#cos they might now be the most pretty looking things that i draw

[biruesque]

silly things i drew .2 seconds before conking out

[hansoeii]

Hello! Hope you're having a great day/night! I absolutely adore your art, you are one of my favourite artists. I love the way you shade and do backrounds. Also everytime I get into a new show I immediately see your art for it??

I was wondering if you had any advice on drawing more realistically (backrounds, anatomy etc) but still keeping a style?

Hey hey!

Thank you so much!

I have a pretty good understanding of facial structures, because before I got into drawing more semi-realisticly, I heavily focused on realistic portraits. Here are some example, these are from around 2019!

(yes, I was really into danmei and kpop back then, haha)

I just always loved drawing/painting faces and it was all I did. But at some point I realized that I wanted to do more than that because just portraits felt super restricting. So it took me around 2-3 years to somewhat find my style. Thought it would be fun to show a little timeline! Advice will follow afterwards :)

2020

I began working on my OCs in 2020 and since I didn't have an exact reference to work off of, I struggled a lot. My art from this year is super wonky.

2021

Still wonky, but the Lokius obsession was the jumpstart into finding my style! My work from this year is all over the place haha, I was experimenting a lot.

2022

This first ofmd piece is pretty much the first drawing where you can see where my style is gonna go, which I think is pretty cool! This is the year I made the biggest progress cos I was drawing SO much. These two pieces are only six months apart. The one on the right was the first time I gave drawing a background a proper go, too! It was a good year.

2023

And this is where I am now! I'm still constantly learning and improving, but I'd say I have a style you can recognize now!

Now here comes some actual advice, haha:

What I highly recommend you to do is to study your favorite artists as much as you can! I have like 5 A4 sketchbooks all from 2020 that I filled with sooooo many studies, where basically all I did was look at artists I like and copy how they draw stuff, to try and figure out how to stylize certain things. Some of my favorite artists are Ami Thompson, Velinxi and TB Choi. But I also liked to just scroll through pinterest and study all the art I came across that I liked! For example, if I saw a really great drawing of a pair of pants I would copy it many times in my sketchbook and try to learn how they stylized the folds. Doing this for a prolongued period of time will naturally improve your own work! It'll be difficult at first, but you gotta push through, it's gonna be worth it!

I also highly recommend studying unique faces to try and avoid the same-face syndrome. Find some cool looking people and try to draw them as simple as you can! Maybe even draw a little timeline where you first draw them as cartoon-y as you can, and keep going until you end up with a more detailed, realistic drawing. Maybe in the middle of it you find a step that feels the most fun to you, so you can try to build on that! It's a great way to figure out what kind of style might be the best for you.

Here are some cool faces I found on pinterest!

I have a pinterest board with many more!

One REALLY important part of learning how to draw all kinds of things is to understand forms and shapes and how to manipulate them. I have so many pages in my sketchbook filled with just shapes that I drew from all kinds of angles without any references.

This is a great video on it:

6 Ways to Draw Anything by Proko

Learning how to do this is so crucial! Young artists often think they first have to learn all kinds of detailed anatomy before doing anything else, but all that's gonna do is make you tired and hate drawing. Shapes are where it's at! Once you understand how shapes work and which ones to use for certain parts of bodies or objects, drawing is gonna get so much easier! Once you understand them, you can get into details such as muscles and bones!

And honestly the most important point is to just absolutely love what you're doing! I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for the fact that I get extreme hyperfixations on certain media that turn me into some kind of beast where I can suddenly draw 10 detailed illustrations a week, haha. Just be passionate about what you do, find something you REALLY love and go crazy!

I really hope this was somewhat helpful! My inbox is always open if there's any more questions :)

[saminsecret]

How the slashers would react to a male S/O part 3

I really like these :)

TW for homophobia and slurs

Characters include the Sinclair brothers (House of Wax)

Bo Sinclair

He refuses to believe it at first. Him? A queer? Nope. Refuses to even look at you because of how angry he is at both you and himself for being attracted to you. Calls you all kinds of names to deflect his feelings. If either one of his brothers try to talk to him about his feelings for you? They get cursed out, shoved around, spat at— “I ain’t no fucking fag!”

He doesn’t know how to flirt with you. How on earth does he flirt with a guy? Can he call you pretty? He doesn’t know how to approach you when it comes to flirting, so he ends up just trying to do it the same way he always does with women. Hopefully it works on you (it does).

He abandons his porn wall. He still likes women, but ever since you came into his life he’s found himself less interested in the pretty girls that come waltzing into town. He doesn’t get rid of the wall, and uses it to scare/torture his victims, but you start to notice that he’s not adding to it anymore. Not that you mind!

Still a bit homophobic. Whenever you two get in a fight, he throws all kinds of homophobic insults at you to get under your skin. He can fly off the handle pretty quickly and sometimes doesn’t even realize what he’s saying until later. He feels guilty, but can’t outright apologize to you because of his ego. But he will come up to you later, hugging and kissing on you and nuzzling his face into yours. He didn’t really mean it, Y/N. He just has anger issues.

Vincent Sinclair

Insanely ashamed of it. The moment he realizes he likes you, there’s a sinking feeling in his stomach that he can’t push away. Will become even more of a recluse than he already was. Every time you manage to catch him out of the basement and try to talk to him, he is quickly scurrying back to safety. He can’t like you, Y/N. He just can’t.

Obsessively draws you. Despite his shame, he cannot stop thinking about you. It’s almost a compulsion with how much of his work space is filled with sketches or little wax figures of you. He tries to hide it, but eventually Bo finds out about his little art projects and gives him hell. “I knew you were nothing but a disgusting fucking queer!” Bo’s bullying only makes him distance himself from you further—Bo’s right, isn’t he?

Eventually Bo helps him out. He’s an asshole, but after a while he realizes that Vincent’s feelings for you are deeper than a stupid crush. He’s still bullying Vincent, no doubt, but he’s also forcing him to be around you more—either by making you take things down to him or making Vincent accompany you when dealing with tourists. His brother may be a fag, but it’s not the end of the world if he lets Vincent have this one thing. Bo can even use you as another thing to dangle over Vincent’s head to make him do whatever he wants him to.

Vincent won’t let you leave his side. You almost feel like a pet, tied to an invisible leash that Vincent holds with a tight grip. You are everything to him, Y/N. His muse, his boyfriend, his light, his world. He refuses to let you go now that you’re here. Won’t even let you help out with the tourists anymore as he’s worried something bad will happen to you. Most of your time is spent down with Vincent, making art or just cuddling with him. He loves to pose you and sketch you. You are so handsome, Y/N!

Lester Sinclair

Very confused! He might not even realize that he’s into you for a while—he really just never thought he’d be into a guy!

Doesn’t let Bo get to him. He really likes you and even though you’re a guy he still thinks you’re perfect! Bo will be relentless, just like he was with Vincent, but Lester just lets the comments roll off his back; Bo could only dream of being this lucky!

Really awkward. He is not good at flirting in general, but flirting with you? Everything feels backhanded. Even worse. “You’re so pretty for a guy, Y/N!” He’s constantly trying to ‘playfully’ tease you or push you but you just think he’s being mean. You don’t even realize he’s flirting with you. He gets a bit flustered after a while, and may even go to Bo for help. Bo doesn’t tell him anything that’s worth listening to.

Even more awkward. Once you guys start dating, he doesn’t really know how to go about it. How do two guys kiss? Is it just like kissing a girl? He really loves you Y/N but every time you go in for a kiss or hug or any type of contact he’s questioning if he’s doing it right. Eventually though, you show him that it’s all the same (but even better because it’s you!)

Will get so mad at homophobic tourists. You give Lester a peck on the cheek and one of the tourists y’all just helped makes a snide remark and it’s got Lester scoffing in surprise. Seriously? Will absolutely drop the polite act and may even complain to Bo or Vincent. Or, depending on how rude they were, he might even sick Jonesy on them…Either way he will not be sorry for what happens next to them. Those assholes definitely deserved it!

Jonesy loves you! Which makes Lester love you even more! Which makes Jonesy love you even more! The cycle of love continues. You are one lucky bastard, Y/N.

[fantomette22]

A little something about the students dress

Alright so I was looking at references (to draw a character) and ended up doing a bit of research on academic dresses & graduations uniforms! I only find a couple of things so if someone have more infos I will be very interest!

So in Bloodborne we got those dear uniforms :

The one with the robes is very classic of what people in old classic university still wear for big events and graduations such as in the U.S.A or UK. A decades/century ago they did wore those uniforms of course way more often. Now we wear mostly casual clothes.

(This image always made me think of Byrgenwerth. With the balcony and all. That remind me of a post I made a while ago I have still no clue what those balcony were use for!!!)

At first, I discovered that between a bachelor/licence degree, master degree and phd/doctorate you aren't going to get the same clothes. Plus, colours can differ depending of : the level of the degree, the school or the field you graduate in (can differ depending the countries as well).

Bachelor outfits are the most simple ones with not a lot of colours for most of them. Sometimes they don't have hoods but depends. Sometimes they seems to have very large selves like the Byrgenwerth one. The master ones have a bit more colours and I read generally long sleeves but that depends? Then the phd/doctorate ones are generally very colourful! And like the last sources below v They even had even more beautiful outfit for very important members (so I guess Willem pope outfit still make sense XD)

As for the colors it really depends the country etc but I read red is often associated with medicine and surgery (what a coincidence!). White / purple or even red is for theology and blue could be for sciences (Byrgenwerth/willem researches seems to be quite a mixt with theology/sciences so make sense).

(@katyspersonal we did talk a while back on colours on clothes meaning but hey it had have academic significations that fit well too! So in the end, drawing Laurence with white & red clothes is even more accurate now! XD) Oh I wanna draw him in an entire red academic dress now...Future drawing idea ).

Also I forgot to mentions that there's the hat/trencher that's part of it as well. It's not part of the set in the game but ennemies have it.

Also little side note: some dress have stripes or ermine bands on the clothes that represents their grades and also "academic curiosity, academic honesty, and academic courage."

So i suppose the garb Micolash, Damian & co have would look more similar to a master degree one? I guess?

But I won't throw any rocks at Fromsoftware even if the ones we got might not be too much detailed/ accurate because they sure did their homeworks to find and design those clothes. They aren't historians and they probably found a lot more things than I here (plus Japan don't have those dresses too). They're not going to design like 5 different outfits in the game too XD. (Yes I want more details for my story bc making things way more complicated is way more accurate I guess...) We don't know how exactly those types of institutions fonctions in Bloodborne universe too. And it's a fantasy world after all. So it's free real estate

I dunno if you guys @pyro-madder @karnaca78 @secteel or others could know more about it 🤔

But for now it's all!

Sources :

PS : I found this piece of medieval scholar dress and it really look like the same as the guy in the cainhurst painting and cut content Beltran!

They are probably wearing a "simarre". Some magistrate/ university professor / religious clothes people would wear. So pretty oblivious and what we thought @heraldofcrow

[arcane-ish]

Some thoughts on love, changing the world, co-dependency and commander Caitlyn

I watched this youtube video, “Understanding Vi”. I think it makes a pretty good case for why Vi falls for Caitlyn and what the appeal, the draw of the relationship is for her.

Looking at some of the other vids on the channel, I got the impression that there is focus a bit on ships that would actually be working and healthy in a real life way, couples whose personalities and goals and stage in life are a good match.

It made me look at CaitVi a bit under that light, and also what Amanda might have been thinking when she forged them.

I’m personally a big subscriber to the whole “shipping something doesn’t mean that the characters are perfect or that the relationship is perfect just that you think there’s a good story there”. And I vibe with that a lot. I can want to see characters interacting or just what the interactions would tell me about a character I like, even if I think the relationships might end in breakup or death and murder eventually. At the same time, not everybody ships like that or ships like that all the time.

It can be a particular type of comfort ship to look at your ship and just feel like things will be alright for them. That no matter what happens they’ll support each other and they’ll still be together when they are old and gray. And for that you do have to write the characters as just being very stable with each other.

[speaking of which, maybe that’s just the Zaundads shipper in me, I have seen quite a bit of hot CaitVi art of course and quite a bit of CaitVi if they met as kids, but are there any good arts of them growing old together/spending their life together? I know League means they will forever be frozen like that, but I think for a bit them with the first traces of gray hair could be lovely, especially if as part of a chain of arts with them also being younger]

I think CaitVi can work like that, two people who genuinely like each other, who want to make it work and who overall have enough self discipline that they can make it work despite any conflicts that might rise up.

Looking at the plot, I do feel like CaitVi got shafted a little bit in season 2, for my tastes, my priorities, because if you look around, it feels like with most of the other ships they have a measurable effect on the plot. Zaundad reuniting is the reason why the AU is like that according to the writer’s statements, Ekko stops Jinx’s suicide attempt, Jayce talks Viktor down from destroying the world, timetravel Viktor is the reason that Jayce became interested in magic.

