#but also when they finally photoshop her some new clothes

[raspberry-gloaming]

People be like "oh cartoon characters have hardly any outfits" but you know who is really out in the trenches? Characters on the CD covers of 2000s-era audio drama who exist only in their outift from tv show in the 70s with an uber strong colour overlay filter.

[polarisdelphi]

I don't remember if I have posted this before, if I did, do forgive, we're having double posts (also don't remember if I was using my old signature, which I probably was)

This is one of the first studies I did when starting to look more into fluid posing, gesture drawing, breaking down characters in different poses of the same moment to choose what would be the key illustration aaaand developing a new way of shading digitally (I suck in digital illust, when it comes to traditional I have everything under control and I needed something more traditional looking to be happy back then).

Yennefer accidentally became my character for studies and I drew her SO MUCH for MONTHS, I can almost draw her with my eyes closed xD

I was using Krita back then, before moving to Photoshop, but I still miss the different types of brushes there. Might have to start mixing both softwares.

Some more breakdowns of this study under the cut :)

It was supposed to be a little comic of Geralt coming back home <3

This "concept" was, Yen finding Geralt hurt, grabbing his sword, and then just going full sorcerer of Vengerberg after that (and the little note up there is written "16 meters of legs", 'cause everyone I draw tend to end up with the LONGEST legs EVER)

And this is "Yen, not everyone can cook" and her just "get out of here, witchers, before I turn all of you into bloated frogs". I think there's something sweet of her not being able to cook at ALL and Geralt being a little more gifted regarding that.

These are all sketches - the second ones are a little more polished with clothes and all, but still VERY quick sketches. The ones I'd use as a base to make the final, polished version.

*sighs* I love Yen so much.

[synthetic-sadness]

Brooklyn Baby

photo credits to owners on pinterest (mine is green filter edition)

Pairing: Peter Steele x Lana Del Rey

Word Count: 13k

Warnings: 18+, Slight Angst, Self-Esteem issues, Slight NSFW, Slight OOC (really tried not to), Alcohol Issues, Developing Relationship, 90s setting;

I saw that well-known photoshop of them both and couldn’t help myself. I’m a creep, writing about pairings that one person like (me 👈) is my fetish 👹 English is not my native language, this is my first work so it may contain some mistakes. Enjoy ✨🧚‍♀️

NSFW under the next cut 💚

They broke her heart every time when she decided that one of these men is the only one for her, special. She was so naive, even after all of these nasty heartbreaks she somehow stayed pure.

Sad hazel eyes, but there's the light still seen in.

He had a big heart, that had been stitched, almost torn by many of long red nails of gothic and ordinary long-haired «succubuses». He'd been tricked countless times that he didn't even remember correctly the lies they'd been saying to him. And he almost gave up, almost decided to not to fall in with anyone, but still wanted to love and be loved one day.

Big sad green eyes, but there's a hope still seen in.

They met each other at the festival. She had just dropped her new album and a good respected label noticed her and offered a contract. At first she didn't trust them because of her previous record which flopped almost immediately, but in the end decided to say yes. And, after all, Elizabeth got a real jackpot.

He, at the same time, had been promoting Type O's album "Bloody kisses" in tours for two years. Meanwhile, the new material for a next release had been accumulating gradually, but there was no time for a proper work. Moreover, guys felt rather tired not only to write new songs, but to give concerts. Sometimes they couldn't decide what to do: to kill each other, because of living on a bus for a few years together and having enough, or to kill themselves.

And Lizzy, on the other hand, was excited to perform in front of a large number of people. Finally, these years of being in "underground scene" had paid off and she could present her music to various listeners.

But beside a thrill there was a huge fear. Not paralysing, but still.

She used to give concerts in bars and small clubs and the last one also were new to her. Girl was just getting used to its surroundings, to crowd of more than twenty people, when a manager said that she'll attend a festival in Europe. It was huge and she was completely terrified by the thought of many people would be there but tried not think about it a lot.

And the day came.

Her hotel room was comfortable but felt blank because of its colour — white. Not this cold hospital white one which make you feel anxiety, but soothing empty white. There were only a few colourful pieces of furniture: round mirror framed with brown wood, grey carpet and her black suitcase. Nothing special.

There was an odd feeling inside Lizzy's chest when she was looking around her surroundings while preparing clothes and make up for the show. It was that moment, when nothing special is happening, but you know that this scene will imprint in your mind as something meaningful.

It was a feeling. Probably it would be a great concert for her.

The hotel was close to the festival's field so it didn't take too long to reach their destination. And when Elizabeth saw a crowd of people she was not only shocked by the number of them but also by their looks. They were all different, but there were so many metalheads that girl immediately wanted to scream at her manager "What am I going to do here?!"

"Take it easy, it's a mixed crowd," said her tech-guy. "There are enjoyers of indie too. They just decided to bring together alternative sub-genres."

"Oh," was all that she could say.

One hour left before the show and their team chose to have a look around. Elizabeth was examining people, listening to their conversations and small talks, looking at other's bands merch tents and just trying to get use to the festival in general. When she got tired of it, which happened pretty quickly, she went to a backstage for preparing.

And there, turning her head and searching for the right direction, Lizzy happened to bump into someone pretty damn harshly.

A strong and massive hand on her left shoulder stopped her from collapsing onto floor but she still stumbled little bit.

"I'm sorry, I'm just huge for this world and you're kinda petite for mine," said a very tall man in extremely deep voice which impressed Elizabeth and even scared a little bit.

"Oh, that's okay, I'm really clumsy today," she chuckled lightly and fixed her hair reflectively because she had spent a few hours by making the vintage hair-dress and didn't want to ruin it.

"Stay safe," the big man nodded shortly but politely and went into the depths of the backstage area which consisted of black boxes with equipment, many sound-tech and light-tech guys, bands with their groupies (there were few of that girls, but still they were), just people who worked at the festival and all of these folk were hidden from view of audience by many metal bars and tent roof.

"Wow..." Lizzy chuckled again being impressed with his height and voice. What a man, really. He looked like a living example of testosterone.

This short encounter cheered her but the girl still couldn't get rid of this creeping anxious feeling in her lower stomach.

Rest of the time of waiting Elizabeth was watching other bands play. Tried to watch their show attentively and understand their art but after every few minutes she was returning to the only one thought: "Fuck, there is gonna be my turn soon! What am i going to do?!". Even if she liked music the fear of failure was so strong that it almost made her choke and cry.

But the girl pulled herself together and when the time had come and violinists started playing the heartbreaking tune she gladly took a hand of one of her tech-guys, who helped her got on stage because of her high wedge shoes and shaking knees it was so easy to twist an ankle and emabarras oneself.

It was daytime. The sun was shining high in the sky but hidden behind some kind of milky haze, there was no a single cloud and no reminding that it could be blue. Just this milky silk with rare golden sun rays.

And because of it the crowd was clearly seen. Many musicians say that doing shows in an afternoon is hard task and Lizzie was not exception.

All of these tiny people dressed in different clothes and looking like scattered skittles on the floor were clearly visible. But it's no more funny when you start gaze in to their faces and see how they were impatiently waiting to see and hear something good.

Elizabeth let out a great breath, opened her mouth and it all happened by itself. So naturally and so right.

Peter was irritated and tired because they had to perform late in the evening and it was only 3 p.m. He had already done everything that the man usually did when he was bored to death and paralyzed by stage fright: firstly, drank a bottle of wine, then got into small argument with Josh but it wasn't a big deal because they both knew that they all were tired of touring, met some fans, signed their CD's and merch t-shirts and also had a good chat with them.

The only thing that Peter liked in touring was communication with their fans. These people literally were giving away their money that they had earned just to see these "four dead trees" standing on stage. Because of fans and due to the fact that they were buying Type O's albums the group members could live on this money and pay taxes. So, Mr. Steele was so grateful to them, loved them for supporting his art and treated with unlimited respect. Also, the musicians and their fan base had something in general; especially it were sense of humour and music taste.

After spending some time chatting with other bands that guys knew before and getting acquainted with new people, Kenny, Johnny and Peter decided to come closer to the stage and look at the next perfoming person while Josh was somewhere else trying to ease an awful headache.

"Oh, that's something different that we've heard here," said Kenny when violins sounded and then a guitar.

"Yeah, I think it's some kind of an experimental artist or I don't know," the drummer also was interested in the current song.

That's the girl that I had almost crashed today, thought Peter and watched how this particular girl untangled a microphone's wire.

And when she started to sing... Well, Kenny was right: that was something that they hadn't heard before.

The audience was hypnotized and so was the gigantic gothic frontman. People, who were close to him, knew that Peter liked not only hardcore music but something sensual, slow and calm; that's why he had admiration for bands such as Cocteau Twins, Portishead and Dead Can Dance. And this particalr perfomance caught his attention instantly... but not only by music.

She looked like she might glow against the beige sky: in that white lace dress with golden cross on her chest, old-fashioned makeup, red long nails and red hair made into the Priscilla Presley's hairstyle it seemed like the girl came straight from the past. And her tunes also were somewhere between present and the times when people used to worship no God but Hollywood and its platinum blondies in golden dresses. This was particularly noticable in the "National Anthem" song. It was a strange mix, audience didn't understand it fully but they liked the whole experience.

She just came and dragged everyone into her weird but magical portal while tearing apart space and time. And Peter was the first who willingly let her take him away.

"Well, I can say this oficially. She's cool," said Johnny and blew smoke while Kenny was listening carefully to the melody and Peter... well, Peter was smitten and even confounded because the man didn't remember the last time when he was so captivated by music which always had been something intimate to Steele.

He was stunned by her sadness and ethereal melancholia that was running through all of her songs and the set, but what amazed him the most it's "Without You". It was like a painful love letter put into a heartbreaking cry and all of these was sang to the accompaniment of a piano and a violin. The girl was so fragile and feminine at that moment, looking like that "China doll" she sang about that Peter and others wanted to know about whom it was. And he felt desire to be... that man?

Well, yes, she had gotten him charmed by her music, so it was no surpise that the big frontman was impressed by her genuine and shy stage persona, not to mention that she was really beautiful.

The girl looked languid but at the same time her behaviour on stage was adorable: she slowly strolled, smoked from time to time, couldn't keep a cool facade and smiled and giggled when people were cheering and giving other positive reactions. Such a cutie.

"Fuck, this weed doesn't make any sense to my migraine," tired and gloomy Silver finally decided to join them backstage but slowly stopped. "Tell me, am I got so stoned or is there Priscilla Presley on stage?"

"No, it's just some retro girl doing her set," snickered Peter.

"Yeah, and she's kicking asses," the drummer exclaimed. It was always so hilarious to hear him talk and do interviews while other members were around, because unlike them he sounded cheerfully and looked like a golden retriever all the time.

"But slowly," added Hickey.

"Deeply and harder," Steele joked referencing their first album and all of them shared small laugh. It wasn't a joke in general, he really thought that the singer put her heart into the art. And the man was not the only one who came to such conclusion; everyone noticed that as well.

When the set came to the end she blew a kiss and waved under the sound of cheering crowd, looking absolutely happy and terrified at the same time. And there, offstage, people also were clapping for her which immediately made her cheeks burn with heat. She did it, but her body was still shivering uncontrollably.

After a while this blood-sucking feeling was no longer gone and was replaced by a pleasent numbness. There, before the show, everything felt like an eternal nightmare, and now Lizzie was almost floating.

In recording studio she felt at home, but in front of audince it was quite opposite. A disgusting feeling, like someone is peeling your skin, however Lizzie thought that life is short. Once she said that It's important to show yourself in the light that you'd like to be shown and the light she'd like to be shown in is not necessarily in a spotlight in front of everyone else. She loved to introduce herself to people through her lyrics and the way that she thought because she liked it. The way that she looked on stage in front of thousands of people wasn't really her thing but she tried to do her best. But only her closest ones knew that.

And that night, after the stressful but successful perfomance, she decided that examining other musicians may help her learn from them some tiny tips. But the girl stayed not only because of "studying process" — she wanted to find a new music and have a great time because the main difference between gigs and festivals is that that they give you more energy and emotions.

Rock and metal wasn't really her thing but Elizabeth was shocked by an attitude of bands because some of them did a really crazy shit on stage.

And how high was level of her curiosity when she saw that tall guy in a green t-shirt with his band. Of course Lizzie understood that he was some kind of musician when she ran into him but she expected him to play a batshit crazy metal and scream his head off (well, actually he did it few times) but not a slow, dark and extremely sensual heavy tunes. What was more surprising that his persona and deep low voice were created for this type of music which the girl started to enjoy sincerely.

She had a great opportunity to see the man from head to toe: huge, pale and muscular, with long wavy black hair, tattoos on each biceps and beautiful manly vocal which amazed with its sensuality and low tones at once. His sharp, almost sculptured face features with sullen look on them were seen from a distance and after all it was no surprise that women who were backstage decided to watch the show. Other guys in the band were no less cool, they even complemented each other which was amazing, but all of the focus was on the gigantic frontman-vampire with bass guitar on chain strap and a bottle of wine on a box case next to a mic stand, who rolled letter "R" and was making sarcastic jokes with crowd. And what about the instrument Lizzie couldn't keep her giggles when she noticed how small it looked in his hands. What an insane view.

But what was more insane that in the end of the set he just tore the guitar strings with bare hands and silently walked away from the stage with band members. That was a sight that Elizabeth would remember for a long time.

The night was in a full swing, only few bands were about to perform but most of people and musicians were partying hard and enjoying themselves. Type O's were not exception. Some guys decided to throw a party in their bus and it was full of drunk folk dancing, drinking and rocking it from side to side with their actions. When Josh saw this shit he rolled his eyes and decided to have a walk at least untill there would be ten strangers and calm his aching head.

His dear childhood friend was also an introverted soul but sometimes touring routine had been killing him and Peter had no choice but to surrender. And when after few glasses of red wine he felt that he was gonna to throw up because of blaring loud music and flirtatious laugh of women who were trying to hook up with him or other members, the man stood up and walked out of the hellish tour bus.

Chilly night air was like a blessing after that stinky transport that he was sick and tired of being in for two years. Why did he quit his job at the Park Department? Why was he such an idiot? He constantly reaproached himself — especially after drinking his favourite drink.

Peter slowly strolled looking at cheerful and drunk people illuminated with colorful spotlights, feeling how the ground was shaking under his legs with every beat of drums on stage. He loved music with all of his heart but sometimes such atmosphere annoyed him and because of it he decided to go somewhere quieter and less crowded.

And there she was. Standing leg-crossed with a cigarette between delicate long fingers, looking thoughtfully somewhere to the left while many colorful rays of spotlights were flashing behind her back. In that white lace dress she looked like a vision, a ghost, an angel. Completely didn't fit into the surroundings.

Peter really was stunned by her (and her bad habit that he had a fetish for) and even though he wasn't a confident man he thought that he would be a total fool if he wouldn't say few words to her. And he approached her.

"Hi, I'm that guy who almost killed you today," said Peter with a little smirk on his face.

"And I'm the dwarf from your world," she smiled. She had such a cute voice in everyday life, he thought.

"Just wanted to say that your perfomance was great, same with your music," his words were really genuine.

"Oooh, thanks..." the girl instantly turned color and added, "You guys were cool as well."

"Nah, we suck but it's not blood," he brushed off and she started laughing and her giggling sounded light and gentle like a crystal bell.

"Well, I can't agree with you," the fragile singer playfully shaked her head.

"Then you definitely didn't see us,"

"I may be blind but definitely not deaf," she said and sucked in the smoke again.

"Well, I can't agree with you," Peter flashed her a toothy grin and even though she laughed he noticed that his fangs caught her out off guard for a second.

But the moment was interrupted unexpectedly by a man, who seemed to be disturbed by something. He ran up to them quickly and made both worry.

"Gosh, I had been looking for you everywhere!" Marc, who was Type O's bus driver in his late forties, exclaimed wearily to the gigantic frontman while being completely out of breath.

"What happened?"

"Kenny, this bloody asshole, got so hammered that decided to smash some guy's face!" the man with funny mustache and round belly had been visibly irritated. "Only you can help us to pull him away from this poor man."

Everyone knew that Kenny Hickey was a nice fellow but sometimes his demons were making people doubt this statement.

Peter suddenly felt embarrassed because their guitarist turned a complete prick mode on and because he had to leave this lovely stranger in order to save friend's ass.

"Can he deal with his mess himself?" he grumbled but tried not to show how really annoyed he was. "I'm tired of being his bodyguard."

"You know that i don't want to disturb you, Pete, but you're the only one here who can break them up," Marc was right; Steele had enough strength to hold some furious fighter like it was an angry small chihuahua. "This motherfucker is short but very prehensile!"

And that also was true.

"It's okay, you shall go and help your friend," the girl assured him that everything was fine. But in reality he didn't want to leave her, not like that.

"Yeah, you are right. I'm sorry. Thank you for a short but nice chat," Peter nodded to her politely and Marc did the same but more eagerly. "See you."

"Bye," she waved them goodbye knowing well that she and this guy Pete would hardly meet again. And when the big and the small silhouettes gradually had faded from sight over the deep blue sky and moist chilly night air Elizabeth dropped a finished cigarette to the ground, stomped it and felt how her body and mind were drained after a festival's debut.

The girl turned and walked away with one wish: to fall asleep under hotel's soft blankets.

Five months had passed and label's bosses decided that it was enough for Type O Negative to be on tour. After all they still needed to record a new album which of course shall become a commercial success in the end. That's funny how many people think that being well-known musician or other type of artist is so easy: you do what you like, you get paid for it. It certainly gives some privileges but in reality creation of a product of art contains of endless pressure from the record label, self-doubting in your abilities, creative crisis, deadlines, disagreement with your ideas of band members, hours and hours of recording sessions where one single mistake or a badly played note make you return to the begininng, and neverending stress makes you lose it. And you can't leave this game so easily because you had signed a contract for a few music albums.

Peter quickly disappointed when he found out about the music industry when he was 24. Now, being a 32-year-old man he got used to it but still didn't fully accept its rules and didn't wanted to be led. Their work in a studio usually wasn't going well; everytime Pete cursed the day when he left his job but repeatedly admitted that he was a masochist.

Because of their common love of misery guys from Type O's were making the new album but after a month of continuous work they started to take few a days off. And you can only imagine how "happy" was Peter when he found out that his whole weekend he had to spend under the hood of his car which the man affectionately called "The Beast": a huge black machine with no bumpers but large wooden planks, big bright lights on the top of it and a truck horn. This "monster" had been both repainted and repaired many times by Peter himself and many repairings were done for the purpose of upgrading. Unfortunately that time it needed a a real repairing.

But even though being an excellent handyman that he was, that time Mr. Steele was too exhausted to do fixing himself. And a solution was simple: to visit a good friend in a car service in Brooklyn.

The fellow of his was a good man, they chatted for a little bit, caught each other up their latest news, had a good laugh but Peter didn't want to disturb him and then went to a record store nearby the car service.

There in a small room full of stands with CD's and vinyls and a silent salesman behind the cash desk with a magazine in his hands the frontman was studying range of music products. He came there just to kill some time but had been looking at new music with interest before his gaze fell upon one special record in best-selling section.

He felt how his eyes glued themselves to the image of an red-haired girl dressed in a white shirt. The colors and the idea were pretty simple: a mid-shot of girl's face and upper body to show audience beautiful features with serious expression of the artist, blue sky, pale wooden barrier and probably an old-fashioned car. Blue font on white read "Born to Die" and white one on blue was typed in big letters "Lana Del Rey".

Luxurious and vintage as I had thought, Peter thought to himself.

That was what he had been looking for since their short encounter that night at the festival. It was so brief and blurred that the man had no time at least to ask for her name. The next day he'd spent looking for her merch tent to buy her music but it turned out to be that she had no one. Moreover the idea to look for someone when you don't even know their name itself was stupid and doomed to failure from the beginning.

And at that moment Peter felt that a missing puzzle piece went up in its place. It was an exact feeling when you finally learn about what you have been trying to find out for so long. Some kind of bliss may be said. Plus he really wanted to listen to the records of this melancholic songstress because he saw the same mood in her music that he had in his own.

