#and only two of them were designed to actually be practical xD

[momomogos]

Momo!

I adore your art style, can you give us a peek into your process?

-Sin xoxo

You know what? We got married~~❤❤

Dear Sin, you asking this question is about the same as proposing to me, and I've been waiting too long for someone to ask me that question!

Oh! Darling!

I burned all my art! Just to explain it to you!

<3

(just kidding xdddd)

(I just wanted to do a little doodle for your sona, it's a mo-bunny honor to be on a piece of paper with a beauty❤)

ok let's gooooo!!!!!

00 Introduction. First of all I must say that I haven't experienced professional art training (this is one of my most inferior and worrying points), and I don't want to say anything misleading, because for me painting is just like a blender …… I don't know what happened or what it looked like in the end, anyway, I just added all kinds of materials and ….. And then that's it? But for the sake of your question, I'll try to analyze how I render …… Hope this helps <3

01 Thoughts I have an interesting idea for a pic design that I have to get off my chest:

1.visualize the character you want to draw as a ball. 2.Put this ball into a scene and put more interesting decorations next to your ball. 3.Add lighting 4.Take a picture Then you get a lovely piece of art!

Use star's @achelstar sona illustration as an example!

Basic (putting the ball in the frame): composition - outlining - applying basic colors

(OH yes, she's my wife too, I love her sona designs, and I know everyone loves a beautiful girl's thighs, so I thought this would be a good example!)

Just like making 3d animation/3d posters/new media interactive art, and just like photography, having all the constituent elements and then thinking about the distribution of the image is like putting together blocks on paper. Just think about the desired 'building block elements' and then place them together!

Continue: add lighting, primary lighting (left side illumination) - secondary lighting (warm light, cold light, enhancement of three-dimensional forms) - enrichment of textures (mapping of clothing/texturing of hair and skin)

Finally: add scene compositing - take a picture!

And then it's over, just like when we all went to the photo studio to take pictures when we were kids. The difference is only that the conceptualization of the camera focal length and perspective angle is placed in the first two steps to conceptualize the scene environment, instead of thinking about how to adjust the white balance and focal length of the camera at the end of the process

02 Small additions Add more step-by-step diagrams here! Using @helpmeimawkwardbutfun Awkward's moon as an example:

In the pre-conceptualization phase, I will simply calculate a perspective angle (it doesn't matter if it's wrong, as long as it looks good! The human brain is not a machine, it can't calculate extremely accurate results, so just follow your own preferences in this regard!)

Tips-1: excel at collage!

Cropping of photos ….. Whatever, think of everything visible to the naked eye as 'building blocks'! Put them together!

Like the crystals around moon …. It's actually all photos, which I did a simple composite of, and Star's background is also a composite of photo material. Of course this is the speculative approach! If you want to practice the basics, practice the square and the sense of volume ….. It's better to start from 0 facing a blank paper!

Tips-2: Rich light effects!

Much like movie light effects, why are they always so fascinating? There's a lot I'd like to share about this, but I'll say a little less here XD It's the same with building up a sense of light in an image, one primary light source plus endless secondary lights ……. If you're not inspired, look at movies and think about their lighting, and by the way, think about what you want the viewer to see most in an image.

Using my attack on Bilo's painting as an example, I added a point light (soft light) to the right front of the character, then gave the character a small side and back back light that shines on the character from a low point up to illuminate Bilo's beautiful blue hair, then added the glowing star (strong light) which has a distance difference from the hand that is covering it, and from my (the camera's) point of view Bilo's hand is the foreground, the star is the mid-ground, the Bilo's body is the back view. All the stars are backlit (strong light) for the hand and positive light for Bilo's body ………

@fatchicken2 You asked me about this last time, but I was dictating and I don't think I explained it well enough, so I'll put a more detailed explanation here<3

03 MO's muttering

Just some process sharing XD I

hope it brings you some inspiration~ Dear Sin, I love your writing and your art! I hope you always feel happy for creating! We can get divorced now if you wantXD My sugar-mama is calling me home, she's taking me out for a walk!

[forgetmenotnympho]

𐔌 . ⋮ hi ty .ᐟ ֹ ₊ ꒱

rodrick x loser!girlfriend

⋆༺Ƹ★ (ꐦ ◣‸◢) ★ Ʒ༻ ⋆

your favorite thing about Mr. And Mrs. Heffley is the fact that they can't wrap their heads around the fact that you're a loser too. Or the fact that rodrick even has a girlfriend to begin with.

They don't get it. Girls can't really be losers- not like their son. You're just so pretty, what do you mean you only have like three friends?

They were shocked when Rodrick's stupid band practiced a song, and you actually started... singing along...? Oh, who's the song by? Weezer or Twently Øne Pilots, probably.

They didn't understand why you kept drawing pink mustaches on the inside of Rodrick's pointer finger so you could match. They didn't get why why you kept bringing up this guy named Vincent or why you said XD whenever Rodrick made you giggle.

you initiated most physical interactions because you were capable of making him feel... embarrassed.

you took delight in seeing him all red and flustered, babbling sheepishly as he showed you his my space profile in your little invader zim shorts that rode up whenever you sat down.

You never complained about his little brother and his friend even though they were soo weird

you sat on Rodrick's lap and carefully drew on his eyeliner, occasionally kissing around his face as you pretended not to notice something pressing against your jean shorts.

you always drew on your knee high converse and took extra care in lasing them up with intricate designs and colorful beads.

You smiled warmly whenever Rodrick's mom complimented your hair- she had no idea how long it took to straighten and style. You dyed the raccoon tail design yourself and loved finding the perfect pins to clip in your hair after styling your side swept bangs.

rodrick x stoner!boyfriend

•°★🎸🎧⋆｡ °⋆

Mr. and Mrs. Heffley had conflicting feelings when it came to you. On one hand, when they heard you were on the soccer team, they figured you'd help Rodrick be more active, but on the other hand... well, you looked like a bigger loser than their son.

They figured Rodrick got whatever he smoked from you, Mrs. Heffley tried to look on the bright side. "At least Rodrick's making other friends!" Mr. Heffley thought the two of you were maybe hiding something.

yeah. You totally were hiding something. You would help Rodrick with small stick n poke tattoos that would litter parts of his body only you'd get to see. On his hip, just bellow the waistband.

While stoned, you helped him pierce his eyebrow and well... there was a decent amount of blood. It didn't get infected, but he definitely got grounded for a while. Lied and said someone else at school gave it to him so you two could still hang out.

You became the absolute master at breaking and entering- or just sneaking in through Rodrick's bedroom window.

Your clothes got lost in each others closets, you had no idea what belonged to who anymore, but Rodricks mom always noticed when he wore your clothes.

you had a raccoon tail keychain that you always wore without fail, your converse were more beat than Rodrick's, and you were absolutely killer at electric guitar. Great with your hands.

You painted your nails with better care than Rodrick ever could, and you kissed him every second you could, delighting in his neediness. It was pathetic, and it drew you in.

You let Rodrick bum a smoke off you whenever he asked nicely and are always cautious to not help him smoke too much. You knew where to buy and never let him get that information.

Every once in a while he'd ask for help with his hair- even though he could do it himself and has done it already before- because he insisted the way you did your liberty spikes was just much better than his.

[cheriemariii]

part 5/5 of that fuckass sihjr yuri au look book ⁉️ (4)

(yeah anyways this is oc x canon content, which is practically part of this aus canon,,, just a heads up there,,,)

haruhiko

-office siren!!!!!!!!!!!

-(i was tempted to also describe hatori as office siren back when i made that other post. and perhaps it also counts but its just very different??????? like hatori is supposed to resemble a very normal office worker (which she is...... allegedly), whereas haruhiko looks like she literally owns the company (shes getting there)).

-also kind of inspired by bayonetta yes thanks for noticing :)

-usually very feminine, a little bit in contrast with usagis more androgynous style (like it is mostly a matter of personal style, but in a way its also like an allegory to how haruhiko seems to be confined by her role within the usami family while usagi managed to escape it and make a name of herself, and so haruhiko disproves of usagis “breaking of gender norms” or whatever bc its a reflect of that freedom she just will never seem to get???? or something like that lalalalalala)

-she wears skirts most of the time. *obviously* never anything above the knee ofc bc she! is! a! proper! woman!

-(you know, for someone who really likes drawing mini skirts and long legs and shit,, most of my au characters seem to be allergic to the idea of wearing a mini skirt kshfksjfkdhfksj)

-so she only wears pants when she has to be in construction site (which is not very often bc she is more into the design part of the process). and when she is there shes not like breaking any safety rules,, but she does look a little off.

-always (ALWAYSSSSS) dresses in dark colors, namely black, red and purple. Its sober and appropriate and shit, but also I feel it gives her and miwako this sort of darker mutual aesthetic that I kinda like? its like a couple of vampires except none of them would ever go full goth, one bc daddy fuyuhiko would never allow it and the other bc she cannot dedicate more than 5 minutes to her looks

-loves lace. But not only as in tiny details here and there, I mean full pieces of fabric covered in black lacey flowers (that's kinda what I was trying to convey with the third look but idk if it worked jdhsjdhshs)

-rather subtle but still very obviously expensive jewelry. Just a friendly reminder that she is rich :)

-very dark makeup also (at least compared to others(?)

-short hair bc its easier to style and take care of. i also like to think of it as an allegory to her more neat and composed self (for the sake of societal acceptance), in contrast to miwako very clearly no longer giving a shit about that which also reflects on her messier hair GOSH I LOVE HAIR SYMBOLISM

-very tall but not as tall as her sister (just like in canon). she does not make a big deal out of it bc she is very mature, but it is secretly a bit of a pet peeve for her

- bad enough myopia for the glasses to stay on most of the time. ig she does has the resources to get eye surgery… but i dont want her to =)

miwako

-youd think that since this is an oc were talking about she shouldve be a lot easier to design bc its not like i can go very ooc with a character *i* invented… but you’d be wrong

-she was actually one of the hardest ones to design for some very strange reason xd

-so one of her main things design-wise is that she looks like an engineer (?) because she is one,,

-this is such a funny statement tho bc i literally study in an university thats exclusively degrees focused on exact sciences and engineering… and so far in the two and a half years ive been there i have never seen a single woman, be it a student or a teacher, that looks anything like miwako kfkhsjhsjd like not even the less girly girls dress like that

-on the other hand tho, easily more than half of the male population dresses just like that,,, so ig miwako is more like the butch engineer representation we didnt know we needed? or something?

-and ik that concept is supposed to sound like super hot but unfortunately to all of us miwako is kind of a loser u_u

-aywayyyyyyyys….. wears button-up shirts almost religiously; usually the kind youd find in your dads closet, but significantly smaller. the very few times she is not wearing one of those she is wearing a turtleneck bc god forbids she shows any more skin that that

-thermostat is very fucked up as well so virtually all of the time you will see her with a sweater or a jacket or a cardigan or whatever she found in her closet that morning

-almost exclusively dresses in dark, very muted colors, mostly bc she just hates calling any sort of attention onto herself

-i also remember as i was designing her that she kinda started resembling will graham to me???? it wasnt even intentional but i cant unsee it now kjskjgkajfk

-(what if will graham was a lesbian,,, the lives that would change,,,,, )

-average height, if only sliiiiightly taller than that

-very skinny. obviously not chiaki levels of skinny, but skinny enough to create some sort of complex (she actually kinda resembles misaki in this regard………..)

-long curly hair that she doesnt pay much mind in styling. i already explained that symbolism

-has dark hair just like haruhiko. i know this is like incest to nakamura, but i kinda just really like how she looks with dark hair??????

-the big ass glasses are more than a design choice. they are because she has very very bad sight and zero sense of aesthetics (amazing time to fall for an architect......)

-its also not very obvious by just looking at her from afar, but she is kind of supposed to resemble edgar allan poe??? you know with the droopy eyes, quite pronounced eyebags (that i forgot to draw xd), dark messy hair, that ever-lasting serious and kind of melancholic expression…..

-this does indeed have an explanation. i dont wanna get too much into miwako lore here bc theres too much to be said and maybe i should make a post about that (eventually……), but long story short miwakos frustrated dream is to be an horror writer (remember how haruhiko used to undermine usagi for being a writer?? well this kind of originated as a sort of “karma” for that bc wouldnt it be suuuuper funny if haruhiko winded up dating a writer xdxdxdx) (the horror thing on the other side is like a way for miwako to embrace the ~darkness~ within. by darkness i mostly do mean unresolved childhood trauma. and also homosexuality). and so i chose edgar allan poe bc i feel miwakos writing style would resemble his, and also he has like a very recognizable aesthetic that i thought would be cool to reference through miwako (???)

-(in my mind this whole thing sounds very cool bear with me)

ok that was all like and subscribe for more yaoi man lesbianism thx bye :)

[ell-arts]

Out of curiosity, when/where did you first learn to animate? What inspires you to make your animations?

(I'm partly asking this because the urge to animate hit me like a truck once I really got into PMATGA, lmao. I've only ever made around 3-4 small ones over the span of several months)

Good question! Long answer! :'D

I've been dreaming of being an animator since I was young, because my elder sister studied animation and that's where I learned more about it. She gave me her copy of The Animator's Survival Kit from Richard Williams after she finished studying, and I've kept it with me ever since. Mind you, I never finished it, because distractions happened XD But I've read the first bunch of pages and started getting a fletchling idea of how animation worked. This was when I was around 10-14 years old. My favourite movies were almost exclusively Disney or Dreamworks classics, and my love for them grew as I grew older. I keenly observed their animations and analyzed what it was that them so appealing, long before I actually learned how to animate properly. Through observing what made those animations so appealing and life-like, I've built up references in my mind as a benchmark as to how animation is supposed to look. So when the time came to learn animation properly, I've already had a headstart thanks to observation, which sped up my learning quite a bit.

Now, let me tell you about a man named Aaron Blaise.

To say that Aaron Blaise is an animation legend would be an understatement.

He was the co-director of Brother Bear. He worked on various Disney movies that shaped our childhoods. He animated young Nala from The Lion King, Raja from Aladdin, and he also worked on Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, Pocahontas, and the Rescuers Down Under. He left Disney in 2007, but in 2012 he teamed up with a friend and decided to start CreatureArtTeacher, a website where he shares everything that he's learned, whether that be animation from his time at Disney or just art in general. He brings aboard many other professionals in the same field and beyond, where courses are offered at the most affordable prices. Often, he'll also offer lessons on various art subjects on his YouTube for free, and he livestreams frequently!