And no, I’m not saying that CaitVi has no effect on the plot. In season 1 it is very clear, Caitlyn is Vi’s “bridge” to Piltover, their connection is why Vi and Caitlyn are standing in front of the council trying to make a case for Zaun, their connection is also the reason for a lot of conflict and misunderstandings between Vi and Jinx.

And even in season 2, her love for Cait is clearly the reason why Vi joins up with the enforcers or why she lets herself be handed over to Ambessa.

But now we get to the actual meat of what I want to talk about. I know there are a lot of jokes about “Vi calls Cait cupcake and fascism leaves Cait’s body”. And here it goes: I don’t think that that’s true because Cait was pretty half-hearted about fascism anyway.

And this is not to say Caitlyn is not to blame for the things she did as Commander Caitlyn or before. Heck, especially if you knew on some level that it was wrong makes it extra questionable in its own way. But that’s just genuinely how I read Caitlyn as a character. From her point of view there two big candidates for “for love” decisions:

turning on Ambessa

letting Jinx go

But both of these to me seem like they are in general alignment with what Caitlyn is feeling in this situation anyway. Which doesn’t mean that Vi isn’t a factor in the mix of Caitlyn’s motivations. But that she isn’t the only one and that I can picture worlds where Caitlyn makes roughly the same choices even if Vi wasn’t around.

Caitlyn doesn’t fight to become commander. It gets offered to her without any pushing on her side, it basically falls into her lap. We skip forward in time and she is already doubting that it’s a great idea in her scene with Maddie. I feel like her doubts grow in the scene with Singed. IMO Caitlyn was (1) never that gung-ho for commandering from an ideological point of view, she was willing to do it and ignore her own doubts for the big goal of “catching Jinx”. And yes maybe she was curious about Ambessa. (2) she was already out with half a foot when she meets Vi again and Vi gives her the opportunity to jump ship.

Similarly, letting Jinx go, I feel like Caitlyn understands that she needs to let go of her hate. That’s what her scene with Jinx is about. Maybe in a world without Vi Caitlyn wouldn’t have been able to bring herself to the point of actively letting Jinx go/unleashing her on the world again even as she understands that she needs to let go of Jinx/her hate for Jinx. But I think she at least heavily would have thought about it.

I think from a ship point of view? You want your ship to be powerful, you want it to have a ripple effect on the plot, you want it to shape the world. But from a relationship point of view? It’s probably better and saner if the people involved are put together enough that they can fix themselves before hooking up and are not co-dependent on each other for not going evil or not offing themselves.

From a relationship point of view, it’s probably better that Caitlyn doesn’t need Vi to develop doubts about Ambessa and that Vi doesn’t need Caitlyn to pull her out of her self destructive spiral from the beginning of s2a2. Because if they have the strength to pull themselves out of their dark places it makes them more ready to have a healthy and sane relationship and choose each other because this is what they want.

There’s a romantic appeal to co-dependent characters who absolutely need each other, but from a relationship POV? It’s probably better to … not be like that. That Vi and Cait do have things in their lives and parts of their personality they want to explore before they return to each other.

(that said, I do hope CaitVi fandom is full of “Commander Cait can’t live without Vi and decides to sneak into Zaun to watch Vi fight undercover, after having seen the posters, or just having heard the reputation, or runs into her accidentally while doing a raid on the club. Because while from an intellectual point of view I totally get why it’s probably better that Vi pulls herself out of her hole, for my shipper tastes, yeah I totally want Cait to see Vi at her lowest and it gals me that in canon Jinx is sneaking into Vi’s fights to check on her and not Cait)

[liillyliilly]

Babysitting (with) Bokuto

bokuto koutarou x reader words; 1234 synopsis; they have to watch a kiddo, she ends up watching bokuto and the kid instead

When Bokuto asked Y/n to help him babysit his neighbor’s kids, she hesitated. Because, dating Bokuto was like babysitting a child in its own manner. But she pushed aside the thought because, well, you shouldn’t be kissing the boy you babysit.

“Babe!” Bokuto ran up to her and hugged her tightly, lifting her up into the air. “Are you ready for today! I’m thrilled! Do you think four year olds can play volleyball?”

“Bo, put me down please.” When Bokuto shook his head, she gave him a small kiss on the cheek as payment to be put down. Which he accepted. But then returned the payment with another kiss, this time on the lips. Causing her to burst into a small fit of giggles. Which made Bokuto bubble with pride.

“Bo, I think four year olds shouldn’t play volleyball, at least not with you.” Y/n hooked her arm with Bokuto’s as he led her to the front door of his neighbor’s house.

The walk was short to the neighbor's house, the concrete path contained all kinds of chalk drawings, including the ones that she and Bokuto had made a few days ago. There was one drawing where Bokuto attempted to draw him lifting her up, but when his dad mentioned it looked like King Kong carrying a woman up the Tokyo Tower, Bokuto begged her to draw over it. So she drew her best recreation of an snowy barn owl over the unfortunate misinterpreted doodle.

“Just letting you know now. The kid is a menace! He is pure evil. And I don’t know why Mrs. Ito wanted me to watch him.” Bokuto huffed and folded his arms.

Y/n thought for a moment, carefully planning out what she would say to her boyfriend. “I bet Mrs. Ito wanted you to watch him because you’re so very responsible. You're the volleyball captain!” She knew this would work. It both complimented him and helped to change Bokuto’s mindset.

There were many times when she had reached out to Akaashi to get tips on what worked best not to control, but just to manage Bokuto occasionally. Akaashi did admit that she had the most power over Bokuto, seeing as well, a kiss from her could resolve any sort of problem or concern Bokuto had.

“Yeah! You're right! I’m the best!” Bokuto exclaims. She knocked on the door.

“Bokuto! Thank heavens, you came right in time! Please, come in.” Mrs. Ito was a younger woman, fairly pretty with long black hair. “And this must be L/n? Bokuto’s mother doesn’t stop talking about you when we go out for tea.”

She flushed, and tried to bow slightly deeper. Just knowing that Bokuto's family liked her was a fact that she wanted to write in her journal over and over again. His mom likes me!

“Thank you, Mrs. Ito. Now are there any allergies I should know about?” She pulled out a piece of paper from her purse, waiting to write any specific details down.

“Nope! But I’m letting you know, Yuuta loves to play with his legos, so it might be a challenge to get him to do anything else.”

“I’m sure she can handle him! She’s amazing.” Bokuto put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a quick kiss so as to not disturb Mrs. Ito with a longer kiss.

“Well, you have my number, and you can always just look at the list I have in the kitchen for Yuuta’s bedtime and such.” And with that, Mrs. Ito left Bokuto and his girlfriend to deal with her son.

The Ito house was beautiful, it was a modern Japanese style home. Lots of dark oak, with white fur accents on the couches and seating arrangements. Past the walkway was a giant TV, and many awards of sorts on the fireplace mantle.

“Promise me you won’t pay more attention to Yuuta than to me.” Bokuto held out his pinkie.

That was their thing, whenever Bokuto wanted something or needed confirmation he would always ask for a pinkie promise.

“Bo! I can’t promise that. I’m supposed to be watching Yuuta, not disregarding him for you.” For a second, she swore she could see Bokuto’s golden eyes flash with his emo mood, but nope. He kept his composure.

“Bokuto.” There was a small voice from the couch.

She walked further into the house, to be greeted with a small boy. He had the black hair his mother bore, but his eyes were a stunning blue. She didn't notice the child sitting on the couch earlier, when she observed her environment.

“Yuuta.” Bokuto spat. His voice heavy with poison.

It was eerily like a supervillain reveal, the way Yuuta hopped off the couch and meandered over to the teenagers.

“Who‘s this?” Yuuta tugged on her hand. Curling his fingers around hers.

“My girlfriend.”

“Oh really?” Yuuta grinned. But it wasn’t like any grin Y/n had ever seen from a four year old before.

“In that case,” He turned to face Y/n, “Up!” He held his arms up and wiggled his fingers. She easily lifted the boy up, and Yuuta cuddled into the girl.

“This means war.” Bokuto used his pointer and middle fingers to point at his eyes before quickly pointing them at Yuuta’s. He was actually attempting to threaten the child. She was simply too busy cooing over the child to notice the looks exchanged by the two boys.

Throughout the night, Yuuta looked for ways to annoy Bokuto. By taking his girlfriend's attention away from him and onto Yuuta.

Dinner was the first monster, Yuuta refused to eat anything unless she was spoon feeding him. She had run through the train, plane, and car noises before just resigning to feeding him in her lap. So there Yuuta sat, head leaned back on her chest as she fed him his soup and peas.

Brushing teeth was going to give Bokuto a heart attack. Yuuta bit hard down on Bokuto's hand when he tried to pass the toothbrush to Yuuta. Waving his hand in the air to try and manage the sting, she just picked Yuuta up and made him face the mirror with her. Tickling his stomach and helping Yuuta reach all of his teeth, twice.

When Y/n went to the restroom, Bokuto broke.

“Listen here you demon child. That is my girlfriend. You can play with your toys. Just stop taking my attention.”

“I don’t think so.” Yuuta lifted his hand and examined his nails.

“Alright. Little beast, what do I have to do?”

“Walk over the path of fears.” Yuuta pointed to the path paved with his colorful legos.

“Easy.”

“Without shoes.”

Bokuto gasped. “You wouldn’t.”

“But I would.”

And that’s how Y/n came to find her boyfriend sitting on the ground with a frowning face and with Yuuta rolling around in laughter.

“Yuuta, let’s get you to bed, you’ve had enough fun for one night.” She swiftly picked up the child. Yuuta mumbled something about her and Bokuto being the best babysitters ever, and then promptly fell asleep in the crook of her neck.

When Y/n went back into the living room, she was attacked with hugs and kisses from Bokuto.

“I’m crying because I love you...and because I stepped on a lego.” He cried into Y/n’s shoulder.

Y/n held back a laugh. “Is that so?”

[halfmoth-halfman]

viii. but i can't help falling in love with you

Pairing: Mob Boss!Price x F!Reader Word Count: 5.6k Warnings: bruises, injury, medical inaccuracies, blood, scars, scar mention, talks of abuse Disclaimer: I do not own modern warfare or any of the modern warfare characters. prev | next

“Everything about it says it was just a random break-in—”

Price hums, clearly not happy with the answer.

“—the guy’s prints weren’t in the system, and he didn’t have any affiliated markings or tattoos,” Ghost continues, hands gripping tight around the back of Soap’s chair.

“We asked around on our ends,” Alejandro sighs, gesturing between himself and Valeria. “No one recognizes him.”

“We haven’t heard anything either, but I have Ayah keeping a lookout for anything new,” Farah adds from Price’s left side, trying to add some small amount of comfort to a clearly upset Price.

“It was probably some guy looking to score,” Kyle reasons from the chair across her. The dining room lapses into silence as Price sits in thought, arms crossed and fingers drumming against his bicep.

“We should ask the bird,” Nik cuts in. “If it’s someone she knows, this could be a targeted attack against her, not the club.”

“Let her sleep,” Price says, leaving no room for argument. Nik gives him a questioning look but nods and stays silent.

“We could keep a set of eyes on the hotel for a few weeks, see if anyone comes lookin’ around?” Soap suggests.

“We can’t spare anyone right now,” Ghost huffs. “Not with the way things are.”

“But—”

A soft knock draws the room’s attention to the door leading to the sitting room.

It’s the worst anyone has seen you look. Dressed in leggings and a maroon sweater that’s a little big on you, you look exhausted and run-down, with deep purple bruises lining your neck.

“He-ey—” you croak out, wincing as you give a haggard cough.

Rudy’s on his feet immediately, guiding you to the closest chair, the one directly opposite Price’s seat at the head of the table. He sits you down as you try to clear your throat.

“I told you, no talking,” he chides, gently tilting your head back to lightly press his fingers against the bruises, just like he had when Price brought you here last night. You sigh through your nose, giving a quick sorry in sign language.

“How are you feeling?” Alejandro asks. You open your mouth to answer and shut it promptly when Rudy sends you a warning look. You shuffle, reaching into the pocket of your leggings to pull out your phone.

You type for a quick second before your phone chimes, and a robotic voice answers for you, “Like I almost got choked out by a man twice my size.” That earns you a few chuckles, though Price looks less than amused.

You type again, a quiet beat before the voice in your phone asks, “What did you do with him?”

There are a few glances around the table, most landing on Price as if they’re unsure whether they’re allowed to answer.

“He’s taken care of. No need to worry,” Price answers. You nod, trying not to hit Rudy’s fingers with your chin.

“Did you…recognize him at all?” Roach asks. “Maybe you’ve seen him around the hotel or…?”

“Roach,” Price warns.

“It’s a fair question,” Nik scoffs. “We need to know if this was random or if someone’s going after her.”

They go back and forth while you type, waiting for a lull in their argument to answer. “I didn’t get a good look at him, but from what I saw, I don’t recognize him.”

