#can you tell i've never drawn in this weird style before

[knightofspades]

aether from hit game genshin impact???

[aachria]

The long awaited (maybe? Idk how many of you were waiting for this) SSSBMTY College AU!

Majors in bold

Headcanons in regular text

Notes about the art indented in orange

Luffy — Undeclared

Was forced into school by his gramps. (The university dean. The fucking dorm building all the Strawhats but Jimbei live in is named after him.)(it was this or join the navy.) Takes the most random classes he can. Some of them are advanced and require perquisites and no one knows how he keeps getting into them. Wears shorts and sandals in winter & will run any errand or do any odd job for food. He has a very nice bike he got for free from a garage sale that Franky fixed up. There's a campus wide bet on when and what he'll choose as his major. His bucket hat was a gift from Shanks, the universities World Economics prof. Has a million friendship bracelets on his ankles because Ed makes them when they're stressed. Never has a bag on him. Fights Canadian geese on the way to class, like a fucking maniac. Protected species who?

When I tell you that this drawing of Luffy is the first time I've ever drawn actual feet with toes that don't look fucking ridiculous I need to cheer for me. Why is he a different flavour of boy every time I draw him please. His ass isn't rubber in this universe, of course he's scuffed to shit. Chopper ran out of Spiderman bandaids, sorry bud. Advocate for the Single Piercing Luffy™ agenda, he went and got it done with Ed when they got their helix.

Ed — English major Psychology minor

Took History of Piracy for easy grades & a story idea. Known around campus as that asshole who'll tell you exactly which of your roommates ate your leftovers for $5. Is roommates with Luffy because of a system mix-up when they got distributed. Always wears a Burberry trench coat Nami thrifted for $3 and gave them as a bday gift. Carries everything in a ratty falling apart messenger bag. Them and Luffy filled out marriage papers on a dare, Zoro (who got legally ordained on a dare minutes before) oversaw that, Zoro and Ed filed the papers when they were drunk. So Ed and Luffy are legally married. And they don't even notice until tax season and Jonah, Ed's accounting friend, asks about it.

I need you to ignore the inconsistence with the hands in these ok? Some of them get very nice and normal hands, and others get weird shaped blobs. Sorry Ed, them's the breaks kid.

Zoro — Health and Fitness major Mathematics minor

Literally no one knows why he has a Mathematics minor, least of all him. P sure he walked into the wrong class on the first day and just stuck with it. The most terrifying captain of the kendo team the university has ever had. He's won more championships and trophies in his tenure than the school has in its history, the revenue he brings in from sponsorships and such make them turn a blind eye to his... eccentricities (three sword style. Nobody has stopped him yet, anyone who says it's illegal gets penalized). Has had campus security called on him so often from being creepy when walking home from the gym in the dark there's a poster of him in the security office that says 'NOT ACTUALLY A THREAT. JUST WEIRD AND WALKS WITH PURPOSE.'

Zoro's sword patch on his jacket was designed by Usopp, embroidered by Luffy for a class (shittily) and fixed up and sewn on by Ed. Those docs have seen war. He has put them through hell. He has walked through a fucking river with those things, he superglues them back together every time they break. Franky had to strongarm him into getting the soles professionally replaced.

Nami — Meteorology major Finance minor

All of her clothes are thrifted designer things. Regularly terrorizes Value Village employees. Anything she has that isn't thrifted she gets from the many estate sales she plagues, snatching grandma's entire Chanel collection and all her nicest jewelry. She has absolutely everything anyone could ever need in her purse. Tampons and pads? She gotchu. Extra pens? It'll cost you, but yeah. A curling iron? Sure, why the hell not. She runs the betting pool on Luffy's major with Ed. She also writes a gossip column for the school newspaper and has a podcast she uploads a new episode to every few months. Shows up to every class looking like a supermodel no matter the time. 7am? Perfect. 10pm? Fabulous. Your go-to if you get locked out of your dorm. Has a moped but barely uses it.

Nami's bag is a large Prada Gallaria Saffiano bag, which I painstaking drew to accuracy down to the colour even though it still looks ever so slightly different, because Nami is a big purse girl. The compass rose necklace was a going away gift from Nojiko when she left for uni. I think her haircut is so cute I love her sm. Don't pay any mind to how fucking disheveled half of their lineart looks next to her pls.

Usopp — Graphic Design major

Not a member of the archery club, but shows up enough he’s in all the team photos. Was originally the designated driver, had a pretty little mini van they called the Merry, had one of those fucking fuzzy dice hanging mirror things in the shape of a sheep’s head. Got in a bad car accident and she got totaled by some jackass in a red Honda Civic. Dating Kaya, who’s a nursing student. They barely see each other because she’s so fucking busy and half the students are convinced the girlfriend Usopp is always talking about and calling is fake. The Strawhats have a dnd campaign that they run every other week, Usopp DM's. On weekends he works at an axe throwing range and holds the record for most bullseyes in a row. They have his picture mounted on the wall.

Usopp's necklace is the old key to the Merry, and he engraved his belt buckle for a project. I cursed his ass with the giant fuck off portfolio bag because those things are so big and unwieldy. The people in his program's studio never clean their paint up properly, that's why he's covered in it. Advocate for the Usopp With Gages™ agenda. God he is such a cutie patootie.

Sanji — Business degree

Literally grew up working in a restaurant, he’s only going to school to get the degree so he can open his own and also because Zeff threated to castrate him if he didn't get a higher education. Cooks basically every single meal for the dorm, since it’s just the Strawhats (it's a new (old it's old and was refurbished. Everyone assumed it was haunted.) building that they just dedicated to Garp. Has no other residents yet). Him and Zoro fight so much in their shared room half the time he ends up kicking him out and making him sleep in the community room lmao. He just shows up in half the culinary classes because he hates the business ones so much, the one time someone tried to tell him to leave he cussed them out for a full ten minutes while gesticulating wildly with a knife in hand. They never tried that again. Saw one of the profs berate a young lady for wearing a dress shirt to class because it’s impractical and proceeded to take that personally. Yeah he wears three piece suits to all his classes, he could still kick you ass in ‘em. Shut up. Volunteers to show around foreign exchange students because he can speak at least 4 foreign languages fluently. Is it to woo pretty French girls with his charm? Wouldn't you like to know.

I could not draw Sanji in a decent pose for the life of me, his ass was just not having it. He's got one of them really nice leather messenger bags with the lined pockets and filigree, he's very proud of it.

Chopper — PreMed

One of the few Strawhats who regularly sees Usopp’s reclusive girlfriend, and is very confused as to why people think she isn’t real. Still a literal child (is 15 still a child? Yeah that's like barely a teenager), a goddamn prodigy and got in with an incredibly good recommendation from the best doctor in the country, who just so happens to be his adoptive mother. He’s literally too cute for anyone to question that, plus he’s the sharpest tack in the damn class. He knocked his front tooth out ages ago (it was an adult tooth) but he's too fucking busy to get an appointment to get it fixed, just adds another layer to his babyface. Nice girls keep asking him if he's here to go see his parents or older siblings, he's endlessly infuriated by it and Sanji is endlessly jealous. Saved Ed from choking to death in a Domino's parking lot the first time they met, he dropped his pizza doing it so they bought him another. The rest is history. Does not feel cold, wears chunky boots year round. Got them reflective ass eyes like a deer, no one has ever taken a good picture of this child. He looks fucking possessed in his school ID.

TELL ME WHY I ALMOST FORGOT TO DRAW CHOPPER. I finished drawing Franky and was like "gee, only Brook and Jimbei to go! Good for me," and then I had to pause while looking as the picture of the group I was semi-referencing for heights n shit and was like "OH FUCK THE CHILD—" He's so cute tho. He's giving lil baby Goro Akechi. The argyle sweater vest and Timbs were a must, so was his hockey boy haircut. Matching backpack and tie for the win. Oh and the freckles, Chopper with freckles is everything to me.

Robin — Has a million hyper specific degrees. Currently earning her third doctorate.

Very mysterious and sexy. Mature student who occasionally gives lectures in the archeology program when she has free time. Owns a motorcycle but barely rides it. How is she not in debt after so much schooling? Don't fucking ask if you want to live. Is that why she lives in the dorm building? Do. Not. Ask. She and Luffy attend the same Theology class, no one knows how Luffy is passing with such good grades, but Robin is adamant that he doesn't take notes or borrow hers, and takes to having the same scores as him with grace. Child actor on one of those show like Barney (but not Barney dear lord) or Reading Rainbow and people only knew her as 'that kid with the creepy fuckin stare.' She was a meme a few years back, they called her the devil child. Every time someone asks her about it she just says she has no idea what they're talking about while giving them the creepy stare.

Women with Big Bags truther, right here. Robin deserves to be put in a suit. Goddamnit, get that woman in a suit!

Franky — Has a bachelors of Engineering, a bachelors of Architecture, and is earning his (water specific) Architecture degree

Currently the groups designated driver (after the tragic death of the poor Merry) with his supped up SUV, the Sunny. How do all the Strawhats fit inside? The power of love, obviously. That car will NOT fucking move if even one of the seatbelts is undone. Made Ed and Luffy wedding rings after he found out they accidentally got married. (Only after laughing for a half our straight, almost passing out, and laughing again. Then he cried for another hour about how beautiful it was.) He sometimes works as a nude model for life drawing classes on campus. Half of the the Strawhats have, in one way or another, seen him in the buck. Has knee braces from an... incident... with a train when he was younger. Now he volunteers at KidsAbility and has a shift on the campus crisis/suicide hotline. Huge advocate for mental health services at the school. He lives in the dorms for the ✨experience✨. Even worse than Luffy, mf wears booty shorts in the dead of winter. He's constantly dressed like It's laundry day. One of those guys from a famous Vine when he was younger that just gets stopped while he's walking so people can go "TRAMPOLINE VASE GUY??" (Iceberg was recording. I love Iceberg.)

Yes Franky is wearing an I ♥ MILFs shirt, what of it? It was a gift. Drawing him was an exercise in struggling with the pompadour and getting uncomfortably close to drawing Syndrome. Yes, he's cold all the time. No, he will not stop.

Brook — Literally no one knows. Something music related probably.

Fucker has been around forever, there’s old ass profs who swear to god they went to school with him and he hasn’t aged a day. Regularly plays local bars and cafes. Doesn't own a cellphone, he can literally only operate rotary phones. Computers confuse the shit out of him. Knows nothing about pop culture or recent events, but is up to date on everything in the music industry. He sometimes helps organize the old library archives because he's somehow the only person who understands the system they're organized in. Sometimes he'll just namedrop a famous singer/band he's either played with, done karaoke with, or done background vocals/instrumentals for and you have to guess whether he's telling the truth or just saying shit. There's a campus wide betting pool (run by Nami and Ed, go figure) on whether he's a vampire, ghost, time traveler, or Dorian Gray in disguise. Prepares the questions for 70s night pub trivia. Every time the Strawhats plan a ghost hunt he's busy, then at the end they find out that all the paranormal shit they've been experiencing is just him running his errands. It's happened at least four times.

Is Brook off-putting enough? I was trying to make him off-putting. He swears up and down the neck tattoo was gotten on a dare by Elton John, what, you gonna question a man who looks like he stepped out of Coraline? The skeleton gloves were a gift from Ed.

Jimbei — Has already graduated as a Marine Biology major Political Science minor and is taking both a Gender Studies course and a Peace and Conflict Studies course years later.

Teaches martial arts at a local dojo on weekends and volunteers with the martial arts team on campus. Robin helps him organize protests on weekends. He's good buds with a lot of the faculty and gets invited to after work drinks regularly. He helped establish a program that walks people who stay late at the library to their dorms when he was first a student that's still going strong to this day. Lives off campus and has the Strawhats over for BBQ on long weekends. Literally the only time the Strawhats eat food not made by Sanji. The Grill Master™. Somehow holds some kind of record or high score at every single bar/pub in town. Knows every single mailman and janitor by name. MVP of the catch and release fishing club, helps plan all of their trips.

