#experimental piece nothing too serious

[cinnamonbvnxx]

heavens above

[runa-falls]

the baby-making protocol - 2

pairing: mickey barnes (17) x afab!reader

cw: mentions of human experimentation (ofc), short mention of vomit + sickness, suggestive thoughts, a spark of emotional connection, mickey being cute again :), not beta-read

wc: ~1.6k

note: slow updates btw (lol)

---

Mickey didn’t make it to the new room with you. 

Halfway through your journey, he collapsed in the hallway and puked up the small pieces of artificial meat he had at dinner along with the usual slop he had earlier in the day.

At first, he tried to downplay it:

“O-oh…” Mickey looks down at the mess he made, face flushed, “Um, my bad. I must’ve gotten too worked up after eating or something.” His eyes are bleary, his hands are shaking, and his jaw is tense like he’s fighting back pain. You can already tell that this is more than just food poisoning. 

“...Mickey, what did they feed you?” 

You attempt to approach him, but he quickly stops you.

 “No, I’m okay,” He struggles to prop himself up, “y-you don’t have to come any closer.” 

“Let me help.”

“I-it’s–” 

He starts convulsing.

And as any sane person would – You start freaking the fuck out. 

In the end, someone from the lab was alerted about his reaction and came to collect him. Apparently, it was a test to see how safe a new type of imitation meat was. 

And you watched defeatedly as he was dragged away like a piece of livestock.

—

The room they assigned to you both is only slightly larger than the single room you had before. Instead of a double bed, a queen-sized mattress is awkwardly wedged into the corner, resting on a metal frame that also serves as storage – you suspect they included it because there's still barely enough room for one person's belongings.

The room sticks to the same monotonous blue-grey palette that you’re used to – accented by metal piping carelessly painted over, jutting from the walls in a way that seems almost hazardous. It really leans into that “landlord special” aesthetic that nobody asked for. 

The usual exposed wiring that hangs over every dwelling is visible here too, snaking across the ceiling from all sides. Now that you think about it, you’ve never figured out exactly what the wires are connected to…for all you know, they could just be there for decoration. It’s truly remarkable how far Marshall goes to offer his crew nothing more than the bare minimum.

On the multi-purpose table sat a sheet of instructions, a vase of plastic flowers, and a fake candle boldly emblazoned with the words, “Happy Baby-Making!” – If this was their idea of setting a romantic mood, you have serious doubts about the success of this mission. 

You scoff at the vibrant petals of the fake roses, running a finger over the fraying polyester threads that stick out from them. These are going straight into the incinerator after tonight. 

You turn your attention to the sheet of paper, curious why they bothered to print out the instructions when a digital memo had already been sent. 

The instructions were fairly straightforward: 

Get to know your partner: Ask simple questions like “What’s your favorite color?” or “How old are you?” to build a connection. 

Practice proper baby-making etiquette: No protection allowed—make sure to fulfill your duty at least once a day. 

Stick to your assigned partner: This isn’t a free-for-all; we’re building a sacred community, not a random collection of individuals. 

Attend all scheduled appointments: No skipping! 

Most importantly, have fun!

At the bottom of the instructions are some suggested sex positions – some of which you’ve never seen before and, frankly, don’t believe are anatomically possible. You can’t help but laugh at the exaggerated stick-figure genitalia that distinguishes the man and the woman as they fuck ‘for the sake of humanity.’ 

There's one called “Straddle the Laptop” (essentially just cowgirl — but since it takes place on a desk, they’ve thrown in some tech-inspired terminology for flair), that sparks your interest. Not only does it require the man to be at the bottom, helpless to the ministrations of the person on top, but also forces the couple to look into each other's eyes. 

You could just imagine the way Mickey would fall apart for you, staring at you in awe with those pretty blue eyes as he whines for more. How his hands would clumsily grope against the contours of your body as he braces against pleasures he’s never known before. 

You clutch the page of instructions enough to crumple the edge as the scene plays in your mind. 

You mustn’t get ahead of yourself. 

It’ll probably be a while before you get to that point in your relationship with Mickey anyway.

You set the piece of paper down and look around at the empty room. So this is your life now. 

—

He didn’t come back until the following night. 

You assumed the delay was due to the printing process, which takes about a day, so you braced yourself to meet Mickey 18. After all, each new Mickey is an exact copy of the last—yet subtle differences always emerge. 

For all you know, the next Mickey could be a freak… but you’re sure that no matter how he turns out, you’ll probably fall for him too. 

It’s still Mickey, after all.

But as it turned out, you didn’t have to worry about that. The Mickey returning to you was still 17.

After he was taken away, he was given an experimental medication that successfully counteracted the effects of the lab-made meat. Of course, after barely ten minutes to recover, he was immediately sent to the back storage room of the ship to fix a collapsing corridor—because why not?

Which is why, despite coming back as the same Mickey 17, he still bore bruises, scratch marks, and a slight limp.

Trust the science sector to throw Mickey into a mission the second he recovered from food poisoning!

You expected to return to an empty room – one cluttered with unpacked boxes, your few belongings, and an unmade bed. But instead, Mickey was sitting on the bed, printed-out instructions in one hand and the flimsy bundle of gaudy roses in the other.

There’s a palm-sized bruise on his neck – probably from the indelicate syringe that the scientists like to poke him with – and a few scratches on his forehead and arms. 

He looks up from the paper as you enter, wearing the same confused expression he had at dinner the night before.

“So the fake meat didn’t make me hallucinate this…” He mumbles in disbelief, eyes bouncing between the paper, the roses, and you. 

“Mickey, you’re…” Still alive? Still 17? Still – “...here.” 

“Yeah – I-I’m sorry you had to see that yesterday.” He’s suddenly sheepish as he recalls the last time he saw you. “The experiments are usually more isolated, but I guess they just wanted my authentic reaction to the food or something.” 

You walk over and sit next to him on the bed. He subtly scoots over to give you more space, eyes widening at the sudden loss of distance between you. You wish he wouldn’t, but you don’t say anything.

“No, don’t apologize. I’m just… happy to see you.” You offer him a small smile. “The same you.”

“You noticed?” He looks surprised, like no one has ever really paid attention to him before. 

“I always notice you, Mickey.” Your voice is soft, yet the words carry so much weight.

Again, those pretty blue eyes widen, silently asking about every layer of meaning in your admission—so close to you. Then, he breaks eye contact, preferring to look at the floor as he turns your words in his mind. You notice subtle blotches of pink coloring the base of his neck and the tops of his cheeks.

Oh no. Maybe he’s uncomfortable…

“I-I mean…I saw that you still have that one healed cut from the other day…” Amid your rambling, you miss the small smile that tugs at the corner of his lips. “...not that I’m watching you or anything, I just guard the lab most of the time and see you–”

“Thanks.” He interrupts you with a soft voice – quiet enough that you would have missed it if you weren’t so intent on noticing his every move.

“...Thanks?”

“For looking out for me. You’re the only one who treats me like a human being and not some…lab rat.” He looks down at the paper in his hand, “I’m actually…kinda glad we were paired together for this protocol.”

Your heart skips a beat at his words.

He’s glad? To be with you?

“Really?”  

“Yeah. We’ve known each other for a while…and you’re a lot nicer than anyone else on this ship…” His eyes flick up to meet yours, “I’m sorry you got roped into this though…”

“It’s okay, it was bound to happen at some point.” You shrug, still riding the high that he likes you enough to endure this twisted experiment by your side, “It’s what we all expected when going on this voyage.” 

He rubs against the blotchy bruise on his neck thoughtfully, “But we’re the first ones to…you know…”

“Procreate?” 

He blushes when you say it. “Yeah.”

“If it makes you feel any better, we can start slow.” 

“But don’t we have a schedule to keep up with?”

"Okay then, we can start slower." You take the paper from his hand and glance over the list. "The daily check-ins don’t start for a few days, so… how about a date?"

“A date?”

“Unless you want to jump right into it.” You tease.

“N-no,” he stammers, “I didn’t mean–”

You rest a hand on his thigh, and he instantly falls silent, eyes fixed on where you're touching him. “Tomorrow let’s do something, just the two of us.”

“O-okay.” He immediately agrees. 

[thewertsearch]

Ah, the Sylladex. Across the entirety of my long, long journey through this comic, you've remained my oldest and dearest friend.

I honestly thought you'd run out of ways to surprise me - but as usual, I underestimated just how far you can really go with punch-card alchemy.

You flip the card over and look at the back. The thing about this modus you think is really cool is that instead of showing a completely useless wobbly garbled code on the back, it itemizes the components which could be used to create it!

The comic has just given us a way to reverse-engineer item recipes, which was one of the only missing pieces left to slot into the alchemy system. Back in Act 4, John was convinced that this was impossible, but Sollux solved it off-panel, and now we know how he did it.