“And…do you have anyone who might be after you? An old co-worker? Friend?” Valeria presses.

You swallow tightly, fingers hesitating over your phone. Rudy catches that, pulling back from you to give you a curious look.

“Canary?” Rudy asks softly, his quiet voice loud in the room's silence. “Is someone after you?”

It’s too late to lie now.

Think, think, think.

You type again, “The cops? The ones who interrogated me when I covered for you after Hasan. They seemed pretty mad, and they knew where I was staying.”

You give your best worried look, setting your phone down to fidget and pick at your nails.

“That could explain why we didn’t find anything on him,” Alex says, looking at Price.

“Shepherd wouldn’t risk one of his guys like that,” Kyle disagrees. “Especially not to go after someone who’s barely involved with our business. No offense, Canary.”

“None taken,” you sign, giving a casual shrug.

“It wouldn’t hurt to look into it,” Farah sighs. “Can you ask Kate to check around and see if she can find anything on her end?”

Price, silent until this point with his eyes fixed on you, takes a deep breath. He sits up in his chair, the room lapsing into a tense silence as everyone looks toward him.

“Rudy, how’s her neck?” Price asks.

“Still swollen, but it looks like it’s going down,” Rudy answers before turning to you. “You’ll have to take it easy for at least a week. Minimal talking and no singing.”

You give him a salute and a thumbs up.

“I’ll call Kate and see if she finds us any information,” Price sighs. “We’ll close the club tonight while the rest of you find out what you can and put out feelers—see if any of the other families are trying to branch out. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

Price stands, and the others follow suit, taking their leave with gentle goodbyes and smiles aimed toward you.

“König, hang back a second,” Price calls as he walks to your end of the table and takes the seat next to you, pulling the chair closer to fit you between his spread legs. König nods, lingering near the door as Price gently traces his finger along the bruises on your neck.

“Any news from Majka?” Price asks quietly.

“Nothing yet. Conor said he’d let me know if he heard anything,” König answers. Price nods, a brief flash of disappointment across his face.

“Okay, thank you. Keep me updated.”

“Yes, sir,” König says, giving you a nod before leaving the room.

The room sinks into a comfortable silence as Price looks over the purple and blue of your neck. He’s as gentle as possible, fingertips barely ghosting over the swollen skin.

“How are you?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper as he pulls his fingers away to slide his along your cheek and cup your jaw. You set your hand over his, squeezing softly with a small smile.

You shrug half-heartedly, trying to reassure him without talking, lest you incur Rudy’s wrath.

He nods in understanding, leaning forward to kiss your head softly. When he pulls away, you lean forward, resting your head in the crook of his neck.

“Gaz and Roach brought your things over last night. You can pick whichever room you want, and we’ll move your stuff there,” Price says, perching his head on top of yours with a comforting hand rubbing up and down your back.

You reach for your phone, keeping yourself attached to him as you type, “The room I was in last night…?”

“My room,” Price chuckles.

You pull back to look up at him questioningly, tilting your head. “Then where did you sleep?”

“In one of the spare rooms,” he shrugs. “We got done late, and you needed the rest.” You roll your eyes, clicking your tongue in disappointment.

“If you like the room that much, you’re welcome to it,” Price teases.

You narrow your eyes, glaring playfully at him before you type out your answer, a smirk on your face as your phone says, “I’d prefer the room with you in it.”

Price’s brows raise as he smiles down at you, but there’s a hesitance in his eyes. “You’re sure? I don’t want you to feel like you have to after what happen—”

You set a hand on his chest to stop him. Setting your phone down, your hand slides up to rest on his cheek, gently pulling him closer and closer until you’re barely centimeters apart.

“You make me feel safe,” you rasp before you move forward and close the gap.

For a brief moment, Price stills, and anxiety rockets through you at the thought you’ve overstepped.

You move to pull away, and he lunges, warm hands coming up to frame your face as he kisses you with a year’s worth of bubbling tension finally boiling over.

You don’t know how you feel as you kiss him. It’s a combination of emotions you haven’t felt in so long: relief, desire, comfort, joy. They all swirl together into the one emotion you’ve been chasing since your wedding.

Safe.

-

Living with John is suspiciously easy.

It feels as if you've known each other for years, and that same familiarity extends to the rest of the club.

You remember nights with your father as a child, listening to him tell you old war stories from his chair while you took and apart and cleaned his guns in front of the warm fireplace. Those memories bring a fondness to your heart that you always thought was the peak of what familial love was meant to be, but it’s nothing compared to your life in the manor.

Dinners with Kyle, Farah, and Alex are filled with laughter and teasing and almost always made by you and John. There’s no tense silence as everyone picks at their plates, no stilted conversation about business and only business, no large work dinners that force you to parade around in an uncomfortably tight dress while you serve your guests.

When Soap and Ghost stay the night, you sometimes run with Soap in the mornings, turning morning exercise into a friendly competition. There’s no pushing on his end, no yelling at you to pick up the pace, or warnings about falling behind. It’s all encouragement and jokes and teasingly elbowing each other as you walk the rest of the way back to the house.

Sometimes Ghost joins you instead, the two of you enjoying a quiet run around the property. He indulges you in the few questions you have about the flowers you find. The answers are short, as you expected, but he’s surprisingly knowledgeable about the flora around the manor and has a cute eagerness to his voice when he explains a flower’s meaning to you.

After a month, Nik finds you one afternoon, grinning at you as he wipes the black grease from his hands onto his overalls. He leads you to the garage, where he shows off the extensive collection of cars he’s worked on, both classic and modern, and tells you to take your pick. You try to assure him you don’t need anything more than your beat-up car—it may be falling apart, but it’s wormed its way into your heart.

“That’s fine, but you’ll have to drive something else while I fix up your piece of shit,” he tells you. It’s then that you notice the back of the garage where his workshop is set up, and he’s got your broken baby up on a lift with the tires taken off.

So, you pick a new one—something practical, efficient, and baby blue—and thank Nik when he tosses you the keys.

Alejandro visits often, mostly to talk with John about happenings with the club, but he always makes a point to find and say hello to you. Sometimes, Rudy or Valeria will join him. When Rudy does, he checks in with you, asking how you’re feeling and making sure your throat isn’t bothering you anymore before joining John and Alejandro. When Valeria visits, she skips out on business talk entirely, insisting on taking you out to go shopping or see the city.

“There’s no point in sitting through a bunch of information Alejandro will tell me about later,” she laughs with a dismissive wave.

You don’t see König or Roach at the house much, and when you do, it’s usually late at night, just as they're leaving John’s office. John never tells you what they come for, but he’s always a little more tense after their visits.

You don’t know how to describe John. The best fitting word that comes to mind is welcoming.

He lets you have half the space in his massive walk-in closet, even though you barely have enough clothes to take up one of the shelves. He has you pick one of the spare bedrooms, telling you to redecorate it and turn it into whatever you want. You’re allowed anywhere in the house, save for the few rooms belonging to the other club members, to do anything you want.

The freedom is almost overwhelming.

When he senses your hesitance, he assures you that he wants you to feel at home, that this space is as much yours as it is his.

You let yourself explore over the weeks but do your best to stay out of the way of club business; it’s not that you’re not curious, you just…don’t want to know, don’t want to be involved in the stress of it all.

You’ve dealt with that enough in your life. It’s a new era for you, and you’re determined to hold on to it for as long as you can.

-

When Rudy gives you the okay to perform again, you nearly tackle him in a hug. Even if it’s only for the first half of the show, you’ll take what you can get.

Farah switches out with you during intermission, and you head for the bar, where Alex already has a stool open for you.

“Feel good to be back?” he asks, smiling wide as you take your seat.

“It feels amazing,” you laugh. He slides you a glass of water, briefly turning to tend to another patron.

Someone clears their throat behind you, tapping you on your shoulders. There’s a dull thrum of pain, but you ignore it and spin in your seat to find König staring down at you.

“Boss wants you upstairs,” is all he says before turning and walking away.

…okay?

You finish your water, giving Alex a quick wave before heading to the club’s second floor.

You pass a few private game tables, not finding John at any of them, and head towards the few closed-off rooms.

You don’t need to guess which one he’s in when you turn the corner and find Ghost standing guard outside the door.

“Everything okay up here?” you ask as you approach.

“Nothing unusual,” Ghost gives a slight shrug, his shadowed eyes flitting about the hallway.

“Then, mind if I…?” You point to the door behind him. He nods, taking a step to the side to let you through.

The room is dark, low-lit, and filled with cigar smoke and laughter. You make your way through the haze to the poker table at the center of the room, where John sits with Nik and a few other men you’ve never seen before. A couple of them have women with them, barely dressed and making more effort to distract the other players than paying attention to their companions.

Something tightens in your chest, fight or flight buzzing around the back of your mind.

Sitting in a dark room, shoved in a barely-there dress, put on display to distract the other players. The threat of being left to wolves should you fail looming over you.

John wouldn’t that to you.

He’s not the same as—

“There she is!”

John reaches out to grab your hand as soon as you’re near and kisses the inside of your wrist.

“Care to join us?” John asks, staring up at you with a look of adoration that sends a shock of straight want down your spine. “Could use my good luck charm.”

Nik barks out a laugh, “With the way you’re playing, you need more than luck.”

“You don’t have to,” John murmurs, while the others are too busy with their laughter and jokes.

The softness in his voice puts your anxiety at ease. Of course, he’d never force you to be somewhere you didn't want to be.

“Why not?” you shrug, smiling as he tugs you forward and pulls you down to sit across his lap. A hand settles around your waist, a soft kiss pressed along the curve of your neck, and the cards are dealt.

You watch while they play, bets higher than anything you’d be comfortable with. They’re pretty good, but you’ve spent a lot of time around poker tables and even more time around liars. You wait until the final community card is flipped, and the man directly across from you—the last one left in the game against John, older with dark, greying hair—blinks three times and makes his bet before you lean into John as if to kiss his neck.

“He’s bluffing,” you whisper, following it with a kiss before you straighten up. John doesn’t acknowledge you, blank face trained on his cards, but you feel a small squeeze of your hip where his hand rests.

John calls, and the two reveal their hands. It’s not even close, your observation correct, as John wins by a landslide.

He presses an appreciative kiss to your shoulder. You catch Nik smirking at you, and you wink back at him.

The game continues well into the night, and you don’t leave your place in John’s lap. The two of you take it easy, letting John lose a few games while still winning a majority. You play the part, batting your eyes at the others with a flirty smile so they think nothing more of you than John’s arm candy while you lean in to pepper kisses along his neck and whisper hints in his ear.

By the time they call it quits, the left side of his neck is covered in your lipstick, but he’s a few hundred-thousands richer.

“Quite the good luck charm you have there, Price,” one of the men next to Nik—red-headed with one of the scantily dressed women pressed against his arm—laughs, drinking you in with a leer that sets you on edge. “Maybe next time, I’ll try her out.”

John laughs, but you can feel how hard he tenses beneath you.

“She’s spoken for, I’m afraid,” he says with a polite smile, pressing you just a bit tighter against him.

“Sure,” the man laughs before turning to mumble to the others, “Must be all that good luck she’s rubbing off on him,” The others laugh along, save for Nik, who focuses on gathering the cards on the table.

“Go wait outside for me, Dove,” Price speaks quietly. You nod, standing from his lap.

You lean down to kiss him on the cheek before smiling to the table. “You girls want something to drink? It’s on me!” The three women glance at each other before noticing the tension rising in the room and nodding. They follow you out, and you direct them toward the bar before turning to Ghost.

“You might wanna head in there,” you tell him. He nods, waiting until you’ve turned down the hall to go inside.

You spend the next hour with the women at the bar, having a fantastic time as they drink and dance and tell you all about how awful their men are in hilarious detail, probably having their first taste of freedom in a while.

You understand. You’ve been there before.

They leave for a fifth dance, and this time you decline, far too exhausted to keep up with them.

As soon as they’ve disappeared into the crowd, you let out a long exhale, letting yourself lean against the bar.

“Tired?” a baritone voice murmurs into your ear, strong arms sliding around your waist.

“A little bit,” you sigh, turning to face John. “Everything go okay?”

He hums, one hand pulling off your waist to wrap around yours and bring it to his lips. He leaves a lingering kiss on your fingers, eyes holding your gaze as he allows you to see the dried blood and bruising on his hand.

“Probably should go home and wrap this,” he sighs, trailing kisses down the side of your hand to the inside of your wrist.

“Is he still breathing?” you ask, giving your best attempt at a look of disappointment despite the smile slowly growing on your face.

“Unfortunately,” John scoffs, pulling you closer so his mouth can continue its path up your arm.

You click your tongue at him, rolling your eyes in fake annoyance as you pull your hand out of his embrace to set your hand on his cheek. “You don’t have to do that whenever someone says something like that to me. It’s bound to happen.”