It's thanks to these lessons that I've learned more about animation. While I didn't practice often, I did start taking my first steps into doing animation, spurred on by inspiration from Aaron's videos. This was around age 16-18. Unfortunately, I can't track down my first ever animation I've made. But I did make this sometime before turning 20;

Yes, that's a BG shot from pmatga XD

So going into my twenties, I knew enough about animation to make small little snippets such as the one above, but I wasn't yet at the point where I'd consider myself an educated animator. And here's the thing; when I went to university, I studied Visual Communication & Design, which mostly focused on graphic design. In that course, we did do a little bit of animation, but it was nothing I've already known, and it was mostly cut-out animation where you control it like a puppet in After Effects. What I really wanted to do was dive deeper into traditional 2D cell animation, but we had to preferably work in 2D cut-out animation to save time. It was a cool learning experience, but also a bit frustrating because I prefer the traditional frame-by-frame method. Alas, that would take too long, and my uni projects ran on a 2-week basis (a new project every two weeks), so I couldn't push to improve my animation skills in the direction that I wanted to. I still learned quite a bit tho, and got valuable experience with different programs, so I guess the time I got a taste of animation education was around the age of 22.

But then came 2024, age 24, when I got hired as a storyboard artist at my current job. Thanks to the company's help in giving their workers the space to learn new things, I finally tackled animation in earnest. I brought out the good ol' The Animator's Survival Kit and Aaron Blaise's courses and taught myself as much as I could, along with the support and guidance of the studio. Needless to say, sometime afterwards I could make the Rubber Pac animation I did here.

So yeah! It was a combination of things. Both my sister's influence and the influence of animated movies from a young age, Aaron Blaise's courses, university, and real-time work experience are what taught me animation <3

As for what inspires my animations, it mostly comes down to music tbh. I can always conjure a scene in my head along with whatever music is playing. Other than that, it's the desire to give life to something in an intrinsically human way, especially as art. I've always felt closest to God as an artist 💙

Told ya it was a long answer xD But hey, twas a fun answer! >:D

[bleachbleachbleach]

8/12 - 8/18/2024

I wrote a version of Renji 11 what is at this point several years ago (RIP me), and have since just been throwing random stuff/required additions into that Note with no rhyme nor reason, so it took over two hours this week just to sort it all out. But! It is sorted!

Modern-era Renji 11 consists of 3 new scenes and 3 already-existing scenes. I wrote 1.5 of the new scenes. As far as how well I think this Chapter is going, I dunno. As a narrator, Renji’s kind of like, oh hey, here’s a thought I had. And here’s another one! Which feels legit but I’m not sure if it allows the reader to understand which pieces of information are actually important for following the narrative.

You know those reblog memes that like, ask people to identify hallmarks of your writing? The concept is fun, but it wouldn't work in practice because 0.02% of anyone who might see that post would have any familiarity with my writing. SO. I WILL SIMPLY TELL YOU. My hallmarks are that I love an interstice—love having things that should be on the cutting room floor not on the cutting room floor—but am also a firm believer in stories not needing to have every scene the characters experience to exist on the page. This combination means there’s a good chance that actually relevant, defining scenes simply do not exist and only the interstitial nonsense does. I think in certain stories this can be a real thing that works. I think it can also have the effect of nothing hanging together, making any sense, or meaning anything, without certain bits of key information/certain scenes that I simply did not include because they exist in my head and therefore exist everywhere right. I think that’s where this chapter is.

Maybe the remaining 1.5 new scenes will help ameliorate that, but I feel like that’s asking a lot of them. And then, theoretically, you’d think fixing the existing scenes would go more quickly than writing from scratch, but I don’t know that they will. Because the story leading up to this point has changed enough that the characters are in very different headspaces and perceptions of each other than they were when I first wrote those scenes. Well, that’s not true—Kensei and Renji are in a very different place with each other. Renji and Hitsugaya need to have the exact same conversation but, you know… better. And FRANKLY, I do not know whether entirely overhauling Kensei and Renji will be harder or easier than merely line-editing Hitsugaya and Renji. =_=;;

I’d really like to finish Renji 11 by the end of next week, and then take some time to finish out the revisions on Rukias 7 and 10, which are the most related to Renji 11. Then I’d like to go back to do final line edits on Chapters 4, 5, and 8 before heading into the big mess of revision that is Hisagi 9, because those revisions will be most related to Hitsugaya 12.

I’m not anticipating getting much done in September, because I have a major work deadline September 30th, and the rest of autumn will probably be kind of garbage, too, and I probably won't exist. But I would love to finish Part II (so, Chapters 12 and 13) by December. Well, speaking honestly, my original hope was that I would finish Part II by May, but here it is, August, and I am still working on Chapter 11. So: I would LOVE to finish Part II by December.

—

I did a low-res mockup of the fic banner several months ago (okay, this might have been last November). I pulled out some high-res assets to work with on Friday and played around with a new design I thought was fun, but it turns out design-wise the old mockup looks much more polished. Or it would, if I were using higher-quality materials. XD So I’ll probably go back to the old design. The only reason to continue with the new one is that it reflects the clusterfuck spirit of everything that happens in this fic, but I kind of like the way the old banner puts a pretty bow on the clusterfuck lurking beneath the surface. Maybe I’ll solicit opinions once I’ve made a more serious mockup of the first version.

[jazlynriddle-legacy]

Heavy Is The Crown Ch 1:

Summary:

In the wake of Solomon's death, Ominis decides that Sebastian cannot be trusted to make sound judgement and takes measures to ensure that Sebastian will present no danger to himself or others. Sebastian was lucky this time, the new fifth-year and Anne were willing to spare him, but the next time Sebastian crosses a line, Ominis might not be able to save him from death or Azkaban. Ominis has practically lost Anne, he cannot lose Sebastian too, and he will do whatever it takes to protect Sebastian. Even from himself.

Warnings: Sebastian x Ominis! Smut! Dubious consent (that is actually very consensual)! Post-canon! These idiots can't communicate to save their lives, but they'll get there by the end, I only write happy endings.

You can also read on AO3! (chapter specific warnings below)

Notes:

Warnings: Slightly dubious consent, and gay sex, a lot of it. Also, this is going to be pretty dark, so brace yourself.

While writing chapter 17 of It's My Own Design, during Ominis’ mental breakdown, my brain decided to spawn a world where the Keeper (MC) isn't there to reassure Ominis that Sebastian can be tamed, where the MC of that universe doesn't love Sebastian and doesn't serve as both translator and mediator between the two boys.

The result was a lot of porn, and this fic, I suppose.

It's just 4 chapters long and they're already mostly written, just got to add notes to them and finish the last bit of the epilogue, I'll be uploading them once a week, so please look forward to them! ;)

I swear I'm working on the next chapter of It's My Own Design, it's halfway done, another 5k+ words to go- I injured my dominant index finger and it got infected, so writing is a little annoying at the moment lol

The title's my favorite song from Linkin Park, the first verse fits this Ominis so well, and I can hear this Sebastian singing the second verse at Ominis xP

Also, have you heard the Arcane rendition? It is so good omg xD

Edit: Hey, I found a nice quote for this chapter =D

"We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality." ~ Seneca

“Those are my terms.”

“Can't say I understand your choice of plaything, son. But I'm proud that you've come to understand and accept your place.”

“...do we have a deal?”

“How cold you are towards your loving family, tsk tsk.”

“Do we have a deal?”

“Hmph, very well. Welcome home, Ominis.”

The soft tap of footsteps echoed through the cold hallways, clattering across the stone. He hated this place, hated the stench of blood, the emptiness that stretched across the dungeons beneath the Gaunt estate. He could almost hear the mournful wails of the souls that had been stolen in this hell.

He hated it, all of it. Hated that he had to be here, hated that he'd had to put his most precious and treasured prize in this horrid place, but he'd made his choice. Chosen to play the role of the pure-blooded heir, all for him. For him.

Coming to a stop in front of one of the doors in the long hallway, he placed his thumb on the handle and felt a prick as the lock checked his blood, before disengaging.

Speaking gently, he pushed the door open slowly, not wanting to startle his beloved. “Sebastian.”

“O- Ominis...”

Ominis ignored the slight tremble in the brunet's beautiful voice - he must still have startled him - smiling sweetly instead as he greeted. “Good evening, Sebastian. I'm sorry I'm late today, the Minister was being more tedious than usual.”

“That's- Ominis, please, just let me-” The sound of metal rattling against itself reached his ears.

“Shh...” Ominis murmured, taking off his coat and hanging it on the rack, leaving his wand in the pocket as he kicked off his dress shoes and strolled across the plush carpet until he reached the bed. “Not tonight love, I'm tired.”

He reached forward, following the sound of shaky breaths to cup Sebastian's cheek, feeling the soft skin under his fingers, tracing them along the light scattering of stubble and running his thumb across the bags that had gathered under Sebastian's eyes.

“Did you eat today?” Ominis asked worriedly, concerned by how sunken the young man's cheeks had become over the last few years. He really needed to get Sebastian out of this hell hole, of course his parents’ dungeons weren't good for his bright and free-spirited partner.

“Ominis...”

Ah, he still leans into my touch, a soft smile spread across Ominis' lips, relaxing a tad at the reassurance. Still so sweet, trusting, he never changed, no matter what happened. He loved that about Sebastian.

“Ominis... is Anne still a-” The throat under his fingers flexed. “St- still... ali-”

“Have you eaten today?” Ominis interrupted, repeating his question again instead.

There was a long pause.

“I- yes. Or- well, tried, half.”

He frowned. “You need to try harder, if you do better, she might be persuaded to visit.”

A sharp breath under his palm. “Please- Ominis, I just need to speak with her, a letter, a howler, anything! I need to know she's still-”

“Hasn't forgiven you.” He cut in coldly.

And she never will, the dead could not change their minds after all.

The clang of metal told him how painful those words had been and Ominis felt a pinch of guilt, suppressed with practised ease, this was all for Sebastian's own good.

“It's okay, Sebastian.” Ominis murmured softly, taking him into his arms. “Even after everything you've done, I still love you, I'm still here with you. I will never leave you.”

He felt Sebastian cling to his dress shirt, wetness on his shoulder and sobs in his ear, and Ominis smiled, content to hold his precious sweet treasure.

He'd already lost Anne, he couldn't bear to lose Sebastian too. So, he'd done what he had to.

Months after Solomon's death, Sebastian's friend had approached Ominis to share their concerns with him, and as time passed, Ominis too came to understand that Sebastian would cease to be himself, if he stopped trying to save Anne.

That Sebastian would never forgive himself for not doing his utmost to prevent her death. That he would waste away and lose his light, and that they might as well send him to Azkaban for all the difference it would make. Sebastian was withering, and sparing him had not stopped his deterioration, only made him submit to this slow death without protest.

So, Ominis made sure that Sebastian could keep trying his best, but would neither harm others nor himself in his passion. Solomon's murder had made it clear to Ominis that Sebastian could not be trusted to make sound judgement, not while he was driven mad by fear for Anne's life. Ominis knew well how that felt, and he wished to spare Sebastian the need to think if he could.

The Gaunt family had no shortage of means to hold people prisoner, to make them disappear, and Ominis wasn't afraid to exploit that connection... now that he needed to.

It had been sickening, going back to his parents to grovel and plead for a chance to reclaim his position in the family, to become exactly what everyone expected when they looked at him. Just another inbred noble pure-blooded purist, just another corrupt ministry official in their broken government. Just another stooge of highborn aristocracy.

But it was all worth it, for Sebastian. To protect Sebastian from destroying himself, chasing an impossible dream. To protect his heart and grant Sebastian his wish to never experience the grief of losing Anne, to never have to bury her.

Ominis had sworn, as he stood in black amongst Feldcroft's residents early last year, that Anne would never die, she would live on in Sebastian's mind, in Sebastian's world.

Sebastian's selfless heart would never break, he would never know that she now lay beside the man he'd murdered, in the backyard of an empty house. He would go on fighting to save her, never changing, never losing that endless optimism that Ominis so envied.

He would never stop fighting, Sebastian would always be courageous and strong, but also safe and his.

Ominis pressed his nose against Sebastian's nape, trailing his fingers down Sebastian's arms, now slim with disuse, to touch the reddened skin of his wrists, raw and tender from pulling on his chains.

“Darling, I told you not to struggle too much.” Ominis sighed in disappointment, feeling Sebastian shiver against his body.

“I- it was in my sleep. I had a nightmare.”

“You poor thing. What was it about?” Ominis cooed, running his fingers through soft wavy locks, breathing in the soft scent of the bathing oils he'd given Sebastian to use, the same soothing lavender scent Ominis loved and applied on his letters, he smells like mine now.

“I- Anne... I dreamt that she-” Sebastian's voice became choked and he clung tightly to Ominis’ shoulders.

“I see, what an awful dream. I suppose that can't be helped.” Ominis pressed a kiss into his hair and lifted his head from Sebastian's shoulder. “Nobbs.”

The family house elf appeared beside the bed with a pop. “Yes, young master?”

“Fetch a wiggenweld potion.” Ominis instructed and the elf soon returned with the requested vial, before leaving when dismissed. He unstoppered the vial and poured it into his mouth, before setting the vial aside, thinking to himself that he really should stock some in the drawers.

He felt for Sebastian's cheek, held the young man by his jaw and pressed his lips to Sebastian's, feeding him the potion from his mouth and feeling the brunet's throat flex, swallowing against his thumb.

Even after the last drop of potion had slid down his throat, Ominis kept their lips pressed together, chasing the fluid with his tongue, slipping into Sebastian's mouth and coaxing his beloved to dance with him. Mapping out every inch like he hadn't memorised the shape of each tooth by now.

Even after five years, he could still barely believe that he could have this, have Sebastian.

It had not been three months after Ominis tric- convinced Sebastian to visit his family manor with him at the end of their fifth-year. After Ominis had caged his best friend in these dungeons.

The stubborn boy had been demanding that he be freed, shouting that he wasn't content simply searching for a cure in the forbidden books from the Gaunt library. That he needed his wand to attempt what he was reading, that he needed to go to Anne, needed to cure her.