This is pretty crazy, isn't it? We can deconstruct items now, allowing us to disassemble any object, and take a peek at the concepts that it's synthesized from. The potential utility here is insane. If this modus works on ghost images, we could tear apart a Kernelsprite, and see what makes it tick. Hell, we could tear apart a Genesis Frog.

...we could tear apart Skaia.

Just another wonderful innovation by your favorite company. It releases many products of an experimental nature, often with applicability to other kinds of technology and products which haven't hit the market yet.

But, of course, this wonderful innovation comes with some serious strings attached. I'm sure it was given to Jane for a reason, and she'll undoubtedly end up using it in a way that causes problems for us, and solutions for Lord English.

Ayy, it's the Matriorb!

Granted, this doesn't really help Kanaya recreate the thing. The orb's code was never that hard to obtain - just draw it on Jade's Pictionary modus, or something. No, the real issue is that the Matriorb is virtually inimitable, and as a result, its Grist cost is astronomical. Plus, it requires a type of Grist that we've never even seen before.

Edit: Wait, hang on. That's not the cost of the Matriorb, that's how much it would cost to use the Matriorb to make the hat. Strange, that the same item can have multiple Grist costs - but nonetheless, my point still stands. The Matriorb is probably too expensive to alchemize casually.

I suppose there's nothing stopping us from editing the Matriorb's code to try and make it cheaper. Like, perhaps we could scale down the recipe somehow, and try to just synthesize a single troll's genome, rather than the genetic base of an entire race. That would be a lot more affordable, and still useful.

You captchalogue your FAVORITE HAT, which is also your ONLY HAT. You spent basically your ENTIRE CHILDHOOD in this hat, pretending to be hard boiled detectives and whatnot.

I guess it sort of makes sense that the Matriorb can be used to make Dad's hat. The orb represents Alternian parenthood, and the book of prophecies it was merged with could represent the future. Combine those two concepts, and you get the future of parenthood, from the perspective of Alternia - in other words, the parenthood of humanity. So, the merger yields an item representing a human parent: Dad Egbert's hat.

Don't ask me about the potted plant, though. I haven't the foggiest.

[fushiglow]

Hello glow!!! Thank you for another lovely satosugu work! :)

I absolutely love how real and tangible your writing is - seeing them start with different states of being turned on and building together really paints such a lovely picture of what intimacy is without the expectation of a perfect start-stop :) 3 cheers to realistic sexual dynamics!

Also, I think that your link at the end of your post goes to Violent Delights instead - but maybe that's just an issue on my end!

Thank you so much for this lovely feedback (and the heads up about the link), I can't tell you how much your words cheered me on Friday! They came at a time I really needed to hear them so, if you don't mind, I'm going to use this ask as an opportunity to say a few things about my writing and why I do what I do — no obligation to respond!

Quite honestly, I have been feeling a little anxious about how I'm perceived as a writer recently. When Over the Threshold started gathering some steam in January, I only had five published works on AO3 posted over the course of six months. By the end of August, I'll have 18 published works for Jujutsu Kaisen, 16 of which will be complete. I have never been this productive in a fandom before!

A lot of the reason for that is because I'm finally learning how to work with my AuDHD brain. I love writing, I really do, and I'm constantly excited by the possibilities that reside within my brain. I have more ideas than I have time or hands to write them, but I want to explore as many of those ideas as possible. In the past, I would have forced myself to stick to the thing that I was "supposed" to write, rather than following the burst of inspiration and writing the thing that I "wanted" to write. To no one's surprise, that usually meant I ended up writing nothing at all.

I'm someone who seeks out challenges, and all the fics I've published in 2024 have been experimental in some way. Come Get Your Honey was a challenge in extended metaphor. Balance was a challenge in seamlessly blending two very different universes. Mailman AU was a challenge in format. Violent Delights was a challenge in pushing myself to new and uncomfortable places. Thunder was a challenge in encapsulating an entire world and history within a single motif without ever actually seeing that world and history.

I'm really proud of every single one of those works, as well as the speed I've written them at. I've published 92k words on AO3 already this year and written far more, so I feel like I can no longer justifiably call myself a slow writer. However, all the works mentioned above have artistic merit in the more traditional sense — i.e. they're not smut.

At the time of writing this, three of my five most recent works contain sexual content with varying degrees of explicitness, and it's hard to escape that pervasive (and flawed) idea that smut is "less serious" as a form of writing. Even writing smut in the first place has been a slow process of overcoming some of my own biases. However, sex is part of the spectrum of human experiences, and it's also deeply political. Whenever I explore it in my writing, you can be sure that I always have that at the forefront of my mind. That's why these works, too, have represented something new and challenging and exciting for me.

Discreet Delivery was the first piece containing explicit sexual content that I ever shared publicly and, with how rife top/bottom discourse is in this fandom (most of which is based on heteronormative ideals that I vehemently disagree with), I really wanted to make a statement straight out of the gate. I'm very proud of how I managed to weave a switch/vers narrative into a oneshot, and the feedback on it was wonderful.

Headroom, however, presented a very different kind of challenge. It was extremely difficult to write, because it doesn't follow the beats of a traditional sex scene. There's no satisfaction for Satoru nor for the readers, and that made it tricky to keep it engaging. I was also very nervous about showing a different side of these beloved AU characters and establishing a new dynamic between them while incorporating some of the broader themes from Over the Threshold.

Finally, Tell Me I'm Pretty was pure subversion, writing Suguru in particular in a way I've never seen before to challenge expectations about "roles" in sex. It meant I had no blueprint to work from, but I'm not interested in reproducing the same dynamics I've read a thousand times. However, that also means that I felt very anxious about how people would receive this fic — especially on GeGo Day.

The truth is, everything I write I write for myself first and foremost (even if it's writing something to make my friends happy!), but it's hard to keep sight of that when you're blessed with an engaged audience. This is a huge reason why updates to Over the Threshold take time. This fic is deeply important and deeply personal to me, but its growing popularity adds a pressure that I don't want to influence my writing. I feel a constant underlying need to outdo myself with every new fic and chapter I post, but that's unrealistic and unachievable.

Obviously, I want readers to enjoy what I write, but I know the moment I start making choices for other people is the moment my writing suffers. That's the main reason why I'm reluctant to put anything behind a paywall, even if I feel frustrated with the way fanfics are casually consumed on the internet. Readers occasionally make demands of me without any respect for my time and effort and creative vision, and sometimes I look at what I've written and think, "Am I really going to give that away for free?". However, asking for anything beyond tips would change the game for me. Enjoying my writing is far more valuable to me, at least at this point in time.

All of this is to say: I really loved writing Tell Me I'm Pretty. I had a blast with it — until it came time to post, at which point I suddenly felt full of self-doubt. For you to appear in my inbox and tell me that you appreciated the realism of the intimacy in this fic? I couldn't have asked for anything more, thank you so much ♥️

TL;DR, I write for myself, but god, it's the best feeling in the world when readers resonate with my writing. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to let me know. I love you all to the moon and back!

[fatuismooches]

(About the Dottore sugar tax)

I like to imagine that some members of the Fatui are very discreet in handing out the sweets.

Oh, one of their comrades is getting a scolding and it looks like it's escalating? Quick! Sneak a sweet nearby that the Lord Harbinger could spot easily!

And what happens is that mid-rant, the segment would glance just a little to the side behind the researcher and he sees - what the fuck?? Why is there a Charcoal-Baked Ajilenakh Cake on the desk??? How? When???

And he just gets so confused that he kinda momentarily short-circuits

The Fatui can't keep using the sweets tactics too often tho, they might accidentally pavlov their lord into hating sweets if he keeps receiving them when he's angry!

It happened with Omega already, he scowled at the Fatui Skirmisher and demanded if the agent thought of him as a dog that could be placated with a mere treat. Yeah that guy is dead now.

And of course the segments start to get suspicious by the sixth incident of receiving a sweet out of nowhere.

Zandik is baffled, because somehow everyone and their damn mother knows he has a sweet tooth and he is convinced that Pantalone has something to do with it (probably the ninth trying to gain his favour for a new gadget to sell)

Reader: sweating in the background.

Wait no I got pavlov's experiment mixed up: It would be more accurate to say that since Dottore keeps receiving sweets when he's angry - he starts to subconsciously expect sweets when he's frustrated. Which is even funnier because imagine how confused he'd be. He's stressing about failed results, why is he salivating???

OH MY GOSH... THIS IS LIKE THE FUNNIEST AND CUTEST THING EVER AHH!! When you work for someone such as Il Dottore, it is important to stick together with your fellow co-workers. Because you never know what will happen. And also, you don't really want to be carrying your new friend's dead body to the experimentation room. So it's important to look out for each other every now and then. This includes distracting the Harbinger's attention in any way possible from the target of his assault. Even if it means sneaking sweets into the lab. Yes, it is truly terrifying work, but it is necessary, especially when you were so kind to bestow this protection upon them.