His brows knit together, concern and confusion drawn across his face.

“Not to my girl, it isn’t,” he says, firm and final.

“John—”

“Get a room, you two!”

You’re startled apart as Soap and Kyle reach the bar.

“Hey, let the old man have his fun!” Alex scolds through poorly held-back laughs. John groans, head falling into the crook of your neck as the three burst with laughter.

“Ready to go home?” you laugh softly. John nods into your shoulder, stepping back from you with a long sigh and deep reluctance. He takes your hand in his, pulling you away from the bar as the two of you are followed by cheers and shouts of:

“Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do!”

“Take it easy on him, Starling!”

“Have fun!”

Your first priority will be taking care of John’s beaten knuckles. The fun can come after that when you thoroughly thank him for defending you.

-

It isn’t unusual for John to be up late, either busy at the club or in his office.

Just as it’s not uncommon for you to go to bed alone. Of course, he makes up for it by making sure you never have to wake up alone, but you still miss him on nights when work comes first.

To make up for his absence, you take to wearing his shirts as pajamas, melting into the rich smell of him that lingers on the fabric as you sleep. When he’s finally done for the night, he often finds you lying on top of the covers, snuggled down into the fabric of his shirt. It’s a sight that fills him with equal parts adoration and want, something that he will never get tired of seeing.

You always wake up whenever he finally joins you for the night, moving so you can get under the blankets and let him pull you into his side. Sometimes, he talks to you about his day until you’re lulled to sleep by the soft vibrato of his voice, and sometimes, the sight of you in nothing but one of his shirts leads to even longer nights spent touching and feeling and worshipping until your voice leaves you.

Sometimes, it leads to nights like tonight, you laying beside him with your head on his chest, listening to the rhythmic beating of his heart while he trails his fingers in nonsense shapes across your back.

Things are fine, content, even downright serene until he skims over a ridge of the scar on your shoulder, and you tense instinctively, hissing softly under your breath.

He pulls back immediately, “Sorry, sweetheart.”

One thing about John: he never pushes.

He knows about the scar, knows how you go out of your way to cover it up, how you flinch whenever someone touches on that side. He observes, stores the information away in his brain, takes care to avoid touching you there, but he never asks you about it.

“It’s alright,” you sigh, rolling your shoulder, trying to get the ache to leave.

You want to tell him. You have for the last month, but every time you think to bring it up, something catches in the back of your throat, gnawing at you until you back out.

It leaves you with an awful sort of guilt, one made worse by the fact that you don’t have anyone to confide in about it. No one to bounce your ideas off of. No one to reassure you that John’s opinion of you wouldn’t change if he knew.

You trust him implicitly.

He’s never given you a reason not to.

You can’t keep complaining about being haunted if you won’t let go of your ghosts.

So, in the quiet darkness of your bedroom, you suddenly sit up, throwing one leg over him to place yourself in his lap, and set your hands flat against his chest.

“Did Kyle ever tell you I was married?” you ask softly.

John goes still beneath you.

“Things were good at the start. Or he made it seem like they were so I wouldn’t realize what he was actually doing, but over time that façade he put up melted away, and I—I realized how big of a mistake I actually made.”

He doesn’t speak, but John’s hands settle on your thighs, gently kneading into the bare skin.

A small attempt at comfort.

A silent I’m here.

“He never hit me or anything like that. He found other ways to hurt me, ways that would be harder to prove if I ever left, and he had this…charisma—he was so likable and charming that whenever he’d say no one would listen to me, I’d believed him. One day, he—” Your voice catches, and John’s hands slide up to your hips as he sits up and sets his forehead against yours.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he whispers.

“I want to,” you reply. It takes a second for you to collect yourself, and you’re still not sure you’re ready, but you push yourself to do it anyway. “One day, I just snapped. I couldn’t take the snide comments, the vague threats, the constant anxiety—I couldn’t do it anymore. I tried to leave, and he tried to stop me, and we got into this huge argument. He grabbed my arm, and I pulled away too hard, not watching where I was going…and broke my shoulder, falling down a flight of stairs.

“I try not to think about it a lot, but my shoulder never really healed properly, so sometimes even the smallest touch just makes it ache, and all I can think about is that day, lying at the bottom of the stairs, wondering if it wouldn’t have been easier to have broken my neck instead.”

The pain lingers, but there’s a considerable weight that lifts from your chest.

There’s a beat of silence before John moves again, gently grabbing your hand and setting it on his chest, guiding your thumb along the skin where you feel a small raised circle underneath the hair.

“One of the first deals after I’d just started the club,” he sighs. “Went in all cocksure and arrogant, thinking I knew everything and that no one could touch me. The dealer we were meeting with had this idea that we were overcharging him, which we were, but we weren’t going to tell him that.

“Well, I got mouthy, and his men got violent. He pulled a gun, and the friend I was with, the man I’d started this club with, shoved me out of the way. Bullet tore through him but slowed down, going off kilter just enough to miss my heart. The Hell I unleashed after my recovery is what laid the foundation for what the club is today, but sometimes…Sometimes, I think about him, and I wonder if it was a fair trade. If it wouldn’t have been better for me to have taken the bullet and let him be here instead.”

A trade. One painful memory for another.

An implied confession: you’re not alone.

You lean forward, a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

I’m glad you’re here.

He pulls you into him, lips colliding with yours.

I’ll never let anyone hurt you again.

Your hands wind their way around his neck as he flips the two of you, laying you down against the bed. He hovers over you for just a second, blue eyes gazing down at you with far too much emotion for you to handle. You pull him by his hair, and he follows your lead, closing the space to pour all that emotion into a kiss that you return with the same intensity.

I love you.

-

If there’s one thing John loves more than surprising you, it’s spoiling you.

It starts with jewelry, small boxes of simple, elegant bracelets and necklaces left on your vanity during your performances.

Then it extends to clothes, your half of the closet slowly filling with pieces you find when he takes you shopping. He carries your bags for you, and you repay him by modeling every piece of lingerie you buy when you get home.

When it’s his turn to handle date night, there’s always some outrageously fancy restaurant or sold-out showing waiting for you, everything complimentary, and the staff exceptionally welcoming to the two of you.

Spoiling you isn’t restricted to expensive gifts, either.

When you catch a cold in the middle of spring, John takes the day off—something Kyle says he apparently never does, and something he can’t afford to do, says Ghost—to tend to your every need.

He overhears you talking with Valeria, telling her how you’d love nothing more than to sink into a hot bath, and you come home to a candle-lit bathroom and a tub filled with warm water and bubbles. He washes your hair, massages your shoulders, and whispers in your ear all the things he plans to do to you once you’re out of the tub.

You appreciate every single thing he does for you and tell him so often. He shrugs it off, saying he’s happy to treat you the way you deserve.

In truth, there’s something else, something far more selfish, that drives him.

He loves you. He loves to see you smile. He loves the way your eyes light up when he takes time away from the club to spend it with you—something he finds himself doing more of recently, an attempt to escape the stress and paranoia that’s been building.

He loves it even more that it’s him that’s making you happy, that he’s the only one who can make you smile like that, laugh like that, moan like that. You’re his just as much as he’s yours, and he has no intention of ever letting you go.

"Zip me up?"

Especially not now, when you’re standing in front of your bedroom mirror, half-dressed in a gown he bought for you, trying to get ready for a gala.

You look like a dream, dress hanging off your figure as you gaze at him over your shoulder with that beautiful look on your face. The one that always makes him feel like a shy teenager stumbling over his words.

John steps up behind you, and you turn a little more to meet him with a soft kiss. You turn back to the mirror, standing up straight to give him access to the zipper of your dress and the bare expanse of your back.

You wait patiently, adjusting your jewelry here and there. So distracted. So trusting. It tugs at something in his heart how vulnerable you allow yourself to be around him, a man with so much blood on his hands, they're stained down to the bone. Yet here you are, allowing him to touch you, to stain your skin with that blood and violence and danger that will follow him for the rest of his life.

He doesn't know what he's done to deserve you, but you meet his eyes in the reflection, giving him that stunning smile, and he knows it doesn't matter.

He'd burn the world to the ground if it meant he could have you in the ashes.

-

It’s the middle of the night when Ghost walks into his office unannounced, carrying a small, black folder.

“Bit late for you, isn’t it?” Price asks, looking up from the journal on his desk.

Ghost doesn’t speak, walking up to the desk and setting the folder down. Price sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose before picking up the folder.

“Are you going to tell me what this is, or do I have to guess?”

“Tried calling you.”

“Phone’s in the bedroom.”

“You’ve been gone a lot.”

“Is this late-night visit for something important or just so you can tell me you’ve missed me?” Price doesn’t mean to snap; the irritation that he’s having this conversation instead of finishing up his work so he can join you in bed grinding against his nerves.

“We found the man that attacked Canary. We know where he’s from.”

Price’s eyes shoot up to meet Ghost’s. Ghost looks about as tired as he does, and Price can’t blame them. Things have been tight for months, walls slowly closing in around the club.

There’s something else in his face, something that sets Price on edge.

Price knows Ghost, knows the man who’s been by his side for years, helping to take care of every dirty deal the club’s had to deal with.

Ghost has a certain detachment, no care about what he’s doing or who he has to hurt to do it.

It’s not Ghost he’s talking to, but Simon who’s staring down at him with sadness and pity.

“Look in the folder,” Simon sighs.

Price doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to know about whatever’s in here, what information he’s about to have to deal with. He wants to throw the folder back at Simon and bury his head in your neck, ignoring the rest of the world.

But he’s the Boss for a reason.

He sets the folder down, steeling himself with a deep breath, before flipping it open.

A stone sinks into the pit of his stomach, and his heart shatters.

“Oh.”

The mask slips back on, Ghost’s protective nature taking over as he watches Price visibly deflate.

“How do you want me to handle this?”

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[rascalentertainments]

Wish Granted AU: Flazino

Now the sorcerers' overworked, underappreciated, underpaid, incredibly tired apprentice, Flazino! I keep laughing at the fact that this guy has more depth to him than half the cast of the canon movie. 😂 He went from throwaway character to a nearly co-protagonist character with importance to the story!

His design was inspired by several Disney characters. The outfit and hair are a reference to Arthur/Wart from "The Sword in the Stone". The face and body language is based on George from the Paperman short film (Remember how great that was? And it mastered the 2D/3D hybrid animation long before Wish? What happened to those animators, Disney?)

(You can even use this concept art as reference for Flazino if you want too, especially that pissed off look 😂)

And I swear it wasn't on purpose, but as I started drawing him tired, he started resembling Bruno. All his references are from overworked or stressed out characters and I didn't even do it on purpose! 😂

Now for some backstory and info dump! This was pretty fun because I got to create my own take on him since there's practically nothing on him outside of a deleted scene.

• Like the aforementioned deleted scene, Flazino's wish is to study magic. For this story, its so he can help others lives be better, which is what he thought Magnifico wanted as well. He thought the job would be more glamorous or fun as he learned, but it turns out Mags doesn't actually want a successor. He plans on being in power permanently. He pretends he granted Flaz's wish and instead of studying magic, he's the errand boy, cleans the lab equipment, feeds Sabor, and is in charge of the tour guides for newcomers. Flazino just practices what he can at home and secretly takes ingredients from Amaya's potion cabinet.

•No one's sure if the bags under his eyes are from losing his wish and side effects starting, or its just him being stressed out all the time. Either way he's like Aled, he doesn't sleep much cause he's always working or worrying. He's sort of sassy when he's really tired so he might make an off hand comment. Bonus: He swears, but its censored in the "Spongebob Sailor Mouth" style. You'll just hear a noise or beep censorship sound in place of it. 😂 (Hey, you can say "Hell" and "Damn" in a Pixar movie now, so why not?)

•He gave his wish at 18, and was surprised to hear it was getting granted so soon. Though Mags doesn't really need an apprentice, he takes Flaz on just in case something happened to him, all of his magic, power and evil will go into the apprentice. Sort of passing on his plans to him to become the next Magnifico and continue his work. That's pretty terrifying.

• Most people in the Hamlet think that he and Asha are secretly a thing, but that's not the case. Lord knows Sabino wanted his granddaughter to get a boyfriend so she'd stop being so serious all the time. They never really had feelings like that for each other, they just stayed friends. One part is because Asha has just sealed herself off from connecting deeper with other people, and on Flaz's side, he already has feelings for someone else. (Also, after Star shows up and spends time with Asha, she starts feeling things for him she's been repressing for years. Girl, chill.-)

• During the first few months of becoming the apprentice, he learned about the Hamlet through rumors in Rosas. He didn't understand why people would run away until he stumbles on seeing the king and queen crush the wishes of a couple who talked about leaving Rosas and not trusting the royals. He never saw that couple again.