I struggled with him. I struggled hard. That's a man who went his whole childhood with a horrendous underbite and only got it fixed once he was an adult. Ed gave him the fishing lure earrings out of guilt after he brought them on one of his fishing trips and they fell in and nearly capsized their boat. IT'S A REUSED PLASTIC BAG JIMBEI IS RESPONSIBLE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT—

[answer2jeff]

fixer-upper. // lip gallagher

lip x biker-girl!OC

warnings : public sex, oral (m!receiving), praise kink, light to rough hair-pulling, unestablished relationship, intense and obvious flirting, porn with plot and detail, mentions of smoking (tobacco), cursing, OC is just as full of herself as Lip, knows she's a bitch, kinda has a weird sense of possessiveness over him?? clunky and overly detailed writing with a journaling/diary style.

authors note : trying something a little different! using the first person POV with an original character. first time writing this way—still getting the hang of it <3 this is REALLY long...sorry.

song : beauty school.

disclaimer : you can picture the OC however you like! her name is really just used for aesthetic purposes. there isn't much description on her appearance other than the fact that her hair is long enough to put it in a ponytail. enjoy!

Great. Fucking great.

One of my tires is punctured. The visor in my helmet is cracked. My elbows are etched with surface level scratches and dried blood. And the engine cover of my bike has finally snapped off. I had it coming. It was an old piece of rusty junk from my cousins garage sale from 2012, anyway. But it had charm. I knew I was gonna miss that bike for the good couple of hours, possibly days, I would reluctantly end up leaving it in a repair shop down the street from my apartment.

I can hear the squelch of skin, the seal between my hot breath and sweaty skin breaking as lift my helmet from my head. I hope to feel a rush of cool air, but the humidity tells me to go fuck myself. I'm pulled over onto the curb. I can't totally remember how I got there; being in the middle of the street on a scorching summer day wearing denim shorts that chafe up my inner thighs and rub my skin until it is raw and red and unbearably itchy, was not my vision for today. My handlebars are loose. That would explain it.

If I just take it to Born Free Cycles, leave it overnight, and come back in the morning, I can act like this whole thing never happened, and I'm not horribly irresponsible.

40th West View Ave.

Oh. I'm close actually. Barely a block away. I should go there now. I can call Mikey and have him drop me and the bike off at the garage. I'll see that kid with the grown out buzz-cut and black motor grease on his knuckles that somehow always transfers and blots on his face. Specifically on his strong jaw and right before the peak of his hairline. I wonder if he notices. Maybe he doesn't clean it off because it gives him edge that he doesn't need. Like the nickname on his name tag on a black uniform hadn't given his thirst for trouble away already. And the circles under his eyes are almost the same shade of smudged charcoal grey.

I wonder if he notices.

—

"So the engine cover popped? Just—" he shrugs, looking up at me as if I can't understand him "clean off?"

The sunlight bleeds in through the open garage door. It shines behind Lip, casting a shadow that makes his face hard to see perfectly. But I know the look he's conveying. His eyebrows are raised but drawn slightly closer together, his teeth are gnawing at the inside of his cheek so he can stifle a smile and the laugh that will follow soon after, and his blinks remain slow. I try not to smile too. But I fail.

I've only been here about 3 times, really. The first time was to get handlebar grips from Eddie. That was when I saw Lip. I chose not to make any kind of move, but it ate at my insides until the second time. That time was with Mikey. I was preoccupied with the blue-eyed kid, propped up on a workbench and throwing mindless flirty implications at him while he took long drags from a cigarette, to remember why Mikey was even doing there and why he dragged me along with him. His laugh, the playful eye-roll after I complimented his sweat-laden blonde curls weighed down by heat humidity, told me he was on board.

But I wasn't done.

I knew this time I'd pounce for what was mine.

"Yeah," I breathe out, crossing my arms and peering down at him, "And I mighta' been redlining the RPM a little too much. Probably fried the fucking thing."

Lip nods, the corner of his mouth curling up just a bit. He beckons his hand toward himself, telling me to kneel down beside him to inspect the bike. "This things kinda old, huh?" He teases, turning his head to me and finally letting a real smile break. It warms something in me. I shrug. He glances at my white tank-top, covered in black stains of dirt and oil.

"It's not great, no. It's a piece of shit. But it's cute!" I play along with him, taking the hairband on my wrist and twisting my hair into a high ponytail. Lip huffs though his nose, shaking his head and laughing again.

The next couple of minutes are filled with him telling me things I already know. Things I was too exhausted to manage on my own, defeating the whole purpose of why I was here. Fuck the bike. I know what's wrong with the bike. I know it's an old piece of junk and it's barely salvageable. You should know why I'm here. And maybe you do. But you should do something about it.

Lip has this way of speaking to me that feels ridiculously sweet and overly 'cool.' I know it's just his cadence and his cockiness, but I like it. I like that he thinks it makes me swoon. Partially because he's right, but mostly because I've mastered hiding it. He doesn't see my heart pound or the rising heat in my abdomen when he cracks his knuckles or puts a hand on my shoulder and let's it travel down to the small of my back when I crouch down beside him to look at another motorcycle he's trying to save. I'm almost certain he convinces himself that my gestures are nothing more than a meaningless flirt. I simply find him attractive, as does everyone. Nothing more.

But he's got it all wrong.

He knows my intentions somewhat well enough to the point where he can't not flirt back, though. He knows I haven't stopped him from letting his eyes travel from mine to my lips whenever I speak. He likes that I let him light my cigarettes for me. But he doesn't know this isn't just for fun. I'm so hyper-aware that it isn't out of the kindness of his heart. And neither are his compliments and lame jokes he makes to impress me. He treats my attraction to him as fact, but my genuine interest as a possibility.

Again, he's wrong.

I can't wrap my head around how he could reciprocate my efforts without ever pushing the envelope and asking to exchange numbers, or if I had a boyfriend, or maybe he had one of his own. No, no. He'd tell me if he had a girlfriend. He is, above all else, loyal.

Lip's what I want. I meant when I said his hair looked nice. I meant when I gave him a 20-dollar gratuity and a peck on his cheek just for giving me a repair cost estimate on my shattered headlight. I smile any time he says my name: Maeve.

Hey Maeve, back so soon, huh?

Hand me that box, Maeve.

Y'alright, Maeve?

Yo, Maeve, wanna bum one?

Maeve, Maeve, Maeve.

—

"Think you'll be back tomorrow to pick it up? No rush, though. I can keep it 'till you're ready," Lip asks me, leaning against the wooden workbench littered with microfiber towels and tools. His swell arms are crossed to his chest. I nod, coating my fingertips with a thin film of spin while I fish out some cash from my beat up faux leather wallet.

"A-huh. Thanks," I hand him 6 twenties before glancing at the opening of his button-down uniform.

The corner of my mouth lifts itself into a knowing smirk, my hand on my hip as I shift my weight to it, making my chest stick out and my spine bend correspondingly. My lips hang open a measly centimeter apart before I draw the bottom one between my teeth. I watch him sort through the cash, biting down harder on the flesh of my lip when he freezes.

"Looks like you're a good 15 short," he barely mumbles, looking up at me through his eyelashes. His brows narrow down to me again. I click my tongue coyly. I step closer to him, my hand, with fingernails painted black, pushing the cash in his palms down and his arms down with it.

"About that..." I pause, tilting my head with a look of naivety and not bothering to push away the strand of hair that has fallen from my ponytail and over my eye. Instead, I wait and let Lip set the pile of cash down and draw the curtain of my hair open to reveal my face. My stomach twists on itself, and I can practically feel his chest rising and falling with every anxious breath in my own lungs.

I beg to whatever higher power lies above us in this garage that a kiss will work. Not that it usually doesn't, but my form isn't as confident as it typically would be. The guys I wrap around my finger aren't as driven as Lip is. And God, none of them are part of my tantalizing daydreams nearly as often as he is. I picture his rough hands exploring me, squeezing and rubbing over the valleys of my skin. I imagine his breath is hot with the taste of mint and cigarettes. Every part of me wants to know if my predictions are accurate. If he's the type to sink his teeth into my neck and shoulder blades just to apologize to the reddening skin with open-mouthed kisses. The anticipation kills me. It's enough to swallow me whole.

"...Maybe I can pay you back a different way?"

I barely whisper and Lip scoffs, glancing away from my gaze, scanning the area just for it to be completely empty. He comes back to me. His eyes go a little wider than before. Almost to say, 'oh shit, you're serious?' I stick my tongue between my teeth and tug on his uniform, feeling the fabric rub between my sweaty fingertips. My eyes watch Lip's adam's apple bob as he swallows a breath.

"Yeah?" He thumbs my bottom lip and pulls it down, his free hand traveling down to my hip and pulling me closer to him, "what were y'thinking, Maeve?"

"Mmmm," I hum while pressing my hand against his chest while the other cups his cheek, and I let the pad of my thumb graze over the grove of his defined cheekbones. "Dunno yet."

My teasing is much to Lip's dismay, but he handles it quite well. It's sobering to see a guy as seemingly self-involved and easily impressed play into my mind games. It only pushes me further, and he knows it. I crash my lips into his, my hands anchoring themselves on his shoulders for support. He sighs into me, a hand reaching down to hook a finger through the belt loop of my shorts and drag me closer to him. His hand cups my cheek and pulls me into his mouth to let his tongue slip past my own. And he tastes just as I expected. Minty, smoky, and mine. I practically grind my self onto him in complete desperation, feeling him harden under me. Every roll of his hips threatens to send me over the edge. And fuck, his muffled groans of pleasure against my mouth that ring in my ears are hypnotic. But even with his sturdy, growing buldge forcing the fabric of my shorts to press roughly on my clit, I need this to last.

Blissfully and ever so slowly.

I finally pull away to catch my breath, the buck of our waists slowing down. My head feels fuzzy and heat rises in my cheeks when I open my eyes to see how flushed Lip's face is. Even the tips of his ears have turned a little red. I smile, giggling like a teenager who just kissed her crush in a closet at a house party as a dare. He laughs back in a way that asks 'what are we even doing?'

"Thought you had a boyfriend."

I pause, my eyebrows knitted. I try to think of who he could possibly be referring to.

Ah.

"Who? Mikey?" I try not to laugh, looking around to the imaginary audience to check if they're really hearing this nonsense too, "ew, no. He's like my brother."

Lip lets out a breath of relief he almost didn't realize he'd been holding. It surprises me. Probably a lot more than it should. But hey, for the other 3 times I've been here, I kept asking myself why his flirting was just as intense as mine, but he never asked for my number or made a true move on me. To think that my friend had been unintentionally cockblocking me with his ridiculous height and horrid American traditional tattoos all over his arms, and it wasn't because the guy had a girlfriend...it's almost funny.

"Oh," he replies, his eyebrows raising. Now both of his hands rest at my hips.

"What? Is that why you left me hangin' when I did this?" I press a kiss against his cheek, my palm rubbing over his shoulder to pull a chuckle out of him.

"I guess so, yeah. Just didn't want him to kill me for getting to close t'you," he kisses my cheek, smiling again.

"Geez. Mikey wouldn't hurt a fucking fly. He just...looks scary. Plus, nobody tells me what to do."

"Noted. Glad to hear that, actually."

"Mikey is—" I pause, biting the inside of my cheek "a sweet guy."

"Uh-huh."

"Too sweet. And I hate the aftershave he uses. He's—he's entirely too much."

"Mm."

"Whatever. Shut up."

"Didn't say anything," he shrugs, trying and failing to act clueless.

Fuck. He's fucking glad. He's glad I don't have a stupid-waste-of-my-time-cockblocking-boyfriend on my hip who's constantly watching my every move and stopping me from giving all of myself to Lip. Hell, I'm glad too. Very glad. With one swift movement, I take matters into my own hands again. I undo every last plastic button on his uniform, snaking down his chest and abdomen. I latch onto his neck, biting the skin and sucking a bruising hickey. He shivers beneath me and wraps his hand around my ponytail, huffing breathless chuckles and slowly getting more and more frustrated with my agonizingly slow, torturing pace for foreplay.

I bend my knees to begin my descend to the ground, kissing down his torso. My hands travel down his sides. Lip gently lets go of my hair to lean back into the workbench, never letting his head reel back so he can carefully watch me tenderly adhere to his needs while anchoring his hands behind him for support. I giggle to myself, relishing in the affect I have on him.

Shit. This is risky. Screw it. Pretty girl without a boyfriend who tips in 20 dollar bills and blowjobs? How could I say no? No part of me wants to back out, Lip's mind races, his grip tightening on the wooden slab as he clenches his jaw.

I wonder if he's nervous. Or maybe he's done this time and time again: fucking a girl right in this garage. Possibly bent over this very work bench. Those girls must've been so easy. I can bet on my life that they were never as fun, never as wet, never as needy as me. This would be different. I wouldn't give him everything he wanted and more that quickly. A girl deserves to have her fun. She deserves to watch the overly confident guy she's fancied for weeks, who continues to play hard to get, squirm and writhe with every slight of hand she gives him.