THE WHOLE ASS CHARCOAL CAKE IS WHAT MAKES ME DIE... 😭 Was he really so caught up in his ranting that he didn't notice it? Actually, never mind that, how did they know he likes sweets, much less prefers Sumerian sweets compared to any other nation? All the agents have the exact same poker face, betraying absolutely nothing, for their lives are genuinely on the line right now. It was all riding on this Charcoal-Baked Ajilenakh Cake. Yes, this was 100% serious.

Ugh... if i was a regular agent think i'd rather die than present the OMEGA segment of all a piece of candy. The courage it'd take is insane. But oops. The other agents knew from that day they needed to be more careful with their tactics... yes, they have to add this to the handbook now. 😭 I imagine, the method begins to be used sparsely because the segments are not going to let their reputation be dumbed down to the guys who can be won over by mere sweets. Nope, not happening, they should be feared! Not known to the Fatui as being a sweets lover! So subduing the segments with sweets only happens on very violent days. Or if you happen to be in the room, you'll happily take the sweets offered by the agents and share them with the segment to make him calm down.

EBWKBEWEW DOTTORE BLAMING PANTALONE FOR ALL HIS PROBLEMS!! 😭 ah he would, despite how smart he is, it just completely slips his mind that you could have done this as well. Oh well! You just hope he doesn't find out! *nervous sweating intensifies*

Teehee him stressing not only over his failed results but his sudden urge to devour some sweets... it's really annoying for him though, usually, he ignores his growling stomach for a long time but, the taste of sweets is just haunting him and his tastebuds.

Maybe if he asks you, you can make some that lasts a few days... because at this rate, he expects to be thinking about sweets for a while with how poorly his experiments are going.

[sirowsky]

The Flowers Always Know

Chapter 20 - But You Were Never Normal

Description: After receiving some extremely unexpected news, you were suddenly forced to confront certain things from your past.

**Beware! Author chooses NOT to display warnings on the individual chapters of this story. Read at your own risk!**

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Word Count: 3859 (2263 words added) Masterlist (this story)

   Over the next two days, your mood consistently got progressively worse.    As your strength returned, you were allowed to move around freely, but you weren’t allowed to leave the med-chamber until you’d completed a full assessment of your abilities.    And because of how quickly your powers drained you, the Science Department wouldn’t agree to do that until they’d come up with an acceptable alternative to regular foods.

   Which meant that people were constantly running in and out with pieces of experimental nutritional little cubes they wanted you to try, not to check if they were actually edible, just whether or not they had the intended effect. Flavour and texture would be added later, so it was basically like chewing cardboard.    On top of that, you were still struggling with the fact that you were lying to Marcus, getting more and more anxious for some answers so you could go ahead and tell him everything.

   And to make matters worse, Missy was allowed to visit you as much as she wanted but your partner was kept on a strict once-a-day regimen, and only with staff present, courtesy of your continued inability to keep your hands off each other.    It felt a bit excessive, but you’d accepted that things needed to be like this for the time being, since the two of you weren’t exactly harmless together.

   Over the weekend he’d opted to just bring Missy during his “visitation”, where the three of you had hung out for a few hours, and it was the only thing keeping you from going stir crazy with the isolation.    Your doctor was much more lenient about him being there while Missy was present, and especially since Amaire took turns watching you, so you were never alone. But being confined to one room and not getting to chose when you wanted company, or from who, was starting to feel a lot like a prison.

   But on Monday, Marcus showed up without his daughter, and the moment he walked through the doors, you could tell he wanted to talk about something important, or unpleasant. There was a hard set to his jaw and a slight hesitation in his stride.    And since you were already in a mood, after having about a dozen cardboard cubes shoved down your throat before dinner, none of which had produced the desired results, you weren’t looking forward to any serious talks.

   “What is it?” you snapped before he’d had a chance to say anything, and your tone was unfriendly enough that it made him stop and tilt his head to the side, with a mildly shocked huff.

   “Well, hello. How are you today? I’m fine, thank you for asking,” he shot back with a hefty dose of sarcasm, and although there was a laugh brewing somewhere in the back of his throat, it did nothing to lift your spirits.

   “I’m so not in the mood, babe,” you cautioned, sharply enough that he knew not to try and push any buttons. “Just tell me.”

   But he didn’t start talking right away. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and took a little stroll through the room.    You’d been pacing when he first walked in, but stopped to find out what he wanted, and now he was the one who didn’t seem to be able to stay still.

   “Um… I got an e-mail last night, from an address I didn’t know, and they were asking about you. So, I looked into it, wanting to make sure it wasn’t anything potentially dangerous,” he finally started, while coming to a stop next to the bed, on the opposite side to where you were standing.

   “Okay…” you said after he’d paused for a little too long, hoping to spur him into explaining further, but he still hesitated.

   It was extremely rare for this man to ever be fidgety, so seeing him like this, constantly looking for something to busy his hands with, whether it be your sheets or one of the machines attached to the bed, made you seriously nervous.

   “Well, it turns out… the e-mail is from your brother. Daniel.”

   You flinched so hard that it offset your balance and made you take a step back.    Of all the people you’d heard say that name, a part of you had hoped to never have to hear it from Marcus’ lips. A part of you had hoped he’d be kept safe from that darkness forever.

   “Fuck,” you breathed, abruptly more nervous than your partner.

   You started pacing again, unknowingly wringing your hands and running your fingers over the scars which were no longer there on your abdomen.    It had been a bad day from the start, but this was somehow the worst thing that could possibly have happened, turning it from bad to horrendous in one sentence.

   “Hermosa?” he tried, hoping to get your attention, but your mind was already a thousand miles away, swirling back towards memories you wanted anything but to revisit.

   Danny had no right to ask you for anything, ever. It didn’t matter why he’d reached out, or how he’d even known he could find you through Marcus, you weren’t going to listen to anything he had to say.

   “He wanted to kno-…”

   “Shut up!” you almost screamed at your partner, who jumped involuntarily at the unexpected panic in your voice. “Sorry… I’m so sorry, I just… I don’t wanna know. Don’t tell me.”

   Turning away from him, you continued pacing, faster and faster, from one wall to the next, trying desperately to keep the flood of images out of your head.

   “What the hell did he do to you?” Marcus wondered quietly but with emphasis, unaware that the question sparked a giant surge of memories, not one of which would allow itself to be bottled back up.

   You closed your eyes against them, but once they started, they kept coming. They always did. Except this time, there were new parts of you reacting to what you were experiencing, and those reactions stood in direct proportion to the severity of the memories.    The last time you’d fallen into this pit of despair it had made you curl into a foetal position on your boyfriend’s lap. Now, it flooded the room with your shield, hopelessly trying to protect yourself against the past.

   It was so powerful it sent the bed careening into the opposite wall, forcing Marcus to quickly jump on top of it to avoid being crushed by it.    One of the twins was in the room, as always, and she had to duck and take cover under the desk when equipment came flying at her, hard enough to shatter against the walls, or leave big dents in them.

   “Okay, honey, I think you need to take a breath now,” she hurriedly suggested, but you barely even heard her.

   You were trapped by the reality of what had happened to you, and there was no way out. You’d always had to go through the flood to free yourself of it. Trying to avoid it had never worked.    Marcus scrambled off the bed the moment it came to a stop, so he was already on his way to you when Amaire spoke.    Once he reached you, he took your face in his hands and kissed you, softly and lovingly enough that it managed to break through the surge and let you come back to him.

   “Sweetheart are you with me?” he asked, and he sounded so scared for you.

   “Yeah, I’m here…” you managed in between strained breaths, shaking like a leaf while he repositioned his hands to your upper arms, making sure you met his eyes so he could see that you really were back in the room before he pulled you into a hug.

   But he couldn’t see or feel how much of your shield was still floating around you, filling the room with its strange density, and reminding you that you were still guarding yourself, which meant you didn’t feel safe yet.

   “Please, talk to me,” he begged, and he was in tears now, you could hear it in his voice. “Whatever this is, it has so much control over you… It’s never gonna let you go until you talk about it.”

   “I have talked about it. Just not to you,” you returned, verging on tears now yourself. “Not you. I don’t want this to touch you.”

   “But it already is. It hurts you, and therefore it hurts me. You know that,” he persisted, and you knew he was right, but it still felt wrong to put something so awful in his head.

   “Fuck. I hate this…” you cried, so ambiguous about the whole thing, it was making your head hurt.

   Of all the bad days you’d had in the past six months, this one was turning out to be one of the worst, just from the sheer weight of the past. It almost felt like a living thing, doing its damnedest to crush you and everyone you loved, for no other reason than that it could.