He later took off one night into the forest to finds this supposed Hamlet using a tracking spell. Once he finds it, Sabino and other people tell him why they ran and what a monster the royal could be. Flazino felt so disgusted that he promised to help anyway he could. So he makes an excuse to get specialty mushroom from the Uncharted Forest once a month and brings supplies to the Hamlet ever since. (stuff like seeds to grow food, flour, medicine, toys for the kids)

• A lot of the people actually go to Flazino if they can't get to the king for help improving the kingdom, or people needing help. The royals don't do crap, so he just does the best he can himself. But most people don't realize he's the one that granting their needs and not the royals.

• His connection to the 7 Teens actually foreshadows Asha bringing them together. Like the deleted scene suggested, they all know him as the "great apprentice to the king", when he's really just a tired guy trying not lose his sanity. He has different interactions with each of them.

Gabo is the one shouting that the royals are evil like a conspiracy theorist, but since he's such a low threat, they send Flazino to get rid of him and everytime he gets away. Gabo's been a nuisance for months now and he's even defacing anything with the royals on it. He actually agrees with Gabo, but obviously can't say it out loud.

For Simon, he tries to keep him awake when he can for his knight training, or guard duty so its his way of trying to help fulfill his wish of being a knight. He's tired himself, so its even harder.

Safi is allergic to practically everything when he cleans, so Flaz has an idea to make a medicine that can cure that through magic. He has no idea its just so he can talk to the girl he likes without sneezing in someone's face. 😂

Hal is one of the easiest he gets along with. She's pretty content where she is and gets along with him fine. Though he gets roped into doing some of her work when he's not paying attention, lol. If she does see an injustice being done to someone else she'll step in to help them.

Bazeema he's not even sure what she thinks of him. She's so shy whenever he talks to her, all he knows is that she does a great job caring for the local animals and flora in the kingdom, which he's thanked her many times for. Though she has been leaving him yellow roses as thank you messages.

Dahlia is actually the one he bonds with the best. He ends up talking to her when its time for Sabor's breakfast or dinner and she makes the food by hand with her parents. At first he just talked to her out of convenience and vent a little bit about being overworked (much to his surprise, she's actually listening). Then the two of them just found some comfort in talking to each other when they've had a long day and now its developed into a full-on crush for him. But with Dahlia going all fangirl on Magnifico, he doesn't have high hopes the feelings mutual. (She's been dropping hints but he's not getting it)

So I guess we got three Flazinos right now: RFTS!Flaz who actually likes his job and still wants to learn magic, UaS!Flaz who's a prince of the evil royals, and then WG!Flaz is an overworked man who wants to hurt his bosses. Y'all need therapy. 😂

(So now, Chapter 6 of WG will be out tomorrow! 😏)

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[wish-incorrect-quotes]

Not putting this in the tags because I'm afraid of inviting too much drama, but anyway, I’ve made a list of stuff that happened before Magnifico ever used the book:

There’s the obvious one, setting up a system in which all the people who live in the kingdom need to hand over an important part of themselves to him, and he’ll only allow a very small percentage of people to have their life’s dream come true. This went on for at least decades, possibly more. It was not a single moment of decision making due to stress.

It’s strongly implied, if not outright canon, that when deciding which wishes to grant, he favors the people who choose to directly serve him and the people who have a wish that will personally benefit him.

Aside from the very recently 18 Simon, his castle staff seems to be made up entirely of underage teenagers. I highly suspect this is because he’s realized child labor means he will benefit from workers with more energy and enthusiasm, because they aren’t living without their wish yet.

Kitchens are full of sharp things and things that can scald you. Many people who work in them, even those who are highly trained, end up covered in burn marks and scars. Yes, Dahlia is intelligent and competent, but it's still wildly irresponsible to make a 16 year old run a professional kitchen without an adult on hand in the room.

Just before Asha meets the king, the previous candidate for the apprenticeship runs away sobbing. Amaya doesn’t seem surprised by this, which would indicate this is far from the first time Magnifico has made someone burst into tears.

He replies with “Do we call that a talent?” to the teenager excited to show him a few drawings she made. Not exactly “evil” I guess, but definitely a good way to crumble the self-esteem of someone who admires him.

He justifies his system by saying that “No one should have to see their dreams destroyed before their eyes.” But locked away in a tower, where most people will die before they ever see it again, that’s fine apparently.

Anyone who looks at an image of an old man playing the lute for a small handful of people and decides it’s a threat should not have complete control over which wishes could be considered “dangerous”.

“You’re young, you don’t know anything.” Great way to handle a concerned citizen there. That will definitely show the younger generation you have their best interests at heart.

Asha, who I will remind you is a teenager, is upset but still makes her case without even raising her voice. Magnifico, who is supposed to have the temperament to rule an entire kingdom, responds with yelling and a threatening blast of magic. I’m rather concerned about what else might have happened if Amaya hadn’t interrupted them a moment later.

He deliberately raises Sabino’s hopes and then dashes them just to spite Asha for disagreeing with him. Also makes Asha publicly sit onstage in front of the entire kingdom to watch him do it.

He makes it clear that now he’ll never consider granting Sakina’s wish either, even though she hasn’t done anything but be related to someone he’s mad at.

If Asha plans to have a family someday, she has pretty good reason to worry that any children of hers will also likely be condemned to life with their wish automatically locked away forever.

Who knows how many other people were taken out of consideration just because the king didn’t like someone they knew?

Later on, he tells his people that they were put at risk by an unknown traitor with magic, then almost immediately starts getting annoyed because people are nervous and asking for some further clarification and reassurance.

The crowd gets at most a bit worked up, but still, no one ever says anything threatening or insulting towards Magnifico. They’re just asking questions because they want to understand more about what’s happening in the kingdom. This is enough for Magnifico to decide he doesn't have enough control, so he should turn to dangerous forbidden magic to increase his power.

Maybe you could argue that trying to use the situation to get a wish ceremony was a bit greedy, but I'd still say that if Magnifico didn't like people asking for wishes, he shouldn't have been literally removing people's ability to work on it themselves.

Of course people are going to be eager to get him to grant wishes, he's told them it's too hard for them and made it so they can't do it without him.

Last note, I've seen people suggest that the book's power was removed when he was imprisoned in the staff, and it's terrible that he was put in the dungeon anyway. I'm not sure the move ever said that, but if it is the case, he still shows zero remorse and thinks he was in the right. There's no "I shouldn't have used the book, I feel terrible about what it led to." Just "Can you believe they pushed back while I was purposely unleashing forbidden magic, crushing wishes, and chaining everyone to the ground? How could they do this to me?"

[scribbled-anecdotes]

Kill the Mood - MDZS Slasher AU

Did anyone else read MDZS and think woah you know what this campy, murder-filled series needs: an AU set in a '80s campy teen Slasher? Because I did!

Synopsis:

Meng Yao is in the final year of high school. Between his shitty parents, his shitty after-school job, and his shitty social life, graduation cannot come quick enough. With stressful university admissions and a long-held crush on one of the most popular guys in school, Meng Yao couldn't imagine things could get any more chaotic. That is until he comes home to find he has another half-brother, Xue Yang, who seems a bit ... off. Things quickly spiral when Meng Yao realizes that he might have more in common with this new-found half-brother, who might just be a teen serial killer.

Relationships: XiYao; established Xuanli and in future chapters: SongXiao, Wangxian (background), and XiaoXue (if you see things from Xue Yang's point of view, that is)

CW: canon-typical abuse, suicide mention, mild gore and child death.

Also shoutout to the darling @prinzsorgenfrei for not only aiding and abetting this by beta reading it and drawing very pretty character designs, but for also workshopping scenes with me and for co-writing some XiYao.

This is my first MDZS fic, so please do let me know y'all's thoughts.

New York, 1986

“Jesus Christ.”

A pair of firefighters scanned flashlights over the charred remains of what had once been a nursery: rows of cribs and toddler cots reduced to pyres. Little bodies, burned beyond recognition, curled up.

At least they had been asleep.

There was always something particularly horrid when such innocent lives were caught up in accidents like these. Faulty wiring in the old boys’ group home was the immediate suspect. The fire had started in the basement, where wires that hadn’t been updated since before the war knotted and choked each other out. They had found the Headmaster’s body—well his presumed body; it was too big to be that of a child—curled outside his rooms. Smoke inhalation was the immediate suspect, there. What a pitiful and painful way to go.

But the thing about burnt bodies, the particular thing about burnt bodies unassumingly crisped in an old house that was practically begging to go up in flames, was that no one would think to look for further injuries. Feet fall off when temperatures get too hot, after the body curls up as the muscles contract and bulge in the inferno. What does it matter when the Achilles Tendon snaps? Or is snapped, rather. What would it matter how bruised and cut up the now charred flesh is? And of course, the uniform scorch marks took care of any pesky, incriminating blood stains.

When the fire department finally made it on the scene, all they saw was a tragedy, with one small miracle in the form of a delinquent with a record and a habit of sneaking away at night, including this one. One who had smelt smoke while hopping the fence back onto the grounds and had bravely run for help, but the fire had burned too long. Thus he became the lone survivor of a tragic house fire.

…

“13 people, most of them minors, are reported to be dead after a house fire broke out in a Queens boys’ home. Authorities arrived on scene at the Chang Group Home for Boys at around 1:47 this morning.”

Meng Yao heard the news report from his basement bedroom and bit his cheek knowing that Mrs. Jin had yet to leave for her hair appointment. It was barely the third day of school and she would already have ample opportunity to chastise him for being late. It didn’t matter that it was barely the third day of school and he was still working what was meant to be a summer job at the local video store. He’d been up until 2 am and his alarm had gone off no later than 6:30. Who could blame him for hitting snooze and begging his younger brother, Xuanyu, to wake him at 7:00 am? Regardless, he hadn’t, and now Meng Yao was perched at the base of the stairwell waiting for Mrs. Jin to finish her coffee and leave for her appointment or at least get up for long enough to let Meng Yao sneak into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He was stuck listening to the news and Mrs. Jin’s snide commentary for another 3 minutes.

“After their preliminary investigation, the Fire Department of New York has declared the fire accidental, citing out-of-date electrical wiring and a faulty air conditioning system.” They played a brief clip of the Fire Chief expressing his condolences for the tremendous loss of life and explaining what the news anchor had already confirmed. “Our hearts here at the NYFD are with the surviving child,” he added bittersweetly before the broadcast presumably cut back to the station. “This youth is reported to be in state care until other arrangements can be made.” Meng Yao heard Mrs. Jin huff. “In other news—.”

“City’s gone to shit,” Mrs. Jin said, before flicking the channel to one of those morning talk shows stay-at-home wives liked. Stuff about new recipes and the best back-to-school buys. Mrs. Jin was the type of woman who would make others wait. It was her appointment after all, shouldn’t it be about her? If Meng Yao kept it up he’d be late anyway without the guarantee that he’d go unnoticed.

He trotted up the stairs, darting around the corner into the bathroom to no avail. “You’re still here? You’re already going to be late on the first week?” While Mrs. Jin certainly would not hold back with her words most days, today it was all in her tone. You’re still here was loaded with years of resentment and anticipation for the moment she would not have to see the reminder of her husband’s infidelity.

There was really no use explaining himself and even though an apology wouldn’t get him very far either, Meng Yao said sorry as he rushed into the kitchen to find an apple. That could be both breakfast and lunch, right?

“Morning,” he said routinely when Zixuan walked into the kitchen. It would be hard to tell that they spent their mornings rushing around the same kitchen. Where Zixuan was well-dressed, Meng Yao swum in awkwardly-fitting hand-me-downs Zixuan hadn’t touched since the 9th Grade. Where Meng Yao would try in vain to style the remnants of a bad bowl cut for three seconds in the mirror before giving up, Zixuan had the privilege of spending the morning in the shower to achieve his seemingly effortlessly coiffed hair. Zixuan flashed him a smile, more focused on packing his bag. The smile, momentarily lighting up his eyes, made Meng Yao conscious of his own bleary ones, a trait his step-mother was convinced he inherited from his mother. “Zixuan doesn’t look so lifeless” and whatnot when posing for photos. Maybe he had gotten that from his mother; a little way to assure everyone that perfect Zixuan and the inconvenient Meng Yao were only half-brothers.

“Hey,” he hesitated, noticing Zixuan was halfway out the kitchen. “Would you mind giving me a ride to school? I just, um, woke up late.” Zixuan’s brows furrowed and those bright eyes softened. “I won’t ask again,” he tried to assure with an awkward half-smile.

“I’m picking up Yanli,” Zixuan responded matter-of-factly.

Of course. Though he hadn’t said no, he was picking up his girlfriend. It was stupid to ask, Meng Yao realized. Who would want to pick up their girlfriend with their brother in the car? So sexy, right? “You know what, never mind. I can figure it out.”

Zixuan’s brows remained furrowed, “Yeah, whatever you want.” He walked out the door.