Ominis had refused as always, Sebastian could read and research, and Ominis would acquire any tome he asked for, but he was not allowed his wand, nor would the seals on his cuffs allow him to use wandless magic. All the dark knowledge in the world would be harmless, as long as Sebastian couldn’t use any of it.

Sebastian had sobbed and screamed, fists tight in Ominis’ shirt as he begged Ominis to tell him why he was doing this. And in a moment of weakness, exhausted by the strain of conforming to his family and drained by continuously denying Sebastian, Ominis had spoken honestly.

“Because I love you.” He'd said with tears in his eyes. “And I can't bear to lose you.”

He'd expected Sebastian to push him away, to be disgusted and horrified that his captor was sexually attracted to him. Thought that he'd ruined any chance of reconciliation, that he would become the warden of a silent and repulsed prisoner. Though perhaps that would be less painful than the betrayed and hurt tone, with which Sebastian had been pleading for freedom every time he visited.

At least Sebastian would still be alive.

But instead, Sebastian's grip had loosened in his shirt, and then trembling fingers had touched Ominis' cheek, and Sebastian's voice cracked with trepidation. “You- Do you mean that?”

“...yes.” Ominis admitted, his tears rolling down his face, wet and cold. “I've always loved you. I'm sorry if it disgusts you, bu-”

Soft warm lips, tentative and uncertain were suddenly touching his own, and Ominis’ eyes had gone wide with shock. Is that- is he-

It'd felt like his heart would stop, frozen in disbelief, the world spinning around him, was that what he thought it was? He could feel Sebastian's breath against his cheek, nose pressed against his skin, Sebastian's hand now cradling his jaw gently, tenderly, as though he might break.

The moment felt like it lasted an eternity, before Sebastian broke the kiss, sounding uncharacteristically shy as he spoke. “I- I've also... always had feelings for you, I just never thought- and after what I'd done... I thought that you wouldn't... couldn’t possibly...”

Sebastian trailed off hesitantly and Ominis had surged forward, unable to restrain himself, now that he knew Sebastian returned his feelings. Years of loving the kindhearted boy, watching his best friend's bright soul become consumed by fear, anxiety, anger, and worst of all, his dangerous fascination with dark magic.

Wanting - longing - to hold him, to soothe him, to keep Sebastian safe from everything that had happened to him. Ominis had felt such joy, he'd finally done the right thing, thank Merlin. Imprisoning Sebastian hadn't been another dreadful mistake.

Ominis had pressed their lips together, hungry to taste more, to feel more, he'd pushed Sebastian onto the modest single bed that he'd placed in here for his childhood friend. Climbed onto the mattress, thinking that he would have to buy a larger bed, scrimp and save to make this prison more comfortable.

The ecstasy he'd felt was unimaginable, when Sebastian spread his legs for him. He'd grounded his hips against the hardness in Sebastian's pants, moaned at the sensation, filled with wonder that it was for him. That Sebastian was pawing at his chest and gasping against his mouth, soft keening sounds of pleasure and need escaping that delicious throat, and he'd nibbled at it, wanting to leave his mark.

Sebastian was his now, in every way.

He'd been clumsy and uncertain, Sebastian equally so, as they pulled at each other's clothing, eagerness making up for inexperience as he braced a hand against the headboard and palmed Sebastian's length, paying attention to the other boy's reactions as he tried to bring him pleasure.

How he'd come to love the way Sebastian gasped his name, when he thumbed at the sensitive crown of his erection and suckled on Sebastian's adorably pert nipples. The wonderful texture of Sebastian's skin under his tongue, between his teeth, the heat of his body, the way his best friend's length fit perfectly in his palm, an even better fit than his own.

He'd felt almost intoxicated by the sensation of their bare thighs pressed together, kissing his way up Sebastian's neck to find his panting mouth and steal his breath. He could almost forget the rattling of chains as Sebastian threaded his fingers into Ominis’ hair.

He'd never wanted to see so badly, than when Sebastian had come into his hand, the hot splatter of liquid against his arm, a last garbled moan of his name falling from his lips like a prayer. Even more so when Sebastian had then tentatively traced his fingers along the neglected tent in his pants and coaxed him onto his back, before mouthing at his hardness through the cloth.

Ominis could only bemoan his blindness and curse his incestuous ancestry as Sebastian tugged his erection free and curiously lapped at it, driving him mad with the thought that the soft wet heat laving over his sensitive crown was Sebastian's tongue.

When those soft lips parted, he couldn’t help but moan at the heat and wetness around him, sloppy wet sounds filling the room as Sebastian struggled to take his length in further, until he hit the back of his throat. It felt amazing, especially when Sebastian gagged on his erection, those hot and tight walls closing around him as the ambitious boy pushed himself past his limits.

He'd wanted to press in further, it felt so good, wanted to feel Sebastian's throat bulge with his hardness, but he didn't want to hurt his beloved, he should let Sebastian slowly become accustomed to taking his cock.

Already brought to the brink by the thought alone, he'd only gotten to enjoy the wet heat of Sebastian's mouth for a few moments, before he reached his peak, unable to resist gripping Sebastian's hair tightly as he came, holding the brunet in place and forcing his seed down his throat.

The sound of Sebastian swallowing was the most wonderful thing he'd ever heard, and Ominis knew that, now that he'd heard it. Now that he'd experienced this euphoria, he would need it again and again for the rest of his life. He would not be able to survive without Sebastian's body, without his warmth.

So, when Sebastian laid against his chest - the two of them basking in the afterglow, grappling with the change in their relationship - pleading once more. “Ominis, please, let me go. I'm already yours, I promise, you won't lose me.”

Ominis smiled faintly, pressed a kiss to Sebastian's hair and answered. “When I'm certain you won't endanger yourself or others, I will speak with Anne, try and convince her to hear you out. But until then, you must stay here, I can't trust that you won't do something foolish when I'm not able to mind you.”

He'd kept the truth silent in his heart, that now that he had Sebastian's love, he was more certain than ever that he would never let Sebastian go. Ominis would keep him here, safe, protected, his.

If only it were that easy.

This was Sebastian and, naturally, he couldn't simply wait obediently at home. Ominis had had many heart attacks over the last five years, whenever Sebastian attempted to escape his home.

He'd seemed wary, maybe even scared, of retaliation or punishment, each time Ominis or the house elves or even the family snakes, caught him and dragged him back to his room, but it never came. For Ominis loved Sebastian so much that - even while his attempts to escape were frustrating and upsetting - Ominis also found them quite charming and sweet.

Still fighting desperately to go save his sister, there was the wonderful selfless and persistent boy Ominis had fallen for as a child, long before he'd even known what love was.

Their friend had asked about Sebastian several times over the years and Ominis had passed along many letters to them for Sebastian. After having the elves double check that the letters contained no hint of Sebastian's situation, of course.

While Ominis was grateful to them for helping him protect Sebastian all those years ago, he didn't trust that their mysterious friend wouldn't attempt to free Sebastian, and Ominis hadn't quite forgiven them for getting between him and Sebastian back in fifth-year.

He wondered sometimes however, what they would think if they knew what had become of Sebastian, if they were to see him now. To see how pliant the cocky boy had become.

Ominis nibbled lightly at Sebastian's lips as he drew back, delighting in the shiver that rippled through Sebastian as he continued nipping along the young man's jaw. Trailing lower and tugging on the wavy curls at the back of his head, to tilt it back and expose more of that delicious skin.

A soft moan slipped through Sebastian's lips as Ominis mouthed at his Adam's apple, sliding his other hand down, to cup the half-hard length in his drawers.

“I- I thought you were tired-” Sebastian gasped as Ominis stroked him through the cloth, his words turning into a whimper of need when the hand left him.

“I'm never too tired for you.” Ominis chuckled, encouraging Sebastian to lie down on the bed while he began to unbutton his undershirt.

“How do you want me?” Sebastian murmured, the sound of cloth rustling as he shucked them hastily.

“I think I'd like you to bend over for me, how's that sound?” Ominis asked with a gentle smile.

“Sure.” Sebastian answered quickly, the word coming out breathless with arousal and Ominis chuckled fondly again, as he set aside his pants as well.

Trailing his fingers lightly along Sebastian's back, he delighted in the shivers and shudders it incited, as Sebastian arched into his touch, till his fingers came to the crack of his bum, and Ominis found it absolutely precious when Sebastian pressed back against the fingers swirling around his rim.

“Ominis...” Sebastian groaned when Ominis replaced his fingers with his erection, laying it over the crack and continuing to tease, letting his heavy length rub back and forth between Sebastian's cheeks, sticky pre-cum oozing from his tip at the sensation. “Please...”

Shuddering at the need in his voice, Ominis took pity on him and gathered the fluid at his tip on a finger, beginning to spread the slick around Sebastian's entrance. Who would have thought that the stubborn and proud boy would be such a needy lover? The few times when Ominis worried that Sebastian might feel coerced into making love with him were easily dismissed by how slutty the brunet was in bed.

In fact, the first time they'd tried penetrative sex, Ominis had - to Sebastian's surprise - offered to bottom.

“Are you sure?” Sebastian had asked, clearly trying not to sound too eager, his freckled cheeks warm under Ominis’ palm.

“Yes.” He'd replied, afraid of hurting Sebastian because he didn't know what being penetrated felt like.

So, he'd laid down on his back and spread his legs, and it hadn't taken any further convincing for Sebastian to follow, kneeling between his thighs, and Ominis had offered him a vial of oil he'd readied beforehand. They would have to do this manually, for he would not risk bringing his wand within Sebastian's reach.

Though Sebastian had later used the remaining lubricant to escape his confinement, at least he hadn't scrimped on the preparation, so Ominis had forgiven him for the slight.

“Tell me if it feels uncomfortable, alright?” Sebastian had murmured as he pushed a slick finger into Ominis and he'd nodded, trying to keep his body relaxed as Sebastian slowly worked him open.

It felt strange at first, but the warmth of Sebastian's searching fingers and the knowledge that it was Sebastian touching his insides, was enough to keep his excitement alive. That, and the way Sebastian had peppered kisses along his chest, murmuring praise as he worshiped Ominis’ body.

Ominis had never thought himself anything particularly special, physically, never had anything to compare to, but with the way Sebastian spoke... Well, Ominis was left wondering if Sebastian was insane or if he was actually the most beautiful person on Earth.

When Sebastian replaced his fingers with his erection, Ominis had gasped as the tip slipped into his body, feeling the painful stretch of his rim around the new intrusion.

The brunet had groaned as he inched forward slowly, length sinking deeper into Ominis body, Sebastian choking out in a strained voice. “Ominis- haa, you feel so good... never- never thought you would let me-”

Ominis’ heart felt like it would burst from his chest as Sebastian mumbled incoherently over him, delighted to be affecting Sebastian so deeply. Yes, become addicted to me, as I am to you.

The harsh panting - interspersed with moans - that fell from Sebastian's lips when their hips were finally pressed together were well worth the discomfort, and the idea of having Sebastian's seed in him made Ominis burn with desire. He wanted everything Sebastian had, everything that he was.

He'd pulled Sebastian close and whispered a simple. “If you're mine, make me yours too?”

He'd felt Sebastian's length twitch within him and with a heated groan, Sebastian's hips had snapped forward, bucking into him so abruptly that it'd forced a moan from Ominis, an unexpected burst of pleasure shooting through his veins when Sebastian bottomed out, that hard length inside his body pressing against something amazing, deep within him.

Of course, Sebastian would feel amazing, they were made for each other. They were two halves and, only when they were joined like this, were they whole. Ominis had dug his nails into Sebastian's back, groaning as his beloved rocked in and out of him with building desperation.

His toes curled with every thrust, feeling the strength and ardour that Sebastian was pouring into his body, it was indescribable. The dirty sound of their thighs meeting and heated breaths against his collar, the firm grip on his hips, as though he were actually just something that belonged to Sebastian, a means of chasing his pleasure.

Was this what Sebastian would feel?

The thought melted his mind and without a single touch to his bouncing length, Ominis came, the sticky heat of his seed spurting between their bodies as his mind went white with euphoria.

“Fuck, Ominis, so beautiful-” Sebastian babbled feverishly, and Ominis felt his cheeks flush at the praise. He had no idea what his expression looked like, but it was apparently enough to make Sebastian come, heat filling his insides and Ominis clenched around him at the sensation, he wanted every drop.

Sebastian gasped for breath as he ground his hips against Ominis for a few more moments, before slumping, bracing his weight on his arms, and Ominis could feel droplets of perspiration tapping on his chest.

Sebastian had slowly extracted himself and laid on the bed beside him, and Ominis had been quite displeased when he felt Sebastian's seed trickling out of him. He'd wanted it to stay, to become a part of him, and Ominis had resolved to find a way to do that. He'd known, after all, that he would be far more upset if his own seed didn't become a part of Sebastian when he took his turn.

Ominis smiled at the memory, as he pressed a kiss to Sebastian's shoulder, continuing to trace his fingers around Sebastian's entrance, around the butt plug that was still in him, spreading his pre-cum around the rim. Before gently tugging the plug free, a heated moan came from Sebastian as it slipped out of him.

“...I feel so empty.” Sebastian mumbled, and Ominis could hear the smile in his words.

“You greedy little thing.” Ominis chided with a fond chuckle, shaking his head helplessly. “You needn't worry, you won't be for long.”

Sebastian shivered and released a breathy moan as Ominis slipped his finger into his loose opening, pleased to find it still slightly slick from their last round in the morning, before leaving the bed for a moment to fetch a clean plate for the plug and collect lubricant from a drawer.

Returning to kneel between Sebastian's legs again, Ominis took a moment to blow lightly on Sebastian's cute pucker, making him jolt in surprise and complain with a whine. “...Ominis...”

“Yes?” He asked with amusement as he slicked himself up with the oil.

“Ugh, quit teasing and start fucking my brains out.” Sebastian grumbled, dropping his forehead onto the bed with a frustrated groan.

Chuckling again, Ominis positioned himself and leaned forward, draping himself over Sebastian's back and murmuring. “As you wish.”

He snapped his hips forward, and Sebastian moaned loudly when Ominis drove into him in a smooth motion, entire body shuddering from pleasure as the force of the thrust pressed Sebastian into the sheets, the tip of his length grinding against the brunet's prostate and making his toes curl.