   “Let me tell you what the e-mail said,” Marcus kept going, apparently determined not to let this go, “and then you can decide if you wanna elaborate.”

   You thought about it for a minute. There were any number of reasons why Danny would try and contact you, but not one of them would be of any benefit to you. Such a thing simply wasn’t possible.    The main reasons you imagined were either him asking for your forgiveness, or more likely, needing money, neither of which you had any interest in giving him.

   “Fine,” you eventually agreed, not because you wanted to know, but because it dawned on you as you stood there in your partner’s arms, that he was the one who was being hurt worst by all this, and you couldn’t let that continue.

   He pulled back just enough that he could look at you, and he looked so pained it made you wish your family had never existed, just to spare him all this shit.

   “He wanted me to deliver a message to you… from your mother,” he started, and the sudden hatred which flooded your blood was so strong it made you jerk out of his arms and step back, so you wouldn’t accidentally harm him. “She, uh… is hospitalized and dying, and she wants to see you.”

   You froze. For what felt like minutes your body wouldn’t move with the shock you experienced in that moment. But inside, you were boiling.

   “Those sons of bitches… Those motherfucking sons of bitches!” you all but screamed, well and truly done with all of it.

   If your brother was a sore spot on your mind, your mother might as well have been a tumour in your brain.    In your thirty odd years of life, you’d gone through phases of desperately wanting to love her, pitying her, truly hating her, and finally just not able to care anymore. She was the fucking devil, as far as you were concerned, and she had long since lost the right to call herself your family.

   The fact that she would even attempt to reconnect with you after everything she’d done sparked a fury within your heart the likes of which you’d never known.    But it was a dark and horrible rage, bringing out the very worst parts of you, so when the floor, ceiling and walls all buckled as your power crammed even more energy into the room, you didn’t even realize that if you kept going, you could end up killing the people in there with you.

   All you could see, all you could hear were the memories, burning through you like a wildfire being whipped by a gale force wind. And all you wanted was to let it all burn.    Until Marcus’ hands fell heavy onto your shoulders, reminding you of where you were and what was actually happening. But your power didn’t deactivate, because suddenly you needed him to know.

   You’d tried to protect him from this for as long as you’d known him, but now, for the first time, it dawned on you how wrong you’d been. You should’ve told him from the start, not due to any difference it would’ve made to the power the memories had over you, but simply because it was these moments, these horrible moments, which had built you.    And despite all the pain and fear, they hadn’t managed to blacken your heart or turn you cold or uncaring.

   These memories were the ultimate testament to your character, and the man who loved you deserved to know them.

   You weren’t sure how, but experimenting with and manipulating the unknown energy you had access to, you managed to bring colour and texture into the unseen atmosphere of the room. As if merely a thin veil sat between your power and the air around you.    And like a stroke of magic, the images inside your eyes were suddenly playing out before all eyes present, as though there were a dozen little movie screens in there.

   Marcus let go of you, turning in circles as he tried to understand what he was seeing, as well as keep up with the story as your memories weren’t appearing in a linear order.    Each one played on repeat on its own little screen, but once he’d seen them all, the story came together by itself.    Amaire was still huddled underneath the desk, but you could hear her reactions as she too managed to work out your story.

   --The happiness you’d had in your life while your father had been alive. The wisdom, joy and sense of adventure he’d poured into your soul--

   --The moment you’d found out he’d died--

   --The day you’d buried him and said goodbye to happiness--

   --Your mother’s abuse, starting the day of the funeral and only getting worse as the years passed, blaming both of you for her inability to find a new man because you’d ruined her perfect body--

   --Trying so hard to protect the two-year younger Danny, antagonizing her so she’d focus on you and let him slip away while you took the beatings and the degradation--

   --Remaining loyal to the family when teachers questioned your wounds and bruises. Lying and evading their prodding because you knew she’d only get worse if she felt threatened--  

   --Trying to keep Danny away from the bad kids he started hanging around. The drugs and the guns and the violence, drawing him in with the promise of one day being able to exact revenge--

   --Protecting your mother from Danny once he’d tipped over the edge of what he could take, only to have her turn around and abandon you--

   --Trying to protect yourself from Danny when he started using you as a surrogate for your mother--

   --Calling the cops on him after he almost choked you to death, only to have him scream the same vile and horrible things at you as she had, even as they dragged him away--

   --Crawling over the kitchen floor, reaching the house phone and managing to call an ambulance just before you lost consciousness, after he’d stabbed you eight times in the chest and abdomen and left you for dead--

   --Defending yourself when he’d tried again, and then calling an ambulance for him--

   --Going to see him at the hospital, saying goodbye and then leaving town, walking away from that life for good--

   The images faded away as your strength failed, and just before your legs gave out, Marcus reached you, but sort of fell with you, landing you both in a pile on the floor in the middle of the room.    You were so tired, but you stubbornly stayed awake for him, because you could see a sorrow in his eyes you couldn’t compare to anything you’d ever seen before. He seemed to be holding on to you as much as he was trying to just hold you, while he cried as hard with you as he did for you.

   Over his shoulder, you could see Amaire sitting on the floor, holding onto one of the legs of the desk, as if she’d needed to ground herself while watching the memories.    She was a mother, and your friend, so seeing something like this must’ve rocked her to her core, as it would any decent person. You knew her and her sister well enough to know that theirs had been a loving, safe home, so she could only imagine the pain and fear you’d lived with. But she was also incredibly empathetic, so that imagination could take her quite far.

   All that aside, she was a professional caregiver. She’d seen and experienced a lot, and therefor knew how to compartmentalize when she was on the clock.    So, after a few minutes, when people appeared on the other side of the buckled and broken doors, she got up, wiped the tears away and went back to work.    There was noise and shouting as they worked to get through, but eventually Crushing Low was called in to simply rip the doors down, since they were beyond all hope of salvaging.

   Still, even after they’d gained access to the room again, no one approached you or Marcus, not even any doctors.    You suspected you’d have to thank Amaire for that later, since no one else could’ve convinced both the Medical and Science departments to leave their newest project alone after such a significant event.

   There was no telling how much time had passed when the tears finally started ebbing out and you and Marcus began to let go of one another, finding the room around you empty. It felt like a long time, though, and you were only more drained as a result.    But while you had started feeling better almost immediately after the flood of images had ended, your partner was the one who’d needed time to process, and you’d felt very strongly that you couldn’t have asked him to put his feelings on hold simply because you were tired.

   “I get it. I understand why you didn’t want me to know,” he finally croaked, with a voice made hoarse and raspy after so many tears.

   “Nothing good comes from it. All it’s ever done is taint the way people look at me, with pity or sorrow, making me feel like some broken trinket,” you admitted, and he immediately objected, just like you knew he would.

   “No, you’re not broken. If anything, this proves you’re practically unbreakable…”

   “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, because I realize now that I always knew you’d see it that way. I knew you wouldn’t treat me any different, I just… needed to believe it before I could take the risk.”

   “It���s okay, I understand,” he reassured you, putting a warm hand on your cheek for a moment.

   “I left it behind,” you continued, needing him to hear everything you’d wanted to tell him from the very beginning. “I know it doesn’t seem like it because of how I react to the memories, but I did. Especially after Prince. Because his so-called treatments healed all my scars from those days, helping me to let go of them.    Falling in love with you is what brought these strong reactions to the memories back, but only because of how different I am with you. Because where I used walls and shields to keep everyone out before, you make me want to share everything with you, and that’s really fucking scary at first.”

   “Of course… I can only imagine. You’re so brave to let me come so close to the things that scare you the most.”

   “I’m sorry that I needed you to see it, I know those images will never leave you.”

   “Don’t worry about it, I can take it. So long as I know you’re still with me, there’s nothing you can do to me that I can’t recover from,” he smiled softly, but then something worrisome stole the comforting warmth from his eyes. “I see now why my actions after the prison hurt you so badly.    I left you alone with all that pain and fear… just like she did.”

   “Yeah. But if I’d told you about it sooner, you might’ve acted differently, so let’s not get caught up in blame.    You’ve earned my trust back, and my love was never in question. We made mistakes and we’ve learned from them, all we can do now is move on, right?” you posed, and it brought his smile back.

   “Thank you, Hermosa.”

   You leaned your forehead against his and just sat there for a minute in comfortable silence, absorbing the new understanding you had for each other now.    Until he decided you couldn’t put off the reality of what had brought you to this point, anymore.

   “So, I guess the only thing we have left to sort out, is the e-mail,” he sighed, and you mirrored him.

   “Last I knew, he wasn’t any closer to her than I was, so I don’t know why he’d even care if she really is dying. He was only fifteen when she bailed. Although I suppose it’s possible that the hospital reached out to him.    I changed my name and scrubbed all records of my relation to them, but he never did, so they might’ve been able to track him down. But why he’d agree to do anything on her behalf, I can’t even guess at.”