And that's exactly what I'm doing.

"Y'having fun down there?" Lip chastises me, chuckling lightly to himself as he tilts his head down to get a better look at my face.

My kisses stop right above the waistband of his jogger pants. I look up at him pleadingly through my lashes, my eyes big with lust and cunning seduction. I pull the middle of the waistband down just so I can drag my tongue across the exposed skin just centimeters away from his cock. The curls of his happy trail tickle my chin, but the full body shiver and the shaky exhale of "fuck," as he tries to keep his composure, makes it so worth it. He finally shuts his eyes, head reeling back. I lick my lips and smile, cupping his groin before he can even think about looking back down and feeling the blood rush to his cock again. His twitching dick underneath my palm sends me sitting on my heel, ready to slowly rock my hips down into it to fill my desperate need for friction. My cotton panties are definitely soaked.

I can't waste any more time.

I remove my hand from his crotch and quickly pull his pants and his boxers down with them. They pool at his ankles, and his cock strains hard and leaking sticky, crystal clear pre-cum from the thick and aching tip. My mouth nearly drops. I admire every vein, letting my hand wrap around the base of his cock once I've spit into it as makeshift lubricant. I'm so lost that I don't even register Lip peering down at me, swallowing impatiently.

"My, you're so worked up, Lip. And I haven't even started." I don't bother to look up at him as I rub my hand up and down his shaft, worried his pretty face will distract me. But I can picture him perfectly.

"Fuck you," he huffs through a struggled laugh, covering his mouth as he groans in pleasure at the feeling of my hand squeezing his cock every once and a while as I slowly pump him up and down.

"Later," I retort. I bite down on my bottom lip, looking up at him again for permission. He nods, almost as if he's able to read my mind. My eyes shut and my stomach flutters. Soft lips cover the head, swirling my tongue over the slit. His tip leaves my mouth with a loud pop, and I lick a bold stripe along the thickets vein I can find.

"Jesus, fuck, Maeve!" He writhes, his breath hitched in his throat by me hollowing out my cheeks and taking nearly 3/4 of his total length into my mouth. Moans of pure bliss at the feeling of his cock enveloped by the wet warmth of my mouth echo through the garage. I fear he's too loud, but I decide not to care. Not now.

My hand pumps the rest of his cock that I don't fit into my mouth at the moment, while my free hand reaches for his. My eyes remain closed and my sucking maintains a steady pace as I bob my head up and down his cock. I grab his hand and set it on the top of my head, but he hesitates.

"W—you sure, Maeve? I don't wanna hurt you," he swallows, accidentally bucking his hips into my mouth and running his unoccupied hand through his sweaty curls. I detach myself from him, wiping the mixture of pre and spit from the corner of my mouth and finally looking up at him.

"You won't," I take a deep breath, "I won't let you. I'll tell you if 's too much, kay?"

"Okay. Maybe just—" he clears his throat "tap my leg 3 times? And I'll...uh—I'll let go? Yeah?" He looks beautiful. Flushed, bare, and oh so needy for my touch. I wish I could keep him like this forever. He's so compliant, so understanding. But part of me knows that once I let him do this, it'll show me the side of him I've really been praying to see.

I nod, smiling contently and feeling myself blush when he twirls his fingers around my ponytail again. He bends over just the smallest bit to cup my chin and smile back. The pad of his thumb grazes over my skin before he lets go. I take it as my sign to go back, pressing my hands against either of his thighs and feeling clit jump with excitement when Lip tugs at my hair the moment I take his cock into my mouth again. I bob my head up and down, my eyes rolling back when his tip hits the back of my throat. Tears prick at my waterline as I struggle not to cough.

I grow even more desperate. My hand dives into my shorts and I slide two of my fingers inside of me, unfortunately never living up to the potential size and feeling of Lip's. The continuous ram into my gummy and tender spot causes me to fall apart, whining with his dick occupying the space in my mouth.

"Oh my God," Lip nearly whines, his grip tightening as he guides my head up and down his dick, but it's so gentle it never startles me, "so fuckin' good, baby. Jesus, fu—ah..keep doin' that. Yes, fuck.."

My tongue swishes over and under his cock in mind-numbing patterns, and I can't help but let little muffled moans escape my throat and vibrate against him. He almost can't contain himself: bucking his hips and practically fucking my throat. I do my best to cancel out the occasional gag so quickly he won't feel guilty and possibly stop.

Use me, I think.

Usually, I'd take the lead, never letting a head pusher take the role. But not this time. Lip's so pent up, so stressed with the complexities of his life. This is a kind gesture. One that involves tears of struggle spilling out of my eyes and streaming down ky cheeks. But fuck, I love it. It's filthy. It's nasty the way I nearly suck him dry. I can't remember the last time a blowjob was this fun.

"Such a good girl. Y'know that?" He looks down at me, biting his lip as his eyebrows knit in pleasure and desperate need to cum down my pretty little throat, "how'd you get so fuckin...so fuckin' good at this, baby? Shit—feels so good."

He babbles over and over again, and I'm taking strategic breaths through my nose and speeding the pace of my fingers as they thrust in and out of me so I don't stop him from releasing the way he absolutely deserves. Finally, he pulls my ponytail tighter than he ever has, warning me that he's about to cum, but by the time he tells me, it sends down my throat. He groans out, releasing my hair and going limp. I swallow the salty substance, blinking out the last few tears in my eyes and sliding my fingers out of me.

—

Lip: 1 message.

Hey. 11:47pm

Hey. Miss me already? 11:52pm

Something like that, yeah. 11:56pm

What's up 11:58pm

I get off early tomorrow. Just wondering if you wanted to come by the shop and hang out for a bit? 11:59pm

Sure. See you then. xoxo 12:03am.

—

current taglist : @lemmejustpulloutmylightsaber @sexyyounglatinoboy @febris-amatoria

[angelst4re]

Henry Creel NSFW Alphabet!

warnings: NSFW!!! it's literally in the title!! :)

notes: I'M POSTING!!! I've spent weeks writing this bit by bit so if it seems a little weird or anything that may be why? idk how to explain it but i had been adding to it and changing it a lot so some things may feel out of place? Also this is entirely gender neutral!! <3

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

He can never really stay for long after sex as to make sure neither of you get caught, but he’ll make sure to clean you both up first. If he’s not busy or if he’s in a good mood he’ll stay a little longer for cuddles, but he leaves quite soon after for a cigarette before he returns to work (because Henry smokes! Real!)

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

His favourite part of his body is hips. He would never admit it, but after taking a shower, he’ll catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror and his eyes will be drawn to his hips. Even you believe they’re quite sexy. 

His favourite body part of yours is your shoulders. Once again, it may seem pretty random if he was ever to tell you, but he loves to place kisses on your shoulders when you shower together, when he’s fucking you from behind, or even when you’re getting dressed he’ll make sure to pepper your shoulders with kisses as you put your shirt on. 

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

He loves to cum inside you and see it leaking from your hole when he’s done with you, it drives him wild. He loves to know that a part of him is still inside you, even when his dick isn’t. But he also doesn’t mind pulling out and cumming on you, whether it’s your stomach or your back, painting it with his seed before wiping it off. 

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Henry really wants to experiment with sex toys, but he’s too embarrassed to admit it, especially as it would be you who would have to go out and buy them. But he would really love to use them on you, knowing how you can react when he only uses his hand, mouth and dick, he’d love to see you squirming beneath him, begging, a whimpering mess. 

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Henry is experienced. Very, very experienced. After all those years in the lab, you don’t think he would’ve fucked the other orderlies or the nurses? He’s had a lot of time, meaning he’s experimented a lot so he definitely knows what he’s doing. 

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Doggy style. Sure, other positions are fun but he likes to be in control. He’ll grab your hips, pulling them back to meet his thrusts and tug on your hair. He loves to be fully in control of you when you fuck. 

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

During sex, Henry prefers to be more serious in the moment. Sex and the want/need for it is one of the only things that reminds him he’s still human, just like other men. 

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He likes to keep it tidy and clean, he doesn’t shave as regularly down there as he does his face, but he does like to keep on top of it. Sometimes when he wears his joggers for bed, and they fall past his hips, you can see a dark blonde trail that leads from below his belly button to his pelvis. 

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

He likes to hold you close, to always have his hands on your body. He may not be so into physical touch throughout the day, or with anyone who isn’t you, but during sex he craves it. His lips will always be somewhere on your body, along with his hands. 

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

He definitely used to do it almost every night before the two of you ever had sex. He’d do it to the thought of you, he’d think about how you smell, how your hands would look wrapped around his cock, how you would look with his cock in your throat… He had even managed to find a way to make it into one of your dreams, where you had truly believed it was just a dream so you acted on some of the desires you felt, and fucked him. He got off to the memory of that for a week straight. 

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Should I do another list?? I think so. 

Breath play

Bondage 

Spanking

Sir/Master

Edging 

Overstimulation

i could add so many more omg. 

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Your room. It’s the safest place to do it, although there’s still a chance that someone might hear your moans and desperate pleas for more. But he also likes to do it in the shower as it feels so much more intimate, the way both of your bodies are pressed up together, and how he has to hold you up against the wall, your legs wrapped around his torso, when you suspect another person may be in the showers. 

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Just seeing you, and the thought that when he’s finished his shift he can go and see you. The thought of you waiting for him, obeying his commands to not touch yourself until he arrives just drives him crazy, but so does just the thought of you. 

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

No threesomes. You’re his property, basically. You’re his and only his, and he hates the thought of someone seeing you the way that he does. 

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Henry Creel is the GOD of giving head. As much as he loves receiving, he loves giving too, especially when he sees how you react to him. He’s had a lot of experience over the years, but you didn’t have high expectations the first time he offered to go down on you, so you were clearly blown away by his skill. 

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

There’s nothing he loves more than rough sex. However, he isn’t opposed to taking it slowly and savouring the moment. He can do both, and so he does both. But a rough fuck will always be his favourite 

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Sometimes the only chance you get to have sex in the lab is a quickie in a cupboard or an empty office. Neither of you mind, as he can still manages to make you cum and he gets to finish too, but you wished it didn’t have to stop so soon. 

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

He lives for risks and experimenting. There’s not much he would say no to, and you’re the same. Sometimes he’ll try something a bit different and you’ll love it, and sometimes you may not but if he hadn’t tried it neither of you would’ve known. 

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Lord he can go the whole night if he could. He has incredible patience and is able to hold back his orgasm for longer than any other man you’ve been with. He’ll watch you come undone time and time again before he’s even spilled his seed. 

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Neither of you own any, but as I mentioned before he would love to try them and see how it would make you react and even see how it feels himself. He had used a vibrator once on one of his old flings, and he would love to see how a toy like that would work on you. 

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He’s always teasing you to hear your moans and whimpers and pleas. He’ll tease you to the point of insanity, begging him to touch you or for more, and he’ll simply chuckle at the state of you. 

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Neither of you can really be too loud in the lab, but he does occasionally let a moan slip from his lips, and when he does you can’t help but copy. His talking voice is already attractive, but his voice during sex is simply just something else. 

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

I don’t know what to write for this so…

The first time you fucked all started with Henry walking in on you in the shower. You were moaning his name, and you presumed the sound of the shower would drown out your noises as you touched yourself. You had almost reached your high when he pulled back the shower curtain, a prominent bulge in his white trousers as he stared at you with that teasingly devilish look in his eye. You quickly moved your hands in front of your body to cover yourself up, but he grabbed your arms, stopping you, and joined you in the shower. Fully clothed. 

“Henry, you’re going to get wet.” You told him, but that didn’t bother him as he leaned down, and crashed his lips into yours. 

There had always been an undeniable tension between the two of you, and you haven't been able to pinpoint what it was, but now it was clear to you. You caught a glimpse of his chest through his soaked white shirt, and you couldn’t help but let out a small whine at how the fabric stuck to his abs. 

“Think you can keep quiet for me, honey?” He asked as he got down on to his knees, placing a hand on your thigh. 

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Henry’s definitely got 8 inches down there and it’s always a stretch when you fuck. There’s a vein on the underside that wraps beautifully around his cock, and makes your mouth water. 

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

I’d say he’s got quite a high sex drive, he’s always down to fuck basically. He used to use it as a way to cope in the lab, and so he got stuck on chasing the feeling of that high. 

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Usually, he’d have to go back to his room or continue with his day before he could fall asleep after sex, but in the rare occasion that you spend the night together, he would clean the two of you up and get in to bed for cuddles and talk about your day before falling asleep. 