Ominis sighed contentedly, it felt like coming home, back where he belonged, one with Sebastian, hot and tight, wrapped around him like a glove, a perfect fit. It had been impossible to find a plug that was comparable to his girth when fully erect, but Sebastian had never complained about the slight pain he must feel, so Ominis hadn't bothered to customise one.

Leaning forward, Ominis placed light kisses on Sebastian's back, lapping at the beads of sweat that had begun to gather on his skin. He loved Sebastian so much, everything about him was perfect, the way his chest heaved for breath and shuddered around Ominis’ length, a feast for his senses every time.

“Move, move, please-” Sebastian mumbled, fists clenching in the sheets, his pleas muffled against the cloth as Ominis started thrusting, slowly at first, to the delightful sound of Sebastian begging between gasps. “Moremoremore-”

Insatiable, Ominis thought to himself fondly, placing his hand over Sebastian's and entwining their fingers as he set a brutal pace, pounding into him. His soul singing with joy as he gave Sebastian what he wanted, wondering what Sebastian's face looked like, wishing he could see the brunet's expression as he fucked him so hard that Sebastian's mumbles sounded almost delirious.

The sound of their bodies meeting echoed through the room, mingling with Sebastian's moans, and Ominis groaned, his eyes slipping close, every thrust bringing him closer to the brink. It was so good, dragging his swollen cock along Sebastian's insides, he could do this forever and it wouldn't be enough, he wanted to paint his seed in every corner of Sebastian's body.

“Call for me, love?” Ominis murmured into Sebastian's ear, nipping lightly at its shell.

“Haa... O- Ominis...” Sebastian gasped, struggling to gather enough oxygen to speak between every thrust against his prostate, whimpering as he was driven into the sheets, desperately digging his toes into the bed as it bounced beneath him. “...Ominis- Omi-”

With a high moan, and the sound of the sheets tearing in Sebastian's grip, he came, sticky fluid dribbling onto the cloth from his hanging length as it began to soften.

“Tsk tsk.” Ominis sighed fondly, enjoying the way Sebastian rippled and spasmed around him. “You know these sheets aren't cheap.”

“S- sor- ahn-” Sebastian panted against the sheets, choking on the words as Ominis continued to thrust into him, writhing in blissful agony as his oversensitive prostate continued to be battered, his knees giving out under him.

“What a selfish little thing, coming without me.” Ominis shook his head as he removed himself momentarily, to roll Sebastian onto his back.

“Sor- sorry-” Sebastian muttered, sounding completely out of it.

Ominis chuckled, wondering if Sebastian even really knew what he was apologising for, as he hooked Sebastian's legs over his shoulders and sank back into Sebastian's body, making the brunet jolt and whine.

“Hnnng- Omi- too mu-” Sebastian choked as Ominis began thrusting again.

“Just a little more, darling.” Ominis cooed, tracing his fingers teasingly over Sebastian's soft length, delighted when Sebastian tore at the sheets further with another whine, his back arching and insides clamping down on him as Ominis sought his peak with more urgency.

Pushing once more into that velvety hot heaven, Ominis felt the dam burst, groaning, as he poured his seed into Sebastian and continued to fuck him with slow lazy thrusts, pushing his cum deeper into Sebastian's body as Ominis worked every last drop into him.

Sebastian panted heavily, shuddering while Ominis wandlessly Accio-ed the butt plug from its plate on the bedside table. Continuing to hold Sebastian's legs up on his shoulders, as he inched out slowly to avoid spilling any of his seed, and slipped the plug back in in his place.

Now safely stoppered up, Ominis lowered Sebastian's legs to the bed and tiredly laid himself down beside the brunet with a contented sigh, happy when Sebastian immediately latched on to him for a cuddle. He was so precious, especially after sex.

The two simply laid together for several minutes on the torn sheets, sticky but sated and comfortable, catching their breaths, before Sebastian asked tentatively. “Ominis...”

“Yes, Sebastian?”

“...why haven't you changed the lock?”

“You mean after you used my seed to escape?” Ominis asked dryly.

“...yeah...”

“Because I'd rather risk you getting out, than someone getting in while I'm away.” The unspoken reminder that Sebastian was quite helpless, chained and without magic as he was, lay heavy in the air between them.

“Someone?”

“...you needn't trouble yourself, that's my responsibility.” Ominis answered simply, pressing a kiss to Sebastian's forehead.

Yes, it was his responsibility, his duty to keep his greatest treasure safe. From more than just Sebastian himself, for Ominis wasn't the only one living in this manor, or using these dungeons.

His older brother had been asking to see Sebastian since Ominis came home, saying that he was curious what pretty toy would matter so much to his rebellious little brother, that he would finally become so subservient to their parents. Well, hell would sooner freeze over than for Ominis to let his sick and slimy brother anywhere near his Sebastian.

Ominis just needed a bit more time to build his own wealth and power, and he could only hope that their parents would live till he could move out with Sebastian. Take him far out of anyone else's reach, far away from this dark place. Before Marvolo became the head of the Gaunt family.

Only then would Sebastian truly be safe.

Notes:

Did ya'll catch all the lines I worked in from the game? I love doing that, and don't worry, the dubious-consent is gonna be flipped to completely consensual next chapter, which is written from Sebastian's perspective xD

Though, that doesn't change the fact that both boys are mildly unreliable narrators and Ominis is doing some big irl yikes here. Don't worry, they get a happy ending. I love happy endings.

Though I do want to talk about that a bit, my reasons for thinking that this is a possibility to begin with, and why what Ominis is doing is still ultimately wrong. Even if we can understand why he's doing it.

We see from the questline that Ominis deals with fear and anxiety by distracting himself, by pushing responsibility to other people, by giving the job of Thinking to others, and trying to maintain the status quo.

Allowing MC to manipulate him, even saying “I see what you did there” outside the Scriptorium, and letting MC cast the Imperius curse on him. Which, bro, if you give me permission to force you, you might as well step aside yourself. It's the same.

He gives the best friend duty of supervising, and supporting Sebastian, to a stranger who has known Sebastian for less than a year. He says he might be ready to sacrifice his friendship with Sebastian but shows that he isn't. Even at the end, he can't bear to take responsibility for choosing Sebastian's fate, giving that to MC.

He's also manipulative, we see that from how his first response to pretty much every problem is coercion. Threatening to use his family connections outside the Undercroft, his first response to Anne getting Solomon, being to go and manipulate the headmaster into not believing Solomon. Not to mention trying to guilt trip Sebastian a bunch through the story.

Understandable, of course, considering his shit family and upbringing, but it's an undeniable reality. (And yes, Ominis' negative traits got worse because Sebastian got severely depressed after the end of the questline.)

Despite all this, of course, Ominis needs Sebastian, even though his instinct after his parents’ abuse is to run from fear, to close his eyes and cover his ears, to avoid having to choose because choice comes with regret, he loves Sebastian enough to follow him to the catacombs, to try and save Sebastian from the dark magic he sees as evil because his abusive family uses it.

In contrast, Sebastian copes with fear by action, by trying to take his fate into his own hands and charging head first into the face of danger like a berserker. Recklessly. Kind of like Korra in the first season, prematurely confronting Amon because of her fear and anxiety.

Both coping mechanisms are bad for different reasons. But they're also very distinctly different, and actively conflict with each other. Which is why they're fun to write.

Though I do think Sebastian's cope method is still better despite its self-destructive element, because if you point that effort in the right direction with proper guidance, it actually gets things done, more than sticking one's head in the sand and maintaining the status quo, you know?

For readers of my main ongoing HL fic series, you'll recognise the next bit but bear with me xD

In my humble opinion, the one commonality between every single type of love, platonic, romantic, familial, friendship and camaraderie and everything in-between, is “I don't want this person to suffer.” Now, the one stumbling block that a lot of people trip over is that the “suffer” should not be your own definition of “suffering”, it should be their definition of “suffering”.

The problems arise when you try to protect someone from what you personally think is the “worst suffering”, and put them through their “worst suffering” in the process. That's what Ominis is doing, and what Solomon did with Sebastian too, and we all know how that turned out.

(Don't worry, this won't go the Solomon way because, unlike that immature egotistical asshole, Ominis actually loves Sebastian and puts him first.)

So, anyway, my point is that if you love someone, find out what their “worst suffering” is, and try to remember to protect them from their “worst suffering” and not your own, when you naturally, as a result of love, try to protect them from suffering.

If you don't, well, then you're not protecting them at all. You're hurting them.

And I hope it goes without saying that you shouldn't lock up your partner like Ominis did. Ominis was raised by abusive criminal racists in the 1890s in a war-torn country where slavery is legal. We don't have the same excuses. Unless you do, in which case, I am deeply sorry for you and hope this gives you a different perspective to consider.

All that aside, I hope you enjoyed the porn and feels, brace for more, Ominis is gonna need one hell of a wake up face-full of cold water to get out of his current mentality.

[system-of-a-feather]

Hi, as my designated bird professional i have a bird related question, in particular if you know any tips or tactics on how to approach people in public to get them to stop feeding ducks and other birds?

bc i was in a park yesterday with some friends and a stranger sat down next to us and started throwing bread (and fries??!) at the birds; which is not only prohibited but we could directly see why, bc they then started swarming us too and one of the bigger seagulls got so greedy that it bit a smaller one in the neck and wouldnt let go for a while(?!?) it was kind of scary situation and i was very uncomfortable and wanted to say something but i... didnt ;_; we just got up and left and i still feel bad about it so i wanted to ask if you maybe had some... tips and tricks so i can prepare in case something like that happens again :D

As the resident hand-thrower over some of this stuff, yep I do XD Im just gonna ramble on about this topic some and give some tid bits about why you don't do that stuff usually.

I will admit, the amount I stress it personally varies depending on what food they are feeding, how much they are feeding, and what species they are feeding. In all cases it is technically (and for valid reason) illegal cause the idea is that it can 1) create dependence on humans 2) cause them to become too comfortable with humans which can result in them "attacking" or being perceived as attacking humans which can end up with humans calling to have them killed 3) if not eaten, the food (particularly bread) can rot in the environment and make it unhealthy for them to live in 4) for migratory species it can encourage them to skip migration which can potentially fuck up population dynamics

So as a disclaimer, I tend to "care less" if the birds fed are birds that don't tend to migrate as much / the damage is done (mallards, canada geese, any released domestic ducks and geese, any non-native ducks and geese that were likely also released from farms) as it doesn't really harm them anymore than they already are so long as the feed stuff is actually good for them. By "care less" I mostly mean "don't feel that bad about not saying something."

That said, I do actually support feeding waterfowl In Minecraft that are KNOWN to have been released from domestic settings occasionally - especially if theyve been recently dropped off - as a means of kinda helping them wean off of human care and into natural foraging. But again, only if you KNOW they were released into parks and only if you can reliably feed ONLY them. (usually my go to for this is if they are non-native domestic ducks and they - without hesitation - eat from your hands, its probably safe to say they were raised on a farm or in a domestic setting; this is pretty helpful for not feeding waterfowl that weren't released like this too because even the imprinted ones will be hesitant to eat directly from the hand imo)

If any food is given to any waterfowl species, bread and processed high carb foods are horrible for them and can directly cause horrific long term disabilities if they are fed too much bread. The two largest conditions they tend to develop are these things called "Angel Wings" which - due to poor nutrition - the feathers around the wings grow back in incorrectly and make their wings practically useless; I'm sure I don't need to explain why thats horrible for a bird. Additionally, when given too much bread, you tend to get these obese and misshapen waterfowl that become so heavy in the rump that they are also completely unable to fly (you can see in the right image how much the rump sags).

Both of these can be relatively difficult to rehabilitate and medically treat and thus a lot of these birds are either put down or - if they are lucky - sent to a sanctuary.

Admittedly, a large portion of people feeding bread and other unhealthy foods often know that its illegal and that they shouldn't and do so anyways, so I will say most of the time you confront them, they will get awkward and leave for a bit but theyll likely come back again if you just tell them no.

Usually my go to is to kind of try to find a way to kindly bring it up and the negative affects (usually talking about angel wings is and showing it to them and explaining the long term affects of angel wings is one of the more visceral things that kinda make some of the better people go "oh maybe I shouldnt do this" as the other points tend to be a lot more of a concept than a real thing to them) and deeply suggest that if they care for the waterfowl to Not Feed them Bread

And a lot of them still want the attention and experience of feeding the ducks, which is something you can't really convince people against doing if Angel Wings doesn't deter them, so when I realize its probably that case, I usually just go "if you HAVE to feed them, please feed them something more nutritious for them like peas, cut leafy greens, grapes, oats, and cracked corn.

Most of the time, I have to settle with damage control because people are stubborn.

That said I still do tend to try

As for why french fries are unhealthy and bad to feed...

[solalunar-eclipse]

I am thinking incredibly hard about ancient secrets! Shadow and him pretending to be an organic person who breathes and is harmed by fire and can’t contort his body in ways that would absolutely be painful for anyone else. I haven’t read pt 3 of shrodinger’s hedgehog in a while before writing this so please forgive me if I mention stuff that’s noncanon lmao- I remember that he was raised like a normal person so maybe all the stuff I’m gonna mention is habit by now. I dunno.

He’s gotta run actlikeanormalperson.Exe like constantly. Except when he’s alone in the woods. Mental checklist.

- when’s the last time I blinked?

- am I breathing?

- how long have I just been standing here unmoving for?

- am I touching something commonly considered harmful?

- what are normal human joint limits like again

- have I been seen ‘eating’ recently or am i gonna have to worry about people thinking I have an eating disorder

First of all, I just wanted to briefly say how utterly delighted I am that even one person has Ancient Secrets on the brain at all. I’m so happy you’re enjoying it!!

As for Shadow, he absolutely does have to pretend about a lot of that stuff…which is an extremely helpful but unintentional (on his part) bonus of living alone in the woods in a cave! (Also, you haven’t mentioned anything non-canon at all—actually, I didn’t want to infodump too much about Shadow’s schematics in the fic because I was worried it would bore some people, but I’m totally going to take the chance to do it now :] )

By the way, I love the title “actlikeanormalperson.exe”, it’s just perfect both for Boom and Shadow XD I’ve actually only previously considered two out of these six, the others I hadn’t thought of (I was focusing more on “how can I make his body mimic an organic one as closely as possible” than what the differences were, so hopefully my answers will be good enough!)