But what Peter didn't expect is to see her at the same record store, slowly shuffling through vinyls.

His heart dropped for a second and the next was slight panic and the urge to grab her so she wouldn't disappear. It was so sudden that he didn't know what to say to her and not look like an idiot. Although Peter couldn't miss the chance.

He had decided that it would be better if he'd just leave the CD on the self to not look like some creep in her eyes and went straight to her while slightly waping his sweating palms on dark blue jeans.

"Hello," a familiar deep voice came above her head.

Lizzie quickly looked up and jumped a little, the height of the gothic bassist gave her a slight jumpscare. He couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"Oh, hi," she immeaditely became flustered. "What a surprise. I didn't expect to see you here."

"Me too actually," and then he frowned a little. "I'm sorry that I disappeared so quickly last time."

"That's okay," the girl simply waved her hand. "I hope your friend is doing fine."

"Yeah, he is much better now," Peter slightly snored at the memory of Kenny kicking and screaming threating nonsense and being completely pale with greenish shade the day after he had spent hugging a toilet.

The man took his large hand out for a handshake "I'm Peter."

Lizzie accepted the gesture, her elegant small hand was swallowed by his very gentle touch.

"I'm Elizabeth, nice to meet you officially."

Peter felt a slight pang in his chest.

His "favourite" name. Again.

But he didn't show her sadness hidden behind green eyes. She was not "that" Elizabeth, she was more humane and warm person without a single doubt.

"The pleasure is mine. I've been looking for your records at the festival but found it here" Peter pointed at the best-selling section "I can say that you're doing great".

"Yeah and I still can't believe it..." looking at her own image with grateful expression Elizabeth shooked her head and the gigantic rocker believed the sincerity of her words. And when a dreamy glint in eyes of hers was gone she turned to him with crossed arms. "What brought you here?"

"Firstly, I live here. And secondly, my car is getting fixed down the street," Peter explained in his velvet low voice.

The girl smiled when she understood which accent he got.

"I'm here to see my uncle. I used to live in Brooklyn too with him and my aunt."

"You did?" he slightly raised his eyebrows in surprise. When Peter first saw her onstage he had a strong feeling that she was somewhere from West Coast. Now she looked like a typical city girl: her wavy red hair was loose, same vintage makeup but not so catchy that was at performance, dressed in tight jeans and racing Ferrari red bomber jacket.

Brooklyn was not a glamorous place to live in and Peter knew it well and wondered how living there had affected her or even had inspired in work.

"Yes, but then I had moved to Bronx, after that to New Jersey, lived in a trailer, then returned back so... Well, actually a list of my relocations turned to be a little bit longer than that," she felt a bit awkward because of oversharing and the thought that she was boasting off which was not true.

"You have an interesting life as i see," a small smile was curving the frontman's lips. But the next moment he got slightly tensed, inquired. "Would you like to have a snack and tell me more about your journeys someday?"

"I would love to," her face was graced by a radiant smile which made Peter's stomach drop but he had no clue why.

"I'll give you my phone number..." he took a crumpled small piece of paper and short pencil from pocket of his leather jacket and

"You've prepared," Lizzie giggled citing the fact that he could use it while meeting women.

"Being an old man that I am I need this to write down a grocery list. I hate this feeling when I'm in a supermarket looking for milk but ending up buying tampons," this dramatic head shake and the fact that he had been joking so easily about himself made her think that he liked to be some kind of a clown.

"Poor Peter," she snickered.

"I can say the same about all of musicians," he grinned and caught her looking at his fangs with curiosity again while laughing.

The fact that the girl was exposed didn't go unnoticed and Elizabeth's pink cheeks showed her embarrassment at the situation.

"Thank you..." she lowered her head when he gave her the paper but quickly regained her composure. "Um.. can I ask you for something?"

"Of course," his eyes showed slight concern.

"I have been looking for your records but didn't find one. Can I find it here?"

Oh that, our shitty music albums, the man chuckled at himself.

"Let me see," the musician decided to act like he didn't know that their and Carnivore's discography was in that store. Peter Steele was kind of hero of Brooklyn music scene, many musicians and metalheads knew him and his music (even though he was harsh on himself) had a great impact on others' musical creations.

He went to a section of rock and different genres of metal and pretended to be searching hard for the album, in fact just moving his CDs back and forth, and after a minute of that shameless simulation under Lizzie's watchful eye he picked the latest one, "Bloody Kisses".

"Here," Peter returned and gave her the current CD.

She gladly accepted it while paying attention to how long his slender fingers were. But her attention was instantly captured by two moaning goth-like girls on the cover in a moment of heavy make-out-session... Well, Elizabeth heard their songs live and all of the erotic messages that were there, so it wasn't a big surprise.

"Oh, that's... provocative," she giggled awkwardly looking at the cover from both sides.

"We play dirty," stated Peter in pleased voice. But the cause of his high spirits was that he liked to see how she was getting shy in front of him at his actions or any nonsense that he'd said.

The man turned to get her record but instead was interrrupted.

"Oh, It's not a good version. Trust me!" Lizzie exclaimed. The puzzled and confused gaze he gave her made songstress disappear behind various stands.

And when she came back he saw her holding another music record of hers. The cover was shot with the same prospect but style was different: vintage luxury, swimming pool and palm trees in the back, dressed in swimming suit with straight loose hair looking magnificent as always. All of these was framed with golden textures. It had the same name but under the title there were small gold letters: The Paradise Edition.

"This is a special edition, went on sale only a week ago. The first one sells good but this has twelve more songs and costs the same, even cheaper."

"Thanks for taking care of my wallet," smirked Peter. "That's actually good that you've decided to add so many songs even though I'm sure that your label made you do it."

"Yeah, but I'm glad that I can finally show my material to the world..." he noticed that her cute voice always sounded very garetful when it came to the music and opportunities that were given to her. And then Lizzie stole a quick glance at a round wall clock that hung on the wall behind the salesman. "I think that I shall go and meet my uncle, don't wanna make him wait for me."

"Sure," the frontman felt a sudden wave of sadness and despair by looking at her buying his CD and knowing well that they wouldn't meet so soon, hastily added. "I'd like to call you but I don't know when you'll be in New York next time."

"I'm here everyday," the girl said and threw him a meaningful smile over her shoulder. Then she got the change and waved at him. "Bye."

When glass doors closed themselves with a quiet slam Elizabeth no longer saw the amused look on the big man's face.

"What was that?" Peter chuckled to himself under the annoyed gaze of the salesman, who had been waiting impatinately for them both to pay.

What was that, Lizzie thought to herself while walking down the street to a café when she and her uncle had decided to have a cup of coffee.

Looking down at the CD record in her hands she couldn't help but shake her head with wry chuckle. This is all so strange. At first that festival which almost made her shit herself, then this huge gothic guy with fangs and corny sense of humour...

He wasn't her type at all. Yes, she had said many times that she had no type but all of her boyfriends had something in common: appearance or some kind of fleur around them. But Peter was different. He was beautiful in a dark way; pale, long-haired with manly face and hypnotic green eyes looking like a black-maned demigod or a vampire. But Lizzie had no interest in vampires... until when?

Anyway, there was something about him that seemed to be magnetic for her romantically or not.

Five days later they met in a good place where they could have a proper meal and a real conversation and where nothing and no one could interupt them this time. At first Peter had wanted to invite her to a premium restaurant but then he thought that it would look like a date and he didn't want to scare her away that way... Well, to be honest the man didn't fully understand what he felt for her. But the one thing was clear: he was drawn to the melancholic songstress.

"...and then you moved to London?" Peter asked while pouring red wine into his glass after she had kindly refused the drink. He was trying to sort out Lizzie's life and her numerous moves and almost every one of them had been remembered by him.

Her life looked like that detailed puzzles that people buy and then forget about them because its complexity irritate them and make them feel oppressed due to they can't easily collect it. But when it's finaly ready it looks so fascinatingly and reassuring that they can't tear their gazes away.

And Peter even felt little bit embarrassed because being six years older than Elizabeth he still hadn't moved out of his parents' basement. His life was so boring compared to hers: no relocations, no life in a trailer, no metaphysics degree.

"Yes, right after my first studio album got flopped," she said and took a sip of her Pepsi. "I lived in a shitty flat with no heat, it was so awful."

"Looks like you took everything from life," he smiled and got chuckle out of the girl.

"Not at all," with slight frown Lizzie remembered all those ten years that she was desperately trying to break into a music scene.

"Anyway, I'm pleased to be in a company of such an intelligent and erudite woman."

And again there was heat rising on her cheeks.

"Am I wrong or you do really enjoy see me blushing?" her lips curved into an cute-awkward smile. "However, thanks."

"Making people feel uncomfortable is my another favourite hobby," significantly stated Peter and there was a mischievous small sparkle in his eyes when he sipped wine.

Oh, if only she knew about "Nazi" scandal, the original cover of "The Origin of the Feces", being "misogynist" and this "Prelude to Agony" song...

He wasn't proud of it at all, but that's what happens when you have a provocative vision of art and crude humour.

"I noticed that when you played this 'Christian Woman'. Kinda reminded me about the time when I was in a Catholic school. Singing in choir and loving going to a church..." the girl's face assumed a nostalgic expression as if she cherished those times which surprised the gothic musician — his own experience was quite the opposite.

"Oh, that means that I wrote this song about you?" he asked jokingly.

"Well, I don't remember that I could be touching myself while looking at crucifix at nights. So, probably no."

"Yeah, it was me who had been fantasying about Jesus, sorry..." Peter was fooling around again, like he used to act around with his close ones, but when he saw her restrained smile and shining eyes he decided to tell a little bit more. "Actually, I wrote this song out of my experience being a catholic boy during puberty. Nocturnal emissions and other embarassing things, you know. Just made up a sensual story out of a teenage nightmare."

"I do write songs based on my life too," Elizabeth nodded knowingly. Her favourite way to write music was when the stuff that made the girl emotional had happened so she could see things more clearly. But at that moment she thought about how many of his songs were filled with real experience and not wet and gloomy fantasies.

There was a short pause before Peter spoke again.

"You have this interesting song. Um, 'my pussy tastes like Pepsi cola' as long as I remember..." he uttered with a puzzled expression, looking away like couldn't remember it properly but in reality he was just messing around with her again.

Her hazel eyes immediately widened.

"Oh my god!" she choked on the exact drink and quickly caught the attention of other visitors. Some of them had stopped their conversations and turned around to see what the matter but they saw the songstress wiping her mouth with a napkin.

"Very interesting line," the man could hardly keep the smile off his face.

That bastard... that extremely good-looking bastrad, Elizabeth thought.

"Oh my god, ughh!" she hid her face behind palms and groaned embarassingly. If few moments ago her cheeks were briefly dusted with pink, now she was sure that the heat her face was radiating could be felt from the other end of the table.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to embarrass you so much!" he laughed heartedly. It was a deep rumbling sound that Lizzie wanted to hear again and again. So smooth and calming.

"No, it's fine," the girl waved her hands. "Well... oh my," she couldn't help but snored again. "One of my friends, he's Scottish, ones said that American girls' pusseys taste like Pepsi cola. And I thought that's would sound cool."

"Your friend seems to be an expert in foreign cuisine," Peter noted ironically.

"I don't want to go into these details!" the girl exclaimed giggling.

He liked to make her laugh, how she lowered her long lashes, how her plump lips were curving into a gentle smile. That was a hypnotic sight to see.

Although, this part of conversation was hillarious but Lizzie couldn't help but felt slightly insecure.

"Do you have silly songs like this one?" she looked calm but the way she started to pick her long manicured nails didn't go unnoticed by the big gothic musician.

"Every song of ours is silly," his biting self-criticism was storng as always. Had this man ever admitted his achievements?

"Come on," the songstress rolled her eyes in a playful manner.

Peter coughed — that was the habit of his, he did it occasionally during conversations or interviews — and thought.

"Alright... um, from the last album it is Black No. 1," that time the answer was honest and serious.

"Really? But it's a hit. I saw the crowd going insane when they heard it," she wondered. The song was brilliant, catchy and had great pontential and not to mention the fact that it was the single. Audience was shouting, jumping and singin along with the band that evening.

"I would like to look at them when they find out that this song is about hair dye that I wrote in a traffic jam while driving a garbage truck," Peter smirked. "Although, I've said that too many times in interviews. People don't understand that's a sarcasm. I noticed that they don't understand what sarcasm is at all."

Then she started to understand that Peter Steele was not about gothic romantism and sex; this person was much deeper and complicated. But in a witty way, may say.

"Being a musician means that every song of yours shall mean something deep and contain higher thoughts. But how exactly this hair dye inspired you? I'm interested."

"My ex-girlfriend used it and she still does, I think. She was a gothic girl, a real hot stuff. She listened to goth bands and was making fun of my music taste, especially hardcore bands that I liked at that time. She said that I don't know the real music."

"That's kinda stupid of her," said Lizzie with furrowed eyebrows and took another sip of Pepsi. She'd always thought that It's so childish to make make fun of something that you don't like or don't understand yourself.

"Yeah, but at that time I was crazy about her, I didn't mind," the man just shrugged his shoulders.

This made her wonder about that girl: how she looked like, was she really that hot as Peter saw her, how she smelled like and what kind of a perfume she used, was her voice low and sultry or high and pitchy, how she prefered to spend her free time and was she more beautiful than Lana herself.

Lizzie found herself thinking about these silly things and but decided to brush them off. She had no need to know about his love life. But anyway, almost every song that Elizabeth had heard on that 'Bloody Kisses' record (oh, and how she got so fucking scared when in the beginning some girl started to moan heart-rendingly) was about both mental and physical relationships with women.

"So, according to my observations can I say that women are your main inspiration?" the girl asked curiously but couldn't hide that mischievous glint that was seen in her hazel eyes. She wondered if this giant would deny it with male shame or agree willingly in order to cozy up to her.

"Not main, but they are also important to me," Peter stated simply understanding that the talented companion wanted to mess with him little bit. And he smirked himself teasingly. "But you too have these love ballads from what I've heard."

And then that glimmer in her eyes faded. Lizzie had two options: to tell the truth or to laugh it off playfully and move on next topic. But somehow she felt urge to share a little bit. Maybe because he was an artist too or because she just wanted to.

"Ha, well..." Lizzie giggled but it was more nervous and sad chuckle. "I'm an ex-alcoholic."

The playful mood that was between them two quickly vanished after that leaving a ringing silence. Peter was looking at the girl and feeling guilty for making her feel uncomfortable by offering to drink wine earlier but Lana was okay.

That moment he saw her in a different light but not in a bad one: behind this careless lush red hair, vintage makeup, long nails and golden necklaces was something dark, tragic and fragile. People who saw her and heard her music thought tha she was just a foolish beautiful doll with whining songs and a pathetic product of a good label. But that's not true.

This beautiful porcelain doll had barely noticable cracks and Peter wanted to see what was behind them, inside.

The man felt ashamed for drinking wine so casually in front of her all the evening.

"Oh, sorry, shall I..." he started to apologize hastily and his already big green eyes became even bigger while fussing and attempting to get rid of alcohol on their table.

"No, I'm not so fucked up," Elizabeth rolled her eyes with ironic smile at his fuss, he was so cute. "I mean, almost in every music piece that I create there is a small hint about my past addiction."

He nodded silently in response and felt no desire to sip this wine; the laid-back atmosphere around them collapsed like a shattering glass but it wasn't girl's fault. Suddenly Peter found the dark red liquid in his glass so interesting to observe.

"You may be silent but I see the question in your eyes, you know," Lizzie joked and got chuckle out of the frontman.

"Right," he smirked in a guilty way and slightly lowered his head to hide a fact that his pale cheeks were flushed with shame.

"It's all started when I was fourteen," she began her story. "When I was very young I was sort of floored by the fact that my mother and my father and everyone I knew was going to die one day, and myself too. I had a sort of a philosophical crisis. I couldn't believe that we were mortal. For some reason that knowledge sort of overshadowed my experience. I was unhappy for some time. I got into a lot of trouble. I used to drink a lot. That was a hard time in my life."

"I know it all sounds silly, but... I was a big drinker at the time. I would drink every day. My parents were worried, I was worried. I knew it was a problem when I liked it more than I liked doing anything else. I was like, 'I'm fucked. I am totally fucked'. Like, at first it's fine and you think you have a dark side — it's exciting — and then you realise the dark side wins every time if you decide to indulge in it. It's also a completely different way of living when you know that...a different species of person. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me."

"In general, my album is about me being a crazy mess in my teens," the girl waved her hands so simply that made Peter blink distractedly. One minute she was telling a harsh story and then acting like nothing happened. There was no bad taste for her but maybe they are telling truth? Time heals?

"I just wondered why we're here and was sort of consumed by the fact that everyone's gonna, um, leave this planet. About love..." Lizzie smirked tauntingly returning to the previous question. "They think that I write songs about a specific guy who broke my heart or 'bout the man I will love forever, but the true is most of my "love songs" are about alcohol. Don't know, when I write about the thing that I've lost I feel like I write about alcohol because that was the first love of my life."

The gothic bassist remained silent but couldn't tear his gaze off. Not anymore.

"Anyway, this fact doesn't change that I still have bad taste in men," an awkward giggle escaped her lips.

"Can say the same about my taste in women," Peter joked to support. But in that one there was also some truth.

Elizabeth really wanted not to talk about her personal life, at least not right now, but the urge to babble about it was so strong so the girl was holding herleslf back as much as she could.

"It's just like, once I was blessed to find someone who made me so happy. But, in the end, it seemed like I wasn't good enough for him."

"I think you were more than enough," he said surely, his deep voice was filled with warm and kind notes.

"You can't know such things, you weren't there," she uttered with her hand shuffled through patterned napkins in a carved metal napkin holder on the table. Lizzie didn't want him to assure her in something that she still couldn't figure out.

"I know that's true because someone who says this usually that one who tried their best in a such shitty relationship."

That made her reflect on it.

"Well, I can't help but agree with you this time..."

The rest of the evening went well and calm. They felt some kind of an ease and were joking and talking like nothing had happened before, just having a good time in general. However, both sensed that someting intimate flashed between them, especially after Lizzie's honest tale. In response the gothic frontman told her that bottles of wine onstage were not for cool entourage: he had a bad stage fright like Lana did.

Later that night, when Peter came home being greeted by his few cats he played her CD again. Skipped to the 'Born To Die' and started listening to it from a new perspective knowing small details and a skeleton of the piece.

And that moment he knew — he was falling for her. Fast and irreversibly.

After that night Peter and Elizabeth started to spend more time together. At first they had been meeting twice a week but soon Peter started to notice more and more often that he's on phone with Lizzie asking her for a walk. And their walks weren't romantic or too amorous. That were two brilliant people, even though they didn't know that about themselves, walking around New York together, telling stories and discussing many topics but all they did was only in a friendly way. Even though Peter cut his long strides in half to walk alongside the girl, her legs were aching anyway after their 'city tours'.

Elizabeth was intrigued by the fact that passers-by always looked at him, examined his tall figure, long black hair with a police cap, dressed in the leather jacket. Of course it was difficult not to notice him but he had something special about him, and it's not just beauty, that made women stare at him.

Especially Lizzie Woolridge Grant.

Once they walked around Manhattan and she told him how the city had inspired her in so many of her songs. When she was younger the girl used to wander around New York and hum some tunes then she just cuptered them on paper. 'I was a waitress at that time,' she said. In return the Brooklyn's giant took her to his favourite Chinese food restaurant and bought meals for 60$.

Peter started to quickly dissapear after every music session and the guys liked to make fun of him every time they got a chance. Kenny and Johnny were joking, Josh did it too but more cautiously. He knew very well how vulnerable his friend was so he didn't want to rescue his big boney ass if something would go wrong. Even though they didn't know Lana personally three of them had a common joke that next time Peter would write a sarcastic song about vintage hair curlers and a glue for fake eyelashes.