   You shook your head with equal parts confusion and fatigue, truly starting to feel the drain on your energy reserves now.

   “Maybe in his own way, he’s still looking for her approval,” Marcus suggested, and while it did sound plausible considering the person you were talking about, the places your thoughts went with that idea told you it was time to leave this subject, and not let your screwed-up family steal any more of your energy.

   “You know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in meeting either of them. I don’t owe them a god damned thing,” you firmly stated, meaning every word.

   “Good,” your partner approved with a little smile. “Then I think we should get some food into you before you pass out, mama bear.”

   “Hey, she hasn’t even growled yet,” you played along, because it was nice to return to some light-hearted banter after so much heaviness.

   “I know, but she will,” he hummed with amusement while getting up from the floor and then pulling you to your feet.

   Which was good, since your legs were so weak they barely held your weight. And just when you started heading for the broken door, as if on cue, your stomach growled, much to Marcus’ delight.

   “Don’t say it,” you cautioned, although without any actual warning in your voice.

   He apparently decided you’d been through enough for one day, and just smiled wider before he kissed you. The kind of kiss which wasn’t long or passionate, but still told you that he’d be there tomorrow, and next week, and next year. No matter how much weird shit or painful drama you threw at him.

[oldmanffucker]

In my ceramics au, everyone is an artist (stede just bought an art gallery he knows nothing abt running and all his staff are artists and they have staff bonding at Queen Anne clay happy hour one night and this is how stede meets Ed and Izzy) I’m still working through my thoughts abt everyone’s artistic qualities etc but I wanna lay out my artist thought so far:

Jim: experimental contemporary jewelry (pushing the limits of what jewelry is/can be, experimenting with the thwarting facial recognition, and ideas of beauty)

Swede: tooth jewelry

Wee John: fiber artist and handpoke tattooer

Fang: whimsical playful functional pottery (doesn’t necessarily have to be function but often happens to be)

CJ: kitschy crude humor pottery

Stede: handbuilt/slab built ceramics - functional work that has a main focus on formal beauty. Pieces that serve a function but are intentionally made beautiful/ornate enough to stand their own as sculptures too

Ed & Izzy in the present run a pottery business that focuses on production pottery (large scale creation of identical pieces for being sold in stores etc). They make pipes that look like other things (food/objects), mugs/bowls/plates/pour overs that have some splashes of whimsy in a color choice or pattern or shape but are overall not terribly complicated. They are unique tho. they also have the Queen Anne clay storefront that has classes like happy hour clay classes, kids classes etc.

Neither of them focus too terribly much on their own personal art but sculptural non functional personal ceramic work blooms from each of them throughout the fic as stede encourages them to explore things beyond their business/actually feel their feelings.

In college they both were like way into performance art. Ed kinda for fun and bc he loved the physical exertion of it, but Izzy was 100% serious, putting his entire being into every performance for better or for worse. They egged each other on to bigger and bigger pieces and we’re very Marina and Ulay coded. Jack thought it was all stupid and just liked to join in bc he thought it was funny and hot to slap each other for long stretches of time but izzy was frustrated bc he didn’t get it.

Ed’s college art was more multi media (bc adhd yk) but was big on painting as a throughline. His work was big and messy and loud. He liked word working and sculpture and linocut printmaking.

There’s so much more but it would be a multiple page essay if I laid it all out rn.

Buttons: the QAC kiln tech. Loves to sculpt birds from clay.

Frenchie would of course be heavily focused on music but I haven’t settled all the details yet.

Roach obviously food based but again, not all ironed out.

Lucius: drawing, life drawing classes, focus on sensuality, queerness, the body, love

Pete: life model, wood working

Still thinking on the rest.

[litrumi]

Excerpt: Chapter 6 - "A Drop of Light in The Night" (Catnap X Dogday)

(Basically, it's about time I stop shitposting every day and maybe actually stick a little bit to my, you know, actual in-progress fanfic? So, why not tease a bit to the uninitiated that don't have any clue what's going on with it right now. After all, I'm like 80% done with Chapter 7 now. I hope I stick to it! This is the most I've done for a fanfic yet. Regardless...)

(Here's a piece of it, even though the full chapter's already published. VAGUE Spoilers that take place right in the middle of a particular conflict with our main duo. But Catnap isn't giving up! He's ready to get to the bottom of this! Also the music I was listening to when writing it is linked, but alsooo... an alternate song I think fits as well that I plan to use later is here too. Enjoy!)

Italics = Personal thoughts

"Quotes" = Verbal talking

-

...

AHHH! NO WAY! Now, it was my turn to have my world shaken. My face was stricken with wide eyes and a jaw-dropping expression from the realization.

Dogday is also caught by surprise from my reaction.

Are you serious?! Is that really why? But it's the only thing that makes sense! You've gotta be kidding me! Why would he...?!

"Uh... Catnap?" Dogday looks perplexed. "You okay there?"

I shake my head vigorously to snap out of it. I turn my attention to the confused pup.

This is absolutely insane! But I might just have an answer for him after all. It's not proof that I'll be able to show him, but there's no way he'd be able to deny this wild guess if it's true!

"Dogday..." I start. "As I've mentioned, Crafty told me about what you had been doing a lot of in these last three days. You've been in bed, trying to get quite a lot of sleep."

"That's right, you've said that already," He looks off to the side. "And?"

"By any chance, were you trying to sleep on purpose?"

"On purpose?" He looks nervous, starting to sweat. "N- No! Why would I be doing that on purpose?!"

"You had a goal in mind," I think about it carefully. "Something you wanted to do that could only, specifically, be done by sleeping."

"I- I need a reason to sleep?" He looks at me, completely flabbergasted. "Are you pulling my leg right now? There's nothing crazy about me wanting to sleep in my own bed!"

I slam my hands on the table. "Don't lie, Dogday! I already know why you were doing it!" I kind of don't, but this is the only chance I've got! Forget the details for now, just go with your gut!

I take a deep breath to gather my thoughts.

"The reason you've been trying so hard to go to sleep is because...!"

-

(Well, the story offers hints if you don't catch on by the end of the mystery. So, even if you don't figure it out yourself, Catnap will guide you along the way! There's no pressure!)

(Also, what reason could Dogday possibly have for trying to sleep THAT much? Right and wrong answers, thank you.)

(This chapter is, well, literally as someone else commented... "is basically Ace Attorney." It was kind of an experimental chapter. Not something that'll happen often, mind you. But I'm okay with it now.)

(If you wanna learn more, I've linked it at the top to "in-progress fanfic." So... there ya go!)

(Take care! Thanks for reading!)

[bh-writingdump]

Oakland

Chapter 1: Easy Peasy Part 1

“I dunno about this.” your shorter friend backs into you. Bones rattling, teeth chattering and intakes whistle. If you weren’t watching the whole thing, you would’ve thought some experimental band came to town. Even eir nerves rattles to a beat. “I must confess, I didn’t study at all.”

“Bullshit.”

“not a single moment. Anytime I even thought about rehearsing.” Ey throws up eir arms at you. “What’s that for?! I’m dead serious.”

You scoff. “Yeah, sure, tell that to the joy you’re tutoring…. The kinda person who flips tables at math… you can teach and yet.”

Ey waves it off. “Learned that nonsense years ago. This is different.”

“uh-huh.” You smirk, stepping into em so ey can’t back away any further.

The grocery store towers over the adjacent buildings. Big blocky green letters read Peasley Easly Grocer. You can even imagine their theme song. ‘Come to Peasley’s Easyly, where you won’t feel measily~ Cuz it’s easy~’ Admittedly, ever since Oakland dropped off the map, the advertising department was never the same. Neither the design department, soon after the world forgot about Oakland, the new owner. Peasley’s husband, Easyly decided it was time to give the old grocery store a makeover.

Between its Corinthean columns and the paint job, it’s like you’re walking into somewhere important. Then you hear the sliding doors and the whole illusion is ruined. It’s only the one side too.

You shake your head.

You massage your friend’s shoulders. Waiting for eir rattling to drop a notch, savoring the way ey leans back into you. Fuck, somedays, you forgot how nice it was just to… exist.

The satisfying draw of smoother than smooth warm bones beneath your phalanges taking you into a whole other dimension. It’s just you, hands, and the most beautifully sculpted collar bone on the planet.

Sadly, oh sadly, reality always comes a knocking.

A scent of navel oranges invades your nostrils along with the familiar chill of an AC. You open your eyes, finding yourself in the home of your agoraphobic friend. “Dude… we talked about this.”

Ey steps away.

The two of you stand in the living room.