-I didn’t even think about him blinking, but you’re so right! He does do it in the show, and it looks very natural, so I’m torn 50/50 between “he has an actual program for that” and “when he was little he saw Luna blinking and then practiced it in the mirror for days”, haha.

-as for breathing, that actually is something he does naturally, but not for the reasons organic creatures do! He circulates air to keep his electronics from overheating, because while the Ancients were very technologically advanced, they weren’t perfect (see Sonic’s mech for an excellent example). Luna wanted him to be able to live a life as close to organic as possible, so she tried to find reasons to give him various “living” behaviors. This does mean that she gave him coding for things like hyperventilating when having a panic attack too, though, even if she hoped he’d never have to use it.

-oh he would ABSOLUTELY forget to move sometimes. I feel like he probably learned to do this one while he was fighting Lyric in the defense forces, because people would give him weird looks when he just sat there not doing anything and going over battle plans in his head. Once again, I totally didn’t consider this, but honestly it’s such a good idea!!

-“touching something commonly considered harmful” is a tough one, because he’s had enough self-sacrificial moments that have impacted him to the point where he actively puts himself between harmful things like fire or poison and organic people. If asked about it he’d probably just brush it off and say something like “well, that seems like a you problem” prior to his friendship arc. The thing is, he acts like many people’s interpretations of game!Shadow where he does things that make his Ultimate status obvious but then treats them as things he’s obligated to do.

-luckily for him, he doesn’t have to think of joint limits very often, since most of his interactions with other people have involved fighting (which isn’t designed for people who can rotate their arms and legs 360 degrees, haha). It’s not really something he does much because he hasn’t seen organic people model that kind of behavior—although he did do it a couple of times when he was young and startled Luna, so he has a bit of a “hey maybe I shouldn’t reach over and backwards to pick something up from the counter behind me” reminder in the back of his head XD

-and as for food, eating it actually does give him energy! It isn’t needed to power his body, per se, since the crystal inside him can run indefinitely so long as it isn’t damaged, but he can absorb the Chaos energy from it and it’ll give him a little boost. He can work just fine without food, but he works even better with it. Of course, he doesn’t care what other people think (or he didn’t, rather), and he couldn’t be bothered with food, so he’s eaten very infrequently prior to spending time with his friends. Now, though, he usually gets an average of about one meal every 1-2 days, but his friends don’t know that he eats so little. If they did, they’d probably be trying to get him to eat more often.

[thunderxleafart]

Uh Oh! Something Has Gone Wrong!  Given that there was recently an Eclipse, why not post some art of a certain someone of the same name? x'D Seems fitting! Honestly given my Sun/Moon brainrot it was only a matter of time before I drew this dude too. And I won't lie, I actually had a lot of fun with it! xD I'm especially proud of the pants, they give me the vibe of like shooting stars. And I think that's pretty nifty. :D

Now it's headcanon time, here we go! xD "Eclipse", in my interpretation, is actually the result of a malfunction. The Daycare Attendant was designed with two modes; Daytime (Sun), and Nighttime (Moon), which could easily be switched between once a certain light (or lack there of) threshold was met. 

The problem began when Strobe Lights were introduced. Their body was bombarded with switch commands to the point where it just... well, it broke.And they ended up stuck somewhere in-between Day and Night mode.

So in a way Eclipse is both Sun and Moon, and also neither of them. Becoming a strange amalgamation of the two AIs. Eclipse only existed for a little while before their system completely crashed, due to not being equipped to handle both AIs being active at the same time. And ever since then, a type of "Grace Period" was implemented, therefore preventing Eclipse from happening again. But, if somehow someway Eclipse was brought out again and stabilized, I imagine they would have a very disoriented and confused demeanor. The two AIs would be conflicting with one another, causing Eclipse to be unstable. I don't see them being malicious or evil in any way, but they could definitely be a little... off-putting. :'D But who knows? Sun and Moon don't hate each other, and maybe with some time and practice, Eclipse could become somewhat stable and actually develop a personality all their own. ^^ Though for the time being, Eclipse is just regarded as a slight technical glitch. :'D Overall, I think there's a lot of potential with Eclipse! :D So there's a good chance I'll be drawing them again in the future, alongside Sun and Moon of course. But the general gist for their design is a fusion of Sun and Moon's designs, and a few extra little quirks due to being, y'know, a malfunction. x'D Honestly, I really like it! So I hope you guys do too! <3 Feeling a bit under the weather atm so I'm gonna try to take it easy, but I should be back with more art next week! ;3 So stay tuned! <3 And as always, thanks for looking everybody!~ ^w^ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please do NOT repost or use my art! Eclipse (c) Steel Wool/Scott Cawthon [Five Nights at Freddy's Franchise] Art (c) Me <3

[marquisegallery]

SO HEY, DISCLAIMER! This is all very old art from like 2019!! The reason I’m reposting these is because, if you’ve seen my last post, I’m in the process of moving from DeviantArt to InkBlot. And I realized a few of my older drawings were only posted to here as thumbnails... why did I ever thinks that was a good idea. :u

Anyways, now posting the full art for at least some of those thumbnail pics, mainly to keep as a backup here on Tumblr. These are old and wonky enough that I don’t really feel like keeping them on InkBlot too. But I still want to keep them for reference for my Maddy and Match fan kids of course. So yeah! :P

And bonus drawing of figuring out alternate outfits for Maddy, and a silly pic with TorchMan and ColorMan, because why not, I got room here.

Also including the descriptions from their original DeviantArt uploads under the cut here for reference as well.

(Pic 1, the family photo)

Behold as I draw something super self-indulgent and silly! Match and Maddy with children! Admittedly this is the first time in a long while that I've tried to draw children, and I'm not sure if the proportions really look right...? Ah well, at least that's something I can keep in mind to practice. :P A friend mentioned that Maddy's outfit on another pic I did (the alternate outfits one) seemed kinda like a mom outfit, so that's Maddy's designated mom outfit now. And I guess Match's outfit here can be his designated dad outfit! Not sure what it is about button down shirts that exude dadness, but I'll roll with it. Anyways, the kids! From left to right, Akihoshi, Eilionoir, and Cináed (who goes by Kentaro because no one can pronounce his real name xD ). I will be doing pics of them as adults/with their Navis and explaining them a bit more there. For now I hope this kinda gives an idea of each of their personalities! (Also, fun fact, Akihoshi is obviously the youngest, but Eilionoir is the actual oldest of the three. Kentaro just ends up growing up to be much taller than everyone else, ha ha)

(Pic 2, Eilinoir, the oldest child and only daughter)

So continuing from my last pic of a fanmade set of kids for Maddy and Match, a pic of their eldest as an adult! And with her Navi! Basically inheriting HeatMan from her dad (who exists separately from TorchMan due to Reasons that I will hopefully get into with the comics I'm planning to do, I promise ^^; ) Starting with her name, Maddy insisted that Match pick out Scottish names for them because she thought it'd be really cool. With Match not actually being Scottish in my story set up (this will hopefully come up at some point, but basically my headcanon is that his family has at least one Scottish ancestor somewhere down the line due to the red hair and all, but his family is basically Japanese people faking a Scottish accent at this point :P ), he just looked up some names and picked what looked good. On that note, neither Maddy nor Match know how "Eilionoir" is supposed to be pronounced anyways, but since it's a Scottish form of Eleanor, they just pronounce it the same as Eleanor. Ellie herself eventually insists it's pronounced "Ellie-noir" (like the French word for black) to make it sound fancier! :D Anyways, basically, all of Maddy and Match's quirkness/weirdness as afterschool cartoon villains went into Ellie. She's very wild and can also be creepy at times, but overall is still a good person (at the least, she doesn't get tempted to be a villain like most people would have expected). Especially when it comes to her family, you better not mess with them! She loves fire, knives, and masks (and has a collection of the latter two), and works as an intern Net Agent before eventually becoming a chef. Also she gets along great with HeatMan, especially when it comes to burning up losers! ... I am still iffy about how HeatMan's right hand turned out, but then again, with his robotic/unusual shapes, it's hard to tell how some things could look at a certain angle. @_@; I did my best! And at the least I can say I love how Ellie's pose turned out. :D EDIT: I forgot to mention when I first posted this, Ellie's gloves are specifically meant to be what's called "weighted-knuckle glove", which is more or less a combination of gloves and brass knuckles. Extra punching power!! 

(Pic 3, Kentaro, the middle child and oldest son)

And now the middle child! Kentaro, with FlameMan as his Navi! (Who also exists separately from TorchMan and HeatMan in my little story thing, so yeah :P ) His real name is Cináed (pronounced kinda like "Ken-Ahj") and is another case of Maddy making Match find a Scottish name for their kid. In this case, the name ends up so confusing for other people to pronounce, that the kid himself just ends up changing it to Kentaro. Plus he went by Kentaro and Ken as nicknames anyways (based on how his original name was pronounced), so it worked out in the end. Kentaro is much more calm and 'normal' compared to Ellie. He's quiet, though not in a shy sense, just more "Doesn't like talking if he doesn't need/want to". He's also the tallest, taller than his parents, and even compared to someone like Count Zap (who is listed as being around 6'1" in the BN Complete Works book, fun fact  ). Maddy and Match aren't sure how that happened, but they love their son just the same. He eventually becomes a fantasy novelist (his own mom ends up being one of Kentaro's biggest fans. xD ), and had FlameMan modified/reprogrammed to be able to act as his editor and proofreader (with a vast knowledge of grammar rules, cliches to avoid/be aware of, etc). This comes in exchange for some attack power, but FlameMan doesn't mind much, since Kentaro himself isn't much for Netbattling, while FlameMan himself has kinda-sorta 'retired' from battling after going through the Battle Network 3 stuff. That doesn't mean he's not strong and can certainly put up a fight if he has too, he's just not at the same level of fire power (haha) he was back then! ... now onto the drawing itself, man, FlameMan is yet another one of those Navis that you can't quite figure out how the hell he's supposed to look from different angles. His legs and the fire sockets in his body really don't help either!! You can tell I got lazy with said fire sockets, but at the least I think I did well on getting his legs to look right. :u Also still kinda iffy about how Kentaro's hands turned out. Should they be a bit bigger for someone his size? I kept debating on that while drawing this, but I didn't want to end up giving him hands that were too big at the same time. And a bonus, the colors of Kentaro's shirt and pants are based off of the outfit Match wears in BN2! Slightly changed the colors a bit though. Also, his hoodie is based off of one I have myself! Just with different colors and rings on it. :D Edit: Oops, forgot to put in the characters Kentaro picks for his name. Strong/healthy (健, 'ken'), big (太, 'ta'), and son (郎, 'ro'). Kinda straightforward and literal, though that makes it easier for people to remember his name.  xD Also, I think the "ro" character can also be written as "rou", though I am not sure if that makes too big of a difference in pronunciation? 

(Pic 4, Akihoshi, the youngest child and youngest son)

Okay, I have a bunch to explain here (and even then I can't go into too much detail with spoiling a story I wanna draw :P ) but let's get started with Akihoshi himself. The last and youngest of Maddy and Match's kids, Akihoshi! Match insisted that they give this kid a Japanese name this time, compared to the other two. xD Akihoshi's name is spelled with the characters for autumn (秋, 'aki') and star (星, hoshi). He's naturally anxiety prone and in general tends to worry more than most people do. Not because of any terrible event, he just ended up unluckily having anxiety problems (he gets better eventually though, mainly thanks to his parents (after making it clear they aren't mad at him for it and just want to help) and making sure he gets therapy and medication). Once he gets a handle on that, he goes on to be a teacher like his parents! In my little story timeline they're both teachers. :P Also, his Navi is... NovaMan! Who is basically a reprogrammed (kinda) StarMan. Much more cheery and carefree than Akihoshi, and is fairly essential in making sure his operator got through the day during his earlier years (while Akihoshi was learning how to handle his anxiety problems), and generally helps Akihoshi look on the bright side of things! And can also be very scary if anyone dares to give Akihoshi a hard time... So with NovaMan, getting into too much specifics would be spoilers for his origin story chapter. But basically, in my story-set-up-thing, StarMen are generic Navis used for satellite control/maintenance. NovaMan was originally a regular StarMan who got his memory and personality wiped due to Reasons, but eventually gets better thanks to Maddy and Match and their Navis saving him, in a way. Also he's basically ColorMan and TorchMan's son, and refers to them as Pa and Dad respectively. They were kinda weirded out by the idea of being parents at first (especially since, really, it was NovaMan who decided they were his parents :P ) but they got used to it. They're proud dads now! :D For the art itself, ahh, this was so much easier to draw than the other two! You can probably tell by how quickly this is being submitted since Kentaro's pic. Then again, it helps that NovaMan was SO much easier to draw compared to FlameMan and HeatMan. :P Anyways, overall pleased with how this turned out, yay! :>

(Pic 5, Maddy outfits)

This is for the comic idea I'm planning for, but this is admittedly like... something that probably won't appear in the comic for a looong time.  :P But anyways, I'm trying to decide on a new outfit for Maddy, something more casual/civilian? Well, her main outfit is kinda like that already but ehh. So the basics I decided on are: shirt-with-puffy-sleeves, capri pants, and... how would you describe these kinds of shoes? I don't know much shoe terminology, I just wanted to make shoes that look comfortable to wear and walk in. Oh, also the glasses are a constant here. There's some concept art of Maddy where she's wearing glasses, so I imagine she does need glasses to see but otherwise normally wear contacts! Well, I guess that's more of a headcanon, huh? The shirt in the middle is cute, but at the same time I feel like it's almost too-cutesy for Maddy? And admittedly the colors for the capris in the left outfit were based on the colors for her normal pants anyways, so maybe that's too derivative. Or maybe I'm just overthinking things. :P I might just mix and match with different combos of the outfit-pieces here, I don't know. Well, I'm not in too much of a hurry to decide on a main-new outfit for Maddy, since like I said, it'll still be a while before I start the comic anyways. So I've got a while to think about it! At the least I wanted to share this now for a bit of feedback/suggestions (If anyone doesn't mind!) Edit: Also! Her pose here is kinda-sorta based on her pose in her official art! Her left hand still looks... a little wonky, but eh, I tried at least!