Meanwhile Lizzie began to realize that she was attached to him not only because he a beautiful, intelligent, polite and restrained Individual... The reason surprised her — she liked him.

While listening to his album, which was a gimmick in her collection, the girl found herself not enjoying Type O's instrumental anymore. From then on it was all about his voice, no matter if he talked or sang. His deep velvet voice with rambling laugh made her knees weak. She could no longer look him in the eyes without admiration which immediately led to confusion and shyness.

At the same time Elizabeth started to caught his glances more often. Of course Peter had found her attractive before but now he couldn't help himself. Every time the man looked at her gorgeous face he wanted to trace his fingers down her cheekbones, full lips... those lips... The frontman wanted to devour them in the most hot and sweet kiss at once.

This continued for some time. Long walks along Coney Island, restaurants meals and conversations about music, art and love affairs.

They said that they didn't want anything serious or a proper relationship and the very next second they were passionately kissing in his car. Long slender fingers tangled in red hair, long manicured nails slightly scracthed the back of the neck. Both knew that there was no way back. Both were so fucking glad.

Peter didn't paid attention to friends'mockeries of him being excited and in love. Instead he began to invite Lizzie to their recording sessions which didn't disturb the process at all. She had known inner workings of the recording and tried not to distract them very much but she made friends with all of them somehow anyway (what a bunch of facts, both gross and nice, guys told her about Green Man...). And for Pete her presence in the studio had been good. Melancholic songstress didn't know that she was in fact his muse at that time and that most of his creative fantasies, and not only creative, were about her.

Out of respect she didn't buy this 'Playgirl' magazine with his spicy photo session. But in the very beginning of their relationship there was a huge temptation because her hormones gone wild.

It was so scary and thrilling. Lizzie was afraid because she'd heard about his tour lifestyle. God, she even didn't need to hear about this — the girl saw with her own eyes how women were looking at him wherever they were going together. Particularly after that infamous magazine which seemed to be not only for ladies...

But she decided to dive into it, knowing there would be no turning back. Only a broken heart and vain hope.

Though everything between these two were developing gradually and correctly.

Several months later Peter being a family guy that he was decided to introduce Elizabeth to his big family. His mother, Nettie, really liked her (the woman complimented her hair-style every time), five older sisters and their kids thought that she was nice and even Peter Sr who usually prefered to stay out of son's private life, that was his wife's job, who knew about love adventures of their youngest child, appreciated his new squeeze. He also promised Peter that if he would hurt her somehowhe he would get in the neck. In response the man just laughed and pledged that she will be cherished and taken care of. Just like Lizzie deserved and how his sisters taught him to treat a woman.

Life is so god damn weird, she thought looking at his sculptured masculine profile while having a ride with him one night. Peter could swear loudly at passing cars or speaking in puns just to hear Lizzie's laugh, her real laugh: loud and bright, not small giggles.

That European festival supposed to increase the music career of hers, a task with which it was succesessful, but in addition it gave Lizzie something bigger: a great man and worthy relationships.

Compared to this her past experiences were just a shit on a sole. No regrets.

Behind shutters there cars were passing in the night with a dissapearing flash and a distant roar. The light in the room was dim, a lamp with a red illuminating bulb was on. Such glow created a mysterious atmosphere with lit candles in the bedroom combined with living room in the flat in Queens.

Cocteau Twins' 'Pepper-Tree' was softly playing in the background. The only sound that was heard besides it were light sighs and quiet girly moans.

Lizzie's naked body was wriggling on light burgundy cotton sheets under Peter's skillful tongue and watchful eyes. She was lightly swaying her hips, arching her back with sexy breathy 'Oh's, grabbing her perky breasts herself and pinching hard nipples between the middle and index finger.

Looking at such erotic and mesmerizing view Peter was absolutely sure in one thing: he would spend his whole life between legs of his angelic girlfriend if he could just to hear these moans and see her beautiful face in pure ecstasy, with closed eyes and parted full lips.

"Mm, you taste divine..." he murmured lowly and adding thoughtfully. "Those soda bubbles and cherry... or vanilla, I haven't figured it out yet..."

She rolled her eyes but this time not from pleasure.

"Why do you have to do this right now?" Lizzie asked irritably and rose on her elbows feeling her climax fading and lustful mood ruined.

"Because you yourself say that your pussy tastes like Pepsi cola. It's not my fault!" said the man in his defence. He could hardly hid the cheeky grin behind her smooth silky skin.

Sometimes he was so unbearable.

"When I wrote that I thought that it would sounds cool, but now I hate this line more than anything!" she stated heatedly and lay on her back again.

He always found her so cute and funny complaining about her lyrics.

"I think it's one of the coolest things that I've ever heard about vagina."

Elizabeth turned a deaf ear on that.

"Ugh, why am I such an idiotic songwriter?!" Lizzie groaned hiding her face behind palms.

Peter was looking at her while calmly running his big palms up and down her thighs in soothing manner.

"I am always trying to create something but every time ending up doing some stupid shit!"

"And because of it I love you."

Bitter annoyance and frustration were gone. Her tongue was immediately caught in her throat. She even forgot how to breathe.

The girl looked at him over her naked breasts expecting to see a grimace of fear and painful waiting but she saw absolute assurance in his pretty manly face. These words weren't a fleeting gust even though they were in bed.

"What?" sounded like a choked gasp.

"I love you."

Lizzie had blinked few times before she began to feel hot clear tears running down her shocked face.

She grabbed him in attempt to pull closer and planted a hot and strong kiss on his lovely mouth. While their lips were moving Peter felt her whispering 'I love you' all over again and again. And they couldn't be happier than at that night.

'You make me feel electric' Lizzie said to Peter when they were lying on the bed in his basement, just cuddling with his cats at their feet. Grizzelda was purring when the songstress scratched her tiny head delicately.

Both lovers and cats were napping that rainy evening and Elizabeth felt absolute peace. It was always like that near him.

'That's because I always give you these electrical shocks every time you touch me?' he asked hoarsely and she giggled tiredly.

He was so humble, so sweet, gentle and down-to-earth that the girl could no longer imagine her life without Peter. More important, it was mutual.

For the first time Pete saw that his woman could show as much affection as he did himself with her. Every hour spent with Lizzie he could compare to delicate sunbathing in warm Spring days. The muscician almost felt how the light was seeping through him with their every interaction.

She made a discovery that he wasn't that gloomy and serious like she saw him on that European festival. He was a jokester, who liked to fool around with puns and scare his loved ones with weird noises that the deep voice of his could make. But the man treated people with respect and was friendly to everyone. Of course he could have bad days like any of us, when the bassist could sit there all grumpy with furrowed bushy eyebrows and with no desire to share his worries with her. Peter preferred to keep everything to himself, just not to bother anyone on or not to look like a weak person.

Otherwise, he was a tender and supportive soul.

But still, Lizzie anxiously waited for that moment and it happened. He just couldn't be only hers forever. Not him, not Peter Steele.

One day at the party of some friend of' the drab four' guys' Kenny went to her to talk about it. She was terrified to hear next 'You see...' or 'I don't want to be the person who'll tell you this but I know that he has no balls to do it himself, so...'. But instead the guitarist said that he was almost shocked to see Peter not paying attention to any other woman anymore but her. And he said that he was very proud of his mate and them both. Lizzie didn't know what to say and Kenny didn't know what to do when he saw her crying.

And how shaken was Peter when he saw his girlfriend shedding floods of tears in a corner with his best friend standing next to her.

"What a fuck is going on, man?!" shouted the frontman angrily without paying attention that his friends and acquaintances stared at him instantly while being anxious and confused.

"Pete, I..." Kenny started to make excuses but his mate didn't want to hear any.

Peter looked at Lizzie for an answer but without any words she unexpectedly threw herself at him, tugging his neck down and capturing his lips with a strong kiss full of adoration. Distractedly accepted the gesture and scooped the melancholic songstress closer but still had no idea; his friends just snickered and returned to their previous activities.

Later she told him the reason of this public 'rush of love' and the man couldn't help but laughed and pulled her closer to his huge frame.

But still there was a third wheel between them two.

It was a miracle that the city in their such differernt tour programs had coincided. Lizzie's first worldwide tour had been a success. Sales were great, people bought tickets for the shows and records, appearences on TV and interviews on radio. Life was sweet like cinnamon. But what eluded her the most that she had opportunity to see her man performing right after her perfomance would be finished.

When the time had come Lizzie was walking down the backstage hall hurriedly to see Peter after five-month-separation.

"Johnny!" the singer greeted happily walking past Kelly.

"Hi, dear," the drummer smiled in his cheerful manner.

"Where's Peter?" the eagerness in her voice made her sound like a little girl waiting for Santa at midnight.

"He is in the dressing room alone," he showed her the very last door in the end.

"Thank you," she lightly patted his back and went into the direction.

Full of enthusiasm and giddy impatience Lizzie had thought how tightly he would hug her. His warm mitts on her back, cheeks, gentle kisses on lips, the crown of the head.

But when the door was open Peter didn't show joy at all. The frontman had been trying to hide a bottle of red wine but failed. The red liquid accidentally spilled on the dirty carpeting from the sudden movement.

"Shit!" he hissed lowly either of being caught red-handed or because he'd almost ruined his pants.

Elizabeth's expression turned to stone one. The wish to squeeze him tight in her embrace died, instead she wanted to leave with a loud bang of the door but it was not her style.

"We were talking about it, Pete," Lizzie said quietly but as stern as she could.

"I remember," the man nodded not looking at her with a blank face.

"You told me that that was the last time," at that time words came with more passion.

"I remeber that too."

"And you told me that you'll make an effrot."

"I have a good memory," Peter quipped. In his opinion it wasn't really a big deal. Few sips could reduce endless anxiety level, a few bottles could make his legs went to jelly and give this excellent feeling like he was at home during perfomances.

"Looks like you're definetely not!" she threw in return angrily. Thanks to the empty backstage hall and loud banging music no one would hear them arguing.

The frontman could fight back, make excuses, explaining or shout at her but he was so tired of touring, performing, living on the road, giving interviews about his penis in 'Playgirl' magazine to stupid journalists, endless parties just all of that shit that he couldn't stand.

Peter stayed silent not wanting to say any word.

Of course the girl knew how he "liked" his job but there was something about it that the Brooklyn giant was sick of the most: live perfomances. Even there, at 'home' clubs she saw him panicking and stressing out, trying to dull feelings with alcohol before a show and then celebrating it with another portion of booze after.

One big vicious circle.

"Pete, I fucked up on TV!" Lizzie exclaimed wanting to comfort him even though that fact hurt her very much. "My performance on SNL was so bad that almost every fucking person in this country thinks that I can't sing! But it didn't start to drink again after that."

"Yes, I see that you're much stronger than me," he rolled his eyes turning a jackass mode one.

"I didn't mean that," Lizzie stared at her boyfriend coldly. "I just beg you to stop, because it will drag you to nowhere"

"Sounds not so bad," Peter smirked dramaticaly and she almost send him packing.

"You don't know any shit," the songstress chuckled bitterly. At that moment he reminded her a small boy who hadn't listened to anyone but in the end that boy admitted that he was wrong. And she knew that he would come to it himself but on his way he would receive many wounds and scars.

Lizzie was slowly passing around the stuffy small room with greyish-blue carpeting and stains of splashed wine on it, a worn out black couch, a smudged square mirror and a coat rack by the door. Peter was sitting on the couch, his hands were lazily clasped, elbows were on his knees. His gaze was focused on a plinth, the forgotten bottle stood next to the right leg.

When music subsided a little the girl began to speak again.

"I know that it's much easier and more understandable when you smash your face into a table. It immediately shows how things are going. But believe me, you don't want it."

Peter looked like he'd closed inside himself but he heard everything she'd been saying. The gothic bassist just didn't want to face it, not now. God, please, not now.

"I do this because I care about you. And the reason why I care about you is because I love you. I don't want to see you going through the same things that I went through," her lovely voice was tender that time, like she wanted to touch something deep inside him, to wake her loved one wake up. Unfortunately he didn't want to wake up.

When silence had become unbearable Lizzie sat down on the couch next to Peter whose look was distant. This was this type of silence when one of them understood that there was urge to tell something meaningful and that feeling was pressing on Elizabeth.

She had never actually told him about her past. Peter didn't want to push her and the girl considered that phase of her life was over. It was so long ago that seemed far, far away from her and current events.

But still, it was painful and nasty to tell about. And she had no way; the youngest child of Ratajczyk's was so stubborn.

"I stopped when I lost my parents' car somewhere and couldn't remember where, why and what happened then," admitted the melancholic songstress. The voice was steady but still there was a shameful tone. "And I'm afraid that you will stop when you lost your parents' house when you'll be officially of the rails,"

And then the frontman was all ears.

He was looking at her carefully, the right side of girl's face was hidden behind loose wavy red locks; they didn't look presentable like they had been a few hours ago. Even though Lizzie looked sad and tired after the performance, it was seen in features and slightly smudged mascara, Peter still saw her as the most attractive woman even with fake eyelashes peeling off.

"And the recovery wasn't all about rainbows and unicorns. And the first attempt wasn't successful and the last one. These things don't go smooth."

She stared at the deep scratch at the bottom of the door and continued half-heartedly.

"If you want to know more, I worked as a volunteer at drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres in Brooklyn. Before that I was in rehab myself, great times," Lizzie chuckled lowly and felt a strong desire to smoke right now but the room had already smelled like a mix of piss and smoke so the decision of hers was to not make it worse.

"I saw their desperate exhausted faces," memories of that poor lost people flashed n girl's mind but Peter couldn't understand that tragedy fully, he didn't see them. "They knew that we were ready to help them, but the only thing that was out of their reach was that everything starts with themselves."

Their lives were chaos but her own had been no good too.

"I know what is like to have an alcoholic boyfriend," Lizzie smirked and if Peter didn't know her he would have thought that she tried to make him jealous or feel guilty. "And I know what is like to be an alcoholic girlfriend to a sober guy, a complete mess both ways."

Although the man continued to stay silent at that moment his brain was absorbing the new information rapidly. Since the day one, when he first saw her on European stage in that white dress with Priscilla hair, the musician couldn't get rid of the impression deep inside in the corner of his mind that she was like a fog: weightless and illusory, without a story behind and big shocks. However she had everything. She had a family, parents and two siblings, childhood in Lake Placid, funny stories, adventures with her dad, arguments with mom, fears and failures.

She was like a real human being, just like him and any others he knew. But much sweeter and cheerful, and because of it Peter loved her with his whole heart.

And Lizzie thought that the man was like a Frankenstein. Not because there was something monstrous about him, which was absolutely not true, it was as if he was made and stitched of different pieces that at first sight couldn't fit.

"You're so weird..." the girl muttered with amused chuckle and a head shake.

"Oh, you stabbed me!" Peter sarcastically placed his hand on his heart. That were his first words in last fourteen minutes.

Lizzie still was feeling down but could help but chuckled quietly.

"You almost hate your musical career. But since sixteen years old you only do that create bands and play music..."

"You are the most fucking conflicted person that I know," she confessed honestly.

Peter decided not show that it struck him because everything that was coming out of her mouth was true. In her and others' eyes he looked like a masochist.

"You flatter me," the gothic singer brushed off with irony natural to him.

However, his so called "playful" mood was killed when the girl finally looked at him. And oh boy, Peter had never seen her so serious and overwhelmed at the same time and he almost regretted what he had said.

"Your self-conscious will caught you up one day, Pete," Lizzie stated not wanting to tip-toe with the whole topic. "It'll destroy from the core."

And then the man could no longer keep a deadpan expression. Certainly Elizabeth Woolridge Grant was a smart girl, she saw that painfully shy small boy in the big man's body, who ripped guitar strings barehanded onstage once. If a person could be brave (and tall) enough to look into his blue hazel eyes with green contacs, that Brooklyn giant had been buying on King's Highway, they would see vulnerability that contrasted his overall presence. Peter was so soft for her, he could do literally anything that she would ask for, but the only thing that he couldn't do was to not kill and poison himself with his own self doubts, venomous criticism and self-deprecating jokes.

"Small things inside of us can fucked up everything," her voice got quieter, raspier, and her pretty features expressed only tiredness.

Now Lizzie was observing Pete without any frustration. The frontman turned and looked away but his whole appearance showed noticable weaking of his positions.

"I don't know how to do this," he muttered quietly gazing at the bottle beside his leg. It seemed to him that he could smell the intoxicating smell of wine from that distance.

The small questinable ' hm?' came from the songstress and Peter tried to recollect his frantic thoughts.

"I hate parties, I've always hated parties and being in bunch of loud and annoying people," the man sounded almost exhausted and dark, with no jokes and sarcastic remarks. "I'm grateful to our fans but I feel the weight of responsibility on my shoulders every time I go onstage because I need to do my job good. They pay money just to see us messing around with instruments. But what's more important that I chose to die with a bass guitar in my hand than with rake because I wanted to use my brain, not to say that I have any."

"I don't know how I've ended up here," he confessed heartedly and felt completely lost.

Lizzie saw something shattered in big green orbs, so she moved close to the man and gently brushed shiny long black strands away from his face. Her delicate moves, cold hands and long nails always caused goosebumps on his skin.

"Just start, it will get easier, you'll see," the girl briefly touched his temple.

Peter closed his eyes wearily but suddenly opened them again when he felt how she took his big palm into hers.

"And I'll be there with you, I promise," Lizzie almost whispered but the words were loud like a scream.

That made him look at her, then at their clasped hands and then at her again. The man sensed a warm feeling inside, it was much warmer than two liters of a red wine.

Without any words Peter tugged his melancholic vintage girlfriend closer, holding her in tight and sweet embrace and sniffing the rich scent of her perfume.

And he started.

Not immediately, but started.

The spring breeze blew thin creamy curatins with pale floral patterns. The sun was shining high in the sky, that May was warm and bright. The electric black clock showed 3 p.m with its neon green numbers which actually was the wrong shade of green.

They moved in only three weeks ago but thus far felt like that Brooklyn apartment had been their home, like they used to live here before. There was a big number of boxes around but all of the furniture was already assembled by the leader of Type O Negative and him only.

That was a big step and both of them knew it. But Peter, for the first time in his life, was ready to move in together with his woman of his dreams and newly there was enough trust and love to try and create something special. And Lana felt enough assurance to buy a property with her man for once and not to be tricked or cheated.

"Well, my boyfriend's in a band," Lizzie sang softly to herself while shuffling through the box full of her notepads when they had been resting in the living room. "He plays guitar while I sing Lou Reed..."

Peter couldn't hide a smirk when he heard the line about musician-boyfriend. He tore his gaze away from a scientific book that he had bought last week and looked at her but Elizabeth was so focused on the task that she didn't notice a gentle stare.

"I've got feathers in my hair..." at the last word she did this raspy thing with her voice that he loved so much. "I get down to Beat poetry."

Peter caught himself thinking that it was a new song, because he probably didn't hear that before.

"And my jazz collection's rare," that time the songstress switched to a beautiful melodic falsetto. "I can play most anything."

At such moments she reminded him of that retro female singers or cartoons' princesses, it sounded so airy, so fantastically like in a fairytale or in the old musical TV perfomance.

"I'm a Brooklyn baby," Lizzie caught a wave and she could no longer be stopped. Her eyes were closed, small smile palyed on her full lips. The girl repeated. "I'm a Brooklyn baby..."

When the girl opened her eyes she saw a strong adoration on Peter's face, who was sitting across from her in the opposite armchair to hers.

"Come here," he said in his deep voice putting the book aside.

Lizzie fluttered from her seat easily and teasingly and with a playful smirk sat on his lap.

"So, you're Brooklyn baby now?" the musician asked with a pleased look. His mitts lovingly wandered over her bare legs in denim shorts that he liked so much. "Hm?"

"I think I've never stopped actually," Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders thinking back to the days when she used to serve in cafes in Long Island and giving first gigs. Although she added giddy and proudful. "And I will always be the coolest couch queen."