Eir back tall as if this meant nothing. Not even the local Ancient Greek themed Grocery Store could bring down the Great Mathematician. And yet, 50 attempts later, you still got eir groceries.

Each time your friend came up with the same excuses. No, not excuses, you’d seen em the one-time ey had gone inside.

Little joy nearly shook emself to pieces by the cash register. Back when you’d only known em as your tutor, you hadn’t even seen eir out of the profile of a computer screen yet you knew part way across the store that was em.

Few monsters, after all, could rock a cardigan and skirt quite like the mathematician could. Plus, the spiderweb of vine marks etched into eir skull helped. Dozen skeletons in town and not one of them had that distinct of a cranial design.

You remember that day clear as day.

The cashier attempted to talk em down while a general manager loomed over em. Tears gathered in eir vacant sockets. Words sputtered out but too soft to be heard.

“Yo, Teach!” You call, all three turn their heads. The little skeleton snapping harder than the rest.

You ignore the humans, kneeling beside your tutor. “Good luck comes to those with a pocket full of tissues as my nopa says.” You grin, revealing a seemingly endless line of tissues you pull from your wrist, somehow still attached to each other. A lite magic trick that always cheered up your younger siblings.

Though, your soon-to-be friend barely took notice. Staring up at you like the grim reaper had some to get em. “not supposed to see you until next week.”

You shrug. “I got stuck.” You plop down beside em. You write out a problem along your arm in sharpie Like a blood hound on the scent, eye snatches your arm and marker.

You must’ve been staring for a while because the cashier clears their throat. You stand up, your new shadow following behind you, scrawling on along your arm, only to raise a brow. A look you’d seen enough time to know what ey wanted without saying a word.

You sigh. Did you really have to go over this in a grocery store? You could make it up, couldn’t you. “see I know how to factor but all completing a square triangle stuff.. it isn’t clicking. Can’t I just get the vertex and be done with it?”

Ey nods. Though, you’re still not sure if ey heard you. Ey scribbles with renewed enthusiasm muttering, “your basic arithmetic needs some work.”

“that’s why we have calculators, old timer.”

“Lazy,” ey mutters.

Magic sparks from your other hand. You clench your fist, finishing up purchasing an assortment of vegetables, fruits and soup cans.  You toss them in a bag, walking out the door.

“You factored out the ‘a’ divided resulting ‘b’ by 2 and square it but you need to subtract it inside and outside the parenthesis. The outside one you need to multiply by ‘a’ again so when you distribute the resulting c inside and outside will cancel out each other.”

Just like that, it feels like your back in session. Your skin burning to get the fuck out. “I didn’t order alphabet soup…. Oh look at the time, I got to head to do things.. Looks like you’re good to go. Bye!”

Despite eir smaller stature it takes more effort than you would’ve thought to extract your hand from eirs.

In the low setting sun, shadows seem to stretch for miles. Your races ahead of you, soon joined by another. “Dude. Stop following me.” You sigh.

Eir gaze stops you in your tracks. The absence of eir eye lights. Ey always has eye lights. No matter how small. Eying the road around them, you notice the humans who usually kept to their yards, venturing out along the side walk. The strangers stall just long enough as if to remind them just who drove the lot of them under the mountain in the first place.

The mathematician nearly bumps shoulders with you. Hovering just within range that you feel eir magic react to yours.

“Stickers.” Ey tugs on eir coat. “Give them to me.”

 You grab eir hand, dragging em down a side path away from the suburbs. Only once you’d looked back several times seeing nobody following did you relax a touch.

Out of nowhere, the shadow shoves a hand into your pocket, extracting your stickers.

“HEY!”

“Factored GCF.” Ey puts a star on your original work. On your arm. “You divided ‘b’ by 2 and squared it, ditched the ‘negative’ correctly.” Star. Star.” “And…” Ey frowns. “Did something in and out.” Star. “4 out of 5. Better than last time.”

Chill the fuck out. You’ve been down her a million times, it’s just the burbs. You barely even process your shadow’s constant babbling, merely accepting that that’s just your life now. The idea of being alone, much less leaving a monster alone with them, even the annoying ones.

Once back into a better part of town, you ask, “anybody you want me to call? Think the taxis handle these sorts of things.”

“A maths lawyer.”

Wow, the sass from the joy. Rarey is ey this biting. The usual timidity entirely vanished.

Ey forces you to sit on a log, gesturing as ey writes equations in the air.

So in the zone, the usual faint scrunch to eir face eases Like this is just another problem. The only things you can’t write off is the faint tremor in eir hand. the dude could write for hours before without breaking a sweat.

After the fifth rewrite, you noticed ey isn’t all that different. Similar style problems. It’s all as if ey is reproducing em as a self-soothing technique rather than to teach. Not that you mind now. You’d upend the log and any nearby trees if you had to hear another problem you suck at but if eir’s just going to jabber, whatever.

Then your tutor looked at you. Even then you were stuck by the intense concentration the joy always made everything appear so effortless like ey conducted an orchestra of equations.

As the conductor raises eir hand, you notice a bead of sweat roll down eir neck. Eir mouth hangs open, ready to catch flies.

Ey frowns, trying again. this time ey tugs at your hand.

A spark jolts through your arm again as the magics intermingle. The strange connection stronger this time. You barely even notice how bright things got until it glared you in the face.

The scent of oranges draws you from eir hand. The ground below is no longer a gravel path but a matted blue carpet. You wrinkle your nose at the strength of the smell.

Rather than the familiar forest, the two monsters are indoors. The shorter hurrying away tossing back a few pills before slumping onto the couch. It’s one of the motel rooms, huh, you’d never taken em for the type to stay here long.

“Damn, didn’t know people still did porting magic.” No response, just a long belated sigh as the smaller skeleton pinches eir nasal ridge.

Taking it as your cue to sit, you plop down beside em. Judging form, the glare, that must’ve been another wrong.

Shrug, relating into the comfortable couch.

It’s stiff but the litany of pillows makes it infinitely more comfortable than your mattress back home. No maneuvering required to avoid an arrant spring. “How do you ever get anything done?” You melt into your forever home. “Temp’s perfect. Got all this storage.”

You gesture to the walls packed with shelves. Shelf housing maybe 20-30 boxes around the circumference of the room. In one such box you spy a flashing light. Like a moth to flame, you investigate it. Looks like a DIY machine of some kind. There’s no label to what it is, just a bunch of exposed wire and circuits.

How hadn’t you noticed any of this during your sessions?

Only way would’ve been if ey covered the wall with a sheet. There’s not a single piece of exposed drywall.

In another drawer, you find compact robots while others contain an infinite array of circuit boards. Some so small they could fit on the tip of your pinky phalange while other so large they take up the entire box.

Hard to tell much else. Your expertise begins and ends with microwaving meals and smacking computers to turn on again.  

A force tugs you back from the drawers. The telltale blue glow covers your waist. “Touchy, touchy.”

The bugger already prying eir precious tech from you.

“I was just looking.”

Ey opens either mouth to protest but quickly thinks better of it.

Oh yeah, that’s still going on.

“Speaking of, need any help like… I’ not an expert in this…”

Ey raises a brow, glancing at the shelves.

“Oh! Hahaha… not that. I mean the other stuff. Mutism and stuff.”

Ey shakes eir head, setting aside the machines in eir respective containers.

You nod surveying the place again. “Cool..”

Pin prick glare up at you. You can’t help but smile. “So.. all good?”

It’s then you feel a tug at your arm and the dust of something blue on the smaller skeleton’s cheeks. Ey whirls around, dragging you into the kitchen before you can protest, a Tupperware of egg salad is shoved into your hand before you’re promptly shoved out the door.

You stare back curiously at the door.

Weird.

Usually when you go poking around, people rarely give you things.

You hold the Tupperware tightly. Huh.. that gives you an idea.

.

.

.

[Oakland, pg1] -->

[materialgworl-ish]

I wanna preface this post by saying that i have nothing against Timothée Chalamet. I’m sure he is an awesome dude. But I never really got the hype around him. The obsession. People claiming that he is the “epitome of the female gaze” and the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen.

Now, Timothée lives in my head rent-free for a different reason.

I watched Call Me By Your Name for the first time a few weeks ago (because I was way too young to when it first came out) and I think it lived up to the hype. It was beautiful and the acting was amazing. The only consequence of this movie is now whenever I see Timothée Chalamet I think of the scene where his character fucks a peach.

I knew he was going to do it. The scene stretched on for what felt like days, the peach juice spilling on his body as he lounges about before he pokes a hole in the top. The entire time I kept saying to myself, “Timothée, don’t fuck the peach lol.” But soon the “lol” was becoming less and less pronounced until it was silent, the slick sound of off-camera peach fornication disgracing my ears. I think about it at least once a week.