[earthstellar]

Image Comics has dropped their solicits for December 2023, and it looks like Duke #1 is where the Transformers/GI Joe crossover is gonna start really kicking off for the Energon Universe.

I know the general reception to the crossover at the end of ROTB was pretty rough, so it's interesting that they're getting the ball rolling in a GI Joe mini-series.

Personally, my dad was drafted into two wars against his will and suffered greatly for it, so I never had any interest in GI Joe because my dad vehemently hated that shit, as he felt it glorified war to children and that this is morally unacceptable. (He preferred the depiction of Army life of that era in MASH, which he said was at least more honest and aimed at adults.)

I also had classmates who ended up joining the military who had been big fans of GI Joe, two of whom were killed in Afghanistan. I know GI Joe wasn't the only factor involved in their decisions, but it certainly does not make me inclined to like the franchise.

My mother lost her first husband in Vietnam. He had also been drafted against his will. (I strongly dislike the GI Joe Vietnam era material in particular, for perhaps obvious reasons.)

So, I admit my general dislike of the concept of GI Joe as a franchise is at least partly based in my own trauma (and that of my family) relating to the US Army.

I've never been a GI Joe person and never will be (on moral and trauma based grounds), so I fully admit I am not well versed on the lore of that universe, and as such, it's hard for me to make any guesses at what Duke #1 might bring.

But what interests me is that on certain forums and other social media, I've seen very limited audience hype about this crossover in general, especially from the Transformers crowd.

After the extremely progressive writing and fresh visual style and designs of the IDW Transformers storylines which appealed to a lot of people across several age ranges and generations of fans, it feels weird (to me at least) to suddenly have a more old school style crossover with what is essentially a US military propaganda franchise-- At a time when the sociopolitical zeitgeist is that "going traditional" is often associated with "going backwards".

All art is political, and so on.

But I do wonder if what seems to be a lack of audience hype is partially due to the fact that not a lot of Transformers fans (at least, not many under the age of 40 based on what I'm seeing around the internet at the moment) seem to be all that into GI Joe.

A lot of young people are not exactly in love with US military fantasies, and the last Transformers comic series with IDW was a big hit with younger/teen readers-- A lot of that audience might be lost, here.

(And vice-versa from what I can tell, although I'm not in any GI Joe fan spaces so I'm not sure what the mood might be in that community in regards to the Transformers element of this crossover.)

All that having been said, the Energon Universe is only just getting started, and who knows what the comics will actually contain!

I do like G1, so I like the designs for the Transformers as drawn in this run this far.

And who knows, maybe they'll do something new with GI Joe for this. I'm aware that in at least one of the cartoons, they were essentially on the run from the military instead of working for it, which is an interesting twist. Perhaps something similar might happen here, with some Joes siding with the Autobots instead?

It's not fair to judge before a comic is even released, so I'm just thinking out loud here in regards to the crossover concept in general.

I'd be interested to hear what anyone else thinks:

Will you be checking out Duke #1 as a Transformers fan interested in the crossover?

Have any of you been interested in GI Joe previously?

If you're an IDW Transformers fan, are you interested in the Energon Universe?

Any other thoughts on the crossover, any conjecture or hopes for the direction of this run?

I want to give the Energon Universe a chance, but as I mentioned, I do have some difficulty attempting to get into GI Joe in general.

That having been said, I guess we'll have to wait and see what they do with this crossover.

[winvyre]

[Valerie's Story] Chapter 1: Omie (5/6)

“What happened to him? He was fine earlier.” Something is very wrong. A part of me wants to run and tell the watchmen but another part of me feels drawn in. The way its energy flows and tangles makes me want to touch it. To dig into it, to feel it in my hands, to pick it apart and play with it until I understand what it is.

“Giles, are you okay?” Kell inches closer. The boy doesn't give any indication that he heard him. Kell's about to tap him on the shoulder but I yank him back. Don’t. My head is swimming with conflicting signals. Every time I try to speak my throat closes up. I'm sweating. I can't breathe. I'm trapped by the pressure of this new energy. It’s thrilling. Kell seems to understand. “Let's go back.” I don’t want to. You can’t handle it, but I can. This is magic and this magic is mine.

My hand reaches for the heart of the spell; my fingers break up the energy like a rock splits the river. The way this magic is structured is the opposite of Mom's. This one pushes out of the target like a hurricane whereas hers pulls in like sand falling through an hourglass. What would happen if I tried to reverse it?

I focus on the currents and will them to turn back on their source. A shockwave throws me back into Kell and we tumble several feet on the ground. Owwww…

“What was that?” Kell asks.

“I'm not sure.” I feel strangely whole. Like I've uncovered a lost part of myself. At the same time, the sensation emphasizes that more is missing. How have I never noticed it before?

Just as we're gaining our footing, a groan captures our attention. Giles’s head cracks with the force of his turn, going beyond human flexibility. White goo bubbles up and falls out of his mouth when it opens, garbling his cry as he charges faster than he should be able to. All the blood drains from my face and my chest constricts. Kell and I scream. We flee up a tree (guts guts guts guts guts guts guts), leaving the creature to claw at its base.

Watchmen come running from the village. They stop at the sight of Giles. His skin has gone from baby smooth with grey undertones to full-on rotting. His eyes glow white, his veins bulge and are pulsing visibly with the same duller light. His appearance grows less human by the second. What could have done this to him?

The watchmen are hesitant but swing at the creature once it shifts to attack them instead. It loses an arm and the same goo leaks from the wound but it doesn't stop. Kell and I watch as they chop Giles up. Do they even recognize him? There's no blood, just a glowing white substance.

A crowd has gathered at the edge of the woods. Some watchmen usher them back to the festival, some debate what to do with the creature's remains, and one stands below us promising the danger has passed and it's safe to come down. I lock eyes with Kell. We're thinking the same thing: the hoary.

-=+=-

“It's just like the stories!” Kell insists.

“You’re overreacting.” Fran keeps her eyes on her dolls’ hair, repeatedly trying and failing to achieve the five strand braid many women were wearing at the festival. It’s a style popular with teenagers right now. I think it looks like a loaf of bread on the back of your head.

“Then how would you explain what happened to Giles?”

“Kell, Francesca. Enough of your bickering. What happened to Giles was terrible but it's over now. The watchmen handled it.” Sometimes I can't tell if Mom actually believes what she's saying or if she only says it for our sakes. Kell sticks his tongue out at Fran's smug look before returning to our knucklebones game.

Bernadette has been staring silently at the unlit fireplace since we told her what happened. Periodically, her expression changes from fear to sorrow to some mixture of the two to almost happy. What is she thinking? It's weird to see her so… stirred.

“Mom! Kell took Urraca and Mabeline!”

“Goodness.” Mom sounds like she’s on the verge of tears. “Please, you two. Go sit on opposite sides of the room. And, Kell, give Francesca her dolls.”

“That means Isabeau, too, Kell! I know you have her!”

“Can’t do that. She hasn’t been saved yet.”

“Of course she’s in your stupid castle setup!” Fran starts marching towards the stairs.

Kell grabs her arm, “We’re besieging it tomorrow. You can have her back then.”

“She’s my doll, you coxcomb!”

“You’re adopted!”

“We’re all adopted!”

Bernadette stands up and snatches Urraca and Mabeline from Kell. “Enough! Both of you, go to your rooms immediately.” She hands the dolls to Fran. My siblings hang their heads as they shove each other to get to the stairway first. Bernadette is scary when she gets angry.

Once they’re gone, Bernadette exhales like she’d been holding her breath. “Oakley, Valerie, it is time I told you the truth.”

-----

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

[genericpuff]

a shapeshifting time traveler and his apprentice who works as a minimum wage barista get pissed because their perfect speedrun keeps getting ruined by two teenagers with a kill count

they're about to run attempt 9999 and the barista is terrified that his boss is about to end up in some Y2K situation

the time traveler is very old and really does not care for the pop culture references from his apprentice whose strongest skill is creating latte art

they don't even get the bragging rights of being the main characters but still have to do the job of the main characters because the actual main characters are too involved in their love/hate relationship to be any good at saving the world

this is time gate.

---------

OKAY BUT HONESTLY I've been kind of stressing over making this post not because I didn't want to follow through on that poll I hosted, but also just because like... it's original work! And it's original work that I've been doing for over a decade in relative obscurity. So it's a little nerve-wracking to be like "Hey guys! Go read this comic that I started drawing nearly a decade ago! It really shows!" especially when I'm doing it from an alt account (i.e. this one) that people know me for being relatively confident on. It's like being that "one kid" in show & tell with their Pokemon cards all over again 🤣 I kept trying to come up with some kind of post that would "justify" me posting about it all, but nothing felt "good enough" so I finally went back to this draft about Springlock and decided to use that as the icebreaker. It's now or never.

Time Gate is a dark fantasy series I've been working on since about 2007/2008ish. It's existed on the Internet in multiple forms, starting as a Zelda fanfic online in 2009 and then dropping all the Zelda stuff and turning into an original comic series in 2014. Since then its first installment, Reaper, finished in 2021, two hours before the 'untimely' death of Betty White that totally wasn't the fault of my main character who can predict people's deaths. Reaper's completed narration of the beginning of [loop: 9998] clocks in at over 2,000 pages.

Now I'm working on Time Gate: [AFTERBIRTH] which is a direct continuation of Reaper and is drawn in the more vertical webtoon style. Yes, the choice of title is intentional, funnily enough the episode featuring my main character bursting out of a tub of her own blood and bodily fluids only got removed by Webtoons for having "too much boob curve". So I covered it up with more blood and that got Webtoons' seal of approval. Webtoons is... weird.

This series is a love letter to all those "weird kids" who grew up wondering why they got dopamine rushes off of arguments and fights or getting in over their heads trying to grow up too fast. It's a love letter to the people who love hyper-analyzing convoluted and way-too-long narratives with overpowered characters who could only exist within the limitless bounds of the imagination.

But most of all, it's a love letter to the part of me that still adores dumb over-the-top weeb shit.

That being said, this piece of work is not intended to provide comfort, but rather, catharsis. Don't read it looking for any kind of guidance on life or interpersonal relationships. Its story and its characters are only concerned with what comes after - when the lights have gone out and the hourglass has run empty.

This series contains blood/gore and fantasy violence, and depicts adult topics such as post-traumatic stress disorder through a fictional lens. It is not intended for anyone under the age of 18+.

I have a dedicated Time Gate blog, so you might see some reblogs here every now and then as I start to use it more (though I'm currently resting through a hiatus, LORE | REKINDLED came around at the perfect time for me to have something new to work on).

As you may have guessed, with Reaper originally launching in 2014 (when I was literally 18) the comic has... not aged gracefully, at least in my opinion, and could use some reworking, at least the first few volumes (I'm still pretty happy with the stuff that came out around the 2019-2021 mark after I took a nearly 2 year hiatus).

Of course, I can't stop y'all from looking it up and reading it (the original version will still be canon even if it's aged so help yourself) but just know there's a dedicated redraw and rewrite on the way <3

And if it's not your cup of tea, that's fine! It's a completely different story with different goals from Rekindled. The main characters aren't saints and they're in a relationship I definitely wouldn't recommend anyone be in LMAO

That being said, don't be surprised if you hear the subtle heartbeat of Time Gate underneath the floorboards of Rekindled~

[obsidiancreates]

Dissonant Magics

(Perhaps. The most Niche thing I've ever written. Icebound crossover with me and my friend's own RP.)

Queenie had been prepared to kill when she's spotted the unusual bright yellow moving through the sparse and hardy bushes the group was camping in.

She'd drawn her bow, notched her arrow, taken aim...

And then a human man had become visible.

Not what she had expected. Especially not after sensing some kind of Fey creature nearby.

And this human man was strange. She'd never seen clothes like his before. A bright yellow hat of some sort, with a strange brim only at the very front and only above his face, a sort of... flat-cap. He had a jacket the color of ground mustard seed in a style she'd never seen before, oddly unlived in and a material she couldn't begin to identify. His pants, at least, were familiar- the same material her own overalls were made of, though his shoes... laces, yes, familiar enough, but again, the style, and a strange material that made up the soles and the tips where the toes went, something white and shiny but not solid nor firm.

He had caught sight of her then, and just... stared. Only the slightest widening of his eyes betraying his startle.

"Alright now, friend," she'd said, keeping aim at the spot between his eyes, "Now I ain't interested in killin' you and I sure hope you ain't interested in killin' me, so just introduce yourself and I'll return the favor."