"You have to prove me that, darling," Peter flashed his fangs with a rolling "R" and quickly got up from the armchair with screaming Lizzie in his hands. Her loud laughter boomed around the room when her body hit a soft sofa and one of his cats ran away from there with annoyed 'meow!' not wanting to nap anymore with these two around.

He was biting her neck lightly and tickling girl's sides with long slender fingers while she was trying to kick that fucking big oaf off of her. After all, she gave up and took initiative upon herself, kissing him deep and slow just how he liked.

And Peter felt that familiar taste of a cherry lipbalm and Pepsi cola on his tongue. Just like he preferred.

Tried not to make it cheesy, hope turned kinda okay?

[shegeekery]

Misfits

Summary: Jane feels out of place in Valhalla. She isn't the only one.

Characters: Jane Foster, Loki (Sacred Timeline), Frigga, Odin Warnings: This is a gen fic for all audiences. Light-hearted menace, non-graphic violence, frequent mention of death (obviously). Length: 1810 words Note: This is my first fanfic in about a decade. It started as a one-shot, but if people like it I'll probably turn this into the first chapter. (Also, please excuse the crappy photoshop above. I'm afraid my photoshop skills are as rusty as my writing.)

—————————————————

Jane leaned on the balcony railing in front of Odin’s hall, observing the einherjar on the battlefield far below.

It didn’t look so bad from up here, but she was quite certain it would be a chaotic nightmare once she found herself in the middle of it. Anguished screams carried up the hillside and echoed through the valleys, somehow carrying over the constant din of metal crashing upon metal. From time to time, another distant figure would fall and be still while the fighting carried on around them. In some places, groups of warriors seemed to work together, while elsewhere it looked like a free-for-all, with fighters attacking anyone and everyone within their reach.

One band of warriors managed to destroy their nearby foes in a brilliantly coordinated attack, then immediately fell upon their own comrades. Jane watched in horrified fascination as a mace-wielding berserker spun around, clearing the field around him in seconds, only to be cut down by a thrown axe.

What in God’s — er, Odin’s — name am I doing here?

She’d arrived in Valhalla only yesterday. Odin and Frigga were waiting for her in front of the hall by the time she’d made her way up the hillside. Frigga had embraced her warmly while Odin beamed at her. They’d been very kind, inviting her to dine with them privately for the first night. She’d accepted readily, relieved that she wouldn’t have to face the crowd in the massive mead hall just yet.

Over supper, Odin patiently explained what was expected of her as a warrior of Valhalla.

Jane had picked up a bit of Asgardian and Scandinavian folklore during her time with Thor — and a great deal more in New Asgard — but nothing had really prepared her for this. She was a scientist. She’d never believed in any sort of afterlife until she found herself face to face with Heimdall at Valhalla’s gate.

“Your duty is to fight, to train, and to ready yourself for the Final Battle,” Odin had told her.

What it boiled down to was that she would have to join the other warriors on the battlefield — and most likely die — every day, only to be resurrected in time for the evening meal. When she asked what and when the “Final Battle” would be, Odin was less forthcoming. Thor had told her that the army of Valhalla was a no-show at Ragnarok. Maybe they were being held in reserve for something even worse?

Jane wasn’t afraid of a fight, but she hadn’t particularly enjoyed it either. There was so much more to life — or, well, afterlife — than that, wasn’t there? It didn’t help that she had no idea what it was all for, in the end.

After a night of fitful sleep, she skipped breakfast. The growing feeling of dread and anxiety hadn’t left room for much of an appetite. Instead, she tried to delay the inevitable by inspecting her surprisingly spacious suite. In a closet, she found an assortment of clothing and armor, all in her size. There was even a near copy of her ‘Thor’ outfit.

She didn’t know yet whether she’d be expected to fight today, so she’d opted for a simple tunic, a tough leather jerkin, comfortable trousers that tied at the waist, and brown leather boots.

Frigga had found her in her room and showed her around the compound. In the armory, Jane picked up a hammer but found to her dismay that it was much too heavy for her to wield effectively. That had never been a problem with Mjölnir. The longer haft felt strange, too. Mjölnir’s unusually short haft had actually suited her quite well. Unfortunately, Thor’s hammer was still in the realm of the living. She would have to find another weapon, but she was at a bit of a loss there.

The truth was, she had to admit, Mjölnir had done much of the work for her.

She’d trained hard every day with Brunnhilde in New Asgard. If not for the stupid cancer, she would have been in the best shape of her life when she died, and a fairly decent fighter. Still, without her magical weapon, she was no match for the Asgardians and humans — most of the latter were Norsemen (and a smattering of women) who had been here for over a millennium — almost all of whom had trained in the arts of war from childhood.

Eventually, Frigga encouraged Jane to go watch the battle while she went to consult with her husband.

No longer really seeing the carnage laid out before her, Jane sighed. She didn’t even know many people here. There were Odin, Frigga, Heimdall, and a handful of New Asgardians who had fallen when the little town was attacked. No family or close friends. No Brunnhilde.

No Thor.

She wondered if it was too late to back out. Would Odin and Frigga be offended if she —

“Oh dear. I know that look.” The low, silken voice interrupted her thoughts.

Startled, she turned to see Loki standing next to her.

How did he…? Oh, right. Yeesh. Someone should put a bell on this guy.

The God of Mischief smirked at her surprise. “Didn’t expect to find me here, did you?”

He was dressed much the same as the last time she’d seen him, in a green tunic with gold embroidery, a long green and gold coat styled to make his shoulders look larger, and matching leather trousers with black boots.

Still just as vain, even in death.

She wondered whether he had a closet with clothing in it, or just conjured clothing to match his mood.

“I, um, I guess I hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest.”

He chuckled. “Not to worry. Trust me, nobody was more shocked than I was when I came to and found myself walking next to Heimdall on the road to Valhalla. Never saw this in my future.” He gestured, his arms encompassing the massive hall and the field of battle below.

She managed a weak smile and nodded, not knowing what else to do. This was unexpected. Her mind raced, trying to figure out what it meant that Loki was here. Should she be worried?

“Neither did anyone else,” he added, with a touch of — was it sadness? Scorn? A bit of both? “They drew lots to decide who would have the chance to kill me first. There was a queue…”

Jane found herself horrified and amused in equal measure. “I’m…sorry,” she choked out. “That sounds terrible.”

Loki waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, it wasn’t so bad. I even let several of them win — guards killed when the Frost Giants invaded Odin’s vault. I took them all on at once to make their ‘victory’ more believable. Turns out people are more willing to forgive past transgressions once they’ve brutally murdered you a few times.”

Jane snorted in spite of herself.

He winked at her. “Leaves more room for new transgressions.”

She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the mercurial, unpredictable god. She hadn’t forgotten that he’d killed quite a few people in her world. Then again, he had risked his life to help save her from the dark elf, Malekith. True, he’d been motivated by a desire to avenge his mother, but he’d also jumped to shield her from the blast when Thor destroyed the Aether, likely saving her life when Thor wasn’t even watching. Loki seemed to be full of contradictions.

I wonder if even he knows what he really wants.

Jane thought about what she knew of Valhalla’s entrance requirements. It wasn’t like the Christian Heaven, she remembered. It wasn’t about how you lived. It was how you died that mattered most.

She’d thought that Loki had died in Svartalfheim, which probably would have landed him here if it hadn’t been an illusion. Later, Thor had told her about Ragnarok and the nasty business with Thanos. Apparently, Thor was right. Loki really had died that time — and again, he’d died a hero.

More or less.

They stood silently a moment, watching the ongoing battle. Jane stole a sideways glance at Loki as he gazed down at the field. He seemed older than she remembered. Sadder, somehow, which was odd given that the last time she’d seen him, he’d just lost his mother and had now been reunited with her in death.

“What were you saying before? You know what look?” Jane asked.

“The look that says there’s been some terrible cosmic mistake, which will no doubt soon be corrected and you’ll be sent packing, off to where you really belong.” He mimed wrapping something up and tossing it into the distance. “I was the same when I first arrived.”

“And where’s that? Where do we really belong?”

“In my case… Hel. In yours?” He shrugged. “Wherever good little scientists go when they shuffle off the mortal coil.”

“But you don’t think that now?”

“Valhalla doesn’t make mistakes. If we’re here, it’s because we belong here.” He shrugged again. “Or so they say.”

“You’re not so sure?”

Loki turned to face her again, his mask of arrogant superiority slipping smoothly back into place. All trace of the vulnerability and uncertainty Jane thought she’d glimpsed had vanished.

“As it happens, I didn’t come here just to discuss theology with you. Odin, in his infinite wisdom,” his voice fairly dripped with sarcasm, “has decreed that you, my Lady, shall be trained in the subtle art of dagger combat.”

“Daggers? Why?” Jane couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed. She had been ‘The Mighty Thor’, defender of New Asgard, after all. Now they were going to throw her into battle with nothing but a knife or two?

“I’m afraid we’re running low on magic hammers here. You’re tiny, but quick, and…reasonably intelligent,” he replied, haughtily.

“Gee, thanks.”

“Daggers require a certain finesse. Intelligence counts for more than brute strength.”

Loki leaned in. She was surprised by the way he towered over her.

He’s taller than I thought. I didn’t notice when he was with Thor.

“And you may not wish to thank me by the time we’re done,” he whispered. “I’m going to train you, seeing as I am the resident expert.” He stepped back and grinned wickedly as a pair of daggers appeared in his hands. The edges looked very, very sharp.

“Okay…”

Loki spun the daggers around in his hands and offered them to her, hilt first. She took them, hesitantly.

“Don’t worry,” he said in a mock-soothing tone that was anything but reassuring. “I promise to kill you quickly the first few times.”

“What?”

He laughed at her alarm. “You’ll get used to it.” Another pair of daggers appeared in his hands. He flipped them in the air and caught them expertly, then adopted a fighting stance and cocked his head, eyes glinting dangerously.

“Now then, my Lady. Shall we begin?”

[bookishtheaterlover7]

So, since I don't have an Instagram, or thank God, Twitter, a good friend sent me the full Albitch photo, and... Boy, do we have a lot to talk about...

So, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS PHOTOSHOP?! It's absolute crap! Tumblr writers do better than what Albitch attempted to do🤭

Like, if you look closely, Dodger and the couch have the same fucking white line. What the hell is that line, because light doesn't work like that😆

And also, where is his tail(the same friend pointed this out too)? Nothing can cover that floofy tail. And why is she wearing the same clothes we've seen her in the last time someone has seen them together?

Is she that poor, that she can't afford anything but some sort of crop top, wide pants (by the way, why they make her thighs look comically large, when we all know she'd do anything to avoid being the one thing she hates), and some sort of jacket?!

And it has come to my attention that she posted a video of rain, with piano music? Guess she's hoping that we'll all flock to her side because, she's with Chris, and listening to him play the piano...🤭

Bitch, if you're going to want us to believe you're actually in the same place for more than a minute, you're going to have to do better than audio. Because if you're really in the same house, happily married, show us his face. And don't bullshit us with that obviously staged shit! Or are you too ashamed to be seen with your husband..?

And the final nail on the coffin, mighty convenient that you're showing your right hand, and not your left... Shy about your new bling, huh?

And by the way, if this is an actual photo, which I sincerely doubt, Dodger is a good boy who clearly doesn't want to be there, and that's the only thing I'm loving about that photo.

One more thing before I go, this Tumblr post is right...

Too many coincidences and holes...☕ Thanks for reading my rant post! Hope to see y'all again soon, because the Lord knows, they'll post something new in a few days...

[kandadiff]

Larger Than Life : New Rules

"Well I'm here to set some rules down, y'all have been here almost 2 weeks and have fought like cats and dogs this shit is fucking crazy y'all. So here's what it is"

"Is his name bow wow because thats the sound dogs make?" I ask to no one in particular, I am honestly amazed by this new information. "you know since he was brought up by snoop."

"can you stop?" Lisa hisses at me.

"What? I am amazed. but I am sorry." I apologize to him "go ahead."

"Thank you." he smiles at the table. "One, There's no more fighting that goes for everyone. One more fight and I don't care who started it y'all both will be sent home." Looks are exchanged around the table. "two, No more destruction to anyones property whether it's clothes, makeup, jewelry anything you will be sent home with a fine to the damages." More looks are exchanged, though everyone passes glances at Emma. "Three, No more smoking in the crib take that shit outside"

"Cigarettes or-" Ian starts but Bow Wow interuppts.

"Both! And lastly each person will be voting someone home every week."

"FINALLY!" Emma yells "I mean tell me we weren't all thinking it. This house could do with less skanks." She takes a deep sip of her wine.

"BUT back home your fans also get to decide who will be sent packing if both answers are different from fans and then both parties gonna have to duke it out in a challenge in order to stay in the house what kind of challenge you ask? Well that's something y'all just gonna have to wait for. Any questions?"

We all start talking about our opinions on the matter and finally someone asks “what happens when we call our lifeline. Are they up for elimination as well?” 

“Yeah I need to know that too.” She looks around the table “just wait when I call mine.” 

“Wait for what? Whoever it is can’t fight us.” Draven rolled her eyes taking a long swig of her drink. 

"Continue please, Bow wow." Jennie smiles up at him and I refrain from kicking her.

“Big fan man.” Liam smiled at him and I rolled my eyes. 

"Oh yeah?" I laugh. "Name a song of his then."

Liam glares at me but Bow wow just shakes his head laughing. "To answer your question about call ins, if they choose to live here they will be safe from going home for the week. Also they can be called any anytime."

"Can we come back into the house if voted off?" Gigi asks.

"with enough fan votes, yes unless you break rules 1 & 2." he explains.

"Any more questions?" When no one else speaks up he smiles. "good now enjoy the dinner because on... what day is it?"

"Wednesday."

"Okay, well on Friday, you are going to remind the fans at home why you are here and why you're here. We are going to have a talent show complete with a stage."

"what about us?" Gigi asks "We're models - we don't sing or act."

"Well you models will have raw photoshoots. No photoshop- no editing. Just pure talent. Thats fair enough right? Or you can try singing or acting, playing an instrument... Let your creative juices flow! Remember the fans love authenticity so write your own songs if you can, or pick a scene that is close to the heart. Anyway." he looks at the clock. "I'll be back soon, enjoy your dinner."

~ ~ ~ ~

"Well cheers to that!" Naomi smiles happily holding up her drink. "that sounds fun! This is what we came here for, right? Cheers!" She clicks her drink with Makayla next to her.

While her optimism is appreciated, not everyone feels the same. Especially given the rest of the rules, that means we have to resolve our fighting more constructively and meaning we have to put up with these people until there's enough votes to vote them off.

While we ate, small conversations popped up about the talent show and cutting his meat, Louis looked at you giggling with Edward. "Arianna" he called out catching my attention as well. "What are you doing for a talent, since you can't fight anymore. Something tells me your not good at anything else."

"Spoken like a true fucking pussy." Edward laughs turning to face him. "As soon as they say we can't physically fight, you open your dick sucking mouth and talk shit. Where were you just 2 hours ago? Hiding in your room like a fucking bloody twat!"

"Hes only talking shit because he has his group to rely on." I shrug biting a piece of my pasta. "He can pass the talent show while just singing three lines in a four minute song. So he feels safe."

"What will you be doing for your talent?" Liam asks his jaw tightened. "I can't think for the life of me what your talent is... besides -" he smirks "I'm not going to say that when your brother is right here." I grip my fork hard in my hand. I see Robin tense from the corner of my eyes.

"Don't start, man." Namjoon shakes his head.

Liam shakes his head. "Of course not. I'm not sure what talent you have, sweetheart."

"Besides sucking dick." Louis finishes, a few people gasp. Everyones eyes fall on me and Zayn laughs. It pisses me off, Zayn teetering on the fence this whole time. He did tell me the truth but then again he sticks beside his band as though they can do no wrong. Neutral my ass.

Robins fists are clenched tight around his knife and I for a moment I am scared that hes going to stab Liam. Hes not that far from him. I place my hand on his arm, he releases the knife and it clatters on the plate. "I need a smoke." he mumbles "Are you.." he trails off its his way of asking if I'm okay or he needs to stay. I nod at him knowing if he stays then he'll get violent. He stands up and purposely taking the long way so he is not tempted to hit Liam on his way out.

"How would you know that Louis? Like honestly, how would you know? Even if I was was blind, starved and begging for it on a desert island you'd be the last thing I'd ever fuck. I'd rather get railed by every motherfucker here then even look at your decrepit fucking prick. Wow, your trying to shame me from having a healthy sex life with my ex partner ... what do I dress nice too? Is my hair to shiny?" I scoff. "I was the only true friend you fucking had outside of this. and I should have been done with your ass last year." Louis jaw clenched and he shook his head standing up "No baby boy, sit down, you wanna be funny? Then let me tell you all a real fucking funny story! Liam! Did you know the real reason Louis came home from tour early?"

"She's fucking mad." Louis shook his head, tapping Liam and the boys to just leave the table.

"Why? Because they don't know the fucking truth? That you didn't fly home, you flew to New York and begged, BEGGED on your fucking hands and knees for me to leave Liam for you."

"No I didn't." Louis said but he didn't look at me, instead he looked Liam. "She's making shit up."

I shrug "I feel so fucking bad for you, I really do. It must be so hard living your life as such a fucking snake. Its pathetic really and before you start denying, just because you deleted your snap doesn't mean i didn't save the messages." I lean back in my chair. "Now you can go. I'm finished speaking."

Liam eyes Louis, then shakes his head and walks out the dining room. Louis quickly follows followed by Zayn, Niall and then harry. The room is silent and Edward laughs.

"I knew I liked you." He waves his fork at me.

"Anyone else a little hard?" Ian asks and a few groans of disgust echo throughout the room. "What?"

"I need a cigarette." I sigh throwing down my napkin and moving to the backyard with Robin.

"We should do a team building excerscise." Naomi says after a few minutes. "To calm everyone down."

"like what?" Yugyeom asks.