It wasn’t the worst situation Meng Yao had been in, not by a long shot. He remembered the three weeks in foster care between his mother’s death and being dropped at his estranged father’s doorstep: his things in a trashbag, loud dormitories where it was impossible to sleep, being nearly a month behind in school work even though the year had just started, nearly choking to death trying not to cry himself to sleep. Not that any of this went away when he arrived in the quiet new-build suburb in upstate New York with a fading tan from the Nevada sun, like he’d been on vacation, and his mom’s ashes precariously in his 13 year old arms. Who would blame Madam Jin for turning up her nose?

Xuanyu, who was just 8 when Meng Yao had arrived, was the only one who seemed excited to have him, and that was mostly because he would not have to sleep alone in the basement anymore. Meng Yao remembered the pit in his stomach, seeing that scrawny little boy eager to show him around and explaining that he didn’t need to be afraid anymore since his older half-brother was here now and could protect him from the monsters that undoubtedly hid in the shadows of the dimly lit storage-room-turned-bedroom. In hindsight, it should have been a warning sign when Xuanyu innocently, almost pathologically naively, explained that the Jin couple kept ‘forgetting’ to buy him a nightlight. But at the time, it didn’t matter to Meng Yao. He was a few months shy of his 14th birthday and didn’t plan on staying long, especially once he got his first New York job at the local thrift store. About three weeks into that, the best he’d gotten to show for his hard work was a much-appreciated nightlight for his new little brother and an empty shoebox which he labelled “College Fund.” His mother would want him to go to college, rather than become a 14-year-old high school dropout working some shitty job for the rest of his life.

Three years later, and he was walking to his last year of high school, dreaming of college admissions. Years of working and stashing away half of every paycheque had brought him close to his goal and, according to the guidance counselor, he had the grades to get a decent scholarship, so long as he kept up the hard work and the extra curriculars. And oh did he: a full time table, staying later after school for the last 3 years; Mondays and Wednesdays for Student Council and Fridays for Model UN, Thursday mornings for Debate club. “No sports though,” the guidance counselor had told him last year, face screwed like it was a crime to have asthma. “Lots of scholarships in sports, you know.” Meng Yao had just rolled his eyes. Regardless, when would he have the time for a sport? Meng Yao wondered if he could squeeze something else in as he walked to school. This was his last year after all. Maybe Drama club, or... His thoughts trailed of, exhausted. Who was he kidding, how on Earth would he keep going like this? Working nights and weekends, falling onto his bed after a long day of classes and extra curriculars and mind numbingly boring shifts at Video World, just to get up a few hours later to do it all again.

But there were things about his life that he had actually come to enjoy.

“Morning,” Meng Yao whispered as he plopped down beside Lan Xichen.

Math class wasn’t all that bad. For one, Meng Yao was quite good at it. Maybe Mathletes would round out his college application. The senior math teacher had been overjoyed when he heard that Meng Yao planned on majoring in Finance and becoming an accountant, so he probably would be overjoyed to have Meng Yao on the team this year. Or anyone on the team for that matter.

“Did you sleep in?” Xichen whispered under the lesson on Functions, even though he had a near-pathological fear of being rude.

“Yeah.”

Xichen held out a granola bar. “You didn’t eat, did you?”

Meng Yao took the bar in response. No. He gave Xichen a familiar half-smile in thanks and got one in return.

Eating in class was technically frowned upon, but fainting in class would mean certain social death, so Meng Yao decided to nibble on small pieces of granola whenever the teacher was turning towards the board. When he had finally finished the granola and rubbed his fingers against each other to get rid of the sticky film of leftover honey, Xichen handed him a perfectly clean cloth handkerchief. Sometimes it was hard to forget that the uncle Xichen was living with was old, rich, and as traditionalist as it got.

“Thanks again,” whispered Meng Yao, and, with a bat of his eyelashes, added: “How lucky I am to have befriended such a perfect gentleman. Should I iron it before I give it back?”

“That would be much appreciated,” answered Xichen with an expression so serious it could only be mocking, “For if my uncle were to find out I bequeathed this to anyone but a fiancée or a wife he would surely lock me in the attic for the rest of the semester.”

Meng Yao hid his laugh with a cough and their teacher turned around.

“Anything to share with the class, Mr. Meng? Mr. Lan?”

“Nothing of note, I apologize,” said Meng Yao before Xichen could feel guilty, “I’m having some issues with my contacts and asked Xichen to help me read the last equation. I did not mean to disturb the lesson.”

The teacher gave his favourite student a reproachful look but continued his lesson without another hitch. Xichen looked at Meng Yao with an amused twitch to his lips.

“I did not know your perfect vision had worsened.”

“Do keep my secret.”

They turned their focus back to the lesson and before long the bell ended the most pleasant ninety minutes of Meng Yao’s day.

“Will I see you at lunch?”

If he imagined a hopeful undertone in Xichen’s voice that was nobody’s business.

“I’ll be present.”

He would decidedly not sit with Xichen and Nie Mingjue, but he would be present. It had its perks. He was less easily distracted from his actual food intake.

“Could I talk to you about homecoming then? There are some things we need to figure out and I would really like your opinion on them. We’ll decorate later this week, but I know you’re busy, so I’d like to run it by you during school hours.”

“Um, yeah, of course.” Meng Yao tried not to sound overexcited, it was just homecoming after all. But it was a welcomed distraction. He fondly remembered when they were on prom committee last year, even though they didn’t attend. Tossing streamers into the bag and then at each other while they swept up the gymnasium. There was something so liberating about being alone with Xichen, their laughter echoing off the walls as they ate leftover finger foods and talked about their summer plans. “I can meet you in the library after class on Friday, if that works?”

“That would be lovely.” Xichen smiled and headed down the hall toward English class.

—

Model UN was fine. They spent most of the hour preparing for the next conference, pouring over books about Nuclear Warfare and Treaty Rights. Truth be told, Meng Yao was only half listening while he took notes on the school typewriter. He was about halfway through mindlessly typing “excellent work, gang. Have a nice weekend” before he realized they were breaking.

Xichen was in the library as promised, happily getting ahead on his Physics homework. “Sorry,” Meng Yao apologized.

“What for?”

“I’m late.”

“Hardly.” Xichen produced an apple from his bag. “It’s really fine, I know that you have Model UN and all.”

“Thanks,” Meng Yao accepted the apple.

“Plus, Wangji has volleyball practice tonight anyway and he needs a ride home.” Xichen produced a binder of details and Meng Yao practically swooned when he saw the colour-coding. It was a system they had devised together: Green for finances, blue for food and drink, red for legal things—forms and whatnot—and so forth. “So, decorations. I revised the budget and we can free up some extra money. We need a theme, no? For the dance portion.”

“Yes. And if we’re doing spirit week—do we have spirit days picked out?”

Xichen flipped a few pages ahead, mumbling to himself, “School colours, Flashback Day, PJ Day, Beach Day, Jersey Day.”

Meng Yao screwed up his face at the disjointed roster. God, didn’t their co-council members have any idea about cohesion? “Well, we have to keep Jersey Day for Game Night, but we can build up to the home-coming dance theme with each spirit day, no?”

Xichen gleefully crossed out PJ Day and Beach Day and Meng Yao swore he looked relieved. “What about doing Americana? Its the school’s 75th anniversary this year, we can keep the School Colours, the jersey and the flashback and substitute Beach Day and PJ Day for something a little more New York or at least closer to New Hoenderloo High history.”

“Gangster Day?” Meng Yao suggested.

Xichen scoffed. “What does New Hoenderloo have to do with the mob?”

“I don’t know, our prime export is corn and varsity jocks. But we’re so close to New York that I’m sure people won’t bat an eye.”

Xichen nodded and added Gangster Day to the agenda. He supposed it was better than Farm Day or something.

“And, um, we can do a classic American Day? Red, White, and Blue and that junk. Founding fathers.”

“Would work.”

“And we can decorate the homecoming dance with American Classics, a jukebox instead of a DJ, we can serve milkshakes, and do ‘50s Diner lighting?”

Xichen laughed. He loved Meng Yao’s big ambitions. “Remember, I said, some money was freed up. We’re hardly Studio 54.”

“Let me see that budget.” Meng Yao poured over the numbers, looking for missed unnecessary spending. “A jukebox is way cheaper than a DJ, you know. That saves us a couple hundred bucks easy. Plus, if we raise the ticket prices by a few dollars, we can make up the difference. That’s not even including fundraisers like the Football Team Charity Car Wash or the Meat Raffle.” Meng Yao wrote out all the numbers neatly so that Xichen would have something to show the rest of the committee on how to really throw a great home-coming.

“See, this is why we need you to be vice-president!”

Meng Yao blushed. “Really? Little ol’ me?”

He suddenly became less playful when he saw Lan Wangji appear in the library. Wangji was, of course, polite, like his older brother, and, of course, also socially awkward, drastically unlike his older brother. So, he would wait stoically in the library entry until his brother would notice him, rather than interrupting them and risking making small talk with Meng Yao. “Your brother is done with practice, I think.”

Xichen waved and asked Wangji a bunch of questions: How was practice? When is the next game? Would he need something to eat? And Wangji replied simply: “Good. Tuesday. No. Can’t spoil dinner.”

“Ready to go home?”

“Yes.”

Meng Yao packed his things up alongside Xichen, happily chattering about how much progress they made in just a half hour. “It’s really coming together,” he added as he went to turn left to catch the bus.

“Would you like a ride home?” Xichen offered.

“It wouldn’t be too much trouble, would it?”

“You live a couple blocks away from us. It would be far more convenient.”

Meng Yao’s lips curled softly, gratefully. “Then, I would love a ride. Thank you.”

—

“Looks like you have guests,” Xichen observed, trying to make pleasant conversation as always. Meng Yao recognized that car. God, he wondered if that social worker worked on commission, a little extra for every traumatized child she dragged to Jin Guanshan. God knows there were probably enough bastards to make up an entire career. Meng Yao’s tired sigh turned into an airy half-laugh, mostly at his own joke. But Xichen smiled. “Have a lovely visit,” he added when he pulled into the driveway and let Meng Yao out of the car.

“Thanks. And thanks again for the ride home, I really appreciate it.”

“Anytime, A-Yao.”

Mrs. Jin had put out tea and coffee, even a tray of baked goods. Her gentle sips and small, delicate bites quickly hardened into a tight frown. Meng Yao felt like he did three years ago. Mrs. Jin was consistent; she wore the same tired, expectant face and flashed her cold, irritated gaze at Meng Yao when he froze in the living room. “A-Yao, our other son.” Meng Yao almost rolled his eyes at how much Mrs. Jin visibly struggled to call him ‘our son.’ “You must remember him?” Her voice was pleasant enough when talking to the social worker.

“I do. How are you? How is school? Still playing soccer?”

“Good. And good.” Meng Yao had never played soccer in his life, but he played along and told her that he might even be getting a scholarship for it. No one knew enough to correct him, anyway.

She gave him a well-rehearsed polite smile, before turning her attention back toward Mrs. Jin. “I trust you know the drill. If there are any problems, please do not hesitate to call. Though you should know.” She trailed off and Meng Yao could see her thinking through what to say next. “You know, he has had some problems in his group homes, but those situations are volatile for any child. A stable, loving home like this one will probably do him good.”

            Meng Yao’s attention turned to the muffled conversation Xuanyu was having with someone in the basement.

So he had a new brother now, he supposed. And a new roommate.

            “And this is Meng Yao!” He heard Xuanyu say before he was even halfway down the stairs. Really, who else could it have been? Who else would want to go down into their creepy, damp basement bedroom? Meng Yao forced his most welcoming smile. He remembered how shy he felt when he first came to New York. Shy and lonely and so, so angry at the world. A smile and a polite, calm introduction was the least he could do.

            The boy, who couldn’t have been much younger than he was, gave him a full smile. “Hi.” There was something so juvenile about that smile that it unnerved Meng Yao. It wasn’t innocent like Xuanyu’s, happy regardless of his circumstances. No, this was boyish in a hedonistic way, sharp and carefree; all pointed canines and no baby teeth.

            “Xue Yang.” He said, bobbing his chin and widening his smile to an almost wolfish state.

            “Nice to meet you, Xue Yang.” Meng Yao could thankfully recover the conversation quite quickly. He welcomed first years all the time, and even though Xue Yang was going into Junior year and would hardly be as intimated of him as a 13-year-old, he was sure the faltering of his welcoming tone would go unthought of. “I can’t imagine your coming here was brought on by good circumstances, so—”

            “Oh no, asshole cardboard suburbanites were my childhood dream.” Meng Yao quickly learned that Xue Yang liked to laugh at his own obnoxious sarcasm. A lot. And Xuanyu, ecstatic at yet another older brother, also liked to laugh.

            “So, if you want to talk about it,” he continued, trying to move on from Xue Yang’s instant dislike of the situation, “I would be more than happy to.” It really was not Meng Yao’s place to judge him for it. If his childhood was anything like his own, filled with promises of a dad who was just coming back, always just coming back someday, then Xue Yang was likely utterly disappointed by the dad who had just relegated him to the basement and was headed back to work after making his wife do all the talking. No fancy house and fully-stock fridge could make up for that.