(Pic 6, TorchMan and ColorMan dealing with pop-ups)

Fun fact, Rush from the anime is based off of viruses called Moles in the games (in the English version of the games at least, they're actually still called Rush in the originals  :P ). The battle chip you can get from them is called PopUp, which made me think that they probably act like pop-up ads. xD As advanced as the Battle Network world is, they still have viruses to deal with, so they probably have plenty of other computer-related issues too (pop-up ads, spyware, lag, etc).

[ashes-in-a-jar]

And I Owe it All to You

Hello! This is a fic I wrote based on @speakerunfolding 's wonderful Jonmartin scottish cabin comic which I couldn't stop looking at.

I wrote this while watching Dirty Dancing for the first time in many years. Quite an experience xD

Summary: It's a night in for Jon and Martin in the cabin and they decide to pop out the wine.

Rated: T

Word count: 2.2K

Tw: alcohol, drinking and being slightly drunk, minor injuries

Maybe it was the fact that neither of them had gone out much in the past few months. Maybe the Fears prefer their avatars lightweight. Maybe Scottish alcohol tended to be stronger than English alcohol. But the sparkling wine they bought on a whim at the village store shouldn't have had the effect on them that it did.

Having emptied two cups each (Jon was actually drinking out of a mug, since they found only one wine glass, and he conceded the honor of feeling classy to Martin) they have already become giggling messes over some dumb joke regarding one Peter Lukas and a computer that refused to boot.

It wasn't even that funny. But there they were, acting like complete fools leaning against each other on the couch, legs propped up in a completely uncomfortable position on the small living room table (dangerously close to the now nearly empty bottle), holding their cups precariously in one hand and holding hands with the other.

And enjoying every moment of it.

The giggling subsided. They took a moment of comfortable silence to regain their breath and enjoy another sip.

"Can't believe he didn't know he could just u-unplug and replug the whole thing. Even I know that." Jon's speech was ever so slightly slurred, his leftover wine sloshing in his cup.

Martin hummed and then snorted.

"Jon, you barely know how to do that either. I had to teach you how to open new tabs in the same internet window for christ's sake."

"It was a new laptop! All of the buttons were in the wrong p-place." Jon protested weakly, starting to hiccup.

"Sure."

"Prick." Jon nudged him fondly. "You underestimate my vast knowledge of 'modern' things."

Martin snorted again. "Modern, you say?"

"Yes Martin, what do you take me for?"

"An old geezer." Martin tousled his hair gently. Jon leaned into the touch. Then, the words sunk in.

"Hey! Why do you and Georgie keep thinking that? I can know pop culture!"

"Oh yeah? Tell me, what do you know?"

"Uh..." Jon struggled to straighten himself, which resulted in actually sliding further off the couch. "Um...I know S-Star Wars! And uh, Matrix? I think. I've seen it once. Oh! That, that dinosaur movie! And... Titanic?" He finished unconvincingly. 

Martin looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "Really, Jon? You're just naming movies now.  And not even new ones. Did you actually watch any of those?"

Jon avoided his gaze "I... I may have fallen asleep during uh, during some of these?"

Martin gave him a long look. 

"Yes alright, I fell asleep in all of them."

Martin huffed "Thought so". 

Jon gave up trying to salvage his dignity, taking a final long gulp from his mug, a small drop trickling down his chin. Martin swiped it away, absent-mindedly licking his finger, not noticing as Jon hiccuped, his face heating up considerably. 

"I-I did like the Princess Bride though— that was a nice film, if a bit sensational." 

"Hang on. You watched the Princess Bride? And liked it?" Martin asked, incredulous. 

"I'm allowed to like things, Martin. B-besides, Georgie made me watch it. Said it was a- a core staple of cinema history o-or something."

"Oh yeah? Did she make you watch those other movies as well?" Martin asked casually, swirling the liquid in his cup. 

"Unfortunately yes. She would cruelly  shake me awake when I finally managed to get some shut-eye for once in my life. I-it's not my fault the only times I could sleep normally were during those, those damn films! She woke me up for that ridiculous scene with the, uh, the bullets in the Matrix. And that lifting scene in that unseemly dancing movie."

"What lifting scene?" 

"That movie with all of the dancing? Th-the one where he lifts her at the end in the middle of the crowd with that song? At least, uh, at least I think there was a lot of dancing, I wasn't actually, hmmm... Focused at the time." 

"Oh my god Jon, do you mean Dirty Dancing? You fell asleep during Dirty Dancing?" Martin's delighted incredulity was plain on his face. 

Jon scrunched up his nose. "That's the name of the film? Good thing I fell asleep then."

"Jesus Jon. That's incredible, good on Georgie! Heh, at least you woke up for that scene. It's iconic, you know." 

"Yes, yes." Jon waved at him dismissively, reaching unsteadily for the wine bottle. Martin gently took it away from Jon and with a much steadier hand, poured the remaining bit of wine into his mug.

"Thank you Martin," Jon mumbled into the cup. 

Another warm silence fell on them, lulling Jon into a half drunken stupor. He nearly threw his cup in the air when Martin's words startled him back into awareness. 

"I can do that scene you know, that lifting part." He was looking intently at his glass. 

"R-really?" Jon hiccuped. "How?" 

"I… I had a boyfriend who wanted to try it. So we did. Turns out that I'm good at balancing large things that aren't stacks of paper."

Jon hummed. He suddenly imagined very vividly Martin lifting someone else in that way and felt a pang in his chest. What was that?

Another beat of silence. 

"Do. Do you want to try?"

"W-what?" 

"Do you want to do that lifting scene with me? I'm sure I could lift you." Martin suddenly sat up, his tone excited and anticipating. He looked at Jon. 

Jon shifted. "Uh, I-I guess it's fine? Sure."

"Okay! Let's do it then!" Martin got up on his feet, swaying ever so slightly. 

Jon looked up at him surprised. "W-wait, now? Shouldn't we wait? You know, to be less uh, inebriated? Don't you need to see the scene again for a reminder?"

"Mmm. We don't have reception so I can't exactly watch the scene again. But, but I'm pretty sure I can do it now, definitely sure! Come on." He held out his hand expectantly. 

Jon took it, stumbling only a bit as he got up. Martin took out his phone . 

"I might even have the song saved. Let me check."

A moment later he gave a whoop of success and the song began to play, filling the main space of the cabin with its soft, if slightly tinny sound. 

Jon stretched, releasing the tension in his muscles. "All right Martin, where do you want me?" 

"You need a bit of a running start, and then you need to jump high right as you reach my arms, so stand over there." He indicated towards the door of the bedroom. 

"Right." Jon stumbled only once as he made his way towards the designated spot. Martin moved across the room stopping right near the kitchen door. 

The song kept playing calmly in the background, slowly building up towards the upbeat chorus. 

Jon looked at him again "I dunno Martin. A-are you sure?" He suddenly felt a bit more fuzzy than he did sitting down. He hiccuped again. 

"Please Jon, you're thin as a rake. Have a little faith." His face wore that determined look that Jon couldn't help but love. 

"Alright, as you wish." He grinned, proud of his clever reference as he took his stance. 

Martin rolled his eyes as well as his sleeves. "Steady on Westley, this is the part."

Jon felt a rush of excitement as he caught Martin's enthusiasm. "Ready?" He asked, bouncing a little on his feet in preparation. 

"Ready." Martin crouched a little, holding out his arms. 

As the chorus neared Jon, with a wild drunken energy, took his running start, jumping up as he reached Martin, grabbing on to his shoulders for support. Martin firmly gripped Jon's hips, bent his legs and with a strained grunt lifted Jon in the air as the song reached a crescendo. 

Jon was flying. 

He laughed giddily, stretching out his arms in elation. 

As Martin continued holding him in his strong grip he looked down at his beautiful boyfriend. Despite the exertion, Martin looked up with the softest expression as the song kept playing for them in the background. 

For a moment everything was perfect. 

And then Martin leaned backwards a bit too far. 

In hindsight, they should have known this would happen. While Martin was better at hiding it, he was as drunk as Jon. And Jon's already impeded balance certainly didn't help. 

As they went down, Jon idly wondered if they could also recreate the rest of the dance if they practiced. And then he hit his nose on the floor. 

After a moment of stunned silence the pain rushed in and Jon grunted. 

Turns out that while most of him was protected from the fall by Martin's soft and sturdy body, his knee also missed the mark and crashed into the floor as well.

Muffled by Jon's body above him, Martin squirmed. "Ugh, Jon, are you okay?"

When Jon didn't respond, Martin groaned and picked himself off the floor, lifting Jon in the process. 

"Oh my god, Jon! You're bleeding!" 

Jon's face throbbed. And so did his knee. His hazy drunken state began fading away as the pain sharpened. 

"I-I think I hit something." 

"I'm so sorry Jon! God, where are the tissues?" Seemingly having sobered up considerably, Martin picked Jon up and carried him bodily into the bathroom. Jon allowed all of this to happen as the shock of the fall dissipated. He let Martin easily lift him onto the sink counter as he shoved a towel into his hands.

"Hold it against your nose while I... Jesus, your knee too?" He stepped back now hurriedly lifting the stained pant leg to reveal the damage. 

"God, Jon I'm so sorry. Hold still, I'm going to find the first aid kit. We shouldn't have done this. This was a complete disaster." 

He kept muttering irritably as he walked away. Jon sighed and pressed the towel to his throbbing nose. His foggy mind still felt as though it was trying to catch up to the recent chain of events. He spoke slowly, attempting to convey himself with clarity. 

"Martin, it's fine. Honestly, I think we both know I've had worse-" 

"You nearly broke your bloody neck! God, where's that goddamn kit." He shouted from across the cabin as Jon heard the rattling of drawers being forcefully pulled open. 

"Martin, please I-I'm okay. It's just a little bit of bruising. It honestly already feels better." 

And it actually did. In the chaos after the fall, they both forgot Jon's... situation. Jon watched as the cut on his knee slowly closed up, leaving only the drying stain of blood behind. The pain in his nose was slowly vanishing as well. 

By the time Martin came back holding the bag, Jon already put down the towel and was tentatively poking at the previously bruised spot. 

Martin stopped in front of him, looking at him with a mixture of emotions Jon couldn't parse out. He smiled at Martin hesitantly. 

"See? Good as new. No harm no foul, I say."

Martin let out a long suffering sigh and took the towel out of Jon's hands. He quietly dampened it in the sink and stepped closer to gently pat at his face. 

Jon looked at him. This close he could practically count his faded freckles, follow every line and trace every mark that was so beautifully Martin. He let himself smile. 

"I must say, I'm quite impressed by your strength, if we weren't so inebriated, I'm sure you could have kept me up there for quite a while," he said quietly, enjoying the fluttering touches. 

"It wasn't because I was drunk." Martin muttered. 

"Pardon?" 

"I said it wasn't because I was drunk that I dropped you," he said a little louder, oddly flustered. "I was looking at... At you. You just looked... I dunno, happy, I guess? I just never seen that expression on you before and it..." He trailed off, concentrating intently on Jon's knee, finishing up cleaning up the blood. 

"M-Martin, look at me. Please look up here." Jon gently tugged at his shoulders to pull him up. At this height, sitting on the counter, he actually came face to face with Martin, seeing his blush and ruffled expression right in front of him as opposed to slightly above him like he normally did 

He lifted his palms to bracket Martin's warm cheeks. 

"There you are," he whispered and leaned in for a quick kiss. He then leaned back slightly. "You know that I'm perfectly happy. Here with you. Y-you know that, right?" 

Martin looked at him for a few moments, then smiled. "Yeah, I do."

"Good. Now, help me down so we can clean up the wine stain, which I'm sure is growing on the carpet right now."

"Wha- oh," Martin said as he turned to see the fallen glass that apparently toppled during the mayhem. 

"Yeah. Let me down?" Jon said again, holding out his arms. 

Martin turned back to him, a teasing expression on his face. "As you wish." 

Jon groaned and allowed himself once again to be pulled, secretly enjoying Martin's burst of giggles as they both walked back into the crime scene that was their drunken night in. 

All things considered, it was a pretty good night. 

[teddy06writes]

Through Thick And Thin

requested by this anon: “If you are still doing requests, could you maybe do a royal AU of a Knight! Awesamdude x royalty reader? Thanks!” 

Awesamdude x reader

trigger warnings: some swearing, mentioned character death

premise: royalty au; you are heir to the throne of the dream smp lands, Sam is the knight who has been sworn to protect you. When L’manburg, a rising power begins to attack, Sam stays by your side, even as the kingdom falls

{also I did my best to keep this gender neutral, but it might’ve ended up leaning for feminine, sorry about that}

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“Do you take one lump or two?” You forced a polite smile onto your face. 

“Two, with lemon, not milk,” Bad said, “Try not to look so bored, you may be able to pull a smile on your face, but your eyes wandering about this room betray you.” 

Etiquette lessons were something you had finished long ago, but your mother had arranged for a brush up, seeing as the ambassadors of L’manburg would be arriving Wednesday. 

You nodded, quietly filling his tea cup with what he requested, and sliding it across the table too him. 

“Now, serve the tea cakes.” Bad instructed. 

As you cut the sponge cake into pieces you let your eyes drift again, look to where Sam stood beside the door. 

He bit back a smile, scrunching his nose at you. 

It took all your willpower not to giggle, regaining composer as you passed the plate across the table. 

~~

“I just think its stupid shit,” You said, tapping the toe of your shoe against the gravel path, “I already know how to poor tea and address nobles.” 

Sam chuckled, looking around the garden, “I suppose you do, but brushing up on those things never hurts.” 

“I did my time learning tea and titles, and dances and all that. I don’t see why I should have to do it any more. You should help me sneak out of lessons.” 

He laughed again, “I don’t know if I can partake in helping you get out of your duties.” 

“You used too.” You fake pouted, moving to sit on one of the benches lining the path.

“Yes well that was before, this is now. I’m not a stable boy any longer. We both have different duties to attend to.” He said, turning to look at you. 

You frowned, “I thought your duties were to protect me.” 

“They are.” 

“Then you’d have to go with me if,,, say I snuck away to go down to the shore tomorrow. Where we used to go in the summer.” You grinned cheekily. 