"There's a lot of fit fuckers here." William smirks. "Would I be wrong for suggesting a game of strip poker? Or strip truth or dare?"

~~~

[miafreeman702]

Spread Exploration

I started by working on the first chapter of the publication, dedicated to newborn/baby phase of my life. I wanted to seperate the publication through life stages as a way to show me coming to terms with my disability and the development of my struggles from physical to emotional.

I labeled the chapter 'The Unknown' to talk to the fact that when you have a disabled child, it's hard to know exactly what is wrong and what to expect throughout their life. The chapter talks to my parent's experience of this and their struggle not knowing if I was going to be ok. I'm hoping that this chapter will provide more comfort to new parents of disabled children and kind of show them they aren't alone in that experience.

I want to explore lots of hand written and analogue elements throughout to create a personalised and diary like feel. Because I was doing this all digitally, I explored different photoshop brushes and scanning in drawings. For the actual publication I want to try drawing and painting onto the final rather than digitally manipulating it. But, I really like how the brush texture turned out. I wanted to keep a dark, ominous feel to communicate that feeling of my parent's being scared and feeling alone.

I like the style of this but I think the type is really hard to read and doesn't flow that well. The middle insert is from my mum's diary and kind of communicates her feelings of anxiousness. I like the diary insert sitting on the dark background but I think the title text can be reworked a lot.

As the publication moves through my life stages I want it to become brighter and more expressive, moving through my emotional experience and social struggles, showing how those got more complex as I got older. Things definitely got brighter and I want to try show that visually by showing my journey from ignoring my disability to becoming more confident in it and expressing myself.

I also looked at exploring a fold out insert that would show off some of the altered baby clothes for my arm. I think having inserts like this will make it feel more interactive and personal, like different things that have been clipped in.

Example sketch of how the insert would work.

[kate-bashford]

FAS3002 Fashion Illustrations

When it came to creating my final illustrations for the presentation, I worked specifically on refining my designs and sketches from the previous few weeks to create practical clothing. I found it particularly useful doing this digitally as I found I had more control over the lines I was creating and was able to accentuate the different aspects of the garments more. 

In the images above, you can see how I was able to intricately create the individual parts of the garment in a way I was not able to do precisely on paper. I had scanned my templates into photoshop and made the contrast higher before bringing this over to a different creative app to illustrate the garments over. 

Above are my final outline illustrations of the front facing outfits. I shall send these over to Izzy for her to place into photoshop for her to put her textiles designs on. Generally, I am really pleased with how these came out, however I wish to illustrate one of the garments onto a different model as at the moment one model is used twice (edit 19/2/23: this is shown in the picture below). Similarly, I might change the positioning of the drawstrings on the skirt to make it more unique than what already exists. I also feel that some of the garments seem a bit flat, in particular the trousers, which I really struggled to make look realistic. 

Nonetheless, I feel that the branding now takes precedence over the illustrations and unless I find time, I shall keep these illustrations as the final design. Following this, I shall create the technical drawings for the tops as a priority, and the skirt and trousers if I have time. 

As a group, we have agreed that Tingting shall produce a new mood board for the final presentation to ensure that she has had some contribution to the project. Similarly, Izzy and I will work with Will to develop a logo, brand identity and presentation in the coming days. When Sophie is next present, we shall task her with creating a website and social media page to ensure she has also had some contribution to this module.

[fortuositywritings]

Love Hard

WandaxReader, LoveHardAU, it’s christmas and fake dating, what more could you want

Summary: You travel across the country only to get catfished by Wanda Maximoff

Y/N - Love Actually? Worst. Christmas. Movie. EVER.

Wanda - Hey Y/N. So how do you REALLY feel about my favorite Christmas movie?

That’s how this all started. You swiped right on Wanda thinking she was attractive. Nothing much to it then that. She lives in New York. You didn’t actually think anything would come out of this but then you two started texting and you feel like you finally clicked with someone. 

She almost felt too good to be true. You told your friend Daisy about her and she also couldn’t believe it. She thought you might be getting catfished but then Wanda sent a photo of herself holding a sign with your name on it after Daisy called her and it was enough to satisfy Daisy. 

Soon messaging turned into calls that could last hours. You talked about everything and nothing and it was amazing. 

You hadn’t had luck with love. All the people you’ve met through the app made horrific dates but great stories much to your boss’ satisfaction. 

You have your own column in which you write about these dates gone wrong. Unsurprisingly, people love to read about your misfortunes.

Because you think this is some chance you just can’t miss, you convince yourself with a push from Daisy that flying to New York to surprise Wanda wasn’t so crazy. 

The journey to Wanda’s town is frustrating. Your luggage didn’t make it with you. There is only one person working as a driver for both Uber and Lift. Oddly enough, Scott, the driver, says he knows Wanda. Small town, you guess. He offers you a snack in the car but when you see he’s offering you kiwi, you reject him because you are allergic.

He drops you off at the Maximoff residence. There is an awkward introduction to Wanda’s parents. They seem overly excited to meet you. They seem surprised to hear about you. Wanda’s mom calls for her to come into the living room. 

You are anxious and excited to meet Wanda in person. You wonder if she’ll be just as excited to see you. Your heart beats feel as loud as the steps you hear her take as she approaches. And then suddenly you wish you hadn’t done this. 

You have totally been catfished. 

Your Wanda, the Wanda from the pictures, has short red hair and sharp features and wears tight jeans and leather jackets. This Wanda has long brown hair and softer features and she’s definitely taller. Her winter clothes can’t hide the height difference. Her green eyes are not the same shade you’ve been dreaming about. The only thing in common this Wanda has is an affinity for jewelry, real Wanda sporting rings on her fingers and virtual Wanda has countless earrings. 

Wanda freaks out when she sees you standing in her living room with her parents. She races after you when you rush out the door. 

“Y/N! Y/N, wait! I can explain!” she says hurriedly.

You turn around. It’s so cold outside, you can see the wisps of your warm breath in the winter air as you reply. “I don’t understand. We talked. I made sure– the… the photo! It had my name on it. You wrote ‘Bye, Y/N!’”

“I’m pretty good at photoshop,” Wanda replies awkwardly.

“Oh my god!” You look for the closest thing to throw at her in her front yard. You grab the doll from the nativity scene.

“Okay, let’s take a deep breath,” Wanda suggests. She tries to calm you down when she sees  you grab the doll from the nativity scene. “Not the baby Jesus. Don’t. No, no, no, no.”

You ignore her and begin to hit her arm with baby Jesus. “What kind of psychopath creates a fake profile and then starts a fake relationship online?!”

“What kind of psycho flies across the country and shows up on someone’s front lawn?” Wanda counters.

“You said and I quote ‘I wish you were here with me for Christmas’!” you defend.

“That’s just something people say like, ‘your baby’s so cute’ or ‘my diet starts tomorrow’.” You start walking away, not believing the words coming out of Wanda’s mouth. She keeps talking. “Everybody knows that. Well, apparently not everybody.”

You do a slow 180, giving her a deathly glare. “Are you implying this is my fault?”

“Nobody is blaming anybody, okay? Maybe, maybe you’ve never dated a European woman before and you’re in shock!”

“Yes, I have. She was born in Slovakia and she was amazing in bed,” you disclose. “How could you lie to me? I really liked you.”

Wanda apologizes, “I’m sorry. I…I never meant for it to go this far. Okay? Can we go back inside and–”

“No, I’m not going inside! I’m not going anywhere with you. I never want to see you again. Okay?” You storm off walking down the sidewalk with baby Jesus still in your hand. 

Wanda yells after you, “You don’t know where you’re going!”

You answer back, “baby Jesus will take the wheel.”

You end up at a bar. You take a few shots to try and forget this whole ordeal when you hear a noisy group come in. You look over and your eyes nearly fall out of their sockets when you see your Wanda (virtual Wanda) amongst the group. You rush into the restroom to call Daisy and tell her everything that happened. 

Daisy says you owe it to yourself to approach this Wanda and see where it goes. You tell her you don’t want to further embarrass yourself, to which she replies that your dignity is long gone and that if this goes awry you would have the greatest story on your column yet. 

You are convinced but you need a little more liquid courage before you make your acquaintance. You take another shot, not looking at how the bartender is making it. You throw it back before you go take a turn at the karaoke machine. 

You start off dramatically, back to the crowd. This Wanda gets excited at hearing a song she likes being sung. She eyes your backside and checks you out. Then you turn around and surprise her. You think you are doing great, not realizing this Wanda is having a hard time looking you directly in the eye. 

Real Wanda walks into the bar, figuring you’d be in here if the baby Jesus in the snow outside the door is any indication of your whereabouts. She sees what’s wrong before you do. You put on a whole show until halfway through the song you catch your reflection and see your face is swollen. 

You scream and run out of the bar. Real Wanda runs after you while fake (virtual) Wanda cheers for your performance inside. 

“There must have been kiwi in those shots,” you croak. You’re on your knees on the sidewalk. Wanda hands you your bag and you rifle through it. “Where is it? Where is it?”

“Wha– Where’s what?” Wanda asks, trying to help you.

You claw at your throat that’s closing. You manage to say, “My epipen,” before face planting in the snow. 

“Oh, shit!” Wanda searches your bag frantically. 

You wake up lying on a cold table. 

“Thank god, you’re not dead,” Wanda sighs.

You groan, “Where am I?”

“A hospital,” Wanda answers. You look around and see x-rays of a cat. You narrow your eyes at Wanda. 

“You took me to a vet?”

“The human hospital is thirty minutes away and I didn’t want to risk it. But relax, Dr. Strange is the best in town,” Wanda assures you.

“Hello,” Dr. Strange, you assume, walks through the door. “I’m Dr. Strange. Wow! You look a lot, uh, a lot better. Huh Right? Good thing Wanda brought you in when she did, huh? ‘Cause you were like … Whoo!”

Dr. Strange motions how puffy your face was. “You’re gonna be fine. Stay as long as you like. Couple biscuits under the tree for you if you like.”

You and Wanda thank the doctor and he leaves you two alone. 

“So, you met the real Natasha tonight, huh? Did you really think sexy karaoke was going to work?” Wanda teases. “This is not LA and Natasha is not an LA girl. Hot people hit on her here all the time and they’re all the same. If you want her to notice you, do something different.”

“Oh, she noticed me tonight,” you say sarcastically as you rub your face.

“Honestly, your face was so swollen you looked more like Chucky. I doubt she’ll recognize you.”

“I don’t know anything about this girl,” you say.

“But I do.” Wanda discloses, “Not only were Natasha and I best friends until 8th grade, I have been pretending to be her for the last two weeks.”

“So what?” You wish she’d get to the point.

“So,I know Natasha better than she knows herself. I can help you get him.”

“Why would you do that?” you ask, wondering what Wanda’s angle is.

“Well maybe if I’m helping you with something, maybe you can do something for me in return,” she proposes. 

You immediately take it the wrong way. “I am not having sex with you.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all.” Wanda adds hesitantly, “I was thinking maybe you can, um, pretend to be my girlfriend until Christmas.”

“Um, why?”

“Did you see how my parents looked at me tonight when they thought you were my girlfriend? Being seen with you? That would be a huge win. I mean, you know, look at you.” She tries negotiating, “All I’m asking for is a week. Then we’ll stage a breakup and you’ll be free from me forever.”

You get a text from your boss saying he wants pages by the end of this week. You’re in a dilemma. This could make for a good story if you stick around. Wanda looks at you with her big eyes, hands clasped tight pleading with you. 

“You’re gonna set me up with Natasha.”

“Yes! You guys will be in love by New Year’s. Have a baby by next Thanksgiving,” Wanda affirms. “By the way do you have insurance? They were asking me that.”

Wanda takes you back to her house and leads you down to the basement where she stays.

“This is where the magic happens,” she jokes. “That’s just something people say. Not a lot of magic has happened at all.”

She shows you around. It’s kind of a mess. She says that it’s temporary because her apartment is under renovation. Wanda says goodnight, getting ready to go to sleep on her bed. 

“Just make yourself comfortable,” she says.

You shake your head immediately. “No, you on the floor now.”

“This is the only Tempur-Pedic in the house and I have a bad back,” Wanda explains, refusing to give up the bed.

“I don’t care if this bed is the only thing keeping you from complete paralysis. We’re not sharing,” you state. 

“What if we put pillows in the middle?” Wanda suggests.

“No.”

“Okay. What if we do like head to toe?”

“Mm. It’s always gonna be no. So, yeah.”

Wanda resigns, rolling off the bed dramatically. 

“We should probably address the catfish in the room. You do realize that at some point, you were going to have to meet me,” you start.

“I didn’t mean to catfish you. It just kind of happened.”

“‘It kind of happened?’” You deadpan.

“I had my profile up for a year and guess how many matches I got.” You shrug and she answers for you. “Three. And one of them was a guy who calls himself Vision. Yeah, Vision. So just as an experiment I thought I could use a picture of a standard attractive woman and see what would happen. I got 85 matches in five minutes. So apparently there are plenty of people out there, they just didn’t want to date me.”

“Are you seriously looking for sympathy right now? There are no words for what you did,” you reply. 

“Well, I would –”

“No words!” you repeat. “But a deal’s a deal so let’s just move on.”

In the morning, you walk into the kitchen in the pajamas Wanda’s grandma left you to wear to find Wanda having breakfast with her parents and grandma. Her mom, Iryna, gets up from the table to usher you in and have you join them for breakfast. 

There are so many options on the table to pick from. Wanda’s father, Oleg, offers you some bacon. At the same time you and Wanda inform him that you are a vegetarian. You thank him anyway. 

Her grandma inquires how you two met and Wanda tells her you met on an app. 

“So Y/N, what was it about Wanda that first caught your eye?” Her grandma asks.

“Gee, I mean, I don’t even know where to start.” You look at Wanda. “There were just so many unbelievable things in her profile. Her photos. I took one look at that hair, her physique, that jawline! I thought to myself, ‘It’s too good to be true.’”

Wanda knows what you are doing, choosing your words carefully. Her mom doesn’t catch on. 

“Oh, no it’s true. She’s gotten a lot more fit in the last couple of years.” Iryna grabs Wanda’s cheek. 

“But it wasn’t just the photos that ensnared me. Her bio. She’s passionate about life, loves all things outdoors,” you add.

“Oh, hey! She mentioned the store,” her father interjects, pointing at his work shirt that sure enough says “All Things Outdoors”. Clever, clever Wanda. Oleg tells you that his father started the store. He runs it now and Wanda works there. Wanda tries to change the topic but you insist on it, laughing when Oleg says the only traveling Wanda does is her run to get lunch at a nearby restaurant. 

You grip Wanda’s shoulder. To everyone else it looks affectionate but the way it hurts Wanda, she knows better. Wanda and you scurry off soon after. She takes you to the store she works at. 

You wander around the store as she tells you what you need to know about Natasha. According to Wanda, Nat likes outdoorsy, adventurous people. Wanda looks for some clothes, saying you need to look relaxed, like you don’t care. She hands you clothes to put on because Natasha is going to arrive any minute. 

She hands you a book as well. You cringe, reading the title.

“Walden? Are you kidding me? Thoreau was an asshole.”

“Pretend you like it because that’s Nat’s favorite book,” Wanda demands. “Also, when you are talking to her, throw in some rock climbing lingo. She loves that stuff.”

You wait for Nat to arrive and pretend to read Walden. You hate the fact you have this book in your hand. She greets Oleg and Wanda. Oleg goes to get something Nat ordered. Wanda leads Nat to you and introduces you as her cousin. 

You and Wanda do not look alike in any capacity and Wanda clarifies that you are related through her stepmom Iryna. Nat notices you holding her favorite book. She’s intrigued and quotes a line from the book. 

You start talking about climbing. You’re totally bulshitting your way through the conversation, throwing in words you read on your quick search on the internet when trying to learn about rock climbing a few minutes ago. 

“You climb?” Nat asks, surprised. 

“Me?” you scoff. “Do I climb? I’ll climb anything that moves.”

You laugh the awkwardness off. You’re doing terribly but you continue anyway. “I climb ladders, um, houses, um, trees, ladders…mostly ladders.”

Nat invites you and Wanda climbing for tomorrow at some place called Rock Ventures. Wanda accepts the invite for you two. Nat leaves smiling. 

You freak out. You don’t know how to climb. Wanda assures you she can teach you. There is a wall at the store. That does not go well. You are not three feet off the ground before you start to panic. 

Wanda helps you down and then tries to show you that the way to conquer the wall is to know the key is to take it one step at a time. 

You ask Wanda what Natasha was like in high school. Natasha was class president, star of the soccer team, nominated prom queen. You ask her why she and Natasha stopped being friends. Wanda explains that Natasha got popular and she didn’t so they grew apart. 

You disclose that you were a late bloomer as well, but she finds it hard to believe. You start climbing the wall again and not ten seconds later, you’re screaming again when you are too far from the ground for your comfort.

At Wanda’s house you find out she has a secret candle making hobby. She confides in you and lets you in on her plan of making scents for men because that has so much potential since most candles are catered for women. 

You wonder why she hasn’t started selling them. Wanda’s excuse is that businesses cost money.

“Why don’t you ask your dad for a loan?” This didn’t seem like such a big deal to you.

“You mean the old Sokovian man upstairs? He’s only interested in sporty, manly things. Plus, he and my brother would just tease me about it.” She puts her candle making equipment away.

“You have a brother?”

“Prodigal son has returned!” you both hear someone shout upstairs. “Christmas may now commence!”

“Speak of the devil,” Wanda groans, mentally preparing to see her twin.

“Pietro’s here! Now it’s Christmas!” Oleg cheers rushing down from the second floor to the living room where Pietro and his wife Monica await.

“Is that my baby?” Iryna greets Pietro, hugging him tight.

“Mom,” Pietro smiles, handing her some flowers. “Look what I brought you.”

Everyone greets Pietro and Monica cheerfully as you and Wanda enter the room, lingering in the background, waiting for him to see you. Wanda has to clear her throat for him to notice.

“Hey, Wands! What’s going on, little sister?” he greets Wanda.

“I thought you were twins?” you ask. 

“I’m 12 minutes older,” he replies with a wink. “And who do we have here?”

“Oh, this is Y/N,” Wanda says proudly, but her smile dies when Pietro assumes you are their grandma’s nurse and then guesses you are in their mom’s book club. Iryna finally interrupts when Pietro figures this is an intervention. 

“No, honey. Y/N is your sister’s girlfriend,” Iryna clarifies. Pietro laughs until he sees no one else laughing. You do not find this amusing.

“Oh, you’re serious. Really?” 

“Really,” you answer.

Pietro further embarrasses Wanda by saying he and Monica were talking about this on the way in the car, wondering how Wanda was still single. “Granted she still lives at home and the eyeliner isn’t doing her any favors. This is a Christmas miracle.”

Wow, this guy is an ass. Pietro goes on to thank you like you’re taking one for the team by dating his sister. He messes up your name too! The audacity. Two can play that game, you think. 

“You know what? The pleasure’s all mine, Peter.” You give him the same fake smile in return, throwing an arm around Wanda,pulling her close. 

Everyone starts decorating the Christmas tree. Of course it doesn’t go without Pietro bragging about how well life is going for him and he making comments to embarrass his sister. He even goes to bring out the ornament that contains a picture of a young Wanda in which she’s got braces and glasses and chubby cheeks. 

She’s flushing red, obviously upset at everyone cooing at the photo. You try to make her feel better by saying you were grateful for your awkward teenage years because it taught you empathy and how to not be a jerk - a total dig at Pietro that makes Wanda smirk and nudge you playfully. Pietro has to ruin it by calling you a ‘former chubster’. 

It’s time to place the star on top of the tree. Pietro snatches it up and is ready to place it, but Wanda suggests you do it because it’s your first year with them and you were their guest. Pietro pouts when their parents agree. He hands over the star but not without playing a discreet tug of war with you. 

You step on the ladder, Wanda’s hands on your hips to secure you, and you place the star on top. You call it a win in this battle you’ve got going on with Pietro. 

“It’s crooked,” Pietro complains to Monica. 

“You’re brother really likes being the center of attention, huh?” You’re looking at the picture frames in the hall. You are waiting for Wanda to head out to go climbing. In all the photos Pietro is in the center with a bright smile and Wanda is always a little out of the shot. 

“Likes to be? Has to be,” Wanda mumbles, finishing up tying her shoes.

“Next time he tries to steal the spotlight, steal it back,” you tell her. Wanda tries to shrug it off but you repeat, showing you meant it. “I’m serious. Steal it back.”

“Alright. Come on. We don’t want to be late. Natasha is very punctual,” Wanda warns, fixing her scarf as you head to the front door. 

“So is the wall we’re climbing like the one at the store?” you ask.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Wanda replies.

Lie. Looking at the wall, you’re sure you are going to faint. Why is it so damn high?

“Y/N, are you coming or what?” Nat says from midway of the wall. 

“Yeah, coming right up,” you chuckle nervously, before turning to Wanda. “You didn’t tell me she was Tom Cruise. I can’t do this. Get this off me.”

You try taking the harness off but Wanda’s hands block you from doing so. Both of you start smacking each other’s hands. 