            “Meng Yao is really good at talking,” Xuanyu assured. “My mom slit her wrists when I was five.”

            Xue Yang scoffed at his candour, a cheeky grin spreading. “You really just say whatever the hell you want, eh?” Xuanyu nodded, just happy to get someone’s attention. Xue Yang loved it when kids were stupid.

            “And my aunt always told me it was my fault. But Yao-gege said its not and he always tells me that when I have nightmares. So, he can make you feel better.”

            “Xuanyu.” Meng Yao gave him a gentle pat on the back of his head, dropping his voice to a whisper. “remember, we don’t have to tell everyone everything, okay?”

            “Why not? We’re brothers!”

            “Yeah,” Xue Yang turned back to his trashbag-suitcases and began to take over the bottom bunk. “We’re brothers, aren’t we, Yaoyao?”

            My bed…, Meng Yao thought about explaining Xue Yang could have the clearly unused top bunk but thought against it. What was the difference anyway?

[ifangirlalot]

hi omg, can you please write a Finn x Reader where they meet on the set of stranger things, it's kind of weird/awkward at first, they don't know why though (it's tension you idiots), but they gradually become closer, it's just a lot of fluff and mutual pining, maybe jealousy? idk, but, I'd love for you to write this, thank youuuu

ˏˋ 𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐋𝐘 𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 ˎˊ˗ | starring finn wolfhard

I was way too excited for this request oh. my. god.

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

~fluff!~ [𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘:] n/a

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

Finn's POV

She's only going to be here for the next couple days at the most. It's usually pretty frowned upon for actors to have a thing for their co-stars, though of course it tends to happen quite frequently, especially if you work together for years on a show as a love interests.

But the thing is, [Name] isn't my co-star. I don't even have any scenes with her. She's just here as an extra, she'll be gone by next week. And yet... I can't stop thinking about her. I've had to pretend to be in love, infatuated, obsessed, countless times. But to actually feel it is a totally different feeling. My heart keeps slamming against my ribcage so often that there's points I'm actually scared it might break one or something. I'm no doctor, so I'm not entirely sure that's even possible, but whatever.

Pulling me from my thoughts is the voice of one of the producers. Apparently, I've accidently messed up another scene. And even worse yet, she's caught me staring and is staring back, directly into my eyes. My cheeks burn against my face and the tingle of embarrassment rushes over my body. I feel so incredibly foolish.

I can't tell if it's just my lover's eye or if what I see is true, but I think she might be blushing too.

[Name]'s POV

I have a monstrously bad habit of zoning out a lot. It's almost gotten me ran over a couple of times before. Being an extra for Stranger Things sounds like one of my daydreams, not real life. And yet, here I am, on the set of Stranger Things 4. I zoned out again, and the thing that pulls me out of it is a producer calling out for Finn, telling him to focus. When I look up, he's staring directly at me and I feel my face get hot.

Was he staring at me? Without really thinking about it, I bring my hand up to my face and feel around, maybe trying to catch something off it. Surely that's why he's looking at me. Because I have something on it and he's too embarrassed to tell me. I give him a slight smile before I go to change back into my own clothes. My part is done for the day, it's my cue to go home.

Since I'm not apart of the main cast, I don't have a changing room or a trailer so I just have to find a bathroom to change in. After I've collected the plastic bag containing my clothes, I side step to head to the bathroom when a hand (rather uncoordinatedly) blocks my path.

Finn stands there, one hand awkwardly scratching the back of his neck, the other stretched awkwardly over the doorway.

"Hey-! [Name]-! I, uh. I didn't see you there."

Finn's POV

Right after the words leave my mouth, I immediately want to smack them back in.

Didn't see you there? You're right in front of her, it's obvious you're lying.

A nervous sound, half laugh, half cough, falls from my lips. Oh fuck, this is going terrible.

I plaster an awkward smile on my face. "Hi."

[Name] is giving me a look like she's not entirely sure what's happening, and I can't really blame her. I don't fucking know either. I just wanted to ask her to hang out, now I'm blocking her path and being creepily weird about it. You'd think it would be easier to be smooth with women when you have a whole fanbase of girls after you, but that's not entirely true.

I have about as much charm as a raw piece of cabbage.

"Heyyy.." she says, somewhat awkwardly, drawing out the last syllable of the word.

I clear my throat. I can't keep stalling and if I just let her pass now without going through with it, I would look even weirder. But her eyes-- those damn eyes-- are burning into mine. With every blink, the words escape and run even farther and farther away.

[Name]'s POV

In reality, I think only three seconds or so has passed. But with his dark eyes pinned to mine, it feels like it's been an eternity and a half. My body feels like it's been nailed in place. His eyes are holding me captive like an invisible pair of shackles. I can't move from my place and his gaze is telling me I don't want to. The air feels heavy with some unspoken tension. I can't tell if it's an awkward kind of tension or something else. After another beat or two, Finn's throat clears and breaks the silence. "Hey listen, I was kicking around the idea of us.. maybe.. uh.. you know, hanging out? Or something? Maybe?"

"Oh um.. Yeah, yeah sure. Sounds good, sounds good.. I uh. Should really get dressed and get home, though. I could just like give you my number or something?" I can't help but think about how fucking awful that sounds. I don't let myself dwell on that for too long, though, and before I can blink, he's typing his number into my phone and I'm watching it happen, feeling dazed and dreamy-eyed.

[A Note From Zee]

Hey there! Sorry this took so long. Since this is a lot longer than I originally thought it was going to be, I'll have to publish it in multiple parts, if anyone is interested in that. I've got two other requests to put out before then, though. Uhhh anyways, feel free to leave some feedback.

[jeanmoreaux]

hi friend! wanted to ask you smthn

ive been thinking and wondering why Snow didn't have Katniss (and everyone she loves) killed outright honestly or staged it somehow.

i'm remembering how Haymitch won and i still don't see it as a way of 'mocking' the capital. but Katniss' stunt with the berries was far more openly rebellious to me as a reader yet Snow sat on this decision to take care of her but murdered Haymitch's family within 2 weeks

im just contemplating hmmmm was it because others were already rebelling as well and if he took her out ASAP then it might've just added fuel to the fire ?

you got me wanting to revisit the series!!!! curse you (affectionately)!!!!!! i need to find a thesis topic send help OTL

hi there! well, you're definitely right in your assessment that haymitch's defiance was less inflammatory in the grand scheme of things. idk if you have read tbosas but i think that book gives you a good idea of how snow is not just obsessed with power but also control. and haymitch doing what he did took some of the capitol's control over the narrative of what makes a victor. it wasn't that he won because he proved himself to be the stronger, more ruthless fighter. he won because he was smart. and while you can easily manipulate a victor who wins the games on the capitol's terms (and is basically a capitol drone), a victor who defies this traditional victor narrative and uses the capitol's weapons against them poses much more of a threat (at least in snow's eyes). and i think, at least to a degree, snow was worried that if given a chance, victors like haymitch would use their status to rally people behind them. so he made an example of him. he didn't have to kill all of haymitch's loved ones, but he did. simply to show that he can. (not just show haymitch but every living victor and all the victors to come.) in the end, i don't think that it had much to do with haymitch and everything to do with the possibility of what some like haymitch could represent. the kind of stories you could spin around someone like haymitch.

and then katniss comes around, and unlike haymitch, she isn't reaped. she volunteers for her little sister—a blond, pretty little thing that half of panem becomes enamoured with over the course of katniss's games. the people do not just fall in love with prim, they also fall in love with katniss, the girl that keeps showing a lot of compassion for the people around her. and she does draw attention with that. people know her. people support her. oh and what a story she makes! oh what a narrative! the girl who volunteered! the girl on fire! and then she does the most rebellious thing by pulling out the poisonous berries and threatening the victor narrative that has been so carefully established over the years. the girl with the berries! she flips the script in the most radical way, and if she didn't have all of panem's eyes on her before, she does now. and the people look at her and her compassion and begin to stir. they begin to see that change is possible, so they rebel. you mentioned it already, but killing her AFTER the stunt with the berries was impossible. not just because people would have known why and by whom she was killed, but because it would have added fuel to the fire. snow, much like coin later on, realises that the rebellion will only co-opt her image and make her a martyr. snow definitely sees that katniss alive can be used in a way that can potentially help his cause, whereas katniss dead will always gonna end up helping the rebels in their cause. and killing katniss's mother might have been possible without raising many questions, but killing prim? no way he could have had her killed without making people suspicious. there is also a big chance that the rebels would have co-opted prim's death as well (or at least bank on the suspicions swaying some people). and without her family, how would snow have anything to control katniss with?

and the thing is. while haymitch was an incovenience he was never a real threat. not the way katniss is. killing haymitch's family was a means to an end, but nothing more. snow didn't need to control him beyond making him fall in line because haymitch had absolutely no social power to rival snow's. but katniss has. she has many of the district citizens at her back. and the only way to contain her (in snow's eyes) is to hold the threat of hurting her loved ones over her head. take that away and snow has nothing to stop her from leaning into the role the rebellion has assigned her. which is also why he doesn't kill peeta in mockingjay. again, with peeta gone there would be nothing holding katniss back from working with the rebels.

the social power that haymitch and katniss wielded after their respective games is basically what makes all the difference (in my opinion). and that's why, with katniss, snow's hands were tied by circumstance (in a way). retaliating against her directly (either by harming her or by harming her family) would have resulted in more problems than solutions, while killing haymitch's family & girlfriend was a quick and efficient way to stop an inconvenient victor in his tracks AND use him as an example that saves snow the time to put every victor in their place individually. in a cruel way, haymitch simply had bad luck on top of his bad luck.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Balearic Beats (The Album Vol 1) 1988 Balearic Beat / Disco / House / Industrial

Man, this is such a momentous fuckin' album that was compiled by legends Paul Oakenfold, Pete Tong, and Trevor Fung back in '88. Here they deliver the first compilation to *ever* attempt to encapsulate the sound of the wide-ranging 'Balearic beat,' a dance phenomenon whose home was in the party capital of the world, on the Spanish isle of Ibiza, where plenty of Europeans would visit and end up drawing inspiration from. And with this album, these three guys appear to have finally successfully broken through, able to bring this very quirky vibe into the UK to coat its own exploding dance music scene during the historic 'Second Summer of Love,' which saw the Chicago-born genre of acid house reach critical mass among the youth and spawn a first generation of ravers.

But Balearic beat is not something that one can easily describe, because its most defining trait is that it really only has one rule: so long as there is some sort of tangible beat that's danceable, it'll do. Essentially, Balearic beat represents an extremely expansive coterie of a whole bunch of different genres: pop, rock, house, disco—pretty much everything that ranges between James Brown funk records and industrial music, and with blends of psychedelia, Italo flavor, plenty of leftfield experimentalism, guitar rock, and chunks of world music too. It's probably the single-most unique dance music scene that this world's ever borne witness to, and it not only allowed, but actively encouraged DJs to take unprecedented levels of risk in their own selections, as a culture of decadence, hedonism, freedom, and acceptance was nurtured and fostered.

And Oakenfold and co. really tried to bring this vibe and approach into the UK's own dance consciousness a couple times between '87 and '88, after returning from summers spent on Ibiza and opening up a couple nightclubs. But things finally started taking hold with Oakey's own Monday club night called Spectrum at gay superclub Heaven in Westminster, London. And this comp, with liner notes provided by Boy's Own's Terry Farley, represents those Spectrum club nights, as well as stuff from Shoom, which is the club where the UK's acid house movement first originated. Shoom was founded by Oakenfold compatriot Danny Rampling, whose own first trip to Ibiza with Oakey and others is what inspired him to open up the club in the first place. And Rampling took ecstasy for the first time on that Ibiza trip too 💊😁🥹.

So, from a glance, by looking at this tracklist and not having any familiarity with what Balearic beat entails, you might see this list of songs and inevitably scratch your head: Italo-jazz saxophonist Enzo Avitabile?; pop starlet Mandy Smith, who's unfortunately best known for having an underage relationship with former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman and then marrying him 🤮?; San Francisco avantgardists The Residents taking the bassline from "Billie Jean" and fashioning a cover of a Hank Williams honky-tonk tune out of it?; EBM group Nitzer Ebb?; industrial act Fini Tribe on a weird, cocaine-fueled tribal disco tip with ringing and clanging bells??? What on earth is this?!?!?

But don't worry, now that you have a proper frame of reference, it'll all make a whole lot more sense when you actually put this album on 😎.