Now, although it may not seem like it, I don’t hate this scene. CMBYN is a story about an adolescents sexual awakening, and that sometimes involves strange sexual experimentation. However, I can no longer take Timothée Chalamet seriously because of it. Everytime I see his face, I remember it’s the same face I watched experience simulated pleasure from fucking a peach. He could be starring in the most melodramatic, serious film and I’d still be giggling to myself thinking, “peach boy,” because apparently I am still the 12 year old I was when this movie came out.

I don’t know if there’s a moral or a lesson to this ramble. Maybe it’s hope, that even if we are not remembered for our beauty, people will never forget you if you fornicated with a piece of fruit.

[animeloverskylarmoon]

Byakuya Kuchiki (Bleach) - Noble Series 1: Our Love - Chapter 20

Once you’ve grabbed your zanpakuto, you’re headed back to Division 6 to meet up with Ichigo and the others.

Renji is already there, along with Ichigo, Rukia and Shinji.

“What took you so long, things are getting crazy and we still haven’t found that guy running a muck around the place.”

You bow at Shinji.

“It’s my fault Hirako-san. Taicho was just checking in to make sure I was okay.”

“No need to apologize (Y/N)-chan.”

He’s at your side in seconds, grabbing your hands with a smile. You laugh, and Byakuya’s stare is anything but inviting. Shinji ignores it. He’s about to continue complaining it seems, but his eyes spot something.

“(Y/N)-chan, were you injured yesterday? Your neck is bruised.”

He releases your hand, and you tilt your head, pressing your hand to your neck thoughtfully.

Injured..

“You should not have let you guard down around me.”

Your face immediately heats up at the memory.

“I-IT’S NOTHING!!”

Your face is telling a completely different story.

Shinji is obviously confused, at least at first. But then he looks between you, then Byakuya, then back to you. It isn’t hard to put the pieces together. He practically explodes, pointing at Byakuya.

“YOU PERVERTED BRICK WALL!! WHAT DID YOU DO TO (Y/N)-CHAN!!”

“Nothing that is of any concern to you.”

“Why you-”

“Scatter, Senbonzakura...”

He drops his blade and Shinji panics.

Everyone else takes a step back and you wave your hands to advise him against it.

“Kageyoshi.”

He says it so calmly and all you hear is the howl from Shinji when the attack lands. Shinji’s body disappears into the sky, and Byakuya casually turns back to all of you, sheathing his blade.

“I am ready to have some tea.”

“IS HE SERIOUS!!”

You all wear blank expressions.

It’s clear that Byakuya is nothing if not a man of many skills. Only he could do something and brush it off so nonchalantly.

The day will be interesting to say the least.

~

“I wonder if Shinji is alive.”

Ichigo voices.

“That’s the tenth time it’s happened. His body is used to it.” Renji states.

Seated in the manor, they really shouldn’t be discussing it so calmly. Once Rukia is done with her tea, she stands.

“We should head back to my squad barracks. Ukitake-Taicho has been speaking with Kyoraku-Taicho to come up with a plan of action. Kurotsuchi-Taicho has also offered to assist in return for experimentation on the intruder. “

Renji and Ichigo sweat drop.

“That really shouldn’t be the deciding factor.” They complain.

Mayuri will forever be a scientist.

“Looks like we have no choice. Let’s go, Ichigo.” Renji calls.

“Quit ordering me around.”

Even though he says that, he follows along. You just smile.

“Taicho and I will return to the Sixth Division as well.”

You rise and they all nod, bidding you goodbye. When they’re gone, you turn back to Byakuya.

“For the time being you should stay here.”

You’re not surprised at his request.

“I appreciate the worry, but I don’t feel right relaxing when everyone else is working so hard.”

“You need your rest.”

“I really am-”

“Yuki.”

The woman appears at your side and you flinch.

“Ensure that she is rested.”

“Hai, Kuchiki-sama.”

Before you can protest you are dragged away by the woman.

“C-Chotto matte!!”

It’s too late, she shoves you into what looks like a spa room. The assumption is that she’ll let you get undressed, but she begins rolling up her sleeves and you start sweating.

“Leave everything to me (L/N)-sama.”

“K-KYA!!!! “

[ehouston-arts346]

Approaching Deadlines

This week has been rough. Lately, I’ve been so stressed that it’s making me physically ill. I’m trying to take time for myself to do nothing and relax. The only problem is I have so much work to do that I cant afford to sit and relax for more than an hour. I’m trying to give myself boundaries between my work and relax time but it is not going too well so far. On another note, I have made more progress on my animation, starting on the final scene. I plan to have the full animation complete by tuesday to share with the class. Today, we had a virtual critique but I unfortunately have a class right after this one so I was not able to get feedback from my peers. I have been sharing my progress with the people in my class and I have gotten lots of good feedback on it.

I just read a piece by Ken Garland about working with clients and people's impressions on someone. Reading this just makes me glad that I do not have to work in an office to pursue my passions in art. This reading takes a step back and looks at business life from a birds eye view, reinforcing the fact that it really is not that serious. The final statement of this reading leaves the reader with a weird sense of motivation, like sometimes you don't need to be responsible to be successful. "Responsibility" is subjective from person to person and some people are definitely held at a much higher standard than they really need to be, which kills creativity and experimentation.

[carlit0ss]

Week 2

When I started off, I would double take photos on each angle to try to make sure the rendering was as accurate and looked like it was real. What also worked really well in creating a smooth render was to use the maximum amount of photos I was allowed and make sure I got every little angle to create a realistic enough render. The challenging part was when I tried to make it look more janky and abstract. I started off trying to move my camera fast to make the rendering be more abstract but it ended up failing multiple times, which led to another attempt of making less radical movements, as well as lowering the amount of photos. This would also end up failing and I took a new approach by not doing any absurd movement and keeping my camera steady, as well as changing the lighting and distance from the object but I decided to continue to do less images to make the app have a harder time. After using the app myself, I can't really find a reason you would want to use this in any real life scenario. It looks more of a toy something alongside a drone where it doesn't really do anything but it's cool. It has potential to be something where people could use it in creating a template of a building as a starting point as well as creating an end result to show to clients or what amazon is doing where you can place furniture in your home to see how it would look. But I feel as if it won't be as effective since there could be a lack of depth as well as I feel a blueprint outshines it in every way. Mostly due to it being around for a long time, That's why I feel as if it's more of an app you use for fun instead of it being something serious. While working on this assignment, I found that the Smoother version was too normal. It has nothing special to it and is just the object at lower quality. But the broken version was more fun to create and gave me an interesting result. It was connected to other objects as well as light wouldn't match, and had the look of a cyber truck. The smooth one had nothing to it, nothing changed other than its resolution, and looking at it from an art perspective. It didn't create anything that would make it “pop”. The broken version has a form of personality to it as there is a certain goal and intention you are attempting to create. You can be more experimental and really push the app to its limits to create something unique and fun. Going the broken route when creating images like these, is one of the best ways to go about using the app polycam. You have so much more freedom in creating interesting pieces of art. Going the smooth route and attempting to make it look like a photo in real life, can be a great challenge for you.

[dustedmagazine]

Daryl Johns — S-T (Mac's Record Label)

At its best, Daryl Johns’ self-titled debut plays joyful, cinematic and a little askew, with an affection for the chintzier things. The gauzy drift and twinkle of “Corner Store” could run under an establishing shot of some vaguely stuck-in-time American small town, neither hollowed out nor booming — the kind that may only exist in the movies and, at the end of the story, never existed at all. It’s a soaring pop ballad, with washy chimes and soft, booming drums, but flown sans Dramamine, a little queasiness induced on the ascent. The vocal’s wayward drawl is reminiscent of Ariel Pink, a fellow-traveler in terms of Johns’ acid-wash experiments with pop music past.

And like Pink’s work, there’s a weirdness eating its way up towards the buoyant surface of Johns’ art. “Corner Store,” for instance, is undercut by a skronking stretch of horns, which adds tension to the otherwise rosy street scene. Or consider the way the chorus of “Barbeque In the Sun” is brought to such a sincere pitch that you can practically feel a layer of hyper-saturated unease spread over the sing-a-long hook. The reverb bounce of the drums and the circular, fuzz-free guitar lick only add to the eeriness — like how Patrick Bateman loves Phil Collins and Huey Lewis. It’s a credit to Johns as a songwriter and arranger, and to his producer and collaborator Chris Fishman, that this disquieting ambience is conspicuous without feeling too knowing or overt.