“Stop. Stop. You got this, okay? Here, put these in.” She hands you some earphones. 

“What? Why?” You do as she says anyway.

“It’ll help you relax. And it’s your favorite song,” she explains. You don’t believe her until the song actually begins to play and you feel yourself feeling better. “Remember, one move at a time.”

You move to the wall. You hesitate to make the first move, looking back at Wanda who gives you a thumbs up in support. You take a deep breath and begin to climb.

You can’t believe you actually make it to the top. You cheer when you climb on top of the wall. “I can’t believe you guys said this was hard…oh.”

You gasp looking down. Nat tells you to come down. You turn your back on them in order not to look down. With a shaky voice you say, “Um, actually, I think I’m gonna stay up here and enjoy the view for a little while.”

You fall to the floor of where you are. Wanda hears the thud and gets into action, putting a harness on and climbing the wall faster than anyone. 

Nat has no idea what’s going on and just cheers Wanda on. When Wanda makes it to the top, she sees you lying down shaking. 

She rushes over to you, falling on her knees and tries to soothe you. “Hey, what are you doing? The hard part is over. Just rappel down.”

“Uh-uh.” There is no freaking way you are ever moving.

“You got through the tough part. It’s nothing.”

“Oh God, this is how I die. I’m gonna die. This is it. This is it for me,” you whimper.

Wanda comes up with an idea quickly. “Okay. Okay. I think I actually know a trick to get you down, but you gotta trust me.”

“Trust the girl that catfished me?” You scoffed.

“No, trust the girl who got you up here in the first place,” she answers. “Look, I know you’re scared but you’ve got this. And I’ve got you. Okay? I promise.”

You choose to trust Wanda. She helps you stand up and has you walk backwards towards the edge of the wall, keeping you distracted with her comforting words and having you keep your eyes on hers.

She asks you to close your eyes and take a deep breath when you reach the edge. And then she pushes you, literally. 

You scream on the way down. You land safely and Nat looks really impressed thinking you just jumped down yourself. You try to play it off like it’s nothing. 

She asks to hang out tomorrow at 9. Wanda gives you a thumbs up from the top of the wall. 

At night, you go caroling with Wanda’s family. You make it to the door of a resident home. When Pietro puts on a performance, he puts on a performance. 

Someone requests “Baby It’s Cold Outside”. Pietro is going to sing with Monica but Wanda decides to take your advice of taking the spotlight back and volunteers you and her to sing the duet. 

You don’t want to sing this song. The lyrics make you uncomfortable. Wanda tells you to sing and that she’ll change the lyrics so it doesn’t sound so bad.

She does an excellent job. You have a great time singing with her and at the end of the song, everyone is cheering for you two. 

Pietro can’t stand not having the attention and announces with Monica that they’re expecting a baby, once again stealing the spotlight. Everyone is congratulating them. 

Wanda gets the bright idea of getting down on one knee, calling everyone’s attention. You know exactly what she’s doing and it’s a little too far. 

You ask her to get up through gritted teeth. She makes a speech about how you haven’t known each other long but when you know, you know. You are breaking a sweat here. 

“Y/N L/N, will you marry me?”

Everyone is watching you. Can someone please get you out of this. 

“She doesn’t even have a ring,” Pietro points out.

For once you find yourself agreeing with Pietro. “Yeah, you don’t have a ring.”

Grandma Maximoff comes to the rescue, taking off her own ring and giving it over to Wanda. Wanda thanks her grandma before looking back up at you, giving you puppy dog eyes. 

You can’t say no and humiliate her in front of everyone. “Yes.”

The second you get to Wanda’s room, you argue. She tries to apologize. “I’m sorry. I got carried away in the moment. But if you think about it, nothing’s changed.”

“Nothing’s changed? Your grandma gave me her ring off of her finger!“ you shout. 

Wanda says you just have to make it until Christmas then she can say you broke it off and went back to LA. There is no way you want to look like the asshole. 

You bring up Natasha. You have a date with her tomorrow. “What if she finds out I’m engaged to my cousin?”

“She won’t. I promise you that. Okay? Everything will be fine. Just trust me.”

“Trust you? That’s literally the last thing I can do.” You start mumbling, “You wanted me to wear a hat. You’re like ‘It’s cute.’ It’s dumb! Now apparently I’m getting married!”

Upstairs, Pietro is googling you. He doesn’t trust you. Something doesn’t feel right and he is going to get to the bottom of this.

You have a nice talk with Oleg, helping him with the fireplace. He tells you about his father.

The next morning, Nat takes you on a hike that you assume is the date. Surprise surprise, she says it’s just the warm up. She takes you bobsledding, but like if bobsledding was on X Mode.

You don’t know how you are going to get through this so you call Wanda to tell you what to do. You find a blunt in your bag. You got through the experience by getting high as a kite. 

You get home to Wanda making some candles. You tell her about the date and how Natasha is perfect. Wanda begs to differ. You think she’s being weird. 

You start taking a whiff of her candles and guessing the scents. There is one Wanda doesn’t want you to smell, so of course you move away before she can snatch it back. 

She says it smells like her grandpa because scents make memories come alive. She’s embarrassed when she says that but you tell her it’s very sweet. 

Iryna calls you and Wanda up to watch Love Actually with the family in the living room. You get to the part of the film where the guy admits he loves his best friend’s wife through poster boards at her front door when Iryna drops a bomb on you and Wanda.

You and she will be in tomorrow’s paper. An announcement of your engagement with your picture together will be printed. 

That’s how you find yourself on a newspaper heist with Wanda throughout town early in the morning. You hide in the backseats of Wanda’s car after getting the last bunch of newspapers. A newspaper boy is looking for you two. 

You two are giggling in the backseats, sitting slouched down so no one can see you. You open up the newspaper to your announcement. Wanda starts laughing at the photo they chose to go with. 

“I mean, I look like a deer in the headlights in this photo,” you comment. Wanda denies it but you insist. “Yes, I do. It’s a pretty decent photo of you, though. Look at that.”

You show Wanda and she mumbles, “Probably the only one in existence.”

“Come on, Wanda. I know a lot of people who’d be very into you.” You aren’t lying. Wanda is cute, you can admit. You don’t know why she has trouble dating.

“Well they’re definitely not on FlirtAlert,” she sighs, talking about how little matches she would get on the app.

You are going to figure out why that is. “Do you still have your original profile photos?”

She stays quiet and you get your answer. “Oh my god. You do. Show me!”

Wanda tries to convince you she deleted it but you know she’s lying. “Please. I know you didn’t. I know you. I know you. Show me the photos!”

You start smacking her arm to annoy her into showing you. It works. She pulls up the app and you snatch the phone from her hands and scroll through her original photos. You see the problem right away. 

“No wonder you’re not getting any matches. Why are you holding a knife in this one?”

“To show that I like cooking. People like dating those that can cook,” she explains, like it’s the most obvious thing.

“It would help if you were in the kitchen and not in your bedroom. This is terrifying.” You go to the next photo. It’s Wanda in the yard, clothes dirty with mud and holding a shovel. “Okay, you straight up look like you murdered somebody in this one.”

“That’s me gardening!” She defends herself. 

“You need to hold a plant or something cause this looks like incriminating evidence.” You laugh and though Wanda knows it’s at her, she smiles rolling her eyes at you. “No wonder you only got three matches. You were hiding your strengths.”

“What strengths are those?”

You turn to look her in the eye. Clearing your throat you start, “For one, you have very nice eyes. You gotta show those puppies off. All these photos are too far away to see them. And your teeth. You have really straight teeth. Like freakishly straight.”

“Five years of braces,” Wanda explains.

“So then smile more,” you demand. She sarcastically smiles, but it works. “There you go! There it is.”

You both giggle. You add, “But more importantly, you’re a good person, Wanda.”

“I don’t know how to show that in a photo.”

“Well, for starters, you have to believe that it’s true. And then once you do, trust me, it’ll show. Promise me that once this is all over, you’ll put up a real profile with real photos,” you ask.

“I promise.”

You smile at each other before someone knocks on the car window. “I know you’re in there! I can see the steam through the car window.”

It’s the newspaper boy! You and Wanda jump to the front seats of the car for your grand getaway, cackling as you drive off. 

You get ready for your date with Natasha. You walk out in a dress that you borrowed from Wanda’s mom’s closet. Wanda’s speechless when she sees you in it. Then she finally has the words to tell you that you look great. 

You mention the name of the restaurant to Wanda and she warns you that it is a steakhouse. You’ll just get a salad. Wanda says Nat likes girls who can eat meat like she does. You think you can forgo your vegetarian diet for one night. 

She tells you that might be a little too far because you are compromising your beliefs. It starts with a little meat today but what would you lie about tomorrow? You take offense because the only reason you are here in this situation is because Wanda lied.

“I lied about a photo.” Wanda doesn’t think this compares to what she did. 

“No. You hid behind a photo. You lied about your identity,” you point out.

“But it was still me! Every conversation we had, every text we exchanged, every laugh we shared. It was me. You liked me. And you liked me so much you flew across the country to surprise me for Christmas,” Wanda snaps back.

“You’re right. I liked you. But you were a lie. A piece of fiction.” You leave with that. 

While you are on your date with Natasha, Wanda and her family are gathered around the table making gingerbread houses. Wanda’s grandma asks where you are and Wanda lies saying you are out tasting cakes for the wedding. 

Pietro finds it odd that you aren’t doing that with you, given that Wanda is to marry you after all. Wanda says she’s happy with whatever you are happy with. Pietro is still wary and lies that he needs more stuff for his gingerbread house. He excuses himself, claiming to go to the store. In reality, he plans to see what you are really up to. 

Pietro does go to the store, but on the way back home, he spots you dining with Natasha. 

You feel uncomfortable with the deer heads hanging on the walls of the restaurant like trophies. You suppose they are because they hunt animals like it’s a game. Turns out Natasha’s family owns the restaurant and one of the heads on the walls is one she shot. 

As you get to talking, you realize you and Natasha don’t have much in common. On the car ride back to Wanda’s, Natasha tells you she doesn’t celebrate Christmas. You ask her to drop you off a block away, explaining you don’t want to wake anyone up. She kisses you and it’s not what you thought it would be. It was kind of disappointing to be completely honest.

In the morning, you try to apologize to Wanda for what you said last night. She shrugs it off. Before you can say anything else, her grandma asks you two to come to the senior living home and help them with online dating. 

It doesn’t go too well when they all start joking about twisting the truth to make themselves sound more attractive online. Wanda stops them and gives them a little speech on how it’s wrong to do that because you’ll only end up misleading people, disappointing them, and in the end getting hurt yourself. 

Unfortunately, they don’t take her speech to heart. However, it does change things for you by giving you a different perspective. You see now that you might be hurting Wanda with all of this. She wanted someone to get to know her and the only way she saw anyone would take an interest in her is by using someone else’s photo. 

She was right. Because that’s exactly what happened. You proved her right and it probably feels awful. 

You and Wanda are trailing behind her grandma on the sidewalk after the whole event. You have to bring it up.

“I guess I never realized. I was so busy being mad at you that I never stopped to think about why you actually did it.”

“Look Y/N,” Wanda stops in the middle of the sidewalk. “The why doesn’t even matter anymore. It was wrong. I should have never asked you to lie in the first place. And I’m just gonna go to my family and come clean with everything.”

“Wait, what? No.” You’ve come this far and she wants to stop? “No, no, no. You can’t do that. Wanda, this isn’t all your fault. I mean besides, a deal’s a deal. We’ve made it this far. It’s only two days til Christmas. Let’s stage a breakup like we planned. Don’t worry. I’ll sell it.”

Wanda isn’t totally convinced. “I don’t know. It… it doesn’t feel right.”

You can’t believe this is happening. Wanda sees her grandma turn the wrong way. She shouts after her. “Grandma, the car is that way.”

Her grandma does not seem to be listening. Wanda chases after her and you follow Wanda. “Grandma, where are you going?”

You and Wanda follow her into a building that has all the lights off. Suddenly they turn on and people yell “surprise”.

They’ve thrown you an engagement party. What’s worse is they’ve chosen Natasha’s family’s restaurant as the venue and to top it off Nat is there. 

Pietro is happy to see your panicked face. He might be the worst but he wasn’t about to let you play his little sister. 

Nat finds you and drags you to meet her parents. People are congratulating you and you lie to Nat saying that you were the millionth customer at a store when she asks why. 

Then you find your boss is here too. Great. Everything is great.

Everyone’s attention is called by Oleg. He’s about to give a speech, obviously to congratulate you and Wanda and welcome you into the family, but you interrupt before he gets too far.

There is no way out of this. It is time to face the music. You fess up to everything. You watch as everyone looks at you disappointedly. You feel especially bad for Wanda, the pitying looks they send her. 

Pietro in contrast nearly cheers at being right about you, but he does feel bad for his sister. Nat is actually the first to storm off, making a good point in saying that you were a hypocrite for getting mad at Wanda for lying to you by pretending to be someone else and then going and doing the same to Natasha. 

You apologize and leave. You grab your stuff from the Maximoff’s place, leaving a note for Wanda and her grandma’s ring on the kitchen table. 

You can’t fly home yet because you can’t get a ticket. You end up staying at the same inn as your boss who still wants a story. 

Wanda enters her house and finds the note you left for her. It reads : A passion whose flame fails to be fanned eventually burns down. Don’t be afraid to be you. -Y/N

The ring lies on top of the note. You’ve gone and this was your goodbye. Wanda picks up the ring and stares at it sadly. 

Her family walks into the kitchen and she tells them that you’ve left. One by one they all hug her. She returns her grandma’s ring. 

Her father is the last to hug her. She asks to talk to him for a minute. In the spirit of being honest, she finally tells him she wishes to make candles and not work at the store with him anymore. 

“Thank god! You are a terrible salesman,” her dad laughs in relief.

He sniffs one of the candles you left of Wanda’s on the table and Oleg immediately recognizes the scent. He’s very impressed with it. Wanda lets out a sigh of relief and happiness. 

You, on the other hand, drive yourself crazy in your room at the inn. You form a single sentence. You stare at a blank document in your laptop for hours. 

You finally breakthrough in the morning and once your hands are on those keys, there is no stopping you. You get to the end and realize that there is no good way to end this. You take a break and open FlirtAlert, the app that started it all. 

You see Wanda came through with her promise and posted good, real, not murder-y photos of herself. There are those eyes you like so much. 

Wait— 

You spring up from the bed. You have an idea of an ending for you. You just hope it works. 

Wanda goes to get the door when she hears the doorbell ring. You are standing in the front yard with poster boards in your hand. You are pulling the move from Love Actually, her favorite movie. 

You apologize to Wanda for not seeing what has been in front of you all along. Her family comes outside halfway through to witness this. You ask for a second chance, holding up a marker for her to write her answer on the board.

She walks up and you are nervous. This can go two ways but you really truly hope it goes the way you want it to. 

It does and everyone is cheering when they read her answer. You and Wanda have a stupid grin on your faces. 

“So what do we do now?” she asks.

Her grandma shouts, “Kiss her, you idiot!”

You laugh and Wanda pulls you into a kiss. This kiss- this kiss felt right. It’s not long before your smile keeps you from kissing her properly. 

You’ve finally found a great ending to your story.

________________________________________________________

If you haven’t watched this movie, you are missing out. It is the right kind of corny and I love it so much. 

taglist: @diaryoflife @olsensnpm @romanoffomixam @anxietyisgreat

[artofrengin]

Here's a sneak peek of content that's normally not for the general public! For every illustration I made for Netherrealms, I did a write-up of how I made the piece and release that exclusively for ρatrons.

This is an illustration I’ve been looking forward to painting again with my skill having progressed after 5 years. Here’s the first version I painted back in 2016:

This was my starting point when I started figuring out a way to remake this illustration. I didn’t want to change the composition, but I did want to add a lot of things I learned about lighting, costume design and giving direction to the composition.

As usual, I started with a moodboard to gather reference for lighting, the costume etc.

I then started setting up a scene to create reference for for Than’s pose. I loved the pose in one of the reference images (the mannequin in Cersei’s dress at the top left of the ref board, for the experts) so I decided to emulate that, with some adaptations to have Than look down at us all (as she does).

Eventually, I had a scene set up, but no real idea how I was going to approach the new version of her dress. For a quick mock-up, I just made a screenshot from Blender of the scene I already had and sketched on top of that in Photoshop:

Now that I’ve got the basic shapes down, I have a little fun and recreate the dress in Marvelous Designer. I took the dress I made in Marvelous for Nergui earlier as a base and adapted that to fit Than’s frame, and looked up some really basic puffy sleeves patterns to emulate those, plus her overcoat.

(I actually understand sewing so much better after making a few of these - not that I’d actually be able to sew a dress after this though)

Since her collar would be a hard surface thing, I modeled that in Blender, imported the cloth from Marvelous and voilá, we have some reference:

Her collar didn’t have the shape I wanted exactly and the fabric of her overcoat wasn’t as thick as I wanted it to be, but this gives me a good idea of where I want to take the piece. So now I could go on to the actual drawing!

After the initial sketch I begin to lay in some colors, and make selections to fill them with the gradient tool. After a while, the painting looks like this:

I decided at this point I hadn’t taken Native’s anatomy into account enough: their necks are very elongated and their shoulders rest really low. I ended up adapting my sketch with the liquify tool to emphasise that a bit more, though I realized the collar would cover up a lot of that effect.

What I’ve also done at this point is create a design for the overcoat. To keep it consistent, I used the symmetry tool with different shapes to create designs, and clipped those to the blue square I’d created. I then made a smart object out of that whole design. That way, I could duplicate it, use it on the other side of her overcoat, and then change the design without having to redo it twice.

I used the same technique on the ribbons hanging from her collar as the rest of the patterned fabric: I created a design within a smart object, and then duplicated that smart object to fit other spaces where I wanted them to fit. I also decided at this point (after looking up some extra reference) that the gold embossing wasn’t looking like it should, so I made it a lot darker.

When I was almost finished I realized that the image was incredibly dark (in a bad way), so I upped the contrast a bit in the whole image, but also brightened up Than a bit to bring her more to the foreground.

I like to let a piece rest for a while after I’ve worked on it. Sometimes I even come back to a piece after a week with new insights. This one went through the same process. After a week of vacation I came back to the piece and made some final color adjustments and brightened everything up a bit more. And that’s how I ended up with the final piece!

I’m happy to have tackled this piece, because I now have a worthy piece to display next to Time. Now I only need a version of Tallulah where she doesn’t have her head in the clouds and I’ll have the full triptych. :)

If you found that interesting, I have about 19 more articles like this on my patreon, for just $2 a month! And with pledging, you help me create more Netherrealms to boot :)

[attemptinghaikyuu]

Sharing Your Jacket With Vollydorks pt. 1

A/n: I’m doing this with characters who are on the smaller side because that just makes more sense

*G/n reader

Nishinoya Yuu

He was so excited to see you for your date! ...that he forgot to grab a jacket

He also forgot shoes at first but he actually went back and grabbed those

And he managed to somehow completely overlook the missing jacket as he pulled his shoes on smh

But he gets to the amusement park where you’re waiting for him and you also don’t figure out what’s missing at first

Noya runs into your arms and y’all hug, rocking back and forth, just savoring each other’s presence

A couple minutes later you finally pull back and without hesitation Noya grabs your hand and starts dragging you around, talking about how perfect this is gonna be

Oh, if only he knew

Walking around for the first few minutes it’s all chill

Then Noya sees this water shooting game and the stuffed prizes are too cute for him to not try and get two

He wants two so you can match

Letting go of your hand he hands an overworked teenager some money and goes for it

The game starts up and you at last notice that Noya is not in fact wearing a jacket

It’s starting to get dark out and you’re a little concerned he might be cold

You’re unsure if you should ask if he wants to borrow yours, when the overly excited kid next to Noya, starts shaking his water gun in frustration over the game

It ends up getting all over him and the worker

You just barely manage to jump away in time to avoid being sprayed

The kid messed up Noya’s aim and he lost the game, so he’s most upset about that

The teenager still at the both, is staring up at the sky with the most I’m dead inside expression you’ve seen since Daichi when dealing with Hinata and Kageyama

You’re most concerned about your boyfriend though

Pulling off your jacket and thanking your choice in wearing two layers of warm long sleeved clothing, you wrap the item around him

Zipping up the jacket you ask if he’s alright

He’s kinda surprised, but it’s not long before he’s looking at you all star struck

Not afraid to start bragging about you to the teen, you gotta pull him away eventually

You end up going to a different game booth where Noya wins you matching keychains

Be warned! He’s gonna try and recreate this so you wear his jacket

Yes, this does mean paying Tanaka to spray you with water... 😔

Yachi Hitoka

You’re walking home from work together

It’s really nice and picturesque

The sun is setting and the sky is like one of Yachi’s paintings

Honestly, it’s got you feeling giddy

You had both spent the day putting together a new ad yes that is her job for a pretty big company and you had both had a lot of fun with it

May or may not have messed around half the day making the ad

Definitely didn’t photoshop your boss into a bikini to promote that ad😶

And you both definitely didn’t accidentally show that version to the boss by mistake

You made it professional, it’s fINE OKAY

It had been a good day, but then.. you’re always having good days with your girlfriend

Reaching out to grab her hand you jump when you feel how cold they are

She’s shaking a bit and you’re feeling guilty for not noticing sooner

Pulling off your outer layer, smiling at the look of concern and ignoring the nervous protest that you’ll get cold, you lift her arms and gently tug the fabric over her head

She sighs in relief immediately and you grab her hand with a bounce back in your step, eager to get home now that you know cuddling will be needed

Yachi makes a detour and grabs a couple mugs to make your favorite warm drinks once in your shared apartment

You settle for hugging her from behind and catch her when you accidentally make her slip

She tells you to stop and you bop her nose, she’s blushing but still trying to scold you for nearly making her spill the cups contents

Think old married couple, that’s your cute dynamic :3

It takes forever to finally sit down with your drinks in hand, slumping against each other with content sighs

Yachi turns to you and gives you a quick cheek kiss, and then proceeds to do something very rare

Teases you

Specifically over the jacket

You gasp in mock offense and tease back, saying she should have remembered to bring one

You know she’s actually very much enjoying the hoodie, when she breathes into it, telling you she’ll remember to bring this one to work with her

[bunsblr]

Allright, finally got around to writing another part of my tutorial. In this part I will go over how I paint shadows on the body and some other stuff. Let’s just get into it!

Open this in dashboard for best view of the screenshots.

Disclaimer: I have no formal training for any kind of graphics stuff, I work in an office as a receptionist - I serve coffee for a living. I am absolutely self taught and while I consider myself pretty comfortable with photoshop, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t about a gazillion of other things that can be done that I have no idea about. There are people far superior than me in the Sims community. This is just how I do it, with techniques I have picked up through the years. Some things I go over in these will be pretty basic, some things a little more unorthodox. Disclaimer 2: My edits take time. This is what I do to relax, one edit takes several hours for me. Sometimes days :))) Disclaimer 3: My photoshop is in Swedish, which is my first language. I tried my best to find the English translations for every step that I do.

Tools used: The Sims 4, Adobe Photoshop 2020, One by Wacom Pen Tablet (very basic and unfancy).

When we stopped the last time we had just painted some shadows on the face and chest area. Now I continue with all other parts that’s showing skin. The hand has some of that wrongly places highlight thing going on, so I use the pen tool to section the hand out.

On the Sim layer, I choose a color of the hand that suits my purpose and I go over the area I want to "correct". I also removed the shadow on the wrist because I wanted to add my own.

Going back to the shadow layer, I use my shadow color and go over the part of the hand that would be facing away from our imaginary light source, as well as the part just under the clothing line. Then I blend by going over with a low opacity eraser brush again.

Between and around the fingers I usually add some extra definition with a smaller soft brush, using the same shadow color. Any uneven parts gets blended with the smudge tool.

The other hand just needed some shadow.

She's got leeeegs… Anyone else old enough to remember ZZ Top? No? Just me? Ok. I section out one of the legs, yes, using pen tool again.

I "color correct" the highlighted part on the front of the leg that I feel is in the wrong place.

I add my shadows on the front of the legs and under the skirt. Then I reverse my selection by clicking the Marquee tool, and right clicking in my picture. The english option should be called "Inverse Selection" or something like that.

I paint my shadow on the other leg, building up a little more color closest to the other leg to add separation between the two. And now since my selection didn´t section off the leg from the dress we've got some bleeding because I can´t be bothered by being precise.

I deselect and use the eraser tool with a hard brush and 100% opacity and start erasing the shadow parts I don't want, I'm careful not to go over any skin parts on the leg and hand. So this is a perfectly good method to use if you don’t want to section off using the pen tool all the time. I switch between the two depending on the size of the area.

I blend the parts of the shadows that I feel are too harsh with a low opacity soft eraser brush.

The foot had a little of that mucky highlight thing going on as well, so I mark that part of (pen tool) and go to my Sim layer.

I go over with an eyedropped color, and go back to my Shadow layer to start adding shadow with my shadow color. I draw shadows along the shoe part and underneath the sole of the foot. This is just to add some dept. Since this was such a small area I opted to not section the skin parts off, I just painted over the whole damn thing and went back in with an eraser to remove any unwanted shadow from the shoe parts.

I make a new layer for my Clothing Shadow, and copies the Sim layer mask onto this one as well by holding Alt, grabbing the layer mask and dropping it onto my new layer.

I eyedrop a color from the darker part of her dress and choose a darker more saturated version of that color. Usually I go with black for the clothing shadow, but it depends on the original colors of the clothes. With bright colors like this dress I go for a darker version of that color.

I definitely did not do myself any favours when I decided to have the light come from the back of this sim. Straight from the front is always easiest but hey, challenges is how we grow. I use a big ass soft brush and go over the front of the dress.

Aaaaand the pen tool is back again. I section off the arm of the dress.

I chose a slightly smaller brush than before (still pretty big though) and go over the part of the arm that´s facing away from the light. Then I invert the selection and paint shadows on the body under the arm, I build up a little more color here.

I deselect and now we´ve got a pretty sharp line around the shoulder where there naturally would not be. I go in with the eraser brush (low opacity, soft brush) and blend it out. I also blend the shadow that was on the front of the body since it was to harsh.

Now I realized that the light would not hit the hip that directly since the lower part of the arm is in the way, so I section off a big of the hip.

Since I don't work with especially harsh shadows, and since the arm is not directly in touch with the hip, I draw sort of a cone shaped shadow here. Not letting the tip of the cone reach all the way to the edge of the back.

I clean up a little more using smudge and eraser tool. She´s starting to look pretty good eh?

Now I want to merge all my Sim layers, but since I suffer from anxiety and can´t committ fully I want to keep all the layers as well. So I mark the Sim layer group and duplicate it (ctrl+ J), and hide the original Sim layer group.

I select all the layers in my new Sim layer group and merge them by pressing ctrl + E.

Now they´re one layer, without any layer masks. For the purpose of this tutorial I rename this layer Sim (when merging the way I do the new layer will take the name of the top Layer). Now this is our new Sim base layer, the old one is hidden away and hopefully we don´t have to touch that again because that would mean I would have made a major mistake somewhere that I can´t correct on this new layer. It’s very unlikely, but it feels nice still having those other layers as backup.

Since Sims is a video game we have some parts that are pretty square in our picture even though they wouldn´t be in real life. Time to smooth things out.

I go to Filter -> Liquify. This is like the smudge tool on crack. There´s a lot of things that can be done in here but in this particular case I'm going pretty simple. I use the smudge and go over any pointy bits that are'nt supposed to be pointy. I change the brush sizes to fit the area I'm working on. Some places need smaller brushes, some benefit from bigger ones.

Here's a comparison before and after of some of the things I corrected in Liquify. It's not a huge difference but it does looks nicer.

And that concludes part 4 of this tutorial. Don’t hesitate to message me if you have any questions.

[ilooklikeaburntchickenugget]

Hi, I love your writing. I really want to make a request where the readers have eating disorder but works in the modeling industries. She is like dating Gerard, but they were in a super big fight because of her eating disorder, as well as her constant traveling for fashion weeks, and at the end, they make up, and Gerard is helping her getting better, and stuff like that. I really love your writing, can you please write one? THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!

Title: Poisons A/N: I actually got two requests for something like these. The endings for both requests were slightly different, but here’s the first one. I didn’t really edit it, just because I haven’t updated much content in forever, but here you go! Pairing: Gerard Way (probably late Black Parade era) x Model!F!Reader Word count: 3,170 Warnings: Eating disorder, swearing, angst, drama, there’s just a lot.

Okay, so this was not what Gerard expected to come home to.

The man expected to go back to his New York apartment, shared with his gorgeous girlfriend, and for everything to be perfect. Well maybe not perfect, but perfect in Gerard’s mind.

He wanted nothing more than to just eat some chips, not having eaten in 16 hours due to his flight and partial distaste to airplane food, and curl up with his girlfriend, hugging every inch of her curves.

Instead he came home to a house that was nearly empty of any food, only a few protein shakes resided in the large fridge. This was already a huge warning sign Gerard looked out for. His mind attempted to justify itself, thinking that maybe he was jumping to the worst of the worst conclusions. No, you were probably just traveling so much that you weren’t at home enough to actually buy food.

He sighed, moving to one of the cabinets he knew the take out menus were hidden in. Opening it up, he picked up one of the cheap paper menus covered in dust, shaking it with his hand to get it off. Great, these hadn’t been touched in months.

After debating mentally between Chinese and Italian, he moved to your bedroom, in hopes to finally see the love of his life after months of being absent on tour. There you were, peacefully sleeping in bed. Jetlag, he knew.

He carefully removed his shoes, moving to his closet to change his airplane clothes to more comfortable ones. Climbing into the warm bed beside you, he placed his hands on your hips as he always had. His initial smile soon turned into a frown.

Even under the large hoodie you were wearing he could feel the painful outlines of your ribs. Grimacing to himself, he heard a small sigh fall from your lips. “Gee?” You coarsely called out.

“Mhm,” He hummed back, kissing the top of your head despite the pure disappointment towards you that coarse through his veins.

“What’re you doing? Weren’t you supposed to be gone for another week?” You asked again, still half asleep.

“The guys and I decided to cancel the last week where we were just supposed to travel, I missed you too much.” He smiled lightly, moving your hair to the side to kiss your neck.

“Mmm,” You hummed quietly, your consciousness growing back. Within seconds realization hit you, your eyes internally going wide, not wanting to show anything to Gerard, and you pulled away from him slightly.

“Babe,” He sighed, “We’re not doing this again.” “Doing what again?” You tried to pretend to not understand what he was saying.

“You’re a gorgeous, talented model,” He began with a soft smile, “But don’t go into acting, you’re not good at it.” “Gee, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You fired back.

“Take off your hoodie,” He insisted, “Now.” “Gerard, what the fuck?” You scoffed, “Take off my hoodie?” “You heard me,” He stated, “Take it off.” “Why would I take it off?” You scrowled.

“So I can confirm that you haven’t been eating like you’re supposed to.”

“Gerard, please-” You begged, now falling off your pedestal of lies. He sighed heavily, rolling his eyes.

“Why haven’t you?” He asked, looking at you, “What has caused you not to eat again? I thought we were over this.”

“I don’t think that’s your problem.” You snapped. You rarely if ever did so, but this was only further confirmation that you hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. You were cranky.

“Damn right it is my problem.” He sat up next to you, his face had gone completely serious. There were traces of anger in his eyes, his pulsing veins along his muscular arms told you all you needed to know. He wasn’t only infuriated with your habit, he was disappointed.

A word you hated. You absolutely hated. The way it sounded, the meaning, how it made you feel. “Please,” You begged him, your once bright eyes gray from the torture you had put yourself through. “Please what?” He asked, his tone still somewhat harsh.

“Just don’t be mad.” You pleaded. You could see his eyes scan over your face, looking for any signs that you were lying. He found none.

Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes to clear his head he nodded lightly. “Alright,” He said barely letting out a breath, “But you need to tell me everything.”

And you did. Most of it at least. You explained how your insecurities resettled themselves in your mind, starting the moment he left for Tour. You talked about how you were getting more gigs and all due to your tinier size. You explained how skin and bones was basically the new trend.

He sat and listened to you. And he believed it, because he knew it was true. But naturally, he also was a human lie detector. Especially with you.

“Okay,” He began, “And what else?” So maybe that one small part your left out was something that you really didn’t want to admit. Gerard had this strong distaste for most of your model “friends”, ya know, the ones who are naturally tiny and eat salads 24/7, never genuinely enjoying a single meal. The one’s who flashed their designer shit everywhere they went, who posted bikini photos every other day and managed to somehow photoshop themselves into complete Barbie dolls. It made Gerard’s blood boil, he never liked you hanging out with them. Because are them you were not Y/N, you couldn’t be. And that made you even more secure.

“There’s nothing else.” You lied. He looked you in the eyes, waiting another moment.

“I’m gonna give you one more chance to tell me the truth,” He sighed, “What else?” “I said nothing.” Your tone was adamant. He rolled his eyes in disbelief.

“You lied to me,” He began, “You just fucking lied to me. We’ve been over this how many times?” “I didn’t fucking lie to you,” You stuck up for yourself, moving further away from him.

“Another lie, damn Y/N.” He sighed, “We’ve been dating for three years, and you still can’t trust me.” “I do trust you, Gerard.” “Then why are you lying to me?” He asked, his tone going to a much harsher pitch.

“Ya know what?” You said, grabbing your pillow violently, getting up from the bed, Gerard looking at you with no emotion. “Fuck you.” You stated.

“Are you seriously gonna leave?” He asked, rolling his eyes, “Immature.” “No, I’m going to the fucking couch where I don’t have to sleep next to a complete dick.” You fired back, going into your closet and grabbing a spare blanket. “You didn’t mean that.” He scoffed.

“Then why the fuck did I say it?” You marched out of the bedroom, flipping him off to which you heard a sarcastic laugh.

This was far from how you had planned his return. You were gonna stock the fridge and pantry, ya know, not give him a chance to think you weren’t eating, and probably have dinner made. You would eat a small portion, making the excuse you had a big lunch with your friends, and bam! Everything would be okay.

But naturally, shit didn’t work out and after numerous insults thrown at each other you found yourself on the couch silently sobbing. You and Gerard had never gone that far, ever. This fight was beyond messy, it was a complete dumpster fire.

You wanted no more than to apologize to him, but you also wanted an apology from him. You should’ve told him everything, that was on you. But he pushed your buttons and he knew what he was doing. It only took 15 minutes, before you heard his soft footsteps coming from the bedroom, and his warm arms wrapping around you, to which his shoulder became one to cry on. His slow and soft coos calming you down, as he began apologizing over and over again, clearly more mad at himself at this point. “Sugar, I’m so so sorry,” He apologized, “I was just really upset.” “I know,” You sniffled, “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have called you a dick.” You looked up at him. “Well, I was kinda being one.” He lightly smiled, to which you giggled in his chest. “Just promise me, you’ll start eating again.” “Gee-” You were about to make an excuse when you were interrupted.

“Babe, you have to.” He began, “Remember what your manager said last time?” You sighed, remembering. Yep, they would place you right in a psych ward. “So here’s what’s gonna happen. We’re not gonna tell anyone, but I need you to start eating, okay? We’ll go gradually, start small and build up. Together, okay?” You nodded, placing you head on his shoulder.

“I love you,” You smiled, looking up at him. “I love you too.” He smiled right back down.

-Six months later-

"Gee, that’s too much salt!” You scolded as he put a tablespoon of salt not a teaspoon into the cookie dough you were making.

“Oops.” He looked down to which you smiled lightly. You took a chunk of it placing it into your mouth, and he did the same. You couldn’t help but gag at how much salt was in it. “Salty.” He admitted, and you lightly nudged him.

“Yeah, ya dork.” You smiled. “That’s what happens when you add too much salt.” He lightly laughed, wrapping his hands around your waist from behind and placing his head on your shoulder.

“So what’re we gonna do to fix it.” “Nothing,” You said, “We could like, triple the batch, but that would be way too much.”

“Don’t forget we’re seeing the guys tonight,” He smiled, “They’re gonna eat this shit up.” You sighed, nodding.

“Maybe it isn’t such a bad idea after all.” The two of you spent the next half hour adding more of every ingredient, thankful that your apartment was stocked with food to use.

Carefully, you placed as many trays as you could into the oven, closing it and setting the timer. Giving Gerard a quick peck on the lips, he went off to review some emails as you checked your phone. Of course, the group chat was buzzing.

You sighed as you open the text chain reluctantly, scrolling through only to see your name pop up numerous times. “Y/N, where have you been?” “Yeah, fr, we have been out to lunch with you in forever.” “Why are you ignoring us?” “Really? Now you’re being a fake friend.” “Guys, I’m okay.” You simply responded, “Just really busy.”

“Uh huh, you’ve been doing boutique stuff for months.” “Literally nothing even big.” “Not since that Prada show.” “It’s Gerard, isn’t it.”

And just like that, you were about to light these girls up. Gerard was the only one willing, and quite frankly able, to get you out of the huge hole you had dug yourself into. And damn, now these bitches (I hate misogynistic terms against women, but I think it may fit here) were really gonna act like the good guys. “Don’t bring Gerard into this.” You simply responded. “It has to be him.” “He’s not even worth it.” “You could have any guy in the world, and you chose him.” “He’s way out of your league, and you’re still on your knees for him. Smh.” You knew damn well they were trying to get to you. None of these girls had had any true romance, only summer flings with football players, actors, and singers. Granted, Gerard was a singer, but he made good music. He was an artist at his core, singing was just apart of that art. It didn’t take you more than a moment to remove yourself from the group chat, and block all those girls. The real fake friends. The timer went off, which startled you a bit, but placing your phone down with a heavy sigh, you turned it off, to check out the cookies. The top row was done, which you were going to take out. Naturally, the tsunami of inappropriate texts from who you would once call your “girlfriends” was still flooded in your mind, and like a complete idiot, you reached in, touching and grabbing the sheet. With you bare hands.

“Shit!” You yelped, dropping the pan on the open oven and rushing to put your hand under cold water.

“Y/N?” You heard Gerard rush in. You looked up at him, and judging your hand under water, and the cookie sheet which had clearly gone through it, he took a slight sigh, first going to examine your hand. “You alright?” You nodded despite the tears forming in your eyes.

It wasn’t even the burn that hurt. It was the fact that you knew you let those girls get to you so easily, and the just embarrassed yourself in front of Gerard. You knew he didn’t find it embarrassing at all, it was an honest mistake. But still, it embarrassed the shit out of you. “Baby,” He cooed, moving your head up with his fingers under your chin to see the tears that were now slowly cascading down your red cheeks, “It’s okay.” He said lightly. You nodded, placing your head into his chest and sniffling a bit. “What happened.” “I was just distracted,” You admitted, “Forgot the oven mitt.” He nodded, holding you for a moment longer before he knew you were okay, and going to pick up the mess. “Gee, I can clean it up, I made it-” “No, no, please, just worry about your hand, okay, sugar?” You nodded, attending back to it.

The bright red mark across your hand didn’t want to budge, which you were fine with, considering it didn’t hurt as much, just stung a bit. He managed to clean up all the cookies pretty fast, putting them on the stove top to cool, and quickly going back to you. Giving you a kiss on the top of your head, it was his way of messaging he didn’t want to push the topic. But if you wanted to talk he’d be there to listen. It wasn’t but a few hours later that the guys came over. The mistake from earlier was long forgotten, other than the mark on your hand.

The guys were honestly some of your best friends, just like they were Gerard’s. They truly cared about you, just as much if not more than you cared about them. All of them knew about your struggles, and they were honestly your number one cheerleaders.

So the looks on their faces when they saw you healthy again was one that you could not pay for. It was definitely a lot of pride in you for doing it, and it made you feel even better about your decision to get healthy again.

Honestly, you loved the relaxes atmosphere of just hanging out. Sitting next to Gerard with some water, as he drank a Diet Coke, and some of the guys had beers, some opted otherwise. You could theoretically drink as well, but you didn’t want your boyfriend to ever feel alone or strange not drinking alcohol, considering his rough past with it. So you typically opted for a non alcoholic beverage.

It wasn’t until after the guys were gone and you were in the shower that Gerard figured out what was wrong. Your phone kept buzzing, going off constantly. He had never once checked your phone without your permission. There was a huge element of trust in your relationship, and he never felt that there was a reason to. He knew your passcode, you two had openly shared each others in the case one of you needed to use the others phone, but when he picked up yours and saw all those girls name pop up he scoffed.

He knew he probably shouldn’t have done it, but he opened your phone, scrolling through the messages. Some of them you had yet to block, and they were obnoxious. He went into the group chat where the messages were flooding, reading from the beginning of the day until now.

Pissed was an absolute understatement. If it wasn’t for the sound of the shower you were in keeping him aware of his surrounding, he probably would have smashed your phone. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he placed it face down on the counter right where it was, resorting back to your bedroom in some hope of calming down before you got out, not making anything too obvious.

Everything was fine, completely normal. The two of you laying in bed together, doing your typical night time routine of reading a bit, maybe watching something, it really depended. You could feel how tense Gerard was, even by your head just leaning on his shoulder. His muscles flexed together, twisted into tight knots. You weren’t sure what had him so stressed, there wasn’t a need for him to be, right? “Babe?” You asked, to which he quietly hummed, “Are you alright?” You had caught on quickly, like you always had. And now he had cursed himself for looking at those messages. Transparency, he remembered, transparency.

“Honestly,” He sighed putting his book down, “I- I- I saw those messages.” He stumbled on his own words. You gave him a confused look, “The ones the girls sent.” You let out a sigh. Oh shit, he thought, thinking the worst of the worst. “Please don’t listen to them,” You insisted, “You know you’re not the reason for any problem in my life?” “Of course not,” He scoffed, “You’re totally fine. It’s just, how they treated you that bothered me.” “Gee-” “Y/N, we’ve talked about this.” He turned to you, “I’m not a controlling person, I try my hardest not to be. But damn, those girls are complete poisons. They’re hurting you, they’re doing far more harm than good. And I hope that doesn’t make me sound like a manipulator or anything, but even you’ve admitted you’re a lot different around them.” You sighed and nodded.

“I know, I just-” You began, “I’ve spent so many years of my life surrounding myself with people like them that it’s hard for me to know what to do without that, ya know?” He nodded.

“You don’t need a bunch of model friends thought to still be a great model.” You nodded.

“I’ll cut everything off with them in the morning, okay?” “Babe, you don’t need to rush it,” He said, “I mean, sure, the sooner the better, but this is your timing okay?” You nodded.

“Do you think everything will be okay?” You asked him next.

“Well, after they very possibly blame you for everything over text and try to put you down a psychological spiral, because that’s what they do, then yes, everything should be okay.” He smiled to which you nudged him. “You’re making this so much easier.” You sarcastically said, “I don’t even know why I ask you.” “Because you love me.”

[retrievablememories]

this is me trying | lucas

title: this is me trying pairing: lucas x black!reader genre: angst request: “Hey do you think you can do a sequel about Lucas’ No manners like an aftermath of what happened after he hung up on her and what she’s been up too all this time. And what Lucas decided to do.” word count: 2.1k warnings: mentions of infidelity, mentions of an abortion, relationship problems, cursing a/n: that banner is boring af, but photoshop is a bitch who didn’t save my previous file and i don’t have time to play all night

the sequel to no manners. okay... i decided to go for a different type of ending here since i tend to make the couple break up/stay broken up in these angsty stories...and i know people tend to like endings where things are resolved...though EYE personally would not recommend this irl 💀

It’s been a few months since you’ve seen Lucas on any video call, and even longer since you’ve seen him in person. These couple months alone have seemed even longer and more tiresome than the previous duration of time when you were kept apart from him.

You haven’t heard from him in that time span, either, which makes you feel...it’s hard to know how to feel, especially with how you yourself froze him out to avoid admitting the truth. It’s easy enough to know what he’s doing through WayV’s posts on YouTube and Instagram and wherever else, but you don’t enjoy knowing next to nothing about how he’s doing—like you’re merely another fan when you’re actually his wife.

You also understand, though, that maybe you don’t have much room to complain with your previous actions. That doesn’t make it any less painful. Especially with him ignoring your small attempts to reach out to him.

Despite Sharia’s earlier advice, you decide to stay at your job and continue avoiding Daniel at all costs. Staying at home and having nothing to do during this conflict would only make you slip further into depression, which is the last thing you need right now. You’re in no state of mind to be trying to find another job and doing countless interviews, either. 

Luckily, Sharia doesn’t mind helping you stay away from Daniel or create the perfect facade that your marriage is still doing fine despite it being the exact opposite. Everyone at your job still thinks things are as they have always been, and you’re relieved for that.

That’s about the only point of relief in your life, though.

You’re reaching the end of your limit with how much you can endure of staying in that same house without Lucas, being reminded of him in every corner of every room. His clothes in the closet, his side of the bed, his favorite coffee mugs in the kitchen. You’ve already tried hiding some of his things out of sight so you wouldn’t have to face unwilling memories, but it’s too difficult to completely erase a presence that fills every aspect of your home. And that’s not something you really want to do, anyway—which makes you feel more downtrodden and unable to let go.

You decide you need to get out, get away, change your surroundings. It’s wearing you thin to keep coming back to this empty house everyday, drifting around the space like a misplaced ghost. If you stay here another month, you think you might lose your sanity once and for all. So, eventually, you start packing. Sharia doesn’t mind letting you stay over for a little while, and you are grateful for the welcome distraction and comfort that being in her company will provide.

On a day when you’re making the last few preparations to leave for Sharia’s place, you hear a car pulling up in the driveway. You’re confused for a few seconds, as you weren’t expecting any visitors and today isn’t the day Sharia is supposed to come over. However, your heart kicks up in its rhythm when you go to the window in the kitchen to check. It’s Lucas’s car.

For a few moments, you’re unsure what to think or how to react. You’ve wanted to see him for so long, but now that he’s here, you want him gone again. What will he say when he sees your things packed? Will he even care? Most importantly, what has he come here for, after all this time?

You don’t have much more time to think about these things before Lucas is getting out of the car and walking up to the door. You stand in your spot in the kitchen, frozen as the key turns in the lock.

Lucas walks into the house cautiously, as if he doesn’t know how to properly approach this environment after being gone for so long. When he catches sight of you through the kitchen entryway, he stops in his tracks, still standing in the living room.

Both of you stare at each other for a few long and agonizing seconds. His eyes are still weary and hurt like they were the night you told him the news, but there’s a question floating there, too.

“You’re not…?” His eyes drop down to your stomach, the front of your shirt, and it looks the same as he remembers it being months ago, before he left for China, despite you telling him of your pregnancy. If there’s one thing he remembers, it’s that.

“No,” you respond quietly, “There’s no way I could go through with it.”

Lucas pauses, then nods, though he doesn’t say anything else for a few long moments—nothing to explain his sudden appearance, nothing to comment on the decision you made.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and looks at the ground, shifting his jaw.

“What...did you come here for?” you finally ask. The words sound harsh to your ears, and you wince internally, but you don’t know what else to do to make some kind of headway.

“Just...getting some things.” Lucas rubs the back of his neck warily, as if he’s not sure this is the right answer. Or maybe he just doesn't want to be here right now at all, having this conversation with you.

“Getting some things,” you echo. “Are you…” You’re not sure what you want to ask right now. “Leaving?”

“What’s the point of questioning me about it? Aren’t you doing the same thing?” Lucas’s eyes shift to one of your suitcases in the middle of the living room, still sitting open.

“Yes, but...you don’t even understand why I’m doing it. You’re just leaving. Are we both just going to abandon this house without even talking it out? That’s just the end of everything?” Now that you’ve found your voice again, the questions keep coming.

Lucas comes forward to step into the kitchen. “What would you like to say? What else is there that I need to know? You were drunk and lonely, weren’t you?” That phrase comes out with a sneer, which makes you wince like you’ve just had something physically thrown at you.

“I’ve spent months agonizing over this shit, Yukhei. I’ve felt completely alone and in the dark here. I had the abortion, I’ve been to therapy, I haven’t even looked at alcohol since then. I’ve seen the error of my fucking ways, believe me, and I still feel no more reassured about any of this.”

“Do you think that’s going to solve everything?” Lucas says, crossing his arms and staring at you from across the room.

“I don’t know! Maybe I didn’t do it for you. I did it because I didn’t want to have another man’s child! I did it for myself, to feel back in control of myself!”

“Y/N, you can do whatever you need to make this easier for you, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to come running back to you.”

You sigh heavily and sit down in the kitchen chair, rubbing your hands over your face. “Maybe it’s a mistake for me to hope we can work something out at this point, but I long ago realized that living without you is next to unbearable. Why do you think I’m trying to get the fuck out of here? Everything here is ‘you.’” You don’t look at his eyes during any point of this speech, just instead staring at your hands where they meet on the table. “I see that if you want to leave, I won’t be able to stop you. But at least give me a proper explanation and a clean break like a human being.”

Lucas falls quiet again. You think he might just leave you there to get his stuff and go back to wherever he wants to go, but he sits in the chair across from you. You still don’t look at him.

“I also missed you a lot,” he admits, quietly, as if he doesn’t want to say it where it can be heard. “I didn’t really want to. But. Obviously, those emotions don’t just go away…”

You simply nod, not knowing the right way to respond to that. 

“You still wear your ring,” he says it flatly, like it’s an insignificant observation. You can’t tell whether he’s surprised at it or judging you for it, for whatever ridiculous reason.

“Did you not want me to?” you say, irritated. “We are still married. And I don’t need the people at work asking questions.”

He nods as if he’s just understood something and the realization of it has made him even more displeased. “Right, of course, it’s all about looking good. Maintaining the lie, right?”

“It’s not about that,” you snap. “You should know that more than anyone. No one even knows I’m fucking married to you except Sharia. God forbid I don’t want to hear more bullshit from Daniel about my marriage, I guess.”

Lucas’s face is still for a moment, and then his eyebrows crease. “Does he still bother you?” The words leave his mouth tentatively.

“Of course he does, Yukhei. Whenever I can’t get away from him completely. He’s not just going to stop because my life has turned to shit and my husband hates me—which he doesn’t even know.”

Lucas shakes his head and sighs. “Don’t guilt trip me.”

“I’m only stating what clearly seems to be a fact now.” Then you get up from the table, weary of the conversation and even more hurt by the fact that he didn’t try to deny your statement. “Now, if you want to get your stuff, go get it. I won’t hold you up any longer. Though—you should think about preparing for a divorce if you’re really done here.” You walk out of the kitchen before waiting for his response, missing the way he stiffens in his seat.

You sit in the living room fussing over your suitcase for a long while before he decides to walk into the room. “Look...I don’t know how to feel about all this right now, but I’m not sure if that’s what I...want.”

“...What.”

“Y/N. I’m saying, I don’t think I want to...separate.”

“Then what do you want? To keep dragging me around with an empty marriage while you move on with your life? Just file the damn papers or I will.” You’re angry with him now, and a few tears slip out. You feel like you’re being thrown around at this point, and you have no clue what his intentions are. You get even more upset with yourself for crying, though there’s no reason to be.

“I don’t fucking know. Just not...this.” Lucas is deflated and maybe just as lost as you are, though you don’t want to acknowledge that while you’re still upset at his indecisiveness. He sits on the couch with you, and you’re partly surprised that he even still wants to be anywhere near you with how he was acting and talking earlier.

He seems a little shaken to see you openly crying, as if he’s never seen it happen before. Like all of this is once again new to him. Lucas puts his head in his hands, bearing a striking resemblance to the image of him doing the same thing the day you told him what happened.

You both make for a pitiful sight on the sofa like that, sitting as far from each other as possible but hurting over the same thing. Finally, Lucas takes his hands away from his face and, tentatively, as if you might shove him away, reaches for your hand. He covers it with his own, curling his fingers around yours slightly.

You stare at his hand on top of yours, bare without his ring, unsure how to react to it. You look to your side, though he doesn’t meet your eyes at first. There’s another crease between his brows.

“Just let me...figure some things out. We—we could...figure some things out, together. Before we...think about taking that step.” This response is still just shy of giving you a definite answer, but it gives you a small, painful hope that maybe things aren’t destroyed forever.

You nod, wiping some of your tears away. You’re almost afraid to take your eyes from where your hands are joined, as if you’ll discover it was just some mirage or figment of your imagination if you look away.

“Okay...we can do that. If...you want to try.”

Lucas looks at you fully now, his eyes impossibly deep with things he’s already said and has yet to say to you, and nods back—a tiny movement, but it’s there and true all the same.

[deansmom]

I don’t think anything about movies hurts me more than Andrew Garfield having the third Spider-Man movie and a part in the MCU ripped out from under him. He loved Peter so much, he had such big ideas and dreams for the franchise and I just 🥺 Andrew deserves to be in the MCU, god fucking damn it. Retcon everything, refilm Avengers (2012) but Peter stumbles onto the battle of New York on his way home and he helps the Avengers win. Loki tries to mind control him and Pete just laughs in his face and then breaks Loki’s nose. He doesn’t join them for shawarma, but Steve does show up to his school to explain why Peter was late for his final.

[clutches chest] PETER PARKER SWINGS ON DOWN TO DC TO HELP NATASHA AND STEVE WHEN THEY FIND OUT SHIELD IS MOSTLY HYDRA. R-RATED CAP2, BUT IT’S RATED R BECAUSE PETER CAN’T STOP CURSING. ALSO THE WINTER SOLDIER RUNNING INTO PETER PARKER WOULD BE VERY FUNNY BECAUSE IMAGINE HOW BUCKY LOOKED IN CAP3 WHEN PETE CAUGHT HIS HAND BUT ITS AG PETER AND HE CATCHES THE FIST AND IS LIKE “SORRY ABOUT THIS ASSHOLE, THATS A DOPE ASS ARM, BUT UH [snaps it off] FUCK NAZI’S” AND THAT MAKES THE MASK FALL OFF AND STEVE STILL DOES THE “😮 Bucky?” And the winter soldier does his “who the hell is Bucky?” And Pete’s like off to the side, incredulous and without the spidey suit just in his college kid street clothes, jerks his thumb at Bucky, “CAP YOU KNOW THIS FUCKING NAZI OR SOMETHING???”

PETER AND NICK FURY LMAO HE’D FOLLOW NICK AROUND MIMICKING HIM PERFECTLY EVEN THOUGH HE CANT SEE HIM AND IT WOULD INFURIATE HIM. He gets Maria to laugh four times in one briefing though by dropping wigs onto nick from the ceiling

Tiny baby pete showing up in iron man 3 to call Tony a fucking idiot and save him from himself and drive him to therapy and he shows Gwen Tony’s plan for taking the arc reactor out and in twenty minutes they’re like “lol yeah we can fix this in an afternoon, no problem grandpa.” And Tony wants to be livid but the science is sound and that damn Gwen Stacy is just so smart, and he’s really gonna trust a college student with this, isn’t he?

Tell me andrews Peter Parker wouldn’t have followed Natasha after civil war and shown up at her trailer and been like, “hey, there’s a bad guy following you, thought you should know. Ohhh, is that caviar? I’ll take that. Thanks nat! What are we watching?” And she’s just standing there as he steals her rare russian caviar right out of her hand because what the fuck, Peter. Also his commentary with Yelena would be great. They’d love each other and it would drive Natasha bonkers. “God you’re such a mom.” “Sorry Nat. It’s true.” “Ive killed people you know. Lots of people.” Peter, deadpan perfect imitation of Elle Woods, “what, like it’s hard?”

Sam HATES him, complains about the fucking millennial and his taste in music and it’s mostly jokes, but Peter starts calling him an old man and referring to him as dad in public both to confuse the general public and remind Sam that he is, in fact, old enough to have a kid in his mid 20’s when nobody bats an eye at it. A couple of nice old ladies in the subway even tell Pete he has his fathers eyes, and Sam can’t fucking breathe he’s so horrified that they think a 25 year old white boy hipster is his child, but Bucky and Steve are in tears laughing so hard

Peter tries to do the same thing to Steve and Bucky, pass them off as his dads, but to everyone’s horror neither one of them bats an eye at this and they start calling him son and sweetpea and champ in front of people and Steve pinches his cheeks at a parent’s night at his college and Bucky charms a couple baby pictures out of Aunt May and has Natasha photoshop him and Steve into them and shows them to people and Peter hates it. They have an open invite to any parent events though, but usually it’s only one of them who escorts Aunt May and plays the part of doting dad. Also, they would adore aunt May. Absolutely adore her and flirt shamelessly with her, to Peter’s abject horror, and May flirts back, “I’m old, not dead and blind, Peter.”

Oh, older angstier Peter and Bruce 🥺 Bruce comforting him after Gwen dies and Peter’s one of the only people who can talk the hulk down. The hulk even likes Peter. They spar sometimes when Pete’s in a Mood. Bruce GETS it, feeling like something you love so much stole even more from you and resenting it and resenting yourself sometimes and being angry at the world and yourself all the time and they just vibe so hard. Tony often comments that he’s jealous, because all Peter has to do is send Bruce a meme and he gets like a real honest to god full body laugh. He can make the fucking hulk laugh in the middle of a fight. Peter unironically gets Bruce a #1 dad mug for Father’s Day, and May helps him make a #1 Hulk Dad hat for the hulk for Father’s Day too. Because reasons.

Pete, Bucky, Thor, Steve and Natasha play drinking games that Peter teaches them but they play them with asgardian alcohol so they all get absolutely fucking hammered and Peter plants one on thor and Bucky and then drunkenly stumbles away grumbling about kissing grandpa ex-hydra assassins and whining that he stopped kissing Thor in the first place. None of them comment the next morning but at Christmas Peter can’t seem to go around a corner in the tower without running into Thor and some mistletoe. And then he meets Jane and wants to die because he’s a huge fan of her work but also he didn’t realize they were dating and “oh my god, I’ve been kissing the boyfriend of one of the greatest minds of our generation, I’m a terrible person” and Tony and Bruce are like “excuse me??!”

[imjustafrustratedartis]

How do I become a music journalist when I’m not good at anything?

I’ve never been one to make plans for my future. I don’t like to know how or when things are gonna happen. I’ve always thought that I could go with the flow, and it works for me. Or it did, until now. Now I make lists of all the things I’ve always been interested in; baking, tattooing, bartending, human rights, films, art, modeling, history… the list just goes on and on. But lately I haven't been able to get my mind off of journalism, music journalism. It’s a great job for me, you see… I have a big problem with routines. The thought of doing the same thing every day drives me nuts. That’s why I can't seem to hold a stable job (or relationship for that matter). That’s why I thought “Huh, journalism is perfect. A fast paced job that keeps me working in different assignments all the time and with the opportunity of traveling? Sign me up”. But it couldn’t be any type of journalism, I needed it to be about something that I liked, something that would always be interesting. And that’s how I landed on music.

Now I sat on my computer for a whole 20 minutes researching “How do i become a music journalist” on google. Read the three top articles, looked for the current music journalist to read their work, but of course I would have to pay, and seeing as right now I am basically unemployed and stuck in my house with covid, that had to wait. So i thought, “ okay it can’t be that hard, I’ll give myself my new assignment. I’ll listen to a new album and then write 3,000 words about it.”. But wait a minute, I can’t do that. You see… I can’t write for shit. I’m not good at it, actually I’m not good at anything.

And that’s my biggest problem right now. I’m not good at anything. I have no creativity, I see everybody else creating beautiful stuff. My best friend tries a new hobby every week and she is amazing at everything she does. She can sew, draw, tattoo her own designs, work photoshop, she can do graphic design. There is nothing you put in front of her that she won’t be able to do. And I struggle everyday with not comparing myself to her, but how could I not? I also follow a lot of art pages on Instagram to see if I can get some inspiration from their work, but how do I do that without just copying exactly what they do. I can’t draw a frog from my mind, I have to copy it from an image. I can’t make a collage with all the little papers and stupid stuff i find in magazines, because i don’t know how to put it so it’ll look pretty. If I can’t do any of that, how am I supposed to write my opinion on some music, when I don’t have my own thoughts. 

I’m fully convinced that nothing I come up with is original, not even my personality. Everything is a mirror of what I see in everyone else. Everything I am is just what I wish I was. The music that I listen to is just so that the person that sees my  library thinks I have good taste. The clothes that I wear, I only do to get people to look at me in the streets. The movies and TV shows I see are just so I have something to contribute to the conversation. Everything I do is a desperate act to not feel invisible.

If everything I do is based on everyone else, then how do I come up with my own words to talk about the stuff I want? Can this career path help me to discover what my own thoughts are? Can this be the road I need to take to feel like a real person? To feel like I do have something to contribute, something real that comes from me and not what I think everyone else wants to see or hear? Have I finally found something that will make me, me?