“Yes, I would have to,” He admitted begrudgingly, “But, considering you have to handle preparations for the ambassadors stay, I would be forced to suggest waiting till after they leave on Friday.” 

You chuckled, “I like the way you think.” 

~~

The morning of the ambassadors arrival came all too quickly, and you woke early, carefully dressing. 

There was a knock on the door, around 9:30, to which you sighed, “Come in.” 

Sam appeared in the door, holding a glass box, “His highness says you must wear this.” 

You look wearily at the small crown he was holding, then back at him, “You’re joking me.” 

He shook his head, “Dream insisted.” 

“Oh for XD’s sake.” you muttered, taking the box, and moving to set it atop your desk.

Slowly you extracted the crown, setting it gently atop your hair, adjusting it slightly in the mirror before turning to Sam, “How’s it look?” 

“Heavy.” He laughed. 

“Oh shut up,” You grumbled, moving past him into the corridor, “How long until the ambassador arrives?” 

“Half an hour or so.” He reported.

~~ Negotiations had began the moment Wilbur Soot and his cabinet members walked in the door, hardly leaving any time for introductions. 

You sat uncomfortably in your chair, these men were not like the ones you were expecting to be meeting. 

They were loud, harsh, and in the young blonde boys case, quite rude.

“Simply put, we don’t want to start a fight if we don’t have to, with you or any of the other neighboring  kingdoms.” Wilbur finished. 

Dream crossed his arms, looking at the treaty that had been placed in front of him, “You want our land?” 

“No, we only want a small piece of your land, just the farms that are technically within L’manburg’s borders,” The young Lord Tubbo clarified, “The original treaty clearly designates them to us.” 

“With all due respect, Mr. President, His Highness never agreed to the original terms.” Bad pointed out. 

George nodded, “Your nation has grown separately, never attached to us, the farms have never been yours.” 

Dream couldn’t help but chuckle as he cocked his head, “Your here for something else, aren’t you?” 

Wilbur sighed, “Yes, I suppose we are. Well, gentlemen, I should come clean. I come here seeking power. Something to put me at an advantage. I came here to ask for (y/n)’s hand in marriage.” 

“Excuse me?” You snapped, eyes wide. 

“You heard me. I wish to make you my betrothed, lord knows its the most you could accomplish in a life time.” He repeated, something malicious in his voice. 

The Dream SMP’s side of the table grew very tense. 

“I reject your proposal,” You stared him dead in the eye, “I would never marry a man like you.” 

Before anyone else could speak, you stood, “Perhaps you’ll work out a different arrangement. If you’ll excuse me.” 

With that you gracefully glided out of the room, loyal knight on your heels. 

It wasn’t until you reached the safety of the farthest garden from the castle that you felt like you could breath again. 

“I’ll kill him,” Sam muttered, pacing along the path, “No one speaks to you like that and gets away with it.” 

You sank onto a bench, pulling the crown from your head and running your hands through your hair, “He’s vile! The whole lot of them are!” 

“They’ll never get away with this. Everyone knows you’re mi-” He stopped himself, shaking his head. 

“Why, for a moment did it look like Dream was actually considering it?” You muttered, tears springing into the corners of your eyes. 

Sam quickly sat beside you, taking your hands, “Hey, I won’t let it happen. You’re- you belong here.... with me.” 

You looked up at him, with wide eyes, “Sam- you really mean that? With you? Truly you’d allow it?” 

Practically the whole palace staff had known since you’d first met Sam that you’d fallen for him. It had seemed like you were always destined to be together. 

“Yes, if you would.” 

You nodded, resting your forehead against his, “I would.” 

For a moment, the world seemed right. 

For a moment, nothing was wrong. 

For a moment, it seemed like there was a chance. 

Until a loud explosion rang through the castle, ripping through the tranquil morning.

Distantly you could hear screams of pain, yells of triumph and fights breaking out. 

Sam quickly stood, turning to the castle, where all the other guards seemed to be running too. 

“Sam...” 

Your shaky voice broke him from his almost trance, “What wrong dove?” 

“Sam they all had gladiolus flowers on there lapels. They all- the all had gladiolus on there lapels.” 

How you hadn’t realized it before you weren’t sure. 

“What?” 

“Gladiolus means ready- or armed.” You said quietly.

Sam stared at you for a moment, before someone else entered the garden, “You really shouldn’t have turned down that proposal (y/n)!” 

“Run!” Sam yelled, grabbing your hand to pull you along with him. 

You ran blindly with him, down the paths and toward the back of the garden. 

Sam pushed you toward the gap in the hedge, “Go! Down by the shore, where we used to go in the summer. Go! I’ll be there as soon as I can, lock yourself inside, and only open up for me.” 

You barley had time to think before he shoved you through the hedge, turning and drawing his sword to face Wilbur. 

~~ You stumbled along the path, you were almost there- almost there- almost to the abandoned light house. 

The sounds of fighting faded behind you as you tripped once more, picking yourself up and going even faster as the sea came into view. 

You threw yourself against the lighthouse door to get it to open, quickly closing it behind you and locking the door. 

You leaned against it, struggling to catch your breath. 

After a moment, your eyes adjusted to the light, and you looked around at the dusty space. 

When you were young, this had been Sam and yours special place, somewhere to avoid lessons. 

The only servant who’d known about it had helped you move furniture out there long ago, and the space seemed semi inhabitable. 

You fumbled to light a lamp, then found your way to a cabinet, looking for a cloth, or rag to clean with. 

Soon you were busying yourself with fixing the place up, desperately trying to ignore the fact that Sam was taking a very long time to get there. 

Once you finished the first floor you climbed the stone steps to the next, and began working there. 

Night had nearly fallen when you heard a rough knock at the door. 

Armed with a small paring knife you’d found in the old kitchen you crept to the door, peaking out the small window to check who it was. 

Quickly you unlocked the door, throwing it open and pulling Sam inside, “Holy shit Sam you had me so worried!” 

He grunted, moving to sit at the table you had turned upright, as you locked the door again. 

“Are you hurt at all?” 

He shook his head, “Just tired, I came the long way, to make sure no one was following. Are you alright?” 

You sighed with relief, “I’ll be okay, long as your here.” 

Sam smiled, “I’ll be here through thick and thin.” 

[goggles-mcgee]

Hello. I love the prompt " the commission " can we have the full story please ? How will the avengers react of the news about Hawkmoth?

The full story will come later I promise! I unleashed so many things onto myself but I have no regrets XD Though I shall share some headcanons with you guys about the AU in the mean time!

* Pepper has been a fan of MDC since she saw the designs for Penny and Jagged’s wedding attire. Her and Penny are friends and when she asked who made Penny’s dress and Jagged’s suit, Penny was all too happy to tell her and brag about Marinette and show her everything else Mari had designed for her and Jagged and others. 

* When Tony officially proposed, Pepper already knew who she wanted to make her dress. She could tell Tony was hesitant to ask MDC since she wasn’t that well known yet, but they both knew he couldn’t say no to her, so it was no surprise when she caught him looking at her website and commission prices. Later she pretended not to notice him calling Penny and asking for MDC’s email. Pepper liked to let him believe he could keep anything from her, it was the thought that counted. 

* Peter, Harley, MJ, and Ned are all excited for the wedding. Peter gets to be the flower boy which he is super happy about and Harley is the ring bearer. 

* MJ is also a fan of MDC

* The whole “Minion” squad are Jagged Stone fans. Peter’s favorite album may or may not be Rock Giant.  👀

*The Minion Squad are all off school for summer already, Marinette just started summer since it’s the beginning days of July. While the Minion Squad plans to help plan the wedding, invent, prank the Avengers, and just have some good summer fun, Marinette plans to work on her MDC commissions since she knew she would be getting a lot. Penny had given her a heads up. Besides, there wasn’t much friends she could hang out with since Luka had told her that him, his sister, and his mom planned to sail around for the summer. Anarka wantedd to get the kids out of Paris for a while. Chloe and Sabrina would be going on vacation with Chloe’s mom to Milan for two weeks and then to New York for a month so Chloe could see her mother’s business and get a feel of it and see if it is something she would want to take over. Kagami and her mother would also be leaving Paris to visit family in Japan. The only ones she would be able to hang out with would be Alix, Nathaniel, and Marc. 

* Then she gets the email from Tony. Freaking. Stark! She nearly faints! Okay. She faints. He actually wants Marinette to design and make his and Pepper Potts wedding attire!!! His email said that he would house her and her team for however long she needed for the consulting period and the beginning work of the outfits. Okay actually it said till the outfits were done but she would discuss that with him and Pepper when she got there because wedding dresses typically took 6-9 months to make. She figured she had time as he did specify they were planning a December wedding of next year, something about it being a Christmas present. 

* After she talks it over with her parents, she responds to Tony that she would love to design and make his and Pepper’s wedding attire but before the discuss anything further she would like for them to video chat. Tony agrees later that day, which is more than enough time for Marinette to set up at Jagged and Penny’s house, they officially bought a house in Paris yes, along with her mother and father so they could talk everything over with Mr. Stark. When the camera connects, Tony swears he must be rebooting because he did not think that MDC was a 16 year old girl, but he adapts quickly and understands now why she wanted to discuss the arrangement more.

* Tom and Sabine are even more delighted and on board on sending Marinette to New York when Tony offers to let her stay in Stark Tower/Avengers Tower with the heroes and his Minions. Marinette of course asks if she can bring some friends, they’re not officially her team but she would feel better having them there with her. Of course Tony agrees because he could practically hear Pepper scold him if he said no and they continue to set everything up while Marinette calls up Alix, Marc and Nathaniel and ask if they want to go with her to New York to go to the Avengers Tower. It takes too long in her opinion to convince them that no. she’s not joking, and yes she is serious. 

* Once they get their parents permission they plan to leave on Saturday which would be in two days. It’s a little hectic, especially because Marinette didn’t know if she should take the Miracle Box or not but in the end she decides to leave it with her mom and dad, aka the new Turtle and Fox heroes of Paris. They had found out she was Ladybug a little after she had become the Guardian because she had broken down. Everything had become too much for her and Tikki couldn’t stand to see her chosen like that so she told Tom and Sabine that their daughter was Ladybug. 

* Marinette was going to take the Horse, Mouse, and of course, Ladybug Miraculous, to New York though. Her mom promised that she would text her or call her as soon as she could if they spotted or heard an akuma, and that they would fight it off until she got there. 

* When Marinette and her friends get to New York and meet Tony, he can tell they’ve fought in a fight children shouldn’t have to, but he doesn’t know how to ask about it so he pushes it back till he can think of a way to approach the subject. He immediately takes a liking to Marinette, he can tell she’s smart for her age, and he just likes her energy. 

* Then Tony introduces them to his Minions and Peter, Ned, and Harley all have a collective freakout because they are meeting THE MDC. MJ is, of course, happy too but she can at least keep her cool when meeting the designer who made Jagged Stone’s iconic Eiffel Tower sunglasses, the one who designed his Rock Giant album art, and the one who made his Roaring Dragon Jacket! Peter asks Marinette if she can sign his copy of the album and Tony thinks it’s all down hill from there. He can see the kid’s blush from across the room. 

* The consultation happens and Pepper is just as surprised as Tony was when she learns MDC is only 16 but she hides it fairly well. Both are pleasantly surprised by Marinette’s professionalism and are pleased with the overall talk about what they want out of the design. Tony even manages to squeeze in another suit for Peter because he knows the kid and he is not letting him wear a rented tux to his wedding. 

* Tony and Pepper have dinner with the kids and the Minions and it’s decided that they can stay for the summer, and no Pepper don’t look at Tony like that it’s not because he’s trying to help Peter get a date for the wedding.

* Then Marinette meets the Avengers. Thor loves her, but like who doesn’t Thor love? And who doesn’t love Thor? She is super interested in learning about Asgard, especially its fashion and she even talks Thor into giving her some fabric samples to work with. He just loves her enthusiasm and he appreciates her letting him talk about his home and his people. Marc and Nathaniel get a great picture of the two of them sitting on Thor’s flexed arms. Marc also loves to hear about Thor’s home and people and Nathaniel loves to draw him and those he talks about. 

Natasha accidentally sneaks up on Marinette, she never means to do it, it is just how she is, so when this little girl turns around in a flash with a pencil held in her fist as a weapon her eyes narrowed looking for the danger, she is suprised and has to stop her own reflexes from sweeping the girls legs from under her. She respects Marinette’s reflexes and the two spar and Marinette tells her she used to do ballet when Natasha asks her why her turns and spins almost seem like she’s doing a dance and Natasha’s eyes light up. The two bond over ballet 

Bucky, Clint, and Steve meet her one morning when they go to the kitchen and find so many goodies to eat and see this tiny little girl singing to herself as she pulls muffins out of the oven. She turns to them and smiles and says good morning before introducing herself so they do as well. When Steve introduces himself her eyes narrow and she hisses out, “YOU.” He’s so confused until she starts tearing into him about him hero suit. Bucky and Clint of course love this moment and will cherish it forever. 

She meets Bruce and he’s heard of this little terror from Steve and he’s thinking she’s going to tear into Hulk about wearing only shorts but then she’s shaking his hand and saying it’s an honor to meet you Dr. Banner, apparently she’s read some of his papers. And Bruce can’t help but smile for the rest of the day. 

When Wanda meets her she just hugs the little girl for a while because she hadn’t meant to see how her ex friends had treated her back in Paris but she did and this child needed a hug. Marinette had just been asking what material her jacket was made out of so they had touched briefly, then she was being hugged, but she didn’t mind, she figured maybe Wanda was having an off day and needed a hug.

Vision had just looked at Marinette and said, “Miraculous.” nobody knew what he meant but Marinette did and she just put a finger to her lips with her eyes wide with panic. Thankfully he got what she was trying to say and gave her a nod and small smile. 

Tony said there was more people for her to meet but she would have the whole summer to do that so she was content. 

* Then the first akuma alert went off when they were there in New York. Marinette thought everyone was sleeping when she created the portal and leapt through...she didn’t know how wrong she was. 