He nods. "My name is Yellow, and I'm lost. I don't know how I ended up here. My brothers and I were conducting an experiment with a strange artifact we'd uncovered and I was too close when the energy surged from it. I woke up here."

"Uh-huh. Can ya prove it?"

"No."

"What'd ya just say?"

"No, I cannot prove it. I can show you evidence of my brother- four of us are identical and one involved is not, but I have over a dozen of what I consider to be Siblings in total- but I cannot prove the circumstances surrounding my arrival here. I can promise on my soul that I do not mean anyone here harm, however."

Queenie peers at him.

(In another world, someone rolls a 2, and her Insight check of 7 fails.)

"Well I don't think I can risk it. You're the first person we've met out here who can talk while bein' human and your clothes are like nothin' I ever seen."

"Yes, you are also... unusual, to me. What are you?"

"You never seen a Harringon before? Now you're gettin' real unbelievable."

"Harringon." There's a look to his eyes, something Queenie doesn't like. It's searching, but it's not searching her, or the environment around them- it's just... searching. Like he's seeing something she isn't.

She pulls the arrow back a little more.

Yellow nods to himself. "I believe I understand, to a degree, where I might be. Please tell me the name of the planet we are on."

"What in the nine hells kinda question is that?"

"Nine hells. Noted. Name?"

"... Avantris."

"... That is not the expected answer. I'm lost again." He holds out his hands. "If you would like to bind me and take me as captive or prisoner, I am allowing you to do so. I need more information to work with here- these pine trees are like none I've ever seen."

Queenie squints in suspicion once more.

(The author, with xeir shitty d20, rolls a 6 for an overall Insight check of 11. Good thing the dc is set to 10 and Queenie had advantage on this willingingly open individual.)

"Alright, fine. But you keep quiet unless we ask you somethin', 'cause I still don't trust you."

"Understood. I wouldn't either."

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

"Well I didn't find no fey," Queenie hollers as she gets withing sight of the campfire.

"Oh, thank the gods," she can hear Skrimm exclaim, and then the telltale thud of him falling over onto his bedroll in relief.

"Nope, just this weird human guy who can talk," she shouts again.

"WHAT?!"

She walks up to the campfire, still smoldering for heating the breakfast rations on, with a hogtied Yellow in tow. It's tough work, dragging him along- he's heavier than he looks by a staggering amount.

"Aye, I gotcha, Miss March." Barnabos walks over and easily picks Yellow up by the rope coming out of the knot binding his four limbs together. "Wha' in the hells are you wearin', lad?"

"Are you insulting my fashion sense, or experiencing genuine confusion as to the make and style of my clothing?"

There's a sharp inhale from Daisy, otherwise soundless surprise stealing her breath away.

"Do you know him?" Skrimm asks.

"No," Daisy signs. Yellow tilts his head as he watches her hand movements. "I've never met a human here who could speak. I never thought I would."

"I am not te-"

"Where did you find him?" Jornir stands, leaving heavily on his walking stick to do so- they're all especially tired today. It had been a harsh night. He moves closer, examining Yellow as he might examine a strange rune on a wall.

"Out in the thickets." Queenie crosses her arms and taps one foot rapidly against the ground. "Says he got here by messin' with some magic doohickey with his family."

"You're a... firbolg?" Yellow tilts his head yet again as he observes Jornir observing him. "And the one holding me is a... triton. The small screechy one is a goblin-"

"Well that was a little uncalled for-"

"-and the one tending the fire is a dragonborn. Am I correct?"

Jornir nods, slowly. "Why must you check?"

"I am not from Avantris, as she- I did not get her name, and I will not refer to her as the name the triton has addressed her as due to the familiar seeming nature of the method of addressing- has told me this world is called. I am from a world where we do not have goblins, tritons, harringon, firbolgs, or dragonborn- well, we do have dragonborn, but not in the same way he exists. They appear mostly human with dragon souls where I am from, but again, not in the way they do in Skyrim. ... You do not know what Skyrim is, and I've muddled the topic further. Dammit."

"Speakin' a lo' o' nonsense," Barnabos growls. "Are you a witch?!" He shakes Yellow a bit.

"My brother is, as is my grandpa, but I am not."

"But you are not human," Jornir rumbles. His blind eye glows with magic as he looks for the same in Yellow. "Your are.... encased, in a.... strange, unnatural magic."

"Yes. I am an artificial being- I am made of metal and glass and electricity, lightning, and also contain a magic stone as a secondary power source that has given me an approximation of a living soul, or a soul by the standards of my own world. I do not know if it qualifies as one here."

"A-a man made of metal? Like that fuckin' thing on the horse we keep seeing?!" Skrimm summons the Brutal Blade to his hand. "Why do we keep running into these bastards?!"

"I am not aligned with anyone."

"Besides, Skrimm," Taishen says, finally joining the conversation now that he has tea to pass to everyone (and a cup set aside in case the currently hogtied man becomes an ally). "This man isn't metal. He has skin!"

"It is synthetic- made with chemical combinations. ... Alchemy. You may peel it off of a part of me, I will not feel pain and there will be no blood."

"Ah... no, I don't I will."

Daisy, setting her jaw, walks up and pulls out a hunting knife. She hesitates as she holds the blade to the man's cheek- the only thing accessible to her as Barnabos keeps Yellow suspended in the air.

"Gods, I'm gonna be sick."

"Do it." Jornir keeps his eyes on Yellow. "We must know."

Daisy breathes out, and cuts the skin on his cheek, deep.

No blood. And it scrapes against something that is not bone.

"Peel it," Yellow says again.

She does, just a little.

Underneath is something incomprehensible. colors and metals and materials she's never seen before, even more foreign than whatever makes up his clothes- and it's all so warm. It's only now she realizes how ill-suited his clothing truly is for the weather, and how he's shown no sign of freezing, and the heat she feels as she almost trance-like traces her finger against the... casing, under his skin and strange non-muscle muscle, makes that no mystery.

The camp is speechless for a moment.

"Three of my brothers are the same," Yellow says in the silence. "One was once human, then infused with similar technology, what our world calls a cyborg. We are all magic in some sense or manner, though magic in our world works very differently to how it works here- assuming, of course, I have correctly identified the kind of universe we are in."

Skrimm looks a little like his own brain is overheating. "... Well, what the fuck does that mean?!"

"It means I would like to be set down, though I do not need to be untied. The snow will help keep me cool as I work to download all the D&D guides I can find using only magical connection and not Wifi."

"What the fuck is D&D??!"

[minmin-pal]

you don't have to send a reply or even an answer really, i know it's close to the time so please feel free to ignore this and give yourself some time or just do something else you'd like other than answering a tumblr ask lmao/lh/gen

welcome back to custard/mikey/mustard/🍮 speedrunning asks in 2 hours go!

'Trying to become happy by doing assassinations' caught me off guard but yay I've already properly fixed and added the stuff you said to my watch guide, i appreciate the 'using the wrong pronouns for extra concealing' lol, ty jjba veteran for ur wisdom :pray: /gen

i've gotten so used to expecting them to come back too lol, but yes alright, thank you for the advice :D maybe i can somehow make it thru jjba with even a quarter of my feelings intact? (I'm not confident in that either ::/j/lh)

and woah I'm glad you were able to enjoy naruto! and yeah truee the possessed fox mode(?) thing always looked so cool and reminding is understandable lol, and now that you mention it he really would've been that one friend everyone would have in elem lmao. his cheery, rebellious to teachers and pulls pranks, he definitely would've been a popular kid or something during elem (is elem the same as primary school? ;;)

ngl i'd maybe say the reason gaara was more appealing than sasuke is maybe he was actually a nice character?/lh also younger gaara was very adorable to watch but yeah sasuke was just being a tad bit of an asshat lol

and ohh, people's opinions on tsunade is often positive leaning but it's neat to hear your thoughts on jiraiya and orochimaru are often like switched, if that makes sense? it's fun to see other opinions finally exist lmao, jiraiya was weird as heck but he had that character appeal going on somehow lol/pos

the 'hercules-corona borealis great wall' new term i never knew existed, ty for this brain food :pray:

and ah, somehow that single image you inserted of the dude drawn in the first style explains it (art looks nice though, muscles so cool omg/lh/pos)

I'm getting the same feeling that aot will end in the same-ish manner that killer in love did, just completely turn everything on the viewers heads and make us all feel emotionally exposed or smth lol, i'm gonna have to put on some protective gear before restarting the anime ;;

oh wait there's a csm part 2? I haven't heard much about it though it makes sense if his still working on it, and yep csm has already been added to my to-read list and csm2 is joining >:)

oyasumi punpun sounds very cute, i will be checking that out now, i need to feel feelings again after speedrunning killer in love lol/hj/lh

"boy's abyss" added to the collection (i will actually finish this list I swear lmao/gen) help naur "you didn't dislike kokoa, and that's really telling of you as a person" had me worried if it was bad for a few seconds TT/lh

and yeah I'm really glad they made her kinda of a victim too, really pulled the story together especially in the 'backstory leading to her walking off into the distance' ending (and yeah don't worry about any of it being too short or anything, it's understandable so pls don't strain urself :D/lh)

oh yeah, seeing a character make the same decisions or do the same thing as you and it's being shown/viewed(?) as a bad thing, is definitely an eye-opener moment

i don't know all the details and this might seem unwarranted but you were both human and I'm sorry they left you so suddenly (i'm not trying to come as all like- dunno pompous or anything i swear ;;) not trying to argue since it might've been the healthy decision for them and i can respect that, i'm sorry you had to be left alone so suddenly though/gen (i hope this didn't come off badly ;;/lh)

we're speedruninngg :run:

and yay, yeah i really did it like it, thank you again for getting me to read it/gen the wholw story and it's art in general was very lovely:]<3

(mustard is my new, nEW name that will appear on my birth certificate lmao, also how did i not think of that sooner it was literally staring me in the face lol)

i'm answering the first of the 'thank you and nice to meet you' post thing and i reached where you said you were physically running out of time and i am also running out of time physically, the irony is making me cackle lol/hj/lh

it makes me a bit sad too, but i'm really glad i did meet you (as much as meeting you counts to stumbling across your blog?) i might not have said this enough times, but reading you rant off on random tangents and just talking about silly random stuff that you liked and things that mattered to you was genuinely a very fun experience that i won't be forgetting./gen

mayb the afterlife or void or whatever turns out to be meeting you there, does have wifi, i mean you can never be too sure right lmao? I can imagine it might just be 2 bars or something tho lol/lh

bye bye to you too min, and yeah no worries, the end poem has a special place for me so i don't consider it corny at all that you brought up, not gonna lie the first time i read your response seeing the response just made me bawl harder lol,

you like showing me stuff and i like watching you show me stuff, it's very fun would reccomended:D/lh reccomended:D/lh

don't be sorry, you don't need to be/lh/gen

thank you for that, (am i allowed to save it?/genq/nf) making you tear up was the goal muahaha >:)/hj/lh

even if it's not new, i stand by "all min art is good art", thank you. genuinely for everything min. this has been a very nice few 47(?) days of knowing you and i'll always check back on here, i know you said promises don't count to dead people, but welp unfortunately one of us will still be alive and chilling so that promise is gonna get fulfilled >:) my evil masterplan all along, it's gonna take you so long to scroll down thru my jjba review part 1 ask with the shitty wifi in the afterlife/again, whichever ends up waiting

i'll take care of little dustball min >:) could go to a cat cafe, i heard you liked cats./lh

It nice meeting you min, thank you for everything genuinely, it's been nice.

love you stranger :D

gonna go offline permanently in 5 mins (plus i will be deleting a lot of posts- just cus i dont want to be known for some of these) so i cant go too indepth

im really happy we spoke. i sometimes would worry that people who found me off my more. sad stuff would never know me much and im happy u let me . not be so depressing and let me rant about fuckin g jojos bizarre adventure to you

thanks mustard custard mikey and see u in the next ecosystem

[gamebunny-advance]

Doodle Dump (NSR Edition)

Notes + Captions Below

1-2) Primary Trio + Suplex. First sketches to the "White vs. Green" response ask. The other 3 are kinda indifferent to

3) "How does White Smoke?" I've thought about making a comic explaining how/why Desync!White smokes when he's a robot. The short answer is that 1010 actually do have a "lung," but it's function is less as a respiratory system and more of a cooling system.

Captions:

*This is a non-canon depiction of the character

Mayday: Hey professor, if 1010 is a robot? Don't you need to inhale/exhale air to smoke?

DJSS: Well, let me tell you!