And we gotta make special mention of this release's opener too, "Jibaro" by Oakenfold and Steve Osborne's Balearic electronic project, Electra. Yesterday I posted about an Italo comp that was put out by this same Pete Tong-run FFRR label called The House Sound of Europe - Vol. V - 'Casa Latina', and I remarked that although the Electra track on there really had no business being included—because it was neither Italian-made nor really a house tune—it was still the best track that that comp had to offer, as it was the pure ultimate in 80s Ibiza silky-chillness. But this "Jibaro" track, a cover of a mid-70s Spanish psychedelic disco-funk tune, and whose own 12-inch art inspired the album art for this comp itself, represents a different branch of that girthy Balearic tree, because this one's a full-fledged house jam; slower than a typical house tune, but a house tune nonetheless; and with a richly patched-together sonic quilt of different sounds that *majorly* diverges from all the black, queer, and acid-jacking beauty that'd been emanating from Chicago.

So, ultimately, this was a very important album in the grand scheme of things. Balearic beat brought a very elastic dimension to the acid house movement writ large in the UK, and if you'll now all allow me to unveil my corkboard-and-yarn setup here to give you all a parting glimpse of just how intertwined all of this got within the UK's own vibrant, fluid, and interconnected music landscape, let's bring all of this full-circle by talking about legendary Manchester new wave band New Order.

New Order once took a two-week trip to Ibiza that had such a profound effect on them that it yielded their fifth studio LP, Technique, in 1989. And they also owned a very popular club in Manchester called The Haçienda. In '88, The Haçienda would launch its own Ibiza-themed club nights, which then played an integral role in the development of the city's own Madchester scene, a style of alternative dance music that saw indie bands mesh their sound with psychedelia and acid house beats. And one of Madchester's biggest landmarks ended up being 1990's Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches, an album by a group called Happy Mondays that was co-produced by none other than the Electra boys themselves—Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne! 🤯

Highlights:

Electra - "Jibaro" Code 61 - "Drop the Deal" Beats Workin' - "Sure Beats Workin'" Enzo Avitabile - "Black Out" Mandy Smith - "Mandy's Theme (I Just Can't Wait) (Cool & Breezy Jazz Version)" The Residents - "Kaw-Liga (Prairie Mix)" The Woodentops - "Why Why Why (Live)" Fini Tribe - "De Testimony (Collapsing Edit)" The Thrashing Doves - "Jesus On the Payroll"

[artichow]

Hi, how are you doing?

My sister seems interested in doing commission work, and she's asking me for help with it, but I don't know anything about it. Could you help me help her?

How does the process of commissions work?

There any tips/recommendations you could give her?

Hello!

I'm definitely not an expert and definitely winging it as I go and taking what i see other artists do into consideration, so bear that in mind and take what i say with a grain of salt! I also assumed while writing this that this is about art commissions? If it's not sorry I kind of went on a tangent at the end about it but most of the advice still apply!

I'm guessing your sister has a product in mind they want to sell. Most people make a little website either pointing to the platforms they use to sell or to google forms they have for clients to fill out. I use carrd, there's a free option that lets you have a lot of creative freedom and enough elements to make a good website, and boom! Now onto selling commissions. To sell those you can either use a platform for selling stuff online, i use ko-fi because it's the most practical option, there's also v-gen, which i haven't tried but heard good things of. With that option it's easier to have fixed prices, so if something seems to hard to draw for that price it's harder to ask for more but most clients are okay with tipping an additional fee through that same platform. You can also just have a google form available where you ask the potential client to describe what they want, leave their email adress and you can get back to them and offer an accurate price for their commission idea. If they want to purchase that commission you then can send them a paypal invoice and they can pay it.

Most people I know use paypal, I saw people using Stripe or Venmo too. Ko-fi only allows you to link a Paypal or a Stripe account though. While using Paypal i would advise you to find a website that tells you how much Paypal will take from the commission, because they have a fee, and it usually stings. That way you can take that into account and raise your prices according to that so you still get the amount of money you need by selling your service. However I gotta say that Paypal always takes more than what those paypal fees conversion websites say it will, idk why.

Another website i use a lot to do pricing is calculpourcentage.com (sorry it's in french but i'm sure there are varients in other languages). It's pretty handy to calculate pricings along with the good old trusty phone calculator.

A very, very important part of selling commissions online is to have a solid Terms of Services written and available for clients to read through. It's like when you download a software or game and you have to check the litte box that says you agree with their terms of services. I know we pretty much all just scroll down and tick the box without reading but commission clients should never do that. Read the TOS!!! In your TOS you should put anything you need to make sure the client knows what their getting, any behavior or commission inquiry you will not accept, your rights to decline any commission for any reasons, your rights over the finished product, etc. I know it sounds daunting said like that but don't worry too much, it takes some time to put together but most people take whatever they need from other artists' TOS, you can frankenstein them and tadaa! perfect TOS for your needs and what you offer. You can and should absolutely update it whenever you want or need to. Here is a link to my TOS for inspiration if your sister needs some, but again, I think it's best to look for other artists TOS to maybe find some points I didn't write in mine.

Finally, to talk about the action itself of doing commissions for people, I have some advice as well. Firstly if you can, only offer things you feel up to doing. This might seem like a given but anything that makes the process less stressful and puts less pressure on yourself, you should do it. Commissions should be fun, especially if you're starting out. I know not everyone has the luxury or privilege to be able to, but if a commission inquiry makes you uncomfortable for any reason, don't accept it. I've had mostly good experiences with clients so far but there are stories going around online about scammers or people who ghost commissioners or clients, so my advice is to stay informed about possible scams, stay honest and communicate with your clients about possible delays and stuff like that.

And very important point that I almost forgot, commissioning art is a luxury, and any work needs good pay, no matter your skill level. I think every commission artist starts out by underselling themselves, and you probably will too, and it's okay. My advice is still to try and look at the price you settled on for a commission and add a little more. Keep in mind how much time you're taking to draw, gather references and so on. You will probably have to adjust your prices as times goes on. Everything I listed so far are things that can and probably will change with experience, it's how most of us learn and adjust the way we work.

Another thing is that for the majority of artists, commissions we do get are very sparce and for artists who can make it their job it's an immense workload and very hard to manage. I know it's easier said than done but my advice is to try and not let your commissions order number get you down or reflect your art's worth in your head. In my opinion art is priceless and deserves all our love and time regardless of if it's "good" or "bad", but it's pretty antithetical with literally putting a price tag on my work :') Anyway, commissions can feel demotivating or have a negative impact on your health in many ways, so if you can feel free to close them anytime you want to and try to keep time to yourself for your personal art too!

I think that's all I can come up with right now, I hope it helps you or your sister, and good luck to them if they do try out offering commissions!!

[chayscribbles]

chayscribbles’ monthly writing update ☆ april and may 2023

i didn't do one last month so we get a double feature today!

☆ STATISTICS.

words written: 6 214 in april; 9 425 in may

projects worked on: once again only wrote for Andromeda Rogue but did a lot of plotting and planning for The Gemini Heist

proudest accomplishment: i've resisted chucking everything i've ever written into a shredder

books read in both april and may: A Rival Most Vial be @ashen-crest; Planetfall by Emma Newman, and Rogue Protocol (Murderbot Diaries #3) by Martha Wells

☆ GENERAL COMMENTS.

i went super hard in the beginning of april, burned out majorly for several weeks, then went hard again in the last 2 or so weeks. april ended in the middle of my burnout so that's why i didn't have an update last month. it just didn't seem worth it.

i'm also trying to make a soft return to writeblr! it's not working.

more specific wip-related comments + featured excerpt below.

☆ COMMENTS: ANDROMEDA ROGUE (draft 2)

this might be a stretch but the 2 year (2 year?????!?!?!!) anniversary of me finishing the first draft of AR1 is coming up on June 13th... so wouldn't it be grand if i finished the second draft by then? a guy can dream.

right now this draft is sitting at nearly 73K, which means i've almost reached the wc of draft one. and i still have a few more chapters to go!

unfortunately i've also left all the Hard Parts up until now becuase i love to make myself suffer!!!! pray for me y'all.

☆ COMMENTS: THE GEMINI HEIST (planning, i guess?)

well the good news is that i actually have the skeleton of an outline! i have 7 acts and a vague idea of what happens in each of them!

the bad news is i can't seem to get myself to actually write any of it! all i've been doing is anything EXCEPT writing. backstory developing, worldbuilding, creating menial lore... but not a single word added to my draft. when will my suffering end.

i did post a fun drawing + worldbuilding thing tho, if you missed it!

☆ FEATURED EXCERPT.

i'm pretty sure i posted this excerpt from AR already a loooong time ago... but it's gotten a small upgrade ever since. you see, back when i first wrote it, i didn't know how long the gang's trip would take. but then i developed a standardized formula to calculate travel time and just happened to end up with the funniest possible result... which lead to this.

Valyan, meanwhile, plopped themself into the co-pilot’s chair. 

“How long have you been able to do that?” they asked, eyes sparkling. “Why don’t your powers look like the Hepplings' from the Order of the Vine? Is it just the healing thing you can do, or can you do other things? Like use the plants as a lasso, or—”

“Look, kid,” Finneas interrupted, “here’s the deal. If you leave me alone for a few hours, I’ll answer every question you have about my… powers. Okay?”

Valyan narrowed their eyes. “How many hours is ‘a few’?”

“Um… seventy?”

“Nice try. That’s about how long it’ll take us to get back to Sayntagnesia. And it’s actually sixty-nine hours.” They grinned. “Nice.”

Of course that would be the one fact they’d remember. “You got me. How about six?”

“Deal.”

☆ TAGLISTS. let me know if you want to be added/removed to any of them.

general taglist:

@nicola-write @dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @onomatopiya @quilloftheclouds @ashen-crest @writeblrfantasy @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @extra-magichours @avi-why @lefttigerobservation@chazzawrites @bardolatrycore @innocentlymacabre

andromeda trilogy taglist:

@bebewrites @nicola-writes @dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @onomatopiya @akindofmagictoo @quilloftheclouds @nora-theteawriter @ashen-crest @corpsepng @writeblrfantasy @chaylattes @toboldlywrite @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @cheerfulmelancholies @extra-magichours @writeouswriter @cilly-the-writer @lefttigerobservation @rose-bookblood @drowsy-quill @chazzawrites @cynic-and-chief @enchanted-lightning-aes @aesa @outpost51

gemini heist taglist:

@florraisons @akindofmagictoo @cream-and-tea @nicola-writes @memento-morri-writes @antique-symbolism @rose-bookblood @afoolandathief @pepperdee @avi-why @zonnemaagd @chazzawrites @analogued @enchanted-lightning-aes @innocentlymacabre @kahvilahuhut @celestepens @cilly-the-writer @extra-magichours @onomatopiya @outpost51

[yukidragon]

yuki what do you think of the rumor that joseph and rory fucked?

Rumors can't be taken as canon. While it's possible that might be something planned for the game's story, the game is still in development and things could change by the time its finished. Unless it's something stated/shown in the game demo or an official site like the tumblr, twitter, or patreon, it shouldn't be treated as canon.

There's plenty of drawings done for fun by members of the team that aren't intended to be canon after all, which is why they appear on places like their personal twitters. There's also plenty of development art that might no longer be canon. That's why I try to link to official sources when crafting my theories and headcanons when I can.

I went over a lot of details that we know so far about Joseph's background in previous posts, particularly this one which has a lot of links. I've also come up with some headcanons/theories involving Jean Laurent, Rory Rainberry's actor, that you can check out here, here, and here.

As for what I personally think about the rumor itself... I can see it as a definite possibility. From the hints we've been given, Joseph is someone who was looking for love. He's still looking for love as Jack. It's what led me to come up with the Tragedy of [Redacted] theory/headcanon a while back in fact. One of those places he looked for love could have been in a fellow co-star's bed.

A lot of the fanbase is inclined to believe that Jean wasn't a very nice person, likely influenced by this picture here. (It's also what has led to lots of theories that Jean is Ian's father.) Here he's pictured in his dressing room, out of costume, taking a smoke. The text labels it as a prohibited behavior unsuitable for the press. He's doing something bad for his image as Rory Rainberry, which has left an impression on some fans. Since we don't know who murdered Joseph, and Jean is one of the few characters in this time period, it's no wonder there's a lot of headcanons that Jean was responsible for the murder or was jealous of Joseph getting most of the attention on the show as Sunny Day Jack.

We don't actually know what type of person Jean was at this point. For all we know, he could have been a jealous diva, or he he could have been a nice guy who was just caught smoking where he shouldn't because he had a sudden nicotine fit.

It's possible that Joseph slept with Jean, or others back when he was alive. It's also possible he was in a relationship that was deeper than just sex, or he might not have been dating or sleeping with anyone at all. For all we know, he could've been against sleeping around, since we did see him react badly to Dan asking some pretty intimate questions in an interview.

All we have are headcanons at the moment. Personally, I'm still torn on which particular headcanon I want to go with for Joseph's sex life before his death in Sunshine in Hell. Right now it's a 50-50 toss up between the Tragedy of [Redacted] or a tragic story of loss and reincarnation.

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur