magic Mountain (2015, Romania/Poland/France). She is, foremost, a dramatist concerned with humanist ideas and values. Damian and screenwriter Anghel Damian (her son) treat the title character – also called three other names – as maturely as any human character in this film, where other filmmakers in this subgenre might only do so superficially, to elicit obligatory “awws”. Marona’s Fantastic Tale artfully depicts the perspective of its canine star through the chapters of her life. These life chapters are laden with ambiguous resolutions and important conversations and decisions withheld from the viewer – moments where love, responsibility, and survival intertwine or clash.

The film begins with the female dog’s death. She (voiced by Lizzie Brocheré) has been hit by a car, and narrates the rest of the film, framed as a recollection of her most potent memories. Her first given name is “Nine”, as she is the last of nine puppies between a mixed-breed dog and a purebred Dogo Argentino. Nine is shortly adopted and immediately abandoned. As a stray, she is adopted by a struggling acrobat named Manole, and given the name “Ana”. Happy though their initial time together may be, Ana recognizes she is an impediment to his financial situation, and runs away. Slumbering at a construction site, she is grateful for the warmth of architect Istvan, who always brings her food. Istvan, who calls her “Sara”, eventually brings her home to his manipulative wife who abhors Sara. Lastly, our protagonist will be adopted by a little girl named Solange, who names her “Marona” (from the French word marron, meaning brown; I will refer to the protagonist by her final name for the remainder of this review). Solange’s overworked single mother and irascible grandfather oppose the impromptu adoption for differing reasons, but eventually accept the new addition to their household.

I may not know much French, but Lizzie Brocheré (The Magic Mountain, 2017′s Rings) is a wonderful narrator. At least half of the film’s lines come from Marona narrating her unfolding life. In her voice, Brocheré captures numerous emotions: joy, regret, indignity, confusion, yearning. Marona, whose understanding of the world is similar to that of a young child, is devoid of enmity – even when faced with humans showing little concern or dismissive of her well-being. The film keeps Marona’s narration to a certain register, leaving the greatest narrative subjectivity to the film’s visuals and not Marona herself. Marona’s narration reveals how she interprets the world around her:

[Dogs] want things to stay exactly as they are... Humans always want what they don't have. They call it dreaming. I call it not knowing how to be happy.

Marona’s Fantastic Tale employs various animation styles in ways that may not feel sensible at first. Humans do not look like humans. They come in all colors of skin (blue, green, incomplete black crayon upon white construction paper etc.) and impossible figures (Manole, the acrobat drawn in yellow and red stripes, has stretchable, tubular limbs that any real-life acrobat would envy; other characters appear anything but humanoid). The most conventionally “human”-drawn characters in Damian’s film are those closest to Marona during her life – namely Istvan, Solange, and Solange’s mother. Marona, and the viewer, find comfort in these familiarly-shaped humans. Istvan’s predominant blue skin is a cool color, contrasting against his wife’s vaguely ostrich-like yellow-and-black appearance – attributes shared by her gossiping and materialistic lady friends, all of whom may need to see the doctor for possible jaundice. Like any animation director, Damian uses the character animation in this film to code viewers’ perceptions on a character. But the abstraction of Marona’s Fantastic Tale means she and her animators can further exaggerate characters’ physical aspects and experiment with color. The film’s backgrounds are a mesmerizing interplay of hand-drawn and CGI animation. Depending on where the camera is approaching, the apparently 2D backgrounds might unfold into layers of CGI, and vice versa.

These effects are bewildering. They appear as one might imagine a small dog might understand humanity’s vastness of appearance and personality, as well as the sprawling natural and man-made world they occupy.

Even more abstract through Marona’s eyes are the concepts of memory and time. On occasion, Damian has Marona reminisce about her past – an abstract flashback within a larger flashback. That past is filled with heartache – of being separated from her litter, her multiple abandonments. But in the confusion of understanding human motivation, Marona’s unconditional love for her mother and siblings and those who have taken care of her shines through. Hers is a melancholic loyalty, abiding despite abandonment. Time’s passage in the film is linear but inconsistent, leaving the viewer to make inferences for themselves. As a being with a short life, Marona has little time to find the most fulfilling, profound moments of her life in things that a human might deem mundane (in an occasionally funny piece of narration, she says, “A good sense of smell is worth a thousand words.”)

Every human in Marona’s Fantastic Tale is beset with character flaws and, with the exception of Manole, difficult familial lives. Their flaws may manifest themselves towards Marona, other humans, or both. Marona observes human frustration, jealousy, and pettiness and can always sense the unspoken tension that precedes a fateful action. Here, the film plays out not only as a simple flashback, but as a sort of dying wish. Marona, who we know is dying or is en route to what happens after death, appeals to the viewers without so much directly addressing them. It is an appeal for understanding: to realize our personal faults and to exemplify the consideration and goodwill that makes living worthwhile. 

Some Western viewers might be irked that Marona dies in the film and that her death does overhang the proceedings. (They may be too accustomed to the excessively manipulative and stereotypical death fake-out so common in dog movies. Picture, if you will: a dog is shown to be in peril, the human characters hang their hands down acknowledging the likelihood of a dog’s death, but there is sudden uplift when, against all odds, the dog protagonist comes over the hill or rounds the corner and leaps into the arms of his caretakers.) But Anca and Anghel Damian have taken care to ensure that Marona’s death is handled as non-sensationally and abstractly as the rest of the film. Morbid it is not. That is no easy feat for any filmmaker, whether working in a live-action or animated format.

Marona’s Fantastic Tale does assume some life experience and contains presumed moments of cruelty, so I would hesitate to show the film to very young children. But the film should play well to slightly older children and, of course, open-minded adults. Marona’s Fantastic Tale is a film concerned about how time claims all, how dogs and humans might leave behind an example of love that sustains even in our darkest moments. That it does so convincingly through Marona drives this film’s beauty.

My rating: 8.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.