4) XIO + Crew doodles. I don't think I've ever drawn XIO's crew in this AU.

5) Kun3h0!AU Doodles. Part of a comic about White asking why their outfits reveal so much skin when they're built for combat. I thought the idea and punchline were funny, but it feels kinda weird to write a an AU!Comic based on my OCs before I've ever done anything with those OCs. XP

Captions:

GAB (NJ): Hah? Are you really asking something that basic?

White: I just figured that if I'm-

6) "Headbands". An idea I had for Kliff to model different types of headbands. Left to right, top to bottom they are: Elastic, Alice, Alice (ribbon style), B-Style.

7) "Keychains". This is actually a VERY old sketch (you can tell 'cus the BG color is kinda off). Anyway, my dream is to have little keychains of these two, but I dunno who would make/want them besides me ;3;. (Maybe a handful of people, but not enough to get them seriously made XP)

8) B2J x Sanrio. Sketches of the next NSR x Sanrio set. Dunno when I'll get around to finishing it.

9-12) "Slutty?" This was the original response to the "Slutty White" ask I got.

TBH, I was kinda baffled by the ask when I first got it. Like I originally said in my response, almost every word in it was "wrong," because I don't think that I've ever shown Dsync!White as being particularly promiscuous (nor was he "absent" to his "sons." In no uncertain terms, Dsync!White is Green's abuser which, ya know, requires him to have been very involved in Green's life.)

Like, I know that some people just call characters/people "sluts" as a "joke," because it's a "naughty" word that invokes the idea that the character is sexy and sexual.

But it just rubs me the wrong way for anyone to say that about Dsync!White. I know part of it is that everything I know/think about Dsync!White isn't public, so things like how he is actually sex-repulsed (well, human-repulsed really) are things y'all don't know, but even with just what I've posted about him so far, I still don't get how anyone could take away that he was a slut.

But I figured I was just over thinking it, so I decided to roll with the "joke" at the time, but I'm really not okay with calling him a slut like it's a good thing. Like, I don't mind if people say that about Canonish!White or XIO, because they are openly sexual and are proud of it, but Dsync!White absolutely isn't.

Captions:

White: Slutty?

White: HEY! Just because I'm provacative doesn't make me a slut!

White: For the record, I've never had sex once in my 30 years of service.

Green: Never?

White: Never.

Green: Not once?

White: Not once.

This was supposed to go on a lot longer, but I already decided I didn't want to pick a fight with anon that probably just didn't know any better and turned the first panel into the response I posted.

[lunarharp]

a random draft where i was ramblingg about witch hat & art to myself for myself :)

rare time i feel like actually going off about the thing i’m having fun with right now in more detail ... but not on twt where strangers might try to discuss back at me lol sorry but that is scary. (not that you even have the room to soliloquy on there)

i love how there's characters for varying types of artists to relate to. people like agott who have been adept at drawing from a young age but feel overwhelmed by feelings of not meeting their expectations. and are driven mostly by feelings of wanting to prove their worth..

people like oru who have always been around the art but now are burnt out from commissions and wondering just what they're drawing for... and ones i relate to the most personally like coco and qifrey, who started drawing at an older age to the skilled people around them. like coco i'm so happy that i'm in the world of drawing(/magic) now and excited every day but also weighed down by fears that i'll never get to what i where i need to be after starting at this late stage and also whether i'm really cut out for this....

and like qifrey i only started drawing after a narrow escape from trauma... i started drawing to make sense of what my life is now, just as he was invited by beldaruit to become a witch because it was the only safe path he could take. (although i've not been through anything quite like what he's been through... ouagh)

and there’s tetia who just wants to draw to make other people feel happy about what she’s made, to have fun, and spread hope and happiness and gratitude. who feels so happy whenever someone thanks her for what she’s created - i understand now how it feels to want to thank them for thanking her and how making art, when you get a meaningful response, can be a truly warm communal type experience. but you do need that response - her overwhelming happiness when the dragon thing was happy and she said it was the first time she’d ever felt fully appreciated for her magic and it made her soooo happy. she had been drawing until then, but it was the last puzzle in place to make her realise the breadth of what magic can be for her.

and riche who is determined to not lose the “her”-ness from her art, doesn’t want to learn new techniques and become more regular and orthodox in style if it means she feels she’s losing something... i get that!!! precious autistic-coded child... the ways we feel about our art differ depending on our own mental landscapes. hahhhh... shirahama said she began this series because she was having a conversation with artist friends about how it feels like drawing just really is magic. i mean..... it is.

i think writing feels like magic too, and i’m glad i can do both now. any creation is total magic. i’ve drawn scenes that were in my head and that’s let other people see them and if i can trust their comments about it, has moved them in some way or at least let them imagine a scene or a situation that they wouldn’t have imagined otherwise. but it’s different from just telling someone about it. when you draw something, or write something it really exists now - outside of you. THAT’S SO WEIRD.

i liked drawing a lot of takarazuka things (before i realised i got kind of burnt out drawing all this transcore stuff that people were not exactly responding to because it’s so niche and weird lmao) but drawing fanart for something that also ONLY exists in art is so special. it’s not acted by real people. like.. they’re just little people that someone drew and now i draw them too. total magic. and she gets up and draws them every day the same as me...

i love that a manga isn’t just art, it’s storytelling too. doing both writing and drawing at the same time - it feels like such a perfect and fascinating combination of skills and facets of creation. i’m better at writing than drawing, so i don’t feel like i can express my original stories well enough in comic form just yet. but i might just get there.

the world is so confusing and overwhelming and terrible every day. only creation is something i can understand. sometimes i can’t understand it - when i feel REALLY bad, it’s definitely like, what’s the point. and i wish i had more things to experience at present than just creation - i want to be outside and just feel and be as well as create. and at some point i’ll definitely stop posting my creations online. but creating has become something that i don’t need to understand the reason for it - so at those times when i wonder what the real point to any of this is.... lately, i usually still create anyway. just as you’d still breathe and sleep even though you’re hurt and confused by the horrors of the world. it’s becoming how i express myself. i find myself drawing pretty much every day because it’s part of how i make sense of shit now and i naturally want to do it. not doing it is painful.

i hope this magic continues. i hope it becomes far more wonderful than i can even imagine from here.

and i won't lose.

[deertaz]

I'm Back

This account was something I made when I was 14 and in a very bleak time of my life. I have deleted most of my old posts, not only because I wish to forget that time, but also because as an adult, I now understand how venting towards a public space can validate and enable the self-harmful behaviours of other people.

Luckily this account got nothing more that a few notes, with a handful of people looking at what I posted. But, I would like to apologise to anybody who saw my posts and were triggered by it.

I never participated in any group chats or messages encouraging my or the EDs of others. Even then, I saw the danger of such things. However, through sharing my experiences and harmful thoughts in visceral detail, I may have contributed to the validation of others as mentally damaged as I was at the time. Again, I am lucky that next to nobody saw this account.

So, take this as a reintroduction of myself;

Hi, I'm 'Taz', I'm 19. I'm in Uni right now with a freelance job. I love dressing in alternative 'gothic' styles, listening to emo, metal, goth and alternative music. I've experienced a lot since I've been gone, and have been incredibly lucky over the past 3-4 years since my departure.

I have gained lifelong friends who truly value me for the person I am. I graduated high school at 16 and, since then, have found a confidence in myself that I never knew I had. I am capable, thriving and happy with myself and the things I have accomplished so far. I spoke in front of a crowd of 200 last year, and realised how the only thing holding me back is myself.

I no longer feel ashamed about my interests, nor my appearance. I don't hide my love for childish and nerdy things. I'm just a bit odd, but standing out both appearance-wise and personality-wise have turned out to be an asset. It has drawn the most remarkable and kind people to me. I met my platonic soulmate, who has been my best friend for 3 years.

And yes, I have not been friends with that girl I ranted about in 2019 for over 4 years (left the post up since I believe it isn't harmful). What she said and did to me wasn't okay, I'm proud of myself for finally being able to cut her out of my life. I was a very insecure lonely person, who didn't understand how friends should treat you. I never had friends as a child, since I was considered weird. So joining high school (I was 11, UK) made me try to change myself, I was quiet and agreeable. When she offered me friendship I was very happy, but did not have the self confidence nor the wisdom to realise that she was treating me horribly. I understand now, and am quite a lot better with setting boundaries.

I have had two partners, and one on and off situationship thing (lol). I'm not a lesbian, I'm Bi with a preference for women. My parents know. I have a 17 year old brother who I love to pieces, every day I am taken a-back by how much I get on with him. I value our closeness and am very grateful that he's in my life.

My relationship with my mother has been rocky at times, especially from 10-16. But I no longer live at home, so my interactions with her have improved a lot. I love her, she is a kind person, though very temperamental. She is also no longer bedridden!

I am now 19, I am older. I am much better at handling her outbursts. I stand up for myself without shouting back. I realised the best way to respond to her is either by removing myself, or by asking her questions, 'did you take your meds today?', 'why do you think you are angry?', 'Does this warrant shouting?'.

My favourite thing to say is, 'I love you mum, but I hate how you are acting right now.'

It shows to her that I love her, what I'm saying isn't an attack on her character, but on her current actions. It's a pretty good way of letting her know (I think).

Anyways, rant over (for now). For anybody still struggling with an ED, please seek comfort in others. Tell somebody. It's a slow recovery, and you might relapse a few times before it gets better. But it does get better. For anybody still in those awful teen years, it's a shitty waiting game but the end post is in sight, and it's a path to something far brighter.

-Taz

[shirogane-oushirou]

hi it's time for a dive into * .✧ ro's ancient oushirou art ✧. * on this lovely oushiversary!!

(aka i don't wanna reblog any of this art directly from the source bc a number of the posts include my old name ^_^ also there's a lot and i'm already spamming y'all with old art KJNASFKJN)

↑ early college era -- still hadn't taken coloring classes, but i had taken anatomy classes and was using my favorite boy as practice outside of classwork :o)

↑ that first one was from when i was drawing my own dakimakura cover bc i figured honeybee would never deliver on an official one (and also a nod to the fact that i had just had my first taste of nutella and it broke my brain (positive)). and i could be wrong but i thiiiink the second one was around when the official one was announced...? maybe?

i just needed a daki so badly. when i FINALLY got my hands on the daki cover, pillows of that size weren't standard over here, so i actually had to make my OWN dakimakura by sewing two standard pillows together... in a larger case comprised of a sheet... which i did all by hand bc i didn't have my sewing machine at the dorm... i was Committed. 😊👍🏻✨

↑ The Sillies. i'm saving everyone from being subjected to all of the oushipug drawings but. ousheep.... ough... and i included the third one in my nick-gave-me-a-pass-to-gush post, but i'm putting it here too bc. it's cute. :3c

↑ practicing with the yoh yoshinari sections in the PSG design books. good stuff, highly recommend taking a look if you're into very interesting western-japanese animation style mixes.

↑ shortly after getting my hands on after winter -- the bouquet is a drawing of a scene from his route ;w; he's so sweet... and so clumsy... top left is from the time when i was watching the end of clannad during all-nighters while working on assignments. can you tell just from that sentence that i was Quite Unwell at the time? KJASNFKJN. (still love miku!oushirou so much tho. honestly love this style. i want to study my art from around this time at some point, maybe regain some things that were uhhh Firmly Discouraged, to put it nicely, during my later college years.)

↑ doodle dumps! first one is from shortly after playing AW, second is from maybe... junior year with a couple from sophomore year? just a lot of style practice. third is mostly from the end of college when i was. struggling kJNASFJKN. SCAD Profs I Will Not Name made me feel like shit for drawing "too anime", then a couple of years later said their "anime" students were their favs, so my style was. very mixed and not confident. skjdnf.

↑ random gifs! wish i could find it, but i also have one somewhere of him blasting off team rocket-style KJASNKDJN and another of him getting scared from a horror game? movie?

↑ first anniversary pic!! and a reblog meme of "draw your favorite character wearing what you're wearing right now", and i was dressed to drive down the street for some late night gas station food w roommates.

↑ selfship-before-selfship "wife blog" art from 12yrs ago!! kazuaki, the series's artist, has drawn catboy oushirou in design docs before, so he'll sometimes pop up in my art as well ksjdnfnkj. also, naturally, self insert art babey. and he's being a little asshole ksjnd.

↑ the one on the left is like. right around when i graduated?? the one in the middle was for his bday, probably 2020, when i was just starting to get back into art, the one on the right is a college sketch that i redrew as practice to ease myself back into drawing in 2020.

↑ bday cupcakes for the bday boy!!!! around like. 2013 or 2014? i used to do a lot of baking for his bdays before i had dietary restrictions kJNASKJFN, though i sometimes sneak a little treat in on his bday if i can find one.

maybe as i sift through posts on my old blog i'll collect all of the weird art i've done and post them in chunks like this. nice way to put them someplace without spamming people with old curiosities ksjdnfk.

(credit)

[pkmnprideflags]

Lizzie Watches Anipoke, Special Edition - "Celebi: The Voice of the Forest"

We've moved to the first Pokémon movie not written by Takeshi Shudo, and I can tell the difference. Not necessarily in a bad way; I liked this movie a lot, actually. But this movie is creatively different than the earlier ones. As an artist, Shudo is drawn to telling broad stories about nature in the movies. Despite what Revelation Lugia's English dub title would have you believe, Shudo's three Pokémovies all are less focused on Ash and co. and more on showing off the grand powers of Pokémon. Though this film still features Celebi and Suicune doing epic feats, it is comparatively far more invested in Ash, Sam, and its other human characters. This has both its strengths and its weaknesses; Ash is a far more active agent in this movie than he is in some others, but that is at the price of focusing less on Celebi and Suicune.

Ash and Sam's friendship was really cute, which made me have a kneejerk reaction to ship them, but then I remembered that I've seen this movie before and remembering the twist made me have an Apollo Justice Shipping Moment

Also, can we talk about the implications of this movie on literally the entire anime. Did Oak intentionally save a Pikachu for Ash to obtain when he turned 10 because he knew that Ash had to have one. Did he freak out when Delia had a son and announced his name. Rewatching the first episodes of the anime with this in mind will make you speculate like a madperson

Y'know, for the first 50 minutes of the movie, I really appreciated that it only used CG for the backgrounds and effects, rather than like the Unown in the third movie. I liked that they kept all of the main characters in 2D so we could appreciate their expressions better. And then Celebi made its 3D twig monster thing and I took back all of the above bc that thing looked horrendous

I liked that Team Rocket got a happy ending this time. They were just vibing in a magic lake together after a long day. Honestly friendship goals

I also think it's funny in a macabre way that the movie never clarifies what happened to the Marauder. Like, the implication is probably that after he got tied up he was turned in to the police, but like. We don't know that. What if the Pokémon beat his ass. What if the boat guy who was cracking his knuckles helped. What if Towa and Diana helped

EDIT: something I just remembered that was bothering me - why doesn't Ash recognize Suicune from when he saw it upon first arriving in Johto? I assumed that encointer was gonna come back later so I've been paying attention for signs of Suicune, and now Ash just doesn't remember it? This mfer can remember when he saw Ho-Oh 200 episodes ago but can't remember Suicune

Also I swear to God if this anime never brings back the Ho-Oh thing I am going to fight someone. Either it better appear during his time in Johto or like, his departure episode better feature him encountering it again or something, idk. If Ho-Oh turns out to be another GS Ball then I will flip

Overall, definitely a weird movie and a turning point for cinematic Pokémon. I think I prefer Shudo's style of screenplay just for the sheer sense of scale it gives, but I still liked this one more than The Power of One. A canon-changing but solid entry into the Pokémon franchise.

[sharpmarble76]

Tagged by @justfangirlstuffs to fill out this DCA questionaire

Warning: almost every answer is a ramble

How did you get here?

As I've mentioned before, (I'm like a broken record and just repeat myself I'm sorry) I was dragged in by force through exposure. When I like an author, I look at the things they bookmark because a lot of the time I end up liking the same things they do. There were several utmv authors with sun and moon fics and I didn't know who they were but I got curious and clicked. I found a cursed one that I could tell was leading to an almost abusive relationship with y/n and got scared away but eventually got curious enough to look back into them.

2. Why these characters in particular?

Family is something really important to me so that often reflects on my favorite characters. I've always loved cheerful and yellow/blonde characters which is oddly specific but, eh. Recently, I discovered my favorite trope is sun and moon dynamic twins (Dream and Nightmare, Sun and Moon)

3. How long have you been here?

I think it was sometime in August. I'm pretty new to this fandom but I know almost everything there is to know now.

4. Have you actually played FNAF sb?

I have not. I have never played video games other than mario kart or things like snake. I did look into it and Undertale and I discovered you have to pay $10-15 for Undertale but couldn't find any information about FNAF sb and figured it would be something similar and I am not willing to pay money to play.

5. If you make content, what is your favorite piece you've contributed?

Fic wise I really love my very first utmv fic. I think it's pretty well thought out and I can't think of any plot holes. I haven't made an FNAF fic yet but I'm planning on doing so eventually. I love all of my art (except for my weird frog ones please ignore most of those) pretty equally but my Sun one makes me really happy. I also like my most recent Dream one because I discovered an easier way to do digital art and will be able to do thinner line art.

6. What's your favorite sort of art or fic? What genre/flavor/style?

I love really angsty fics but only for my main comfort character (I project onto him) Any other time, I love stories that have an adventure to it. Plot twists and unique au's are wonderful. I will not read smutty fics and suggestive stuff is avoided as much as possible. If I can find platonic fics, than that's ideal but I will read romance as long as its SFW.

7. What's your favorite au?

I've really loved the cryptid au. There is a lot of cool fics and art for it and it's really fun. I also love after fire fics, those are really angsty.

8. Do you have any OCs, or have OCs that you are particularly fond of?

I have 1 oc that I will never do anything with. Her name is either Cam or Hali, I never decided. She has a circle face (probably a mask) with one half as a smiley face and the other a frowny face.

9. What do you think of the dca's Canon appearance? Scary? Cute? Something else?

I don't think they're that bad honestly. I would be scared of them as a kid but I think they're cute. They have a hint of ugly but it's a cute ugly.

10. What keeps you in this fandom despite the small amount of Canon content the DCA had?

I love seeing them as brothers and the interaction between them. That is why i read their fics in the first place, purely for that brotherly love. The main thing keeping me here are the people on tumblr. I have been so welcomed and made a surprising amount of friends on here. I love having a group of mutuals on here that talk about stupid things like what temperature water should be consumed at and supporting art and fics and just having fun loving the same characters.

11. Be honest: if you had to pick only one, sun or moon?

Honestly, I would probably pick Sun. I am really drawn to cheerful characters though Moon is absolutely wonderful. (Also don't want death rn so...)

12. Thoughts on eclipse?

He's a very mysterious guy. It really depends on interpretation, even more than Sun and Moon. I personally think he might be connected to afton in some way because of the amount of importance arcade games have in sb with princess quest and all. I think he is either the key to releasing moon from the virus or the thing keeping him trapped.

13. Thoughts on pre-glitch sun?

I think he'd be a lot more chill. Still very cheerful and probably very talkative. Sun seemed really scared and hysterical and almost manic in game. I think he would still be eccentric just a lot more carefree and content. He would probably be bashful and oblivious as well.

14. Thoughts on pre-glitch moon?

I think he'd be very gentle and sweet with kids and then be his gremlin self with Sun, the glamrocks, and the employees. I like to think he'd be very protective of Sun and really clever. I think he would act really smug to be funny and would be very sassy.

15. Do you interpret sun and moon as two sides of the same person, or truly two separate beings in one body? Does it matter?

It's very important to me that they are two separate people. I refuse to read anything longer than a one shot where they aren't brothers or at least best friends. It just makes me sad and not in the delicious satisfying way that angst does but an uncomfortable/unsettled naggy way. It's fine with one shots but if they aren't close by the end, it will not take up my time or emotions.

16. What's something in the fandom you like to see more of?

Just brotherly moments between Sun and Moon (*cough* broken record *cough*)

17. What's something in the fandom you'd like to see less of?

Shipping them together and smutty/suggestive things. It's just not my jam

18. Anything you're looking forward to?

Not that I can think of

19. Do you think you'd actually get along with the DCA if you met them irl?

I think I would think they were really cool but would probably be too shy to talk to them unless they initiated it first.

20. Free space! Talk about whatever is on your mind.

I've been thinking a lot about how much I've changed in the past few years. For example, I thought contacts were the creepiest thing and now I have and love them. Fandom wise, my journey with fnaf. My first time hearing about it I was around 10-11. I was at a sleepover with my cousins and my cousin told me about it when they threw out a toy or something from their little brother. It scared me so much I had panic attack and was crying and shaking. I didn't even know that the animatronics were possessed by murdered children. Now here I am reading this stuff with a straight face or even a slightly evil laugh.

Anyone who sees this can do it. I'm too lazy to go through and see who's already been tagged

[professorspork]

If you're accepting non-superhell prompts, I'd love to see a conversation between Nora and Emerald! I've been REALLY loving these microfics, I've subscribed to you on Ao3, I'll read whatever else you write

[Gahhh that’s so nice you’re so nice!! thanks for being patient on this one, finding my Nora took some doing]

It’s occurring to Emerald that she’s never had a close female friend before.

You say that like you’ve ever had any friends before, the voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Mercury needles her, but she brushes it aside. Like—okay, yeah, she’ll concede the point when it comes to Cinder. In hindsight, whatever they’d had going on between them may have been... super intense... but it probably had never been friendship, in the usual definition. But she and Mercury were friends, no matter what the judgy little shitstain version of him who lives in her head has to say about it. They’d always gotten along. Told each other stuff. It’s not like there’s more to it than that, right?

It had always been like that. Been—instinctive somehow, with guys. Before Cinder, on the street, it was always the men who’d been easiest to manipulate; who would empty their pockets for a smile and a sob story. And then she and Merc had been two sides of the same coin for so long, and then... well, Hazel’d liked her enough to die for her, apparently. (Which—that’s a door that she keeps closed, thanks. She shuts it firmly again, now.) Oscar seems fond of her, in a sweet, uncomplicated sort of way that she really doesn’t know what to do with, seeing as he shares headspace with like a trillion year old man and the idea that anything to do with that kid could be “uncomplicated” is batshit. Ren vouched for her once, and then again, and now he keeps doing it, like it’s habit, like she should just be used to the fact that people are going to have her back, to ask her if she’s eaten, to turn to her with a raised eyebrow in conversation like her opinion would be constructive.

Anyway.

Now that she’s noticed the pattern, it seems like the kind of thing she should probably… work on, or whatever. And Nora seems like an obvious place for Emerald to start. They’ve been thrown in together a lot, lately, Emerald and Oscar expected to fill in the gaps of what’s left of the old JNPR by default. Not that they’ve ever really had a conversation about it—Emerald can’t think of the last time Nora said two words to her that weren’t combat warnings like “more Grimm coming” or “on your left,” but. That’s probably just because things have been tense. She remembers Nora being friendly, on the whole of it. Off-puttingly friendly, even, back at Beacon.

How hard could it be?

The answer, it turns out, is absurdly hard. Nora’s barely ever in the temporary barracks they’re all living out of, instead always checking on the refugees, going on supply runs over esoteric requests, volunteering for extra patrols. Emerald used to find that kind of dogged do-goodery gag-inducing, but now that she’s been the helping hand herself a few times, she’s starting to see the appeal. The way people look at you when you’ve been of service, it’s—nice. Really nice. But Nora works utterly thankless jobs, the kind most people don’t even notice, let alone appreciate. And when they have their insufferably long leadership meetings and they’re talking about distribution of resources or whatever, Nora’s a fierce debater—jumping in to advocate for the people from Mantle sometimes even before May can. As far as Emerald can tell, she does this stuff just because... she believes in it. Because it’s the right thing to do, and someone has to.

She can’t imagine what it would feel like, to have the attention of someone like that turned on her. She’s craved it from the wrong people for so long, but now that she has her pick of options... she’s letting herself actually want the right kind, for once. She thinks.

Which is all to say that largely through no fault of her own, Emerald unexpectedly finds herself sitting with a profound, fervent desire for Nora Valkyrie to think she’s cool.

She hates that.

-

Fighting with Nora is easy.

(—er. Alongside. Fighting alongside Nora is easy. Emerald’s done fighting with these people. Very done.)

It’s weird, because Emerald’s finding working with a full team to be a real adjustment. When battles get big enough to merit it, she’s used to keeping to the sidelines to use her Semblance for nefarious purposes, or, in a jam, used to having Mercury’s six—literally, because all the forward momentum from his feet-first style always left his back wide open. Figuring out where to put herself so that Oscar can use her shoulder as a fulcrum as he dodges, or trying to aim for the Grimm Ren isn’t already shooting (ugh)—it’s taking work.