Prior to this record, Johns mostly made his name as an instrumentalist. He has played in Mac DeMarco’s band and in Drugdealer, to name just two. And indeed, it’s instrumentals that make up half of the album’s 14 songs. “Golden Showers” and “Crash,” played with a clean but edgy aptitude, might be extended Steely Dan intros or bridges. The gleaming guitars on the former dive and noodle over punches of bass and skittery drums, while the latter finds a narrative flow with a lightly buzzing piano connecting the appearances of an almost baroque, guitar-led motif. No doubt the Dan-minded will also approve of “Palermo”’s jazzy jangle. Others, like “Happy” or “The Deputy of East Carlock,” though they hoof similar sonic terrain, can sound slight, headed somewhere interesting but not quite finishing the trip. It’s perhaps down more to the track sequence than the content, but these less fleshy tracks are often where the record bogs down, albeit brightly, in a shimmering slurry; more film score than official soundtrack.

But if Daryl Johns was an official soundtrack, then it’s “I’m So Serious,” a thrusting piece of oddball pop rock, that plays at the movie’s climactic moment. The opulent, ultra-waxed guitar chords hit with the precision of The Cars’ “Just What I Needed” while Johns, over pleasant bumps of bass and fill-happy drums, swerves between the affirmative vigor of Kim Mitchell on “Go For A Soda” and the nervy romanticism of Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, or, sure why not, Tommy Tutone. It’s an ecstatic pastiche; the headiest Bleachers song you can imagine. In an interview earlier this year, Johns described his approach: “All these ‘all caps’ artists make unnecessary experimental and dark music.  I just wanna make smiling fun music. Playful music.” The thing is, he’s made an album that’s, yes, fun and playful, but not without moments where an ominous shadow darkens the sheen. Nothing unnecessary about it, and just try not to smile.

Alex Johnson

[spaceymcspacer]

So 2023 is almost over, let's summarize the art that has been made in 2023!

January - Stick together forever no matter what

Yeah, let's start with a birthday image, and one I am not the most proud of. It's mostly Spacey's "Tude Face" that I hate. I was desperate for an expression so I scribbled on whatever. Not a great choice in hindsight. Still a fine drawing but that still annoys me.

February - Spooks Serious Smoke

Cartoons should smoke, and Spooks proves that with this drawing. Look at him go with this great drawing.

March - Getting a good Fisting from the Ray

I really like drawing Rayman. The goofy fellow provides a lot of fun ideas and allows me to be especially creative. With Rayman 3 being one of my favorite games of all time, I say it was fitting that Rayman 3 got an anniversary drawing.

April - Bomberman 40th Anniversary Pieces

One of the big strides I made in 2023 was joining in serious art collabs. I have dabbled in art collabs before in 2021 but now I joined stuff that had actual scale and it was neat to see. The Bomberman Collab I particularly enjoyed as I found some new people along the way. It was an experience I would like to relive.

May - Across the Radio Frequencies

Around May 2023, I wanted a new wallpaper, and putting 2 and 2 together I made myself an all-new wallpaper. NGL I really like how experimental this was for me. It stands out a lot compared to the rest of my gallery.

June - Almost like Brothers

For June I decided to remake an older drawing of mine that I felt like had some major potential to it. That being the 2021 Almost like Brothers drawing. NGL I really like how the remake turned out. It's goofy, silly, but also fun.

July - Bothered Basterd (Artfight)

Artfight Year 2 was a little weaker than year 1 but still had some great pieces. Out of all of them this one is my favorite. It was a little hard to choose but that one is my favorite since I liked drawing the character in question, Dust Bunny.

August - Super Nilla's Coffee Mania

FizzyRizz could not get a real job, so he had to gamble all of his money to Super Nilla's Coffee Mania. 

September - Pyoro leaks Nintendo's files

So remember that saga on Twitter where this Pyoro Twitter account leaked a Nintendo Direct? Yeah this drawing is based off that. NGL Pyoro is a fun character to draw, and the drawing turned out great.

October - Secret Monster Collab Tristone - The Princess (The Princess Society)

Now this is another art event I participated in. I enjoyed this drawing pretty well but once again it's the vibe of collaboration that made this one. So yeah, nothing much else to say. 

November - 2 Decades of Hominid

So, did you know that 2 Alien Hominid games came out in November 2023? Yeah I celebrated it with this drawing. It was a lot of commitment but the effort was worth it, since I honestly consider it the best drawing I made this year.

December - A random Mushly

Yeah I drew some dumb Mushly here since I wanted to do one last thing but I was too lazy lmfao.

-----

I don't have any advanced thoughts on 2023's art tbh, it was another year filled with improvements. If there is something, in particular, I enjoyed a lot compared to previous years, it was the collabs I participated in. Even if I hate how the art community acts a lot of the time, I still have to admit that when artists come together to celebrate something, it can make for a fun experience. The only other thing I have to say is that I hope real life doesn't get in the way of my hobbies since I still really like doing art even if it can be hard to fit it in sometimes. That is all I have to say really. See y'all in 2024!

[umbral-stigmata-unbound]

"Wha--wait, idiot, don't just-!" he tried to stop the SOLDIER from going on ahead, as he planned to actually plot out a safe path, but fucking hell, this guys was more reckless than him, and if one knew the notes in HR stacked under his name, one would know that was saying something.

SOLDIERs could be bullheaded, though, so he wouldn't continue wasting his breath. He just stowed his EMR and tried to patiently plot his course. He started after Zack Fair as the other was making his way further and further down. It was when he heard the tell tale schwip of a slip, and he glanced down to watch him fall.

"fucking hell..."

Well, at least he was okay enough to holler back up. Reno certainly took his time longer than he'd usually like, to ensure he made it without repeating the others mistake.

Once he'd made it almost down, he leapt down the rest of the way before strolling up to the boat Fair was currently just staring at and doing nothing. "The hell, soldier boy, we just gonna stand around or--fuck... SHIT, this is ASS!!" he complained, and kicked the banged up boat, watching the slithering of a few of the other snakes weaving deeper in, and he took a few steps back.

There was stuff littered around here, on the duck and in some small shed and storage compartment just a short walk to their left, but would it be enought o repair the boat? They couldn't call for back up except for extraction--this situation had gotten too serious for that, and time was running out.

"Okay, just drag that piece of trash outta the water, and try not to bang it up too much more, yeah? I'm gonna look for materials!" he hurried off, tearing into the shed and the container, looking for any sort of metal or anything they could warp and shape and work to patch up the holes. How they were gonna do that, he wasn't sure. Maybe experimental magic use...? Fuck, this sucked ass. All he found were a few sheets of metal, banged up but not wholey, and a few floating devices. And an oar, but only one.

He started dragging it back then. "Ya know, if you hadn't been running your mouth before, we could've caught up with them sooner!" Reno complained, absolutely ignoring the fact that he too had his moments of talking a big game and thinking he had the upper hand. He knew they'd both screwed up, but he wasn't about to fail this assignment.

"CLIMB down?" He reeled back like Reno suggested they lick that gross lookin' thing he found on the side of the highway. He turned to gauge the challenge field, scuffing his boot at the edge of the cliff. He might have said 'BORING' but.... er, actually, didn't look like a very boring task at all. Jagged rocks jutting up to receive them at the bottom ASIDE, the surface was slick as monkey shit.

"Uhh... okay. Let me go first though." Just in case he found the impossibility of actually successfully running through what turned out to be an inevitable pathway forward.

He slipped down the side, peeking up over the edge just long enough to leave his instructions. "If I fall..... avenge me. Oh and maybe choose a different route." He began the painstaking process of putting one toe in front of the other, gloved fingers trying to find traction enough to hold tight to the surface.

The problem now [outside of the route they had to take to GET to the supposed hidden location of the 'artifact' in question], was the stir they already caused getting to that point. Now it was absolutely certain that whomever was responsible for the theft knew damn well that ShinRa was hot on their tail. Hence, a Soldiers presence. Any resistance would be met with a Soldiers might, there could be no other resolution.

A lost artifact. He had a general idea of what it looked like, but not much more than that. Which MEANT that ShinRa didn’t want them to know much more, for fear they would be able to discern exactly what it was used for. Probably should be more disturbed by that. But he was more so bothered that this thing was out in the wilds, clenched in unknown hands.

For the moment, Zack focused on the climb. Slow and stead definitely wont he race, any faster than there wasn't a doubt in his mind he would have fallen to his doom. His boots stepped on the rocky ground at the bottom and

----SLIP

'SHit FUck'

Fell right on his ass with an agonized groan.

"Ahhhhh that's fine." He whimpered, rubbing at the small of his back. "I don't need my right ass cheek. WATCH THE BOTTOM." He called up, dragging himself back upright, CAREFUL now to step with CARE to their waiting----

Steed.

Zack cast a look down at the boat in question, and the snake looking up at him from one of the several gaping holes in the bottom. It stared like:

'What, bitch?'

Not terribly disturbed that he'd come unnoticed upon its territory. Eventually it slithered back in the hole and disappeared into the depths of thewater.

"Okay. Not gonna work." He didn't tell Reno though. Not yet. He needed to focus on getting down without dying.