[demonslayedher]

do you still take asks? if so, could you explain tanjirou's hanafuda earings? i've seen some people online (like insta and other such places) claim that the design is one of a flower, but i always thought it was of a sun since it was supposed to be like a token for the sun god or something (disregarding possible [and hopefully unintentional] symbolisms coming from ww2)

whenever these people say these, they go back on to the earings being called hanafuda cards, and that hana means flower. i'm not that smart when it comes to japanese things or hanafuda cards specifically, so if you could, can you explain the hanafuda cards and the design on tanjirou's earings?

thank you and i hope you're having a lovely day (love your blog, btw, esp the art and japanese trivia posts)

Hahaha.... my attempted answer to this met so many technical difficulties, this is my third version, I think, hahahaaaaaa. TwT We shall indeed endeavor to keep this related to the original Sengoku period design of the earrings and their relation to Hanafuda cards, though indeed this is a Heisei/Reiwa period production and it's unavoidable that the similarity would be read in a post-WW2 context. It's not that I don't have things I could say on that, but I prefer not to go in that direction either (and people who choose to use the alternate design have my support). Short answer, though: nope, not a flower design!

The sun symbolism and its representation of Japan supersedes Muzan’s birth by at least a few centuries, and in its earliest uses with a simple circle to represent it, it wasn’t even always defined by the color red. The bright color red has been, however, long since symbolic of the sun, so it’s unsurprising that at some point the two symbols came together. No one knows who to credit for its design as a symbol to represent the emperor, but it seems this started in the Sengoku period, same time Yoriichi and his mother Akeno were around in the 15th, 16th centuries or so (but hard to say). The imperial use is due to the Shinto mythology that the emperor is descended from the sun goddess, Amaterasu. (I’ve have heard some KnY theorists posit that certain characters represent different gods in the Shinto pantheon and that Yoriichi represents Amaterasu (who indeed has historical male representations), but I don’t buy into those theories.)

While’s it’s not to say Amaterasu couldn’t be beseeched for healing a deaf child, she doesn’t strike me as the first goddess you’d go to for help with that, so I had originally suspected Akeno might have been more of a practicing Buddhist seeking the help of Dainichi-nyorai (the Buddha that represents the sun, if we put it very simply), or that she might had been a follower of the Nichiren sect, which embraced syncretism with Shintoism and used the “Nichi” (sun) symbolism pretty heavy-handedly (that sect tended to encourage a devout following of women, too). That’s as far as I find relevant to read into this side of things, though, for a look at Akeno’s altar shows us a round mirror often used in Shinto worship (some scholars suspect the round shape represents the sun, too, but it’s not at all limited to being a sacred item to represent sun-related deities). However, religion is and always has been complicated, and Akeno may have been a follower of any pure or blended strain of Shintoism and/or Buddhism.

Tl;dr: Akeno has a profound faith in some kind of sun deity.

After all, Yoriichi says this very plainly on this page in Chapter 186, “My mother was a person of very deep faith.” In addition to her daily prayers for peace, she made the earrings for Yoriichi praying that the “god of sunlight” may shine on and warm his unhearing ears. We have no further definition of this “god of sunlight,” so it could be Amaterasu, Dainichi-nyorai, any possible unnamed sunlight god she might have had faith in (Gotouge tends to borrow heavily from a lot of different religious traditions without narrowing them too far into any particular sect or strain). We may not be meant to read this in such detailed historical context as Amaterasu because it is left so ambiguous, but the art representing the sun is pretty ubiquitous throughout Japanese culture by that period.

And would you look at that, little Michikatsu and Yoriichi were playing a card game! Hmm, I wonder what? While I cannot claim anything one way or another about how Gotouge and her editors saw it or what they may think of it being seen that way abroad, the rays inevitably make it seem similar to the 16-ray naval flag, and the earlier color illustrations did have red lines. However, at some point the design settled into using 11 thin black lines only, with an emphasis in Gotouge’s character design notes (from the first fanbook) on the pooling thickness at the ends of the lines. This feels to me a bit like inky brushstrokes, and there is also design emphasis on the thick lines at the tops and bottoms of the earrings. These details, as well as the notes (cropped out of the image below) about the movement and weight of the earrings around Tanjiro’s face make them seem to have the thickness of light cardboard, which altogether makes them very similar to Hanafuda cards. Most specifically, doesn’t it look like this card featuring pampas grass and the moon?

While Hanafuda does literally mean “flower cards” and there are designs grouped around certain themes (even if the theme itself isn’t a flower, the design will typically incorporate a plant), I feel fairly confident saying the design of Yoriichi’s earrings is not a flower, and indeed the sun.

Primarily because these earrings aren’t Hanafuda cards! Hanafuda technically didn’t exist until after Yoriichi’s time, and was adapted from a Portuguese card game. Said game was initially illegalized at the same time Christianity was illegalized, but the Edo public loved their card games, and reinvented it every time some previous version was outlawed for its use in gambling. Even today, there are many, many different versions or reiterations of Hanafuda under the same or different names. I have never played though, and will not attempt to explain it. ^0^;; (I have cousins who grew up playing the Hawaiian version, though.) It was finally legalized in the Meiji period, and the first fanbook even lists this as one of Zenitsu’s favorite games.

By the Taisho period anyone would had been familiar with it, leading Muzan to describe Tanjiro to Yahaba and Susamaru as “the demon hunter who wears earrings that look like Hanafuda cards.”

While my research didn’t take me this far, I’m willing to bet card games with similar illustrations existed far prior to Hanafuda, and whether or not Akeno would had been influenced by them is anyone’s guess. But as she made them as religious items, that still makes them not game cards. I do assume she used high quality washi paper though, the finest she could afford as the wife of a high-ranking samurai. Good washi is strong enough to last for centuries, and even used to be used for making clothing because it’s so durable. But it’s also lightweight, she wouldn’t want to weigh Yoriichi’s little ears with precious metals or anything like that, I believe!

This all being said, I have most certainly noticed a trend of actual Hanafuda cards being used in accessories, everything from earrings to necklaces to charms to hang on facemasks to manicures. The only time I’ve seen this sun design has been in clear reference to Kimetsu no Yaiba, though!

This went in a lot of different directions, Anon, but I hope that clears things up about the sun and Hanafuda connections more than it clouds everything in unnecessary details. XD

[mikauzoran]

Mikau Draws Tissue Boxes and Fruit

Hi everyone! Long time no see. I’ve been doing a lot of drawing during my holiday from writing, but I haven’t felt like touching my laptop because I’m so burnt out, so I’m only posting about it now. The drawings above are a little old at this point, but I want to keep a record of my progress, so I’m posting about them now.

At top left, I tried to draw the Pisces glass from my zodiac set. I got it at a rummage sale over a decade ago because the designs (not pictured here because I’m not capable of that kind of detail yet) were really neat. It was really hard to draw glass because of the way it distorts. I tried my hand at shading too, and I think it looks so-so. I haven’t learned shading yet, so I have no clue what I’m doing. ^.^;

Next, I drew a tissue box, and I think it looks pretty okay. My lines are fairly straight for doing it all freehand, so I’m fairly happy with it. I’m excited for when I learn perspective so that I can make it look more realistic.

In the middle, I drew two views of the same banana. I like the bottom half of the first one and the top half of the second one. ^.^; This was a lot harder than I expected, honestly. I think I could draw a banana from my imagination without much difficulty, but it’s hard to actually look at what’s in front of you and draw that specific banana.

After the bananas, I drew another tissue box. My mum has a few different tissue box covers, and this is one of them. I really like the large ceramic flower just off center. The petals were a challenge, but I got almost all of them in there, and I’m proud of how this turned out.

Next, I drew my magnum opus to date at the time: the pineapple. It was a pain in the butt to do all of those little segments on the body of the pineapple. I wasn’t happy with how they turned out, so I did another version the next day. You’ll get to see that in my next drawing post. The stem was hard too, but I really like how it turned out. I’m very proud of my first pineapple attempt. XD

Last, I drew three strawberries of various sizes. Below is a close up with the strawberries rotated so you can see them better. I didn’t have enough room for them in a horizontal orientation, so I had to turn my paper vertical when I drew them. I’m trying to move towards drawing multiple objects at once, so doing three strawberries was good practice. It further drove home that the mental image I have of “strawberry” isn’t what real strawberries actually look like. I would have drawn them differently had I done it from my imagination.

Below is a picture of some of the objects from my drawings. From left to right we have the pineapple, the tissue box with the cover with the ceramic flower on the front, and my Pisces zodiac glass.

As a bonus, here are two images of various drawing exercises I’ve been doing. I got a few different books on drawing from the library, and that’s where I got the exercises.

This first one includes exercises in mark-making, line, shapes, and shading. The shading section is kind of embarrassing. XD I was supposed to make a sphere with the outer edges shaded dark getting progressively lighter as I neared the center. 

I’m a little proud of this because you can see in my first attempt that I had no idea what I was doing, but my attempts got a little better until my tenth attempt yielded something that looked more like what I was trying to do. At around attempt six, I was despairing about how I would never learn shading. It felt impossible, and I couldn’t figure it out, but then it suddenly got better. I’m proud that I was able to make progress.

Below, I did exercises that focused on making three dimensional shapes like cubes and cylinders. Then there was more shading which I still have no clue how to do. Oh, well. I’ll get there eventually. We’ll be covering shading in the art class I’m taking, so I’ll get better soon once someone shows me how to do it correctly.

Side note: I’m really happy with my Campbell’s soup can à la Andy Warhol in the bottom left corner. ^.^

Thanks for reading!

[ezra-iolite]

Just as a heads up... I can't draw for shit. XD Hands and arms do not deserve to exist in art!! They are FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE TO DRAW!! (╯°□°）╯ ︵ ┻━┻

But, at long last, I now have the official design for my Transformers OC, the main character of my fanfic, More than a Name, alongside some details such as her scars (her eye works fine) which were both given by the same person, and some details on the species denta/teeth, to show just HOW different Swift's are as a Star Seeker.

My dear fellow nerds, I give you.....

Swiftwire Mutheru-Pax!!

Swift was originally born as a human boy named Andres Omari, to a Maasai-Kenyan woman named Gasira Mutheru and an African-American man named Jeremy Omari. For most of her life, she knew she was in the wrong body, but was never in a safe enough environment to come out as trans, especially after her mother lost her battle to cancer. That is, until she was kicked out by her father and fell into the care of a certain Prime of the Autobots. ;3

How she became Swiftwire is a story I'm still in the process of making, which is a story only she can reveal. But, I can say that she is now happily settling into her new life as a transfemme Star Seeker (see my Hybrid chart for the definition of that specie name ;D), as someone who can finally embrace her cultural roots as a fluent Swahili speaking half-Kenyan, as an artist with her very own studio (one she and her husband called "A Touch of Terra") in Vos city, and as a mother of her adoptive son Conduit, and her newborn daughter Sira.

And here... some random wholesome facts just because. XD

~ Swift's "dreadlocks" are actually extendable cables, which can reach all the way to the floor if she relaxed them, that are connected to her brain through very thin and well protected wires and nerves. Each dreadlock/cable contains a plug-in of every kind she can think of and require in that moment, from USB to cortical psychic patch needle, that allow her to directly connect her mind to whatever kind of tech she plugs a dreadlock into. She can move them like tendrils or the snakes of Medusa's hair due to their soft outer shell being so stretchy and the nerves within them. But because they tend to freak people out when they move, she wears a headband made of soft metal wrapped in cloth to keep it out of her face and will often will them into a hairstyle such as a bun or braid behind her, at least until she requires the use of a dreadlock.

~ Her dreadlocks are coloured orange to silver in an ombre fade. She gained this colour by accident, when she first attempted to paint her form. Miko was helping her at the time and her airbrush broke on top of her head, covering the entire crown of her head in a bright orange. Seeing this as a potential art hack, Swift and Miko cleaned the mess up but left behind what the paint covered over her dreadlocks, painting the ends silver and smudging where the orange stopped halfway down her head of dreadlocks, creating her now fox-coloured ombre hue.

~ Swift is fluent in both English and Kiswahili (Kenyan Swahili). She first learned to speak Swahili from her mother, who had very broken English but still spoke wise words to all who needed them, and only began to speak English when her father demanded it, once she reached the age of five. By age seven, she was fully bilingual and could switch between the two dialects in an instant. And while she was forbidden from speaking Swahili after her mother's death, she constantly practiced in secret, until she was finally free and began her life as part of the Autobots, where she began teaching her childhood friend Jack and Optimus Prime her mother's tongue, due to their pure curiosity for such a unique language. Years later, Ratchet finally got hooked and now he refers to Swift and her son Conduit as his "mpwa", his niece and nephew respectably, and in turn Swift refers to Ratchet as her "Mjomba", her family friend type of uncle.

~ Her scars both came from the same claws who made her into a Seeker to begin with. The one on her belly was gained the moment she fell and became Swiftwire the Star Seeker. The one on her eye that only scarred her eyelid rather than her optic was gained when she went to track down the one who wronged her in a past life, found him and fought him. That scar on her eye serves as her trophy.

~ Swift's Conjunx/Husband loves being her art canvas, which blends together his love of looking pretty and his chance at supporting his wife's endeavors. So, every other day, he'll come to work with a new look, often times just a slight change to his frame colour or a blended ombre fade with his usual red hue, and other times he'll come in wearing African dot art that compliment his angles and curves. He has no favourite frame art yet, but he still adores drawing in the attention of his coworkers from the handiwork of his darling Ladybug.

~ Star Seekers in my headcanon are best described as being basically like winged cats... and the cat part is their more dominant feature~ When Swift first began to understand her new form as a Seeker, she had strong cat-like impulses that would later become juicy blackmail or pranking material for the human gang. Two iconic cat-like behavioral traits were her biggest struggles while learning the ropes....... boxes and laser pointers. Luckily, the Autobots DO have strong enough boxes that can hold a Bot as big as Swift, such as ship cargo boxes. Remove the top, however... and Swift will be inside one with only her wings sticking out in mere seconds. Sadly, she is too stubborn to be asked for her reasons for why she got into it in the first place... her and Ratchet have many an argument over such moments. And as for laser pointers.... they're a dangerous game to play with a Seeker. But Miko adores messing with Ultra Magnus or Ratchet using such a toy on Swift, as the two older Bots can easily handle a Seeker lunging at them so suddenly. However, the moment this happens, Swift will immediately come back to her senses and seek out Miko for her actions. The fun can only last so long, after all~