But somehow, it’s not work for Nora. Nora seems to anticipate with perfect ease how Emerald will move or what she’ll be doing; Nora bobs and weaves around their ragtag little band with her war hammer like it’s breathing.

It doesn’t bother Emerald until it does, and she means to bring it up casually but there’s never a good time. So it just… stews, and stews, until she can’t keep it bottled up anymore.

Which means that instead of the earnest question she intends it to be, it comes out like this:

“Okay, seriously? It’s creepy how you do that.”

It’s just the two of them, plus the handful of dweeby Atlesian tech-types they’re escorting back from their foray installing some fancy hydro-filtration modules on the outskirts of the camp. And it’s not like Emerald had felt outmatched by the half-dozen Ravagers that had decided they looked like lunch—she can shoot Ravagers in her sleep, at this point—but still. The way Nora had moved around her, it was like they’d been fighting side by side for years.

Nora just cocks her head to the side. “Do what?” she asks, like she hadn’t just basically read Emerald’s mind in front of the water nerds.

Emerald does a complicated gesture with her hands, wrist over wrist, and then flicking two fingers—trying to evoke the way Nora had flipped over Emerald’s back and then kicked off, just trusting Emerald would reel her back in with a chain in midair before a Grimm could fly away with her sorry ass. “That.”

“Oh!” Nora laughs and rubs at the back of her neck, looking sheepish. “It’s nothing. I guess it’s just not a big deal for me? Like—I was there when Ren built StormFlower. The cables are newish, but we practiced so much back in Atlas… I dunno. It’s just reflex, when your weapons are so similar. Fighting with you, it’s almost like fighting with him. I don’t even have to think about it.”

Nora swallows, then, and makes a face Emerald can’t interpret—disappointed, maybe, or ashamed. Which: good. She probably should be, taking things for granted like that.

“Well—just—” Emerald’s not even sure what she wants to say. Ask, next time? Don’t? “You shouldn’t make assumptions. I’m not your boyfriend, okay?”

The venom she puts behind the word is directed more at herself than Nora—frustrated, again, that she’s put herself in the position of wanting so desperately to be liked.

Pathetic.

Nora just nods, looking glum.

“Yeah,” she murmurs, cheeks pulling in a bitter smile. “You’d think I’d be able to keep that one straight, huh?”

She says it with such pointed irony that for a second Emerald wonders if she’d gotten it wrong somehow, but like—Nora and Ren are a thing, right? That’s—everyone knows that.

“Hey, what—?”

“Let’s just go,” Nora says, and Emerald automatically falls into line behind her.

They make the rest of the walk back in silence.

-

Sometimes at night, when she can’t sleep, Emerald likes to climb up to the roof of the barracks and look out over the refugee camp.

It’s—peaceful, is all. A good reminder of where she is; how far she’s come. The night sky in Vacuo has more stars than she’s ever seen, and being able to watch over all these people who have somehow become her responsibility… well.

A part of her will always be standing on the rooftop at Beacon, looking down on pure chaos as a queasy, frightened sensation twists in her gut and its noxious voice whispers you did this, you did this, you did this. What did you think was going to happen, you stupid little girl? You don’t get to feel sorry for it now.

But she does.

Weird how the only thing that’s helped is actually doing something about it.

She hears a scuffling noise over her shoulder, and she’s got Thief’s Respite drawn and ready before she can even really register what she’s heard. She relaxes when she sees it’s Nora at the other end of the barrels, unarmed and hands raised—a funny little smile on her face, like yeah, fair enough, I should have known better than to try and sneak up.

“Just me,” she says, unnecessarily.

Emerald holsters her guns. “Can I help you?” she asks, and—what is it about her voice, that makes sentences that would be nice if any other human said them come out straight-up hostile?

Nora shrugs, hands dropping to her sides. “I was hoping we could talk; I figured you’d come up here if I waited long enough.”

Well, see—what kind of lesson is she supposed to take from that? She’s been hoping for Nora to talk to her for weeks, and acting like a bitch is the thing that gets her what she wants? Good guys are supposed to know better.

And there’s the way she said it, too. Like everyone knows Emerald comes up here to brood; like it’s a big open secret. The knowledge sits uncomfortably in her stomach, makes her feel watched. Even now, even here, she can’t get a moment alone. Not really.

“What, so you’re spying on me now?”

Nora’s eyes narrow. “I have a pretty bad track record when it comes to losing people. Makes a girl want to put in a little hustle when it comes to keeping tabs on her friends.”

And Emerald would snark at that, or maybe apologize, or something, only—

Nora thinks they’re friends?

“Well, take a seat, I guess,” she mumbles, scooching to the side as though she needs to make room on the massive, empty roof.

Nora walks over and joins Emerald on the asphalt, letting her legs dangle over the edge. Seemingly unsure of where to start, she stares at her hands. Emerald stares too, but her eyes can’t help but wander—tracing the way scars, silvery in the moonlight, spiderweb up Nora’s bare wrists and forearms to fetter her shoulders, clavicle, neck. Like cracks in a pane of glass, right before it shatters.

(Only that’s not it at all, is it? It’s not a sign of weakness, but a warning of strength. I care this much, her scars announce to the word. You wanna try me?

Hazel’s arms always looked like that.)

Emerald doesn’t want to be the one to break the silence, sure that whatever she’d say would be incredibly stupid.

Luckily, Nora has no such qualms, and opens with: “I really admire you, you know?”

Emerald stares, jaw slack, certain she’s heard wrong. “I—what?” She’d say something defensive, like yeah right or you don’t have to make fun of me, only Nora’s eyes are so wide and so guileless they don’t leave any room for argument.

“I mean it,” Nora adds. “I know we don’t know all that much about each other, but… here’s what I do know: I can’t remember a time I saw you without Mercury right behind. Just like me’n Ren. And the way you fought for Cinder…” Nora smiles a sad, private little smile. “You don’t fight like that unless it’s personal; unless someone means something to you. Just like me’n Ren. And now you’re here. All on your own. And you didn’t have to be. That’s—don’t you think that’s crazy brave? I sure do.”

Of course she fucking doesn’t. Crazy brave would have been walking away the first, tenth, hundredth time she had a flash of panic about what she was doing. Or, better yet, doing something about it. Crazy brave is taking thirty thousand volts to get to your friends; it’s flooding your veins with pure crystalline power and saying Go, I’m doing what Gretchen would have done, it’s—

She closes that door.

“It’s not like I really had a choice,” she sighs, dodging the question.

“Oh, you know that’s not true,” Nora scoffs dismissively, tilting sideways to nudge Emerald with her shoulder.

And Emerald jolts, because—look, it’s not like no one touches her. They have to manhandle each other all the time in battle, and… and Oscar gives her high fives sometimes, which makes her embarrassingly pleased. But what Nora’s offering now, that kind of buddy-buddy casual contact…

… it’s been a while, is all.

“So, why did you want to talk to me?” Emerald asks, overwhelmed and suddenly desperate to find a way to get this conversation over with. She feels like she’s sprinted five miles; like she’s had the crap kicked out of her and she has to go somewhere to lick her wounds. Too much, too fast.

Nora laughs—a chuffing, cynical noise that doesn’t sound at all like her. “Looking for pointers? See, I’m trying this thing where I do things on my own, but I just—I suck at it. Like today; you saw. Even when I’m not with Ren, all I do is… is act exactly the same way I do when I’m with Ren. Like I literally don’t know how to exist without him, whether he’s actually there or not. And I know that’s not fair to anyone; I didn’t mean to treat you like—” She shakes her head, biting her lip. “You’re not just some stand-in. It’s not you at all. I’m just—broken, or something. One trick pony.”

“No, hey—”

“But you figured it out,” she barrels on, which is good, because Emerald doesn’t actually have a clue what she would have said there. “You don’t have anyone and somehow you’re just, like—good to go!” Nora says it cheerily, like it’s a compliment, but has the grace to balk a little when she hears how it sounds. “…sorry. That’s—sorry.”

Emerald shrugs, drawing her knees to her chest and resting her chin there. She feels like an idiot; building it up for weeks like spending time with Nora would solve all her problems when, surprise surprise, Nora’s just as fucked up as she is.

“Hate to disappoint you, but I don’t have any hot tips,” she mutters into the crooks of her elbows. “I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. Like—you want to know the really sad part? I was just following your lead.”

“My…?” Nora can’t even finish repeating it, which: Emerald can’t blame her. It’s so dumb. “Huh?”

“Come on. You know.”

“I don’t,” Nora says, voice thick with exhaustion. Like she’s sick of herself. “Ask anyone—I’m not the brains of the operation.”

Hearing Nora talk about herself that way makes Emerald’s chest feel tight; like her ribs have locked in place so her lungs can’t expand. She doesn’t know how to explain it; not without sounding like a starry-eyed fangirl or a moron with a crush and that’s not what this—it’s only that—

She chooses to start a different way.

“You wanna know why I switched sides? Like, really why?”

Nora softens, and reaches out to touch the back of Emerald’s left hand, where it dangles over her knee. “Sure,” she says, but Emerald barely hears it; it’s taking all of her concentration not to clench her fist or pull away in response.

“I overheard Oscar—or, Ozpin, I guess, I don’t know—talking to Hazel about Salem, about her goals. And… listen. No one joins under Salem because they’re trying to kill the world, okay? I mean, no one but Tyrian, anyway. We were all just trying to… find ways to get by. And when Cinder found me, she—” Emerald swallows, hard. This cuts too deep, too close. It’s not something she can just say. “I wasn’t trying to be some big villain, or something. I was just—looking out for the people who were looking out for me. And why wouldn’t I? No one else ever seemed to think I was worth it.”

“Of course you are,” Nora cuts in, quiet but vehement. “Everyone is.”

“See, the worst part is that you mean that when you say it,” Emerald grumbles, scrubbing at her face until smears of color kaleidoscope behind her closed eyes. “I figured people like you didn’t exist, and then Cinder and Merc were glad to prove me right, and—I let them. You know? And maybe if I’d just held out a little longer…”

“You’re not the only one here who’s ashamed of her past. Harriet tried to blow up Mantle, like, a month ago.”

“That’s not—forget that. I’m talking about you. Nora.” It’s the first time she’s ever said her name like that—addressing her, in conversation. It feels… astonishingly intimate, for so small a thing. Emerald powers past it. “Every day, I see you do something ridiculous, like double back on a patrol because you forgot you promised some kid a candy bar, or something, and that—matters. To me. It’s so stupid, but it’s not, because… argh! I want—it’s—” She tries to get her mouth to form the words, that’s the kind of person I want to be, but they stop in her throat.

Still, Nora seems to get the message. Her eyes seem suspiciously shiny for a moment—but when she blinks, it’s gone. “I… thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Emerald grumbles. Saying it like she means it: seriously. Don’t mention it.

“I understand what you mean, though. For years, the only person who looked out for me was Ren. And if he’d said…” Nora trails off, then, cocking her head to the side as she works through something. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing, just. I remembered something. I was about to say that if Ren told me the only way for us to get by was a life of crime, or something, I would’ve taken his word for it, but—the opposite happened. We decided to enroll at Beacon. And that wasn’t his idea; it was mine. I always wanted to be a Huntress. To… to be the one strong enough to help people, instead of always needing the help. He wasn’t sure if we would make it, but I was. We were together, right? How could we lose?” She chuckles, a little, shaking her head at herself. “Get a load of that. He followed me.”

They smile at each other, then. Like they’ve figured out something profound. Maybe Nora has; Emerald hopes so.

“I’m glad you’re here, Emerald,” Nora says, and—there it is again. The frisson of electricity that comes with being referred to by name.

Of course, then Emerald ruins it by blurting out:

“Of course you are, all your other friends are dead.”

Which—“Fuck!” she sputters, because she didn’t mean to say that. What is wrong with her? “Sorry! Sorry.”

Nora only grins at her, feral and incisive. “Yeah, well. Yours are evil, so. Pick your poison. At least I’m proud of mine.”

Touché.

“Still glad I’m here?” Emerald jeers, because her first instinct is still to press on the bruise to see how much it hurts.

Nora laughs, and gets to her feet. “Believe it or not, yes. If putting your foot in your mouth was all it took to get booted from Hero Club, I’d have been kicked out a long time ago.” She reaches down to offer Emerald a hand; Emerald takes it, letting Nora pull her to standing. “Now go and get some rest, huh? None of us can ever sleep when you’re up here thinking so loud.”

“That an order?”

“Advice. Friends give it, from time to time.”

And—yeah. Maybe they do.